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Junior High School Politics, or: Bad Blood Brothers

My cell phone is a goddamn piece of shit, as almost everyone who calls me will attest (mostly because I say, “Goddamn this piece of shit — can I call you back?”), so I decided to get a new one. I walked up to the Cingular store in town and was helped by a strange man who seemed to be looking above my head every time he talked to me.

While I was there, I ran into an old, old, old, old, old, old friend. And things got weird for me.

You might dimly remember me talking about my old crew from junior high. I mentioned them in at least one entry that I know of, but the hierarchy of friendship has always been sort of muddy.

In the Ben Franklin entry, I called Art the fearless leader, but some time in the midst of eighth grade, he allowed his leadership to be usurped by another friend, Joe. Most of us had been friends with Joe previously (I’d known him since first grade), but Art didn’t know him until we introduced him. They became fast friends, and eventually Art gave up his position as alpha-male to Joe.

Why? Simple: Art was promoted to “low man on the totem people with lots of high school friends.” At the time, very few of us knew high schoolers, but Art was a stoner long before it was trendy, and he had a lot of cousins in high school, so he invariably ended up making good impressions at high school parties. More often than not, he ditched us in favor of his older friends, which we found acceptable. We were in awe of his high school friends, because we weren’t in high school yet, so we didn’t realize that making friends with high schoolers is easy.

Bear in mind, when I break down the strange chain of command, all of this was unverablized but still basically recognized. It’s hard to explain, and I sometimes wonder if my group of friends was the only one to go through this (I sure hope not), but in retrospect, there was a leadership hierarchy that we all followed. The fact that we followed it is kind of the point of this story.

Other than Art, the major players in the Ben Franklin story were:

Mandi and Jenny: Girls who helped me with my assorted life issues by yelling at me and extolling the virtues of drug abuse to solve problems. Can you see why I ended up such good friends with Lucy?
Mike: A funny guy I knew since third grade, and one of the many guitarists in our terrible band.
Mark: An unusual, geeky Mexican guy I met during sixth grade. Most of the sixth graders went on a long trip to some camp in Wisconsin, so those that stayed behind fit into one class, so we all had different schedules and classmates. During that time, Mark and I bonded over mocking our math teacher and were friends ever since.
Nick: Art’s cousin. He was never really a friend of mine. Ever.
Steve: The bass player.

Now add to that:

Joe: While we all hung out with him independent of Art, he ended up becoming the leader rather quickly.
Jeff: Who was friends with all of us but was never quite in the band.
Dave: A strange, porno-obsessed dude.

There were more friends than that, but they don’t really apply to this story.

Here’s a little history lesson involving my life: after Art allowed himself to be unseated by Joe, Nick quickly and willingly disappeared from our circle. Mandi and Jenny mostly just hung out with me because they fucking hated Joe and really were fairly indifferent to most of my other friends — they just liked Art and me.

With Nick (the drummer) and Art (the fourth guitarist) gone, the band fell apart. It was better that way, since we only practiced maybe twice and spent the rest of the time just talking about how we wanted to be in a band.

Enter Dave. Dave had a guitar. Dave had a basement. Dave was reasonably good friends with Joe. Art out; Dave in. Furthermore, to maintain his leadership, Joe got a guitar. We weren’t a band, per se, but we would get together and jam.

Meanwhile, Steve and I started talking — really talking — about a band. He had a gotten a bass by that time, so we thought if me, him, and Mark (the only other guitar player who could really play) got together, we could really make it work. We shared the same musical influences, the same general interests, similar senses of humor, and we had similar philosophies about how to make a band work. We figured if we got a reasonably polished act together, we could find a drummer easily.

Consequently, around this time, Steve and I started hanging out a lot. We brought Mark in on the band idea. Then we brought in Jeff, who didn’t play an instrument but was enthusiastic about picking one up. He was there partly for moral support and partly because, at the time, the band was still all talk. We’d basically just hang out, only playing on the rarest occasions. My work ethic has not improved since then.

You’ll notice some people were left out: Mike, Joe, and Dave. First, none of us really liked Dave all that much; second, Mike liked Dave more than us; third, we all liked Steve more than Joe, so on the rare occasions we invited Joe to hang with us, we got tired of him usurping the leadership. Really, since we were all passive followers, the old, functional hierarchy was somewhat restored: Steve became the leader, and I became his go-to guy for ideas and information.

To give you an idea of how low Joe, our former leader, had sunk at this point, let me illustrate it through a song we wrote during a mega jam session with all of us but Joe (and began playing at every subsequent jam session). We called the song “Joe Sucks.” A rather simple shift from an A power chord to a B-flat power chord, the songs lyrics went as follows:

(Verse) Joe sucks Joe sucks

Joe sucks
Joe sucks

(Chorus) Joe sucks
Joe sucks

(Repeat verse and chorus until boredom sets in)

Virtuosos, we were.

So everybody liked the new arrangement…except Joe. With Mike and Dave hanging together, and Steve, Jeff, Mark, and I hanging out together, his usefulness waned. When we’d be at school, he’d still rule us like a tyrannical king, but after school and on weekends, we’d all ditch him and do our own thing. Joe was not a fan of this at all, so he got together with Dave and Mike and the anti-Steve propaganda began.

You have to bear in mind that Steve was partly his own undoing. He was handed a great position of leadership for no other reason than being extremely likable and intelligent. I don’t really know why he did this, or why he thought he had to do it, but he, essentially, made up a girlfriend.

I don’t know why; perhaps it was our mutual obsession with porn. At the time, though, none of us had girlfriends. None of us had ever really seriously entertained the thought of having a girlfriend. We thought about having sex nonstop, but we didn’t really understand at that time (and some of us are still struggling with the idea today) that there’s more to a relationship than nonstop sex.

Perhaps he thought he needed to make up a girlfriend to justify the reason for his leadership. We all approached hero-worship for a time when he told us just who he was dating, and that worship was legitimized when he announced at one point that the two had performed the dirtiest of dirty deeds.

But the shit hit the fan. I think Art, in one of his rare appearances, was the first to announce that Steve had made up this entire relationship. He actually knew the girl, Erin, that Steve was claiming to date. Art had asked her about Steve, and Erin had no idea what he was talking about.

Dave had already planted a seed of doubt after the infamous “We did it” conversation. When pressed for details, Steve said very little. Understandable, being that it was a very personal moment. On the other hand, he was the first of any of us to even come close to losing his virginity, so we wanted the details.

“What was it like?” Dave asked.

“It was…” Steve paused, searching for the mot juste. “…flowing.”

Flowing? Huh. We all accepted it. Our frame of reference consisted of seeing some porno movies and many, many pictures of naked women, so who were we to accuse him of lying? Plus, none of us even thought he was lying, until he had to go. The first thing Dave said when Steve left was, “Flowing? He’s making it up.”

We all shouted down Dave’s complaints, saying that he didn’t know what he was talking about anymore than we did. Dave believed he did know more than we did for two reasons: (1) he was the supply of all our porn, and therefore he had to know everything (clearly he had the extra time with the material to thoroughly read the articles), and (2) his older brother had supposedly had sex. We didn’t believe it, though; Warren was a whale and an asshole. We couldn’t imagine any woman having sex with him.

That was basically the end of it, until Art’s announcement. While most were hesitant to believe him, I kind of had to side with Art. I had made a personal discovery that I didn’t tell anyone until after the fictional girlfriend came out. Steve was, when you come down to brass tacks, my best friend, and I wasn’t going to use anything against him when I hadn’t even talked about it first.

Ever tactfully, Art made his announcement during a large-group summit in Dave’s basement. Even Joe was there, possibly because he was the svengali behind Art’s announcement. More importantly, Steve was there, so accusations came flying right at him, and all he could do is argue and hide behind the defenses of myself and Jeff (Mark stayed neutral).

Jeff and I believed Steve’s rhetoric; he claimed his relationship with Erin was secret, which was why they rarely acknowledged each other in public and only went out occasionally. In retrospect, this seems way too simple, but Jeff and I had very romantic mentalities, so we found the idea of a secret relationship more endearing than fradulent.

With the heat on, Steve decided to leave while everybody else went upstairs to get snacks and argue further. I went back to the basement with Steve to help him collect his bass and his backpack.

“I can’t believe them,” Steve said. “You believe me, don’t you?”

I looked him right in the eyes and said, “Yeah, of course.” I knew otherwise, though; perhaps that should have been the time to bring it up.

My personal discovery came in the form of song lyrics Steve had given me awhile back. It was kind of an unhappy breakup song, which he claimed to have written with Erin, but it was good. As was the nature of our songwriting collaboration at the time, he handed me the lyrics to set to music, and I stuck them in a desk drawer so I could work on my own stuff.

Maybe a month or two after that, I decided to listen to the Goo Goo Dolls’ album that was big at the time (A Boy Named Goo, har-har). I don’t recall who made that recommendation, but at the time, the general consensus was that the Goo Goo Dolls sucked huge amounts of ass (I still believe that; listening to the album did not change my impression of them much), so it was probably some girl I wanted to ask out.

So I’m listening to this album, and all of a sudden one of the songs strikes me as very familiar. I’d never heard the chords or melody before, but the lyrics were so familiar.

It hit me. I pulled the lyric sheet out of my desk drawer, rewound the song, and listened again. He’d just copied the lyrics of “Ain’t That Unusual.” It made sense, choosing a band he probably liked secretly and logically assumed we’d never listen to. It’s nothing more than a coincidence that I listened to the tape, anyway.

Does this mean he made up a relationship with a girl? No. I guess this is the reason I never lost faith or trust in him, even though in retrospect it all seems so obvious. I was going to confront him about the fake lyrics, but that wouldn’t necessarily lead to an accusation of fake girlfriends. I actually do recall thinking at the time I made the discovery, “Man, Erin and Steve made up song lyrics.”

But now, with the allegations starting to add up, I wondered. And I looked my best friend in the eye and bullshat him. I could have — and should have — told him about my doubts, but I thought that’d make me a bad friend, since at this point he had very little support from our nerdy clique, and at least I, the officially recognized best friend, could stay in his corner.

So yes, at the time, I firmly believed straight-up lying to friends was more acceptable than telling them truths they may not want to hear. Since this incident had a remarkably profound impact on my life, does it now make sense why I’m such a hardass with Lucy? Not that she listens to me…

I went out with Steve and waited until his mom picked him up before going back into Dave’s house.

Then, the idea that ruined Steve was pitched. I don’t remember who brought it up, but it was either Dave, Joe, or Art. I’m leaning toward Art, but I’m not even sure I was in the room when the actual pitch took place, or if it was relayed secondhand because I was outside with Steve. It’s beside the point, though. The point is the idea came out: let’s go to Erin’s house and ask her directly.

I live in a pretty small town, in the grand scheme. It’s not an everybody-knows-everybody place, but it’s pretty close to it. We all, merely by living in this town for our entire lives, knew where Erin lived. We weren’t friends with her or her twin sister — hell, we didn’t even particularly like them — but we knew.

So must of us trudged across town on a cold winter day, making the long walk (we didn’t all have bikes, so we all decided to walk) to Erin’s house. I know some people stayed behind, because my dad came to pick me up and was told by Dave that we had gone for a walk.

I believe it was Mark, Jeff, Mike, Joe, and myself making the trek. Art and Dave stayed behind.

We got to her house and knocked on the door. I can’t imagine what her mom may have been thinking when five guys showed up at her house asking to speak with one of her daughters, but nonetheless, she went and got her.

Erin, stunned that a group of low-class jackasses would show up at her door, wondered what the hell we wanted.

“Are you dating Steve?” we asked, point-blank.

“No…” she said, looking genuinely perplexed.

Mark said, “He told us all about you and how it’s a secret. You don’t have to keep it quiet. We just want to know.”

“I barely even know Steve,” Erin said, actually looking sorry at this point.

But there it was: our answer. Steve had made the whole thing up.

After that, Joe’s thirst for power was pretty much quenched. Mark, Jeff, and I were still overall willing to forgive Steve, although we were mad; I’m not sure if that says how likable Steve was or how much of an asshole Joe was. We mostly just wanted to talk with Steve about it, but Joe squashed that. After all, if we talked to Steve, we might understand why he did what he did, and Joe couldn’t let that happen.

I had little to no involvement in the rest of the story, other than giving Steve the cold-shoulder. Essentially, Joe made a plan for a literal attack (like, a random act of pussy-gang violence) on Steve. I don’t recall who was involved, except that I wasn’t, but they basically ganged up on him in a classroom, tried to attack him, he ran away into the principal’s office (inconveniently across the hall), but they chased him through it anyway and ended up knocking the shit out of him in the main hall before running away to avoid getting caught.

After that, a meeting was called to basically decide on a very open level who would be the new boss of us: Joe or Steve. I dimly recall being violently ill at the time, so I missed the entire meeting, but from what I learned from others, they were all gathered in the park across the street during the recess half of our lunch period, and Steve was confronted verbally instead of physically. Mark and Jeff aired our grievances, Steve accepted our distrust and apparent loathing, and skulked away all by himself. He ditched the second half of school and went home.

After that, we all ignored him, and he ignored us. This ruined my friendship with Mandi and Jenny, who pitied and befriended him for obvious reasons. They took the whole thing out on me; although I was willing to forgive and forget, they chided me for not standing up for him in the first place. While I could have stood up for him on the night we went to Erin’s house, it was more difficult during the subsequent bullying because I wasn’t there.

But hey, I made my bed…

I really found out very little about Steve after that. Our close friendship had ended. He started hanging out with Mandi and Jenny, obviously. They introduced him to tobacco, drugs, and alcohol, three things he was dead against when he hung out with us. I guess being betrayed by your only friends will do that to you.

A reconciliation of sorts occurred our freshman year of high school, when Jeff and I rebonded and became best friends once again (Steve interrupted that) and decided that Joe simply had to go. With Steve’s help, he went. But after that, even though things were “better,” they still weren’t the same. We were cordial and occasionally joked around, but we didn’t seek each other out. It was just too difficult.

I had a few classes with Steve later in high school, and we mostly sat in the back of the room mocking everyone and everything that happened. But that was as close as we got. It seemed like some kind of psychic mutual agreement.

A big step came when he moved. His parents divorced, and he ended up moving to Wisconsin with (I think) his mother. He tracked down Mark, who gave him all of our contact information. He got ahold of us and periodically let us know how he was doing.

The last I heard — and this was a few years ago — was that he was married and working in interior design in Wisconsin. It sounded happy.

Meanwhile, everything else fell apart. Mark and Mike sided with Dave and Joe’s thuggery, Art disappeared (which I explain in the Ben Franklin entry), Jeff and I remained great friends (mostly independent of them) throughout high school. We went through a rough patch during our first year of college, but we got past that. We don’t talk much anymore, though; he has his own thing, and I have mine.

Aside from Jeff and occasional snippets of Art, I haven’t seen any of those people in years, which is surprising since we all, by and large, live in the same place. I know Mark went into the military. He e-mailed me from a nuclear sub a few years ago, and I never responded because I’m an asshole. Of course, he supposedly tried to seduce Lucy last year and then turned out to be engaged, but I’ve heard about 30 sides to that story, so the question remains whether or not he’s as big an asshole as I am.

Today, though, I saw Steve. He’s back from Wisconsin, working at the Cingular store to pay to go to an architecture and design school. I think I was as surprised to see him as he was me. He was extremely cordial and friendly, but I know he was thinking about the exact same things I was thinking about; mainly, what happened during eighth grade. The aftermath and reconciliation don’t have the same resonance as the few weeks that marked the downfall of a great friendship.

And I know his strongest memories are not of our sophomore-year lit class or the rare occasions I’d see him at the smoking lot (visiting friends); it’s all about that year, when we were in a band, becoming the best of friends, and then it all went to shit.

He asked, “Do you still play guitar?” A reasonable question, since we were in a band together and I took the instrument very seriously (still do, though now it’s a hobby rather than an eventual career path), and I played at a few shows in high school, so obviously it’d stick out.

I told him yes, and then he chuckled and said, “Curmudgeon,” and that’s how I knew for certain that he was remembering all that bad shit.

At some point, we agreed to name our band Curmudgeon, partly for the junior-high-angst-filled songs we wrote together, partly as a reference to a B-side by what we believed was the greatest band in the universe (Nirvana). I didn’t even remember that until he brought it up, and when he did, I realized that he probably remembers all that stuff even more vividly than I do, because he got the shit-stained end of the stick.

I walked home, new phone in hand, feeling like the worst human being who ever lived. Should I have exchanged numbers or e-mail addresses with him? Should I have stayed and talked longer (they weren’t busy)? Should I have gotten down on my hands and knees, weeping, and beg for forgiveness?

I realized that I can never right those wrongs, but maybe we can slowly rebuild. He’s in town; I’m in town. Why not hang out? Why not stop into the Cingular store sometime next week and invite him out for dinner or a drink?

I may do that, but I may not. The entire conversation felt extremely awkward; I don’t know if he felt it, or if it’s just my guilt working overtime, but it just felt like trying to rekindle an ages-old friendship would never work. I haven’t had a lengthy conversation with him in about nine years.

We have so much to talk about, and yet I can’t seem to think of a single thing to say other than “Sorry.”

Tags: classic

Posted by Stan on October 20, 2004 3:42 PM  | Permalink | Classic Issues, Friends: Can’t Live with ‘Em | Digg It