Sherwood Forest

Rick

When you grow up in a trailer park you are raised by women, for the most part. I knew very few kids whose fathers lived with them, and I have never met a single dad in my life.

So I have always been more comfortable around women than men. I think most of my friends felt the same way. That's why it took so long for us to become friends.

The first male friend I made was Richard. Rick lived on Black Oak behind me, on the corner of a side street, almost to the center of the park.

I met Rick at a garage sale that he was having. He was selling some of his old comics. He was a strict Jack Kirby guy, and I was Stan Lee all the way. So we had that going against us right out of the gate. Also he kept his comics in bags with backboards to keep them straight, which I thought was kind of lame.

We both had to act tough for the other, to make a hard first impression. I bought some comics, and my total came to 95 cents. He didn't have change for a dollar, so I told him to keep the nickel.

"Oh, thanks a lot," he said sarcastically.

"Whatever, dude," I answered, and went back home with my new comics.

We had a mail house at the entrance to our park where we would wait for the school bus. I would see Rick there, but we both pretty much avoided each other for the first couple of months.

Then one day he saw me reading "Carrie" by Stephen King. "Carrie" was my favorite book at the time, and would only be replaced by "Salem's Lot", which would in turn be replaced by "The Stand".

"Stephen King is cool," Rick said to me. "Have you read any of his other books?"

Now I have known I wanted to be a writer since I was a kid, and Stephen King was definitely my hero. But the crazy thing was, back then I thought a writer wrote one book and was done with it. I saw "Salem's Lot" at the bookstore with "from the author of 'Carrie'" on it. But I figured King was just that good, to get a second book out. It never occurred to me that there would be more after that.

"I'm reading 'Fire Starter' now," Rick told me. "It has a really cool cover. I want to get a van, and paint that cover on the side."

We were friends after that, and have been friends ever since.