Welcome to the Team

By Daniel Arndt

Seventeen year old Eli Rieman, who suffered from PTSD after an almost fatal stabbing, tells the true story of his rise and fall through the high school drug & party industry. Inside this book entails his real struggle to cope with tragedy using drugs and popularity, with a slight twist in reality, of which might be small, but could've certainly changed his fate. From the perspective of the author and his friends, the reader gets an inside look at what denial and silence can do to a boy and an entire town.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 5, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503549517

Daniel Arndt

During the writing of this book, Daniel Arndt was a student at Wenatchee High School, and since then he has been studying Psychology and Behavioral Neuroscience at Western Washington University.

Book preview

Copyright © 2015 by Daniel Arndt.

ISBN:      Softcover   978-1-5035-4952-4

                eBook        978-1-5035-4951-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 03/03/2015

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Contents

Preface

From the perspective of Markus Stryker

From the perspective of Eli Rieman

From the Perspective of Markus Stryker

From the perspective of Eli Rieman

From the perspective of Markus Stryker

From the perspective of Eli Rieman

From the perspective of Markus Stryker

From the perspective of Eli Rieman

From the perspective of Markus Stryker

From the Perspective of Eli Rieman

From the perspective of Markus Stryker

From the perspective of Eli Rieman

From the perspective of Markus Stryker

From the perspective of Eli Rieman

From the perspective of Markus Stryker

From the perspective of Eli Rieman

From the perspective of Markus Stryker

Dedicated to Catherine Ross

This book is based on real life but is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locations are entirely coincidental.

Preface

I am Daniel Arndt, a survivor of a vicious stabbing, PTSD, and a much regretted suicide attempt. This book illustrates everything I learned my Junior year of high school. The story told by Eli in this book parallels my life in hundreds of ways, the story around Eli’s story is what I believe would’ve happened if Catherine Ross wasn’t in my life. I advise you: trying to find who did what won’t do anyone any good. There is no need to worry about what’s true and what’s not, as long as you know this one thing: it is all my fault.

I want these words to make things right, but it’s the wrongs that make the words come to life - Fall Out Boy.

A goodbye to my old life

An apology to my old friends

A promise to my old self

From the perspective of Markus Stryker

Sometimes when you play a character for society, you forget about the actor. I guess that’s what happened to Eli, he forgot about himself, but I never forgot about him. I haven’t forgotten about that kid I played pool games with everyday last summer. Last summer he didn’t have to play a character, because I made sure he knew I loved the actor.

That was the perfect summer, best we’ve ever had. It felt like it was so long ago but it was really just last summer. I think it might’ve been the only time that Eli was actually happy, not that he was always overly depressed before that summer; he always tried to force a smile so he wouldn’t bring anyone down, but I saw through that lie of a grin. We spent that entire summer at Eli’s grandparent’s house, his mom’s parents, Mamajoy and Popeye’s, nuttiest couple in the valley. They lived just outside of Cashmere, a small town a few miles outside our homeland, so we would go home and sleep in our respected beds, but once we woke up, we couldn’t wait to head back up there.

In the middle of nowhere, with a 60 degree temp pool and an awesome waterslide. Not much to it, really; we actually spent most of our time around a circular table where we would play cards. That table was where I finally found happiness. At that table, I learned to love the simple things, like Popeye screaming I just blew you!, not understanding what blowing people meant to us, after he beat me in cards.

That table was the simplicity we were always looking for.

God, I miss that table.

It was a simpler time: before we started partying, before we had to run away from reality with alcohol. This was our safe runaway. But, great things never seem to last long enough.

At the end of that summer, or maybe at the beginning of this year, Popeye passed away. Mamajoy couldn’t afford to pay off the house herself so she sold it and moved to Wenatchee. That was a crushing move for us, but I think his grandfather’s death was more crushing for Eli. Ya see, Popeye was the father he never had… Well, the father he hasn’t had since he was eight. We never talked to him about it though, he seemed fine.

The magical thing about this place is that even when things took a turn for the worse, we’d still be happy. Even when a storm came and ruined our pool games, we still found pleasure in just sitting around the fire inside. Even when I busted open my elbow while going down that slide, Mamajoy patched me up and we were back to having the time of our lives. My elbow ripped open this tiny crack on the slide and ruined the whole thing; we could never slide down that thing again, but we didn’t care. We didn’t even care that I bled about a gallon of blood into that pool.

Even when shit hit the fan, we found happiness. Even when we cried, we were really happy because we were together. He isn’t with us anymore, but he’ll be back soon, at least that’s what I’m told. We’re sitting in the same circle; we may be in the lunchroom and not in paradise, you may not be with us right now, but we are still saving a seat for you. I may be just sitting here staring at my scar from that slide, trying to battle loneliness, but he has always been by my side, theoretically. But soon, literally.

–––––––––––––––––––––—

Eli Rieman is my best friend. Perfect: Kind, smart, talented, charismatic, and loving above all else. Eli’s life is not so grand. He wouldn’t tell you that though. Maybe that was the problem. I wouldn’t know.

When he was eight, his dad, Eric, was killed in his sleep by a methed-out arsonist who broke into their home late at night. Eli was nearly killed three minutes later by the intruder. Stabbed 13 times. He survived, not sure how, but I don’t like to question good things. The man was caught by the police after Eli called 911. The trauma caused type-1 diabetes, but that was nothing compared to the loss of his father, but that never seemed to bother him. Actually, none of it seemed to bother him.

We all assumed he was some superhuman, unmovable hero. Hell, he survived 13 stabs to the chest and neck, obviously he’s something special. To me, the stabs didn’t seem nearly as impressive as his perspective on them and the whole situation. He went to school the day he got out of the hospital. I remember it well: we all looked at him like he was some type of angel, but we stayed cautious, nobody wanted to push any buttons or bring back any bad memories. Everybody was afraid that anything they might say about it would be too soon, but Eli beat us to the punch. 10 minutes into class, he was making jokes about the whole situation. We were so relieved that everything would go back to normal. He lived as if nothing happened. He seemed to accept that he simply didn’t have a father anymore, that his scars were now him.

His mother was not so accepting. She was sent into a realm of delusion and still resides there today. Eli takes care of her as if that is just the way she is. He loves her as if nothing is wrong. She spends her days scrapbooking pictures of Mr. Rieman. That can’t be healthy…

Back to Eli: This was simply our perspective on him though, but a month ago, it became evident that he was not the super hero we thought he was.. He told me he was slowly being eaten alive by his life. 5 days ago, he took matters into his own hands: he injected a lethal amount of insulin into his leg and passed out, hoping to never wake up.

The man of steel survived once more, and this was his first day back. Our group of friends sat around the usual lunch table and waited for him to arrive. He was supposed to come to school at noon, it was 12:05, but I wasn’t worried. I knew he would pull through like always.

We were all prepared to look past what happened; we were all ready to continue our beautiful friendship with the greatest kid we knew. We decided to forget the hysterical phone call we got from Eli’s grandmother, the guilt we felt when we figured out we could’ve helped him, the fact we weren’t there for him in his time of need.

He was always a good kid: clean, safe, fun, etc. But even after he was introduced to drugs, he stayed as nice as ever. The kids outside of the party scene saw him as the typical jock, I think he wanted to be the typical jock, but I saw through the stereotypes; he was the kid I always knew and loved, even though nobody seemed to know and love him. Before he started partying and experimenting, he was underappreciated, and I believe that’s why he decided to change; emphasis on tried, after all, you can’t run away from who you are.

He had a huge house and too much money, so the table of kids next to us (the cool crowd, the seniors, the complete assholes) decided to use him. They took him under their wing and threw parties at his house every weekend, and I don’t mean let’s sit around the house and drink type of parties, I mean naked women hanging off the ceiling, let’s see how many Molly we can take without dying type of parties.

Party at the Rieman house became the school motto. Jaeger, Smirnoff, Cuervo, Walker, Goose, Everclear, Bacardi, Fireball, Patron, Bud Light, Mike’s Hard Lemonade for the women, weed, Addi, Salvia, Molly, acid, and enough muscle relaxers to kill a horse. Take your pick, just don’t mix too many of ’em (that’s how Michael Jackson died), no worries, it was all free of charge.

As the volume got higher, the amount of clothing on the girls got lower. As everybody would get more and more hyped, Eli would just stand there, waiting for it to be over, it seemed. I went to some of them, but I couldn’t stand how tortured he seemed. I went on strike about 4 weeks through, telling him that I didn’t want to support something so terrible. He told me I was just being a puss, this is when he first started becoming one of him, so he was getting meaner and meaner by the day. I never got mad though, I knew it wasn’t his fault

He saw that he was being used; he was too smart for their lies. He told me how he felt about all this, but he was too afraid of leaving the selfish people in his life because he thought that’s all he had. I tried to convince him that he had us too, but he never believed me. That’s my fault, I just wasn’t convincing enough. I just wasn’t enough. He started chilling with them last August, now it’s January. Amazing that I didn’t do anything but shoot him a couple text in that time.

The more popular he became, the less friends he had. They’d pretend to like him, but he saw through that. He wasn’t at the same level as them; he was above them. He wasn’t as cool as them, but he was exponentially more complex. He talked in ways they would never understand; they took this as him just being socially inept, but it was really just him being the philosophical genius he could never stop being.

Eli got so cool that he actually took THE Sam Fisher to Homecoming. Sure, Sam only went with him to make her ex-boyfriend Kyler Gaines jealous, but still, it was impressive nevertheless. She’s one of those girls that you see in magazines; I’m pretty sure she doesn’t even poop, that’s how perfect she is. Eli fell in love with her during their month long thing before homecoming. She’d always act like the feeling was mutual, but only because the closer you got to Eli, the more alcohol you were granted. At Eli’s afterparty, Kyler and Sam got back together, and by got back together, I mean they had sex in Eli’s bed… without a condom I’ve heard, I don’t know, I wasn’t there, I’ve seen pictures though.

This was a real blow to the heart for Eli, but as always, he acted as if it didn’t affect him. The parties continued and his excessive drinking increased. Until the party last weekend, where he broke down and took swings at people until they fled, I wish I would’ve heard about that sooner. When everyone was finally gone, he took the shot and woke up in the hospital. What a strange feeling that must be, waking up in a place you didn’t fall asleep at- waking up when you thought you’d never wake up again. I wonder if he was relieved, maybe he didn’t actually want to die.

I’ve always felt a slight envy for the dead because they know something I don’t. Maybe he felt that too. It’s that concept that death is a whole nother world, so why waste your time here? Maybe he was just trying to get a headstart. But there’s also the concept that we are nothing after we die, which is terrifying. I’d rather not talk about it anymore. Moving on:

I’m hoping that’s the last of the damage the cool crowd will do unto him; hopefully he’ll learn to stay away from them; hopefully they know they’re no good for him.

Even after all the damage they’ve caused and all the guilt they should be feeling, that table sat there as if nothing was wrong; Sam and Kyler, the couple of the year sat there holding hands like their romance is as pure as the coke we all know they snort everyday at noon. Like always, they sat there in denial. I wish I could tell them what they did to him, but I’ve never mustered up the courage, maybe that’s best.

12:07. Boy I’m talking fast. Must be the Adderall. God I wish I could stop snorting that shit. I haven’t eaten my lunch in a week. That can’t be good. Acing my tests though. Booyah.

Oh christ, there he is.

6'5" 200 pound Eli Rieman. What do I say? Do I say anything? Should we tell him we’re willing to forget his attempt? Or just let that be an unspoken understanding? Fuck it, he’s already sat down, and I’m just sitting here staring at him. We all are. But he’s smiling. He looks so happy. I’m so glad.

It’s been at least 15 seconds, and nobody has said anything. His smile has faded to a simple to a simple look of content. He’s already pulled out his lunch, and we haven’t even started eating. Too nervous, I suppose.

He opened his mouth, I was really hoping Angie Garfield would be dead by the time I got back.

The table blew up in laughter. He was back. Oh yes. He was back.

This is a strange first impression if a stranger was to hear what he said. He never would wish death upon someone else, he was just one hilarious motherfucker. Angie was an ill-tempered little shrew that should definitely shower more often, but Eli would treat her as nice as Jesus Christ would. He was a saint, what can I say?

Christian Baton was first to respond to the reborn Eli, Last week, that little shit didn’t let me cheat off her test when the Mr. Greeley wasn’t even there!

Classic Angie. I responded with how I always respond, What did you expect? She’s satan.

Yeah well I like to give people chances.