A Friend
Bill peers down the stairs in stagnant horror as his mother answers the door.
He’d seen the neighbor kid – Frank – prancing towards the house from his bedroom window. And Bill had just known that kid spelled trouble; he never should have lent his comics out.
“Oh, hello. What is it, young man?”
Bill would have to put himself in danger of being spotted to see past his mother, but he can hear at least.
“Hello ma'am! My name’s Frank Brightman; my parents and sisters and I just moved in next door a bit ago.”
There’s a small pause, in which Bill assumes his mother is giving her usual nod of acknowledgement.
“My family’s havin’ a BBQ next Sunday. Blue house at the end of the street – please come by anytime after 12pm if you’re able!”
“Thank you Frank. I will let you know.” Bill feels a weird tightness in his chest. He can’t tell for sure, but he thinks his mother kind of sounds…impressed?
“Is your son home, by the way?”
His bubbling irritation fizzles into pure nerves, and Bill isn’t even sure what he’s so nervous about; he just feels exposed suddenly.
“Oh, how is it that you made my son’s acquaintance before mine?” His mother sounds mildly suspicious now, but not in a malicious way.
“Oh um, we met over there!” Bill watches his mother lean out the door and look to her left.
“At the church?”
“Uhh… yeah! We met the other Sunday, and he was nice enough to let me borrow his book, so I came by to return it.”
Bill’s mother is already turning around, summoning him from the entryway, “William, come down! You have a friend at the door!”
When he doesn’t answer immediately, she appears at the bottom of the stairs, arms crossed. “I see you lurking up there, come on! Don’t be rude.”
Bill huffs, sulking down the stairs. He wishes he were invisible.
Once he’s standing in the entryway, his mother finally leaves them be. Bill glances up at Frank expectantly, pressing his lips together. In response, Frank gives him a toothy grin.
“So, William , is it?”
Bill narrows his eyes, because Frank doesn’t need to be such a brat about it! He would have shared his name when he was ready to, he just… he isn’t sure if Frank can be trusted, that’s all!
“No. Don’tcall me that.” Bill has never felt this way before – like his name sounds wrong, somehow.
It seems silly and he doesn’t know how to explain it, but the feeling is strong enough that he can’t just ignore it.
“Oh?” Frank smiles at him, charmingly smug.
“Bill.” He says it quietly but assuredly.
“Bill,” Frank echoes, and his voice makes it real, “good to meet you.”
–
Instead of shaking hands (something he saw men do a lot on the tv,) Frank carefully holds out the Savage Starlight comic. “Thanks again, it’s one of the best issues yet!”
Blinking a couple times, Bill slowly reaches out and takes the comic from him.
“Page 16 is my favorite, if you ever give it a re-read!” Frank grins extra wide, hoping Bill will take the bait.
“William!” Bill’s mother barks from the kitchen. “Either invite yer friend in or say goodbye. You’re letting bugs in, leavin’ the door open!”
“Well, my ma’s expecting me for dinner so… see ya ‘round?” Frank offers, waving as he backs a few steps out of the doorway.
“Yeah. See ya ‘round.” Bill answers quickly and looks down. Frank swears he’d seen the hint of a smile.
“Maybe this weekend? At the BBQ – or at church, even!” Frank smirks, winks.
In response, Bill retreats and begins to close the door.
As Frank frolics away, he hears Bill blurt out, “For what it’s worth, you’re a garbage liar!”
And he giggles about it most of the back way home.
–
Once he’s shut and locked the door (he checks the lock three times, to be safe,) ” Bill scurries up the stairs to his bedroom.
Setting the comic book down on his bed, he peeks out the window and watches Frank dawdle home.
–
Just before he crosses over to his own yard, Frank turns to give the neighboring house one last look.
He thinks Bill wants to be his friend; at least, he’s pretty darn sure.
Maybe Bill just…doesn’t know how?
Frank’s mom talks about it from time to time – how some people know how to make friends and others don’t. And the people who don’t know how, they rely on the people who do in order to have friends.
She said their father hadn’t been very good at making friends, but she’s helped him out of his shell a bit.
Erika takes after their father. Mel is what mom calls a “switch-hitter;” she has bouts of outgoingness and shyness.
But Frank is a natural with people, just like his mother. He's usually great at making friends.
So maybe he and Bill can help each other out? It would be nice to know someone around his age before the new school year starts, after all.
The night before, after Frank had finished his third re-read of issue #9, Melody found him flopped over the couch, turning the comic book over in his hands.
“Frankie, you’ve been staring at that thing for like a week. They leave ya on a cliffhanger or somethin’?”
“No, ’s not that.”
“Well, what is it then?!”
Frank turned to his sister then, inquisitive but uncharacteristically cautious, “Mel, you wouldn’t let someone borrow your stuff unless you wanted to be friends…right?”
Melody had given him a weird look, “Well, yeah, I guess. I mean, I wouldn’t let anyone borrow my stuff unless we were already friends, ya know?”
Frank nodded - that made sense - but the way he’d pursed his lips tipped Melody off.
“What’s eatin’ you?” She’d plopped down right next to him on the couch, bonked her shoulder against his arm, “Did ya forget to give that comic back before we moved here?”
“No. I actually borrowed it from the neighbor boy.”
Melody looked excited then, prodding her brother for more details, “Oh, there’s other kids on this street! How old is he? What’s his name? Does he have siblings too?!”
Frank just shrugged and laughed a bit, “I don’t know, I think my age? Could be a little older… But, that’s the thing. He wouldn’t tell me his name or anything. Even though he let me borrow his comic.”
“Okay, that is odd. But… you can just ask him when you return it!” Melody smiled at him, tiny and mischievous – it’s a look their dad coined the ‘sassy-cat smile,’ since apparently Frank and Melody press their lips into that v-shape when they’re about to ‘get into trouble.' Erika says that the real reason dad doesn’t like it is on account of mom, who saves that type of smile for when she knows she’s won an argument. (But Frank and Melody aren’t supposed to repeat that.)
“Ya know what, I bet it’s a test! Like, to see if you actually want to be friends or if you just wanted to read his comic!”
Their dad isn’t quite wrong though. Because Frank had smiled right back and listened to his sister relay her master plan on how to ‘win’ the neighbor boy’s supposed friendship game.
Frank just hopes Mel’s plan works.
–
When Frank turns back towards the house, Bill is well out of his field of view. Even knowing this, Bill ducks beneath the window and only stands once he’s drawn the curtains.
He’s being ridiculous, which he also knows. But Bill isn’t really sure why he cares so much or why he’s acting so…
Is impulsively the right word?
Carelessly, maybe. Erratically, for sure!
Bill sighs and sits on his bed. He looks down at Savage Starlight , issue #9 .
In all honesty, he hadn’t actually expected Frank to return it; at least, not without some hassling.
Bill has two copies of every issue anyway – a ‘for-reading’ set in the treehouse and a ‘just-to-keep’ set in the room across the hall – so (he’d told himself) he wasn’t that worried.
Yet, the neighbor boy only kept it for a week and returned it today in seemingly-perfect condition.
Bill picks the comic book up, and checks the front and back covers. He runs his fingers over the thin spine and gently smooths out the corners of the individual pages. No new folds or creases.
On pages 16 and 17, he thinks he’s found an abnormality! But it just turns out to be a newspaper clipping, probably one Frank had been using as a bookmark.
Bill is about to throw the clipping away, when he notices a note at the top, scrawled in blue ballpoint pen:
hey nieghbor -
movies, my treat?
thanks again!
- Frank
Bill reads the note a couple times, taken aback. Only afterwards does he give the rest of the excerpt a once-over.
It’s the header of a newspaper, front page, snipped just before the article itself:
THE SUN
BALTIMORE, MONDAY, JULY 21, 1969
Armstrong Walks On The Moon
