Song Inspired Oneshots

It was always strange

| Original work - no song (yet)

| It was always strange

It was always strange how the various milkshops and sodashops of my childhood still amaze me to this day. I can recall the times when petty rivalries were so strong it was a shame to even be associated with one of the two sides. It always seemed so perfect, go to school then come home and play bottle caps with your best friend from two door down. How the world seemed so inviting yet so mysterious, like the mysteries of how the telly worked or perhaps the rare tan house among the common white of the 1950's. Imagine a time when the world was portrayed as simple with the hopes that the impressionable teens like me would follow the black and white examples on the tiny television screens. Most teens grew up to have a wife and wear tan hats and carry briefcases to desk jobs while the love of their life tended the house and the kids. Yet here I am, living with hippies in the woods because my family doesn't want to see, god forbid if they spoke to me. As a teen, my life was turned upside down before it had even begun, and all because of that best friend James from two door down.

We were stuck together like apple pie to a pan. No one could separate us or tell us otherwise, as we thought we were the shit and that we were above the others. Yet, it was tolerated, as everyone was chasing dreams of killing communists and soda pops and dancing to records from a jukebox at that local cafe that somehow keeps away the riff-raff. But me and him were close, oh so close, and it was the best friendship in the world. He was the best, kind and playful and he always had a knack for baking. He could bake cookies better than your own damn grandmother, and that's a bloody fact. But, he was the reason my life decided to take a turn for the worse, and it all started when I was sixteen in 1954.

Summer break had just begun, the toiling heat were shining on our necks and letting tiny glass beads of sweat fall down our face. Being in Sacramento, California had it's problems, one of them being that summer was the time where God decided to boil us alive just for the fun of it. I kept shifting my backpack around as the heavy bag plus the sweat made my shirt stick to my frame and the space under my letterman jacket feel like an oven. James seemed unaffected, but that was okay, he was used to wearing leather jackets acting like a greaser and all through us two hanging out together was practically social suicide and we both weren't allowed in those two groups ranks. The whole facade was like a gang I swear.

Our houses weren't different from the rest. You know, your common white house with the flowers, grass, and white puckered damn fence. The only difference between the two was that James had a nice maple tree in his yard, which was perfect for climbing or sitting down in one of the branches with a good book. Though climbing was a more preferred activity the do with the tree than reading, though I have thought it of every once and awhile.

So we reached my house, and I had reached out my hand to the lock to swing the white gate open and walk inside and do my homework and avoid my bigger sister. But just as I was about to reach that fabled lock a tanned wrist met my paler one. I froze, staring up at James with my wide, blue eyes. See, James was known to have random bouts of anger and beat up the kid that caused said anger. Usually it was about me, whether I got bullying or not. But, I still feared the power he had, so I shivered when his skin met mine.

"Hey, um.." James seemed awkward. He was always confident with his words so this was a new experience to see the great all powerful greaser stutter. "Can you.. come to my place? That tree-house finally got finished in the back." James not only had a maple tree in his front yard, but also a bunch in his backyard. They were great old things, big branches that shrouded the roof in dappled sunlight and made the messy grass sparkle with gold and yellow green. His parents were one to not try to keep everything so uniform like the American dream everyone else followed like sheep. They loved to keep things simple, homey, not so modern and space like as it is now. I honestly like that kind of style, though it is strange and out of place it isn't super rare. Though I swear I smelt pot in his parent's room, but I found no evidence to support it.