Jerry Tomlin came awake slowly. The sunlight sneaking in through the slats of his bedroom window's blinds made golden-white crosscuts vertically down his face, and two ultrabright beams fell right on his eyes. He sat up, stretching out the kinks. Swinging his feet over the edge of the bed, he slid them into soft cotton slippers, enjoying the protection from the cold wood panelled floor.
Jerry stood up in only his pajama bottoms and looked into the mirror mounted on the back of his bedroom door. He gaped at what he saw.
Silhouetted by the football and anime posters on his walls, Jerry saw a grim, sickly pale fourteen year old boy with a shock of white hair staring back at him.
Something had begun happening to him two weeks ago. He was dropping weight like an elevator. Two weeks ago he'd been a healthy one hundred and eighty-five pounds, with a fading tan and sandy brown hair.
Jerry had been active in school sports, playing running back in the fall, wrestling starter in the winter, and first baseman in the spring. In the summer he'd spent three days a week in the local Gold's Gym keeping his body in perfection.
But two weeks ago that all started to change. He'd come back from Christmas break to an important cross town rivalry wrestling match against the Dorman High Cavaliers. He'd walked into the locker room early that afternoon alone to weigh himself before everyone showed up. It was normal to pack on an extra pound or two during the break, and if he needed to drop a pound, he'd have a couple of hours to sweat it off before the official weigh-in.
Stepping on the scale, Jerry had looked down and felt his stomach drop. Cold icewater ran down his back as he adjusted the weights and came up with one hundred forty. Somehow, he'd dropped forty five pounds since Spartanburg High School let out on December twentieth.
He'd been too embarassed to show up for practice. Coach Oles must have noticed something wrong, because he mercifully never even called the house.
That had been on a Friday. The following Monday, when he got out of bed, he rushed to weigh himself on his bathroom scale. One fifteen.
Jerry dropped wrestling. He just stopped going.
He'd wanted to have his parents take him to see a doctor, but they weren't even home the first few days after Christmas break. No note, no call. Both of his parents worked out of town jobs, so he was used to being alone. But, although it felt childish, Jerry didn't know what was happening and wanted his mother or father there when the doctor broke whatever terrible news he was going to find.
By the time his parents had come back into town that Tuesday, both looking weary and unslept, he was too scared to see a doctor. He'd dropped to ninety-five pounds by then, and he'd begun to pale.
Jerry turned around in the mirror, looking at his ribs poking out at obscene angles. His hips still pulled at the elastic band of his pajama bottoms, but the front and back sagged with nothing to hold onto. The golden sunlight sneaking in through the blinds reflected blindingly off his paper white skin. He was down to fifty-eight pounds.
Jerry sighed and began to get dressed for school.
His weight wasn't the only thing that was changing. Everyone treated him differently.
His girlfriend, Anna, used to meet him near the south entrance to the science wing after school each day, and her mother usually drove him home. She'd stopped showing up after Christmas break, and for the first few days, Jerry just walked home. He'd always taken the bus to school, but after it breezed by his stop the first two days, he walked to school everyday. In the afternoon, with no girlfriend to wait on, he was fast enough to catch the bus home. The busdriver still didn't stop by his house, so he just got off at the next stop. She was a mean old bitch who didn't allow talking, so he didn't bother asking her to stop at his house. It was only a five minute walk anyway.
Jerry's friends ignored him at school now, as if he'd contracted some kind of disease and they didn't want to catch it. He couldn't blame them; he looked like he was dying now. No one answered their phones.
He'd always sat in the back of the classroom in every class but European History. It was really the only course he enjoyed, and he'd sat near the front, but for the few weeks the courses lasted after the break, Mr. Laney had filled in his desk with a cute girl from Missouri who'd moved to South Carolina just before Christmas. He'd taken an empty seat in the back of the room away from everyone. None of his teachers called on him anymore, no matter how high he had his hand raised.
Jerry had made an appointment with Debra Channing, his counselor who insisted that everyone call her by her first name. An appointment was made by signing a time slot on the card outside her door. He'd pencilled himself in for four o'clock, just after school the first Monday of his second week back. She wasn't there when he knocked on her office door.
The worst part of was his parents. Before Christmas, before the whole mess started, they'd gotten along better than most married couples. They were very interested in his education, sports, and social life. Like the typical American family, they sat around the dinner table every night that he was home and talked. The television was turned off, the phone was taken off the ringer, and they had real, actual family time.
Ever since the Wednesday after they got back home, they were like two different people. They avoided each other when possible, and when it wasn't possible, they argued. And they ignored him.
Jerry came down the stairs with his backpack slung over one shoulder. He didn't bother stopping for the jam and toast and orange juice his mother used to set out for him before school; she'd stopped doing that after Christmas. Now he'd just go for the front door, yelling "See you later" as he went.
This morning they were fighting. Jerry winced as he heard their raised voices pouring out of the kitchen.
"And what about Jerry?"
"Don't you dare blame me for that!"
"It was you dr-"
He closed the heavy front door behind him, leaning against it and closing his eyes. Great. Just great. They were arguing about his condition.
He stepped off the brick front stoop with his head down, and started toward the sidewalk to school. Jerry Tomlin was totally alone. He was suffering from some condition he'd never heard of, he was too scared to go see a doctor, and it seemed like no one really cared about him anymore. He'd lost everything he loved in one fell swoop, and only his parents acknowledged him. Barely.
Jerry readjusted the strap on his backpack as the wind from the passing school bus ruffled his hair around his head like a golden halo.
-----
The air was heavy in the church with sorrow. The wrinkled old priest's reading went nearly unheard over the sobs and sniffles. Before the altar was a sleek, shining black casket with a pile of flowers arranged carefully on top. The casket sat on a dais covered in a black drape with the Lord's Prayer embroidered around the border in latin.
To the head side of the casket, on three small wooden easels, were four blown up photos. Three showed Jerry Tomlin in various poses: his sports pictures. Here he was standing by the dugout, wooden bat laid across his right shoulder as he tipped the bill of his cap with his left. Here he crouched in a white circle on a purple mat, hands out to the sides like he was about to grab, with a wrestling helmet covering his ears. Here he leaned on his left knee, which was raised as he stood with his left foot on his Viking helmet in the grass. A football was tucked under his arm. The last picture showed him snuggled up with Anna Suitor on his living room couch, both grinning from ear to ear.
"Dear friends," the priest was looking out at the congregation now, a very large congregation made up of Jerry's teammates, closest friends, extended family, the Suitor family, his coaches, a few teachers, and Debra Channing, who always insisted that everyone call her by her first name. Puffy eyes were dabbed with handkerchiefs, and men's arms wrapped around ladies' shoulders comfortingly.
"We gather here today to honor the memory of Jerry Tomlin, who's life was cut short on December twenty-ninth. We come, not to condemn those responsible, but to honor his memory with love and happy memories. Would anyone like to speak?"
Before anyone could move, a shamefaced man sitting in the very last pew stood up. He shuffled out into the aisle, turning a worn hat around and around in his calloused hands. His head bowed, his baldspot reflected the lights at the front of the church. His suit was worn and coming apart at the elbows. His tieknot was loose, and the smaller end trailed down longer than the wide end. His scuffed shoes whispered on the carpet as he made his way toward the altar.
Carl Miller was forty-three years old, and had never done anything wrong in his life. He had never gone to college, instead electing to take a full time job driving a utility boom truck for the state highway commission. He'd been putting in twelve hour days for the last four years, and it had finally taken it's toll on him one December twenty-ninth, and he fell asleep at the wheel of his boom truck, plowing through a red light and into the passenger side of a Mazda, ending the life of a fourteen year old boy.
Carl stepped behind the altar and stared nervously out over the hateful and accusing eyes of the crowd. He swallowed the lump in his throat and began his apology.
