capturing the flag

I was raised in a small mountain town, you know the kind. Mail was delivered to the post office and we all had a box. The tiny town had one market and all the cashiers knew your name but still called you honey and baby and doll. We had a town drunk and everyone knew him and yet drunk he stayed. We'd get snowed in for days on end and sleep huddled in front of the fire. All the men drove trucks and people watched out for each others kids and there was nothing much to do.

Growing up there meant I spent a lot of time outside. Climbing trees, building forts, creating imaginary situations out of rocks and dirt. There were many of us in the neighborhood, kids from a variety of rough homes and broken families who all gathered in the trees and played endless games of capture the flag to avoid going home.

One of those boys was named Rex. He had a lot of freckles, Rex. He's was the kind of kid who got in a lot of fights, who had a mom but not a dad, who ran wild and free and late into the night. One such night Rex kissed me, the first kiss of my life. It was uneventful really, two ten year olds prodding each other in the face and then running in different directions thinking we were grown. Rex went home and his house caught fire that night, the story on the mountain was he set it himself. His mom took him away after that and none of us ever saw him again.