For Us This Once - Preface and Chapter One

I’m writing this because I have nothing else. Nothing else to do, no other means to express what’s been on my mind for quite some time now. If I could paint, I would. If I could make a Ghibli movie to remind people of the beauty that’s right out the front door, I would. There isn’t really any other way to put it except that I want to tell our story, what it was like to live in our time, learn what we learned, see what we saw. I’m an authority on nothing except my own experience, and even that is and was fairly hazy at times. I just want you, whoever you may be, ten months or ten decades down the line, to hear what we had to say, the pain we felt and directionless path many of us took. And I want you to know that many of us made it out the other side. And for that I’m grateful. Here is the only thing I know how to do.

Chapter One

John Maker stood up from the breakfast table as quickly as he had sat down at it. The Cap’n Crunch had done its job and now the car asked to be warmed up. Departure time was still 20 minutes off, but touching the steering wheel on that type of morning was out of the question. The sun shone through the window over the sink in the kitchen as it always did on those types of winter mornings, cold but still hopeful and energizing. A craggle of barren tree branches reached up into the southeastern sky, latticing the rising sun into unequal parts.

The car started on the first try. Always a good sign. John’s heart beamed as he gave Snowball a once-over. There always was something about minivans built in the nineties, and John was proud to have one. He felt a tiny pang of guilt as he thought of all the gas he was wasting just to make his drive to school more pleasant, but assuaged the feeling by remembering that this was the last day before Christmas break, and he wouldn’t need to do it again until January.

“I’m ready when you are,” Teresa said as he walked back in the front door, adjusting her school-uniform skirt with a bit of frustration. “Just gotta get my backpack from my room.”

John’s brow furrowed a bit. “Don’t you wanna eat something?”

“No, I’m good,” she answered as she headed back up the stairs. For a moment John thought to press the issue further but quickly thought better of it. He had noticed that she had all but completely stopped eating breakfast lately, but knew nothing good would come from his delving into her business. There are some lines even teenage boys know not to cross.

The drive to school was short and uneventful, though perhaps slower and more cautious than it had been in the past. Having been stopped for speeding in the school zone just two days before, when the fifteen mile-per-hour light was flashing no less, it just seemed like the right thing to do. He had no interest in turning his warning (having been recognized as a local by the intervening officer) into a full-blown ticket. The warning had worked; he now drove warned.

“Do you need a ride home today?” John asked as they got out of the car in the gymnasium parking lot. The grass on the baseball field shone as the sun reflected off the newly-formed frost. The cold, cloudless blue sky inclined one toward an optimistic outlook on the day. The thought that he had just two exams that day and then would be free, reinforced that notion.

“No, I don’t have any afternoon exam, so Kendall and I are probably just gonna go out for lunch and then to her house after.” John smirked subtly. The start of break meant that they probably wouldn’t see each other again until Christmas Eve or so. Breaks meant hanging out with friends, and spending all of one’s time at their houses.

The path up to the center of campus was fairly steep but today John couldn’t be bothered. As he reached the benches, the outdoor meeting point of the school, Teresa joined her friends and headed off on her way into the girls’ side of the school. See you after a while, he thought to himself. John and Teresa weren’t all that particularly close, but he being a junior and she a freshman, he did feel some sense of responsibility to make sure she got on alright. He cared about her in typical older-brother fashion, but knew she could take care of herself. Most of what he knew about her life he inferred from her emotional state during their morning drives to school.

Turning toward the archway John caught a glimpse of a familiar face walking unobtrusively toward the side entrance of the boys’ school. Thinks he can sneak inside without anyone noticing, John thought as he planned his attack. Boy, is he mistaken.

“Austin Siemens, you son of your mother!” John shouted as he tackled him from behind. “You trying to sneak into homeroom without receiving your morning hug?!” John’s smile widened as he pulled Austin in tight. Austin strained against him, sensing what would come next. John’s eyes turned wild and devilish as he slipped his hands into Austin’s armpits. “Time for your medicine!” he shouted as Austin fought to get free of the tickling. He held on for just a second, enjoying this cameraderous moment with his friend, and then let go.

“John, you really are an asshole,” Austin said as soon as he had caught his breath. “Just once I’d like to get to school without being sexually assaulted.”

“Impossible, profoundly impossible, my dear Watson,” John answered with a turn. “Seeing as how the two of us share not the same homeroom this year, it seems I could never relinquish this last bastion of morning emotional connection to the distant midnight ship that is Austin Siemens.”

“You see me everyday at lunch and we hang out most weekends,” Austin replied, a bit exasperated. “How much more connection do you need?”

“Insufficient, Watson, woefully insufficient,” John answered with a broadening smile. “The body needs what it needs, and I shan’t give up what I hold most dear.”

“What about Devan? Can’t you hug him?”

“Who’s to say I don’t? You know nothing of what I do when we’re apart, Mr. Siemens.” John beamed once again, knowing all too well that he had won.

“Fine, whatever dude,” Austin replied curtly, trying to sound more irritated than he actually was. He hated to admit it, but knowing John cared about him so much did feel good.

John Maker and Austin Siemens were simultaneously as alike and dissimilar as two teenage boys could be. Though similar in height, John’s forceful yet jolly nature always made him seem a bit taller. Maybe his pride and his joy in simply being alive made him stand up straighter. Whatever the reason was, on the surface Austin’s affect could not be more different from his. His posture slouched, his eyes often avoiding contact with others, Austin seemed always to be looking for an escape from any and every situation. School, and all its forced social interactions, wore him out a great deal more so than his peers. He talked to as few people as possible and enjoyed talking to even fewer.

John, by contrast, loved the hustle and bustle of school life, liked the social clubs and acting in the school play, even enjoyed doing homework. He knew in his heart that it was all a game, that none of it mattered, that after these four years no one would ever care (or even ask him) what grade he had gotten in Algebra II or Medieval History, or what he had accomplished as sophomore class president, but he played along nonetheless. It was nice just to have something to do, and to do something with his friends. While by no means leaders or role models in their class, he and Austin, along with their two friends Devan and Kip, had been somewhat forced into leadership roles after being the only students in their class to make the honor roll the first semester of high school. This had immediately and irrevocably labeled them the smart kids in their class, which came with all the accompanying responsibilities and expectations from both classmates and teachers. They had been friends before, but that event had fused their friendship into a smaller, stronger bond, given it an identity, made it exclusive. Though as time went on other students would make the honor roll, and the four of them would form other friendships, they were and always would be the Smart Kids, and no one could take that away from them.

Where John and Austin saw their greatest similarities was on the inside; they both loved to laugh and they both loved to cause (or to witness) trouble. Like the rest of their class, they loved chaos and a good belly laugh above all else. No teacher or classroom was safe from their mischief. The class had developed this identity in elementary school, where perhaps a strong-willed teacher or two had tried to subjugate them, to pin them under their thumb, to put the fear of God or the principal in them, but had only encouraged them, inflamed their passions, forced them to push back exponentially harder. Now, a few years on and with grades and reputations to worry about, the Smart Kids delegated most of the troublemaking to their classmates with less to lose and more to gain from negative publicity. Their collective consciousness was such that a victory for one was a victory for all, that any battle won (or even simply fought) against their oppressors was to be celebrated by all, that any detention or suspension doled out to the perpetrating individual was worth the sweet, ecstatic yet momentary triumph of having made the class laugh.

John and Austin, having receded from the front lines years before, made it a point to spread the good word of their classmates’ heroic deeds. Classes above and below theirs marveled at the audacity of their pranks, their opportunistic mishaps, their close calls. Lunchtime in the dining hall was often a smorgasbord of new yarns offered deferentially to their classmates of the fairer sex. Because the school was segregated on the basis of gender, with only a handful of classes being co-educational, their female counterparts often missed the most courageous of their classmates’ acts, being left with only word of mouth and their imaginations to suffice. In this capacity John’s colorful storytelling and Austin’s reinforcing details sated the appetites that the salad bar and chicken patties could not.

While the class felt responsible for making each other laugh, John felt responsible for making Austin laugh. Though he knew very little of the details, John knew Austin had taken his parents’ recent separation and divorce particularly hard. An old refrain, father gets bored, finds a younger, more attractive woman to carouse around with, tells family he’s moving out, shatters family’s life all while constantly offering up reasons why things aren’t going to be that different. Though they’d never talked about it, John could tell the respect and trust Austin had placed in his father had been decimated. It had shaken him to his core; a pillar of his life had come crashing down and now he knew of nothing to do other than to keep coming to school and pretend nothing had happened. He had never been too sure of himself before; now his gaze rarely rose from the ground, perhaps hoping that no new threats would emerge if he simply didn’t look at them. John saw the sadness in his eyes, just barely below the surface, though Austin sought desperately to conceal it. As much as he wished they could talk about it, that had never been the way of their friendship; opening up was John’s strong suit, not Austin’s. Maybe Austin wished they could talk about it too; at times in more private settings he seemed ready to, but then perhaps fear or self-rejection came shouting back into his ear, and the conversation quickly turned to more masculine, less emotionally triggering topics. Whether the conversation would ever actually happen, or if Austin needed to have it, John knew not, but he hoped his friend knew he was available for him should the moment ever arise.

“Speaking of Devan, he said he wants to get cheesesteaks after school today, and I think Kip does too,” John said as they headed into the school and up the first flight of stairs. “You in or is your mom making something?”

“Yeah, I’m in,” Austin replied with a smile, the thought of greasy, cheesy goodness lifting his spirits. If there was one passion John and Austin shared, it was salty, fatty, unhealthy foods in all their glory. “Whose house?”

“Devan’s, I think,” John answered. “And maybe spend the night there, first sleepover of Christmas break? I’ve certainly got another all-nighter of Final Fight in me if you do.”

Austin chuckled a bit. “Yeah maybe, but I’ll probably just watch and let you guys doing the playing though,” Austin said with a grin.

“Works for me,” John replied happily, and quickly shooting his friend with an imaginary finger pistol, ran off to homeroom.