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2/23/07 – revised 5/26-27/09Minutes Crawl, Years FlyFriday, 4:26

P.M.

The beginning of the weekend. I’ve wasted about one hour byeating and Cheez-Its and doing basically nothing, and another hunched over my guitar,huffing and trying to work out a maddening lick until my fingers hurt too much to playany more and I give up. Flopping sideways across my bed, my guts ache cavernously atthe thought of what I’m missing. Head hanging off the side of the bed, I look upside-down at the stack of laundry sitting on my spare bed, freshly folded by my mother a week ago. Sheaves of papers spread over my desk, calling out for completion and organization.I ignore them. A flashy movement catches the corner of my eye; it’s just a fish in the phosphorescent tank on my dresser. An algae-eater slurps up the sides of the glass, but itseems that he can never quite keep up with the growth. Fungus is starting to proliferate,covering the rocks and plastic plants with a mossy green. I make no move to clean thetank. All but three of the fish the tank once housed are already dead, anyway. A tinnydingling pricks through these mental embers and I am grudgingly forced to fire up the leftside of my brain again. Jeans pocket. Cell phone.“Hello?”“Hey, what’s up.”“Not much, you?”“Nothing.” I hear the sound of chewing from the earpiece. “I’m playingminesweeper on large. I’m so close to beating it, but I’m stuck right now.”“…Okay?”“Anyway, we’re probably hanging out at Phil’s house tonight. Can you come?”The moment’s hesitation hangs, at least for me. Eddie doesn’t know what thosefew seconds of silence contain. I am thirsty, thirsty for excitement. Thirsty like a manwho’s been crawling through the desert for years, blinded, gasping; tears would bestreaming down his cheeks, but there is not enough liquid in his body to form tears.Finally—“Alright, I guess I’ll come.” I know this is the only offering I’m going to gettonight. It’s boredom in the midst of others or boredom with my family or by myself athome, and an unshakeable belief from society tells me I’m worthless if I stay home on aFriday night. Besides, I have to get outside of this box; I could at least look forward to the breath of fresh air on the walk from it to the car and from the car to the other box.“Phil said to come around eight.”“Alright, sounds good.” I flinch internally at my own falsity.

“See ya then.”“See ya.”Mario Kart for N64 starts to get a little old after playing upwards of a dozengames and losing every single one of them. Especially when your opponents feel the needto remind you of how much you suck at every available opportunity. By this time, I havestopped trying to think of comebacks, instead choosing to steadily stuff my mouth withstale, over-salted popcorn and wash it down my throat with watery Gatorade. Finally myadversaries tire of steering two-dimensional cartoon characters around in endless circles.Instead, we switch to watching reruns of

Spongebob Squarepants

Something in me prevents me from issuing more than a minor complaint at thechoice of show. It occurs to me that I’ve never really been completely honest with myfriends. Maybe it’s a lack of balls that shuts me up; maybe it’s the alienating andegotistical belief that they wouldn’t understand, that they

can’t

see as far as I can see. Theway I figure it, though, if they don’t even understand why I wouldn’t want to watch

Spongebob Squarepants

Heavyweights

for the seventh time or whatever other inaneentertainment they come up with, then how could they understand

this?

It’s ironic howfriendships form. Friends, who are supposed to be the people closest to your besides your family and accept you for “who you are,” often don’t even really know you, or onlydiscover you, to their startlement, years into your relationship. What causes forgesfriendships, for the most part, is not similar interests or beliefs but mere coincidence, thechance of having spent time together. Oftentimes, interests will seem to coincide becauseyou spend time with people in clubs or activities that you are also in, but that is about asfar as the shared personality goes. There is no real correlation, no special likeness of soulsrequired for what is termed friendship these days. But perhaps there is another kind of friendship out there…a real kind of brotherhood consisting of intimate collision of souls….The tragedy of high school is that everyone is too insecure and self-conscious toever do anything out of the blue, to break out of the petty social conventions we haverigged to give ourselves a shallow sense of security…to walk up to a complete stranger and start a conversation and perhaps discover something there that you would never haveknown. My dream throughout this time of my life, which I knew to be silly and naïve butstill liked to imagine nevertheless, was for the band geeks to talk to the cheerleaders, thefootball jocks to socialize with the theater groupies, the science club to rendezvous withthe softball team and break down all artificial barriers so that we could just be people,one big happy community. As a second semester senior, there is a curious widening of circles, a glimpse of what could have been. It seems that everyone has finally realizedtheir own self-defeating follies, now that it’s too late. At the same time, though, eachgroup of friends has been essentially fixed since freshman year, and there is no longer any point make the prodigious effort it would take to really revolutionize this network.This is the tragedy of high school, except what they don’t tell you is that it is really thetragedy of the human condition.All these thoughts rise like a bile in my head as I sit there, staring through the TV.I can hear my friends laughing at something on the show, oblivious to the discontentstirring within me. They seem to move in slow motion, their bodies shaking and their arms flailing as they heave with uncontrollable laughter. My mind is somewhere far away. I am called back to reality with an unpleasant jolt, though, when my brainautomatically registers the sound of my name.“What?” I say hazily, trying to reorient myself in the concrete world. I look at theclock—10:21

P.M.

“Didn’t you see that?” Eddie asks incredulously.“No, I kind of zoned out for a minute.”“Oh my god, you have to see this part. It’s so funny. Phil, rewind it.”Phil obediently scrolls backward with his DVR remote. I watch a glassy-eyedyellow sponge get rejected from his dream job as fry cook at the Krusty Krab, after whicha bubblegum pink sea star makes some imbecile comment.

“Haha,” I chuckle halfheartedly. “Funny.” But it does nothing for the sour taste of restlessness that still fills my mouth. We are eighteen years old, for Chrissakes! In the prime of our lives! Young men at our age have embarked on stifling pilgrimages to newcontinents, have hitchhiked and hoboed across the country begging for scraps of food,have panned for gold, braved the cold, built trans-continental railroads; boys our age haveshipped off to fight horrific wars in exotics and foreign lands! I count myself

lucky

tohave so much freedom that I’ll never have to brave those kind of dreadful conditions, butis this the freedom young men struggled for themselves and us to enjoy? The creature inme rolled over, roiling fire in my belly. Perhaps it is just an overactive endocrine system, but does that make it any less real or important? What were we built for? What were wemade to do? I sense, as always, the minutes ticking away, acutely aware of the smallwindow of energy and vitality we are given in life before joints start to stiffen….On the TV, the exuberant young sponge is running down the street, legs flying,spatula held high, shouting, “I’M READY! I’M READY! I’M READY-EADY-EADY-EADY!”

I feel you, Bob. I feel you.

But I have the sad knowledge of what will be waitingfor him at the end of his road. I’ve seen this episode before.Once I engage the TV, my mind temporarily goes blank, and the time swiftlysteals away without my noticing it sneak by. Suddenly, I realize that Eddie and Michaelare standing up and putting on their coats. I glance at the clock—10:42. “Are you guysleaving already?” I ask.“Yeah, I’m driving him home, and I still don’t have my senior license,” Eddiereplies.That means it’s time for our little party to break up. I slowly retrieve my jacketand shoes as the other two let themselves out the back door. Once my shoes are on andmy jacket is zipped, I turn to Phil again, who is still sitting on the couch, watching TV.“…Guess I’ll see you on Monday,” I say. “Thanks for having us over.”He turns his head and looks at me. “Yeah, see ya on Monday.” Then he turns back to the TV.After a second’s hesitation, I resolutely thrust down the handle of the storm door and push it open, careful to close the door behind me all the way so as not to let the coldin. Stepping out into the night, the chill suddenly hits me, and I shiver and tuck my chindown into my jacket collar. I take a few cautious steps out onto the icy driveway and thenstop, realizing that there is more to see around me than my feet. I untuck my chin, tilt myface up toward the sky, and inhale a long, deep breath, letting it out in a relaxing whoosh.I then examine the sky, as is my habit every time I step outside, especially at night. Idon’t know why; maybe it’s an instinctual urge left over from our caveman days toconstantly check the weather; maybe I’m just reassuring myself that the sky is still there.It looks different every time; every sky has its own unique beauty. But no matter if it iscloudy, misty, or starry, it always has a pacifying effect on me. On this particular night,the clouds were thick enough to blot out the stars, but they did not cover the sky in auniform blanket. There were subtle swirls of color; a little lighter here, a little darker there. The nearby streetlights cast a pale orange glow to offset the sky’s murky blue- black, and a tinge of a lighter, almost pinkish hue could be seen to the east, the residue of the neon and fluorescent lights of a shopping area. After losing myself in the vastness of