Always By Justin Rekasi zeke_draven@hotmail.com
For the most part, whenever somebody hears a love song, they think of
romance. But there are a few of us, hopefully not many, that think of worse
things. I think of both, and it’s a hell of a story to tell.
It was the end of the summer, 1997. I had just graduated, and this was the last week before I started college. My parents left me alone for the weekend, so I did what any responsible18-year-old would do.
I threw another legendary party.
It was the usual crowd of degenerates attending. My friends Chris, Ed and Phil, joined me at the bar for a quick anti-relationship counseling session. On the girl’s side, here-by known as the “ex-girlfriends”, we had Krystle, Dee, Kim and Melissa, doing their best to ignore our meeting.
After the bitch fest, I snuck outside to have a cigarette. Lying in my patio chair, sipping Blue Maui, Marlboro Light in hand, I listened to the riffs of Kiss’s “Cold Gin”, and contemplated the great mystery of women. Suddenly the music cut off, the abrupt silence the equivalent of somebody scratching a needle across a record. The patio door opened and out walked Ed, Melissa in tow. A new song started: Bon Jovi’s “Always.”
It was mine and Melissa’s song.
What the hell was going on?!
It was well known that nobody had permission to play that song, at anytime, when Melissa and I were on the same premises.
“I’m sorry”, Ed giggled, ”But she wanted me to play this for you.” And then he vanished into the house.
She sat beside me on my patio chair, and together we talked about old times. The times when we were still a happy couple. I saw something sparkle in her eye that night.
Love?
But we’d only started talking again about a week ago after a long moratorium of friendship. I didn’t want to lose that again. But it was her that played the song. I wished for this my whole senior year, and it looked like now maybe she felt the same.
Could this be the night we get back together?
I took another swig of liquor, took a deep breath…
“I’m pretty drunk. I could say something tonight that I may not really mean…Just, don’t take me too serious, ok?”
“What if I feel the same?” she purred.
“Melissa, I lov-- “
BOOM, the screen door explodes open, and out flies my maniac sister screaming, “Justin get inside quick. Ed’s gone crazy and I think he’s gonna hurt Phil!!”
“Stay here?” I pleaded to Melissa as I started the sprint into my house.
I arrived on the scene and pushed my way through the slack jawed audience that gathered. There were my two best friends, my brothers, locked up and ready to fight like a couple of Roman Gladiators. Ed brandished a knife, while Phil tried pounding sense into his head using only words. Phil was brave. He never backed down, even when the knife rested upon his unshaven neck.
I didn’t act brave. I was what you might call “stupid”. Or drunk, take your pick.
I pushed Phil out of the way, and took his place under the knife.
“If you wanna cut somebody, cut me!” I hollered, audience gasping. In case he had any doubt, I ripped my shirt off over my head, threw it aside, and pushed the knifepoint into my chest. We’d played suicide games with Ed before, but he’d never once tried hurting his own brothers.
What had driven him this crazy?
“C’mon Ed, do it”, I growled. “Do it!!”
Tears gleamed in his eyes. He howled a scream of frustration, pulled the blade from my chest and dragged it harshly across his arms, screaming with every slice. I grabbed a hold of him, pulling him into a bear hug, not to restrain him, but to comfort him. The knife clattered to the floor as his blood smeared across my naked back.
Together, the four of us cried.
The promise of violence gone, the crowd dispersed. Somewhere between all of our blubbering, I was able to get a coherent story. “Always” was apparently not only Melissa and mine’s song from when we were dating, but also Chris and Kim’s. Chris wanted to talk to Kim during “their” song, but instead found her flirting with Ed. Chris told Phil this, who then confronted Ed, and told him things Dee had said behind his back. In retaliation, Ed brought up Krystle, and a knife got pulled out of Ed’s ass pocket.
You know, the usual High school drama.
We collapsed to the floor, talking Ed through his problems. He asked me how to get over Dee. I gave him the best answer I could:
“It’s not easy. Everywhere you look, you may see something that reminds you of her. It could be a song, a street sign, anything. It forces you to relive the time you spent together. I’ve tried for two years to completely forget about her and move on.” I pointed far off where I’d left Melissa, poking the air with an angry shaking finger.
”Every time I get close, she leads me on, and I start all over again!”
At that point, Melissa stormed past us. I guess she wasn’t as far away as I thought. They shooed me after her. Still bare-chested, I ran through the house like a wild-eyed Tarzan, king of the crazies. I urgently tapped on her car window, the engine roaring to life.
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry”, I begged.
“So am I”, she flatly stated, her car already vanishing into the night.
We never dated again.
For the next hour or so I wandered
the house, absently searching for my misplaced t-shirt. I finally found it, but
to this day I have no idea how it got there.
It lay upon my lawn chair, angrily wrenched into a tiny little ball.