February 3, 2025
Greetings from the traveling companion,
We rode the narrow roads through small towns that the world had skirted around. These old roads, usually named for the towns they connected, were the most sensible place for us to ride our bicycles as we toured the country. They put us in the path of the most interesting people, in villages sometimes no bigger than a crossroad with a blinking light.
Tom was my best friend, and we took every adventure together. We began traveling on our bikes, little trips at first, slowly piling up thousands of miles of exploring the world at just the right pace to really see it. Countless hours of wheeling through farmland, talking and laughing and threading our lives together in ways neither of us imagined could ever end.
We had decided to ride to New York, almost impulsively. Tom and I were sixteen-ish, had a space between our summer jobs where we could escape for a few days, and so we headed east with no destination other than to go. We pedaled out of Michigan and into Ontario, and followed the road.
We attracted attention in these small towns. It was a common thing for young people to gather around us, at the diner, on the sidewalk, at the hardware store. They would look at our bicycles, strapped with saddlebags, tent and sleeping gear. They were curious and young enough to say what was on their minds. They asked the questions we knew, about where we were going and how far we rode each day, and what did we do when it rained? (“We get wet.”)
But always there was a look of wistful envy. One of them would say “Man, I want to go with you. I want to get out of this place and see what else there is.” We loved these conversations, in part because we learned about the place, and about these kids, and we were sort of like ambassadors to adventure. And often, it led to a place to stay and maybe a meal.
We had crossed back into the U.S. at Niagara Falls and simply followed the next narrow road into New York. We rode until we were nearly out of day and stopped in a little town whose name has been sanded off from this memory, but won’t matter. In the center of town was a small park, with a bandshell and benches, and collected in that little green space was a group of young people about our age.
After our usual exchange, we asked if there was somewhere nearby we could spend the night. Two of the guys looked at each other and we saw our answer. We followed their gang a few miles from town, down a long gravel drive, past a chain link gate that had long ago given up its role. It was an abandoned cement plant, and now served as a place for kids to party.
There in the fading light was a monolith. It was a concrete tower maybe fifty feet tall, looming above the tree line. It was actually two enormous columns bound together in whatever magic engineers dream. On one side there was a metal staircase, zigzagging up to the top. We locked our bikes at the bottom, gathered our gear, and followed our hosts up into the sky.
There were no railings on top. In the middle of each twenty-foot-wide tower there was an access hole, large enough to tip a refrigerator into. Whatever hatch that might have been went the way of all the other metal that had been stripped from the place. The open edges of the tower made me uneasy, but looking into this dull, lethal, circle in the floor, leading straight down into darkness, gave me chills. Straddling the towers was an empty concrete office, windows and doors long gone, pocked with graffiti.
We stayed up late with our friends, celebrating under the stars, until they finally wore out and made their way back down the fire escape, clanging and banging down into the night, back to their ordinary little town life. Tom and I were left there in the dark silence, made a little camp inside the old office, and settled into sleep.
I woke to the sun through the window, painting rectangles in the dank room. I sat up and got my bearings, a little disoriented, which was normal when you slept in a different place every night. The first thing I noticed was that Tom was gone.
I went out into the morning and looked around, skirting carefully around the open hole in the concrete. I peered over the edge, saw our bikes locked below at the bottom of the steps. I could feel something cold in the pit of my stomach. I stepped back from the edge and yelled Tom’s name. Nothing. I looked over the other side of the column, and yelled again. Now the cold feeling had turned to something else and had leached into my bloodstream.
I knelt at the hole, peered into the dim light that became black as it stretched inside the tower toward the earth below. I could see it, feel it happening, could see him walking out here in the dark, and vanishing into this emptiness. My mouth went dry, I screamed down into the well, “Tom!” Only the echo came back.
I scrambled back into the office, dug matches and a map from my bag and went back to the hole and knelt at the edge. I set the paper on fire and dropped it into the maw, watched the flame float down, certain that I would see my friend at the bottom. The terror turned to nausea, my whole body was lost to what I knew had happened. I could feel the tears in my eyes, I feel them right now as I am writing this.
“Watcha doin’ Dave?”
I nearly fell into the hole.
There behind me in the morning sun was my best friend. Tom had woken up feeling the cold dampness of the place, and had moved out into the first rays of sun and laid down to sleep again just outside the concrete office, on the opposite side where I was screaming his name. He woke up when he was ready, which still makes me smile, and came looking for me, and found me kneeling at the edge of what I thought was his grave.
Somewhere just south of me right now, Tom is starting his day, making coffee for him and his wife, thinking about what he will make of today. He has lived an amazing life, raised a wonderful family, become one of the kindest, most beautiful people I know.
It has been a privilege to be his friend all these years, including those where we rarely saw each other. No amount of time has changed our bond, which was made strongest by those endless days of growing up together on the road. And maybe a little by the moment when I thought I’d lost the possibility of him forever.
None of us is promised any number of days, even without tempting fate by scrambling up concrete towers, and so every sunrise is a miracle. I will never take that truth for granted. I will never take my friend for granted.
Hope this finds you knowing,
David
Copyright © 2025 David Smith
Comments