The Picnic Table

It was a little bit rough growing up, through out elementary school I wasn't just short, but I was the shortest of everyone, the entire class, and the classes below us, and of course the classes above us. It got my teased a lot, but I mean, kids will do that, they pick on each other, it's what they do in second grade. I was shy because of it, little self esteem, but that's fine, we all had our issues right? I did have a friend though I got to talk to when things went wrong, or things were alright, or just in general, he was a decent guy and my parents never minded him, he left my alone, things never got weird or inappropriate, he would just let me ramble on and on about my day. He'd give me advice, albeit not the best advice all the time but we aren't all perfect.
As second grade went on there was a kid who started "dating" my friend who I had a crush on, but you know we're stupid kids so it really doesn't count for anything, but the day it started I was a little bit bothered so it was nice to go home and talk to my friend about it. I walked home in a slump, my head hung low because I'd lost my chance with the love of my life!! Or so I told myself, because I was an 8 year old schmuck, and everything was over the top to me. I got home, tossed my backpack next to the door, said hi to my mom and grabbed myself a drink from the fridge. Sure enough when I looked out the back window my pal was sitting at the picnic table we had set up next to the pool and gave me a wave with a big ol' grin on his face.
I headed out to the backyard and sat down across from him, he was a little bit of an older guy, older than my parents but not by much, and he dressed pretty nicely, almost like a suit but not too fancy like he was going to a dinner a bit later. I gave him the run down how tragic it was the girl I'm in love with is dating the taller boy in class and it just wasn't fair, he kept a stern but empathetic look on his face and i rambled on and on until I had run out of breath and he told me calmly. "You don't need to worry about that right now, girls your age will give you cooties, and then you have to tell your parents and they have to take you in to the doctors and that's expensive. You'll find someone better when you're older and it'll work out, don't beat yourself up." It made sense to me, so we sat there for a little bit longer and he told me stories of his family, his younger son who went through the same thing, and his daughters as well.
He talked about them quite often, his son was my age and he always said I should meet them sometime, we would hit it off great, but he never brought his son around, and his girls they were teenagers at this point so they don't want to hang around little kids. He was always there for me though, and it was a nice feeling, I had a brother who was five years older than me, and he used to be a major jerk, picking on me, making fun of me, but that's brotherly stuff, that's what they do. Eventually though he got into a gang and they took priority over the family so he didn't even pick on me, he just wasn't there. It hurt, but my buddy was always there, he told me to be careful though, when he used to be a cop he saw a lot of people get hurt because they got involved in gangs. My parents did get a bit concerned, I was understanding things a bit too well for someone my age, they didn't think I should know what drugs were, what gang violence was, who the Latin Kings and GD's and the Familia Stones were.
They called the school, livid saying one of the students was teaching me stuff they shouldn't be and they wanted to know who it was, so the teacher had to go to my parents and explain there was no one in the class who talked to me about that stuff, or anything for the most part I was so shy I didn't have any friends really. They grounded me, told me not to go outside to ride my bike or hang out with my brother, and no gameboy so there goes all of my interests, but that's fine I could still go out back to that picnic table and talk to my friend, and that's when it clicked for my parents, so they thought. I had an imaginary friend, but I watched too much TV so i just picked up everything from these shows I'm not supposed to watch like Oz, and the Sopranos, and everything on HBO that no kid had no business watching, except I wasn't watching them. This went on for weeks with my parents getting mad, and he would tell me he wasn't imaginary, I'm not crazy, nothing is wrong with my head.
Eventually my parents got fed up, they didn't want me having my friend as an excuse to getting in trouble, I was grounded from TV that I never even watched. I told him my parents were mad, and I was in trouble, and I didn't know what to do and he stayed quiet for a bit and told me that they wouldn't be mad if I told them the truth. He had me go get a piece of paper and write a number on it and bring it to my parents, so I did just that and brought it to them and they told me to say goodbye to my friend, and you can't talk to him anymore. My mom started crying, my dad didn't understand until she went and gave my grandpa Terry a call and told him everything that had been going on and how I've been acting out. He came over immediately, gave my mom a hug and went straight to me and gave me the longest hug I've ever gotten. He was obviously rattled but he sat down next to me and held a framed picture from before he retired as an officer. Sure enough there was the man standing next to him, it was his best friend who graduated with him and had worked at the same precinct for 17 years with him. My grandpa told me all about him, his name was Cody, he had beautiful kids, served his time, he had gotten lung cancer and never recovered and passed away. I didn't understand, none of this made sense to me, that was my friend, he helped me when I had problems.
I looked out the back window, and he was still sitting at the picnic table. He gave me a wave, the same expression on his face, my grandpa told me they were his dress blues he was buried in and that's what he was wearing. I told my grandpa Terry about him still sitting there, he didn't see anyone there but he went out back anyways and sat down, directly across from Cody and just cried. It was only a few minutes but it felt like forever seeing him cry like that, and how much he was hurting and the only thing I could think to do was walk out back and hug him. Cody told me to tell him it was okay, and thank you. As soon as I did he gave us a smile and walked around the side of the house and left. I never saw him again, but I did get to go meet his son, he was much older than he told me though, he was fifteen, but I got to hear a bit more about his life. It was fascinating, but I sure as hell miss my friend at the Picnic Table.


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