Rest In Peace.

[kenny]

It’s funny how everything ties together in some weird, unexplainable way. Take last night for instance, I ran in to a friend that I have not seen for some time, and how we met is a funny story in itself, but I will save that for a later day. But this friend that I ran in to last night knew me before I moved to Salt Lake, and when he introduced me to the friends he was with, he recalled an event that took place in my old short-lived home. It went something like this. This is Kenny; he has a steel plate in his head, one day he caved this guy’s skull in with it. I did crush his face, but I do not have a steel plate, just a thick, hard, skull.

I never liked the fact that my mom uprooted me from the city I had lived in all of my life. I hated having to start at a new school, I was never social and I have always been and felt awkward, so making friends was never easy. School was hard, and the people didn’t seem to like me. Shortly after moving there, two silver spoon jocks Lance Vauce and Justin (insert random forgotten fuckwad’s last name here) teamed up on me. They smashed my skull in to a brick wall, only to leave me alone when I went in to convulsions, because they thought they had killed me. But it was just a seizure from the concussion that they had just administered. I came to being hulled out of school on a stretcher and when I finally came back to school – it was worse. Now everyone knew me, and everyone had to taunt me. I could not walk down the halls without some ridiculous comment being made. “It’s seizure boy”, “Hey act like a fish out of water”, and other mind numbing quips that made getting up everyday all that much harder. This kind of ridicule continued, because I was a pussy. A pussy who got blind sided by two bitches, but this gave everyone else the right to abuse me. This continued for the next couple of years in school and now a new bully had his sites on me, and his name was Bart. His hair was short on top, and he had a mullet that hung over his wool lined Levi’s jacket. He was one of the stoners that got high and would always cut class to smoke Camel’s out in the bushes with his friends.

Our hisstory started off with negative comments, and then it graduated to knocking my books out of my hand or pushing me in to the lockers. Sometimes I would get tripped, spit on, or whatever it was that he chose to do that day to impress the rest of little clique. I just tried to let it go, I ignored him, it makes me the better man – right? Well it didn’t, it made me miserable and his torment continued on for weeks, always trying to egg me on, always trying to get me to fight him, and one day he succeeded. For almost two years I had tried to fit in at this miserable school, two fucking years. Being nice, and minding my own business only got me ostracized and battered. It was like being relocated to some mentally ill warrior’s camp, so I said fuck it. If you can’t beat them, join them. So I told this miserable prick that I would fight him. By lunch the whole school knew, and the blood thirsty monsters were ready to see me get pummeled – just for being a quiet outsider. As the end of school neared my body was riddled with uncertainty and fear, but I did not care if I got beat down – in the back of my head I was hoping that maybe I would just get killed and then I would not have to put up with this shit any longer, but only the end of the day would bring closure.

It was a long walk that afternoon, from the school to the top-level football field and I remember that day very well. As I started to ascend to the hillside I saw a sea of bodies, it almost seemed as if they whole school had gathered. As I made my way to the center - the crowd circled like a bunch of hungry vultures. Never being one to want confrontation I just stood there, waiting for him to throw the first punch, which he did not hesitate to do. No sooner than I had handed my glasses to someone for safe keeping his fist made contact with my face. Time slowed down and I remember watching his fists continue to land, just watching, wondering when it was going to be over, but never feeling any pain from the blows. As the crowd cheered his rage on, I just thought how I hated moving here, how I hated this city and this godforsaken school and these miserable people who hated me for being different and the more I thought about it the quieter it got. The chants and cheers became quiet, my hands clenched in to tight fists and the monster that they had created was unleashed. The first delivery of punches knocked him to the ground and I mounted him. Once on top of him, I pushed my weight in to his chest, trapping him underneath. I grabbed both of his arms to keep him from punching me and I just looked down upon him, wondering why he hated me when he didn’t even know me. But unable to move or to punch me, he began to spit up at my face. If I freed my hands to punch him, he would have just started to punch me again, so I drew back my head and thrust it with all my might in to center of his face. The first contact my skull made with his soft cartilage broke his nose, the second and third left him punch-drunk and I the let go of his hands only to ball up my fists and continue my assault. He was no longer struggling or fighting back, so I dismounted him, kicking him as I got off of his limp body screaming stupid shit that a frustrated but victorious loner screams in hopes to ward off all other would be attackers, but after my victory I felt the same as him. So I helped him up, I told him again that I never wanted to fight him but he kept pushing me and as far as I was concerned it was over, so just leave me alone, and he did. He no longer picked on me, nor did his friends and neither did anyone else, not then at least. But the constant torment from everyone stopped. There were no more seizure comments, there was no more bullying and I was able to just go to school and mind my own business.

As time passed I saw more of Bart, there were no hard feelings, and in fact it was almost like nothing had ever happened. We began to talk, we became friends and we discovered that we shared similar taste in music. Over the years we went to various parties, our respect for each other grew and we always talked when our paths crossed, but when I was old enough and finally had the means to leave that doomed city I threw all of my belongings in the trunk of my car and moved to Salt Lake City. So over the last ten years we lost touch. I would see him on occasion when I resurfaced, but as time went on, so did our lives and soon he was a faint high school memory. I did not mean to fall out of touch, but when you are busy with life 500 miles away you forget about your past, you are too busy trying to survive. And sadly those old friends take the back burner and I DO consider him a friend. Granted he tormented me at the time and made my life hell at one point he also taught me a couple of lessons and those still guide me to this day. The first was that people will continuously run you over if you let them, and the second was that no one is completely rotten. There is always some good to be found, even if you have to beat it out of them and search through the bloody pulp to find it.

Saturday, March 04, 2006 – I was working at Koi today (my friends piercing studio) to cover for some friends who took a weekend hiatus to NYC. Like most weekends it was busy, when I finally got a break I noticed that I had a missed a long distance call and that I had one new voicemail message. The message was sullen and to the point. Your old friend Bart was killed. He got in to an accident with a big city work truck, and they had to extricate his body out of the wreckage. That was it, a life; well what was once a life, summarized in to a cold, almost emotionless message. This is number four; four people in less than a year have left this world. Two self inflicted, two by fate. It was just last night that I was talking to a friend. I told him that I seriously think that I am here for a purpose, after all of the dumb shit that I have done, after overdosing (well miscalculating) a couple of times and leading a formidable life... I am still here. Why, when there are so many others that don’t deserve their fate, I still breathe, why? I must have a purpose, but I think we all do. We just get caught up and forget what matters, we forget to breathe, we forget to listen, we forget to watch, we forget to appreciate and then someone passes on and it reminds of this. Well Bart, you were never forgotten, in fact I thought about you last night, just hours before I learned of your death and I hope that you are enjoying your Camel filters in your dingy Levi’s jacket behind some cloud in the sky. Rest in Peace Bart A. Roche, no one is forgotten, no one.

[Rage in a Cage]

Im sorry to hear about your friends passing Kenny. I miss you though if it makes it any better and we should get together sometime, go for coffee or lunch or coffee with lunch.

[aadil]

:-(