An Old Barn

Growing up in the American suburbs is a slow, anxious process that whirs by in a blink. You spend all this time wishing you were somewhere else, and when you're older you come back and look around and appreciate that you had that safety and tranquility in which to roam to nowhere.

When you hit middle school, the pressure to act grown hits fast and hard. When I look at kids that age now I think, "Wow, you are just children. And back then I felt like I could be anything but." So you did what you could to pass the time, because as soon as you reach double digits playing make believe is no longer socially acceptable. A lot of hanging out with friends consisted of bouncing a basketball and riding bikes around a few-mile radius.

At one point we found an old barn down a forgotten road, a relic of the area from before the housing community we lived in existed. The barn sat at the edge of a forest and was probably half a century old, bending under the weight of time, barely holding up its skeleton of fading timber and rusted roofing.

We wandered in and fumbled through the wreckage, eventually finding some glass bottles and setting them up to throw rocks at. When you're young there's something about finding an old structure that spurs you to claim it, and it's like playing fort without having to acknowledge it. There's a mystique surrounding abandoned, forlorn buildings, like you've found a gateway into another place and time, entering a world of make believe you don't have to speak into existence.

I had my first kiss inside of that barn. There was a girl I had "asked out" over AOL Instant Messenger, and she said yes, and with that became my girlfriend. One afternoon we were walking around the neighborhood, about as close as you can get to a date when you're 12 and can't drive. I think we held hands. I took her to the barn; streaks of sunlight peered through the spaces between the old wood panels, muted by the greenery hanging outside.

It was sort of expected of me to kiss her, and I made my best attempt. She told people that I almost choked her while shoving my tongue down her throat, but I really was trying my best to do what I thought was making out. With some more practice I came to realize I was supposed to be a bit more gentle, a skill I feel quite confident in now.

One time my cousins were spending the night and we were at the park across the street. It was just past sunset, and we were supposed to be home in no more than half an hour. While on the swings a cop car swung into the parking lot. I don't know what prompted it but we ran, screaming at one another in the chaos, and the cops pursued, probably because our hasty retreat made us look suspicious. The middle of my three cousins, the runt of the litter, lagged behind, squealing, "Guys, wait for me!" and of course we didn't. He did catch up to us though.

We dashed to the bottom of the hill, around the trail, back up the other side of the hill, across the road and down another, and eventually reached that barn. We all crouched in the ditch beside the road with the barn behind us, its dark silhouette pitched against the night sky and the blurred trees, adding to the throbbing fear of our impending doom. A minute later the cop car patrolled by. I think whoever was inside probably saw us, a gaggle of puny, terrified children, which was probably a funny sight to see, and just let us go.

We waited in that spot for an unnecessarily long time before we got the courage to sprint home, and my mom was waiting at the door, furious we had been gone for so long. We went downstairs and laughed about the situation and continued on to have a fun night. My cousins and I still bring up that incident to celebrate its hilarity.

Now that barn is gone, and the road that ran alongside it was paved over. A condominium complex stands in its place, one of those 55 and over only places. But that barn lives in my memory, a piece of the setting of my adolescensce. And it continues to age and slowly decay, beautifully so, in my mind.