The University of Tennessee at Martin, College of Humanities and Fine Arts
Department of English Writing Awards, 2007-2008
The Margrethe Ahlschwede Personal Essay Award
Honorable Mention Winners, RB Tolar and Ann Stedman
RB Tolar
Copyright RB Tolar 2008
All rights reserved
Reprinted by permission
Kisses Like Fire
Ninth grade math must be the most boring class in the known universe. I mean it is math, after all. But the alternative would be geometry and I’m a junior and I nearly flunked Algebra when I was actually in the ninth grade, so here I am in Mr. Denton’s ninth grade math class, bored out of my mind. I’m doodling on a sheet of notebook paper while Mr. Denton is working math problems on the blackboard. Jennie Beth is gazing over my shoulder, admiring my artistry. I admire things about her too. For one, she kisses like fire.
Mr. Denton drones on. I am sketching the pirate from the “Draw The Pirate and Win An Art Scholarship” ad. Not bad. Hmm, something about him looks familiar. I begin to outline the profile again, but larger. Who is this guy? I fill in the facial features leaving off the mustache and the pirate hat. Holy Cow! Jennie Beth stifles an incredulous giggle. Mr. Denton looks our way. We have disrupted this class before. Two juniors have no business in a class full of ninth graders. They worship us and find our every comment and aside falling-down funny.
He stares at us, sure we are the source of the unseemly noise. Jennie Beth, brow furrowed, is copying the problem from the board in her most studious manner. I myself am staring at the blackboard with rapt attention, unable to believe the precise calculations of this man of science, this mathematical marvel of a man. Honestly, I don’t know how the Drama Club survived before we came along.
He turns back to the board. I return my attention to the notebook. The resemblance is uncanny.
“It’s him!” Jennie Beth breathes near my ear. As a rule, I would come unglued if she breathed in my ear, but she’s right. It’s a perfect caricature of Denton. I can’t help but notice the similarity to a young Hermann Goering: you know, the World War I fighter ace days. He has the same blond, jowly profile, the same low-slung brow, the same piggy little eyes. Achtung, mein Reichsmarschall!
I begin to shade in the day’s worth of stubble Denton always seems to have. As I admire my handiwork, a warning jab hits my ribs. I become aware of movement in front of me. Oh,oh. He’s spotted me. In a few strokes, without thinking, I pencil in an eye patch and pretend to be outlining the hat.
“You’re supposed to be copying the problems on the board.”
“Uh, yessir, I’m sorry. I was just trying to win a scholarship.”
“You might be better off if you concentrated on the subject you’re actually in class for.”
I’m saved by a suppressed snort of laughter two rows over. My little ninth-grade buddy Troy is finding the whole thing unbearably amusing. Denton turns on him.
“Mr. Cowsner, settle down and get back to work.”
“Yessir.”
Outside in the hall after class, Jennie Beth nudges me with her elbow.
“Ooh, you were nearly a goner there, boy.”
“I thought I was pretty smooth, with the eye patch and all.”
“Right. Well it looked to me like he stared at it an awful long time. I bet he really knows and he’s just saving it up for later.” She put on her best mean Southern sheriff face, “You in a heapa trouble, boy!”
Troy and one of his partners eases over to us. “What were you guys doing over there?”
I produce my masterpiece, from which I have removed the eye patch and vestiges of a pirate hat. He and his little friend guffaw, nearly falling over each other in the process. Like I said, by the time we’re seniors, we’ll be gods around this place. We leave ‘em in stitches.
“Are you going to Puka’s party?” Jennie Beth asks.
Puka is our friend whom I have gone to school with since second grade. Puka is not his real name, but a derivative of a childhood nickname, Pookie Bear, we have latched onto, and not being as cruel as we might (he’s our friend!), have bowdlerized into something semi cool-sounding.
“Probably. You?”
“ She’s going to be there.”
“And?”
“Just saying.”
She, of course, was the incredibly lovely Juanita Henson, my ex, whom I had caught sitting on the knee of a supposed good friend of mine, with her treacherous wench-like arm around his shoulder, giggling into his ear. He was eating it up, the dog.
“So, are you going or not?” I ask.
“Wouldn’t miss it,” she grins her evil-witch grin.
Puka’s parents have this nice house out in the country, in the middle of the family farm.
His dad is nowhere to be seen, and his mom is pretty cool, actually. She was one of our room mothers in elementary school. She tells me there’s drinks and chips and dips over on the picnic table on the patio, so I wander on over to where I see a couple of my classmates standing and join them in the middle of a tall tale being told by Albert Turbeville, our all-district halfback. He halts his story to greet me with the famous Turbeville smirk.
“Boy, I hear you been misbehaving in math class again.”
“Nahh, that’s just an exaggerated report from a bunch of easily impressed ninth-graders.”
“Hey.” Somebody pokes me and I turn to see Jennie Beth, looking mighty cute in a sleeveless pullover and a pair of not-too-conservative shorts.
“So, are you trying to show off your beautiful legs or something?”
“They are beautiful, aren’t they? Thank you. You’re very cute yourself.” I knew it was a lie but let it pass.
“Kin Ah git yuh some chips and dips, Miss Jennie Beth, Ma’am?” I ask in my best bashful Southern-boy voice.
“You may.” She extends her hand in her most gracious Southern lady manner. It is a game we made up our first year together in Drama Club, when she was a transfer student.
I return with the food, and she points to the driveway. Juanita Henson is arriving with a couple of her cheerleader cronies in tow. I focus my full attention on the chips and dips, ignoring the spectacle.
“So where’s Puka?” I ask.
“Don’t look now,” she replies.
I turn and Puka is welcoming the latecomer to the party. He is performing above and beyond the thoughtful host call of duty.
“Let’s take a walk,” Jennie Beth suggests. I agree and we wander around the side of the house where the cotton is in full bloom, red and white blossoms blending their fragrance with that of the warm night air. She slips her hand into mine. Good friends comfort each other like that. She has this little ole girl-hand that is soft and squeezable. Good friends, right? We stop at the edge of the yard, staring down the long cotton rows in the moonlight. She leans up against me, and I hang my arm over her shoulder. I feel her nose nuzzle against my cheek and turn to kiss her. Did I mention she kisses like fire? I could fall in love with a woman who kisses like this, but it would be a shame to mess up this really great friendship.
“Let’s do something mean,” she whispers. I grin, glad she is my friend. We begin to walk back toward the front of the house.
“Come on, put your arm around my waist,” she insists. We approach the patio where Juanita is standing with a group of our friends.
“Laugh like I said something really funny,” she instructs. I do my best horse laugh. I mean, it’s not Ricky Ricardo, but it’s pretty raucous. Juanita turns to look, and Jennie Beth grabs my face with both hands and plants a big one right on my mouth, tongue and all. Juanita stares for a moment, then stalks off down the driveway, leaving the field to the victors. Game, set and match. We gloat, while trying not to be too obvious about it. Like I said, I’m glad this girl is my friend.
Monday morning, it’s back to the grind as Denton carries on with the drone and we work to stay under his radar. Everything else is a piece of cake. Business English? How much trouble can it be to address an envelope? History? Please. I’ve been reading this stuff in The Book of Knowledge since I was nine years old.
“How about the Maroon-White game?” I ask Jennie Beth.
“How about it?” This is what we term a non-committal answer.
“Wanna meet-up there?”
“Good idea.”
“Thanks, ma’am. I figgered yuh’d like it.”
Sue Groves and her jerky boyfriend from Central, Ken, are sitting in the front row of the bleachers when we get to the game.
“Hey, y’all.”
“Hey,” they reply in unison. What a really cute girl like Sue is doing with a knucklehead like Kenny is one of those mysterious questions that has no answer. Not even Sue knows. Anyway, he is being his usual smart-alecky self, being kinda mean to Sue and all; you know the type. We send him to the concession stand so we don’t have to put up with him for a while, and Jennie Beth and I decide to punish him. J.C., one of our Drama Club buddies, has shown up and agrees to help us. The condemned man, uh make that Kenny, returns.
“Hey, thanks man,” I say.
“Who would take care of you guys if I didn’t,” he replies. See what I mean?
Jennie Beth and J.C. are engrossed in conversation. I’ve swapped places with her and lean across Sue to whisper to Ken.
“Hey man, ask ole J.C. over here if his sister still watches Batman on T.V.”
“What?”
“Yeah. Go on and ask him.”
“I don’t even know this guy.” Ken looks doubtful, as if that ever stopped him from being obnoxious in the past.
“Ah, go on. It’s a big joke we have. He’ll think it’s hilarious.” Convinced, Ken looks over at J. C. with his smirkiest simpering grin.
“Hey, man,” he smirks. J.C. gazes at him, all innocence.
“Hey, does your sister still watch Batman on T.V.?” He’s really smirking now, as though he just delivered the killer line of the year. In an instant, J.C.’s expression becomes one of utter seriousness. He leans toward Kenny with a mixture of hatred and disgust rising off him like steam.
“I’ll have you know,” he grates, “my sister is blind.” Now J.C. has no sisters, only three brothers, but Kenny doesn’t know this. Have you ever seen one of those movies where, at the end, the bad-guy’s face literally melts and slides down off the front of his head? This is like that. J.C. is still pretty serious looking, and Ken just looks kinda sick, but Jennie Beth and I are cracking up and Ken can see he’s been had. He jumps up and storms away. Sue looks as if she isn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.
“You’ll thank us for this, later,” I reassure her.
“Honey, I promise you can do better than that,” Jennie Beth chimes in. It’s odd, I guess, but she and Sue become really good friends after that.
Now, it’s getting pretty close to three or four weeks before prom, and it occurs to me that I don’t have a date. It also occurs to me that I should ask my great good friend, Jennie Beth. I mean, who better than my partner in crime and fellow avenger? She’s not in school the day this brainstorm hits me, so I walk the several blocks from school to where she lives. She answers the door looking like she doesn’t feel so good and I nearly chicken out. I summon my courage, however, and after the usual chit-chat, ask her straight out:
“Hey, you wanna go to the prom? It’s only a few weeks away.”
She doesn’t look at me, which I take for a bad sign. She’s looking down and I think she’s crying at first, but when she looks up, there’s this incredibly sad expression on her face.
“Rick and I are getting married this weekend.” She gives me a sad-eyed little smile.
Rick Gibson, who graduated last year. I know they’ve dated a couple of times, but this catches me completely by surprise. I smile back, somehow, my heart at shoe-top level.
“Uh, well. Congratulations. All the best to you guys.” I’m not sure how sincere this sounds, but I’m trying really hard, regardless.
“Thanks,” she replies softly.
“Well, look. I gotta get on out of here. I’ll see you around, huh?” I turn to go.
“Hey?” I turn back.“Can I have one of those sweet kisses of yours?” She asks with that sad-smile.
Unable to reply, I reach out to touch her face and a teardrop rolls down my thumb. Our lips touch and it’s like fire. This girl can kiss like fire and even if she is breaking my heart, I’m burning from the top of my head to the soles of my feet and right now all that matters is this kiss. I pull back and gaze into those eyes for a moment. Isn’t it funny how, sometimes, you don’t realize things until it’s too late? Like how no one will ever kiss you like this again?
“Uh, I’ll be seeing you.” I step off the porch.
“Bye.” Her voice is barely audible. I don’t look back this time.
I saw her one more time. I’d heard she’d had a baby, a boy, that December in what would have been our senior year. The summer after my freshman year in college, I ran into her in the grocery store. She had her little boy with her. Jennie looked a little rough. You know, kind of tired and unhappy. I’d heard she and Rick weren’t getting along.
“Boy, you still breaking little girls’ hearts up there in college?” She asked, grinning a little bit like the old Jennie Beth.
“You bet. They love me,” I grinned back.
We chatted a while longer, then we both had to go. Later on, that fall, I heard that she and Rick had a fight and she drove off in her car, upset and crying. She ran a stop sign and a pickup slammed into her driver’s door. We were having mid-terms and I couldn’t make the six hour drive home for the funeral. I heard it was real nice.
Ann Stedman
Copyright Ann Stedman 2008
All rights reserved
Reprinted by permission
A Memorial from a Writer
The newspapers say the exact date was July 2, 2004, which was a Friday, but I heard about it on a Saturday. At this time I was in the summer before my senior year of high school and sending in applications for colleges. I remember it was a beautiful morning and I was in a great mood because it was the weekend. I worked during the summer at Cedar Tree Day Camp with kids ranging from five to twelve-years-old, and the day before we had taken my group (the nine and ten-year-olds) to Rock City, which had been one of the hardest field trips of that summer.
But now it was Saturday, a day of rest, and as I said it was a beautiful day. I woke up, the sun was shinning, the birds were chirping, and I found two of my three cats lounging in the sunshine.
Everything was right in the world.
After saying good morning to two of the three cats, I went into my mom’s room, which was lit up from the sun shining in from the window. My mom was sitting on her bed on top of her flowered bed sheet, reading the newspaper while my youngest cat, Arwen, was sitting on top of the newspaper.
I said good morning to my mom, and then she gave me that look which I will always remember. I would see that look again. It basically meant, “I don’t want to tell her just yet.”
“What do you want to do today?” I asked her as I scratched Arwen’s left ear (her favorite scratching ear).
“Philip Andrew Baker,” she said, “Is that your Philip?”
“Yeah, Andrew’s his middle name. Is he okay?” I asked. My first thought was that he had gotten in some minor trouble with the law. High school students tend to be rebels, especially kids from my high school.
“He was in a car accident this morning,” she said.
I stopped scratching Arwen. “Oh my God! He’s okay, right? He wasn’t drunk, was he?”
“No, the news said he wasn’t drunk. He fell asleep at the wheel early this morning.”
“Geez. Well, he’s okay, right?”
“Ann…he’s dead.”
Whenever I think back to her announcement, I feel chills go down my back making me rigid, and I begin to feel cold no matter what the room temperature is. I imagine that is how I felt at that moment. I was in shock and stopped breathing for what felt like an hour. Then I thought that maybe I had misunderstood and he was just badly hurt and in the hospital. Phil Baker could not die.
And then I asked, “Dead?”
I was praying that I was wrong and that my hearing really was going at age seventeen.
“I’m so sorry, Ann.”
I took a deep breath, holding in whatever was wanting to go through my head, and I sat down on the ground. But slowly, like with the ship the Titanic, realization was creeping through like the icy waters of the Atlantic filling up the ocean liner. Arwen followed me down, possibly hoping for more ear scratching, but then it all washed over me and the cat ran away because my voice rose higher than usual.
The cats never like it when I cry.
***
Philip Andrew Baker had been a part of my childhood ever since kindergarten, and we were in the same class until we began middle school. My earliest memory of Phil is from kindergarten where he was the class clown and the object of many of my crushes up until the fourth grade. He was very cute too.
We had been playing on the playground in the spring and the carpenter bees were back. Our playground was made of wood so naturally the carpenter bees decided to hang out with us, and it was not strange to see a kid running away with a bee hot on the trail. These bees were not those small ones that you see on flowers either, they were big and to a five-year-old they were huge! I hated those stupid bees because I hadn’t been stung yet and did not want to experience it.
However, one day while on the playground Phil jumped over to another level of the play set, and when he landed those of us near him all heard a loud CRUNCH. Phil put on a confused face and then raised one of his feet. On the bottom of his shoe was a large flattened carpenter bee. He had jumped right on top of it without even seeing it.
“EWW!” he said and scrapped his shoe across the wood to get the dead bee off, and those of us around to witness this thought it was the coolest thing ever. Because of my fear of those bees, I thought of him as a hero for taking one out without even knowing it!
***
The beautiful Saturday morning I had thought it was had turned into a horrible day. Phil Baker could not die because in my mind he was immortal; all of my friends were immortal! Dying was for the old, not for someone who was about to start the senior year of high school. He was too young to just die! Sure, I had heard about teenagers dying in car crashes or school shootings, but I hadn’t known any of them.
This was the first time death had ever entered my realm of adolescence, and I, for the first time saw that anyone could die at any time, regardless of their age.
My first thought after my shock wore off was of his close friends at school, especially Michael Terrell, who was one of his best friends. I wondered how they were all reacting because they must have been even more distraught than I was.
My mother voiced out loud that she hoped his mother was okay because her greatest fear is losing me, her only child.
Phil’s family then crept through my mind, especially his older brother Adam who had just recently graduated. I had no brothers or sisters, or even cousins close by to consider a brother or sister, but I had always wanted a brother. I had never thought about what it would feel like if my imaginary brother died, and the feeling was daunting to me.
I was still stunned throughout the day and wanted to stay in, but my mom made me go out to Ruby Tuesday’s for lunch. What bothered me the most was that the people in the restaurant probably had no idea that a whole family and many different students were feeling heartbroken because a seventeen-year-old boy was dead.
Maybe they had heard of it on the news, said, “Oh, that’s terrible. I feel so sorry for the family!” and then gone about their morning.
I know I did when I heard about other people who had died and I didn’t know them, because I had never really thought about it. That they had family and friends that woke up to a beautiful morning and then heard the ugliest of news. Every person who was an average Joe to me was not just another person to other people. They also had family and friends who loved them.
And then, my mother brought up the visitation times.
***
Phil was a typical little boy and he loved to torture me if he could.
We rode the same school bus, and throughout these rides he found out that I was a huge cat lover. If cats were ever mentioned, he would then proceed to tell me how he shot cats with BB guns and squirt guns (this was a lie of course), which would make me squeal and say to him that he was very mean and that I hated him.
I don’t think that ever hurt his feelings, I think it just made his day to get me all riled up. But I could never really hate him; Phil was one of those kids that you could never hate.
However, he did have a soft side to him. In second grade we sat next to each other, and on one of his “I hate cats” rants I pushed the chair back when he was standing up so he fell right on the floor. The class and I got a good laugh out of this, but sadly the teacher happened to be behind him and he fell on her. She knew what I had done since it was written all over my face, but Phil protested that he just fell.
He wasn’t an idiot. He knew what had happened.
I might also add that I was a very annoying little girl and was constantly trying to go home sick, so Phil would have to put up with my fake sickness right next to him. I’m sure he didn’t like our seating arrangements, and I’ll never know why he took the fall (so to speak) for me that day.
***
My mom gave me the times for his visitation and said that she would go with me if I wanted to go.
“It’s entirely up to you,” she said. “You don’t have to go.”
What I really wanted was to go to the visitation with my childhood friend, Phoebe Hill, who had also known Phil. However, she was on a trip at the time and wasn’t able to attend. My mom had said she’d go with me, but I felt like I’d have to do this with my own group of kids. Plus, I was also seventeen and did not want to be seen with my mother.
In all honesty, I was petrified of going for two main reasons. The first was that I would be basically on my own there because Phil and I had grown apart during our high school years, and I basically felt like I was the oddball of high school with no friends. What would people say when sit-in-the-corner-reading-and-not-talking-to-anyone-Ann came in?
I was vain, stupid, and only cared about my ‘image’ to sum it all up.
However, I was also scared of facing the first funeral experience by myself, and then the thought crossed my mind if the casket would be opened or closed.
This came to me when I was lying in bed that night, and the thought of seeing Phil lifeless was frightening to me. Phil had always been full of life, and the fact that he was gone was still unbelievable to me.
I cried myself to sleep that night, and the next morning I told my mother I did not want to go to the visitation.
***
Phil and I left elementary school and entered middle school. One of us became popular, and the other one did not, and surprisingly I was the one who did not rise up the social ladder. Because of my mom’s long hours at work, I had to ride the bus with kid I knew a bit for school whose mom knew my mom, so Phil and I no longer rode the bus together. We were also in different sections of the school so we hardly ever saw each other. The last time I really had contact with him was in junior high.
The concept of atoms with electrons and neutrons was foreign to me, and deciding how many electrons the atom needed compared to the number of neutrons it already had made me tear up in class. Worse yet, I had been out sick and was struggling with my work because of this, so my teacher decided to set me up with a tutor. I met with her and we discussed who could help me out, and I thought we had decided on a girl from my homeroom. However the next day she says,
“Philip Baker will meet you for the tutoring session.”
I can’t remember the exact time we had for a session or even were it was in the school, but I do remember being nervous meeting up with him. It’s stupid, I know, but Phil was popular and I wasn’t. What if he remembered how much of a dork I was in elementary school? Or worse, what if he brought up the time I purposely knocked him out of his chair? To a girl in junior high these were very scary thoughts, especially when dealing with a popular very cute boy!
I can’t remember what happened between us or what was said between us, but Phil was very professional in his tutoring. He walked me through the steps, told me to do a problem on my own, and then checked over my work. I was nervous when we had begun, but I understood the concept by the end of the tutoring. I also remember never feeling like an idiot when I asked a question or when I couldn’t even do the problem by myself.
And not one remark about spraying cats with water guns.
***
That summer passed, and I started my senior year of high school. I had wondered as I walked into my first period class if anything would be said about Phil, but I didn’t hear anything from the teachers or from the students. They had all grieved over the summer and were able to get on with their lives, and although he was still in their hearts and minds, my guilt of not going to the visitation or funeral weighed me down more than my backpack filled with my English, biology, geography, and calculus books.
That year was one of the hardest of all four years because right at the beginning I became sick and was out for at lest two weeks. Once back at school I’d struggle with my make-up work and then get sick again. I saw more of the doctor than any of my friends at school that year, and sadly I lost a lot of friends that year because of the fact that I wasn’t around.
Then that winter, on December 4, 2004, my grandmother died. I was out again, but this time for a funeral that I would attend. And when I got back to school, I just didn’t care that I did not have anyone to sit with at lunch, and started sitting with one of my teachers, Mr. Mack.
***
Before we left for the summer in our junior year there was an assembly for the graduating seniors and Phil’s older brother, Adam, was being recognized. For the life of me I can’t remember what he got, all I remember was that Phil sat in front of me and when his brother’s name was called he clapped loudly and yelled,
“Yeah! Go Adam!”
I will never forget that moment even though I only saw the back of his head and heard his voice. That was the last time I saw him alive.
***
Towards the end of the year our high school opened up a memorial garden for all the students who had died while still in school, and those students got a plaque that said their name and date of birth and death. The garden was placed at the back of the school in a corner where Phil’s mom could see it from her office at the school. There were two large pots filled with flowers and two large rocks in the garden, so students could eat their lunch there if they chose to. A fountain was placed there as well, but instead of water there were ivy strands flowing out of it. On the ground was a mosaic sign of green and gold (our school colors) that said:
The Phil Baker Memorial
I made sure I went to the opening of the garden that afternoon. What I remember most was that the sun was blazing into my eyes so I had to squint and that we waited forever for his mother to come and say a few words. I felt strange there because I was the oddball, besides me there was only the “popular” kids.
I can’t remember what Phil’s mother said or even how the opening went about because my thoughts were on Phil, and every single memory I could remember. What worried me was that there were so few of these memories and that they were mostly fragmented. Tears began to fill my eyes, but I willed them away because I felt like I did not have the right to cry. I only knew him when we were kids, even though I was still a kid at that time.
What I was hoping for was that going to the garden would take away my guilt for not going to the visitation or funeral. I was horribly wrong.
***
On the day of the baccalaureate, Phil’s mother spoke, and when she got up to speak, it wasn’t about Phil. It was about moving on and making the right decisions as we started a new chapter in life. My eyes began to burn with tears that I hoped would stay hidden, but by the end they were racing down my face. I wiped them away as fast as I could, but there was no stopping them, so I glanced around the area to see who was watching me cry. Every person that was near me was staring intently at Mrs. Baker, and I did not find one dry eye in the room.
I gave up trying to wipe them away and just let them run, and by the end of the speech my face was horribly wet and red.
Afterwards it was a nightmare trying to find my mom in the crowd of people, but when I finally found her and we were about to leave the church, I noticed Mrs. Baker walked down the aisle of the sanctuary. She was alone, and I knew that this was my last chance to reconcile with my guilt. I raced over to her and hardly even heard my mom calling after me.
“Mrs. Baker!” I said in a high pitched voice, my eyes were filling with tears again even though I was sure I was finished crying.
Mrs. Baker gave me a concerned look because she had never met me before and here I was running up to her crying. She glanced behind me where my mom was standing, giving us room to talk.
“Yes?” she asked.
“I-I knew your son, Phil. And I am so sorry I didn’t-”
I didn’t get much farther because I was already choking up and trying so hard not to cry.
Mrs. Baker smiled a sad-like smile and asked, “What’s your name?”
“A-Ann Stedman. Mrs. Baker, I’m so sorry I didn’t come to the funeral. I just-”
“Ann Stedman, you said?” Mrs. Baker asked and I nodded. “I heard Phil talk about you before.”
I froze and just looked at her. “He did?” I asked.
“Of course,” she said and smiled.
On the way home I cried again, but this time not from a broken heart but instead from a healed heart.
***
What she said to me, just a few words that might not have meant anything to her meant everything in the world to me. Many people had said that I should not have worried about my guilt because he either understood or didn’t notice because he was dead. But until I spoke to her I was constantly wondering if I had done the right thing by not going to his funeral. I wondered if I had been stupid and only thought of myself, or if it had been for the best that I didn’t go since six months later I would be going to my grandmother’s funeral.
I didn’t ask her what he said about me, and I didn’t need to know. Phil was my childhood friend, and when he died my childhood memories were shaken horribly. The image of first grader Phil was not distorted, as if he had been only a figment of my imagination. Almost like a precious piece of crystal that if dropped would shatter into a million pieces. While in high school I had often wondered if he remembered me or even ever talked of me.
And at the baccalaureate his mother put so many demons to rest.
My memories of Phil Baker are scattered and small, but to a writer it’s the small things that truly make the character come alive. Or in this case, it’s the person that truly stays alive.
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