Neutral Grey-White

A story by Blaine Stegman

The newspaper said, “A sixteen year old boy was found, apparently the victim of suicide. He was distraught over a recent break-up with a female friend.”

I don’t know how most people gauge their memories. I’m not sure where most people view the starting point of their recollection when people ask about the past. My story seems to start on February 7th, 2005 and all I can think about is the events that lead up to that day. It wasn’t that long ago, really.

      I grew up down the street from John Burris from the time I was old enough to acknowledge the existence of other people. It was a nice street, mostly tri-level homes and nuclear families. The strangest people we ever saw were the couple that walked their dog at four in the morning, and the hermit that never cut his grass. Occasionally we would go out into the very small area of woods right behind our neighborhood and explore. We would sometimes run across an encampment made by “the homeless guy” that we were sure walked our neighborhood, but I don’t think either of us ever saw him. There was an abandoned trailer, a clearing that seemed to be a dump for old washers and dryers and other appliances that no one wanted, but other than that everything was pretty mediocre. The woods were mostly a haven within the incredibly normal plat for those scary “teenagers” who did whip-it’s, drank beer and smoked pot.

      We did everything together, and even though our interests began to differ in high school, I still went to his house almost every day when I got off the bus. Sometimes we would sit in his basement and barely say three words to each other the whole time. Regardless, it just felt right. I remember the day John got his license he forgot to write down his license plates to give to the BMV. I remember running down the street to look at the numbers on the license plate so he could finally drive legally.

      John and I were both adopted, lived within two football fields of each other, and did almost everything together growing up. I went on vacations with his family, and he went on vacations with mine. It was a pretty normal childhood. We joked that we must have been brothers. In some strange twist of the universe we were two adopted kids living so close to each other and got along so well. Not that there weren’t fistfights and arguments and stupid girls that got in the way. There always are. We were brothers, though, and nothing could tear us apart.

      Then, on that day in 2005, John blew his own brains out with a shotgun. I remember the exact words Schmidt said to me.

“Dude, John’s dead.” He was crying hysterically.

      I didn’t cry, though. There are no words or outward expressions to describe the way I felt. I like to think that I felt something. I’d like to think that in some way made an immediate impact on the way I looked at things. I stared at the blank white wall right in front of me, and I can’t remember what I said. I just remember the wall. A perfect shade of completely neutral grey-white, it seemed to reflect that the colorful person I once was faded away, as soon as I heard the news.

      That night at Schmidt’s there was an all too typical gathering of high school pricks, mourning about the kid they didn’t seem to give a shit about before that cold day. They swore they’d never put anybody else down, make anyone else feel inferior, or make fun of that poor kid that always smelled like week old trash. I remember drinking whole lot of cheap vodka. I remember branding each other with pop tabs that seem to take the shape of B for Burris. I remember that none of them really turned out like a “B”, most were just boils of sizzling skin that made jock assholes feel as if in the face of some pointless tragedy they were somehow still bigger, tougher, and stronger. Needless to say, they’re all still judgmental assholes. You would be a fool to think that anything would change that. That’s not to say I haven’t been the biggest piece of shit of them all.

      I remember the nights leading up to and after the funeral; or at least part of them. I remember alcohol and pills and coke and waking up next to some girl I hadn’t seen in three years. I also remember doing it all over again. And again, and again, and again. I remember delivering a eulogy and not flinching. I remember a feeling of emptiness so deep I didn’t bat an eye.

      The funeral was the biggest one I’ve ever seen. The rafters were full of people in the mediocre sized Bellbrook Community Church. A blanket served as a cloak over the closed casket. Tennessee. It was orange and white and had a huge T that you could see from a mile away. All I could think of is what was inside that casket; a fraction of a boy who died all too soon. I mean, they can do amazing things to a body post mortem, but a shotgun blast seems to me to be irreversible. I stood in the pulpit above the casket and recited Psalm 4.

“Even in the midst of great pain, oh Lord,

I praise you for that which is

I will not refuse this grief,

Or close myself to this anguish.

Let shallow men pray for ease;

“Comfort us, shield us from sorrow.”

I pray for whatever you send me

And I ask to receive it as your gift.

You have put a joy in my heart

Greater than all the world’s riches.

I lie down trusting the darkness,

For I know that even now you are here.”

      At that moment I understood why people believed in God. I felt a weight lifted off my shoulders and felt better than I ever had before. I was higher than any drug could get me, and greater than any of life’s chains that kept me down. Shortly afterwards, though, my ship landed back on earth. I remember a sermon, a lot of tears, and two parents whose hearts were broken beyond repair.

That day, I carried my best friend’s dead body and out of the church. With five of John’s fellow friends, I loaded the casket into a hearse and it rode on south. He was to be buried in Tennessee, the part of the country he so much loved. He’s still there, and will remain there for longer than any of us will be alive.

      The paper got it wrong. Insinuating the death was the result of a break-up and that would drive someone to unload a shotgun into their cranium is utterly ridiculous. There were other things going through John’s head. I remember reading the paper he wrote, right before he left the house for the last time. It was for a class we actually shared called American People, and was due the next day. I don’t claim to know, and I am not willing to guess, what went on in John’s mind between the time he planned on turning the paper in the next day and when he just decided to end it all. I do know that now some part of me is missing. I keep trying to tell myself that its just the coke or the pills or the alcohol. It’s not, though. It’s John Thomas Burris and the picture of him slumped over in a red Geo with newly red interior and the fact that I have no idea what his last thought was.

      The world was once blue sky and green grass and beautiful white clouds and billowing trees in the small woods behind a suburban neighborhood. There were two kids in the forefront, feet on the trail, just trying to find the next step. Now there’s just a wall. Neutral grey-white, and a place no one could ever call home.