Strange Famous

*part 2 of Part I*

had to post in two parts cos of posting size limit!






*

“What a bitch” my man Joe Joe laughed when she was out of ear shot
“Really? You think so?” I asked
“Walks around with her fucking nose in the air, what a bitch, what a fucking geek, did you see how she was dressed.”
I thought about it, I had. “Yeah”
“Probably die a virgin I expect.”
“Well, I don’t know, I don’t see why?”
“What, would you?”
“Oh, you know, I mean… definitely. Yeah.”
“Haha, she’d never fuck you man”
“No, I don’t suppose so” I admitted. This was probably true.
There was silence, so I offered “I think Katie might though”
“Who?”
“That girl… Kate… She has very big beagles”
“I have no idea” Danny Boy shrugged
“I know the one you mean, she has the biggest melons man”
“I think they’re great” I agreed and smiled contentedly and realised I was very drunk.

*

Jaime turned and found herself standing before a tall, meaty guy, a football player from the year below at school
“Hey cutie” he drawled, sounding half cut.
Jaime started and backed off. “No thank you” she muttered
“Come on, come here and talk to me” he leaned closer to her and rested his arm against the wall, trapping her in the corner
“I was just going home” she muttered again, panicking inside, thinking of all the things her father had told her about places like this.
“Aw, come on, its really early”
“Well, I have Church tomorrow”
“Ah, fucking hell, does your folks make you go?”
“Well, I think… I think he likes me to go, but I…”
“Ah, that fucking sucks”
“I don’t mind going really, and I really have to…”
“If you want to get out of here we could go somewhere.”
“Oh, thank you, but really I should be getting home.”
“Aw, that’s a shame.”
“Well, you know… I…”
“You’re really cute you know”
Jaime didn’t even blush despite herself, she felt scared and hard and just wanted to be alone and at home in her room with a rubbishy horror novel and a glass of cocoa. She smiled a tight-lipped unfriendly smile and looked away.
“It’s ok, hey I’ll walk you home” the big guy offered.
“Oh, no thanks, it’s not that far”
“Why not? Come on, I’m just being friendly.” He placed his arm on Jaime’s shoulder and she pulled away, suddenly noticed Landon blundering past 10 feet away
“Landon! Hi Landon” she said, and smiled at him a little too eagerly for it to look natural.
“Hey, hey man. Hey, what’s going on?” He stared suspiciously at the younger, bigger boy, storm clouds gathering in his clear blue eyes
“Nothing, I just… would you walk me home, please?”
Landon glared at the boy who just shrugged back and held his ground
“Well, yeah, of course, actually.”
Jaime gratefully pushed past the other guy and stood behind Landon, who glowered balefully into the near distance and let his fists swing threateningly around by his waist as his weight shifted.
“All right, let’s go” he finally decided, but as they walked off together. A burst of laughter suddenly peeled from behind them, and Jaime turned to see the football guy now surrounded by four or five other guys.
“Was that guy bothering you?” Landon asked suddenly
“No, its ok, I just, I just wanted to go home”
“Look, I’ll go kick the shit out of him if you want” Landon threatened, and wheeled around shakily, an unhappy sullen frown fixed on his face
“No, Landon, please, I just want to go home…”
“Ok, Ok… I’m sorry.”
Jaime took his arm and guided him out of the room, the sounds of laughter and chatter and flirting and alcohol welling up all around her like a headache.

*

The cold air hit me with a dizzying blast as I stepped outside. Something suddenly occurred to me
“Look, I’m sorry about today, actually.”
“It’s ok” the girl said, not sounding like she meant it.
“You know, I just, I just get frustrated. By a lot of things.”
“That’s hard”
“I just… I mean, I’m not saying people should feel sorry for me. I just… nothing in my life seems to ever be true.”
“There are some things in the world that are true”
“What, God you mean?”
“Well, that…”
“If that’s how you feel. I can’t… I just don’t see any meaning to the world, or any fairness. Why create a world so miserable and full of violence and destruction, a people so wicked and hateful as men?”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
“Look at the world, torture, war, famine, poverty…”
“Maybe God made the world and people made these things of it”
“Then He fucked up when he made us.”
“Landon! You can’t mean…”
“He filled his creation with violent and intelligent animals with no real morality other than the morality of greed and vengeance, and that will tear it and themselves apart one day, where is He now?”
“There is good and bad in the world. It’s not like you make it out.”
“I don’t think the good things matter.”
Jaime stopped and pulled Landon around to face her. “Why? Why don’t they matter?” she demanded of him, desperate to make him see the truth,
He looked tolerably sober now, and he looked down as he said
“Just because all of the bad things will beat them and destroy them, the bad things and the wicked people rule this world, and those who are good only have the margins left that the bad in us all leaves them.”
Jaime sighed “It must be very sad to live in a world as you see it.”
“It is sad, if you care about it.”
“If you don’t care then there’s no hope at all, surely?”
“I suppose not, but it’s the hope that brings you down.”
“The hope that saves you, even if the world WAS like you think it is.”
“I guess it’s a question of perspective.”

“I don’t want to go home” Jaime decided suddenly, and couldn’t quite believe that she had said it out loud. She did know Landon that well at all, had seen him round school for years, had spoke to him a few times before this and the conversation on the bus. But never about anything other than the everyday: or in fact, when in the past he had asked her if they really had a test, or they really had any homework, or what class he was supposed to be in next. He scraped D’s in about half of his classes and at the same time Jaime suspected he was one of the most intelligent people in their year.
“Well, you said you did, I mean…” Landon complained
“I just wanted to get away from that guy”
“Right, that fucker! I told you I’d kick his ass!”
“No, really…”
“I ought to…”
“It wasn’t really his fault, I mean, he didn’t do anything to me, I just, I didn’t really feel comfortable, that’s all.”
They walked on a few steps. “Would you like to go somewhere?” Landon asked and Jaime tensed.
“Landon, I. I’m not asking you to…”
“Yeah, I know, I know you’re not, Jaime. I meant, do you just want to go somewhere that isn’t home.”
“Ok, sure, I’m sorry”
They walked in silence for another twenty yards or so
“We could go hang out at the old paper mill.” Landon offered
“OK”
They walked on.

“Jaime?”
“Uh huh?”
“Can I ask you something?
“Uh huh”
“I mean, I don’t mean this to start a fight or like in a negative way…”
“erm… ok…”
“Do you, do you think the way that you live is better than the way I live? I mean, for you personally?”
Jaime thought she knew the answer, how could she say it?
“I really don’t know Landon.”
“Maybe we are both getting it wrong then” he considered.
“I don’t know, I always tried to do the best things, to be the best I could.”
“Does it make you happy?”
“Does living like you do make you happy?”
“Of course not. Not really. Well, I’m not happy most of the time, in any event.”
“Do you remember when you used to go to Church, I mean, when you were younger?”
“Yeah”
“Where you happy then?”
“My father lived with us then.”
“He doesn’t…”
“I wasn’t happy then.”
“Ok, I’m sorry.”
“It’s ok.”
Jaime felt awkward, as if she had made some tactless or rude comment. To try to change the subject she asked “And can I ask you a question?”
“Sure, sure you can.”
“Do you ever watch the stars.”
“I… sometimes I do, I mean, I don’t know a lot of the constellations and things like that, but sometimes I just stare at the sky.”
“I love to watch them, sometimes I spend all night out in my yard watching the night sky. I guess it’s my hobby”
“I… the stars scare me. Frighten me I mean”
“They do…?! How do they frighten you?” Jaime was genuinely shocked.
“They are so small, so temporary”
“Small?” Jaime didn’t understand
Landon gestured at the sky “This is the universe, everything, or at least everything looks like this but more… and look at them. Such tiny pinpricks of light barely illuminate in such a huge blanket of nothingness, timelessness. The greatest force in creation, and it burns less than a candle, less than a firefly, through the space of emptiness it has to struggle through,”
“I never really thought of it that way” Jaime commented honestly
“No, no I suppose most people don’t” Landon murmured thoughtfully, and pushed through the rusty gates of the old factory, leading Jaime through them also.
“You can see all the stars from here… well all the one’s close enough anyway” Landon offered
Jaime giggled despite herself “You can see all the stars that are close enough in my back yard too”
Landon laughed
“Ha, yeah, yeah, I just mean, here, there isn’t so much in the way, it’s easier to see them.”
Jaime considered this, and the falling down building that they stood before
“You’re right” she admitted.
She know longer knew what to think of Landon, who definitely did not have a heart of gold but rather a heart filled with confusion and defensiveness against the world, and who definitely was not just a good looking bad boy either.

They walked together towards the far side of the old factory, and Landon sat down, as Jaime moved to sit next to him, he jumped up, and with a tender shock, Jaime watched him take off his hooded sweatshirt and drape it on the floor next to him.
“There I don’t want you to mess up your dress” he offered
“Landon…” Jaime smiled, and had to catch herself. Is this what it feels like to like someone, she wondered? And wondered then, just for a second, how God could make her wait till now to find out if it was.

“Do you mind if I drink?” Landon asked.
“You can if you want to” Jaime replied, trying to hide her disapproval again.
“Well I know you said you didn’t, I didn’t know if you where really against it, or just, you know, didn’t want to do it yourself.”
“I just don’t want to do it myself, if you want to drink you can.”
Landon produced a half full pint bottle of brandy which he had somehow picked up on his way out of the club.
“I think you are probably right, it doesn’t make me feel any better either” Landon admitted.
“Well, I mean, I’m not trying to preach to you Landon, but if you don’t like it, why do you do it?”
“I really don’t know I suppose. It just, it just takes me away from the world.”
“The world doesn’t have to be so bad.”
“I know, but… but in a way I would rather it was I guess. To look at the world, and see God instead, that would be wonderful I suppose, but I can’t, so I look at the world I see, and if I looked at that world, and I wasn’t angry and I didn’t reject it… anger is a more authentic response I think, even if it doesn’t make me happy.”
“I wish you could see the beauty in the world that I do”
“I wish I could too…”

Jaime rested easily against the corrugated iron of the old factory wall and sighed. Contentedly. “I feel like I can talk to you, like really” Jaime suddenly said
“Thank you” Landon took a pull of brandy, thought and then placed the bottle away from himself, although he didn’t do anything silly like pour it out or anything like that. “You make me feel the same way, but I think you mostly have just listened to me talk.”
“Not at all, and I like listening, you make me think about things.”
“Sometimes I guess I don’t say things in the way I mean to.”
“I think I understand.”

*

“I guess you probably disapprove of me, or the way I am” I asked her
“I, I don’t know if I do. I don’t think it is the best way to be and I don’t think it makes you feel better… but I don’t think I have the right to tell you to live the way I think is best either.”
“Have you always believed in God?”
“Yes, always.”
“My father believed in God I guess. I mean, I do in a way, but he lived his life for God. He used to take me to Church. My mother still goes.”
“Is… is your father dead?”
I stuttered, unsure how to answer
“I’m sorry, it isn’t any of my business.” Jaime apologised.
“No, it’s ok… he isn’t dead, but, but to me he is, does that make sense?”
“That’s sad, but yes it does.”
“ I don’t… I don’t really like to talk about it.”
“It’s ok”
“I’m sorry”
“Landon”
“it’s just…”
“it’s ok”
“It isn’t just like cos they split up or whatever, it’s more…”
“Landon, it’s ok, you don’t have to talk about it, I understand.”
“Thanks… your father is the preacher, isn’t he?”
“Yes”
“Did… did you ever resent that if it was harder to fit in at school or whatever, because of that?”
“No, I never did.”
“I think I would”
“I don’t think so, I don’t think you would.”
“I don’t know, I think you’re probably a better person than I am”
“I don’t know if that’s true.”
“Well, it’s like, you help people just to do it. I went to that thing at school cos I caught a case.”
“Maybe you could help them all the same.”
“I don’t know. I don’t want to not help. I wouldn’t do anything on purpose to make those kids feel worse, but… I just don’t see if it’s worth it or not”
“Really?”
“I mean, that kid today… I didn’t mean to curse at him and that was my fault that I was hung over and pissed off, but… in his life he is never going to need to know these things, he’s never going to college, he isn’t going to get a job where his SAT’s or GPA matters.”
“But is that the point?”
“I don’t know, I don’t… What else is the point of it all? Of school?”
“Well, you can’t see it because you’ve never felt like Anthony, for example.”
“Well…”
“I’m not being nasty Landon, but do you know what it feels like, to never understand the things that everyone around you can?”
“I don’t know.”
“And can you imagine what it means to someone like Anthony to be able to see, to be able to understand.”
“I guess I never thought of it like that.”
“Well, maybe it’s a matter of perspective.”
“I…” I felt unable to articulate myself adequately “I was just sorry I shouted at him and I thought playing ball would make him happy.”
“I’m sure it did… but you know, maybe being able to do his homework like everyone else might make him happy to.”
“I… I just never thought of it that way.”

I felt lost, bested. I reached over to my left and found the bottle of brandy. I mentally checked my own state, found myself to be relatively sober, and worried noted how little brandy was left, I was sure there was not enough to get me drunk. There was port and white wine at home I knew, but I was a long way from there.

“It’s funny, how, I mean, we’ve been at school together all this time and we never really talked.” I volunteered, wanting to change the subject
“Yes, I wish we had known each other sooner” She said strangely
“Oh well, there’s plenty of time still I suppose. I wish so too though, I probably wouldn’t drink so much or be on probation if I had had more friends like you.”
Jaime kind of blushed, and smiled up across at me “Well, the drinking is down to you, but maybe the driving when you’re drinking isn’t a great idea”
“I know.”
It was kind of funny how this was going. I mean, she had made it pretty clear that she wasn’t interested, and she was probably one of these chicks who wouldn’t even do shit before they were married or whatever anyway; but she was acting like she liked me. I didn’t know how to take it, maybe I just misread it, I guessed that maybe she didn’t have a lot of friends, and anyway, I don’t need so much complication as this and the way I was starting to feel in my life. I thought of Kate, and her magnificent breasts, her legendary bosoms, and the cell phone text she had sent me the other day, and about that thing with the tongue that my man swore to me that wasn’t a rumour and she actually did…

“Do you really hang around with many people from school?” I asked Jaime
“Not really, I… I don’t really have any friends at school.”
“Well, I know we don’t… but I think that you’re my friend now.”
“I think of you as a friend too Landon, but, but… I didn’t have any friends before today.”
“Isn’t that lonely?”
“Sometimes. I mean, I have people around me, and people I care about… I just, I never really socialised that much at school.”
“Is that, is it that you don’t really like to hang with people who aren’t, who don’t go to Church and everything?”
“No, gosh, no! Not at all”
“Oh, I thought…”
“I really don’t try to judge anyone. Things like tonight, I mean, it isn’t me, drinking and that music, and everything, but I wouldn’t not be friends with someone because that was what they liked.”
“I guess it will sound funny now”
“What?”
“Well, at school, sometimes I used to think I would like to get to know you, I mean, I guess because you are pretty or whatever, but you… I never thought you’d like me.”
“Why did you think that?”
“I don’t know.”
“I think maybe people look down on me because of who my father is, because I go to Church, and Ridgemount, and that, I mean, everyone knows I am a Christian.”
“Well, I don’t know that that’s true.”
“You heard tonight, everyone thinks I am “Holier than Thou”, that I am a loser”
“Who? Carlos? He’s a fucking idiot, I wouldn’t really assume many people feel like that to be honest with you.”
“Well, I… I don’t swear, or drink, or go to parties, and I believe in marriage, I have always tried to do what I thought was the right thing and I think a lot of people look down on me.”
“I never looked down on you.”
“Well…”
“I mean, before we talked, I never looked down on you. I thought you looked down on me, I thought you didn’t like people who weren’t, you know, religious…”
“Landon, I don’t…”
“I mean, I know now that you aren’t like that, I see that cos I got to know you, but before I knew you, I, I just always thought you were that way.”
“I never know people felt like that” Jaime commented sadly.
“Well, you know, it’s just, I mean how I felt isn’t necessarily how anyone else felt.”
“Maybe it was though,”
“I don’t know.”
“I wish I had known, or I had been different, if that was all it was…”
“I don’t think that’s all of it, and I don’t think people don’t like you, it’s just, it’s just that, sometimes maybe people think, you know, that we are all sinners or something.”
“I don’t want people to think that.”
“Well, I don’t know, maybe you should just, you know… I mean you don’t have to go somewhere and get drunk to hang out, you can just hang out.”
“I know, but my father likes me to come straight home after school, I mean, he doesn’t have anyone else… to look after the house.”
“He makes you clean the house and whatever?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say he makes me…”
“Damn… but, you know… it isn’t, it isn’t just that one thing or probably any other one thing…”
“I guess”
“And if you are happy like it is…”
“I don’t know if I am or not, I feel, sometimes I feel I’m missing out on a lot of stuff.”
“You don’t have to be.”
“Well I don’t know…”
“No, you’ll see, I think.”
“You know, you aren’t like I thought you were.”
“I’m not.”
“The way you are with your friends isn’t how you are to me.”
“Well… but I don’t, I don’t which of, is the real me.”
“I don’t think the other one can be the real one, or, but maybe they both are.”
“Which one do you like better?”
“This one I think”
“Ok”
“But the other is ok too”
“I… I never really know who I am.”
I saw that next to Jaime was struggled not to yawn, I saw the time was 2 AM.
“Hey, you probably better be getting home I guess”
“I… gosh, yes, my dad will be worried probably”
“Come on then.”
I took the last of the brandy and swung myself to my feet, the buzz of the alcohol had faded to a mellow glow, but somehow I felt sad and empty inside. I helped Jaime to her feet and we stumbled back into town and to her house.”

*

Jaime had guessed that her father would be waiting for her, but had hoped at least he would not be standing in the doorway watching as she tried to say goodbye to Landon. It wasn’t like she was going to try and kiss him anyway, that was the last thing she needed right now and it seemed as if he would just laugh at her if she tried anyway. Her father glared at the couple as they turned to face each other, but it was the worried glance of reproach from his daughter that stopped him speaking out or descending from the doorway and onto the porch, and not the look of mean dislike that flashed through the eyes of the boy.
“I’ll see you at school on Monday I guess”
“Yes, sure, I’ll see you on Monday” said Jaime, and smiled
“A’ight, see ya later, peace.” Landon finished, leaned in towards her for a second as if he was going to kiss her cheek, but then pulled away again and set off down the street
“Peace” Jaime offered, not sure what it meant.

“Jaime, it’s half two in the morning” her father snapped.
“I’m sorry father, you didn’t say a time, I didn’t know when I should be back for.”
“You stink of cigarette smoke.”
“Yes, yuck… a lot of people there were smoking”
“And drinking I guess.”
“Yes, some of them were.”
“Was that boy drinking?”
“Landon?”
“I know who he is, that hoodlum.”
“He isn’t a, a hoodlum”
“Was he drinking.”
“I think he might have been.”
“Jaime, I know… that we said that you could decide what you wanted to do now, but this is really not the sort of young man I think you should be associated with.”
“I don’t know, maybe not. He’s nice in a lot of ways, but… I’m not sure if it would be a good idea to spend too much time with him too.”
“I hope you were not smoking or drinking at least.”
“No, I don’t want to do anything like that.”
Jaime was tired and just wanted to go to bed.
“It’s a filthy habit”
Finally she lost her rag “Well, I don’t know why you keep going on about it, it’s not like I need to worry about it giving me cancer, is it?”
“Jaime!” her father almost cried out, and stepped away from her as if she had struck him.
“I’m sorry…”
Her father stared at the ground his face resolved and hard
“Dad, I’m sorry…”
“It’s ok, it’s ok, we’re both tired, lets just all go to bed and talk about this in the morning.
“Ok, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”
“No, it’s… sometimes… sometimes you are so strong, I forget how great the burden you have been given is.”
Jaime bit her lip, nodded, sloped off to bed.

Jaime knew that God was everywhere, and every night she said her prayers, as she did tonight, but she cried quietly for twenty or so minutes first, tears for herself, tears of bitter, abject self pity and misery.

*

I quietly eased myself through the front door and padded upstairs, lay on my bed fully clothed, and stared sleeplessly at the ceiling of my room, which had changed from black to dull slate grey before I finally slept. Outside the rain fell again, softly kissing the earth with its soothing touch, easing her pain away in the night.

__________________
"Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate,
for all things are plain in the sight of Heaven. For nothing
hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain
without being uncovered."

The Gospel of Thomas