He only ever spoke to me in whispers, which was always funny: his other voice boomed like a thunder storm. People got knocked over, transfixed and off balanced when he talked to them. It's fitting that his words were thunder to them, and his judgments lightning, for his special voice for me was like the rain. At the darkest and muddiest moments in my life, a sentence could wash me clean. Other times, in deepest passion, or in the bitter melancholy of an August Sunday afternoon, those warm showers turned sulfurous. That acid rain hissing reacted with each of my lies and burned until I feared being left naked in judgment of some terrible deity. I knew he was sorry though, because he'd remember himself and rush to me, bathing us both in a torrent of the sweetest mountain mist. It's at times like this when I would look at him and forget how to breathe. Then I'd laugh as he stared at me, pretending to be scandalized but I knew he understood.
I don't know exactly who we were back then. I have these strange memories, that don't seem right though I know them true. We first met in Kindergarten in Ms. Tracy's class. It was the same all through grade school: friendship as only young kids can really do. He came to most of my birthday parties and I went to some of his. We played basketball at recess sometimes. Everyone's equal in naiveté. The world seemed so big then, but carefree. In Junior high we drifted apart. He went to Klammat for the first year and half of the second. When he changed to Union Mound I wondered if he recognized me. To my surprise he slipped into the social scene effortlessly. Before two months he was a vital member of the most popular click. I guess I assumed he would snub me. Even as we transitioned into high school, I had given up on him. I still watched him though, far closer than I would admit to myself. He grew to the hight of a giant. Freshman year was the most awkward thing for me. Stolen glances and brushes in the hall told that he hadn't missed a beat. His booming voice drifted though the halls. We didn't share any classes that term. No one seemed to notice that he was in the same math class as all of the future valedictorians. He had a power over people, even then, over teachers and nerds and cheerleaders.
In his blinding spotlight and my guilty scrutiny, I didn't see that he was watching me too from afar. Over the next three years, I settled into obscurity. The bland huddle together like rats so I had no shortage of fair weather friends. It was Sophomore year that he came back into my life. I had nearly forgotten him. But every once in a while, he'd come to my house. Those moments on the couch, watching T.V.; staring into space... We'd go months without a word, though he was always friendly. He was busy all the time. Then, after a month; two months; six months sometimes, we'd end up sitting on the couch again. A couple times I went to his place. His parents didn't know what to make of me. All of their other visitors were big and brawny, or animated and eloquent black boys. They just looked at me with confusion. I don't blame them: I was a scrawny white kid who barely spoke, sitting there dazed as little Ebony ran around with pigtails and the black Barbie doll knockoffs they sold at the Pridemart.
College... I don't know how I got in. Whatever they saw in me was uncanny however, as I turned into a straight-A student overnight. I became heady with the freedom of those stolen years. I rode tall until that fateful night. He was going to university on the other side of the city. It had been a year since graduation, and he'd spent the summer in Morocco. It was raining and thundering out, a real rarity in those parts. When I saw that huge black face underneath the hood, I stopped for a full minute. By the morning we were set in stone, inseparable. After that, I'm only myself. But that night, I'll remember that night until I die.
