46 Grateful
FORTY-SIX
Grateful
Jansen always liked Brian. Under Brian’s volatility and intensity, he saw another person—like himself—who lived too much in his head.
When they were feeling playful, these two guys could let loose and forget the mental energy it took to be alive.
Both of them loved me, too, sometimes dangerously so.
One night, a few years before Jansen died, Brian, Jansen, and I were hanging out in my condo, drinking wine and watching movies.
Jansen wasn’t much of a drinker, and Brian and I were behaving ourselves and not letting the evening get out of hand.
At some point, Jansen and Brian decided to go get a couple things from the grocery store, and I told them I wanted to stay home.
When they returned, they had the groceries they needed, but they also had something else: ten Nerf guns, plus a few dozen bullets for each.
“What the heck?” I asked. “Were those on sale or something?”
“We couldn’t resist,” said Brian. “Boys will be boys.”
Suddenly, Jansen appeared out of nowhere and pointed a Nerf gun at me. “Watch out, Hayden! Bombs away!”
A Nerf bullet zoomed toward me, and I jumped up from the couch and began to run toward the stairs.
Brian zigzagged across the living room and approached me from the side, Nerf gun in hand.
I turned back toward Jansen to see if I could escape, and a torrent of Nerf bullets flew toward me.
One by one, they hit me in the chest, then the legs, then the face.
“Dude!” I yelled. “Not my face! Anywhere but my face!”
I turned back again to run up the stairs, and Brian blasted a few bullets toward my back.
“No sneak attacks! No!” I yelled as the bullets hit me and bounced off. I sprinted to the top of the stairs, across the hall, and locked myself in my bathroom.
You can’t get me in here, losers, I thought. From the other side of the door, I heard laughing. As it grew louder, I started laughing, too.
The morning my dad called me to tell me Jansen had died, I crawled out of bed and decided to pack up to head back to New York.
I didn’t know how long I’d be gone, so I chose my biggest suitcase, deciding to fill it up with wool sweaters and turtlenecks and all those warm things I never needed in my life in LA.
I’ve had the same suitcase for years—a rolling Louis Vuitton bag that I customized with paintings of Kobe Bryant, Marilyn Monroe, and Bob Marley, all brilliant people who, like Jansen, died before their time.
Inside were a few items I’d left in the bag since my last trip, like socks and fuzzy pajamas, and I realized I could use them on this trip, too. First, though, I’d need to refold them.
What in the world? I asked myself as I lifted the pj’s out of the suitcase.
In a corner of my bag lay one of those stupid Nerf bullets, the three fins on its back flattened by the weight of my clothes.
How it got in my suitcase, I have no idea.
I’d also used this bag at least three times since Jansen and Brian brought home the Nerf guns, and I’d never seen that bullet.
It was like it had disappeared then reappeared out of nowhere, a sign from beyond and a joke at my expense.
I wasn’t offended. And as I started to laugh through my tears, I was grateful.
Thank you for being here, Jansen, I thought. Thank you for making me laugh, telling me never to take myself too seriously, and for being my best friend, always.