In Between Days: Raising Jordan (boyxman)✅

Holiday in Cambodia

"Later" to Jamie meant 11 a.m. while "later" to me meant two or three o'clock in the afternoon. I was still in my boxers when Jamie came knocking on my door, the same boxers I had on yesterday and today. I just hadn't gotten around to changing. Jamie knocked again, and although I only grunted, he took that as permission to open my bedroom door.

"You ready?" he asked as I looked up at him from my phone. "Uh...are you still in the same shorts? That's disgusting. You're sitting on your bed in your wet shorts that's been in that smelly, disgusting pond. I hope you change your sheets before you go to bed." Maybe I will, maybe I won't. "So are we going or what?"

Not saying a word, I got off my bed and went to the laundry basket of clean clothes that I hadn't put away yet. Dumping it out, I managed to find a pair of clean cargo shorts.

"Wait," he said as I went to put the shorts on over my boxers. "You need to take a shower and change your underwear."

He wasn't the boss of me and I didn't care, anyway, so I resumed putting on the shorts.
With him staring at me with a weird look on his face, I zipped and buttoned my shorts up and proceeded to slip on my black chucks without socks. What was his problem, anyway?

"I don't know if I want you in my car dirty and smelly," he said.

Fine, whatever, I thought, and went to sit back down on my bed.

"But I don't know where I'm going." He had GPS, didn't he? "And I don't know what to buy."

I wasn't sure what to buy, either, but the guy in the store knew. After a few minutes of Jamie standing in my room quietly staring at me, he gave in.

"Fine," he said. "Let's go, but you need to take a shower later. It's disgusting."

"You're not my father," I muttered, throwing on a black t-shirt that I wasn't sure was clean or not.

Located in the neighboring town of Groton, Crombie's Pool and Spa was the the only pool store in the area, one where all the employees seemed to know me for some reason or other.

"Hey there Jordan," the only old guy in the store said. I knew him as Mr. Crombie. He was in the middle of unloading a box of pool chemicals. "Long time no see, huh? Where's Tim?" He knew very well he was at work since he wasn't with me.

"Hi," Jamie said. "I'm a friend of Tim's,  just helping him out. We plan on opening the pool today, so I was hoping you could tell us what we need." Mr. Crombie gathered up the usual supplies and put them in a box.

"Do you expect your dad home this summer?" Mr. Crombie asked. How was I supposed to know? He stared me down, expecting me to say something, but I wasn't in the mood. "Just one day I'd like to hear your voice instead of a grunt. Say hi to Tim for me." Jamie dropped the supplies in the backseat of his black Jeep and interrupted me with another question as I was about to get in the passenger's seat.

"Do you hear that sound?" he said. What sound? Listening carefully, I heard the sound Jamie was referring to. "Quick. It's the ice- cream man."

I had never seen a thirty year old man get so excited over the ice-cream man. Although I didn't want to admit it, I was excited, too, but I was much younger than Jamie. He ran in the direction of the all too familiar tune that epitomized the sounds of summer, a sound that could instantly render any adult a child again.