As Far as We can Run - 2/2

Twenty years or so had passed by, yet that old graveyard was still the same. It was as if time never trickled by in this garden of souls, despite the seasons changing. Perhaps that was why it was still a go-to place when the world was crazy or storm clouds rolled in.

And the garden wall was still as sturdy as it had been decades earlier. Just as it could support children who dared to climb its stones, it could support a full grown man.

Which, in Greg’s case, him being six feet tall with a sturdy build, was a good thing.

As the warm early-September breeze blew through his thick locks of hair, Greg sat there, waiting patiently for the negativity to pass. He looked at his cellphone, tipping it back and forth in his hands before looking down the hill beyond the train tracks at the lake, partially sheltered by the forest on the neighbourhood’s borders. The trees were beginning to change hues again, and Greg found that counting the leaves as they fell to the ground helped ease the storm and made time pass.

He heard someone run his way from within the graveyard, but he did not look over his shoulder. He already knew who it was, and despite the tardiness he was glad he had still shown up.

“Sorry I’m late!” his brother said through pants at the foot of the wall. He immediately began climbing the tree, groaning at the effort—Wirt had never been a graceful tree climber. “There was a major collision downtown on the street I take home... like, a six car pileup. Absolutely crazy. Nearly an hour behind schedule. So I just picked something up from the store and came straight here.”

When he heard the man climb onto the wall, Greg finally turned his head. His brother cautiously rose to his feet and balanced himself while walking over, a bag in one hand. “I didn’t make you wait too long, did I?” Wirt asked, walking over to Greg’s side.

“No, not long,” Greg replied, though he figured it would be best not to tell him that he had been waiting for forty minutes. “Just counting the leaves as they fall. You didn’t miss much.”

Wirt groaned as he slowly lowered himself into a sitting position next to his brother and swung his feet over the side of the garden wall. “Man, I really need to climb more trees,” he said, straightening out his coral pink ascot. “I’ve lost my touch. I don’t know how you can do it. You’re so much wider than I am.”

“I think having to chase the twins up the backyard tree to pull them out for dinner was practice,” Greg joked. He made gestures with his hands. “They would manage to get themselves high up in the branches, only to be too scared to come down. It was like picking apples every day of summer. Bonnie had to tell them to stop after a while or else they’d be grounded.”

Wirt chuckled. “Mabel was scared of heights?”

“Neh, she only cried because Dipper would cry. After a while, she could climb down no problem, but Dipper never really learned. So he would follow her up, only to get stuck. So we said no more climbing unless one of us was outside to go apple picking.” He paused before laughing weakly. “Though we don’t have that problem anymore; Mabel became scared of heights right after their summer in Gravity Falls... Never told us why.”

Wirt raised an eyebrow before frowning. “I told you that place is nuts,” he said.

Greg shrugged in reply, not in the mood to talk to his brother about the hometown of their uncle. As Wirt pulled out a stone from his pocket, Greg leaned over his lap and looked at him. “So, how was your day?” he asked, pushing his glasses up.

Wirt shrugged half-heartedly. “Eventful,” he replied. “Had another book signing at that fancy shop downtown... Mom still likes to tease me about how my poetry got so popular.”

“You write it like a story, that’s why. Complex stories is in, I hear.”

Wirt tossed the rock in his hands up and down. “Then at noon, I had a doctor’s appointment,” he said. He tossed the rock as far as he could, watching it bounce down the hill until it rolled into the lake. “Got a new prescription. Then I met up with Sara for coffee since she’s back to visit her parents. And she told me about how Jason Funderberker went to a dance club with Lucille and totally spilled alcohol all over his pants. Had to dance with pants that made it look like he had an accident.” When Greg choked on a laugh at these words, Wirt snickered. “Sucker.” He tossed another rock towards the lake. “That was probably the highlight of my day. Then I went to drop off my clarinet at the shop to get it cleaned and bumped into a group of creative writing students at the university who were fans of my first book.” Wirt made a grimace and shuddered. “When did I ever get so popular? I write poetry and sometimes give lectures at the university. I’m boring.”

“You’re interesting, though,” Greg replied, placing his chin in his hands. He stared over the lake. “You’re smart and you write poetry and prose really well. Dipper talks about it all the time; Uncle Stan says it gets annoying but he got a couple of his friends from Gravity Falls into your stuff. And Mabel loves your stories and your instrument playing so—!”

“That’s probably because that kid she met over summer a year ago is a musical prodigy,” Wirt grumbled as he tossed another stone. “Apparently, Ferb can play more than a dozen instruments. And sing like an angel. Whoop-dee-doo.”

Greg shook his head with a smile but decided not to continue on that subject. Wirt was protective of his niece and nephew, and even more so with Mabel. When Mabel would write him letters during her summers or vacations, she often mentioned the boy she had met and stayed in contact with. It irked Wirt to the point that he thought the boy was a pest that had to be disposed of. What made it funnier was that neither her parents nor her uncle had even met the boy yet.

“But I’m in a good mood today, so let’s talk about other things rather than the upsetting,” Wirt said with a sigh, leaning back over the wall. He looked at Greg. “How was your day?” he asked, as though expecting an exciting story.

Greg did not look up at him. He shifted positions before replying. “Eh, not that great, honestly,” he said. “Was on the phone all morning with problems for work... Meeting didn’t end well... Then at one got a call about an order that would be an extra week late due to a hurricane... Then the twins came back from school sour with each other. Dipper had a black eye—apparently he tried to pick a fight with a guy who was being a little more than teasing with Mabel, and ended up getting stuffed in a locker that his sister had to get him out of. She was mad that he embarrassed her—can you imagine that—and he was mad that she wasn’t bothered by the bully. To top that, Dipper did less than averagely well on his math test so he had to retake it. When I said no video games that day, they both got angry, Mabel said it wasn’t fair, blah, blah, blah-bah-dee-blah.”

He paused here, noticing that his face had cringed the more he spoke, and after sighing the frown away, Greg buried his face in his hands and rubbed it. “And then Bonnie came back from work and got angry at me for not sitting Dipper down in the kitchen and having him go over his math for failing his test. She said I’m too easy on them sometimes. So when the tension rose, and before I started yelling, I went for a walk and texted you to meet me at the garden wall... and here we are.”

An uneasy silence fell over the two of them once Greg had finished. Wirt chewed on the inside of his cheek, looking this way and that, before clearing his throat. “Okay, that’s exceptionally abnormal,” he said, catching Greg’s attention. “Since when do I have the good day and you have the bad day?” He made gestures with his hands. “It’s usually the other way around.”

“I dunno, just happens, I guess,” Greg replied with a sigh and a weak shrug. “It’s happened a few times. We’re not the picture-picture perfect family people always think of us as, Wirt. We have disagreements. And arguments. Like normal families. They just happen less often because we know how to work around each other’s differences and weaknesses. But when it happens, it’s like I can often be the one everyone decides to get upset at. Maybe because I’m too nice? I dunno...”

Wirt said nothing. Greg waited to see if he would, but he heard neither a sigh nor the sound of Wirt tossing another stone into the lake. It almost disappointed him, but he knew Wirt was a better listener than a talker when it came to emotional subjects. Only the birds singing, geese honking as they flew overhead, readying for the migration, and cars driving by in the distance, met his ears. It was calming, and on most days Greg appreciated the little sounds of ambiance.

Today, it was not enough to ease his heavy heart or push away the clouds. So Greg set his chin in his hands again and stared over the lake at the bottom of the hill. “Maybe I’m not doing something right, Wirt,” he said. “Maybe I messed up somewhere yesterday. You know, stepped on a crack, or saw a black cat cross the street, or walked under a ladder... Or maybe it’s something way back when I got married. Whatever it was, I wish I could undo it. Otherwise I don’t want to go back to that house. It’s happened one too many times. I don’t know if I can take that sort of negativity just piled up again. From so many people.” He watched a deer bound out of the bushes with a fawn before turning his eyes back over the mirror-smooth surface of the lake. “I just want to run, you know? Run as far as I can. Just get away from it... not go back to that house. Where everything is my fault... Just run.”

“... Would it make you happier?”

Of all the things Wirt could have said, this was not on Greg’s list. Wirt had a philosophical way of making Greg feel better about things. This was not bad, only a tad confusing at times.

To hear him repeat a familiar question made Greg raise his eyes. Slowly he pulled his hands away from his face and turned to look at his brother, shock in his eyes.

Wirt fiddled with another stone in his hands for a moment before raising his eyes and looking at the bespectacled man next to him. “Would it make you happier if you never went back?” he whispered.

Greg blinked before looking over the landscape again. The answer, one that was familiar yet still felt oddly out of place, given that he was always optimistic, came to his lips in a whisper so quiet he had to repeat it. He looked at Wirt again. “No,” he said. “... I don’t like... being alone for too long.”

A gentle smile slowly spread over Wirt’s lips.

“You remember that?”

Wirt shifted positions and looked down at the stone in his hands. “Just because you can be annoying, it doesn’t mean I don’t take your words seriously when they’re meant to be,” he said. “Even when I was a troubled teenager.”

Greg stared at him in silence before turning away and twiddling his thumbs.

“When you showed me that recording, Greg, it opened my eyes to a different side of things,” Wirt continued. “You made me see the good, even in the bad. And that, even if the whole world turned against me, you wouldn’t.”

He looked at Greg again, just as his brother looked back at him. “You have a beautiful family,” he said. “A wife, whose levels of spontaneity rival yours, even if her maturity peeks a little more than yours at times. You have two children, zany twins that are a combination of the world’s craziness and its wonder. A combination of level-headedness and creativity. You have a house that’s full of love and laughter, something I wanted to be permanent since I was seven. That’s a lot of good, and I don’t think it could have happened to a better person.”

Wirt placed an arm around Greg and held him tightly. “Take it from someone who knows misery like the back of his hand,” he said: “It’s not pleasant. And it likes to rear its ugly head whenever things are brightest. But there is good. You’ve got an eye for it, better than anyone I know. That’s a gift, Greg.” He leaned back and pointed at himself, always holding his brother. “But, on the slightest chance that you don’t want to go back, and you don’t want to be alone, I’ll run away with you.” He handed the stone he had been holding in his hand to Greg, pressing it against his brother’s palm. “And we’ll run as far as we can run.”

Greg stared at the stone in his hand while Wirt finished speaking. He rubbed its smooth surface with his thumb before holding it tightly and smiling.

“Feel better?”

“Yeah.”

Wirt nodded and released his grasp around his brother. “Good, because that may be as Pines as I’ll be able to get,” he said, as Greg tossed the stone as far as he could. Wirt reached into the bag he brought and pulled out two soda cans. “You work better on that scale than I do.”

Greg took the can his brother held out to him and opened it. He stared at it for a moment before looking up at his brother. “Wirt,” he said, as the man looked over his drink, “You remember when Beatrice came over a month ago?”

A light flickered in his brother’s eyes, and it made Greg grin momentarily—a light always turned on in Wirt’s eyes when Greg mentioned the woman he loved.

Wirt finished taking a drink before replying. “Yeah, why?” he said.

“Well, she said something to me.”

“That’s always concerning.”

Greg nudged the man in the side, making Wirt chuckle and rub his ribs. “She said that you told her something about me,” he continued. “Something—!”

“It’s not that difficult to speak about you, Greg,” Wirt teased.

“You are just on a roll today, aren’t you?”

Wirt snickered. “I had a good day, remember?” He waved a hand before him. “Okay, okay, serious now. What did Bea tell you that I said about you?”

Greg looked at his soda can, hesitated, and took a deep breath. “She said that you called me your best friend,” he said. “That I was the best friend you could’ve ever asked for.” He waited to hear Wirt groan—he always did that when Beatrice let something private slip, but the groan never came. Therefore Greg turned his head and looked at his brother again. “Is that true?”

Wirt stared back in silence for a moment. He put his soda can down and looked at his hands. He moved his lips around, pursed them and played with his tongue—the usual things he did when he thought about something hard; Greg had seen him do so many times since childhood.

When an eagle soared overhead with a loud screech, Wirt looked up, pulled out of thought. Then he smiled, looked at Greg for a moment and then dug into his pocket for more stones to throw. “As sure as an eagle’s majestic cry raises a watchful gaze does the sun set with the promise of its return,” he said, making Greg furrow his brow. “The confidence in one and warmth in the other bring hope.”

Greg made a grimace and shoved his brother aside. “Come on, Wirt!” he groaned, making his brother laugh. “I don’t understand poetry, my brain doesn’t work the same way yours does! What the heck does that mean?”

“If Beatrice told you what she said, then she undoubtedly told you the same thing she told me about myself,” Wirt said, raising his can and taking another sip. “I don’t give clear answers, Greg. My brain doesn’t work that way. I never say what I want to say, at least not clearly.”

“Yeah, she said something like that. She called you a book of poetry. We’ve gotta read you over and over again in order to really understand what the heck your actions and words mean.”

“Well, that’s a cute metaphor,” Wirt muttered behind his can. “Wish she told me that directly.”

“So what was your answer?”

“If I told you, it wouldn’t mean as much,” Wirt replied. He set his can down and handed Greg another stone. “Think it over tonight. If you mull it over as you fall asleep, I’m sure you’ll figure it out. For now...” He threw his arm back and tossed his stone as far as he could, successfully having it land in the lake with a soft plop! “For now, let’s see who can throw the furthest, per the norm. Think you can beat my record from last month?”

Greg narrowed his eyes, a tad frustrated that his brother never gave straight answers, but another smile crept over his lips. He took one last sip of his drink before setting it down and tossing up his stone. “Watch me,” he said, throwing the stone as hard as he could.

They threw rocks into the water for another hour, a game they often did since childhood, all the while talking about things. Greg let Wirt do most of the talking that day, since it was not often that his brother had an entire day of stories to share with him. It made Wirt’s eyes bright, something Greg liked seeing since so many things kept his brother’s spirits down.

The sun had nearly set by the time Wirt drove Greg home. From the moment they parted ways, Greg thought about Wirt’s answer to his question. On any normal occasion, he would have brushed it aside, but this was a question Greg wanted a straight answer to.

So he thought about it all evening. After apologizing to his wife, dancing with her in the kitchen before dinner until their children came down to join, he thought about the poetry. As Mabel and Dipper asked how their uncle was doing, as the children set the table and he helped Bonnie prepare dinner, he thought about it. As they ate, when no one was conversing with him, he thought.

Once the children were put to bed and once he and Bonnie had gotten the chance to watch a movie, he pondered his brother words some more. And he continued to until the lights were turned off and his wife fell asleep at his side.

Just as sleep was about to take him too, and his mind was sore from thinking about poetry for so long, a light lit up in his mind. Greg stared up at the ceiling in surprise, and then a smile slowly spread over his lips once he had discovered the answer behind the poem.

He reached for his cellphone, and as best as he could without glasses, Greg typed out a message to his brother.

You’ve always been my best friend too, Wirt.

He was not expecting his brother to respond, since Wirt was in bed every night by ten o’clock. Given that it was nearing eleven thirty, Greg expected nothing until morning.

But his phone vibrated. So he pulled it over and checked the response.



Greg smiled again, proud of himself for having understood one of his brother’s poetic riddles, and proud to be holding such an important title to someone he had admired since his earliest years.

He had no idea what awaited him the next day, but whatever came he knew his best friend, a garden wall and a couple of stones to toss would be waiting if anything got out of hand.

Ain’t that just the way.