The worst day of my life started when I answered the door to my childhood friend, and he said he had a craving for salami.
We lived on the west-end of Charleston just blocks away from a butcher's shop.
I don't know why mother ever let us walk out of the house together. For years she had said that Nathan and I were the devil's backyard terrors. You would think she would've kept a better eye on us.
Without a dime in our pockets, we walked to the butcher's. Nathan pressed his face against the storefront glass, and his smooshed nose gave a great big sniff. I watched his eyes close, and he said, "Can you smell that? It's heavenly."
Maybe I wasn't as hungry as Nathan, but when I copied my friend, all I could get a whiff of was window cleaner. When the butcher's door slammed shut, the air that wafted our way was definitely not a clean grocery store smell.
We walked inside and the sourness of the smell intensified. Bile coated the roof of my mouth. While I followed Nathan's stride, one hand held my stomach and the other covered my nose.
His nose and eyes sought salami.
I stuffed my hands into my pockets, determinedly. I would not grab for the counter to steady myself. I would not turn away from all the red meats behind the glass. I would not run for fresh air.
Not that Nathan would have noticed if I had done any of those things.
The butcher's wife didn't care for Nathan's zeal, "What are ya boys up to? Take yer dirty hands and be off!"
When Nathan reached for the salami, the butcher's wife grabbed him by the cuff. "Out! Out with ya." She pushed me ahead of him, into the door. "Go on! There'll be no freebies today. Git!"
Nathan was not pleased. "Ah! That miserable goat! Now what'll we do?"
Had my suggestion of going home been obliged, or even heard, our day might have taken a better turn. But as the devil's backyard terrors, we weren't known for having the good sense to see trouble when we were heading straight for it.
Nathan said, "We should go around back. The truck picks up deliveries there. We'll just wait for the salami to come out the back and snatch it before it gets into the truck."
We didn't have all day to wait for a truck, but I didn't say that. I said, "How will we know which box has the salami?"
Nathan slowly looked at me, like I was his annoying little sister instead of his best friend, "I'll sniff it out, of course." And with a shake of his head, he turned back to scouting out the butcher's back door.
At the time, I'll admit that I admired my friend for his rare ability to sniff out salami. And I had hoped that one day he would teach me how. But afterwards, whenever I pressed him about it, he would wave me off and say that it was something you had to be born with and that I was hopeless.
That day had been one of the saddest days of my life, but it's one that I'd rather not talk about.
Nathan was sure that a truck would rumble down the narrow cobblestone alley and pull around to the bins that we hid behind, he just didn't know when.
"Maybe we missed the truck already," I said.
"Oh, don't be ridiculous. It'll come. Just wait."
I learned how to pee into an empty coke bottle that day. Nathan couldn't believe that I hadn't learned before. "We're eleven, Matthew. Stop being such a girl."
That moment, the back door opened and a young girl crept out.
"What is she up to?" Nathan whispered.
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