Breaking

Lonnie was a good kid who ran at the periphery of my group in junior high. Thing is, he was a really nervous kid, just a complete introvert who could barely be prompted to talk. A total mess as far as social skills, but we liked him anyway, and when he did speak it was clear he was really smart.

When we played football, he was a beast. Not really bigger than anyone else, but Lonnie hit like nobody's business. That kid was driven by something I'm just not acquainted with. He'd plow your ass over and then very quietly tell you he hoped you were okay.

In the eighth grade he liked a cheerleader (didn't we all?) named Jackie. At the time I knew Jackie fairly well, as she sat beside me in English. I helped her a lot.

These rich brats found out Lonnie liked her and tricked him, somehow, into believing the feeling was mutual. I was eating lunch and watched through the lunchroom glass as he approached her and spoke. She went ballistic on him, gesticulating wildly for everyone to see, and they laughed like baboons. He left with his hands stuck in his pockets.

He wasn't in school the next day, or the next or the next. The days stretched into weeks and months, and my buddy Phil said he'd had a nervous breakdown. Said he visited him in an inpatient facility where he was strapped to the bed.

I didn't see him again until the 10th grade. He was bloated, and if anything more subdued than before (medicated?). He seemed to barely remember me, and spoke even less. I said hi to him once or twice, just trying to be nice. I would have been glad to have him as a buddy again.

He disappeared at some point during the year, and I haven't seen him since.

***

In high school, as happens, cliques got further divided. I was in journalism with a lot of those rich brats, and had zero respect for the crew that had been behind the Lonnie tragedy.

I became invisible to Jackie, and it didn't bother me a whole lot. Times change, and so do people, and I wasn't overly concerned with being excluded from social strata. I had plenty of friends.

***

In 1991 I was at the student union on the University of Texas campus, leaving a Fishbone concert I think. In the crowd a young woman stopped me.

"Hey, I know you."

It was Jackie, drunk to the point of wobbling, speaking to me for the first time since we were 12.

And I had a moment of thinking maybe we were grownups now, that maybe we could say hi, say it's nice to see you and I hope you're doing well.

"Jackie, it's ME," I said. "Brian. Briscoe. We sat together in eighth grade English, remember?"

And her face went completely expressionless as she turned and walked off without a word.