I never want to have another Monday morning like the one I’m having now. I am a complete and utter ruin of my former self, an empty whatever-I-am-or-was that has been stripped of everything good, then blown up and stamped on, and now lies in a flattened heap surrounded by onlookers who have no idea how to put it back together again, or who to call. Not even Trav.
‘I dunno, mate,’ he says, as we walk to school. ‘It’s just the worst thing. It sucks.’ Trav posts a muesli bar wrapper through a fence. ‘It’s not like you even screwed up. It’s just accidental. And it’s not even her fault, either. It’s not like she got pregnant and had to leave, or turned out to be, I dunno, mad. It’s just like, shit. Circumstances. No, it’s just bad luck. For you, especially. I mean, it’s just a pity she’s not like Hailey who can’t run to save herself. Then she’d be here forever.’
All I can do is agree, although I don’t agree with all of it. But I’m too tired to tell Trav that; I’m just trying to conserve enough energy to get through the day without Ms Inglis asking me what’s wrong, because I just might tell her. And that would be the end of my life, as I know it, for sure.
Then, just as it seems my day can’t get any worse, it does. As I’m walking home from school, sludging along Glenferrie Road like a suicidal snail, I see Belinda and Mikey pulling across the steel fence of GateWay Auto.
‘Hey, Marc.’ Belinda does not look like her neat, sweet, sunny self. She looks plain, cold, shivery, and upset. ‘How are you going?’
‘Okay,’ I answer, stopping on the footpath, because what else can I say? ‘How are you guys?’
Mikey lets out a breath, hefting the big padlock. ‘Not too flash. Vinnie passed away this afternoon. So we’re just locking up and getting the hell out of here.’
As I said, just when my day couldn’t get any worse, it does. But this news, at least, jolts me into realising that although losing Electra is one of the worst things that’s ever happened to me, I suppose it does put things in perspective. Somewhat.
‘That’s terrible,’ I say, and it is, because I know when someone good dies, the loss spreads outwards and inwards, becoming as much a part of you as your fingerprints. That’s just how it is, or how I’ve found it to be. ‘He was a really good guy,’ I add. ‘A real good guy.’
‘He was.’ Belinda nods. ‘He was very special.’
There’s a minute of silence between us.
‘It’s bad news,’ I say, as I’ve reached the point where I’ve got about twenty words to say or less. ‘I’m really sorry. I mean, I didn’t know him very well, but he seemed to help a lot of people. He helped me, and I only met him a few times.’
‘You’re right.’ Belinda pats my hand. ‘Anyway, we’ll see you soon, okay? Bye, Marc. Take care.’
‘You, too,’ I say, and now, totally wordless, I walk away.
Where do thoughts take you? All over the place; even to places that aren’t places but more like spaces – brain spaces, where things and people are filed, perhaps alphabetically but probably not, as I tend to think more about what’s important than what’s in order. And I guess, when your brain space fills beyond a certain level, you either let stuff go, put it away, compress or change it, or risk total meltdown.
I haven’t reached the point of total meltdown; although I think Mikey might have once, and decided to escape rather than go up in smoke. But I can’t escape because no matter where I go or what I do, the memories of what I’ve lost will just come right along with me. Meaning that happiness and sadness don’t ever truly cancel each other out, or not permanently. So there’s no such thing as being totally happy or totally sad – or not in this equation, as I see it, which has me agreeing with Ms Inglis that mathematics, although it is crap, is logical (she teaches maths in an emergency), once you understand it.
And this time I do understand it; although it’s highly unlikely I’ll ever write the universal happiness-sadness formula, even though it’s my guess that in everyone’s lives there’s always going to be more than enough of one or the other to go around.
There. I just did.
Fuck!
I’m a genius.
An unhappy one.