the last day

this is a repost from one of my earlier accounts

I stood atop a stump amid the airy calls of crows, an autumnal commonplace in the great state of “Missourah.” The sky was painted in brushstrokes of pink and orange, and no contortion of its cloudy canvas seemed any more beautiful than the girl sitting a few feet away from me, gazing, entranced by the crackles and hisses, into a fire. I called her “Lu,” but our fellow campers knew her as Lucy, and I was hers. Those were the last hours we were to have together. The next morning I had to pack for a move due south of that steel-mouthed hellhole known as Birmingham, Alabama.

There was a strangely sobering quality to the alcohol Elliot had taken from his parents. His girlfriend, Crystal, handed me another paper cup, and I shook off the cold with it, taking a step down from my stump. I paused to listen to a clicking sound I had just heard from my left.

Elliot had taken a picture of me. With one foot on the ground and one remaining in the air, I looked like some human bird, looking for a new flock to join. Elliot claimed to be an aspiring photographer, but he seemed to wear the camera as an accessory, never using it as a tool unless he wanted to look cool.

Lucy asked me why I had been up on the stump in the first place with the indignant tone of a young woman unable to control the things she most wanted to keep in her life; I simply replied that I was thinking, citing a made-up article about how higher elevations made one think more clearly. She had learned not to call my bluffs, not because I defended them well, but because I defended them with more bluffs, and the conversation would end in an exhausted, “whatever.” Her eyes darted back to the fire. I can only guess that her faith was burning in it. I turned my attention to the others present for this Tadley Park farewell.

Daniel threw a Frisbee right above my head, and I leapt for it, catching it squarely in my chin. Daniel wasn’t one for telling people when something was coming their way. He’d tell you all the mistakes you had made in your choice of girlfriend until his face turned blue, but when it came to flying objects, he was oddly silent. In my anger I returned the disc with twice the force and half the coordination. We watched it flail about in the air for a second or two and then fall to the ground about a foot behind me, and in that laughing moment, I knew that there would always be something bigger than me, a moment that would be buried in the memories of five promising young figures shadowed on the Missouri ground.

My throw was enough to discourage me from joining the three-person game starting up, and I took a seat beside Lucy. She asked me why it had taken me so long to tell her that I wasn’t going to be around for the next school year, and I tried to tell her I was afraid of hurting her. I think we both knew that I just didn’t want to be single for my last month in the city of Columbia. Her head fell onto my shoulder halfway through our conversation, and she grinned at me with a cute resignation that only I understood to mean that things would be okay for the night. Her eyes closed and her head dropped.

The others continued to move from game to game in search of something that three people could enjoy, the Frisbee tossing had become a keep away game and I suppose three people playing blackjack can only last for so long. Elliot asked if I knew how to pitch a tent, and Crystal made some joke about how I already was. I laughed hard enough to jerk Lucy from her nap and walked over to the group. There was something vacant about their faces. Maybe it had only just sunk in that this was never going to happen again or maybe I had a stray hair sticking up.

We idled through some pointless conversation and began to set up for the night to come. The park was hardly anything to be afraid of, hosting such predators as the stray raccoon that had eaten Daniel’s food last time and the stray dog that licked your face while you slept. It was just the way things were supposed be done I guess. As the men of the group began such manly duties as thrusting sticks into the ground and draping cloth over them, we were thwarted by the taunts of our opposite sex companions. Apparently they hadn’t figured out that it takes more than eight tries to set things up properly. Though we laughed it off, I think its safe to say that many an ego was bruised that night.

When we finally completed our task we took a step back, and I tried to get some applause going. It was to no avail, but I like to think they were clapping on the inside. None of us were particularly proud of the set up, but we were rarely proud of things the others had helped us out with. It had something to do with the competitive nature of the friendship, I suppose.

The whole group opted for a drink break before we got to the business at hand, doing nothing. I reached into the Daniel’s cooler for a coke, and began to wonder what the others thought of my leaving. Lucy seemed the only one at all disappointed. I blurted out that I was going to miss them all. They returned the sentiment but quickly changed the subject to sleeping arrangements. With only three tents, two couples and a fifth wheel, I announced that this was going to be quite the daunting task. We all laughed and went back to sit by the fire.

Everyone watched the flames, now set a little lower than before, with an evasive glance that said everything our conversation could not. Someone broke the silence eventually, leading us into a talk about concerts we had caught and missed. It was a little eerie, talking about things that none of us really cared about. That morning I had expected to make fun of people for being too sappy, and all I could hope for around that fire was a teary look from Lucy as her eyes adjusted from the brightness of the fire to the dimness of my lonely face. She did me one better, asking me to kiss her forehead like I had done so many times before. I obliged and grew a little lightheaded. I will remember that moment more than anything, more than the sex or the deep talks about our differing philosophies. Hers will always be the forehead that I loved more than any whole human I knew. The others were caught up in a debate over whether Mute Math was actually a good band, and I took with me the only person I would really have a hard time getting over. With my arm around her waist, we entered the blackness of the inside of our tent.

Lucy dozed off sometime after two o’clock and the reality set in that I had started the last day of the best time of my life. I walked back over to the stump, and sat atop it, gazing out onto a black and blue horizon cluttered with the lackluster stars poets dream are brighter, the only things on that campsite I’d ever see again.