The Dock

“You’ve got to get Rick out of here,” my father told me. “Your mom can’t even look at him, not after what happened with Jackie and the boys.”

Why me, of all people? I left Dad tinkering on a carburetor in the garage and walked into the living room of the rambler where Rick and I grew up. I could hear the activity before I could see it: the screech of old boards being pried from rusted nails, a pause, then the whine of an electric saw. For the second day in a row, my brother was taking apart the old dock on the beach in front of the house. I stood with arms crossed watching him from the picture window.
I swore I would never see him again. Brothers shouldn’t speak to each other the way we did a year ago, on our parents’ anniversary. Our words sucked the air out of me even now as I recalled them. Words that involved my “chosen lifestyle” and my “influence” over his sons. On my part, I just remember using a string of expletives.

Looking at him this day I shook my head at his transformation. His shoulders were still broader and more muscular than mine, but his waist was now wider than his shoulders, flesh hanging over the jeans that he paused to hitch up from time to time. His perpetually shaggy hair had more salt than pepper now. When he wiped the sweat off his face with the back of his arm, it was not the face that used to make girls line up back in high school. Time had increased its weight and pallor, and it seemed that the events of this one year had added more lines than the previous thirty-four. He looked much more than three years older than me. The abusive rays of the August evening sun caused a growing sweat stain on his jeans as his bullish form strode back and forth between the slowly disintegrating dock and a slowly increasing wood pile.

It’s not like him to be so busy. Usually somewhat slow moving, he was taking the dock apart quickly and robotically, board by board, nail by nail: weathered ten-foot boards pried off of the crossbeams with a crowbar, cut into two-foot lengths, carried to a pile to be burned later. Repeat. I paced between the window to the door leading to the beach. Twice I almost opened it, only to wander back and watch some more. Why do I have to be the one? Finally, I strode to the door, down the front steps and crossed the short stretch of front lawn to the beach where Rick was working.

His head was down, facing away from me. He was using the crowbar to prize a particularly difficult piece of lumber from the top of the old dock. This dock was tied to our childhood. Pictures flashed through my mind: cannonballing off of it, diving for imaginary treasure on the river bottom, getting pushed off of it by my older brother, trying to push him off. Now it was just another pile of refuse, replaced by a modern slip floating out front. I could hear Rick grunting as he repeatedly leaned his body into his work, pushing down on the piece of metal stuck under a board.

I didn’t speak. Ours was not a family of words. Ours was a family of action. So I picked up a second, smaller crowbar stuck in the sand near Rick’s feet. I worked it in next to his and began to lift the stubborn plank. Finally, with a last plaintive cry of wood torn through metal, it sprang free and fell to our feet.

He looked at me once, looking more at my forehead, or my chin, than in the eye.

“Thanks,” he said, his expression a wall. Then, wordlessly, he dragged the board to the sawhorses and powered on the saw.

I took the sections of board as they fell and threw them on the wood pile, biding my time. Then, when the saw was switched off I swallowed a couple of times and took the plunge.

“Sorry about you and Jackie,” I mustered, stepping in his path.

“Yeah, well, things happen,” he replied softly, looking up at the trees, down to the sand, out at the river. With a slight shrug he stepped around me and picked up the crowbar again. Our shadows lengthened as we worked together in silence. When the sun started to disappear behind the trees I stepped in his path again.

“Dad asked me to talk to you,” I spat out. “They need the room back because Grandma’s coming to visit.”

He stopped and smiled with his mouth but not with his eyes. “That’s bullshit. They just want me gone. Can’t say I blame them though,” he said to my shoulder. His jaw was clenched and he was tapping the crowbar against his leg. I could see a vein pulsing on his temple.

He stepped up to the dock. “Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!” hurtled from his mouth.

He raised the crowbar above his head and brought it crashing down repeatedly on the top of the dock with blows that shook his body. I stood four feet behind him, paralyzed and slack jawed as splinters were flying.

“Rick!” I shouted. No response, just more blows. When he had broken through the board, he dropped the crowbar at his feet and stood panting, staring out at the river. His shoulders started to jerk up and down, his arms hanging limp at his sides. I heard him mumbling.

When I came up to his side I saw there were tears in his eyes. I reached out and touched his arm. “Rick?” I said more softly. He turned and looked me straight in the eye… finally. I squinted in the light of the setting sun and from the force of his gaze.

“I just don’t know how it happened,” he murmured. “I don’t know what I did.” His face was immobile but his dark brown eyes, so much like mine, were shining. “Do you?” he asked me. Me.
“No,” I lied. I couldn’t mention the police report and the call from his son. “All I know is that Jackie won’t take you back this time.”

“Yeah, I know,” he said. He sat down on the dismembered dock, and stared at the work gloves on his hands. “I really fucked it up” His voice was almost inaudible.

I just looked at him slumped there, his shoulders trying to touch his knees. I sat down next to him, my sweat stained t-shirted shoulder next to his bare shoulder, my Diesel jeans next to his Wranglers. “Do you know where you’ll stay?” I asked, looking down at the sand sticking to my bare feet.

He shrugged once. “I’ll find someplace.”

If he were one of my friends, I would have put my arm around him, or put my hand on his knee. I almost did. But this was my brother, so I just mumbled, “Come and stay with Alex and me.” Could he see my heart beating inside my chest?

“No…I…I….” Several heartbeats passed.

“I’m not saying forever. Just until things settle down a bit. Until you figure out what you need to do.”

He peered at me. “Thanks,” he said without looking away. I nodded, my eyes looking at his forehead, then his chin, then out at the river. Stars were starting to appear overhead and I could make out the lights of houses across the water.

“Well, I’d better get inside,” I stood and took off my work gloves. “It’s getting late and I promised Alex I’d call. You coming?” I said back over my shoulder.

“No, I think I’ll stay and finish up out here,” he stood and bent to pick up the crowbar.

“Would you hit the floodlight on the way in?”

“Sure,” I said and walked up to the house.

“Tony!” he called out when I’d almost reached the house. I turned back. “Why don’t you grab a couple of beers and come back out in a while. I’m going to burn this sucker up. Should make a helluva bonfire!”

“OK” I called back.

Half an hour later my brother and I were sitting on the sand, drinking beer and watching sparks from our old dock disappear into the night sky.