The Clash of Societies

“I watched fifty hours of South Park,” Xander said.

“That’s impossible, I said. “I tried to watch The Daily Show, but South Park had taken over Comedy Central.”

“The Daily Show’s not on on Sundays.”

“Oh yea.”

Two days later Brian was there. He and his girlfriend, who’s twenty years younger than him, were sitting at my dining room table. No one was talking.

“I watched fifty hours of South Park,” he bragged again. Rick rolled his eyes and propped his head on his fist.

“That’s impossible,” I said. Dejavu.

“No, it’s not,” he snapped.

“That’s more than two days of TV,” Rick said quietly.

Xander was mumbling. Rick turned to face him. “What?”

“Shut up,” Xander said.

“Hah,” Rick shouted in triumph. The room was quiet again.

Brian and Sally had been looking back and forth from person to person as we discussed fifty hours of South Park. This whole thing was surely very awkward for them.

“I don’t even know why we’re friends,” Xander said looking at Rick.

“I didn’t know we were,” he said.

Xander stood up, apparently pissed off, and left. He tried to slam the door on his way out, but the door is stupid, so it didn’t work.

It was awkwardly quiet again. “Well,” Sally started. “We have a plane to catch.” She looked at Brian expectantly. He didn’t notice at first, then she cleared her throught.

“Oh, yea. Flight. Plane.” They both stood up. She latched on to his arm.

“What a cliché moment,” I mumbled. Brian must have heard me because as Sally was pushing him towards the door he flashed a peace sign and gave Rick and I his amazing smile. Then they were out the door and gone.

It was quiet again. “What the hell,” Rick said.

“What?”

“What. The. Hell.” He repeated it slower this time.

“He’s just—“

“Don’t even start.”

That was only the beginning of the disaster.

Three days after that I was at class. As I left the building and walked into the parking lot I saw her teal pickup truck. In the back was a real old school looking red bicycle. I got in the car.

“Welcome home,” I said.

She glared at me. “My parents,” she started. She shook her head and concentrated on driving. We were on the highway headed towards Chicago.

Finally she pulled off at an exit. We were in some Podunk town somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Illinois. Soon we pulled over on the side of the road.

There were some empty looking houses scattered around a large field. Around the field and houses was just corn. There were paths that led off the field and into the corn fields. In the field there were two picnic benches. Rick and Matthew were sitting at one and playing cards.

Janice and I went and sat with them. Janice sat next to Matthew and I sat next to Rick. Matthew had parts of his dark brown hair dyed purple. “I like your hair,” I said.

“Thanks,” he said. Matthew threw down his cards on the table and pointed at Rick.

“Ugh,” Rick shouted.

“I win! I win! The Irish always win,” Matthew shouted back at him.

Rick turned to me. “Can you believe that?”

“Yes, actually I can,” I said.

He turned away. “Ugh!”

Matthew packed up the cards and we all left the table. We walked down one of the paths. There was corn on either side. Janice was walking the old red bike by her side.

That day was one of the best days, and Xander wasn’t there.

A week later as I was leaving class I saw him waiting for me in the hallway. He was giving me a ride home that day.

We were in the car, and on the highway on the way home. “Where do you want to go,” he asked.

“I kind of just want to go home,” I said.

“No, let’s go somewhere. I want to have fun,” he said. “Life is too boring.”

“I just want to go home.”

“Let’s go on an adventure.”

“What is this,” I said. “Is this Scientology again?”

“What’s that supposed to mean,” he asked.

“Never mind.”

“He’s brainwashing you,” he said.

“Who?”

“Rick.”

“What?! No, he’s not!”

“Just because he has a problem with me, doesn’t mean you have to too,” he said.

“I don’t have a problem with you, but he sure does. You ruined his life!”

“How did I ruin his life?”

“You tried to help him,” I told him.

“Yea, I did. I tried, but he rejected my help,” he said.

“He didn’t reject it.”

“Yes, he did!”

“No, he rejected you trying to convert him!”

“I didn’t try to convert him!”

“Yes, you did!”

“No, I didn’t!”

“Oh, just shut up!”

“Do you listen to everything he says,” Xander asked.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Well, you shouldn’t.”

“He’s my brother.”

“I’m your boyfriend.”

I turned and looked out the window. “You’re a loser,” I mumbled. After that it was quiet.

The next day Rick and I were at the skate park with Matthew. Matthew was off doing his BMX thing. Rick had his skates and I had my skateboard.

“He said what,” Rick shouted.

“He said that you rejected his help,” I shouted back.

“He said I what?”

“The music,” I said.

“What?”

“Never mind.”

“What?”

“I’ll tell you later.” The music was way too loud.

“Ok,” he said. I wondered why he heard that and nothing else. It didn’t matter.

Matthew came then. He was fast, almost running down Rick. “Holy shit, dude,” Rick shouted at him.

“Sorry,” Matthew shouted back. “What are you guys talking about?”

“Xander,” I said.

“Ah,” Matthew said.

“So, when are you and Janice going to Dublin,” Rick asked.

“Next week,” Matthew said.

Four days later it was Monday. Matthew and Janice were gone. I hadn’t seen Rick in two days, and I hadn’t seen Xander since he’d given me a ride home a few days earlier. I was kind of worried about Rick. Usually if he was going to be gone this long he would have called. I had tried calling his cell, but that only revealed that he’d left it at home. I thought about calling Xander, but I really didn’t want to talk to him. Then again, I was worried about Rick.

I picked up the phone and dialed the first three numbers of Xander's phone number. Then I chickened out and put the phone back in the charger. I picked it up again and dialed his number. It rang.

“Hello,” he said.

“Hey.”

“Rose?”

“Yea.”

“What’s up?”

“Have you seen Rick,” I asked. “He left his phone here.”

“No, not recently,” he said. “Why? How long’s he been gone?”

“Two days,” I said.

“You wanna go look for him?”

“Yea.”

We were still in the car. We hadn’t found him anywhere. We’d already called his friends in Chicago and his friends here. None of them had seen him or heard from him.

When we got home there was a message on the answering machine. It was from Rick asking us to bail him out of jail. I was pissed. Xander was even more pissed. We both knew why he was there.

“I’m not even going to bother,” I said.

The next day I decided to go see him. They let me in to see him. He must not have been in for anything big. “Look, I know why you’re here,” I said.

“It’s not that. It’s just because—“

“Really?”

“Hey!” He seemed kind of angry. “I’m clean and I’ve been clean. All I did was hit a guy.”

“Oh,” I said.

Later that day we were at home. Rick and I hadn’t talked since I’d gone and bailed him out of jail. He kept trying to talk to me, but I wasn’t in the mood to respond.

“Why are you so pissed about it? Why were you so pissed about it in the first place? What about Richard, huh? What about Richard?” He was grilling me with questions. I hadn’t wanted to talk to him at all, but when he mentioned Richard I just couldn’t keep my mouth shut.

“Don’t bring him into this,” I said.

“He was a stoner.”

“He’s—“

He cut me off. “He was a punk-ass stoner.”

“He’s old news,” I said.

“He was a fucking 24/7 stoner! I’m surprised he could even remember his own name.”

“Oh? And what are you,” I asked.

“I’m not a stoner,” he said.

“You mean, not like him?”

He was quiet and didn’t answer. “You’re more like him than you know,” I said. “You’re just like him.”

Rick stood up angrily and left the room. He tried to slam the door on his way out of the house, but it didn’t sound like it worked.

Three days later Rick still hadn’t come home. For some reason I wasn’t that worried about him.

I was in my room working on stuff for my class when he came back. I heard the door close as he came in, and I could hear him coming up the stairs. He came into my room and didn’t even look at me. He went straight to the shelf. He was pushing stuff to the side like he was looking for something.

“What are you looking for,” I asked.

He ignored me. Then, right then, he brought something out from the back of the shelf. It was the small wooden box.

He was about to leave the room with it when I tackled him. He fell on his back. The little box went sliding across the floor. I had him pinned.

“Don’t you dare,” I growled.

“Oh, I see flames in your eyes,” he mocked.

“You’re stealing,” I retorted.

“So? You’re never going to use them.”

“They’re for emergencies!”

“Why would you want to be high in an emergency?”

“Those things don’t make me high. They make me panic.”

“I don’t give a fuck what they make you do.” At this point we started wrestling. He was trying to get free, and he was winning. He finally got away. I grabbed the bottom of his pants as he tried to get to the little box at the end of the hall. He got away from my grip fairly easily.

He was now just about to pick up the box. “No,” I said. I tried to grab hold of him at the top of the stairs, but again he got away. He made it downstairs. He was gone.

I stayed where I was, lying on the floor for a moment before getting up. I had to call Xander. I had to tell him.

Two days later it was Saturday. Rick hadn’t been back since he’d come for the box. Xander had been staying with me for the past two days.

We were sitting in the living room not doing anything. We weren’t talking, or eating, or watching TV. The phone rang. We looked at each other. Xander was next to the phone. “It says it’s from a pay phone,” he said.

“It might be him,” I said.

He answered the phone. After he said hello he was quiet. A minute later he hung up the phone. “He’s at the lake,” he said.

We got up and left.

We were at the lake. We had been there a while. I was now very worried about my brother.

“Let’s go home.” Xander sounded exhausted.

“No. Let’s walk around it one more time.” I wanted to find him. He was there. I was sure of it.

“Why don’t you just go swimming while you’re at it? And while you’re looking for him in the middle of the lake, I’ll be sure to call a team of divers.” He turned away and started walking back to his car. I followed him and we drove home.

When we got home there was a message on the answering machine. “I’m in the middle of nowhere. I’m at that crack house. By the way this place is full of dead quack doctors.” It was Rick’s voice. I deleted the message.

“What?” Xander was confused.

“He’s at the abandoned mental hospital,” I said.

“Oh.”

When we got there it was dark. It was even darker and scarier inside. We had flashlights.

We had been walking around the place for what seemed like hours. “What,” I said to myself as I stooped down to look at something I’d just stepped on. It was the little wooden box. My grandmother had given it to me. I opened it. It was empty.

“Shit,” I said.

“What,” Xander asked.

“Shit,” I repeated.

“What?”

I scanned the floor of the large room we were in with my light. I saw a hint of blue a few yards from where we stood. I walked to it. It was all over the floor. There were several halves of the blue, plastic-like outer shell of the pills all over the floor. There was some of the white powdery stuff from the inside of the pills on the floor too. What had he done?

I kneeled on the dirty floor and collected the blue pieces. Not all the pills were accounted for. Did he OD on Adderall? By now, and at this rate, he probably had.

“Holy shit,” I heard Xander say a bit far off.

“We have to—“ find him. I stopped when I saw what Xander had his light pointed at. I pointed my light at it too. Xander had beat me to it. He had already found him.

I walked closer. His body slowly spun back and forth as he hung there. All I could think about was the message he’d left on the machine, and about how pissed I was at myself for deleting it.