alternate history
Sometimes, I imagine that we would have been friends earlier. I imagine that my parents would have figured out a way for us to stay in California, and we would never have moved to Canada. We would have remained in the Bay Area, and I'd still spend the occasional afternoon at Malibu Fun & Games, playing in the arcade. It would have been in the summer when he was working there, and maybe we'd connect over an interesting t-shirt or a graphic novel that would be poking out of one of our backpacks.
That's where I imagine us being 14 or 15 and hanging out behind this fake castle just off the 101, trading comics and passing a walkman between us after his shift ended. I imagine me loaning him my WWII history books, to indulge an imagination fired on tanks and secret weapons, and I imagine him trying to wean me off my Dragonlance habit by getting me to read Stephen King. Our bikes would lean against the chain link fence and Slurpees from the 7-Eleven would stand nearby, slowly liquefying in the summer heat.
I imagine, at some point, we'd hang out at one of our houses to play D&D or Robotech or Rifts, and while an evening away making up adventures with our voices making 'pew-pew-pew' and 'tsing-clang-boom' sounds. I'd bring over my collection of bootlegged anime, and he'd introduce me to Evil Dead or Blade Runner. In the night, we'd sketch out just how hard or fun it would be to ride our bikes over the Devil's Slide or Black Mountain Road.
We'd talk about the books that our schools asked us to read over the summer, argue the merits of Hemingway versus JD Salinger or make some observation about how the reading lists in private and public schools aren't all that different. He'd tease me a bit about the pretentiousness of Catholic school kids, and I'd nod because I'd find the entire culture a bit silly myself. He'd dig a little deeper, talk about the hypocrisy of religion, and how he didn't believe in any of it. I'd protest saying that it was my right to believe what I wanted, and that was the way I grew up. He'd clarify that he wasn't arguing against my rights or upbringing, but that as an intellectual exercise, I had to consider the fact that the Bible was written by men and that those men were mortal and fallible.
And it would be the first time that I would have my faith challenged, like it was in Canada, when other friends of mine first pointed out the inconsistencies in my belief system and got me to look at everything with a critical eye, view it from the outside, to see the cracks that were hidden while I was immersed in it all. I can imagine being upset about that, like I was back when it really happened, and we'd stop being friends because I wasn't comfortable around him; feeling perhaps a bit of embarrassment because I realized that he was right and that my naivete was some kind of disappointment.
We wouldn't see each other for another six or so years when I'd go to Clark to watch the graduation of a friend that I made that summer, and I'd hear his laugh: deeper, louder and fuller, and I wouldn't realize how much I had missed him until then.
That's where I imagine us being 14 or 15 and hanging out behind this fake castle just off the 101, trading comics and passing a walkman between us after his shift ended. I imagine me loaning him my WWII history books, to indulge an imagination fired on tanks and secret weapons, and I imagine him trying to wean me off my Dragonlance habit by getting me to read Stephen King. Our bikes would lean against the chain link fence and Slurpees from the 7-Eleven would stand nearby, slowly liquefying in the summer heat.
I imagine, at some point, we'd hang out at one of our houses to play D&D or Robotech or Rifts, and while an evening away making up adventures with our voices making 'pew-pew-pew' and 'tsing-clang-boom' sounds. I'd bring over my collection of bootlegged anime, and he'd introduce me to Evil Dead or Blade Runner. In the night, we'd sketch out just how hard or fun it would be to ride our bikes over the Devil's Slide or Black Mountain Road.
We'd talk about the books that our schools asked us to read over the summer, argue the merits of Hemingway versus JD Salinger or make some observation about how the reading lists in private and public schools aren't all that different. He'd tease me a bit about the pretentiousness of Catholic school kids, and I'd nod because I'd find the entire culture a bit silly myself. He'd dig a little deeper, talk about the hypocrisy of religion, and how he didn't believe in any of it. I'd protest saying that it was my right to believe what I wanted, and that was the way I grew up. He'd clarify that he wasn't arguing against my rights or upbringing, but that as an intellectual exercise, I had to consider the fact that the Bible was written by men and that those men were mortal and fallible.
And it would be the first time that I would have my faith challenged, like it was in Canada, when other friends of mine first pointed out the inconsistencies in my belief system and got me to look at everything with a critical eye, view it from the outside, to see the cracks that were hidden while I was immersed in it all. I can imagine being upset about that, like I was back when it really happened, and we'd stop being friends because I wasn't comfortable around him; feeling perhaps a bit of embarrassment because I realized that he was right and that my naivete was some kind of disappointment.
We wouldn't see each other for another six or so years when I'd go to Clark to watch the graduation of a friend that I made that summer, and I'd hear his laugh: deeper, louder and fuller, and I wouldn't realize how much I had missed him until then.