For my twelfth birthday, my mom threw a penpal for me. I hadn't made that many friends since we'd moved, so it wasn't a surprise party since my mom had no idea who to invite. I told the handful of kids I'd become acquainted with and called Josh to see if he wanted to come. Originally, he said that he didn't think he could make it, but the day before the party he called me to say that he'd be there. I was really excited because I hadn't seen him in several months.As Josh's father carried his son out of the grave, my mom slid the piece of paper into her pocket. He kept muttering that his son's hair had been dyed. She saw that it had—it was now dark brown, and she noticed that he was dressed oddly; his clothes Penfriend all far too small. After Josh's dad delicately laid his boy on the soft dirt, he began gently pressing his hands against his son's pants to feel his pockets; he heard a crinkle. Carefully, he retrieved a folded piece of paper from Josh's pocket. He looked at it but was vexed. Absently, he handed it to my mother, but she didn't recognize it either. I asked her what it was.
When I was fifteen, I was seeing a movie at a place my friends and I had come to call the Dirt Theatre. It was probably nice at some point, but time and neglect had weathered the place severely. This theatre had movable tables and chairs on a level floor, so b the theatre was full, there were very few places you could sit and see the whole screen. The theatre was still open, I imagine, for three reasons:
As we approached the parking lot I noticed that the car with the cracked back window was gone and that her car was now the only one in the parking lot. She asked me if I needed a ride, and even though I really didn't, I said that I'd appreciate it. I had drunk my whole soda during the movie and all the walking was putting pressure on my bladder. I knew that I could wait until I was back at Chris', but I had decided that I was going to try to kiss her when she dropped me off, and I didn't want this biological nagging to rush me out of the car. This would be my first kiss.
I told my mom the basics of this story a couple days ago. She broke down and was furious about the danger I put myself in. I asked her why she made all those things up about bothering the new owners to stop me from going—why did she think the house was so dangerous? She became irate and hysterical, but she answered my question. She grabbed my hand and squeezed it harder than I thought her capable of and locked her eyes to mine, whispering as if she was afraid of being overheard:
For the first couple weeks it went really well. We would walk through the woods along the water and pause every couple minutes to add to the map, and it seemed like the two maps would come together any day. We had no equipment needed for the job—not even a compass—but we tried to make due. We had the idea to impale the earth with a stick when we had reached the end of a venture so that if we came upon the stick from the other direction the next weekend, we would know we had joined the maps. We might have been the world's worst cartographers. Eventually, however, the woods became too thick near the water coming from the lake and we were unable to proceed further. We lost interest in the whole project for a bit, and reduced our explorations significantly—though not completely—when we started selling snow cones.
