A friend lost

In truth, I don't remember how I first got connected to Art. He may have been a friend of Eric, or someone I met in one of my classes, I'm not exactly sure. Just by looking at my group of friends, you could see he wasn't one of us. He had crazy hair, which I later found out was because he believed he had giant cowlicks like Wolverine. He wore a leather jacket and torn jeans. He smoked. He was clearly of the burnout caste, while the rest of us were nerds.

The game had gone so poorly that just moments before the group of us stood around a bucket in Scott's backyard watching our character sheets burn. Because of our immediate hate of Robitech and the GMing style of the one of who owned all the books, we were on a break. Scott's backyard was not huge, but it was nice to be out from the dark basement. We scattered. Most of us either hung in the backyard or walked over to where Tim's house was, a few doors down, but Eric and Art had taken to swinging giant sticks with each other.

They quickly moved from the yard, to East Middle School, the property of which connected to Scott's property. Through the gaps in the fence I watched them run, hooting and hollering. Taking large, easy to dodge swings at one another. Then they were too deep to see. I turned back, talked to Scott and then we heard it. That quick "whoop " of the half hearted police siren that tells you to quit what you are doing and see what the cop wants. It came from the middle school. I immediately thought, Art is going to jail, I figured if he didn't already have a warrant for his arrest, his mouth would get him in trouble. When he and Eric got back, I might have asked him if he ran away from the police officer.

I actually only remember one class I shared with Art, Heath in the most secluded part of Canton High School. It was in the tiny, hallway with just a few classes above the Vo Tech area. Usually, even though we in no way looked at school the same way, got along fine. We talk and walked in and out together. That is not the day I remember most, though. The day I remember most, was one in which we were not getting along. Art was bugging me and I was working to get him to leave me alone. I teased him, but he wouldn't relent, as often happened because of my viciousness. Instead, he moved from words to hand and he began pushing and dragging on me. I grabbed his hand and he tried to do some fancy move, which not only failed, but left him completely vulnerable. I braced his arm, lifted and spun. His feet left the ground, went over my back and he landed, on his back pack on the floor. The teacher looked over and said to Art, "Leave Jason alone." We walked out of class, friends again.

Not long after that, he lost control of everything. He got a girl pregnant and was kicked out of the house. They got a place together, the kind of place that I was asked if I knew where to get weed once, while we were standing outside if it. Then while I was at Western Michigan University, I learned his daughter had died, which resulted in a court case and ultimately he and his wife divorced. Then... he was gone.

I have typed his name into Facebook, but it is common enough that I can't see him if he is there. I look at the picture and try to compare them to the boy I knew. I've used the same tools I have used to find lost friends and friends biological fathers. I have put my locator hat on, but he doesn't seem to want to be found.

I doubt that we would become buddies who hang out. Who knows if we even have anything more in common than the same stories about our health class and Dungeon's and Dragons? But, I keep looking just to find out what happened to him, if he's happy now, if he's there.