I Am the Highway

I don’t have much more to say (in this space, and by that I mean The Long Sunset, as I’m brewing terrible things to say about it elsewhere, but have little else to say in my blog) about the life and tragedy that crushed all of us five (five) weeks ago this Thursday. But I did want to write this, as hard as it is for me to do, and I cry as I try, because it expresses the strange bond my brother and I had (as many Brothers do). It’s a difficult thing to write, because there are few things that hurt worse then to explain the reasons your pain runs so deep.

But in the end, I feel sorry only for him and not anyone else, especially me, as I am just a drunken fool with many miles to go before I sleep.

One of my favorite memories of Mike in the past five or so years, as strange as it sounds, and it will only sound strange if you haven’t been with us in that time, happened one bold Wednesday night but a few years ago. We’d been drinking shots at Mainstreet Pub (lots of shots), with some local friends, pumping each other up. We used to have a thing where we’d intentionally run into each other going the opposite direction and we’d bump off ourselves and pretend we were looking for a fight (we did this everywhere, mostly at all the houses we lived in together, but often at bars, banks, Walgreens, anywhere that would offer a suitable path). I would always careen further away from Mike of course. As the key to the game was to catch the other brother off-guard, and to incur the maximum random impact at an odd unguarded moment.

Either way, my brother’s impact was always stronger then mine.

What was I explaining again, tightly wound within these moons, and sunken slowly in the tar of the deep night?

Oh yes, that night, with those shots, and love we had for each other.

Anyway, we were taking shots at Mainstreet before we went to see the Dark Knight. Which, with Mike’s death, and, in retrospect, for the rest of my life, was the single most important movie either of us would ever see, as the hype and brilliance Batman Begins had literally whipped us into a frenzy. I had, and have, a different taste of movies then Mike (for the most part, to this day if someone makes fun of True Lies to my face they are no longer my friend), but we agreed in the brilliance of Nolan’s version of Gotham. Perhaps, and probably, for different reasons.

But these things were of no importance on this night. We drank, especially Mike, with a few friends, ready for one of those strange moments in our lives that we would tell our children about at the same time (where were you when Empire first premiered?). And Mike did a solid job in getting hammered. The Dark Knight premiered on that static Wednesday night at midnight, and so we had the time to get properly ready.

And we were ready. The movie was being shown at the Oaks, but here’s the important thing to note: I had the Batman Begins soundtrack on my Ipod that I hadn’t told anyone about. And I stayed sober all night for this one moment. We packed into my little Hyundai, with Mike and a few of his friends, and we left Mainstreet heading for the Oaks Theater, and just as I was about to turn into the parking lot I had everyone roll down their windows down.

Lots of complaining; as this was a humid southern summer night. But I promised it would be worth it. And with all the windows down, and a few drinks in us, I blasted track 10 on that disc, Molosass, and blew through the front part the Oaks. If you don’t know the song, and you shouldn’t, and you won’t, it’s basically the dramatic music used whenever Batman is chasing anyone. We horrified everyone, and Mike loved it. In fact, we regretted not dressing up for the occasion, and it pains me that we’ll never have another shot at it.

And really I don’t even know why this is worthy of writing; other then it being one of those moments between us that I look back on and just bawl. As I’m doing now. Mike was stitched so truly to the book, weaved seamlessly, not like me. I'm a man who is rarely even aware when I’m alive. Mike was alive. Especially this night. Right before the movie began, after I’d calmed him down from yelling the slogan Blue-and-White-Ignite (it was Orlando Magic playoff season, but that’s a whole ‘nother story), he leaned over to me and said: “ Can you believe it’s finally here,” in a quiet but true whisper.

At the time of course I could, but looking back I can’t believe it’ll never come back. And during that movie, during the Dark Knight (which Mike was just enraptured in, and had been since the original Batman movies, from West to Kilmer) the main thing I remember seeing was the Joker, Heath Ledger, and his face moving silently in death between the filaments of the black screen (which he does a few times in the movie, and especially when The Batman begins interrogating him), and thinking how strange it was to view celluloid in death. Tragedy powered parts of that movie, and tragedy powers every part of my day, even when it doesn’t seem that way.

And even more so, tragedy taints every part of my nostalgia, and of every piece of beauty that made up the first now unfairly hurtful quarter-century of my life.

Selfish. Because it’s his hurt, his inability to never see the third installation (it’ll probably suck, but don’t doubt Nolan), that hurts me the worst.

It is all things random that sting us the strongest, and it is all moments of separation that leave us feeling the most helpless. But in this pain that we can not recover from, we can only accept that it is fleeting, as all things are, towards the path that we’ll all find ourselves at in the end.

And a few noticed, but I actually slipped a line from the Dark Knight in my eulogy just for Mike. Because I know damn well he would have wanted it that way. Not that it matters, not that it ever mattered. But that night, when we rolled past the Oaks, drinking, yelling Batman quotes, seems so distant, and now, dark. We were there though, and maybe we will always be, as my memory does not fade, and our pain only pretends to recede. I’ll be here for you, although I have very little to give, and the film will keep rolling, even though we know it is not real.