Crashbox

We went out that night knowing it would be the last time we would hang out, one on one, both as we had known each other for all of our time growing up together. He, my brother and best friend, is joining the army in a few days, and will be sent as an infantry scout to Iraq. That night was perhaps the best time I have ever had with him...he was his old self again after years of trouble and distance and misunderstanding in both of us...and I think I have been more myself and better able to love of late as well...our love had never slacked, but on that chilly Sunday night all fell away and we were fifteen and crazy and laughing again. It started out in a nearly empty Irish pub where we nabbed a couple of drinks, and when it closed we wandered through Riverfront park like in our old skater days; we climbed a 50-foot sculpture in the dark and discovered that the artist had written in the cross-bracing at the very top: 'Transcend the Bullshit.' After a few smokes and deep talk, we walked across downtown for food and ended up at the huge shopping center/movie theater by the river. A grinning glance at each other was all that was needed: in no time we had mounted the parking structure, shimmied up a light pole, and were on the roof (about 10 stories up) tossing pennies out into frosty space and gazing over the town that for so many years had been our home. Spotting a glowing white cross off in the blackness of the hills beyond the edge of town, it was clear that the next step was to find it. The road that lead behind the cemetery where the cross was presumed to be had long ago been barricaded by rather large piles of dirt and rock; but SuperChick had kindly loaned us her kick-ass, mud-slaying 4x4 Toyota, so.....through the ditch, over the burm, between some trees and around some rocks and we were golden. We explored nearly every inch of that road, almost ran out of gas, got lost (briefly) and then parked on an ancient overpass and trotted into the empty, 1:00am-soaked graveyard. Away across the vast expanse of yellow-brown lawn someone had left a lone candle burning. In the erie half-dark duskiness of reflected light off the clouds from the nearby city we studied that single lonely flame fluttering a little in the almost still night. I lit my cigarette from the flame and said a prayer for the guy's soul: he had died at 27. Quietly we left the candle and the silence and peace of our deceased fellow men, found the truck in the dark and headed into deeper blackness. Finding our way up a steep cliff the truck did a manly thrashing climb through a cleft in the rock and we suddenly burst onto the top a tall cliff near a road, on the wrong side of a large boulder barrier. It just so happened that we had roared up over a cliff that looks completely impossible to drive, out of a black, tree-filled valley were there should not have been anything like a road, and landed with our headlights aimed directly at a poor white trash couple parked by the roadside making out in a beater Ford Festiva. Pardon, (snicker). It took some heaving on a large rock and a precarious drive near the cliff edge, but we coaxed poor SuperChick's willing truck over the barrier and onto the road, with only a slight ding to the running board. She forgave us (whew), 'cause she's a good 'un. We wrapped the night up soon after that, and now I'm in California again and he will shortly be in BT. I don't think I have the words to describe what's in my soul...he's my brother and I will sure miss him. We never did find the cross, but we were guided by love and the companionship that comes only with real family, and nothing could have added to the experience. I keep thinking about family; I really understand now why a man will leave his mother and father and friends and bind himself to a girl and build a life with her. Because what we shared out there, running around, talking, laughing, remembering, just appreciating the other's company...that is only possible by the love of family. I mourn our parting, but am thankful for a such a farewell...God is watching over us all.