It was Jeff ’s father who granted my parents the loan that would gnaw at them for the rest of their days, and in an indirect way, it would gnaw at me as well. And while I concede that Jeff ’s dad was a decent man who helped my parents out of a serious bind, I recall a time—years later when I was in the fifth or sixth grade—when Jeff asked me in front of a group of kids if my parents were ever going to stop being hillbilly lowlifes and pay their mortgage on time, or if they always planned on being a month behind. Everybody laughed and my face burned with embarrassment. That was the first time I wanted to hit him, but I didn’t, and merely shrugged and feigned laughter with everyone else, trying to show levity in light of my parents’ inability to manage money, regardless of how little of it they had.

Remembering back to my parents’ indigence led me to count all of the money I had left, which came to eighty-one dollars, an amount I had to make last for the next eight days. I felt confident doing so for the simple reason that I had no other choice.

For Thanksgiving dinner I made two peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches and washed them down with a glass of milk. I was feeling lonely and a little down and tried opening Jeff’s bedroom door with a butter knife to get to his liquor. It wouldn’t budge. I gave up and went back to the sofa and resumed watching football in high definition with the surround sound cranked up, both of which were luxuries I’d always done without. Yet one more example of something Jeff had that I did not.

3

Before Jeff returned, to ease the tension between us, I spent three hours cleaning every nook and corner of his apartment. Dusting every surface. Polishing every object. Though the place was in perpetual sheen already, after I was done it looked even cleaner, smelling as fresh as springtime tulips. A sparkling gem that even the most obdurate obsessive compulsive would be happy to come home to.

I had just stepped out of the shower and stood in the hallway when he walked in. I was in jeans and an old wrestling T-shirt. It was black, and on it our high school’s name written in gold lettering encircled a pirate’s head with a sword clenched between its teeth. Jeff looked at me, lowered his gaze until it fell on the pirate in the center, and snickered. He then shook his head and walked into his bedroom and shut the door. I had the urge to kick through it and ask him what the hell was so funny. Instead I left the apartment.