Phillip

Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil.

For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone

when he falls and has not another to lift him up! (Eccl 4:9-10)

Phillip

By Stephen W. Hiemstra

In the second grade Mrs. S. quickly learned that asking me to stand in front of the class

was not a discipline strategy that worked well with me—I had too much fun!

So I went back to standing face in the corner

And getting wacked on open hands with a ruler.

Still, it was an interesting year.

At one point my class—the whole school—was dismissed to watch Astronaut John Glenn fly overhead.

His space capsule looked like a daytime star racing across the sky—

I don’t remember if we saw him fly around the earth all three times.

It was exciting—how could I forget?

Second grade was the year that I met Phillip.

Phillip was special because he lived on a farm down Good Luck road

Past all the new neighborhoods that had been built.

My mom used to drop me off afternoons or on the weekend.

The farm wasn’t much—just an old farmhouse, a garage, a shed and a lot of fields.

They didn’t have any animals or machinery—

no one seemed to care for the hay fields that it had

But the gravel road out front was just like Iowa.

And we wandered together around those fields shooting his BB gun and just being boys.

Phillip said that I was special because I did not run wild

And shoot BBs in the air like the other boys.

But I never saw all that.

Further down the road in the woods someone built a plywood treehouse

It seemed out of place and whoever built it left a lot of flares behind

Which we confused with dynamite.

It was scary.

Phillip’s mother didn’t mind us—she always made lunch

while his dad mostly sat at the table working on papers.

Phillip and I were friends until the fourth grade

When his father put a 22 caliber rifle to his head and shot himself.

Then,

Phillip and his mother moved to Bethesda.

I missed Phillip.

After a bit, I looked him up in the phone book

and called a bunch of folks until I got his number.

We talked a bit, but never spoke again.