I'm Scared

A week or two ago, I had a friend in my office.  We were exchanging pleasantries and talking life and the fuckedupness that it is, as we usually do. He was admiring the the bulletin board behind me.  He laughed at the big "fuck yous" I had pinned up.  Then he said "Really?  You have Murdoch and Napoleon Dynamite?"   I do actually have autographed pictures of Jon Heder and Dwight Schultz on my bulletin board.  Courtesy of a very dedicated comic-con colleague.

But on this particular day, my friend made mention of something most people don't understand. He asked me about about the most important thing on my board.  At the very top of my bulletin board are two words:   Matthew.  Sers.  He looked at me and said, very flatly:  Matthew Sers.

I started to tell him the story, as I knew it, about Matt Sers. I said "this kid was incredible.  He was an artist.  He  was the only person who ever shared his art to me.  He drew a picture of a GIANT robot killing a robot army.  Very symbolic. I loved it.  He ended up eating a 9mm round.  He killed himself hours after her reported to his next unit."  I looked at Jay.  Jay looked at me.  It was at that point that my friend stopped me and said "I know him."

In my mind, I'm like "Yeah, you know him.  I've been talking about this kid for years."  But no.  NO. Jay actually KNEW this kid.  From the time they were kids.  And Jay said to me "He grew up two houses down from me."  Everything went silent.  All of it.  Then there was noise inside my head.  Not loud noise, more of a dull drawl.  The kind of noise that you just want to stop.  The kind of noise you want to scream at "STOP!!!"  But, all I could say was "SHUT.  THE.  FUCK.  UP."

Jay said "no."  He also said not only did we both end up in the Coast Guard, we both served on AQUIDENCK at Patrol Forces Southwest Asia (PATFORSWA.)  Two kids from a DC suburb, 12 years apart, two houses separating them, both ended up serving at the exact same unit.   Go fucking figure, right?

So ,why am I scared?   Is it because a kid who had everything going for him felt so hopeless that he succumbed to the madness?  Is it because the kid who had nothing but a marginal golf course job made a surf star of himself?

-Inner Peas