Brent, the Spacenight

“I’m going to have me some fun!” was the first thing I ever heard the kid say. He had just come out of the house his family had moved into that was five houses down the street from my place. The boy moved confidently to his banana-seat bicycle that was leaning on its kickstand at the edge of his new front lawn. He said the singular line as he mounted the saddle and kicked off the ground, pumping with determination and speed right past the six of us, down Okanogan Street and out of site.

If he knew where fun was, he kept it to himself. 

It was puzzling to us, the six that had been milling about on our bicycles up and down the street, keeping watch on the move-in process with hopes that a new kid would be joining the neighborhood. I don’t know what we were expecting, if the new kid would wander out and formally introduce himself to the group, or wait for us to make the first move. I know all of us were confused when he completely ignored us, spoke to himself like he was in a transition scene of a movie, and sped off in a direction that certainly did not involve fun. There was only wind and dirt down that street. 

Looking back, it wasn’t a bad strategy. Kids can be cruel little soul-crushers, especially in groups and instinctually scary to outsiders and newcomers. He had no idea the six of us were there to meet the new kid. For all he knew, we were there to establish dominance by kicking the crap out of him. 

By marching out to his bike with purpose, ignoring us while uttering a carefully constructed sentence then speeding away on his bike, he was able to safely give us most of the information we were looking for with no actual social interaction. Genius.

He was: male, able bodied, capable of speech, about our age, decent bike rider, interested in fun and determined to have it. He was also new, which meant he had information from outside of the valley that we wanted, no, needed.

To this day, I don’t know where he rode his bike to. We watched him ride South on Okanogan and then turn left onto Patrick Avenue. Maybe he went to the store, maybe not. But he rode past the cool kids in the neighborhood like we were just another group of restless youths with nothing to offer him.

We didn’t follow him. We didn’t know what to do. The six of us, straddling our bicycles in the middle of the lightly traveled street with our front wheels pointed at one another for easier communication purposes, had no idea what had just happened. Some of us repeated the phrase out loud, but punctuated it as a question rather than confident statement, “I’m gonna have me some fun?” But we were fun, we had been waiting out there for the better part of a day for the fun. Surely any fun to be had was located near and around where the six of us were circled.

We discussed the low fly-by that the kid had done at length and what it meant. We were all a little perplexed and maybe even a little hurt that after waiting around all day for news of a possibility of a new kid on the block, that kid wanted little to do with us and would seek his fun elsewhere. Of course we immediately wanted to be his friend and he just dangled it out in front of us like a skilled salesperson would do. 

When he returned from whatever “fun” he was seeking, he attempted to ride by again without saying anything. This time the cluster of kids were further down the street by my house, which meant unless he wanted to turn around, he would have to pass us to get back to his new home. Turning around would have meant losing all this instant street cred he had built up, but the silent treatment wasn’t going to happen again. This time we were ready.

With a “Hey kid!” one of us slowed him down and got him to pause enough for a simple exchange. Luckily someone was able to put into words what the rest of us were saying with our scrunched up faces and shoulders. “What gives?” 

The kid put his feet down on the pavement as if readying himself for some type of unfriendly confrontation and replied with a “what?”

At first, I wondered why he was so stand-offish, but when he turned to face us, I caught a glimpse of something I hadn’t seen before in our small town. The kid had an eyepatch suctioned to the lens of his glasses.

I’m sure that the six of us at the exact same moment had the same twenty questions for the new kid, most of them having to do with the eyepatch. Of course, polite children wouldn’t ask such direct questions of a new guest in our town.

“What’s with the eyepatch?” One of us asked, as directly as seasoned White House reporter would upon the President of the United States entering a press conference with a brand new eye dressing. 

The kid was ready for this though and with only a moderate amount of defensiveness replied, “I have to wear it. I have a lazy eye.”

We all nodded as if we understood this, as if we were to say “Ah yes, Amblyopia. Is the ocular development back on track?” None of us knew what a lazy eye was. We just knew we weren’t supposed to make fun of such things.

“Nice bike,” one of us said, as an olive branch for the unpleasantness of asking about his disability. I wanted to tell him I had asthma, but it just didn’t seem right. Someone else asked, “What’s your name?” 

“Brent Rowand,” he said, relaxing a bit, sensing the worst was over. 

We asked him if he wanted to “ride around” with us.

He was in. 

One of the nice things about Brent, is he values the right stuff. Honor, friendship, sacrifice and loyalty are all really big deals for Brent and I learned that about him early on.

Brent had great toys, and all kids covet what the neighbor kid has. We would play with Star-Wars stuff and super cool Lego sets all the time. But he was also into comic books like I was. Not really like I was, because kids like different characters or have favorite super heroes. Brent’s was Rom, the Spaceknight.

Nobody liked Rom the Spaceknight. I don’t even think the people that wrote that comic liked Rom the Spaceknight. I bet you’re reading this now, thinking,“who is Rom the Spaceknight?”

On the surface, Rom the Spaceknight is a cyborg from the planet Galador that uses his weapon, “The Neutralizer”, to banish a hostile race of aliens to the realm of Limbo. That’s lame even for comic book readers.

But I remember specifically, over thirty years ago, sitting in his room looking through issues of Rom and ribbing him for it being so weird. I remember asking why he liked this hero instead of Spider-Man, Superman or heck, even Plastic Man. And we weren’t any older than ten, but he gave me the most grown-up answer I could imagine for liking that particular character.

Brent said, Rom was different from those other characters. Brent explained that here was a race of peaceful beings that when threatened, needed to do something drastic to stop the evil that would destroy their world. In order to be powerful enough to stop the threat, volunteers were needed to become spacenights. That meant they had to give up their humanity to become these cyborg, robotic creations in order to defend their planet from certain doom. Rom was the first to volunteer and make the hard choice of abandoning his humanoid form.

At the end of the day, Spider-man was created out of guilt, and can become Peter Parker whenever he wants. Superman was just a random, powerful alien that happened to be raised in the right home and can become Clark Kent whenever he needs a break. Plastic Man is a reformed criminal repaying society with his new power from an accident. 

Rom,on the other hand, understands the need. He chooses to help, though it means possibly never being himself again and then heads off to space to fight evil for as long as it takes. He doesn’t have to, but he makes that choice, and he’s first into the machine that does it. Bravery, sacrifice, loyalty, honor. I get it now Brent.

His parents were good people. His dad use to drive this little yellow Fiat over the Cascade Mountains to work at Boeing in Everett. That was over two hours away. When he wasn’t pioneering the super commute, Brent’s dad worked with Brent on the single greatest model train set I had ever seen. It took up their entire garage and was off-limits when Brent’s dad wasn’t around, but man alive was it cool.

Brent’s mom had a portrait of Neil Diamond up in their living room. Apparently she had drawn it herself. It was gallery quality and very well done. I remember asking Brent what the deal was with that picture and he just told me it was a long story. I didn’t press him.

For years, Brent was a solid friend around the neighborhood. He could give and take jokes, start a treehouse that would never be finished on the ditch bank or just ride around. Brent was down for anything.

I do have one very regrettable moment from back then and it stems from a group of us playing a kind of redneck polo. We were using golf clubs and golf balls to hit the ball back and forth on the football field across from our houses. Each of us had a club and would run up and hit the ball like in polo or field hockey. No, it was not safe. 

I remember running hard for the ball and lining up a shot with full golf-swing form and letting it fly, and boy was it a solid hit. The ball sailed thirty yards or so down field and connected with Brent’s forehead with an audible smack. What’s worse, was Brent was running into it and when it hit him, it looked like he was hit by a sniper round. He dropped faster than Carrie Ingalls did in the opening credits of Little House on the Prairie.

My first thought was, “I killed him.”

I didn’t kill him of course, but he was hurt and crying on the field, rolling around and clutching his forehead. I asked him if he was okay, which I could see he was, and my brain replayed it in my head, over and over, as if I were seeing it on television. That, along with my genuine joy over not killing my friend with a golf ball, compelled me to laugh. And I laughed hard. I know it wasn’t right to laugh, but I was happy he was alive, and if you saw that scene play out in a movie or on America’s Funniest Home Videos, you would have laughed too. But that was neither the time nor the place.

Brent was more-than-justifiably upset, not just at the pain one has when having a golf ball bounced off your forehead at 37 miles per hour, but when your friend, the guy that did it is laughing mercilessly at you. I had not behaved like a friend, not even like a neutral party passing by and certainly, most definitely not with the honor and dignity of a Spaceknight.

He yelled at me and told me I was no longer his friend. This was one of the only times from memory where I really remember such a threat—it was only a threat—and worried that I had lost a friendship. Because Brent knew what friendship was really about, and he felt I betrayed that. Of course I apologized, but that really shook how I viewed relationships with people, friendship and forgiveness. It took a couple days to cool down, and we never played polo again, but all was forgiven.

Brent was always a dependable piece of the neighborhood goings-on. He was always down for a game of Hide and Seek, Kick the Can, all the classics. If a group of us was going up to Denmark Pond, there was Brent, carrying some 2x4s to build a fort. Needed a wingman to ride down to get the mail? Brent was right there with you. Need a guy to test a mattress landing pad when falling off a house during ninja training camp? Brent was first on the roof.

When Brent moved away, there was a huge hole left in the kid community of Kittitas. He was missed. As a kid you don’t really understand how you take for granted the people that are in your life, but with Brent, it was tough. He was solid. He was there. And then, he was gone.

His house stayed right where it always was though and was a constant reminder of him. Many families have come and gone from it, but it will always be Brent’s house to me. 

Years later, Brent came back for a brief visit and it was really great to see him. He was in high school and he told me of the importance of Pink Floyd. He introduced me to Pink Floyd in one rare visit back. I could tell he missed us, and we missed him. But he was on a different path that took him away from us again in Kittitas.

Thank God for Facebook, because as an adult I have been able to reconnect with Brent and many others like him. That really is the miracle of the internet. I know the knowledge and speed of it is a wonderful thing, but rekindling friendships and finding people (who want to be found) has to be the best thing for the soul.

Now I can see that Brent is happy and married. He posts some pretty funny videos and pics, and we’ve been able to chat back and forth from time to time.

It’s also where I found out that he’s in a pretty serious fight with Cancer. Now Brent is a brave and tough individual and it’s not fair that he has to face this cancer alone. But cancer has never been fair. Cancer hits you hard and below the belt. It’s sneaky and relentless. It tests too many good people and right now, it is testing our friend Brent.

What I want Brent to know, is that if this were a real fight, if this were Brent standing up at the flagpole after school to face down the bully Cancer and all Cancer’s little minions, he wouldn’t have to face them alone. There’s not a friend, family member or co-worker that wouldn’t stand next to him to face the beat down. Every one of us would stand and fight next to him until he was defended and safe. That’s what Brent would do for any of us. That’s what a true Spaceknight would do. 

You’re a fighter, Brent, always have been and always will be, and that’s the Damn truth.