previous (the former stripper)

next (makeover)

That summer after freshman year I called “The Summer of Tommy and Emma” because even though they were together almost every summer after that, it was the one which established the dynamic between them and the rest of our fr…

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previous (come eat some ham)

next (expert in cart retrieval)

In the spring of our freshman year, we watched from the window of our Honors English class as a helicopter landed on the lawn outside and whisked our principal to a nearby hospital, where he barely survived a massive heart attack.

H…

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previous (a hideous game)

next (off the road)

While he couldn’t run track that spring, Tommy was able to attend our junior prom upright and ambulatory, although I’m sure Emma would have accommodated him if he could not. The issue was whether he would accommodate her, …

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previous (makeover)

next (the otter and the ostrich)

Soccer had no place in Veddersburgh.

While the rest of the region had incorporated the sport into its local jock culture, Veddersburgh’s athletic elites (the male ones, anyway—the girls’ team was okay) still mostly shunned socc…

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previous (lightning strike)

next (the former stripper)

In high school, our duopoly of friendship expanded to a small group of others who occupied the same social strata as us, what might be described as ‘bookish’ or ‘academic,’ the small subset of kids at Veddersburgh High Schoo…

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previous (shrinked)

next (you’ll sometimes walk alone)

Between Thanksgiving and Christmas of that year, I woke up one morning and discovered I could not move the left side of my face.

The first sign of my condition was the lake of saliva accumulated under my left cheek upon the pillo…

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previous (the dead malls)

next (dropout)

Many of the most important things in my life seem to happen during the summer, when the bonds that prevent change become unstuck. It’s only when we step outside and into the plentiful sunlight of summer that the horizon…

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previous (the big ballyhoo)

next (come eat some ham)

The decline from such heights began later that night, a moment of all moments that would split time into how things were before and how they were after. It was not a precipitous decline, or at least it would not be so until many …

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previous (the legacy of parade day)

next (birthday boy)

The rest of that year continued much the same as the last. The dermatologist began to wage war on my acne, but a decisive victory had yet to be won, and I took up the subsequent inner turmoil with a therapist, which helped me ma…

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previous (gassed)

next (lightning strike)

“I love this house,” Mrs. Goodspeed said to no one in particular as we brought our bags inside to the foyer of the lake house. “I got my legs under me again here, got sober.”

Mr. Goodspeed grunted as he hauled in the b…

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previous (harris meet goodspeed)

next (the big ballyhoo)

Despite failing to transition us from ‘boyhood friends’ to ‘family friends,’ the Goodspeeds continued to include me in some of even their most intimate family gatherings. My parents didn’t mind this, as long as I wasn’t missing o…

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previous (deep and wide)

Another year later, I ran a marathon.

It was my first, a local affair along the Mohawk River. Tommy always said that the last five miles of a marathon were the only hard part. “That’s when the lactic acid says, hello, old friend, and you beg him fo…

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next (read all three)

The last time I saw Tommy was during the final hour of sunlight on the last day of summer. We had gone for a run, the last of hundreds we’d done together since high school.

I remember admiring how, even in his lessened, sickly state, he was able to float across the ground as if his body weighed nothing, while I felt …

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previous (paris, jaylen, and the mayor)

next (a final run)

Tommy’s dog died in the dog days of that summer.

When Tommy texted me with news of his dog Waldo’s death, it had been a few weeks since I’d last seen him, but I knew I had to visit immediately.

I went to their front door, the red…

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previous (escape from the small pond)

next (dog daze)

The strip club we went to was right down the street from my apartment, a ten-minute walk. I passed it every day on my way to work at the organic grocery store without ever giving much thought to what it …

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previous (paralyzed)

next (flat tire)

It took about a month for my face to achieve total normalcy, though I returned to work only a week after my initial diagnosis. Eventually, the only vestige of the problem was that my left eye would sometimes fail t…

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previous (the avocado)

next (the flight of humanity)

In the beginning, grief is like a puddle of darkness over your psyche, so wide and black it encompasses your entire will and being. Every moment is a war against the attritional liquid of sadness that threatens to drown you wi…

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previous (dropout)

next (paralyzed)

During my time at school, I slowly understood that business, as a major discipline, didn’t really mean anything. There were classes in business law, marketing, merchandising, macroeconomics, microeconomics, and whatev…

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previous (a final run)

next (deep and wide)

I found out from our old friend Danveer about a week later. I was in my basement apartment, watching an early morning Liverpool game. I was disturbed, as usual, by a phone call, and so did not answer it, until he called m…

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previous (dog daze)

next (the avocado)

In the final days of summer, I saw very little of Tommy, as my trips back to Veddersburgh to run with him decreased. Running alone on the streets and in the many parks of Albany somehow carried a different flavor I did …

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