I Hardly Ever Look at It - Trina Wood

I know it’s there, in the thin top drawer of my desk, but I hardly ever look at it. It’s usually buried under address labels, odds and ends, hidden among life’s detritus, but I know it’s in there someplace.

Sometimes when I’m fishing around, searching for an extra stamp, my fingers sift it from the pile, an archaeologist’s find that brings pause. When I find it, I’m reminded and surprised that my mother had it laminated—so people wouldn’t forget what he looked like? So they could use it for a bookmark? Who knows?

My brother stares out in two small wallet images, side by side, one in his dress blues, brass buttons starting just under his throat, and a white cap with black brim, a Marine insignia on the front. No smile, just a young face, like he’s a kid wearing his dad’s uniform for Halloween. A casual photo next to that, taken at the school district where he worked. No smile there either, which is weird because he was always clowning around, pulling practical jokes on his buddies, his girlfriend, even complete strangers.

He’d pretend to pull out of a parking space in a busy lot at the college where he’d go to pick his girlfriend up from class, a row of cars waiting behind them for a slot, rushing to park and get to class on time. He’d pull out a few feet and then pull back in, pull back out, pull back in, laughing so hard he would almost pee his pants, she said. He got such a kick out of pissing people off while he was just having fun.

At 23, he was still just a kid, no matter how much bravado he showed. I wonder who he would be now, whether he would have enlisted from the reserves to go full time into the Marines where he felt part of another family, a brotherhood. Or a fuck-up who landed in jail? He could have gone either way really. I’ll never know.