Friend

It had been a few weeks since I left Los Angeles behind. Since the cab ride, the goodbye at the curb, Mrs. Lane's voice cracking in that way it only did when something mattered. I remembered the city falling away behind us, the hum of the tires on the road, and Eddie not saying all the things he wanted to.

And now here I was.

Washington. The rehab center sat on a rise off Irving Street, not far from the old soldiers' cemetery. Easy to miss unless you knew what to look for. Concrete walls, long quiet halls, elevators that sighed between floors. The place smelled like antiseptic and old vinyl. Halls full of boots and wheelchairs and men trying to remember how to be men again, in the aftermath of a world that didn't make room for them anymore.

Every morning, the same. Wake to the rattle of metal bedframes. The muttered greetings. The shuffle of slippers across cold tile. The scent of powdered eggs and burnt toast drifting in from the mess. My cane in hand. My fingers tracing the edge of the wall like I was reading a book written in brick.

It didn't take long to memorize the place. Blindness has a way of sharpening everything else. I learned where the floor creaked. Where the nurse with the sharp perfume paused for her second cup of coffee. Where the light hit the windows around noon and warmed the linoleum just enough for my feet to feel it.

And then there was Bradley.

Bradley Evans had been here longer than me. His voice came first; low and easy, like it had been passed through a warm radio dial. The kind that didn't ask for attention, just made space for it. He moved with weight, broad-shouldered, heavy-set, the kind of man you felt in the room before he said a word. Smelled like menthol and aftershave, and always gave your arm a pat like he meant it.

"Lawrence, right?" he said on my third day, his tone like we were picking up a conversation we'd started years ago.

"Yeah."

"I'm Bradley. They put me across the room. Guess we're neighbors."

He'd lost both legs in the war. Landmine, Korea, sometime in '50, near the start of it all. Told me that like he'd told it too many times already, like the words didn't belong to him anymore. But there was no bitterness in him, not that I could find. Just a stillness, like a man who'd already grieved everything he could and was now learning how to live with the echo.

We started talking during meals. Then after them. Then into the evenings. He had stories, but he wasn't loud about them. Told me about growing up in Mississippi, fixing radios with his father, riding his bike barefoot along red dirt roads. Told me about the army. About the explosion. About waking up without the weight of his own legs and the dreams that didn't stop for months.

He said it like a man describing the weather. Not dramatic. Just something that happened.

He helped me get used to the place. Walked me. Well, rolled beside me. In the gym, he taught me the timing of the nurses' rounds, warned me which aides meant well and which ones treated people like us like broken clocks. Always had something kind to say, but never pity.

It mattered.

Most nights, we sat in the corner of the common room. Just the two of us, me with my old radio from L.A. It is the only thing I brought besides a worn coat and the letter Eddie gave me.

The radio didn't sound as good as it used to. Bit of a buzz in the speakers. The jazz stations came in fuzzy unless I turned the dial just right.

"Always liked that one," Bradley said tonight, as the trumpet wheezed through the static. "Feels like the end of a long night."

"Feels like home," I muttered.

He shifted in his seat. I could hear the faint creak of the wheels on his chair.

"You miss it?"

"Some parts," I said. "Not others."

"Yeah," he said. "Same."

We sat in quiet for a while, the music bleeding into static, then static into silence. I reached over, nudged the dial a little, and caught the tail end of a news report.

"...police say a fourth victim has been discovered near Rock Creek Park. The body of a young woman, identity withheld. Officials believe the killings may be linked. Metro urges caution after dark. No suspects at this time. A spokesperson from WIN declined to comment..."

I turned the volume down slowly. The static swallowed the voice.

Bradley let out a breath.

"That's the second one this week."

"Yeah."

"They say the guy's careful. Doesn't leave anything behind. Like he's not even human."

"Sounds like the kind of thing people say when they're scared."

"Maybe. Or maybe it's something else."

I didn't say anything. Just listened to the quiet. Somewhere down the hall, a TV game show laughed too loud. A tray clattered. A nurse coughed.

Bradley tapped the armrest of his chair with his thumb; slow, like a ticking clock.

"I brought a photo of my sister with me when I came here," he said suddenly. "Only thing I took from the house. Didn't want to bring anything else. Didn't want to look at things that reminded me how it used to be."

"I brought this," I said, tapping the radio. "Didn't pack much. Didn't need to."

He nodded, or maybe just paused long enough to let the thought sit with us.

"You ever think about leaving?" he asked.

"Every day."

"What stops you?"

I shrugged. "Hope, I guess. Habit. They say they might fix something. Not sure what anymore."

He exhaled again. "Same here."

The radio crackled.

The city beyond the walls was quiet.

For the first time since I arrived, I let my body rest fully into the chair, like I wasn't bracing for something. The floor was warm beneath my socks. The air smelled faintly of old wires and canned soup.

The world kept moving, but slower now. Like maybe it was waiting for us to catch up.

Bradley spoke again, voice barely above a whisper.

"Glad you're here, Law."

I nodded. "Yeah. Me too."

And we sat like that. Two men, a broken radio, and a quiet that didn't hurt so much anymore.

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