3.22 - Endgame, Part III: Brain Dead
The shadows were growing long as the sun sank behind the buildings that adorned the skyline of New York City as the five buses from Carlisle pulled into the dock for the cruise on the Hudson River. By this time, I was feeling withdrawn and pensive, not really up to conversation. It might have been because I’d been active all day and was sort of tired, but I didn’t really think so.
We got off the bus with a half hour plus before boarding and just sort of hung around. I pretended to be interested, not convincingly, at people having conversations. In the end, I just sat down to think and ruminate. No such luck. People kept coming over to talk to me. Enthralling.
Around six, Barrick started herding people toward the boat. The Spirit of the Hudson. I found Maritza and Vicki and joined up with them as we got in line. We still had to wait awhile. We used the time to catch up on the details of our respective days. We were given tickets and had our picture taken by the ship’s photographer. Boarding was easy, a few girls who hadn’t gone on a cruise of any kind were concerned about seasickness. I did my best to alleviate their fears, while introducing a few anecdotes from my own yachting history. I don’t yacht so much as know people who do and they like me.
We had to disembark twice, the second time because a crew member got sick and had to be dropped off. Once we were underway and people had shaky sea legs that resembled a newborn lamb stumbling for the first time, the class of 2004 went through the buffet. The fare was better than school food, but not by much. It was generic so that the country bumpkins wouldn’t get scared. I had a menu in my mind all planned, but it was turned to mulch. Instead of the gourmet victuals I’d envisioned, I had a version of chicken with cheese on it, I think they were trying to imitate something, but the effect was of poor imitation. There was yellow white rice, dry as the desert and tasteless as the sands, mixed vegetables that weren’t cooked enough. There were rolls from a bag with melted butter packages on the side. Insert sarcastic yum here.
Most people wanted to rush through eating to get topside and see the river. I’d seen rivers before, I grew up around three of them. My patience was well stocked and so I had an enjoyable conversation with Maritza. We were both still eating, actually eating not just stuffing our faces, and it was pleasant. It was a Coke ship and I felt glad to have brought a Mt. Dew along that lasted through dinner. I’d tagged my backpack along and it sat at the base of the table.
The next few hours were pleasant. The ship’s DJ played top forty crap with some old dance hits that were never really hits, ala YMCA and the Chicken Dance, with enough hip hop and rap to make all of the white, rural kids from Carlisle feel at home. The sad part is that they did play country to make the white, rural kids from Carlisle feel at home. Sigh.
I talked with several people along the course of the night, predominantly Maritza though, with enough others through the night’s events as to not monopolize her. When it began to get dark, I looked at the forlorn sky and felt the pangs within me. It was time to do what I had come to do.
I told Maritza to get Ryan and meet me on the deck below. Meanwhile, I went to get my package from my backpack and hurried along to get back. We perched along a lonely stretch of railing and looked out at the city skyline, lit up with small yellow lights on the black faces of buildings. The river, dark and rippling like a living mirror, was torn up by the ship moving forward, leaving white foam in its wake. There wasn’t much light onboard, enough to see, but little enough to make it dramatic. I began telling the story that I’d gone over in my head several times since January, the one I wrote down to consolidate the information on the MUN trip in March. Krebs came by and interrupted less than half way through and we obliged her conversational gambits, getting our stories straight. Mrs. Krebs is one of my favorite teachers and I enjoy her immensely, but her timing that night sucked. After she’d gone, I proceeded to explain all of the hidden and unknowledgable things I had done wrong, with a twinge of pain in my breast as the faces appeared in the water like ghosts in foam. Regina. Annie. Kelly. I’d felt the feeling and still gotten it wrong in all three cases. It was time to take care of it.
I unwrapped the package where I had a single rose. The rose that I’d gotten to symbolize the decision I’d made six months earlier that was coming to bear that night. I found myself feeling happy, satisfied with my life as it was. It’s not perfect, but it’s satisfactory by my definition. I have friends, family, a budding career full of promise, and a future to look forward to. I’ve given up my feuds of the past with Evan, Dan, and all the other enemies who’ve caused me grief in the past. I am letting the pain of the past go.
In letting it go, I’m losing the Brain. All of the residual anger and hurt that I used to fuel the Brain was dissipating. He was dying. The misery that I’d caused for myself and others lost its importance as I stood on the water, in the city that was, at least in the abstract, my home. I came to see all cities as I’d seen Pittsburgh. This was no different.
The people who had been my curse and comfort for the past four years, who’d seen me struggle and succeed, were along with me on the ride. Lindsay, who was my first lab partner in Mrs. Daniels class. Laura, with whom I completed my first ever history project for Petre. Gibbons, who was my friend during Brent’s math class and with whom I’d lost touch with in the past year. And John, who has been my greatest friend and companion, even though I see him less than just about anyone, who was a part of Robbins’ failure of an English class with me. We were all together in the city. The past and the present became insignificant labels as I knew what I’d known all along. Where I am doesn’t change who I am. Only I can do that. The place is an influence, but change only comes from a compliance within. To resist is to be strong. To endure is to be powerful. With my two best friends from the last year of a sterling high school career, I threw the rose into the water in a gesture of letting go, killing the Brain, and forsaking the super-villain all at once. It fell and quickly slid into the dark waters behind us. At that moment, I knew I had successfully killed the Brain, cut him off like a vestigial limb and dropped him into the river. His influence faded like the snows of winter in the spring, or the winds dying down at last; and what was left was calm and possibility and peace.
TO BE CONCLUDED...
We got off the bus with a half hour plus before boarding and just sort of hung around. I pretended to be interested, not convincingly, at people having conversations. In the end, I just sat down to think and ruminate. No such luck. People kept coming over to talk to me. Enthralling.
Around six, Barrick started herding people toward the boat. The Spirit of the Hudson. I found Maritza and Vicki and joined up with them as we got in line. We still had to wait awhile. We used the time to catch up on the details of our respective days. We were given tickets and had our picture taken by the ship’s photographer. Boarding was easy, a few girls who hadn’t gone on a cruise of any kind were concerned about seasickness. I did my best to alleviate their fears, while introducing a few anecdotes from my own yachting history. I don’t yacht so much as know people who do and they like me.
We had to disembark twice, the second time because a crew member got sick and had to be dropped off. Once we were underway and people had shaky sea legs that resembled a newborn lamb stumbling for the first time, the class of 2004 went through the buffet. The fare was better than school food, but not by much. It was generic so that the country bumpkins wouldn’t get scared. I had a menu in my mind all planned, but it was turned to mulch. Instead of the gourmet victuals I’d envisioned, I had a version of chicken with cheese on it, I think they were trying to imitate something, but the effect was of poor imitation. There was yellow white rice, dry as the desert and tasteless as the sands, mixed vegetables that weren’t cooked enough. There were rolls from a bag with melted butter packages on the side. Insert sarcastic yum here.
Most people wanted to rush through eating to get topside and see the river. I’d seen rivers before, I grew up around three of them. My patience was well stocked and so I had an enjoyable conversation with Maritza. We were both still eating, actually eating not just stuffing our faces, and it was pleasant. It was a Coke ship and I felt glad to have brought a Mt. Dew along that lasted through dinner. I’d tagged my backpack along and it sat at the base of the table.
The next few hours were pleasant. The ship’s DJ played top forty crap with some old dance hits that were never really hits, ala YMCA and the Chicken Dance, with enough hip hop and rap to make all of the white, rural kids from Carlisle feel at home. The sad part is that they did play country to make the white, rural kids from Carlisle feel at home. Sigh.
I talked with several people along the course of the night, predominantly Maritza though, with enough others through the night’s events as to not monopolize her. When it began to get dark, I looked at the forlorn sky and felt the pangs within me. It was time to do what I had come to do.
I told Maritza to get Ryan and meet me on the deck below. Meanwhile, I went to get my package from my backpack and hurried along to get back. We perched along a lonely stretch of railing and looked out at the city skyline, lit up with small yellow lights on the black faces of buildings. The river, dark and rippling like a living mirror, was torn up by the ship moving forward, leaving white foam in its wake. There wasn’t much light onboard, enough to see, but little enough to make it dramatic. I began telling the story that I’d gone over in my head several times since January, the one I wrote down to consolidate the information on the MUN trip in March. Krebs came by and interrupted less than half way through and we obliged her conversational gambits, getting our stories straight. Mrs. Krebs is one of my favorite teachers and I enjoy her immensely, but her timing that night sucked. After she’d gone, I proceeded to explain all of the hidden and unknowledgable things I had done wrong, with a twinge of pain in my breast as the faces appeared in the water like ghosts in foam. Regina. Annie. Kelly. I’d felt the feeling and still gotten it wrong in all three cases. It was time to take care of it.
I unwrapped the package where I had a single rose. The rose that I’d gotten to symbolize the decision I’d made six months earlier that was coming to bear that night. I found myself feeling happy, satisfied with my life as it was. It’s not perfect, but it’s satisfactory by my definition. I have friends, family, a budding career full of promise, and a future to look forward to. I’ve given up my feuds of the past with Evan, Dan, and all the other enemies who’ve caused me grief in the past. I am letting the pain of the past go.
In letting it go, I’m losing the Brain. All of the residual anger and hurt that I used to fuel the Brain was dissipating. He was dying. The misery that I’d caused for myself and others lost its importance as I stood on the water, in the city that was, at least in the abstract, my home. I came to see all cities as I’d seen Pittsburgh. This was no different.
The people who had been my curse and comfort for the past four years, who’d seen me struggle and succeed, were along with me on the ride. Lindsay, who was my first lab partner in Mrs. Daniels class. Laura, with whom I completed my first ever history project for Petre. Gibbons, who was my friend during Brent’s math class and with whom I’d lost touch with in the past year. And John, who has been my greatest friend and companion, even though I see him less than just about anyone, who was a part of Robbins’ failure of an English class with me. We were all together in the city. The past and the present became insignificant labels as I knew what I’d known all along. Where I am doesn’t change who I am. Only I can do that. The place is an influence, but change only comes from a compliance within. To resist is to be strong. To endure is to be powerful. With my two best friends from the last year of a sterling high school career, I threw the rose into the water in a gesture of letting go, killing the Brain, and forsaking the super-villain all at once. It fell and quickly slid into the dark waters behind us. At that moment, I knew I had successfully killed the Brain, cut him off like a vestigial limb and dropped him into the river. His influence faded like the snows of winter in the spring, or the winds dying down at last; and what was left was calm and possibility and peace.
TO BE CONCLUDED...