TOMMY: You got that camera rolling there? Good good, well I’m Tommy Wilson and my son is Tommy Jr. Sorry I know that’s not important, well it is but, well I’ll just keep talking. So Dennis was a uh, “prick” I don’t curse, see? Dennis did. Not that we should speak ill of the dead, just a fact. Well Dennis would always keep rotten eggs in his car and would pelt me with them when I left for school, ooh that heated my buns. I told my dad and you know what he said? Ex-cop my dad was. Well he said I should slash his tires. Now I’m a good choir boy here, I didn’t even listen to AC-DC, still don’t, devils music that is. Now that jerk tosses eggs at my good sweaters calling me a B. I. T. C. H. Till well one day gosh golly I took my dads old hunting knife, my last good sweater, and a gatorraid, long walk after all. Slashed that B. I. T. C. H’s tires right back all four, you hear. Car looked like my old dog after a long day eating the cat’s poop.
TOMMY: That next day I saw that that fella had two black eyes, oh! Lord could have taken me right. His old man gave good ones see? Back then our school was a little more blind on seein’ the sluggers in the crowds. Well anyway he never messed much with me again till I started dating his old girlfriend. Married her too funny enough. Well it was senior year and me and the old lady to be were dancing to some pop about hot ladies and such.
TOMMY: Well In between in some good dancing if I do say, I heard him run up and kick me right in the tackle box! Oh gosh that didn’t feel to good. My pa took me to the hospital found out I lost my right boy, up and died on me after that kick. Oh my golly couldn’t tell you how much this old boy wept when he found out he wouldn’t have himself a kiddo of his own. My lady cried even harder, I tell you. Would of kicked his tush if he stayed in town. Guess his dad there kicked him out of the homestead. Moved in with some fella that smoked that pot. Well it ended there for me with old Dennis, that is till they found him hanging in that motel, God rest his soul. I won’t lie now and say I didn’t feel bad at first. Course good lord and me had a talking, love your enemy and such. So now me and the lady pray for his mom every night. Well I won’t take too much of your time, old lady wants to watch that big bang theory. I wasn’t gonna watch it on account on the whole big bang in the name there, but that sheldon is funny enough the lord can forgive a name or two. Have a good night now fellas.
YONERE: I was always in contact with Dennis. He would come over to my house when he was kicked out of his. His father tended to have “fits” and well it was the least we could of done for him. And that grew to him working with me on the house in his teens. He wouldn’t talk much about his life even then. You could see it in his eyes though. He always looked so scared so tired. He always insisted on working instead of accepting a handout. When he was finally kicked out of town we begged him to come live with us. Go to college and get a life for himself. He refused though, and went off to some unknown future.
YONERE: We only really started talking again when he found my facebook. He started coming over at first as a ploy to celebrate his father and make up for the years. We spent hours talking about the wonderful things his father did. He would lie about his dad, saying that he really did cherish him. You would have thought he had the best father in the world. It ended up becoming a regular event of him coming over, not that I minded, he never really had much of a father in his life so I was glad he was willing to talk with me. He still held a strong stance of never revealing too much. He had a special way of avoiding talking about himself. My wife and I would be so amazed at the special attention he paid to our stories. He would really dig into them and find the tragedy and the humor in it.
YONERE: He would only start talking a lot later at night, after a couple drinks of course. On that back porch he would tell me everything. Sometimes he wouldn’t stop talking till three in the morning. It wasn’t whining, it was a deep, deep confusion at life. He didn’t know how to handle his father. Just working, working as much and as hard as he could. He acted like he was constantly being haunted by his father.
YONERE: I don’t think there was anything we could of done for him. The boy made a choice a hard, hard choice. Some days I wish I could talk with him one last time, not to ask him why he did it. But just how he felt in those last days. If Macy is watching, I’m a phone call away, anytime Macy.
TALIA: Hi my name is Taila, I’m twenty-nine and Dennis was my friend. Sorry it’s my first time in front of the camera. Well I met Dennis when I worked at Walkinmart, a small place where all the night job people hung around. Most of them never talked to me, not that I minded. High School was hard enough, my parents made me do all AP classes so I spent most of my time studying when I was at work. There was never anything to do besides giving the construction workers wraps. I was so glad Dennis could save me from that boredom.
TALIA: Now at first I thought he was trying to get my number like some of the creeps there. But instead he was more interested in my life. He would ask these really deep questions about myself, in a weird detached sense. Like he was a therapist, I never told him but that was the best part of my day. My parents were divorcing and having someone care about my thoughts on it was nice to have. We ended up talking twice, sometimes three times a day depending on how much beer he bought. I found out later that he would purposely only get a six pack so he had an excuse to talk to me some more. I guess I was his only friend outside of the warehouse he worked at. He would just drink and never go. Not that I would know, from the outside he seemed a lot more happy and social. Just a high functioning alcoholic like the rest of my customers.
TALIA: The last time we talked was my last day at the Walkinmart. My friend just found me a better job working at some local chicken place. I told him and he bought me some peach rings to celebrate. I thought about getting his number to keep in contact but it just felt weird. So I just disappeared from his life after that. Our last conversation was about nothing at all, just peach rings and my future.
TALIA: Some days I think about talking to his mom, she sent me an email inviting me to the funeral. I guess somehow she found my information on one of those sketchy info sites. It’s hard to know that he cared so much about me he mentioned me to his mom. I wish I knew, I really do.
SHIRK: Dennis? Yeah I knew Dennis. He was my friend. He was a good one too. Hard worker, he would be here early and wouldn’t leave till the job was done. Knew it too, the boss would try to pull some bullshit and he would tell him no. Boss had to take it with Dennis. If that boy left, the place would collapse in a week. A real pillar of strength for all of us.
SHIRK: He would host these big parties when the Eagles would play. He would make all his own food, good stuff too, always an amazing chili or potato bowl. The guys would call him den mother the amount of homemade food he made for us. Of course everyone went to his parties, even the ones who didn’t like football. He was a fun guy. Besides the food, he wouldn’t say much about himself but, he would make sure he knew everything about you. He’d joke, but there was real care in what he asked. He felt like a good teacher or even a good parent if you’ve never had one.
SHIRK: Yeah we had some good times, he ended up going to culinary school so I saw a lot less of him. The fun parties died down a bit but I figured it was school more than anything else. I’m not sure if he was depressed or if he had some demons but he fooled me. Just last week I stopped by and he was telling me he was going to France to meet some famous chef. A damn shame to lose him.