A Day in the Jungle

A Day in the Jungle

Scott had been dead for nearly a year when I found out about it. It had been twenty-two years since I had last seen my best friend from childhood, and one night it dawned on me to search around the Internet for any trace of him in my old hometown in Kansas. What I came across made my heart sink – an obituary for a 29-year old, dead after a fight in a Scottsdale, Arizona bar that left him with hemorrhaging of the brain. The perpetrator was being prosecuted for manslaughter, but that didn’t matter much to me – my first best friend was gone.

My thoughts wandered aimlessly, as if I was suspended in a non-rhythmic trance. What was Scott like in the end? Was he still so small? Scott was a year younger than me, and about half my size, but very athletic and always on the go. I was tall, clumsy, and more into thinking than acting. It was always Scott who led the adventures, and the biggest adventure we went on was into the dreaded Hobo Jungle....