Free Going Somewhere: A Bicycle Journey Across America by Brian Benson Page A

was
here
. At the sea caves. And though I didn’t need to read the sign—didn’t want to—that’s exactly what I did, aloud, to Rachel, who had been staring at me staring at the words.
    Sea Cave Catastrophe: UW student perishes in Superior kayak accident
    The sea caves are beautiful but can be dangerous. There are no landings and the cliffs cannot be climbed. When turbulent conditions capsized the kayak of a six-foot-three, 170-pound college athlete in the prime of life, he was not strong enough to survive being beaten against the cliffs by the waves.
     • • • 
    I had gotten the call three summers earlier. The message, actually. I’d been hiking and camping in Yosemite National Park, at the tail end of a Wisconsin-to-California road trip with my friend Vijay. I’d had no cell reception in the woods. It was only as I was driving back to San Francisco with Vij that I felt the buzz in my pocket and pulled out the phone. Seven new voicemails. My gut flipped. It had only been two days since we were in the valley, where I’d had perfect reception and last checked my messages.
    The first was from my mom, and for a moment, I thought she might have left all seven. She defined the term “helicopter mom,” could work herself into a frenzy of worry over anything and nothing. Maybe she’d seen reports of nearby forest fires, or a yeti sighting, and had been calling incessantly to make sure neither had consumed me.
    But the second message was from Josh. “Bri.” His voice was shaky, oddly formal. “I need to talk to you. It’s about Sam Larsen. Please call as soon as you’re able.”
    I didn’t need to listen to the rest of the messages. I knew. And looking back, I think it was the way Josh said his full name. Sam Larsen.
    Josh and I both knew damn well that there was only one Sam. When we said Sam, we were talking cartoonishly big ears and the ever-present smile between them. Big, brown eyes, often brimming with tears from a spastic fit of laughter, a missed free throw in the final seconds of a conference game, a massive bong rip. We were talking about a lanky frame, all of it wrapped in sinewy muscle, that folded up awkwardly in busses and at desks but moved with astonishing, gazelle-like grace on the soccer field. A sensitive soul who, even as his friends goofed off in the basement, would spend hours in earnest conversation with my mom. A boy who actually enjoyed talking about his feelings, who made everyone feel he was their best friend.
    Sam was the eldest of our group. Me, Beau, Joe, Joey, Josh, and Sammy: The guys with whom I’d spent every minute in high school. The group I loved fiercely. The group that popped into my head when I thought of home. Together, we had launched ourselves into lakes from docks and rafts and cliffs and airborne tubes; had made a sport of fishtailing pickups and hatchbacks on wintertime ice and summertime sand; had gotten our first citations for underage drinking and speeding and vandalism; had stayed up until dawn having achingly sincere conversations about the conversations we didn’t know how to have with the girls we were sure we loved.
    We were a family. And with family, you only used full names when you were preparing to dole out punishment.
    I asked Vijay to pull over. There was a ditch just past the shoulder, and I slid down the slope, seeking some semblance of privacy. I dialed Josh, and there, amid the crushed beer cans and the empty bags of Doritos, the diesel fumes and the relentless whine of passing traffic, I heard Josh’s voice, three thousand miles away, telling me that Sam Larsen had been at Lake Superior, that Sam Larsen had been kayaking around the Bayfield sea caves with Lenny, his dad, that the weather had turned ugly, that Sam Larsen had been knocked from his boat, that the six-foot waves had kept Sam Larsen from getting back in his boat, that Sam Larsen’s lips had gone blue, that Lenny—“you know Lenny is such a strong swimmer”—had swum to shore