Talent Show, Take Three - 1/21/2007 in 2005 - 2007: High School

The reason I haven't been writing is that almost every interaction I have had with my friends during the past two weeks has made me want nothing more to do with any of them. Nothing more to do with people, actually. Social interactions leave me feeling dirty. Because people are dirty. There's always something wrong with them. They're always weak. How can anyone be worth knowing if I can hate Molly? It used to be that she was the only thing I could be sure of, the one person I could trust absolutely. What the fuck is wrong with humanity if all of a sudden, for no reason, I want nothing to do with her? What the fuck is wrong with me? I have started to seriously think about what would be the best way to quietly remove myself from her life. Or to quietly remove myself from life.

I feel this way after every time I see her, but I always get over it in time for the next hanging out. I can't hang out with anyone if she's not there. And I can't not hang out. It's habit. They're all bad, of course. But she's the embodiment of it. The last two weeks have been filled with hanging out which has always left me disgusted and in pain.

Last night was the worst. We hung out Friday, and that was painful, and it made me not want them to come over. But I'd basically already invited them, so there was nothing I could do. They came. We watched some Star Wars. We had agreed earlier that we would go to the talent show after that, but Molly decided she didn't want to. I insisted that I was going. I said that if she didn't want to go, she didn't have to. She followed us out to Dave's car anyway, complaining. In the car the argument continued. "Why are we going to this? It's going to be terrible. There's no talent at the highschool."

"Why don't you just not go?"

"Aidan, you're the only one who wants to go."

Pause.

"Do none of you guys really want to go?"

"I kind of want to go," said Dave.

"Well then I'm not the only one."

"Molly, do you want to do something at my house?" said Bonnie.

"...Okay, I guess." They got out of the car. I got into the front passenger's seat where Molly had been. They walked away.

"Well, now that we've gotten rid of those losers," said Dave, followed by nothing.

I'm not entirely sure why I had insisted so firmly that I was going to the talent show. It probably had something to do with the fact that I was not in it. And perhaps that Julian was. Maybe it was the principal of the thing, that Molly wanted to keep us from doing something just because she didn't want to. Maybe I just felt like an argument.

There were even fewer people in the audience this year than there were last. The MCs kept us updated on the exact number. It started at seventy-two and went up to about a hundred as people drifted in late. The first act was terrible. Things got better after that, but it was all pretty generic and most of the bands consisted of the same approximately seven people.

Julian's band consisted of Jack, Malcolm, and last year's B band drummer, who is this year's A band drummer number two. He started out on trumpet. Before, I thought he had a pretty mediocre sound on trumpet, not even close to what he can get on saxophone. But last night it was clear and warm and honest and beautiful, like it is on sax. The band played a sort of mellow major seventhy thing, and he improvised, sounding very much like his new hero and the reason he took up the trumpet, Miles Davis. (I know this only indirectly through Mr. Thomas. I have not had an actual conversation with Julian in months.) The band started to change what they were playing. It became more intense, and harmonic minor. Julian disappeared backstage and came out with his saxophone. He improvised again, in his typical style which, after a few years, has become very familiar to me. Let me explain something about Julian's improvisational style: He is always reserved. Sometimes there is a little emotion, just in the right places, and there's always thought and there's always beauty. But he plays like he is - it's all thoughtfulness and intelligence and glimpses of emotion from beneath a serene exterior. He stands still, with his eyes closed and his body slightly twisted, one shoulder higher than the other.

He started out that way, last night. But then something happened that I've never witnessed before. It kept building and building, more than it ever does, hotter and hotter until his warm honest sound went out the window and violent, passionate bursts of noise came out of his horn. He started to move his body, jerking back and forth and closing his eyes even tighter as the saxophone screamed and wailed. It was amazing. And it hurt me, it became a physical pain filling me and pressing me until I could hardly breath. It made me want to slit my wrists. I lied to myself. I love him. God, I love him. I want him. But I'll never get to know him. I might never speak to him again, more than a few words. He's beautiful. Even when I hate everyone, I love him. How can it be that that beauty will never come close enough to me for it to become a part of me? That I'll never be able to completely see it or touch it or understand it or even know that it's real? How can it be that the one person who I want to know, even now, who's worth knowing and who's never weak or disgusting will not come near me anymore? How can that be? Realization in the form of emotion came crashing down on me as I sat watching him, listening to him. I love him. The song cooled down. He ended softly, gently, fading away as Jack played a light, final chord. He pulled the reed from his mouth and I saw him grin, looking at Malcolm. The microphone picked up a little bit of his unapologetically dorky laugh.

The lights came up for intermission. I sat next to Dave, silent and still crushed and stupified by pain. I could feel my sanity start to slip away.

"Julian has a nice sound on trumpet," said Dave.

"Yes, he does."

"I can't say I've enjoyed many of these bands."

"Some of them were okay."

"We need to start a band."

"We've been over this many times."

Jenn saw us, waved to us, and came over to us with the person who at this point may or may not be her boyfriend. "Has John Reza gone on yet?" she said.

"Yeah, he went first."

"Oh damn, we missed him. Was he good?"

"...No."

She laughed. "He blows himself, you know."

"What?"

"He told Pete when they used to be really good friends. He puts his head up against a wall and his legs behind his head and... Well, you know the rest."

"So... You don't like this person," I said.

"No."

"Why did you want to see him?"

"It sounded like he was going to be bad, and I thought it would be funny."

"Oh. I don't know John Reza. I have an absolutely neutral opinion towards him."

"But... He blows himself," she said. At this point she saw someone else she knew and walked away, and Pete followed her.

Molly may be mean and gossipy. She even outright asked Eric if he was gay last week. But something tells me she's not nearly as bad as the majority of the population. People suck. I don't want to be one anymore.

I'm gossipy too. I shouldn't have told everyone about Julian the way that I did. What I feel for him is sacred. No one needs to know about it. That violates its sanctity, not to mention makes his life a lot dumber and more complicated. I shouldn't agree with people who say he's asexual, either. I shouldn't assume that. How the fuck would I know? If he says he's straight, and he does, that should be good enough for me.

And I sure as hell shouldn't be writing this entry right now, badmouthing Molly, behind her back and right under her nose. What the hell am I doing? I'm being one of those catty middle school girls who's dumb enough to get into internet fights because she trusts the internet to keep her mean, catty secrets. I shouldn't hate my best friend in the first place, and if I do I should have a good reason, and if I don't have a good reason I should at least shut up about it - keep it to myself. But I can't. I'm weak. These things do happen to me. I'm not exempt from them. I'm a little catty too. I have no right to be angry at her. I'm just as bad as she is. And my life is going to be ruined by this diary, this diary is my weakness and it's going to be the end of me, I can just feel it.

"Do you want to leave?" I said to Dave.

"Yeah, sort of." He called Bonnie and we drove to her house. The car ride was silent for a few minutes. Then suddenly I got the desperate urge to reach out to Dave. Maybe he would understand. He always understands, maybe he would understand. Then I tried to express what I was feeling, and all I came up with some dumb crap about college. I sounded crazy. I wasn't making sense. It wasn't working. We went back to silence.

I was acting pretty crazy at Bonnie's house. I realized this but couldn't do anything to stop it. We were in the basement. After Molly randomly smacked my ass, which she does fairly often and which I hate, I ran upstairs. Not angrily, I just disappeared.

I found a bathroom and sat in it, on the floor.

From downstairs, I heard, "Wait, where did Aidan go?"

"I don't know. She just ran off. She's... being pretty... crazy today." That was Dave. My heart sank. He didn't understand. He didn't get it.

There was some more general conversation, then, a few minutes later, "Seriously, maybe we should go find her." I heard them come upstairs. Finally they asked if I was in the bathroom, and I said yes. Then I went back downstairs and said that maybe I should go home.

My mother picked me up. She wanted to know what had happened, why I hadn't gotten a ride. I said that nothing happened, I just felt like going home, which was true. She doesn't believe me.

I tried to think of something to do when I got home. Anything. I ended up playing "All Blues" on the flute over and over again, and then improvising to the bassline on garageband. It made me feel a little better. I realized though that I was improvising in Julian's style. I found myself using a pattern of rising eighth notes, followed by a jump to a high note, then down low again, then a higher note, dissonant this time. That is exactly something he would do. I copied it from him exactly. He does that all the time. All Blues was a good song for the state of mind I was in. It almost never goes back to the root note. It hangs around other notes. It's like things almost get resolved, but nope, too bad, they never do. It made me feel better, but not good.

I didn't get dressed today. I have been moping around and recovering and wondering what to do. I am not going to kill myself. I decided that around noon. But I do want to go to college. That's what I said to Dave in the car, actually. I want to go to college. I want desperately to go to college and be rid of this place. I sort of wish I could kill myself just for six and a half months, and then come back. I just don't want to be here. I want this life to be over. Whenever I've gotten really depressed in the past, I've wanted to run away and never come back. Well, in six and a half months, I'm doing that. I'm running away, with society's approval, and starting a new life.

It'll be interesting to see to what extent I get over this, and how the rest of the school year goes.