The Class of Never Again

thethemeis: Reunions

theauthoris: Aaron Twentythree

   I gave them all one last chance.

   Lenny Gibbins, old Gibbins the Gibbon, I invited for a drink at the local. Told him it’d be just like old times, because it was going to be. He ummed and aahhed, obviously looking for an excuse to say no; and then when he couldn’t find one, he just said, ‘Nah.’

   Pete Harding, former head boy, now middle manager at a small bank, turned me down when I asked if he wanted to go bowling. I remembered how when we were at school he used to love a bit of ten-pin, so I booked a lane and called him up (admittedly, out of the blue) telling him to meet me at the bowling alley in a few hours. He was just as reluctant as Gibbins, started making all these excuses about how he didn’t have a babysitter and it seemed a bit weird that I would do this after not seeing him for over a decade, but I could tell that the real reason was that he just didn’t want to see me. So I went and bowled on my own, imagined all the pins had his face on them. Got the best score I’d ever bowled.

   Joshua Daniels, Dave Franklin and Georgina Hemsworth turned me down when I offered them a free track day which I’d booked and paid for. They wouldn’t have had to pay a penny to drive Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Astons for a whole day, as fast as they wanted; but because it was me, they declined. Then Lizzie Barnes, Frank Teller and Harvey Tool couldn’t make paragliding. Even Trevor Greening, that friendless old spastic, didn’t like me enough to come clay pigeon shooting. I was starting to think that nobody cared about our school days anymore. All those years, down the drain. Well, I wasn’t going to let them slip away. Best years of our lives, them.

   So I organised a reunion. I booked a huge function hall (under Trevor’s name), a caterer (paying in cash), and, obviously, Bucks Fizz for music. After all, who the fuck doesn’t like Bucks Fizz? I paid a printer to print all these official-looking invitations, with our school crest and all swirly writing and stuff, and I wore rubber gloves as I enveloped them up and sent them out to everyone in my year, even the people I didn’t like, inviting them to The Big Reunion. I even told them some old teachers were coming, when they weren’t. For all I know, all our old teachers are dead by now.

   And just so I could be sure everyone would definitely come, I told them all there’d be a ten thousand pound prize for the Reunion King and Queen. Everyone loves money. And Bucks Fizz.

   Then, with the logistics out of the way, I set about arranging the fireworks. I dyed my hair blonde and grew a big dyed beard. I scoped out the hall I’d hired and decided how it would all go down, where I’d set it all up. I planned everything, visualised it, stored it all in that great big noggin of mine, ready to execute. It was going to be the reunion of the century, I could feel it in my bones. I just had to make sure I got it all ready before the big day.

   So I visited hardware stores all over the country, making sure to buy in small quantities and pay in cash and never visit the same store twice. I bought fertiliser, bleach, nails and screws in all shapes and sizes. I bought tinsel, balloons, and, through a contact and for a large fee, copious amounts of hydrofluoric acid. I spent weeks in my basement, readying it all, perfecting. 

   Admittedly, it took me longer than it needed to; but such are the perils of being such a devastating perfectionist!

   And all the while, as I toiled away making sure it would be a night all those antisocial bastards would never forget, the RSVPs were pouring in to the fake e-mail address I’d set up. Suddenly, my company wasn’t too boring for Lenny Gibbins and Pete Harding. Out of the blue, it turned out that Josh, Dave, Georgina and Lizzie weren’t too good for me anymore. To my surprise, Frank, Harvey and Trevor suddenly had time to spare for little old me. The promise of ten thousand pounds had freed up their busy, busy schedules; and while I was livid, I was also ecstatic, because soon they’d be laughing on the other sides of their faces. Literally.

   When it was all set up, I dyed my hair back to black, and shaved off my beard, and I went out and rented a tux. I wanted to look my best, so I paid extra for the most suave one they had in the shop, and I even bought a new pair of shoes while I was there. I must say, once I’d had a bath and greased back my hair like I like it, I really looked like the dog’s nutsack. From then, it was just a waiting game.

   I waited in the driving seat of my car until half past nine. It started at seven, so to be sure that I didn’t peak too soon, I’d set the fireworks to go off at ten. Once it hit twenty-five to, I left my driveway, and started my journey to the party.

   It would only have been a fifteen minute drive normally, but I managed to drag it out to twenty, taking my time, trembling with excitement. All the way, I listened to Celine Dion. I anticipated hearing some of Bucks Fizz lingering in the air on my walk from the car to the hall, so I didn’t want to ruin that by listening to them in the car as well.

   Arriving, I was barely containable. I took four minutes to park up the car across the road from the hall, making sure everything was perfect, and I sniffed in a great big lungful of air as I got out of the car, making sure I committed everything about the evening to memory so that I’d never lose it.

   It happened right on time, which I knew it would, since I set the timers and I’ve never got it wrong before. I was steps away from the hall, literally tens of metres, and Making Your Mind Up was ringing through the air. It hit the chorus at 21:59, and by 22:01, the hall was a smoking crater. A stray nail landed on my shoe, which sort of shocked me since I wasn’t expecting any debris to reach me at all, but apart from that, everything happened exactly as I knew it would. It was perfect.

   Oh, and yeah, I killed Bucks Fizz, which is bad I suppose; but if you want to make an omelette, you have to break some eggs.

   When the police and the fire brigade and the ambulances arrived, I played the part of distraught citizen (which I’d been rehearsing in the mirror for the past few months) flawlessly. They wrapped me in their arms and they counselled me and they told me I was going to be fine, and none of them ever suspected that I had prepared the nail bombs in my basement, because they had no reason to. I was crying and screaming and reaching out to clutch the air between me and the smoking shell of the hall, but inside I was laughing and dancing and celebrating the fact that I was the only one left. Because I was the only one who deserved to live. The class of ’83 were scumbags. We all knew it, I was just the only one prepared to do anything about it.