Heathcliff

Heathcliff is the friend you have that’s completely a genius but also completely lacks common sense. Every group of friends has a Heathcliff. If you think yours does not, it is because you are the Heathcliff. This isn’t a bad thing. Heathcliff is also really friendly and helpful and good at cheering you up even when he’s not doing hilarious antics.

But the hilarious antics are probably one of the best parts of being friends with Heathcliff. Over the course of knowing him I’ve managed to convince him that “coming-out parties” are about being gay. I’ve also discovered that by the time he was a high-school freshman, he didn’t know that y was sometimes a vowel or that employers could make employees work on Sundays. But these are my two favorite adventures with Heathcliff.

For this first story, it is important for you to understand the layout of the first story of my house. For interpreting this diagram, please keep in mind that dark brown signifies a door, tan signifies an open entryway, and black signifies walls/other impassable areas.

I know, I know. I should just become an architect right now.

The idea you should be getting from this picture is that the first story of my house is “circular” in that it is possible to walk all the way around it and arrive in the place you started without having to open or close any doors. This will be important later.

Because we’re theatre geeks, Heathcliff, our friend Roxanne, and I were in the living room practicing a scene. After about two disastrous hours of this, we decided it was time for a break. We went into the “More Kitchen” area to get sodas (“pop”, to my Midwestern readers). After merely a few seconds, Heathcliff set down his soda and announced that he was going to the bathroom. Roxanne and I told him not to fall in, and waited for the bathroom door to close before turning to one another and speaking in unison.

Me and Roxanne: Let’s hide.

Immediately, I went for the coat closet, which is quite roomy and allowed me to stand among musty old coats (kind of like the wardrobe to Narnia, except less magical and with less snow) while sipping my ginger ale. The inhumanly flat Roxanne (who has about the physical dimensions of Flat Stanley) concealed herself in the toy closet on the other side of the house.

As I was clambering into the closet, my mother came down the stairs. She noticed me climbing in but didn’t think much of it, because even though my friends and I are around sixteen years old at this point, we still play hide-and-seek for fun. She went into the kitchen and started making herself some lunch when Heathcliff exited the bathroom. He went to the living room via the kitchen, exchanging a hello with my mom on the way.

Then he stopped.

There was an audible pause as he reached the doorway of the living room and realized that Roxanne and I were not there. I can only imagine his thought process here as he tried to work out what to do.

Heathcliff proceeded to walk all the way around the circle of the house, through the billiards room and the foyer. He came to the kitchen and then did another lap for good measure. When he got back to the kitchen he said to my mom, with complete seriousness yet sounding rather upset:

“Roxanne and Marina are gone.”

He didn’t say “I can’t find Roxanne and Marina”, or “Do you know where the girls went?” We are just gone. For all he knows, we have vanished off the face of the Earth.

My mother knows very well exactly where I am, and can probably guess that Roxanne is in the same place or somewhere similar. However, do you recall how maternal my mother is from her response to my having a fainting/seizure combo on an airplane? She said “Ugh.” So this is what she told Heathcliff, in the face of his almost tangible distress:

Yep. I probably have the best mom ever.

Instead of realizing that my mom was totally messing with him, Heathcliff promptly responded, “I’ll go check there.”

He ascended two flights of stairs to our (furnished) attic, presumably looked around, and came back down two flights of stairs to give the report. Roxanne’s experience of all this must have been very boring, but I could hear everything from my vantage point near the kitchen.

Heathcliff: They’re not there either.

My mother: Well, did you look in Marina’s room? Maybe they went up to get something.

Heathcliff obligingly and unquestioningly trotted up the stairs to check in my room, despite the fact that he had to pass my room to get to the attic, and probably would have noticed if Roxanne and I were in there. He returned moments later to say that we weren’t there, either. Now trying to get him to leave the house, my mother suggested, “Well, maybe Roxanne had to go home and Marina walked her there? Since Roxanne’s house isn’t that far away.” Heathcliff, however, was not buying this one.

Heathcliff: No, Roxanne’s dad is going to come pick her up. We already discussed this.

My mother: Oh. Well… maybe they went to rehearse in the basement?

Heathcliff: I was just about to check there.

Realizing that my mom was probably running out of places to send Heathcliff, I came out of the closet (pun intended) as soon as I heard him open the basement door. I skirted through the kitchen, flashing my very amused mother a thumbs-up, and reentered the living room. Trying to look nonchalant, I sat on the sofa along the right wall of the living room, picked up my script, and started perusing it as I continued to sip my ginger ale. I could hear Heathcliff’s anxious return to the kitchen.

Heathcliff: They’re not downstairs either.

My mother: Well, Heathcliff, I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t know where else they could be.

Heathcliff: I think I’ll just go to the living room and wait for them.

Heathcliff walked through the kitchen and then into the living room. I dutifully focused on my script and tried not to laugh. There was another audible beat.

I am trying so hard not to laugh here.

* * *

In our sophomore year, Heathcliff took Chemistry. Being primarily lazy, Casper and I decided to wait until junior year to do this, but we got to hear Heathcliff’s stories about the class. After a presumably very upsetting Chemistry lab, Heathcliff charged into the lunchroom like an angry soccer mom and put his binder and bagged lunch on our table.

Without giving either of us any time to react, Heathcliff—all in one breath—said, “Today in Chemistry we were working with chemicals and I know I didn’t get any chemicals on me or on the equipment but I think that the person who used the equipment before me might have gotten some chemicals on it so I’m going to go wash my hands now.”

This did not strike me and Casper as odd, because Heathcliff always washes his hands before lunch—unlike the rest of us, who use hand sanitizer and/or take our chances with dangerous chemicals. When Heathcliff returned to the table, looking even more distressed, we couldn’t help but joke about it. I said, “Hey Heathcliff, did you get the chemicals off?”

With complete seriousness and a hint of outrage, Heathcliff said, “No! I couldn’t wash my hands. There weren’t any paper towels.”

For a moment, neither Casper nor I could speak.

Then Casper said tactfully “Have you ever heard of this?” and imitated shaking water off his hands.

“Or, y’know, wiping them on your pants?” I added, demonstrating in case Heathcliff wouldn’t be sure what I meant.

Heathcliff did the thing he does when you catch him doing something utterly senseless; he indignantly said, “Whatever. I don’t know! Whatever.” He then proceeded to eat his lunch, very carefully holding his sandwich through the plastic bag his mother had lovingly packed it in.

After a few moments, Heathcliff knocked over his water bottle. The water spilled on Heathcliff’s binder, all over the table, and on Casper. Very slowly, deliberately, and unamusedly, Casper shook the water off his hands. Heathcliff make a sound kind of like “ERK!”, which is Heathcliff’s distress call. It sounds kind of like a cross between a car horn honking, the noise made by an enraged and startled wildebeest, and a swear word used by Martians.

He whipped a napkin out of his lunchbag (which begs the question: why did he not use the napkin instead of a paper towel?), wiped up the table, wiped the water off his binder. He then wiped off the mouth of his water bottle and took a drink.

If you’re reading this in stunned silence thinking, “But… wait…”, then you are seeing exactly what my brain saw.

I do not own these images. Thank you for the pictures, MS Word.

Me: Heathcliff…

Heathcliff: What?

Me: I, um… okay, wait, follow along with me here. You carried the binder from Chemistry to here. So the chemicals that were on your hands from the chemical-y equipment in Chemistry are on the binder. Then you wiped the binder with a wet napkin, so the chemicals are on the napkin now—right?

Casper: Yeah.

Me: Okay, right. So then you wiped the napkin on the mouth of your water bottle and you took a drink so now the chemicals are INSIDE you!

Heathcliff: … O_O ERK!!!!!!