Jenny was always the Good Girl and I the one with the Bad Attitude. That made not only her not like me but everyone around her not like me seeing how they were the same as she. So it was like there was this force field around her I could never penetrate leaving my desires for her locked up, no one to ever know. Such was my secret torment. God hates teenagers.
But life is never so simple on what feelings you have and if there's a choice in revealing them. Since I couldn't share my love for her I was driven to show my torment instead. It had to be one or the other. But what really drove me crazy was all the holy approval she got for being "such a good girl!" and how the asshole grown-ups would pat her on the head and tell her how great she was for acting how they wanted. Disgusting.
That bouncing brown ponytail drove me crazy mad. I wanted to grab her and kiss her. I let her know by telling her what an idiot she was.
We were at the country club pool and Jenny had written this well-applauded poem of the serenity she felt while under water. Every clap for her dug into me like fish hooks, tearing me apart. She's always so fucking perfect! Now she was wanting to parlay that success into some sort of career by staying under water permanently as her fawning friends grouped around her. I came to her smirking - and excited to be even speaking to her.
"You can't just stay under water like that! What are you, a moron?"
"I don't need that kind of negative attitude!"
What a shocking statement! "Negative attitude! It's frickin' reality!"
"Everyone knows about your bad attitude. Reality is what you make it."
She was in the wrong but still landing body blows on me. It's like we were having two different conversations. Only later did I realize I was threatening her precious praise and approval and I guess she thought in those tender teenage years life was not possible without glowing affection. But as she stood there in that electrifying black bikini she had no idea of the raging approval I had for her!
Watching her make her preparations I realized she was serious about this suicidal folly. By this time her so-called friends were closing in on me with lynching in their eyes. Each one had his or her own agenda and I was violating all of them. They each wanted a piece of the Jenny joy ride having nothing else to cling to in their unformed lives. Welcome to the teenage jungle (Though life never really changes after that).
"You're not serious, are you?" I protested in actual concern. But with my bad attitude was I really someone who could have concern? I'd hate to take a poll on that.
Jenny looked me right in the eye in a fit of defiant passion. God, I wanted her! "I know what your problem is: you're jealous of my poem. Everybody loves my poem but you're just going to have to write your own. I won't let you or anyone else take away the beauty I have created. It's poetry for the ages!"
Again, were we having two different conversations? Yes, I was jealous of her success - success I felt I must equal to have access to her - but was that really the issue at hand? I think not! I had to bluff my way past her accusations.
"Ok, let's say you wrote the greatest poem of all time. How is that even relevant to you being able to breathe under water??"
"Relevancy is in the eye of the beholder."
"No! Not so much! It's an objective fact!"
I kept waiting for the punch line, that she and everyone else was putting me on and this was some elaborate joke. But what I saw was her getting angry - really angry. Hurting me her only goal.
"I've got a date tonight with Tommy Jeffries - "
"You mean after you drown?"
" - I'm tired of just giving him blow jobs. Think I'll go all the way this time."
Well, that arrow hit home. I literally staggered backwards, reeling from the revelation (though later I figured she was just playing me). Her posse saw her rejection of me and pounced on me as a "troublemaker" who failed to show the blind devotion of a true supporter (future Obama voters). Jenny loved their attack, staring me down with a defiant "I'll show you!" look in her eye. Never had I felt like such a loser.
Like a voluntary mafia victim, Jenny tied herself to a concrete block and threw it and her beloved body into the water. I knew it was risky but I had to say something.
"You've got to get her out of there! She'll die!"
"Jenny said you have a bad attitude. We'll believe her over you any day, asshole!"
"You don't get to vote on reality!"
"Like you really care. We saw you hurt her feelings! You sure got a lot of nerve saying anything!"
"Hurt her feelings? That's her own lying that did that!"
"Just shut the fuck up, you bastard! You call Jenny a liar one more time and I'll knock the fucking hell out of you!"
Paralyzed, I watched in frozen horror as the life passed out of Jenny in seeping bubbles, paramedics forced to pull her dead body from the pool. There was much weeping and gnashing of teeth, and - ultimately - finger pointing. At me! Jenny's so-called friends, the ones who made her "feel good" were gesturing towards me as they spoke to the police. Another 21st century witch burning.
Not waiting to put my hands in the fate of hypocrites and lovers of lies, I ran away to join the army, asking them to post me "anywhere overseas." I couldn't make much sense of the situation, I just knew I was riddled with guilt for Jenny's death. Logically speaking I had tried to save her and it was her Judas supporters who sold her out but I couldn't help but feeling responsible. Why? WHY??
Licensed to kill by our unquestioned armed forces, I went on a rampage convinced I was a killer already. Goddam guilt will destroy this world in the end. I just couldn't function and the only time I felt alive was when putting a bullet into a body. I felt that same rush of seductive approval Jenny must have felt as the army blindly praised me for my ill-conceived efforts. Body counts keep people in power (or so they believe), no wonder they thanked me.
I went right to the edge, to the brink of disaster. There was this guy in our unit, he reminded me of Tommy Jeffries and the much envied blow jobs he'd received. Why not kill him too? Isn't death the point of everything? Does it really matter whose it is? Just put another one up on the scoreboard! But right when I had him in my scope I saw a strange thing: Jenny's bouncing ponytail.
I understood my guilt at last. I had hidden my feelings. Seems as preposterous as trying to jump to the moon but perhaps if I had confessed my love for her she'd never have made that defiant decision to drown. At the time, I would never have guessed in a million years that my feelings could have made any difference to her. Suddenly, under the hot desert sun, it became so obvious.
***
I live my life in a bottle now. I go back and forth from that moment of clarity in the desert. Sometimes I think my feelings would never had meant anything to Jenny, she'd only have laughed at me. Other times it seems real as the sun honesty would have saved her - us. Most of the time I just hide in the fog, wondering, doubting and believing in an endless Sisyphean cycle.
I don't want to kill anymore. I don't want those army assholes having a say in my life ever again. What once was praise will turn to equal scorn as I inform my superiors of my true feelings. They will have that same look of threatening hate as Jenny's friends did but this time I'll stand up to them. I'll be on my own, but I won't be lying. I think Jenny would approve.
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