Memory I: The Fool on the Hill

Nobody wants to know him; they consider he’s just a fool …
The song of The Beatles sounds in my IPod connected to the iHome of my room in a Design Hotel, while I am chatting with a former colleague. I remember Samuel in this moment, who used to identify himself with “The Fool on the Hill”. I remember this conversation; it took place in Crabs, a bar in Bogota. He told me, he used to go to a small hill in Calarca, where he was born and where his family was still living. He used to sit on the top of the hill- he said- and see the landscape and feel absolutely fool. I told him I was Nowhere Man in his nowhere land, making all his nowhere plans for nobody.
I can still remember his way of talking, like a "sicario paisa" (killer from Medellin), like if he had no education. A guy from the province, who loved the Brazilian band “Angra”, who had a pretty black long and curly hair contrasting strongly with his very white ugly face.
I remember the first time we talked; it was a Friday afternoon after football training. It was already dark; I was going out of the university and about to take a taxi to go home. I was with the best player of our team; the sister of “Pornito”. Sasha was her name? I do not know it anymore, but she was a very good player.
Samuel came to us, and said to me something like “would you do something with me someday?” I looked at him surprised, opening my eyes widely. He said then “you don’t have to, if you don’t want to”. He was absolutely scared and for me iIt was the first time that someone I’ve never been introduced to was talking to me. I said “yes, why not?”, while thinking that it must be fucking hard to talk to somebody just like that. He said “ok” and left very fast.
Some days later we met at the university, and he asked me if my answer was still yes. I did not even understand why I would have changed my mind. He asked me my number and I gave it to him. I noticed that he was left handed while he was trying without success to write down the number in the paper he had, while his hands were shaking.
When we went out the first time and almost in every later occasion, we went to Crabs.
We also went to watch a movie once. Yes, I remember that his favorite movie of all times was "Terminator II". He told me this that day we went to watch a French mute black and white movie. He told me also, on the way to the cinema, that he hated black and white movies. I think he fall sleep, but I am no longer sure about this.
This was already long time ago, but I like remembering those days. I like remembering the “anti- intellectual” Samuel, who did not like it when I called him like that. He did not get that it was a compliment.
Sometimes when I think about Samuel, I think that he was too honest, too himself for this world. I think it was for him impossible to pretend, to take himself seriously.
I doubt he was having any fun in his life, and well, and if it was like that, I can understand it. I also think that life is kinda boring. But I can anyway most of the time lie to myself, and pretend that there are a lot of things to do and that they are important or fun or whatever.

We stopped doing things together frequently when he started dating a girl of the physics department. Anyway, we had a coffee a couple of times in the cafeteria of the architecture department. He was not really open to talk though. Sometimes I think about the last coffee we had. It was a very sunny day, and his very white skin was looking almost blue. He told me there, that he was doing really badly in all the lectures and that he could even be thrown out of the university. He was looking so bored. I did not say anything.
I thought a lot about him afterwards, about calling him to do something, to talk, to really talk, like at the beginning, like when he explained to me his reason for studying physics. But the terms between us were weird after he once, very upset, said to me a lot of aggressive stuff in a bar, because apparently I had treated him badly. Since then our conversations where always shaded by a protectionist cloud. I was no longer myself with him, and I was usually more focused in not saying anything wrong that could hurt him that in telling my opinion about whatever we were talking about. So I never called.

It was July, holidays time in Colombia. A friend of mine had birthday and I invited him to watch “The Pianist” in Gothic. Gothic was near my house, it was an alternative lousy theater, really full of those bloodsucking insects. Before Mario arrived, I got a phone call from one of Samuel’s friends: Diego. Diego told me that Samuel had hung himself up. The conversation was very short. I was really sad though, maybe not about his dead itself but more about the fact that I was not going to talk to him again, ever, that this conversation I had postponed was never going to take place.

I think there was even a service in his name at the university, but I did not show up, because I thought that I was not really in his closest circle, and that it might be painful for the others when an outsider believes he deserves to be there and he does not...
In a very corny action I wrote him a letter. In a very corny action, Miguel wrote him a letter too… I remember that as well.