Don was still living at home when Gary graduated from high school, and later that May they drove out into the Pine Barrens. They made a stop at the monument for Emilio Carranza, the “Lindberg of Mexico,” a little man with big dreams—Mexico City to New York and back again—who had crashed on his way home in the ‘20s. Some Pineys picking blueberries found his body; later, they put up a granite block way out in the Wharton State Forest, miles away from anything. It was a sunny day, hot and humid for spring. They sat at the base of the monument, an Aztec eagle carved into the granite above. Don started talking about Gary going off to college, and his voice was soft, as though he didn’t want anybody else to hear him.
“Gary,” he almost whispered, “when you leave, don’t look back. Mom and Dad'll be fine, and me too. You shouldn’t think of us, you should just move forward.” Gary glanced over at him, but Don was looking straight ahead. “You know,” he went on, “I wish I was a little kid again.”
“Yeah,” Gary said, ready to reminisce about the days before Don met Dave and started worrying everybody. “All we did was goof around and—"
“Yeah,” Don interrupted. “No, I mean, little kids, you know, they’re on their own. Out the door and they disappear. And even when they’re around other grownups, they’re mostly invisible—unless they fuck up and somebody bigger’s just gotta point it out to them, as if they didn’t already know it.” He turned and looked at his brother and he seemed—not old, just solemn. “Invisible down there among the grownups’ knees. Maybe they can’t reach the kitchen counter, but they can melt away. Like cats. Remember that cat we had?”
“Sandy?”
“Yeah. We bedeviled the shit out of that poor little fucker, didn’t we?—for a while. And then we never really saw her. The food bowl would get empty, and we’d fill it, then it’d get empty again. Then one day she was just gone.”
“No, not gone; she moved into a house on the next block.”
Don nodded. “That’s right, that’s right. She just started over. I remember I walked past her new house and she was sitting in the window acting like she didn’t know me. Didn’t even look at me.” He squinted at the lowering sun. “Getting on. Wanna go downa shore or home?”
That was the last time they took a ride together. ...
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