Make New Friends

It's July and my family is moving from New Jersey to Pennsylvania. Not a good part of Pennsylvania, like Philly, where there's South Street and cool stuff to do, but a place called Allentown. Y'know, the song by Billy Joel. Where they're closing all the factories down. All my friends are starting eighth grade next year and I'm moving to a new city where I have to make new friends. I hate making friends. I can't remember the last time I made a new friend. I've known the same people for the entire thirteen years of my life. The only people who like to make new friends are lame. They probably don't have a lot of friends to begin with so of course they want to make new ones. For that kind of person, it's more like make a friend, not new friends. Lame.

Actually, I do remember the last time I made a new friend. I was in 2nd grade. This guy who worked for my Dad named Bob had a son named Josh. Josh started to go to my school and because my Dad really thought Bob was like amazing, weird, super-smart guy, he wanted me and Josh to be friends. Bob was huge. He had this wild Santa Claus beard only it was brown and greasy. My Dad is a Pediatrician and Bob worked in his office with this beard on his face that always had bits of popcorn and random stuff in it. My Dad thought it was hilarious. I don't know how the people in his office felt since you expect Doctor's offices to be clean places, but my Dad thought it was the funniest thing. My Dad gives a shit, but he likes knowing people who don't. Bob taught himself how to do everything. Not just how to program a computer but how to make one from scratch. He was an insomniac and read all the time and my Dad started reading all the books Bob read. My Mom still read the book of the month club books with the hard shiny covers, but because of Bob, my Dad started calling those books "junk."
Bob also had rabbits. He raised them. All different kinds. And he drove this crappy little pick up truck that rusty dents all over it that also smelled like rabbits. So did his wife's car. In fact, they all smelled like rabbits. Bob, his wife, Josh, and even their little sister.

They were Jewish just like us, so even though they seemed very different I guess I thought they'd be kind of the same. They weren't. For one thing they didn't care about "stuff." Their cars were like generic "cars," and the furniture in their house was covered in blankets to hide the tears and stains in the fabric. Bob and Josh ate dog biscuits from a giant bag for a snack. They lit candles on Friday night and said a prayer in Hebrew before dinner. They all knew the words by heart. The only Hebrew I knew was the word "shalom" and a few funny yiddish phrases my grandmother still used.

Josh started to go to my school and since we lived nearby we began to carpool. The first day, when Josh got into our car, I could smell rabbit all over him. He even looked like he smelled like rabbit. His hair was long and scraggly and his clothes were all strange brands and yanked out of shape, like he'd been wrestling in them or something. I think he was even wearing sweat pants. We didn't really talk on the way to school, and my Mom's not the kind of lady who asks kids a lot of questions, not even me, so we weren't friends at all by the time we got to school, but I felt like I was supposed to show him around since I was the only one who knew him.

He didn't want me to though, so he just did his thing. At the end of the day, I remember feeling bad that I hadn't done anything with Josh all day and that my Dad would find out and be pissed at me, but then Josh comes up to me and says, "my Mom's picking us up today. You want to come over and play?" I don't know why, but I never used the word play before. My friends didn't use it either, so it sounded so lame when he asked me and I felt bad for him. So to be nice, I said sure, even though I couldn't imagine what he meant by "play." Would we be "playing make believe?" Oy.

When we got back to his house, he got out paper and pens and wanted to draw. Again, this sounded so lame. Draw? With another kid? Or even by yourself. Drawing was for school, not home. I don't think we even had markers in my house. Just a bunch of ball point pens the drug companies gave my Dad. Well, Josh showed me how to make some funny cartoon characters and even had a book that showed you how to make superheroes just like the ones in comic books. The first drawing I ever made and wanted to keep was of Spiderman's nemesis, Kingpin. That day.

Then we threw the football around outside and took turns doing place kicks, trying to boot it over the telephone wire. I could do it. Josh couldn't, and I was worried he'd be all pissed off and throw a fit like my other friends, but he didn't care. Turned out "playing" was just hanging out and doing stuff, so even though I thought playing was for losers, it was really just the word I didn't like because we didn't say it at my house. What wasn't fun, was the wrestling. It was Josh's favorite thing to do and it almost made me not want to see him again. First of all, he smelled like a rabbit, He also knew all these special moves that hurt. I was stronger than him but he knew what he was doing and pinned me a bunch of times with my balls in my face. That's when I learned wrestling was for real. There are moves you have to learn and get good at. Like gymnastics. Which is the sport I do.

Gymnastics is also the reason we're moving to Allentown. There's this great gym up there and my sister left home to train there about a year ago. My folks and I drive two hours every Sunday to visit her. We get crappy Chinese food and listen to her talk about her life. She likes the gym, school is okay, but the house she lives in sucks. The lady is a single mom named Beth who's apparently an anorexic and a super christian. She also has a son who's younger than me, has some kind of learning disability and is a real pain in the ass. My sister doesn't like me a ton so I can't imagine how annoying it must be to live with a spaz like him in a stranger's house. When we leave after dinner, my sister tries not to cry. This was her decision after all. But she looks sadder than I've ever seen her before. My parents aren't happy with the situation so they decided to move up there.

I'm going to start doing gymnastics at this gym too. The girls' side is called Parkettes and recently, they added a boys gym called Gymnastrum. It's a huge place, much nicer than the gym I was going to before. I've been there for competitions a few times and it looks like a National Training Center or a Gym at a college. The boys team coach is named Larry Moyer. When I was eight, I went to a sleepover gymnastics camp that he ran and met all these famous gymnasts he'd coached. He's a big deal and I'm supposed to think I'm lucky to be coached by him now. But there's rumors about him too. Everyone says he's gay, which I don't give a shit about. But they also say he's messed around with some of the kids on the team. I'm not worried about that either. But he better keep his fat hairy hands to himself. 

I'll miss Josh the most. We became best friends ever since that first day of 2nd grade. We did everything together. I rode my bike to his house all the time. We played night tag when I slept over. He took me sailing on his trimaran. His Dad once gave us a can of beer. I got to know his rabbits. I even ate one once, with pasta and tomato sauce. It was good.

But it turned out that Bob wasn't such a great guy after all. He was really smart, but he was also a liar. He told my dad he had a degree and he didn't. So my Dad had to fire him. Josh and I stayed friends though. My dad's new friend didn't work out but mine did. But now that we're moving to Allentown, I have to start all over.