“He just really loves that new kitten,” I said.
Chapter Seventeen
Tell Them Your Story
Come Monday, my brother and I were halfway to the bus stop together after dinner. On our way to the meeting. I walked. He limped along on his crutches.
At first we didn’t talk.
The sun was on a long slant, but it was still hot. Now and then a neighbor had driven by and honked a hello to us. One, old Mr. Harrigan, had rolled down his window and given Roy a big thumbs-up. Probably for serving in the war and then getting home. I could tell that one made my brother uncomfortable.
When Roy finally opened his mouth, I thought he was going to talk about that. But he took us in an entirely different direction.
“Why don’t you want to be on the track team?” he asked me. Like he was seriously interested in my answer.
He hadn’t seemed seriously interested in anything since before he left for the war. Except for his meds.
“I don’t know. It’s kind of hard to explain. I just . . . when I run in the woods, with those dogs, I just feel . . . like . . . completely free. And when I run on the track at school, I’m with these other guys who don’t really like me. And the coach is watching. And everybody would be judging me. Or at least I’d feel like they were. And it’s just the complete opposite. It’s like being in a cage or something.”
“But you could do both,” he said.
By then we’d arrived at the bus stop. There was no one else around. I sat. He just stood there, leaning on his crutches. I think getting up and down was hard for him. Once he got up, he didn’t tend to sit unless he figured he could stay a while.
I looked up at him, but he was staring off into the distance, and I don’t think he noticed. I got this feeling, like that moment perfectly summed up everything between me and my brother since he got home. Me staring at him, hoping to see something. Find something. Him a million miles away in his head.
“I guess I could do both,” I said. “But why do the school part at all? I mean, if I don’t like it much.”
For a time, he didn’t answer. Then he looked down into my face, which felt surprising. Jolting, actually.
“I don’t usually say things like this to you,” he said, “but here goes. I would appreciate it very much if you could see your way clear to take that spot on the team as a favor to me.”
He looked away again. We both looked up to see the bus coming, but it was many blocks down the street, and it had just missed one of the only two stoplights in town.
“Why would that be a favor to you if I did?”
We just kept staring at that bus, stopped at the red light, like we’d never seen anything so fascinating in our lives.
“I tried out for track,” he said.
“You never told me that.”
“I didn’t make it. I wasn’t fast enough. You don’t just come home from school and tell your kid brother, ‘Hey, today I tried to go after something I really wanted and fell flat on my ass.’ And now I can’t even run badly. I’ll probably never run again. So if I could go to a track meet and see you doing it . . . taking that spot on the team I could never snag, well . . . I would like that.”
The light turned green, and the bus made its noisy way to us.
“Okay,” I said. “Then I will.”
“How long do we have to keep going to these meetings?” he asked me.
We were on the bus. Counting the stops until it was time to get off. Or I was, anyway. That might have been the last thing on his mind. He might have been leaving all such logistics to me.
“I don’t know. I’m not sure. Maybe till it’s not so uncomfortable for you to go?”
“That’s bizarre,” he said, his eyes still off in the distance.
After our brief track team moment I had lost him again.
“Why is it bizarre?”
“So long as I hate going, I have to go. Then, just as I figure I don’t mind it much anymore, I’m off the hook.”
“You can still go if you want. I think some of those people have been going for years and years. Sounds like it, anyway, when they share. And you can get a sponsor like people do, so you’ll have somebody to talk to outside the meetings.”
The word “sponsor” sounded weirdly commercial, but it was, in program terms, more like a personal mentor.
“Why do you hate it so much?” I asked, when he didn’t answer.
“I don’t hate it. I just figure they’re waiting for me to tell them my story.”
And that was the end of that conversation. Because I couldn’t tell him he was wrong. I couldn’t say no they weren’t. Of course they were waiting for him to tell his story. And so was I.
And I, for one, was getting stretched pretty thin waiting to hear what had happened.
We rode and walked the rest of the way to the meeting in silence.
We were in the part of the meeting when it was almost time for the sharing to start. That’s when it happened. That final tilt of the teeter-totter that puts you fully on the other side. The final huge tipping point of the summer of 1969.
We had done all the readings. The leader had asked if there were any newcomers in their first thirty days. Roy hadn’t raised his hand. Roy never raised his hand. I don’t think he was trying to pretend he had been clean longer. At least I chose not to believe that. I think he wasn’t going to call
