Anson
“She’s not kidding about the working hard thing, she’ll call the school to check in on your grades. She’s bat shit crazy like that Lyk,” I say to her as we’re driving to a pizza shop that’s not far from home. We saw a ‘now hiring’ sign in the window on our way to school today.
“That’s fine, all of my grades are above a B anyway. She can call, hell I wish she would, maybe then she’d stop looking at me like I’m my parents and I’m bound to debauch you at any minute.”
“But aren’t you?” I laugh.
“I happen to believe I’m the good one in this friendship. You’re the bad influence always trying to get me to do horrible things.”
“No. You’ve confused me with yourself. Who’s the one who told me that smoking corn silk would get us high? We were too scared to try the real thing so you spent a week drying out the silk from a corncob. We poked a hole in a soda can and smoked it. Never having smoked a day in our lives. I remember that like it was yesterday. Worst migraine ever, on top of an extremely sore throat it did nothing! Horrible decision Lyrik.”
“In my defense, someone who had smoked the real thing suggested it as the best alternative. They were very convincing. I didn’t know that the only high you’d get was regret. How about the time you convinced me to dive into the public pool? You said that because I was short I’d never hit the bottom of the four foot deep pool. I hadn’t tried diving before that! I hit the left side of my face on that concrete, all summer I had a huge scab. And you say that I’m full or horrible decisions?”
“Okay, okay that one wasn’t wise. I actually did feel bad about that. Every time I looked at your face I cringed knowing that I’m the one who told you to dive. But I’m still convinced you’re the bad influence, you’re always talking me into shit show choices and then I’m the one getting blamed for shit I never did.”
“Yeah, what did I do that you got blamed for? I always fess up to things I do,” she defends herself.
“Really? You want to go there?”
“Really.”
“How about when your Dad caught you sneaking out of your bedroom window so he went looking for you at my house only to find out neither of us were home at three in the morning? Instead we had walked around the block to swing on the playground. They were so pissed, your dad more than my parents. I remember him nailing your window shut and we couldn’t sneak into each other’s rooms or go on the roof for two weeks. You got so upset that your Dad ended up removing all the nails provided we promised we wouldn’t go anywhere but next door.”
“That wasn’t my idea. You asked me to go, how can I resist swinging?”
“You didn’t have to say yes.”
“Well I did, but I still don’t think that was the worst thing we did,” she laughs.
The first time she’s laughed in two weeks. I missed it.
“Oh, come on you can’t just say something like that and not share. What do you think was the worst thing we’ve done, to date?”
She huffs, “Fine. But you can’t blame me because this one is all on you. I always went along with your foolish decisions and end up getting in trouble or regretting it.”
“We have had some laughs though, you can’t say we didn’t.”
“True. But this one. This one is bad.”
“Spit it out then.”
“Remember that day that you wanted to go bike riding so bad, I didn’t even own a bike. You decided to ride your Dad’s bike that was way too big for a nine-year old boy and I rode yours. We went farther than we were supposed to, around the corner and down the street,” I laugh because I know what she’s going to say. I can see it in my mind clearly.
She continues, “Those guys were outside their house, older than us, but maybe seniors or in college. They had a snake outside and they were letting it wrap around their arms. You got distracted seeing that huge yellow snake. Ran right into a parked car, then I fell off my bike because I couldn’t stop laughing. I remember those guys, snake in hand running over asking if you were okay. You were so embarrassed because you wanted to look tough, but you hurt. I’ve still got a scar on my knee from falling over.”
“Yeah, yeah. You got lots of jokes today.”
‘You love them and me. Don’t act like you don’t.”
“I do. You know I do. I wouldn’t trade you or our past for anything.”
I pull up to the pizza shop and she gets out, I cross my fingers that she gets the job. It will help get my Mom off her back about living with us.