Although you could easily figure out what the story is about simply by reading it, I'll be annoying and give a little bit of background. Essentially, I used to live in Canada and this short story gives a summation of a friendship I share with someone who still lives there. Yeah I know it sounds adorable and you're anxious to read. Anywho, I go back and visit sometimes and this story gives a summary of how this friendship progresses through the boundaries of the United States over the course of several years. Eventually we decide to be even cuter and get simply stunning tattoo's as a marker of the friendship. We got the tattoo's on our legs so we made a deal to never wear shorts at the same day to ensure we don't look too cute together. This may be my last post for a little while so do me a solid and enjoy it....even though it's kinda long...
Broadband Sidekick
“…When you say best friends means friends forever.”
- Brand New
“Jeff, how many more levels do we need to beat in Crash Bandicoot before we finish the game?” I was trying to make some simple conversation to take my mind off the fact that a needle was charring my skin. I almost expected him to call me out on being a wimp because of the pain but he was surprisingly understanding about it.
“Well we beat the third world right?”
“Yeah,” I replied as my leg cringed with the first signs of pain.
“Okay well then we just need to beat the boss in that world and then finish the last few levels and we’re done.” That conversation was over much more quickly than I would have liked and I searched frantically for any objects around the room that could act as a simple conversation starter. Failing to find anything out of the ordinary, Jeff and I made small talk with the tattoo artist between intermittent surges of pain.
* * * *
I can’t even describe the number of hours we devoted to James Bond’s Goldeneye video game on Nintendo 64. We could spend hours at a time rampaging through buildings, open fields and military compounds killing anything that crossed our paths.
It was as though it were any other day; Jeff and I perched at the edge of his bed with our eyes cemented on his TV screen. It was the day that I’d been dreading for quite some time and I didn’t think I was ready for what was about to happen. My dad had told me a few months back that we’d be moving to
I didn’t speak with Jeff at all after the first month of life in
126. When you pick up the carton of milk in the fridge and instantly put it back down when you realize it’s too light.
127. When the cat falls asleep on your lap when you’re at the computer and you realize that there’s no way to escape without its claws becoming better acquainted with your leg.
128. Rap music
129. When a bottle cap rolls directly under your chair to the point that there’s no way you can reach it without straining.
This list was built over the course of a few years in random spurts of boredom. Typically it would start when I’d come home annoyed one day and find Jeff on the internet to complain to:
Ross says: You know what I hate? I really hate it when you’re walking somewhere in a group and not fully paying attention to the path so you step in a little tiny hole that you can’t see. I hate that; you fall over every single time and look like an ass in front of everyone.
[ J e f f ] says: Add that in as #214
As I watched our friendship mature over the years I quickly realized that although Jeff was never one to turn down a relationship with a girl he truly liked, he seemed to prefer hooking up with a new girl every weekend. I was much different - Jeff had been with several girls by the time I’d found my first.
Jeff saw me through my very first relationship from start to finish. I began dating a girl named Steph in my junior year of high school and when I told Jeff about it he was beyond ecstatic that “my balls had finally dropped.”
I waited in an awkward silence listening to the sound of my lungs nervously pumping out oxygen at a higher than normal rate.
“Hey…are you very busy right now?”
“Actually Ross I am,” my girlfriend said as she answered the phone, “Why? Do you need to talk to me again about something important?”
“I hardly get to talk to you Steph and when I’m away at college, talking is very important if this is going to work. I know that you never have problems calling and talking to your friends, so why can’t you just make time for me?”
“You just don’t understand how busy I am do you, Ross?”
Jeff never seemed to get annoyed that I kept calling him and leaving emotional e-mails complaining about something Stephanie had said or done. Eventually it got to the point that I’d finally had enough and knew that I had to end the relationship for my own well-being.
[ J e f f ] says: Hey sweetie, what’s going on?
Ross says: …I broke up with her today. I actually did it. It feels so good.
[ J e f f ] says: Finally! I told you it’d feel so much better. Add that bitch in as #215.
212. When you try to eat bagel bites but you miss your mouth entirely and it falls all over your shirt.
213.
214. When you’re walking somewhere in a group and not fully paying attention to the path so you step in a little tiny hole that you can’t see, wrench your leg and fall over in front of everyone.
215. Ross’s ex-girlfriend.
Despite the fact that my relationship with Steph ended on the worst possible terms, there was something good to come from that web of teenage angst. After the girl that Jeff appropriately labeled “she who shall not be named” played me a few songs performed perfectly by the alternative/emo/indie super band, Brand New, we couldn’t stop listening. Memorizing lyrics, listening to songs on repeat, seeing concert after concert, we did it all (even if it was in entirely different countries at entirely different times.) We could never get out of our heads and never got tired of listening to songs like “Sic transit gloria…glory fades.” Its chorus was shouted with such intensity and angst that we found it easy to sing the lyrics to ourselves whenever we wanted:
The fever, the focus.
The reasons that I had to believe you weren’t too hard to sell.
Die young and save yourself!
To further add to our obsession, on frequent occasions I would receive e-mails from Jeff that would read something like:
So keep the blood in your head!
And keep your feet on the ground!
If today’s the day it gets tired,
Today’s the day we drop out!
Oh man Ross, I was listening to The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows today and got goose bumps when I heard the chorus. I fuckin love Brand New!
p.s. I was eating bagel bites earlier today and just missed my mouth when I tried to eat one and it fell all over my shirt. Straight up, it was like my face had been re-arranged and I was guessing where my mouth should be.
* * * *
I was confused when my dad called and told me to meet him at a nearby shopping center. He was interrupting my steady flow of Nazi killing with a sub-machine gun issued by my favorite computer program. I drove to the meeting place and searched for my father’s red Pontiac Bonneville. Instead I saw him drive around the corner in a small, turquoise-looking family sedan with the words “Cavalier LS” written on the back.
“Sweet, my father is a car thief now!”
“No, no, no you little smartass. I’m test-driving this car for you right now. If you approve then I’ll gladly go place an offer on it for you because I know you’re going to need the car when making the six hour commute to and from college every few months.”
“No way, really?”
This car was nothing special by any means. It was a turquoise-ish, blu-ish, green-ish calamity of colors all morphed into one strange sight for the eyes. The four-door layout of the body was perfect for family road-trips with the kids and the automatic transmission and high-mileage, four-banger engine was sure to pump out boatloads of power for the NASCAR driver hiding in all of us. It was a car. As long as it had wheels and was capable of getting me from one place to another with only a few minor engine fires then I would happily accept.
When my dad drove back with the car to place an offer, I found myself speeding home as fast as my mom’s
Ross Says: so I was just hanging out today playing video games when my dad calls me up and is like “Yooooooo what uppp? I bought you a car, come test drive this shit!”
[ J e f f ] Says: I’m no stranger to sarcasm Ross
Ross Says: yeah I know sweetie but this time I’m not being sarcastic
[ J e f f ] Says: …you actually have a car now?
Ross Says: damn right
[ J e f f ] Says: yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah!!!!!! why the hell aren’t you up here yet?
Ross Says: believe me, I’m already planning my trip
Over the course of the next few weeks, we spent our time on the internet collaborating on a list of things that would have to be accomplished upon my arrival:
1. Get drunk upon Ross’s immediate arrival
2. Eat our weight in pizza every night
3. Go to
4. Find scandalously clad teenage girls at parties
5. Eat more pizza, drink more beer
6. Get a tattoo
We would talk for hours over the next few months collaborating on the design until we had it perfect. Instantly, we agreed that whatever tattoo we chose, it had to involve Brand New in some form or another.
After thinking hard for specific lyrics that we wouldn’t mind having burned into our skin for eternity, we came up with a perfect idea. Jeff informed me that he was going to have the words “The Fever” ink’d on the back of his leg and I would have “The Focus” in the same spot. I was a bit skeptical at first, and then Jeff offered his reasoning. He explained that he knew he was good with women and didn’t feel cocky to admit it. This accounted for the words “The Fever.” He continued to explain that I always ended up picking the maniacal girls who would end up tearing me to pieces and that I focused too hard on fixing things when in reality I should be trying to get out. This accounted for the words “The Focus.” Lastly, these words were taken from the chorus of the song “Sic Transit Gloria…Glory Fades,” and we both agreed that that song is just badass.
After I nagged Jeff relentlessly to place an appointment at a respectable tattoo parlor, he finally pulled through and booked us in for the end of my visit at a place called “Cottage 13.” He explained that this was where his sister had gotten all of her tattoos and that all the artist’s there were highly commendable.
After the excruciating eight-hour drive, I finally arrived back in Waterdown with unnecessarily loud Brand new lyrics being screamed at the highest possible frequency my tiny car speakers could pump. I arrived in Jeff’s driveway right as the song “Seventy Times 7” reached the loudest part of emotional bridge used for constructive emphasis of the singers’ angst.
Jeff quickly rushed out his front door to come give me a hug right as the singer was finishing his rant.
“What the hell took you so long? Come on, I got our 2-4 inside already, we’re going to get drunk!”
Over the course of my week-long visit back to
TR was different. Through much of our friendship, I was constantly enlightened about Jeff’s sexual prowess. It wasn’t often that Jeff fell so hard for anyone. Even if Jeff wouldn’t agree, I felt like he was showing signs of vulnerability like the majority of human males. He built up such a powerful defense to protect himself and his masculinity from the hardships we find within the opposite sex and down it came in an instant by a girl who arrived fashionably late to the party that was his life and luckily for him, she arrived stag.
Although we spent just about every night nurturing our inner-alcoholic doppelgangers and fighting off the hangovers that inevitably ensued, we were still able to have a great time during the day. Jeff, TR, TR’s friend Claudia and I spent an entire day at the popular Canadian theme park known as
The cart rattled with the intensity provided by the chain-link lift that carried us up the steep slope on the old, wooden rollercoaster. Jeff was next to me as we waited eagerly for the wonders that would follow on the other side of the steep peak. TR and Claudia were in the cart behind us talking about god-knows-what when Jeff nudged me on the shoulder.
“Hey, you know what Jesse Lacey’s middle name is, right?”
“Jeff…he’s the lead singer of our favorite band and neither of us are ashamed to say that we have a man-crush on him. His middle name is Thomas. He’s Jesse Fuckin Thomas Lacey.”
“Okay okay, just checking,” Jeff replied in defense.
“You think TR knows what his middle name is? If she truly loves you Jeff, then she should take a shining interest in everything that you love.”
“Good point, let’s find out. Hey babe, do you know what Jesse Lacey’s middle name is?”
“Fuckin.”
I was jealous myself that I didn’t have a girl so amazing that she actually provided that answer when asked such a ridiculous question.
It wasn’t until shortly after midnight at Jeff’s house that we realized our tattoo appointment was the next day and we still hadn’t fully decided exactly how we wanted the tattoo to look. We had been fiddling around with the design over the course of the several month long period ever since we came to the final decision to have the words The Fever and The Focus painted on our bodies. We were quite happy with the font we chose and the idea to have the words written down the back of our calves, but something was still missing. Knowing full well that Brand New was known for toying around with lyrics without the use of vowels, we decided to put this idea to use. Although it would not be possible to sing without vowels, Brand New frequently released website updates containing lyrics with no vowels.
Fght ff yr dmns
Wrt sngs n yr slp
Sng n yr slp
Fghtffyrdmns, yr dmns!
Putting this concept to good use, Jeff suggested adding a sort of subscript text to each of our tattoos in the bottom corner. This subscript would be different for each of us, contain no vowels and still link to the other’s tattoo. Seeing how my tattoo would read “The Focus,” I would add the letters fvr to the corner and Jeff’s would read fcs. Although we were aware that this could possibly add too much to the design, we loved the idea so much that we couldn’t pass it up. It was simply another way to combine our friendship with our love of Brand New.
We arrived at Cottage 13 about fifteen minutes before our appointment was scheduled to take place. I was hoping to be able to meet our artist first so we could discuss every detail of the tattoo. If I was getting something ink’d on my body forever, then I was damn-well going to make sure it looked the way I wanted. The artist introduced himself as Os and explained that he could make our design look however we wanted it to, but that if he strayed too far from the design we printed out for him, then he wouldn’t really be drawing our tattoo; it would be his own. We agreed with him on this and told him to follow our design as best he could.
I got to take a look around the small office in the lobby of this tattoo parlor while Os printed up the stencil he would attach to the back of my leg. It was a very clean establishment, with each artists’ credentials hung proudly on the wall next to several pieces of their artwork, most of which consisted of some sort of elaborate dragon or skull design so they could flaunt their best masterpieces. I commended Jeff on his choice of artist.
After Os had the dark stencil set firmly on my leg for him to trace, he was all ready to begin the procedure. He could sense my nervousness and said that after the count of three, he would be pressing the sharp needle to my flesh, indicating that there was no turning back.
“1…2…3…”
* * * *
“Man Jeff, my leg is still really sore.”
“Yeah you’re a pretty big wimp; it’ll take another few weeks to fully heal,” Jeff replied in his usual, sarcastic tone.
“Yeah whatever, I’ll have to tough it out for a few weeks. You know, Os told me that if I came back to
“Yeah, he told me that too.”
“It gives me an excuse to see my sweetie again next year…although when I come back next year we have to make sure that we don’t wear shorts at the same time in public. Our friendship is already borderline questionable as it is.”
“Yeah, we need some time apart,” replied Jeff with his eyes still locked on to the back of his leg in fascination.
I tried extremely hard to fight the urge to reply with something witty and sarcastic that would in all likelihood question his sexuality. I restrained myself when I realized that as soon as I got home I would probably open an instant message window on my computer, greet him with a cute pet name, and add something to the list that might read “312. Leaving my sweetie after a week full of booze, pizza and tattoos.”
Keeping all of this in mind, all I could come up with to say was, “Agreed.”
2 comments:
Duuuuude. That girl in your story sounds like a huge bitch. I had a girlfriend like that once. I feel your pain. You just hit it and dump 'em to the curb in like 2 weeks...good thing you got rid of her quick.
Amen, brother!
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