August 25th, 2006, was a Friday, and I was a senior in high school. My mom let me skip that day, and we both went to pick up Tad from the Central Florida Reception Center (CFRC). The drive over was a quiet one. Most of what we had to say had already been said over the last five years. The truth is, all I could do was think about Tad. I missed my brother. He was there for everything in my life before the accident, and when I needed him most, he wasn’t.
Before the crash, I used to play baseball. I wasn’t the best or anything, and I most likely would have ended my career after high school, but I guess I’ll never know, will I? Going into ninth grade as a paraplegic was not what I’d intended at all. I had to learn a whole new way of life. And quick, too. So, I did what any crippled teenager, who still had a functioning brain would do, I found humor. In everything. It took a while, but by my senior year, I was a pretty popular kid. I had friends, even had a few girlfriends at one time or another. But I didn’t have Tad. Sure, we wrote each other letters, but it wasn’t the same. I needed him to be there when we watched movies, so we could critique them together. I needed him when a new video game came out, so if I was stuck on a level, he could help me. I needed him for advice on girls, bullies. Fuck, I just needed him. I wanted Tad back.
We pulled through the guards’ gate at the CFRC, and I felt sick to my stomach and happy-to-death at the same time. My mother parked in the visitors’ parking lot, and we just sat there; we were about thirty-minutes early.
“Are you ready for this, Leif?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said, “I just can’t believe it’s been five years. He hasn’t even seen me like this.” I looked down at my useless legs.
“He knows, dear. Your brother still loves you; it’s why he’s in there.” She pointed to the prison. “He just confused that love with hatred, and he did what I couldn’t do. Your brother’s a hero; don’t you ever forget that.”
“I know, Mom. I know.”
I stared at the building in front of me, knowing that somewhere beyond those walls and fences with barbed wire on top, Tad was out there, waiting to see me.
My mom got out of the car and went inside, leaving me behind. She had an outfit prepared for him, and was instructed by the staff to drop it off, if she had wanted Tad to leave in plain clothes. I saw her go through the doors, and I’ll admit it scared me. For the smallest second, I thought she might never come back… But it was just the nerves, talking and manipulating as they do so well. She came out the same door she entered about a minute later. Apparently, the prison wasn’t too keen on guests, unless they were of the long-term persuasion.
About ten minutes later, that door opened again, and out walked Tad, with a guard behind him. God, the years had changed him. He was slimmer, even taller, I thought. He’d grown this hideous beard, and I laughed to myself about it. Then I saw the green eyes as he got close. The same eyes I have. That’s when the tears started. Five years of anxiety purging itself from my body.
My mother got out of the car and ran toward him, hugged him. His head rested on her shoulder, and when he looked up, he saw me and winked. That was Tad all right. Sure, he had a strange beard, and even stranger tattoos covering his arms, but it was Tad. My brother. He opened the passenger-side door, and didn’t say anything. He just stared at me.
After we exited the gates, he turned around and pulled my iPod from my hands.
“What this, Leif?” he asked.
I’d thought about our first conversation for ages, and I had no idea it would revolve around an MP3 player. But, fuck it, I took what I had.
“That, Tad,” I said, “is an iPod. It’s like a Walkman, but way better.”
“Word?”
“Oh, yeah. This baby can hold up to 10,000 songs, and they never skip, because there’s no disk.”
“No disk?”
I saw my mother look at us through the rear-view mirror, smiling.
“Yeah, no disk. Well, there is, but it functions differently than you’re used to seeing. There’s a hard drive inside, like in a computer, sort of. You can store photos, videos, anything on this. It’s pretty much the future.”
“Damn, I gotta get me one.”
He handed it back to me, but I stopped him. In that moment, I realized just how much prison could take away from a person. He didn’t even know what an iPod was. I mean, everyone knew what an iPod was in 2006. Shit.
“No,” I said. “Try it out.”
I showed him the basics until he got the hang of it. He put the headphones on for the rest of the trip. That moment—the three of us driving home—was one of the greatest moments of my life. Tad, my hero, my brother, was free. And not only was he back, but I was teaching him. It was the first of many lessons I would soon teach Tad.