Every Time You Feel Like Crying, I’m Gonna Try And Make You Laugh

Somewhere in the maze of classrooms, a teacher waited, impatient, chalk screeching across a blackboard and assignments stacked, expectant and imperious. The room emptied slowly as the students trickled away. I checked my watch, the sharp swish of seconds passing making me later still, until the corridors calmed, vast and silent, and I sighed and trudged to class. It was the first time she had let me down.

She thudded down next to us, trailing her fingers over the railings. I’d seen her around; shirts two sizes too big and round blue eyes that flashed, defiant, whenever she was cornered for some misdemeanour, slouched against the lockers with the battered guitar case she always hauled everywhere. She sat there, stretching her legs, chicken skin goosebumped with the cold, and a smile that split her face, broad and infectious. And I don’t remember what she said that day, but within weeks we were inseparable.

Lessons dragged out all afternoon where all we did was talk, cursed by the teachers who bristled, irritated, at the litter we always left behind; our names ‘Jane & Violet’ carved into the table, etched deeper and inked in every Friday without fail.

There were times when she was distant, restless and detached as she gazed away at nothing, coughed out sighs and wouldn’t tell us what wrong. There was no talking to her then. We waited for it to pass, as it always did. Her moods never lasted long.

I cast back to those days, haunted by guilt, for details dismissed or clouded by time. Everything dissected and sewn back together again and again, but the clues stayed secret, buried somewhere unknown, if they were even there at all.

That week, it did nothing but rain. Outside, the mud and leaves clotted together as puddles swamped the paths leading out of the courtyard, oozing into last year’s school shoes as everyone hustled across to the bus stops each afternoon, coats clutched tighter against the wind.

Lunchtime, and the halls teemed with people that huffed as I jostled past them, glancing into classrooms without result, until there was only one place left where she could be.

She was slumped on the cold tiled floor when I found her, eyeliner tracks spilt down her face by the tears. I pulled her to me, my arms enfolding her fragile body as I slaved to stay calm, determine what was wrong. But she winced and pulled away, and it was only then that I grasped the bitter details I’d missed at first; a discarded razorblade, a mute glistening flicker from where it lay abandoned next to an empty box of painkillers, crumpled and tossed aside. Blood beaded, welling through her shirt, staining the cotton.

She was shaking when I rolled up her sleeve. Underneath, blazing score marks taunted me; crimson pools settling at the neat incisions. Her tears fell onto them and slid away, vain attempts to bathe the hurt. In the courtyard outside, the wind stopped its howling, and the branches that had lashed against the glass were stilled. Light leaked like honey, enveloping her, as she told me she was sorry over and over again. Beyond the window, the sky foamed white, all at once bright. Somewhere off in the glade of trees, a misty haze pulsed, calling to her ebbing soul in amity.

In the distance, the sirens started wailing, and I clutched her tighter, tried to make her laugh.

. . . . . . . . . .

Text by Janie Doll, painting by David Hancock "Everytime you feel like crying I'm gonna try and make you laugh" acrylic on canvas, 6 ft x 4, 2004.