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// "My Will" \\
(( 30/12/01 by Flack anada496 ))
\) ________________________________________________________________ (/
Will Vennible was an odd kid, to say the least. At the age of 14
when I knew him best, he was mostly into drawing dinosaurs and playing with
Transformers - just two of the many reasons why I liked him.
My mom had given up her job in real estate to become a babysitter.
I'm sure her ultimate goal in life was not to become a babysitter, but it
allowed her to spend time with my sister and I plus a few other kids, while
still making a little money. Will was one of those kids. He was three
years older than I -- not a substancial difference now of course, but a
sizeable age gap for younger kids.
There were always 7 or 8 kids running around our house at all times.
While the other kids were playing in the sandbox, Will and I were in the
house, building fantastic robots out of Legos. When the other kids asked to
watch Willy Wonka, we wanted to watch Tron. When we weren't doing anything
else, we were drawing. My dad would bring home reams of paper, and Will and
I would go through it. Spaceships, aliens, monsters, robots, you name it,
Will could draw it in precise detail. He would draw a robot and you could
see the gears and almost see how it could actually work!
And then there was Star Wars. I'm a HUGE Star Wars fan, but I have
to admit Will's passion for the Trilogy probably rivaled my own. I was in
third grade when Return of the Jedi came out, and I remember both his
parents and my own let us skip school to go see the movie opening day.
Shortly after the movie opened was Will's birthday, and I remember digging
through piles and piles of Star Wars figures until I found a Yoda -- his
favorite character. Will and I would often walk down to the convenient
store near my house (which just so happened to have the Star Wars video
game) and spend time playing it, saving the universe. Will always brought
enough quarters for the two of us, because, well, that's just my Will.
Behind my house is a large creek, and Will and I would often play
down there after school. Not with the other kids mind you, but by
ourselves. The other kids always wanted to fish, or catch crawdads, or play
war, or simply wade around in the muck. Not Will and I. We were usually on
"some foreign planet" checking out "the strange life forms below, catching
crawdads." My dad had these old beat-up motorcycle helmets that we'd drag
down to the creek for our space adventures. We'd sit under the rickety old
bridge and wait for cars to pass over, pretending the shaking and rattling
was our ship taking off. Will's mom bought Will and I a set of walkie-
talkies, which became our creek-communicators.
Unfortunately, times change, and people grow up, and grow apart. The
Yukon school system is set up so that each school past elementary school
only handles two grades -- there's a 7th-8th grade middle school, a 9th-10th
grade mid-high, and an 11th-12th grade high school. Once Will turned 14 he
really didn't need a babysitter any longer, and my mom quit watching him.
After that I never really saw him. We rode different busses and went to
different schools. At that age, ten miles away might as well be the other
side of the universe.
I often wondered how Will was doing. It turns out, he wasn't doing
so good. In mid-high, the kids were into girls, not robots. Will had no
job and thus, no car. He spent his days drawing cartoons, and from what I
understand they were pretty good -- an oft under appreciated skill in the
realm of high school. Occasionally we talked on the phone. One time I
remember telling him how cool it would be when we had kids and our kids
could play "spaceman" in the creek just like we did. We talked about Atari
and movies and whatever other drivel kids talk about.
I was 15 years old during the Chrismas break of 1987. It was a
particularly good holiday season for me. My main present was a motorcycle -
something Will and I had talked about getting for years. We had many
conversations about just "going for a ride" -- destination unimportant. I
probably hadn't talked to Will in a year or so by then, but I remember him
being one of the people I definitely wanted to call and tell about it.
On Christmas Eve of 1987, Will Vennible put a shotgun in his mouth
and blew the backside of his head off.
I didn't even find out on Christmas. I found out when we were
returning to school after Christmas break. The kids on the bus told me.
They told me that Will had waited until his parents were walking up the
sidewalk coming home from work and did it then, to shock them. That's
partially true. His parents told my family later that he waited until the
last second because he wanted his organs to be of use to people who needed
them. I later heard that someone received his liver and someone else
received his kidneys, but both of those transplants, like Will Vennible in
life, failed.
Every year around Christmas time I think about how much Will would
have liked the world now. Video games were one of his favorite things.
Will loved Atari -- I can only imagine what he would think about the
Playstation, or hell, even personal computers! And robots, jeez, I was
watching Battlebots the other day and it just hit me, Will would have loved
this! That and Junkyard Wars, God, I can see him yelling at the people,
telling them how to build better machines.
My son is due to be born Dec 9th, just in time for the holidays.
I've been thinking a lot about teaching him things, you know? Playing with
him, spending time with him... and the other night, I was thinking about
taking him back to my dad's house and letting him play in the creek. I'm
sure there will be other kids down there, fishing, catching crawdads, or
just wading, and I'm sure my kid will eventually be down there with a space
helmet and a toy phaser, zapping the other kids. Maybe he'll be down there
with other kids, or maybe he'll be down there by himself, but it just hit me
this Christmas -- he won't be down there playing with Will's kid.
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