We grabbed our beers and sat down at an old table.

“Cheers,” Jared said and drank a good half of his glass. “That’s more like it!” he said and put his glass down.

I took a sip. The beer was good. Nothing pretentious, but a good old lager. I had some more and decided to let him talk.

“Listen Alex,” Jared said after wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, “I just wanted to have a chat with you away from the office. So, there’ll be no shop talk tonight.”

Great! I came here for nothing.

“We’ll do all that next week,” he continued.

Now, that sounds better. Let’s chat away.

“Let’s finish these and order another round, shall we?” he said and, without waiting for my approval, he gave a sign to the bartender for more beer. “Bottoms up?”

Now, that is the game I play well. We drained our glasses.

“I come here all the time. Hugh, the bartender, knows me well and doesn’t mind bringing drinks over when I ask him,” Jared said.

He definitely owns the place.

“Okay,” I said.

“They say it’s one of the best pubs in town,” Jared said, looking around.

“Never been here.”

“You’re probably wondering why we’re meeting here.”

“That crossed my mind. Yes.”

“Well, perhaps, you don’t know this, but I spent quite a bit of time overseas. Your family was good to my mom, and she was able to save some money so we could go to our relatives in the States.”

I didn’t remember any of that. Why would I? Jared was not in my circle of friends. He was not on the same level as me socially either. In fact, I didn’t think I had ever talked to him much when we were kids.

Hugh, a middle-aged man with tattooed hands and a goatee, brought our drinks and put them on the table. Jared just nodded to thank him.

“I didn’t really want to go across the pond because I enjoyed my time here. The little cottage behind the main house my mother and I shared and the time playing with the local boys and …”

“Charlie,” I ended the sentence for him.

“And Charlie. Right.” Jared smiled and lifted his second glass. “Here’s to your little brother.”

Jared took a hearty sip from his glass. I followed suit.

“There was just something about that boy,” Jared said. “He was so kind and …what’s the word I’m looking for here?”

“Gregarious.” I made my guess and meant it about my little brother.

“Right. Kind and gregarious.”

Jared emptied his glass. He was thirsty and I had no problems with that. I could be really thirsty if I wanted to. So I emptied mine as well.

“Now, could I ask you to tell me exactly what happened?” Jared said after a short pause. “I mean, I know the story, but I haven’t been to the house ever since I left when I was a kid. I heard it from my mother, and I read something in the papers, but it’d be great to hear it from you.”

Okay. So that’s what those two rounds were for – to soften me up and prepare for the sad story. It takes more than two beers to make me emotional. A delicious meal and a movie about little puppies in trouble might do a better job. Beer only makes me alert and curious. Well, up to three glasses that is. After that we either put the percentage of alcohol up a notch or we just keep at it until one of us cracks, goes to the bathroom, and breaks the seal.

Well, Jared was my potential investor, my only potential investor, and he wanted to hear the story. As reluctant as I was, I had to comply. But I needed to use the restroom to “powder my nose” before taking a walk down memory lane.

My brother was seven years younger than me. Despite the age difference, I remember us being good buddies. We had our brotherly disputes of course, and I used to be quite an ass to him, but Charlie liked everyone, and everyone liked Charlie. He was very inquisitive, sometimes to the extent of annoying the hell out of me and seemed to be interested in learning and collecting everything at once. From stones from our stream to postage stamps, from inspecting worms with his magnifying glass to learning star constellations – nothing escaped his awestruck attention. You could often hear him laughing victoriously somewhere in the house or outside when he made another discovery of the day. I aways wondered where that energy came from and why I didn’t have that element in my DNA. I did my best to keep him away from my so-called entrepreneurial attempts. He always wanted to be around me, but I didn’t always let him. There was nothing bad or negative about him. Despite all the nonsense that teenagers usually go through, I think I was proud of having such a brother even without realizing it at the time. When he disappeared, it felt like a black void appeared inside of me that had been slowly growing ever since.

I blamed my negligence for his disappearance. For years, I had the same nightmare where Charlie was calling my name, and I couldn’t find him. I would be running around our house looking for him. I could hear his voice, but I just couldn’t find him. I would wake up screaming and it would take a minute or two before I’d realize that it was a dream. The countless hours of therapy gradually changed the dream to the one where I’d just watch Charlie running through the park. Well, the therapy and the “exciting” combination of drugs, alcohol and quite a bit of casual sex. Theoretically, one could’ve called it a breakthrough, but I had tried to forget the day it’d happened and had been avoiding the topic with everyone, including my parents. Today, however, it seemed that there was no way around it. So, there it was.