Always a Brother

by Michael Shenk

  At the end, they shared a communion service, like he had seen in movies. Johnny didn’t participate, but he liked watching the solemn tradition from the background: the crusty loaf of bread on a heavy, pewter plate and dark bottles of wine standing in a row on a table, small glasses filled and accepted carefully, the bread and wine passed around soberly.

  Mary was tanned, serene and lovely in her sundress. Johnny wondered if it was okay for Mary to look so good in church, smoking hot, actually. Her face was relaxed and smiling, athletic body strong from hours of riding and working her horses and glowing from the week of sun. So, this is how it felt to be happy.

  Early Monday morning, with echoes of “Come again!” and “See you soon!” following them, Johnny grinned across the seat at Mary. She wiped her eyes and sighed, forcing her wind-blown hair into a ponytail. He was surprised at the sense of loss he experienced pulling away from Al’s driveway, the extended hugs and goodbyes more poignant than he had expected. They seemed like family. She put her hand on his arm, waiting for his hand.

  What could have been a nine-hour drive became a sixteen-hour honeymoon in itself. Brief stops in the sagebrush desert near Ashcroft, for ice cream in Cache Creek, antique stores in Clinton, pizza in Lac la Hache, and good coffee in Quesnel made the hours vanish. The familiar drive from Prince George to Vanderhoof was bittersweet in its normality, an hour to prepare for the predictability of routine.

  Back at work, Johnny spent many hours behind the wheel listening to less comedy and more talk shows. He found himself interested in newfound advice about marriage, personal development, and financial planning. He began thinking of others and put it into practice.

  “Johnny, I like how you’ve been helping the shop guys work on your truck,” Mary said, sitting sideways to look at him as they drove into town to do some shopping on a Sunday morning.

  Johnny busied himself checking his mirrors and fidgeting in his seat, deciding with an inner smile that he should also start calling the mechanics “the shop guys” whenever possible.

  “It’s like you,” her voice trailed off. “Oh, I don’t know, it’s nice.”

  Johnny ignored her comment, and she reached over and tugged his beard.

  “Hey! The beard’s off limits,” he growled, “even to pretty girls.”

  Mary laughed and steered the conversation to where they needed to shop, and the barbeque they had attended the previous evening.

  Johnny was given a newer outfit to drive in the fall, when the Peterbilt was reconditioned to pull low-bed trailers. He took pride in his blue Kenworth tri-drive, and the new trailer rounded out the package perfectly. It was the first of a new series built by a local manufacturer – cutting-edge design and the best in the business, a status symbol.

  Soon after the change, Johnny invited Mary to come along on a trip, and on her next day off, she met him at the scale yard. Pulling in to the scale, he saw Mary waiting by the scale shack, his oversized high-visibility jacket dwarfing her frame. She looked good, her dark ponytail spilling out the back of her baseball cap. The scale attendant gave him a thumbs-up as she crossed to his truck clutching the flapping jacket, hair blowing in a gust of wind, and Johnny found himself grinning back at the guy.

  “Hello, Sexy,” he said as she climbed in the passenger door and settled into the unfamiliar cab. She was even more attractive in her late twenties than she had been as a willowy, athletic teen.

  “You talking to me or the lunch I packed?” she said, holding up a bulging brown bag resting on a box from a local bakery. She took the spare hard hat Johnny kept in the cab and pulled it over her ball cap, adjusting the fit deftly. She knew the sawmill safety rules and didn’t comment, but Johnny knew the hard hat would be stowed as soon as the front wheels were back on the highway.

  Between sandwiches, fresh coffee, and a healthy apple, Johnny explained the route and found himself going into the details of his job and forest practice he had never talked about. Clicking the lid shut on her coffee cup, she swivelled to face him. “Johnny. You’re enjoying your job!” Mary looked surprised, and then began crying.

  Johnny stared at her.

  “I’m sorry, it just makes me so happy. I don’t remember you ever actually liking your work. Or talking about it.” She sniffed, and then just looked ahead as they turned off the pavement and began the two-hour drive up the Forest Service Road.

  Johnny had no reply, but he knew Mary was right.

  “Usually you don’t say anything unless you are mad at someone, or had a breakdown, or whatever. Now you’ve got this nice truck to drive, and you’ve been helping fix things.” She hesitated, unsure of her next words.

  He flexed his fingers on the wheel, “Listen, I know I’ve been a real …” he stopped and changed his words. “I want to be better. A better man, like, I don’t know, like the good guy from a movie or something. I want to make you happy, I want to be someone we can both be proud of. I know you want kids, and if we do, I said if we do, I would want to be a good dad, you know?”

  Mary unbuckled her seat belt, dropped the bakery box, knocked a hard hat flying, and Johnny struggled to keep the truck in his lane as she wrapped her arms around his neck and held him tight. For the first time in months, Johnny blew a shift, and was relieved when she returned to her seat. He watched her as she straightened up the objects scattered around the cab.

  She smiled, a little shyly, and punched his shoulder.

  “Hey, stop looking at me!”

  He was smiling at her, watching.

  “Stop it!”

  She pulled an apple fritter from the box, tossing it to him. He caught it deftly, took a large bite, and smiled at her again.

  “Mmm, I like it.”

  Her momentary embarrassment passed, and she started to enjoy the attention.

  Mary filled their coffee cups, steam curling until she capped each cup. As they sipped, Mary asked questions, quietly at first, and then more intensely. She had grown up with a father who worked “in the bush,” and was familiar with the strange hours, unexpected shutdowns due to dry or wet conditions, and the elusive “breakup season” that could last one month or three while the spring thaw took its course.

  “Johnny, why do you only call on the radio at certain places on the road?”

  He pointed out the many pullouts where the empty trucks going “up” the road pulled off to let the loaded trucks going “down” the right of way. He also explained that now there were speed limits, as opposed to years before when the speed was mostly unregulated on narrower roads with less traffic. Now with the volume of traffic, each road had a unique protocol to help keep the heavy traffic safe.

  As Johnny brushed off and ate a donut Mary had retrieved, he chuckled. Never had he enjoyed a trip so much in almost ten years of driving.

  “We’ve made it through the, um, partying,” she said, then paused, leaving other struggles unsaid as they both thought about the tumultuous years. “We handled it okay when you lost your job, and now I have a good job, too.”

  “But we had to live with your mom,” he interrupted, making a show of cringing.

  Mary smiled ruefully.

  She took a breath and faced him. She waited while he made his call, “Empty at 38,” letting others nearby know he was starting up the steep, three-kilometer climb.

  “Johnny, I think we can make it. I’m trying to not be so negative, and I know you have changed over the summer. You’re more serious, or–” she brushed hair from her eyes, “I don’t mean this as an insult, but it’s like you are older, more grown up.”

  He looked at her directly, like he had when they were younger.

  “I agree. I don’t understand it, but it’s like we sort of hit a ‘reset’ button. A new start in a way. I really started thinking about things this spring, and then the trip down to visit your dad and Joanne …”

  She looked at him, eyes dark and questioning.

  “I really enjoyed our trip this summer. It was almost like a honeymoon.” He stopped, embarras
sed. They had not been able to afford a honeymoon when they married, and simply spent a long weekend together making a trip to Chilliwack to buy a used pickup. This omission had been criticized by his mother-in-law for years, and sometimes by Mary as well, making it a subject Johnny avoided.

  But Mary just smiled, and put her hand on his arm, giving it a gentle shake.

  They were quiet for a few slow kilometers, giving each other room to think. As they crested the hill and passed several loaded trucks, they looked at each other.

  Mary said, “So what now?”

  Chapter 3

  The summer had gone quickly, Mary thought. Johnny put in long hours driving and Mary was quick to pick up any overtime available. She wanted a baby, and her dream was as close to happening as it ever had been. Though she was a few years younger than Johnny, some of her friends already had kids starting elementary school.

  The fallen aspen leaves were thick on the lawn surrounding their neat home. Mary was raking them, still crisp, onto a large tarp, and dragging them into the smaller corral. The clean, tannic smell reminded Mary of the heaps of leaves she had played in as a child. As she worked, more leaves fell; rich, golden coins on the green grass.

  Johnny had inherited the house on ten acres from his Uncle Nelsson, and though it was small, both Johnny and Mary liked the house and location just out of town. Mary enjoyed yard work, and Johnny regularly used the well-equipped workshop that came with the house. They had not yet finished the empty basement but had built a spacious recreation room on one end.

  Mary thought of the empty space in the other end of the basement, perfect for children’s bedrooms. The thought of little jackets and rubber boots in a line next to theirs caused Mary to catch her breath. She could imagine children playing as she worked, maybe riding on the pile of leaves as she pulled the tarp across the grass.

  She knew her children would be impossibly beautiful. Johnny’s few photos from childhood had showed a nice-looking if serious boy and she had been a beautiful child, yes, their kids would be the best! She and Johnny could raise a good family, she just knew.

  She and Johnny drifted together soon after she finished high school, no outstanding chemistry at first, but hanging out with the same group of friends at the lake, lots of partying. She had been attracted to his quiet, responsible but easygoing ways, and one night a ride home turned into spending the night at Johnny’s place. This happened a few times, and when his roommate took a job on the oil patch, she moved in with Johnny.

  Johnny had been employed at the tire shop where he worked diligently during afternoons and Saturdays through high school. The summer after graduation, he began to run the shop’s small tow truck, which led to getting his certification to drive the larger tow truck several years later.

  Soon after this promotion, Johnny had been at a New Year’s party when his boss called, slurring his words, angrily insisting that Johnny take a late-night tow call. He wouldn’t listen to Johnny’s protest that he had been drinking as well. Stress and bad road conditions were factors several hours later when Johnny crashed on a slippery corner, wrecking the rig and losing his license due to his blood-alcohol level.

  The tire shop owner, a loud and vulgar man losing his own messy battle with alcohol abuse, re-evaluated his life and decided several things needed to change. A happy life for him did not include operating tow trucks or providing employment for Johnny. Johnny spent several miserable months working short-term jobs where a driver’s license was unnecessary and had not driven with alcohol in his system since.

  Losing his license and job had been intensely humiliating to Johnny, as he knew better than to take that tow call and had only done so at the angry insistence of his threatening boss.

  The moment of poor judgment overwhelmed Johnny’s thoughts, and though his uncles understood and didn’t criticize, their matter-of-fact acceptance of the situation did nothing to help Johnny recover.

  Johnny didn’t complain or slur his boss, but he began a descent into alcohol abuse fuelled by his bitterness. When his uncles were killed in an accident several months later, run off the road by a drunk driver while delivering hay, Johnny’s depression deepened. The thought that Uncle Nelsson and Uncle Lars, the only family he had ever known, were killed by a person in the same condition as he when he ditched the tow truck seemed like a cruel punishment of fate. He began to believe the punishment was deserved. His dreams were terrifying, his thoughts during the day full of torment, experiences he shared with no one.

  Several weeks after the funeral, Charlie had stopped by the farm with frozen meals from his restaurant. While loading the labeled cartons in the freezer together, he discovered the boy was truly alone. The Amund brothers, while not hermits, had not developed a network of friends.

  He realized the boy wasn’t talking to anyone and seated Johnny at the table while he whipped up breakfast. “Charlie, it could have been me. It’s like I killed them! It isn’t fair, I crashed a truck too, and wasn’t even hurt. Uncle Nelsson used to say ‘bad is called good when worse happens’; well I say worse just got worse. What am I going to do?” This went on as the breakfast cooled, and nothing Charlie suggested seemed to break through to the young man.

  Charlie helped Johnny move to the house in town, found him a decent roommate and joined Johnny for several meetings with the executor. While Johnny expressed thanks, he didn’t come for help and quietly pulled away.

  Despite Charlie’s efforts to provide support, the careful and responsible boy began a chaotic transformation into an angry and defensive young man. Though composed on the outside, Johnny was losing a mental battle. The fact that this had been his first and only serious mistake was no consolation.

  When his license was reinstated, Johnny was hired by an out-of-town contractor too busy to do reference checks and had been driving trucks ever since.

  Meeting Mary and eventually getting married was a definite bright spot in Johnny’s life, but he couldn’t truly give himself to Mary. She had been supportive but unable to help him escape his inner demons. Mary couldn’t understand his struggle, as the big man she married was incapable of sharing the thoughts that were daily poisoning his emotional state.

  Mary’s mother, who was hard to get along with at the best of times, had alienated her unwanted son-in-law by referring to him as “The loser my daughter married,” and generally tried to irritate him when they were forced to be in the same room. Mary had long since given up on having peace in the family, and until recently had been happy to pit the two of them against each other whenever it suited her convenience.

  But Mary’s father, on an infrequent visit on his way through town several years before, had planted a thought in her mind.

  “You know, the big guy has some good things going for him. I was no great catch in my day, but when I got serious, I built a pretty good business.” He scowled, “Good enough to keep your mother out of my hair while I enjoy my retirement.” He had smiled when Mary rubbed his bald head, and said, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t speak that way about your mom.”

  “I know that the lifestyle I chose wrecked whatever chance at marriage we had. I know I wasn’t a good husband, and I’ve apologized for that, and to you for being a lousy father.”

  He had shrugged and cleared his throat. “It seems I’ve been given a second chance, and I’m trying to do this one right, getting some good help, too.

  “If Johnny decides to be somebody, he will make it happen. Lars and Nelsson were good men, and there is no reason why he can’t turn out the same. I worked around them when I was young, and you couldn’t ask for better guys. Not easy to get to know, but honest and hardworking every day of the week.”

  Mary’s parents had separated while Mary was still in high school, and now her father was happy with his girlfriend of four years. While Al hadn’t always been a good role model, she had loved him, and felt closer to him now that they were both older.

  Several years ago, he had called Mary and apologized, and said he was working
to make his life better and wanted to know if he could come visit. His apology was sincere, and the resulting discussion began to mend the hurts. In their first two-hour talk, they had come to realize Al’s anger stemmed from Mary crossing a line, a line that even he did not fully understand, a line he was afraid of, and had never communicated to his daughter. Mary’s hurt and angry reaction sprang from not understanding the inconsistency in her father’s life - how he could be tolerant of, and even encourage, her underage drinking and partying, but be enraged when she came home stoned from a quiet evening at a friend’s house?

  They both agreed later that this discussion was the turning point in their relationship, and that the humility of Al’s approach to reconciliation was far more powerful than the words spoken. Their relationship had rallied quickly, and they had each thanked each other repeatedly, the father amazed at the woman his little girl had become, and the daughter in the realization that her father was interested in her life, and she was interested in his.

  Thinking about her father’s opinion of Johnny, Mary pulled up his contact info on her phone and pushed the call icon.

  “Hey, Kid!”

  She smiled at the expected greeting from the gravelly voice. “Hi, Dad. How are you?”

  “I’m fine, what’s up?”

  “Dad, I was thinking about what you said a couple of years ago about Johnny, that he could be a pretty good man if he tried.” She paused. “Do you remember that?”

  “Yes, I do. Is everything okay?”

  After she assured him things were very good, he cleared his throat. “Do you know I met Johnny’s father before he went to prison?”