Kenosha

I grew up on 109th street in a neighborhood that sat right behind the old Aurora hospital. I never noticed the lumbering bricked building back then though; I was either riding my bike to my friends’ homes, or I was simply walking with my parents, riding the tandem bike with my dad and little brother in the kid’s seat. Neighbors we knew, actually knew, were in the houses then, but they would leave soon as the hospital continued to grow larger and the neighborhood continued to grow older... I was pretty young then.1

During grade school, I had two close buddies. One was Cassy, a tomb boy who liked to play imaginary games with evil robots, jumping off of swingsets and turning cartwheels and tumbles in the grass. The other, Matt, didn’t come around until maybe four years after I had met Cassy. He was the cool one of the group and turned our friendship into a three-way. He grew in with us quickly as he, too, liked to play the fighting games. 2

I remember then that we were always running around. Either we were in Cassy’s back yard, Matt’s playroom—which was really an office with a gaming system in it—or we were in my basement that my parents had furnished when I was around five-years-old. We’d ride our bikes, the breeze from it blowing back all of our hair, or we’d simply run around from one to the other’s house, playing who-knows how many games. Tag was the favorite of ours when we sat out perimeters—“You can’t go past Andy’s crabtree and we hafta stay on this side of the ditch.” The ditch, mind you, was nothing dangerous (except for when it rained hard) and it separated Cassy and my homes from Matt’s on the other side. I remember running through that thing and the wet sop pulling at my shoes.3

Even at eight, Matt was a ladies’ man. I was the unconfident one with the big gut. And Cassy—she turned out to be my first crush when I was nine; she was the only girl I had ever had the guts to talk with and not chase around or away, and she was beautiful to my child’s mind. But it always seemed that Cassy and Matt had got along better than she and I had. In our group, it was always either those two against me or me and Cassy against Matt. He was my best friend and rival.4

I remember one day, as we were playing the Game of Life in his living room ironically, I had landed on the Married space and Matt had picked up a pink peg and placed it on my car piece. Seemingly, he had already been given hints to the fact that I liked Cassy, and he decided to tease me about it. He made one comment: “And here’s Cassy for you…I’ll back off.” My face was red; we were only ten and eleven then and I denied that the peg was Cassy. “N-no that’s not her. You can have her. Put it in your car. No. Matt, put it in your car! Stop it!” By this time he had all the answers he needed. I had to basically beg him not to tell, until his mother, with her Australian accent, specifically told him not to.5

But Matt persisted. He kept his word for about a month—always asking me if he could tell. Then one day, as we were playing a videogame, he told me that he had found out that Cassy liked me back. I’ll never know anything but a hint to that one, but it doesn’t matter at all now. I finally told Matt after a few minutes of going back and forth with him that he could tell her.6

He did it in the wrong way though.7

We were all in my basement that afternoon after school, watching a movie or TV show that we had mutually agreed on, when he decided to tell her. He looked at me for a couple seconds and then quietly looked over to Cassy. I was on the outside of the couch; he was in the middle. The conversation went something like this:8

“Hey, Cassy, guess who Andrew likes?”—I swallowed and was already getting red.
“Who?”
“Guess.”
“Ashley down the street?” –Ashley was two years older than all of us and was very, very conservative.
“Nope.”
“Who then? Do I know her?”
“I think you do.” He looked back at me and whispered, “I hope she does.”
That’s when a thought struck her. “ME?” she gasped.
“Yup!” shouted Matt loudly. Cassy began laughing.9

I tried to deny it, tried to say that I only meant, “liked as a friend,” but it was too late. Every bean in the cliché had been tossed into the air and was now splattered on the ceiling. Her laughing really hurt me even though Matt had got a response out of her about liking me: she hit him. Things were never the same between any of us after that. I still went over to Matt’s house every once and a while, but it wasn’t like before when we were asking our mother’s each day if we could go to each other’s houses. And Cassy, I tried to avoid completely.10

The last good memory I have of us three took place around nine o’clock. They had come up to my garage door (the door that lead into the kitchen from the garage, not the big door itself) and asked if I could come outside. My mom said, “yes, but only for a little while.” We walked down to Cassy’s house where Matt suggested a game, but it seemed none of us really wanted to. We were on Cassy’s porch, it was dark outside, and I remember that sky’s lights were beautiful as we all looked up to it for a few brief moments. It’s my most vivid memory. The porchlight wasn’t on and I could hear Cassy’s parents talking about something indoors. Matt didn’t talk. And then, as I began wondering what was going on I heard my mother call me from a block away. I turned quickly, said goodbye in a higher-pitched voice, and ran off down the sidewalk... It was bedtime.11

About a year later, after my dad had been unemployed for about eight to nine months, he found a job offering in Arizona, and we were to move there about two months later. To get rid of unnecessary things, we held a yard sale on the driveway. By this time, most of neighbors were people I didn't know, people who held smiling faces but would never go to the park with you or let their kid play outside past seven. The neighbors, however, were generous enough to buy our stuff and most of it was gone when Cassy came along on the sidewalk. Her family hadn't moved away yet and still haven't.12

My parents did most of the talking and I just smiled from within the garage as small remarks were made. There wasn't much for me to say. "Hi." "Goodbye." "You taking the bike?"13

And then my family moved down to the hot city of Tucson. I called both of them once, visited Matt twice, and then never contacted them again. I still consider them friends, though I don't know them anymore. And I doubt they ever think about me: the pudgy third wheel of the group who didn't realize things when they were there.14