Along for the Ride (Part I)

Late one night in Minneapolis, on the very same porch that I've been writing from, Michael lounged to cool off from one of the hottest days of the summer. I was inside, squared off with the fan, battling not only the heat but a stubborn case of writer's block as well. This was often where the two of us could be found or at least rarely on the same room unless company was over.

Slowly, one of his ear buds was plucked from his ear as something began to reel in his attention across the street. Doubt lingered just long enough to justify his imagination was running away with him but then the shattering of glass, billowing dark smoke and twisting flames prompted him to his feet. His first reaction was to run inside and shout to me,

"Bonne! The building across the street is on fire!"

At first, his tone was indistinguishable from the countless other times he cried wolf as the irreverent joker he was. Nevertheless, I dashed for the porch to find my eyes alight with what indeed was a burning building just yards from where we stood. The two of us didn't waste another heartbeat and hopped the wall to sprint towards the blaze.

Michael and I slammed our hammered fists onto the doors and walls yelling for signs of life! The choking smoke was black and volumous as it pumped out of the quickly disintegrating windows with trailing arcs of fire clawing for the air outside. For once, the humidity had dropped significantly this night, making the surrounding atmosphere ripe with oxygen to fuel the spreading inferno. One could not even see inside any of the openings into the apartment for they had become scorching exhaust ports so all we could do is try and listen between our banging and yelling without inhaling the increasingly poisonous air.

We were first on the scene but soon other surrounding apartments started waking up, opening their windows and hesitantly making their way outside to investigate what all the shouting was about. Remembering my firefighting training still fresh from my last line of work, I turned around and barked to an onlooker to call 911. I trusted my buddy to keep on trying to get a response from the inside while I vaulted back into his place to get my jacket in case the door had to come down and we'd need to storm in for a rescue.

Now, the adrenaline saturating our veins momentarily put aside any notion of heroism and the two of us simply acted on the inherently human impulses of what needed to be done in the presence of a threatened life. As obsessed as we were with vainglory and big talk at all hours of the day, in these critical minutes, it is safe to say that our two silly egos took a step back.

When I returned I was relieved to see that Michael had managed to get the attention of a bewildered tenant who was more perturbed by his racket than the fire that was reaching for her floor. She had quickly made her way out through a back exit, though still very annoyed. I rushed around the building to locate a similar rear exit to the burning unit.

The smoke was much thicker back here yet all the windows appaeared vacant and nowhere near the fire. When I looked closer the windows were actually covered by dark draperies and none seemed to give away the source of the fire. It was a chore to stay low while checking all the doors for a way into the affected apartment. Just as I began feeling the second exit with the back of my hand while looking for a draft below, coughs and shuffling in the shadows caught my attention. An old man and a pair of dogs were struggling to get through the heavy door shrouded in the dark underneath some stairs. I stumbled onto a grill in my haste to reach him then forced the door open. He, too, seemed rather aloof about the situation as I guided him out into the street, doing my best to keep him calm but extract information at the same time.

In whatever tone could possibly sound reassuring I explained, "Your apartment is on fire!"

"Mine," he asked, suddenly concerned. "No, I'm just over taking care of these dogs--"

"Do you know if there's anyone else in the building," I cut him off and to the chase.

The terrified senior came to his senses and revealed, "Y-yes, there's a squatter somewhere on the bottom floor!"

One of the bystanders took him and his dogs into her arms and guided him towards the growing crowds at the intersection. The bad news was relayed to Mike who was still diligently shaking up the building of all its possible inhabitants. It was certain that someone was unconscious in there and needed to be dragged out. I dissuaded him from busting down the front door which seemed prime to release a ball of fire to and injur us as well as flood the building with more oxygen. While still trying to think on our feet, a young girl ran up to us on the porch with a small fire extinguisher to which Mike scoffed at. It was futile at this point to save the apartment but then it occurred that it could assist with getting to the squatter and out if there would be enough agent left. We both knew what had to be done.

As I began making my way around back again to find a safer way in, my stride slowed to a halt at the relieving sound of sirens. At this point the two of us had done what we could and it was time to pass the scene onto more capable hands. As three fire crews began setting up the stage for the fire suppression and rescue we gave our last hand with crowd control and humbly disappeared into the masses.

We watched the scene unfold from the corner. The two of us didn't say a thing until the man we would have been carrying on our backs was hoisted out on a stretcher. Even with an irreverent onlooker running across the street to capture the recucitation for YouTube, subsequent boos and his arrest, Mike and I seemed to hold our breath until the victim, himself was breathing again. Into an ambulance he would be spirited away to a hospital and be treated for nothing more than smoke inhalation.

Despite that good news, we still stood out there and watched them put out the fires in silence. It was limited to just the one apartment. A group of familiar faces were being briefed on the other corner about where they could stay for the night and what what they could expect over the next few days. News crews were arriving along with droves of bystanders constantly updating one another with what they think might have happened in what sounded like a game of telephone. An hour or so would go by then the street slowly emptied. Eventually, next to the crews buttoning up and the eager journalists patiently waiting for an interview, we were the only ones standing on the corner. Only then did I notice how drenched in sweat and how watery our eyes were on account of the smoke we had endured. What a rush...

Mike was first to speak up as we retreated to the porch.

"Been a while since we had a scrape like that, huh?"

I was still lost in myself and had to have him repeat himself a couple of times. I couldn't believe that a month ago I had joked that one of the bucket list items for this journey would include rescuing someone from a burning building. Though I was spared that specific task, it was alarming to know it was moments from happening.

"I remember," Michael started again, "when Search & Rescue said you'd likely be dead on that glacier in New Zealand!"

I scoffed then.

He continued, "I remember when I thought I was going to die from sickness - I still don't know what it was for the life of me - but you nursed me back to health. I remember when..."

My old friend carried on reminiscing about our misadventures one sidedly until the memories became more poignant.

"I remember when I had to move away in high school and you kept kicking down the for sale sign in front of my house to keep us from leaving. I remember when you said you were going to disappear for a while someday... Maybe the last six years was when you disappeared."

My ears perked up knowing he was completely sober this this time. It's not often that I could hear his thoughts unguarded. He was right. I might have found myself on this trip but I still wasn't anywhere to be found for someone I once called my best friend. If I had been sitting on the porch and saw the fire first would I have recruit him for the job or headed off on my own (or even called to his roommate)? Despite the issues that set us apart and adrift, I'd say Michael was always be the better man in our friendship and even lack of. I would actually come to realize that the night before the both of us set off from Chicago...

Somewhere between the fourth and sixth ginger ale and Jameson round at the bar, Michael excused himself to the men's room, leaving his friend Nate and I alone for the first time. It was amusing to see this eloquent fellow slurring his speech but when the subject of our conversation turned to our mutual buddy, I put down my drink and was all ears.

"He just loves walking into a room with his motorcycle helmet in hand knowing that the guys are wondering what kind of bike he rides and the girls wonder what exotic places he's been. He's always talking loud and proud about the lunch he had in Paris or the nap he took on a beach in Hawaii - often on his phone for the world to hear! The guy never lets you have your moment of glory because he's always ready with a story to top yours, which are probably fish tails! To my memory, I can count the number of times he's admitted to being wrong all on my thumb! Mike's one arrogant son of a--"

Of course alcohol has a funny way of coloring one's memory so Nate's tirade is paraphrased, however not for content but word choice. By golly, I sat there so bug-eyed not only to have heard such a confession but also find out I was not alone in my assessment of his ego-driven personality.

"...But you know what," Nate paused to finish his drink and slung his arm around the man of the hour who had just returned, "I fucking love this guy for it. All of it! He may not be the best man at my wedding but he is my best friend for life!"

Something told me Michael was aware of the subject matter of the conversation despite missing it's entirety for the two of them seemed better friends than we ever were.

Nate's inebriated celebration for Michael's vices only seemed to account for when the man was sober. The rest of the night, our friend allowed the alcohol to affect him in the same way it did for me around that bonfire in Utah and basically be himself at his core for a spell.

While walking/staggering back from the bar I listened to him just let it all out. From his passionate fascination with my brush with revolutionary tendencies to his no-regrets spiel about passing up on ticket to West Point right out of high school...

"You had a lot to do with that," pointing at me, "and I think I'd be a completely different person had it not been for this guy. Don't get me wrong, though; I'd hate to meet that person!"

I never knew that. My naïveté was at fault there even though in retrospect over the yesrs its nearly impossible to dismiss the surprising amount of influence I had on every single friend I ever had during my teens. What I was guilty of was what he said next about feeling abandoned once his family moved him from Seattle to Minneapolis. I had never gone out to visit him. Rather, he would make all the trips back to Washington a few times a year, yet still find no sense of belonging as I just seemed too busy leading my own solitary life. This wasn't news. What he confessed to me next was:

"...I'm not as tough as you think!"

I fell back a bit from the pack. It was one thing for distance to sever the bonds of our friendship but I somehow managed to unintentionally keep us apart by changing into someone he had trouble recognizing anymore. My obsession with being a tough guy was all he ever saw and ever got when he needed a shoulder or just some company. Either I was still as influential as when we were innocent kids or his isolated surroundings made him follow suit. Seeing or simply hearing from him often sent me over the edge judgmentally but I never could make my brooding known because it would reveal my own hypocrisy. I knew, then, that my jaded outlook on life was wrong and being in his presence was a blatant reflection of it. Seeing my fallacy in him was too infuriating, hence his justified feelings of abandonment.

Play pretend long enough and you start to believe the act. Years passed and eventually I couldn't understand why he was the way he was. I had the nerve to tell myself that if only he'd humble himself for once, but what I was subconsciously saying was that if I would just drop the act, things could start anew. Despite the ball being in my court all along, here he was taking the initiative to tell me he wasn't as tough as I thought. My friend, forgive me but I didn't intend to expect us to be so. If anyone is tough, it was you for holding out for a self-centered bastard like myself. In the end, we're really just a couple of boys still trying to find our place in this broken world.

His first drunk message earlier clued me to his buried sentiments.

"...you keep plugging miles on tihs trip, and i got your revolutionqary back. i had dreeams about it, but we stasrt in the middle easst. something about overthrowing terrorisism and then taking on the corruption of the us. that's Us... but yeah, you got this! just keep kicking ass ad maybe if you can take me for the ride, cause i havent accomplished anything owrththile in a long long ong long long time... i dont know which role i takeion the adventure, hell, i hope i'm even in the adventure, buyt i... hope it can be a good one! See ya when if you come to my place. i hope, mabe, yeah. youd better. I' m going to sleep... you should rememeber you in australia, because that's the last time i saw bonne as bonne. or somethin like that. i miss my friend, but you never visit! i dunno wy! its like you left me hanging and man I'm not that tough anymore! if i was, i woudnt be drunk righ tnow. ya see! oh boy, i gotta sleep. yup, michael, go to bd. now. good bye bonne, i hope yo u save ehe wolrd or soemthign. because i cn't right now. yoiu forgot abot me, i think. wait, no, I'm drunk, i cshuoldn't say that..."

I'm sorry, pal, I didn't forget about you. I was just ashamed of myself and you suffered because of it.

By the time we reached Nate's apartment, the only thing keeping me from requesting that sixth round of whiskey - this time hold the ginger ale - to drown my shame was the fact the Michael had managed to find people who filled in the void that was me and then some. I thought if friends like Nate liked him now, my only hope was that they had seen this side of him before because he was a great kid. He was my best friend, after all, and honestly, I wanted to give him back that title. When he uttered to me right before dozing off that he would cut work just so we could share the road I was adamant on taking up to Minneapolis, there definitely was no question about the faith he still had in our friendship and the long way I had to go to catch up.