After that, we became very casual friends. He had his own small social group and I had my own even smaller one, and there was no real spillover between them. The school year ended and we didn’t see much of each other over the summer. When fifth grade started, we were in the same class again, and in Christmas 1975, everything changed.
Todd got Pong.
Pong was the most astounding revolution in entertainment of its time. For those not in the know, when you hooked up the Pong device to your television, a small white square would move back and forth across the screen. You did not control this square. You did, however, use the controllers to move the dashes that were on each side. You would use these dashes to block the path of the square, bouncing it back in your opponent’s direction, hoping that he or she would fuck up and fail to block its path, thus causing you to score a point. If this sounds like table tennis, that’s exactly what it was, except that you played it on your television set!
Todd invited me over to play Pong and I never wanted to leave. We’d play for hours. Our friendship grew with each exchange of trash talk. When we eventually got bored with Pong (unthinkable, I know) we continued to hang out almost every weekend. Though we still had other friends, Todd was always the first person I called if I wanted to socialize. Sometimes our parents would drop us off at each other’s houses, but if not, the bicycle ride was a hell of a lot faster than the walk.
When Todd’s family moved to the subdivision next to mine, we became inseparable. Our overall social standing, which had been adequate in elementary school, began to decline in junior high, but we were mostly okay with it. We still went to the school dances, we just didn’t, you know, dance. We talked about girls a lot, and Todd went on an actual date that led to a brief timeframe where he wasn’t sure if he had an actual girlfriend or not. (When he finally asked, she informed him that, no, he did not.)
Hanging out together, I got into less trouble and he got into more trouble. It was a nice balance.
We finished seventh grade in May 1979. We talked excitedly about starting eighth grade in the fall, and I vowed to get in shape by then. I’d put on enough weight that gym class had become something to dread each day.
Most of the summer was great. I did not get in shape.
At the end of May, a kid went missing. A sixth-grader. We didn’t know him. Todd and I lived out by the airport, and the kid lived on the other side of Fairbanks, up by Farmer’s Loop. Apparently he was a troubled child, and though nobody was ruling out an abduction, he’d most likely run away from home. When his parents were on television, they begged their son to come back, rather than pleading to the abductor for his safe return. It wasn’t the type of situation to make parents fear to let their children go out without adult supervision.
In early July, Todd and I had a fight.
It was not a huge fight. Nothing friendship-ending. The kind of fight we might not even bother to acknowledge the next day. I made a joke about his mother that didn’t land properly, he got pissed, and he no longer wanted to spend the night. He decided to walk home. It was one in the morning.
In most places, a thirteen-year-old would not be allowed to walk home alone at one in the morning, even in 1979. I would’ve woken up my parents, or he would’ve called his own to pick him up. But this was Fairbanks, Alaska. Land of the midnight sun. In July, the darkest time of night was like dusk anywhere else. And I lived in a safe neighborhood.
He left.
A couple of minutes later, I went after him.
Oh, it wasn’t to beg for forgiveness, or to make sure he made it home okay. I’m ashamed to admit that I was angry that he’d taken such great offense to my harmless joke about my desire to bang his mom, so my plan was to sneak ahead of him, jump out, and scare the crap out of him.
I brought my mouse mask. This was an unlicensed Mickey Mouse mask that looked less like the delightful Disney mascot and more like a nightmare plague rat that would gnaw off your lips while you slept. It had been a gift from my grandmother when I was eight, and I’d been too scared to wear it at Halloween. Once I’d gotten over my fear, around age eleven, the cheap plastic mask was taken out of the back of my closet and went to its new home on my floor.
I did not think that Todd would believe he was being attacked by Mickey Mouse’s rabid cousin. But jumping out at him in a mask would be scarier than jumping out at him with my regular face.
My neighborhood was a grid that was eight streets divided by three other streets, creating twenty-four blocks. The grid was surrounded on three sides by woods. If you knew the path your angry best friend was taking home, you could hop on your bicycle, quickly ride to the street parallel to the one your friend was taking, get far ahead of him, ditch the bike right before sneaking into the woods, and await his approach.
I did this.
I waited.
He came around the corner, a couple of blocks away. I put on the mask.
I hoped that after I leapt out at him, he’d punch me in the arm, we’d laugh, and our friendship would immediately revert back to where it had been ten minutes ago.
A silver car drove slowly past me.
It stopped next to Todd.
I watched, wondering what the driver wanted. At least I knew that Todd wasn’t stupid enough to get into a car with a stranger at one in the morning.
He walked over to the driver’s side door, apparently talking to the driver through an open window but keeping a safe distance.
Todd put his hand to his mouth.
Burst into tears.
What the hell was going on? What had the driver said to him?
Todd hurried around the front of the vehicle.
Did he know the driver?
He wasn’t...he wasn’t really getting in, was he?
The door opened and Todd got into the passenger side. I ran out onto the street as the car drove off. It turned at the next corner. I tried to remember the license plate number.
Had the driver seen me in his rearview mirror?
It was weird to be praying that Todd bursting into tears was because he’d been given actual terrible news and not that he’d been duped. What if his parents had been in an accident? What if they were dead? That was nightmarish but still better than the thought that he’d been kidnapped.
Not bothering to take off the mask, I jumped onto my bicycle and rode as fast as I possibly could. I wasn’t trying to catch up to the car, but if I pedaled like a madman and he didn’t take the most efficient route out of the neighborhood, I might be able to make our paths cross again.
My front tire wobbled, but I kept myself from falling off the bike. Todd’s life might depend on this.
I was already out of breath as I approached the street where I thought I might see the car again. I had no idea what I’d do if I reached it. I was so desperate to save my friend that I didn’t even consider that I might be putting myself in serious danger.
I could hear the car. I needed to go faster.
I wasn’t going to reach the street in time!
The car crossed the intersection. The driver’s side was facing me, and I saw the man behind the wheel. He glanced over and looked right at me.
The car screeched to a halt.
I knew the driver.
Not his name, but I’d seen him outside a couple of times, doing yard work. He lived in Todd’s subdivision, maybe seven or eight blocks away from him. He was pretty old, somewhere between my dad and my grandfather’s age, and he had a thick head of gray hair. He had a hard, unfriendly appearance, making me feel like I was trespassing when I walked past his house even though I was on the sidewalk.