Boomer

          It was always a hot sunny day; the sun would beam on our thick, black, hair. IT was so hot that the concrete seemed to fade into water as you looked farther and farther down the road. Sitting on our front porch with nothing to do, we would wait impatiently to call Boomer. He loved to sleep in long after a decent hour. After our deliberation on the phone, Toni and I would run up to our Daddy, and anxiously ask him if we could go to Boomer’s house. Of course the answer was always yes., I mean, seriously, how could my Daddy say no to his two little girls? Toni and I would race to the stop sign at the end of the street to meet Boomer. We loved hanging out with our little brother. We always thought of him as our little bro, even though he had baby blue eyes and a blonde bowel cut, he was always considered one in the family. Once we reached the backyard of his house, all of us would then race to the bottom of their steep hill, Boomer always won. Occasionally, one of us would trip up and fall down the hill, but that didn’t stop us from reaching our destination. At the bottom of the hill, we would continue to run through the woods until we reached the sand, and by then we knew that we had made it our sanctuary, the creek. That murky, snake polluted water didn’t stop us at all from playing. Anything that could possibly pass through a creek did so in Boomer’s backyard. Of course from time to time, a snake would swim past as well as small fish and turtles, but other things that you would not typically see would also pass by. For instance one time Boomer felt something really soft brush past his leg when we were sitting on a log that fell across the creek and dangling our feet in the water. He turned around to see what had brushed against him and it was a dead little squirrel. Despite this story along with several others, the creek was our summer vacation, just the three of us; no one was allowed to be present unless they were invited by us.

          When is would rain outside, the three of us would carry our adventure into Boomer’s house. His house was the best play ground ever! In his room he had a spaceship that was 2 stories high, which could turn into a Pirate’s Ship. Throughout his whole house, there was hidden treasure. His third story balcony was an island that was surrounded by water, and the basement, the scariest place in the house, was a cave. Only his two older brothers, Mike and Josh, were brave enough to make the journey in and out of the cave daily. Our favorite place was on the pirate ship, no one else in the house knew it was our ship because for some odd reason our two-story ship looked like bunk beds, but that didn’t stop us from searching for treasure. The hot spot where we seemed to find everything was on the island. We had collected many little blue packages that had plastic coins inside them; we never opened them, though, because we were afraid that the money would lost its value. Soon after discovering this foreign money, we were no longer allowed to explore on the island because it was conquered by Boomer’s parents and we got caught for trespassing. Our least favorite destination was the cave; we would just watch Ninja Turtles or Captain Planet most of the time while down in the cave! Boomer, Toni, and I were inseparable. All of us would go to the river together, laser quest, and sometimes the beach together. But as time passed, our time together ceased. Once middle school began for Boomer and me, we began to experience something ‘weird’.

         Middle school showed us how different we were physically. One day while we were walking to class, some older kids thought it was funny because he was hold some of my textbooks and thought it should be the other way around. At the time I didn’t know what they were talking about, but later on, once at home it all came to me. The worst though was when I began to be teased and taunted for ‘wanting to be black’, at this phase in my life I still did not know what race was. It all became clear, when one day Boomer and I were getting off the bus and walking into school, when a group of black students (yes I remember who they were, names and faces) followed me to my locker ,Boomer was walking with me, and they were taunting me for wearing a FUBU hoodie because according to their standards I was trying so hard to be black. After that incident, our brotherhood/sisterhood ended. All of a sudden our spaceship was gone; the cave became his place to drink and smoke. He began to hangout with these ‘skater kids’ and began to skip school. Our sanctuary turned into his hideout spot, while we were supposed to be in school. He polluted our creek and turned it from our ‘Garden of Eden’ into a mine field, but instead of mines there were empty bottles of beer and broken glass.

          Last time I heard, he had turned his minor typical adolescent behavior into something more serious. He lost all of his baby fat, and bowl-cut blonde hair. His smoking habit evolved into more serious addictions, that white powder. Even though I know that Boomer is around here somewhere, I feel like I lost my best friend, my brother. He made Toni and I so close, and ever since he walked out of our life, we have never been the same. Boomer was the brother I always longed for and never had, I wish we could go back to the island and the cave sometimes and save him from the poison that has ruined his body and spirit.