Brotherhood

Driving late at night down these rural city streets was a lonely affair made even more lonely with melancholy thoughts going through my head. Every few hundred feet, the oppression of the darkness was beaten back by the amber street lights hanging overhead. Grey shadows sprinted across the dashboard. The only signs of life were the occasional lights beaming from windows of homes set back from the street.

I did not have the radio on. This promoted the isolation I felt, though I was in no mood to have music accompany me on this journey. The tires rolling on the asphalt beneath me and the rumble of the engine were the only sounds I heard. The rhythmic duet giving me a measure of comfort.

Everything around me was familiar, but it seemed like I saw it all with a brand new perspective. It's as if I had been viewing the world through a veil. That veil was my own self-interest. That veil has been torn in two.

Not long after we met, we became close friends. We practically did everything together, but what we did best was work on that old truck. To tell the honest truth, we didn't really work on it so much as we sat in the garage talking; glasses of 15-year-old Scotch whiskey in hand. He was as close as a brother - I wish I was as close to my brothers as I was to him.

On some evenings we would drive to the local auto shop to pick up some parts - mirrors, belts, gauges - and we would just drive along in silence, kind of like I was doing now. Just being together was calming. Upon returning home, those parts would sit on a counter in their bags for a couple weeks while we wasted time. Sitting.

One day he told me he was moving to the big city. That was a bad day. I was happy for him, and encouraged him to find what he sought, but I didn't want him to go. Adventure hasn't seized me yet, I have been here for decades, and I'll be here decades still. He needed to find a new life.

After fourteen months he came back home, and we got right back in the rhythm where we left off. Those old, beat up chairs bought at a thrift shop, and that bottle of single-malt Scotch. One day he told me he felt alone in a city of millions, and the comfort he felt here called him home.

There it was. I slowed the vehicle as I approached. The front of the house was dark. A lone oak tree stood in the yard with a halo of moon light. I pulled to a stop at the curb and shut the engine off.

The house was a mid-century ranch style home, with a sagging roof line. Two windows were adjacent to the front door with dark shutters. I could see a lamp on in the living room. My emotions were a mess. I sat there in the darkness looking at the door. He had to have heard me pull up, I thought.

As I gathered the fortitude to get out of the truck, I evaluated what went wrong. I'm so callous, I began, I've been a leech on this friendship. If there was any consolation it was the thought that I did care for him enough to be in such a wretched state of mind.

The thoughts going through my mind formed themselves into a monologue I would deliver to him when I finally walked to the door and knocked. An apology wasn't enough, this wasn't something I did that can simply be forgiven, it was months of small things that ate away at our bond. "I've taken you for granted," I would say. "I don't expect you to forgive me. Please, help me change."

A thump on my window startled me. I had gotten lost in my thoughts and didn't see what happened. Turning to the source of the noise, I saw him standing there at my window. He looked down through the glass with his brown eyes, framed with those thick eyebrows and square chin.

"I'm sorry."