There's some who never dare to dream

“Trent!” I screamed, sobs hitting my chest in a different kind of pain, exhausted and sharp. I screamed his name over and over, knowing it was in vain. “Don’t take him, please! Not Trent!”

My parents held me back. Yes, it was my Bar Mitzvah, my celebration, my rite of passage. They kept telling me that.

“Mom, tell them not to!” I cried. She hushed me and said not to make any further scenes.

As my best friend in the entire universe gets carted off in handcuffs, the guy who made us crack up from opposite sides of the classroom, the cool dude who asked the hottest ninth grade girl out to prom and got the date, and the one who never abandoned me no matter how hot it got, I feel myself sinking into a different type of despair. It tasted like when you ate too much ice cream in the summer and then threw up behind your friend’s pool.

It was a sour yet sweet feeling, a bitter yet saccharine taste that didn't leave your tongue until you brushed your teeth really good.

I remembered what Trent had told me the night before my Bar Mitzvah as I was nervous and having anxiety:

“There are some people in this world who do not have the capacity to dream about anything beyond their own little lives. The white-bread, boring, and excuse me for this, buddy,” Trent crinkled his nose and we laughed, “sort of deal your parents got or Judy from economics has that has them going through the motions and there's nothing going on inside. Nothing that drives them. Nothing that keeps them awake at night. Nothing that makes them bleed with a deep sense that something important needs to be done. Create something.”

I frowned. “I ain't got that.”

Trent stood up from the balcony where we usually hung out and jumped up on the banister. “Come on, Oggie, that's an award winning speech. Oscar worthy! The kind that if a guy says it to his dream girl, she runs up to him in his arms to kiss the life out of him.”

I laughed at his antics, even as the idea of kissing, especially Trent, was a weird feeling that settled wrong in my stomach. I called him a “walking shenanigan,” and he knew it fit him well. He was always making jokes. Like in inappropriate ways, like how Seinfeld used the Pez dispenser to make Elaine laugh at the orchestra concert. Or he was like Mercutio with the main character energy of Romeo.

“So gay, man,” I said and he gave me a stern head shake.

It was illegal to talk about that. I pretended to zip up my mouth as I rolled my eyes.

“Anyway,” he jumps down. “Get me something to eat. I'm starving. Come on, Og, what do I pay you for?!”

I laughed but it was less funny, knowing anyone could be arrested and detained for any reason. Mainly, if you were suspected of being a terrorist or homosexual. Those two had nothing to do with the other, I knew it. But, that was the way things were now.

Hazel-Eyed-Joe, the kids at school called him but he changed it to Lazy-Eyed-Joe, (making his eyes cross or something to that effect), or Lazy-Eyed-Ho, but that last one was usually not attributed to his moniker without him getting detention.

I started paying attention to Trent in different ways after middle school. I actually started paying attention to what everyone called him out for, Hazel-Eyed-Joe.

Hazel eyes. Green and gold and light blue all mixed together. I dreamed of those eyes, in the day and night. I closed my eyes and saw salvation and love in that gaze.

I dared not to say anything out loud.

I saw those eyes, no longer funny, just pleading, as he was taken from me at the synagogue, being taken by those fascist scum.

All that happened was simply a misunderstanding. It was after I recited my Haftorah, we had an after-party. Trent was rummaging through the kids library, and came up to show me these abstract-looking cats that looked like people. It was weird.

One cat had an arrogant yet dumb look and Trent easily said, “Looks like our gym teacher after he's been sloshed.”
After that, we kept laughing over the dumbest things.

It was then I noticed the Cantor. He was eyeing us and looked very disappointed. I straightened up but Trent kept making me laugh so hard, we fell on each other the floor.

Our laughter started to die down and Trent suddenly looked at me seriously, moving a stray curl from my eye to around my ear. We quickly got up, and Trent coughed. He apologized loudly for the social intrusion. Why did you say sorry?, I asked him. He shrugged.

The cantor zeroed in. It was over. Suspicious behavior that looked non-straight, instantly was taken into custody.

Hazel-Eyes was my best friend. My best friend in all the world.

And yes, he was a ham to the last and blew me a kiss, quoting my favorite character from Romeo and Juliet, Mercutio, “Ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man.”

I dream harder than I ever did before. He was brought back within the next week’s end, dingy like dishwasher, still a light gleam in his hazel eyes.

Love made me dream. Love made him joke. Love kept us creating a new way to get out of the ruins of this decaying society. Secret love that we never needed to say out loud because it was felt by action, not cheap words others could judge.

Old Mercutio didn't die this time.