I have a friend. He is smaller than I am but he said it is because the world is too hard to live in, and if he is small, people will forget him. I think that is silly. If everyone forgets you then you won’t have anyone to talk to. His name is Sam.
I am small too. My pop was bigger than me. He is gone now, but sometimes I like to pretend that he is still here. Sometimes, I hear him when I am at home and we talk about Mama and my new uncle Larry who lives in Mama’s room. I never see my pop anymore, so when I hear him we talk a lot. Mama gets mad and tells me to ignore it, but I like my pop better than her so I keep talking.
I talk to Sam. He is small and a good swimmer, and doesn’t dress like I do. He likes orange but I don’t. I like black because black means dying and dying doesn’t seem so bad. If there is something after you die then why is Mama so scared of dying? I asked her why she didn’t want to die and she hit me with her hair dryer. I was okay. My pop told me I was okay. So I was.
I was not supposed to buy my new friend. My new uncle Larry doesn’t like when I have my friends come over. They go away soon and I don’t know where they go, so this friend will be my secret. He talks a lot. His voice is funny because it always sounds like he is shouting from far away. He isn’t far away because he is just in my room with me but maybe his voice is small too so he has to holler. He curses sometimes. I accidently bumped his house when I put him on my desk and he said ‘goddammit’.
My pop says that when I tell him that Mama hit me with her hair dryer and I don’t know why because I am always okay except for when it is hot and leaves a sting on my arm. I read in my National Geographic For Kids that if you rub leaves on your skin when it is stinging, the stinging will go away. I didn’t have any leaves because I don’t think leaves can live in concrete so I found a little bit of grass and rubbed in on the stinging but it didn’t work and the grass started crying because I pulled it out of the ground. I felt bad and tried to put it back but the brown stuff under the other grasses got mad because I took its friends so I started crying and Miss James took me inside and gave me back to Mama. She got mad and hit me again but it was a spatula so it didn’t hurt and I was okay.
Miss James is very nice. She thinks it is okay for me and my pop to talk when I can hear him. She says he is my friend. She says he is imaginary and that means not real but I can hear him so he is real. Maybe she isn’t listening hard enough.
I like Sam. He does not think I am dumb. I am not dumb. I am only seven but I can read the Bible all by myself and I can learn about Jesus and how he died on the cross for our sins. I don’t know what a sin is so I don’t know why he would die for mine. I didn’t know I had any sins but I guess I do or else Jesus would still be alive. I guess I killed him but I swear I didn’t mean to, I don’t even remember getting my sins but someone must have given them to me sometime because I can’t do anything by myself except read.
Mama doesn’t like me because she thinks I am dumb but I think she is dumb because sometimes she acts funny when my new uncle Larry is at work and she sniffles a lot. She plays with her nose and once she fell asleep on the couch and didn’t wake up when I poked her and her nose was bleeding which was silly because she was getting the pillows all dirty. My new uncle Larry had to call a doctor but made him come when it was dark and I didn’t know what was happening so I started to pray so Jesus would die again for Mama’s sins so she could make me dinner but my new uncle Larry got mad and threw a chair at me and I don’t remember what happened after that.
Mama wants me to have friends that she likes. She doesn’t like when I talk to my pop and she doesn’t like it when I talk to Sam because sometimes Sam wants me to do things that I don’t want to do but I do them anyway because he told me to. He told me that dying is okay because dying means no more doctors and no more being scared of Mama and my new uncle Larry. My pop tells me that dying is okay too because he already did it and he said he jumped off the roof and that on the way down he could see everything.
I asked my pop was everything was because we live in an apartment building and if you want to see everything you will just see Miss James and her boyfriends upstairs and the old lady downstairs who smiles at me when I tell her about Sam. He said that everything wasn’t things you could see. I said that didn’t make sense.
My pop said he could see Jesus and why he died on the cross and why God would make his own little boy die. God was lonely because every angel in the heavens couldn’t make him a better family than his little boy. So he killed him.
So Jesus didn’t die for my sins. He died because his pop made him. I wonder if his pop asked him if he wanted to die. I’ll bet he didn’t.
Sam gets mad when I talk about Jesus. He thinks the Bible is for sissies but I like it. It feels good in my hands because it is leather and even though the cow should be crying because I am holding its skin, it doesn’t cry. I think if I was a cow, I would be happy to be made into a Bible. I like the Bible better than cows because cows smell like poop and the Bible smells like pipe smoke and relief.
Sam and my pop are talking to me right now. They want to show me everything from the roof so I have climbed up to the top of the building and all I can see is the taller building next to mine and the dirty streets. I hope this isn’t everything because Jesus would not have wanted to die for this.
My pop is loud. He wants me to go to the edge and be a good boy and look over, just to see what is there. It is hot and the cars are moving quickly like metal bugs with somewhere to be. One of the buses that goes by says ‘Don’t Jump’ on the top but I don’t know why they would tell me to not jump because my pop wants me to and Sam wants me to and you can’t say no to them.
Sam sounds far away and he isn’t shouting anymore. He is just saying ‘Jump’. He isn’t being nice. Sam is always nice to me. He is calling me dumb and stupid and he said that I am being a coward but I don’t know what a coward is so I don’t know what I am. I don’t want Sam to be mad at me because Sam is my friend and no one else’s. He is mine.
The road doesn’t look hard and the garbage cans look like pillows and I pretend that the ground is a bed and I am going to lie in it and my pop will come tuck me in and read me his favorite Psalm. That is my favorite one too. I am going to sleep. I am okay.
By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
when we remembered Zion.
There on the poplars
we hung our harps,
for there our captors asked us for songs,
our tormentors demanded songs of joy;
they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
How can we sing the songs of the Lord
while in a foreign land?
If I forget you, Jerusalem,
may my right hand forget its skill.
May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
if I do not remember you,
if I do not consider Jerusalem
my highest joy.
Remember, Lord, what the Edomites did
on the day Jerusalem fell.
“Tear it down,” they cried,
“tear it down to its foundations!”
Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction,
happy is the one who repays you
according to what you have done to us.
Happy is the one who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the rocks.
