Junior Year Box Set

“Someone called the fire department, and my grandma was down below, screaming at me to cover up. She was the one who made me wear skirts. I had bigger things to worry about than whether the neighbors could see my underwear. When the firemen got me unhooked, I begged them to take me with them because I knew my grandma was in one of her moods.

“My aunt and uncle came and got me. My uncle had planned this trip, so I had to go with him because I wasn’t allowed to be left alone,” she finished.

“Because you were peeping?” Greg asked.

“I don’t think I like your brother,” Madison said to me as she pouted.

“That’s okay. I don’t like him much most of the time, but he can grow on you,” I shared.

“Why is your uncle mad at you?” Greg asked.

“I accidentally let my line out while we were coming back, and it got tangled in the prop. We had to get towed back, and they had to take the prop off to get the line out,” she admitted.

We should never have gotten Madison talking. I admit that she was funny, but by the time we returned to our cabin to eat dinner, I was worn out from listening to her. I was also glad to leave because she stared at me the whole time, to the amusement of everyone there, including her uncle.

◊◊◊

We sat around the fire in the main room of our cabin so Uncle John could continue our ‘lessons.’ He repeated the thoughts he’d shared with me this afternoon and then continued.

“Now that I’ve talked about these circles in generalities, I need to add a few more nuances. The first one is, trust relationships aren’t static. People can move from one circle to another from your perspective, sometimes instantaneously, based on something they’ve done or said, or something they’ve refrained from doing. That’s not necessarily good or bad; it just is.

“You will also find you trust some people implicitly in some areas, but not others. You may trust someone implicitly with everything except one subject, due to their own experience or perspective. That’s okay, but you do have to factor it into how you interact with that person in specific situations.

“A third point to always keep in mind is that trust requires some sort of action. It’s an active verb. You can’t earn trust by words alone, and you can’t give trust purely based on words. If you do, you’re basically not being responsible to yourself,” Uncle John explained.

Then Uncle John held up his clipboard and pointed to the bottom half of the sheet.

“Now, we’re going to talk about the bottom half. This is the area that can get dicey.

“This set of circles represents people whom you believe are not good for you or who you mistrust for whatever reason.

“At the center of that circle is anyone you mistrust completely. Stated another way, these are the people out to cause you harm. Sadly, some people will have enemies who fall into that category,” Uncle John said and looked at me.

“I’ll bet you can think of people you seriously mistrust off the top of your head,” he said.

I gave a snort at that. As soon as he said it, I’d thought of Cal, Mike Herndon, Brandon, and Tommy Cox. Then I added Baby Dick, Brad Hope, Bill Rogers, and the two feminazis. I already had a rather long list for someone my age.

“In the next circle out from the center is another group of people. These are people who don’t necessarily have any malice towards you. However, if something hurts you but helps them, they’re all for it, and they’re indifferent to any harm it causes you. These people seem nice enough. But you can count on them to throw you under a bus at the drop of a hat if they decide it’s beneficial for them to do so.”

This one I had to chew on a bit. The Ford Models people certainly fit this category. At one point, I thought my movie agent, Saul, would fit in this circle. Now, I wasn’t so sure; the jury was still out on him.

“David, do you remember why you don’t have to put a lid on a bucket of crabs?” Uncle John asked.

“Yeah, it’s because if one crab looks like it’s going to succeed in climbing out, the others will pull it back down.

“When you told me about the crab bucket, I looked it up on the Internet. I had to see if you were telling me a story since I didn’t have a bucket of crabs lying around. They call it ‘crab mentality’: ‘if I can’t have it, neither can you.’

“Uncle John warned me that when I made changes to my life to make it better, there would be friends who would try to talk me out of it. When I was in middle school, I started to date Jan Duke, who was the head cheerleader at the time. My best friends all told me I shouldn’t because I was reaching too far,” I said.

“You dated Yuri’s girlfriend?” Phil asked.