but he mixed drinks exceptionally well
at his college frat parties, and his
ice-blue eyes
always spoke the truth to me. It’s amazing
to think that the only reason we ever met
was because one day
he wore a turtleneck that perfectly
matched his eyes, and I had to tell him.
I don’t know why
he put up with my mood swings, with my
self-destructive social life and man-hating,
normally he didn’t
care about women, never gave their opinions
much thought, just tried to get them
drunk at parties,
maybe he knew that and that’s why he
listened to me. Then for a few years
our friendship
drifted, we didn’t see each other much,
I heard through the grapevine that he was
failing in school.
Then one day, out of the blue, he comes
over and he has two black eyes. And he
says to me
that when he was in the parking garage
two guys came and beat him up, and one
of them said,
you raped my girlfriend. And then he looked
at me and said, and you know, looking back,
he was right.
I raped her. And I know he wanted sym-
pathy, he wanted to hear me say something,
but I couldn’t.
And he said, I know this has to be hard for
you to hear, but I wanted to tell you. I know
it was wrong.
A part of me wanted to hate him. A part of
me thought that if he was my friend I would
be condoning
what he did. And a part of me thought that
our friendship made him realize what he
actually had done.
I tried to be there for him. I wasn’t much
good at it. Eventually, he moved away.
I didn’t try
to lose touch with him. But it’s just that a
part of me is still trying to figure out if I
can be his friend.
Sometimes you just lose touch with some-
one, sometimes that’s all you can do.
Scars Publications and Design
in conjunction with Penny Dreadful Press
first edition
copyright @ 2004 Scars Publications and Design
827 Brian Court, Gurnee IL 60031-3155 USA
Editor@scars.tv
http://scars.tv
and assistance from Freedom & Strength Foundation, Troy Press, Hawthorne Press & Dried Roses Press
printed in the United States of America
writings @ 1979-2004 Janet Kuypers
book design @ 1998-2004 Scars Publications and DesignThis book, as a whole, is fiction, and no correlation should be made between events in the book and events in real life. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the publisher.Information about past books is available upon request through Scars Publications and Design. Materials from the literary magazines “Children, Churches and Daddies” and “Down in the Dirt” are available on line at http://scars.tv, as are .mp3 files, .ra files, .aif files, .au files, .wav files .mov and mpeg files of Kuypers, both reading her work and singing with three sets of musicians.Oeuvre is published through Scars Publications and Design, whose publisher is a member/minister through the Universal Life Church. Scars Publications and Design, the logo and associated graphics @ 1979 - 2004. All rights reserved. Kuypers and Scars Publications and Design welcome your comments, tips, compliments or complaints. Direct all comments and suggestions to the e-mail addresses listed above.The definition of oeuvre (the works of a writer, painter, or the like, taken as a whole) is from the Websters Unabridged 2001 Dictionary.