Empty Room

It was the summer of 1996. A week before the examination sessions started in school. A glorious evening, a light breeze that kissed our heads, as the two of us smoked the last days of that B&H cigarette like there were no tomorrow. We had to, considering Zakk’s aunt was downstairs and not only was she a doctor who detested the whole idea of smoking but wanted Zakk to be what she was – a decent home-grown doctor, just like his aunt!

This was something the both of us detested; it wasn’t the whole concept of being a doctor that bugged us. It was the whole concept of being something we did not want to be and more importantly – we did not want to be or do something, our elders thought would be ideal for us to be or do. We were two punks riding high on words and attitudes of the Sex Pistols, The Ramones with a little bit of Kurt Cobain. Oh! How I hated that man, though Zakk seemed to be in love with him, his ways and his antics seemed to titillate Zakk to no man’s business. In fact, if you ask me, Zakk was probably point zero-zero-one percent of those kids who was apparently responsible for that numbskull’s suicide. The same kids that made him famous and the cult he still remains and the same kids who drove him to his death.

Zakk always had this concept running, like his brain was always working over-time weighing his life like the crevices on the back of his 13 year old hand. As we took our last drag each, Zakk said. “You heard, Moist Vagina?” “By who?” I asked. Zakk shot back “Nirvana man!” “And why would I do that to myself, put myself through that misery?” Zakk in a tone that he would plunder me (the only reason was I was his friend, and more importantly his new smoking partner) said “That’s Cobain man! He’s the real shit! I want to be like him – A man who does everything, reaches every height of a lifetime by the age of 24 and fucking dies.” Pondering for words, all I could muster up was “Dude, trust me when I say you’ll end up growing and frail”. As we walked towards the terrace exit, he gave me a look with his almost trademark stone cold face and said “Dude, not me, Jimi did it, so did Janis and Morrison, So will I… Me too!”

We walked downstairs, went straight to the bathroom gargled with toothpaste and sat down on Zakk’s couch like nothing had happened, yet if someone saw our faces we would not only be prime suspects but we would be the prime accused after asking us one question, whether we did it or not. Zakk was weird and always seemed cranked out of his skull, and was calm and composed despite his tall and athletic frame. He always seemed to “not care” about his surroundings, according to the people who never knew him, and that list was long, which was topped by his aunt and his grandmother, both of whom brought him up since he was three years old.

Zakk was not an orphan by any chance; according to him he met his mother on three occasions in a week. One, was every weekend, two, whenever his grand-mother didn’t turn up to pick him up from school or three, when he decided to bunk the video-game arcade which was conveniently positioned just down the road from his school. His mother was some body I just heard stories off, though I would let him initiate them. The thought of her would always come up every now and then, when a joint saw its last days with us or a bottle of cheap-ass whisky saw its last. But she always came up like a ghost who seemed to come back to haunt him, though whenever his mother was spoken off, there was this creak in his voice that spoke of a loss and a missing link in his life – A void that seem to have become his shadow.

Zakk hated “people in general”. He hated the whole concept of socializing; it was never in his stride to go all out to introduce himself when it came to social gatherings, though he had this charm to him, this mystique that pulled people to him. Maybe, that’s what pulled me to him, I was attracted to him from the very first word of ‘go’. He would only socialize on three occasions – One, if you liked video-games, two; you liked ‘his kind of music’ and three; you were part of his ‘circle of trust’ as he liked putting it.

He had many weird concepts to life. He didn’t quite believe in the term “love”, though that made him one of the biggest hypocrites in life cause’ he loved me, he loved every person in our group and he would go out of the way to make us happy, even if it meant putting us in front of his needs. He believed the whole group would disband and every one would forget him, there was no such term as “forever” in his dictionary. Which also made him paranoid at times, and when he got into one of his paranoid trips, that was the end of the world, they was hell to pay. Things were broken, destroyed, burnt and self mutilation in slow motion was the flavour of things to come.

I remember once he was on this paranoia trip just after getting royally stoned on some Manala we had managed to score just for his birthday. He was determined to make me believe that aliens would come over to his place from outer space and eat him alive, after making him a doctor. He went into a frenzied state of mind that he just kept muttering “Dude they’re coming to get me, just hide me away somewhere, you know some place they won’t be able to see me. Neil, would you save me, I dunno’ just save me!” I finally calmed him down by finally convincing him that his bed would be the safest spot to hide. “You know Zakk, if you hide under the covers and cover your face with your pillow, they wouldn’t know you’re Zakk and they’ll just keep looking and em’ aliens don’t come out in the morning. And when night comes around tomorrow, do the same thing till we are big enough to fight them and chase them back to where they come from”. He somehow bought that after I told him the same thing about ten times and a couple of CD’s broken and a chair constantly thrown across his room till it broke in half. According to him, “The chair is those aliens informant, Neil. It watches me day in and day out.” That was Zakk, a nut-case of the highest order, but had a sort of aura that washed all this down as magically as the mushrooms we would trip on at times.