Send Down the Rain(78)

Bobby wasn’t hard to find.

During my brother’s drunken years, which often coincided with mine, he kept a cabin in a little place called Yankeetown. It’s a fishing village on the west coast of Florida, about two hours southeast of Cape San Blas. His cabin sat isolated on a point, and faced west. He’d crawl through the door, climb inside a bottle, and disappear until he couldn’t remember why he started drinking in the first place. After a week or two he’d surface, buy some groceries, and return to the security and confines of his sunsets.

A tidal creek flowed just north of his property, spitting distance from the cabin door. Fifty yards across, the water moved with a fast current. During the painful periods of my life, I’d stand on the opposite bank and check on him through binoculars. Watching his movements. Originally, my intent was to hurt him, drown him, rip his head off, dump his body in the river, and post his head on a stake. I kept my distance and watched him through magnified lenses. The water between us was a barrier. If I lost my mind and jumped in, he’d see me coming and have a chance to get away.

Over the years I watched him fluctuate between puffy-faced and overweight to gaunt and bone-skinny. One thing became clear. If I knew torment within, Bobby lived it on the outside. And while his might have been self-inflicted, it was torment nonetheless.





EPILOGUE

As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a spring; the rain also covers it with pools.

—PSALM 84:6


I turned onto the coquina road and wound nearly a mile through palm trees, palmettos, and scrub oaks. Plants whose roots held fast through the last hurricane. We parked a half mile back of his cabin and slipped through the trees, moving slowly. The breeze blew from the north across our faces. We saw Bobby sitting on his dock. Legs dangling over the water. An unopened bottle of tequila next to him.

We stepped onto the dock and he didn’t turn. The afternoon sun was falling. The light was golden red and soft, and layered the air with an amber glow. Allie sat down on one side of him and I sat on the other. None of us spoke for several minutes.

Finally he pointed north across the tidal creek to the patch of palm trees where I’d built a hide so many years ago. “I used to sit here and wonder why you didn’t just put me out of my misery.”

I stared at the trees. “Me too.”

He turned the unopened tequila bottle in his hand. “Why didn’t you?”

I watched the sun drop off the edge of the earth and bleed crimson into the Gulf. “Wasn’t what we needed.”

“What was?”

“Not that.”

The outgoing tide ripped beneath our feet. He spoke without looking at me. “You ever wonder what life would have been like had I gone?”

“Not much anymore.”

“But did you used to?”

“Sure.”

“Ever come to anything?”

I laughed. “It’s tough for me to see past what it all became.”

“After you left, I used to sit up nights and listen to Mom cry herself to sleep. I’d get on the floor and press my ear to the air vent. She prayed one thing over and over.”

I knew the prayer. Last time I’d heard it Mom was coming undone on the beach the night before I left. I pulled the brass Zippo out of my pocket. Dull from the decades. I held it up to reveal the worn engraving. My fingertips traced the grooves like Braille. STRENGTH TO STRENGTH. I flipped it over. SEND DOWN THE RAIN. I handed it to him. My tether to hope. “Had it done over there . . .”

“Why?”

“To help me remember.”

“Remember what?”

“Mom’s voice.”

He turned it in his hand, flicked it lit, then slammed it shut on his thigh and passed it back. “You don’t even smoke.”

“Fire can be a comfort when you’re lonely.”

Bobby paused and waved his hand across me, him, and the world Mom had born us into. “You think this was what she was talking about?”

I surveyed the world. “Yeah.”

He unscrewed the tequila top. I heard a somber finality in his tone of voice. “All my life, I’ve always wanted to be you. To make hard decisions no matter the cost.” He shook his head and lifted the bottle to his lips. He held it there. Lips trembling.

I eyed the bottle. “How long’s it been?”

His reply was slow in coming. Liquid courage hung two inches from his lips. “Long time.”

I knew if he crawled in there he’d never swim out. I reached into my backpack, pulled out a gallon of chocolate milk and a package of Oreos, and set them on the boards between us. Minutes passed as he stared between the two worlds.

He studied the gallon jug. “When’d you start on chocolate?”

“When I tired of regular.”

“When was that?”

I laughed. “’Bout the time you stole my girlfriend.”

He nodded. Shot a glance at Allie. Then me. “Yes, I did that, too.” He glanced at the roll of antacids in my hand. “I thought the doc said your heart was strong as a twenty-year-old’s.”

“It is.”

“Why then?”

“I like the taste.”

He eyed the Oreos. “How long we been eating these things?”

“Since we been brothers.”