Indian Summer

A short drop and a long stop. It took me five minutes to find my ringing phone that morning, and thirty seconds to discover my best friend Chris Masar had taken his life. Chris' mom called, called again, then left a text message instructing me to call her back ASAP. I did. “Chris is dead, he hung himself in the tree out back,” she sobbed into the phone, screaming at times. I couldn't take it, I ended the call. I sat down. Comprehension was beyond my reach. My ribcage had been pried apart and life set about devouring my heart and soul. Pain, depression, anger...they ravenously gnawed on my shattered self. Disbelief shot down my spine, so I grabbed my keys and left my house.

I cried while I sped towards Chris' home. I wish there were windshield wipers for your eyes. I could hardly see the road. Regardless, I flossed recklessly through the mid-day traffic and arrived in his cul-de-sac in record time, only to be smacked in the face by my prior unwillingness to accept what I now witnessed. There was a fire engine, two police cruisers, and an ambulance pulled up to the curb, and a stretcher was being wheeled out from the backyard. A white cloth was draped over it.

Demolition. Existential implosion. My world shrunk to a pinhole focused on that stretcher. I parked and ran, ran to my friend. Mothers and children stood in a semi-circle around the driveway, rubbing their red and puffy eyes; most of the dads were still at work. The man next door, a stay-at-home father from what I understood, solemnly smoked a cigarette before flicking the remaining half into the street. Kids too young to fully grasp the gravity of what had happened gathered around an officer, begging him for plastic badges and stickers and baseball cards. I didn't care about any of this. I had to get to Chris.

I pushed through the crowd and raced up the driveway to Chris' mother as she escorted the stretcher and the paramedics towards the ambulance. His younger brother and sister stood at the front door of the house. Their wails tore me apart as I came nearer. I had never heard cries of such profound pain before, and they cut deep, deep down. An officer tried to block me from my path, but Chris' mom gave me her blessing to approach. Drops of pure sorrow rolled down the smile lines of her face.

“Can I?...” I asked, motioning towards Chris.

Some paramedic butted in, “Ma'am, we suggest that you don't for....” but she dismissed the man mid-sentence with a glare. He backed up, and left me to my grief. I fingered the edge of the cloth. Was this a dream? How could this be real? I pulled back the corner, and stared down at my comrade, amigo, partner in crime, brother. Bile and acid gurgled in the pit of my stomach. There he lay; a rough abrasion ringed blood around his neck. Brown eyes - eyes that saw once expressed more positive emotion than can ever hope to be conveyed through writing - bulged lifelessly from their sockets. His lips were blue and huge and grotesquely juxtaposed against a cherry-red face.

I collapsed, and rested my head on his chest. I put my ear to his heart. I don't know what I was hoping for. Something, anything. A prank, perhaps. Chris would wake up any second now and scare me, “BOO, gotcha!” There was nothing. I grabbed Chris' hand and squeezed. His hand was still warm, but his fingers were limp. I couldn't hold back anymore. My best friend, my brother... a deluge of tears erupted from deep within. I wept for minutes, it could have been hours for all I cared, until the squeal of tires against pavement roused me. I raised my head in time to see my other best friend, Forrest Williams, whip around the corner in his silver Infiniti.

He turned off the engine, then surged through the crowd towards us. Forrest fell to the ground next to me, enveloping Christopher in his arms. He cried, but without tears, as if he was dry heaving. His mouth silently mouthed the feelings he couldn't put into words. I hugged him, hugged him harder than I ever have, but the gesture felt meaningless and empty. Our best friend was dead. Gone forever, never to realize the limitless potential he had possessed. Chris' mom and siblings joined us in the embrace. Together we watched as Chris was loaded like some worthless couch on it's way to the dump into the back of the ambulance. It drove off down the street, sirens piercing the air. For the first (and only) time that summer thunder clapped, lightning streaked across the sky, and the clouds opened up as torrential rain plummeted to the ground. For the first time ever I knew what it was to be numb without Novocaine.