Book 1 Excerpt Page

BOOK EXCERPT, "MY FRIEND MY HERO"

One

It's a warm mid-August day. The sun is shedding its light with 3 o'clock brightness over Fourth Street Playground. Kirby sits, clad in his three-piece suit, white shirt and yellow tie, watching his two sons, eight-year-old Junior and seven-year-old Bennie, nearly have a Cain and Abel situation, while playing hoops. "Knock it off, you two...play fair!"
"Yes, Daddy," Junior answers. "We're sorry."
Sensing an ease in tension, Kirby sits back to relax, only to be interrupted by his old high school buddy, Dexter.
"How've you been, Kirb? Haven't seen you in weeks."
"Oh, I've been taken it easy."
"Took the afternoon off?"
"Yeah, it's the weekend, wanted to get an early start. Besides," Kirby says with a laugh, "Kathy needed a break."
"Aw, she loves it," Dex said. "Say man, when you gonna shave that stuff off your face?"
"Shave! It took me 28 years to grow this. You remember how I was back then. I wasn't but a buck fifty, soaked and wet; had that bowl haircut, and wore those ugly, goofy lookin' glasses. I've got to enhance that image, man. Everytime I see those old pictures, I cringe."
"I hear that."
"So, Mr. Brick Mason, how soon before that building on Columbus Avenue is finished?"
"I don't know," Dex said with a trace of frustration in his voice. "Every time we get to a point of finalizing, we get heavy rains...Man, these projects sure ain't the same, since we lived in them."
"I know...You know something else?" Kirby said, his voice sounding a bit sorrowful. "Monday will be ten years."
Dex took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Yeah, I know, '73. Seems like only yesterday."
"I can't believe Bennett's gone."
"I can't, either," Dex resumed the sigh.
"I remember that awful day like a book. I'll never get that waiting room out of my mind," Kirby murmured, trying to hold back the tears. "Two drunks arguing over who had the most money and neither looked to have more than a dime. That clock on that paint-chipped wall was 20 minutes slow, and the cushioned chairs had holes the size of my fist."
"Kirb, you really remember all that, too?"
"I bet if we were to go back there, we'd see those same two drunks, that same clock ticking too slow, and those same raggedy chairs."
"Don't forget the ugly receptionist," Dex said.
"With the deep voice!" The two men yelled.
"It was just like the twilight zone." Kirby continued. "I can still remember that feeling of forgetfulness, a feeling of where-am-I, what-am-I-doing-here, sitting between the two girls, Kathy and Tara."
"Daddy! Look at this shot!" Bennie shouted.
"Very good, Son," Kirby called, clapping his hands. He settled back onto the bench and thought.
Bennett, I wish you were still here. Boy, do I miss you. The times we had in this park. I wish you could see my boys, how they're growing. Every day they do something that reminds me of us. Wow! What friendship we had! We fought together, we fought with one another and we learned so much from one another. More important, we were always there for one another. What a time we had at those basketball games.