Buffalo & Rochelle

There’s only one thing left in the box. “It’s a brick,” she says. “I see that,” I say. Nestled in the bottom left corner of the box is this pinkish brown brick. Dusty. Worn. One of the corners dinged away. Used, definitely. I look at her. “It’s a brick,” she says. I take it out of the box and turn it over in my hand. It’s rough and cool – gritty – and about as heavy as, well, a brick. It smells of hot sand and sweat and centuries. There’s something stamped in the middle of it. I blow dust away. A nice, neat diamond shape is stamped cleanly in the middle. I look at her again. She looks at me. I hand it to her. She turns it over in her hand, traces the diamond stamp with her finger, turns it in her hand again and I wonder suddenly if I should have given it to her. But she hands it back and I put the brick back into the carton and begin to replace everything but the dog. “What’s he doing carrying a brick around?” she says. “There’s got to be a story in there someplace.” “Oh, there is,” he says from the doorway. “There is.” Our homeless guy is smiling like he is catching us at something, which he of course is. Of course we didn’t hear him come down. Of course we didn’t know he’d been standing there, maybe even the whole time, all clean and all knowing. I can’t even begin to tell you. Man. He just stands there, smiling. He comes over and squats beside the box. He takes out the brick. He looks at it lovingly, tossing it up and down gently. Up and down. He looks at us, smiling like a proud father. “Old Chicago,” he says. “Best ever made. Here. Feel.” He tosses it to me underhand and I catch the heft of it. Easier than ducking a casserole, let me tell you. “Feel how dense? Practically indestructible. Bet you that one is well over a hundred years old. Bend three masonry bits just to hang a picture. If you’re lucky. Now that, that’s something right there.” I look at it and I believe him. “Union made.” he says, pointing. “The diamond stamp, that’s how you can tell.” I look at her; she looks at me. I move to hand it back to him. “Please, keep it,” he says. “It’s the least I can do,” he says. “It’s all I have,” he says. She looks at me. I look at her. “What are we going to do with a brick?” she says? “Same as me,” he says. “You can build things with a brick like that – build just about anything – and let me tell you, whatever it is, it’ll last practically forever.” She had given him one of my favorite shirts, so I suppose at that point something like that, something that lasts forever, is a pretty fair trade.