The light came on finally, and I saw Mr. Aaron coming to the front, his hair puffed up like wings on each side of his head. The rain fell on me. He didn’t have his glasses on and he looked confused. I hollered and told Squirrel that he was coming to the front. He walked through a mud puddle and Aaron opened the door. I stepped up there and said, “I’ll take him home if you don’t want to mess with him, Mr. Aaron.”

Squirrel stepped up beside me. “Can I come in, Aaron?” he said. “I’m trying to get home.”

“Hell yeah, you can come on in,” Mr. Aaron told him. He looked different without his glasses and with sleep in his eyes. He was still confused. He didn’t know what was going on yet. When I was a child he treated me with kindness always. He wouldn’t talk to you if he didn’t know you, but he told me a lot of war stories. Squirrel walked across the boards laid on the ground that were all the porch Mr. Aaron had and stuck his hand out. We shook.

“Thanks, Leo,” he said. “I’ll be all right now.”

They went on inside, already talking, already forgetting about me, and I watched them for a moment before I ducked out of the rain and back into my car. I thought about things while I drove home alone. I thought about being old, and alone, and drunk and needing help. I knew I might be like that one day. I thought about having to turn to somebody for help. I hoped it would be there.

We buried Aaron today. We stood up in the church and smelled the Bowers, and sang those beautiful songs over him, and the preacher said his words. I helped carry the coffin; I was one of the chosen six. It turned out that he had picked out his resting place thirty years ago. It’s on high ground, in the shade, and from there you can stand and see the green hills folding away, all the way to the horizon.

I’m drinking beer now and a little into my cups, thinking about Aaron, and Squirrel, and Daddy, and about all the conversations they probably had about war. I know now that they suffered like all soldiers do, and I know they saw things that affected them for the rest of their lives.

And I just realized something. Squirrel didn’t want to go home that night. He had no intention of going home. He wanted to be with somebody who knew him. And if there was anybody that night who knew what he was feeling, and what it meant, Aaron did. Aaron did for sure.

So long, old buddy. God bless you and keep you. Me, I need some sleep myself.

Sleep