On 2nd Street last night

It was very surreal seeing Joe last night. Joe and I had been friends from kindergarten 'til about 6th grade. I was on my way to see Luke's show at Dragonfly last night when I got called over to that new Orleans themed bar by a guy I had not seen since he had a slight mental breakdown while we were in high school. I hadn't even noticed who was with him until he told me. There was Joe and another guy whom I had also not seen high school, a bully if ever there was one. Joe was surprised to see me, perhaps as mush as I was at seeing him, now confronted with one part of my past I had been unwilling to give up but was, instead, wrenched away from me.

Joe and I grew up in similar sets of circumstances. We were those kids who were never out of each other's sights. For 5 straight summers we alternated between each other's houses for sleepovers. He went down one path, and I went another. I might eb bold enough to say that he went down a path I was not allowed to go down.

I remember the first time I was offered a cigarette. Joe and I were walking with two guys through the old neighborhood. Actually, the guy who was with him last night, was the one who offered me my first cigarette. Joe grabbed it out of his hand before I could even answer and said "No" for me. I didn't know it at the time but Joe had already been smoking for about a month.

For whatever reason he wouldn't let me join him.

As we went through school I barely saw him in junior high or high school. Our schedules separated us, as I took harder and harder classes, and Joe ended up playing catch up. We were friendly, but his new friends kept offering him new things, things I didn't want to be a part of. Not because I was better or stronger in any way. I was scared of those things and their consequences.

I never saw Joe scared.

Except for that one time when we were gonna spend the night in his backyard in the tent until we saw the bat. We slept inside that night.

It was surreal seeing him there under the gaudy lights. They related stories that they had heard about me, that I was married, but they didn't know for how long, thinking it had just occurred. Or that I had two girls.

There was so much I wanted to ask him. Where had he been? I had heard stories, were they true? What about that job I got for you, but that you never showed up to for training? Given the chance, I would've sat down all night and just listened as he told me where he had been, and what he had been doing.

I don't think he owes me an explanation - I'm just curious.

What happens to the kids that didn't fear consequences? What happens to the boys who weren't aware that they were growing up while they made their decisions?

If I ever had the sense of Peter Pan's Lost Boys, I met three of them last night.