It was a sad event one summer day between 7th and 8th grade. Noel and Roel, two brothers I'd known since my family arrived in South Mississippi eight years prior, were moving. Their dad, who was with Naval Mobile Construction Battalion (NMCB) 62, just received orders to Puerto Rico. These guys, who'd become like brothers to me, were moving away.
From the time we met, we were constantly at each other's houses. Once, around my 6th-grade year, Mom and Dad were visiting their folks at their place while the three of us boys were likely into rambunctious shenanigans outside. At some point, I got hungry and ran inside and into their kitchen where our parents were. By this time, after so many years, the demarcation between their house and our house and the expected protocols of guest propriety were blurred and lost on me. I looked up at their Mom and belted out, "Hey, Auntie, what's for dinner?!" Dad was mortified. He hustled me out the front door and gave me a fairly stern lecture. Their mom, however, laughed it off and, well, fixed us dinner.
Apart from my buddy, Mike, whose stories litter these pages as well, I'm not sure I've ever been that comfortable at anyone else's home. When Dad was deployed and Mom was on night shift, I slept over at their place. For every one of my birthdays from age 7, no matter who else was on the guest list, after the regular crowd went home, the three of us remained - me, Noel, and Roel. They always spent the night on every birthday and we'd watch TV, play video games, or just talk smack about girls we thought the others were crushing on. We were very close, and now they were gone.
Fast forward a few years. I managed to navigate the gauntlet of Junior High and was cruising through Senior High when I got word Noel and Roel moving back to Long Beach. Great! Turns out, Noel was still in band so we'd even have a class together. The last time I saw the two of them, we were goofy kids perennially dressed in sneakers, knee-high tube socks, shorts, and tank tops.
Noel was now sporting ripped jeans, half a dozen bandanas, and mirrored shades. Before Puerto Rico, he and his brother were amused at my Country Western musical tastes, but the hardest thing they listened to was whatever played on WQID, the Mississippi Gulf Coast adult mainstream radio station. He picked up a bit of an edge while he was in Puerto Rico. His room was now papered with posters of groups I'd never heard of before. To be honest, just based on their names they seemed pretty sketchy. Metallica? Motley Crue? Wait. What's this? Twisted Sister!? "Who are you, and what have you done with my friend?"
Noel laughed and spooled up a tape. He wanted me to listen to his favorite tune from his favorite group. This was my introduction to heavy metal - my de facto long lost older brother playing a song from a band that couldn't even spell its name correctly. As the opening guitar riffs assaulted my ears, I remember looking at the cassette case and thinking, "But there's only supposed to be one 't' in 'Ratt'".
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