A Momentary Lapse of Reason
The thought of it smashed into Lara’s brain like a car wreck. Memories of the incident and her fear of failure had always been a slippery slope that sent her delving into the depths of depression. She was always too hard on herself, she could never fail again. Before it happened, it was easy to become at ease in a moment and resign her vigilance. The space around her may have changed, but the experience was a ghost that would haunt her forever. She could not fail. She couldn’t even fathom it. She was forced to resurrect the rusty armor that enclosed her, guarding her insides from harm.
Upon entering high school, she was a mediocre student. Her long golden brown hair hung cascading over her slouched shoulders. She was beautiful, with striking dark eyes, but she didn’t think so, and no amount of persuasion would change her self image. Moving from state to state it became difficult to retain any information for school, and she became expectant of mediocrity in her grades, and friendships. Perpetually the new girl, she never entered the minefield of building lasting friendships. Why get to know and love someone if she was just going to have to leave them? Making friends was not a safe thing to do, but she craved someone to talk to, someone to share with. She was just as naïve, and self serving as anyone seems to be at fourteen.
As she peered out the rainy car window, she remembered Colorado. She recently moved to Iowa, and hated the landscape. There were no streams to explore with a rainbow of pebbles glimmering beneath the crystal water. There were no mountains to paint, no pine forests that smelled like Christmas, and made her sneeze. There were just flat expanses of corn and dirt. The car stopped, Washington High School loomed before her like a fortress. It presented her yet another challenge she was sure to fail. “Here we go” she muttered insolently as she slammed the car door. Her mother shot her a look that satisfied her desire for the comfort of conflict. Conflict was a welcome constant in her life.
She did not fit in with the preppy girls, nor was she into rap, she could not play a band instrument, and the Beatles and Pink Floyd songs she could play on guitar had no purpose in a high school. She hated sports because she never learned the rules. It seemed as if there was no talent about her, nothing special. She often wondered why she never fit in, but accepted it as a fact of life. A few months of lone wolf status slowly rolled by, and finally she made friends with a red haired girl named Jenny. Jenny’s father was a cop, and she lived in a small green house near the school. A face full of freckles, straight c student, she was medium. Just like Lara, she seemed content with being lost. A sense of familiarity grew, and soon they were best friends. Jenny had a tiny basement room that was always chilly, and even when she would sleep over in the summertime they would wear socks to protect their feet from the bite of the cold concrete. They would set up the radio, and listen to tapes of Metallica, Def Leppard, and Guns and Roses. Sometimes they would go meet boys at a pool hall named Sharkys. Even though the pool hall was strictly a non alcohol establishment, it remained a dangerous place. The idea of adolescent kids coalescing in a dark place attracted men hunting young girls before the internet was even a well known word. **
The stars were brilliant that night. There was a chill in the air, and Lara put on her faded jean jacket that she had adorned with the names of some of her favorite bands* she managed to artfully reproduce Pink Floyds’ The Wall cover on the back, along with Metallica, and Tesla. They shimmered in red puff paint against the faded denim. She exited the blue Toyota, and her mother sped away from the quaint Sharkys building. It was not that her mother did not care about her; it was that Lara gave her no choice but to give her the liberty, and distance that she assumed she was entitled to.
She pushed her way through the crowd, and found Jenny. They each paid their three dollars, and began a game of eight ball. They could both feel the electricity of ogling eyes darting in their direction. It was welcome attention. Not long after the game began, a couple of boys came, and challenged them to a *game. These boys were older, one short, with black hair, and one taller, and obviously older. He had the sides of his head sheared into a thick Mohawk, and parted its blond remains in the middle letting the top dangle below his chin. He looked older, but Lara thought he was cute nonetheless. He personified that bad boy look, and it intrigued her. Besides, what was the harm in playing a game of pool? Never one to back down from a challenge, Lara racked up, ready for a two on two game of eight ball. The girls won the game which was obviously thrown by the boys, who seemed so much more experienced than they were letting on.
“Wanna go for a walk? I’m bored of this.” the older boy chided as they were deciding what to do next. There was a park behind Sharkys, and the girls figured it would be alright, and felt safe since they were together. The four of them walked into the cool dark night. Patchy fog settled on the ground of the park, its white tendrils morphing, and dissipating in the air. It gave the playground a creepy look, with the paint peeling from its rickety swing supports. Lara sat on the swing, and the rusty chain pinched her hand. She squealed, and pulled it back. The older boy quickly seized the opportunity, and kissed the place where it was pinched.
“Aw.” Jenny chuckled. Lara smiled and scuffed her feet on the ground below. “Creepy right?” she broke the silence of the moment, “with the fog.”
“Yea, Lets go to the graveyard!” the older one said with a devilish grin. Lara looked back at the building, a bit concerned about leaving with boys she didn’t know, but shrugged it off. After she learned their names, she would know them.
“We don’t even know your names!” Jenny proceeded.
“I’m Mike, and this is Chris.” the older one raked his hand through his yellow hair impatiently, “What’s a matter you guys scared?”
“Naw,” Lara marched, and grabbed his hand. “Let’s go.” She turned around and playfully pulled him in the direction of the graveyard. It would be fun to be scared, and she was always the brave one. The four advanced into the clearing in the Italian cypress tree line that served as a border hiding the graveyard from the park.
The gravestones sprawled across the landscape as far as the eye could see. Some huge granite statues jutting ominously into the night air, some small brown plastic cards with gilt names in letter plaques slid into a channel. Lara felt bad for the people who could only afford the plastic markers. She wondered how the person would feel if they knew how they were honored. Mike spotted the flock of swans wading in the shallows of a lake that was in the middle of the graveyard, and sprinted toward them, making them flap their great white wings wildly. He cackled, seemingly satisfied with their fear. They proceeded between the gravestone maze Mikes hand gripping Lara’s, and they arrived at the mausoleums. He textracted a joint, and a lighter from his Marlboro box. He looked up at her as he cocked his head, and lit inhaling deeply. Suddenly, he grabbed her by the back of the neck, and pressed his lips against hers, exhaling the smoke into her mouth. She coughed, and his eerie smile seemed amused. Again he inhaled a huge hit, and more gently this time, brought her lips to his, exhaled into her waiting lungs. She coughed a couple more times, but soon felt nothing at all. The world was spinning, and there were tracers on the lights as she turned her head. Where was Jenny? More fog seemed to roll in. She was messed up. She had never been high like this; she had tried pot once before, but the loss of control scared the hell out of her. She was unsure of everything, and the gravity of the dangerous situation prodded her already nervous mind.
“Mike?” What’s going on? Where are Jenny and Chris?” Her speech was obviously slurred. He pointed across the graveyard, and she could barely make out the couple strolling away along one of the curving walkways.
“She’s right there. Kiss me.” He demanded.
“No, I’m just a little confused; I want to go to Jenny.” She stood up, and steadied herself against the mausoleum wall. She held her head, dizzy, and confused. “I just need to go home.”
“No, you are staying here.” He clutched her hand, pulling her to the ground where he sat.
Lara became very scared, and yelled for Jenny. The fog muffled her, her heart beat wildly leaping inside her chest. She got on her knees, one hand still clutching her head from the dizziness. He gripped her other wrist, and placed her hand on his crotch forcefully kissing her neck.
“No, stop. I don’t even know you!” she tried to pull her hands away, but his grip was tight on her small wrist, and he wasn’t about to let go. “You are hurting me!” She shouted, shaking her head to try to get her senses back. She pulled her hand away from her head, and tried to hit him. He laughed, and grabbed the other wrist.
“Try that again and all I have to do is squeeze.” He had his hand around her throat. She struggled as best she could, but he quickly forced her to the ground, and proceeded to take her. His hands clutched her wrists, and the pain sliced through her. He slapped her when she struggled, and laughed as the tears rolled down. “Tasty, thanks for that.” He smiled as he cheerfully closed the zipper on his jeans. She just laid in shock.
He took her soul that night in the graveyard, along with her virginity leaving her crying there in her torn Whitesnake t-shirt. Stoned, and confused, she pulled on her blue jeans, smeared with mud, and replaced the enveloping armor of her jean jacket. It was the thing that seemed to paint her identity onto the burnt remains of her ego. She mustered the balance to stand, and stagger back to Sharkys. Jenny was nowhere to be found. She dialed her mother’s house number from the grubby keys of the payphone, and waited. The minutes went by like hours.
She had no concept of time, and her mind was spinning. Jenny stood before her, “Where the hell have you been?!” she asked accusingly. “Did you smoke pot? You stink like it; your mother’s going to kill you.”
“I don’t know.” Was all she could muster through her clenched teeth. She had stopped crying by then and was overwhelmed with an intense sense of anger. She was angry at Mike for doing this, angry at Jenny for leaving her alone, but mostly angry at herself for letting it happen. She noticed the blood on her stonewashed blue jeans, took her jacket off, and tied it around her waist to hide it. “Where’s Chris?”
“Mike came and got him. He said you were back here, he they had to leave quickly.” It was closing time at Sharkys, and people came streaming out of the doors.
“Did you get his phone number at least?” Lara asked hoping she could track them down and kill them or something.
“No, he said he had to leave in a hurry.” She shrugged. “Your mothers gonna kill you” Lara’s mother pulled up in the ice blue Toyota. Her mother didn’t seem to notice the smell, and didn’t say a word about her torn shirt.
They arrived at home. The 1942 house seemed to stare accusingly at her as the car lurched into the driveway. “I’m going to take a shower and go to bed, I feel sick.” Lara declared blankly and proceeded to the bathroom, where she vomited up what felt like all the pain. She took a shower; her shaking hands struggled to remain still enough to hold the bar of soap. She sat and crossed her arms over her knees. Her tears mixed with water, and as they water trickled over her naked body, they seemed to bandage her mangled soul. No one would ever need to know, no one would care anyway.
Her sense of trust was destroyed, along with her sense of self. She was no longer naïve. She felt completely alone amidst the cinders of a war torn soul. This incident paved the way for deep depression, and self destructive behavior.
After years of battle waged between the cognitive logical self, and the emotional self, both sides fighting over the bloody battleground of her sanity, Inner strength won the war. She gained the strength and virtue of self dependence. She learned that you are the only one at fault for making you less than you desire to be. There is truth to the cliché that states what does not kill you only makes you stronger. Lara learned how to be strong. She constructed a figurative coat of armor for the protection of her emotional self, and an indestructible sense of drive that took her further in life than she ever thought possible.
One can be beat down by a situation, but they need not let it devour them. There are ways of creating strength out of turmoil. A great tough shell can be raised out of the dust and rubble of sheer destruction as a phoenix out of the flames of a funeral pyre, and is reborn of the sun. There is great strength in the renewal of the shattered mind.
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