I met the mayor of a city once. He was a gallant, ambitious man. He was convicted in his views on urban welfare, interesting for his dramatic stories of political heroism, and just admirable overall. He fought things, like drugs and poverty and corruption. When you hear him speak there's no end of feeling, the kind that moves you to believing that cities are places where people are degraded and are revived, and that this is a man who cares for their fundamental human redemption. We all sat there and we were wowed.
He wasn't mayor when I heard him, actually, but our school practically had a love affair with him. My history teacher invited him to class after his first talk in the auditorium, just to have him tell us stories. So our tables in a circle around this leader among men, but boys really, we were rapt in attention. That's how I remember it. I sat on the lip of this curl, next to my teacher who giggled at every quip he made. The boys in the middle in front of him were tilting their chairs, but their mouths were agape. I sat there because my friend sat there with me, or I with him. We didn't tilt our chairs. We also kept our coats on and tied our ties tight, because there was little room to get comfortable when the trains were cold in the morning and they will be again when it's dark. But our teacher told us to take our coats off for the mayor.
He must have talked about serious things. I didn't pay much attention in history class then, because learning this stuff felt stifling. When he was done, a lot of kids had real questions about things that he might do to fix things in the future, but when they were done and we were unraveling, my friend asked what use were these political goods if the overpopulated human race could do with some depopulating. Oh, don't do that, I thought, I just want to leave. Our classmates pretended not to hear him and gathered their books.
This mayor courted him earnestly and privately, as if he had stepped up to share his thoughts. He entreated my friend not to be cynical, and to believe that every human being has a right to peace and happiness.
We remained friends for a while. I never saw him outside of school, and I heard publicly that he didn't make it back for the next semester. By then I had found belonging in my studies and my love for poetry. I made other friends, I dated, and I still talked to our counselor sometimes, as we misfits both once did.
In two years, he passed away. He had become depressed and took too many pills. Some of us went to his funeral, although his family didn't really know who we were. His mother cried so hard. We were asked eventually to leave, and on my way out I saw his face. In his note, he wrote that he was at peace. I know that and I know we all deserve that, but I wonder who thinks about it when we fix problems and fight fights and say things.
We find out there are more things than we can handle. Rest in peace, my friend. I know you live.
