After a few days respite at my family's home, we made preparations to drive to South Carolina for our last family vacation together. It was a warm August evening and my Dad and I busied ourselves with organizing our belongings into the back of our station wagon. Dad was getting a little frustrated and I noticed he didn't have the magic touch of yesterday for making all the items fit together. Before I knew it I was muscling in to try it myself. Surprisingly, Dad backed off as though waiting for me to take over.

"It never ceases to amaze me, Peter, that your mother can actually use all this shit on a trip to the beach." Dad was working himself into the usual pre-trip' panic that typically threatened the cancellation of more than one of our vacations. What better way to launch a trip than to have everyone shouting at the top of their lungs, a couple of us crying, and stewing in silence until we woke up the next morning somewhere in the South?

If I hadn't learned anything in the past four years it was patience and I did my best to absorb some of Dad's rage.

"Don't get worked up Dad. I'll take care of this. Why don't you get the cooler together and make sure Mom and Allister are ready."

I turned to look at him as I started repacking the car. He was pulling at a cigarette and sweat darkened his untucked short sleeve oxford. He vexed on.

"Awh Shit! It's almost 10:30!"

Dad bolted off towards the house yelling my Mom's name at a decibel level only matched when a loved one's in mortal danger. "Pearl!! We have to get moving if we are to be on the road at eleven! We have to meet Taylor at one thirty!" His cigarette flew from his hand and into the gravel driveway. Dad used to be a sprinter in his high school days. I think he may have broken any standing records that night.

I closed my eyes and put my frustrated head on one of the softer pieces of luggage. We lived on a farm and no houses were around us. When my family, me included, were at odds with each other, loud verbal scrapping ensued. Neighboring farms had to hear us, but no one ever came to look in and make sure all was hunky dory (though it may have sounded like someone screaming bloody murder'). Either way, the premise of this family vacation left me rather exhausted even before the trip.

We left the light on over the sink and Motor Puppy was chained to the barn. My heart lurched after him as he looked at me like I was leaving him for the vultures. Dad pulled down the driveway and took a right, heading south.

"Poor Motor Puppy" my sister Allister said.

"I know. I feel horrible" I muttered and looked out the back window at the house, shrinking in the distance then out of sight.

"Oh, don't you guys worry about him. Nana and Pap will be out here to check on him twice a day."

Dad pushed the accelerator to the floor. He wanted to be on time to meet Taylor just south of Washington D.C. The front of the station wagon slowly buoyed up and down as though speeding across water. I leaned back and put my head on an old beat pillow from the basement couch. Soon enough I was asleep to the regular pulse of Mom's bleating, "Howard, please slow down!

***

One night towards the end of the vacation, Taylor and I went out with no particular destination (bar) in mind. We drove about in his new car and stopped off at some jazz club tucked away in a open air strip mall. There were just a few scattered cars out front, all had South Carolina plates. It looked deceptively deserted and small. We opened the doors and headed inside. The music tickled our ears, first with bass and drum, and finally the shrieks of lone horn. We walked to the bar.

"This is almost too loud for my likings Taylor"

"I know. Let's stick it out though. I don't think I was ever in a jazz club." He looked around to the other end of the room, away from the band. There was an empty table. "Just get some beers and come back. I'll get the next round."

The bartender handed me two 16 ounce beers and I headed off towards the back of the room. Taylor was at our table, smiling. I sat down beside him.

"What are you laughing at?" I asked him.

"You're really into those pounder beers aren't you?"

I stopped and thought for a second before answering. "Well, yeah, I guess I am." I remembered back to the past summer once when Warren and I had gone to the beer distributor. I had ordered a case of 12 ounce trendy beers. "What are you doing?" Warren asked. It seemed very obvious to me, but Warren was bewildered. "Look Peter. We want to get drunk tonight. Just get a case of 16 ounce beers and be done with it." So I bought a case of pounders which truly made for a satisfying evening. "I don't know Taylor. I guess I like them better cause they got more beer in them."

"That's alright by me, brother" Taylor uttered, pouring some beer down his throat.

We sat and watched the artists before us who were musicing loudly like entranced and they had reached that point of jazz that they just closed their eyes and really forgot where they were. At least that's the way it appeared to me after setting well into my second pounder.

Right after that, right then and there, came the first in a long series of dreadful encounters where someone asked me what I was going to do with my life. Taylor really didn't ask me what I was going to do' but in a way....

"Peter. I think you should move to D.C. We'd have such a blast together. Have you thought about it?"

"Sure I have." I looked at my brother and noticed we were both getting a little drunker. I pulled out a crumpled cigarette package from my baggy army shorts so we could smoke some. "You know the sad truth Taylor is that I have no idea where I want to end up. I've absolutely given it no thought. So really what does it matter where I end up?"

"Well, true. You have to get a job and that isn't an easy thing at all anymore. And then you have to be able to deal with the job."

This puzzled me. "What do you mean deal?"

"Remember the job I had with that defense contractor?"

"Sure."

"I had the job and Mom and Dad were happy, but I couldn't deal. The people were dead and stone-faced. I started missing a day here and there. Then whole weeks went by. I got my notice of termination in the mail. I was fired for abandoning my job."

The sheer drama had me mesmerized. My jaw hung silently, open just enough for a needed swig of beer. I didn't take my eyes off Taylor.

"What did you do? Oh man..." my thoughts went off on a tangent of possibilities.

"I grunted out the past two years as an assistant manager in a bookstore barely able to make rent and afford any groceries. It even got so bad that I was evicted from one house. You remember that dump I lived in when you visited last year?"

"Sure I do" I recalled the apartment, but I didn't think it so bad, just maybe a little depressing. Taylor's roommate struck me as a bizarre construction worker who devoted his evenings at home studying the Japanese language. When I met him he looked up from the kitchen table (the only piece of furniture in the kitchen/living room area) where he was sitting. Hi' he said and shook my hand and then looked frantically back at his book like his ship for Kyoto was sailing any moment. But now it all rang true to my heart as I considered the precarious position my brother had been in and I was oblivious to it all. I reconsidered my belief that things came easily for us. It made me wonder what lay ahead for me.

"I was at my wit's end at that point, Peter."

"God, Taylor. I didn't know any of this. You should have called me."

"You couldn't have done anything. Finally I got a loan from Nana and had a lucky break with this last job at an EPA contractor. At least the trade has an ethical slant to it. I know I have to stick it out. No one else is going to fight for me."

"Whew, man." I was astounded. Taylor watched me for awhile and then got up to get more beers. He returned with two more beers and we resumed the conversation.

"I guess the thing I have to do is get a job..." I stated flatly.

"Right" Taylor agreed.

"...and D.C. is as good as any other place for that."

"Really Peter it is probably one of the best places in the nation to get a job. High cost of living, but I think you'll get a job easily. You can stay at my place until you find something. And don't worry about my bad luck. You're out-going enough. You'll make a great impression with whoever you meet."

I sat and tried to overcome my inexplicable portentousness, but finally just smiled at my brother.

"Alright dude, let's do it. I'll come to the District."

We clanked our beer bottles together. The band's music once again filled my ears and my heart was filled anew with that peculiar joy of knowing nothing and being satisfied with expending conversational tripe.