Like Brothers We drink good scotch from Old Fashioned glasses at a bar near a college where I teach. Drive home. He knows what a brother is. Jim, born after him, lives in Wisconsin. He’s not forgotten, just busy. Work and a terrific wife. A couple of great kids. This is about watching out for someone, keeping his secret and feeling the light rain on your face all the way up the walk with his sagging body craddled and dragged, by turns, so that no one will know to acknowledge what you’re doing. The trick isn’t discovering the key, it’s finding the front-door and then propping him up while you work a deadbolt. They won’t mention you in the obituary when he’s passed, but so what. Tonight all that he has is you and your refusal to let him fall. Between a good night’s sleep and the rest of a life after this night, there’s only you to steady him. Only you to unzip by a hedge plant, saying "I’m taking a leak" as he rises to do the same, finding reserves of extraordinary resolve after your example. How long until both lungs fail him? Years. Until the unsuccessful transplant? Longer. Long enough that tomorrow he will laugh and ask which God lets him drink like that. He won’t remember anything come morning, your pouring him into the bed to sleep it off and going back out, into the rain, to retrieve his Members Only jacket from the dark car; a beloved memento no worse for wear and rough handling though, without him in it, mostly remarkable for its sheer emptiness. Copyright (c) 2013 by Roy Bentley. All rights reserved.
Posted on: Mon, 05 Aug 2013 00:48:35 +0000
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