As I sit in prison, the blue skies always remind me of other summers no matter what I do to distract myself. I think back to all the fun things I used to do in summer. One summer night, my mother made me spend the night at some lady’s house that worked with her at Walmart. The next day, while I was hiding from that lady’s kids, I met Samantha.
I was in the hammock when I saw two kids walk up the drive. The girl was around my age and the boy seemed older than both of us. The boy asked me, “What you looking at?” Since I happened to be looking at him, I replied, “Not sure yet.” The girl looked at me laughing, and from then on we were best friends.
That first week she asked me if I wanted to go to church with her; I replied “yes.” I had never been to church before, and her mother used it as a babysitter. Little did she know, Samantha and her brothers loved church. Every Sunday we’d play pool before the service started and eat doughnuts with coffee.
The first time I spent the night at Samantha’s house, her mother said “hi” to my mother when she dropped us off and then went to her bedroom, locking the door behind her. We went to her room to drop off my stuff, and then I met her three brothers and sister.
While her mother was in her room we all decided to wrestle. We were in her brothers’ room jumping off from their bunk beds and dresser to see who could pin the other person. Their mother never came to see what was going on.
Later that day Samantha asked me, “Want to go play on the train tracks?” I told her, “My mother told me never to play on those tracks.” She said, “It’s OK, they don’t work.” So we went out to the train tracks (oops, sorry, Mom) to see who could find the smoothest rock as we walked to town. Once in town we stopped at the gas station to get sodas and snacks. Then we walked up and down Main Street browsing the aisles of different stores before walking back to her house.
When we were about ten or eleven, Samantha asked, “Want to go to the beach with my family?” I asked my mom, who said “Yes.” So I went and thought we all were going to die because the van seats were not bolted down. Her stepdad was speeding, so when we hit the railroad tracks, the van caught air and my stomach dropped as the seats flew up.
One day when we were about eleven or twelve years old, her brother and his friend were outside playing basketball. Her older brother used to pick on us all the time, and when we went to leave the house they started in on us again. Well I had had enough; I took his friend’s backpack, ran to the backyard, and threw it over the fence to their dog. The dog was a red-nose pit who for some reason hated mesh, and his backpack had mesh everywhere. That dog ran to his backpack and started to rip into it. Bet they didn’t throw anymore balls at us.
Samantha used to think up all these crazy ideas, and I’d be there to help carry them out. When I was in seventh grade she was in sixth. She got a crush on a boy in my grade, and between the two of us, we found out as much about him as we could. By the middle of the school year, she asked, “Want to call all the phone numbers in the phone book with his last name till we find his?” I read number after number till we found the right one; when she got it right she hung up the phone laughing. “Now we know his address.”
About a week later, Samantha said, “Let’s go find his house.” We put on our rollerblades and set off. We got about two blocks from her house and were both out of breath. We looked at each other, and I said, “Let’s go get our bikes.” We went back, got our bikes and took off again. We found the road his house was on yet when the curve came up that we were supposed to take, we kept going straight since there were no road signs. We ended up on someone’s farm on a dead-end road. Knowing what I know now about boys, and then men, missing his house that day was probably for the best.
Every summer from when we met till the end of my eighth grade year, we’d go to my house for Fourth of July fireworks. We would run the streets of my neighborhood all day. Playing football, baseball or just riding bikes and rollerblading. By the time the sun would be setting we’d get back to my house to clean up for the BBQ cookout.
We’d set off fireworks while my mom cooked BBQ ribs that fell off of the bone, potato salad, baked mac + cheese, pecan pie, apple pie and sweet potatoes. Once we ate we would go lay in the driveway to watch the fireworks that the town set off and it would look like they were going to fall right on top of us.
It all came to an end when Samantha’s mother went to jail and she was placed with her aunt. About a week later, Samantha called me to see if I wanted to come to her aunt’s to hang out. I asked my mother, who said “Yes.”
When I got there, her aunt was not very welcoming. We mostly stayed outside that day. Another week or two, I was on the phone with Samantha to see if she could come stay the night that weekend. Samantha told me her aunt burned all of her old clothes and bought her dresses and makeup; she didn’t approve of how she dressed or her friends.
No more sleepovers, no more visits, period. I lost my best friend and the only escape from my home that I had. My one place where I didn’t have to wear a mask was gone. She was the only person who knew my family home wasn’t all that it seemed.
I didn’t know how to deal with this loss. For two years I wore my mask that I was “okay” and all was “fine” even though inside I hated every time my mother asked me to see what my father wanted or needed. Two years of playing heavy metal and rock as loud as I could because I knew he hated it.
One day, while I was in my junior year of high school, I was hanging outside waiting for school to start when I saw Samantha get off a bus. Mind you, we used to wear the same clothes, but here I was in boy pants, a fishnet shirt, men’s shoes, and no make-up, while she wore a dress with some belt, heels, and make-up.
It was like I had never met her before, yet we picked up right where we left off. It was like all that time apart never happened. I started to let my mask slip off again when I was around her. People I had met when she was gone were now looking at me differently. I would joke around with her and they didn’t know I could joke.
I only had her for a few more years, and she continued to come and go. I got her a job at the Subway’s I was working at. Bad idea, though. I only know that now, looking back.
I got caught up in her lifestyle which was work, school, partying. Before Samantha, I never went to any parties. Yet there I was with my best friend partying it up every night. I lost my job, and my grades fell to the point that I lost funding for college. I was at home when the phone rang, and it was the disability agency letting me know that my GPA had fallen below the acceptable range for my funding and that if I wanted to continue, I’d either have to pay my own tuition or get my GPA score highter. This was a true turning point in my life.
I had a miscarriage at nineteen and gave birth to my first child at age twenty. Then every year for the next three years I had a child. In those same five years, Samantha had four kids as well and got married to her last two kids’ dad. Then she moved away from Florida to Texas; it started by her saying that they wre just going to see his family and they would be back. Weeks turned into months, which turned into a year.
I called her to ask if or when she was coming back. She told me that they were only coming back to pack up their things then leave again to stay in Texas. Once again I lost my only true friend who knows me as the real me.
Now I’m in prison looking back on all the things I went through with my best friend. I’m trying to locate all of the turning points in my life so I can trace how my life came to be here, sitting in prison with no family or friends by my side. The one person I thought would always be there isn’t.
I’ve learned that we have to live with all the mistakes we make with or without knowing that they are mistakes.
