Queens of Nothing: Hale
Content
Queens Of Nothing*
*Hale
I was never very excited for graduation. I mean, what was it? Graduation, for me any way, was never any real beginning or end. It was just an event or a moment but it didn t signify anything. After graduation I d still be me, with all my problems and issues, and life would still suck with bouts of bearableness. But everyone made it out to be some grand occasion where everything would change for the better. The future. Let me tell you something, wherever you are 2 years from graduation, whoever you are 2 years from graduation, that s who and where you ll be. Don t let grand illusions of a magical world where anything is possible distract you. Accept it and make sure whoever, wherever, you are 2 years from then, that that s who and where you want to be. That s why I really don t differentiate much between high school and now. I don t really see the point. Maybe I missed the point somewhere along the road or I m thinking about it wrong. But naw, for me high school and whatever the fuck this is that I m doing now are one in the same. I guess high school was just kind of important to me. There are certain memories I think I ll always treasure and those are the memories that will always stay with me. There were four of us. Miranda (Randy), Malerie (Lerie; say it like Larry ), Chris, and Laura-Haley (Hale). I m Hale by the way and it kinda went like this: Randy was the troublemaker, Lerie was the misfit among misfits, Chris was the normal but sweet one, and I was the faggot who listened to Sonic Youth. Somehow, pretty naturally I ll admit, we came together and pledged an unspoken loyalty that weathered the final four years of blatant American socialization that we call public education. Afterward, it s a bit more subtle. Lerie and I were friends going all the way back to middle school. I was balls deep into Blondie, The Smiths, Eric B. &Rakim, just a weird and unholy hodgepodge of dead music merriment. Leriewas into soccer and sports and shit but if you could ask her about that now she d just blush and say her dad made her. Then Randy came along. Randy was my neighbor, she was rowdy and untrustworthy. She didn t go to our middle school either, and to this day she won t tell me why, but by freshman year in high school she did and she and I became bus stop acquaintances. Thenlab partners. Then lunch line mates. And by that summer she, Lerie, and I had become friends. Freshman year in high school was kind of a lot like freshman year out of high school. On the inside it felt like nothing had changed and yet so much was different. I think that s when I started to be just discontent with life. Until you get to college high school feels like the ultimate societal cocktease. It s the first time you ll ever notice things like class, superiority, and dangerously enough it s the first place you ll
ever be asked your opinion on these things. Worst yet, it s also the first place you ll be challenged for having an opinion. My opinion was that it all sucked, Randy exacerbated that with her lust for a good ol fashion riot, and poor Lerie really didn t have much choice but to tag along. I can t ever forget the day I was officially a part of the Society of the Discontent (or whatever you call discontent fuckers). Randy was pissed at this manager of a CVS because he thought she had stolen some candy and make-up or somethin , which I mean it s Randy so she probably did, but she maintained her innocence and the poor old Indian dude threw her out. First off, you don t ever tell Randy she s wrong about anything. She might be wrong but you let her find that shit out on her own. And you can even argue with Randy but fuck, you just don t tell her flat out that she s wrong or that she s lyin . Second, Randy is really good at getting you to do shit you didn t even know you wanted to do. When she came up to Lerie and me and told us her story she did something to us. She made us feel like we were all threaded together. In a small town, you don t get many opportunities to feel like you re part of something. At least not if you don t fit the status quo. So when someone as strong as Randy tells you that you re her sister and you gotta teach someone a lesson, especially as a freshman in high school, you feel wrong not following her into mischief. That night we all snuck out of our houses around 11 or so. Lerie almost backed out on us which would ve been bullshit but she eventually tagged along regardless. We stood outside the CVS trying to figure out where to go from there. I remember humming Smells Like Teen Spirit the whole time Randy was talking but I got the gist of it. The black Honda on the right side of the building was the managers and something or other and then we d trash the store. Randy found herself a big ass rock, like twice the size of her fist, and we walked in. Oh! And we wore hats because fuck us if he ever recognized us. Not that I think he cared because he was pretty occupied with stocking batteries when we walked in. Next thing you know we hear a real nice solid CRASH! Like it literally sounded like the word crash , it was deep and hearty and in a heartbeat the cars alarm started blaring. The manager fumbled around on the floor and ran out the store screaming some nonsense while Lerie and I grabbed everything we could and sent it flying all across the store. Toys, milk and soda, candy, paper, signs, nothing was safe. Lerie s conscience hit her like a ton of bricks and she panicked and ran out. I yelled her name, not too smart considering our victim was just around the corner, and then I chased after her. We met up at Lerie s house where she puked on the sidewalk under a streetlight. I remember she was wearing gloves and she puked on those and then threw them into the street. She was sobbin , saying Fuck no, under her breath. I hugged her and told her if she didn t want to come she didn t have to but I don t think any of that mattered to her. Lerie was a weird bird, Lerie wanted to be a troublemaker and she wanted to say yes to everything and she wanted to cause ruckus and kick up dirt and say fuck, but that wasn t how she was built so what she wanted to be and what she was would often lead her to conflict. So I could hug her and reassure her all night long but nothing anyone ever did could help her. I ll probably regret that more than anything in my life. Randy and I got her under control though and snuck her back into her house without a problem. I think I was the only one who got caught but all it took was a good lie about how I wanted to play basketball with some juniors and I was let off with a week without my radio.
The summer before my sophomore year Kim Gordon came to my small fucking town in Nowheresville, PA to do an interview with Elizabeth Christian and Terry Lawson, the two Saturday DJs on 107.9 FM. One of Randy s friends, Toni, made us all stop skateboarding just so she could hear the whole thing from my shitty boombox. Sonic Youth kinda blows, Toni said But Kim Gordon is fucking badass. I think that was Toni s way of saying I like Sonic Youth but I m not artsy enough or faggy enough to admit it. I remember hearing about how these cockbiters had stolen Sonic Youth s instruments and how they used that opportunity to create a different sound. It was basically the ultimate Fuck you, in my teenage mind. It s like if someone stole your Porsche from your driveway so you just shrugged it off and backed your Jaguar out of the garage. That summer I bought their latest album, NYC Ghosts & Flowers, and fell in fucking love. Randy constantly gave me shit, but all she ever listened to was Rancid and Minor Threat so her opinion didn t mean shit to me. And Lerie I think liked it but she stayed neutral right up until the end. Sophomore year was the year we met Chris. Chris was special. Chris was the official unofficial boyfriend/fuck buddy of Lerie. Which was cool, I mean I don t think any of us really disliked Chris but Chris was definitely a fish out of water. Chris was a cute normal boy with a heart of gold but that was about it. He wasn t the guy you d expect to see with girls with boys names skating around the abandoned parking lot of what was once a Food Lion yelling out Offspring lyrics. But Chris really liked Lerie (I think) and Lerie really liked Chris (I think) so I think for the first year at least, he managed. By the second we were friends. Great Chris-Lerie moments are pretty much that.Moments. They don t really build up to anything but they re awesome. Like, when Chris birthday rolled around Lerie got it into her head that she was going to be the ultimate girlfriend/thing and be his first. Which Randy and I pretty much assumed was a trainwreck waiting to happen but maybe somewhere beneath the sweet exterior of Chris and Lerie somebody somewhere had a little bit of dominance in em. So one random fucking night at Randy s house we re all watching TV in the living room and eating popcorn and making s mores and just generally being lazy-antisocial-on-a-Friday-night bastards. Oh, and Randy s mom isn t home (big fucking surprise). Randy gets it in her head that alcohol would speed up the deflowerization of Lerie and Chris but Lerie is totally adamant to the idea. Not that it really matters because Randy can t find the alcohol anyway but now fucking is all that poor Lerie can think about. Leriekinda leads Chris on into Randy s bedroom while Randy is asleep on the couch. I go into the kitchen, Randy I guess wakes up while I m gone, walks into her bedroom to find Chris and Lerie, poor Chris just can t contain his excitement, and that shit gets all over the sheets. The next day Lerie got Chris a birthday card and Randy got Chris an apology card. Sophomore year was a weird year. With the addition of Chris also came the addition of the exciting wonderful world of teenage relationship bullshit. Randy and I had pretty much strayed away from relationships and sex which meant Lerie was the first to test the waters. Chris was an interesting choice. Chris was kind of everything that Lerie was behind the alternative exterior; just a regular fuck who liked some irregular things but certainly not one who needs to be wholly investing themselves into counterculture and shit like that. Which, I mean, that was a big deal for us at the time. It was an identity, what more does a kid want? So things would often get tense between the two. Sometimes, usually
when we left them alone, the two were like fucking lovebirds. Other times they were best friends, fuck buddies, and at worst casual friends who argued. That meant Randy and I became the support group and the audience for just about everything. You gotta understand, without someone by her side Lerie just wasn t herself. She d embrace our oddity, she d embrace Chris Chrisness, if it meant she wasn t alone. The summer before junior year was especially tough for both Lerie and myself. I loved Randy like a sister, but that summer was all about Lerie and me. Lerie had been my friend since middle school and I knew how she worked. She was more and more beginning to lose herself. It was the summer that her dad started drinking heavily, it was her first summer with Chris, and it was also her second summer with the influence of Randy and I, and I think it just put way too much pressure onto her. It was the first time she got really real sort of depressed. Randy, Chris, and I rallied around her but she didn t talk to many people other than me. Lerie was not the type of girl to just accept whatever she was, whether that was her feelings or her upbringing, she would fight back with all she had. It was why she hung out with Randy and I, in spite of herself, and it was why she dated Chris, in spite of us. And at some point I think she just became lonely. I mean typical high school hormonal bullshit aside with her father drinking heavily she appalled her home and in her friendships all she found was weird identity conflicts. With the exception of Chris, we would often pressure her into more outlandish activities or just blatantly bad But we re young and we ll never die, ideas that I just don t think she had the balls to say no to and it wasn t good for her. Lerie and I were once sitting in the diner just to be one on one and drink some coffee and bitch about the shitty radio and talk about the Garbage concert coming up in the fall. She told me she stole a few bottles of alcohol from her father. I don t know what it is, she said And I finally fucking told him I ve had enough and I m gonnathrow it out but I kind of want to drink it. Drinking was no skin off any of our backs. We d done that do before but she said she wanted it to be special. Lerie and I, in the woods just off the highway that ran through town, at a campfire, until we re either out of alcohol or out of consciousness. It was testing fate, and it probably should ve been a sign, but I said Fuckin A! and we headed off that evening into the woods where she said the alcohol was hidden. By the time we got there some other fuckers, probably some homeless cuntlickers with fuck all else to do but wander around the woods, took the liquor and left us with a couple empty bottles. I was disappointed but Lerie was furious. And Lerie never got angry, much less furious. She smashed a bottle against the tree and I yelled Don t be a fucking idiot! Jesus! Her hand was cut pretty bad and I took her to Randy s place and cleaned it up. Randy s mom wasn t home and Randy was asleep but she didn t give a shit and we watched TV in the living room and drank the three bottles of beer we found. I remember falling asleep holding Lerie and seeing on the TV her reflection as I fell asleep. She looked tried, young, beautiful, concerned, but despite it all comfortable. I just hope she knew how much she was loved. On November 13, 2001 we were juniors. Chris and I had the same morning class, biology. We sat next to each other and over the last few months I actually grew not only to accept him but I even started to like the fucker. Sometimes he d lose me, like he d say he liked Britney Spears or some shit, but otherwisehe was alright. I myself had Garbage on loop getting ready for the big concert next week. That morning
Chris and I got called to the office. It was a terrible walk. It felt exaggerated and awkward. Either all four of us were fucked or one of us was fucked but somebody was fucked. Chris parents and my parents were in the office waiting for us. Lerie was in the hospital. On the way to the hospital I didn t know how to feel. I guess mom and dad didn t really give me much to go on. Lerie was in the hospital but that was about it. It s a terrible feeling not knowing how to feel. It s also sickeningly ironic. It s like confusion but even worse because you don t know why you re confused. Just layers of confusion and at the heart of it all is despair. At the hospital, everything just felt solemn. There s something so weird about hospitals. They feel stale and unwelcoming. Like this is the place where people try not to admit that they re going to die. I remember walking into the emergency room and seeing Lerie s dad crying. That fucker was crying. I couldn t believe it. I think that was when it hit me. I was pissed. I wanted to kick the drunk cunt right in the fucking face. I just did. The fuck are you crying for? I wanted to ask. The fuck is crying going to do? Chris was just stone cold. Before we actually knew what the fuck was going I think he just wanted to act like nothing was happening. I was honestly a little impressed. For all the shit we initially gave Chris he did not cave to tears even once. God damn, I can still the nurses eyes. They were blue. Blue and deep. The kind of eyes you want to get lost in when someone tells you bad news because you know that no matter what no amount of comfort and support will ever satisfy you at that moment. Lerie had gotten into a fight with her dad and she locked herself in her bathroom. For some fucked up reason she had vodka in the bathroom and she mixed it with her meds. Fucking fuck, I can still remember the way her lips moved too when she spoke. Careful and delicate. It pissed me the fuck off. The whole situation just pissed me the fuck off. By noon she was in a critical state and Lerie s fathers insurance people were giving him shit about what could be done. That s when Randy showed up. I guess the three of us not coming to lunch tipped her off. Go figure. I can only imagine how pissed she must ve been at the principal. Principal Wineburg. What a fucking cock. I was outside the hospital throwing rocks into the parking lot when I saw her walking up to the ER. It s funny but I hadn t even known what it was to see Randy worried. Randy didn t worry about shit. Randy was the leader of the pack, the go-getter, the unstoppable freak of nature hellbent on fucking with chaos and sleeping with Satan. Or something to that affect. Randy worried, my sister worried, tore me to pieces. She sat along the hospital wall with me and did something I never could ve anticipated: She nested her head against me, she held my hand, and she allowed a tear to fall for her fallen sister. We were all in the waiting room trying our damnedest to stay awake after the trying day. For a brief moment Randy had left but she couldn t bring herself to stay home and she was back within the hour. Then, at 10:24 PM, the doctor and nurse told us all that Lerie was dead. I wish I could remember the particulars but basically Lerie was in comatose until her body just couldn t take it anymore. Lerie was actually doing herself more harm than good. That summer was bittersweet. I hate to use that retarded fucking term but once you actually get it I think you have permission to use it. Chris and I had become really fucking good friends. To this day I still
see so much of Lerie in him. It s sweet and beautiful. He s a far better friend than I could ve ever expected. We visited colleges together, fuckin jammed to music together. We discovered the Pixies together. Good shit. Randy had finally found her calling in body art and holy fuck was she good at it. I mean, okay, Randy has always had a thing for bodypaint. She just gets it. It s in her. But that summer she hooked up with this chick who did tattoo exhibitions and shit in the town next to us and she was learning the tools of the trade. It was marvelous. It s fuckin rare but this was just one of those moments where everything clicked and Randy loved it. Every second of it. Like any of us ever doubted it, it was fuckin art school or bust for that girl. Near the end of that summer the three of us realized that time was waning. These summers and these school days were coming to a close. So we started doing a lot of shit together. Movies, games, fun random shit, we spent a lot of time in coffee houses and backyards. One of the coolest moments that I ll ever remember is when the coffee shop had this chick reading short stories she d written. I guess she was doing a tour and reading her stuff and it was fucking potent stuff. Like, I get it, I m kindafaggy and I like heavy shit and analyzing and all that but I think she captured everyone s attention that night. She was only in college too which kinda blew our minds a bit. She read this story, Queens of Nothing, and it was just fuckin grand. This story about this cowgirl saving her father but in the end she had to let him go and it just felt good. I think we all have a weight or a burden that we carry not out of shame but because we find it necessary. Like, I think Lerie felt her identity crisis was the price she paid to not be alone. But that night, through that story, it was like that writer spoke for everyone. She lifted all the burdens of everyone in that coffee shop, she captivated us, she saw through us and she, I dunno, fixed us. Trust me, you ve never seen a coffee shop so quiet and at attention in your life. And like that, it was senior year. Senior year, for all intents and purposes, kinda sucked. For high schoolers anyway, we were all grown and shit and now it was time to focus on the future, which I think I made clear earlier, is bullshit. The future, is so fucking vague. What the fuck is the future, ? See, nobody ever thought to fucking ask that when they were all hopped up on Graduation Hype and their stupid high school brains thought you graduate and suddenly you kick ass at life and you re big fucking stuff because you beared the weather of your own little controlled fake ass mini-society. The fucking future is like, 10 fucking years later. But I still remember looking at all my peers and thinking Keep on sippin that shit mother fuckers. And maybe I m bitter. Maybe I was always bitter. I spent my senior year with regrets and absolutely no expectations for myself. While all those other blonde haired, blue eyed, radio listening, 6 month to 3 year old car driving, well cut lawn having, I don t fucking know what Thoreau s goal was when writing Civil Disobedience but I passed the class, dickwarmers were looking forward to living full and forgettable lives doing who-gives-a-fuck I was still totally lost. I had all the ambition but none of the goals. To top it off, I mean, all I had ever had were my friends. And now who knew what the fuck I had anymore? Randy was already ready to carve for herself her own exciting and fuckin colorful world and there was no guarantee that Chris and I would actually get into the same school. Personally, it was the year I wish wouldn t end. Allow me to get descriptive on you for a minute.
Weeks before graduation, spring time, we were all sitting out in the backyard. Chris backyard, on a deck. I remember the beer bottles on the table and the ominous sounds of the crickets. One lonesome candle burned at the center of the table, keeping away insects but also giving the night a subtle but potent type of imagery. One that is burned in my head forever. The soft glow lit up Chris happy boyish face. I could still see Lerie resting on him, hugging his arm, looking so cozy being half of such an odd looking couple. He sat across from me and to the left of the table, looking out into the dark abyss that was the backyard, was Randy. She sat back in her chair with her short purple hair curled up against her ear. She always had mischief in her eyes and a wicked grin. Especially at night she bore some strange resemblance to the Cheshire Cat from Alice s Adventure in Wonderland. Out in the blackness fireflies flickered and danced, probably to the sounds of the crickets. The moon was full. Ah, it was wonderful. I can t remember what it was we talked about, but I can remember that image. That was senior year, or how I d like to remember it at least. No one can ever take that and no one else could ve ever given it to me. Like I said, graduation is fucking stupid, so we won t even go there. What I will say is at every graduation ay my school there is a list read off of students who died in that class and then it s followed by a moment of silence. This is stupid, because if I really fucking knew those fuckers I ll honor them my own damn way, but thanks for the opportunity. Naturally, Lerie went ignored on that list. Actually, a couple of not-particularly-cool people weren t mentioned but Lerie was who mattered to me. I d like to say I fucked shit up, Randy, Chris, and I kicked ass and ruined graduation for everyone, but all we really did was cough obnoxiously during the moment of silence. Which is just really immature but it ll always put a smile on my face. Especially once Chris joined in. These days I exist. I still haven t found any goal or purpose or dream or destiny or any of that bullshit. As it so happens, Chris and I do go to the same school. He s really the only person I talk to but I can t complain at all. I still see Lerie inside him and it does stir me up every once in a while. I ll never truly get over Lerie s death but somehow I m still not totally convinced she s dead. She s alive somewhere and I just haven t found her. That s all. Maybe someday I will though I wonder if I d recognize her if I did. Randy is doing the body art thing which it turns out is a long and hard ass road but knowing her she would pick that route. I see her enough that I still call her friend and we still make memories to this day. She s dating some guy who s doing the body art thing too and watching the two of them is just fuckin hilarious. Really though, not much has changed. We re still in school, we re still ourselves, we still deal with the same personal bullshit, but eventually we ll get to the future. I couldn t begin to tell you what lies in the future, if we three finally just fizzle away from each other or if we re destined to stay together. But in the future I know what I m living for and I m happy. That s the fucking future. That s what everyone fucking thought they were getting when they came here to college only to find out they were cats chasing rubber mice on a string. Half of em won t even make it for that reason. But that s the only sure thing I know. I know in the future I m happy. That shit, I m excited for.
*Hale
I was never very excited for graduation. I mean, what was it? Graduation, for me any way, was never any real beginning or end. It was just an event or a moment but it didn t signify anything. After graduation I d still be me, with all my problems and issues, and life would still suck with bouts of bearableness. But everyone made it out to be some grand occasion where everything would change for the better. The future. Let me tell you something, wherever you are 2 years from graduation, whoever you are 2 years from graduation, that s who and where you ll be. Don t let grand illusions of a magical world where anything is possible distract you. Accept it and make sure whoever, wherever, you are 2 years from then, that that s who and where you want to be. That s why I really don t differentiate much between high school and now. I don t really see the point. Maybe I missed the point somewhere along the road or I m thinking about it wrong. But naw, for me high school and whatever the fuck this is that I m doing now are one in the same. I guess high school was just kind of important to me. There are certain memories I think I ll always treasure and those are the memories that will always stay with me. There were four of us. Miranda (Randy), Malerie (Lerie; say it like Larry ), Chris, and Laura-Haley (Hale). I m Hale by the way and it kinda went like this: Randy was the troublemaker, Lerie was the misfit among misfits, Chris was the normal but sweet one, and I was the faggot who listened to Sonic Youth. Somehow, pretty naturally I ll admit, we came together and pledged an unspoken loyalty that weathered the final four years of blatant American socialization that we call public education. Afterward, it s a bit more subtle. Lerie and I were friends going all the way back to middle school. I was balls deep into Blondie, The Smiths, Eric B. &Rakim, just a weird and unholy hodgepodge of dead music merriment. Leriewas into soccer and sports and shit but if you could ask her about that now she d just blush and say her dad made her. Then Randy came along. Randy was my neighbor, she was rowdy and untrustworthy. She didn t go to our middle school either, and to this day she won t tell me why, but by freshman year in high school she did and she and I became bus stop acquaintances. Thenlab partners. Then lunch line mates. And by that summer she, Lerie, and I had become friends. Freshman year in high school was kind of a lot like freshman year out of high school. On the inside it felt like nothing had changed and yet so much was different. I think that s when I started to be just discontent with life. Until you get to college high school feels like the ultimate societal cocktease. It s the first time you ll ever notice things like class, superiority, and dangerously enough it s the first place you ll
ever be asked your opinion on these things. Worst yet, it s also the first place you ll be challenged for having an opinion. My opinion was that it all sucked, Randy exacerbated that with her lust for a good ol fashion riot, and poor Lerie really didn t have much choice but to tag along. I can t ever forget the day I was officially a part of the Society of the Discontent (or whatever you call discontent fuckers). Randy was pissed at this manager of a CVS because he thought she had stolen some candy and make-up or somethin , which I mean it s Randy so she probably did, but she maintained her innocence and the poor old Indian dude threw her out. First off, you don t ever tell Randy she s wrong about anything. She might be wrong but you let her find that shit out on her own. And you can even argue with Randy but fuck, you just don t tell her flat out that she s wrong or that she s lyin . Second, Randy is really good at getting you to do shit you didn t even know you wanted to do. When she came up to Lerie and me and told us her story she did something to us. She made us feel like we were all threaded together. In a small town, you don t get many opportunities to feel like you re part of something. At least not if you don t fit the status quo. So when someone as strong as Randy tells you that you re her sister and you gotta teach someone a lesson, especially as a freshman in high school, you feel wrong not following her into mischief. That night we all snuck out of our houses around 11 or so. Lerie almost backed out on us which would ve been bullshit but she eventually tagged along regardless. We stood outside the CVS trying to figure out where to go from there. I remember humming Smells Like Teen Spirit the whole time Randy was talking but I got the gist of it. The black Honda on the right side of the building was the managers and something or other and then we d trash the store. Randy found herself a big ass rock, like twice the size of her fist, and we walked in. Oh! And we wore hats because fuck us if he ever recognized us. Not that I think he cared because he was pretty occupied with stocking batteries when we walked in. Next thing you know we hear a real nice solid CRASH! Like it literally sounded like the word crash , it was deep and hearty and in a heartbeat the cars alarm started blaring. The manager fumbled around on the floor and ran out the store screaming some nonsense while Lerie and I grabbed everything we could and sent it flying all across the store. Toys, milk and soda, candy, paper, signs, nothing was safe. Lerie s conscience hit her like a ton of bricks and she panicked and ran out. I yelled her name, not too smart considering our victim was just around the corner, and then I chased after her. We met up at Lerie s house where she puked on the sidewalk under a streetlight. I remember she was wearing gloves and she puked on those and then threw them into the street. She was sobbin , saying Fuck no, under her breath. I hugged her and told her if she didn t want to come she didn t have to but I don t think any of that mattered to her. Lerie was a weird bird, Lerie wanted to be a troublemaker and she wanted to say yes to everything and she wanted to cause ruckus and kick up dirt and say fuck, but that wasn t how she was built so what she wanted to be and what she was would often lead her to conflict. So I could hug her and reassure her all night long but nothing anyone ever did could help her. I ll probably regret that more than anything in my life. Randy and I got her under control though and snuck her back into her house without a problem. I think I was the only one who got caught but all it took was a good lie about how I wanted to play basketball with some juniors and I was let off with a week without my radio.
The summer before my sophomore year Kim Gordon came to my small fucking town in Nowheresville, PA to do an interview with Elizabeth Christian and Terry Lawson, the two Saturday DJs on 107.9 FM. One of Randy s friends, Toni, made us all stop skateboarding just so she could hear the whole thing from my shitty boombox. Sonic Youth kinda blows, Toni said But Kim Gordon is fucking badass. I think that was Toni s way of saying I like Sonic Youth but I m not artsy enough or faggy enough to admit it. I remember hearing about how these cockbiters had stolen Sonic Youth s instruments and how they used that opportunity to create a different sound. It was basically the ultimate Fuck you, in my teenage mind. It s like if someone stole your Porsche from your driveway so you just shrugged it off and backed your Jaguar out of the garage. That summer I bought their latest album, NYC Ghosts & Flowers, and fell in fucking love. Randy constantly gave me shit, but all she ever listened to was Rancid and Minor Threat so her opinion didn t mean shit to me. And Lerie I think liked it but she stayed neutral right up until the end. Sophomore year was the year we met Chris. Chris was special. Chris was the official unofficial boyfriend/fuck buddy of Lerie. Which was cool, I mean I don t think any of us really disliked Chris but Chris was definitely a fish out of water. Chris was a cute normal boy with a heart of gold but that was about it. He wasn t the guy you d expect to see with girls with boys names skating around the abandoned parking lot of what was once a Food Lion yelling out Offspring lyrics. But Chris really liked Lerie (I think) and Lerie really liked Chris (I think) so I think for the first year at least, he managed. By the second we were friends. Great Chris-Lerie moments are pretty much that.Moments. They don t really build up to anything but they re awesome. Like, when Chris birthday rolled around Lerie got it into her head that she was going to be the ultimate girlfriend/thing and be his first. Which Randy and I pretty much assumed was a trainwreck waiting to happen but maybe somewhere beneath the sweet exterior of Chris and Lerie somebody somewhere had a little bit of dominance in em. So one random fucking night at Randy s house we re all watching TV in the living room and eating popcorn and making s mores and just generally being lazy-antisocial-on-a-Friday-night bastards. Oh, and Randy s mom isn t home (big fucking surprise). Randy gets it in her head that alcohol would speed up the deflowerization of Lerie and Chris but Lerie is totally adamant to the idea. Not that it really matters because Randy can t find the alcohol anyway but now fucking is all that poor Lerie can think about. Leriekinda leads Chris on into Randy s bedroom while Randy is asleep on the couch. I go into the kitchen, Randy I guess wakes up while I m gone, walks into her bedroom to find Chris and Lerie, poor Chris just can t contain his excitement, and that shit gets all over the sheets. The next day Lerie got Chris a birthday card and Randy got Chris an apology card. Sophomore year was a weird year. With the addition of Chris also came the addition of the exciting wonderful world of teenage relationship bullshit. Randy and I had pretty much strayed away from relationships and sex which meant Lerie was the first to test the waters. Chris was an interesting choice. Chris was kind of everything that Lerie was behind the alternative exterior; just a regular fuck who liked some irregular things but certainly not one who needs to be wholly investing themselves into counterculture and shit like that. Which, I mean, that was a big deal for us at the time. It was an identity, what more does a kid want? So things would often get tense between the two. Sometimes, usually
when we left them alone, the two were like fucking lovebirds. Other times they were best friends, fuck buddies, and at worst casual friends who argued. That meant Randy and I became the support group and the audience for just about everything. You gotta understand, without someone by her side Lerie just wasn t herself. She d embrace our oddity, she d embrace Chris Chrisness, if it meant she wasn t alone. The summer before junior year was especially tough for both Lerie and myself. I loved Randy like a sister, but that summer was all about Lerie and me. Lerie had been my friend since middle school and I knew how she worked. She was more and more beginning to lose herself. It was the summer that her dad started drinking heavily, it was her first summer with Chris, and it was also her second summer with the influence of Randy and I, and I think it just put way too much pressure onto her. It was the first time she got really real sort of depressed. Randy, Chris, and I rallied around her but she didn t talk to many people other than me. Lerie was not the type of girl to just accept whatever she was, whether that was her feelings or her upbringing, she would fight back with all she had. It was why she hung out with Randy and I, in spite of herself, and it was why she dated Chris, in spite of us. And at some point I think she just became lonely. I mean typical high school hormonal bullshit aside with her father drinking heavily she appalled her home and in her friendships all she found was weird identity conflicts. With the exception of Chris, we would often pressure her into more outlandish activities or just blatantly bad But we re young and we ll never die, ideas that I just don t think she had the balls to say no to and it wasn t good for her. Lerie and I were once sitting in the diner just to be one on one and drink some coffee and bitch about the shitty radio and talk about the Garbage concert coming up in the fall. She told me she stole a few bottles of alcohol from her father. I don t know what it is, she said And I finally fucking told him I ve had enough and I m gonnathrow it out but I kind of want to drink it. Drinking was no skin off any of our backs. We d done that do before but she said she wanted it to be special. Lerie and I, in the woods just off the highway that ran through town, at a campfire, until we re either out of alcohol or out of consciousness. It was testing fate, and it probably should ve been a sign, but I said Fuckin A! and we headed off that evening into the woods where she said the alcohol was hidden. By the time we got there some other fuckers, probably some homeless cuntlickers with fuck all else to do but wander around the woods, took the liquor and left us with a couple empty bottles. I was disappointed but Lerie was furious. And Lerie never got angry, much less furious. She smashed a bottle against the tree and I yelled Don t be a fucking idiot! Jesus! Her hand was cut pretty bad and I took her to Randy s place and cleaned it up. Randy s mom wasn t home and Randy was asleep but she didn t give a shit and we watched TV in the living room and drank the three bottles of beer we found. I remember falling asleep holding Lerie and seeing on the TV her reflection as I fell asleep. She looked tried, young, beautiful, concerned, but despite it all comfortable. I just hope she knew how much she was loved. On November 13, 2001 we were juniors. Chris and I had the same morning class, biology. We sat next to each other and over the last few months I actually grew not only to accept him but I even started to like the fucker. Sometimes he d lose me, like he d say he liked Britney Spears or some shit, but otherwisehe was alright. I myself had Garbage on loop getting ready for the big concert next week. That morning
Chris and I got called to the office. It was a terrible walk. It felt exaggerated and awkward. Either all four of us were fucked or one of us was fucked but somebody was fucked. Chris parents and my parents were in the office waiting for us. Lerie was in the hospital. On the way to the hospital I didn t know how to feel. I guess mom and dad didn t really give me much to go on. Lerie was in the hospital but that was about it. It s a terrible feeling not knowing how to feel. It s also sickeningly ironic. It s like confusion but even worse because you don t know why you re confused. Just layers of confusion and at the heart of it all is despair. At the hospital, everything just felt solemn. There s something so weird about hospitals. They feel stale and unwelcoming. Like this is the place where people try not to admit that they re going to die. I remember walking into the emergency room and seeing Lerie s dad crying. That fucker was crying. I couldn t believe it. I think that was when it hit me. I was pissed. I wanted to kick the drunk cunt right in the fucking face. I just did. The fuck are you crying for? I wanted to ask. The fuck is crying going to do? Chris was just stone cold. Before we actually knew what the fuck was going I think he just wanted to act like nothing was happening. I was honestly a little impressed. For all the shit we initially gave Chris he did not cave to tears even once. God damn, I can still the nurses eyes. They were blue. Blue and deep. The kind of eyes you want to get lost in when someone tells you bad news because you know that no matter what no amount of comfort and support will ever satisfy you at that moment. Lerie had gotten into a fight with her dad and she locked herself in her bathroom. For some fucked up reason she had vodka in the bathroom and she mixed it with her meds. Fucking fuck, I can still remember the way her lips moved too when she spoke. Careful and delicate. It pissed me the fuck off. The whole situation just pissed me the fuck off. By noon she was in a critical state and Lerie s fathers insurance people were giving him shit about what could be done. That s when Randy showed up. I guess the three of us not coming to lunch tipped her off. Go figure. I can only imagine how pissed she must ve been at the principal. Principal Wineburg. What a fucking cock. I was outside the hospital throwing rocks into the parking lot when I saw her walking up to the ER. It s funny but I hadn t even known what it was to see Randy worried. Randy didn t worry about shit. Randy was the leader of the pack, the go-getter, the unstoppable freak of nature hellbent on fucking with chaos and sleeping with Satan. Or something to that affect. Randy worried, my sister worried, tore me to pieces. She sat along the hospital wall with me and did something I never could ve anticipated: She nested her head against me, she held my hand, and she allowed a tear to fall for her fallen sister. We were all in the waiting room trying our damnedest to stay awake after the trying day. For a brief moment Randy had left but she couldn t bring herself to stay home and she was back within the hour. Then, at 10:24 PM, the doctor and nurse told us all that Lerie was dead. I wish I could remember the particulars but basically Lerie was in comatose until her body just couldn t take it anymore. Lerie was actually doing herself more harm than good. That summer was bittersweet. I hate to use that retarded fucking term but once you actually get it I think you have permission to use it. Chris and I had become really fucking good friends. To this day I still
see so much of Lerie in him. It s sweet and beautiful. He s a far better friend than I could ve ever expected. We visited colleges together, fuckin jammed to music together. We discovered the Pixies together. Good shit. Randy had finally found her calling in body art and holy fuck was she good at it. I mean, okay, Randy has always had a thing for bodypaint. She just gets it. It s in her. But that summer she hooked up with this chick who did tattoo exhibitions and shit in the town next to us and she was learning the tools of the trade. It was marvelous. It s fuckin rare but this was just one of those moments where everything clicked and Randy loved it. Every second of it. Like any of us ever doubted it, it was fuckin art school or bust for that girl. Near the end of that summer the three of us realized that time was waning. These summers and these school days were coming to a close. So we started doing a lot of shit together. Movies, games, fun random shit, we spent a lot of time in coffee houses and backyards. One of the coolest moments that I ll ever remember is when the coffee shop had this chick reading short stories she d written. I guess she was doing a tour and reading her stuff and it was fucking potent stuff. Like, I get it, I m kindafaggy and I like heavy shit and analyzing and all that but I think she captured everyone s attention that night. She was only in college too which kinda blew our minds a bit. She read this story, Queens of Nothing, and it was just fuckin grand. This story about this cowgirl saving her father but in the end she had to let him go and it just felt good. I think we all have a weight or a burden that we carry not out of shame but because we find it necessary. Like, I think Lerie felt her identity crisis was the price she paid to not be alone. But that night, through that story, it was like that writer spoke for everyone. She lifted all the burdens of everyone in that coffee shop, she captivated us, she saw through us and she, I dunno, fixed us. Trust me, you ve never seen a coffee shop so quiet and at attention in your life. And like that, it was senior year. Senior year, for all intents and purposes, kinda sucked. For high schoolers anyway, we were all grown and shit and now it was time to focus on the future, which I think I made clear earlier, is bullshit. The future, is so fucking vague. What the fuck is the future, ? See, nobody ever thought to fucking ask that when they were all hopped up on Graduation Hype and their stupid high school brains thought you graduate and suddenly you kick ass at life and you re big fucking stuff because you beared the weather of your own little controlled fake ass mini-society. The fucking future is like, 10 fucking years later. But I still remember looking at all my peers and thinking Keep on sippin that shit mother fuckers. And maybe I m bitter. Maybe I was always bitter. I spent my senior year with regrets and absolutely no expectations for myself. While all those other blonde haired, blue eyed, radio listening, 6 month to 3 year old car driving, well cut lawn having, I don t fucking know what Thoreau s goal was when writing Civil Disobedience but I passed the class, dickwarmers were looking forward to living full and forgettable lives doing who-gives-a-fuck I was still totally lost. I had all the ambition but none of the goals. To top it off, I mean, all I had ever had were my friends. And now who knew what the fuck I had anymore? Randy was already ready to carve for herself her own exciting and fuckin colorful world and there was no guarantee that Chris and I would actually get into the same school. Personally, it was the year I wish wouldn t end. Allow me to get descriptive on you for a minute.
Weeks before graduation, spring time, we were all sitting out in the backyard. Chris backyard, on a deck. I remember the beer bottles on the table and the ominous sounds of the crickets. One lonesome candle burned at the center of the table, keeping away insects but also giving the night a subtle but potent type of imagery. One that is burned in my head forever. The soft glow lit up Chris happy boyish face. I could still see Lerie resting on him, hugging his arm, looking so cozy being half of such an odd looking couple. He sat across from me and to the left of the table, looking out into the dark abyss that was the backyard, was Randy. She sat back in her chair with her short purple hair curled up against her ear. She always had mischief in her eyes and a wicked grin. Especially at night she bore some strange resemblance to the Cheshire Cat from Alice s Adventure in Wonderland. Out in the blackness fireflies flickered and danced, probably to the sounds of the crickets. The moon was full. Ah, it was wonderful. I can t remember what it was we talked about, but I can remember that image. That was senior year, or how I d like to remember it at least. No one can ever take that and no one else could ve ever given it to me. Like I said, graduation is fucking stupid, so we won t even go there. What I will say is at every graduation ay my school there is a list read off of students who died in that class and then it s followed by a moment of silence. This is stupid, because if I really fucking knew those fuckers I ll honor them my own damn way, but thanks for the opportunity. Naturally, Lerie went ignored on that list. Actually, a couple of not-particularly-cool people weren t mentioned but Lerie was who mattered to me. I d like to say I fucked shit up, Randy, Chris, and I kicked ass and ruined graduation for everyone, but all we really did was cough obnoxiously during the moment of silence. Which is just really immature but it ll always put a smile on my face. Especially once Chris joined in. These days I exist. I still haven t found any goal or purpose or dream or destiny or any of that bullshit. As it so happens, Chris and I do go to the same school. He s really the only person I talk to but I can t complain at all. I still see Lerie inside him and it does stir me up every once in a while. I ll never truly get over Lerie s death but somehow I m still not totally convinced she s dead. She s alive somewhere and I just haven t found her. That s all. Maybe someday I will though I wonder if I d recognize her if I did. Randy is doing the body art thing which it turns out is a long and hard ass road but knowing her she would pick that route. I see her enough that I still call her friend and we still make memories to this day. She s dating some guy who s doing the body art thing too and watching the two of them is just fuckin hilarious. Really though, not much has changed. We re still in school, we re still ourselves, we still deal with the same personal bullshit, but eventually we ll get to the future. I couldn t begin to tell you what lies in the future, if we three finally just fizzle away from each other or if we re destined to stay together. But in the future I know what I m living for and I m happy. That s the fucking future. That s what everyone fucking thought they were getting when they came here to college only to find out they were cats chasing rubber mice on a string. Half of em won t even make it for that reason. But that s the only sure thing I know. I know in the future I m happy. That shit, I m excited for.
