1/30/2003

1/30/2003 - 12:00

WHEN I WAS 14 OR SO-

We sat in the back of the empty moving van chain smoking, Dan with one leg crossed and his arm resting in it. It was windy, making it hard to hear and rocking the truck. He was adopted, the only adopted kid I knew, at least who was openly aware of it. He was a bit of a nut, a few years older than me and in the same class. I would ride my pieced-together bike to his house on the north-west side of town-clean, trimmed, picket fence and very suburban. Inside though the air was always thick with tension. Ugly scowls and untidy curses bounced off walls, out the windows and over the fences. Even today, the overwhelming feeling I have is that his mom really did not like him. We were awake for two days moving the contents of his step-grandma's life to be auctioned. My feet throbbed and my dry eyes rolled like sour kraut balls in my head. The frame that the van made of the outside combined with the lack of sleep giving the Akron fall a surreal feeling. Black and white in my mind's eye as I remember it today. I hit on his younger sister (neither not adopted nor attractive) simply because she was there. We sneaked a couple of beers, too. Oh I was so grown-up. On top of the world.

His mother got angry at something and decided to take us back home. At around two in the morning, a mile from the house, she ran a red light and got a ticket. Half asleep I recall her fury at the cop and her foul mouth when he was out of ear shot.

I don't know why I'm remembering this, but God bless Dan and his sister. And the cool Akron wind, when I was fourteen, that cleaned the streets of our smoked cigarettes and muzzled the bites of his mom and dad.