Well, I'm home!
But not in Washington, D.C.
On Thursday, July 3rd, the older brother I never had, Karl Crandall, is getting married to Danielle Dunn, his girlfriend of seven years (eight years? nine?)
I was supposed to fly home today.
I didn't.
I wish I had.
Chris and I served in the Marine Corps together. We even lived in the same palatial dining/living/bedroom/efficiency (en suite!) for two years.
To say that it sucked would be to grant a certain kind of legitimacy to the period, as if it were soft, round and unpleasant, like finding that you've found a fly in your soup. It didn't suck. It was a heart rending, soul-crushing time. My faith was challenged and abandoned, the love of my life - I can't write about her, because it would open a flood of feelings I never want to have again as long as I live - hurt me, a mockery was made of the principles I held dear by the people charged with their enforcement and a man whom I admire and respect very deeply was hounded, abused, disrespected and humiliated on a daily basis. He never broke. I think it would have been easier to watch if he'd knuckled under. He never did.
That man was Chris Tisdale.
One day, when the despair was washing over us in fetid wave after fetid wave, I bought a number 10 can of fruit salad. I came home and Chris and I made a vow: One day, we were going to get out of that hellhole. And one day, when we'd made it, we were going to go on a road trip in a shiny convertible and we were going to eat that can of fruit salad and look back and joke about how unbelievably shitty our lives had been. And we were going to laugh, at all of it: the incompetence, the callousness, the evil that had tried to take us down and had failed!
That number 10 can of fruit salad sat on a shelf, a totem of survival. It came to symbolize hope.
Chris now lives in Alexandria, Virginia and the number 10 can sits on a shelf in Alexandria.
And when I get home, we're taking that road trip.
We've made it. The triumph is now.
We're gonna take that number 10 can, we're gonna peel it open with a can opener, and we're gonna take big heaping spoonfuls of five year old fruit salad and shovel it down our gullets. And we're gonna laugh like hyenas. We're gonna laugh and laugh and laugh until our stomachs ache - guess what, Despair? You didn't get us! And you never will, you son of a bitch! We're still alive! You ain't killed us yet!
"Ha!" I'm gonna say. "Was that all you had? You ain't nothin'! Ha ha ha!"
That's what we're gonna do when I get back.
I'm looking forward to it.
But it's going to have to wait until tomorrow, because I didn't get to fly today.
Comments
I'm glad you are going to make it back for Carl's wedding. Enjoy your trip -- and that can of fruit! (Ugh!)
Posted by: Anonymous | June 30, 2004 1:34 AM
If you have time, stop by and say hi...or help move a sofa:) Have a grand time at the wedding and wish Karl and Danielle good luck (should that be congratulations?!) on my behalf!
Posted by: Rae | June 30, 2004 3:30 AM
Nathan, this was H I L A R I O U S !!! I loved this blog, great writing man!!! I love the detail and the dramatization of the fruit salad can. Dead beat and funny! But you have to promise to post the part II: the fruit-salad roadtrip when you're done.
PS: I'm going to check out the post you mentioned now. And PPS: Did you read my comment about the beggar in Edinburgh? I think I met him.
Posted by: V | June 30, 2004 6:17 AM
The wedding is today, no?
Have fun.
Posted by: Anonymous | July 3, 2004 9:33 PM