pain swamp over me as planes take off and land behind me, for once without my notice or caring.
All I feel is numb.
Much later when I’m again able to form coherent sentences, I pick up the phone to call another one of our “brothers,” Kody. “Did you—”
I can’t even get the full sentence out of my mouth when he’s breaking in with a subdued “I won’t insult you by asking if you’re going.”
“Absolutely. Do you want me to fly down to Portland and pick you up?”
“Jesus, Jennings.” His laugh is riddled with tears. “When we first met, did you ever think you would actually be saying that to me?”
A sharp pain stabs into me when my eye lands on the other item that was included in the envelope that came with the notification of Jed’s demise. A second envelope had a copy of a photo of the five of us from the last summer we were all in the Ketchikan Lumberjack Show together. Our arms are all thrown around each other, and we’re completely hamming it up for the camera dressed in suspenders and plaid flannel shirts—standard attire we wore for every show. Jed looks like a hillbilly in between us all wearing a pair of half-done-up overalls.
I gruffly reply, “Jed did. He believed in all of us.” My mind drifts back to the nights we spent on break at the Smiths’ family home those summers we worked together. We’d stay up talking about what our futures entailed. For me, all it meant was being in the air, no matter what that took. Or whose heart it meant breaking to do it.
We all did it. We found the will to find our dreams, all of us. Brad’s got his family and his boat. Kody’s building homes like they’re Lincoln Logs. Nick achieved his dream years ago by becoming the MMA heavyweight title holder and is now helping create them. I’m in the air or directing people to get there. And Jed? “He found love and marriage, something he never believed he’d be able to do legally in his lifetime. How fucking heartless is life that it took him from it?” I wonder.
Kody lets out a rough sound in my ear. “That he did. Call me when you’ve figured out when we’re heading up. I’ll drive up to you and store my car at your place, cut down on time.”
“Right.” We both disconnect, each of us lost in a brotherhood of friendship that began close to twenty years ago.
And suffered a devastating blow tonight I only hope we can recover from.
Back in my condo, I sit in the dark drinking straight from the bottle of locally brewed gin Jed sent me for my last birthday. “Listen, buddy, as a bar owner, I might not be able to afford as much as you can, but I can get you a direct line to the best-tasting liquor in the world,” he joked.
He wasn’t wrong about much, including the fact the Florida-made gin whispers down the back of my throat as smooth as water.
Lou came into my office not long after I got off the phone with Kody. She took one look at the devastation on my face and asked only, “What do you need me to do?”
“Payroll’s done,” I responded dully. “Find pilots for my flights.”
“On it.”
“If I haven’t said it before, Lou, I appreciate what you do keeping everything in line here.” My words are sincere even if my voice is flat.
“I know, boss. Now, get out of here.” She squeezed my shoulder before she left my office. I left not long after. I only wish the rest of my night permitted such liberties.
The phone call I endured when I broke a date for a charity event frayed my temper to the very threads. “Jesus, it’s not like we were an item,” I snapped before I ended the call. And now I’m more glad than ever over my unwilling celibacy in the last several months due to the business taking on more work and keeping me away from home. “If this is what dating is like…” I leave the rest of my sentence unsaid as I take another swig of gin. Unfortunately, the lack of compassion from the woman in question reminds me vividly of a conversation I had with Jed years ago.
“Don’t you want to settle down one day?” he’d asked me a few years ago. “Find the one woman who you’d give up anything to have, who could give you