on wrists slamming against backs, March 2006

My phone rang, and I made up my mind not to answer it before I glanced at the caller id. As a rule, I never answer the phone. I have more numbers saved in my contacts list of people I don’t want to talk to then of people I might want to call. It’s the first line of defense, and few violators ever make it past. Even friends are usually asked to leave a message, which is something I’m not proud to admit. Still, I’m horrible at saying no and in the event that someone is calling to request an outrageous favor, I find it best to have an idea of the purpose of our upcoming conversation.

     This call, however, was from Brandon, who played in the band at the church in Columbia. He is one of the few people I let through unconditionally. There are two reasons for this:

1) Brandon has only asked me for one outrageous favor and it just so happened to be the last time we spoke. This is how the conversation went:

“Brandon,” I said making the “o” a long “o” as in the word “flow” instead of a short one which is something stupid I like to do.

“Johnny John John. What are you doing tomorrow?”

Think quick, John. Make up something. It’s too soon to have to commit to anything. A nephew’s birthday, a lecture on the beginnings of Yugoslavian civilization, anything, anything. “Nothing, why?”

“Because I was wondering if I could interest you in driving to Savannah to pick me up?”

“What are you going to be doing in Savannah?”

“Train hopping.”

-Silence-

“Train hopping?” I asked. “Like hobos with a bag on the end of a stick?”

“Exactly like hobos with a bag on the end of a stick, which reminds me, I need to find a good stick… and a knife to whittle with. What do you think you’re supposed to put in the bag anyway?”

“Well, I don’t think there’s any rule. A banana? A notebook to document your worthlessness?”

“Yea, that sounds good. So, you interested?”

“Call me when you get there.” I don’t count on there being a call, as this conversation is strangely reminiscent of the time he asked if I would be interested in trying to pull off a bank heist. “Every guy secretly wants to be involved in a bank heist,” he said. He was probably right.

2) Brandon is the kind of friend you can always count on to help, as evidenced by the conversation we were about to have:

     “Brandon,” I said in the previously mentioned pronunciation. “What’s shaking?”

     “Quick John, I’m in a hurry and I just need a yes or no from you and we will never talk about this again. Do you have homeowner’s insurance?”

     “…Yea, why?”

     “Loud and clear. Later.” He hung up

Loud and clear? What the? I tried to call him back but there was no answer. No. Please God, no. Whatever is happening or about to happen can’t possibly be good. He picked up on my third try.

     “Brandon!” I shouted using the normal pronunciation.

     “Hey, man.”

     “Please tell me nothing is happening to my house.”

     “Don’t worry about it man.”

     “Brandon! One more time… tell me nothing is happening to my house. I don’t want anything to happen to my house.”

     “You need to make up your mind. First you tell me you have homeowner’s and then you call me back and tell me not to let anything happen to your house. Which one is it?”

     “Neither… I mean both. I have insurance and I don’t want anything to happen to my house.”

     “But I thought—“

     “Brandon, what are you trying to do to my house?”

     “I just feel like the best way to make sure you don’t get screwed is to have the house burn down and let you collect the insurance.”

     “And I won’t be getting screwed when I’m being passed around prison like a peace pipe?”

     “Like a what?”

     “Never mind. The point is, don’t burn down my house.”

     “But that’s the beautiful part… I’m not going to burn it down; the cigarette is.”

     “No Brandon. No cigarette.”

     “But that guy on your block last year… he fell asleep with the cigarette in his hand. Didn’t he make out like a bandit?”

     “Once he got out of the hospital, but you’re missing the point. Promise me that my house will still be there tomorrow.”

     “Fine, fine. Can I go in and borrow your Boondock Saints DVD?

     “Yes. You can have it. You can have any of the stuff you want.”

     “Good. Because I grabbed it yesterday. I was going to put it back before the house burned so you could stick that to the insurance company, too.”

     “Bye Brandon.”

     For some reason, I loved that guy even more after our conversation. Everybody needs a friend like that; a friend that would want to burn your house down, or take a club to the guy that messed with your daughter, or would sell his car to help you get out of debt. It’s people like Brandon that make me not give up on life. He was the only guy in Columbia that didn’t drop me when I needed friends the most.

     He understood that I hated it when I had to go back to Columbia to take care of any business with the house or the divorce, and he stays with me so I don’t have to be pissed off alone. We sit on the steps outside and smoke cigars. Big cigars. The kind that could probably kill a man. We’ll share a six-pack of Newcastle. We won’t say anything, but I will have a conversation with him in my head.

     “Thanks for staying here tonight.”

     “No big deal.”

     “But it is. It is a big deal. The biggest. It’s the Niagra Falls of deals. The Grand Canyon. You only think it’s not a big deal because you can’t see it from where I am, you’re not sitting where I am sitting, with your feet dangling over the edge, and all that energy behind you, pushing you, beating you like a million wrists slamming against your back. You being here is definitely a big deal.”

     “Well, you’ve been there for me. You drove me back from the ski slopes – ten hours, through the night – that time my brother held a knife to my throat because I was breathing and he was just out of rehab, angry at the world. I just sat in the car. I was too angry to say anything.”

     “You didn’t need to say anything.”

     “I don’t know what to say now.”

     “You don’t need to say anything now. You’re here.”

We would sit there long after the cars quit driving down my street. We would be sitting there when all of the lights in all of the homes on my block had been turned off. We would watch as young men – alone, wearing undershirts and baggy shorts – left the park, or the bar, or the river, and walked through Elmwood, crossing before our eyes as they continued down the hill, under the train trestle and towards Earlewood.

     “What do you think his life is like?”

     “It’s simple. Maybe complicated.”

     “It’s lonely.”

We would sit there until we were ready to pass out from exhaustion; tired of following the thoughts zigzagging through our heads.

     We would walk inside. Brandon would sleep downstairs on the couch in the room that used to be crowded with those who were not lonely; a family of people from different families: Adam and Nate and Christen and Stacey and Caroline and Mike and Catherine and Kris and Daniel and Jon and Jessica and Cindy and Ksenia. I would go upstairs, to the room that used to be a sanctuary. I would lie down on the bed but I wouldn’t get under the covers. It felt safer on top. I would leave a light on so that in that instant I woke up, wondering where I was, I would know that something was not right and I would not have to relive finding out for the first time all over again.

     Finally, I would fall asleep. If I dreamt no dreams, or dreamt the dream where everything was over, then I would sleep until the heat from the sun came through the window that no longer had a curtain and warmed my face. If I dreamt The Dream – the one where I saw them, his hand sliding beneath her skirt, her eyes telling him it’s ok, her ring on the table beside the bed – I would wake up suddenly, rolling over to vomit into the trashcan I placed beside the bed. Then I would try to read something funny, and be thankful that Brandon was downstairs.