My Apology

Brian Goldman. About six months ago, this name began to haunt my existence. A ghost from my adolescence that suddenly began to occupy my thoughts, prey on my conscience and prompt a world of regret at every waking moment. But the worst of it came at night, when Brian Goldman’s face appeared in my dreams, full of sorrow and self-loathing.

Perhaps there is something about getting older that makes us take stock in our lives and think about how our actions have affected other people. I don’t know what spurs these feelings to surface, but suddenly I could not help but face the dark past that linked Brian Goldman and myself together. Brian and I went to high school together, and he was the unfortunate victim of my immature, obnoxious insults for many years.

Brian was the type of guy that I verbally harassed for no reason other than he was an easy target. He was the tall, muscular type who looked like he walked off the pages of a fashion magazine. Even worse, he was the high school quarterback, homecoming king, and notorious for dating a different girl every month. The jokes were practically typed, bound and handed to me by a tasteless book publishing firm.

And me? It’s hard for me to describe myself without sounding like a show-off. But the facts are the facts. I was the treasurer of our school chapter of Amnesty International, an honors student and the second favorite student amongst three of the five librarians. Of course, the clincher being that I was president of the debate team. If I wanted to get verbally caustic, someone was going to get hurt.

When you’re a kid, you don’t think about the consequences of what you say. It never dawned on me how Brian felt. I just enjoyed watching the Math Club crack up when I did my impression of Brian sharpening a pencil. “Why is this pencil made of rubber,” I’d say as I pulled it out of the sharpener.

“Uh, that’s the eraser Brian,” Todd Hanowitz would reply before passing out the bonus word problems for the week. I’ve never seen a group of people laugh so hard.

A friend of mine said that the story got back to him one day and he replied with a deadpan, “Oh.” I can only imagine that an interjection was never muttered with such sadness in the history of mankind like it was the day Brian said, “Oh.” Maybe it was damn funny to us, but – in hindsight – I see these laughs planting the seeds of sorrow inside Brian’s heart for years to come.

One time I saw Brian walking down a corridor from a distance and I immediately yelled “Hut-Hut-Hike!” in a voice that resembled a Neanderthal. My friend Ted nearly fell down on the floor crying with laughter.

Brian was talking to Stephanie Carter, captain of the cheerleading squad at the time. He just walked past us without uttering a word. He didn’t even make eye contact. I could just imagine the emotional torture he was feeling inside as I continued to shout, “33! 42! 8 squared! Hut-Hut-Hike!”

Stephanie rolled her eyes as if to say, “Poor, poor Brian.”

I had grown up since then, though, and I was compelled to make amends for my behavior. Unable to keep this guilt inside of me any longer, I went to his office in downtown Manhattan.

I entered the lobby of the skyscraper and told the security guard I was there to see Mr. Goldman. “Tell him it’s an old acquaintance from Memorial,” I said, worried that my name would cause him to avoid me in fear.

He didn’t recognize me for the first 15 minutes. Obviously the pain I caused must have hurt him so badly that he psychologically blocked out my existence. But after discussing some different teachers, classes and the year he led the team to the state championship (it was hard, but I refrained from making a flippant comment), he said he thought he remembered me. I felt terrible. What I had done to this man who stood before me in an Armani suit, staring at the city from his window view? Had he truly lived a life of agony for so long?

Even now I felt embarrassed at the difference between our lives. He was part of the financial district, spending his days in a corner office, working long hours and dealing with rush-hour traffic in the backseat of a livery car service for a few hours every day. As he looked at the cars 40 stories below him, I got a horrible image of him wanting to jump.

After all, I was living it up, so to speak. I had just gotten laid off and was fortunate enough to be collecting unemployment. I didn’t have to do a thing for nearly six months and the government would send me a check every week! What can I say? Some guys just have all the luck. I didn’t ask for this carefree everything-come-my-way lifestyle. I just sort of fell into it.

“Listen,” I said. “This is hard for me to do, but I came here today to tell you something.”

“What?” he asked, shedding a suspicious glance across his desk. Poor guy, probably expected some kind of cruel practical joke to suddenly take place at his expense.

“I wanted to say I’m sorry for the things I said about you during high school.” I could feel my face turning red. How inhumane I had been for all those years! But the fruits of humility are only attained at the cost of shame.

“Oh,” he said.

It would have been wrong of me to expect some kind of pat on the back for what should have been done a long time ago. I stood up, held my hands in front of me and simply said, “I don’t expect you to forgive me. But I wanted you to know that I’m truly sorry.”

He seemed completely baffled. I could picture a lifetime of misery unexpectedly being lifted from his shoulders. There was nothing more to say, so I simply bowed my head with a friendly smile and exited the office with a warm feeling in my heart. I wish him the best. And now, I can move on.