Travis
Lavinia Thompson
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011 Lavinia Thompson
Discover other titles by Lavinia Thompson at Smashwords.com:
Spellbound by Fire – http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/110429
She Wasn’t Allowed to Giggle – http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/92467
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I don't really feel it until the cold autumn wind blows through the prairie grass whispering rumours of winter's near presence. That's when I think about Travis; bright, funny and that smile shining as clear as red and green lights around the tree on Christmas Eve. As soon as the snow flutters down and life falls to the deep frigid slumber among frosty dreams and holiday cheer, that's when his memory blows through just as close as some chilling ghost.
The nostalgia of Christmas has been in pieces for nine years now, in the near decade it’s taken to fully comprehend what my life has been. If someone asked me to go back six or seven years, I would never, not to relive all that. But ask me if I’d go back nine years...I probably would, just for the chance to see the face of a boy I knew back then, someone who meant so much to me and still changes my life in so many ways.
I was doomed to be an outcast the day I walked into that Health class; the new kid. It was the same as any other school I had been too, standing at the doorway of the classroom with all eyes on me, once again unsure of how it was going to turn out. So many towns and so many schools later with some demented form of a nomadic life, I was still as insecure as if I’d walked into kindergarten again. I hated changing schools. But I didn’t know just how much my life would change in that small town.
That moment standing at the door seemed like eternity until another girl waved me over to a chair beside her, the only one to give any indication that I was welcome there. Her name was Sarah. We were friends from that moment on. I was the crazy writer, much like I still am. She was crazy about horses and horse racing. I’m talking about a girl who could tell you pretty much every horse that’s won the Triple Crown and what year it was. It was her obsession.
Soon, we had a little crowd. It started, really, with me and Sarah when Travis, always the prankster, locked us in the lunch room minutes before the bell was going to ring to go to class. The first bell went off and Sarah and I pounded on the door for him to let us out. The second bell rang; he opened the door, and he fled for his class. We tried to chase him, but he was too fast. We found him later, laughed about it, and became instant friends.
Travis had a contagious sense of humour and a magical personality that made you feel alright even on your worst days. Also in our group were Sylvia and Kara; farmer’s daughters. Sylvia was spoiled and complained a lot, the type of girl who might have had the attitude of the snobby popular girls if it hadn’t had been for her being severely overweight; a flaw for which the other kids ridiculed her often. I don’t remember much about Kara; probably because I never really befriended her. She and Sarah were much closer and eventually went their own way.
We met in the front foyer of the school every morning. Sylvia, Kara and Sarah were bus kids, so even in the dead cold of winter they made it to school warm. Travis lived about a block away so his walk was short. I lived about ten blocks away so my walk was a bit more treacherous, but I’d make it, snow-covered and grateful to see everyone in our ritual meeting place. There were some mornings that were so cold my dark brown hair would be frozen white from walking.
It took little time to discover what kind of small town school I was attending. It was a majority population of students who were farmer’s kids or kids whose parents had lived there their whole lives and whose families went back generations. Being a kid who moved there from the many other towns I had seen was tough. Questioning glances were cast in my direction all the time and because my family was unknown in that town, they wanted nothing to do with it. These were kids who had grown up together. Outsiders weren’t welcome.
But they sure liked our family secret. It wasn’t long before the abusive alcoholic revealed to everyone just what he was. My mom’s ex-boyfriend was a violent drinker, spending all day downtown at the old white hotel on the corner of main-street drinking his money away with his drinking buddy cop...and people wondered why my poor mother could never get the help she needed. For the longest time, her ex had the town convinced she was the alcoholic and drug addict while she worked 16 hour shifts at the senior’s care home just to make ends meet. No one seemed to understand that her ex was nothing but a liar, that the family members were merely his victims to control and try to reign in some twisted game of his. For many years, it worked.
This would spill over into school, the rumours that school kids fancy spreading around. It spread like wildfire and it was out there long before I had any control over it. Grades seven and eight were agony like that, but it is also those two grades, if any, that if given the choice to relive, I would.
That’s because back then, I still had Travis.
It was bearable back then because Travis always had a hug, smile or a laugh to share with someone who was feeling down. He touched my life in ways that I still find unbelievable. Mom’s ex once remarked rudely that I only knew the boy for a short time, but it was the friendship and simple compassion that Travis showed in that time, the kind that I hadn’t seen in a long time. He tried to be a friend to everyone and everyone who was his friend was touched by him.
Eventually, we all started drifting apart. Travis was really the only one who managed to stay friends with all of us and stay out of the drama. I don’t remember exactly when it started, how it came to the point when Travis and I would be the only ones in the school foyer in the mornings. One thing I do recall was sometime in Grade 7 when Sylvia said something about my family to Sarah and it got out of control from there. It was the same rumour about my mother being an alcoholic and drug addict.
There were mornings when I’d go to school and Travis would be the only one sitting in the front foyer, loyal and patiently waiting for one of us to show up. Most mornings we were the only two sitting there until the bell rang. Some mornings I couldn’t hold it together because of the violence that had exploded at home the night before. Between home and school, it was a surprise I had any sanity left sometimes. But as always, Travis was there with that hug we all need once in a while. Maybe he didn’t understand what was going on for me anymore than I did, but he was there and to me that was all that mattered. He was someone to whom I could run when it seemed the whole town and the rest of the world had turned away from the bruises and scars. It wasn’t as if Travis didn’t have his share of problems too, and I think that’s what made him more amazing. He was severely bullied and had been suicidal. I’m pretty sure he still was by then. It would always be one of those mysteries of which I never was completely sure.
The school counsellor noticed how the circle of friends had dissipated into almost nothing and was concerned. He was much more observant than we thought, and had at some point talked to a few of us individually, including myself. He pulled us all into his office one day and sat us down to talk it out. Everything was laid out on the table; just what we thought of each other, how I felt about the rumours, what was going on at home. Travis started crying and revealed that he had been feeling suicidal because of the bullying. It broke my heart to see the one who was usually so happy and so strong break down like that. It made him more...human, almost, as if he was this angelic being sent from somewhere to touch all these lives and to see him hurt in anyway was surreal. Today it makes me wonder if his humour and silliness was a cover-up for the real pain, a mask that fooled everyone but himself.
Most of us went separate ways after that, ceasing to so much as speak to each other. Travis somehow maintained diplomacy and kept the friendships alive. Me, I guess I had no other reason to talk to anyone. After all, I had Travis.
Somewhere along the way, however, Sarah and I started talking again. It was great, because she’d spend every weekend at my house or I’d be at hers. We had our fun and we became like sisters to each other in that time. Yet little did we know how much we’d need each other in the coming months.
December of 2002, Grade 8; the two weeks of those years I remember so vividly. It was snowy and cold, the kind of days when I’d walk the ten blocks to get to school in -30 degree cold to have my hair frozen by the time I got there. Maybe the cold was foreshadowing something, I don’t know.
That morning we all met in the foyer, as if we were meant to on that particular day. The teachers were singing Christmas carols in front of the trophy display across from us, trying to invoke some sort of Christmas spirit while we sat there rolling our eyes at their pitiful attempt.
Travis was the last of us to show up, and when he did I almost couldn’t believe it. He had strung Christmas lights around himself. While we were laughing at his humorous antic, he walked over to the wall and plugged in the lights, standing there like some silly little Christmas tree. Even the teachers couldn’t keep a straight face. It was a magical moment, a true imprint of his personality and humour. That’s a moment I remember most about him. That’s also the last time I remember ever feeling a Christmas spirit of some sort. That one little moment when the world seemed right, when everything else just melted away and we were there, laughing, smiling like friends and brought together by this one kid who knew how to make everything better.
December was also Sarah’s birthday. She had a birthday party the weekend we got out of school for holidays. It was Sarah, Travis, Kara and I who went. Travis’s mischievous antics still didn’t let up. He put balloons up his shirt and paraded around yelling something about Dolly Parton; just another thing that had everyone in stitches, laughing. We stayed up late watching movies, and the next morning we all parted ways to go home for Christmas. I gave Travis one last hug as my mom pulled up and I left. He said he’d see us in the New Year when we got back to school. He and I agreed to call each other so we could hang out over the remainder of the break. Sometimes I wish I’d have known different and sometimes I’m glad I didn’t.
Christmas came and passed without any word from anyone. We all were consumed with our holiday and family traditions. On the morning of December 28, I had gotten up like any other morning. The only difference was the phone had rung and it was Sarah on the other line.
“Travis is dead.”
I stood there for a moment, letting the words resonate through the phone into my ear, like it wasn’t real.
“You’re kidding,” I said, wishing so badly that she was, but the truthful chokes holding back her tears told me otherwise.
“No...I’m not...”
I hung up the phone after and collapsed to my knees on the floor, broken down. I didn’t cry until I went back to my room and I was alone. I clutched my pillow, wishing it was all some sick joke and that he really wasn’t gone. But as the snow fell outside so desperately cold, I knew.
Sarah came and spent the weekend at my house, so we could work through the aftermath together. We cried and laughed and just breathed, spending the majority of that time in the basement where we were by ourselves and lost in our own little teenage world that had been devastated.
His funeral was in the first week of January, the symbolic loss starting off the year, as if the world was just trying to see how far it could push me before falling over the edge. The week following Travis’s death was a strange one. We were told it was bronchial pneumonia but the family never did tell us for certain. As always, the rumours flew, as they always did when something of such macabre happened in a small town. That time, I shrugged off the words and braced myself for the funeral.
The snow fell in giant flakes that day, piling high outside of windows and leaving the loss buried somewhere in the cruel winter’s grasp. I was quiet as Mom drove me to the church Travis had attended. There were a lot of people from school; fellow students who were touched by the same loss and teachers who remembered that smiling funny face when he had plugged in the Christmas lights in the foyer. But what infuriated me most: Those who showed up just to make fun of him even after he was dead. It was such a heartless act, that the kids laughing in the back pew of the church as they brought his coffin up, carried by his family and best friend who was doing everything he could to hold back the tears. The image remains burned into my head to this day. It was the longest and most heart wrenching thing I had to sit through, listening to Travis’s father list off his son’s favourite things to do and what he aspired to be in life while the dead body lied in a coffin right behind him.
I sat with Sara and it was strange that we didn’t cry, knowing that the pain was there. Maybe it was too surreal for us at that young an age to lose a great friend. I don’t think it had really sunk in yet just what it meant, not the way we understand it now, if we even really do. I know I don’t. I never will understand how someone so wonderful and charismatic could be just gone. This boy who had a great life ahead and had friends and family who loved him so much, a boy who touched every life to the core he encountered, was gone, a reality as frigid as the depressed winter. I don’t know how to explain it.
We stood outside after the funeral was over, the worst of moving on still ahead of us. The giant flakes of white fell slowly, blanketing everything in the town with a gentle whiteness that somehow spoke of the innocence that was broken a little, as if maybe Travis was trying to talk to us in his melancholic way that only he could. He hated seeing anyone cry or hurt. Maybe the snowflakes were a hug, a soft touch on the shoulder as if to say he would be alright, that after everything life had done to him, the worst was over for him and it should be for us too.
I spotted Mom’s car pull up on the snow-covered street. As I walked away from the church that day, something inside me had changed forever, a certain kind of innocence from friendship you don’t ever get back after it’s been devastated.
It’s surreal to look back now. Pictures have faded and been lost, but his face never does fade from memory. That’s probably why tears fall for every year that has passed since he’s been gone, when Christmas has never been the same again. That’s also maybe why Christmas doesn’t have the same spirit it used to. It was once a bright, happy spirit, the usual cliché you hear in carols echoing through the snow. After all this time, it’s still a dull spirit that merely drags itself through the holidays when one rather wouldn’t. It’s like being a million miles from home on Christmas while sitting in the same house as your family. It’s just never been the same.
And it’s a contradiction, I know, because Travis would want the opposite. He would want laughter, smiles and happiness. This was a boy who tried what he could to see people happy even if he wasn’t. His cause of death to no longer really matters to me. What matters was that he lived; he was here and he was real and he had a heart unlike no other I’ve met since. You just can’t bottle that somewhere and save it. When it’s gone it’s gone and it’s an empty void that just sits there and you can feel it all the time.
There are a lot of places and things I’ve seen since then. In 2003, Sarah moved about two hours away. There was distance in that friendship as long as the miles between us, especially when I moved out to the west coast after graduation for a year. I returned only when she got pregnant and I attended her wedding as one of her bridesmaids. The two years after that we really didn’t talk much, not until very recently when she realized how distant everyone had become. We still talk and laugh, just like we did back then.
I spent two years in college studying journalism and graduated after Sarah got married. In college, I met many more friends who touched my life and remain close to me. None have the magic that Travis did. Life has never really been the same. Even now, I left that small town and I’m getting married in a year while pursuing all the crazy dreams I had even back in high school, back when Travis was still around.
Perhaps I left that town to rid some of these ghosts that haunt the soul’s cores every winter. Many of our old friends have gone on with their lives, married and had kids and some are still out on their parents’ farm, stuck in that town for eternity perhaps. While they go on and seem to have lives that are so nicely put together, my childhood haunts me a little more and I’m still somewhere between falling behind and finding myself. It’s been four or so years since I’ve been out of that town and I’ve only been back briefly to pass through onto other, better places.
There are two places at which I always stop over when I do go there: the school and the church, the two places where I remember Travis the most, as if maybe by going back there I’ll find the piece that’s still missing but I never do. I know I never will.
Discover other titles by Lavinia Thompson at Smashwords.com:
Spellbound by Fire – http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/110429
She Wasn’t Allowed to Giggle – http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/92467
Connect Author Online:
Blog: http://laviniathompsonauthor.wordpress.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LaviniaThompson
Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/LaviniaThompson
About the Author:
Lavinia
Thompson is a 22-year old journalism grad. She emerged from the dark
depths of domestic violence and abuse from her childhood to find the
light at the end of the tunnel to discovering her voice in writing.
With that voice, she is dedicating her passion for writing into
raising awareness for domestic violence. Her poetry book, "She
Wasn't Allowed to Giggle" released Sept. 28, 2011, is a
collection of poetry and prose based on what she experienced as a
child. She also has a dark fantasy novel called "Spellbound by
Fire," the first in a series, which also has the theme of
preventing and stopping violence against women.
Through
her writing, Lavinia wants to spread the message domestic violence
victims and survivors that there is hope, help and there will be a
day when the words "never again" really mean, never again.
She wants to be a part of making sure everyone sees that day.