Playing it Straight.

I don't really remember a lot of my childhood except the myriad of times that we moved and some spotty memories of faces and loves long faded into the backdrop.

I do remember this one friend I had. He was the son of my Mom's secretary. Nicest kid I have probably ever met. Me being this little kid, white and naive, hanging out with this little kid, Puerto Rican and full of culture. It was a shock to hear everyone speaking a language that I never understood or wanted to understand.

He lived in a development with many other Puerto Rican families who obviously lived where they did because of the culture and low rent. This development was on top of a huge hill raised above the city. It was almost as if the city was saying "We'll keep you out of our way" while everyone who lived there was saying "This is our city and we can watch over it."

I played there a few times, usually when Mom went to visit and talk about work. He was my first real friend. The type that you don't talk to all the time, you don't really think about all the time, doesn't really share many similarities but is just there saying "Hey, let's hang out, I don't care about your differences".

I was frightened by the complexity of the situation there:
Flaring tempers filled the courtyard surrounding people hanging their wet sheets and underwear, people walked into each other's houses randomly, screamed whenever they were looking for their children, didn't really care what the looked like and hadn't ever really wanted to care. For a little boy who has really been sheltered, due to no fault of his parents, this was pretty amazing.

Soon I felt myself become part of this little family. They accepted me with Spanish tongues while I had white skin, quite pale. We would run around the woods (looking back I’m sure it was quite safe because of the seclusion) getting filthy and climbing trees, riding bike, playing basketball and other kid stuff.

After the few times we hung out I never went back. He would come out to my house a few more times and that was it. We just stopped hanging out. Moms work crashed, we both got girlfriends and went on to High School and, at the time, it was about a half-hour to his house. Passing thoughts in my head to “Yeah I’ll give him a call” ended up empty because someone more important had called or I needed to make-out.

A few years ago I went home for the weekend and Mom asked me about them. We talked about the past for a bit and decided to give them a call. They said they’d love to come out for the day and made the hour journey to my Moms. With every minute that passed I thought about the minutes we used to hang together. I was getting nervous as I did a 10-year instant replay on my life to figure out what the hell I was going to tell him. The car rolled up. The door opened.

I hear in my mind, "Hey, let's hang out, I don't care about your differences".