The End Has Come and Gone

“What’s his name?” I asked. Gary looked like he was going to hit me with his canteen. “I’m just saying, it’s a lot easier for me to visualize the story if I know the people’s names.”

“Fine, his name is Rob.”

“Really? He’s got the same name as the kid in the last story?”

“JAMES, his name is James.”

“Like Bond.”

“Sure, whatever. So James is married to Tricia and they have a son together, his name is…” Gary paused trying to think of a name, “Mickey and they live in Wyoming.”

I didn’t agree with his name choice, but I let it go for the sake of the story.

“It’s about five years later and the three of them are going through life as best they can when the dad gets laid off. He’s falling behind on his bills and the mortgage and he panics and robs a bank.”

“Damn, I thought you were going to say he robbed an investment banker for $35 and then stabbed him to death.”

“No, it was a bank and he got caught. Spent the next seven years in prison. When he got out he got an apartment within the Cheyenne city limits. His wife and kid were about a half hour away. James had paid his debt to society and wanted to try and rebuild his family. He had visited Tricia and Mickey a few times and had asked her if she would be willing to take him back. His wife told him that it wasn’t just her decision to make. They had been on their own for so long she would have to ask Mickey too. So she and her son went out the next day to do some hiking, clear their minds and talk about the decision they needed to make. While they were climbing up the hill, they came across an open crevice which led into an abandoned mine.”

“That’s not a good move if they went in.”

“Afraid of being buried alive?”

“Who the hell isn’t?” I asked, not believing that I wasn’t on the side of the vast majority in this.

“They went in, they’d gone about ten feet when Mickey leans up against one of the support beams, problem is it’s all rotted out and the ceiling gives. The cave-in was devastating. At the same time as the ceiling collapses, James hears a frantic knocking on his door. He immediately answers it and standing there is a bloodied battered and bruised Tricia screaming at him that she needs his help, Mickey is trapped in a mine collapse. James grabs some tools and hops in his truck with Tricia. They drive for forty-five minutes to get to the site and James starts digging like crazy to get to his son. He tells his wife that she needs to get to the roadway and get some more help. Sure enough, after about ten or fifteen minutes two guys come up in different cars. They are all helping each other and they finally find the pocket where Mickey is trapped. They dig out a hole big enough to pull him out and Mickey is screaming at his dad to go further, that his mom is a few feet past him. James is trying to tell him that his mother is safe, that she came and got him and that she’s fine. Mickey is having none of it. He’s frantic, starts digging at the rocks with his hands. James and the men who came to help start digging and in a few feet they come across Tricia’s body.”

“Holy shit,” I said.

“Yeah, for the love of her son, she went to get the help of his father. What is really weird, when they interviewed the two other men, one of them said what he heard could have been the howling of the wind but felt compelled to check it out. The second one said he definitely heard a woman screaming for help.”

“Man that just gave me the chills.”

This was a different night with Gary but in its own way it was way scarier, at least to me.

“Do you want a drink?” Gary asked handing his canteen over.

“No, I’m fine man. I’ve got my own,” I told him.

“This isn’t water.”

So I’m figuring Vodka or some other such libation. “I’m good, I don’t want to drink. I’ve got watch in a few hours.

“Mike, it’s Kool-Aid.”

“I’m good,” I said, feigning that I was getting ready for sleep.

“It’s really good,” he said, placing it under my nose coaxingly.

“Gary, I really don’t want any.”

“This was your favorite as a kid. I remember making it for you all the time. I especially got this for you.”

“I appreciate that man, but I still don’t want it.”

“Oh hell, it’s that whole germ-a-phobe thing isn’t it? We’re family, germs don’t count.”

I smiled wanly. I begged to differ.

“I haven’t drunk from this since I made the mix.”

“Since when do germs have a shelf life?” I asked him.

“You just take this canteen, let me get something to drink out of so I can have a little.”

He handed the canteen to me which I accepted gingerly. Then he began to scour the area we were in, finally grabbing an old Coke bottle that was laying on its side. Dirt and possibly a small nest of dead bugs were on the inside and he scraped a small cobweb off the opening.

“What are you doing?” I asked, horrified beyond measure.

“Make-shift cup,” he replied smiling.

“You can’t be serious?” I asked, finding myself backing up unwittingly.

“The more germs the merrier,” he said still smiling.

“Are you kidding me? Get away from me with that thing.”

“Yes I’m serious, the more germs you introduce into your body the better it can cope with them. Sanitizing wipes are horrible for people.”

“Bite your tongue! Are you the Anti-Christ?”

He wasn’t messing with me. This wasn’t the whole big brother teasing his younger brother with the spit-and-roll-up procedure. He grabbed the canteen from me and filled that bottle almost to the top. He didn’t wash it out first, he just gulped it down, added protein and all. My stomach was roiling for the next eight hours. Every time I thought about what he did I thought I was going to heave. Gary on the other hand was as right as rain, so which of us has it right?

“I miss Glenn,” Gary said to me pretty much out of the blue one night. We were about three hundred miles from the Maine border, and we were both homesick.

Glenn is/was our brother. The order went Ron, Gary, Glenn, Lyndsey and myself. I hadn’t seen Glenn in years, but the pain of his loss was still acute.

“Me too,” I told Gary noncommittally.

Gary looked at me askew. I think he caught more meaning in my answer than I had intended to give away.

“Do you think we should look for him while we’re down here?” Gary asked, scrutinizing my face.

“We could, I guess.”

“Alright, what gives?” Gary asked, standing up and coming over to me.

“Glenn’s passed,” I told him.

“I thought so, but you seem to know for sure. How?”

“Listen, you might think I’m nuts if I tell you.”

“I might, but you can tell me anyway.”

“Great, all right. I don’t know if you know about this or not, or even if you believe in this sort of thing, but I