And the tribe grows smaller

I lost another dear friend last night. We called him Little Brother. He wasn't biologically related to most of the childhood gang, though he was related to his actual older brother (Duh, I mean, c'mon stream of consciousness, you don't have to explain everything).

As parents often do, they often tasked his actual older brother to let him tag along. We weren't good kids. I mean, we weren't terrible, but we started drinking and experimenting with drugs young, relatively, really young. In hindsight, there was an unreasonable amount of adults in my small town that used to party with us kids. We had a ready supply of all the candies we wanted. It's really kind of fucked up when looked upon in reflection. At the time, it was perfectly normal, since everybody in the small town experienced it.

He was successful. He was a great salesman and got good bonuses every year. Every six months or so, he'd go on a bender and would call from a police station, requesting some clothes (I don't know how he wound up naked and never asked). His boss just gave him a couple days off to recover and then let him go back to making money. He even told me once, that watching my wife and I get our shit together and move out of the town, gave him the inspiration to succeed. I mean, I was honored. I'm not usually known for being a good influence.

I remember a quote from high school (or maybe younger), they claim it was an African saying: "When an old man dies, a library burns down."

That could be why I'm writing this. Just sharing a story with the world that the alien anthropologists will find in 10,000 years.

I remember when we were like 13 or so (which would make little brother about 10 or so). We found an old abandoned pump station in the woods and turned it into a fort. A little concrete bunker, about 12x12. The overhead slab was still mostly intact so we were fairly protected by the elements. There were about four of us one night, plus Little Brother, assigned to us by his parents. We had some rum and coke and were just hanging out in our little fort. Little brother kept sneaking slugs of our drinks (I mean we tried to be responsible-ish and didn't actually give a youngin' his own rum and coke). He wound up REALLY drunk. Like, being honest, it was bad and gives me a little guilt about the path he took.

The story from his actual brother, is they were trying to be nonchalant, and just quietly get upstairs to their rooms. However, little brother was not functioning properly. He made it 3/4 up the stairs and then slid back down. There was really no choice except for older brother to fess up and tell his parents that we were drinking.

Strangely, there were only minor repercussions. (Maybe not so strangely, since we used to steal buds from their "garden" way back before weed was even close to legal.)

I know everyone makes their own decisions. Though I also know that people can influence each other. I certainly didn't kill him, but I don't feel guilt free of his life choices.

Anyway, God Bless Little Brother. I'll see you on the other side with all the others I love.