When We Ride: A Novel

by Rex Ogle

I’m not judging. I don’t smoke though. That shit makes you stupid. And I can’t afford to be stupid. I’m dumb enough as it is.

“Brothers ain’t always made by blood. Sometimes? Sometimes, brothers just find each other.”

I say, “Let me help. What can I do?” “Stay out of trouble. Stay in school. Study. Graduate. Go to college. You can help me by helping yourself.”

dreaming of tomorrows better than today.

You’re probably wondering why I don’t drink. My mom’s trying to stay sober. I wanna set a good example. But don’t tell her I said that.

That’s part of why I like him. Why I wanna be like him. ’Cause he’s alive in ways I wanna be but don’t know how.

“Some people play the lottery. I save my dollars to gamble on you. You’re a good bet.”

shouting, “No one can get me in trouble except me.” Mom nods. “You’re right. Your choices are your own.”

can spend Christmas with my brother or my mother. But I can’t choose both.

“Yeah, well,” Lawson says, “the universe? Never said it was fair. It doesn’t owe us a goddamned thing.”

He’s just the boy he was before life came along and insisted he be a man in a hard world.

“I’m doing what I gotta do too, just on a different path.”

don’t know which is worse. A life ruined or a life ended or if there’s any difference at all.

I see him for the first time in years my brother is really a scared little boy locked inside the shell of a man too old before his time.