TERRY MOSHER
Walking up the side of the dike was as easy as climbing the darken steps to my bedroom. I took one easy step at a time until I reached the top and then I looked down at the little white house and gave out a shout, “Hey, Dean c’mon out.”
Seconds later he appeared; thin as a rail but standing as upright as usual, as if he was saluting our flag. Dean scrambled up the dike and once assembled we moved slowly down the dike, bending down every few steps to pick up a small rock and throw it as far as we could into or over the slow-flowing Allegheny of our hot New York summers.
It was post World War II still and soon the valley would echo with the soothing sounds of the local legion drum and bugle corps practicing their patriotic music before members would head off to their respective legion halls to wet their throats with cold brews that were local to the region – Iroquois and Genesee (Genny) – and tell their war stories if their throats got wet enough to loosen the horrors they survived.
Dean and I stubbed our feet, kicking up small rocks, and the humid air drew beads of sweat on our brows as we mindlessly neared the Steam Valley Bridge, an unstable structure that rocked back and forth when the occasional car rolled across its bumpy asphalt pavement.
We talked sparingly. We were just two young boys devoid of responsibilities wandering in the heat while allowing the beauty of our surroundings paint a picture that would sustain us for years, long after we were young, long after we lost touch with each other, long after we created our own nests and moved closer to our destiny, whatever that was to be.
We scrambled down the side of the bridge, letting gravity take us to the edge of the meandering Allegheny and the stink of rotting carp that others had thrown on the brushy bank.
Nestled safely under the bridge and listening to the rumble of the lonely cars that would shake the bridge, we were suddenly quiet as we surveyed our small surroundings and we moved our heads quickly to the side whenever a fish, usually a sucker, would rise to the surface for a breath of the humid air.
It would be only days now that I would leave the comfort of this hiding place underneath the bridge. The hours were ticking away when I would throw my last stone into the Allegheny, see my last sucker, smell my last carp, kick my last rock on a dike that was my playfield where I hit stones with a stick for hours into and over the muddy river.
When next I would see Dean he would be grown to just over six feet and he would be between the Air Force and several long hitchhiking rides to Virginia where he would build his nest and I would lose contract with him.
We didn’t say much as we climbed back out to the dike and slowly walked back to our next-to-each-other homes. What could we say? He was staying until at least four more years until his service in the Air Force and I was about to be uplifted to a long cross country journey to the mystery of the Left Coast and a new life far from the lazy Allegheny and from Dean.
One last time we each tossed a rock into the Allegheny. One last time we looked at each other. Then without saying goodbye to each other, he slowly turned and gingerly made his way down the dike. I watched as he crossed his lawn and disappeared for the final time into that white house.
I took one last look at the Allegheny, bid a silent farewell to my old friend, and turned to make the same descent down the side of the dike and make my way across my lawn and into the house where I was raised that was now absent my mother who laid buried 15 miles away in a peaceful corner of a cemetery that silently endures the changing seasons year after year after year after year like so many loud ticks of a second-hand on a clock that has no ending.
My idyllic childhood ended that day and the long nightmare that would comprise my dark years would begin. I would meet Dean years later when he was out of the Air Force and I was headed to college in New York State.
That accidental meeting was only brief. We would enjoy a beer together not far from that bridge and he would depart that brief snapshot and head to his final destination. We were now different people with different thoughts. The years of separation had made that so.
I don’t know if Dean is even alive. But if he is, I hope he remembers that walk, that time, as short as it was, we had that hot day. That walk bridged the gap between what was and what is. It was like closing a book and opening another. I didn’t want the new book, but I had no choice. That’s life sometimes. Sometimes you voluntarily make your way and sometimes you are dragged.
I was dragged.
But I did survive the drag and I came out of my dark years. And, of course, I would wind up here.
Good or bad, this is it.
Be well pal.
Be careful out there.
Have a great day.
You are loved.
