FIFTEEN
Baback’s playing is one of the few things around here that actually make me feel better, and since I’ve already made up my mind to shoot Asher Beal and off myself, I don’t want to risk listening to Baback work his violin. I’m afraid his music might seduce me, trick me into living for another day—like it has so many times before. So when I enter the auditorium, I say, “Baback, I won’t be listening to you play today.”
“What?” he says with a mock-horrified face. He’s wearing dark jeans, checkered Vans, and a Harold & Kumar T-shirt—and I think about how much he’s changed, been Americanized, even if he’s still unlike the other students here. “And just why are you breaking tradition, may I ask?”
Instead of answering his question, I pull out his present from my backpack—an envelope wrapped in pink paper—and I say, “This is for you.” My voice booms and echoes in the huge, empty auditorium.
He looks me in the eye and says, “What is it?”
“I just want you to know that I really, really enjoy listening to you play your violin and that the lunch periods I spend lost in your music—well, let’s just say you have no idea how much your violin music has saved me over the past few years. So many days I wouldn’t make it if I didn’t hear you play. You’re a really gifted musician. I hope you’ll never stop playing. I want to give you something to express my gratitude—to let you know that I value your playing more than you realize. It may just look like I’m sitting in the back of the room sleeping, but it’s so much more than that—your music gives me something to look forward to each day—and it’s like a friend to me. Maybe my best friend here at our high school. I just want to say thank you.”
I can feel my eyes welling up, so I look down at my feet and extend the pink rectangle toward Baback.
He takes the envelope and says, “Why are you telling me this today, Leonard?”
“I just needed to give this to you. It’s a present.”
“Why’s it wrapped in pink?”
“The color isn’t really significant.”
“Am I not getting something here?” he asks.
I sort of hope he’ll figure out it’s my birthday, but I’m not sure why. Still, I get excited thinking that he might guess it.
He peels off the wrapping paper, opens the envelope, reads the check I wrote out to True Democracy in Iran, and says, “Is this some sort of joke?”
“What? No. It’s a check to help aid the freedom fighters in your country.”
“You really expect me to believe this is real?”
“It’s my college fund. I’m not going to college. I didn’t even take the SAT.”
“Why are you messing around like this? Do you even know what it’s like for people living in Iran? This isn’t a joke, Leonard. Some things you can’t joke around about.”
“I know. That check is real. I swear to god. Send it to the cause. You’ll see. I hope the money helps the struggle. It’s my entire college fund. My grandparents left me a ton of cash.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
“I thought you’d be happy.”
He sighs and runs his hands through his hair, which is hanging freely to his shoulders today.
“Listen, I appreciate your sticking up for me when we were sophomores and I appreciate your… support. I get that you’re a little off. That you march to your own drummer or whatever. I’m okay with that. But I’ve never done anything to you—never been mean at all—and yet you walk in here and insult me with this fake six-figure check. My grandparents have endured innumerable… you have no idea how hard it was for my family and… you know what,” he says while putting his violin away, “I don’t think I’m going to play today. And I don’t think I want you listening to me anymore. Your being in the back of the auditorium—just sitting there every day—it’s really starting to creep me out.”
“The check’s real,” I say.
“Okay, Leonard.”
“I’m fucking serious. That check is real! You’re being an asshole. Go to the bank right now and you’ll see what an asshole you’re being.”
“Why are you wearing that hat?” he says. “Did you cut off your hair?”
I look at him and can tell he doesn’t really like me.
I was right; just as soon as you take the first step toward getting to know someone your own age, everything you thought was magical about that person turns to shit right in front of your face.
He’s looking at me like he loathes me—like my face disgusts him—and I just want him to stop.
“Maybe you should talk to someone,” he says. “Like Guidance.”
“I tried talking to you and look where that got us.”
“Listen, you obviously have problems, Leonard. I’m sorry for that. I really am. But there are people with worse problems than yours, I can assure you this. Leave this town once in a while and you’ll see that I’m right. First-world problems. That’s what you have.”
He strides through the doors and I realize I must have really pissed him off, because it’s the first time he hasn’t practiced when the auditorium was available during lunchtime. The first time in three school years.
I pick up the check he left behind, sit down in one of those old-ass creaky seats, and ponder what he said about there being people with worse problems than mine. It takes me all of three seconds to conclude that’s such a bullshit thing to say. Like the people in Iran are more important than me because their suffering is supposedly more acute.
Bullshit.
I like thinking all alone in the auditorium even when there is no violin music.
Maybe I never even needed Baback to begin with.
Maybe he’s just like all the rest.
It’s better here when I’m by myself.
Safer.
How do you measure suffering?
I mean, the fact that I live in a democratic country doesn’t guarantee my life will be problem-free.
Far from it.
I understand that I am relatively privileged from a socioeconomical viewpoint, but so was Hamlet—so are a lot of miserable people.
I bet there are people in Iran who are happier than I am—who wish to keep living there regardless of who is in charge politically, while I’m miserable here in this supposedly free country and just want out of this life at any cost.
I wonder if Baback will regret demeaning my suffering when he turns on the news tonight.
I kinda hope he’ll feel responsible somehow—that it will make him so regretful he gets sick.