The cops kept us thirty minutes after the final bell rang, when half of us have already been questioned. I didn't really mind that much, but the guys and girls in baseball, basketball, etc. were royally pi**ed, since most of them had an away game today. But like I said, I didn't care myself. I wasn't on a team, and I got fired last month and had yet to find another job. But I do think it's a bit ridiculous to keep the ones who were already questioned.
I understand wanting to make sure everyone didn't see anything, or did see, but they should have started when the body was found, not wait until it was the last half hour of school. Why would they? I mean this may be a small town with only 500 kids between fifth grade and twelfth (maybe that's why they thought it wouldn't take too long to talk to the ones in high school) but you have the rent-a-cops, faculty, some kids don't cooperate for a few minutes, and recently we added eight grade, so we're a bit more populated than last year.
I don't know what's worse either way, though: that someone killed him, or that he won't be missed except by family. The guy who got killed was Sam Kissinger. Every one's only going to remember him as the guy who ran him car into the gas station off 51st, or the guy who got the last year freshmen to get a bunch of mustard and squirt it down their shirts, and somehow got they to walk around like that all day. Not sure how though. Sam's reign wasn't restricted to those 1950s juvenile pranks. He did worse, as he got older. I know one of his former girlfriends, who said (not sure why she told me) that she could tell he cheated on her, and then beat the cr** out of her brother when he told Sam he'd better stop. Her brother was only ten and didn't know what the he** he was doing. It should be common knowledge here that you don't go telling the bigger guys what to do, but he was ten all the same. And in a way it was her fault for putting up with it for half a year, but she said she cheated on him too.
But I didn't know Sam that well, we didn't really acknowledge each other, or came into contact. Fact of the matter was that what I knew of him was largely hear-say. I heard he was a jerk and few other things. But I didn't know if it is all true. Or I don't know if it was true. I never saw him at work only heard about it. But when the rent-a-cops came in our classroom and broke the news I swear I saw a few people look relived, one guy smiled to him, and I think everyone would have cheered but had the good sense not to. It sound cruel but if what I've hear about Sam in true then maybe it's not.
But the thing is, Sam wasn't always like this. It wasn't till sixth grade I started hearing about him doing cr**. Before then I saw him as one of the nicest little kids. He'd get along with everyone, and I mean everyone. He'd get his mom to throw end of the year parties, at school then later at his house, everyone in class invited, and some of the younger grades. When we played baseball or football or something in P.E. he'd never make fun of the kids who couldn't play, me included. He would always lend you a pencil if you forgot yours, and he once gave his own play station to this kid who broke his.
He was a great guy when we were little kids, but sixth grade I started hearing stuff like how he unscrewed the back of a guy's chair, or took some one's lunch and threw it away. Some of the stuff sounded like fooling around, some of it didn't. And like I said it got worse as he got older. No one is going to remember who he was, the nice little kid, they'll remember what happened to him and figure he deserved it. I'm not sure what the adults know about him, when he restricted his cr** to people his own age that is. He didn't stuff out of the radar.
But still.
And that has to be pretty horrible doesn’t it? When someone dies your suppose to feel sad or cry. And mope on it, but if anyone shows up to his funeral other than his parents and little sister, it will be to be make sure he’s dead. But the more I think of it, I may start to miss him. After all I talked to him in his final hours. Did I not tell you? I guess I forgot to mention it.
Yeah, it was one class period before the rent-a-cop came in to tell us; he told out class because Sam was in that hour, the hour he asked to go to the restroom.
Anyway I had gone to the restroom the period before and did what I went there to do. While I was washing my hands I heard someone was sniffing and hyperventilating. They must have been doing that the whole time I was there, from when I first came in, but I didn’t hear them till then. The noise was coming from a stall. The one in the way back, next to the wall. After I dried my hands, I quietly walked down there. I didn’t knock on the stall door, but I did say: “You alright in there?”
The crying stopped, and they didn’t answer for a minute. I asked again, this time I heard them and it was Sam.
“Who’s there?” He asked.
“Me.”
“Far?”
My name is Farley, after this 1940s actor my mom likes (but I’m called Far) why she thought it would be a good name for her only son, I’ll never know.
“Yeah, is that you Sam?”
“Yeah.”
He didn’t sound ashamed for someone like me to hear him cry.
“What’s yaw crying’ about?’’
The stall door opened and he was there, standing against the wall, his eyes weren’t red with crying, but he sniffed a few times.
“What kind of stuff?”
He stepped out and said he could really use a guy to talk to.
So I said I’d talk with him. He smiled a bit thenlookd like he might start sniffing again.
“So what kind of stuff are you crying about?”
“I’m not a wimp.” He answered like he hadn’t heard me.
“I know.”
“I don’t usually get sniffily.”
“I know.”
“Really, I think the last time I cried what when my cousin locked me out of the house in the middle of winter after it snowed, when I was eight.”
“So what’s wrong?”
“This morning, my Mom yelled at me.”
“Okay.” I was thinking maybe he is a baby because my mom is always chewing me out for something.
“I mean, that’s nothing new, she’s yelled at me before. But this morning she was telling me that I ruin everything for her.”
“Well Sam, my mom has said worse about me when she’s mad.”
“Yea, but mine has never said that about me. And she said that I’m pretty stupid if I can’t see how much everyone hates us, her, Dad, me and my sister, because of me. She even said soon as I’m eighteen I’m gone, she’s going to kick me out and said she hopes I find a place other than prison to live, and I can’t expect any help from her or Dad. My Dad just stood there the whole time like he heard nothing, he didn’t say anything. My mom…even said if it was up to her I would have been disowned and I better be grateful that my father thought there was hope for me. It was weird because I hadn’t said anything that morning; she just started talking to me when she came in ready for work. When she was done yelling, Ilookd at my Dad, and he said, “You don’t want to be late.” Then he got up and left for work. And that was it...I keep hearing what she said, and…I just needed to be alone for a while.”
He stopped talking. I personally understood why he was crying but at the same time I couldn’t help thinking, so what? My mom has cussed me out plenty of times, though not recently, and she apologizes the same day. Everyone’s mom or dad has done that before, what’s the big deal? But apparently it was a big deal to Sam. If she has yelled at him, and cussed him, she’d probably never said anything like this morning.
I overhead girls say the same thing to Sam, but when it’s your Mom that’s different. You act in public, like you’ve heard it all before from her, but to Sam this was a first.
“Why would she say that?”
“Well, Sam from what I heard you are a bit of an a-hole.”
“I know…I don’t know why. It’s twisted but I like it. It’s fun.”
We stared at each other for a while before he started talking again.
“I know teachers tell us people like me are like this because of some problems at home, but I’ve never heard my mom say that about me. I’ve never been abused, beaten, or bullied by my parents. They spanked me when I was little if I did something bad, but, up till this morning everything has been okay.”
He paused and wiped his eyes.
“I guess I should have know, because of…everything and that. But…I don’t know Far.”
“Why don’t you cut it out? I mean Dude, your only seventeen. You could…go into the military, or something I don’t know.”
“I don’t want to do that.”
He paused for a second.
“I don’t want her to apologize for what she said. She’s right, but I hate she said it all the same. Far, I really don’t know why but I don’t what to stop what I’m doing, I like it, I think I actually get a personal high from making people hate me…I know I shouldn’t but I do, and I don’t know what to do.”
“Apparently you don’t, since you’re crying over what your mom said.”
“Yeah. But I mean everyone else. I guess I’m a sociopath, or psychopath or something.” He sigh and started crying again, but I’m not sure if it was because he was thinking about what his mom said, or what he said.
“I...I don’t know…Far.”
“Yea?”
“If someone ends up killing me one of these days, don’t be surprise.”
“I won’t be.”
The bell rang and we both stood up. Helookd different, like he was thinking of something.
“I’ll see yaw.” I said.
“Okay…Farley…thank for listening.”
I left, went to class to get my stuff, was chewed out by my teacher and went to Chemistry. Thirty minutes into class the rent-a-cop came in and broke it to us, since Sam didn’t come in I figure he was going to skip the rest of the day. But I kept what I said; I wasn’t surprised.
So I guess I might miss him. I’ll organize my thoughts later about; right now I’m tired and want to go to bed.