tlc

Being good evangelicals, we swarm to the fairgrounds that May evening, to hear Leighton Ford, in-law and close associate to Billy Graham, as he strives to redeem the word "crusade" for both infidel and faithful alike.

The youth from my church waste no time, finding solitude for its own sake, along a paved trail to a bridge at the foot of the woods. Immediately a lit cigarette and maybe a beer materialize and make their rounds as the only bona-fide couple in the group studies French.

As I stand there agaze at the surreality before me, having been heretofore excluded from such extracurriculars, she reluctantly takes a hit of the coffin nail. Later on she tells me she wasn't sure why she did, "I used to smoke but I quit," just as she'd always revealed herself to me.

So I seek refuge, not really finding it in the grandstand, next to two chicks I know by name, as usual, engulfed with inane chatter about boys and boys. And so goes the entire service, even as I see one of the party crowd mope to the makeshift altar, and the razor-sharp chill in the air keeps on cutting. It's as if everyone there knows somebody else yet I evidently don't even know myself.

Afterward, in the twilight she has a choice. Being the alpha for once, at the ripe age of thirteen, I extend my mom's offer to take her home. Somehow I just know, then she hesitantly shuns the others and comes with me as several pairs of eyes hurl their daggers. We meet her dad at the agreed place and I hug her goodbye, but not before she tells me she's kind of glad she didn't go off into the night doing God knows what.

And so the lines were drawn. Some of them blew me off for weeks to come, but she rode a horse to my house and I escorted her back on my bike one summer's day, and so it was, till just over a year later. We got the call as I lie on the couch after school, ironically, having just seen her there not two hours earlier. At least she lived through my birthday as I felt sicker and sicker, until the next day, then she was gone.

(for a friend I'll always miss)