The house that Mark's family lived in was quite small it had three
small bedrooms, a kitchen, and living room all in about a thousand
square feet. There were six people in Mark's family. The parents got
one room, the only sister got the other leaving the third for the
three boys. It was not a large room to begin with the necessities of
housing three boys it was full to the brink. To get the room and the
privacy a 14 year old boy demands Mark cleared out the 4' X 8' walk
in closet and put a mattress on the floor and left all of the shelves
for storage. This might sound sad that he had to live in a closet,
but it was nothing of the sort, it was the most awesome space I had
ever seen. I had shared a room my whole life as well and I thought
that any little piece of privacy was well worth whatever it cost in
square footage. Mark had lock on the door and when he left he could
lock out his brothers and sister who may have dastardly designs to
purloin or soil his toys or comic books. We could also lock it from
the inside and for young boys there is no greater thrill then
exclusivity, especially if you can lock out girls. We would go in to
Mark's closet room with some penny candy and ten cent candy lock the
door and sit around talking about ninja fights we had been in, and
won and about super cool things his cousins or this guy he knew had
done. We would peruse his G.I. Joe comics and tell racist jokes that
we did not understand because we had never met any of the races
involved. We would tell jokes that were incredibly long with minimal
payoff but what is time when you are 11? It is not like we had
anything else to do.
