My Little Brother

The three of them shared the two bedroom next door. The couple, and their friend. None of them over the age of twenty-one, all of them convinced they were ready for the world. I’d come home in the afternoon or evening, see them in the front yard, or hear them in the backyard, and wave or put their dog back in the house. The dog that would have died had there not been left over pizza on the back porch five out of seven days of the week. The couple, both in school and working, were typical. They knew all they needed to know, living as adults, butting heads like children.

The friend, The Third Wheel as he sometimes called himself, was a little different. He was in school, but couldn’t quite get into it. I remember the afternoon he rang my doorbell, asking a favor. No need to borrow eggs or a flashlight like normal neighbors, oh no. Apparently, there had been a game of Horse that had gotten a little extreme. No, wait, it was a game of Horse that was about ten train stops and a twelve pack of beer past extreme. The favor, though, was a simple one. Could he, if I wouldn’t mind, stand on the roof of my home and toss a water balloon in through their window next door, in order to make a basket? Oh, I didn’t mention that it was water balloon Horse? Or that it was INDOOR, Nerf basketball? Well who needs details when a twenty-one-year-old kid who shares his Fruit Loops with you wants to stand on your roof?

The Fruit Loops, that’s what it really comes down to. Because this kid and I, when his roommates were out or arguing like only couples in their very early twenties can, we’d sit on my porch. Beer and cold cereal in hand, discussions on life and the world floating by. Heavy, dark situations and decisions, made lighter by neighbors and unlikely friends. The friend, you see, The Third Wheel, had some dreams. He wrote music, even played a little. He was with a couple local bands off and on, and did some work on his own. I never heard him play, I never would go there. (I prefer to keep my boy-on-the-porch-playing-guitar memories in my early twenties, thank you.) But I read the songs, scratched out on notebook paper and napkins. I heard a few demos, recorded on crappy tape with even crappier echoes. And I told him what I thought, reminding him all the time that I was no professional. They were good. Not all of them, but they were good. I told him to keep writing, to keep working.

It was about three weeks ago that I saw him last. I was outside with the dog, he rolled up in his pickup, and walked over. We stood outside, me in my down coat, shivering but trying to be supportive, and drank a beer together. “I’m going to keep at it,” he said. Good, I told him. That’s what he should do. Because if there’s anything I can say about those feelings you get, those feelings like something is crazy or hard but you have to do it anyway, I say go with them. Whether you are twenty-one, or twenty-eight, or forty, or eighty. Go with them. When you’re driven by something that’s inside, something you can’t explain and you see opportunity, go.

He told me thanks that night, just like all the other times we’d talked. I smiled, like I always have, and felt a little proud that I was encouraging someone to go with those gut feelings, some of which I’d ignored. Some of which I still do. It reassures me to know that we’re all working toward something, toward figuring something out. Toward happiness, and maybe some kind of freedom.

Tonight, after arriving home from dinner, I saw the couple in their yard. “John left today,” she said. I asked her again. Yes, he’d gone. He’d paid them next month’s rent, packed his pickup, left two bags of food for the dog—probably it’s first real dog food in a year—and he left. My little brother, off somewhere, probably chasing his dream. Of course, I don’t have a brother, and of course I never will. If I did, though, I’d hope he would save up enough money, spend enough time, find some kind of balance between thinking things through and having faith in his gut feelings, and then go.

It’s now late Friday night, and I’m thinking tomorrow, maybe even over the next few days, there are some things I’m going to take care of, too.