Nicholas Meeker: Chapter 1

1

The earliest days were the golden ones. Jesse enjoyed spending time with us; Nicholas was as innocent as a newborn fawn, and then some. We lived in Kennedy, a Minnesota town with a population of just under two thousand people. Kennedy was a place I simultaneously hated and enjoyed, and the arrival of Nicholas Meeker made me lean towards the former.

            Nicholas moved to Kennedy before I began the fourth grade. Up until his entrance into my life, my days consisted entirely of my older brother Jesse. Jesse was a wild child, and while his outrageous ideas were usually entertaining, I needed a friend who was not only my age but also sane. Nicholas was adequate on all these fronts.

            Nicholas lived with only his father. I wouldn’t know his personal details until several years into our friendship- he was private in more ways than one. His absence of a true family led him to spend his nights sleeping on our back porch, which was how Jesse and I found him on The First Day.

            One of Jesse’s favorite hobbies was waking up in the middle of the night. We shared a bedroom, my cot on one side and his on the other. He was so hyperactive during the day that he woke up in sudden jolts during the nighttime, erupting from his cot in a spastic jump that not only awoke but also terrified me.

            Jesse had various preferred activities during his nighttime strolls. He liked going to the twenty-four hour diner, where he would buy a plate of French fries and douse it in salt. Jesse could never pay- he, as well as the rest of my family, was completely broke- but the waiters always let him off Scott-free. There was something about Jesse, with his mess of blonde hair and freckles, that charmed everyone he came across.

            Jesse also enjoyed exploring our neighbors’ backyard. In Kennedy, houses were separate by rundown fences with loose plywood. The fences were perfect for climbing, an activity Jesse took to favorably. He had perfected the art of fence climbing, one quick foot over the other until he could scale the top.

            One night in the middle of August, Jesse jumped out of his cot at three-thirty in the morning, awakening me in his tumult. “Ella!” he shouted. “Let’s go!”

            I followed him onto our back porch. That was when I noticed Nicholas, a heap of sleeping bag at the time, huddled beside our half-broken barbeque. Years of midnight exploration had led me to have a high scare factor, so I didn’t jump or scream when I saw him. I just elbowed Jesse and pointed.

            Jesse’s green eyes widened. He tiptoed towards the Nicholas-shaped lump and nudged him with his sock-clad foot. The sleeping bag twitched back and forth, like a spastic caterpillar, before rising and exposing a head. A Nicholas head, although I didn’t know it at the time.

            Nicholas had light brown hair and a smile that was too big for his face. He was tall and stick-skinny, with an uncomfortable aura that made all of his interactions seem both sweet and hopelessly naïve. He was terrified on The First Day, jumping out of his sleeping bag and onto his feet in a move that showed an admirable amount of finesse.

            “S-sorry,” he stammered. “I was just…I didn’t think…”

            Jesse and I didn’t mind. Our own parents gave us so much independence that we were fairly indifferent towards all members of our town. “Nice sleeping bag,” Jesse said, genuinely impressed. “I want one of those, to go camping at Voyageurs National Park. You could come, if your sleeping bag preferences are any indication of your outdoors skills.”

            Nicholas smiled and stepped out of his sleeping bag. He was wearing a pair of corduroy pants and a brown zip-up hoodie, an outfit I would soon recognize to be Nicholas’ typical uniform. “Thank you,” he said. “Sorry about, you know, sleeping on your porch. I live over there.” He pointed to the house that backed onto our yard. “I just moved in.”
            He was pointing towards the Newman’s old house, a rundown bungalow that had been vacated for ages. No one had wanted to move into the Newman’s, for reasons that became obvious after stepping into their flooding-prone basement or sagging front deck. While real estate in Kennedy was not a particularly elite business, the Newman’s house was, for lack of a better word, a complete and utter dump.

            “You’re new,” I said. I took three steps towards Nicholas and shook his hand. He had a weak grip, although I tried to reserve judgment for later. “Welcome to Kennedy.”

            “Where are you from?” Jesse asked. It seemed like an innocent question, although I knew that it was entirely strategic. Nicholas’ opinion on Kennedy would depend on his hometown. If he was from one of the nearby big cities, like Minneapolis or St. Paul, he would see Kennedy for the trash heap that it was. But if he had lived in a miniscule town like Kennedy itself, he would be entirely accepting of our blue-collar lifestyle.

            “Lint,” replied Nicholas. Jesse and I heaved audible sighs of relief. Lint was a town a few miles away from Kennedy, and it was as ugly as its name implied. “My father is a plumber. We moved to Kennedy because, well, he said there would be more jobs.”
            Jesse and I continued chatting with Nicholas, as if we’d known him for a lifetime rather than a few minutes. It struck me as both odd and humorous that this casual meeting was occurring in the middle of the night, not to mention in unusual circumstances. Inky stretches of Minnesotan sky spread above me, and I scanned it for the constellations my parents had told me about. Orion. Gemini. The Big Dipper.

            It was an hour later, when dawn began creeping onto us, that we parted our separate ways. Nicholas was going back to bed, in his inexplicable sleeping bag at the corner of our porch; Jesse to the diner, for his customary plate of free French fries; and I was headed to our kitchen table, where I could soak up the first signs of morning in peace.

I call that The First Day because it announced the beginning of my complicated friendship with Nicholas. We wouldn’t truly become best friends for months after that first rendezvous. But those words announced something big, something larger than either of us could truly comprehend.

            Nicholas was a confusing boy. He had a troubled past, yet he was sweeter than any fortunate person I had ever met before. It took months for Jesse and I to figure out why he slept on our porch, and even then his answer was strained. But despite all the tragedies Nicholas had experienced already, and despite the tragedies Nicholas would experience in the future, he had a heart of gold. And I loved him throughout all of it, even The First Day.

Author's Note

Please tell me what you think. All constructive criticism is appreciated.

Reviews

[BillyGirl]

Hey! Welcome back! :D

Your writing has improved quite a bit since the last time you were on here :) I couldn't find any grammatical or spelling errors, and I love how you describe everything that makes a very clear picture in my mind. Nicholas is quite the mysterious character already from the way you mention his troubled past and not give a lot away too soon into the story - makes me want to read more! :) Keep up the great work!