We lived in Colony Park, NC, just outside of Durham, bible-belt stuff. My address was 14 RR5 , Colony Park. The “RRâ€? was short for “Rural Routeâ€?, that’s what they’d call roads that didn’t have a real name like Main Street or Elm Street….

I hadn’t seen or heard from Jeff in over 20 years so when he pulled up to my house last week it was bit of a shocker. He’d gained a lot of weight and was going bald, not grey, just bald. He had tattoo’s all over his forearms and neck and barely resembled the skinny kid from Colony Park. He greeted me at the door stubbing out his cigarette on the front step. I didn’t know who he was at first, then he smiled and a finally saw him, he gave me a bear-hug and I invited him in. It was surreal at first. I don’t think Jeff and I ever had any sort of physical contact so this was new to me, comforting, almost kind of warm.

I poured us a couple of lemonade’s and we moved to the front porch. I didn’t know why he was here and I didn’t care, it was just nice to see him free again.