Date: Tue, 29 May 2001 22:32:49 -0700 (PDT)
From: c.e. jordan <cejordan2000@yahoo.com>
Subject: Finding Martin

Copyright 2001 c.e. jordan


			      FINDING MARTIN


     Here I am, all dressed up and uncomfortable, leaning against the
scabby green wall of my high school gym. I'm sipping blood-red fruit punch
from a paper cup, and hanging out, y'know, just trying to look cool, 'till
this girl, Gena, who I know has always liked me, comes over and grabs
me. She's sixteen and over a foot taller, not ugly or anything. Just
big. She has nice long black hair and a nice smile. She's wearing a frilly
dress and lots of makeup tonight.

     Although I'm graduating from high school I'm not fifteen yet. Gena
tried to protect me from the teasing when I started classes here as a puny
kid, years younger than anyone else in my class. *Four-eyes*, *shorty*,
*mutant*, *brainiac*. Oh, boy, I really got called a lot of names until
they got used to having me around.

     Right now my head is practically pillowed on Gena's downy, oversized
bosom, and she pulls me in real close, wrapping her arms tight around
me. It feels strangely comforting. She smells of lilacs and talcum, but
I can't decide if I like it or not. I tend to associate lilacs with
funerals.

     As we kinda waltz around the floor of the boy's gym, I can just see
over her chest and past her shoulder. I notice Martin leaning against the
wall at the same spot where I was a minute ago.  He's alone and as usual,
his straight yellow hair has flopped over the right side of his face, but
his left eye, a bright electric blue, is following Gena and me as we move
clumsily, endlessly, around and around in our little area of the crowded
floor. Martin, my best friend, still has two years to go before he can
graduate; he'll be sixteen or seventeen then. Gena and I spin around
again. Fast. And his white shirt and black slacks are just blurs. Another
turn, more slowly, and I can see how miserable his face looks. He's biting
his bottom lip.

     The scratchy record by some girl-group I never heard of, has finally
spun to an end. Gena releases me -- reluctantly. Disengaged from her soft,
encompassing warmth, I feel oddly bereft. And I'm suddenly cool from my
chin all the way down the front of my body. I glance toward the wall, but
Martin isn't there anymore.

     Gena and the crowd all converge on the big punch bowls. They dip
plastic ladles into the liquid trying to catch some of the floating lemon
discs, or some pieces of battered fruit. Punch splashes onto the shiny red
and green paper which covers the long tables. The colours make the Prom
seem almost like it's a Christmas party or something. I scan the crowd for
a glimpse of familiar blonde hair. There are so many kids, I give up
searching. From the corner of my eye I can see Gena pushing and shoving
through the crowd. Punch is sloshing out of the two paper cups gripped in
her hands, it makes red spots on her nice new dress. She seems desperate to
get back to me.

   	"What's up, `brain'?" yells Frank, grabbing my arm as I go
by. Frank's big, friendly, a jock, and a little dumb. I don't feel like
talking to him right now. "Oh, nothin'," I say. "Uh, you see Martin
anywhere?"

    	"He was somewhere over there." Frank gestures vaguely in the
direction of the doorway. I head towards the exit, but this is getting to
be like a nightmare. You know the one where you should be moving real fast,
but the more effort you make, the more your feet seem caught in quicksand?
Throngs of people just seem to get between myself and the door.

     Finally, I'm out into the cool night air, just looking around. I can
sense couples cuddled here and there near the bushes in the dark front
yard. Some are simply leaning together against the sides of the broad,
red-brick stairs.  I glance up at the old school. I will miss it, just a
little. I'm not only graduating, I'll be leaving town for good with my
family in a couple of days.

    	 I think I hear Gena call my name once, but I walk out the gates
fast, without looking back. Near the corner streetlamp where they are
repairing the road, I slow down to watch gravel on the pavement spread
and make crunching noises under the hard soles of my tight new shoes. I'll
just walk home. Slowly. Home isn't that far away. I decide to take the
short-cut through Spengler Park. Martin and I always come this way whenever
we walk home together.

    	The night is a deep, dark indigo, and in the park, trees are just
whispery presences; they sway in the breeze making slow moving shadows
along the dimly lit path. During the day we would often sit on the little
park bench and just talk.  And here it is -- the park bench -- and a white
shirt, and in the quiet glowing darkness the blonde hair looks as white as
the shirt.

    	Martin.

    	I walk over to the bench.

	"Hi", I say.

    	Unsurprised, he raises his pale shadowed face to look at me. A slow
smile. "What took you so long?" And now there is white hair, a white shirt,
and nice white teeth.

    	I sigh and sit down next to my friend. The air has grown
extraordinarily dense with unnamed feelings, sensations that pin us down to
the bench. The wind murmurs through the grass and each small noise around
us seems amplified. I think I can even hear twigs snap and rub one against
the other.

     I sense Martin looking at me. There is something I should say but I'm
not sure what. I turn to face him and stammer, "Martin, I--I--" But my
voice trails off.

     "Yeah, it's o.k -- I know." He says moving closer to me. His arm slips
around my neck. I push back his unruly hair, so that for once, I could look
into both eyes. They seem to catch and concentrate what little light there
is.

    	Suddenly, I don't care who sees us, and for the first time, I put
my arms around Martin and hold him close.