Jacob was the kid across the street. I’d only see him from his second floor bedroom window, which was directly across from my second floor bedroom window. He’d yell over to me to show him my newest Pokemon card, tell me to bounce my soccer ball all the way up to my ceiling, ask me to turn my TV up real loud. One time he said, push the screen of your window down to the street! So I did. That week my dad didn’t buy me any new Pokemon cards.
I’d never see Jacob out with the other kids on the street when we had out our bikes and our scooters and our sports balls. But sometimes I’d see him being rushed into his mother’s car in the mornings, off to some other school, not mine.
When I was out with the other kids, he’d look down and watch us as we ran around under the street lights. Sometimes I’d blow up my whoopee cushion and sit on it, right there on the sidewalk. His laugh would bounce right off of the moon.
Jacob was my favorite kid on the street because he was the only one that asked me questions. What did I do at recess that day or what did I have for dinner. I’d tell him, soccer! And, spaghetti! Then I’d ask him what he was playing with inside his room. He’d always say, nothing really. Then he’d say, show me how you can kick the soccer ball to the clouds!
One morning on the way to school, my dad drove by Jacob’s building really slow as we watched an ambulance pull up. I didn’t see anyone come out of the building and I didn’t see anyone go into the ambulance. As we got further down our street and past Jacob’s building, I turned around, my view out the back of my dad’s truck. It was all a still life painting. Not even the leaves in the trees swayed. No doors opened. No feet hit the ground.
That night I pulled on my red jersey shorts and jammed my feet into my brown cowboy boots. I grabbed my whoopee cushion, my soccer ball, my latest Pokemon card. I closed the door behind me, looked up to Jacob’s window.
It was black. No movement. No noise. Not even a shadow. All the neighborhood kids rushed by on bikes, on scooters, skateboards. I sat down on the stoop outside my door. And I tried waiting. But that didn’t work. Jacob’s light never turned on.
Beautiful execution of how a child’s view of a person, of the world, is so limited, and how painful it is when it’s gone. The realization of nothing good lasts forever and lack of explanation for where it went, no reassurance that it’ll ever come back. I’d read stories like this all day, every day. Well done!
this is so incredibly sad and full of youth that i don't know what to say. My brother had a friend when we were kids that drove him crazy but my brother also had a soft spot for him as the other neighborhood kids would not hang out with him. I always knew when he came over to our house because he would end up on our roof singing to the stars and somehow climb down the side of the house when he left. You capture youth in such an amazing way C.S.