when I was a young teen... maybe 14-15
my buddy Eamon and I would head downtown to hang at Dupont in the Summer
one afternoon in the circle we ran into the this high energy kid
he was from NYC
his energy made his stories somewhat unbelievable
yet I accepted them as truth
he was hang out... run off
only to be seen another day
entering and exiting in the same dramatic fashion
one time he asked me to hold onto his DMs and his Kryptonics skateboard
as he felt like child services as on his tail and gonna drag him back to NYC
so... I held onto these things until the next time I saw him
no phone numbers were exchanged
it was many decades before the inception of the cell phone
return would be based off chance
the chance we saw each other again
and
the chance he would be in town long enough for me to retrieve these items and get them back to him
so... this
13-14 year old kid
shaved head
shaved eye browns
skinny... super skinny
and
dressed like a skin head
he claimed he was in the band Agnostic Front
the choice was to believe or not believe
there was no Internet to verify the facts
so... I accepted all of his wild stories as facts
sure enough...
he returned to DC
I got his stuff back to him
then...
he vanished just as he had arrived
never to think about him again
not realizing that he had become a rock star
not realizing he could be on one of the bands on stage at that moment
all I know is the stories of our early meeting
kids
just kids
and he was young
14 years young
RIP Todd Youth
