Well, here's another short story. Yes I am aware that it needs a LOT of work. In my defense, I wrote it near the beginning of the semester. I may work on it later. I feel like it needs to be extended. . .
Guitar
Boy
High
school is a lot like hiking Mount Everest while fighting off a band of rabid
wolfs. You start at the bottom, in hopes of reaching the top, but the wolf pack
usually brings you down before you get the chance to climb very far.
Thus
is the social hierarchy.
From
the first day that I walked through the faded front doors of my high school, I
knew that all I wanted was to do was survive; to just get through the 4 years
of Hell that I had so frequently heard about. If I should so happen to gain
altitude in the process, so be it. I wasn’t one to complain. I would try to
blend in with the crowds. I was nothing too special, so I didn’t stand out.
My second day of school I found myself a small
group of friends that I could eat lunch with. We all had relatively the same
idea in mind: To survive, to fit it, to not bring attention to ourselves. We
did have fun, but we didn’t mess with the higher crowd. It was an unwritten
rule that we all followed. We didn’t bother them, they didn’t bother us. It
worked for a while.
Until
Guitar Boy joined us.
He
wasn’t called that at first. He had a normal name just like everyone else, but
I don’t remember it anymore. I doubt anyone does. It’s just who he became to
me, to my friends and to my school.
It
was my senior year. I had lived through these four years without anything major
or traumatizing occur in my life. I was in the middle of my lunch ritual which
consisted of picking out the tomatoes and onions in my homemade sandwich. My
dad always added them no matter how many times I told him I hated them.
“Do
you mind if I sit here?”
I
jumped slightly, dropping my onion and looked around.
“Sorry,”
said a voice behind me, “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
I
twisted my head around to see a boy with sandy-blonde hair and a slight smile
playing on his lips. He looked as if he could use a new shirt, and his jeans
and backpack seemed to be having a contest on which could look the rattiest.
But, he had nice eyes and a kind face. He had definitely been put through the
mill a few times. But then again, who hasn’t?
“That’s
ok,” I smiled back at him as I scooted over to make room “I scare easily.”
He
sat down and pulled out a crumpled brown bag.
“You’re
Jane right?” he said as he turned his head to look at me.
I
rolled my eyes. “Nice. It’s not like my backpack says so in bold letters or
anything.”
He
blushed and continued eating.
Logan,
the inanely curious one, immediately took interest in this stranger. “So what’s
your story?’ he asked and pointed a carrot stick at the new boy.
He
shrugged and bit out of a sandwich. “There’s not really a story. I just saw
that there was an empty seat next to a group of possible friends.”
“Possible
friends?” I asked.
“Is
that how you classify people?” Piped up Leslie, a girl with a slightly higher
voice than normal, “Possible friends and possible enemies?”
The
new boy just swallowed and smiled.
*
* *
Over
the next few weeks we got to know the new kid pretty well. His family had just moved into town and they
were relatively poor, but I could tell he didn’t really care. He got all of his
clothes as hand-me-downs from an older brother who had already moved out to “find
himself”. He was a stellar student, and if you took away the dirty clothes and
gave him a brush, he wouldn’t look half bad. He was in a few of my classes, but
he kept to himself mostly. He didn’t talk a lot, and he NEVER tried to stand
out.
Which
was why everyone found the guitar case so strange.
The
new kid came to school one day carrying a black guitar case in his right hand.
It was pretty beat-up, just like everything else he owned, and it had a faded
red stripe down the middle.
He
sat down next me like he always did, and propped the case up on the chair
behind him. All of us stared at the guitar case in confusion. A few moments of
awkward silence followed. Finally, someone asked the question we all wanted to
ask.
“What’s
that?” asked Logan, gesturing towards the foreign object.
The
new kid shrugged. “What does it look like?”
Logan
rolled his eyes. “A guitar case, obviously. But what’s if for?”
“What
do you think?”
Logan
threw his hands up in the air and rolled his eyes again.
I
stared at him thoughtfully. ‘You know, even after knowing you for just two
months, I never would have pegged you for a guitar player.”
“I
wouldn’t have either.”
We
all ate our lunch in silence, everyone stealing glances at the mysterious case.
“Hey
Guitar Boy, pass the napkins.”
* * *
Everyday
Guitar Boy would bring that case to school. The guitar case and Guitar boy. One
never leaving the other. I never asked him about it and soon it just became a
part of who he was. It was just one of those quirky things that you see in high
school that you got used to.
He
took it with him to every class and always kept it by his side. Sometimes, when
a teacher would leave the classroom, people would turn to him.
“Hey
Guitar Boy! Play us something!”
“Play
a song Guitar Boy! Please?”
He
would always smile, shake his head, and blush slightly, as if he was
embarrassed. Afterword, you could see his hands hovering above the case
protectively, as if he was afraid that someone would force him to open it and
play something.
I
assumed he had stage fright, and didn’t want to play the guitar on the spot for
a bunch of classmates that just wanted entertainment. If that was the case I
didn’t blame him. Every time he was asked, he would always get that same look
in his eye that my dog would get every time we caught him eating out of the
trash.
After
five or six times of sporadically being asked to play, that look went away.
Instead of simply shaking his head, he would use different excuses.
“Do
you know any good songs Guitar Boy?”
“If
I did, they’re probably not good enough right now.”
“Do
you write anything on that?”
“It
depends on the day.”
During
English one day was when things really changed. The teacher had left the room
to go make copies for or test review and, once again, the guitar case in the
back of the room was getting attention.
“You
should play us something Guitar Boy!”
He
smiled and stretched. “Nah. You guys don’t want to hear from me.”
The
girl in from of him turned around to face him.
“Will
you play me a song?” she said as she
batted her mascara heavy lashes at him. I knew her type. She was the exact
opposite of me, and high on the list of commanding authority in the school. She
had probably never worked a day in her life and got her clothes at the highest
of high end stores. “I love boys who can play guitar.”
Guitar
boy blinked in shock then covered with a half -smile.
“I
don’t see why not,” he said, “But I wouldn’t want to disturb our classmates
here right before a test.”
She
winked at him. “You may have a point. Would you like to come over to my house
on Friday? I’m having a little get together with some friends.”
Guitar
Boy hesitated.
“Oh
we may not even get to it, but it would be fun to have you over.” She said
smoothly.
I
couldn’t believe what was happening. When had the world shifted this much?
He
smiled again. “Sure thing.”
She
smiled a triumphant smile.
* * *
“So,
how’d it go?” I asked him the next Monday at lunch.
“How
did what go?’ He opened up a bag of chips.
“You
know what.”
He
stared intently at his chips. “It was fun. I didn’t even have to play.”
“Do
you want to play?” He opened his
mouth to answer but was interrupted.
“Hey!
It’s Guitar Boy!” A group of three obnoxious football players came up to our
table. “Come eat with us, Man!” Guitar Boy hesitated and looked at us.
Leslie
and Logan shrugged in unison.
“C’mon.
Ditch these guys!”
“Jane?”
he asked. I could feel the pull of
popularity tugging at him.
“It’s
your life.”
He
slowly picked up his guitar case, joined the group of boys and walked away.
“That’s the last we’ll ever see of him.” Muttered Logan.
And it was.
* * *
That
was the beginning and the end of Guitar Boy’s friendship with us. We watched
from the sidelines as he climbed up the social ladder on the back of his guitar
case. Girls viewed him as attractive, and guys assumed he was skilled. As the
year progressed Guitar Boy had changed. He acted different, and he looked
different. He had cleaned himself up, added gel into his hair, and started
wearing sunglasses indoors. I would often hear about parties that people had
gone to, simply because guitar boy was said to make an appearance. He was
constantly told to try out for the talent show, but was apparently out of town
that day.
Never
once did I see him play his guitar.
Throughout
all of this, he had apparently managed to keep up top grades and by the end of
the year he was named salutatorian.
Graduation
day was a big day for all of us. I would get to leave this small town and go to
Europe for a study abroad for a semester. I just wanted to get my diploma, take
some pictures with my parents, then leave. The auditorium that graduation was
taking place in was stifling hot. The air conditioning was broken and there
were no windows to crack open. The speeches were impossible to sit through.
Then, our salutatorian stood up to give his speech. I watched him as he stood
up with hands shaking slightly. As glad as I was that I didn’t have to give a speech, I felt sympathy for him. He cleared
his throat and started to speak.
“Hello
everybody. I’d like to start off my speech by telling you a story. I know this
is kind of unconventional, but I think it needs to be told. I don’t know if a
lot of you know this, but I don’t come from a very wealthy family. In fact, we
are extremely poor. I had carried around the same backpack for five years until
this year, it finally broke.”
He
pulled out his guitar case.
“Now
I’d like to show you all something.”
People
started cheering as he started to undo the clasps. This was the moment that
everybody had been waiting for all year. A chance to finally hear him play the
guitar that had been promised. He opened the case and lifted it up.
There
was no guitar in the case. Books and papers streamed onto the floor of the
auditorium.
“I
don’t know how to play the guitar.” he said into the microphone with a
chagrined shrug. “I never have and I probably never will.”
Muttered
whispers filled the student body.
“When
my backpack broke, my mother found this ratty guitar case in a dumpster near
our home. It was all I had to use in replacement of a backpack. The first day I
went to school with that case was the most humiliating day of my life. That is,
until I realized that people thought that I could actually play. It made people
like me and think that I was special. I will be the first to admit that the
popularity got to my head. After a while I even enjoyed the deception. I
recently realized that people now like me based on a false image. I’m not
Guitar Boy. I never will be. I’m up here now to tell you all to never do that.
Don’t be what you’re not. Ever. I’m sorry that I got caught up in the moment of
glory. I apologize to my friends. My REAL friends.”
He
turned back and looked at me.
“Thanks
for the memories, and I’m sorry about the fake ones.”
He
sat down. The room was silent.
I
started clapping and stood up staring at Guitar Boy, a smile on my face. He
smiled back and nodded in appreciation. Slowly, one by one, his friends stood
up and started clapping until the auditorium was in uproar.
He
turned and smiled at me.
I
smiled back.
He
may not have actually been Guitar Boy, but he was to us, and that was all that
mattered.
~Michaela Labit
