Three Weeks With My Brother

  "I have friends. I have a lot of friends."

  "Guy friends?"

  "Yeah."

  "But do you do anything with them? Do you go out with them? Go fishing or boating or whatever it is you do down south?"

  "Sometimes."

  "Sometimes, or rarely?"

  I hesitated. "Okay, so I don't do much with them. But I can't. To have the time to go out with friends, I'd have to give up time with my family. I have too many kids to do that. And besides, most of my friends have kids, too. I'm not the only one who doesn't have a lot of free time to just hang out."

  "You should, though. Just hang out. Not all the time, of course, but you should try to make it more regular. Like I do. I joined an indoor soccer league and we play every Thursday. Just a group of guys out there having fun. You should do something like that."

  "We don't have an indoor soccer league. I live in a small town, remember?"

  "It doesn't have to be soccer. You can do anything. The point is that you should do something. Relationships are the most important thing in life, and friends are part of that."

  I smiled. "Why do I get the impression that you think the solution to all my problems is to be more like you?"

  "Hey, if the shoe fits." He shrugged, and I laughed.

  "So you still think you have to take care of me, huh?"

  "Only when I think you need it, little brother."

  "And what if I started talking to you about God, because I think you need it?"

  "Go ahead," he said. "I'll listen."

  Above me, the sky was filled with stars clustered together in unrecognizable constellations, and the words rose up almost unexpectedly.

  "God keeps his promise, and he will not allow you to be tested beyond your power to remain firm; at the same time you are put to the test, he will give you the strength to endure it, and so provide you with a way out."

  Micah glanced over at me. Despite the darkness, I could see him raise his eyebrows.

  "First Corinthians," I said. "Chapter 10."

  "Impressive."

  I shrugged. "I just always liked that verse. It reminds me of the footprints story--you know the one where God walks with man on the beach. Scenes from the man's life flash in the sky, and during flashbacks of the most trying times of the man's life, he sees only one set of footprints. Not because God abandoned the man in times of need . . . but because God carried the man."

  Micah was quiet for a moment. "So you don't think he abandoned us?"

  "No," I said. "And I don't think he wants you to abandon him either."

  The following morning, we set off to see the first of the Moai statues, which were located less than a few minutes from the hotel, just up the coast. Had we known where we'd be going, we could have seen them from our hotel room.

  As we rode in the vans with the archaeologists who made their living studying them, we were informed that at one time there were roughly fourteen different tribes on the island, each with its own ruler. These rulers ordered the carving of these statues from volcanic rock--most were made to resemble said rulers--and over time, these statues grew larger and larger, as each ruler tried to impress on the people his own importance. Some of the Moai weigh up to thirty tons, and stand twelve feet high; one unfinished statue measures sixty-six feet and is estimated to weigh nearly fifty tons.

  Afterward, we were told about the absence of trees.

  When it was first colonized, Easter Island had resembled other islands in the Pacific, but as the population expanded, trees became the most overused of all the natural resources. They were employed in construction of dwellings and for cooking fires; mature trees were used to roll the Moai across the island. In the past when Polynesians migrated, as islands became overcrowded, people would head off in their canoes in search of new territories; because Easter Island was so isolated, there was nowhere else to go. Overcrowding and overuse of the resources led to civil wars; the wars continued through generations. Through it all, trees continued to be cut down. In the end, most had been wiped out, and the natives ended up burning anything they could in order to cook, including their homes and canoes. Shore fishing became the sole source of food, but a La Nina effect is suspected to have suddenly cooled the waters around the island. It lasted two years, killing much of the ocean reef, and the fish became much less plentiful. In the end, the natives turned to cannibalism.

  Over time, a few palms eventually sprouted again, but to speed the process, mature palm trees were imported from Tahiti. These trees, however, turned out to be diseased, and they not only died, but ended up killing most of the remaining palms on the island. Now, there are only a few spots where they still remain.

  The first statue we saw was fascinating. So were the second and third. By the time we viewed the fourth and fifth statues, the novelty began to wear off. Though the local archaeologists assured us that each was different, to my untrained eye they all looked pretty much the same: eye sockets, long ears, nose, and mouth, all carved from lava rock.

  From there, we headed to the volcano quarry, where they'd been carved. To reach it, you had to cross the island, and the distance these statues had been transported fascinated me more than the statues themselves. As we drove, I tried to imagine how many people it had taken to move a single statue, let alone hundreds.

  As we drove toward the quarry where the Moai had been carved, lush, open pastures unfolded on either side of us. Beyond the pastures, we could see herds of wild-looking horses loping along.

  Horses were a symbol of prosperity on Easter Island. They had been imported in the late 1800s, but because the island was so isolated, feed was prohibitively expensive to import. The owners allowed the horses to run free so they could forage on the island grass. Their muscles were lithe and their coats gleamed in the sunlight, inspiring Micah to take a photograph of them.

  The volcano rose 1,400 feet, and everywhere along the base you could see abandoned statues. Some lay on their side, others were half buried along a trail that progressed to the far side of the island. At the quarry itself, others stood in various stages of completion. Again, there was no answer as to the reason; there was speculation about the wars, but as with so many of the places we went, nothing was certain. For all intents and purposes, it looked as if the workers had left for the day, with the full intention of returning on the next.

  A winding trail leads to the peak of the volcano, and about a third of our group eventually made their way to the summit. From the top, it's possible to see the curvature of the earth, and Micah and I were the first to reach it. Under blue, cloudless skies and with temperatures in the seventies, the hike was refreshing. Surrounding the island was nothing but an endless expanse of water, and I wondered how the first Polynesians had ever survived in the open Pacific long enough to discover the island.

  At the top, we took pictures before sitting near the edge of a sheer drop-off. As we relaxed, Micah pulled up the picture he'd taken of the horses. He stared at it.

  "Mom would love this," Micah said. "She would have wanted to frame it."

  "Yes, she would," I said. "Dana, too."

  "Do you remember when we took those horseback riding lessons?"

  "Actually, I don't. You and Dana did that, remember?"

  "Yeah, why didn't you ride with us?"

  "Because," I said, "there wasn't enough money and you two were more excited about it than I was."

  He put his arm around me. "The poor middle son. Always feeling left out."

  "I didn't feel left out. I was left out."

  "No you weren't. Mom and dad were always proud of you. They used to tell me that I should do better in school, like you."

  "That's why they took my report card down from the fridge, right?"

  "They didn't do that."

  "Yes they did."

  "Really?"

  "Really."

  "I don't remember that."

  "You wouldn't."

  He laughed. "Isn't it funny the way memory works? We remember different
things, but especially when they scarred us--you know, the kinds of events that people lie on the couch and talk to their therapists about. I remember once I asked for a stereo and headphones for Christmas. Not a big one--just one for my room, you know? I must have been about twelve or so, and I begged for that thing. I must have hounded mom for months about it, and on Christmas morning, I remember going out there and seeing it under the tree: headphones and the stereo. There was a card that said, 'to Micah.' I was so excited--it was the best gift I ever got. Then mom comes out and when I thanked her, she started saying, no, no, no. 'Just the headphones are yours. The stereo is for the family.' I was crushed. I mean, it's the only thing I wanted. And besides, what good are headphones without a stereo? It's like getting a single shoe."

  "Our parents were crazy sometimes, weren't they?"

  "Sometimes? Yeah. You could say that."

  I sat in silence for a few moments, musing on the past. Gradually, people began leaving the summit; the tour had a schedule to maintain. "Come on," I finally said. "Let's get going. We've got to see some more statues."

  When I looked at Micah, he seemed oddly contemplative. I suddenly knew he was thinking about the past as well. His eyes were focused on the horizon.

  "No. Let's wait here for a couple more minutes," he said quietly. "Then we'll go."

  I looked toward the horizon, following my brother's gaze. "Okay."

  After descending the volcano, we journeyed to the single most photographed spot on Easter Island.

  Giant statues of the Moai--about twenty or so--stand together in a straight line along the coast. Until a few years ago, all had been toppled over, some broken into pieces. The archaeologists who joined us as guides had helped not only to repair them, but position them upright once more.

  These, I thought, were the statues that Jakob Roggeveen, a Dutch admiral, must have seen when he became the first European to discover the island on Easter Sunday, 1722. Legend has it that his first thought was that the island was inhabited by giants. Only when he drew nearer to shore did he realize that men of normal size were working among the statues.

  The statues, however, hadn't been completely restored. Originally, we learned, all the statues on the island had eyes. Carved from wood, they were painted with pupils, but had eventually decayed, leaving nothing but the sockets and giving the statues a skeletal appearance.

  "Why do you think they aren't going to put eyes in again?" Micah asked me. "They stood them upright, so it's not as if they believe the statues shouldn't be disturbed."

  "I have no idea. Maybe they think it would give tourists like us the willies."

  Micah stared toward the statues. "I wouldn't get the willies."

  "Neither would I."

  He paused. "I think they'd look better with eyes."

  "Me, too."

  "Maybe we should start a movement. Call it, 'Eyeballs for Statues.'"

  "It has a nice ring to it. Go for it."

  He continued to stare. "I really do think they'd look better, don't you?"

  Standing next to Micah, I realized that there were times when we talked not because we needed to communicate anything important, but simply because we each drew comfort from the other's voice.

  After taking photographs, we got back in our van and headed to Anakena, a cove fronted by a white-sand beach that was dotted with one of the few remaining groves of palm trees. For the first time, we saw a part of the island that looked tropical; an ancient Moai seemed to be standing guard at the head of the beach, watching over the bathers.

  After a barbecue on the beach, Micah and I and a few others went for a swim. By then, our group had begun breaking into cliques. Some folks were adventurous and wanted to experience everything they could; others seemed to view the sights as inconveniences they had to endure between meals and cocktail parties. Some of this was age-related, some of it had to do with attitudes. Micah and I were part of the adventurous group; we always took the "fast walker" tours as opposed to the "slow walker" tours, and the chance to swim in the South Pacific wasn't something we were going to miss. Though a small thing, it would be another in a long line of "first-time-evers" we would experience together.

  "They don't know what they're missing, do they?" Micah said to me, as he pointed to the people sitting on the beach.

  "Maybe it's not a big deal to them. A lot of these people have traveled before."

  "Maybe," he said. "Or maybe they never did it in the past, either. Some people just don't know how to have fun. They aren't even willing to try. "

  I glanced warily at Micah, suddenly wondering if he was talking about me.

  In seventh grade, Micah went off to Barrett Junior High School, and we continued to grow apart. My sister and I, however, were growing even closer. She laughed all the time and had a quality of sweetness that almost made me feel guilty about the kind of person I was. She seldom got angry, and I sometimes overheard her talking to mom about how proud she was of us. In her eyes, Micah and I could do no wrong, and whenever we were punished, my sister would be the one to come into our room and listen to us complain about the injustice of what our parents had done to us.

  My sister always seemed to know how I felt inside; she was the only one who understood that excelling in school had more to do with an inferiority complex than any particular love of school. She would sometimes ask me to help her with her schoolwork, and used those opportunities to build my confidence. "I wish I was as smart as you," she'd say, or, "Mom and dad are so happy with how well you're doing."

  Growing up, Dana was the only one of us who ever had a birthday party because, as my mom explained to us, "She's a girl." This wouldn't have been so bad--neither Micah nor I ever clamored for a party--but because my sister and I shared the same birthday, it always felt a little odd to have to watch my sister having a party, while I stood off to the side. If my mom didn't understand it, however, my sister did, and one year she came into my room early on the morning of our birthday and sat on the edge of my bed. Jostled awake, I asked her what she was doing.

  She began to sing, "Happy Birthday to you . . ."

  Afterward, I sang the song back to her, and every year after that it was our own secret ritual. We'd sing to each other, just the two of us, and we never told anyone about it. This was our secret, as it would be for years, and after singing to each other, we'd talk for a while. I'd tell her everything--my hopes and fears and struggles and successes--and Dana would do the same.

  When she was twelve, I asked her, "What do you want to be when you grow up? What do you want more than anything?"

  My sister looked around the room with a dreamy smile. "I want to be married, and I want to have kids. And I want to own horses."

  She got this, I knew, from my mom. More than anything in the world, my mom always wanted a horse. Growing up, she'd owned a horse named Tempo, and she often spoke of the horse and the wonderful times she used to have riding.

  "That's it?" I asked.

  "That's it. That's all I want out of life."

  "Don't you want to be rich or famous, or do exciting things?"

  "No. That's for you and Micah."

  "But won't you be bored with that?"

  "No," she said, with conviction. "I won't."

  My sister, I knew then, wasn't the complicated bundle of nerves that I was. When she finally left the room, I remember wishing that if I couldn't be like Micah, that I could be just like her instead.

  When I started at Barrett Junior High the following year, I joined Micah on the long bus ride to school, but we never sat together, or even seemed to talk. Eighth-graders occupied a completely different realm than did seventh-graders--they were the Big Men On Campus--and our paths seldom crossed in the hallways or at recess. After school and on weekends, Micah ran off to see his friends, while I stayed to compete on various athletic teams. Though a good athlete, I wasn't extraordinary, and distinguished myself neither on the football field nor when I ran track and field.

  The following year, Micah sta
rted high school and we were separated again, both during and after school. By then, I'd grown used to doing my own thing.

  Halfway through my eighth-grade year, in 1978, we moved to the first and only house my parents would ever own.

  We handled the move ourselves. Who needs to pay a moving company when there are a couple of strong boys and a Volkswagen van on hand? So day after day, we loaded everything from the house into the back of the van and hauled it to the new home.

  But Volkswagens aren't really designed for exceptionally heavy loads, and my brother and I didn't care how much we loaded into ours. We would fill the back of the van with my dad's books until there wasn't an inch to spare. It probably weighed half a ton, and the van was riding exceptionally low in the rear. Meanwhile, the nose of the vehicle actually pointed upward, like someone eyeing a distant horizon.

  "We got it all loaded in, Mom."

  Mom stared at the van. "It looks like it's just about to pop a wheelie."

  "That's just because it's heavy in the back. It'll straighten out when we unload it."

  "You think it's safe to drive?" she asked. Why she asked us, I'll never know. Neither Micah nor I even had our license.

  "Of course it's safe. Why wouldn't it be?"

  The good news was that the van made it to the new house. The bad news was that--even after unloading all the books--the van didn't level out. At all. We'd crushed whatever support there had been in the rear.

  "Is the front still pointing toward the sky, or is it just me?" mom finally asked.

  "Maybe we're looking at it crooked. Or the street's not level."

  We tilted our heads, checking the van, looking up and down the road.

  "I think you broke something," mom finally said.

  "Nah," we said, "it'll be fine. Give it time--it'll go back to normal."

  "Your dad's going to be mad."

  "He won't even notice," we reassured her. "But even if he does, he won't care."

  Of course my dad noticed, and the DEFCON countdown started after he got home, though we were smart enough to be long gone by then. Thankfully, by the time we got home, he had calmed down, since the van seemed to run fine, despite the crazy way it looked. And if it ran fine, that meant there was really no reason to fix it. That would be spending money we didn't have. So in the end, the van was never repaired, and for the next three years--until we traded it in for the new, improved Volkswagen van--we drove around town looking as if we were hauling baby whales to the zoo.