Prologue

Had I only listened to Eddie’s Nana. She told us not to have anything to do with the kids we could barely see, playing in their front yard, across the street around the corner from her’s.

“Stay away from them, they’re bad news. Do you boys want some lemonade?” she said in her ancient, sharp, yet booming, voice.

Her words didn’t matter, my world was a one block area, bordered by wide stretches of dark red brick. Even though I could see Eddie’s Nana’s house from my front porch, I couldn’t go there. It was across the street, and I was not to cross the street alone. They were across yet another street, and down that block as well, so going there on my own was simply out of the question.

I must have been only about three or four at the time, and like most other preschoolers, had the attention span only slightly better than that of the average dog, and seldom able to state even my own name, not to mention phone number or address upon demand. The advice was thus honored and then completely forgotten, replaced within a second and a half with the prospect of Eddie letting me play with his best Matchbox car. I wasn’t to get to meet those kids for quite some time, and it is only in retrospect that I remember her advice.