Broken Windows Chapter 4

If you are new to Broken Windows, thanks for reading. You may want to start here http://paulblais.blogspot.com/2011/11/introduction.html. I hope you have a good time with the book.

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I used to hang out with this guy named Jeremy. That dude was cool. We used to call him Jerm. You know, like germ, but with a “j” in place of the “g”. His parents used to let him draw on his bedroom wall and stuff like that when he was a kid. Most parents would hit you up side your head for being so stupid. They’d say, “Draw on paper, not walls,” or something stupid like that. Tell that to that Wyland guy who paints whales on walls and stuff. That guy’s a billionaire or something crazy like that for coloring on walls.

Anyhow, Jerm got to draw on the walls of his bedroom and his parents didn’t care. Maybe they thought he was like that little prince who spelled sherbet all wrong and everything he did was cute. Stink! He draws some stickman on the wall and his mom walks in and says, “Isn’t that cute” or some other proud stupid thing like that. The family that could do no wrong cause they were always right or something dumb like that.

You wanna know the funny thing? He ended up becoming an artist and all that junk, and he painted this one picture and put it in an art show. Then some crazy Japanese rich guy digs the painting and offers to buy it. And here is the part that’s so crazy insane. Instead of giving Jerm money for his painting, this Japanese guy sends him on this all expense paid trip to Japan! That’s crazy! I guess a little crayon on the wall wasn’t so bad after all. I bet his mom really is proud of him now.

I always like him, my friend, Jeremy. He was like one of my all time favorite people to hang out with. He was always saying funny stuff. One time he said- and this circles back around to the letter “r” again. Talking about that missing “r” made me think of Jeremy. Anyhow, he said that we should all be thankful for the letter “r”, because without the letter “r” all of our “friends” would be “fiends”. Get it? Fiends is friends without the “r”! Isn’t that hilarious? I always get a kick out of that whenever I think of it.

It was good having friends like him. Stink, that whole stupid group of friends were really good to be with. But somehow I got the idea that there was something better out there. You know, better friends and stuff. There wasn’t a lot of glitz with the gang, but they were still good to hang with.

But my eyes were wandering to a more, you know, “in” crowd. And I thought that this mythical “in” group would somehow be better and more fun and less constraining and… well, I don’t know, just different. I wanted different for no other reason than it was different from what I had.

It must have been around that time the “r” dropped out of me. You know, I went from friend to fiend. Stink, I guess you could pretty much say that that’s the kind of friend I ended up being. I didn’t mean to, but as sure as I’m here today with you, that’s what I became.

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