My mom, like every other member of our family, had a touch of craziness. She loved crazy people and ended up with crazy friends, just like herself. Her friends had many other friends besides my mom. But she also had a couple of friends who had no other friends except her—not because they were bad people, but because they didn’t look normal. That was actually her checkmark for a good friend.
The one who earned the best friend checkmark was one of those few people who had no one else besides my mom, because his behavior didn’t fit what was considered normal. He was a truly crazy guy—physically a healthy young man, but mentally still a child, unable to behave like a normal person, especially for his age.
In the neighborhood, we called him Jinni Mehdi, which meant Crazy Matt. To us—barely twelve years old—he was already over fifteen, which made him feel like an adult. We never let him play soccer with us in the alley because he grabbed the ball with his hands whenever he couldn’t control it with his feet.
We tried using him as a goalkeeper once, but he caught the ball, placed it in front of his feet, and kicked it straight into our own goal. That was the first goal he ever scored in his life, and he celebrated by running around and yelling throughout the neighborhood for almost a week. By the way, it was also his last goal—and the last time he ever played with us.
Once, he ran into a group of women gathered in our yard to discuss important neighborhood matters—or maybe just to gossip. Crazy Matt walked straight into the middle of women wearing hijabs, gossiping very seriously, and began explaining the goal that he made, with overwhelming excitement. That was when my mom met her best friend.
No one else cared, except to enjoy another round of gossip—this time about his poor parents, who supposedly couldn’t control their “mental” child. But my mom listened. She understood the importance of the goal he had scored, and how clever he had been to think outside the box—shooting into the goal behind him while everyone else expected him to aim for the opposite one. She could see the game, and its importance, from his point of view. She could see his victory after years of nonstop struggle to be included in the 'Soccer Olympics' between the two alleys.
She said, “Well, Matt, let’s go celebrate this. You’ve scored your goal now. It’s their turn to run after that stupid ball for the next few years.”
After that, they hung out every single day—as best friends. Whenever we were at school or outside playing, Matt was at our house with my mom. They laughed all the time about things that stupid “normal” people would never think about or understand—but Matt did.
He was no longer Crazy Matt. He was just Matt, a boy who had a friend with a big house full of toys—enough for four kids of different ages and interests. He was allowed to talk about anything he wanted, free to go into every room and play with whatever he wanted, even eat whatever he wanted. Pure freedom.
There was only one rule he could never break. Before doing anything, he had to ask: “Can I do this, Akhtar Ammeh?” And Auntie Akhtar was more than ready—to take the risk of having a couple of things broken for the sake of their precious friendship.
Honestly, I was jealous of him. Some of the treatment he received, I never had—or at least that’s how it felt to me as a kid. On top of that, he didn’t have to go to horrible Iranian schools or come home to piles of homework. I would get really angry every time he went through my stuff. That’s how I became their favorite joke. Every time I walked in—half Matt’s size—Matt would run to my mom and warn her, “Good Lord, Emir is here,” putting on a smirky scared face.
Matt’s sudden changes of mood were hilarious to my mom. Until one weekend. Matt was no longer the same from the moment he saw that very bright, colorful, palm-sized, flexible plastic gymnastics doll rolling down the huge patio glass. The Window Walker was the most popular toy that season.
It stuck to any flat vertical surface and slowly rolled its way down with surprising, random, and unique movements—almost like a human gymnast. It worked perfectly, as long as the sticky hands and feet were washed and properly maintained. My best friend came over immediately after I told him that the toy we had been watching behind the toy shop window—cheering at how it moved—was now in my hands, and that we could finally try it in ways that occurred only to us and no one else, including sticking it on our giant patio window.
Matt was behind us while that small, cute champion rolled down the glass, entertaining us. He didn’t say or do anything. Even his “crazy” mind knew he had no chance of touching Amir’s brand-new toy. He stayed there, quietly. Something happened inside him. He almost became invisible. The loud, oversized presence that used to fill the house faded into silence. We kept playing and laughing, and he just watched.
My mom, seeing there was no conflict that required her attention in the living room, stayed in the kitchen and continued cooking. Finally we decided to take a break for a snack and let the little gymnast rest in a bowl of water and soap, getting ready for later. After a heavy snack, we felt tired and forgot about our champion floating in bubbles. Maybe we were already over it.
My mom shouted, “Matt, don’t you want a snack?” There was no response. She stepped out of the kitchen and asked, “What happened to him? I haven’t heard him for more than an hour. Where is he?”
She was right. You could never not feel Matt’s presence. She immediately checked with his mom on the phone to make sure he was safe at his home, and that was it. After a while, my friend told me that Matt had taken the toy. I laughed and said there was no way—Matt wasn’t that kind of crazy. He insisted that he had seen it with his own eyes and thought Matt was just checking it out.
I told my mom, with a little worried voice, that Matt might have broken her rule. She became instantly nervous. She grabbed her veil and ran toward their house. Like someone who has just been betrayed by a loved one, she couldn’t accept it—not by her most beloved best friend—and needed to see it with her own eyes.
When my mom came back, her heart was broken. This was not a stupid toy story. This was a story about love at first sight and a broken heart. I wish I could have seen that little gymnast champion through Matt’s “crazy” eyes. The way people like him perceive the world is uniquely different. Was that little man alive to him? Could it have been a friend? A better friend than my slightly crazy mom?
I don’t know. All I know is that Matt chose to keep that little friend over his friendship with my mom.