In 1998 I did a new edit of Suffer, because I had never been happy with either the '94 or the '96 versions that saw print in my high school lit mag, The Eclectic, and Destroying Lives. The '96 version was rushed and sloppy and I wanted to redeem myself by re-releasing it as a single backed with two vignettes. I never did this, because I moved to Boston and was sick of looking backwards. While this version is the most readable, their is still slop-I was a seventeen year old kid that wanted to write Batman comics and my literary heroes were Robert Louis Stephenson, Poe, and Clive Barker. The original Suffer came like a freight train after I had spent a night in trouble over something stupid and I was listening to Bad Religion and the Dead Kennedys with the deadline for the Eclectic the next morning. Something clicked, I typed "Saturday Night Holocuast" at the top of the page (DKs song from Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death, which I later scribbled over and wrote Suffer, which was the Bad Religion album that was playing when I finished) and in about an hour I had poured out my heart and angst and created the most honest story I had ever done. I turned in the first draft the next morning and to my surprise it got in. This was pre-Columbine, by the way, which either makes Suffer cheap or poignant depending on your point of view. I feel like it deserves another pass, not because I think its great, but because it's from the gut and not bull shit.
At seventeen nothing is going right. The thrill of having a license is gone, because you have had a year to realize “license” does not mean “freedom” and there is still a year to go before you are legal and can escape the control of your parents. Graduation still looks like a distant shore and college might as well be mars. It’s virtually impossible to be happy at this age, especially when living in a small southern town where there is nothing to do except watch tv, smoke pot and die.
It is the fourth week of the new school year and the students are beginning to slip back into a regular schedule like good little zombies in training. Many of the kids are glad to be back, because they get to show off the new clothes and cars their mommies and daddies bought them. The jocks are indeed happy to be back, because they are about to be reborn on the holy football field. It’s amazing that in a town so religious that the sports events get a higher attendance than the churches.
School dances, kissing in the hall, pep rallies, homework, drinking, parties, fights, break ups-it’s all here, just like last year, just like next year. The same damn routine. There will be three or four drop outs, at least one pregnancy, and one serious sickness. Very predictable, very set. Almost seems planned.
The sun is shining brightly into Henry’s room. He rolls over trying to escape the evil light, but it’s too bright. He forces his eyes open and checks the cheap alarm clock on his paint smeared night stand. The face read 8:32. Late again.
Henry’s third tardy which means detention.
Grabbing the clothes closest to his bed he quickly gets dressed. Unopened school books sit ominously in the corner and that’s where they will stay-besides the fact that none of his homework is finished, he doesn’t want to have to make that long walk to school with anything other than his sketchbook and pencil.
He passes a mirror on his way out and sees how bad he looks and considers a shower, but who the hell is he going to impress with clean hair?
Henry would ask his mom to drive him, but she’s already left to go fuck whoever she’s fucking this week and dad lives two towns over and is probably already at work.
He hates his parents with a burning passion, lays awake at night dreaming of killing them. Always the disappointment, always the scapegoat. His mom has never let him get by a single day of his life without letting him know how much farther she could have gone in life if he hadn’t come along when he did. And dad just sits out there like a drifting iceberg, cold, slow, and unfeeling. Henry is an accident from a whim fueled by wine coolers and free time.
Walking to school is a bitch; not only is he tired, but it’s hot as hell and he hasn’t eaten much since yesterday morning. An asshole in a red pick up truck rolls by and calls him a faggot before he has even gotten off his street.
Tired, hot and sweaty, Henry arrives at school, checks in at the office, sees the principle, gets his three day detention notice and shuffles down the hall to second period. He slips in as Miss Spurrier is explaining the digestive tract. She fixes Henry with a glare full of contempt and disgust. He gives her his tardy slip and tries to shuffle to his seat.
“Where is your homework?” Her voice is like a rusty gate, Henry winces.
“I didn’t do it.”
“You haven’t had your homework all week. What is it that keeps you from completing your assignments?”
Work, art, jerking off sleep…”I don’t know.”
Disgusted, she sighs and points to Henry’s seat. He quickly moves down the aisle trying not to make eye contact with anyone, but one of the jocks shoots a leg out and trips Henry. He lands hard on his left knee and rises quickly with the laughter, limps to his seat and sits down staring at his desk, as the class drags on slowly.
There is a ten minute break between third and fourth period. The hall is buzzing with youthful energy; love in the air, a fight brewing, someone sobbing, drug deals in the bathroom, two guys going AWOL, and a freshman gets his shoes flushed in a toilet full of shit.
Henry moves quickly through the halls looking for his two friends Delia and Milton. Delia walks out of Mr. Armstrong’s Spanish class. She’s wearing cut off shorts, combat boots, and a tight white Minutemen t-shirt. Her hair is a beautiful red, purple lipstick and piercing eyes. She slings her army backpack over her shoulder and pushes through the crowd to walk beside Henry.
“How’s it goin’?”
“Shitty.”
“You missed the history test…”
“I know, I know.”
“Have you seen Milton?”
“No, not yet. Why?”
“He’s got a James Brown tape for me.”
They find Milton holding court with some people, talking shit as usual. He’s a real cool guy-a drummer who knows everything there is to know about everything. He’s sees Henry and Delia coming and throws down his books and grabs his cock.
“Come to Milton my children!”
The others leave.
Delia throws her environmental science book at him, barely missing.
“Where’s my tape you promised me?”
He reaches into his pocket and produces a 120 minute unauthorized duplication of the coolest tunes by the Godfather of Soul.
“Gracias, baby!”
“De nada, sexy. How’s it goin’, Henry?”
“Shitty.”
“Oh yea? What’s up?”
“I spent most of the night arguing with Martha and Steven.”
“You should kill your parents.” (Delia always has all the answers.)
The bell rings and it’s off to fourth period. For Henry it’s art, which should be the highlight of his day, but it’s not. Like everything else good in his life THEY found a way to fuck it up for him. The class is presided over by an anal retentive conservative bitch, Miss Ellis. She spends each class floating around the room harshly criticizing and disapproving, though the class is an easy A for any student who kisses her ass and does things her way. Neither of which Henry is capable of. Most people only took art because they didn’t want to take chorus, and this particular class was top heavy with jocks and cheerleaders, who gabbed nonstop throughout class.
All week the class has been working on self-portraits. Miss Ellis had asked the students to ‘be creative and put yourself in some new environment’. Examples; Bobby drew himself on the football field after scoring a touchdown, Jeremy drew himself playing his bass, Tasha drew herself picking flowers, and Henry drew himself hung by the neck, twisting in the wind while birds pecked away at his flesh.
“By now you should all have your projects done. I’ll go around and collect them.”
She scrunched up her rat face when she reached Henry.
“I’m not accepting that, Henry.”
“Um…Why not?”
“Because it is morbid! My god, Henry, you have so much talent and you waste it doing trash like this. It makes you look very troubled. I think you should talk to someone.”
Henry glances around at the snickering faces and Ellis’own paintings of flowers that litters the walls and looks up at her, making rare eye contact.
“I don’t need to talk to anyone,” he hisses through clenched teeth.
She goes away. He stares at the unacceptable, morbid trash.
Lunchtime. The fight brewing earlier finally happens, but is disappointing. Short, no blood and the two assholes get three weeks detention.
Ninety one degrees and not a cloud in the sky. All the pretty boys and girls strutting around in their pretty clothes with their pretty friends.
Henry, Delia, and Milton sit on the hill by the band room talking about music and whatever, watching their soulless, pathetic peers walking around totally directionless.
“Aw, shit.”
Henry spots Jeff Clemons and his cronies walking their way.
Clemons is the school’s pride and joy on the football field; a good Christian, good student, and asshole alcoholic racist terrorizer.
“Hey look! It’s my fan club! Delia, why do you hang around these faggots?”
Because they have really big cocks.” (Delia rules the universe.)
“Oh yea? Compared to what? You wanna see a real big dick, come with me!”
Milton finishes his soda. “Hey, Jeff, I’d like to see a really big dick. C’mon whip it out! Impress us with your manhood.”
The guys chuckle and start to leave, Jeff gives Milton a hearty ‘fuck you, faggot’.
At the bell, the three head to environmental science, but once there, Delia realizes she left her notebook outside and goes back for it, but never comes back.
Twenty minutes into class, the teacher starts getting impatient with Delia and gets ready to send Henry to look for her, but then the school goes nuts. Someone saw something and told someone in charge who alerted some other people and the cops were called. Announcements were made for students to remain in class until further notice, but curiosity overcame authority and students, including Henry and Milton were spilling into the courtyard. Henry got through in time to catch a glimpse of Delia being loaded into the back of an ambulance. Henry makes a break for it, trying to get there before the doors are shut, but he’s caught by Mr. Armstrong.
“What’s wrong with her? What happened?”
“There’s nothing you can do, Henry!”
“What’s happened?!?”
Armstrong leads Henry out of the crowd and tells him in a low voice, “Delia was…assaulted.”
“…How?”
“I can’t say anything else…”
Henry sees Jeff being put in the back of a police car and things become clear. He runs to find Milton and they take Milton’s car to the hospital. They’re not aloud in, and wind up sitting in the parking lot freaking out late into the evening.
The next day Delia goes home and Henry and Milton go to school and they are not surprised to see Jeff there. Everyone is giving him their support, what a tragedy that HE has been accused of RAPE! Even the local paper asks the community to give Jeff their prayer and support.
Delia goes to court two days before the homecoming dance. The bullshit trial begins and ends the same day and Jeff gets away with a stern talking to by the judge, but he doesn’t think such a bright young man should “have his future ruined over a mistake.” Delia’s mother can’t afford a real lawyer to fight this.
That same day Henry and Milton are dragged behind the gym and beaten mercilessly by half the football team. No witnesses.
They leave before lunch and swing by Delia’s house. Milton leaves Henry, staying just long enough to find out how the trial went. He leaves in tears. Delia and Henry sit in her room in total silence, listening to her mom sob and plead with various people over the phone.
Delia hasn’t been to school since the attack and hasn’t really been able to leave the house at all because of harassment from reporters, classmates, neighbors, parents, and even a couple of teachers and cops. Everyone blames her. Why are you tryin’ to ruin his life? Why don’t you admit you trapped him? Everyone saw how you were dressed. Poor jeff. I can’t imagine how he feels.
The next day, the sun rises and school begins. Knowledge is past on only to be forgotten by second period. Henry stays home. He’s got to make plans.
That night Jeff leads the team to victory in the homecoming game. Everyone cheers him. He’s received so many prayers the past several weeks.
It was half time when Henry was sitting in his room loading his father’s gun. His old man, weary from being badgered and dismantled by his wife burst into Henry’s room, because…well, because shit rolls down hill…but the sight of the gun in his son’s hands triggers something deep and primordial in him, fatherhood and fear.
“Henry! What are you doin’ with that?”
Henry didn’t even think. He just pointed, pulled the trigger, and BANG! Dad flew back against the wall, making one hell of a mess.
“What was that? What’s goin’ on?” Mom steps around the corner and gets her face blown off.
Henry runs out the back door with the gun in his pants and a pocketful of rounds. He doesn’t stop until he gets to the gym where the homecoming dance is being held. He replaces the two spent bullets and tucks the gun back in his pants and waits for the dance to begin.
Three insipid songs and Henry goes in.
…
School is closed all next week. Five are dead, including Jeff and Henry.
Henry squeezed off five shots, counting them, but not being able to focus on any faces after he got Jeff, so he wasn’t even sure he was hitting anyone. After the fifth shot, he stepped outside, looked up at the stars and put the gun to his head.
The community is in shock for weeks. Speculations run wild…drugs…Satanism…
Milton and Delia don’t go to Henry’s funeral, they stay at her place and listen to Coltrane and cry for their friend.
Three years later, Delia tells this story in a bookstore in front of thirty people. She manages to keep her cheeks dry, that time.
End
