1 Million Bury Deep Under the Sun

luis marquez

Somewhere between West Texas sand and the Mexican border, 100 degrees heat hid 1 million people deep under the sun. We spent our youth buried in that place, far from anything important, enough that no one would look our way. I viewed the desert town through the veil of teenage angst, a mirage of concrete and asphalt that had forgotten to fade away. A plague of entitlement was prevalent in the middle class youth of that summer, defined by loud declarations against authority, I found myself lost in the center of it. In a haze of privilege, smoke, pills, pipes, liquor and line, suburban teenagers buried deep in escape of the sun.

​

Amongst the million was a nerdy boy with a laugh that seemed to get stuck between a hiccup and a stutter. I met Sterling at a middle school lunch table, a skinny, pale, blue eyed boy from a wealthy family. Throughout high school, most afternoon were spent in each others company, both on a mission with no destination, grasping at every and all chance to live a life outside of ourselves.

​

His house could be described as expensive, and empty.

​

The maid was usually in the kitchen wiping down marble counter tops or oak cabinets.

The ceilings of his house echoed an air of sterility that I hadn't seen before. The help didn't make dinner, but the wine locker stayed fully stocked and Taco Bell had the $5 cravings box, this made Friday plans easy.

I only ever saw his parents in passing at the parties they frequently threw. Our meetings consisted of the cordial change of names and an awkward handshake. On halloween they hosted a haunted house, his older sister and her friends scared the neighborhood kids, the adults handed out candy with a beer in hand and teenagers came in and out of the house with red eyes, reeking of marijuana.

​

Summer started earlier that year.

Aimlessly in white suburban neighborhoods, we were kids trying to stay out of the sun under the shade of ignorance. We weren't the first to discover pot, synthesizers, or Led Zeppelin, but we felt like the pioneers of a new-age lifestyle just like the rockstars, and hedonistic-martyrs we idolized.

The summer only got hotter, and the shade we sat under only grew darker. The memories of the years that followed were stained with the gradual soak of addiction.

​

On one of the instances, my phone rang on a Tuesday night. A few weeks had past since I had heard from my friend, and even longer since I had seen the pale, blue eyed boy I met at the middle school lunch table so to see his name on my phone was a pleasant surprise. The voice on the other end was unmistakable -    fear weighed through the telephone, a somber cry.

​

He said his heart was racing and needed to talk.

We spoke for hours He rambled about his his plans for the future and how much he wanted to change. " 'It hurts to see the way my family looks at me,' " he would repeat.

​

All I could do was listen.

Around the same time, a passion for music, film and literature drew me away from the lifestyle my friend had cultivated, the lens which he viewed the world through became foreign and violent to me. The people around him became strangers. Rumors began to circulate of students showing up to class smelling of wine, this would later be confirmed by the empty bottles of red that administration found in the mens restroom.

The school began to get involved. An arrest sent him away for a year.

​

Eventually we weren't just kids having "fun," the tolerance of age no longer justified the behavior of a teenager lashing out against his parents. Time passed and life didn't wait for sterling. Our goals and dreams outgrew each other and soon his name was a story told by strangers in passing sharing anecdotes of a Skinny "tweaker" they had just seen.

​

The shade he cultivated was no longer an escape.

​

His obituary was full of kind adjectives.

​

The place we grew up in had nothing to do with what happened to sterling. Some of us just stayed behind, Some of us are still buried deep under the sun.