Jerry

Before talking about Jerry I wanted to mention I've changed my mind about working on the puzzling-hand story. It's too big, I haven't lived long enough. I don't think I could finish it in any reasonable or believable way. Now I'm left with one option, starting from scratch. I have an idea for a story I'll play with today to see if it has legs.

One might enjoy this song while reading.

Jerry. Who is Jerry? Jerry is a man--although in many ways he's still a high school boy in my mind--whom I'm not related to by blood but who my brother calls "brother." Much like myself my brother formed one of his deepest friendships in Indiana before we moved off to finish our K-12 years in Washington state. (One day I should post about Indiana.) Jerry lived on the same street (hello Shortridge) and was in the same grade as my brother, two years ahead of me.

Being a teenager I was wrapped up in my own world and only noticed the sting and pain that was caused to me by the move. I don't know how my brother felt about that move; it was the hardest of my life. I cried sitting in the U-Haul next to my dad as the Indianapolis skyline slipped from view. After leaving, Jason and I (mostly Jason, he's show me a lot about what it means to be friends) did our best to stay in contact and found some way to see each other pretty much every summer until we graduated and then moved off to the sunny skies and golden beaches of California. Sorry mom.

In contrast Frank seemed to pick up and continue his life better than I did, but I'm probably not a fair judge given how myopic and self-involved I had become. He and Jerry talked on the phone but I don't think they saw much of each other. When Frank married Jeanne, Jerry flew out and was the best man. He still looked the same to me then, my older brother's handsome athletic friend.

Back in our Indiana days we sort of ran as a lose group. Jason, I, Frank, Jerry and our other friend Larry. Jerry was probably the closest to being "cool" and it was an interesting group because of the age difference between Jason and I and the other three (all being two or three years older than us, which is a big deal in late Junior High early High School). So Jerry and I were friends too, we had a heated rivalry in Super Tecmo Bowl (his Cowboys vs my Giants), we played pickup games of football and basketball together (but he was mostly a baseball man), tricker-treated together, etc.

Jerry's little brother Chad was even younger than I and I never interacted much with him and really only knew him as a hot tempered little rug-rat (this information was mostly gleamed second hand from what Jerry and Frank told me.) Years later Chad went to school in Florida with the help of a baseball scholarship. During his first year there he was involved in a hazing incident and drowned. Even never reallying knowing Chad these were sad days due to the chain of human connectedness that linked me back to him. The stories I heard of Chad made me wish I had known him better. One story in particular sticks out in my head. At his funeral an awkward girl who nobody really knew stood up and talked about Chad, who if anything like his brother was a handsome athletic popular young man. She related how she spent many days sitting alone in the lunch room and Chad was the only one who ever stopped by and sat down to eat lunch and talk with her.

My brother had his hands tied financially but our family made it so that he could fly back to be with Jerry for the funeral. (One of the few things money is good for.)

These days Frank and Jerry talk on the phone once every other week or so. Both of them are flying out to the Bay Area in two weeks. We're going Skiing in Tahoe, just the boys, maybe Jason will come along. I haven't seen Jerry since Franks wedding; his brother has died between then and now; he is family in that he is family to my brother. I look forward to seeing him again.

I write about him now because the last two nights I've had dreams that involved him.

Dream one:
Jerry, Frank and I were unpacking a car parked in someone's driveway, wasn't mine (the driveway or the car). It was all normal. Then I looked down on the pavement and there was a little boy, maybe two or three. He had long curly reddish hair and I knew it was Jerry's little boy. I don't know why the child looked the way it did, Jerry has dark curly hair and I've never seen his wife (or any of his real progeny). The child made me very happy. Then the scene switched the ocean, a family at play, and while I'm not sure if the child was still there I could feel his presence and I remained happy, so happy I cried. I woke fighting tears of joy. Why fight such tears? I don't know.

Dream two:
This one is slipping from my memory quickly. My dad, brother and I were driving to a ski range. There we met Jerry. I talked Frank into staying on the easy slopes with Jerry. We enjoyed our day but I had the feeling that people were watching us, something about us made us the target of their spite. I don't know how I knew this because no one said anything, it was just the way they looked at us, or didn't look at us.