I, Death

Tuesday August 14, 2012 - 12:17 AM

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Leslie) — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 04:17:00 +0000

Christ. That was a long three weeks. Uncle Bob and Aunt Shelly took away all of my privileges, including television and internet access.

Fuck.

How the hell is a guy supposed to do his "self-searching" therapy? I haven't even worked out the whole situation that caused the death of my buddy Jagdish yet, nevermind try to deal with the rest of the bullshit that's happened between then and now.

Got way too fucking much to say and I don't know where to begin.

I'm tired. Just want to get back to sleep now. I'll be back.

-- 1 Comment --

Anonymous said...

I'm listening

Here's a blog you might find interesting and helpful somehow.

http://postsecret.blogspot.com/

Tuesday July 24, 2012 - 11:37 AM

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Leslie) — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 15:37:00 +0000

stil grounnded not sur if thiss cell phne txt mesage will get thru to my blg feeel so out of toouch fukck

Friday June 22, 2012 - 5:54 PM

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Leslie) — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 21:54:00 +0000

Oh fuck.

It’s happened again.

Jagdish is dead.

It’s my fault.

Oh shit -- Uncle Bob's knocking at my bedroom door -- probably wants to "talk" to me again about everything. Dammit.

-- 7 Comments --

Anonymous said...

Please tell us Peter, what happened. We are listening.

Rainy said…

I just discovered this blog. What is it? Is this a story? Is this real? And why hasn’t there been a post in several weeks?

Kim said…

it’s real, Rainy.

Peter is real.

and I’m worried about him.

Mantaray Ocean said…

I’m worried, too.

Peter? Are you okay? We’re still here. It’s okay, talk to us. Let us know you’re okay.

Kim said…

c’mon, Peter. it has been over a month now and we haven’t heard a single word from you.

there are people who care about you.

please let us know you’re okay.

Frank said…

Peter. You were doing so well writing about everything. It was helping to sort things out, helping put things into perspective. You can do that again. You can find help and support through writing about it. Remember the words of advice from your guidance counselor. He was right. Writing helps.

Kim said…

writing does help, Peter. my own journal helped me through some really rough times.

Thursday June 21, 2012 - 9:03 PM

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Leslie) — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 01:03:00 +0000

I was sitting in the cafeteria today with Harley, Neil and Jagdish. Man, I missed those guys.

I’ve been sitting on my own, or just wandering around like a space cadet for so long, I never got caught up with my friends. Sure, I hung around with them for the occasional event, chatted with them in the hallways and sometimes sat with them during lunch or spares.

But today was different.

It was like old times, back before things between Sarah and I fell apart.

I hadn’t felt normal, like one of my old pals since before Christmas. But they welcomed me right back into the fold.

We were talking about old man Cottman and his fuckin’ end of year pop quizzes. We ended up getting all razzed about that morning’s pop quiz surprise and the fact that none of us passed this one. We started worrying about the upcoming History exam that Cottman would present us with when Harley made an announcement.

“We should fucking party tonight!” he said.

“What?” Jagdish looked at him, stunned. “It’s a school night.”

“Fu . . . Screw that,” Harley said, quickly changing the first word of his sentence because a teacher was walking by. “We all flunked this pop quiz, we’re likely going to flunk Cottman’s exam. Why don’t we take a moment to just say ‘to hell with this’ and party it up?”

“Not a bad idea with all of the bizarre shit that’s been going on around here lately,” Neil said. “Both a teacher and a student died just this semester, never mind the accident that nearly took out Miss Hamilton and Sarah.” Neil paused very briefly to look at me when he said this, sensitive to my reaction to her name. “We could use the release. Besides, this is our last year in high school. Next year -- who knows? We should make the most of our time together.”

I started laughing. “Hey, Neil, that’s awfully sentimental of you.”

Jagdish leaned toward him. “C’mon, Neil. Give us a hug.”

“Yeah, you fairy.” Harley said. “Let’s have a group hug and a cry. What are you, like Oprah?”

“Lay off Harley,” Neil said. “I was agreeing with you, okay.”

The group was quiet for a minute when Jagdish spoke up. “Where?” he asked.

We all looked at him.

“So, we know we’re going to do this. So where? The pit?”

"Fuckin' A, Jag." Harley said

The rest of us immediately agreed as well. The pit was an abandoned dump that was just off the highway. There was easy access to it, but the deep pit allowed us to make a lot of noise and have a bonfire without anyone being able to see or hear from the road.

Plans were made as to when we were going to meet, who was going to bring what and it was all settled by the time the bell rang announcing our lunch period was over.

Man, was that ever a good thing. It’s been way too long since I’ve felt that good. I’m so looking forward to getting drunk with my buddies later tonight. Going to pretend to go to bed early then sneak out. Can't wait.

Monday June 18, 2012 - 9:56 PM

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Leslie) — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 01:56:00 +0000

There was a note in my locker this morning. Nothing on it, other than the words:

Thank you

Not signed. No indication who it was from. And while I wouldn't recognize her handwriting I know the note was from her.

She passed me in the hall this afternoon and didn't even give me a second look. I understand that she doesn't want to talk about it, doesn't want to acknowledge what we both know.

But it made me feel good to know that by writing that note to let Monica know that her secret was safe with me, and that Robbie’s love for her was true, it was appreciated in the spirit I’d intended.

That and the fact that Monica DID get the note and it didn’t fall into any one else’s hands.

-- 1 Comment --

Kim said...

whew!

Thursday June 14, 2012 - 9:28 PM

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Leslie) — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 01:28:00 +0000

I’ve been watching Monica these past few days, trying to judge by any difference in her if she got my note. I hadn’t spotted anything yet. Maybe the note fell out of her locker onto the floor.

Oh shit. What if someone found it? What if someone found it, realizes what it’s related to and knows there was a witness that night.

Holy fuck. What’ll I do?

-- 1 Comment --

Kim said...

maybe she did get and doesn't want to deal with it yet. She's been through a lot.

don't panic. Not yet.

Tuesday June 12, 2012 - 10:10 PM

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Leslie) — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 02:10:00 +0000

I slipped a note into Monica’s locker. I thought she had the right to know.

It was an anonymous note, and it simply read the following.

Robbie loved you dearly and was regretful
for what happened, that you ever got hurt
because of him. He died trying to avenge
his wrongs, and ensured that nobody
else will ever be hurt by that evil man
again. Robbie died a hero.

Don’t worry, I’m not a stalker, I’m just
someone who cares and thought you
would like to know.

Signed,
A friend

I know it was a risky and silly thing to do, but it was the least I could do to let Monica know how deeply Robbie had cared for her, how truly sorry he’d been about what happened to her.

I think Robbie would have appreciated that.

Saturday June 9, 2012 - 10:06 PM

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Leslie) — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 02:06:00 +0000

The group sessions ended on Friday, and they’ve been good. It still hurts, still fucks with my mind -- and nobody has a clue, of course, of my involvement, that I’d witnessed Robbie’s death.
All they know is that Robbie was found dead, his body entangled with a known drug dealer in Sudbury.

The police hadn’t even showed up the night that I fled the scene. They must have been heading out on another call. Or I guess it could have even been an ambulance.

Robbie was found the next morning by a morning jogger. There was an investigation, but I was never even questioned. The evidence seemed obvious. A drug deal gone bad.

Could I have stepped forward and given the authorities details about what had happened that night? I suppose I could have. But what was the point? Robbie was dead, the bad guy was dead -- there wasn’t really anything to tell.

Except where it came to Monica. I mean, sure, if Dillon or whatever the drug dealer’s name was -- I think it was in the papers when they found his body, but they only used his real name once (I suppose the media rather enjoyed the nickname “Dillon” maybe because it sounded like an outlaw’s name) -- if he were still alive, then sure, I could perhaps give the authorities details on what I knew about him. But he wasn’t. And besides, it wasn’t really my place to bring something that Monica herself wasn’t comfortable bringing forth to the surface.

Yes, I cared about her, but it didn’t happen to me, so how could I possibly know the right thing to do for her?

There’s only one thing that comes to mind, and I think I’ll do it.

Thursday June 7, 2012 - 10:32 PM

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Leslie) — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 02:32:00 +0000

I can’t believe how utterly exhausting it was to write about what happened the night that Robbie died. I never would have thought that it would take me such a long time to actually tell the story. But reliving it so I could write about it was extremely difficult. I needed to take a break, let the painful and disturbing memories kick around in my head a bit so I could get everything straight.

So many times I just wanted to get it all out at once, let it flow. Maybe I could have done that if I were speaking to someone, telling them the story. But I wasn’t. I was writing it down. The mere fact that I had to slow down made it more difficult to do in longer pieces.

In any case, sure, it almost took me an entire month to go through it, but at least I’ve been able to. And I’m tempted to say that I feel better, but I still feel like a walking sack of shit. But just typing the story out, getting it out of my head, that actually has helped.

So much has been going on lately that I don’t even know where to begin to get caught up. For the most part, since Robbie died, I’ve just been going through the motions, getting up, going to school, coming home, watching TV and going to bed. And that’s been enough. It’s been hard enough just doing that.

At school, our guidance counselor started up sessions again with groups of students, much like he had when Chad broke through the ice. It was different this time, though, at least for some of us.

Robbie was well loved by many of the students. Sure, both Monica and I had had a special personal relationship with him, so maybe we felt the loss differently than most. But we were in different group sessions, so I never heard how she spoke in the group, or if she even spoke in the group. I wonder if, like me, she just played along pretending to just be another student and not someone who shared a special link to this man.

Sarah was actually in the same group session as I was. And she did speak a lot. About feeling guilty over Robbie, but also feeling guilty about Miss Hamilton and the accident. It seemed like she had a lot to get off her chest, and I remember losing myself in Sarah’s words, as if it were just her and I and it was the way it had been before, the two of us together.

I remember listening to Sarah and then picking up on something that seemed to lie between and beneath her words. Sure, she was expressing grief and feelings of guilt about the loss of two much cherished teachers. But there was more grief, more guilt beneath the surface. The guidance counselor didn’t push with her, as if he knew not to go there. But I could tell. I’d heard enough psycho-babble lately to understand that Sarah was transferring the guilt and grief she felt about her father’s cancer death-sentence onto the loss of these teachers. It was almost as if she was trying to pre-grieve her father’s loss.

I openly cried while Sarah spoke, and I remember her noticing when she looked over at me once. I could tell she noticed because her eyes didn’t just pass over me but lingered a moment longer. I looked back at her, not wiping the tears, just looking at her. I wanted to get up, walk across the circle our chairs had been placed in and just hold her; tell her it would all be okay if she just let it out.

But she averted her eyes again quickly, and I knew that I was reaching beyond my grasp again.

Monday June 4, 2012 - 11:13 PM

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Leslie) — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 03:13:00 +0000

My head was swimming with the recent knowledge of the events that had led up to Monica’s rape and beating. A wonderful mentor and father figure had been destroyed in my heart’s mind by admitting his involvement in the whole deal. And the alcohol I’d been drinking was flowing through my veins, clouding my perception.

So when Dillon appeared at the driver side door, his switch-blade already out, it was very much like a dream. He reached in the open window with his other hand and hauled Robbie out by the neck without opening the door. He’d looked tall and lanky in the store, but he was a strong son of a bitch, that was plainly obvious.

He kicked Robbie in the face then leaned into the car door and said. “Oh, so what do we have here? Get out of the car, now.” I complied. He stood there and smiled at me across the top of the car. “You fucking him, too, Robinson?”

“Hurt me, kill me, do what you want,” Robbie said struggling to his feet. “Just don’t hurt the boy.”

“Oh I plan on doing more than that,” Dillon said, a huge grin on face. “I don’t do the Hershey highway stuff, but let’s see how good he is at giving me a blow job, and if it’s good, I’ll kill him quickly. If it’s not good, he’ll be begging for me to kill him before I’m done with him.” He pointed the knife at me. “Over here and on your knees, boy.” He said to me.

“No!” Robbie said, and reached forward, but a simple thrust of the blade by Dillon into Robbie’s shoulder stopped him.

“I’m coming,” I said, starting to walk around the front of the car.

“No,” Robbie gasped, stumbling back, grabbing at the gash on his shoulder. “Leave him alone.”

“No, you listen, you dumb fuck. I thought you’d learned your lesson last time, but you obviously need to be taught a more serious lesson now.” He grabbed Robbie’s shoulder, the one he’d just stabbed, and squeezed, pulling Robbie forward. “Get moving. We’re heading down to the water.” He turned back toward me. “You lead now, pretty boy,” he said to me. “Keep those fucking hands on the top of your head and no funny moves or your lover here gets the knife through his jugular. Capeesh?”

“Y-yeah,” I said, starting to walk through the parking lot toward the waterfront.

He steered us through the dark, down some steps, around a few corners. The whole time I listened to their footfalls behind me, Robbie’s heavy breathing, wondering how badly he was stabbed, how much he was bleeding. But I didn’t dare look back at all.

When we got to the dock, he told me to stop. He stepped closer, his left hand on Robbie’s shoulder, still squeezing it, the blood seeping between his fingers, Robbie wincing under the grasp. Dillon then placed the hand with the knife in it on my shoulder so that the blade touched my neck.

“On your fucking knees, boy,” he said to me.

I froze, just stared at him, feeling the tip of the blade against the side of my neck. I didn’t move.

Dillon kneed me hard between the legs and I doubled over, seeing bright spots of light in my vision. He pushed down on my back and I folded to my knees, still hunched over, gasping for air.

I didn’t look up, but could hear Dillon saying something in a laughing tone, and the distinct sound of his zipper coming down.

Things started to happen really slowly at that point. I remember hearing Robbie’s voice, a strangled, frustrated cry saying. “No. Not again. No more. No more.”

I started to look up at that point and saw Robbie grabbing Dillon by the throat with one hand and wrestling the knife hand with his other. Caught completely by surprise, Dillon stumbled back. It was only then that I realized Robbie had succeeded in stabbing him. Dillon held a hand to the blood seeping out from a puncture wound in his stomach.

Robbie ran at him, the knife extended, and the blade glanced off his chest as Dillon flung himself back. In a single, fluid motion, Dillon hit the dock, rolled, pulled a small handgun from a holster beneath his jacket and let off a single shot.

It was Robbie’s turn to stumble backwards, holding onto his own stomach, looking down at the blood which started to pour from where he’d been shot.

I still could barely breathe as I watched this scene unfold from my knees. But even if I hadn’t been hoofed in the nuts, I’m not sure if I would have moved. The whole moment still had that strange murky dream-like quality to it as I watched. I’m not sure if I would have actually been able to pull myself out of that state and do something.

Robbie looked up at Dillon who by then had the gun trained on me as he was getting to his feet. I remember noticing the gun pointed in my direction, but not actually registering what it meant. It was like I was watching some foreign language film and not completely understanding what was going on.

Robbie let out a hoarse battle cry and rushed at Dillon, the blade extended. Dillon turned the gun back towards Robbie and it went off as Robbie tackled him. I didn’t see where that second bullet went, but I did see Robbie manage to sink the blade deep into Dillon’s neck before the two of them fell backwards off the dock and splashed into the water.

When I finally managed to drag myself to my feet and walk over to the edge of the dock there were barely ripples visible in the moon light.

I’m not sure how long I stood there, looking down at the water before I realized that neither one of them was going to surface. I remember whispering for Robbie, wondering if he was okay and just hiding somewhere, under the dock, or treading water quietly, just out of my line of sight.

“Robbie,” I called a bit louder. “Robbie,” and I started to break down and cry, huge, hiccoughing sobs, as I realized that he was gone and I’d never see him again. I thought back to that first day in class, when he made us stand on his desk to see the class from a different viewpoint. I thought of all the new viewpoints he'd afforded me, all the hope he'd given me. Now gone. And I cried.

I finally got up and moved when I heard sirens in the distance.

I ran off down the boardwalk that led to Bell Park, and from there crossed Paris street near the hospital, walked through that neighbourhood, then meandered through side streets mostly on my way back to the downtown area and started walking along the highway that Elm Street turned into, on my way towards Highway 144 and Levack.

Sunday June 3, 2012 - 10:51 PM

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Leslie) — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 02:51:00 +0000

Robbie stopped telling the story, put his head against the steering wheel and started sobbing uncontrollably. “I didn’t do anything to stop them,” he said. “They drove off with Monica and they beat her and raped her and it was entirely my fault.”

I looked at Robbie, not saying anything. Of course it was his fault. His drug habit is what put Monica in that predicament. I know that I was supposed to tell him that it wasn’t his fault. But I couldn’t. He’s the reason why Monica was so badly injured both physically and emotionally. The reason I saw that hurt animal look in her eyes. Him. Not me.

“You talked about her rape in class that week,” I said, accusingly. “You used it as class material, as something to help us deal with something that had happened to a fellow student.”

“It was also helping me deal with it, too,” Robbie said, still not looking at me.

“And that story you told me about your girlfriend in high school. You made that up, didn’t you? Wait a minute, you fucker. You’d been reading my blog, so you knew about the dreams I’d had about Monica, about the guilt I’d felt over it. And you let me feel that. You could have fucking told me about this back then.”

“How could I?” Robbie said. “How . . . could . . . I?

“I’ve needed to talk about this with someone, but who could I talk to, and how could I bring it up in the hallway between classes? My girlfriend, that high school party I’d told you about, that happened Peter. It really did. That’s what makes it that much more painful, that much more difficult, that another girl I loved was raped, and again I could have prevented it, but I didn’t.

“I fully expected Monica to tell the police the story, but she refused to talk about it with anyone. I want those guys to pay for what they did to her, want to kill them with my bare hands. But I can’t come forward and tell the police what I know. Besides, I don’t even know the fucking dealer’s name. He goes by Dillon, but I know that’s not his name. I have a cell phone for him and that’s all. Who knows if it would even help them find him, who knows if they could even hold him in jail. What evidence is there now?

“Oh God, Monica,” he whispered. “I’m so, so sorry.”

We sat there in silence. I sipped at my rye, but it wasn’t going down well at all. After several minutes, he spoke up again.

“I tried talking to her, tried calling her on her cell phone, slipping her a note, talking with her in the hallways at school. But she won’t even respond to me, won’t even talk with me. Won’t let me apologize.”

“What the fuck do you expect?” I said. “Serves you fucking right.” But inside, I was feeling sorry for him because he was in the same situation I had been in with Sarah. I guess the difference with Sarah is that I didn’t put her in a situation where she’d been raped and beaten. No, in our case, my death curse caused her father’s cancer, but she couldn’t possibly know that. In our case, I couldn’t have prevented what happened. But I could still feel for what Robbie was going through, despite the fact that I was angry with him for the situation he’d led Monica into.

Fuck. I liked Robbie, respected him, looked up to him so much. And, despite how angry I was with him, I still wanted to comfort him, tell him there wasn’t anything he could do.

But I never got that chance. I never got to tell him that, while I was pissed off with him, I still looked up to him, still wanted to make our friendship work.

I never got the chance because there was suddenly a bright flash of headlights from behind us.

“Holy fuck.” Robbie said. “Dillon has found us.”

Saturday June 2, 2012 - 11:26 PM

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Leslie) — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 03:26:00 +0000

I remember sitting there looking at Robbie and feeling jealous. Not just jealous because Robbie had been sleeping with Monica -- actually that didn’t bother me all that much, to be honest. It surprised me, sure, shocked me, stunned me, was like an ice cold splash of water in my face. But I wasn’t jealous. While I knew that I had liked Monica, had thought that she was pretty cool, a lot of fun, was a like-minded lover of reading and damn sexy, I didn’t actually love her.

It took me a while to realize, of course, that it had just been lust I’d been feeling for her, misplaced lust derived from a strange erotic dream and perhaps the fact that I was lonely and just wanted someone. That someone, of course, was still Sarah, but I had to move on, and so likely transferred the intense feelings in Monica’s direction.

So yes, I was a bit jealous that Robbie had been sleeping with Monica while I’d been lusting after her, but also jealous of the fact that Monica had gotten so close to Robbie, and of course, jealous of the fact that they had each other while I was still on my own. Since Sarah dumped me, I’ve been mostly alone, on the sidelines, looking in. This revelation by Robbie about his relationship with Monica was just more salt in that wound.

“Peter, do you remember that night when you bumped into Monica in the movie theatre?”

“Yeah,” Rejection night. How could I forget?

“Monica was there at the theatre with me. I stayed out of sight when we spotted you. Of course, it was risky for me to be there with her in the first place, but after all we were just a student and teacher out at the movies, nothing wrong with that. But having read your blog I knew you’d been interested in Monica and would perhaps be jealous of the fact that we were there together.”

“Yeah, I would have been.” I said quietly.

“It was that night, after the movie, when Monica and I went for a ride. We went up to that spot on Big Nickel Mine Road where you can watch them dump the slag from the side of the road.

“We were sitting there, just chatting, and shooting coke. Yes, the addict that I was, I ended up getting Monica started on my drugs of choice. No, I’m not proud of it, but it happened.

“Speaking of drugs, that’s where my dealer comes into this. I’d owed him a large sum of money and he’d been carrying me for weeks. I hadn’t been able to pay but still kept going back to him for more -- I don’t know if you’ll ever understand an addict’s mindset, but there’s this belief that with just one more fix you’ll be fine and can move on. Only that “one more” is always in your future, never in your past. You simply can’t.

“Anyways, I could talk for hours about the demons I’ve been facing with respect to my dependencies on drugs and alcohol. But the key thing here is that I’d pissed on someone who held a lot of power over me.

“And that’s who showed up that night when Monica and I were sitting in the car. The moment he pulled in behind us, his headlights bright in my rearview mirror, I knew who it was, and told Monica to get out of the car immediately, just leave. I quickly explained about the money situation and that he was there to hurt me.”

Robbie stopped, drank down yet another full glass of rye and filled his cup again. “She wouldn’t leave. She joked that she’d give him a blow job and maybe that’d tide him over. I got angry with her, told her this wasn’t funny, that I wanted her out of harm’s way. But she refused. And when the dealer approached the car, he did it from her side. I’m sure he not only could tell there was someone in the passenger seat, but that he’d been following us all night anyways. He leaned in the window, grinning that sick twisted grin of his, and asked me if I knew why he was there.”

Putting down the rye and kneading his hands over his forehead, Robbie whispered. “Dammit, why couldn’t I just get Monica to get out of the car and leave? Why?”

I put a hand on Robbie’s shoulder. “It’s okay, Robbie. Keep talking. It’s helping.” I for one, should know the recuperative powers of just getting the grief out.

“So Monica starts flirting with the guy, starts saying suggestive things, like maybe we could all talk about this, and maybe there was something she could do to please him, make him forget about money. She was trying to protect me, to help me, and I just sat there like a fucking idiot as she unbuttoned her shirt and started parting it, sat there watching as this bastard reached in and cupped one of her breasts. I sat there just watching as Monica whispered something in his ear, and he opened the door, pulling down his zipper. Sat there watching her suck his dick. And all the while knowing that this was happening, the woman I loved was doing this to protect me, to keep me from harm. And I was too much of a fucking chicken to do anything but sit there and watch it. And the whole time, the sick fucker was staring at me a huge grin on his face.

“When the scumbag finally blew his load, he laughed, called out that it was time, pulled Monica out of the car, produced a switch-blade and held it to her throat. That’s when two of his cronies appeared on my side of the car and hauled me out.

“ ‘Now listen up and listen good,’ the dealer said. ‘I was planning on hurting you to show that I mean business and I want my fucking cash soon. But I have a much better idea now.’

“And that’s when he started using the knife to peel off Monica’s clothes while he dragged her to his car. I tried to break free of the two thugs holding me, tried to step forward, but there was nothing I could do.

“ ‘This lady friend of yours is going to hurt in new ways,’ he said, shoving her into the back seat of the car then turning toward me again and pointing the knife at me. ‘Let’s just say she’ll be sorry she ever made your acquaintance. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll think twice about trying to stiff me out of a payment.’”

“Then he nodded, and I felt something connect with the side of my head. That’s the last thing I remembered before blacking out.

“I woke up after what must have been several minutes. Their vehicle, with Monica in it, was long gone.”

Friday June 1, 2012 - 11:58 PM

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Leslie) — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 03:58:00 +0000

I had to stop that last post all of a sudden. I’m trying really hard to get this story out, but it’s hard to convey. And of course, every time I get to a part like that last one, like when I found out that Robbie and Monica were lovers, I get a bit overwhelmed with it all. And rather than start going on about how it makes me feel, I try to stop myself.

After all, I’m trying to get this story out, and get it out in the proper sequence of what happened. Because a hell of a lot went down that night. I found out a lot of things about Robbie, about Monica. And I need to write this out in proper order, so I can keep these details straight in my head.

When Robbie told me that he and Monica were fucking, it was like someone punched me, hard, in the gut, then took hold of my stomach with a steel tight, ice cold grip, and squeezed. I couldn’t respond to what Robbie had told me, it was such a large piece of information that I was still trying to digest it.

“There’s more,” Robbie said. “That I have to tell you.”

My own eyes had welled up, tears of rage were streaming down my face even before my mind started to piece the different bits together and I seemed to make the conscious realization. “Y-you raped Monica?” I remember seeing red, ready to strike out at Robbie, tear his eyes right out of his head.

“No, Peter. No. I loved Monica. Cared for her very deeply. I would never hurt her, rape her. Please let me explain. Please.”

The anger started to subside. I sat back in my chair, drank down my own glass of rye and then asked him to refill it for me. “Go on.” I finally said.

“I fell for Monica from the first day I met her. She stayed after class that first day to talk to me. She was so beautiful, looked so much like a woman I’d loved back in University -- Lynda -- the woman whom I thought I was going to marry and spend the rest of my life with. And when she started talking excitedly about The Dead Poet’s Society and how she thought it was so cool that I’d taken a scene from that movie and tried it out in the class, her personality, her spark, reminded me of Lynda again.

“We talked for a good half an hour after that first class. And I offered to loan her a book of poetry by Keats. The look on her face was priceless, wonderful, as she looked at it. She told me Keats was her favorite poet. And when I saw that sparkle in her eyes when they fell upon the book, I knew I was falling in love with her. I know it sounds strange, but that’s exactly how I felt.

“Monica came to visit me after class yet again the next day. And the day after that. And the next. A week or so later when you started hanging out after class, Monica stayed off to the side, slipped out with the crowd. I remember enjoying chatting with you Peter, because by then I’d been following your online journal and feeling a real connection with you. But I was also a bit sad to miss out on my one on one time with Monica.

“But she was waiting at my car at the end of the school day. We ended up sitting in the car and talking for hours, about books, about movies, about music, about life, about dreams.

“And almost every single day after that she was there at my car and we did the same. By then I knew it was too late, that I’d already fallen so madly, so deeply in love with her, that there was no going back.

“One Friday, she asked if we could go somewhere, get a coffee or a drink, and keep talking. She put her hand on my leg and told me that she didn’t want the evening to end.

“So we went out for coffee, and then to a restaurant and ordered dinner. We stayed there, talked until the waiters were putting chairs up on the tables signaling that it was time to go home. Too wrapped up in each other and the conversation, we headed back to my place without discussing what we were doing. I put on some coffee when we got there and we sat there on the couch, talking into the early morning hours. We ended up making love on that same couch, just as the sun was coming up, still talking, still sharing, our bodies finally as intimate as our souls had been the entire night.

“I did love her Peter. I loved her deeply. I still love her, but she won’t have anything to do with me any longer. And I can’t say I blame her.”

“What happened, Robbie?” I asked. “You said that you’re to blame for her getting beaten and raped? How? What happened?”

Thursday May 31, 2012 - 11:31 PM

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Leslie) — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 03:31:00 +0000

So there Robbie and I were, sitting in the car, drinking rye. It had otherwise been like some sort of neat dream, hanging out with the coolest teacher I’d ever known, going to a book event, hanging out at a book store, drinking coffee spiked with Baileys then racing a car through downtown streets and then sitting back and drinking some rye from a parking spot that I realized gave a beautiful view of a moonlit Lake Ramsey.

But the tone in Robbie’s voice had a nightmarish quality to it. I’d never heard it from him before, and it frightened me.

“Peter,” he said. “That man, the man in the store. He’s my dealer.”

“Oh,” I said. It’s funny. Most teachers are supposed to tell you not to smoke, not to drink, not to do drugs. Okay, so of those, Robbie hadn’t pulled out a pack of cigarettes, but so far he’d helped break all those stereotypes. I know that teachers are human like the rest of us, but it was certainly refreshing to see that evidence first hand. And so what, my English teacher smoked pot. Big fucking deal. Who hasn’t?

“So. What’s the big deal?” I asked.

“I owe him a shitload of money,” Robbie said. “But there’s more. And I know I can confide in you, but I don’t know how to tell you the rest.”

“The rest? Of what?”

“The rest of my confession.” He drained his cup again in another single gulp and poured himself another drink. I think that was his third in so many minutes.

For the first time in our relationship, it didn’t feel like he was my teacher. He was suddenly just another friend, and a friend with a problem. “Just start from the beginning.”

“Fair enough. And I’ll actually start with a smaller confession. I’ve been reading your blog.”

“You have?”

“Yes. Since about the second day of class. I discovered it one night. Actually, a lot of teachers I know have started doing it, started doing Google searches on their own names as a means to see if students are blogging or posting comments about them and their class. I spotted yours almost immediately, and went back to the beginning.”

“So you know all about Sarah?”

“Yes,”

“And the other deaths?”

“Yes,”

“And about Miss Hamilton’s accident?”

“Yes. And also about Monica.”

Monica. Oh man, this was so embarrassing. Robbie had been reading my words. But what could I expect, really. There were tons of strangers out there, people I’d never met who were reading my online journal and making comments on it. Why did I think that people I knew wouldn’t find it and read it too?

I tried to think back to all the things I’d said about Robbie on my blog, and was slightly embarrassed about how much I talked about him, gushed about him. But it wasn’t quite so bad -- this was Robbie, after all, and to know that he’d had these insights about me almost from the beginning, yet he still wanted to be my friend, hang out with me -- well that was pretty darn cool.

“I don’t know what to say, Robbie.” I said. “I feel guilty about what happened to Monica. As if I could have prevented it.”

“Oh, Peter,” Robbie said, and tears started to roll down his eyes. “You have nothing to feel guilty about with Monica. What happened to her is actually my fault.”

“Your fault?” I said, completely perplexed. “How could what happened to Monica be your fault?”

“I know you had feelings for her, Peter. I know you were interested in her. That’s what makes this so difficult; so difficult to tell you.” He paused, put his head in his hands, then wiped the tears away. “I’m such a fool. I never should have done what I did. But I got caught up in the moment, carried away by emotions. I’d fallen in love with her from the first day that I met her.

“Peter, Monica and I were having an affair. We were sleeping together.”

Wednesday May 30, 2012 - 11:09 PM

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Leslie) — Thu, 31 May 2012 03:09:00 +0000

So there Robbie and I were, in the store, finishing off the bottle of Bailey’s, and he was just finishing the recanting of the screenplay concept he’d been working on, revealing to me that one of his great passions was translating literature to a format such as screenplays so that they could be fully enjoyed by the masses.

But Robbie went on the explain that there was so much to literature that could be explored and enjoyed and discussed among the masses, but that the masses were often living lives too fast paced to fully comprehend them to the fullest.

“That’s the wonder of movies,” Robbie said. “When done properly, a good movie can be executed that, rather than take something away from the original book it was based on, can add new elements that can be revealed in a manner less subtle than in the book, but still powerful and rich.”

Robbie then explained that the director Rob Reiner had pulled this off brilliantly in movies such as Stand By Me (based on a novella by Stephen King) and again in Misery (based on another book by Stephen King).

That statement he made reminded me so much of my Uncle Bob. It’s funny, because, since Robbie was a father figure in my life (yes, I only realize that now), it made sense that I found something in him that reminded him of the man I’d known as my central father figure since the day my own father had been hit by the car and died.

It was shortly after this revelation that the creepy looking man I’d seen earlier reappeared from behind a tall set of bookshelves. This time, I think that Robbie must have seen him because, in mid-sentence he put down his coffee cup and said.

“Okay, Peter. Time for us to go.”

When I didn’t move, Robbie grabbed me by the arm and starting walking us quickly toward the exit, completely abandoning the small pile of books we’d accumulated, intending on purchasing them.

He didn’t say a word as we moved out to the car, but I could tell that he was stepping more quickly as soon as we left the bright lights of the store and were crossing the dark parking lot. I remember thinking how late it was and that we must have spent a longer time in the store than I’d originally thought. Sure enough, my watch showed that it was already 9:30.

As he was starting the car I finally asked. “What’s going on, Robbie? Who was that man?”

After putting the car in gear he turned to look at me. “Peter, I have a confession to make.

“But the first order of business is we need to get the hell out of here, now.” And he takes his foot off the brake, slams it down on the gas and the tires issue a high pitched squeal as we peel out of the parking lot.

I remember looking back, seeing a few different figures heading out the store entrance, one of them tall like the creepy man I’d seen in the store. An uncontrollable shiver ran down my spine.

We drove in silence as Robbie raced the car down the Kingsway toward downtown. We raced down the street next to city hall, then made a quick right, then a left, darted around a seemingly random route through the downtown core area of town before Robbie raced onto Paris street and then turned off again to the parking area near Science North.

He shut off the car and we sat there for a moment, just listening. I couldn’t hear anything other than the ticking and clicking of the engine as it cooled down, but the look on Robbie’s face suggested he was either listening to the traffic turning off Paris or perhaps to voices from the past, talking to him about the confession he was about to make.

“Robbie,” I said. “I’m a little concerned, here.”

He lifted a single finger into the air, saying nothing, and continued to sit quietly and just listen.

After what must have been ten or fifteen minutes, Robbie said, “I’ve got to get something. Just a minute.” And he got out of the car, opened the trunk, then returned to the driver’s seat with a mickey in each hand. One of rye and the other vodka. “Name your poison,” he said, reaching past me into the glove compartment where he fished out two plastic cups.

“Me? I’m starting with the rye,” he said, pouring some for himself. I said that I’d have that too and he poured me a cupful.

He took a long, slow drink from his cup, then refilled it before he turned to me and said: “It’s very likely you’re not going to like me much after I tell you this story.”

Monday May 28, 2012 - 11:17 PM

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Leslie) — Tue, 29 May 2012 03:17:00 +0000

I’ve tried several times to write about this, to explain the events of the evening, and every time I try, I keep tripping on the words, keep getting ahead of myself.

I’ve decided to make a forced effort not to rush the events of the evening but to try to roll through them in the manner in which they happened -- because every time I get ahead of myself, I trip up and it’s a big ball of madness in my head and not a clean, straightforward narrative that I’m trying to map out for myself, to properly deal with it.

So here’s what happened, right from my last post during the early evening of May 13th.

Robbie came around the corner of a pillar near Starbucks and was heading toward me with two cups of coffee. I can’t remember if they’re called Verte or Grande or Lardass or whatever the hell Starbucks calls them, just that they were the large size.

He handed one over to me just as I was pushing the “publish” button for this blog on the Internet Café computer. I tried blocking the screen with my body as much as possible, as if I was preventing Robbie from seeing porn or something on the screen. (Although I’m sure that a public computer like this or maybe even one at the library wouldn’t allow people to browse through porn on it)

“What are you doing?” Robbie asked.

“Ah, just checking some email,” I said, thumbing the computer monitor off and then hitting the reset button that shut down the computer and ended my session. I thought back to the time he’d told me how he was an expert at reading people and wondered if the bemused look on his face meant that he knew I was lying.

“What next?” I said, sipping the coffee. It had an Irish cream taste to it.

Robbie smiled. “I had them add a shot of Irish cream flavour to the coffee. But then I also added a nip of Irish cream to it as well.” He lifted the flap off the laptop bag that he carried around on his shoulder everywhere, revealing the neck of a bottle of Bailey’s. He took a sip from his own coffee and then added: “Okay, maybe more than just a little nip.”

I laughed. “This is awesome, I’m having a great time.”

We then spent the next hour or so browsing through the store, Robbie pointing out countless titles to me that he’d read and loved. To be honest, if the rest of what happened that night and early into the next morning hadn’t occurred, then I imagine I would be writing a great deal about that conversation, because I remember it being so riveting. Like the best of the stuff that Robbie shared with us in class, but it was just me there. Just me he was talking to, sharing with, just me asking the questions that drew out more fascinating anecdotes and jokes.

I remember at one time, as we wandered past the graphic novel and local author section over to the wall of horror books, that Robbie pointed to a particular title by Bentley Little called The Store. He first mused about how Little’s titles were all so simplistic in nature, with titles such as The Mailman, The Walking, The Revelation, The House and The Town. He pointed out that Little’s short story collection itself was titled The Collection, as if Little was not above making fun of his own method of title creation.

“Titles seem to be really important for a book,” Robbie said. “But Little is a good example where you shouldn’t judge a book by its title. He keeps the titles simple, but invests his time and energy into writing memorable characters, plots and prose.

“For example, the first book of his that I read was The Store, and it’s the one that has stuck with me the longest.” Robbie went on the explain the premise of The Store, comparing the supernatural force that brings the store to a small town to the manner in which big box stores like Wal-Mart move in and completely take over. He explained that he often thought it would make a wonderful Hollywood movie, and if that were to happen, a deluge of movies based on Little’s novels would likely come out.

“But the problem with that,” he cautioned. “Is that they’d probably translate into schlocky horror movies that wouldn’t be produced properly and instead just be ‘straight to video’ quality. Laymon’s books fall into that same category. Great to read, and would seem to make a great transition onto the screen, but so easy to mess up, focus on the shock, on the gore, and completely miss out on the elements of cinema that could make the truly great films.”

By that time, we’d finished our coffees, and Robbie had found a quiet spot where nobody could see what he was doing to top up our coffee cups with Baileys. As we drank down the creamy alcohol, he started telling me about the screenplay he had been working on for several years now which had been based on and inspired by Bentley’s The Store. He’d given it the title “The Night Managers” and had focused less on the store itself, and more on the evil entities that ran the empire. His goal was much that the way the movie The Running Man was based on King’s novella, pretty might a high level concept with nothing other than a basic premise and some character names being used, his screenplay would also divert to a different path.

He was explaining the basic idea for the main character’s intense fear of big box stores, of the childhood trauma of being locked in a Canadian Tire store overnight when he was a child, having fallen asleep in one of the pup tent displays and not waking up until well after the store had closed. He diverted from that telling to explain that it was based on something that had actually occurred to him.

We were laughing about the story of how his father had been searching all over for him, thinking he’d run away from home due to a fight they’d had earlier in the day when this creepy looking man approached Robbie from behind.

I remember the odd leering look on the man’s face, (it specifically reminded me of the look on the face of the original Nosferatu in that old black and white German film) and the way in which he’d started walking towards us purposefully. And then, just as Robbie turned in the recanting of the fight between him and his father over the desired purchase of a basketball, the man quickly shifted, ducked behind some tall shelves, and was gone from view.

If I’d known the trouble this man was going to cause, I would have tried to get us out of the store sooner, before he came back.

But I, of course, had no idea, back then, what was going to happen.

Okay, I’m starting to get ahead of myself. But rather than just delete this and trying to start over, like I’ve done so many times, I’m going to stop here, take a break in the telling, and get the rest of my thoughts together.

Friday May 25, 2012 - 1:04 AM

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Leslie) — Fri, 25 May 2012 17:04:00 +0000

Over ten days have passed since my last post, but it feels as if it’s merely been an hour since the tragic events that happened back on the early hours of May 14th.

I’ve gone over the details again and again in my head, my heart and mind swimming, practically drowning in the torrent of emotions. And it has mostly all stayed in my head, no matter how much people have tried to make me talk about it.

But I think I’m ready to talk about it now.

I have to ease into it though, take it slow.

So let me start with the thing that is killing me to talk about, the thing that has wrenched my heart from my chest. Maybe if I get that out of the way I can move on with trying to come to terms with what happened and properly relay the events that occurred that have put me here.

Robbie is dead.

It kills me to write those words, kills me to acknowledge it -- almost as if by typing in those words I’m making it real. But it is. It is real. I avoided going to his funeral, refused to talk to anyone about his death for over a week now. But I have to face the fact. He is dead.

Okay, so I finally got that out. Robbie’s dead. It may not seem like much, but to me that’s a huge release, a giant step. Now I can begin to talk a bit about how we got from hanging out at Chapters to how he came die in such a horrific way.

But not tonight. It’s taken a lot out of me just to admit that much. I’m going to leave it at that, regroup my thoughts and emotions, and on my next post talk a little bit about the wonderful evening that so quickly and strangely turned into a nightmare.

-- 4 Comments --

Kim said...

I’m so sorry about Robbie, Peter. Don’t know what else to say

Franny said…

So sorry.

MaliceAD said…

My thoughts are with you, Peter.

Frank said…

Condolences, Peter. I know how much Robbie meant to you. What happened?

Sunday May 13, 2012 - 3:14 PM

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Leslie) — Sun, 13 May 2012 19:14:00 +0000

Why can’t things just go right for me? Why can’t they just be normal?

I’m pretty fucked up right now over what happened.

And I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to write about it.

All I know for sure is that I can’t write about it right now.

Why, Robbie? Why?

-- 3 Comments --

Kim said...

oh no...

Franny said...

writing will help you, i think. though, so will professional help...

MaliceAD said...

OMG! OMG!! ok..you godda like calm down and assess the situation. It will help you wrap your mind around the issue so you can write.

Saturday May 12, 2012 - 7:04 PM

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Leslie) — Sat, 12 May 2012 23:04:00 +0000

Holy shit. Did I ever have a lot of fun at the book event today. Right now I’m logged on using the “internet café” computers at the Chapters book store. Robbie is in line at Starbucks getting us a couple of coffees.

We had an amazing time at the book launch. The readings, the entertainment, everything was just awesome. Robbie bought me a copy of Sean Costello’s updated version of Captain Quad. It was the 20^th anniversary edition of the book, this one published by Your Scrivener Press, a small Sudbury area publisher. I can’t believe that I finally met him. He seems like this normal, friendly guy. You’d never know that he wrote these frightening, creepy tales of nasty people doing awful things to one another. This is the first time that I’ve ever met an author whose book that I read or had a book signed by anyone. It’s awesome.

Robbie brought in all of the Costello books that he owned to have signed.

Anyways, Robbie and I had a great time hanging out, mixing and mingling with all the people there. I just don’t want today to end. We’re going to hang around here at Chapters and browse for a bit, then we’re likely heading over to the Kelsey’s across the way for something to eat.

Oh. Here he comes. Gotta post this and go.

Thursday May 10, 2012 - 2:04 AM

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Leslie) — Thu, 10 May 2012 06:04:00 +0000

I’ve actually felt pretty good since last Friday. The weekend was low key. I ended up cutting the lawn and playing video games on Saturday and then just chilling and watching a movie with my Uncle Bob Sunday afternoon -- some old black and white movie that I don’t know the name of. I wasn’t really paying attention. I was pretty much sleeping with my eyes open. Maybe that’s why the movie was more like a dream that I had and could only remember in fleeting memories of sight and sound.

I felt relaxed and barely thought back to Monica or Sarah or any of the guilt that I’d recently been focused on over Chad, Miss Hamilton or Sarah’s father. Robbie helped me turn that around, that’s for sure. Having gone back and typed in my hand-written journal entries reminded me of just how important that was.

Robbie was sick and not teaching on Monday and Tuesday of this week. I was a bit worried about him. But he was back in class today, and in full form.

He was going through a lesson on Wednesday, read us a few scenes from a book called The Handless Maiden. It was by a Loraine Brown. It was her first novel, and after he read a few scenes from it he explained how the author of this very powerful story had worked at it over the course of something like ten years. He held it up as an example of something he remembered hearing W.O. Mitchell saying during a reading he’d done in Sudbury almost thirty years ago. It was a statement to the effect that any novel that took less than four years to write wasn’t any good.

The class debated the issue back and forth, and I’m sure it was interesting. But I wasn't paying all that much attention at that point. I couldn’t help reflecting back on one of the scenes Robbie had read to the class and how it reminded me of Monica.

The heroine in The Handless Maiden is a talented pianist who loses her hand in the events surrounding her rape. In her I sensed this feeling of utter loss, the loss of her ability to create beautiful music -- I compared that with the loss I sense whenever I look into Monica’s eyes. I started to wonder if I had imagined that sense -- if perhaps I was reading something in to her look that I expected.

After all, I really wonder if I could ever truly understand what it is like to be raped. Yes, despite the guilt that I feel, as if my curse is what caused this to happen to her, despite the dark feelings and the grief, I’m still nothing more than an outsider looking in. I’ll likely never truly understand.

At the end of class, Robbie and I chatted for a bit. He mentioned to me that this weekend there would some sort of launch event from a Sudbury publisher with a few different authors which included a teaser for Sean Costello’s forthcoming novel Let It Ride. He said it was taking place on Sunday May 14th starting at 1:30 in the afternoon and he was wondering if I was interested in joining him in attending the event.

Wow. That was really cool. I can’t wait to attend the event. When I got home I started reading the latest book Robbie had loaned me. Costello’s Finders Keepers.

It still hasn’t helped keep my mind off of the upcoming event this weekend. I just can’t wait.

Tuesday May 8, 2012 - 1:19 AM

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Leslie) — Tue, 08 May 2012 05:19:00 +0000

Okay, so that last post did work. And, unlike my previous attempts it didn’t disappear. I waited a full day because I wanted to make sure it didn’t delete after the fact. I know this sounds like I’m being paranoid, but the first few times I’d tried to post last week, I ended up losing the work. Maybe I wasn’t paying attention properly and missed a key step. But I’m sure I did it right, and Blogger just hung there, not resolving. And when I came back to it, the post was gone, missing, like I’d never written it.

That’s why I wrote the following entries down. By hand. And now that things are up and working again, I’m going to re-type them below.

Thursday May 3rd, 2012

At the end of English class today, Robbie asked me to hang back a bit because there was something he wanted to ask me. I was terrified. I thought that maybe he knew something about what happened to Monica, that maybe he was going to point a finger at me and tell me he knew it was me -- that somehow, in my sleep, I’d gone and beat and raped her. Or that maybe Monica had been talking to him and told him this herself.

I actually tried to sneak out of the class, tried to just mix into the flow of students out of the room. But he reached right out and grabbed my arm. He grabbed my arm and pulled me back through the crowd. He’d done it so quickly, so forcefully, that I’d thought for sure that he was going to lay blame on me for what happened to Monica.

He held my arm, preventing me from getting away while smiling and making quick small talk with the remaining students filtering out of the class. When the last student left, he let go of my arm and closed the door.

“What’s going on, Peter?” he asked, the concern showing on his face as he leaned on a desk at the front of the classroom. “You’ve been acting really strange ever since you returned to school and Monica is back.”

As I rubbed my arm where he’d grabbed and held me, I didn’t know how to respond. “W-what do you mean?”

His eyes softened even more. He pursed his lips and looked me in the eye. “You’re feeling guilty about Monica, aren’t you?”

I didn’t answer, but turned my head down and looked at the floor.

“C’mon, Peter,” he said. “You can talk to me, man. I think I know what you’re going through.”

My eyes started to tear up, I tried to hold back the sobs, but my voice repeatedly broke when I responded. “How could you . . . possibly . . . know . . . what I’m going through?”

"Because I've been there too." A strange look came over his face just then and he took a deep breath. “When I was a teenager, my girlfriend was raped at a house party. We went in together, the two of us, and then, as we each starting hanging around with different groups of friends, I ended up heading off in a car with a few buddies to pick up some munchies. We did it all the time, go to a party together, split up, do our own thing, then get back together.

“Only this time, this time something happened while I was gone. These guys from another high school showed up. Nobody knew who they were, they just showed up, about ten of them, crashed the party. A few of them picked a couple of fights with a few of the guys, and three of them ended up pushing their way into the bathroom where Sandy -- that was her name -- where Sandy was. She’d had a bit too much to drink and was in there being sick to her stomach.”

At that point, Robbie paced to the far side of the classroom and looked out the window facing away from me. “The three of them had her way with her. They, they pushed her to the floor, then two of them held her down while the third guy ripped off her clothes and raped her. Then they switched, and another guy took over. Then the third.

“It didn’t matter that she’d been sick to her stomach WHILE THEY WERE RAPING HER . . . it didn’t matter that she was retching and throwing up and almost choking on her vomit. Two of them held her down so she was unable to resist while the third one raped her.

“They left her lying on the bathroom floor and that’s where the next person going in to use the washroom found her.

“By the time the person going in to use the washroom had figured out what had happened, the entire gang of guys from that other school, even the ones who had started a few different fights, had left. Sandy spent a long time sitting on the bathroom floor, naked and bleeding and covered in her own vomit. Any time anybody tried to comfort her, to help her get cleaned up and dressed, she pushed them off, not saying anything.

“When I got back to the party the whole thing was long over and a few of her closer friends had been able to get her dressed, despite her protests and struggle, and were walking her to a car to bring her home.

“The only thing that anybody can remember her saying was when she looked up and spotted me getting out of my buddy Henry’s car. She stood straight up, pointed a finger in my direction and said: ‘Thanks for leaving me alone.’ Then she got into the car.

“Those were the last words she spoke to me. They might have been the last words she ever spoke to anybody. Her friends had brought her home and that night she’d swallowed an entire bottle of her mother’s tranquilizers. She never woke up from it.”

Okay, so I stopped writing the note at that point. I just couldn’t continue. I was exhausted and my hand hurt from writing the note. Retyping this whole thing feels a little silly, but I'm glad that I'm doing it. I've stopped often while keying it in to just read and re-read it again, and realize the effect the whole conversation had on me.

I didn’t write in my journal again until the next night, and in it I tried to continue from where I’d left off.

Friday May 4th, 2012

Robbie stood at the window for a long time before he turned back and faced me. When he did turn I could see the moisture welling in his eyes. At that point, an announcement came on the PA system, calling him to the office.

“I’ve got to go, Peter.” He said. “But I’ve told you my story. So, yes, I think I can understand the guilt that you feel. And I really do think that this is something you should talk about. If not to me, then to someone else, anyone else.”

He walked towards the door and just before he stepped out he turned and said. “But I really do think you need to talk this out. And I’d really like to help you through this, if I can.”

I ended up going to see Robbie at the end of the school day. He just stood there, looking at me, without saying a single thing. And I broke down, started to sob and sob, and told him about the dream I'd had about Monica, about the guilt that I felt about it, and about the fact that I realized that while I'd been intrigued with Monica and interested in starting a relationship with her, that all I'd been really feeling had been a kind of intense infatuation, a kind of misplaced lust, and that fact made me feel all the more guilty about what happened to her.

I'd made her out to be an object of lust and sex and desire, and then someone had raped her. The guilt had continued to grow and eat away inside of me.

Robbie explained that rape wasn't about sex -- and I had a sudden memory of that topic coming up in our class discussion from a few weeks ago, but for some reason it didn't really stick. He explained that rape was about power, about dominance, about control over another person.

He talked about my feeling of guilt and my holding Monica in my mind's eye as an object of desire as being typical of teenage infatuation, but that it had nothing to do with what actually happened to Monica. My feelings of lust for her did not lead to her getting raped, and I had nothing to feel guilty about.

We kept talking around and around the issue, and I have to admit that the release I felt to be able to communicate the things I've been feeling for this past while -- to communicate them openly and verbally, was overwhelmingly powerful.

I started sobbing uncontrollable at that point, not just out of the guilty and grief, but out of the simple emotion of relief.

That's when Robbie stepped forward and put his arms around me and just held me while I cried.

And that was the point where my second hand-written journal entry ended. It feels strange re-reading it and typing it in. I know that my buddy Harley would say something to the effect that it was a real homo scene with Robbie giving me a hug. But I needed that hug more than anything, and honestly, truly, it felt good just to have someone, anyone be willing to offer me that gesture of compassion.

It's funny. Robbie and I had another after class chat yesterday, but neither one of us has brought up the shared stories -- the ones of his guilt over what happened to his girlfriend or my guilt of what happened to Monica.

Instead, we just talked about books. It was great. It was glorious. He loaned me another book. Back to the first author he'd introduced me to. Sean Costello. This one was called "Finders Keepers" and was about what happens to a group of people who come across a lottery ticket worth 10 million dollars.

Robbie said that I'd like the thriller aspect of the story, and that the dark humour employed in the tale would be good to get my mind off of everything. I haven't read it yet, but do plan on starting it tomorrow.

Right now, I should really get to bed.

Saturday May 5, 2012 - 2:48 PM

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Leslie) — Sat, 05 May 2012 18:48:00 +0000

Damn. I've been trying to log onto this blogger account for three days now, and not able to get past the login screen. It's just been hanging there.

I thought, at first, that I'd forgotten my password or something. But that wasn't it. Not sure if it was my connection to the internet or maybe one of the servers at Blogger. Whatever it was, it drove me to start writing my thoughts and stuff in written form, because I've had so many things to sort out lately. Funny, when the guidance counselor first told me to start writing down my thoughts and emotions I thought he was nuts. But it's funny that that seems to be the first thing I do now whenever I need to sort stuff out.

I'm going to copy those thoughts I wrote down onto this online journal. Is it just for the sake of continuity? Because I have to admit, I've gone back and re-read the stuff that I've written several times now. That has been just as therapeutic as writing it down. So I will post that handwritten stuff here, but I'm not sure when.

As it is, I don't even know if this is going to publish or not.

Here goes nothing . . .

-- 1 Comment --

Kim said...

I've been journaling for years. It's helped me get through the hardest of times as well as the best of times.

good Luck.

Tuesday May 1, 2012 - 11:58 PM

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Leslie) — Wed, 02 May 2012 03:58:00 +0000

I didn't see Monica at school at all yesterday. The day was mostly just a big blur, it was like my ears were stuffed with cotton and I was seeing everything through a smoky haze. My heart kept racing every time a girl passed me in the hall, because I thought it might be her.

But I saw her today. She was far down the hall, and I don't think she saw me. But I saw her, and my heart burned, it ached, and I wept. I wept to see this once strong and confident girl, sexy, bright and cheery slowly slink down the hallway, her head down turned. Walking tight to the lockers, she moved down the hall with these little brisk steps like she was afraid someone was going to step on her.

It broke my heart. But, this wasn't Monica. No, not her. There was barely nothing left of the Monica that I knew as I watched this meek person scuttle down the hall.

And the guilt returned to me full force.

I wonder if that's how Hamlet felt when he came upon the grave being dug for Ophelia. It's funny, someone left a comment about whether or not Hamlet was mad or if he was just allowing others to think he was. Honestly? I actually think it was a bit of both. I'm sure that he played up his madness because it put others at unease, but I also think that there was some truth to his affliction. He was filled with anger, confusion, guilt.

And, of course, I think back to my own situation, my own anger, my own confusion, my own guilt. There was that horrid dream, that awful nightmare of hurting Monica. I feel guilty for having it, but not because I believe I actually hurt her. No, I think that was my unconscious mind telling me I was responsible for her getting hurt. That she was hurt because of me, because of this curse surrounding me.

I just can't get the image of her slinking down the hall like a fearful mouse out of my mind.

Friday April 27, 2012 - 7:11 AM

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Leslie) — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 11:11:00 +0000

I don't know what hit me.

I went to bed Monday night, and when I woke up Tuesday morning, I could barely get out of bed and my throat felt like it was full of sandpaper, closed up tight. Just swallowing air felt like I was trying to choke down a mouthful of broken glass. I was running a pretty nasty fever as well, my sheets were completely soaked.

Needless to say I didn't go in to school on Tuesday. Aunt Shelley made me a doctor's appointment. Turns out I have strep throat. I barely had the energy to get out of bed while she changed my sheets. Barely had the energy to get dressed and get to the doctor's office.

The rest of Tuesday is pretty much a blur. I spent the rest of the day Tuesday falling in and out of feverish dreams. There were pretty vivid, I know that, but I can't recall what was happening in them or who was in them. The only thing that sticks with me is this freaky laughing skull that occasionally flashed into my peripheral vision. And the name "Jimmy" was whispered in my left ear whenever I saw that image.

I have no idea what that means. But that's all I can remember about these dreams. Pretty freaky.

I was feeling better enough on Wednesday that I wasn't just a groggy lump. I mostly stayed in bed and when I was up to it I read. I finished reading the Sawyer book that Robbie had loaned to me. It was really good. An alien on trial for murder in a U.S. court.

But now I'm torn. I want to read another Sawyer book, I want to read that collection by van Belkom. I also want to read more stuff by Laymon.

But I didn't have any of those books with me to read. So I went back to reading Hamlet again. It's funny, I enjoyed Hamlet even more when in a semi-feverish state. The two kind of went well together. And I don't know, but reading about Hamlet strutting about and fretting about his peril reminded me of the things going through my mind, the guilt, the grief, the frustrated anger. It made me feel good in a sad sort of way. What's that saying? Misery loves company?

I felt good enough yesterday to get out of bed. My fever was still there and my throat still had that sandpaper quality to it, but swallowing was getting a bit easier. I sat up and spent most of the day watching movies from Uncle Bob's DVD collection. I ended up watching two different versions of Hamlet. One with Mel Gibson and the other with Ethan Hawke, which was like a modernized version. Except in the new one, something is rotten in the state of Denmark Corporation in Manhattan. Interesting.

Last night Harley called me. It was good to touch base with what I was missing in school. Not that I really cared all that much about what was going on in class, except, of course for Robbie's English class. Apparently, Robbie spent most of the week talking about books that discussed native issues in Canada, and they spent two full classes setting up mock Parliamentary debates over how to deal with the situation going on in Southern Ontario for years now. Apparently there are a group of natives protesting a new housing development and they have this highway and section of land that was sold or taken away from them blocked off, preventing the new houses from being finished. It has apparently stirred up a lot of controversy over the years, including a book written by a journalist who took a harsh view at the natives actions.

It sounds like I missed some fun stuff. Of course, Harley's take on the situation was pretty much a one-sided view of a bunch of lazy welfare slobs with nothing better to do than prevent other people from making a living. Big suprise there. I honestly don't know how I feel about the situation. From what I’ve read about it on the net, there are a lot of upset townspeople who couldn’t get in to their newly bought homes, and are prevented from getting to work and school. But the native people do have rights; I mean, we pretty much stole Canada from them, and pushed them off onto these reserves, corrupted their lifestyle. I kind of feel sorry for both sides. I don't know how I would have argued in those class debates.

That's one of the things I like about the way Robbie teaches his class. He really makes you start to think

After that Harley told me that Monica was back in school on Thursday. He said that she didn't look good, that her face was all swollen, her cheeks puffy. She had a pretty nasty black eye, a fat lip, and her right arm was in a sling. He said that she wasn't speaking to anyone except for a few of her close friends. I didn't ask if Sarah was one of the people she was talking to.

I know this sounds like I'm a chicken, but I was glad that I wasn't there and didn't see her.

I still have this odd feeling about her, like I might be responsible for what happened. I've tried to block that nasty dream where I'm the one hurting her, where I'm the one in the alley with her, trying to tell her to get away from me, and at the same time raining blows down on her. But I can't entirely push it away.

I'm actually feeling better this morning, possibly good enough to go in to school. But I faked it, pretended I felt worse than I really do. I need a few more days before I face Monica again.

-- 1 Comment --

Mantaray Ocean said...

Now that you have been watching various versions of Hamlet, do you think that he was truly mad...or just allowing others to think he was?

I think that Hamlet in certain ways is more closer to real life in the here and now...then we allow ourselves to realize.

Monday April 23, 2012 - 11:37 PM

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Leslie) — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 03:37:00 +0000

This is so cool. Following Robbie’s advice, I decided to leave a comment for Robert Sawyer on his website blog. I told him how much I enjoyed the section of the book that my teacher read to our class and asked for his advice on which of his stand alone books he would recommend I read.

He responded -- pretty quickly too -- that his novels Factoring Humanity, Frameshift or Calculating God were the three stand-alone novels he was proudest of. I thought that was really cool, how he thanked me for my comment and then answered my questions.

I wonder how many authors do that type of thing.

So then I started scrolling through Sawyer’s blog archives and found a “book tag” thing he responded to. Apparently he was tagged by Mark Leslie. It’s interesting how there are all these connections somehow. Anyways, I followed the link back to Leslie’s site and found that he mentioned Sawyer’s Frameshift as a book that inspired him in a life-altering way. He didn’t mention what it was, but I wonder if maybe that’s the book that inspired him to become a writer.

He says to email him and he’ll reveal what it was about the book that inspired him. But just knowing it inspired him, and that he’s originally from this area -- well, that’s enough for me to want to read Frameshift and perhaps discover what that might be.

Today in class, Robbie went on about Canada Book Day (which, apparently, was today). He talked about how it had been inspired by International Book & Copyright Day, and that at one time a big deal was made about it. He said that April 23rd was chosen as an important “book day” because a bunch of different authors were either born or had died on this day. He mentioned a bunch of them, but the only one I remember was Shakespeare. Although Robbie wasn’t clear if April 23rd was his birthday or the day he died. Maybe it was both.

He said that he wanted to share different authors with us, particularly Canadian authors, and that, since on Friday he’d mentioned Robert J. Sawyer, he thought he would mention an author who was a friend of Sawyer’s and has been referred to as Canada’s answer to Stephen King. The fellow’s name is Edo van Belkom. Robbie said that van Belkom, an author from the Toronto area, not only won the Bram Stroker Award (the highest honour in horror), but has published more than two dozen books, hundreds of short stories and for a short time was even the host of a late night horror movie show on the specialty horror channel SCREAM.

Apparently van Belkom was also known by Sawyer, and Robbie showed us van Belkom’s book Death Drives A Semi, which was a collection of van Belkom’s short fiction. The introduction to the book was written by, you guessed it -- Robert J. Sawyer, and Robbie read to us from the book. He read a story about a superhero stricken with the one enemy he couldn’t fight. Cancer.

Wow. Powerful stuff. Robbie went on to read the essay that followed this tale -- it was the story on how van Belkom wrote the story on a laptop borrowed from his friend Sawyer while he sat in the hospital room where his wife was recovering from a cancer surgery.

It was great to see behind the scenes into the author’s mind and how he came up with the tale. Robbie went on to say that he’d been to a reading that van Belkom gave when his book had first come out, and that van Belkom was one of the best readers he’d ever listened to.

He mentioned that he thought this particular book was now out of print, and that van Belkom had also published a book called Scream Queen that poked fun at the reality television trend (something else we’d covered in class a few weeks ago) as well as a series of very popular werewolf books for young adults that were just as enjoyable for adults to read.

At the end of class, I was so excited to learn more about this van Belkom fellow that I almost forgot to ask Robbie if he had a copy of Frameshift that I could borrow.

He said he did own Frameshift, that he owned every single copy of books Sawyer had written, and that he’d have to think about whether or not he would lend me his copy of van Belkom’s Death Drives A Semi. He said that the copy he owned had been signed by van Belkom and since it was out of print, he was worried about losing that copy.

He then turned to me and asked whether or not I had finished reading the book he had loaned me over the weekend, Sawyer's Illegal Alien. I'd completely forgotten about it, because I was so into browsing Sawyer's website and then so excited that he had responded to my question on his blog.

I was a bit disappointed. I mean, I would have thought that by now Robbie would have trusted me with loaning me his books. I've returned all of them in good condition. But it also feels like I let him down by asking for another book without having read the first one. I've just gotten so excited over discovering so many new authors lately.

I can be so stupid sometimes.

-- 1 Comment --

Kim said...

hey, don't worry...some people who really like books (like myself) tend to get a little anal about books we lend out, especially when we don't hear about them after awhile.

I too LOVE Edo van Belkom. I hosted a book signing event of his when I worked at bookstore...his reading made me buy the book (Death Drives a Semi actually)... he's definitely worth the read!

Maybe all this reading is the kind of therapy you need