I was a senior in high school at the time, though I didn't live with my parents. I had been "evicted" so to speak on my eighteenth birthday just a few days before, and I was depressed. That day at school, Tristan walked up to me and he was clearly angry, something to do with a girl trying to steal something he purchased from a vending machine and he had been the one to get in trouble with a teacher because of a fight that ensued. He was so upset that he wouldn't talk to me, and I didn't know what happened until much later so my feelings were very hurt. My boyfriend at the time, Scott, got upset at Tristan for hurting my feelings and started picking on him-which was literally the last thing that he needed. He was so sensitive. This caused him to stop talking to me altogether, and talking smack on the bus...you know, the whole high-school-drama type of thing. The next day, Scott and I got into it, and I tried to leave the place I was staying so that I could walk to my parents' house (five miles, all uphill) and cool off. I was really going to go and find Tristan so that I could try and make it up to him, because I loved him so much and hated the fight. Regardless of whether or not it was either of our faults, I just wanted it to be over with. Scott didn't think it was safe and, after about a fifteen minute walk, I saw him creeping up the curvy hill toward me in his bright red Pontiac GrandAm. I got in, and upon returning to my new home, found my friend Jenny telling me that my parents and siblings had been calling me for over an hour and that someone was coming down to get me. She didn't know what was going on, but said that they sounded "frantic." I called my parents house and got a hold of my brother just as my mother and sister walked into the house. "Tristan is dead, Katie."
I know I blanked out at that moment. I couldn't hear anything else, I couldn't make any sense of my hand in front of my own face, the noise that came from everywhere. Everything was drained of its color. The sun was down and it was black outside, and I felt at that moment that this is how it would always be. The sun is gone.
I rode with Scott, my mother rode with my sister Clare and her boyfriend Mike, and I don't even remember who else followed. It was like a funeral procession. And as we reached the top of Flora Rd., even before making the left-hand turn to descend the street, swirling red, blue, and white lights could be seen. I could hear more coming in the distance. There was no way for me to brace myself for what I was about to see.
We made the turn and I immediately saw the Jeep. Tristan's shoe was stuck to the bumper. The cops, the paramedics, the ambulance-they were everywhere. That didn't make it hit me. There was a sheet covering a figure laying on the front lawn of the pastor's house, and that didn't make it hit me either. But I screamed so loud that even with the windows up, the people outside the car heard me. They turned to me and away just as quick, but it was the few among the crowd that made it hit me-my little brother was there, frozen in shock and horror, standing next to Tristan's step-dad Dennis.
My little brother Tony had seen it all. It became very real for me at that moment that all of the innocence and happy times in our lives were gone. All of the times that "Gut" (as we called him) threw rocks at the window of my and my sister's room, late into the night, and helped us sneak out-all the while, my parents knew about it, and thought it was hilarious because all we did was go directly next door to his house and play video games or go swimming or something (the entire time we were in the back yard, which was completely visible from my parents' house). All of the times that we would just hang out in my house or his, every time he helped save us from my abusive brother, every time he made me promise that if I wasn't married when I was 30 that I'd be his..... Everything was gone in that moment.
That couldn't have even been 1/1000 of what his mother was going through, and why she wasn't there. His mother had three babies-Heath, Tristan, and Jeremy-all a year apart in age of each other. Heath was older and Jeremy was younger. All three slept peacefully one night, and in the morning only Tristan was alive. The newspaper read that they were victims of SIDS. Her only surviving child, gone.
I can't go to my parents' house anymore without seeing the place that once was the most gruesome scene that I've ever had the displeasure of experiencing. Just next to it is a road sign announcing that the street harbors "Hidden Drives," and this is the place that Dennis sat, until months later when they sold their home and moved away, and stared into the space where the body of his stepson once lay. The spot where he had to identify his body. The spot where the sun went down forever. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpP0b_CQQi4&feature=PlayList&p=0F4A0C34EEF2E8FF&index=46 This song right here helps me through it.
Damon Meister had his driver's license back before his three month prison sentence was up. In court, he told Judge Winkler that it was Tristan's fault for riding his bike in the street, although there were no sidewalks; he also claimed that it was the county's fault because of the defective street lamps. It was everyone's fault but his own. And the city of Harrison, who were not even supposed to be there, "lost" the toxin screen that they took-so it was completely unknown now if this was a case of drunk driving. The man is long gone now, and he took my Gut with him.
**Tristan, if you some how hear me, I am so sorry for letting Scott act like a jerk to you. And I never meant to hurt you. I love you still like the day I met you, when you got your nickname for trying to fry a piece of bacon on the bus with a piece of tin foil and a cigarette lighter. I dream of those big black eyes, those deep, perfect dimples, and that thick, black, curly hair that I loved to play with when we'd get out of the pool. I miss your voice, and your stupid Charlie dog. I miss the emotion you put into everything and the fight that you held everyday for what you thought was right and good and fair. I miss the smile you gave me, and the awesome bear hugs I got everyday. I miss the sound of your voice and I miss the sound of your bike. I miss holding you when you were sad and listening to you rant about your step-brothers and your mom. I miss the way you smelled in the summer and the times that you used to sneak cigarettes to me when I was grounded. I miss you. Ten years has not made me forget anything, nor has it made it any easier. There is a huge Gut-shaped hole in my heart and in my soul where you should be. I still love you.**
I've lost a lot of people in my life, only two of them can I still not get over. My friend Mike Byrd will be gone now for fourteen years on the seventh of this month, and Tristan, Leslie, Scott, and several others are buried all around him. Justin and I named our son after him (changing the 'a' to an 'e') because he was born with those same perfect dimples that Tristan had all of his life. I would give literally anything up for just one more summer day with him, and I'd tell him everything that I forgot to and make it up to him over the last few days that he had here.
Ten years later, nothing has changed.
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