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Hello, Goodbye Tommy Monohan

Samuel Cejda

    I saw him walking out of the school. He was walking to the parking lot while I was walking in. I almost laughed at his cargo shorts and the plain white t-shirt he always wore. Hey, Tom-my I thought as I passed him at arm’s length. No, why would I say that? Tommy Monohan and I weren’t friends. We had a class together and he seemed likable enough, but we weren’t friends. Tommy was smart and kept to himself. I, on the other hand, am me. I could never understand the sudden urge I got to say hello to Tommy Monohan.
    I waited until the appropriate time that evening to drive across town to the local newspaper office where I worked nights. I arrived right on time to sit in my cubicle and watch sports with the 20-something journalism school graduate. He chided me for being in high school while we waited for the score of the basketball game between Ft. Whocares and East Nowheresville High–we were glorified scorekeepers. Usually our focus was on the newsroom TV, and of course the police scanner.
    The police scanner was on all night. One poor soul at the news desk had to sit in front of it doing who knows what, just waiting, in case anything interesting happened. It would entertain us with the story of a drunk who refused to leave a woman’s porch because he thought he lived there, or a bar fight that happened because the DJ played a song someone didn’t like.
    Tonight the scanner was quiet. I was watching college basketball and waiting for my desk phone to ring with the no doubt thrilling results of a high school volleyball tournament. I cursed the old woman who was the score-page editor as she crunched and crunched on her popcorn in the otherwise quiet newsroom. The scanner finally broke its silence. It started chattering in a low, and serious voice, and it only spoke in its codes. 11-80, no 390? Nuh-uh 187 ooh I think that’s the big one. It’s a 10-56A, nope just 10-56. I shrugged, must not be anything interesting tonight.
    There’s one long window that runs the length of the far wall of the newsroom. It was all the way across the floor from me, behind the rows of empty cubicles with their green cloth walls. It wasn’t too long after the scanner started talking before the flashing red and blue lights started peeking through that long 4th floor window. I looked for the scanner’s lackey, wondering if he finally had something to do. I didn’t see him, but I didn’t think it was too unusual to see those lights flickering into the newsroom. We’re downtown, it’s a Friday night–I could do the math.
    I took a break to walk around near the end of my shift. I was scheduled until midnight, which usually turned into 1 a.m., and sometimes 2–especially with a bar that didn’t card so close. It was around 11, give-or-take, and I was walking back to my desk through the hallway that smelled like an old book. The scanner’s lackey pushed into the hallway through the door that led to the stairwell that ran out to the street.
    “You go to Central High, right?”
    I turned around, ready for some story about how he had gone to the same high school. How’s Mr. Soandso? Bossy as ever. Oh, how about Coach J? Still a mean old prick. I’d been through it a thousand times.
    “Yeah.” I answered.
    “Did you know Tommy Monohan?”
    “Sure.”
    That wasn’t the name I expected to hear.
    “He just killed himself.”
    I stared at the lackey with his little round glasses, wondering why the hell he just told me that. Were we supposed to have idle chit-chat about a boy’s death? Why couldn’t he just have asked me about Mr. Soandso?
    “He jumped from the parking garage across the street.”
    I didn’t remember asking for more details.
    “That’s terrible.”
    It was all I could say. The lackey nodded and went into the bathroom. I imagined him throwing up at the thought of Tommy Monohan’s body.
    I continued down the hallway that smelled like an old book and returned to my desk. I stared at the blinking lights in the long window. I knew Tommy Monohan was in history this morning. I knew he groaned at a joke I made to the class. I knew he had on his cargo shorts, his plain white t-shirt, his running sneakers, his rectangular wireframe glasses, his nerdy haircut that proved he wasn’t like me; he didn’t care what people thought about him, he was just Tommy Monohan and he was happy with that. I knew his body was outside on the street. I knew it probably didn’t look like Tommy Monohan. I knew he was dead. His parents didn’t know. His friends didn’t know. But I knew it.
    The school sent an email late that night. I read the texts about it on my phone at that bar that didn’t card. I saw the tears the next day, the extra counselors, and the empty seat. I didn’t say much about it. Not more that It’s so terrible, I feel so bad for his parents, I never would have thought Tommy of all people–you know, the regular stuff you say in this kind of situation. I watched the girl who never talked to him weep. I saw his close friends just staring at each other in disbelief. They had no more tears left by noon.
    I said I didn’t, but I do feel close to Tommy Monohan. He died across the street from me. I was the first person in his world to know that he died. That’s a strange feeling, to be that close to a person you didn’t bring yourself to say hi to when you were an arm’s length away.

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