Quotation.

"The Jewish neighbor had brothers. One of them spent his days chasing
cats with his prized bee bee gun and practicing some form of martial
art in the same smoky garage from which the girl I was in love with
emerged daily. My mom said he would grow up to be a serial killer. I
didn't think he was smart enough. The other made out with his
girlfriend on the front porch. Their parents were never home. My dad
said it was because they are Jewish. My dad says lots of things that
never made sense.

One day, probably because my mom made me, I climbed down the stairs
from my sanctuary and sat on the swing anchored hesitantly to the
cross beams of the white washed front porch which looked out of place
framing the front of the generic house. It would have looked more
appropriate on a plantation in the deep south centuries ago. But there
I was, enfolded by the shade, staring out towards a world I was
already afraid to touch. I reached into the pocket of my jean shorts
and recovered a bottle of nail polish. Balancing my feet on the
railing in front of me, I began to paint my toe nails the most awful
avocado color. I painted them seven times. I had a problem with
perfection. When I managed to break the concentration devoted to my
toenails, he was standing there.

"I see you up there"
He pointed towards my window, then paused.
"Watching me, watching everything."
I nodded.
"You aren't going to tell, are you?" He asked.
"Of course" I mumbled having no idea what he was talking about. But it
wasn't like I could tell him all the ways I have come up with to kill
him or about the sounds he makes when he breathes his final gasp of
breath or the words he sometimes said to me to make me stop. No, I
couldn't tell him any of that. Or how nothing he did outside of my
window really mattered.
"Of course not or of course you will" he demanded. Stepping closer to
the railing which divided our bodies.
"Depends. I want your brothers sword. The one his practices with".
A look of confusion took over his face. It was sprayed with freckles.
I had never noticed that.
"Not going to happen, kid".
He could tell that this made me angry.
Saying it was wholly unnecessary, but almost like a reflex, I sharply
replied "No I am not".
I thought he turned around to leave but he came around the side of the
porch and started to approach me instead. He sat close to me and the
swinging bench lurched to his side in response to the unbalanced
weight. I could not look him in the eyes, but his hot breath bore a
hole in the side of my neck. It burned and I liked it, I just didn't
know why.

"Lets take a walk" he suggested.
Anxious to escape his proximity, I leaped up and ran towards the lake.
Cutting through the thick woods, sunshine piercing through the
density, I glanced back to see him running to catch up with me. His
freckles now like a shadow, a darkness clouding his face. The long
brown hair falling into his eyes. I stopped just short of the waters
edge. Moments later he stood behind me.

"What the hell kid. You trying to lose me back there?"
I just glared back.
And then I smiled.
He was sort of cute.

I found my way to the ground and placed my feet into the water. My
shiny green toenails looked like some sort of toxic waste polluting
the water. My mom said there was actually toxic waste in the lake,
that after World War II, they threw artillery and who knows what else
into the pit of its watery stomach. There certainly weren't any fish

He still stood behind me. No longer speaking. We passed many moments
like this but it didn't matter, I was in another world. A world where
people suffer and then they die. When I looked back, he was gone and I
sat alone. The warmth of the day trapped in the loving arms of the
tree branches. The air was thick and heavy. It was the middle of
August. This was my jungle. I pulled my feet free from the water,
sandals still strapped properly, toes still dutifully green. I began
to wander along the lakes edge. It was getting dark and in the
distance I could hear mothers summoning their children to dinner."