One Starry Night

Pam's voice sounds far away and thin, like she can't quite get the breath to form the words.

"There's no easy way to say this. It's Kenny. He has cancer. It's in his right lung and in his brain." I hear her inhale, fast and shallow. "That's why his face was sagging a little, on the left. We thought it was a virus, or something. But it's cancer."

Plain and kick you in the teeth simple as that.

With those words out loud, it is here, and it's not going away. Death has rapped its ugly knuckles on the door. And very suddenly, I can't explain why, I feel my own hourglass sands shifting. I am ashamed that my thoughts so oddly shoot to me. But I suddenly feel so mortal.

I don't remember much of what I say to her, in that instant, or in the endless minutes that follow. I have anxious questions, but don't want the answers. I say stupid things to make her feel better. Like he is so strong and it we won't let this happen. When I say this, my wish is to soften her fear, but I feel like such a liar. I have no star- tipped wand to wave that will swirl the air with glitter and make it all better. Who the hell am I to try to hold up the sky?

I feel myself being sucked into a vortex. It's scary here. I want out of this phone call.

"If there's anything I can do..." I hear myself mouthing the lamest of comforts. My words fall like flat stones skimmed over water that skip along the surface, and then just drop. My head spins with thoughts of him, of her, my sister (his ex), the kids, and...me.

He is mine to lose, too.

I hang up the phone and sit staring at nothing at all. I try to remember the last time I saw Kenny, the last time that I looked at him without having to simultaneously feel this dread inside.

I can feel my guts tightening as I fast forward. I don't want to see that face, all of the rounded contours bony and angular, cradled in a pillow, with white sheets neatly folded chest high. Don't want to be there to watch as the cancer sucks all the meat off of his face, leaving behind this haunted one, a face too big for his head.

I try to chase those pictures away. I try again to think of the last time I saw him.

In a flash, it comes to me, a memory all clouded in pink. It was last summer on a sweat on your upper lip, swatting mosquitoes, sitting- around- in- only- your -underwear kind of night. He just showed up for a visit, gunning the twin exhausts on his motorcycle, rattling every window in the neighborhood. If we were unsure of who might be walking up the drive, we weren't anymore when we heard him whoop at the moon, at the barely stirring elms, and then laugh out loud, to nobody at all but the starry night.  

That whoop was Kenny's alone. He was filled with such an exuberant spirit. Maybe it had to be released in that crazy sound, here and there, every so often, to keep him from flying around the room backwards like an untied balloon.

I quickly scooted past the windows, pulling on a tee and shorts, smoothing my hair. When I flipped on the porch light, the moths darted in their frantic orbits. I swatted at them and called out into the liquid hot night, the privet blossoms filling the air with the scent of baby powder.

"Sweets? Is that you?"

"Hey, Pat. Get your buns out here," he said, in that voice that makes me think of whiskey, smoky and smooth.

"Kenny?  You're crazy. What are you..."

"Get your buns out here, darlin'.  The sky's awesome," he said, like he'd never seen one quite like tonight's.

"Oh, alright, you fool. I'll get my flip flops on. Wait a min..."

"Aww...damn!"

"What? What happened?"

"You just missed a shooting star," he shouted, too loud for eleven PM.

"Shhh. It's late. I'm coming," I laughed and slid into my flip flops. I headed onto the porch, and down the warm granite steps to meet him. He stood in the driveway, with his hands balanced on his hips, his elbows tucked way back like wings, his face to the sky.

"Hey, you crazy old buck," I whispered, tiptoeing to deliver a peck on his cheek. He leaned down to catch the kiss. He smelled like soap and fresh air.

He hung his helmut on the motorcycle's silver arm. "Where's the old man?"

"He's in watching some old movie. C'mon in... Want something cold to drink? A beer?"

"Sure, but just one." He crooked his thumb and motioned toward the motorcycle. "But let's stay out here."

"One beer an hour. You can safely metabolize one beer per hour."

He smiled, shrugged and turned his chin again to the sky, sucking the air in hard.

"So...I guess that means you'll just have to stay an hour. Wow...the stars are great, tonight. Now where's the Dipper?" I mused aloud.

He swung his arm up, raised a pointed finger.

"No. Wait. Let me find it." I yanked on his arm and pulled it down. "It's the only one I can pick out for sure..." I looked up and squinted at the glittery swaths.

"There!" I said, pointing out the Dipper to the man who knew every star. "Ouch!" I swatted at a mosquito, and wiped away the blood and bug guts from my forearm.

"The skeeters do love the sweet meat, Pretty Pitty," he said, with that naughty little grin that always made me blush.

"Let me get that beer," I said, turning the pink of my cheeks away from him. As I hurried up the steps, he lifted the iron latch and let himself into the backyard.

Chris never did come out to sit with us. He probably fell asleep watching John Wayne storm yet another beach, trailed by yet another war- weary squad.

But it didn't really matter.

It was honey having my ex brother- in- law all to myself. At first, the conversation meandered like a butterfly visiting wildflowers in an overgrown field. Light airy touchings down, pauses, and then quick flits to unexpected pieces of color, and exploration of the memories balanced there.

The night air chilled enough to keep the mosquitoes at bay, and we just kept on talking. We started out sharing the funny stories; the ones that you can't help repeating; the ones so well worn that the story teller and the listener keep shifting, throughout the telling. And as night fell harder, that twinkly black moonless sky cocooned us, so much so, that we dared to tiptoe through darker times, those back alleys of our own life stories. That night, we let divorce and depression and personal failings come out to breathe on us for awhile.

Too soon, wispy clouds drifted in, obscuring the stars. The Pinkerton bell tower echoed with the deep bong of two bells. We hugged, and then I cupped his sweet face in my hands, and kissed him hard and quick.

And then he was gone, revving his engine like thunder.