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My birth took place 32 years before the flashback in Pine Grove at the local hospital. This was because my parents had lived in Pine Grove their entire lives. In preschool, they met and became friends. Throughout grammar school, their relationship got increasingly intimate. In high school, they couldn’t be separated, for if one of them got into advanced courses, the other would get in the same exact advanced courses. If one of them got detention, the other would make sure that quality time would be spent in detention. Everyone in the high school, which served Plainview and the surrounding towns, knew that my parents were going to get married someday. Those that didn’t agree couldn’t have been more wrong. Once my parents were wed, they had me. We did not stick in Pine Grove for long since my parents headed out to Port Salmon, the city 60 miles away, to find work. Not surprisingly, my parents found a job at the same place, worked the same shift, and went home together in my dad’s car, and obviously lived in the same house. When I was 18, I got a job for Habendeck’s Furniture Company. The company had experienced carpenters, like me, build custom-made furniture. Working for them was fun since it was what I wanted to do and it paid a lot. Things didn’t work out there though.
In a city with over 600,000 people, a company having each piece of furniture done individually and furnished by people couldn’t compete with the big guys for long. To stay in business, Habendeck’s moved out to Pine Grove, serving only the 34,000 people that lived in the Pine Grove-Plainview area. Deciding to keep my job, I said goodbye to my parents and moved to the town that I was born in. Sad was the day when I left my parents because they were the best people on Earth. They always loved me and made sure I was the best person I could be. They were always there to teach me and show me how to treat others. But I did not bother to return the favor by not getting to know them. I was with them for eighteen years, but I barely paid attention to them throughout all of those years. By the time Habendeck’s moved to Pine Grove, it was too late for such a colossal relationship-building experience.
Pine Grove welcomed the company in hopes for the area’s own personal furniture company. Also, the townspeople were hoping for some regional recognition. Pine Grove had publicity before by having the greatest brewery factory around. The company moved out to Moutera, the largest city within 1,000 miles of Pine Grove. Unfortunately, Pine Grove was hooked onto the bad stuff, so three bars and two taverns had been built in the town since then; all of which remained after the company left and they became the most cherished places in town. If there was a fire in the hospital and one at a bar in town, the bar fire would be considered the main priority, no matter how small the blaze. My guess was that all the beer changed the citizens for the worst because fights started to become a regular thing in town. Even the police would get into fights.
After three years of living in Pine Grove, my parents arranged a visit to my house. Excitement filled my heart as my parents were going to see what a successful man I turned out to be. On the way, my dad was speeding while maneuvering down a sharp turn on a wooded hill. Deer that were crossing the road in front of him caused him to make an erroneous turn off of the road and down the hill. Down the hill, the car started flipping as if it was rolling on its side. Eyewitnesses said that the car flipped multiple times before settling. My parents were then laid at the Eden Cemetery in Greenhill. The following month wasn’t half as agonizing as the second month after their deaths. I felt more alone than anyone else around me. Even though I worked at Habendeck’s longer than every one of my co-workers, I made no friends in town. Everyone seemed to leave me alone for the longest time as I lived my life and they lived theirs. Not one bit did I mind that no one related to me. The bad thing was that once my parents died, people started hating each other more. It couldn’t have been just me, because everyone said it was that year that things started to downgrade in town from neighborly love to plain courtesy and respect for others.
Skipping work days in an attempt to not get stepped on resulted in losing my job. Luckily for me, I got hired again the next week by a new manager. What amazing luck I had for getting my job back and not having to resort to living in the streets. This luck didn’t last for long as the new manager screwed everything up by getting manufacturing machines. These machines pitted all of us against each other because only a few of us would be able to keep our positions. Working at the job for years paid off because the manager told me I had the skills nobody else had and I knew exactly what I was doing. At that point in my life, I realized that all positive things about a person help them at least one time in their life. That’s why I try to make attributes and characteristics about me in a positive condition. Albeit, when I kept my position, I was only sticking with the job for so long because it was what I liked to do. Comforted and relieved, I figured that the hard times with Habendeck’s were over.
Things only got worse, though, because James McCoy started on me about how his friend lost his job as if I was the cause. It was either that, or he just did not want me to be in existence. I remember looking at his red beard move as he spoke and how it caught a lot of the saliva that would have been spat on my face if it came from a person without a beard. Even though it was the thickest beard I saw in my entire life, all of his words came out loud and clear and I discerned them all. James had the attitude of a kid and I had to go to work every single day with him. Something told me that the situation wouldn’t have worked out for long. A scuffle was inevitable, so the question was not what was going to happen, but when it was going to happen.
One day, the shorty offended my deceased parents whom he had never met before in his life. James not only said it, but did so in my face. A few words that shouldn’t have been said came out of my mouth; the words that I said set him off.
I heard him mumble a few words.
“Yeah, well you’re the one that’s all alone. So yeah.”
“Oh, now you mumble,” I told James, “Come on; just tell me what you were going to say. You have already wasted enough of my day!”
“It’s not like you have anything else to do today except be alone.”
“Oh, please. I’m doing my job and everything that is required of me while all you do is complain about how your friend lost his job. Maybe you should try to help your friend and actually solve the problem. I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t stay here just to do absolutely nothing about your job, and do absolutely nothing about your friend while using up all of you energy bellyaching at me. So why don’t you shut up and leave me alone.”
Little did I notice how much attention we drew from the argument. It didn’t take too long before the manager came through the door just in time to see James trying to pop his fist into my face. His weak attempt was in vain for I blocked his lame “punch”. James looked like one of those generic bad guys that throw punches in slow motion while the protagonist quickly extinguishes the attempt as if it was nothing at all. The manager wasn’t amused one bit and James got laid off and was out the door within a minute. I don’t mean to portray that as a good thing because it wasn’t. In fact, it was quite sad that he had to lose his job, but he was asking for it. At the moment, I figured James’ friend could get the open job and James wouldn’t have to complain anymore. It would have worked out nicely if that happened, but it did not.
That incident with James was the week prior to the theft, and I decided to move to Port Salmon after the whole ordeal. So, I was going to leave Pine Grove before the theft even happened.
With countless businesses, my education in college, and my skills would give me a nice life in the city. The city was great in my early life. I remembered living on the south side, near a load of schools. My parents would always take me to the beach where the breeze was consistently at 15 miles an hour. At Hampton Bay, the water was never blue or green, but Hampton Blue. The inland body of water took in two colliding currents from the ocean to the north of Port Salmon, and the ocean to the south. Together, they made the bay gurgle with warm, jewel-colored, blue
water. Some tourists said the water was just cobalt, dark blue, or just a plain ocean color. Our national arts and crafts company didn’t think so. All the way from Moutera, Jeffery’s Arts & Creations came out to Port Salmon when I was young, and the country had a massive debate on our bay’s color and whether or not it should be made into an official color. Eventually, it was ambiguously decided that Hampton Blue would not become the next shade of blue. Jeffery’s, however, put Hampton Blue on their crayons, oil pastels, markers, color pencils, paint, and fabrics. This forever engraved Hampton Bay into the citizens of our country. Even though it’s not official, I’ve heard many people from other parts of the world say Hampton Blue. We had an exquisite downtown area with a river port that flourished with boats. At the time of my readying for moving, I wasn’t sure if that was still the case. Suburbs lined the city’s rim, and each one was like a neighborhood of the city, with the exception of Lake Norfolk. That’s where I used to bike-ride with my friend, Arnold Darson. He was my best friend in grammar school.
Attending Lumpert School was great because the “campus” consisted of a K-8 school and a high school next door. A mile north of that was the Port Salmon East Coast University, one of the most promising universities around.
In Kindergarten, I met Arnold during recess on the blacktop. We were in different classes that year, but we were in the same grade. Both of us envisaged of us being in class together in any if not all of the years between 1st and 5th grade. Passing the time during recess wasn’t difficult because Arnold came up with all kinds of unbelievable adventures. In a sense, the playground transformed into the world and we owned it. As much as we tried to rig the students’ assigned teachers, we were always caught. Our shenanigans actually made the principal see to it that Arnold and I weren’t together. Foiled was that plan when the principal retired in 3rd grade. Luckily, the very first year we obtained a new principal, we got in class together. Constant talking between the two of us made Mrs. Newbury place us on opposite sides of the room. That didn’t stop us from talking to each other. Aside from lunch, we passed each other notes via high-tech paper airplanes that zoomed through the air without making the crinkled noise that was sometimes heard. We didn’t learn a single thing that year about math, reading, science, or social studies. Instead, we focused on each other’s lives, not that we had a story or anything since we were only ten years old. Our friendship was insanely strong back then, and if anyone tried to come between us or against us, we became one unit. In 5th grade, there was this kid who thought I was the coolest person ever. Without much time elapsing, we started having sleepovers at each other’s house which meant that Arnold was pushed aside sometimes. All three of us were a big old trio of close friends. In fact, a couple other kids joined our unit and we all started intertwining with each other. Toward the end of 5th grade, though, my original bond with Arnold would prove to be the most durable. The pair of newer friends got in an argument over who was cooler, so they came to the kid who made the duo a trio. Without hesitating, he was completely honest and he told the pair who he though was cooler. Then the one who was deemed “not cool” started hogging Arnold’s time in hopes of gaining his status in Arnold’s eyes. Soon, I was left in neutral territory and kept away from everybody except Arnold. Obviously, the major problem with that was that he was preoccupied a lot with the loser of the initial disagreement.
Eventually, I got really upset with the whole predicament and decided to plan a mandatory sleepover with Arnold. It was from this point on that I remember the whole thing verbatim. I called Arnold and scheduled an open day, and everything was set and ready to go. As I predicted, Arnold’s new buddy would want to be with him on that day. I came to Arnold’s house and we were in the middle of playing a basketball game when the kid called. I told Arnold to put the phone on speaker.
“Hello?”
“Yeah, Arnold, can I, like, come over to yur’ house?”
“Sorry, I’ve got Travis over right now, so… like, how about tomorrow?”
“Can we, like, have a three person sleepover?”
“Uhh… hold on.”
I quickly responded, “This isn’t any fair! I haven’t even seen you in forever.” Crossing my arms, I showed my displeasure.
“Sorry,” Arnold told the kid, “he kind of wants one-on-one time since I haven’t seen him in a long time.”
“Well, like, what were you going to do? Play with dolls or something?”
“No, were not girls.”
“Then why can’t I come?” I heard the whine in his voice, “You’re my friend.”
“Travis is my friend, too.”
By the time Arnold finished his statement, the kid hung up. I thought that the point was across that I was just as important, if not, more important than him in Arnold’s eyes.
For the following two weeks, it was the trio kid with the cooler of the pair, me and Arnold, and the lame of the pair left alone. Throughout those two weeks, the loner kid started bugging his 7th grade brother about becoming part of his middle school group. Unaware at the time, I figured he just stayed at home and did nothing at all. Then, the loner snitched to his brother about his mistreatment.
On their way home from school, the trio kid and the cool kid were walking home when the 7th grader ambushed them and taunted them with hurtful words. One of the two friends told the bully off, and the 5th graders were beat up. From that moment on, the two friends shunned the loner as well as Arnold and I. That got us really upset since it wasn’t our brother that whooped them. So one day, Arnold and I met the bashed pair on the playground.
“Why don’t you guys talk to us anymore?” I asked.
“Well,” the trio kid replied, “Arnold is friends with Louis the jerk!”
“And loser,” the cool kid added. The two of them snickered and gave each other a high five.
“Why can’t we be friends?” Arnold pleaded.
“We already told you,” the trio kid replied, “You’re friends with Louis the jerk… and loser.” He let out a light chuckle.
“You really need to clean your ears,” the cool kid told Arnold, “I thought we were loud and clear. We’re not friends with you!”
Arnold started to cry while the trio kid giggled with a high-pitched voice at the ear joke his friend muttered.
“You’re mean,” I screamed, “both of you!”
“We don’t care,” the pair said in synchronization after looking at each other and making sure that they said their response at the same time. Their repudiation got me fired up.
“You think you’re cool? You just got your butts kicked the other day because no one likes you! No one even liked you guys until me and Arnold came. I’m telling the teacher.” I followed the rant with a march toward the school with my nose protruding in the air. I heard them running from behind me and I knew they were going to make up a lie about me before I could tell the truth, so I started sprinting.
I got into the school and ran to the principal’s office.
“Hello,” I panted, “Mr. Williams.”
“Yes?”
“Blake and Tyler made Arnold cry. I saw it.”
Right when I said that, the cool kid raced in and told Mr. Williams that whatever I said was a lie and that I was a big fat liar. Then, the trio kid came in weeping over something.
“He-he-he-he hit me,” the trio kid said while pointing at me.
“No I didn’t! You’re a liar!”
“Who are you going to believe,” the cool kid interrogated Mr. Williams, “us two, or just him.”
“Look,” Mr. Williams announced in his authoritative voice, “I know from years of experience that there are three sides to every story. There’s side one, side two, and what actually happened. So, until you rapscallions come up with the truth, which by the way doesn’t contradict itself, all three of you can stay in my office.”
For the next three hours, we were surrounded in silence with the 6 foot 8 inch Mr. Williams, who was stern and made sure anyone who wasn’t t
alking about an explanation for what happened was quiet. I kept looking at the two posters he had on his solid white wall behind the file cabinet. Both had the same animal on it. One said “Always be positive, like me”. The other one said “Setonix brachyurus”. As the hour needle on the clock headed toward three, the cool kid was making noises of joy.
“Hey! Quiet!” Mr. Williams scolded.
When the clock hit three, the bells rang and kids were running rampantly in the hallways. Both the cool kid and the trio kid must’ve wanted to go home because they told the truth and Mr. Williams let us go.
The cool kid opened the office door and came to a huge surprise. Arnold was waiting on the other side of the door. In a paroxysm, he punched the cool kid in the face and kicked the trio kid in the belly before running outside to escape Mr. William’s wrath. He ended up failing, for the very next day, he received a detention.
After that incident, it was back to just me and Arnold with nobody else. We started hanging around with each other so frequently that our parents became close friends. Our parents had such trust in each other as well as us that they gave us a lot of freedom. Arnold and I got into baseball, basketball, and bike riding. Both of us made the baseball team in sixth grade. Arnold was at second base and I played left field. Knowing that my pal was playing for the same team as me must have given me some skill. Whenever I saw that our team was losing, I also saw Arnold losing. That probably caused me to save a number of games, including one where I had a walk-off two run home run.
Whenever we didn’t have baseball games, we’d hit the trails and bike ride all over the suburbs. Nature and solitude was in abundance at Lake Norfolk, so Arnold and I would always take a break there to eat and watch the diversity of creatures that inhabited the woods.
In seventh grade, I couldn’t make the cut for basketball. On the other hand, Arnold was one of the very best in the high school feeder district. After school, I’d watch each and every game the team played, whether it was home or away. Center was Arnold’s favorite position and he constantly gave the team an upper hand during the game.
Arnold was such a sympathizing friend that he decided to teach me about basketball. My training started as soon as the Lumpert Dragons lost in the championships. All summer, from noon to six in the evening, training was in session. At first, my hips were not in control of my movement and I used both hands to shoot, but I increased in all skills over time. By the beginning of 8th grade, I almost beat Arnold in a one-on-one 17-22. He was one of the greatest teachers I’d ever seen in my life. Because of his fantastic instructing, I made point guard in 8th grade while Arnold made center. Once again, Arnold and I were on the same team and because of that, I knew we were going to make it all the way. Unfortunately, my memories of the season were shockingly vague. That is, except for the last game of the championship series.
After losing only one game the whole season, we made it to the end and the Dragons were ready to face the Burnham Bulls. The team’s only loss was against the Bulls 35-32, but Arnold was in the hospital that day. During this last championship game, everyone was present, and we were at Lumpert. It was the prefect recipe for success. In the championship game, I couldn’t believe the cooperation our team had compared to the Bulls. Indeed, this was not just my opinion since a scuffle between two of Burnham’s player sent one of them out of the game. From that moment on, it was the shooting guard versus the center in a shouting match while playing. Meanwhile, we had ball control like professional players and didn’t even let the enraged opponents frighten us. Three point swishes were a commonplace in the fourth quarter, and by the time there was five minutes to go, we practically won. Even at that point, we were relentless with the score gap between us. We were going to show that it wasn’t close and that the Burnham Bulls were the best. The Junior High’s court was filled with more fans than any previous game, selling out sixteen minutes after we made it to the championship. Four three-pointers were made by me in the fourth quarter before looking up at the digital clock to see 06.5. Wide was the smile on my face when I looked at Arnold who was near the center line. I passed the ball to the sports enthusiast of the team, Hernandez 42, who made a three point buzzer-beater. Louder than a jet taking off of a crowded runway during a 9.0 earthquake, half of the gym shouted in enjoyment at the top of their lungs. Everyone seemed to look at the victorious team as well as the cheerleaders. That was one of the best days of my life and it made my Lumpert experience even better. Excellent grades promised me goodness for the high school years to come. I expected to go to Arnold’s house after the graduation in 8th grade, but Arnold didn’t even show up to the graduation ceremony. During high school, not one person knew where he went or cared where he went either. It was as if he disappeared off the face of the Earth. Perplexed, I didn’t accomplish much during that summer. The rest of my life up until the theft was quite abnormal yet stagnant.
With only a few items that I didn’t throw away, I was ready to move out of Pine Grove. I was in luck because the James McCoy incident was what triggered me to get a nice house. Within a month and a half, I looked at an apartment on the north side of the city that was a small one bedroom. I was alone, the price was reasonable, so I decided to leave.