by Zachary Schechter
I still remember the first time I met Jason Peterson, I was sitting in room 202 of P. Sherman Elementary School eating a grilled cheese sandwich that my mom had so thoughtfully made for me that morning. It was like any other day in my rather routine life, wake up, come to school, feign attention, eat lunch, more faux paying attention, go home. But on that fateful day, as I was eating my sandwich I heard a sound, well more of a rhythm actually. Tap-tappity-tap-tappity-tap-tappity-tap-tap-tap. Intrigued, I looked up from my lunch, cheese hanging off of my chin, to see a short boy with a mop of unruly brown hair standing in the doorway to our classroom. In his hands he held two chopsticks, though if anybody were to actually refer to them as chopsticks in front of him he would glare at them with the most chilling blue eyes I’d ever seen and insist that they were not chopsticks but rather they were his “drum sticks.” Apparently he thought himself a drummer but in all the years I knew him I only ever heard him play the same beat, tap-tappity-tap-tappity-tap-tappity-tap-tap-tap. And he played it all the time, no matter what, whether he was happy, sad, angry, hungry, stressed, bored, all the time, that same annoying rhythm.
We hit it off instantly, I offered him a piece of my sandwich, he offered to teach me how to play the drums, an offer, which being an eight-year-old child, I gleefully accepted. That’s when I first discovered he only knew that one tune, that tap-tappity-tap-tappity-tap-tappity-tap-tap-tap that would haunt our friendship for years to come. We hung out all the time, we did everything together, we were best friends. That’s not to say we didn’t have other friends, obviously we did, Richard, Sandra, Mitch on a good day. But at the root of it, it was me and Jason, best friends. When we were freshmen in high school we decided to start a band, me on guitar, Richard on bass, Sandra on keyboard, Mitch declared himself our manager for whatever reason, and Jason of course played the drums. Not that he learned a new tune, it was still just that same tap-tappity-tap-tappity-tap-tappity-tap-tap-tap. But we worked around it, the rest of us learned the appropriate chords and we wrote a song to Jason’s signature beat. As I recall, we never played a single gig, Mitch wasn’t the greatest manager, but we would still meet once a week in Jason’s garage and rehearse our single song for hours until Jason’s mom called us all in for dinner. We all looked forward to those dinners at Jason’s house, though they almost always operated on the same formula. Jason would always begin drumming on the table with his silverware, tap-tappity-tap-tappity-tap-tappity-tap-tap-tap and his mom would always tell him to stop, which of course he wouldn’t. Mitch would always promise us that he’d get us a gig that week, and we all regaled each other with funny stories from school or from home. It was normal, it was routine, boring even maybe, but we didn’t care, we were all together and we were happy, that’s all we really needed back then. I of course always sat next to Jason at these meals, we were best friends he and I. Best friends forever as they say. Unfortunately, forever came a lot quicker than we thought it would.
Jason started acting odd (well odder than usual) about mid-way through our Sophomore year of high school, his grades started slipping, he’d zone out unexpectedly for short periods of time, at one point he even began walking funny. We didn’t think much of it at the time, we just assumed the stresses of midterms were beginning to get to him and he’d be fine in a couple of weeks. I remember one day we were sitting in our school’s cafeteria, I was eating my half of my grilled cheese sandwich and he was sitting next to me, eating his half of my grilled cheese sandwich, and as always he pulled out his chop-, sorry, his “drum sticks” and began beating the table tap-tappity-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap. The beat was different, I remember looking up at him in shock and I remember seeing a look of pure horror etched on face. I think in that moment we both knew something was wrong, I knew that I should say something but I didn’t know what to say and so I just watched as he stood up, threw his chopsticks into a nearby trash can and stormed out of the room. The doctors found the tumor in his brain later that week. The news shook all of us, the doctors said they were going to try to shrink the tumor with chemotherapy but they weren’t very optimistic. We did all the right things that friends are supposed to do in these situations I think, when Jason’s hair started to fall out from the chemo we all shaved our heads in solidarity, me, Richard, Sandra, even Mitch, though I don’t know how he knew we were doing it, I don’t think any of us ever told him. When he became too sick to come to school anymore we all went to visit him every day, we’d bring our instruments up to his bedroom and we’d play our song and sometimes if he was strong enough he’d drum along with his fingers, tap-tappity-tap-tappity-tap-tappity-tap-tap-tap, but it was always with a look of pure concentration stretched across his features. Gone was the absent-minded drummer we had all known and loved.
I remember the last time I saw him; I had gone over to his house during my lunch period to visit him. He was so weak and frail and it hurt me to see him that way. Still I had to be there for him, I was his best friend. He hadn’t eaten much in weeks but he still accepted a piece of my grilled cheese sandwich. We sat there in near silence for a while, the only sound between the two of us being his raspy and labored breathing. Eventually I started telling him stories from school about our friends and our teachers and our tests and our assignments. He began interjecting with his own questions and his own jokes and insights and things began to feel normal again. At one point I saw him start tapping his fingers against his blanket tap-tappity-tap-tappity-tap-tappity-tap-tap-tap, there was no sound of course, his fingers were too bony and his blanket too light but it still felt good knowing he was doing it. He passed away that night and I cried non-stop for the next two days. I left my house only to attend to his funeral, they wanted me to speak, I had to, I was his best friend. I remember getting up there in front of all of his friends and family and not knowing what to say. I had written something of course, but for some reason it just felt fake now. I stood up there for a good thirty seconds without saying anything, just looking out at the people who had assembled to mourn the loss of my best friend. I looked out at them, took a deep breath and began drumming my fingers on the podium tap-tappity-tap-tappity-tap-tappity-tap-tap-tap. For a second there was silence as what I was doing slowly sank in. Then Mitch started to tap on his chair, then Richard, then Sandra, then Jason’s parents, soon everybody was tapping on their chairs. That same sound, that haunting rhythm, Jason Peterson’s beat. Tap-tappity-tap-tappity-tap-tappity-tap-tap-tap.
