Nah I don't think I have time to finish this today, but I can get it started. Maybe I'll write it in parts. But it is like an itch that must be scratched when an idea comes into my head. It's not even that interesting but there are stories to tell about the nothingness of common everydays and of the people who co-arranged them.

I think I mentioned once about Craig my neighbor from when I was a teenager. If I didn't or did I must tell about him again because, trust me, it'll add vitality to the essence of this basic yawner of a tale that I'll eventually get to.

My dad built a house on a country road, a beautiful one, and spattered about were other houses ~ Some brand new, some old, but if you looked close enough, paying careful attention while driving by you might have seen a community of neighbors. Craig's family built a home back behind us. We lived on five acres and our house was close to the road while his parents chose to bury theirs in the overgrowth of weeds, vines and flimsy limbs and branches we liked to mistake for a wood.

At the time, I was in love with some boy from the city, the first of a long line of demon lovers who walked their cloven hooves all over my heart for the fun of it, and this one would gnash his teeth at me any time I made a friend, particularly a boy one ~ but Craig and I became friends anyhow. In secret, we enjoyed one another and I liked him so much. He was a year or so younger than me and much less mature physically, but sweet and he attended to me adoringly.

I would watch t.v. late into the night, a discontented nightbird that couldn't sleep the same hours as the people in my house, and sometimes I would feel a presence from the darkness of the outside watching, the proverbial goose on my grave feeling inbetween commercials, and then, a glance of at my reflection in the windows of the french doors and there would be Craig's face looking in to scare the absolute shit out of me. I most often would be in an oversized t-shirt and my underwear, but I'd wander outside anyhow. Sometimes he came in to finish up a movie with me, or we sat on the deck, or went for a walk in the woods. I suppose part of him hoping, but never to the degree of asking... and I never offered to show. There were too many people and months out of utero between us, height was an issue, puberty onset, and heirarchy in the school setting: I was homecoming queen and he was in the FFA.

We didn't wait for the bus together in the morning, the bus driver had to make two stops just yards from the other, and we never spoke in school, but it didn't stop me from looking for him at night in the window or keep me from blaring my music when my parents were gone so he would know I was home alone. He'd come and we'd talk, or sometimes not much at all because hanging out together or escaping in the dark with no one knowing was really fun.

In winter, he would come round on his snow mobile and sit with it running in my front yard while I got ready ~ and then, I'd run out and jump on the back. He was several inches shorter than me, but so sure of himself that I would wrap my arms around him anyhow, feeling safe, while we sped through the trails he'd made in the cornfields.

I hated myself for something, and still do for this. Debbie, my gorgeous friend who made all men swoon was staying overnight one night. We were out of cigarettes and I didn't have the keys to my mom's car or money to go buy more. She was restless of the monotony of the tranquility that comes with life in the country, so suggested,"Why don't you ask that kid who lives behind you to ride his bike to the restaurant and get the keys from your parents?"

I was doubtful and said, "That's like a lot of miles away.."
She said, "C'mon, he would do it for you. He loves you."

So I called him and told him I had an emergency and would he go on his bike to find my parents at the place they were having dinner and ask from them the keys to the car and $5. There was silence on the other end, and then he asked where they were. He wandered over in a little while on his little BMX bicycle, and looked at Debbie uninterestedly, and then... leveled his eyes at me. He knew.

And he did it. He went at dusk and came back by the time it was dark with the car keys and money in hand, and Debbie and I were home-free to cruise and smoke the night away. She was happy and excited to get in the car to get to town, to no longer be bored on our boring road with our boring starlit nights and silence, the spindly sort-of trees, and meager creeks or the late night movies on television, and quiet walks in underwear into woodsey places with a friend...

I felt like a thief.