The Legacy

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An Essay about two best friends...

No, not these two.....

These two bums!

It'd have to be one of the most bizarre ways to start a friendship; Jason and I were on opposite teams for a P.E. football game and happened to be covering each other from the start. Well whenever our QB would try to pass to one of us, the other would always intercept it, eventually forcing the passer never to throw to us at all. We made a pact never to cover the other ever again, it was from that moment that we pretty much agreed to do whatever we could to help the other. Acquaintances we remained until the end of freshman year, when were basically forced to stay on the last day of school in our Latin class because everybody else had some way to get home. We spent about 90 minutes clearing the classroom wall of push pins and masking tape while we ripped on just about everything that we hated about school and our evil teacher, who looked like she was 13. We steadily grew better friends with more common classes and friends; in our Sophomore World History class we made so many disruptions during class and instigated so many pranks, the teacher had to change the seating plan five times a semester to figure out how to shut us up. It didn't work! In fact, when we were supposed to be preparing for a big test, she picked us two out of the whole class to go on some random fieldtrip to the National Art Museum, which was only a catalyst for our tradition of raising hell on the bus trip to DC and back. As I recall we still came back in time to disrupt class with our stories of how Jason got a Chinese Scholar pissed because he used his calligraphy pen to draw stupid fighting figures. After some time people became surprised to actually find us apart during school or on the long boring, car-less weekends. As time progressed, we got each other over the stupidity of girls, parents and misdemeanor punishments. The addition of my car only sealed the deal, and our junior year was spent wheeling around Dale Shitty. It may sound corny, but on the nights where we found nothing to do but drive around to make sure there was nothing to do, all that we really needed was one of Jason's many dub tapes blaring out of my speakers. We'd sing for about a half a gas tank and call it a night, but it never really felt like I was wasting anything, except eventually the quality of those cassettes. On Halloween we egged, over Thanksgiving and Christmas we played football with our friends, on New Years we quietly shook hands at midnight as we finished watching Jackie Browne in the theatre. We were both in the middle of our most demanding sports seasons; Jason swam his heart out and I kept my weight in check for wrestling. We rarely got the chance to go to the other's performance, but we talked enough about them to bring the moments as close as possible.

Jason and Brett celebrating a long awaited district championship

It was about that time that I learned I had to move because of my dad's promotion, it was almost so inconceivable we didn't talk about it at all, I was moving across the country for my last year of high school! So as we silently clicked down the days till I left, about a week before his birthday, we slowly built up our time to get as much out of life together as we could. When our sports seasons ended, springtime exploded upon us with prank wars and other last breaks for notoriety. I myself was in a frenzy to make sure all my other friends wouldn't forget me, but whenever Jason wanted to do something, he was priority.

Prank Wars!!!

We essentially spent every day after school playing GoldenEye on the 64, sometimes until we got motion sickness and couldn't stand freely from the couch. Thinking back on our hijinks I just have to admit my personal favorite, so bare with me on this old recasting. Coming home as usual one day in my car, Jason was riding shotgun while my sister and Greg, another carpooler, were arguing in the back. I realized we had a package of (by-now) rancid hotdogs sitting under my seat, left over from the prank wars no doubt. Once again we were forced to wait in a long line to leave school because the city was trimming the roadsides for a wider path. After about twenty minutes into this, we were out of pennies to throw at the cars around us, and the usual two minute drive was turning into hell. As we came to the stop sign holder, for some unprovoked reason, Jason removed one of the hot dogs and basically sky hooked it over the roof of my car. Time came to a frame-by-frame pace as the fated wiener proceeded to hit the guy square in his reflector vest. I could see my awe-struck face in the man's big cop-like sunglasses as he dropped his sign and started toward the car. That's when a time snap occurred and I hit the gas and flew out of that moment into panic. I swear I avoided any D.O.T. paraphernalia for about a week. I could go on and on about stories like that, we caused so much trouble but were adored by each other's moms, basically semi-adopted. When we finished school in June, we only had about a week for goodbyes. Jason made the effort to get me a great surprise going away party, with a nasty trick played by my then girlfriend Jenn to get me there, which I will keep forever secret. The day came and I used up the last of my black and white film, which is odd to say how I remembered that moment. It was early morning with a lingering rain in the air; my best lady friend Karyn and my sister were sharing the bittersweet experience. I gave Jason a hug and told him to keep up the good life, we'd have to survive apart and make the most with what we could share impersonally. It was 9:32 AM when I pulled away and shot a glance at the two best friends a guy could beg for hugging in my rear view mirror. As of that moment I broke down and nearly had to stop driving, it was the death of a time premature in its age and I could find absolutely no reason for it.

College has been treating us well, we talk almost everyday on AIM, and I try to visit at least every summer. So it looks like we might survive long enough to live in the real world and have some real problems we can help each other on. Our ever-ready future plan is to get old and retire together, become old-dirty men and taunt all the younger folks for their strange behavior and throw cans of Old Milwaukee at them.

Since one of our many common loves is the comic strip of Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Waterson, I've decided to use it as an analogy, two best friends and two best friends, it couldn't really have been any easier.

The Brat: Jason is most certainly a Calvin prototype: besides the blonde, highlighter hued hair, he just has the wirey body type that seems to be brimming with enthusiasm and an intolerance with waiting. He's always in anguish with his parents, his dad especially who he constantly argues about what really builds character, I think Jason was often sent to his room as a youngin! Jason's imagination is top of the line; he draws with a style of the comic spectrum, unreal but with the deepest meaning always in the text and background of the images. Of course he always has problems with the girls who just don't get his “weird” style, Jason sometimes lacks the proper notion of how to make due with a girl's femininity, like many males he doesn't get it, and overcompensates with testosterone, Jason would never wager down from nailing a girl in the back of the head with a snowball, although he will never escape his guilty conscious.

Jason practicing his life long struggle to tell the damn kids to STOP RUNNING!

The Tuna head: My misanthropic nature often molds my opinions unfavorably about people and society. Jason is just as much fuel to that fire as he is a douser; I'm either antagonizing him for all of his people troubles or sharing my bitterness of mine. Jason's natural tendency to do everything enthralling and with high energy, no matter how risky, has always been encouraged by me, forever taking off of work or practice to go explore. Generalizing on my inanimate nature, I think that often when faced with the crisis of other people I turned into the doll Jason was carrying around. When connected with trouble he was always getting blamed, because I was taken as an animate friend and when in moments of stress you'd think him insane for talking to me. It seemed like only when we were one our own did we have complete fun.

As Jason would often act befuddled by the girls, I'd always perk his temper by giving in to the pink side and risking all of our fundamentally anti-girl rules for a tummy rub, I'm just a sucker for their soft touch. We philosophized a great deal, got into a lot of trouble and most importantly rode wild with our imagination. Instead of our little red wagon we had my crappy Red Barron car, which we banged up just as much on our many adventures. Calvin and Hobbes loved to get in wrestling matches on disagreements, Jason and I have never really fought about anything, but the feeling of playful wrestling is always in the air as we usually mock one another from past stupid mistakes. Usually amounting in artificial violence on Nintendo or a hundred compounded idle threats. Sometimes I did feel like I could never be real when other people were around, I had to wait for Jason after school to really break it all down and wonder aloud to him the mysteries I saw, as we infiltrated our adolescence with often degrading humor. Though often at fault with each other, we always made up with un-protested admiration for one another.

I think we complement each other extremely well, he draws and I write, we shift on academic and athletic determinacy, he's Irish, I'm Scottish, and we both hate the English (figuratively after we've watched Braveheart way too much). One of my favorite strips of C & H is where they ponder what dreams are about; Hobbes replies with something along the lines of “dreams are where we can play together through the night, while our bodies rest, oblivious to the reality that we're very far apart.” I loved that bit and the last frame of the two, smiles beaming in deep sleep always brings up the fact that Jason and I have to deal with each other's daily experiences, both disheartening and exciting, with written, impersonal text. Only in dreams as Weezer would say, that's where we're always running into each other, always going back to our days together in high school, running amok in a world we created ourselves, always thrilled to be in one another's company, always going to grow old and have bratty children of our own to encourage. Always, brothers.

Above: Jason's claims victory over a disrespecting apple

Below: Jason thought I'd lost this photo poignantly showing his inability to handle a long night's party. He wasted my cologne to keep his dad from smelling the memories.

Bro Hymn Tribute

You ever get the feeling you can't go on, just remember whose side it is that you're on,

you've got Friends With You till the end

if you're ever in a tough situation we'll Be There With No hesitation, Brotherhoods Our rule that cannot bend

When You're Feeling Too Close To The bottom, You Know Who It Is You can count on someone will pick You up again

We can conquer anything together all of us are bonded forever

if You Die I Die That's The way it is ~ Pennywise