DIED 2006
BECAUSE WE MOVED AWAY from Texas before the teen years came roaring in to sweep my sons and their friends away on waves of testosterone, Red Bull, and cheap beer, here he is at eleven: a pale, reedy blond with glasses, doofy and antsy and unfailingly polite, his toothy, elated smile bigger than the rest of him. His mother was younger than most at our semi-yuppie neighborhood elementary; his teenage sister was raising a baby at home. He was named after his dad, whom he resembled not a bit, a big dark-haired Texas farm boy who played basketball with the kids in the driveway. How fiercely my son loved this friend, not because he was so cool or a sports star or had a swimming pool or anything like that, quite the opposite. You should see how much sunscreen he has to wear, my son marveled after a day at the water park. He is the whitest person in the world.
After we moved, they stayed in touch for a while, visited once or twice. Then those waves of change swept my son off to the locker room and his friend into a bit of trouble. He’s doing okay, I think, my son told me. He changed schools. The night of his high school graduation, his family had a big party for him. On his way out the door, he told his mom it had been the best day of his life. Sometime around four in the morning his friends thought he’d had enough, and insisted on following him home. But he fooled them. As soon as they left, he backed out of the driveway and made it about a hundred yards before he flipped his car. A week later I watched my son’s class line up to get their diplomas on the football field of a Pennsylvania high school. I looked around at the bleachers full of proud, expectant faces. I don’t know how the hell we go on, knowing what we know.