Jeremy
By Eric Benner
Based on the original song “Jeremy”
by
From his bedroom window,
he looked out on a bleak world. One of
little hope and unrelenting solitude. It
was late afternoon and the sun was just beginning to recede, whispers of clouds
marking its decent into the unknown, reddish hues streaking across the sky in a
dazzling aura of color that held little fascination for him. It was nearly
Where
are they? he wondered. His stomach
rumbled and he ignored it for the time being.
He still clung to the hope that his parents would come and the ancient
ritual of the family dinner would ensue.
As time passed, those hopes began to diminish and fade, like the light
in the afternoon sky.
He closed the blinds and opened his
history book to where he had left off earlier.
He unfolded the world map in the back of the book and began to
sketch. He drew with a well practiced,
though not quite expert hand. A medieval
castle in the
It had a nice ring to it.
Nothing could touch him in this
world. He felt no pain. Aching loneliness was no factor. There was only his word. His and his alone. He…
He thought he heard a car door slam
and he jumped, aroused from his daydream.
He opened the blinds. It was the
elderly couple across the street, probably home from evening mass and ready to
eat their own dinner. He closed the
blinds again as the last of the sunlight faded from the sky. He flopped back down on his bed and looked at
the map. He had created quite the
collage.
He supposed his parents would be pissed when the
bill came for the damaged book, but he didn’t care. At least their anger with him would open up
the lines of communication. Of course he
had thought the same thing about his failing grades but they had hardly
noticed.
He got up and went downstairs to the kitchen, his
eyes adjusting to the darkness of the house, his ears having difficulty coping
with the silence. In the kitchen was an
anonymous note he had missed when he had first arrived home from school.
Jeremy- might be late. Warm up the pizza in the fridge if you get
hungry.
He opened the fridge and found the pizza. It looked as appetizing as cold clay.
Jeremy closed the door and trudged
back upstairs to his room. How late is ‘late’? he wondered
collapsing on his bed. He studied the
map of his kingdom for a moment and then put his head down on the book, his
growing frustration draining his energy and making his eyelids heavy.
Jeremy slept and dreamt of King
Jeremy the Wicked, the cruel tyrant that held the world in the palm of his
hand. He watched as the dead fell, lying
in pools of maroon below his mountaintop castle.
Jeremy awoke suddenly the next morning, mildly amused
that he had drooled on the pages of his history book. He rolled out of bed, stiff from the night of
awkward sleep, and headed for the bathroom hearing no sounds beyond his own
footfalls. He stood in front of the
bathroom mirror for a moment, studying his reflection. He looked too young, even for a
twelve-year-old. A stranger would have
guessed him at closer to nine or ten.
His dark wavy hair was untamed and too long, a startling contrast to his
pale complexion.
I
do look like a girl, he thought
disgustedly. It was a common jeer he got
at school. One that left him seething at
the unfairness of it. He fought the urge
to grab the kitchen shears and give himself a hair cut right then, lest he open
himself up for even more taunting once he got to school. He haphazardly combed his tangled mass of
hair, pushing the longer strands behind his ears. He brushed his teeth and on impulse spit a
great wad of toothpaste colored phlegm on the mirror, wondering if his parents
would even notice.
Jeremy got dressed and stuffed his
colorful history book back in his backpack.
Downstairs, the kitchen greeted him with the same silence it had the
night before. If his parents had been
home, they left no sign. The anonymous
note still clung to the refrigerator door.
He was suddenly furious. They were never
home anymore. It was as if he had ceased
to exist for either of them. They were
so locked up in their arguments and growing contempt for each other that they
had blocked out the rest of the world.
They had left him standing at the edge of his own desolate
solitude. To Jeremy, the message was
clear- we have no time, deal with your own problems.
He wanted to scream at the unfairness
of it. Even if their marriage was falling apart, did they have to drag
him down with it? What had he done to
deserve that?
At that moment, just being in the house made him
feel ill. Jeremy grabbed his backpack
and left for school, slamming the door and not bothering with the lock.
For as long as Jeremy could
remember, being at school felt like being on enemy grounds. He had never been able to overcome the
nauseous feelings he had gotten when he had first started school in
kindergarten what felt like a hundred years ago. He wasn’t particularly well liked by his
teachers or his fellow students. There
had been a time when he had been considered an exceptionally precocious
student. He had been in advanced classes
and the teachers had seemed to lavish affection on him. This had alienated him from the other
kids. When he stopped caring about
school, he had likewise alienated himself from his teachers.
School had taken on the façade of a
precarious game in which the goal was to avoid the traps laid out for him by
his peers and instructors. Jeremy had
developed ways to avoid being picked on.
The most effective of these was avoiding contact with everyone and
keeping mostly to himself. The isolation
was often painful, but being the center of attention at any time held its own
dangers. He had been more able to cope
with his aching loneliness before his parents had left him drifting in the wake
of his desperation. The thought of
public humiliation or beating was beginning to seem like a tasteful alternative.
It was during recess that
such thoughts were blown from his mind.
Jeremy had been sitting in his normal place, behind a big oak that
shielded him from the rest of the schoolyard.
He had been drawing in his notebook, daydreaming about King Jeremy the
Wicked, when Eddy had appeared beside him.
Eddy was a tall, good-looking kid that relished in his popularity. Tormenting Jeremy was a favorite pastime of
his buddies, but this was the first time he had ever been on the assault
himself.
“What have you got there, Jeremy?”
he asked jovially. The taunt was evident
in his voice.
“Nothing,” Jeremy said
distractedly. He fumbled with the
notebook, trying to close it, but Eddy moved quickly and was dangling it over
his head almost before he knew what was happening.
“Doesn’t look like nothing to me,
fag,” he said, leafing through the pages and stopping on Jeremy’s sketch. “Well!
King Jeremy I presume,” he said mockingly giving a graceless bow.
“Give it back!” Jeremy started. He was vaguely aware that this was exactly
what he wanted, but he didn’t care. He
could only sense the humiliation about to come and his cheeks burned crimson on
his face.
“I don’t think so!” Eddy laughed,
holding the notebook just out of Jeremy’s reach. “Don’t you want your loyal subjects to admire
your beautiful artwork, sire?”
Already, people were gathering to
witness this spectacle. Jeremy made
another desperate grab for the notebook and Eddy jerked it out of reach. He held open the page Jeremy had been drawing
on for the throng that had gathered.
“Show some respect!” Eddy addressed
the crowd. “Bow to King Jeremy the
Wicked!”
Laughter rippled through the
crowd. Jeremy grabbed for the notebook
and Eddy tripped him, causing him to land hard on the pavement. Now they really laughed. Great peals of humiliating laughter rang from
the crowd. Tears of angry frustration
came to Jeremy’s eyes and he wished for death to swallow him at that moment.
“King Jeremy weeps for you, loyal
subjects!” Eddy sang. “His tears are for
you!” Eddy ripped the drawing out of the
notebook and tore it into pieces. He
threw it up into the air like confetti.
“Long live the King!” The crowd
laughed harder. He brought the notebook
down sharply on Jeremy’s head with an audible Whap! He doubled over with
laughter himself when he saw the look of shocked surprise on Jeremy’s face.
Jeremy felt something inside him
snap. He had never been humiliated this
badly before. It was stupid to think this better than being lonely! he
thought. Stupid! He looked at Eddy
and his feelings of frustration turned to clean, pure hate. Eddy, still doubled over with laughter, never
saw it coming. Perhaps, none of them
did.
He tackled Eddy, knocking him hard onto the pavement, and began swinging his fists in wild random punches, actually making contact with a few. He threw a surprise left and connected squarely with Eddy’s jaw, leaving him with a nice welt and Jeremy with a sore fist. Eddy’s jaw dropped open, his mouth forming a wide O of surprise. The recess lady was on top of them at once, trying to pull Jeremy away and dropping a few obscenities he scarcely believed an employee of the public education system to be capable of. Blinded by his fury, Jeremy bit her squarely on one of her great sagging breasts.
Being in the principal’s office during the aftermath had been the worst. Not because of Mr. Mort’s furious lecture on the societal ills of fighting, or because of Eddy’s increasing hysterical wails of pretest over punishment (Jeremy took a small, mean satisfaction in them), but because when all was said and done, Jeremy was returned neatly to his quiet solitude as if the afternoon’s events had been but a dream.
Eddy’s father had picked him up almost immediately, promising harsh punishment. The secretary had frowned when she noticed Jeremy’s smile as the boy was being led out. Jeremy himself had waited patiently in the front of the office for nearly two hours, happy at the prospect of his parents having to take time out of their schedule for him. Then, a mere half an hour before the final bell, he had been dismissed and told to go directly home. His parents wouldn’t be able to pick him up before the end of the school day.
As he walked home, the streets in his neighborhood felt ominously empty. There was no sound beyond the gentle rustling of the fall leaves and his footfalls. He felt his loneliness pressing down on him, like a great and unbearable weight. He felt abandoned by his parents. He would have gladly taken a flogging over their cold indifference.
Jeremy felt his sadness coalesce and well up in his throat. He choked back his tears harshly, his feelings of anger and frustration bubbling up to mix with the sadness.
He tossed his backpack on the front porch and went around to the back of the house. He made his way to the tiny patch of woods that stretched beyond the backyard. He found the clearing he often came to as a refuge when he had been little. Here, he felt hidden from the caustic eyes of the world around him.
Jeremy drew in a deep breath, and screamed. He screamed his frustration at the world, at any God that would listen, at himself. He screamed until his voice grew hoarse and his rage subsided. Then, he screamed some more.
His parents finally put in an
appearance. He had been lying in bed on
the verge of sleep when he had heard the front door open. He made himself wait, hoping against hope
that they would come to him. A half-hour
later, he went downstairs. He found his
mother sitting in the dining room, reading.
He padded across the room, the linoleum cool under his bare feet, and
sat across the table from her.
Jeremy was mildly alarmed when she didn’t seem to
notice his presence. “Mom?”
“What?” She did not take her eyes from the book she
was reading.
“Are you pissed about what happened
at school today?”
“Yes. No more fighting. I really don’t have time to put up with that
sort of bullshit, Jeremy, and neither, I suspect, does your father.”
She still had yet to look at him and
Jeremy found his anger building once more.
“You know, it’s partially your fault.”
No answer.
Jeremy saw that this was
hopeless. He could have cleared the
entire rotten weight from his chest at that moment and it wouldn’t have made
any difference. His parents were lost to
him, he realized. It would take nothing
short of a miracle to even bring their attention now. “Are you and dad getting a divorce?” he asked
suddenly.
“It’s a possibility, but I will let you know
when that concerns you. Go to bed
Jeremy.” Her words were like daggers
ripping into his heart. She had never
been so outright cold before. Any line
of communication between him and his parents had just been severed brutally. His brain refused to deal with the shock.
He went back upstairs and climbed
into bed still numb. It was at
Jeremy had come to find that feeling
of numbness almost comforting when it returned the next day. He sat behind his tree at recess, staring at
nothing. He caught no insults
today. Today, the other kids gave him a
wide berth, and for once, he found the isolation comforting.
Eddy approached without warning
causing him to jump slightly. Normally,
Jeremy would have been pleased with the sight of Eddy’s swollen face. But now it only seemed to bring up painful
memories of the day before. The day when
his life had officially crumbled beyond repair.
“I want to apologize…for yesterday,”
he said evenly.
“Apologize?” Jeremy asked, unable to
hide his amazement.
“Yeah…I was being a real jerk,
and….and I’m sorry.”
Jeremy couldn’t tell if he was being
sincere of not. Either way, he wouldn’t
have it. “You can take your apology and
shove it,” he said coldly.
Eddy looked hurt and flustered. This was obviously something he wasn’t used
to, and he hadn’t anticipated such a response.
This isn’t how it’s supposed to
go, the look on his face said.
“Jeremy, look…”
“No, YOU look,” Jeremy said, getting
up. “I’ve had to put up with this my
entire life, and the last thing I want is your pity.”
“No!
I wasn’t…”
“Sure you were. I can see it on your face. You don’t understand me and you never will.”
“Maybe not. But I’m still sorry.”
Jeremy watched as Eddy jogged back
over to the basketball court and his waiting friends. He felt worse at that moment than he could
ever remember feeling.
Later that afternoon, he felt on the
verge of sleep as his history teacher droned on through a seemingly endless
lecture. Mr. Hollingsworth was pointing
out the locations of different civilizations on an enlarged version of the
textbook map Jeremy had drawn his kingdom on.
He longed for sleep. He wanted to
slip away from the rest of the world into the recesses of his mind, dark and
silent and complete. He wanted to be in
his kingdom where nothing could touch him.
“And that brings us to our unit four
project,” Hollingsworth was saying now.
“Tomorrow, you will be presenting a speech on any of the following
topics…”
Jeremy had nearly forgotten
about the history project. He pictured
himself standing at the front of the class, displaying the map of his kingdom
and explaining to the class what the maroon colored pools he had colored over
the oceans meant. He saw their faces as
his finger traced over each looping lunatic swirl. The thought almost caused him to erupt into a
wild fit of laughter. Then, he saw the
same faces laughing at him in the schoolyard and the laughing fit abruptly
died.
“I want everyone to take this project seriously,” Hollingsworth was saying, “Make a statement that your fellow classmates will remember for years to come.”
Make a statement, Jeremy thought. The idea swirled through his head and took on
sinister and yet somehow comforting connotations.
He lay on his bed that afternoon, the slowly
retreating sunlight cascading down through the window, letting those three
words swim about his head. Make a statement. As he lay there, a plan began to solidify
in his mind. He would make his
statement. A statement that people would
have to listen to. One forceful enough
to get his point across. One that would
finally allow him some peace of mind.
That night, it was his father that sat
downstairs. Jeremy could hear him
hammering away on his typewriter as he approached the doorway to the dining
room. His mother had left a note on the
counter proclaiming that she was spending the night at her mother’s. Jeremy was thankful for that. He didn’t want to face his mother after she
had radiated such coldness the night before.
“I’m giving a speech in history tomorrow,” he told his father from the doorway.
“I’m trying to work on this Jeremy,” his father replied distractedly, hammering keys on his typewriter.
“I’d really like it if you and mom would come.”
“I have to be in court tomorrow and your mother is busy.”
Jeremy felt a trace of the same anger and frustration he had felt with his mother. “You know, I could do without any of the rest of them if I could just get the two of you to pay attention for one fucking minute.”
“What are you talking about, Jeremy?” His father was showing mild interest. Jeremy judged it to be his use of the curse rather than what he had actually said.
“Nothing.”
“Go to bed,” he said, returning to his work. “It’s late.”
“Dad?”
“What?”
“I love you.”
“Goodnight Jeremy.”
He went slowly down the hall towards his bedroom. His mind was set. There was nothing holding him back. The rest of the world seemed so impossibly distant now.
Make a statement. Make a statement they’ll remember for years
to come.
Jeremy lay awake, waiting to hear his father close the door to his bedroom. When the noise finally came, he made his way to his father’s study. In the bottom desk drawer, he found what he was looking for. The cold weight of his father’s .44 Ruger automatic. He slipped back to his room and gently laid the gun in the bottom of his backpack.
He was out of the house that morning faster than he had ever been before. He didn’t know whether or not his father would be going to his study before he left and didn’t have any intention of finding out. Soon, he would make his statement and such things would be of no concern to him.
When Hollingsworth’s class came, Jeremy volunteered to go first in the presentations. He looked to the back of the room and saw several parents watching. A part of him longed to see his own parents back there. They’re going to miss my statement, he thought. He supposed it didn’t matter. They would hear about it soon enough.
He looked out at the class for a long moment. For once, he didn’t find the scornful eyes of his peers the least bit intimidating. His statement was as much for them as it was for his parents.
“What have you got in your bag, Jeremy? A visual aid?” Hollingsworth asked, sounding genuinely curious.
“Yes. A visual aid,” he said evenly. He sat the bag on the podium and unzipped it slowly. “My name is Jeremy Snider, and I am here to make a statement that people will remember for a long time.” He slid the .44 out of his bag smoothly. His audience stared wide-eyed, mouths hung slack. No one moved. Jeremy put the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. Somewhere far away, he thought he heard someone scream.
In the months after, they tried to forget
about it. The world wanted to erase
Jeremy’s statement from the blackboard.
But, like the bloodstains, Jeremy’s statement was not easy to wash away.