Day 19: A Fun Memory

Back in the day, said day being 1992, I lived with The Pig (my nickname for him, him for me) in a duplex on Lower Greenville. Prospect Street to be exact. The house, like many in the area, before it became hip and cool, was an older home that had been literally cut in half to make it a duplex. The Pig and I lived in the front half (that faced Prospect.) Two sisters and a boy named Roy (who was the child of one of the sisters) lived in the back half which opened on the alley.

Roy used to come over and watch Double Dare on Nickelodeon with me in the evenings because his Mom went to some popular shit kicking bar/dance joint a lot of the time for Happy Hour. She was recently divorced from Roy's father and on the hunt for a man. His Aunt went to Sue Ellen's because she was not only Roy's Mom's sister, she was also a sister to Sappho. All of which left Roy, who was maybe 10, by himself from the time school got out until the evening which is why he'd come around to our pad and want to hang out with aboyanemdstu.

It's a testament to how much My Lovely Bride (we had just started seeing each other in a boyfriend / girlfriend sort of a way) liked that version of aboynamedstu, or how decent her judgement was, that she didn't run screaming from a 24 year old man who was unemployed at the time and spent evenings drinking beer and watching Double Dare on Nickelodeon with the ten year old neighbor boy named Roy.

I guess she saw through the creepiness and realized that I was simply keeping a lonley kid company (and often feeding him) while his Mom and Aunt did whatever they did at Cowboys or Sue Ellen's. The Pig and I even made up a song about the situation set to the tune of The Devil Went Down To Georgia that went like this:

Roy you rosin up your bow and play your fiddle hard
'Cos your Mama's down at Cowboy's in the backseat of a car.

I digress. As always. But since I'm off the track. Let me digress farther.

We didn't have a washer and dryer at the pad. So we took our wash to a little do it yourself laundry joint over on Oram Street that was run by a big black lady named Peaches. Seriously. A few years later, when I was gainfully employed, and doing some freelance for a friend that ran a local youth sports oriented magazine, I worked under the pseudonym Peaches Johnston so my main employer wouldn't know I was freelancing. I even ended up on his masthead to puff up his staff and people would call the magazine asking for Peaches. Awesome. Digression.

As I alluded, I was unemployed at the time. Roughly from mid February until May. This meant when I wasn't looking for a job, I had a lot of free time on my hands. It was truly the first real free time I'd had since I was a kid in the summer. Being an adult though, and relatively new to Dallas, I didn't do all that much with my time (The Pig worked evening and nights and had a new girl friend so was often gone.) I'd go out occasionally. Or sit on the couch that was on our kick-ass front porch. And I watched a lot of TV, some of which was with Roy.

After Roy went home and to bed (he was 10 after all and had school) I would walk the two blocks up to the 7-Eleven that was near the Wholefoods on Greenville Ave. and purchase a hoop d (read big ass beer in a paper sack.) I'd then make the return walk home and either drink my hoop d while lying on the driveway while I gazed at the stars. Or. On our big ass couch on the porch.

After I was done, It was nearly always close to 10pm so I'd go inside and I shit you not, watch thirtysomething reruns on Lifetime.

Which is my fun memory.

Until I BLOG again...Roy you rosin up your bow and play your fiddle hard, 'Cos your Mama's down at Cowboy's in the backseat of a car.