By the time I was around 12 years old, I was pretty much known in school as the kid who could draw.

Other guys were always asking me to draw stuff for them–like sports cars or jet planes–or monsters or aliens. I liked the attention it gave me and I savored it for every one of the ten seconds or so that it lasted.

But aside from Hughie, I still didn’t have any friends. And half the time, I wasn’t even sure about him. I don’t blame him, really. After all, he didn’t really need me to pal around with, he had five brothers. And then, as if the deck wasn’t stacked against me enough already, along came “Richard”. He was a kid our age who moved in right next door to Hughie. If Hughie felt like doing something with someone outside of his own family, all he had to do was walk outside and go next door to Richard’s house. His new friend even had my name!

Hank and Harry, the two juvenile delinquents who lived on either side of me, were around 16 years old by then, and way too old for me to be palling around with. I also knew there was zero chance that Hughie would ever call me up and ask me to do anything, especially now that he had Richard. So most of the time, even though it made me feel like a loser, I still went over to Hughie’s, every time I wanted someone to hang out with.

But so did Richard. He was usually already there when I arrived. I started to get the feeling that Hughie couldn’t have cared less one way or the other whether I was over there or not. And I’m sure I was right.

One day, when I was in a pre-emptive mood regarding Richard, I called Hughie up on the telephone and asked him if he wanted to go to the movies. His answer was vague—and left me intellectually and emotionally stymied. He merely said, “I don’t know”. “I don’t know……” It was a simple enough answer, but somehow, I just couldn’t handle it. What could I say? I didn’t know how to respond to him.

So I hung up. 

So most of the time, I just stayed home after school and drew pictures in my room. Mostly on the cardboard “shirt-backs” that came with my father’s freshly-laundered and folded shirts.

I had also become somewhat obsessed with a magazine called “Famous Monsters of Filmland”, by Forest J Ackerman. It was mostly reprints of movie stills with pictures of Frankenstein, The Werewolf, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Robbie The Robot from “Forbidden Planet” and others. 

My father worked as a telegrapher for the railroad, and voluminous information concerning the identity of various passenger trains, as well as the arrival, departure and contents of thousands of freight cars would be printed out constantly onto big rolls of yellow paper. When the rolls began to run out the color of the paper would change to pink. That way, the operators knew to change the roll, so all of the information which was being transmitted would be printed by the Teletype machines and the machines would not be tapping away on an empty roll. My father had grown up in a family that had seen hard times come and go and he was not raised to be wasteful. So instead of throwing away perfectly good rolls of pink paper that he had removed from the machines, he’d bring them home to me to draw on. He even showed me how to use a ruler to tear off pieces of paper from the rolls, so that each sheet would have a nice straight edge. Consequently, there was never any shortage of art supplies around the Parker household.

By the time I was 12, all the walls in my room were completely covered with my drawings of monsters on pink paper. It was my first art exhibit. 

One day there was a knock at the door.