We ran laughing down our native block,
Jen, Jen and I.
Families known and friendships held. We were the best of friends, us three.
We sat on her mother's car, rust stains all unknown
and dreamt of our futures bright, the shadows to come untold.
We rambled on about the past, the adventures and the fears.
All the known terrors and excitement of an almost ten year old.

With the fading of the crisp autumn light
we would ride our no-speed bikes up and down the cement hill
until a call from up the block would come reaching to bring us home.
By now we knew where to ride to avoid the deep divot, where my brother fell.
The best branches to cling to, big enough to us, were our ladders up to the missiles
contained hanging from the old lady's chestnut tree. Green ones too soft and brown to prick.
Our world was our block and we had mastered it.

The future was something we called tomorrow and we never gave it too much thought.
After all, it would come no matter what, heedless of prayer or plea, on the dawn light.
But even then we wondered who we would be.
Best friends forever. Unknown to Jen and Jen but I, I was a vet.
I was the one who had the plans, the ideas and the dreams.
Dogs and cats would come, and I would be called to bring them home.
But even that fell short of the world in which I lived.

The soft ringing of the icecream truck echoed up the street, Mister Softee had arrived
making his last rounds before winter play came and ice was all too free to be found.
The gentle pipers call would bring us running, fee waving for attention.
He would disrupt all play for the serious business at hand.
Icecream! Buffalo Bill and rocket jets, Mickey Mouse Ears and Flying Saucers.
Serious business of the day falls back to be eaten at night, after dinner of course.
Our business was not run with greenbacks. No, bright flutters of Monopoly money on my lawn.

Through a gap in my black iron fence I saw the face of my customers. Jen and Jen. Sometimes David.
Normal money was so boring and bleak. Who would prefer it over the bright pink of fives?
Toys were bought with the green stuff. A dollar was a million.
But mom and dad would deal with most of that, a buck for washing the car and a quarter for allowance.
A trip to the toy store for the latest My Little Pony or the next Big Red.
Walter Farley and the Black Stallion, they ran to beat all comers.
Just give me my bright My Little Pony and I would run my own adventures with the Black.

Stuffed toys and Cabbage Patch Dolls, Xavier Roberts their dad, patients at my office.
The bed with the pink and white flowers a couch. The black and white mass of my cat was my secretary.
Little Lisa died, while Butterscotch went home with Greyfur, Cocoa, Cinnamon and the adopted Buttons.
Young Marie followed her friend, while Maria mourned and Snowball sorrowed.
The veterinarian office of my future, that's what I had then.
I would be twenty and invent the cure for death, have a big farm with lots of cats, dogs and horses.
My bedroom then was a mirror to my future, my grinning face with my purring cat just moments away.

Where I would be ten years from then, I had no idea. Childhood naivete survives still now.
The surety of my destiny is still in hand. I can still be that vet, with the pink and white flowered couch.
The black and white cat is no longer purring, but a larger black one is. But he'll stop soon too.
I don't know when, but before he can become my secretary.
I'll need some more school, and I can't invent the cure for death, but that's in the future.
Jen, Jen and I, we're no longer friends, and David, who is he?
I didn't know then, and I don't know now, what will the future be?

© 1997 kithan@mindspring.com

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