Proper Attention Has Not Been Paid, The Bed Is Nearly Halfway Made

Every time there was a trouble to get out of, the next day was filled with the promise of it being sorted out — through a miracle or generosity or through some accidental series of events that would diminish the trouble caused by the previous 24 hours. Someone would come to the rescue and save the day, whisk away worries and make them seem so unimportant to me. In particular, I think, when I was young, I saw the world as a series of pitfalls that I could climb out of by simply not standing in the way of gravity. Down the darkened path from one house on the street to the next, I could know that should someone try to come kick my ass and steal my bike or threaten me, someone would step in to avenge me. In short, I was an utter pussy of a kid, loved by many and coddled by many more, protected from the attractive difficulties that make a life worth living.    


By the time I had my first serious fist fight, I had managed to wind up in military school. This kid I knew named Damico was the biggest troublemaker that my 6th grade eyes had ever seen. He was a handsome devil, but one who would short sheet your bed, steal your candy, and keep you awake all night telling ghost stories so vivid that you showed up for English class bloodshot as if you had been hitting the sauce too hard. When he wasn’t causing trouble, he was serving off his numerous infractions, either marching in a square for an hour, cleaning the latrines, or sitting in detention hall. I caught so many “sticks” hanging out with Damico, but how we met was probably the best story of them all.  


You see, Damico had run into me on the way to the mess hall and had threatened to beat the ever-living shit out of me for getting in his way. Egged on by the twin Venezuelan brothers Urdinaya A. and Urdinaya J., I took it upon myself to see that this threat never made headlines anywhere. “You can’t let him talk to you like that, Friedman,” Urdinaya J. would tell me. “That freaking piece of shit, he thinks he’s tougher than you. You gonna take that?” The more I thought about it, the more I thought of how this scrawny, toothsome midwestern cow fucker was working overtime to make me look like the pussy boy I knew myself to be. But when you’re in 6th grade, you don’t take the time to process what all of that means — it flashes past your mind in an instant, only long enough that you might think about what landing the first punch will feel like.  


Flanked by the Urdinayas, I made my move on Damico just after dinner. I confronted him outside of Bravo company, never saying a word to him but for the first punch. I remember being so angry that I flew into an uncontrollable rage, punches landing on his face, his chest, a kick in the groin and more to come. For his part, Damico broke my nose, but that raw jaw-jarring right hook of mine caused a tooth to fly out of his head, landing on Urdinaya A. and causing blood to flow out of Damico’s mouth onto my fists.  


It was over nearly as quickly as it began, the two of us dragged off of one another, one by Sergeant Mizrachi and the other by Staff Sergeant Johnson. The Urdinayas made a hasty retreat when the cavalry stepped in to end the fight, and I don’t think either one of them ever said another word about it. A quick trip to the infirmary later, where we were patched up and sent on our way, Damico and I were already laughing about the whole thing.  


Our punishment turned out to be four weeks of detention, meaning that neither of us got Saturday leave and we would be forced to sit in study hall with the rest of the louts and junior criminals. For better or worse, we became best friends and stayed that way through the rest of my time in military school.  


A few years ago, I thought to look him up and find out where he had gone, what had become of him. Perhaps it was for the best that I hadn’t because when, after many phone calls to wrong numbers and many incorrect connections I found his number, it was only to learn that he had been killed in a motorcycle accident the two weeks prior to my phone call. For all the work it took me to get the answers I was seeking, the purpose was lost in them by virtue of some cruel trick of fate.  


I remembered that Damico loved horses, and how in particular he missed his horses back home. We used to talk about me coming to Nebraska to visit him and ride horses together. The part of me that spent all those days and hours looking for him still imagines that Michael is somewhere riding his horses, never knowing the trouble that I went to in order to find him.  

(This post appeared on Cherry Blosssom Special back on May 9, 2007)


Dave Eggers: On Keeping Shit Real

This originally appeared at Armchair News and has since been taken offline. I have copy-pasted it from the archived copy of the page that was at http://www.armchairnews.com/freelance/eggers.html (now defunct)

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This is an interview from 2000 that was originally printed in The Harvard Advocate. I did not conduct the interview; I’m just presenting it here in whole so there is an internet presence for what is an amazing piece of writing. It is all worth reading but gets more salient about halfway through, when Eggers writes, “Now, the addendum.” - Ed. note

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