Hush

I had only ever spoken to Conor Lambert once. It was one of those days you don’t remember real well. Cloudy, I think. It was cold at least. He was walking in that field near the schoolyard. I can’t remember what I said to him—hello or goodbye, something like that. Something quiet; I doubt he even heard me. He walked right passed me, didn’t even look up. He was wearing that coat, that black coat. He always wore that coat. That’s how I knew it was him, really. It was the coat.

The kids in school, they didn’t notice him much. I mean, he didn’t really have friends. He was one of those boys who was just there. In the year below me, I think. Eleventh grade, right? Yeah. He didn’t really talk much; he slept a lot in class. Not one of those lazy kind of things though. Like it was his only chance to get some peace.

Some kids could tell, I think, that something was wrong. Nobody ever said anything, though. It wasn’t allowed, wasn’t their place. Some of them were angry when we found out. Angry that the principal didn’t do anything sooner. I don’t know. It just seemed like one of those things nobody was allowed to touch. It was just one of those untouchable things.

A few of the older boys shoved him around a little too. They just wanted to get a reaction out of him, you know. Nobody ever let it get too far. Just a bruise here or there, that was all. I mean, they knew when to stop. They could tell when enough was enough. It wasn’t anything unusual for High School. There was always somebody who was going to get picked on. That’s just the way it was. It would always be like that.

It’s just sad, you know. That he got all this shit at home, and then had to deal with it at school too. I don’t think those kids really knew what was going on at home though. The one’s who pushed him around, I mean. I don’t think they would have done it if they had.

He rode the bus to school. I mean, I would see him on the bus. He sat alone, in the very front. I tried to sit next to him a couple of times, but he always got real touchy—flinched a lot around people. I guess—I guess that makes sense when you think about it.

He read a lot too—at lunch, if he wasn’t sleeping, he was reading. Never the same thing either. I swear to God, that kid could get through a ten inch thick book in a day. The librarians liked him a lot for it. He was always real polite to them, you know. Quiet and well-mannered, those are the kind of kids librarians like. I remember—I remember one day, he was reading War and Peace. You know that book by the Russian guy? I just don’t see how anybody could want to read something that long. He was always kid of weird, though.

Not weird in the bad sense. I mean, I can’t say anything bad about him. T-That’s just not right…I mean, he was just different than a lot of us. Always wore that goddamn coat. I think it was probably the only one he had. Everybody knew his family wasn’t real well off. We—Well, we just never really expected it to be that bad.

I-I’m sorry.

Everybody has their problems. Everybody has shit to deal with. What really gets me—you know those classes you guys teach every once in a while? Those classes were everybody just bitches about their problems and you listen and pretend to care? What really gets me is that he never said anything. He would just put up with these kids complaining about how they don’t get allowance or how their parents won’t let them pierce their nose. Like it didn’t bother him that these kids were bitching about nothing when he had to—he had to deal with that.

Me and a couple of the guys went down there last Friday night. I don’t know, we were bored and Max thought it would be cool to check it out. We didn’t break in or anything, just looked in through the windows. It was pretty dark, you know, since they’ve—um, left. The kitchen, though. The kitchen light was on. And you know something? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a whiter kitchen floor. It was so fucking white, so fucking clean, so unbefitting of the situation.

I just don’t understand how—how a father can do that to his own son. You always hear stories about that kind of thing, but you never—you never think it’ll happen to somebody you know.

They said he had older sisters too. I can only imagine the hell they had to go through. Coming home after school and knowing what he’s going to do to you, knowing that in a couple of hours, you’ll be lying naked and bruised on the kitchen floor—that fucking spotless kitchen floor.

The whole thing is just so fucked up.

And to think, that bastard had the nerve to go drive his fucking car into a tree and kill himself. Like he was the one who was suffering, after all he did to his children, like he was fucking hurting. And to take—to take Conor with him; it’s fucking disgusting.

It just makes me wish I would have said something. To Conor, I mean. That’s the thing that’s been running through my head nonstop since the—accident? That’s what their calling it, I guess. Accident. If I had just said something, asked him if he was okay, you know? I don’t know; I just get this feeling that anything would have helped. If he had a friend, somebody to confide in, he might—he might still be here.

It’s funny how much I miss him and I didn’t even know him. Just his presence, it was comforting, you know? It was different, something special. He was—was a really beautiful kid. And I don’t want any shit in the paper about how I’m in love with the Lambert boy. You ask anyone. They’ll tell you; he was going to be something. You could just tell. If he had the chance, he would have made something of himself.

So there’s this memorial service on Wednesday that the whole school is required to go to—which I think is bullshit, by the way. The fact that we have to go, I mean. The school’s already been through a lot. And some kids can’t handle that, you know? Making them go is just like…emotional torture, I think. I just don’t think that’s the way we should have to say goodbye, everyone talking about what his father did to him. We should think about the things like how he could read better than anybody in that fucking school and the way he never said anything bad about anyone, even the kids who messed around with him. A memorial service is just tainting what he was—what he is.

And then there’s the funeral tomorrow. We’re not required to go, but I think I will. I don’t know, it just seems like I should go. It feels right. But the thing is, they always bury kids—guys—in those dark suits, black jackets. Like that fucking jacket he always wore. And I-I just don’t think he should be. Burried in black, I mean. I want—I want to see him buried in white, pure fucking white. Because that’s what he was; he was pure. No matter what his sick fucked up father did to him, he was pure. And he should be remembered like that. He deserves that.

And all this bullshit about how we should be happy that he’s “finally at peace”—bullshit! They have no fucking idea what-what an amazing person he could have—would have been. To say we should be happy for him is just like dismissing everything he went through. It’s like f-forgetting everything he was.

I mean, that’s all you’re going to say? “Oh well? Too fucking bad? At least he’s dead now?” It’s fucking—fucking ridiculous.

This whole thing is just f-fucking ridiculous! The coat, the books, the floor. That floor—that fucking floor—that goddamn kitchen fucking floor!

I-I’m—I can’t—I’m s-sorry. I-I have to go. I’m sorry.