He's leaving after graduation, next week. Leaving for another city so far away. He's my best friend. He's been the only best friend I've ever had. John. A simple name does not do judge to the complexities you've shown. He's leaving after graduation, forcing me to attend university all alone, with no support, no back up. I'm supposed to step into the tumultuous sea of books, rhetoric and profs, haranguing me with papers, exams and the answer to whether or not Leopold Bloom liked to eat feces. Who knows? Who dares? Who fucking cares?
And just like that, I'm going to be alone. It's not like he couldn't go to my university. He could've gotten in. John could've gotten a scholarship to any single prestigious, pretentious pantheon to higher learning in the country. He plays basketball like a god. Nobody can touch him. He's the envy of absolutely everybody and then there's me. I'm not jealous of his skills, as parading yourself up and down a court dribbling an orange sphere interests me not one little bit, not one little quark. My hobbies and little fascinations lie in other places.
John and I have known each other since we were – god, how long – since we were about six. I guess our mothers had signed up on the same day to be recess helpers, standing out in the playfield, arms crossed, with derisive snorts for the baby who can't pick himself up. She and her stood together that first day and apparently struck a bond. Not sure how considering my mother and his today. They seem so different and alien to each other. But in the past, that day, when we were very young (now we are six), they decided to become friends of some sort or the other. This led to, of course, the ubiquitous play date. While we hesitantly offered our most prized toy to other for inspection (and subsequent approval), our maters domina chain smoked and bitched about their husbands.
We held to each other in the beginning, in the primordial chaos of kindergarten. We had a few things in common at first, a common sharing of a January birthday, making us both older than most kids (born in November, fruits of the Valentine's hullabaloo).
John showed an affinity for sports right away. His graceful stride and lithe maneuvers marked him right away as a bright spot in an otherwise dull mixture of spoiled rich kids, learning about poor people in an enclosed brightly lit protected space, while our parents had "key parties" and ended up drinking too much too often.
After elementary (and some failed attempts at spats), we were a duo of the most classic kind. John slept over at my house as much as we dared, for fear of the dreaded "It's a school night" rationale that smashed our whispered and quickly forgotten plans for the night.
If John's parents had been characters from a movie, I'm sure they'd have been George and Martha and completely scared of Virginia Woolf. They bickered constantly, but had so much invested in their son they couldn't bear to separate. We never slept there and John never wanted to. My parents were Nick and Nora. Notice how both pairs are famous for drinking.
So we created this protection against them with each other. Blah, blah, blah, you know the story. We're the Bridge to Terabithia without the death and famous film adaptation. It's like Stephen King's The Body sans a body. You get the idea.
I could sink into warm nostalgia forever. He's my best friend. And he's leaving. Taking everything with him.
To celebrate this scarring moment in our lives, John is staying over at my house for two nights in a row. We're going to just have a normal weekend, just like every other weekend, nothing maudlin. One last weekend with each other and then he's moving away. He's coming over really soon.
"Fuck it's hot," he says immediately, walking into my room. He's got his overnight bag, which carries only clothes, as his toothbrush and other amenities have been living here for a decade. He drops his bag and walks over to the computer where I'm sitting surfing the net.
"Looking at porn?" he asks, chuckling.
"No," I mutter.
"Sure, you're not. Why is it whenever you're not around, and I bring up the history, it's all tits, tits, girls and pussies?"
"It's not-"
"It 'cause you still haven't fucked anybody. You're horny. It's all getting built up in your head."
"That's not the case, I-"
"Sure it's not. Whatevs. I'm going to grab a Coke. It's fucking hot. You want one?"
"Please."
He leaves me for a moment and I hear his stomping around the kitchen. He's never been the lightest of steppers. It seems his only grace and liquidity of movements is when he's trying to shove a ball through a hoop. I've always lamented his caveman-esque clomping in the house. My mother's even commented on it.
John trudges back into the room and I hear the spray of the can opening. He places one on my desk and throws himself on my bed. "Fuck. It's hot."
"I know. You've told me, like, eight times."
"Fuck off."
"Watch the language, dude. Mom's still home."
"When are they leaving?"
"I don't know. I think about eight."
"Yeah?"
"Some party that my dad's office is having."
"Gross."
"You're not kidding."
"Well, maybe not. Is your dad's secretary going to be there? She's a killer."
"Probably."
"God, I'd love to sink my dick in her."
"Ugh."
"You see, that's why nobody'll let you fuck them. You have no confidence. Girls like confidence."
"I have confidence."
"Sure, you don't. You're weirded out anytime anybody talks about pussies and tits and cunts."
"Ugh, screw off."
"Fuckity fuck cunt pussy vag."
"Ew," I say, laughing.
"Puuusssyyy," he warbles, trying to sing it like an opera singer. He doesn't have a bad voice, that John.
"Shut up! My mom's still home."
"She probably can't hear us already." He makes a drinkie-drinkie motion.
"No doubt."
"So what are we doing tonight?"
"I don't know. I thought we'd, uh, I don't know."
"No surprise." He thinks for a moment. "We can try and crack the code on the tv!" This is something John has been trying to do for months since my parents got satellite television. The channels that feature content designed for adults is protected by a password that my father set up. When asked why he even bothered getting the channels, he said that it was a cheaper to get all the channels than to pick and choose. As soon as John discovered that free high definition pornography was only a simple password away, he's been obsessed with getting in there.
"Okay," I reply somewhat mutely.
The sun is going down, throwing orange knives of light along my floor and walls. Because my room's window faces the west, I have to close the drapes in order to avoid being blinded by the sun. John stands there in the light of the sun, his muscular arms crossed and his head turned. He looks like an Apollo, standing at the gates of Mount Olympus. His brown hair tussled just so (a look that takes his fifteen minutes, he once confessed) and his blue eyes glinting like ice.
"Okay. Let's go watch some South Park while we wait," he tells me. South Park is one of the many shows that we both like, but for different reasons. John prefers the scatological humour and I prefer the political subtext. Our tastes are similar, but they differ in reasons why. That is something that's always struck me about our friendship. It's not opposites and it's not sameness.
We go into the living room and watch television. Nothing more to it than that. After an hour or so, my parents come out of their room, dressed in moderately professional attire. My mother is already drunk, but hides it well, with the experience of a woman who has been publicly intoxicated more than enough. My father tells us that they'll be home quite late, and that we shouldn't be waiting up for them. He tells us that if we're going out, give him a call on the cell. I confess that we didn't have plans for out of the house. My mother also tells me that there's frozen pizza defrosting and to put it in the oven when we're hungry.
"But for God's sake, turn off then oven when you're done," my father intones gravely. This is in reference to the time that John left the oven on for a day and a half while my parents were visiting with somebody.
"Sorry," John mutters. More clearly, he asks, "Can we turn on the air conditioning?"
"Nope, sorry," my father says. "It's been broken for two days and I guess so is everybody else's. The repair company told us they'd be by in three to five days."
"Damn," says John.
"Okay, have fun," they demand and they depart.
As soon as they're out the door, John is playing with the satellite. When you get to know John, you learn that nothing gets between John and porn. Nothing. He begins hastily with different combinations of numbers that my father may have set up. He tried originally with obvious numbers such as birthdays, anniversaries and things like that, but to no avail.
I stand up, my back sticky with sweat and my armpits wet. I glance at John on the floor in front of the tv, a trail of sweat from his neck to the middle of his back. We're both drenched. It gets hotter in the house at dusk because the rays fly right through the huge open windows.
Grabbing a Coke from the fridge, I ask John how progress is coming along. He tells me to fuck off.
"Sorry, just asking."
"I'm taking my shirt off," he says. "This shit is way too hot."
I gulp down my Coke and I hold the can to my forehead.
"You should, too," John tells me.
I frown. But then why not? I'm in my house. So I take off my shirt and toss it onto the kitchen table. I frown again because I haven't really been without my shirt in front of anybody. Not since I grew a bit of chest hair. Nothing too gross, but a patch just between and above my nipples. I've not even been without my shirt in front of John. He's never even seen me naked and vice versa. Not even as a child, or at least as I can remember.
A moment of silence and then, shockingly, the rhythmic sound of breathing from surround sound. Someone's being fucked. I return to the living room to see a well-endowed actress being pounded by a man.
"Ugh," I say.
