If you read between the lines you can see it, but I always just liked to see what I see, do you know what I mean? Jeff was a clever kid but he would go off on these crazy tangents about the trees and the woods and how the streets were taking over and how someone was going to have to stop it. Looking back I find it funny how Jeff got bent out of shape when I told him that I didn’t understand what he was talking about. We’d end up joking about it later and I’d tell him that I understood and I’d apologize. The truth of the matter is that, I really didn’t understand Jeff, I just kind of thought he was a little strange.

Some back-story: Jeff and I were never what you’d call best friends, maybe not even friends at all, more like we knew each other because we lived on the same road. The word “road” may be a little generous in this sense, it was more like an unpaved dirt and stone path, prone to poor drainage and pot holes. We lived in Colony Park, North Carolina, just outside of Durham, bible-belt stuff. My address was 14 RR#5, Colony Park. The “RR” was short for “Rural Route”, that’s what they’d call roads that didn’t have a real name like Main Street or Elm Street. Jeff’s address was 19 RR#5 – which sounds close but actually close to a 2 mile walk (when you’re a kid 2 miles kills) but we did it everyday in the summer, it was the only thing that we had to do.

Like I said, If you read between the lines you can see it…

I hadn’t seen or heard from Jeff in over 20 years so when he pulled up to my house last week it was bit of a shocker. He’d gained a lot of weight and was going bald, not grey, just bald. He had tattoo’s all over his forearms and neck and barely resembled the skinny little kid from Colony Park. He greeted me at the door stubbing out his cigarette on the front step. I didn’t know who he was at first, then he smiled and a finally saw him, he gave me a bear-hug and I invited him in. It was surreal at first. I don’t think Jeff and I ever had any sort of physical contact before so this was new to me, comforting, almost kind of warm.

I poured us a couple of lemonade’s and we moved to the to the rocking chairs out on the front porch. I didn’t know why he was here and I didn’t care, it was just nice to see him free again.