Brothers on the Hill

I threw a rock at the tree and then another.

When that wasn’t enough,

I kicked the base of the tree until my toes were sore, but that still didn’t do it, so I pounded my fist into it over and over.

Little pieces of bark flew off and my knuckles were so badly cut that my hand felt like I was holding it over a fire. The folded newspaper I’d stuffed inside my coat was poking into my ribs. I pulled it out and glanced at the headlines.

JAPANESE BOMB PEARL HARBOR…1500 DEAD IN HAWAII, CONGRESS VOTES WAR

I rolled the paper up into a funnel and wacked it back and forth against the tree until I couldn’t catch my breath. Then I threw it on the ground and leaned my head against the tree, closing my eyes. When I opened them and lifted my head, Johnny was leaning against another tree watching me.

“You ’bout done?” I wiped my nose. I hadn’t noticed I’d been crying. “How long you been standin’ there?” I asked. “Long enough to know I should teach you how to punch.” He came closer and motioned at my bleeding hand. “You okay?” The cold air made my knuckles burn so I pulled my sleeve up over them and sat down heavily against the tree. “Nathan?”

“I’m fine.” Johnny sat down next to me and, even if he was trying to hide it, a chuckle escaped. I wanted to hit him. “How’d you know where I was?” I wiped my nose with my shirt sleeve again and held my shaking hand against me hoping Johnny wouldn’t notice. “You always come out here when you wanna be alone—done it ever since you could walk, just about. Heck— they might as well name this tree after you.” Johnny was always joking about something. Mama said that he didn’t know how to take anything seriously, so maybe that’s why it was such a shock when he’d told me just minutes before that he was signing up for the war.

glanced at me and then sighed. The sun was getting low and we sat there under that pecan tree watching the orange North Carolina sky fade away. Johnny’s breath disappeared like smoke, evaporating every time he exhaled. “I don’t want you to go,” I said after a while. Hot tears were forming in my eyes again and I tried to shrink down in my collar so the wind wouldn’t chap my cheeks. “I know you don’t,” Johnny said. “But I gotta go.” “No, you ain’t gotta. You ain’t gotta go.” “Yeah I do, Nate.” He looked down at the ground. “Why? You ain’t got nothin’ to prove—there’s a lot of other men to go fight— why you gotta do it, huh? You’re just lookin’ for a way outta Surry County.” He shot me a look and I stopped. “That ain’t the reason I’m leavin’, and you know it.” “Then what for? You just that anxious to go and get blown up?” He shook his head and ran a hand over his face like Dad used to before he’d get ready to give a lecture. I wondered if Johnny knew just how much he looked like Dad. I wondered if he still missed him as much as I did. “You gotta understand something,” Johnny said. “I’m gonna go fight because it’s the right thing to do. I ain’t tryin’ to prove nothin’ or go get myself blown up, and I certainly ain’t tryin’ to leave you and Ma and Graham. This is just somethin’ I need to do.” I mumbled under my breath and picked up the newspaper I’d thrown on the ground. I slapped the cover and held it up in Johnny’s face. “This is what you gotta do?” His eyes flitted across the page—all the headlines about planes going down and bombs going off. And the dead. I wondered if he even dared to imagine what it’d be like if he was one of them. He took the paper from me, folded it over, and sat there quietly—just watching the sun sink down behind the mountains. Johnny

“Dyin’ ain’t the worst thing in the world, Nathan.” “That’s stupid. ’Course it is. And even if it’s not the worst to you, but what about to everyone else you leave behind?” Johnny nodded and a slight smile crept across his face. “Well jeez, Nate—I ain’t dead yet.” “Shut up—I’m serious.” I forced my hand to close and I blew warm air through my fist, hoping to soothe the burning chill that had paralyzed my fingers. “I’ll do my best to come back, Nathan. I swear, I will.” “And what if you do come back? You ain’t never gonna be the same again.” “What are you talkin’ about?”

“You won’t never be you again, Johnny. You remember what Mama said about Grampa? She said that when he came home, he wasn’t never the same—said he never really laughed again. And that’s what’s gonna happen to you. You’re gonna go off and see a buncha people die and see your friends get shot, and if you make it, you’re gonna come back and never laugh again, and we ain’t never gonna be the same.” Johnny sat quiet and chewed the inside of his cheek, thinking. And then he said, “Yeah, you’re probably right.” I wasn’t expecting him to agree with me. “It would all be different,” he said. I pulled my knees up closer to me. The cold air showed no mercy. “I don’t want anything to change,” I said.

“Things are always changing,” Johnny said. “They ain’t got to, though. You could stay here and nothin’ would have to change.” Johnny sighed long and heavy, and his breath formed another cloud. “Me stayin’ here ain’t gonna make the world stop turnin’. It’s gonna turn on no matter what I do.” He rolled the newspaper up and squeezed it tight. “So, I gotta do something while I’m here besides breathe in and out—I can’t just sit and do nothin’ knowing I could’ve been out there. Men ain’t made to sit still, Nathan.” The sun was down behind the mountains then, and a small sliver of light was peeking at us over the ridge, leaving only pink and deep purple behind. At that very moment, I realized I wasn’t mad anymore at Johnny. I was mad at myself. I couldn’t understand how he was so willing—so ready to do the right thing, and there I was—a stupid, selfish kid who couldn’t stand the thought of losing his brother. Johnny was going to risk his life for liberty and be all noble, and I was going to sit and cry under my pecan tree. And in that moment, I hated myself. I dug my foot into the dirt, hard. “I wanna come with you.” Johnny’s lips turned up just a little, but he shook his head. “You can’t.” “I could go, too. I could come with you and that way we’d still be brothers.” “Nathan, you can’t come with me. You’re too young.” “Well, you’re only eighteen. And I’m thirteen—not seven. I could fight. I whip your butt all the time.” Johnny snickered and shoved me. “Only ’cause I let you win.” I shoved him back and then he put me in a chokehold. I pushed against him until he let me loose and I tumbled over. He threw his head back laughing and then roughed up my hair when I sat upright. “I really could, Johnny,” I said, trying to be serious again. “I could hold my ground—you know I would.” He nodded. “I know you would. But you gotta hold this ground here.” He paused and looked back across the field towards our house. “Graham’s gonna need one of his brothers here. He needs someone to keep him out of trouble, so you gotta take care of him, okay? And Ma.” I looked at my feet because I couldn’t look at him. “I will.” “And when I get back, don’t you think I won’t notice if you been smokin’, you hear? Don’t you start that stuff ‘cause all your friends do it. You might can hide it from Mama, but I know. If I come back and find out you been smokin’, I’ll kill you.” “I ain’t gonna smoke.” “Good. And when that stupid junior-high dance rolls around, you better buck up and ask that girl—what’s her name? Maggie Stratford? You better ask her, ’cause I know you like her.” “I don’t like her.” I most certainly did like Maggie Stratford. “Shut up. I know you do,” Johnny said. I punched him in the arm without thinking and my hand throbbed in response. We sat there for a few minutes, both of us trying not to shiver in the dying daylight.

“Johnny?” “Yeah.” “Will you promise me somethin’?” “Depends what it is,” he said. I sat for a moment and Johnny looked over at me, his face nearly hidden by the shadows of dusk creeping across the field. “What is it?” “Can you promise me that if you decide to die for someone, you die for someone real good? Someone who really deserves to live.” Johnny stared at me and the world was silent. Absolutely silent. And then he said, “When I leave, Nathan, I ain’t pickin’ who to die for and who not to. It ain’t like that. You choose it. There ain’t nothin’ in this world braver than dyin’ for someone.” And then he looked back out at the sky, and as the last of the color drained behind the mountains, we made our way back to the house with only a dim haze of crimson glowing in the distance.