𝕋𝕣𝕒𝕡𝕡𝕖𝕕 𝕚𝕟 𝕒 𝕧𝕚𝕔𝕚𝕠𝕦𝕤 𝕔𝕪𝕔𝕝𝕖

Our next-door neighbor in Pennsylvania had a tiny flagpole in his backyard, and every morning he raised a different flag. American flag on Monday, state flag on Tuesday, then flags from countries I’d never heard of. I was a kid and assumed he’d personally visited all of them. One time there was a flag with a yellow sun on it and I asked him what country it represented. He said it was the flag of a fictional nation he’d invented called West Arbordale. Apparently he made flags for imaginary places when he was bored. He had a notebook full of them, with maps and populations and histories. His wife acted like this was completely normal. Every summer, he hosted “international day” in his backyard, where the neighbors ate hot dogs and he explained the political situation in places that didn’t exist. I’m pretty sure he had a fake passport too. He was an accountant named Glen, not some eccentric professor, which somehow made it stranger. When he moved away, the flagpole came down. For a while the yard looked empty without it, even though it had only been there for maybe five years.

In high school I had to do a presentation on Shakespeare and I accidentally said "Shakesman" instead of "Shakespeare" in the first sentence and then just kept saying it that way for the entire ten minutes because I was too embarrassed to correct myself. Just fully committed to calling him William Shakesman. My teacher didn't say anything until I was done and then very gently asked if I meant Shakespeare. I played it off like I'd been saying it correctly the whole time. I hadn't. There's probably still a grade sheet somewhere with a note about my Shakesman presentation. My best friend from that class still calls him Shakesman when we talk. This was over 30 years ago. Some mistakes just follow you forever I guess. At least it wasn't filmed like everything is now.

When I was 12, my parents left me home alone for maybe forty minutes while they went to pick up my sister from softball practice. It was July in central Indiana, really humid, and I was watching reruns of *The A-Team* with a bowl of dry Cheerios because we were out of milk. Suddenly somebody started pounding on the front door and yelling, “I know you’re in there, Steven.” My name is not Steven. I crawled behind the couch because apparently my plan was to become furniture. The guy kept knocking, then walked around the side of the house and looked through our kitchen window. He was wearing a yellow windbreaker despite it being about 90 degrees. I remember that very clearly. Finally he left, and I called my dad at the softball field practically hyperventilating. My parents came home with my sister and two other dads from her team, all carrying baseball bats. They searched the yard and found nothing. About an hour later, the guy returned, this time with an elderly woman. It turned out she had lived in our house twenty years earlier, and “Steven” was her adult son, who apparently still used her old address when he wanted to avoid people. Yellow Jacket Guy was trying to serve him court papers. My mother gave him Steven’s current address, which the old woman knew immediately. I’m not sure why she came along. I spent the rest of that summer checking behind the couch before sitting down.