Evan.

After telling that story about Ralph, I thought it would be a good idea to think about some of my older stories and retelling them. I had some of this stuff on diary-x, but I don’t think that is up and running anymore.

Today’s story will be about Evan.

I met Evan at summer camp in 1993. We were both counselors in the same group. He seemed like he would be ok – we were both Yankee fans and he seemed to be interested in getting into the bands I was listening to at the time.

As the summer went on, I began noticing weird things about him. Whenever Ralph and I would head out to get something to eat after camp was over for the day, Evan would basically join us without an invite. Ralph was extremely amazed that he chose to hang out with us instead of get a ride home with these two good looking twin girls.

Evan always made his presence felt at the worst times. I could think of three times when Evan showed up while I was hanging out with this one girl I kinda liked. One of those times, he even made a point to mention how much hair I had on my body. Another time, he made sure to sit right in between us.

So the summer of 1993 ended, but somehow Evan would still get in contact with Ralph and me. We actually went over his house that September to watch a football game, and we noticed more weird things: he had every newspaper for the entire baseball season opened up to the Yankee box score. He had tons of free cheap sneakers that he got from his dad’s company. He had a mini bowling alley in his basement with a jukebox that played Motley Crue and the Alarm. And he had this second floor that no one lived in, that looked totally abandoned, and when we went up there, he told us to make sure we keep quiet, or else “we’ll be sorry.” He never explained why. But when Ralph and I joked that we should move in there, he got all excited and was hoping we weren’t joking around.

Then there was time when Evan called all the time. And I mean ALL THE TIME. I would get home from school at 3 PM, and he would call me at 3:05, like he knew when I walked through the door. He would call me with nothing to say. The conversation would go something like this:

“Hello?”

“Hey, what’s up.”

“Nothing. You?”

“Nothing.”

Then silence for awhile.

“I gotta go eat. Later.”

But then he would call me back ten minutes later. And I’m not joking, it was really ten minutes later. And I’d have to think of another way to get rid of him.

One time he actually did have something to say. He wanted to tell me that he hated his mom because she wouldn’t heat up his pizza, but then he loved her because she got him a box of Ring Dings. Oh joy.

Another time he asked me what the normal time was for a guy to be “in a girl.” Yup, you know what he is talking about. I ask him why, and he goes, well I was in this girl for ten minutes. Now I think he was lying, because he used to talk about this girl “Georgia” that I never met and who I never thought was real.

And then one day the weirdest thing happened. I was on the phone talking to Ralph, and then Evan calls on the other line. I pick up, tell him I am busy, click him off and continue talking to Ralph. And I then tell Ralph about this top ten list (like Letterman) that I made about why everyone hates Evan. Ralph is laughing like crazy, and we’re enjoying this. After we’re done talking, Evan calls me and tells me he heard the whole thing. Now I know I clicked him off, so how was he listening? I asked him, and he goes “I have my ways.” Freaky!! As punishment, Evan forced Ralph and I to hang out with him (can you believe forcing people to hang out with you?) I got out of it because of my class schedule, but Ralph wasn’t so lucky. The night of the infamous “hanging out on Kings Highway” day, Ralph calls me and tells me that it was the most awkward and worst day of his life.

I never saw Evan in person after this, but it wasn’t because he didn’t try. He would still call me asking to hang out. I would flat out tell him no, and he would say “ok, I am flexible! We can do it another time then.” And we would go through this over and over again.

The following summer, Evan was considering returning to camp as a counselor, but Ralph and I did not want him ruining our summer. So we told him that we had other plans for the summer and weren’t returning. So he goes to me “well, if you and Ralph aren’t gonna be back, then there’s no reason for me to return!” No joke. And he didn’t come back. When he found out later that we really did return, I just told him we had a change of plans.

But he was there the summer after that. And it was extremely weird. We barely spoke all summer, and whenever we’d pass each other, we would try to look the other way. I think he realized what Ralph and I thought of him, finally. But we were usually around in the same places during that summer, so it was always weird. But we managed.

And then he finally stopped calling me.