The Long Way Around

It was a good bench.

Solid.

Overbuilt, the way two engineers-at-heart build things, good for a hundred years.

And when we finished it, Del produced a little brass plaque he’d had made without telling me, and screwed it to the back rail, and it didn’t say anything sentimental, because Del would sooner have died — it just said FOR THE FOLKS WHO SHOW UP.

And we stood there looking at it, two old men who’d built a bench, and Del said, “That’s us, Walt.

The show-up fellas.” And I had to look out at the empty ball field for a second, because that was, I understood, as close as Del Tillman would ever come to saying he loved me, and it was more than enough, and I said, “Yeah.