1980-9
604 Words
I’M NOT SURE HOW LONG it took us to get home, although we were able to scramble aboard a freight train at Hunter’s Rock—we could tell it was bound for Spokane—which cut the overall time considerably. All I remember is that I became fascinated by my friend’s faces as we sat between cars and watched the land pass, the late-afternoon sun painting everything redden-gold as the tracks clacked and livestock raised their heads, as we let our minds wander and tried not to think too hard about what had happened, nor our role in it.
Orley for his part was trying to sleep, and though we at first made sport of preventing him from doing so, we eventually relented and let him be. He had a job, after all, unlike either of us. Still, I watched him as the train rocked and he dozed, knowing even then that nothing would ever come easy for him; that he’d been born into the kind of poverty that either perpetuated itself or was overcome by sheer grit and determination. I never told him, later, how much I’d admired his bravery and humor during the whole ordeal, nor how often I’d looked to him as something I might one day like to be: just a skinny guy, perhaps, but one with an indomitable spirit and a spit-in-your-eye confidence; a person as earnest as he was intense and who rose to the occasion and did what had to be done, not to mention one who possessed an incredible head of hair, like one of the Beatles, I remember thinking, or Derick Wildstar.
Kevin meanwhile was watching the landscape pass, his demeanor just as mellow and Zen as could be, as though we hadn’t faced the end of the world at all but just enjoyed the great outdoors and built a campfire to bullshit around. Kevin was and remains one of the biggest weavers of bullshit I have ever known—not the least of which is his bullshit about not being very bright—and yet there was a truth to him as he looked out over the fields that could not be denied, for he was also grounded in a way I have never seen, just centered like a rock, accepting life as it was and hacking whatever it dealt him. And what it had dealt him so far was a broken home and poverty not much less than Orley’s. And, also not less than Orley, an epic head of hair.
I had to smile a little while looking at that hair: Donny Bonaduce? Why not. With hair like that, Donny could never be far. But Slim Pickens, too. Someone with a big heart and even bigger generosity. And I knew even then what kind of friend he’d be as an adult, which was the kind you could couch-surf with when your wife kicked you out even if you hadn’t seen him in thirty years. That friend. The kind that embodied the very word.
I guess it goes without saying that we never became gods or got a b*****b from the entire world, but then, who does, really? At the end of the day you’re lucky if you can just make a few friends. Kevin never became a rock star and Orley never received the Medal of Honor, and I never became a best-selling author, though I’ve published a few books on sss and even took my girlfriend to dinner once on the proceeds, and that included the tip.
But we did save the world once, a long, long time ago. And it was not without cost or sacrifice.
And that should count for something. Even if it is, like us, like you, just one of so many things that might have been.
- Writer
