The Choir He Wanted, The LIfe He Had

Monday, April 2, 1937

That day at rehearsal, I was so angry that even if I could talk, I wouldn't have wanted to. I put Roger in charge and spent the whole rehearsal standing off to the side, watching my choir rehearse without me. On one of the breaks, Roger came to me with a pad of paper and a pen.

"You look really mad," he said, handing them to me. I took them, then wrote I am and handed it back to him.

"Why?" he asked, handing them back to me. I wrote You know why and, instead of handing the whole pad over, showed him what I had written.

"No, I don't," Roger said. I wrote I can't perform and showed him.

"I'm sorry you can't compete with us," he said. "I really wish you could."

Sure you do, I wrote.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Roger asked, his voice increasing in volume so that the other boys fell silent and watched us.

If it wasn't for you this wouldn't have happened, I wrote.

"Excuse me?" Roger said. "You think this is my fault?"

Yes, that's what I think, I wrote.

"In what way could this possibly be my fault?" Roger said. His voice was shaking with anger and hurt. I hesitated before writing You told me to do it and showing it to him. When he read it he ripped the pad of paper out of my hand, tore the sheet I had been writing on off, and threw the entire pad onto the floor. He then tore the sheet in half, threw the halves to the floor, and yelled,

"Bullocks!"

"Roger, watch your language," Mr. Smith scolded, but Roger ignored him.

"Do you honestly think it still matters who started something?" he yelled. "Just because I suggested you do it does NOT mean that this is my fault! It was nobody's fault! It was an accident! Don't you ever, EVER, tell me that this was my fault! And that goes for the other boys as well! We don't deserve that!"

Silence fills the room. Roger and I are both silently fuming. Eventually, I storm out of the room. I hear Roger yelling my name but I ignore him and keep going, storming all the way until I'm outside the school, standing in front of the front entrance. I walk over to the place where the sidewalk drops off to the road and sit down on the small curb. I put my head in my hands and try to get myself to calm down.

"You can't just run away from your problems!"

I jumped and turned around to see Roger storming toward me.

"You can't do this to me!" he yelled. "You can't blame me for something that wasn't my fault and then just leave!"

I stood up and turned around. We stood face-to-face, glaring at each other. Roger handed me the paper pad and the pen and I snatched them out of his hands.

"Stop acting like a child," Roger growled. I wrote in all caps, STOP CALLING ME A CHILD!, and when I showed it to him, he yelled,

"Stop yelling at me!"

Although the statement had a humorous element to it, neither of us was laughing. Each of us was furious at the other, and though I couldn't talk, I gave Roger looks that gave clues as to how angry I was at him. He breathed in deeply, then sighed.

"I don't think you understand how much it hurts me when you do stuff like this," he said. "And not a lot of things hurt me anymore."

Did things used to hurt you? I wrote.

"Jack, that's not the point," Roger said. "The point is that you have to stop this. What happened was nobody's fault — it was an accident. You can't just go around blaming people just because there's something you're not happy with. I'm sorry about what happened, I really am, but please stop blaming me. Stop being mad at me."

I didn't move. Roger didn't speak. The only sound was the wind brushing through the trees around us.

"Please," Roger said at last, "Please stop this."

I looked down at the paper and started writing. Then I stared at what I had just written for a long time before showing it to Roger. When he read it his mood softened. I had written just a few words:

You're right. It's nobody's fault. I'm sorry, and I mean it.

"Thank you," Roger said. "Now let's go back. Before we miss the rest of practice."

I wrote You mean before you miss the rest of practice? and showed it to him, chuckling. Roger let out a small chuckle of his own and shoved me lightly.

"Let's just go," he said. The two of us turned around and started walking back to the choir room. I was still mad at Roger — anger doesn't go away that easily for me — but I was starting to abandon the notion that this was anyone's fault but my own. It was exactly what Roger had said it was: an accident. Even though I didn't get to do anything for most of the practices for a long time, I stopped placing blame where it didn't need to be placed.

It wasn't worth losing friends over something I couldn't control.