Andre and I; we laughed, we dined, we philosophized, we cried. We drank fruit juice and compared combat strategies for Street Fighter. We ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and exchanged crusts (my brown for his white), but at the core of our often deep and always meaningful conversations was the ever present divider which had plagued most of our relationship. You see, Andre had a bunk bed and I did not.
At first it was hard to overlook. I found myself very distrustful of his generally cheery disposition and wide smiling eyes. I felt ashamed of my own pallid complexion and overall dismal demeanor. I didn’t like the way he carelessly ordered expensive, sugary Tahiti Treat with his gelatinous Protein Delight in the lunch room, while I, sickly with anxiety and incurable seriousness, ordered a moderately priced, virtually sugar free V-8.
Oh to have a bunk bed! I would longingly dream; to know what it felt like to be so utterly carefree. To know that there was no reason to hide when it was ‘time to go to bed’. Nothing to dread because you weren’t really going to bed with a bunk bed; oh no, you were going to your own personal sleep playground. Bunk beds are like kid therapy. I knew that if I only had a bunk bed, I would jump higher; I would run faster; I would tan better; I would become the kid I always wanted to be.
There were a few times that Andre and I allowed this deeply seeded severance to surface and discussed our unfortunate division,
“I think my cousin is sleeping over this weekend,” Andre mentioned casually, “I will probably let him have the top bunk – oh…sorry
“It’s O.K. Andre,” I shakily replied, sloughing off how hurt I really was, “I understand.”
“You know, you should really get your mom and dad to go to cymax.com to buy you a bunk bed. Can’t they see what that boring, soul-sucking four poster bed is doing to you? You’re miserable, you’re sick! I can’t take it anymore!” Andre was screaming; he was smoldering with equal measures of guilt and fury, “You know what man? I have to lay down…I need to think things through. What kind of a world do we live in where one kid gets a bunk bed and the other doesn’t…how are we supposed to live, to coexist when there are still divisions like this in life? I thought this was the 21st century!” With his last exclamation, he slammed his small fist down onto the old lunch room table and his Tahiti Treat toppled and spilled to the floor. Blood red fruit juice sped through the cracks between the gritty lunch room tiles, until finally it lulled to an ominous stop.
Andre got up, faked a stomach ache and was sent home for the rest of the day. When the end of the day finally rolled around for me, I too made my way back home. As I kicked through the falling leaves of October and heard their dehydrated crunch under my L.A. Gears, I thought of Andre, lying on his bunk bed, contemplating my sad bunk bed-less life almost as glumly as I so often do. He was a good friend, that Andre.
When I finally got home, I was overwhelmed with the sense of something strange and new. The air was thick with a feeling altogether different from the one I was used to. It was sweet and clean, sugared with a mood not unlike that of the Hamburglar Jail at McDonalds…wondrous and magical. No one was in the hall when I walked in, nor was anyone in the living room or the kitchen. The basement was empty and so was the sunroom. Finally I walked up our aged, creaking steps towards my bedroom. The door was closed, which was unusual, and I could hear the muffled voices of my parents from within. I also heard the familiar tone of Andre saying something about remarkably simple assembly. I threw open the door and my mother, my father and Andre all whipped their heads towards me, wide eyed with surprise.
But I was the one who was truly shocked.
The three of them were in the process of building me a brand new bunk bed from morebunkbeds.com! It was glorious! Absolutely glorious! A clean, metal ladder glistened with the glow of fun and excitement while the fantastically designed safety bumper on the top bunk sang to me, the songs of carefree youth and happiness. I was experiencing feelings I had never known before. I felt my joints relax and a cherry warmth flow to my cheeks.
“How did you…how did you manage…I….I?” I stuttered; words and
thoughts trampled other words and thoughts and I could barely muster my appreciation.
“All we did was go to morebunkbeds.com! It was incredibly easy. The customer service was impeccable, the website was a breeze to navigate and with zero shipping costs and speedy delivery, all we had to do was ready our credit cards!” My mother explained simply, waving a screwdriver in her hand as she spoke, accentuating the finer points.
Andre stepped towards me, a tear in his eye, “Now we never again have to suffer the burden of bunk bed envy. We are free to live the lives we were meant to, without the hindrance of this superficial segregation.”
Together, we mounted the bunk bed, each of us flooded with joy and emotion; and from then on, things were different. I was a changed kid. For the better I think, and Andre and I never suffered another moment of awkward bunk bed envy.
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