The last two of my five years in high school were spent in boarding school. During that time, my best friend was a guy named Mike Gannon. We remained close through college. My first year of graduate school, he showed up unexpectedly at my front door on a Tuesday night. He’d driven with no money to Indiana from North Carolina, where he’d been on a bender for several weeks. It had apparently ended badly. I never got the story.
He stayed on my couch for a few days, sat in on a couple of my classes, hung out on the front porch reading books and smoking cigarettes. He hadn’t finished college and talked a lot in those few days about going back. Or enlisting. It was a toss up.
Sunday morning, he borrowed some money for gas, some clean clothes, and he drove home. It was the last time I spoke to him. I’ve spoken to his mother, I’ve called him— hounded him, really—and others have been doing the same. Pretty much everyone he was close to, he just moved on and left us behind. For a decade.
And then today, another close friend from school posted this link on Facebook. It’s Mike’s video. He’s narrating it. Hearing his voice for the first time in ten years made me happier than is reasonable while watching actual war footage.
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