*CLICK*
Quiet contemplation and audit, concerning my life’s now eternal past decisions, couldn't prepare me as it usually did for what this day brought. Being forced to dress like some even more gothic version of the Addam’s Family was enough, but then being told to take off my headphones and leave my father’s Walkman at home, for the simple fact it was supposedly messing up my hair, was the last fucking straw. I told my Grandmother this with prompt and admirable precision. In retrospect I think I chose the perfect moment to have my first teenage outburst. In response, her facial expression opened up to one of shock, that reminded me of those clown machines you see at carnivals, the ones where you put the ping pong balls into their mouths. Without a word, my grandmother simply shook her head, and walked out of the room muttering something about leaving me alone due to the circumstances of today’s occasion.
Turning 13, in hindsight, had very little positive regard for me or my well being. A couple of years prior, I had been well learnt concerning all the ‘normal’ changes that one might begin to experience. Although Mum uncomfortably explained that our family just happened to experience all of those things early. Let’s be clear. It still shocked me when, to my horror, I experienced a murder this particular morning, in my bedsheets. I’d call it the murder of my innocence, but that had already taken place last year, when I made my way to the kitchen in the middle of the night on christmas eve. I learnt two things that year, the first was that my parents were the ‘real’ Santa, and the second, what they were doing on the couch was definitely not wrestling. So although I have a genetic reason to be a little far past the opposite of accommodating, it crazily isn’t what I’m so upset about.
No, it isn’t my birthday, and Mummy didn’t do the invitations wrong, or get me the incorrect Disney princess decorations. As it was not my birthday, taking place a month beforehand, it is in turn a different life changing day in a teenage girl’s life; today is the day of my Father’s funeral. It’s my Dad’s going away forever day, I’m apparently on my period, which I’m totally new to, I feel pretty damn icky, and my grandmother is trying to confiscate my Father’s walkman because it messes with my hair. She can eat a grandstand sized nut sandwich, while I continue to listen to Van Halen on this sentimentally loaded tape deck. And if anyone else has a problem with it, I’m screaming “My Dad is dead and I’m on my period!” until they leave me the hell alone.
Unfortunately, my younger brother still isn’t past the stage of denial yet. I say denial, but he’s 8, so maybe it’s completely normal for him not to fathom the gravity of the situation when we say “Dad’s gone and he’s not coming back”. Stanley just insists that he’ll wait for him to come back, and sits beside Mum’s shoes by the door. If I really think about it, I’m not sure I understand what’s happened either, but maybe I’m just old enough to accept that I don’t understand the situation myself. Hey, maybe there’s a reality out there where Stanley is doing the right thing, and all we need to do is wait for Dad to come back.
I felt tears begin to race down my cheeks. Warm, reassuring tears that made their way to my chin, and dropped onto my dress, absorbing into the fabric. My aunt found her way over to me, and I instinctively held the headphones firmly to my ears. It was time to begin truly accepting the situation, time to be a grown up, it’s time to get into the car and head to the funeral. Yet, as she was facing her own fears, saying on top of that, everything is okay, my Aunt Natalie began to tear up. Tears thought of, designed, and brought into existence by the loss of her older brother. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I did what I always did. I eased her glasses away from their perch, and I put them on. I really liked glasses, my Dad wears glasses too. Wore glasses too. So it made me feel a little bit better, and Aunt Natalie was laughing at me, so I’ll call it a win.
*CLICK* My Walkman ticked over and began the intro to ‘Hot For Teacher’.
The Funeral is something I’m fairly certain that I don’t want to go into. I kinda want to forget it ever happened and move on with my life. Not because it was terrible, as far as funerals go. I don’t have much as a point of reference. I mean I haven’t been to many funerals. I’ve been to one since then, and it may have been worse, but I think that it’s probably subjective. Through all the melancholy, there are some interesting and discernable highlights I would like to share with those who weren’t there to look beyond the mediocrity of it. First of all, my grandmother, not the one I yelled at earlier, decided that during her speech, she wanted to look upon the eyes of her son. We were all unsure at first of what she meant by that possibly lovely line. Our benefit of the doubt was met with her trying to open my father’s coffin, just before the security of the venue removed her from the building, in a lilac suit prominent, cartoon-like tornado.
Apart from that display of wondrous ignorance and stupidity, I had a near infuriating interaction with the boy next door, who was invited to the funeral with his parents out of courtesy. He sat down next to me, introduced himself expecting a fist bump, and when I ignored him, he offered me gum. What in the hell is his deal? That pissed me off more than my grandmother and her attempt at a Jackass audition tape. I was so distracted that I forgot to cry, and that boy just kept trying to offer me gum. What an asshole.
*CLICK* I turned the tape over to ‘Side A’ again.
The car ride home was filled with solemn silence. Not because of the whole funeral thing we all just attended, that was grim enough on its own. This was thanks to my little brother's outburst when we got into the car, “Can we get McDonalds now? Dad might be there waiting for us.” It goes without saying, we stopped off at McDonalds. But Dad sure as hell wasn’t there. We all knew where he was, and couldn’t explain in words my brother would understand. About this time, my father was most likely being incinerated. Burning up, broken down, changed into a new type of perminancy spelt out by an equally depressing and more direct term, eternal dust. With a Big Mac in my black nail polished fingers, Stanley scoffing down nuggets and Fanta, it truly hit me for the first time since the car accident. He wasn’t coming back. No matter what I did next, or how much time I set aside to dreaming, Dustin Gray Norman was gone. My father, on our way home, died protecting me in a car crash, as rain poured down around the wreckage, and now he’s gone. The tears started up again while I was nose deep in a grief stricken McDonalds binge, on the same route home. That was the last time I ate McDonalds without my insides feeling like utter garbage afterwards.
My quiet sobbing was finally interrupted, not by my family, the responsible and regular option, but by the boy next door. You guessed it, testing my saintly patience, he offered me gum. I looked up at him with disdain, and regretted opting out of mascara for the day, now wishing it had run in order to make me more terrifying to gum peddlers. Instead, the boy looked naturally unafraid, and cheerfully poked the pack of gum further into my bubble of sanctity. So I decided to take pity on the mortal, swallowed my pride, and took a gods damned piece of fucking gum. *SNAP!* “Gotcha!” My thumb started stinging, and I must have jumped, because I was now on my feet.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“Gotcha? What in the seven dwarves do you think you’re doing Snow White? You just took a bite out of the poisoned apple! I thought you were socially stunted, but I’m adding ‘psychotic’ to the list Gum Boy.” I was obviously a little pissed off.
“Everybody likes the person who offers them a stick of gum right? So I figured adding a joke in there might- Oh gosh I see now how wrong this is. I misjudged the situation.” The boy actually seemed pretty genuine, albeit a little shocked to realise he was being a tad insensitive to the daughter of the deceased.
“Your social compass needs to be adjusted Gum Boy.” I began to laugh, and even now I can’t be sure of the reason.
“W-well you could at least learn my name. I AM sorry by the way. My name’s Theodore.” He put his hand out in a fist again, searching for a fist bump.
“Nice to meet you ‘Sorry’. What’s your first name, ‘I’m Very’?” I burst into laughter again, and Theodore opened his mouth to correct me before I caught myself, “I’m kidding Ted, it’s more or less nice to meet you. Call me Izzy.” I grabbed his fist and shook it in a handshake motion, to which I couldn’t help but snicker.
“Please don’t call me Ted.”
“Teddie?”
“Absolutely not.” Teddie seemed embarrassed by that.
“Well now that I know Theo, this one’s a non negotiable. Seeing that we’ve become such great friends, want a funeral balloon? They help to join the morbid and fun.” I motioned towards the black helium balloons tied up on our dinner table. Stanley wanted balloons because he thought it was some sort of birthday party. He wasn’t exactly wrong.
“Please stop. I was totally wrong about you. You’re ultra weir-”
I’ve been called weird a lot. To the point where I’ve trained myself to respond in a very specific way. So I cut him off with a “Thank you friendo.”
“Now, taking into account your unique nature. Do you want to see my basement?” The kid seemed pretty eager considering the location of his proposition.
For his crimes against decency, I decided to keep teasing him a bit. Overall though, I’d say he got off basically scott free. Unlike Scott Free from 6th grade, who tried to back out of a bet when I beat him in marbles. Poor kid probably still has scars on his face from where I scratched him. What was I supposed to do? Let him back out of the bet and keep his marbles? In our family, we don’t back out of anything, I think. Basically, Teddie was lucky I stuck to verbal jabs. “The last time I was propositioned like that, I had to call the police on Mr Feldson. Stranger danger and all that being what it is, I am now obliged to ask, what’s so special about this basement of yours?”
“Wait, is that a real story?” I gave him a deadpan expression, and Theo continued, “Well, my Dad- uh I mean, my parental guardian has a major thing for the 1980s, so he did up our basement in that fashion. It’s really cool. It’s full of old video games, board games, tapes, he even has a sword. I’m not allowed to touch the sword because it’s supposed to be super sharp, but anything else is cool. Interested?”
I decided to take Theo up on his offer, not because I was particularly interested, but it was better than hanging out with my crying grief stricken family, and my brother Stanley, who was now asking for a milkshake that only our Dad knew the recipe to. I actually remember the recipe, but that information would cost them $50, and I’m not in the mood for a hoodwink. It was decidedly better to take my chances in a stranger's basement.
I arrived to find a large room under the house, covered with dated wallpaper, posters, wood panelling, and dark blue carpet. There was a table on one side of the room with 8 chairs around it, in front of a large bookshelf filled with game supplements. A red velvet couch and 2 bean bag chairs sat in front of a CRT television, which in turn was hooked up to various retro game consoles on a switch. Beside the TV was a stereo atop a cabinet that contained an incredible collection of records and cassette tapes. A refrigerator sat by the stairs, humming away, containing delicious snacks and beverages. To top it all off, there was an honest to heck sword hanging on the wall behind the table, like a damn knight’s castle. The sword had a black blade that shone like glass. The cross guard was white, and engraved with ornate carvings. The handle lay wrapped in black leather, and the pommel was in the shape of an encircled five pointed white star. In a word, awesome, and I greatly wanted to touch it. “Dad said he wants to get an arcade machine in here too, but I suppose a few things might have to be shuffled around.” Theo sounded like he was trying to be humble, but the situation made it understandably hard not to brag.
*CLICK* I removed my headphones and stopped the tape.
“Theo. I don’t know what to say,” Theo was about to hang his head in beet red embarrassment before I finished,”This place is awesome! What are we gonna do first?”
“It’s usually a vote, but I think today’s different. Your choice Izzy.” I could hear the joy and enthusiasm in his voice. It was a little cute.
We decided on retro video games first. Always a good warm up in any case. My Dad always insisted on warming up with a few rounds of ‘Time Pilot’ before a game night. I was a bit rusty, but after a while I hit my groove and began dominating poor Theo, until he suggested something co-op. I was having an absolute blast. Taking a break was necessary after a couple of hours however, in order to fill our stomachs and refocus our eyes. We raided the fridge and found our stomachs satisfied with cereal, candy, and fizzy sugar filled drinks, as we watched a tape of old TV commercials.
It was around the time of my third bowl of Frosted Flakes that Theo happened to mention he had a younger sister. This came about as his sister sat down in one of the bean bag chairs, and hit the pause button on the VCR. She mentioned that she was a year younger than the both of us, and that her name was Coraline. She gave me a pack of opened trading cards with the shiny cards excluded, “So with introductions out of the way, and the clear fact that I’m generous as well as completely awesome solidified. Bro, does this mean that we can finally do the thing properly?” It seemed his sister had a unique way of speaking too. I hoped “the thing” wasn’t THAT thing, or this was about to be the last time I accepted a basement invitation.
“That’s kind of up to Izzy. Wanna play a tabletop game? It’s a role playing board game where you can do whatever you want. You play with your imagination. It’s a load of fun.” There was that sort of cute look on his face again. I wasn’t about to say no. I could always leave if it was garbage, besides I needed the distraction.
“Sounds pretty damn nerdy Theo, but I’ll play so you don’t tear up on me. What did you say it was called?” I skipped teasing him too much this time. I think maybe this whole thing began as Theo’s way of trying to distract and cheer me up. He told me later that it was for another reason, and I’m still glad he did it.
“It’s called Dungeons & Dragons.” Coraline caused a can of Pasito to exert a *psss* as she spoke, while picking out an album by an Australian rock band called ‘The Angels’.
Theo saved me that day, and I look back on it as a decent one thanks to him. We played until we actually fell asleep, before playing right through the weekend. It was just the 3 of us back then, but it marked the beginning of a weekly tradition, creating a storied adventure just as real to us as the dice we were playing with. In the early days we decided to call our group ‘The Fellowship’, as we were all Tolkien fans at heart. The larger our small group grew, the more solidified that decision became. The others have their own stories, but Theo was at the centre of them all.