beautiful monsters

MyOldFriend

My friend Chris is dead. Everything on earth is wrong today.

I can’t believe it. I can still hear his voice, his chuckle, see his grin in my mind. I saw him, only a few weeks ago, he was happy, he looked good. Alive. He had cancer, we had a few months warning, but it still doesn’t seem to make any sense. For the past few years we’ve lived in different cities, and still feel as though I could pick up the phone, and tell him all my problems, and he would take them apart and analyse them until they didn’t seem so huge. I can’t get my head around it.

Chris was awesome. When I was a 3rd former, and he was in 6th, I used to go to bed at night, and ring him up (we both had phones in our rooms) and we would talk until we had to get up for school the next morning. We didn’t hang out that much at school, we both had friends our own age, but at night, on the phone, he was my bestest bud. Philosophy, religion, poetry, psychology, sex, we talked about everything. He was the first person I came out to. OMG, I had forgotten, he was the first person I came out to. Wow.

It was one of those all night conversations, and it took me the whole night to work up the nerve. Finally, as dawn seeped into the sky, I managed to stutter it. I think my exact words were “um, you know um sexually... I think I’m more attracted to girls.” I honestly don’t remember what he said. He probably analysed it all, came up with some conclusion about whether I was bi or lesbian or just curious, I have no idea. I just remember that it changed nothing. He was still my bestest bud.

He was also remarkable because he was a close guy friend who I didn't have any fucked up sexual experiences with. Or any not-fucked-up ones, for that matter. I tried to kiss him once, but he didn’t let me. We were so close, and we would hug, and hold hands, and sometimes cuddle for hours, but he never crossed that line with me. I was so messed up I didn’t know there was a line there, it’s only looking back now I think that, for a teenage boy, he was some kind of miracle.

One of my favourite memories is of walking through the Redwood Forest in Rotorua one night, and there were glow-worms lighting up the banks on either side of the path, so many and so bright, lighting the path. It was magical.

In recent years we’ve mostly communicated online. And Chris spent so much of his life online that since he died the IRC channel he frequented most has had the topic/heading “RIP Christopher…” and the death notice in the Herald read “COWAN: Christopher James Stockdale (My Old Sock).” That was his online nick, but anyone who didn’t know him must have thought it was a strange thing to put in a death notice.

I’ve been searching for something tangible to hold on to, something he gave me, but most of my treasures are buried in boxes, here or in Rotorua. All I could find was this gold necklace that he bought for the girl we both fell for. She wasn't in love with either of us, so instead of fighting over, we sympathised with each other. Anyway, he bought her this necklace, I remember him describing it over the phone, asking if I thought she'd like it. He said every 5th link had a plate instead of a loop, it sounded weird but it was pretty. It had something hanging on it, a charm, a sparkly flower, I think. Anyway, she wouldn’t take it so he gave it to me. Kind of a random, back-handed present, but it made me laugh. I didn't like the charm, but I still have the chain. It's so thin and delicate, I'm scared it will break if it catches on my clothes.

Oh Chris, what am I going to do without you?

When we were old we were going to have a cottage together, with a cat, and a stream with a bridge so we could play Pooh-Sticks. He was the kind of friend who was always going to be there.

His mother says it was peaceful, she says “he just didn’t take the next breath.”

God I’ll miss him. I miss him already.

Posted by Fionnaigh at August 9, 2006 02:04 AM | TrackBack