Continued from August 18th……..
After an extended inquiry, the monk was convinced that the older brother was in fact studying under the Jesuits in the city to the North. He decided to drive them all back on what had become a very rain swept evening. In the back seat she told him she would have to call her family to pick her up. He understood. The brother had started an inquiry of his own on the merits and possibilities of a monastic life.
They lay together on an old dusty couch in the attic. Soon….too soon….the headlights pulled up and stopped on the dark wet pavement fronting the old house. Her sister picked her up and whisked her up North to the predictability of the family vacation home. He went down stairs after a few minutes of reflection and sat at the kitchen table, squinting and squirming as he drank his first shots of whiskey, having not yet turned 17.
The next morning, or a little later than that, a friend drove them in an old pickup truck back to the familiar exit ramp. The pair of broken vehicles waited there patiently.
As it turned out, they were towed away to different shops. He rode in the front seat alone with the shirt soiled driver. Not much to talk about, but he tried anyway. His car would take a week to fix, forcing a consideration of mobile options as he was dropped back off at the ramp location as he and his brother had discussed earlier.
As he lay in the thick grassy ditch waiting for his brother, his brothers friend and of course his brothers friends truck, he fell asleep. He awoke much later. He knows this as a result of the sun burn face he felt. It was the sound of the old pickup truck down on the road at the base of the off ramp that caused him to stir.. He jumped up and waved profusely as the truck turned and headed up the on ramp to the freeway. He could hear the old muffler for at least a mile or so as it headed North back to the city, without him.
To be continued……
Please feel free to e-mail a comment to chasingthecenterline@gmail.com
