I call my brother to check in
to say hello,
to get updates about my fast-growing nephews:
school dances
sports championships
music competitions
and finally, summer plans.
the background noise fragments the most recent report
i’m glad we learned to translate Morse code when we were kids
the distance from New York to the Carolina coast is short
along the invisible cord I curl as we speak
mid-conversation my fingers stretch to full extension
I reach the edge of his thundering tenor
to catch a ride back
to being kids together:
bursting through the front door and getting slapped by the summer heat
riding bicycles “no-hands!” or standing on pegs with arms spread wide to catch the cool breeze
sometimes one of us rode dangerously close to another
only to reassure the kid that they “could be my wingman anytime…”
blasting baseballs with the crack of an old wooden bat we found in Cindy Barker’s basement
dusting ourselves off when we slide to steal second
snarling in each other’s faces to trade insults on the field:
“My grandmother runs faster than that…and she’s dead.”
we argue the close calls
spit at the dirt by our opponents’ feet
mumble field-only insults to those brave enough to take too-long a lead
–safe–
we feel foolishly untouchable
despite the neighborhood crumbling around us
but we knew to take heed
those duck-and-cover drills at school taught us the trick:
we army crawl behind the street-lit sidewalks to extend nightly games of manhunt
to
just
one
more
round
until Mr. del Guidice barrels through his rusty screen door
and threatens in his broken Brooklyn accent to “kick-a you little asses!” when we made his stoop home base
he only ever barked,
never dared to bite.
his face disappeared from his front window
after we scattered and tucked ourselves in bed at night
safe.
the calendar pages fall faster than the thick bands
of poorly predicted snow storms
that arrived before the April rains and after the bright October moons
bicycles became cars
old wooden bats became beams on construction sites
Cindy Barker moved to Massachusetts
(I heard she’s an emergency room nurse in Boston)
manhunt became job hunts
Mr. del Guidice’s memory haunts the empty stoop
(I heard he lived well into his 90s)
we take our melatonin, shuffle to bed, ready ourselves for dreamless sleep
but before the call ends
we exchange ‘I love yous’
and just before I press the big red button hovering on the screen,
I shout to remind him:
“Goonies never say die!”
I close my eyes
imagine his signature smirk
I can hear him
laughing through the darkness
how lucky we are to time travel
together,
again.
