A Story of Social Distortion

I had never thought much of him when we first met. Yes, I knew he had problems, but back then (and even now), his problem was hugging every person he met, be it man, woman, or some sick combination of both. My first impression: he was loud, annoying, and a bit too close for comfort, the makings of a pimp. He hugged me when we first met, he hugged me the second time we met, and by the third time, I had established a reaction. He would walk over, bring his arms around me, I would ready my fists, and when his arms touched, I would give him a punch in the gut. Eventually, he stopped hugging me, but I still had very little respect for him.

Yet, his enthusiasm was the reason we remained friends. At least, it's the reason I'm still friends with him. I don't know about him; perhaps he still finds me attractive, which I find rather shocking. He would volunteer at service events for jobs that no one else would want and complete the task beyond what was necessary. He would even volunteer himself when he couldn't perform the task. There was a time we were working in Chinatown, and he wanted to help even though he couldn't speak Chinese. And whenever we had enough people helping with something and I said no, he would, to my dismay and anger, still jump in and find something to do.

I always thought of him as any other dedicated volunteer, just a bit quirkier than others, until the day he asked if I knew anyone he could live with. Whoa, I thought. Live with? I always knew he was a bit eccentric, but running away from home? This kid was mad. I asked him to explain his motives, but he refused. Finally, after being rejected by several of our friends whose parents were wary of having a gay stranger living with them, he told me about the brothers he has never met, his ignorant mother who uses him and verbally abuses him, and his mother's multiple husbands and boyfriends.

My first feeling was intrigue. This story was filled with drama and nuances. It didn't seem like the typical divorcee family. I wanted to know more. I began digging and whenever we had the chance, I would ask him more about his life. Why don't you like your mom? She uses me. How? She doesn't let me talk to my brothers. Our dream is to someday be a big, happy family. Have you ever tried to understand her? Yes, and it doesn't work. What about your father? He's a drunkard. And you know this how? He comes home at one and there's always beer in the fridge. Is this why you go to so many volunteering events? Yes. I don't want to go home. Ever read Angela's Ashes? Yes, and his problems are worse. I'm sure your mother would care if you ran away, wouldn't she? Yes, she would. But I don't care.

But I don't care, he said. At that point (we were sitting in McDonald's having an after school snack when I asked him), I was skeptical of his story, but I still felt a bit sympathetic to his cause and simply felt sorry for him. Yes, a journalist is supposed to get all sides of a story, but this was one story I was too lazy and too afraid to go deeper into. After all, I have a mother who doesn't exactly appreciate me all the time. Even though I was not intent on investigating this, he sent me transcripts of his instant messaging conversations with his brother and a copy of a letter they used to communicate with each other. After sifting through them, I began to doubt the seriousness of his problems. Yes, his descriptions of his mother don't exactly paint her as the ideal mother. I can believe she's anything but (I have that feeling too with my mother), but running away? Surely, he was just being a drama queen when he pulled out that one.

Then he actually did it. He spent a two-day break at his grandparents' house in Brooklyn. I walked with him to his house and watched as he quickly dropped off his things and then came back out to walk with me to my old home in Brooklyn, which wasn't too far away. It was then he told me the most chilling vignette of his life. He was five when his then-father threatened to kill him while he was sleeping. He wasn't actually asleep, though, and could see the knife under his neck and could hear the threats from his father and the desperate cries of "no" from his mother.

First, I blurted out the words "what the hell." Then, there was just silence. I took some time to process the story in my head. Perhaps, it was him exaggerating again. Or maybe not. I couldn't tell. I could no longer believe everything he was telling me was true. It is the nature of a teenager to overreact. I do it all the time. I curse at my mother when she gets on my nerves. I stress from essays and homework and tests as if I was dying from burnout. I get swept by political upheavals, whether they're in school or in real government. And here was a kid who planned to run away from his home because of abusive parents. Boy, where have I heard that before? Ah, from every teen drama show that's been on TV.

He was back at his parents' after the two-day break. It was then he begged me to beg my parents to allow him to stay either at our apartment or the basement of our old home in Brooklyn. By then, my sympathy was almost gone. I no longer felt sorry for him; he seemed pathetic. Pathetic because he was taking the easy, overly dramatic, teenager way out. Pathetic to think running away from a problem was a feasible solution. Pathetic that he would drag a friend into a problem that he himself couldn't stand.

I had thought of him as the one with a distorted view on his problems, but perhaps I haven't been too fair to him. I have had countless friends in divorcee families who have to cope with the same problems, some with problems even worse than the ones he has. Some of my closest friends have had to move and leave their friends and schools because of their parents' race for love and lust. In the end, I couldn't really do anything for him. I can't offer him any advice; I don't have any. I can't offer him empathy; I still don't know what he's feeling. I can't even offer him sympathy; it's almost gone. This is something he'll have to deal with. Without the little runaway stuff.