This brotherhood of man

   Raymond Carver is dead.  He was, is, perhaps my favorite writer.  He died too young.  It must have been the drinking.  He finally had stopped in his later years, but you can't just stop all the damage.

   He wrote one poem about John Gardner, another favorite of mine, who also died too young.  He slid his famous motorcycle under a truck.  Carver's poem captures him on the motorcycle, long white hair flying, racing along, distracted, toward his sudden end.

   A young man from my hometown died in just that way.  Sliding his motorcycle under a truck.  He was on his way to meet his classmates to ride the senior float in the Alumni Day parade.  They got the news but decided to go on and march without him, in his honor.  The girls riding the float cried all the way.

   Aaron Manor was his name and he was the best basketball player our high school ever had.  So when he died they made a trophy with his name on it at the top.  Each year the award goes to the most valuable player, for about a minute, before they take it away, add his name on a plate at the bottom, and put it back in the case outside the principal’s office.

   I went back home for my 25^th reunion and wandered into the high school for a look around with some of my friends.  I found the trophy in a different case down near the gym, tucked among the other trophies and team photos and basketballs that accumulate in such a place. 

   I found my name on the plate at the bottom, with a few new names coming after it.  Something they stopped doing twenty years ago.

   I remember the awards ceremony in the high school auditorium when Aaron Manor was recognized for scoring over a thousand points in his high school career.  I was probably in the eighth grade at the time, and found it thrilling.

   And then my own turn came – not to score a thousand points, I didn’t come close – but to be the star of our team for a year.  To be the last one in the line we formed at the base of the stairs below the locker room before we ran out to take the court.  Hopping up and down a bit to get loose and burn off a little of the excitement.  Waiting for the cheerleaders to start singing “When the Chiefs Come Marching In.”  And then the song would start and the crowd would cheer and the line would start to move.

   So now I’ve been back to see the trophy and the gym.  And in my house I have a bookshelf half-full of Carver and Gardner that I need to visit again, too.