I peered into the tomb of forgotten souls as I cautiously slid the closet door open. Menacing boxes full of neglected memorabilia leered at me as I slowly looked from one to the other, reading the various classifications written in bold black marker: IMPORTANT, REALLY IMPORTAN, KINDA IMPORTANT, EH, MAYBE IMPORTANT,… Finally, I came to it. DOCU-IMPORTANT. It was scribbled on a tattered, beaten-up red Nike shoe box located on the top shelf.

As I reached up to carefully take the injured box down, the casualty tore open, spilling it’s innards of discarded documents onto my upturned face. The small box sighed with relief at the expenditure.

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The memories aren’t always clear. They never are. It’s like a first person shot on a cheap video camera uploaded to You Tube… grainy, digitized yet still sharp with little jerky movements interspersed with slow pans.

In high school I had a friend… Jay. He was unique, confident… Jay was thin as in British rocker thin with dirty blond wavy hair in a conservative 80’s style. Cloths are a blur (insert your own jeans, tshirt or button down [untucked, please], nothing 80’s cliche, though), but not the shoes. He would switch between his canvashigh-tops or combat boots. And his car… makes and models generally leave my mind as quickly as they enter… a yellowed/tan station wagon. Older with some rust and possibly faux wood panels. Later, it changed… I vaguely recall something newer dark maroon, but that’s the car my memory always inserts. Jay could… would cruise down the streets weaving between the various clicks. He could talk to anyone and get along with most. Jay was the artist in school… drawings and I’m not sure what else. And when our lives intersected at the heaviest, he worked evenings/nights in a car wash making sure the machines all ran and the coin changer was full.

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