My best friend Tank Foster lives five houses down. His parents are divorced. Tank never sees his mom. Nobody ever sees Tank’s mom. She’s a drug addict and lives somewhere in Detroit. I guess you could say she made it out of Blaine for all the wrong reasons. As for Tank’s father, Dale, he’s some kind of undercover cop. I admire Big Dale Foster because he’s the only adult male in the neighborhood who doesn’t work at the Michigan Avenue truck assembly plant that towers over our neighborhood like a giant prison guard tower. The man is hardly ever home, so we have the house to ourselves often. Nice.

Sarah, Tank’s fraternal twin, she’s seven minutes older, but their proximity in age doesn’t carry over into genetics. Physically and socially, she and Tank are total opposites. Tank’s incredibly strong and kind of psycho, always looking for fights and other insane ways to act out his violent urges. Despite his social popularity, however, he’s stupid and gets bad grades. I let him cheat off of me constantly, and I know he would have failed a grade or two without my services. Regardless, Tank’s grades aren’t a vital part of his BEP. But his body is. He’s been getting letters of interest from the most elite wrestling colleges in the country since he was a freshman. Barring some catastrophic physical injury as a senior, Tank Foster will definitely make it out of Blaine.

As for Sarah, now, she’s a genius, a bookworm with thick glasses and a set of braces that look like a roll of aluminum foil when she smiles. She has long, scraggly dark hair and wears these sundresses that remind me of wrinkly old ladies in Florida. Tank and I taunt her every chance we get, often breaking her to the point of tears. She spends most of her time avoiding us, but when it comes to her and guys, Tank’s obsessively overprotective of her and she knows it. He’s always telling me how happy he is that his twin sister is an ugly geek, because he fears he might kill any guy who asks her out.

Sarah Foster.

As of mid-June, she’s the last girl I expect to fall in love with.

So, on June 15th, the day after school lets out for summer, Tank and I walk the two blocks to Huey’s Party Store after lunch, a routine we’ve followed since middle school.

We’re about halfway there, talking about Maxim models, when I say, “Hey, I was channel surfing last night and saw Captain Rick on CNN.”

“Cool,” Tank says, squinting from the sun and wiping sweat from his brow. “Is he on that mission he was talking to us about?”