My Friend, Dean

We moved to a new house in January of my third grade year.  It was a brand new house on a brand new street.  I made new friends in the neighborhood and school was okay.  My teacher was pregnant and spent most of the day sitting at the back of the classroom with her head on the desk.  We got to play on the good playground for one recess but had to play on the blacktop parking lot for the other recess.

I met Dean in the neighborhood, he was a few years older than me.  He taught me how to jump my bike and land level with both tires on the dirt course kids made out of the piles of dirt around the poured basements on the street.  I got pretty good.  He even let me ride his dirt bike, the motorized kind.  I knew I was hot stuff and special because he didn't let anyone else ride his motor bike. He also taught me karate moves and how to defend myself and fight. (Yes, I know it doesn't sound like girl stuff, but I liked the guy's kind of fun.  Barbies and board games get old real quick.)  His garage door was always open(if his parents weren't home) and that was the neighborhood source for all things illegal.  He never let any of the other guys there give me the hard stuff they were offering.  I could hang out there and smoke, but he wouldn't let me try anything with needles.  Sometimes he would shoo me out of the basement side of the garage(raised ranch style house) and it wasn't until my teacher at school molested and raped me all through the school year that I realized what all was going on in the basement side of his garage.  He was a good guy and I was safe with him.  Some days he told me I needed to leave, usually this was when his friends wanted me to go in the basement and hang out with them.  Later I realized what he was keeping me safe from.  I wish I knew his last name and could find him and say thank you.  He was kinda like an onery, getting in trouble older brother. He was my friend, Dean.