A Boy We Called Matt

His name was Matthew.

We called him Matt.

I’m not sure if that’s what he preferred or if that’s just what we all called him by default.

Matt was quiet. He had opinions though. I mean he had a personality. He wasn’t one of those guys where you could engage in the most impassioned monologue in front of and get nothing in return. Matt had opinions...it just took him a bit longer to share them compared to other people.

Matt listened well too. He wasn’t running his mouth all the time which gave him a chance to actually listen to what you were saying. I guess that’s kind of rare.

I’m not really sure when I met Matt. It’s one of those things that just happened sometime back...well you know, sometime back then. He was kind of one of those guys that I built a friendship with out of thin air...out of nothing. As if one day we came up to each other for the first time, hugged each other and started talking about...you know...whatever.

“Hey you wanna come over tomorrow?”
“Yeah dude. What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know, we could play video games. There’s this sweet movie out right now. You wanna go check it out?”
“Cool.”

That was probably what our first conversation was like. A conversation like that is the steel fiber that binds the hearts of two teenage boys together. There is no stronger bond. Of course our conversations got more open and vulnerable as time went on...

“Hey bro you wanna go to the mall?”
“Yeah bud, let’s do it!”
“Cool!”

(Note the terms bro & bud coupled with the indicative exclamation marks.)

You see Matt had a Jeep. I didn’t have a car. Matt lived 2 miles away from my house. It worked out well. I know what you’re thinking...don’t even go there. I didn’t use Matt for his car. It just worked out well that’s all.

Matt and I would get in these dumb conversations that would turn into even dumber arguments.

"Where'd you park?"
"I parked my jeep over near that Volvo."
"What did you say? Volvo? Dude, that’s not how you say Volvo.”
“Hey bro I know how to say Volvo...my family drives one.”
“Whatever dude.”
“Whatever dude.”

For serious. I have this argument on tape to this day.

Side note: I was in journalism and I carried around this tape recorder recording quotes for articles or whatever. For some reason I wanted to record one of our conversations. Maybe to listen to later on and analyze Matt’s strategy in order to ascertain a weakness in his argument model. Now that I think about it....that was kind of weird.

Then there would be this weirdness between us. You know the kind. The intangible, I-don’t-hate-you-but-I-don’t-really-like-you-right-now-and-I-probably-won’t-make-eye-contact-with-you-for-a-while type of weirdness that you have with any good friend from time to time.

I guess this would bother some people. But I knew that, come lunch time, I would make him laugh by being an idiot or he would make me laugh by saying something incredibly stupid yet incredibly funny.

Sometimes he would make these faces if he knew you were looking at him. He would make a face without looking at you and all you could think was, “you are an idiot”, and then promptly bust up laughing. I hated it when he did that. Especially when I was trying to maintain a cruel and solemn countenance in order to let him know that I was displeased with his contradicting me earlier on in the day.

It never worked.

And if by some chance we argued after lunch then I could count on Mr. Hurst’s 7th period CAD class to reunite the two tragically severed souls (Mr. Hurst was one of those teachers that seemed to have been handmade for the soul purpose of being tormented by smartass high school students). The cool thing was that he knew we were idiots but he also liked us because we were funny. We made him laugh and made him really mad for disrupting the class all at the same time. We were walking a razor sharp edge with a strong student/teacher bond on one side and a trip to the principles office on the other. To walk that edge was a skill learned over time. Rest assured I used my new found skill in other classes as well...I suppose that’s another story.

Looking back I remember there being a change in class. Things got...I don’t know darker maybe. It wasn’t just my CAD class. It was the second half of my Senior year.

When you’re a teenager in High school there is a lot of confusion. A lot of frustration with the way things are in your world and maybe a dose of helplessness since you can’t really change or do anything about it.

Years later I’m sitting here at my computer working on something inconsequential listening to a song that catapults me back to a time past....a time back then. It’s a song...well it’s a sad song. Some people would say it’s a happy song but it’s not. It was a song that was played at Matt’s funeral.

You see Matt got Leukemia late in his Junior year. It went into remission. We thought it was good. We thought it was fine. But then it resurfaced his Senior year. Not that that meant anything to us as his friends. People can’t die when they’re teenagers. It just doesn’t happen. You might as well ignore it.

“Where’s Matt?”
“Oh he’s sick again. It’s nothing big. He’ll be back soon I’m sure.”

I remember taking trips to the hospital to see Matt. Seeing him like that...all bloated from the Chemotherapy. Yellowish in complexion. It was like reality was trying to works it's cruel, eye opening fingers into our teenage worlds to show us that life is unforgiving and life is hard. It never really worked though. It never really made it into our concepts of reality. Not yet anyway.

And then one morning we all got a call from the school counselor. I don’t suppose I need to tell you what she said. It didn’t really mean anything to me at that moment. All I felt was numbness and confusion. Actually I didn't feel confusion...just numbness. Dad asked me if I wanted to stay home. I said no.

No that’s cool. I’ll just go to school and act like nothing happened. It’s all good.

I got to school and the 4 of us guys just kind of looked at each other.

“Did you hear?”
“Yeah I heard.”

That’s it. What else were we supposed to say?

They called Matt’s Senior class into the library...for what exactly I can’t remember. I guess to make the announcement. We all stood there looking at each other. Actually it was the whole class looking at us. Matt’s friends. Waiting for something. I don’t know what. What are you guys looking at? What are you waiting for?

And then I looked over at Aaron and he looked at me and by some force of nature that was beyond us we were drawn into each others arms and we started crying. The dam of numbness was opened and a 100,000 pounds of reality poured out on my head right then and there. And then I felt arms around me. At first it was our two other close friends but then it was the whole class.

Oh. This is what you were waiting for.

Those long groping tendrils of reality finally found us. Consider the disillusionment shattered.

Reality: 1
Disillusionment: 0

That was so long ago. So long ago. I don’t remember how my relationship began with Matt. I don’t remember exactly how it ended either. All I can remember was what we had in-between. That’s all that matters when you think about it. It's like an Oreo cookie maybe. It's really the frosting that you care about. The black stuff is just a delivery device. Beginnings and endings are like bookends. They hold what's really important to you in-between.

They say that Matt’s dad was with him the final hour he was alive. They say right before he died he squeezed his dad’s hand as if to say goodbye.

As if to say I’ll see you later.

I never got to say goodbye to Matt. But I know I’ll say hello again to him someday.

“Hey Matt...it’s good to see you!”
“You to Nathan!”
“Hey bro you want to hang with Jesus?”
“Yeah dude!”
“Cool...

...can I get a ride?”
---------------------

Goodbye Matt.