If I know you, this is the first time you’re reading this. I hid this in the pages of that book you’ve been carting around for the last few months, and you’ve probably never gotten around to actually checking it out. I would say that it says something about you, but we already know that…
Since you are holding onto the book, it means I’m not around. I can’t say that I’m all that surprised it came to this, but it must have been a shock to you. Let me assure you that I would never have put this on anyone but you because I know you can handle it. It’s always been a relief to know that you’ve been around.
Sorry if the pages seem a bit wet, there’s a pipe leak in the building. I figure as long as I’m moving out, the next tenants can have that as a homecoming present. At least it’d keep them on their toes, eh?
God, it’s funny. My dad always told me that life would come in ebbs and flows, little eddying patterns in the stream and that sort of thing. You know how metaphorical he would get. But I never seemed to get that. As far as I figured, life was this big tidal wave that sort of enveloped you, and it was luck and perseverance that determined if you got to the surface. I’m not a pessimist, but it just didn’t seem like there was all that much placidity to the whole thing. From the moment you’re born, you’re having to learn and use an insane amount of information. Walking, talking, running, testing… Jesus, if we ever sat down and wrote down the shit we picked up in a year, we’d be living in cabins made from the tidbits.
It’s ridiculous. You learn not to touch hot metal, but that the hot metal can be handled with plastic. Plastics are a series of hydrocarbons with fluorine and chlorine attached periodically within saturated structures. Chlorofluorocarbons are polluting the ozone, baking us eventually when the sun hits us at full capacity. The Phoenix Suns play an “Eight Seconds or Less” style of of offense, creating more scoring opportunities but limiting their defensive efficiency. It’ll take you at least five shots to score in a night club. Five is represented by a V in Roman numerals, the Romans used inclusive counting….
Honestly, that’s one of the main reasons I’m not staying around. Fuck it, you know? I’m tired of information. Hell, I can’t even write this long without dissecting my damn sentence into parts of speech.
But that’s not what I wanted to say, so I’ll change gears.
Remember when we were in high school, and you were into that Model UN junk? You’d bring me to every meeting, every research session, even to the meets. Like the time at Meadow Creek where you had to fake dizziness and have me sit in on the thing so I could monitor you, saying you were from a cloistered family and you were very particular about how you were treated. You were so desperate, weren’t you? And then I had to sit there for six goddamn hours, holding some aspirin you had cut up and convinced the teacher or whatever that it was for your fits. You had everyone going for the longest time.
You even had me going for the longest time, in a way. As stupid and uninteresting it was, I managed to sit through every last event. I actually ended up chatting up some of the other political nerds in the group, I was there so long. Dylan (was it Dylan? Well, I’m calling him Dylan, but I’m sure you know the guy I’m referencing) and I had a good long chat, and I decided to ask him how you had been doing. You know, so I knew how much to rag on you. But he caught me off guard. He told me you were hardly there.
I dug around, and I found out that although you had told me you group only met twice a month, they were actually meeting twice a week. You sessions with the group for research were happening three times as often as you were leading me to believe. Dylan outright told me that you hadn’t even bothered to come to their elections. You, Mr. Parliamentary Procedure, all gung-ho about participating in the smallest things… you weren’t there for the easiest vote you’d ever have to make in your teenage life.
I thought about confronting you face-to-face about it. After all, you were dragging my ass around for all this, and you weren’t even doing it right. I had planned out a big performance in front of Ms. Almonte’s or Alfredson or whatever’s room right before the next meeting. “Hey, man, what gives? You’re a no-show? What the hell are you doing?” I would shout, my voice never getting shrill but instead in a dulcet baritone. Like those announcers on credit commercials, you know the ones. And you’d be sitting there, all stammering and confused. And I’d get this enormous smile on my face. It’d be like one of those Greek masks. And then I’d pivot myself to face the interior of the class, hands extended to the rest of the students.
“I pass the floor to the rest of your constituency.”
And as the group would begin to tell you off, I would leave. My escape would be heralded by the newly-inspired rage of the disenfranchised nerds; they would kick you out of their club for wasting their time and effort, and I would wear the resulting depression and anxiety around my neck like a pimp.
Because you would be my bitch, just as I had been yours all this time.
Now, obviously, I thought better of it. And no, it’s not because I was a good person and I realized the shame that I would put on you would be horrible. Hell, I would have loved that part. But I thought about why you did it. And I looked back at out freshman yearbook, and the thing you had wrote on my cover.
“We’re gonna rule the world! Together forever!“
That’s your problem, you know? You haven’t lived your life. It’s been our life, whether it’s you and me or you and Jeanne or you and your problems. You’re always living in tandem, and you can’t stand it when you go solo. For the past ten years, I’ve kept this revelation to myself, hoping you’d realize it before… well, this.
So this is a long time coming. It’s something I knew I had to do to get you to wake up. I’m just following through on it now. You’re not a group, you’re not a set. Hell, you’re not a duo. For better or worse, you ultimately are you and you alone. Not that you can’t share your life, but it has to be YOURS to share. I know you can do it. I mean, why would I have done this if I didn’t have confidence it would work? But it’s on you. Hopefully, by the time you read this, you’ll have seen the light. Just wish I could be there when you do.
Alright, take it easy, and I’ll see you on the flip side.
Barry.
