|
Smelling the Renegade Roses |
| Poetry
Angel Love *** |
I
walked into the instrument storage room. Mark was putting
together his Tenor Sax. I kneeled to assemble my
saxophone. I had started to push on the mouthpiece, when
Terry came in. "Hey, Cory - hey, Mark," he said
giving Mark and me a thumbs up. "Hey," I returned his greeting, around my reed. "Hey. Did your cousin get that stuff for us?" Mark asked him. "Yup," Terry replied. "This is gonna be the best party ever!" "You guys are talking about drugs aren't you?" I asked. They nodded, grins spreading across their faces. My right hand dropped to my lap, and my head slumped, to watch my fingers fiddle with the latch on my sax case. Mark crouched next to me, and placed a hand on my shoulder. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "That's how your mom died isn't it?" I nodded. "I promise, we won't O.D., and we won't take too much," he comforted. "Any amount is too much," I mumbled, fighting back tears, trying to keep my masculinity about me. "Alright," Terry offered a new agreement. "We won't take any." "That's right," Mark added. "We won't drink, smoke, or take one pill. Not even a Tylenol." I smiled weakly. "Thanks, guy's. You don't know how much this means to me. I won't worry now," I said, finally at a normal volume. And, true to their word, they didn't take one pill, they didn't smoke one joint, and they didn't drink one drop of alcohol. And, as I had said, I didn't worry - but I should have. They were rebels, but they still had feelings, and consideration. When my mom had died they had planted a patch of roses, her favorite flower, in my back yard for me. The roses, like them, also seemed to rebel. They grew in the winter, when any other rose would have died. But that evening two of the rose plants died and about ten minutes after I noticed this, I got a phone call - Mark and Terry were also dead. Their roses had wilted, not from lack of moisture, but from grief. Terry and Mark had died at the hands of Terry's cousin, who was driving them home. Mark and Terry were the only ones that hadn't been high or drunk, and still, they had suffered. A week later at their funeral, I planted two of the remaining roses on their graves, which were side by side. Each day after that, I walked past the graveyard on my way home from school, to watch the roses grow over the graves of my friends. One day, in mid December, I stopped and, strolled up to the mounds with yellow roses growing over them, like guardian angels floating over soft clouds of snow, in their heavenly, golden gowns. The flowers seemed to bless them with their loveliness, beauty and bravery. A single tear rolled down my cheek and I bent to smell the renegade roses. |
© Bridget O'Bannon 2005