Six foot tall and “sturdy,” you stood heads and shoulders above your 8^th grade classmates.  Somehow, after being introduced through a mutual friend, we became the best of friends and would stay that way all the way through high school. We were thick as thieves, birds of a feather, joined at the hip, partners in crime, BFFs forever.

Though a somewhat intimidating presence to the boys, you had the same curiosities about the birds and the bees the rest of us had.  You met a 24-year-old guy who worked at the gas station down the road from where you worked. You never even told me about your new fascination. Somewhere around the middle of summer between our junior and senior years, you started showing.

One night, just before curfew, we made it to my house, went downstairs to my bachelor pad at my dad’s and turned the music down low.  The image of you, now just over 9-months pregnant, working your way into the beige bean bag chair is one that will always stay with me.  We sat and talked and giggled like we always did.

Soon enough, perhaps from too fervent laughter, my dad descended the stairs and started yelling at me about my rudeness, my inferior intellect, and the certainty of my fated future as one of life’s biggest losers.  Then he said the most insulting thing he could pull from his extensive inventory of self-esteem battering terminology; something so egregious it wouldn’t be forgiven for years.  All sound in the room dissolved, I was blinded by red hot anger as my entire being focused on the words he spewed next, “You two are always together.  What’s wrong with you?  What, are you lesbians?”

* Name changed

I met you because you were Paula’s next door neighbor.  You were rich too.  You were the baby of your mother’s second set of kids.  Spoiled, charming, swarthy, handsome and wiry.  I always thought of you as kind of a pre-teen James Dean/Dennis Hopper hybrid with your stingray bike with the extended fork and I’m too cool to even be a rebel attitude.  You just had this air about you that other boys didn’t have at the ripe age of 10.

One day, I remember you coming out of the woods behind your house with a mess of dead critters that you skinned for their pelts wearing your coonskin cap.  Who taught you to trap I’ll never know.  Your parents seemed to have no influence in your life.  In fact, the only time I ever saw your parents was when your mom would have cocktails with Paula’s mom – most afternoons – they in their psychedelic 60s caftans sitting in the living room with the deep plush white shag carpeting.

Paula, you and I spent most of the summer between 3^rd and 4^th grade together.  We plotted various mischief and went fishing or swimming in the sand pits or chased down snapping turtles in the murky water.  You had a mule to ride.  His name was Eli.  Paula’s pony was named Sparky.  We’d ride all over town, me on the back of one or the other.  You were nice to have along because you would deal with the road apples.  And, somewhere along the way, you and I found ourselves falling into easy conversation whenever we met.

At the beginning of 4^th grade you declared me your girlfriend, kissed me full on the mouth, then put me on the back of your bike and rode me the long way home.  Two days later, Jenny Ball caught your eye and I was history.

I could never understand what you saw in me for even those couple of days.  But, it made me realize I must not be as weird as I thought if I had caught the eye of the coolest kid in the class.

I never understood how you put up with your parents.  Talk about a chain around your neck.  You couldn’t even go the nearby park to hang out with friends because your dad was such an ass.  Something we shared, though in different ways, having those brothers for fathers.  For you it was worse.  Couldn’t talk on the phone, couldn’t stay over at friends, couldn’t go to school dances.

We’d play Doctor and House at family gatherings.  I was always the doctor and you the nurse to our patients, our younger sibs.  I was the Dad and you were the Mom.  We’d sneak through the old, dank basement and see if there were any treasures to find.  We’d argue and bicker when sharing was harder.  We’d yell at each other, “You aren’t my cousin anymore!” and sulk for five minutes or so then race out the screen door at Ma’s forgetting in an instant whatever slight had come between us.

Later, Dad would load up our bikes and send us to your place for a week every once in a while during summer.  We’d ride the trails, our little sisters clinging to us like the Velcro that would someday be invented, until we’d see a chance at losing them and hide out like silent, unbreathing commandos, amid the thick forest, just waiting for them to pass by and give up finding us and ride home.  We’d sit in the woods and talk.  Maybe take an innocent puff on a cigarette if we could steal one.  Feel as though we had gotten away with the biggest con ever until we returned to your house.  Freedom.  You never got to experience much of it.

Then it was time to teach me The Hustle.  We both know how that went.

But time would tell.  The very things that strict control was intended to avert became a certainty.  The tighter you pulled the more they tried to reel you in.  You dropped out of school and got involved with someone who wasn’t so good for you.  Eventually, you came to your senses, after having experienced some of life’s harder knocks.

Now, 30 years later, 25 of those married to your guy.  Three kids launched successfully, your story belies your upbringing. I bet you can still do The Hustle.

You are me with rougher edges.  Same passion, same anger, same feelings of responsibility for the world, same blood.  And, you are still my favorite cousin.