I still can’t believe what I did today. Hours later, and I’m a laughing, sweaty mess.
Coming home has a way of regressing a person many years: I become hyper, hungry, distracted, messy, and incapable.
So when my best friend Lucas called, saying he was coming home to NJ for the weekend, I couldn’t pass up the chance to join. After half a year of not seeing him, we packed into my living room like teenagers again, drinking beer and talking about rock music, concerts, and arm exercises. Except now he’s married with a one-year-old son living in Baltimore, and I’m living on my own across the Hudson with a dead Christmas tree.
Lucas: Living the dream, Doug. New York financier and bachelor.
He clinked my beer in a cheers and radiated that smile all the girls in high school loved, all the women we met at bars in our 20s loved – his tour de force and kryptonite.
Me: Thanks. It’s been pretty wild I’ve gotta say.
Lucas: Proud of you, man. It takes a lot to just pick up at 40 and move out and get a job. Good for you.
Oh, Lucas. He’s got this way of making even the sincerest of compliments sound condescending. It’s why people who don’t know him think he’s a jerk. But I know he’s awesome.
Me: Still can’t believe you’re a dad. And he’s still kickin’.
Lucas: Neither can I. I keep waiting for the day when someone realizes Sharon and I have no idea what we’re doing.
Me: Well, I know, but I’m not telling anyone.
Lucas: You’re a good friend.
We took another swig of our beers, surrounded by photos of my family trip to Bermuda in middle school, my kindergarten photo, and some memorabilia from college down south.
Me: Wanna go back to high school?
Lucas: Yeah, I mean, it would be fun. I’m pretty sure I peaked there.
Me: No, I mean right now. Visit.
He cocked his head like a dog who heard a doorbell.
Lucas: We can’t, it’s a Sunday. No one’s there.
Me: Who cares. Let’s just drive and walk around it. It’s been ages.
So we pack into my dad’s Honda Civic with a couple bags of Cheetos and fruit snacks, blasting Bon Jovi, and we race to the high school in the center of town.
It looked like a spaceship. It had grown, at least, four times the size since we scattered the place in our Nikes and sweatbands and pimples.
We got out of the car and wandered the grounds, peering into the cafeteria and 70s-style classrooms.
I put my nose up to the space between the two doors in the entranceway.
Me: It smells… it smells like teen spirit… and rejection.
He pushed me aside.
Lucas: Let me.
He took a big whiff.
Lucas: It smells like… like anatomy textbooks and… hairspray.
I ran to the long end of the building, looking into a computer and photography lab – and that’s when I saw it.
There, in all it’s hidden glory, was a door slightly ajar. An open door. Leading inside the high school.
Me: Lucas. No way. The door is open.
Lucas hurries over and looks.
Me: We’re going in.
So I swing the door open quietly, and we both tiptoe into the hallway, on the same carpeting and tile we once walked on to get to Spanish class. We look around, like we just landed on a new planet.
Lucas: Everything is so… shiny. And just big. When did the hallways get so big.
Lucas took out his phone and started snapping photos, making a video for Sharon of the bathroom where he used to play cards while skipping math class.
Walking through the long hallways brought back memories of truth-or-dare in the auditorium, breaking my nose during frisbee at lunch, asking a girl Emily out seven times junior year, and getting erections in history class. Really, a whole outpouring of insecurities. So much has changed and so much has stayed the same.
Lucas: Doug. Check this out.
I ran over to a section of lockers.
Lucas: This is where that kid hid the dissected pig. They didn’t find him for months.
Kids are sick.
I ran around the bend of the language arts hallway and spotted something I hadn’t seen before.
Me: Lucas, over here! There’s an entirely new wing.
The wing was practically glistening with fresh paint and new windows, connecting the language arts hallway to the history classes.
We looked at it the way many look at the Brooklyn Bridge when seeing it for the first time. With awe.
Me: Let’s go.
We dart down the hallway, when suddenly we hear a…
“click.”
I turn to Lucas. We both lock eyes.
We hear a voice. It’s automated.
“Intruders. Intruders. Intruders. Intruders.”
FUCK
We run, screaming like banshees through the new wing, through the language arts hallway, passed the spanish classroom, and through the open door to the outdoors. The alarm is whirling throughout the entire spaceship of a school.
Me: The new wing. It…it has new technology.
I yell back at Lucas as we race to my dad’s Honda Civic, hollering like we’re at a metal concert.
Lucas: Step on it. Step on it Doug.
I push my key into the ignition and slam on the gas.
We circle the parking lot and fire up the driveway, back onto the main road.
Lucas and I: WHAT THE FUCK WE’RE ON CAMERA
We’re yelling screaming laughing huffing puffing. Dying and alive, all at once.
Me: They’re gonna see our plastered faces on camera. Our looks of absolute fear. That’s what they’ll show on TV.
Lucas: The wanted posters, it’ll be all over.
Me: The cops, they’re gonna arrive.
We pull into my parent’s driveway, Cheetos and fruit snacks scattered about the dashboard.
We sit in the car, attempting to catch our breath. Bon Jovi still blasting. Sweat raining down our necks and temples.
I look at Lucas: my oldest friend, who’s seen me at my smallest, largest and now, my sweatiest.
Me: You’ve got to come home more often.
thesaintgermain 