Crying Shame

Upon my return from Martin's Cove, Amaya had a going away/birthday party because she's leaving for the summer to her home country, Norway. It was an interesting, albeit strange, night party. When she was driving us home around 11:30 pm it occured to me that I wouldn't see her again until August. So I said to our friend Preston, "Let's make a memory." Because according to the Ataris, life is only as good as the memories we make after all.

Because he lives three houses away from me I suggested that we go honk in front of the mayor's house. We finally settle on something far less sinister and go hop the fence of an abandoned, empty house that people are about to move into the next week. It wasn't too exciting and I was somewhat disappointed. But we said our goodbyes and my sister and I ran all the way back to our house as Amaya and Preston sped away.

The following is an email I've now had to forward to several people, so I post it here because I'm too lazy to re-summarize the event:

So we're running to our house and we see our garage door closing so we
make a dead sprint inside. Our mom was pretty surprised.

Even now I don't believe that we were in the house for much longer than three minutes when there's a knock at the door and my little brother tells my dad that there's a funny looking man at the door... I figure that it's a business man that came by earlier to drop off something for my dad. So I go to answer it and outside my glass window I see that it's a man dressed in a yellow Orem Police jacket with a gun holsted to his waist.

It takes me all of about 10 seconds to realize what a police man is doing on my front porch. I panic.

As events progress, it seems that Nina thought she heard our old lady next-door neighbor call the police. That neighbor's house is right in front of the house we fence-jumped. To sum up, what basically happened is that lady saw two people hop over the fence and run into my garage and two others got away in a getaway car, and the other two were holding my family hostage and obviously preventing us from calling the police.

Oh, it gets better. Next morning at church, I tell Richard and he starts shaking his head. "I can't believe that was all you," he laughs. He drives into Arthur's Court late at night way past curfew and well aware that he's gonna get a sit-down from his mom if he doesn't have a good excuse. (He actually does have a good excuse--Patti and Monica and other girl problems, but it's not the right one and I don't know that I should talk about Monica...) However as he rolls in he sees three police cars parked in the Court and policemen searching the area with flashlights. So when he gets home, before his mom can get too many words in he quips, "I'm sorry I'm late mom--say, do you know why there are police cars outside?" His mom totally spaces and forgets to punish him.

Never quite saw that coming, getting the cops called on me. It only makes sense though, because you have to understand that my neighborhood is full of rich people.

As the weekend and the following week began to progress, I became somewhat entangled in that "Richard-Monica" thing that I had referred to. Basically (and anyone who knows who these people are must be sworn to absolute secrecy) Richard and Monica like each other, as everyone already knows, but Richard can't ask Monica out because Patti, his very good friend, would become extremely jealous. And he holds his friendship with Monica in very high regard, so he believes that it's worth the sacrifice. I say that the way Patti has been acting he gives her way too much credit, but then again I don't know Patti very well.

I applied at an Italian resteraunt in Orem that's next to the mall called Fazoli's with Richard. I got a tip from Eric (mentioned in the "Enter Harry" entry) because he works there. I talked with Eric as Richard was getting interviewed by the manager Ian, and Eric filled me in on things that had happened since EFY and Wyoming. Basically a girl named Pamela who lived in his church ward told him that she liked him. However she played like she acted Harry. Pamela has also applied at Fazoli's, apparently. She was in the same class as Richard and I when we got our food handeler's permit. And as it were, Harry also applied there. So if things went accordingly, Fazoli's was about to hire a love triangle, a hashed-out friendship, and two hopeless romantics.

Thing is with Pamela is that I have a bit of a history with her which I hinted to in my "Enter Harry" entry, when I mentioned that in elementary school a girl had told me that I would never ever have friends and I made the choice to believe her, and how that mentality has haunted me to this day. That girl was Pamela. I didn't really see her or associate her since that time in elementary school until at a dance last year. It was weird how she acted, and still acts, like we are good friends or something.

That Tuesday I had what I like to call a temporary lapse of insanity, and I called Harry for the first time in about a month and a half, and the first time all summer talking to him. I felt like nothing had occured as far as our friendship was concerned when I hung up. Possibly things got worse.

On Thursday there was a stake dance. At the dance things didn't go too well between me and a girl named Jessica Wilkinson. Apparently she's been mad at me because I rejected her sister who had a crush on me last summer. Now it was being dished out between Jessica and my own sister Nina. Nina made her feel so bad that she made her apologize to me at the dance. I was unaware that they were having a brawl even at the dance until Jessica came up to me with tears in her eyes.

I almost couldn't handle all of this. Jack Johnson's song began running through my head: "It's such a tired game, will it ever stop? How will this all play out...?" I got a case of extreme vertigo in the back of my head towards the last hour of the dance, so I went off to sit down until I was invited to go dance with a friend of mine named Alex. As we danced, Harry suddenly appeared out of nowhere and said hi to me. Out of surprise I could only nod to him. The vertigo got worse and I felt like I'd fall over, and I was so depressed. I calculated that since he got off of work at 10:00 and the dance was over at 11:00, he decided to show up for the last hour. The rest of the dance I kept my sanity in check and completely avoided him. I couldn't help it--it was almost by instinct. Part of me didn't want to but I did anyway.

The evening ended with me having a heavy emotional breakdown in front of Richard when he dropped me off at my house. He comforted me so much, and I was really grateful for him. He promised me that he'd always be there for me no matter what. Another friend seeing me depressed at the dance also made the promise to always help me and be there for me. Later, in an email Amaya would also promise this. The only thing with all these promises is that I had lost all my faith in them. For Harry had broken his own to me, and mine to him.

A couple of days later I was at Dan's house at about 8:00 pm. and I invited Eric over. He told me that he was going to Harry's house and they wouldn't be doing anything so once he got there, he'd tell Harry and they'd come over to Dan's. Dan and I hung out until 10:30 pm. I guessed that it was because Harry felt I had ignored him and now he probably thought it suitable to return in kind, because they never showed up.

Crying Shame-Jack Johnson

It's such a tired game, will it ever stop?
How will this all play out upside out of my mouth?

By now, we should know how to communicate instead of coming to blows
We're on a roll, and there ain't no stopping us now
We're burning under control
Isn't it strange how we're all burning under the same sun?
By now, we say it's a war for peace
It's the same old game, but do we really want to play?
We could close our eyes, it's still there
We could say it's us against them
We can try but nobody wins
Gravity has got a hold on us all
We try to put it out, but it's a growing flame,
Using fear as fuel burning down our name
And it won't take too long 'cause words all burn the same
And who we gonna blame now?

It's such a cryin', cyrin', cryin' shame...

By now it's beginning to show a number of people
Are numbers who ain't coming home
I can close my eyes, it's still there
Close my mind, be alone,
I could close my heart and not care
But gravity has got a hold on us all
It's a terrific price to pay, but
In the true sense of the word, are we using what we've learned?
In the true sense of the word, are we losing what we were?
It's such a tired game, will it ever stop?
It's not for me to say
And is it in our blood, or is it just our fate?
And how will this all play out upside out of my mouth?
Who we gonna blame?
On and on.