The summer before my first year of middle school, I was either nine or ten probably, considerably smaller than I am now at any rate, my best friend of the past 6 or so years, Stephanie Kunkel and I sat in the small attic space above her garage that we had spent the last several months or so turning into our club house.
The club had no name, the important fact being not that we were an established club but that we were in charge.
Stephanie and I would swap between President and Vice President, my turns as President always lasting longer than hers what with my being an outspoken glutton for power and attention.
Sheldon, Stephanie's younger brother would, on occasion, make an appearance to put in hours as our Secretary, taking dictation on an old broken typewriter whenever I felt compelled to pretend I had something of importance to say.
I had just learned how to swear that year. Not that I had just learned what wear words were, but I had recently became aware of the power of words such as "Hell" and "God Damn" and maybe even, dare I say it, "Ass."
The real biggies, the four letter words that mean business, "Shit," "Fuck," and "Cunt" were still out of my vocabulary's reach but I didn't need them. I did just fine with what I had.
This particular summer was a hot one and while we were out of theThe sun, the attic had no air conditioning and made for an excellent sauna.
We were dying, lying on the tiny squares of carpet we had lain around between boxes, sweating through layer after layer and we had nothing to do. In just a few weeks Stephanie and I would be separated, off to different schools, off to become separate people with separate genders and sensibilities. Steph had already begun to try on blush and maybe even lipstick, had already started to talk about boys and maybe even have crushes on them and I was worried. That's not to say I wasn't discovering an interest in girls but to me, Stephanie wasn't a girl. But I was a man, and Stephanie showing interest in little stupid boys meant that interest in me was dwindling. I guess. It was sound logic at the time.
But we're sweating in the attic, growing apart in uncomfortable silence when Sheldon, the young brother secretary comes scrambling up the ladder from the garage. He was loud and mousy and anxious to be our friends but the minute he arrived we sent him immediately to the Box, an old refrigerator box we had filled with tiny rubber bugs. The rule was if you were neither Stephanie nor myself you had to spend up to five minutes in The Box to prove your worth. Old fashioned hazing at an early age.
Sheldon at this point was a master of the box and lie in the darkness with the rubber snakes and spiders humming to himself.
Suddenly, in the tiny attic window overlooking the driveway, Stephanie sees something move. A tiny little ball of fur clutches to the screen, trapped between the metal netting and the small glass pane. How it got there was not apparent and how long it had been watching us was unknown.
We watch it, Sheldon clambering out of the Box to stare with us. And I, with the natural instincts of a child, take a pencil and, with limited care, poke at the shaking ball of fur and watch as it shifts, pees itself, and falls to the window sill still strapped between glass and screen, dead.
A tiny baby bat that I had killed with a pencil and curiosity.
I do not remember the specifics of what followed. I remember being upset and I remember not knowing why. I had seen death before. Simba's father died right in front of my eyes, Bambi's mother had been shot, but neither of these things had effected me so greatly as this. I mean, I hadn't killed Mufasa. And when Bambi's mom was blown away I hadn't pulled the trigger. And the baby animal I had killed was no cartoon, but in fact very real and very much dead.
I didn't cry but I was angry. I didn't know what dying meant, and now that I had ended a life I still had no idea, but now I knew I didn't know and I was angry.
I yelled at Stephanie and Sheldon for not understanding and I didn't even swear.
Swearing makes you powerful and important and an adult and I wasn't any of these things. I was a little boy with a best friend who didn't love him anymore because she loved make-up and shoes and girl things instead.
I left. And we weren't friends anymore. Not anymore, because she was a girl and I was a murderer and we just weren't friends anymore.
