Home

We arrived at our new home today on the corner of 16th and Greenleaf Streets. What a dump. Back in Jersey we had this great old house with a fireplace and wood floors. There was a long driveway for skateboarding or bike riding, a big back yard with a garden and a plot of grass I could barely knock a baseball across. My room was big enough to fit a real electric train set, my bed, and have enough floor space to wrestle with Josh. This new place is a small three bedroom apartment. The stove is white and seems like it's plastic and the cupboards look like wood but feel like cardboard. There is no dining room, just a place for a small table. My parents rented a bunch of flimsy furniture that smells like a storeroom. I got a bunk-bed for some reason even though I don't have to share my room with anyone. Probably because they thought I'd think it was cool. And the whole place is carpeted. It reminds me of the Karate Kid's apartment when he moved to Reseda.

Across the street there's a huge sports field, as big as a whole block with tennis courts on the far side. You can tell the courts suck though because the nets sag in the middle and there's weeds growing out of cracks in the surface. This field and these courts are where the Trexler Middle School teams practice. Trexler Middle School is across the street on the corner of 15th and it's where I'll be going to 8th grade in a month or so. It's big and squat and looks like a place they might make door knobs.

For the past eight years I've gone to the same private school in Philadelphia. There were 12 kids in my class. Give or take a few tourists, my friends have been the same 12 kids for seven years. The school was "progressive"  with a Quaker vibe. We didn't have tests. We called our teachers by their first names. I had Spanish every day since Kindergarten. We had geniuses like Danny Spielman who was so smart he had to go across the river to take math classes at U Penn. We also had retards like this kid Derrick who still couldn't read in the fourth grade. But we all learned together and never hated on anyone. That was a big thing there. The one time I pulled a prank on this girl who thought she was a mouse (I put a rubber snake in her cubby) it was like I killed a bunch of Jews. Everyone got along. In the eight years I went to that school I saw one fight. And I wasn't in it.

For the year Jen lived away from home, she went to some private school. I think my folks sent her there because since they weren't around they figured she should be somewhere you paid the teachers not to screw things up. Now that we're all here, she'll be enrolled at Central Catholic High. We're Jewish by the way, but it's where all the gymnasts go because the nuns let the girls out at one so they can go to practice.

I know exactly one girl who goes to Trexler. Her name is Jane and she's a gymnast. I don't really know her at all though because I don't go to the gym yet, but I know who she is and what she looks like. She's cute actually but she's not a very good gymnast. She's known for pulling a wide cowboy on her double backs and still landing on her head. She's also known for being a loudmouth. My sister likes her a lot and she's supposed to hang out with us some time before the first day of school.

From what my Mom tells me, none of the guys at the gym go to Trexler. Which means two things: 1) I will probably not know any guys on the first day of school and 2) I will probably be the only male gymnast at Trexler. Both of those things suck royally. Not that I know much about Allentown people, but not everybody thinks gymnastics is cool. Hell, I don't even think it's cool. I just do it because I've always done it and I'm pretty good at it. Tell your average 8th grade dude at Trexler Middle School that you don't play baseball or football or basketball because you do gymnastics and my guess is the word faggot is the first one that pops into their head. I could be wrong. I hope I'm wrong. But I just keep thinking I'm going to run into a homophobic band of redneck Cobra Kais. I know Allentown isn't Kentucky but it ain't South Jersey either.

We ate crappy chinese food tonight and watched TV on our rent-a-couch. My Dad isn't here. He's still in New Jersey. The house hasn't sold yet and it's easier for him to get to work from there than here. It's an hour and half drive to Philly each way from Allentown. It used to take him twenty minutes to get to work. Now he'll get home around 9 at night. My Mom talked to him on the phone from her room but the walls are so thin I could hear their conversation. I could practically hear what he was saying on the other end of the line. She sounded sad. I hate hearing that tone in my parents voice. Truthfully, it scares me.

I wanted to like this new apartment. I hoped something about it would be fun. But I doubt it will be. Nothing looks or feels like home. It's like I'm borrowing someone's life. Someone with a shitty bunk bed in a small apartment a block away from a door knob factory that doubles as a middle school. Jesus I hope there's cool kids here.