It all started last summer. When I was on the edge.
I’d been outside for a good half hour, standing against the railings that separated Globe Street, my neighbourhood from Talent Avenue, the next one along. It was June and the smell of summer was on my skin and the sky was turning into black, black and nothing else. From the bangs and rattles of car exhausts back-firing in distance streets, to the way those alley cats like to stalk out from the bushes and brush along your legs when they know you’re out on your own, my heart was hammering like no tomorrow. I’d woken up that morning feeling like I was just about to fall off some thin edge, and I hadn’t been able to shake it off all day.
Globe Street itself wasn‘t a good hiding place. You could always hear everything that everyone is getting up too, toilet business included. The old fashioned street lights that were so old they were like gas burners, and the black benches and the whisper of the trees you always had the feeling you were standing on some kind of stage. I heard the scraping of dinner plates, the bleating of crickets in the overgrown gardens, the barking of tired dogs and the worry of a bunch televisions tuned to the same news programme and most importantly my best friend’s sneakers screech across the pavement.
Luck Disney. Two months younger, two inches shorter, light years behind. A worried face and these great big nervous eyes that were always kind of darting around in crazy directions when he spoke to you. He wasn’t well liked, I mean, he was known and all, but not well liked. But he was kind, and he was hardworking and loyal, he was loved. That kind of stuff you can’t really contend with. That, I couldn’t contend with. He ground to a halt in front of me and wiped sweat off his brow and said
‘Before you go blowin’ the top- I’m sorry, I really am-’
‘You’ve got five seconds. What the hell you got me waiting out here for you all night?
‘Wednesday, tonight,’ he puffed, ‘Family night. I couldn’t get away. I tried.’
I laughed at him. He flinched, stared at the ground with his lips pursed in humiliation.
‘Family night should be the last thing on your mind,’ I said ‘I mean, are you crazy?’
His eyes narrowed.
‘We’ve been through this. I thought we had. I didn’t do it, Che!’
‘I can’t ever know that for sure. You’re not taking seriously.’
‘Seriously?’ he cried, loud enough for the family in the nearest house to hear ‘I’ve been threatened by a pack of drug dealers that are going around saying they’re gonna kill me. You don’t think I haven’t taken it just a little bit seriously? I haven’t slept in a week, Che. You any idea what that’s like? How lonely I feel- day in, day out, all these thoughts and voices…I can’t eat…I can’t tell my Mom what’s really wrong, or my Dad, ‘cause they’ll call the police-’
‘You know why that’s out of the question,’ I said quickly
‘Oh, yeah,’ he laughed emptily ‘I know. We don’t want you getting into any trouble over this. I get it. Hell, I got it a long time ago.’
‘You make me sound like a traitor,’ I said ‘when really, you’re the one-’
‘I toldya already, I had nothing to do with that phone call! Why would I want to rat out them if you were involved? If you were any type of friend you’d….’
‘I’d what? Risk my own back waiting around to warn you to get the hell outta here before they come for you? In the cold, for an hour, oh wait. I’ve already done that.’
A nasty silence. Well, it was until a crazy old cat started screeching somewhere in the folds of greater New York. I wondered why I could feel tapping on either side of my legs until I looked down and realised my fingers were twitching like hell. I took out my cigarettes.
I didn’t bother offering him one. Even if we’d been on good terms he wouldn’t have taken it. Clean living, was my old pal. It was while I was lighting up that I saw that his jacket was inside-out. All of a sudden I felt this terrific swelling in my goddamn throat so I said
‘Be smart. Go home, get a bag, clothes, any money you have, passport. I’ll get you out of here. For good.’
He mumbled something to the dirty sidewalk.
‘What?’
He looked up at me.
‘I said, you were the one who wanted to leave here. If it’s so easy for you to get me out, why haven’t you left before?’
‘For you- it’s easy,’ I said, flicking my match on the ground and stubbing it out ‘me…not so much. I’ve got stuff to do around here that’ll never be finished. Then there’s Mom. Money. It all adds up. You, on the other hand-’
‘I’ve got an audition tomorrow! And a family, just like you!’
‘I’ll get you to the audition. You’ll get the part- earn money, move your folks outta here too.’
‘You make it sound simple.’
‘Well it is, isn’t it?’
He looked close to tears.
‘I don’t think so. When did it happen, Che? Us, you and me.’
I felt myself going red. He was always talking like that. Straight to the embarrassing, feelings stuff.
‘Don’t be stupid, Luck. We’re still fine, you and me. I ain’t got a problem with you- you know that. But when the guys get an idea in their heads-’
‘I don’t mean that, I mean…us, this, everything. Globe Street. Look at you. Now look at me. What do you see?’
‘What do I…? Luck…what are you…’
‘Tell me what you see- Che,’ he said, sharply. I looked around.
What did I see? I saw a claustrophobic snow globe of suburbia, only, without the money and the good cars. Just a bunch of shack-like houses jammed together, a bunch of losers stuffed into the crummy dens and kitchens, eating their stupid dinner, sighing in their loveless marriages, too sickened to accept their doom, too scared to go anywhere else. I saw, filthy gutters and the shining orbs of light that the streetlamps held, I saw shadows saunter down the sidewalk and disappear, I saw Abe Gamford’s old corner store, where I first got lifted by the cops for stealing. I saw my car, I even saw my little yellowish house. Suddenly, Globe Street had never looked so small, so childish, like an old jersey too small to stretch across me anymore.
‘I see…..home,’ I said.
‘Che,’ said Luck, and he took hold of me by the front of my jacket and drew me in close to his face. I was so shocked, I was immobile, ‘this doesn’t have to be it,’ he said in a whisper ‘this. You. Che Fitzgerald, eighteen and still living with his mother, smoking weed with his friends and playing who’s life on Globe Street will we fuck up next, you know? Screw you trying to help me- let me help you for once! I’ll get us both out here!’
Despite everything, my stomach swooped upwards. And then, it crashed.
‘How. How the fuck can you get me out of here. What’s wrong with you Luck? When are you ever going to open your eyes and see that you and me are not the same. You’re gonna be a good boy, get the hell outta here before you’re killed- and I, well….’
‘What?’ he took my cigarette out of my mouth and crushed it under his foot. I could have head butted him easily, but I didn’t. Instead I held his gaze until he backed away.
‘What the fuck else is there to do for me?’ I said, throwing my arms up ‘I’m the idiot who couldn’t understand a word the teacher ever said- no money, nothing. Let me tell you what I’m gonna do, Luke. I’m going down with this fucking ship.’
‘I won’t let you,’ he spat ‘and don’t ever call me Luke.’
‘It’s your name, isn’t it?’
‘It’s Luck. What, you too frightened of your friends now that you can’t even call me by the name you gave me?’
‘Don’t be gay. Don’t speak to me anymore- go home and get your stuff.’
‘No. Look, I’ve got it all worked out, you come with me to New York, we can do the auditions together! You were always better than me, you know that. At the singing, at the act-’
‘Luck, fuck up right now.’
‘Don’t be so touchy-’ he put a hand to my shoulder.
‘I said FUCK,’ I went for him, ‘UP right NOW!’
I went to hit him , but I stopped just in time. He kind of wilted against my arm. I shrugged him off and he staggered, dazed, backward onto the street.
‘I don’t have time for this gay shit. Fuck you Luck. I’m not gonna ask you again-’
‘Is this what you do? You people?’ and suddenly it felt like someone had thrown a bucket of water over me, except the water on my skin turned to ice. He was crying. He bent over onto his knees for a minute, and I thought he was going to throw up or faint or something, but he just wiped his nose on his sleeve and stood up. His expression had changed. He seemed to be realising something terrible.
‘Luck, I-’
‘Is it? The whole- I don’t give a shit about anyone, except the people I love- yeah, anyone who gets too close can get abuse and wish they never met you! What is wrong with you? I’m not fucking leaving my own street just because you don’t have the balls to defend your best friend! I’m your only friend Che!’
He turned and walked away
‘Where’re you going? They’ll come for you! Please, look, I’m-’
‘But you don’t care, Che. Isn’t that right? You don’t care about anyone. I’m going home, Che. I’ll see you around.’
‘You can’t!’
‘I love you, d’you know that?’ he was on the other side of the street then ‘I loved you like my own brother since I was four. Take it whatever way you want too- but it’s true. I only hope some day, somebody will come along and hit you deep enough for you to be sorry when you punch their lights out. All I hope.’
‘LUCK! WAIT!’
He just turned at the bottom of the street and waved, which was our secret signal to each other that whatever had just been said was dissolved, waved and disappeared. Somehow though, the wave had changed into something bitter, superficial and fragile.
I stood there for a long time, listening to sounds of dinner and my own solitude rise up around me again. Then I left. And as much as I don’t want to have to say it, that was the last time I ever saw my best friend again.
