Fish
Fish
Aqualus Gordon
Aqualus Gordon
He was one-quarter Japanese. I think that was responsible for his beautifully exotic appearance. He had creamy smooth bronze skin and perfectly kept dark brown hair. His full lips sheathed a gorgeous smile that always managed to get him out of trouble. His eyes were bright aqua-blue, which I often caught myself staring into—but he let me.
My memories of Michael extend into the vagueness of childhood. I recall standing next to him in preschool reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. In kindergarten, we learned how to add and subtract in the same classroom. In elementary school, we played against each other in kickball. We weren’t friends back then. I was the boy always off playing with the girls and occasionally—when “they” made me—I was the kid left standing to hear, “I guess we’ll take him,” from the self proclaimed captain when eeny-meeny-miney-moe hadn’t gone in his favor. Michael was always picked first. He ran the fastest, kicked the farthest, dodged the quickest, and threw the hardest. He was the kid every other kid wanted to be. And if they couldn’t be him, they wanted to be around him. I did too; but we were from opposite ends of the playground.
I don’t know when or how we became friends. I suppose after having known him for so long we were destined to interact eventually. By the time we were in sixth grade, we were best friends. Every Friday I carried an extra bag to school with me in preparation for a weekend at his house, or he would bring his and come home with me. We were together every weekend. He quickly became like another member of my family and I became another member of his. He didn’t know his dad, so he often spent time talking to my dad about girls or asking him for advice. In turn, I enjoyed spending time with his mom.
I don’t know when or how we became friends. I suppose after having known him for so long we were destined to interact eventually. By the time we were in sixth grade, we were best friends. Every Friday I carried an extra bag to school with me in preparation for a weekend at his house, or he would bring his and come home with me. We were together every weekend. He quickly became like another member of my family and I became another member of his. He didn’t know his dad, so he often spent time talking to my dad about girls or asking him for advice. In turn, I enjoyed spending time with his mom.
During cool Alabama winters, we would run out to his backyard and launch ourselves onto his trampoline. He would do somersaults and twists, while I just jovially bounced in place—amazed by him, as always. After we got tired of jumping, we would slide around in our socks chasing each other with fingers outstretched, testing again and again the theory of static electricity. We would eventually end up wrestling measuring each other’s strength—never winning or losing, but forfeiting, mutually, in exhaustion. Lying on our backs, staring up through a hole in the canopy at the stars talking about whatever it is that’s important to thirteen year old boys. I’ve forgotten, it’s been so long ago.
He taught me how to swear, and drive a boat, bait a hook, and spit. I taught him how to wash his clothes, and study, iron his clothes, and dance.
During the summer, we were inseparable. One summer in particular, just out of the seventh grade, we spent everyday together at either my house or his. Occasionally his mom would drive us to The Gulf. We spent our days fishing, body-boarding, or trying to swim to the sandbar—we hardly ever made it. We would turn back after getting too tired or when swarms of jellies impeded our path. Every now and then, we endured the swim when the jellyfish found somewhere else to spend their time. Once there, we stuffed our nets with sand dollars, hermit crabs, starfish, sea slugs, conchs, and seashells, which we either offered to his mother or kept as weeklong pets.
That same summer we bought two friendship anklets that we vowed to never lose, it was an enduring mark of our friendship—mine is stretched snuggly around my ankle even as I type this.
***
Four years later, I was seventeen. My dad woke me up one summer morning—we didn’t see each other as much that summer. He handed me the cordless phone, which I put to my ear and groggily muttered, “Hello?” On the other end was an audibly upset friend. Between gasps, she whispered:
“Michael’s Dead.”
Everything was in slow motion. I looked up to my dad, whom she must have already told because he looked at me with a sort of helpless sadness. Michael was headed back from The Gulf and had flipped his SUV on the highway. He wasn’t wearing a seatbelt and was thrown through the windshield onto the pavement. Approximately 6 hours later, he died in the hospital.
I didn’t cry. I still haven’t cried. It’s not that I was “bottling up emotions” or “trying to be strong,” I just couldn’t cry.
His wake is the only one I have ever been to. His family decided to have an open casket. I was terrified to look, but I wanted to know... His skin looked fake, like some sort mannequin and his hair was looked like plaster; it was not how he would have combed it. His lips were pressed tightly together and painted false red. I shifted my eyes from his face to his hands, resting softly on his stomach, across a dark pinstriped suit. In his breast pocket, I noticed two locks of hair, one brown (his mother’s) and one blonde (his sisters,) tied together with that anklet, that enduring mark of our friendship
posted by aqualus at
8/17/2005 09:26:00 PM
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