Memories of my best friend

Memories of My best friend (Who's now dead.)

Situation
My best friend Aaron Bebak has stayed over at my house on a May night. I live down the street from local loser Kyle Rosenbluth (15 girlfriends in 15 months). I used to get catalogs that would sell army surplus junk and other cool stuff. They would also sell illegal weapons

(For example: A picture, obviously of brass knuckles with spikes on them, advertised as a "paper weight" that cannot be sold in Arkansas, Massachusettes, Minnesota, etc.)

We put on these full camouflage suits we ordered along with ski masks and gloves...

Predicament
We sneak down the block to Kyle's house signaling eatchother every five yards or so even though it was a Sunday morning and no one was outside (trying to keep it professional). We finally reach his house and we have the folling equipment:

• An army surplus machete
• A month old potato
• A bottle of vegetable oil
• A hard-boiled egg

We take the machete and cut up the potato on his front porch then spread some vegetable oil on his doorknob and sidewalk in front of his house. Aaron threw the egg at the window but it didn't make any noise or mess, it just fell onto the grass. We wondered if anyone would notice what we did so we poured some more vegetable oil on his lawn. We then left; mission complete.

The Escape
We ran back to my house trying not to laugh, repeating the same motions we made on the way over, but we saw a car coming our way. We realized it was too late and the car had seen us, but we leaped into some hedges near to us anyways and peeked out. It was the "Protection One" van. Now this security guard man just saw two guys in full camo and ski masks with a machete jump into some bushes at 5:30 am Sunday morning. His car was going about 2 mph while we circled the hedge as he drove around us and left. It was the hardest I ever laughed with Aaron, and I'll miss him.

It just didn't seem right for it to be real.

Nathan?

No... She told me that coming home, she'd seen... well, some metal that may have been a car at some point in time. I didn't think much more about it after that besides a quick wish that anyone who was there was okay. We continued to talk about her boyfriend problems while I chatted with someone else on the side about the horrible history test we'd taken that day. You know, normal, average, every-day teenager stuff.

A phone rings. I pick up.

"Hello?"

"Katelyn?"

"That's me. What's up?"

"It's Nathan."

"What's Nathan?"

"That car-like thing by Allison? He's dead."

Stunned silence fills the room for no less than a minute. Icy fingers crawl through veins and gut, wrenching their way through my head. I'm not exactly sure I'm awake. I pinch myself. I am.

"What?"

"Nathan's gone."

More silence.

"Thank you, Larah."

I hang up.

My first reaction: panic. Second? Nausea.

Nathan is gone.

My friend since childhood, wearer of unique t-shirts, Ken, Rachael's boyfriend, kayak man... The lovable pyro. Oh, was he a pyro... If it went boom, caused injuries, or was hot and flickery, he was there immediately.

Memories flood my head. The backyard swing, the constant jokes about his slicked-back hair, his insatiable need to show off his barrel-roll skills, band practice, football games where Joe would say, "Hey! Nathan's here! We couldn't have band without Nathan!", even when he was the worst trumpet player to grace the face the planet... oh, dear God...

I choke.

Nathan. Oh, God, not Nathan.

I kept thinking it wasn't real... that I would wake up the next morning, hop out of bed, go to town, find out that a joke (albeit a very cruel one) was played on me, see Nathan with his arm draped over my best friend's shoulder, and start beating people with blunt objects for being mean to me.

It was real. I started sobbing.

I went to bed, where a vain effort to sleep took place. I turned toward the window, where a fierce storm had been rampaging for hours. Lightning flashed in the sky, fire consuming the navy blanket above... Nathan was saying goodbye.