Derek would often point at people and laugh at them, in public. It was a consistent gag that I always laughed very hard at, it was not in the slightest bit mature and it reminded me of me when I was in junior high and high school and still trying to be funny. It wasn't the nostalgia that made me really like it, though, that I know for sure. I think it was how oblivious people were, and how far he took it. He would really point at people, laugh at them rather loudly or loud enough, and they wouldn't notice. And he'd do it for a long time. Now this is the most blatantly disrespectful joke I've ever been a part of, one so unsubtle that the fact that nobody ever noticed makes it even more hilarious.
Of course, when written down, it doesn't seem like anything more than a you had to be there joke. So maybe it is. The more I think about it, though, I feel guilty that he did this joke. It is a joke that I have done before, not the exact same thing, but it was a type of humor that I would perform back in the day, in fact I even still do it today, though not as much as I used to. But I almost feel like by encouraging him to do it, and not by telling him to do it but by suggesting he do it (Do that pointing thing) I feel that I had used him cheaply. I shouldn't have done that. Am I completely wrong? It's not one of those things where I said do this and he did it, right off the bat, it's something he did and I liked and I wanted to see again and again and again. Like in 7th grade when I did something funny, and people wanted to see it again and again and again and then it wasn't funny to them anymore and suddenly I was the one who was wrong, and in 10th grade when I stopped caring about making everyone laugh and I became ever more shy and unsure.
But it's not about me, this isn't, so stop.
And why use anyone?
And why write about Derek like this, in this fashion? What if I write something that is too far. What if then he contacts me, tells me to stop. Should I try to talk to him then, or would that be inappropriate? But it's my only chance.
Junior year, maybe Senior year, I forget what class it was, exactly - we had various classes in the same room - Derek would play online games. They're interesting, the internet games that play right in your explorer window, they're usually very simple and goofy. He found one that had you play as a guy waiting for the bus or for a taxi or something, bus makes more sense, but you're in a business suit and you're next to another guy. Now, you have to fart. So you have a gas meter, and that depletes the more you fart. But you can't let the other guy hear you! Or else it's game over. And you can't just not fart, because the bar will increase and then that's game over too. So obviously if you fart it goes down, and you need to fart when cars pass and such, because they're really loud. And if you need to, you can do silent farts, but there's a meter for that too if you do it too much. Plus, silent farts don't bring the bar down as much. They never do. If you fart while there is no noise to cover you, the man will hear you and look at you. Game over.
This, to me, was hilarious. There's no explosive finale, nothing overdone, the guy just looks at you. Very seriously. He knows.
So we joked about making this a short. With the game over as the ending. Pointless, but amusing. Why not? We were film-majors. We could do it. We never got past the idea, and it was only brought up twice or three times, but I don't know, I would've done it. And he would've been down.
Then I think of roll call in class. We had one teacher, he was from India, and he always had his eyes closed. Smart man, and as opposed to what other people think, I thought the films in class were good and usually enjoyed the films he showed (I'm tempted to list them, but that's not what this blog is about, and I'm actually thinking more about how I have to backspace every time I try to write Derek and write his real name instead). Now only in this class did Derek do his roll call joke, he had invented it sometime earlier, but it was here that he felt like he could do it. Any other class, the professors already knew us, so why would they call our names out loud? This teacher we had had had had had had had had had since freshman year, but, like I said, his eyes were always closed, so.
So Derek would wait, and as he called out names... Katy Azzarello, Chris Bell, Katie Dinardo, Corey Ditman (Corey Cock-tease), Keith Dorsch (Keith Douchebag), Ian Gilly (Ian Gil-gay), Adam Huston, Kelly Lorino, Peter Macaluso (Peter Macaluso), Derek (I stumble on making up a last name, what could it even be? I was tempted to write Pontiac, but I don't want to even try to make this funny or pretend that I think anyone with the last name of Pontiac is funny, as in, that's a funny thing).. is that in? I don't feel like going back and writing in Dan Kemmer, but he was there too. Oh, and Ryan Sartor (Yan). Tishana Miller. Trenece Frazier. Nick Deruve. Whoever I've forgotten is going to end my life sooner or later. If I've forgotten someone, I'm already something else for writing this, but man it would really make me look like something else if I write a story about an old friend and then forget another old friend. I think that's it, I'll stop talking about it because it might make everything worse.
So nothing against any of the people he made names for. I don't know why them and not others, I think we all pretty much got along. Why not? Film school is hard because you're all pretty much in it for the same reason, same position, etc. And you have to work together and it can be tense and competitive, but you know what, I love everyone there, everyone in my year, whether I was mad at this person or someone was mad at me, they were probably right, but everyone was just fine and I wish everyone well. I think they already know that but now I have it written.
Derek often made these jokes, and I have to admit that I was the main support for all of them. They were immature, yes, and I was immature for liking them, but they did no harm to anyone, and if they did it was unintentional. Does that make it okay? I'm not sure. I really don't know. Though what I do know is that at one point, maybe junior year, maybe sophomore year, Derek stopped doing these kinds of jokes for a period of time. And I never found out why. I could inquire, but that would tamper with this whole idea, on my idea of Derek. I didn't know then and I don't know now, and I'm really trying to figure out certain things about our relationship that could have caused him to not want anything to do with me. In a way. I think I'd like to know why he doesn't want anything to do with anyone from school, I think maybe I'd like to know why he doesn't want anything to do with people he studied with for four years in a small program where, inevitable, we all became family, a competitive family but a family nonetheless.
When Derek decided to stop making jokes, like fart noises and such (he had one where he would do one fluid wank motion, as if something was coming out of his penis, and make a fart noise, as if that fluid, not the fluid motion but the penis fluid, had made the noise. Impossible.), people gave him a hard time. Nobody really understood why he stopped. He brings us such joy and then he takes it away? Maybe he got tired of being asked to do this and this all the time. The truth was, he was a very intelligent and sensitive guy. He had a lot to say, he had a lot of serious things to talk about. Maybe he didn't feel that people cared enough about him, personally, just wanted to use him for laughs. And I know how this feels, of course, try being a class clown, that's what it is. Though, again, I don't want to talk about myself, and you know what - I don't want to say this is that for that reason and such. I have no idea why he wanted to stop making crude jokes to people. But there is this-
I had gone to the cafeteria, circa Derek not wanting to make jokes (it is a circa, because at a certain point, he decided the hell with it and came back), and I sat with him and a few others. This seems so clear to me and I don't know if I've already written it or not, I feel like I have, but I'm not going to look back, but I encourage you to skip this if you've already read it. Read a little bit to make sure you have, though, I just don't want to look back because looking back means correcting and then that would kind of clean it up to much, and thinking about Derek is messy because it is so fucking confusing.
So here I am, eating with Derek and some girls, Monica I think is there, Keith and little Christine I believe. So we're eating and I was only there for a few minutes. Derek makes a joke and somebody says something, not even about the joke, maybe he didn't even make a joke - what I really remember is how much this next part didn't make sense, and how it took everyone off guard in a way. Derek says that Monica made a face at him, and it's because of those kinds of faces that he doesn't want to be funny anymore, he says, that's exactly why (Well, I guess we figured that one out together, reader!), and he storms out. Strangest thing is, even though no one expected it.. I don't want to say that no one cared, but it seems like they had seen it before. Dealt with it. So it was no big deal, let him go, let him cool off or something. I don't know if I left that or ate and then left, but I called him on the phone. I remember being by myself, but I don't know if I went in by myself too. Either way, I knew he wouldn't pick up, so I left a voice mail and told him that I was just calling to see if he was all right.
We spoke about it.. I don't think he called me back, I think it was in person. But he apologized for storming out, which he often did, which will be a chapter, him apologizing when he didn't have to and he probably shouldn't have done, which I told him at this point, too. He didn't talk much, I did a lot of it, I think he was embarrassed, but I told him that I understood how he felt, that sometimes, moreso back in the day, but either way, people wouldn't take me seriously or would write me off as weird and nothing else, et cetera. Because of this, I told him that if he was bothered by any of it, he could talk to me about it. He didn't after that, but I don't remember him exiling crude comedy for much longer.
What he did do, before he let the crude humor back in, he did a few jokes for me every so often in private. A wank motion, a voice, what have you, and he wouldn't go far with it, and I think even once or twice he would tell me that he basically wasn't comfortable doing it but knew it made me laugh and would do it for me. Eventually he reverted back to the old Derek, but I'm wondering if that's the Derek he always wanted to be, without the crude jokes, and I'm also wondering if it was a bad thing that he still did stuff for me in private. I never requested this, yes, I did request the point and laugh thing, but that wouldn't be born for another year. The big idea is this. If the no crude joke era Derek is the Derek he really wanted to be, do we remind him too much of it? Did he say fuck it I'll just do this until college is over I'm already in over my head and revert back to old Derek, but would go back to serious-only Derek after school and shut everyone else out so he'd never have to be old Derek again? And this would make me the main villain, the really bad guy, and I'll take that if it's true, because I was the one that pulled it out the most.
And I had talked to Derek a lot about serious stuff, his girlfriend, my girlfriend, movies, such. I don't know a lot about him, his friends at home, the name of his town, what his parents are really like, and such. But I liked Derek not for his jokes and such, but he was actually a very good guy. A good person. So we liked the Derek that made those jokes, yeah, but we liked Derek all around. Still though, I can't help but think that I've stumbled onto something here, that maybe he had just had it, and me, and even Ryan, when we would all joke around together, maybe he wasn't really fully enjoying it, maybe he had had enough, and all of the other things we did together, film-making and what have you, I don't know. Maybe I did bring out something that he didn't want to even have any more.
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