April 1st in Posso's Prompts

“A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself.” - Jim Morrison

Shannon and I were pretty inseparable, especially in high school. We shared a locker all four years of high school, even our senior year when we didn’t have to. We were the awkward ones that were smart but didn’t want to be known as such. I ran cross country through middle and high school. I was fat. I fucking hated running. The motivation for running in middle school was getting the free dilly bar coupons for Dairy Queen from my cross country coach and going to town on ice cream and sugar every day on my walk home from school. In high school, it was so I could spend time with my best friend. As I currently get back into shape to run some little dinky 5k and 5 mile races this spring, I can still hear Shannon’s mom screaming at me on the side of a golf course we’d be running a meet on, “Zachary! Keep your elbows in! Move your arms! Breathe!” Lord knows why but how to correct my running form is emblazoned in my mind, body, and soul.
Shannon lived the country, at first near a lake when we were younger. Ironically, I can remember making homemade ice cream with his mom, dad and brother after our dinners before my mom would come pick me up. God I love ice cream. His family ended up building a house on top of a hill with access to a private lake. We would skate on the lake in the winter, aimlessly fish off of the shore in the summer and burn everything in sight like the young pyros we were. One sleepover, Shannon and I were lighting our sock lint on fire (try it, its fun as long as you don’t start a sock on fire) when it was decided that since it was dark, and we were listening to some record on his player that we could cover up the sounds of lighting farts on fire. When we attempted this, I had nothing. I couldn’t squeeze out a sound. Shannon worked up one though, and I saw his legs go into the air and over his head. “It’s coming!” as I watched the Bic light up and for a brief moment saw a flame push out with a poof. I started laughing maniacally. Shannon, on the other hand, was not laughing. You see, as the fart came out, the methane squeezed out, but the flame followed the path. Almost simultaneously the smell of burnt hair along with the sound of Shannon yelping occurred. “MY ASS! MY ASSHOLE’S ON FIRE!” For a brief moment we both panicked before he started laughing and then I started laughing and from what I can remember we laughed for a good hour before we got told to be quiet because we were keeping the schoolteacher awake.
Shannons dad was the high school chemistry teacher. This was perfect in the sense that the man gave me all the knowledge to be successful in wreaking havoc. Summers were spent launching model rockets into the air. We made slime, goo, tie dyed. I think I took every chemistry class that was offered in our high school and when there wasn’t enough interest to get the highest level classes off, I took independent studies and was a teachers assistant and basically got to fuck around with Bunsen burners, acids, corrosive reactions - it was a dream come true. Junior year, Shannon and I had the locker outside of his dads classroom. This came in especially one day when my friend was in a bit of a predicament. I’m not saying this next part is a good thing or not, but it happened. Boys are gross in high school and with grossness comes physical education and more importantly, getting kids to practice hygiene after class. We had gym the last period of the day and Shannon and I had sports after so most of the time my fat ass never had to worry about showing my manboobs in the shower, but other kids weren’t so lucky. There was a good amount of ass slapping, grabbing and well, peeing in the showers. Not saying that Shannon did any of the above but one day amongst the hootin’ and hollerin’ some kid thought he was getting peed on and for once, the gym teacher was around. He screamed and yelled at many of the kids, Shannon included. After the showers, Shannon got called into the phys ed office. He walked out with a yellow demerit slip. I can’t tell you exactly what it said anymore but I know that to this day the words, “detention, peeing, and masturbating” were on said slip. Shannon had to explain this to his dad, a teacher in the same school, the following morning. I huddled the masses under his dad’s room door, it was ventilated on the bottom since it was a chemistry lab. The screams of anguish and disappointment could be heard down the hall.
My favorite memory about that situation though was the grin Shannon walked out with on his face after his dad’s tongue lashing. He was fucking laughing. It made me laugh just thinking about it.
Shannon gave me shit over my first long distance girlfriend, telling me I was a pussy for not finding some ‘slummy whore in Spooner.’ We melted micro machine bases with gasoline for English class just because. We tortured a girl with bottle rockets and homemade “noise poppers” made with toilet bowl cleaner and aluminum foil. I had my first Leinie’s out of Shannon’s dad’s stash. One time, the dummy burnt me a full length CD of porno background music. Our first close encounter with the law occurred one lunch period when he was ripping down snowmobile signs in city park because they were wrecking the groomed cross country skiing trails. I was driving my shitty Ford Tempo through the countryside the night of our senior class party when my muffler fell off of the car and the sheriffs stopped to see if we had been drinking. (we hadn’t and had chickened out about going to the party in my shitty car) I didn’t get to see him much but kept in contact with him while he was going to school in Ashland. He came to visit me while he was at Norte Dame and it ended with both of us black out drunk, me with McDonalds and him on the other side of the capitol, 4 miles away from my house. The next morning I found him covered in puke on my roommates futon with a flip phone that ‘was supposed to be indestructible’ (his words) snapped into two. I was fortunate enough to be invited to his small, private, and incredible wedding ceremony and have been able to meet and get to know his wife, which I have to admit, I never saw coming. We always joked about never being able to find women to tolerate us, but he actually found one that loves him.
It’s been 15 years since I’ve been able to consistently see one of my favorite people, and closest friends, but we stay in touch and he always has a place in my heart to bring me back to why I was able to survive Spooner.
Happy birthday, you April fool.