Well, as usually ended up happening, halfway through playing I went and hid from Josh. He assumed we were done playing and went inside to ignore me. I watched him from outside for a while hoping to lure him back out, which didn't work. So eventually when I felt it was safe, I quietly snuck in the back door. Right inside was the laundry room separated by only the inverted L shaped hallway that led to the living room. I tiptoed in and silently buried myself under the dirty laundry and waited for someone to notice I was gone.
Before I had drifted into a deep sleep I heard my mom ask "Where is Shane?"
Followed immediately by a grunt of "uh don know" from Josh.
"When was the last time you saw your brother?"
"I don't know, A while ago... like twenty minutes or something."
"Where is he now?"
"I don't know. He ran off..."
"Explain, Please."
"We were playin and he got all weird and ran off. I came in and sat down in front of the TV, jeeze."
"Did he come back inside?"
"Um... No... I don't know."
"Josh... Look outside."
Although I couldn't see it I got the drift that the blizzard had had enough of a break and was beginning to wake up. If you've never been in a blizzard before, just know that once it's coming down you can't see more than five feet in front of you.
"Are you telling me that you left Shane outside, and he hasn't come in, and it is snowing like that out?"
There was no answer. There never was an answer to a question like that. In fact, in mom talk... any answer to a question like that is a wrong answer.
The only correct answer was "I think I'll go find my brother, right now."
Moments of silence seemed to pass as I strained to hear into the living room. I heard the unbearable silence that is "the stare" from mom followed by the opening and closing of the front door. Mom cursed under her breath, and got up and started pacing around the living room and kitchen.
After what seemed like hours (ten minutes or so) mom in her aimless wandering came back to the laundry room. She stood in front of the machines for a minute or two, just lost in thought. I was wide awake and trying not to let her hear me breathing. I quickly made up my mind to lie to my mother.
If she discovered me I would tell her that I had had a fight with Josh, and had come around the house and gone in the back door and cried myself to sleep in the laundry.
I figured there was some truth in the statement, and Josh would be back momentarily saying he couldn't find me and it would all be no harm no foul anyway.
I prepared myself for discovery and began my illustrious acting career with my infamous "cute boy sleeping". I closed my eyes, and relaxed my body and held my mouth slightly ajar so I could breath through my mouth and avoid detection, but it would look like I was just sleeping with my mouth open if she saw me. Which of course she did. As soon as she noticed she was standing in front of the machines she automatically reached over and grabbed a handful of laundry, uncovering my face in the process.
I made my mom scream in terror, an earsplitting high pitch. My eyes shot open wide and I bunched up fast not quite sure why she reacted so shockingly. Quick on my feet I thought... stick to the story... she just woke you up... stick to the story!!
"How long have you been sleeping here??" she asked me still slightly hysterical.
"I don't know" I said, which was true, what seven year old boy really keeps track of time?
"Josh and I had a fight and I came in and went to sleep in the laundry. Why?"
"Because we didn't know where you were! Josh is outside looking for you!! Go sit in the living room please. And see if you can see your brother out the window."
I went to the living room as directed... well... by way of getting myself a glass of milk from the kitchen that is. As I set my milk down on the counter, I heard hard heavy footfalls climbing our front stairwell. When the footfalls reached the landing and came around the porch passing the living room windows I saw who was making those urgent sounds, and why... and my only thought was "MOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!"
Just as I reached the front door, mom ran into the living room and Nick, our neighbor, burst through carrying a crying Josh in his arms, he was gushing blood from his head.
Josh had been out looking for me and he took a path that led under the neighboring duplex porch, under Nicks apartment. He had been carefully looking down and watching his footing and therefore missed the overhanging icicles that were waiting for him to raise his head and look up. As soon as he did a large icicle ripped through the skin on the top of his head, and he let out a shout of pain, which Nick heard from upstairs.
Nick was an army medic in Vietnam, and possibly one of the sweetest kindest people we ever met. I remember him with light brown hair, possibly dusted with blond. Quiet and quite good looking in the haunted mountain man next door kind of way. He welcomed us to the street and shared bbq's and movie nights and even a few holidays with us. He had a sweet girlfriend and seemed to be an all around good guy.
He had found Josh through the quickening snow and his medic training kicked in. The moment he walked in he was in charge. My mom barely got out a scream before he was telling her to grab clean towels and follow him into the bathroom. He had his own suture kit and had Josh's shirt off and had him in the tub before she got in there. He washed his wounds while telling her what to do next. Josh sat silently sobbing and soaking in the tub while I watched on from the corner outside the door.
Time seems somehow frozen on that moment for me. Nick reaching into the tub in his red flannel, holding Josh by the top of the head, sutures in hand. The terrified stunned look on Josh's face, like he still didn't know what was going on. Watching mom becoming calm and steady under Nicks confidence... it was the first time I ever remember seeing her give up control.
Then it was done. Nick tied off the last stitch in what must have been record time, and gently held Josh's head under the water and rinsed him off. He turned the water off, wrapped Josh in a towel and pulled him out of the tub.
"Yeah, your'e alright aren't you..." he said. Josh nodded.
Mom swept Josh into the living room and piled on the blankets, then went to heat some hot chocolate for him. I was still stuck at the corner of the bathroom. I couldn't stop watching Nick. He was cleaning up the blood and his tools and gathering the trash. He was silent while cleaning, and I saw him looking at the blood as if the sight of it transported him instantly back to Vietnam unleashing his trauma. Although I didn't know or understand any of this then.
I was just fascinated by the fact that everything you know about a person can completely change in an instant. Before, he was just our cool laid back friendly neighbor, but for those brief few minutes that winter I saw the man that Nick was meant to be, it not for war.
When the spring broke that year Nick took Josh and I out to the mountain that was our back yard. He had a sort of tree-fort that he wanted to show us. Well, not as much a fort as a bunch of wood nailed to a tree. A few boards nailed on for a ladder and a couple of basic platforms in the tree. It was his place, where he came to think and be alone. He took us up there that day because it was a perfect tree to teach us how to shoot a bow and arrow.
It was a good day, and he was a good man.
Before summer break arrived mere months later, we came home to the shocking and heartbreaking news that Nick had gone up to his tree-fort and he had shot himself. He was gone. I don't think he was even thirty yet. I didn't understand then what he must have gone through in the war, the friends he must have lost and the horror he must have seen. I do now. I sometimes wonder if that was subconsciously why I became a Navy medic.
I think of him from time to time when I help someone with something medical, and sometimes even when I see my brother. Because while you can't see it on him, I remember Nick because he left a scar.
