Character Sketch
Greg was my first best friend. We met when we were still young enough to call hanging out play dates and need for them to be arranged by our parents and there were still many years left before we’d even begin thinking about middle school. We lived exactly one block and half away from each other. I can remember almost every time I’ve been along that road to get from one place to the other and then back again. The journey began at my parent’s house, back when both my birth parents occupied it together, at the end of our no outlet block and then down a steep hill to a secluded four-way stop intersection and finally up another hill, the crest of which marked both the center of Greg’s block, and his house. All of my trips from one house to the other have merged together into one journey, but it is now filled with an impossible number of occurrences.
I start at my parent’s house and as I’m on my horrible excuse for a skateboard, stopping at the first twig what stands in my way. As I get to the steepest parts of the hill I dive off my plastic tricycle because I know that if I don’t, I’ll hit the car I know is going to be at the intersection at the bottom. Past the intersection, I nearly literally have the crap scared out of by the dog who likes very much to bark loudly in a yard beside the street. And then I head up the hill which would be the site of so many home movies filmed by and with Greg and his sister and my sister and I. Later in the day, I start the walk back home. Jogging down Greg’s hill I see myself from different angles imagining that this is part of some cheesy, annoying credits reel for some television show. Just as I start to think about wishing I didn’t see the return trip as credits, the loud dog nearly scares the crap out of me again. I look both ways at the intersection a thousand times and then run back up my hill. As I’m almost home, I run head first into a parked van because my head was down and my red sweatshirt hood was up.
At some point in our friendship, probably when we were old enough too, we started arranging our own play dates, though we didn’t see them as such any more. But nine or ten year olds aren’t cool enough to hang out. Some of the time we’d play in his backyard and then we’d go and play in the house. We almost always played at his house though because there was never much to do at mine and it would take the most immense amount of creativity to keep from growing bored. By some miracle, none of the four of us, my sister and Greg’s were good friends and we all saw a lot of each other, fancied video games very much at the time and we were able to enjoy ourselves by playing in the fort that was slowly devouring his backyard or by making movies.
I always wanted something important to do, but I’m a tripe actor. In our first attempt at a violent, in the minds of children, mystery, we had discovered a trail of red construction paper blood drops to which I announced, “Let’s follow those blood drops!” with a big stupid smile on my face. I felt proud when I was allowed to be the camera-man, because camera-men are the most important people in major motion pictures. Though, I was only allowed to be camera-man because Greg was needed in the scene as the scary monster than fell out of the attic. Many of the other movies I remember best, I had little or no part in because I wasn’t around to be a cast member. I did aid in the making of other scary movies, but I can’t remember anything about them.
One day, when we were very bored, Greg declared that we would play the Stupid Game. I don’t remember if I asked what it was, but I bet I probably did and I don’t remember his answer because there probably wasn’t one. The game was just a lot of energetic violence. It usually consisted of a short lived not-quite-a-wrestling match between us using pillows and the enormous bouncy ball. The game usually ended when one of us felt in danger enough to call it off. As reckless as the game always seemed, nothing valuable was ever damaged, even though the room was not very large, held two couches and also a television, an old thing I thought was a radio and the house computer. The only thing only property damaged in the course of the game was each of our energies, and we were always very tired afterwards. Many, many times after the creation of the stupid game, I always suggested that we play it whenever there was a break in the action. To me, the game was always fun, but I think now that it meant something more to him.
Nearly every birthday we each had, up until a specific one, ended in a sleep over to the next day and then breakfast and then everybody gets picked up and goes home. On one of his birthdays, which happened to be the specific one for him, I was being driven home in his van with a lot of the other party-goers. I had been told I was invited to the sleep over portion, and then told I was to keep it a secret. So naturally, in the van I asked if anyone else was invited. Someone said “No” and I kept my mouth shut until we got back to Greg’s house. I was told later that not everyone could be invited and that it should be a secret so as not to make them feel bad. This made sense to me after I was scolded because there were at least twenty party attendees, and to house them all would be a circus. The other people attending the sleep over I had never met before, except for one. Not knowing them, I didn’t know that they were going to do something cruel to Greg. Whatever that cruel thing was, I forget, but I forced them away from him once I realized what was happening. This, for some good reason, is the last sleep over party he held, but not the last time he would invite people to stay over. It just marked the end of the after parties for birthday parties.
Eventually, Greg picked up a very addictive hobby from a friend of his, and spread it to me. The game was called Warhammer 40K and is something of a table top, turn based strategy game. It was also expensive. Each player had an army of models, which the owning company graciously sells at ridiculous prices. We each only had a few models and were content with playing on the carpet with cardboard “brick” blocks as terrain, using action figures to represent all the models we didn’t have in our armies. Every aspect of the game engrossed me completely. I liked reading the lore that set all the different characters and units in the universe. On a recommendation from Davis, the one who spread the hobby to Greg, I read and greatly enjoyed a novel set in the Warhammer universe. But eventually, the two of them lost interest, and even with all I liked about the game, it suddenly became enormously difficult to keep interest in.
Greg and I did not attend the same middle school for more than a year. After that, he switched to a private school and he stayed in private school until he moved to college. By the time he switched schools, I was the one who would arrange all of the times we’d hang out. Then I started to call him less. And since he never called, we saw each other less. The end of this decline was the beginning of a time when we simply never got in touch with each other. It’s something of a harsh stasis. The friendship never ended, we just stopped communicating.
I start at my parent’s house and as I’m on my horrible excuse for a skateboard, stopping at the first twig what stands in my way. As I get to the steepest parts of the hill I dive off my plastic tricycle because I know that if I don’t, I’ll hit the car I know is going to be at the intersection at the bottom. Past the intersection, I nearly literally have the crap scared out of by the dog who likes very much to bark loudly in a yard beside the street. And then I head up the hill which would be the site of so many home movies filmed by and with Greg and his sister and my sister and I. Later in the day, I start the walk back home. Jogging down Greg’s hill I see myself from different angles imagining that this is part of some cheesy, annoying credits reel for some television show. Just as I start to think about wishing I didn’t see the return trip as credits, the loud dog nearly scares the crap out of me again. I look both ways at the intersection a thousand times and then run back up my hill. As I’m almost home, I run head first into a parked van because my head was down and my red sweatshirt hood was up.
At some point in our friendship, probably when we were old enough too, we started arranging our own play dates, though we didn’t see them as such any more. But nine or ten year olds aren’t cool enough to hang out. Some of the time we’d play in his backyard and then we’d go and play in the house. We almost always played at his house though because there was never much to do at mine and it would take the most immense amount of creativity to keep from growing bored. By some miracle, none of the four of us, my sister and Greg’s were good friends and we all saw a lot of each other, fancied video games very much at the time and we were able to enjoy ourselves by playing in the fort that was slowly devouring his backyard or by making movies.
I always wanted something important to do, but I’m a tripe actor. In our first attempt at a violent, in the minds of children, mystery, we had discovered a trail of red construction paper blood drops to which I announced, “Let’s follow those blood drops!” with a big stupid smile on my face. I felt proud when I was allowed to be the camera-man, because camera-men are the most important people in major motion pictures. Though, I was only allowed to be camera-man because Greg was needed in the scene as the scary monster than fell out of the attic. Many of the other movies I remember best, I had little or no part in because I wasn’t around to be a cast member. I did aid in the making of other scary movies, but I can’t remember anything about them.
One day, when we were very bored, Greg declared that we would play the Stupid Game. I don’t remember if I asked what it was, but I bet I probably did and I don’t remember his answer because there probably wasn’t one. The game was just a lot of energetic violence. It usually consisted of a short lived not-quite-a-wrestling match between us using pillows and the enormous bouncy ball. The game usually ended when one of us felt in danger enough to call it off. As reckless as the game always seemed, nothing valuable was ever damaged, even though the room was not very large, held two couches and also a television, an old thing I thought was a radio and the house computer. The only thing only property damaged in the course of the game was each of our energies, and we were always very tired afterwards. Many, many times after the creation of the stupid game, I always suggested that we play it whenever there was a break in the action. To me, the game was always fun, but I think now that it meant something more to him.
Nearly every birthday we each had, up until a specific one, ended in a sleep over to the next day and then breakfast and then everybody gets picked up and goes home. On one of his birthdays, which happened to be the specific one for him, I was being driven home in his van with a lot of the other party-goers. I had been told I was invited to the sleep over portion, and then told I was to keep it a secret. So naturally, in the van I asked if anyone else was invited. Someone said “No” and I kept my mouth shut until we got back to Greg’s house. I was told later that not everyone could be invited and that it should be a secret so as not to make them feel bad. This made sense to me after I was scolded because there were at least twenty party attendees, and to house them all would be a circus. The other people attending the sleep over I had never met before, except for one. Not knowing them, I didn’t know that they were going to do something cruel to Greg. Whatever that cruel thing was, I forget, but I forced them away from him once I realized what was happening. This, for some good reason, is the last sleep over party he held, but not the last time he would invite people to stay over. It just marked the end of the after parties for birthday parties.
Eventually, Greg picked up a very addictive hobby from a friend of his, and spread it to me. The game was called Warhammer 40K and is something of a table top, turn based strategy game. It was also expensive. Each player had an army of models, which the owning company graciously sells at ridiculous prices. We each only had a few models and were content with playing on the carpet with cardboard “brick” blocks as terrain, using action figures to represent all the models we didn’t have in our armies. Every aspect of the game engrossed me completely. I liked reading the lore that set all the different characters and units in the universe. On a recommendation from Davis, the one who spread the hobby to Greg, I read and greatly enjoyed a novel set in the Warhammer universe. But eventually, the two of them lost interest, and even with all I liked about the game, it suddenly became enormously difficult to keep interest in.
Greg and I did not attend the same middle school for more than a year. After that, he switched to a private school and he stayed in private school until he moved to college. By the time he switched schools, I was the one who would arrange all of the times we’d hang out. Then I started to call him less. And since he never called, we saw each other less. The end of this decline was the beginning of a time when we simply never got in touch with each other. It’s something of a harsh stasis. The friendship never ended, we just stopped communicating.