Where are you now?

There are probably a hand full of people that crossed my path in time, that I still wonder about on occasion, always wondering where they are, if they made it? Disappeared off the face of my earth.

Karen was one of those, I had the good fortune to meet her in High School, and she was a big sister to some of us, street smarts 101, maybe. We met her in gym class, she was two years older, but had a big heart, and took a few of us under her wing once we'd merged into the big building from our freshie year sequestered living.

She used a lot of humor, first in gym class and then out on the street, guiding us between what we should do, and should definitely stay away from. We had one year with her, but did we ever grow and become self assured in that time.
She was dating Lonson. We'd heard from other people about Lonson. We'd come to hear one day that he had beaten her to a bloody pulp, that he always beat her. She had graduated, and gone onto wherever life was taking her on the great path...but was still dating Lonson.
Now I never say her again, but I never could get a grasp on why a beautiful girl with so much human warmth and charm could have hooked up with a beater.

The 2nd girl from early childhood I had gone to school with from 3rd grade all the way to high school graduation as close friends, Eileen was our turtle who turned into a beautiful swan in high school, and she and I both spent time with Karen, the three of us enjoying many days together that one year in particular, But in grammer school Eileen, Jeanne & I loved trolls, troll houses, and Be-Witched, we all wanted to be Samantha one day, and we were all afraid of our basements, and the noises we'd hear, my inner child's still afraid of basements.

In Senior year Eileen walked into our Home economics class, she had just had her second abortion, why she didn't tune in after the first I wasn't certain, she had a slash and a bruise on her beautiful cheekbone, the slash being skin that broke from the impact of a punch. Jesus Christ, she told me she was going out with Lonson.

I never saw either of them again. I had a crush here or there through high school, didn't date except for the proms, drove my own car (1/2 Zig's), went to the holiday to dance on fridays with a throng of friends, hung out with the friends in a park for amusement, read a ton of books about all sorts of adventures present and past,
wanted to be a lady pirate at one point in my young adult life, and came to love the guitar and music for an emotional experience, and I never dated Lonson.

About a year after we graduated, at an old neighborhood restaurant hangout, the same night Joey came up there, saw me, and told me get the hell out of there cause Lonson was coming up there with a gun looking for someone, well I've always wondered how the girls faired, I still know a ton of people from the old neighborhood, we face book together, and none of them know either.