The Twins of Salvation

There comes a time in all our lives when we need a Drew “Bundini” Brown. See him in Muhammad Ali’s corner, chanting. (“You the greatest whoever was. You the onliest one.”) See him near tears when his angel has fallen from the blunt surprise of a wicked left hook. It doesn’t matter your rank or calling, your age or disposition. It is that voice near your ear, urging you to go on to a triumph or at least a prideful finale. You may have already decided to surrender and the raucous crowd of family and friends might have urged you to, but it is that voice, always there, seemingly ebbing and flowing like a bee’s attack, that urges you, just below a shout, to move on.

You might have had a bad day on the job—at the mill, at the office, in the field. Worse, you might have lost a job and have been looking for six months and counting. You might have emerged from a doctor’s office with news about your newly-discovered tumor, when you had been basking on the comfortable couch of middle-age hoping that frailty, infirmity, and terminal weakness were stations far, far down the widening tracks.

Take Watson. As usual, he was on time at the airport, climbing out of the limo after he had brought it to an easy stop. Everything was set—the Lincoln Town Car vacuumed, deodorized, washed and waxed beyond new. He closed the door, admiring as ever its click of quiet class, and checked himself in the rearview mirror. As was his habit, he pinched his nostrils briefly, then adjusted his derby, and the knot on his silk paisley tie. He moved on across the terminal’s four traffic lanes, then into the passenger pick-up area. His limp was only a slight one and there had been those at the steel mill who said he had exaggerated his fall from a low scaffold to collect a generous compensation for an early retirement. Most of these men were the ones who lied over early evening shots of bourbon or Johnny Walker Red and beer chasers at Webb’s Bar & Grill.

“You ought to get a Academy Award for your actin,’” someone would greet him when he entered these days. Usually it was Fuller, already two scotches ahead of all, who tossed such nonsense. In his hatband, Fuller wore as his trademark a hawk’s feather found in an alley off Young Street. Either him or Kung Fu, the other serial non-believer, who swore by his story of killing three VietCong while unarmed during the war.

“I’m my own boss,” Watson would manage to calmly say, many jibes later. “My own boss and ain’t working for no man dumber than me. Don’t have to hear no shit or take no shit. Can you say that, home?”

Yet independence meant responsibility—now there was a busted taillight on the limousine, an oil leak from someplace, and four tires going bald with winter coming on. The passengers would never see these. But there was more he had to wrestle with, always more.

Inside he stood next to those at the bottom of an escalator; they held signs for those who were to meet them upon arrival from their gates. He needed no sign.

“How’s tricks?” he asked one of them, a bald man from Somali. Watson had nicknamed him Curly.

“Same ol’, same ol’,” the man said with a slight smile. “Somebody else gettin’ richer every day, my friend.”

“You learn quick.”

The passengers came down the escalator with relieved looks, many of the voices pitched high in anticipation of home, a hug, and time with loved ones. Perhaps the familiar waiting. As they turned to the baggage claim, he would fasten his gaze on one or two and guess their history and their present. It was a favorite game of his. But he turned away.

At the top of the escalator were two people who looked at those with the signs, then to him. The one in front was a...