Chapter 21
Sometimes you expect the worst to happen, and usually you’d be right. At the end of everything, of every life well lived, saints and sinners and normal people like us, the worst is waiting, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. That’s what it means to be human. We’re born in pain and grow in pain. No matter how hard we study or work or try to do what’s right, even if we succeed in the best possible way and get everything in life we want, the end comes. The world swallows us up and shits us out.
Life is the ultimate dead end.
And deep down I think everyone knows it. Some just ignore it better than others.
So you expect the worst to happen, and usually it does.
But sometimes the best thing happens. Sometimes life throws us a prize we know we don’t deserve.
Some take it for granted. Some try to earn it, try to deserve it.
Maybe the big guy in the sky only gives us these prizes so he can point and laugh at us when he takes them away. I’m not convinced he exists, maybe only because I don’t want him to. If he does exist then he’s a bastard.
Shit, I’m turning prematurely cynical.
The best thing that ever happened to me was in college, when I was still just a hopeful young pup.
* * *
I was on the quad, on a bench, a drink from the campus coffee stand in one hand and open book in my lap. I felt very collegiate. The book was Vector Mechanics for Engineers. The drink was a large five shot mocha.
I expected to hate college. I enjoyed high school about as much as I enjoyed explosive diarrhea, but Uncle Higheagle had talked me into it, and it was good.
“Hieronymus?”
My happy mood hit the ground with a splat. A few passing coeds turned my way at the sound of that voice, one raising a hasty hand to cover her smirk.
“Hieronymus Quick?”
The voice was very distantly familiar. It would have to be. I’d put a stop to that Hieronymus shit years before. From high school on I was Butch.
“Yeah...that’s me.” I turned to face my unwelcome company—anyone who called me by that name was unwelcome—and lost the ability to speak for a moment.
“Oh my god! It’s you!”
Yeah, it was me, but who was she? Why did she look so damned familiar, short hair so dark it was almost black, lightly freckled white skin, very pretty? The sight of her smiling face shocked the breath from me.
She took a step toward me, then hesitated. Her happy surprise wilted like a flower. “It’s me...Beth Trout.”
Trout. The name rang a distant but strong bell. I felt my pulse start to race, my heart pound, felt the zing of adrenaline, the body’s way of taking the brain for a trip back in time. All the way back to the eighth grade and the sound of a scream, the sound of mean-spirited laughter. The thrill of rage, and my ungrateful damsel in distress.
The card left on my doorstep, the handwritten message that I’m still not going to share with you.
“Elizabeth Trout?”
She groaned, but her smile returned.
“Please, just call me Beth.”
* * *
Beth was the best thing that ever happened to me, and the absolute best thing was that she kept on happening. It lasted for years, and every year it got better.
Until it got worse.
Things always get worse.
It’s the only thing in life you can count on.