Our houses sat across the street from each other on the far northeastern side of town. They weren't extravagant, just simple homes, each with its own unique porch and size. I had overheard an adult refer to them as Craftsman-style, and that term stuck with me.
The streets, now softly lit by street lamps and the occasional porch light, formed a grid-like pattern reminiscent of squares on a giant game board. For me, a skater, these streets were perfect. I could easily measure distances in blocks and estimate my travel time. Approximately six blocks in any direction equaled a mile in our part of town, and every street boasted very skateable sidewalks, repaved within the last decades. When the neighborhood was refurbished, all of the sidewalks had newly planted trees, bright streetlights, and plenty of traffic control. As a skater, it was nice because you could go without worrying about cars.
Our neighborhood was bordered to the south by remnants of an old wall that had once circled the town. Large sections of the wall remained standing, although closer to town, they had been dismantled to make room for houses and businesses. The heart of shopping was centered around 6th Ave, brimming with well-known brand stores, popular eateries, gas stations, banks, and corporate offices. Officially, 6th Ave marked the town's edge, but the urban sprawl was extending, especially to the south. There, businesses, warehouses, and towering office structures dominated the area, occasionally interrupted by scattered factories. Beyond that newly built urban landscape lay miles of undulating hills and farmland, a stark contrast to our residential surroundings.
As we stepped out of the car, those memories flooded back. I thanked Yaj's mom for the ride, and she said Yaj was welcome to stay longer, predicting he'd probably tire out after running without any candy. Then, she made her way up the two cement stairs leading to their house.
Yaj's house was three stories, painted in a deep brown, with a sprawling front porch that spanned its entire length. The house looked like three shoeboxes stacked on each other, each with its own charm. The second-floor roof over the porch was our favorite spot. Yaj, Nezami and I often crawled out his window, talking and theorizing about life, girls, boys, and what it all meant. On occasion, when the mood struck us right, we'd try to scare the hell out of the paperboy during our late-night chats. However, it had been a while since we'd done that. Melina, Nezami’s mom, was less keen on letting Nez stay the night now that we were teenagers. Also, the three of us now had computers, and we'd set up a bulletin board system called "Sl33py Hellos,” allowing us to chat late into the night.
My house sat on one of the flatter sides of the street, directly down from Yaj's.
The house had a split-level design, three stories high and squared off. When you walked in, instead of being greeted by two staircases, there was just one on the left. The other set of stairs was cleverly tucked behind it, leading down to the daylight basement where my room was.
Each floor had a four-quarter split. The main floor had the living room on the right, the kitchen on the left, and the bathroom and closet hiding behind the kitchen. The space behind the living room was reserved for my sisters' bedrooms. Zoe, the youngest, didn't sleep in hers, and my eldest sister was doing the college thing down the street (though she practically lived here, popping in for meals and laundry sessions).
By this time of night, my dad would be sound asleep, so we could probably make quite an entrance through the front door. My dad could sleep through anything; he had learned to sleep soundly with the sawing of his own snoring, which could rattle pictures. I could hear his snoring before I even opened the front door, so I knew I didn’t have to look all cracked out to my dad. His room was upstairs with a spare room (which Zoe used), my dad's office, and a big storage area that followed the house's triangular roof shape.
The stairs to the basement were these old, creaking wooden ones that led you to, yes, you guessed it, a basement divided into four equal sections. On the way down, there was a laundry room to the right, my dad’s weight room to the left, and more storage. Around the corner were a sitting area and an open door leading to my bedroom, which was now occupied by an unexpected gathering of my friends.
It wasn't an official sitting room; it just happened to have a couch, two 3-foot quarter pipes, and a rail slide we'd usually take outside for skating. During winter, I'd convert the basement into a makeshift skate spot using the two-quarter pipes like a half-pipe. Being on the shorter side still had its perks—I had just enough room to skate without bashing my head on the ceiling.
“Did you guys come through the front door?” I asked.
“No, through your window, we could hear your dad snoring, so we knew it was safe,” Robbie said from my bedroom closet. I usually shut my bedroom door to prevent my sisters from raiding my clothes and snacks or prying into my business. But if they actually saw the smelly group of teenage boys and how they violated my room, I’m sure they wouldn’t poke around.
Although our friend, Mika, the lone female, seemed okay to brave it. She had come with our friend Koda. The two lived in the same building and had parents who were close friends. Mika didn't skate very much but was a capable skater; she had grown a little 'thing' for me over the last summer, which was somewhat complicated since Koda had been in love with her as long as I could remember.
Koda, which meant “bear” in his tribe, suited him perfectly. He may not have been as tall as Robbie, but he made up for it in sheer girth. Everyone in his family had a similar build. They weren't fat, just naturally big. Our town had a couple of small skate groups, but it wasn't a hugely popular activity. An additional guy like Koda, who matched Robbie in intimidation, ensured that we faced no trouble wherever we skated. Besides, our positive relationship with the police also worked in our favor.
Unlike Mika, who had put a lot of effort into her costume, the other boys were still in their makeshift getups. I don't know what it is about teenage boys; maybe we get lazy about outfits. After all, we were skaters; we already looked like punks. I at least dressed up as a character. "A for effort,” I remind myself. All the other guys had done was spike their hair and add color.
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Koda’s black hair, now adorned with bright red tips, was an attempt to mimic Mika's hairstyle, but the dark hue of his hair made it hard to discern.
Robbie had ditched his more authentic Viking costume for his street clothes but still wore the Viking helmet. It matched his skateboard, so at least there was a cohesive theme. The red paint was more visible on his sweatshirt than in his hair. Clearly, he wasn't too bothered about the costume aspect of things.
My cousin Shay, a tad taller than me, typically had a Mohawk, though he rarely styled it. Tonight was an exception, and if you happened to see him, you might think he was a punk rocker in costume. But, to be honest, that's just his usual attire – somewhat like Yaj but with a punk rock twist. He rocked tight, ripped black jeans, a black and silver studded belt, and a torn band t-shirt. Once worn at my grandmother’s party, the shirt is gone now. He was now dripping dye all over one of my favorite hoodies.
As I entered the room, I couldn't help but chuckle at the sight of them. "Well, I see the costume theme 'make do with what you have, ‘” I quipped, gesturing to their improvised outfits.
My room was relatively straightforward. A door stood in the center, and my dad had installed a wall extending from the edge of the staircase. He added some shelves on the left side of this wall for my use. My bed was positioned on the opposite side at the angle of the stairs, perfectly centered beneath the room's solitary window. This window, an old-school wooden fixture, featured rolling latches. By releasing these latches, one could open the window, enabling easy access in or out. On several occasions, I'd been caught because my dad had secured the window, realizing I wasn't inside. That led to some trouble. Since then, I've kept the key attached to a clip in my bag.
Instead of cement, my dad constructed an additional wall along the far side of the room. This wall incorporated two closets with sliding doors and a dresser, which extended upwards with more shelves reaching the ceiling. Robbie was seated in an oversized, old chair in the closet where I'd set up my desk. The desk was smaller, about half the size of a standard one, fitting perfectly when positioned sideways in the closet. While I had ample floor space for the computer, tucking it into the closet gave the room a somewhat hacker's den feel, if that's worth anything.
Now tidied up and resting against the seldom-used closet, a bean bag hosted another friend of ours, Kern, from Robbie's neighborhood. Kern was shorter by our middle school standards but ranked high among the funniest pranksters I'd ever met. His blue hair was typically styled straight, but he used some gel to fashion it into two equally pointed tufts on either side, resembling pompoms.
Last but not least was our friend Yara. Though two years our junior, his demeanor quickly masked his age. Yara had an older brother in high school who was one of the local legendary skaters. We didn't associate with him solely because of that; he was just a cool kid. However, others often teased Yara about his youthful appearance, even asking if he was my little brother. Despite the green hair, we looked pretty alike. I was the slightly older model.
Except for Mika, he was probably the most considerate person in our crew. He'd even grabbed a towel from the laundry room and laid it down on the edge of the couch. Stretching across it, he flipped through one of the skateboard magazines I'd stacked there.
"I don't understand why you clowns can't be more like Yara. He doesn't even have any color in his hair, yet he still puts a towel down," I said aloud, met with moans from the peanut gallery in response.
"What are you doing on my computer? Are we trying to cheat and gear ourselves up?” I said jokingly to Robbie. I knew what he was looking for. He wanted the locations where we hid some of the items in the game.
A couple of years ago, my cousin went away to college, and he left me his computer. It was the second most incredible gift I’d ever received. (The first being a skateboard from my older sister's boyfriend.)
Yaj was the first one of us to have a computer. We'd hang out at his house, logging into bulletin board systems and playing text-based adventure games. But after I got my own, well… I did my best to tie up the phone line from my dad and sisters. I was shooting for the payoff to get my dedicated phone line. That's when Sl33py Hellos was built.
Like any good hackers, we wanted our own bulletin board and game. Yaj, already a genius with the computer, figured out how to build an interface on top of some freely available BBS software. We began adapting my grandmother's stories into our own adventure game. I would write the stories and dialogue, and Yaj would program them.
Once Nez got a computer, she learned how to create ASCII art, taking her painting and using it to craft these colorful visuals. Quite the natural artist, she started taking my grandmother’s book illustrations and creating these detailed pictures for the game.
It was Nezami's idea to call it Sl33py Hellos, partly because of the Headless Horseman. But, more ironically, it was because we would stay up late to chat with each other or send messages in the morning. So, basically, 'sleepy' whenever we use it. The 3s were thrown in for ‘leet speak’, but I’m sure you’ve guessed that by now. ;) Eventually, when we started working on this game, we were always tired, and it made more and more sense.
Nez, I thought. "Hey, where's Nez?" I asked. Her mom typically didn't allow her to wander the streets at night.
"She didn't leave with us," Robbie said, not taking his eyes off the computer.
"We saw her just before we met up with these fools in PineCrest," Koda added.
"Yeah, she was talking all bashful to some boy," Mika added in a dramatic tone.
"Is that so?" I thought in my mind. "Ugh," I audibly responded. "Can you check to see if she's logged in recently? Make sure she got home safe," I said.
Still not looking away from the screen, Robbie said in one of his familiar tones. "Yeah, sure. I'll check to make sure she's home safe. Whatever you say." His response was almost worth another audible: 'Ugh.’
"You guys going to show him, or will you keep making me wait for some grand finale here?" Mika said, having already changed and laying overly comfortable on my bed.
"Oh shit, that's right,” Robbie said, getting up from the computer.
I'm not going to lie. Part of me was afraid. With this bunch, it could be anything from a severed head to a buried treasure. I was hoping for buried treasure.
"So when we all hooked up, we walked through the North End," Robbie started. "And then we took a little side trip," Kern said, getting up from the bean bag and walking over to one of the more extensive shelves on the far wall. There was now something mysteriously covered: two hoodies and an old towel. "I figured tonight no one would notice," Kern said as he pulled back the bunched-up clothing covering whatever they were hiding. If there had been any ounce of chemicals left in my body, they had left rapidly. I was utterly shocked, and Yaj fell to the floor in utter disbelief.
"We stole Thumper," Robbie and Kern said triumphantly in unison, laughing and high-fiving.