A boy named Kevin moved with his family to a California town. His family lived on the edge of the city. The streets were quiet and lined with locust trees. Kevin rode his bike on the streets around his house looking for friends. There weren't many kids his age around but there was Donna.
With all her make-up on Donna's mom looked like Elizabeth Taylor. Her mom took lots of drugs and Kevin knew one time when she sat on the sofa without moving except to light a cigarette for three days straight. Donna said she didn't even go to the bath room. One day Donna dared him to pull a street fire alarm and he did. His mother turned him in and after that he was not allowed to play with Donna.
He started exploring further from home. He rode his bike into the dry grassy hills around the town. One day he was sitting under a valley oak admiring the view when a bullet whined past him and hit the ground behind him in a puff of dust.
``Hey!'' he shouted indignantly.
That's how he met Myron.
Myron was twelve which was two years older than Kevin. Myron blamed Kevin for the near hit. He said Kevin had no business being where he was.
``No one is ever there,'' he said.
Myron was an adventurer. He and Kevin explored the drains that networked under the town. They trapped small animals and cut them open to see their insides. Myron dug out the stomach of a rabbit.
``See this?'' he said, ``this is a stomach. You got one I got one. Mine's got sores in it. Bleeding sores. The doctor says I'm his youngest bleeding ulcer patient. They cut my nerve - the rabbit's got one too, like a white thread - my vagus nerve. They cut it.'' He nodded his head and wiped his fingers on the dry grass.
The fast way to get into town was to cross the river on the railroad bridge. Kevin only did it once. It was too frightening to walk the ties with the river roaring far below. He felt the rumbling of the train coming when he was half way across. He liked to think he barely made it off the tracks before the train thundered by.
``You had all the time in the world,'' said Myron.
All Kevin knew was he'd wet his pants.
Kevin wasn't there when Myron fell from the bridge. He might have lived if he'd gone in the river, but he hit the rocks.
In the paper it said he was a troubled child.
Kevin just thought he was cool.