Mitchell and Matthew were closer than most brothers. They had met the first day of kindergarten and cemented a bond that lasted a lifetime. They went through Matt's tonsillectomy and through Mitch's parents' divorce. They were gangly teen boys together who compared cocks and pimples on a daily basis.
When dating age approached Matt dug a hole for himself by getting his girlfriend Lisa pregnant. Everybody had reproach for Matt and sympathy for Lisa, the only person who had his back was Mitch. Similarly, Matt had sympathy for Mitch when he divulged that he wasn't all that sure he was attracted to girls. Two years and a graduation later, Matt had weathered a string of Mitch's girlfriends and boyfriends when Mitch finally came to the conclusion that he was hetero-fluid. Matt told him that meant he was quite willing to put it in any hole and wasn't particular about what the hole was attached to. Mitch found that hilarious.
There was a darker side to Mitch that others had found, but Matt was oblivious to it. One night before they left for college, Mitch was having a quickie up on Lover's Lane with one of the girls who put out for anybody. The two were busy in the back seat of Mitch's 'hand-me-down' sedan when another car pulled up. This one full of rowdy young men, all drunk to the point of either horniness or fighting. They quickly noticed the activity in the sedan and decided to bust whoever it was.
Before Mitch could pull up his pants, both back doors had been yanked open with shouting boys on the other side of it.
"Who is it?"
"Who is it?"
"It's Matt's boyfriend with Chiquita."
"Go fuck yourselves!" Mitch shouted struggling out of the car.
"Aw... What's it Mitch? Matt too busy for you tonight?" This was the taunt from a six-foot-six football player. Mitch saw red and stormed him, he caught the guy off guard and as he tried to correct his balance, Mitch kicked him in the back from behind. The football player went down and Mitch kicked him in the side of his head. Then he jumped on him and smacked his head into the ground over and over.
The fight went on for a couple of seconds until the drunk boys realised their buddy wasn't getting up and was being pummelled instead and they jumped in and grabbed Mitch and pulled him off.
"Are you fucking crazy?"
"You piece of shit, kicking a man when he's down."
Somebody from the side kicked Mitch under chin and he fell to the side unconscious for a bit. Chiquita was shouting madly and shooing the guys off when he came to.
"You okay?" She asked him. He didn't answer. He wiped the blood off his mouth with his hands and told her to get in the car. The boys had driven off already. He dropped Chiquita off at her house without another word.
Matt and Mitch left for college a week later. A week after that the football player, who's name was Conroy was having his own little tete-a-tete with a young woman up on Lover's Lane when she noticed a foul smell. Conroy told her he'd been smelling it in his car for two days now but couldn't find the source of the smell. It put a damper on things and the two eventually climbed out of the car and started to search for it. About thirty minutes later when they had found nothing, the girl suggested to Conroy that he look between the trunk and the back seat rest. He pulled the stops up and pulled the rest forward and they discovered the source of the smell. A dead decomposing dog had been squashed in there. It wasn't a pretty sight and the smell was overwhelming. No criminal case was ever made in connection to the dead dog but the young people still in town generally agreed that Mitch was a strong contender as a 'person of interest'.
Both men returned to their hometown after college. Matt took up his first post as a teacher at the same elementary school he and Mitch had attended. Mitch found work at a large company selling agricultural hardware, putting his horticultural degree to use. Matt was by far the most settled of the two and although he joined his best friend regularly for a friday night drink after the high-school football match, he also found himself a permanent girlfriend - Kate.
At one party Matt was drunkenly playing pool when Mitch started to flirt with Kate. She was also drunk and flirted back. Things got a bit wild and soon Mitch and Kate were exploring each other's orifices and genitals before Kate came to her senses and told Mitch to stop. They both swore not to tell Matt and never to do anything like that again.
But women and whiskey... Each time they made the same promise to each other. Matt proposed and Kate accepted and Mitch was the best man at their wedding. When the newly-weds returned from honeymoon things cooled down between Kate and Mitch. The fact that Kate had began to drink less had a lot to do with it.
About a year after Matt had married, the annual hike to Widow's Peak arrived. This climb was something Mitch and Matt had started doing as teens and the tradition had continued even through college. This year wouldn't be an exception. The boys left early Friday morning, they expected to summit about midday on Saturday and would climb down on Sunday. Kate kissed her husband good-bye at the base camp, which was also the local picnic area.
It was close to sunset on the Friday when the 911 operator received a frenzied call. The caller was close to hysterical and the connection was bad.
"Stay on the line with me sir. Do not hang up."
"... Fell... Hurt... Please... Begging you... Climb-"
"Sir where are you calling from?"
There was a click, the line was dead. The operator called back. The connection was much better.
"Sir, you called 911."
"Yes! Yes! Oh thank God I can hear you." He was hysterical.
