Heb couldn’t cry on a Greyhound Bus from Detroit to Connecticut, but the first time he took a shower in his uncle’s house in Norwalk, he turned the Yankees game–the miserable Yankees, the enemy– up loud on the transistor radio in the bathroom and bawled so hard he thought he would pass out, and he didn’t care if he did pass out.
He had two more years of high school to get his shit together, not likely around a bunch of rich kids who had horses.
Where Heb came from, only the cops had horses, though the cops would get off ‘em if they had to chase you into the woods in Rouge Park.
Heb didn’t get his shit together, he knew it, not then, not the next year, then banged around the northeast until he joined the Marines at twenty-two. Felt ancient for joining the Marines then, wasn’t sure he had even made the right decision.
But he couldn’t let the eighteen-year-olds be better, more disciplined. He didn’t wanna look back.
The only way he had survived getting yanked outta Detroit was to never look back.
That shower cry was it, man, look straight ahead, knock some of these rich kids out of your way.
But today, today he was on his way to Detroit, sell his mom’s shack in Brightmoor.
The big glowing ad for the show he worked on goldened up his back as he walked through McCarron Airport.
He thought about the old guys sometimes, briefly, then wiped them away like a lighting scene on his state-of-the-art rig.
Whoosh! they were there, Dim they were gone.
It was wrong, Heb knew it. They had been his friends. But he was wrenched away so quickly…
He got on the plane, first-class because it was a habit now, no thanks, no vodka, tea please, clean and sober since his early twenties, only because he was gonna die.
They closed in Dearborn Heights, Heb didn’t care about the money, just sign the papers and take what they give him.
One of the realtors had a photo paper clipped to a folder.
There it was. The house. As nondescript as any white-sided bungalow could be.Interchangeable with thousands of houses in the neighborhood.
But now Heb had to see it.
He almost said to himself “one last time,” then thought “You could buy back that house from the people who just bought it for twice what they paid.”
Not that he wanted to. But the thought reminded him that he had found a way out.
Took the rental, got back out on Telegraph Road, went directly there, no GPS, knew exactly where he was still.
It was home once.
Parked.
Got out.
Looked at the house.
That was silly.
Then he walked up the driveway. Fence was torn down in back.
He and the boys had a ton of fun in that alley.
Broke some bones, made some money, stole some Max Julian jackets.
Assholes.
We were all assholes and I was the biggest asshole of ‘em all.
He looked around the alley, had seen enough, decided to walk around the block rather than cut back through a yard that hadn’t belonged to him in more than thirty years.
He hoped most of the guys got out.
As he walked down the alley it became a thought he couldn’t push away, a lighting scene he couldn’t dim, a spotlight he couldn’t have one of his techs fade out.
Where the names didn’t come back, the faces did.
They were his friends.
He didn’t have to forget about them, but he did.
It wasn’t their fault.
He turned up Chalfonte, back to Bramell.
A noise made him jump.
A dragging muffler.
Heb laughed at himself until a brake squeal cut the laugh short.
Then a “Motherfucker.”
Heb squared himself to the voice when he heard “Heb? No fucking way, Heb???”
The man had tight curly brown hair, divots under his eyes that looked like stone hammocks.
Yellow eyeballs.
The man smiled like he couldn’t stop smiling but was too weak to hold the smile up.
He came in for a hug without hesitation.
Heb returned the hug.
“Ameeeego! Dear Jesus. I thought I’d never see you ‘gain.”
Heb started to say Who.
The man stammered “I was at your momma’s service and you wasn’t Heb, and you wasn’t in the program neither, I figgered you died. Damn, we had some great times back in the day. Didn’t we, didn’t we?”
All the man’s energy was in the man’s mouth.
Heb went through the list of who it wasn’t.
He had to get to the man’s name eventually.
He’d let him keep talking, get a clue.
“Member when we dug a tunnel underneath the alley up into that abandoned tool shop?”
Heb smiled. He felt like he still had gravel under his fingernails from that.
“That was one of the coolest things we ever did,” Heb said, and he meant it.
“Get this, Heb, it’s still there. From Bautista’s momma’s garage to the tool shop. I still…I still hang out there sometimes. Wanna see it?”
Heb knew the man in front of him wasn’t Bautista. He knew that anyway. He was still thinking of names. Not Bricky, he was taller. Had more teeth than Yergo did when they were 16, though they were mostly nicotine brown.
“Wanna see it?” the man asked again.
“Bro, I’d love to but–”
“Ok, Heb, my long-lost brother, okay, we’ll go see it, go hang out. But first, my brother, I gotta run an errand.’
Heb nodded his head yes as if the man needed his permission.
It wasn’t Kallas, Kallas’s eyes were sewer cover black.
“Heb, Heb, my dear brother, can you maybe spot me twenty bucks? My momma passed too Heb, but my stepsister got her LTD and her ring and…”
Heb pulled out a twenty and pressed it into his old friend’s hand.
“I’ll be back in 5 minutes, Heb. More like four, cept my muffler and all…”
The man sped off, muffler dragging, trunk bungee-corded to the frame.
Heb thought about the two weeks they spent digging that tunnel, busting that concrete. They made themselves a clubhouse.
He got in the rental, pushed start, and took off down the street.
He wasn’t a member of that club anymore, and he begged himself to stop thinking about that guy’s name.
***
Photo Courtesy Getty Images
That really pulled me into Heb's memory lane trip. Good one and tough to pull off. Thank you
Agree with Elizabeth. Good one.