I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?
It happens sometimes. Friends come in and out of your life, like busboys in a restaurant.
Although I hadn’t seen him in more than ten years, I know I’ll miss him forever.
I wondered how Teddy could care so much for his dad, who practically killed him. And I couldn’t give a shit about my own dad, who hadn’t laid a hand on me since I was three! And that was for eating the bleach under the sink.
At the beginning of the school year, Vern had buried a quart jar of pennies underneath his house. He drew a treasure map so he could find them again. A week later, his mom cleaned out his room and threw away the map. Vern had been trying to find those pennies for nine months. Nine months, man. You didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
The kid wasn’t sick. The kid wasn’t sleeping. The kid was dead.
Vern didn’t just mean being off limits inside the junkyard, or fudging on our folks, or going on a hike up the railroad to Harlow. He meant those things, but it seems to me now it was more and that we all knew it. Everything was there and around us. We knew exactly who we were and exactly where we were going. It was grand.
I was 12 going on 13 the first time I saw a dead human being. It happened in the summer of 1959-a long time ago, but only if you measure in terms of years. I was living in a small town in Oregon called Castle Rock. There were only twelve hundred and eighty-one people. But to me, it was the whole world.
The train had knocked Ray Brower out of his Keds the same way it had knocked the life out of his body.
As time went on, we saw less and less of Teddy and Vern until, eventually, they became just two more faces in the halls. Happens sometimes, friends come in and out of your life like busboys in a restaurant. I heard that Vern got married out of high school, had four kids, and is now the forklift operator at the Arseno Lumberyard. Teddy tried several times to get into the Army, but his eyes and his ear kept him out. Last I heard, he had spent some time in jail and was now doing odd jobs around Castle Rock.
Chris did get out. He enrolled in the college courses with me and, although, it was hard, he gutted it out like he always did. He went on to college and, eventually, became a lawyer. Last week, he entered a fast food restaurant. Just ahead of him, two men got into an argument. One of them pulled a knife. Chris, who had always made the best peace, tried to break it up. He was stabbed in the throat. He died almost instantly.
The freight woke up the other guys and it was on the tip of my tongue to tell them about the deer. But I didn’t. That was the one thing I kept to myself. I’ve never spoken or written about it until just now.
Around this time, Charlie and Billy were playing “Mailbox Baseball” with Ace and Eyeball.
In April, my older brother Dennis had been killed in a jeep accident. Four months had passed but my parents still hadn’t been able to put the pieces back together again.
