“Someone’s knocking at the door, you should go answer it.” My mother said with her usual calm tone of voice from the kitchen.

Pausing the game I was playing, I put down my controller and picked myself up from the brown carpeted floor where I was sitting in front of the television. Ken was in mid-high kick and Blanka was covering his face to guard from the attack. “Okay.” I replied.

The journey to the door was short but on the way there, I managed to pull out the bunched areas where my shorts had come together around my lower half and straighten my shirt that was beginning to get a little tight around the shoulders.

I opened the door and saw my friend Jonathan there. His hair was black and hanged close to his eyes and wore a red shirt and blue jeans. He was my age so we hung out a lot. “Hey, want to go ride bikes?” He asked excitedly.

Jonathan had gotten a new Schwinn bicycle for Christmas and was still excited to ride it six months later. It was dark gray with black letters and now rough worn tires. He rode the hell out of it busting 3 sets of tires since he first got it.

“Yeah! Let me go ask my mom!” I said feeling the infection of Jonathan’s excitement come over me.

I ran through the living taking a hard left into the kitchen and found my mom washing dishes. I came to a stop as my mom was in the process of saying, “Stop running.”

“Sorry, can I go ride bikes with Jonathan?” I asked barely containing my excitement.

“I thought you were playing your video game.” She responded. “You just got it yesterday.”

“I know but I can play that anytime.”

She turned her head away from the dishes and looked at me. “I don’t think it’s a good idea right now. We’re supposed to be going to your grandma’s when your dad gets home and I don’t want you getting all dirty.”

I immediately felt my excitement drop, after all, I liked it when Jonathan would let me ride his bike too. It was a lot faster than mine was.

“Aww man! Please mom!” I begged. “I won’t get dirty! I swear!”

“No Franklin, why don’t you guys play your game? You can do two players on it.” She responded.

“But mom!” I continued.

“I said no.” Her body was now completely turned in my direction.

“Alright…” I turned around with my head down in dejection and walked back to the door to see Jonathan already on his bike riding around in circles in my front yard.

“You coming?!” he yelled.

“My mom said I can’t because we have to go to my grandma’s house soon.”

He stopped where he was in his infinite loop and a look of disappointment came across his face. “Oh… That sucks…”

“Yeah… You want to come play Street Fighter? I just got it yesterday and this one has more characters than the other one. There’s a guy that looks like Bruce Lee and has fire punches!” I said trying to get him excited.

“That’s cool. Maybe some other time, I think I’ll go see what Tom is doing. I want to try and jump that ramp that my dad built for me again. I’m pretty sure I can do it this time.” Jonathan and his dad lived two streets over from me. You could get there pretty quick if you went through Mr. McCaffery’s yard and the small area of woods behind his house. Then it was just another person’s yard and their house was on the opposite side. I found this out when he invited me to come hang out after school last week and saw where he got off from our bus.

It was just Jonathan and his dad at their house, he never knew his mom. I think that maybe that’s why he always acts kind of funny around mine. That’s okay though, he was still really cool and his dad was super awesome and funny too. They had a dog named Oscar who was an all-black Lab with white on his chest and he was really nice too but sometimes he makes it hard to climb over their fence when he sees me coming.

“Oh, okay. Well maybe we can hang out tomorrow?” I questioned.

“Yeah, sure. We can ride over to the railroad tracks and look for lizards.” He really liked lizards.

“Okay. See you tomorrow!” I said.

“Later!” he responded. Turning his bike toward the road, he pumped up and down on the pedals and disappeared out of sight.

I went back inside to continue playing my game and wait for my dad to get home.

About 45 minutes later, my dad walked in the front door and dropped his keys on the end table next to the sofa. I was still playing Street Fighter. “Hey kiddo.” He said.

“Hey dad.” I greeted, not turning away from the screen.

“How’s the game? You beat it yet?” He asked.

“Not yet, the computer is really hard. I beat like four guys but then you get to this guy here, Dhalsim, and he can stretch his arms and legs really far and hit you from across the screen! Plus he shoots fireballs out of his mouth! That guy sucks!” I complained mashing the buttons fast.

My dad chuckled, “Alright, well let me go talk to your mom real quick but I have something I want to tell you, so why don’t you finish up that match and come into the kitchen when I call you, okay?”

I was confused at this, “Oh… Okay, did I do something bad?”

“Oh no! Not at all. Just something I need to tell you…”

He walked into the kitchen and I paused the game to watch him go. He turned back to look at me just before he went out of sight and gave a sad smile. I was starting to get worried but I continued to play my game. I could hear the controller of the Super Nintendo creaking as I squeezed and tapped hard on the buttons, making Guile jump and punch and block. I watched as my health bar shortened from the blows that the computer was dealing out with Dhalsim’s attacks. But I finally got the upper hand when I caught him with a really cool move where Guile does a backflip and kicks the other guy right in the chin. He was in the corner now and I just kept punching him over and over again until finally our health bars were even. If he got me with one more hit, it would be over and I would have to try again.

All of a sudden, I heard a plate break and I looked toward the kitchen. Distracted, Dhalsim managed to get in that one hit and knock me out. Getting up to go toward the sound of the shattering plate, I could hear the narrator say, “You lose” while elephants screech in the background. I found that I didn’t really care because I wanted to find out what was going on.

Rounding the corner, I see my mom grabbing a broom and dustpan from the pantry. She looked at me and began to cry.

“What happened?” I asked.

“It’s okay, your mom accidentally dropped a plate. That’s all.” Dad responded. “Let’s go sit at the table because your mom and I have something to tell you. Okay?”

Walking over to the table, I watched my mom sweep up the broken bits of ceramic with tears dripping down her face.

“Dad, what’s going on?” I said pulling out my chair. I could feel myself getting more and more frustrated with not being told right away. Obviously whatever I wasn’t being told was more important than I had been led to believe.

“Let’s wait for your mom to come over, okay?” He bargained, sitting down at the end of the table.

My dad was a man of authority. We had a very traditional type of family. He worked at an office and my mom stayed home and took care of things around the house. They were both pretty happy with their lives. Dad would get frustrated sometimes with work but he always did his best to leave his problems there and not bring it around to take out on us. Not like his dad did.

“I’m coming.” Mom said as she walked toward the trashcan, setting down the broom next to it and emptying the contents of the dustpan.

She sat down on the other side of me and took my hand.

“Okay…” Dad started. “I know that you and Jonathan have been hanging out a lot lately and riding around the neighborhood, but I think that maybe you should keep your bike in the garage for a little while.”

“What? Why?” I asked, feeling that the request was totally without reason.

“On my way home today…” He paused and I could feel my mom’s grasp tighten, “On my way home, I saw an ambulance picking up a body off the road in one of those black bags. There were cop cars all around to block off the area. So I stopped the car and got out to ask the Policeman what happened. He told me that a boy had been hit by a car and that they were searching for the boy’s parents. I told him that I lived in the neighborhood and that maybe I knew who the child was. After a minute or two, he took me over to the ambulance…”

At this point, my dad did something I had never seen him do. As kids, we all think that our dads are like machines. They don’t show any emotion. But things were changing. My eyes were opening and I could see that, for the first time in my young life, my dad was crying.

Grabbing my other hand, he looked directly in my eyes and continued.

“I’m so sorry, son… Jonathan died today.”

I felt my heart begin to jump up and down in my chest. I searched from eye to eye, waiting for him to tell me that it was just some kind of awful joke so I could be mad at him instead of feeling like this. Like my back was about to rip open from the incredible amount air that I was sucking in as the floodgates in my eyes began to open up and the water was let to flow like a raging river of heartache. I lunged forward to my father and let him hug me, needing to feel his warmth. Needing to get something back from what I had just lost. I wanted it back. I wanted Jonathan back… I still want Jonathan back…

We all sat around the table crying for what felt like an eternity. Finally, I pulled my face back from my father’s chest. His button-down shirt was soaked with my tears and I asked if his dad knew what happened.

“Yes, the police are with him right now so that they can tell him and take care of any arrangements that need to be made. If you want, we can go see him. But not today. He needs time to deal with everything first, okay?” Dad said, calming himself down and wiping away his remaining tears.

“Can I be alone for a little while?” I asked.

“Sure, son. You want to go to your room?” Mom asked.

“No, I’ll be in the back yard.”

“Okay, just don’t go anywhere right now, alright?” She bargained.

“Okay.”

I got up and walked to the sliding glass door that led to the backyard and looked at the ground. There was more dirt than grass in the yard. For some reason, it just didn’t grow very well here. Feeling the breeze on my face, I wiped away the puffiness from my cheeks and looked to the sky, the sun was about to start coming down for the day. It hung there, burning, continuously. It would always be there, even after I go. There’s nothing that I could do about that. I thought about Jonathan and how we’d met at the cafeteria during lunch. I didn’t have anywhere to sit but he was with a group of friends and they saw me and asked if I wanted to sit with them, so I did. He was always happy and I’ll always remember that. I miss you Jonathan and I’ll always think of you. Everyday.