The High School Military Tribunal

Think of your life.  Remember the years between 17 and 37 – your twenties, your thirties, your youth, your prime, the memories you’ll take with you to light up the shadows of your old age – first love, marriage, your career taking off, the birth of your children, the glittering priceless illusion of immortality, your body fit and supple, your parents still alive and vigorous, the rich delicious main course of your precious existence.  Now imagine all of that stolen from you,  crushed and discarded like an old car in a scrap yard. Of course you can’t – and why should you? It’s like imagining the moment by moment existence of your old friend with the terminal illness – how it feels for them when you leave their suffocating hospital room after the mandatory visit and re-enter the sunny, wind-kissed world of the living.  You don’t want to think about their exile or their loneliness, or the years I suffered in the foul snake pit of our mental health system:...

Sippy sat up in the hospital bed, face pale and blotchy, dark circles under his eyes. He hadn’t said a word when I told him about my mother. Normally he interrupted every second word. This time he let me talk. He nodded when Lonnie told him about Mark Toland and Dr. Field. No questions, no exclamations. It was as if he already knew. Or maybe nothing could surprise him anymore. He never told us what happened to him that day, but he’d been awake for a while and he’d been thinking. When we finished the three of us sat there listening to the beeping machines, and the squeaking shoes going by and the PA system calling Dr Vorhees to ICU, stat. The room smelled faintly of the cleanser they used to mop the floor. We breathed it in. Finally, Sippy grabbed my wrist. “Here’s what I’ve learned living my short crumby life on this fucking island,” he said. “When someone does something crazy and you can’t understand why, the reason is money. Whenever you have a question about how fuck...

          My mother’s death cut one of the great cables anchoring me to the world, and I’ve been tipping off kilter ever since.            At the time I felt nothing. I didn’t answer condolence letters. I didn’t visit the grave. I didn’t cry at her funeral. I didn’t deliver the eulogy. I never talked about her at all, except to Lonnie. He was the only one who understood. Sometimes I think she meant more to him than she did to me. They say however bad things are one adult who understands you can make all the difference. My mother, Janice Mohler, was that one adult for Lonnie.                        For me she was everything.  For him she was everything else. Their friendship began after late summer baseball game, soon after we arrived back on island from California.        ...