As Luck Would Have It (42 page)

His mother was calling him to help finish unloading the back of the
station
wagon and he pulled me along.  Mr. and Mrs. Klein shook my hand when Joseph introduced us and Mr. Klein asked me what grade I was in.  I’ll be starting middle school in the fall, I told them.  Great, same as Joseph, he’ll be in the seventh grade too.  I helped them move the rest of the boxes into the house and by the time we finished, we were sweating in the warm sun.  Mrs. Klein brought out a pitcher of lemonade and poured
glasses
for us while we sat on the lawn watching the movers bring in the furniture.  I’m glad you live so close Clifford, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make any new friends before school starts. 
I felt about the same way; I didn’t have any friends
living nearby.   Joseph introduced me to his older brother Richard who looked to be three or four years older than us.  Don’t put any of your junk in my room or I’ll leave it for the trash collectors, is about all he
had to say
before he went inside
,
a transistor radio glued to his ear.

Friends are made so readily when you are
twelve
years old, not at all like when you
have lived awhile
and have learned from experience to be cynical and suspicious of people’s motives.  Relationships were such
simple matters then; a stranger one day became your pal, your confident, even your best friend seemingly overnight.  You didn’t care what they looked like or where their family came from, and you were largely ignorant of
the
adult prejudices that
were almost sure to
mess with you later on.

One of the movers rolled a shiny ten-speed bicycle down the ramp leading from the back of the van and Joseph jumped up so he could take the handle bars as it reached the sidewalk.  We both looked at Mrs. Klein at the same
moment
; OK, be careful she said.  We ran to my house and I grabbed my bike from the garage and as we pedaled off I yelled to my mother that we would be back before Dad got home from work.  I showed Joseph Bradford Park and the ball field where I’d go with my father.  It was a beautiful day; the warm breezes washing over us as we raced through the park and its adjacent subdivisions, with hardly a care as to what might come tomorrow.  We kept going faster, picking up the pace as much as we dared, negotiating the hills and curves that
now were destined to
shape our lives.
The streets were occasionally steep and uneven; the road ahead uncertain and precarious. 
There might be hidden potholes or
sharp
thorns that would puncture a tire, or even worse, a
cruel
stick in the spokes
that would hurl us to the pavement. 
But two boys
speeding through the neighborhood could not stop to contemplate such things; they could not pause to ask what it all meant or where it might end up.

After about half an hour we stopped to catch our breath and get a drink from the water fountain in the park.  Joseph was flushed from the heat and was smiling; I felt exhilarated from the ride and content with the day so far.  This is fun Clifford, thanks.  The baseball field was deserted and we sat in the shaded dugout to rest.  You think we’ll be friends forever, Joseph?  You say things like that when you are a kid, probably because you are too innocent to know any better.  You don’t know much about anything when it comes right down to it
; you haven’t lived long enough to be able to glimpse more than a few weeks into the future.  How we will come to
regret losing
that simple quality later on when problems and worry have consumed so much of what we were then.  Maybe we will, Clifford, who knows?

You do.  You know how we stayed best friends for more than half a century and how he saved me.  You know how my
remarkable
luck
sat with me
on the porch that morning when the Chevy wagon with the woode
n
side panels turned the corner onto our street and stopped just three doors down from where
we lived.
  You know how he was caused to suffer for no reason and that people hurt him
cruelly
.  You should also know now that I would have done almost anything if I could have stopped
it
, if I could have kept the hurt away from him.  It’s no big deal, really, is what he would always say, but you know the truth now.  His pain was my pain and it hurt something awful.

It was almost noon and I told him we needed to head home, my parents would be wondering where I was.  We rode our bikes in silence on the way back; listening to the sound of the wheels spinning on the hot pavement.  My father was getting out of the car just as we pulled up and he shook Joseph’s hand when I introduced him.  Do you play baseball; we’ll hit some in the park after dinner when it cools down.  OK, but I’m not very good at it, I remember him saying.

In the end, what difference did it make whether or not he could chase down a fly ball
or if he threw a little bit like a girl?  He was good at so many other things, like living life the way it should be, and he
shared that gift
with
a measure of
patience and compassion
that
would
help
form the basis of my life
.
  My mother came out of the house carrying the picnic basket and the coolers filled with ice
d
tea and lemonade
, and
my father and I
loaded them into the trunk of the Dart
.  I would lose them in just another two years, but I would never lose him.  It may have been luck or something more, who could say, but my best friend Joseph would be there with me
until the end
.

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