Bennett The Brave

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

I looked down the long road from the porch. The dust from the departing car long since settling, the morning sun growing warmer. I sighed heavily, my chin resting in the palm of one hand, the other tracing figure-eights in the dust on the steps.

There was no point in crying, even though that's all I wanted to do. My newest and best friend had gone back home. His parents had closed up their cabin for the winter, packed all their stuff and piled everybody back into the wagon and left with their memories of a long, hot summer of swimming, bicycle riding, the smell of hot charcoal and sweet corn on the cob. I didn't even look up at my Mom when she quietly slipped down to the step and draped a comforting arm around my shoulder. I leaned into her, and silent tears ran from the corners of my eyes. She said nothing, but I felt that she knew the empty hollowness echoing in my belly. She gently caressed my temple with her fingertips, occasionally running those wonderful nails of hers through my hair. When my tears spent themselves, she pulled a hankie from her pocket and gave it to me; I whispered my thanks and started to mop up.

"Neal will be back next summer Bennett" she said, probably knowing just how little comfort her words brought, "You two became really great friends didn't you?" I nodded as I trumpeted the last of my boogers into the cloth and handed it to her. She accepted the sodden cloth with a pinched forefinger and thumb, and shook her head in bemusement.

Over a period of six weeks, Neal and I shared a multitude of summertime adventures. We cavorted through the summer with no thought of what would happen when it came time for him to return home. I had never connected with anybody the way Neal and I did, so I guess I had no clue how much it would hurt to see him go. Still, given my advanced age of twelve and three-quarter years at that point, I didn't indulge in deep thought on the state of my emotions, I just felt them, which was difficult enough.

The first night Neal slept over at our house; he'd been duly impressed at the log structure with its stone fireplace. When he saw my bedroom off the loft that spanned the second story and looked over the living room, the look of awe on this face charmed me in a way that I could never have described then. The cabin was not, in fact, very big, especially compared to the ones that have gone up around the lake lately. Up the drive from the main lodge of an encampment built in 1911 by some filthy rich guy for his family summer retreat. It and twelve other cabins and other buildings, have been in my family for quite a while. In the summer of '68 we moved there permanently and never was there a better place for an adventure-loving boy to live. I enjoyed two whole summers there before Neal came in 1970, and showed me what it meant to have a best friend.

My parents took an immediate shine to Neal. I even heard my mom whispering to my Dad one night by the fire, that she now knew why God hadn't given me a sibliong, because I had been destined to meet my twin. I didn't understand, because one could hardly have looked at the two of us and said we looked alike. We seemed to be genetic opposites; me with my gangly limbs, feathery red hair, a storm of freckles splashed across my nose; and him, with his jet black hair, solid swimmer's build and dark brown eyes. Yet, people would ask us all the time if we were brothers. I guess some folks can sense when two boys have such a bond. Dad said we were like two peas in a pod, but Mom described us as jigsaw pieces, with no place to be other than fit to one another. As usual, Mom got it right. Now, with Neal gone his home, school and life beyond the lake, I was left feeling lonelier than I ever thought possible.

I got up from the porch to aimlessly wander around to the back yard. Dad was mowing the lawn and would soon be raking up leaves as some of the trees were already turning. Forlornly, I gazed up the ladder to my tree house. I knew it would be hollow and empty without him being there, but I climbed up anyhow, closing the hatchway after me. I sat there for Mayebe an hour, thumbing through the two magazines we'd managed to swipe from his uncle's kit bag when he came to visit. We both felt the weight of our multiple sins, stealing and then looking at, these magazines filled with provocative images and dirty words. We didn't know what it all meant, but it was thrilling nonetheless. When the evidence of our arousal pushed the front of our togs out, we play wrestled, grinding our fronts together, feeling the desperate rigidity of our members through the thin cloth. A breathless moment of quiet gasping would signal the end, we'd pull our tee-shirts out to cover the damp spot on our shorts and the magazines would be secreted away to await another days adventure.