Elegy for Roger Case


He once swiped a pen-knife
that had been my grandfather's— 
a multi-bladed amazement
any kid would want in his pocket.
Already I'd had my suspicions,
for my piggy bank looked
a little low, and Roger's
ways were well-known.

One afternoon as we played
in his bedroom, there it was:
jutting out from under a pillow,
unmistakable. I lunged
quicker than Roger could
and stalked out before
he had well launched
his excuses. The little creep
was a year older
but I could have hurt him
if I wanted, I could have ridden
over him like righteousness itself— 

but just walked out, and that
was it for us, though kids
aren't too good at nursing
grudges: I mean, I saw him
around, maybe played
sandlot baseball a time
or two—but no more
sleepovers, no more rapt huddles
over his mother's explicit
nursing manual, no more Saturdays
lounging through cartoons
and teasing his baby sister.
He shrugged and smirked,
and that was that.

Of course Roger was used
to being banished. No telling
how many times he was found
tied to a tree
in someone's back yard
with his pants down, or
came home with a bloody nose
he couldn't explain. I can't say
I ever truly liked him myself,
though I was no prize either— 
shy and secretive in a way
he must have felt as harmony.

By high school we didn't bother
ignoring each other
in the corridors, just stared
like bored cattle if we happened
to crowd the same door.
Roger had graduated to full
drug-punkhood, and I
fled into the honor roll. I never
knew what became of him— 
he melded easily
into boyhood's phantasmagoria,
its long held scores and dreams,
one of my shifting roster
of almost half-pals. He faded
like the twin Polaroids
I kept as his sole memorial— 
Roger balanced on his head
in our upstairs hallway,
Roger with monkey face
and crossed eyes.

Now comes word he's had a stroke,
the ultimate prank, a firecracker
in his head. This missing quarter
century, since I grabbed that knife
and exited Roger's puny life,
now throbs with fresh force.

No reason for it, I suppose,
my mourning a friend
I never quite had, and don't
regret. Perhaps he straightened out
at last, though how can I
imagine him with family
or career, or believe he ever kicked
his sneaky ways? No:
I'm stuck with my vision
of Roger's cut lip, Roger
scampering away from someone's
casual cherry bomb. Dead
or alive, it hardly matters
to this everlasting portrait— 
Roger Case upended
in a long lost hallway,
grinning like a monkey
from the heart of monkeyhood.

  -original published in The Cortland Review, 1998