When it Comes to Being my Brother…
by Steve McGill
It seems pretty obvious that we’re living in some stressful, anxiety-inducing times, as the global pandemic continues to rage on, and racial strife continues to fester, and, most recently, the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. was attacked by a group of angry, hostile, violent rioters. It’s enough to make you take a look around and say, What the hell is going on? So I want to take some time in this month’s issue to provide some perspective as someone who teaches at a predominantly white school, has taught and coached hundreds of white students, and has witnessed and participated in many relationships that prove our ability to not only get along, but to grow together and build together. The picture you saw on the cover of this article is of a jigsaw puzzle I recently finished, and the original photo appeared in an issue of the Philadelphia Inquirer this past summer. The article in which the photo was included told a heartwarming story about a pair of Philly police officers who came to a local neighborhood to distribute free basketballs to some youths in the area, and to put up a basketball hoop. In the photo, you can see the basketball hoop in the background, and you can see one of the police officers dapping up one of the local residents. That image of the white police officer and the black resident showing love to each other, smiles on their faces, is an image that I like seeing on my wall every day, because it reminds me of who we can be, of who we are, once we allow ourselves to see each other as people and to respect each other’s humanity.
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Of the many friendships I’ve had that have transcended racial barriers and shattered racial stereotypes, the one I had and have with a man named Brian Pattison that stands out the most, so that is the one I want to discuss with you in this article. Brian was my neighbor down the road in the subdivision I lived in during my last seven years in Knightdale, NC, just east of Raleigh, from 2007-2013. We often went running together, as I had taken up distance running in my late 30’s and into my 40’s. We trained for half-marathons together, and ran a few together. We would wake up on weekday mornings and meet each other outside his house at 5:30 and run for an hour with his dog Finley by his side. On Saturdays we’d go for a long run. Maybe 90 minutes or two hours, humming along at an 8-minute per mile clip and sometimes faster. Every run, we’d talk for a while, then settle into silence about halfway through, and maintain that silence for the rest of the run. There’s nothing better than being with someone you can talk to about anything, but both of you shut up when it’s time to shut up without either of you needing to tell the other to shut up.
Brian was white and I was black. Brian taught third grade and I taught high school. Brian taught at a public school and I taught at a private school. Brian’s school was about 40% black and my school was about 8% black. In our conversations we talked a lot about education, about race, about politics, about sports, about music. When we disagreed with each other, we listened to each other. We never had an argument. There was no fear of touching upon a “sensitive” subject. We respected each other.
We were both competitive. I had run the hurdles in high school and college and he had been a distance runner in high school and college. Our runs together often became competitive. That’s part of the reason we’d stop talking midway through our runs. We didn’t want to waste oxygen that could lead to falling behind a step or two. But it was a healthy competitiveness. The silent part of the runs were the best because I could think my own thoughts and he could think his, but we were still together, a unit, a team. We inhaled in harmony, we exhaled in harmony, our feet struck the ground in harmony.
Shortly after I moved three hours away to the Charlotte side of the state six years ago, Brian texted me and said how much he missed our runs. He said those were the best of times. We’ve kept in touch over the years, and we still stay in touch. About two years ago he told me that Finley had passed away, and that it was one of the saddest days of his life when they had to put him down. By the end, Finley couldn’t run for miles upon miles upon miles anymore. Most days, he would sit in Brian’s lap and they’d spend silent time together. I was sad to hear of Finley’s passing. He was a key element in so many of those long runs. The sound of his panting was part of our rhythm, and his enthusiasm always made me laugh with joy. Whenever he saw me walking up to the driveway, he’d jump up and down like crazy because he knew that my presence meant it was time to go for a run.
A little over a year ago, shortly before covid hit, I took my wife to a jazz concert in Durham, NC that featured one of my favorite musicians — a trumpet player from Oakland, CA named Ambrose Akinmusire. His music is very experimental. His band included a keyboardist, drummer, bass player, a rapper, and a string quartet consisting of three violinists and a cellist. So the performance was a mix of jazz, hiphop, and chamber music, and somehow, it all blended together beautifully. Brian was there. I had told him about the concert and he met us there. We sat together, enjoyed the music together, and chatted with the musicians afterward together. We both had put on weight, and neither of us were running on a daily basis any longer. But seeing each other for the first time in five years reminded us both of the time we had shared running on the sidewalks, running on the roads, running in Umstead Park in Raleigh (where Finley, a border collie, constantly got distracted by birds) and on the greenways that connected to the back side of our neighborhood. Those were, indeed, the best of times.
Thinking of Brian and reflecting on the miles we logged together and the deep conversations we had and the bond we shared, I find myself hearing Michael Jackson’s voice in my head, singing, “When it comes to being my brother, it don’t matter if you’re blacked or white.” That was, and is, the case with me and Brian.
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