Backyards

[Beau]

Please don't respond:


Is the category ?Vietnam Era Veteran? or a Korean Veteran during the Cold War --- Mike served in Korea as an Army mail clerk in the late 60s --- probably had a good time, knowing Mike.
I may go visit them in the near future, his old parents up in the Gold Country .... although i have not seen him in about 23 years, and he was far too much the heavy drinker for me.... still, there were eternal days of running in and out of each others houses, of fights and girls and backyard tenting under the stars: Ginger, his dog forever and certainly the clock sweeping across the night sky can not un-happen our crouching behind cars to catch the future queen of the ball, Carol Vangundia --- just to catch a glimpse of her crossing her Living Room window was the wish. bike rides forever at night and day ... endless crossings of the same streets and side streets .... and Trick or Treat Halloweens. The innocence?s of boys to dumb to trade with coins --- daring to ask the lady, at the now long gone corner cafe "Honest Injun" for a glass of water .... Monstrous time moving one week in a few hours, of public swimming pools and who could cross the length of it with one breath... I think a hundred trees were climbed, and too many 6 mile treks up and over green or yellow California hills, to Arroyo Park (now vanished to a Dam) --- slogging through rock and bouldered creek ? skipping flat rocks and catching Water Snakes, water turtles ?. Spitting out the minnows we burned, and a hundred times we threw knives between each others legs: who could stick nearest the feet to see who would ?chicken

High School: it turned less agreeable to me, the sneaking booze out of the old man's bottles and refilling them with water... time stood still... like the pointless cruising of Main Street: hour after pointless hour. It was pointless to me anyway. .? And on and on it went --- you boys know the deal, up until high school graduation, then different maps get followed.

We had trips to the Sierras as boys in his parent?s vehicle. We had a trip to ?Mustang Ranch? in mine in our late twenties --- Mike in the back seat ?popping beers like pills? (roommate, Fred Casias) .... I tired of going to pick him up at bars, after getting a phone call from him, when he was too drunk to drive --- he lacked a certain sensitivity that I would not necessarily feel that it was no big deal to deal with his life style..

I had not seen him for some 23 years and I kinda suspected that he would die young. Today my wife told me that the newspaper said he died on May 31. They got it wrong, we are still frozen with drops of blood squeezing out of our arms --- sitting on the cement on the side of his house --- mixing our blood as brothers, and playing chicken with steel points.

His aging parents lost their youngest boy: ?It is strange? said his father. I don?t think so. And Mike, say ?hey? to me step father Andy Sivila --- remember the bullet hole in his back that we saw when he would go shirtless in the summer, mowing his precious lawn ?

Your boyhood friend anyway, Beau