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Marcus
By Anya Dojka
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It was supposed to be the usual summer. Eric comes back from boarding school, Mike comes back from Wisconsin, him and Anna spend the summer making out, and we spend numerous hours sitting up on the water tower contemplating the good ol’ small town life while chowing down Chips Ahoy cookies. But nothing went as planned. First Eric called and said he is spending the summer with his parents in California, then Mike showed up sporting a new haircut and a new girl to go with it, and then Anna decided she is going to cheerleading camp. I guess I can’t blame her for leaving, I mean even I did not like watching Mike play tonsil hockey with Miss Wonder Bra. The thought of being alone all summer made me wonder weather I should forgo my better judgement, pick up a pair of pom-poms, and join Anna in parading around the woods yelling “Ra-ra!” But I didn’t. And then it happened. Just when I thought things could not be worse Marcus moved back into town, and surely enough, into my parent’s basement.
I think I have known Marcus all my life. I really cannot remember ever not knowing him. He was just always there, sort of like a zit…you know its there, and it bugs the hell out of you. It’s the way things have been for years until this summer. This summer everything changed.
He was two years older than I was which now made him 18. He had curly blonde hair that formed itself into an afro, partly due to the fact that he never combed it. He had blue eyes, and loved getting into trouble. He hated school, loved to read while smoking cigarettes, and never cared what anyone thought. In fact, my brother was pretty much the only person I ever heard Marc talk to. Even when my mom would make them take me along to the drive-ins and girls would come up to the car smiling and touching their necks, Marc never spoke. He just looked at them, not even smiling. They never seemed to be bothered by this; they’d just giggle and make sweet comments about how “deep” and “interesting” he is. They never seemed to notice that he looked at them with a sneer, like he thought they were dumb. I guess that’s the one thing I liked about him, he noticed seemed to notice the fake in people, and he didn’t play along. And he did not care about girls. Until this summer that is.
This summer was not the first time Marcus had lived in our basement. When my brother and him were starting 9th grade his grandmother got sick and his parents decided to move to New York City to take care of her. He did not want to go and when his parents wouldn’t listen, he hid in our basement for a week while my brother fed him dinner leftovers. He ended up staying in our basement for the next two years. When I reached 9th grade his parents decided it would be best for him to come to the city because his grandmother was doing really bad and they wanted him to spend some time with her. He left and my brother did not talk to anyone. He just sat in the basement smoking and reading comics. After the first letter things got better, and life went on as if nothing changed. The school year was coming to an end, I was waiting desperately waiting for Eric to come visit his grandparents, Anna talked about nothing but Mike, and everything was going to be perfect. And then nothing went as it was supposed to.
