Magic Mike and I were pretty good kids in high school. Friends, but not best of friends, we’d gotten drunk together a few times and established the loose bond that comes with intoxicated tom-foolery. We were both All-American kids. I was the Prussian blond antelope type, a high-hurdler, while Magic Mike was a darker, dreamier, handsomer wrestler who dabbled with novelty magic tricks.
One evening we were left to our own devices and met at our little town’s softball field, softball in small towns being the end all of summer days, back then.
In an demonic act completely out of character, we decided to play a little trick. We noticed that Scott—Pockmarked Scott—who in short was the most unpopular kid in our class, if not our school—had a new car and he wanted to show it off at the ball game.
Mike remembered he had some joke fireworks that hooked up to a car’s engine. They didn’t do any harm, but they would blow up and make a racket and smoke like hell when the key was turned. Out of boredom more than anything, he decided to have a little fun at Pockmarked Scott’s expense.
Mike would wire the device.
My job was to keep Scott busy and distracted.
I regret it to this day.
So there I stood by the concession stand, lying to Scott’s face, probably buying him a coke or something to prolong the distraction. All the while, I could glance over Scott’s shoulder and see Mike sabotaging the car.
Finally, the trap was laid, and Mike gave the all clear sign. I patted Scott on the back and watched him waddle away. Got in his car. Turned the key. Bang, bam, pow! Scott didn’t do anything. He just drove away on what I think were only four out of six firing cylinders.
Many years later, via a Facebook reunion, I confessed to Scott my role in the evil plot. He took it in stride.
“It’s okay, Rougy, everyone picked on me back then.”
He told me how his life had gone. How his mom died, and then his dad died (I had worked with his dad for two or three summers in a row). How his big sister was still a colossal bitch (one of those strange anomalies of life: Scott was a homely lad, four stars out of ten on his best day, while his sister looked like a movie star, nine out of ten, easy).
Scott ended up managing a pizza place in a low-rent suburb of Denver, and he hated it, but he’d been there for years because he got the job done. Nobody liked him. He didn’t care. Every day he donned an impenetrable armor of indifference and did what had to be done.
He had reached a point...he had arranged his world in such a way...that nobody could ever hurt him again. Because he wasn’t really there any more.
I offered to have drinks with him, but he wasn’t interested. Didn’t drink. He could tell I was trying to make amends, then he told me not to worry about it and wished me well.
“You were far from being the worst thing that every happened to me.”
He told me that when he wasn’t working he was usually playing on a gaming website...though he was usually working. He told me his user name and everything, but I could never find him, in part because I didn’t understand the site.
Scott didn’t kill himself, though anybody else may well have.
Scott didn’t kill himself...but Harold did...and Darla did...and Cammie overdosed...and Vern jumped off an overpass…whiskey drunk and coked to the gills…probably laughing and joking all the way down….
“Well...I just...hey, if you ever need anything, give me a call,” I said.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I know what you mean. God bless.”