Another night in rural Atlanta

Another night in rural Atlanta by Tawhid Kabir

Speeding on roller skates, I rushed through a puddle left from the rain and clutched the deep end of a swimming pool's rim. I fell at the bottom of the pool and my pants became dirty. I only went to skate after 6, because my landlord wouldn’t be there to yell at me. Being there so late meant I didn’t have much time to practice. I lived in an apartment complex and loved to find ways to relax. While walking to my apartment, I noticed the stars were out, and so I sat on the grass for a bit. As I star-gazed my friend Lazaro -who lived in an apartment complex behind mine- called me. I reached for my cell phone, brushed dirt from it and answered. He screamed in my ear," Yo, I can see you from my window. The grass is wet, you'll get your clothes stained"! I jumped up and turned my head around to look back at my clothes. Seeing that I had a stain from the grass and puddle, I growled and looked at my friend's red bricked apartment building, which had railing going trough the middle and up to the 4^th floor. He said," if your mom sees that she’ll kill you, why don't you come to my house and we’ll play soccer, so you could blame it on the soccer ball." He always needed an excuse for me to come over, so we could do some sort of crazy thing. I replied, "what if I blame it on your soccer ball and not come over"! He then told me he had food, which made me literally fly towards his house. I jumped off a section dividing the apartment complexes and skated to his house.

I rode down to the courtyard in front of Lazaro’s apartment building and sat on a rocky hedge. I waited for 30 minutes but he let me in. He then popped out of his house again and wanted to play soccer but, Lazaro told me his soccer ball was flat. Then he explained to me that his uncle was a junior league soccer coach, and Lazaro though his uncle might have extra soccer balls in his equipment room. Lazaro explained that his uncle’s house wasn't too far away. I called my parents to tell them that I would be going to Lazaro's uncle’s house and would be late. Lazaro went to tell his parents to tell them he would be going to his uncle’s house with me. Since there were no sidewalks, I was forced to leave behind my roller skates and walk. I took an old pare of sandals from Lazaro and we were off. We made a few jokes and talked about how we were going to beat this game he just bought. Back then the ps2 games were new and we were hooked. We would spend Saturdays and Sundays playing all day and listening to music all night.

After we made it to Lazaro's uncle’s house we took some soccer balls and went downstairs. His uncle had a large field where we could set up goals with tree branches. We played until dark with some neighbors from the area. His uncle eventually joined us. I I was awful at soccer so we played quick games. When we were done, Lazaro’s uncle gave me a pair of fresh junior league pants so I wouldn't feel dirty and took us home in his car. He was nice enough -and gas prices were low enough- for him to drive Lazaro home and drop me off. I went home and took a shower ignoring my mom's yelling. She wasn’t happy to find more dirty clothes brought back. I told her I was sleepy and had no homework, but I lied and wanted to do homework during breakfast.