I’d known Arnie for 13 years before I thought of him as a friend of mine. He worked at the luncheonette where I would get the Sunday papers on the way to church; my father and mother waiting out in the car. The apron over his T-shirt would be stained with counter breakfasts. I’d be dressed up for church.

When I was a teenager, he worked at the gas station. Not the one my parents used. But when I started to drive, I’d drive in and he’d check the air in the tires. I never needed gas. The tires never needed air.

He was tallish. Thin with muscles on his arms. Dark curly hair and a boney face with deep, dark eyes. Serious. Always working, it seemed to me.

I never saw him in the winter when I was in school. My dad would get the paper on Sundays. I didn’t drive in the winter because of the snow. It was as if Arnie were a part of summer.

There was a romance about him because of that.