Sunday Afternoon Nostalgia

When I was 12, I had a pretty exclusive group of friends on my block. They weren't the most reliable friends, and definitely not the nicest, but they were mine. And somewhere beneath their arrogance and jackass behavior, they had respect for me. There were five of us: three girls, two boys. When I moved onto the block, there were two other, older girls who ran the roost. Upon my arrival, for some reason, me and the others...we just clicked. I'm certain it was my "I really don't like to argue" attitude; whatever they suggested, I went along with. As a result, the older girls hated me and therefore ostracized the group as a whole, since they chose me. Being as young as I was, then, I didn't understand what exactly was happening. But whatever. They were older girls; they should've had older friends anyway.

Of the three girls, two of us were childhood friends...which, I learned, wasn't a good thing. They were friends...who constantly fought. Terri was the bully, and Vivian was the one who always ended up with the hurt feelings. And when she went home with the hurt feelings, her mother sent her right back outside to fight her battles. On the surface, it's great to encourage your kid to fight for her integrity. However, since I'm one to avoid confrontations, I was always on the outside, watching them argue/fight, trying in my own way to dissolve the problem, but not wanting to be included. This caused issues with Vivian's mother, who felt that, as her friend, I should have been defending her. I should have jumped in, called my other friend on her bullshit about a problem I'm not even certain from whence it came, and defend...forget it, it wasn't my problem.


One weekend, I went over to my grandmothers to visit my cousins who were in town. My next door neighbors, a family with literally 10 tenants on any given day, also had out-of-town visitors. When I returned that Saturday evening, my friends were all outside my house. Well, not exactly outside the house...more like that patch of land in-between the two houses, where they could loiter without actually impeding on anyone's property. I put my things away and came out to join them. Terri was more than happy to see me, as she had some gossip to share. Vivian was nearby, talking to one of our other friends. Terri promptly informed me of the get-together/breakup that happened in the span of a few hours.

Apparently, the visitors next door brought with them a 13-yr-old jerk of a cousin to visit and Vivian was very much attracted to him. But this guy wasn't having any of it. Plus, you know, he was just visiting. Later in the day, the group went up to the local restaurant to get some food. They came back and asked Jerk Boy to sit with them. Noticing that Vivian had some tasty chicken, he suddenly became very interested in her. Thus, began a "relationship" based on chicken. Afterwards, Vivian brought her bike out because he asked if he could ride it. So the relationship grew because of a bicycle. Noticing that some random boy was riding her bike, Vivian's mother made her bring the bike back in the house, ending the relationship. He soon started dissing her, ignoring her, and bragging to people that he used her for chicken and a ride on the bike.

A real jerk, right?

This amused Terri immensely. Of course, Vivian was embarrassed and a little pissed that her so-called friend was laughing at her. So Vivian shared a few choice words with Terri. Here's what you need to know about Terri: words don't affect her. I learned that early on. You could call her a bastard, a bitch, a skank...she'd laugh at you and call you something ten times worse, to the point that all you want to do is fight her, which is essentially what she's looking for: a fight. And that's the point she pushed Vivian to. With the words bouncing off of her like bullets on a brick wall, Vivian threatened to punch her if she didn't stop...to which Terri responded: "try it."

I interjected, telling Terri to leave her alone, but it was too little too late: "no. she's just upset because that boy played her and now she feels stupid. she's so stupid."

And that's when Vivian shoved her. And that's when Terri pinned her to the ground and started to beat her up. And what did I do? I just stood there. Yeah, pretty shitty, but I'd been down this road before: they'd argue, fight, and be the best of friends the next day, after a cooling off period. Terri didn't have too many other friends because too many people were afraid of her. Vivian didn't have many other friends because she wasn't permitted to leave the block unless I did (her mother trusted me with her life, for some reason). I didn't have friends off the block because I had no reason to leave the block. I didn't go to the neighborhood school, so I had no reason to go anywhere else besides my front porch or the bus stop to get out of the neighborhood. We were all lacking in social skills, which made us perfect for each other.

Anyhow, our two guy friends, one of them being Terri's brother, came out, egging them on, encouraging the fight, as most 12-yr-old boys are known to do. Seconds later, Vivian's mother comes running out of the house, yelling for them to stop. She pulls Vivian from the ground, yelling at Terri about how friends shouldn't be fighting each other...and then at me about how I'm supposed to help her daughter in the fight. I responded with, "it didn't involve me." She replied, "you're her friend. it should involve you." And mother and daughter went back home, across the street, and she didn't come back out for the rest of the day. Her mother grounded her. Terri's grandmother, having also seen the fight, gave her a "punishment" of sorts also: she confined her to their front porch (which lasted all of about 20 minutes before she ended up on my front porch, since Terri didn't take punishments too well).

After a few days on punishment and some awkward regrouping time, the volitle twosome were friends again, as it always worked out. From that day forward, however, I was no longer in good with Vivian's mother.

But despite the fights and arguments and insults, we all depending on each other. We bought matching shoes, pooled money together for pizza, defended each other when people outside of the group were looking for a fight (which is another loooong story that involves me being the subject of someone's ire) and sat huddled under a blanket on the porch of an abandoned house when it was raining. And we even shared in the pain of getting played for chicken and a bike ride, no matter how funny it was to some of us.