The Friend on the Hill
By: Terry Barr
Tags: Friendship, Nonfiction, Love, Weeds And Wildflowers, Children

Ted and his family lived up the hill from us in a medium-sized white house with a green awning and a slanted roof. The roof looms large in my memory, though I’m sure it will be anti-climatic for most of you. Ted’s father held the august title of Superintendent of the Bessemer city school system, which, as history notes, maintained its segregated status well into the mid-1960’s. I don’t remember Ted’s father being vocal or instrumental in the changes occurring around us: in the attempts by many to integrate and the attempts by man others to obfuscate the court orders. Someone had to superintend our district despite its flaws, and so Ted lived under the roof of the man who did so, whether he did so well, with good intentions or bad. Also living under this roof were Ted’s mother — a fairly typical, warm, housewife of her age — and Ted’s younger sister Ellen, who lives almost as large as Ted in my memories and whom we will see more of later.

Even at the age of five, Ted was a head taller than the rest of the kids our age. I suppose his father was tall, too, though Mr. Clark’s physical stature does not linger in my memory. Many assumed that Ted and our close neighbor Mary Jane were sweethearts in this time, though once we got to first grade, I always assumed that Ted went for Pam Gassaway who was both pretty and as tall as Ted. I don’t know if I was ever right in my hopes, but I do know that I always wanted Mary Jane for my girlfriend, and for a year — from mid 5th grade to mid 6th grade — I got my wish. But that’s another story, and Mary Jane isn’t lost to me, as friends and this series go.

In Miss Carroll’s kindergarten, Ted and I were inseparable. How often I recall some teacher — Miss Garner or Miss Pierce — crying out “Ted and Terry,” or “Terry and Ted,” as if in one voice for one person. We sat by each other, stood by each other in our choir, and always huddled together at mid-morning snack time, where many of us brought peanut butter and Graham Crackers, and were served some sort of juice by Miss Carroll. I hated the days when we got apple juice — another of my strange childhood ticks. Orange juice, yes. Orange pineapple, yes. Grape, yes. Even Tang. But not apple juice.

Strange kids are strange kids.

But what happened to Ted on a particular day I’m thinking of, the day of his Barbecue potato chips, was less strange than tragic.

Miss Carroll’s kindergarten was four or five miles from our neighborhood, and so our parents (mothers) arranged a standing carpool, including my would-be girlfriend Mary Jane, our neighbor Elise, Ted, me, and I also seem to remember a girl named Dale Evans riding with us, for who, back in this era, could ever forget a girl named Dale Evans?

Even counting Ted, we were small enough to cram into the back seat of all the various cars, though when Mary Jane’s mother drove, we had the expansiveness of a station wagon. We also had a maniac for a driver, so tradeoffs are always just that. I so remember seeing the speedometer, which was color-coded, shifting colors as quickly as a green chameleon caught on a woodpile.

So on this day, when the car picked me up, I slid in by Ted, who proudly displayed his bag of Barbecue Golden Flakes, offering to share with me at snack time. I’m sure we both salivated, at least until we arrived at Elise’s house. I can see it so plainly: Ted had set his bag of chips on the other side of his lap from me, and when Elise began climbing in the back seat beside him, he plainly forgot about the bag.

No one knows for sure what exactly happened next, though in his own mind, Ted, at least, was certain.

“SHE SMUSHED MY POTATO CHIPS.”

And indeed, Elise did smush them. Sat right down on top of them.

It’s possible, of course, that Elise hadn’t seen the glittering bag of chips right in front of her and just hopped on in like normal. A pure accident with no ill intent.

Except Elise had at least one historical precedent for meanness — the time she purposefully picked up handfuls of sand from my very own sandbox, and on my very own birthday, and threw that sand right in my eyes.

Talk about screaming.

She got caught, too, and I want to say she got whipped for her act.

But on this car ride, as Ted held up his bag of chips, which were indeed clearly smushed to crumbs — begging the question of not only how hard Elise sat on them, but also, did she grind into them? Because these chips never stood a chance once her five-year-old bottom reached them — and as his tears crept down the crevices of his nose and mouth, Elise said nothing. Just stared and turned beet red in her face.

To my knowledge, she never apologized to Ted, who, at snack time, despite my assurance that we could still attempt to eat the chips and that maybe they weren’t so smushed, held up the bag and cried,

“No we can’t. See? They’re still smushed!”

And so they were.