J. Warren

REMAINS

For Nathan, Larry, Lee, Max, Billy, and Tony

The boys who taught me how to write

PART ONE

ONE

I want to tell you about Randy McPherson. I’m afraid, though—afraid that you won’t care. Afraid that I’ll get through this whole thing and you’ll let him disappear, anyway. I want to make sure he never dies.

The first thing you need to know is that, when he disappeared, he was just a boy. That’s all anyone would say after it happened. Everyone walked around for weeks with that look on their faces, the look you get when you put something on the counter, walk away, come back, and can’t find it.

I remember him, too. No matter what I do, he’s always right there, just behind my eyes. That was the problem. I couldn’t help but remember him. I’d taught him how to swim. I remember how light he was in my hands. I used to have to hold him up out of the water when he got scared, and I remember how light he was. I remember his tiny little shoulders. When they put the casket in the ground without him in it, I couldn’t help but think ‘it’s too wide’. And it was. It was too wide for how small his shoulders were. He was always tall, but not that wide. People would come in, look at the casket, then search the crowd for Mr. Barker’s face. I guess they wanted to ask him the same thing we were all thinking. We all knew that casket was empty when they put it in the ground.

There was only one casket place in town back then. Mr. Barker owned it. I guess most people liked him. He went to church every Sunday and most Wednesday nights. He lived alone, though, and didn’t date much. I guess after the thing happened with Randy, he got a little less religious, too. People started to talk about how he wasn’t in church anymore. Started wondering why a forty-eight year old man didn’t have a wife or a girlfriend. Every time a cat disappeared or someone lost a dog, all the adults would just sort of look toward that house. You know how people get talking. He moved, eventually. Placerville must not have been the right place for him.

I guess in some ways, someone must have thought it wasn’t the right place for Randy, either. I don’t know. I’m getting ahead of myself. See, that’s my problem. Mom always says I can’t focus in on what I’m supposed to be doing. I’m always off in the clouds somewhere. Most guys from Placerville, they go out for football and they get a girlfriend and get married, eventually. Then they either go off to work at the truck plant in Eukiah, dragging along the wife and her expanding belly, or they enlist in the Army. The recruiter here in town always gets his quota, every year. Either way, the girl packs up all their things and cries, trying not to watch the last stop sign on Hitt road as they drive past.

Until Randy disappeared, I swear I the universe ended at that stop sign. In kindergarten, they ask you to draw a map of the world. Most kids draw something like a circle and color it blue. That’s what they’ve seen on the television. I left mine blank, but even back then I knew it had something to do with that stop sign. I can remember sitting there and thinking about it. I did all kinds of wandering around what I thought of then as “in town,” but never beyond that stop sign.

I went out for football just like every other boy, but I couldn’t cut it. I mean, I just wasn’t interested. I think maybe there’s more to life than trying to knock some guy down just because he has a ball in his hands. I don’t tell people that, though. They’d call me a nancy. I tell them it’s an old knee injury from when I was in scouts. I tell them I was trying to climb Freeberg Hill by myself and I slipped on the bared rocks at the top. The girls always make that ‘oh’ sound and cock their heads to the side. I like that.

The day I got my degree, I kept thinking about how Randy would be just old enough to have started college that year. Sitting in my cap and gown, listening to some professor from State or someplace ramble on for an hour, all I could think about was how Randy should have started this year. I wondered if he’d have been going here. I wondered if he’d have remembered that I gave him swimming lessons.

He had been ten. I remembered that. I mean, things get blurry after a while, but him turning ten I can remember. His mom held his birthday party at the Y that summer because he spent so much time there. She asked me to be come, and he smiled at me when I showed up. I was the kind of teenager always trying to prove how tough I was, but him smiling at me made me feel good. I don’t tell anyone about stuff like that, but I think about it a lot.

It had been my sister Sarah who told me the awful news. I was out on the back porch, staring at the corn in the distance. We lived up on a hill, of sorts, and at about six o’clock or so, I loved to watch the corn sway. I was sitting out there thinking about how if someone were to write a symphony to time of swaying corn, it would be really good. I tried to hum something like that when Sarah came out with a puffy and red-eyed face.

“They took him,” she said between sobs, “they took him.”

“They took who?” I sat up. I thought about my father… to this day I don’t know why I did.

“Randy McPherson. He’s gone. No one can find him,” she said, and then fell into sobbing. I stood up and pulled her to me because that’s what you’re supposed to do, but I wanted to run somewhere. I wanted to know who’d taken him. I wanted to start looking for him.

The next day it was all anyone wanted to talk about. The main thing that kept going through my mind was small his shoulders were. How light his body was in the water. How he always looked muskratty with his hair all messed up, and his crooked smile. No one knew anything. No one had any information. He was supposed to have walked home from school that day and when he left Mrs. Latham’s class that afternoon at 2:34, no one ever saw him again.

Some folk from the news came to talk to Sheriff Aiken. They kept running clips of things he’d say. When I learned what the word soundbyte meant, that’s what I thought of; Sheriff Aiken on television. I remember I was scared of him. He always had a mean look on his face. Since then, I’ve seen a lot of men with that same look. My dad watched the news a lot, back then, but whenever Sheriff Aiken was on, he’d get up and leave the room. I never noticed until much later, going back over all of this in my head, knowing what I came to know. The sheriff had been in World War II, we’d learned when one of the deputies came for law enforcement month. I suppose the sheriff might have been the most respected man in Placerville.

Over and over again, the news would show the clip of the Sheriff saying he had every confidence in his search parties. He expected that the boy would be found any minute now, and brought home safe. I guess they teach a class at the police academy on saying things like that. I’ve seen it a lot. Most of the time, it isn’t true. Usually if a kid isn’t found that first day, they don’t get found. I mean, sure there are cases where some kid shows up at a police station seven years after they were taken and gets to go home, but it’s pretty rare, I think.

I just remember that whenever they showed the sheriff, I felt like walking away from the television.

There came the dreams, too. The big black car pulling up. I mean, none of us ever saw the car, but isn’t the car always black? I remember in one of my freshman lit classes, we read this poem by Emily Dickinson where she talked about death stopping for her. I always pictured death driving some big black car. I see it all the time when I can’t stop myself: that shiny black lumbering American-steel rectangle of a car pulling up next to Randy. Some violence, then his backpack flying into the McMillan’s yard.

Mr. McPherson had everyone he talked to call him Pete. He ran a hardware shop over on Kent. He’s the one who built that new swing set at the Center park. Every time I went there on weekends, he’d be there with Randy. He’d always ask me to push the boy on the swings when he saw me, then he’d wander over by his truck and smoke a Pal Mall. I don’t think Mrs. McPherson knew he smoked. I tried to smoke once, and I puked. To each his own, or something like that, I guess.

I was thirteen that year. I was doing okay in school. We were supposed to be reading The Lord of the Flies. A girl I knew—Jamie, I think her name was—read it and gave me copies of her notes. We made out sometimes. I read her notes just before the test. The book sounded pretty okay. I wished I’d read it. I used to think about that after.

Three years later, I decided to brave that stop sign on Hitt road. My dad had just bought me this huge old clunker from the junkyard up near Eukiah. It had spots of three different colors on it, but mostly it was primer gray. Dad and I worked on that car the entire year I was fifteen. When it was ready, I drove it for the first time. It was loud and ugly and way too big for me. I loved that car. The first night I had it, I cranked it and went out to that stop sign. I parked there, engine running, for a while. I thought about how maybe, if Randy and I had been friends, he’d be in the car. We’d maybe be listening to some music or something, and talking about Becky Morton.

After a bit, I put the car back in drive, and floored the pedal. I went flying past that stop sign with no idea where I was going. I don’t know why, but my head grew clearer the faster I went. I think I looked down after twenty minutes or so, and the needle shook near to eighty. I think I remember laughing out loud as the car slowed. I remember smiling.

After that I spent a lot of time out along the endless stretches of two a.m. highways. The faster I drove, the clearer my head got. I never took anyone with me, though. I liked being alone. People are always interrupting me when I’m sitting and thinking. I liked it out there because no one could catch up to me. I could think for an hour or so.

Sometimes time to think wasn’t a good thing, though. I got to wondering ‘what if’ a lot. Like what if Randy and I had been walking together that day? What if I’d have been a better friend to him and protected him. Growing up, my sisters and I lived in the flat fields surrounding our home. They were always pastel princesses, I was always their brave protector. It felt good to have that. It felt right to be that for them. Then Randy disappeared, and I wondered if I could protect anything.

There was a junkyard not far from my house. My sisters and I weren’t allowed to go to it, but the guy who owned it kept a small lot much closer. It was just across from the park. He had all sorts of junk there waiting to be sorted and brought to the real junkyard. I would go over there all the time with my friends from football, when I was still playing. We would crawl in and out of things all day. It was the best. We would pretend we were the survivors of a blown up world. My sisters were a lot different from me, though. They were smart and talked about things princesses should talk about; I found dirt clods and wondered how far I could throw them. They always tried to get me to join them in their debates about how to feed the peasants: I just wanted to take a sword and slay something.

I never told them, but I kept looking in the backseats of the abandoned cars, wondering if this was the one that had taken Randy. I kept looking for one of his shoes or the little metal necklace his mom had given him to wear. I don’t remember what it looked like, but I remember it was round and looked sort of like a dime. Some medal of saint something-or-other. Everyday on my way home, I’d search the inside of any new car that came in. At night, I’d sit by my window and look out toward where I knew the highway was. All my friends lived out that way. The whole world was that way.

After prom, we all chipped in together and rented this cabin near Lake Taboga. We all had sleeping bags and a fifth of something with River in the name. It seemed right. Jenny Marshall asked if I would take her and I wanted to but I also wanted to say no. Jenny was pretty, and I liked her and all, only she wanted something I can’t explain, but I knew when she asked that she wanted something.

I told her I wanted to see the lake, and she said she did, too. We went down to the rocks just before the sand and sat down. I spread out my jacket for her to sit on. While we were sitting there, I kept thinking about Randy. Wondering if he’d ever seen the lake. The whole time I noticed out of the corner of my eye her watching me. Then she touched my arm in a way no one had ever touched it. It made me tighten my hand into a fist, and flex my arm. It felt almost like she wanted to take my arm, to make it her own. I know that’s all crazy talk, but that’s how it felt.

She put my hand on her chest. My heart beat really fast and I couldn’t catch a descent breath. After a while, I moved my fingers some and she closed her eyes. She bit her bottom lip a little. To this day that’s the main thing I remember, the tiny indention on her bottom lip from her teeth, and how it slowly started to pop back up after she let go.

We did it right there on that rock. It was over really quick. She said that was alright, but I’m not stupid. I knew it wasn’t. I didn’t put my clothes on right away, though. That night was really cold, and parts of me were numb, but I didn’t get dressed. I stared at the moon reflecting off the lake and felt my bare legs touching the cold rock. I guess at some point she kissed my shoulder and went back. I stayed out there a while. I got to wondering if whoever took Randy had hurt him…or made him do things he didn’t want to do. I wondered if they’d ever find him, and if they did, would he get to do the thing Jenny and I had just done.

When I made it back to the cabin, the lights were off and everyone was asleep. I don’t know how long I’d been out there, but when I put my clothes back on, I was almost frozen. I stripped back off, and crawled into my sleeping bag. In the glow of the space heater, I saw Jenny’s face while she slept. I kept looking at her face, and then at the orange glow from the space heater for a long time before I fell asleep. What makes some men write symphonies, I wonder.

The reason I’m thinking about all of this is my father’s phone call, I guess.

TWO

My dad and I were close for a while. He used to ask me to go along and keep him company on long road trips. He had to make a lot of them all over the state, back then. He sold industrial vacuum cleaners to mechanics. To this day, the first whiff of the industrial strength floor cleaner in the morning reminds me of those times because the places always reeked of it. We would pile into his Cutlass Sierra, he in his best white shirt and slacks pressed to within an inch of their life and me in with a tucked-in short sleeve button down.

We used to sing to each other, too. He’d belt out the first line of a song right on time with the music. I remember when I was small, that was the funniest thing I had ever seen. I used to laugh a lot, and he used to like to make me laugh. That’s what I remember most. We’d sing along with the radio all day. If it was a duet, we’d trade off parts. I always had to take the girl’s part because dad’s voice was really low, but I didn’t mind. We liked corny old radio stations, and let each other cuss all we wanted..

After Randy disappeared, though, mom always wanted me with her. I didn’t get to go off with dad like I wanted to anymore. I used to mope around the house for days while he was gone. I withheld myself from her as much as I could as punishment. She would ask me questions and instead of answering them, I’d just grunt and nod. I did everything I could to let her know I wasn’t happy.

I never told her or anyone, though, how I’d feel sick to my stomach lying in bed at night after. I’d cry and feel bad and mean. I’d dream about going into her room, waking her up, and saying that I was sorry. I never did, though. I don’t know why, but I never did say I was sorry.

There was a time I can remember he used to want me to sit in his lap. I was little and I’d climb up onto him. We’d watch baseball and he’d rock me. I’d fall asleep with my head under his chin. I don’t think I’ve ever been that warm again. And he’d talk. See, that’s what I miss the most. He’d just talk to me. He’d explain what was going on in the game, or tell me about my mom when she was younger. It didn’t matter to me. He’d babble about how he was going to make sure I had the best pitching arm in the whole state. I didn’t even know what a pitching arm was, but I knew he wanted me to have it, and that made me want one.

Then something happened and he stopped asking me to sit with him. He’d still call me in to the living room and we’d watch the game, but it was never like before. I’d sit no the couch and we’d talk about the play at the plate, or how far outside the last ball had been. We never talked, though. That’s what I most remember about my dad. We never really talked about anything after that. I got taller and taller and my voice broke and all I ever wanted was to crawl back into his lap and have him talk to me again.

I took what I could get, though. When I lost interest in little league, I think he sort of lost interest in me. I think I may have even understood that in a very vague way at the time. I got older, went out for football, got a car and a girlfriend. He and I saw less and less of each other. We worked on that car every weekend for awhile, though. Mostly he’d point at something and grunt and I kind of knew what he wanted. It was strange that way.

Somewhere in all that, Randy was taken. I think for about a year after, my father and I were silent. I think I understand it now, in some vague way, but at the time, I didn’t know why he didn’t want to talk to me. That’s how it felt. It felt like he didn’t want me around. I didn’t know what I’d done to make him so unhappy. All I wanted was someone to put their arm around my shoulders and tell me it was going to be okay. Boys aren’t allowed to have that, though. We don’t get that once we’re older than five. We have to hide things inside. We’re supposed to, so I did. I didn’t tell anyone just how much time I spent watching all the other little kids and following them home, even though some lived way out of the way.

So, when I hear my dad’s voice on the other end of the telephone , I spend a few minutes trying to gather my thoughts. I had always been the one to make “my monthly call.” That’s how I referred to it to kindly Dr. Bledsoe, who would laugh and ask me what my father said. Our whole session after the phone call would be devoted to my father. Dr. Bledsoe might point out how nothing my dad said was offensive, but I’d feel like Dr. Bledsoe betrayed me then. I’d tell him that and he’d cock his head to the side and then we’d talk about how people don’t like me and I don’t understand why.

This time, though, my father said “hello” and I stumbled through a hello in return. I asked him how things were going. In the background, always mumbling or whispering, was my mother.

“Your mother wants you to come home for Thanksgiving,” he said. I froze. I tried to remember when the last time I’d been home was. It was two Christmases ago. I’d stayed a week.

“I’ll have to see, Dad. I don’t—I don’t know.”

There was quiet on the line for a while.

“Your mother would really like it. Things have gone to hell around here.”

“What’s happened?” I asked.

“Hank says they found some bones. Couldn’t be sure, he said, but he thinks it’s a little one. Said he didn’t know from Adam, but something about the hip bones makes him think it’s a little boy. Christ, it’s a mess. Your mother’s in quite a state,” he said.

“Where?”

“Up near Eukiah, along one of the ditches. Hank says there’s a shack out there where they found some pictures.”

I didn’t need to ask him to know what he meant. I had heard stories about things like that. In the dark of my room, I had been unable to keep away what those images might look like. No matter how hard I’d pressed on my eyes, the pictures had still come. I sat down because I felt dizzy. I didn’t tell her about the idea that had started to form in the back of my mind the past few months. Of what might have happened to Randy McPherson.

“Tell him he should come home for thanksgiving, Albert.” I could hear my mother in the background, behind dad’s steady breathing. And I knew I’d have to go home. They’re my folks. It’s not like I don’t love them, just that I feel they don’t understand me. I wonder if they ever did.

I think my mom did, once, but that stopped when I got in my first fistfight. It had been with Kevin O’Mally. He was taller than me, that I remember clearly. I was walking without looking. Truthfully, I don’t know how it is that I didn’t wind up tripping over more people. From there it was pretty much how it always goes: I tripped over his foot, my lunch tray went flying. He got covered in thin spaghetti sauce and milk. I tried to say I was sorry, but it was a little late, then.

Thing is, I saw the swing, when he hit me, but it didn’t hurt. It felt more like a pressure somewhere far off that blocked out all the sounds round me. I saw the swing plain as day and I could have ducked it. Not a day goes by I don’t see my own knuckles and think back to how O’Mally’s fist. First thing I said about those new television’s was that the picture was almost as clear as I remember things the moment O’Mally hit me. I could have counted the hairs on his fat knuckles if I’d wanted to, I guess. I didn’t get big until after sixth grade. I’d started working out, staring at the pictures in muscle magazines and stuff. I wanted to be huge. At that time, though, I was still skinny and lanky. My feet looked to large for my age. I slouched over at the stomach to try to hide just how tall I’d gotten.

I say it was a fistfight, but I guess it was more like a beating. I didn’t fight back. He punched me as I got up and I fell back down. Then he kicked me in the ribs. Coach Porter came over and made him stop, but that was it. He didn’t go to detention or anything. I never swung back.

Nobody was all that surprised, either, except my mom.

She went into a fit. She yelled at me, then yelled at my dad when he tried to explain how these things happen. She threatened to call the police. She threatened to sue the school. She just kept threatening and yelling all through dinner. I remember we had meatloaf and green peas that night with mashed potatoes. I kept hiding the peas in the mashed potatoes so I could eat faster and get away from the table. When I asked to be excused, my dad’s face fell some. I think he felt abandoned. I went up to my room and stretched across the bed.

The next day I think dad wanted to pull me aside, but never did. At the time I was pretty glad about that. The last thing I wanted to hear was about how he’d been pretty good at boxing back in the Army. He’d go on for hours about it whenever we were raking the leaves up or repainting the garage. Those times, though, I could nod and pretend that it all made perfect sense, the jabs and haymakers. I couldn’t do that after the fight, though. I got hit and didn’t even swing back.

I could see it in his face while he drove me to school he wanted to say something. He looked forward and never said anything, though, the whole time. We listened to the radio and didn’t sing. After that day, I don’t think we sang together again. That night, mom didn’t act any differently, but I could tell, things had changed. She fixed dinner and I set the table and we ate and then watched television, just like always. Only, no one really said anything.

It got better. I mean, we all started talking again and after a while it was almost like nothing had happened at home. I knew it was different, though. I knew mom and dad were aware I wasn’t perfect. I knew they felt like they’d gotten a dud.

School was tense after the fight, too. O’Mally was in the PE class just before mine, so we passed each other a lot. He’d sneer and sometimes flinch at me like he was about to swing. I ducked and walked quicker. I didn’t know what else to do. More fights happened that year at school with O’Mally and eventually he disappeared. Everyone kept saying he’d gotten sent to reform school. I didn’t care. He was gone and that’s all that mattered.

Mom in the background snaps me back to the moment, as Dad’s waiting to hear what I’m going to say. She just keeps repeating “Albert, make him come home” in a hurried whisper.

“Your mother would like to speak to you,” Dad said, and I hear his hand go over the phone. I can also hear her in the background telling him over and over again that she doesn’t like talking on the phone, and just to tell me to come home for Thanksgiving dinner.

I knew she wasn’t going to talk. She’s never liked the telephone. They make her nervous for some reason. My father and I used to laugh about it in that way two people make fun of someone they both love. There were times when the phone would ring and though she’d be sitting in the kitchen inches from that phone, I’d have to come down from upstairs to answer, to take a message. Then she’d tell dad what she wanted him to say for her when he called them back. .

In the background, I heard their tug of war. I could see them in my head: he with his hand over the phone, trying to hand it to her, her with a grimace of pain and disgust, backing away as if the phone was some monster. The whole time her mouthing the word no, and shaking her head.

I closed my eyes. “I’ll be home,” I heard myself say.

The night after the phone call, I dreamed of a casket coming up out of the ground. It slid up slowly, the soil moving away from it in long streams, as if someone was under it, pushing gently. When it came up to the surface, it slowly levered over and laid down. I moved closer without wanting to and inside I could hear a knocking. Someone wanted out. I will never know why, but I kept yelling through the closed lid “You can’t come out, You can’t come out.” I remember being terrified that whoever it was wouldn’t hear me and would come out anyway. What would happen to the world if they did? Just then I turned away and I could tell out of the corner of my eye that the casket flew open. Millions of Polaroids came flying out, swarming like bees. They swarmed all over me, and before they stung me to death, I could see a little boy in each one of them. I woke up that next morning in a cold sweat. It was still dark outside and I made coffee.

THREE

I didn’t tell anybody how I always checked every carton of milk for the ‘missing’ notices. I never saw Randy’s. I would look into each and every face, though. I would read the birth date and subtract the date they went missing, thinking about how old they were now, and how long it’d been since the date they’d gone missing. If I found one that had been born on the day I was looking, I’d sing happy birthday in my head for a little while.

That’s when I knew I needed to see a psychologist. I found Dr. Bledsoe in the phone book. He had the least colorful advertisement. I figured that’s what I wanted: just the nuts and bolts, no frills. I don’t want to be sitting across from some guy telling me that deep down I wanted to do…things…with my mother. I wager most people fear that that’s what a psychologist will tell them. And maybe most people do get told that, I wonder. I’ve been seeing Dr. Bledsoe for almost a year now. He says “we’re making progress.” I hope he’s right.

On our very first session I told him about Randy for about thirty minutes and then he started asking me questions. Had me flustered: this disappearance didn’t have anything to do with me; it had happened to Randy. Dr. Bledsoe was asking me about my mom and my dad, lots of strange questions, but when I told him that he said “Do you know how a computer works?” and I lied and he said, “There’s a processor, a hard drive with programs on it, and something that gives it power, makes it go. Can we agree on that basic idea?” and I nodded.

“Mike, do you think that you could be like that computer?” Dr. Bledsoe asked me.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“I think that maybe we all are, and I’ll tell you something else. I think that maybe your power supply is fine. It seems to me your processor is working right. What we have to do,” he said, “is get at some of that faulty programming on your hard drive.”

I felt stupid because I’d never thought of it that way. I kept going back every week after that. He says we’re making progress. The reason I’m thinking about this is, if I’m going home this week, I need to cancel my appointment, and he’s going to ask me why, and then I’m going to tell him. I’ll start talking and he’ll say, “Mike, why don’t you come in today?” and I will. I’ll feel better, but it’s sort of like surgery: you know you’ll feel better later, but the right now is pretty scary.

I suppose I should see him before I go, but I don’t want to. He’ll ask questions about my parents and why I don’t want to go to visit them and from there it only gets worse. “Why did you give up football?” or “Why do you think it is you can’t sleep at night unless there is a light on?” As if I have any idea why.

“What about your sisters?” he’d ask. I didn’t know what he meant. I didn’t think about them much. We didn’t speak much. They weren’t missing like Randy. They weren’t dead. “How do you get along with your sisters?”

“Everyone says that I was probably adopted or something. I don’t act like Sarah.”

“What about your other sister?” he asked that session. The heater in his office had broken down and I had to keep my coat on. I remember that was a cold day.

“I don’t know where she’s at. We haven’t heard from her in a long time.”

“Why not?” he asked. She’d run off was the answer, but still I didn’t know what to say. I thought it’d sound stupid if I said it; as if I’d lost my car keys and didn’t bother to look for them.

I’d have to call Sarah before I left. She would probably be packing at that moment, too. Often, when we were little, even though we didn’t act anything alike, we’d often do the same things at the same time. Somehow, in the back of my head, I knew she was packing right now.

Then I’d have to call Susan. She was hoping we could have Thanksgiving dinner together, and then make love. I wouldn’t have minded that, either. Making love to Susan is the only time I get to relax and not think. Sometimes I hate thinking. I had a friend once who was a student at the University, and all he did was think. I have no idea how he lived. Susan is that way, too.

When I first met her, Susan was still an undergraduate. The park has a small man-made lake at the center. Jogging trails follow the outskirts of it. I had been sitting on a bench near there when she came walking up and sat down. She pulled a book out of her purse and started reading. I was amazed. She was so comfortable with herself she could just sit there and read sitting next to a total stranger out in public. I tried not to let her see me staring sidelong. I was amazed.

After a time, she put her finger in as a place marker and said “You could just say ‘hi’ instead of staring, you know,” and I smiled. Susan was the picture of pretty. We talked all day about that book, or, I should say, she did. I listened. It was something by a Russian guy. I’ve never known anything about literature. She told me the story and how much she loved it. She re-read the book every year at the change from autumn to winter. She said it made her feel like she was home again. I thought that was a little weird, considering how the main character molests a young girl in it, but I didn’t ask. I just wanted her to keep talking.

When she got up to leave that day, she asked me if I’d be there the next day. I said I didn’t know and she said that, if I was, she’d bring cookies. I was stunned. I had a job changing oil and rotating tires at the time. It was pretty thick-knuckle work, and I didn’t want to tell her that I might not be able to come out that next day because I might have to work overtime to make rent. It was pretty hand to mouth back then. I was embarrassed and I didn’t know what she’d think. She was obviously a college girl.

It got close to time to meet her that next day, and there was still a Chevy waiting to be serviced. I faked sick all of a sudden. Because I almost never got ill, my boss let me go. “That Mike fella,” he said to someone else on the telephone one day the next week, “he’s one helluva horse. When he ain’t here, I don’t get nothin’ done.” It was true, too. That Chevy was still there the next morning when I came in.

When I left work that day, though, I rushed to my place. I got cleaned up as best I could. No matter what I did, there was some grease that would not come out from under my fingernails. I shaved, put on a clean shirt. I wanted to be nice for her, even though I didn’t know her name. The whole time, I still fully expected that she wouldn’t show.

I thought about that the whole drive down to the park. I thought about how she wouldn’t show. I thought about how she would show, but then it’d turn out to be some sort of recruitment scheme like “have you found Jesus as your personal savior?” Something was going to go wrong, I could just feel it. My Pontiac shuddered the whole way there, too. I knew it was going to fall apart. The woman I might marry someday was sitting in the park reading her college books and I was going to break down on the side of Market Street with no spare tire.

She was there, though. The ducks were all gliding smooth on the surface of the water. I shut the car off and prayed it wouldn’t diesel on me. It didn’t, and that I took as a good sign. Not a single duck took off.

I walked up and she was on a huge blue and white checkered blanket. She had a basket with her. As I got closer to her, I saw she had grapes and strawberries in small containers. There was also a bottle of wine. I walked up and stood for a moment while she finished reading the page she was on. She looked up and the sun caught in her hair and I felt like I was in a movie. She was perfect.

She sat up right then, and put her finger in as a place Marker. She set the book in her lap and extended the other hand out to me to shake. She said “I’m Susan.” I shook her hand softly and then she said, “I’m really sorry about the other day. I should have introduced myself. I’m usually not that rude.” I told her I didn’t think she was rude at all. “Your name is Mike,” she said and I froze. When I asked her how she knew, she said “You worked on my car a week back,” Her face didn’t look familiar to me. I was in panic: she knew, she knew. I didn’t know what to say. “Dark blue Chevy truck?” she asked and then I remembered. “Your CV boot went bad,” I said, and she smiled as if I’d just noticed how pretty she was. “Yep,” was all she said.

I sat down and she offered me fruit. Her and me together like that felt like freedom. I remember thinking that. Me and her on that blanket with no problems to solve, no outside things to take care of: just us, and this thing between us. It was huge but not scary. I kept thinking that I wanted to tell her about things in my life. Things from when I was little. Then I thought about Randy. I didn’t want to tell her about that.

“What was it like for you as a kid?” she asked me just then and my eyes got huge. It was like she was reading my mind.

“Ordinary, I guess.” I didn’t know what else to say.

“Did you play a sport in school?”

I nodded and told her about football, then soccer. I told her about all the guys I used to know and hang out with when we were kids.

“Why did you stop?” she asked.

“Just didn’t like it anymore.” I wasn’t lying. I didn’t want to lie to her. I just didn’t tell her all of it. I don’t think I could have at that point.

She nodded. “I bet you were really outgoing as a boy.” That struck me as odd. I don’t think someone looking at me now would think that.

“No,” she said, squinting a bit as if looking at something far away, “no, I take that back. I bet you were the quietest boy you knew, weren’t you?” I couldn’t look away from her eyes. You hear it all the time, someone talking about how it seems like someone else is reading their mind. It didn’t seem like that. It seemed like she was in my mind.

“I rode my bike a lot,” I said. It seemed to make perfect sense to say that to me. She nodded as if it did to her, too. Looking back on it, though, it seemed a pretty nonsense answer.

I used to ride my bike all over the town at night after I was supposed to be in bed. After Randy disappeared, though, I stopped. Before that, I hadn’t ever gone very far. I don’t know why, but one night I did go much further than I ever had. I went out past the stop sign on Whistler road. I had no idea what was out there and, at the time, that seemed like a good reason to go.

I found a field out there that belonged to a nursery in Eukiah. They grew their plants out in that field, and trucked them away every week. I spent a lot of time there, daydreaming at night. I came to think of it as a place that was mine. I thought of myself as one of the people who took care of the place. They probably never knew I was out there, though.

The first time I went there, it was September. It wasn’t cold yet, but the crisp in the air said soon. The light made the undersides of the plastic sheet domes look like candles or something. I wish I was a poet, then maybe I could find a better way to describe it. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, though. Acres of those domes, lit like Japanese lanterns. My feet seemed loud across the dirt.

When I got up close to the dome, I noticed the water beaded up on the surface. It was like a bottle of soda, slick with its own shed water. I put my finger on the plastic and traced a line. The tip of my finger came away wet. I put it to my tongue. The water tasted warm and fresh. The plastic was thick, though, and tough to see through. There were rows and rows of green inside.

That’s when I heard the music. It sounded warm. I looked back over my shoulder, and the road was deserted still. I crept around until I found an opening. The plastic was cut about six feet up from the ground. I pulled it back and found another flap of plastic underneath, with a similar cut, just further to the left. When I stepped inside, I figured out why: whoever built it was trying to keep the heat in as best they could.

Inside there were five rows of plants. They had barely shot above the ground, some still mostly just bulb-like sprouts. The smell was thick and sweet and good. I smiled and knelt down. and put my thumb and forefinger around the leaf of one. The dirt was dark brown with patches of lighter brown scattered throughout.

I noticed that there was a small transistor radio in the middle of the tiny field. I moved closer to it. It was playing classical music. I picked it up, and the reception went fuzzy. I set the radio back down. I noticed all the leaves that were sprouted already pointed toward the radio. They were growing toward it. The warmth felt nice on my skin, and the music was soft. I found a patch of ground near the plastic where nothing was growing and sat down. I daydreamed for a while about what it would be like to sprout, to grow out of the ground. I stretched my hands slowly out toward the radio.

I don’t know how long I was asleep, but I woke up and knew it was late. I didn’t want to leave that tiny greenhouse, but I had to. I carefully closed the flaps back to make sure the warmth stayed inside, saying “Goodbye,” out loud as I left. My bike was still where I’d left it, and I pedaled home, humming. I think it was Carmina Burana.

About halfway home, that night, I got the feeling I was being followed. I looked back to see if anyone was there, but the road was empty except for me. It was creepy, though, and it made me pedal faster. The whole time I kept repeating those first few minutes of Carmina, and it felt like something was chasing me. It was exciting, and I got goose bumps.

The next day, after school, I went to Thompson’s record shop. I asked him if he knew this song, and I hummed it for him. He smiled that sly smile adults do when they don’t want a kid to know that they’re being adorable. He said “That sounds like Carmina. I have a tape of that,” and took me to a place on the wall. He handed me the tape, and it had a picture on the front.

“Who is she?” I asked

“The goddess Fortune,” Mr. Thompson said. I didn’t want to let him know I didn’t know who that was, so I nodded. I paid for it with the last of my allowance, and pedaled home, humming.

I listened to that tape all the way through, and tried to think about the warmth of the night before on my skin. I tried to remember the smell of that soil. I wanted to feel growing. I fell asleep and dreamed of coming up through the soil. When I had grown in the dream, my dad came along with a hoe, and hacked me up. I woke up cold and my heart thudding like a hammer.

After dinner that night, I waited with the lights out. My parents went to bed, and I climbed down to the garage. I rode back to those fields. I was constantly afraid that my father was going to come along in the car and make me come home.

Every night I went to a different plastic dome. Each one had different plants in it. I’d sit with them and try to imagine being them and listen to the music. The next day at lunch, I’d go to the library and look that plant up. I learned a lot about plants that year. I also learned a lot about classical music. I’d listen to the announcer when he said the name of the piece they’d just played.

Sometimes they would come on and talk about more than just the music; about art and things. I would look up the paintings and things they would talk about. The librarian and I got to know each other. She called me her bookworm. I think it made her happy. I’d look up from reading to rest my eyes and she’d be reading, too. She had a blue coffee mug that she always drank tea from. I wondered what kind of tea she had. I didn’t ever ask her, though. I didn’t want her to think I was stupid.

One night, I was pedaling home and I got that feeling I was being followed, again. I tried to see how long I could keep myself from looking back. I only counted to five before I had to look. The road was empty. It became a part of the whole thing; every time I got that feeling pedaling home, I would count to see how long I could go without looking back. The farthest I ever got was twelve.

My favorite piece of music was this group of pieces this guy named Holst made. He wrote one for each one of the planets in the solar system. On my way out to the fields, I would hum the one for Neptune. I liked that one the best. The plants kept growing and growing, and always pointing toward the radio. Some days I’d come in, and the radio was moved to a different spot. The next day, the plants pointed in that direction.

And Randy disappeared.

I stopped going out to the fields. I didn’t forget them, though. I would still put on my tape and imagine myself growing up through the dirt. I would still think about what kinds of dirt I would like to grow up through. What I would like to hear if I was a plant. But then, in the middle of that, I’d remember how Randy used to laugh after he came up out of the water. I’d think about what his mom must be feeling right at that moment. Then I’d get up off the floor, and go to bed. The tape would play on and on until I shut it off the next morning.

If my parents ever got tired of hearing it, they never said. Mom only asked me one time what it was, and I said “Carmina Burana” and she asked me who it was by, and I said “A guy named Orff,” and she nodded. We had been folding towels that night, and every once in a while I’d hear her hum it to herself. That Christmas I was hoping for a lot of money to go buy some more tapes, but instead I got socks and a new sweater. My dad got me a new football. The old one dry-rotted, and had gone flat a long time back.

That second day, I had told Susan about all that without realizing what I’d done. I could see her listening to it and I could hear myself screaming at me to stop. I wanted to not tell that story, but it happened anyway. I couldn’t explain it, but I wanted to tell her things. And she listened the whole time, her body not moving.

“You probably think I’m crazy, now,” I said, expecting her to say yes.

She sat up on one elbow and looked at me again. I felt trapped. She said, “No, I don’t.” We ate and chatted about the weather and the lake. She said she didn’t know how to swim. I said I’d teach her if she wanted and she said “I’d really like that.” It got dark much too quickly.

She nodded when I told her that. “I want to see you again,” she said.

“Why?” I asked before I could stop myself.

“Do I have to have a reason?” She smiled. I shook my head no. We packed up the garbage and I walked her to her car. She moved up on her tip toes and kissed me. I knew I was blushing bad because all of a sudden I was too hot for the jacket I was wearing. She smiled, put her hand on my shoulder, then got in her car and left. I watched it leave all the way out of the parking lot, and down the street.

FOUR

Why is it that when you need go on a trip, you always have to call people before you leave? Why can’t you just pack and go? I needed to talk to Dr. Bledsoe before Susan. It’d be easier on me that way. Susan would make me feel better, maybe. I had already pulled out the suitcase but I couldn’t deal with that, just yet. I had walked to the phone and stood there with my hand on it, not picking it up, for about twenty minutes.

When I finally did pick up the phone, I wasn’t sure what to say. I set it back down. What was I going to tell him that would make him understand I had to go home for the holiday? I felt urgent about it, certain about it. I was also certain that if he knew that, he’d tell me not to go.

I picked up the phone again and dialed. I started to think, but the secretary came on and said “Dr. Bledsoe’s office, this is Mandy. Can I help you?” and I thought about maybe just telling her to give him a message. I thought maybe that’d be the way to do it. Just leave him a message and then go. By the time he read it, I’d already be gone. I thought for a second about what I’d do when I got back, though. “May I help you?” Mandy asked again and I started. I’d drifted into a kind world apart.

“Umm, yeah. I need to speak with him. Is he in?” I asked.

“He sure is. May I ask who’s calling?”

“Mike Kendall,” I said.

“One moment.” She put me on hold. Some slow piano thing, sounded sort of like Chopin, but not as good.

“Mr. Kendall?” Mandy came back on and asked. I said “mmmhm” and she said, “hold one moment while I transfer you.”

The phone line clicked and then he said, “Mike?” my name phrased as a question for some reason. He did that a lot, “How are you?”

“I’m fine.”

“What’s up?” The doctor always tried to be hip or cool with me. I guess it was okay, though, because it didn’t make me mad. I noticed it, but it didn’t make me mad.

“Nothing, really,” I said.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of your call today?”

“I guess—I guess I just needed to let you know that I’m going out of town for the holiday.”

“Really?” I could tell he wanted me to tell him more. After a minute or two when I didn’t say anything, he asked “What takes you out of town?”

“I guess I’ll book a plane, really. It’d be really far for a bus,” I said and on the other end he breathed out a few times quickly. I guess it was a laugh.

“Clever,” he said, and I didn’t know what he meant, “but what I was asking about, Mike, is what are you going out of town to do? Where are you going?”

“Umm—I guess I’m going out of town to visit my parents.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” I said, “Umm—my—my mom really wants me to come home for Thanksgiving.”

“Hmmm.”

I waited for him to say more, but he didn’t. “Yeah. So, umm—I guess I’m going to have to cancel our-our appointment for then,”

“I hate to hear that you won’t make it, but that’s fine. When can I reschedule you for?” I heard him rummaging around on his desk. I closed my eyes and thought about what that desk looked like. The books stacked on the corners at odd angles, sheets of paper hanging out of them with his chicken-scratch handwriting all over them. I saw his nameplate dirty and scratched and felt the urge to ask him to clean it. I thought about his old computer, and the strange ways the keys sounded.

“I—see, that’s the thing, I don’t really know,” I said.

“Really?” he asked.

“Yeah. Umm—I just—I don’t know when I’ll be back. It’s sort of—sort of sudden, really.”

“Mike, I’ll be honest,” he said, which almost always meant he was about to lecture me, “I’m not crazy about you leaving and not rescheduling. Do you understand that I might have some concerns about that?”

“Well, I guess-I guess yeah. I can see where you might not like that.”

“But if you legitimately don’t know when you’re coming back, then you don’t know. We just have to work with that. Do you have an idea of when you’re leaving?”

“I don’t know. Today, maybe. I think I need to leave today.”

“Okay,” he said, “could I maybe see you today before you leave?”

I knew he was going to do that. I heard him exhale on the other end of the line. “I need to try to leave within an hour or so.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment. I could hear him rummaging around on his desk again. “All right. Can I ask you how you feel about going on this trip?”

“I dunno, I just have to go.”

“Well,” he said, exhaling real deep into the receiver, “I hope you have a good trip, Mike. Try to give me a call when you get back in so that we can talk some.”

“Okay,” I said, and hung up. My hands were shaking. I felt hot and horrible to tell him that I didn’t want to see him today. I was letting him down. I wondered if he’d ever like me again. I couldn’t have told my mother that. I couldn’t ever tell my mother that.

The phone rang. It was my sister, Sarah. I knew it was before I even picked up the phone. When I did, I could tell she was smoking.

“Michael, why aren’t you coming home for Thanksgiving?”

“Hi, Sarah,” I said.

“Why aren’t you? You know it’ll kill mom if you’re away again. She wanted you there last year really bad, and—.”

“I didn’t mean to be gone, it just—.”

“Kinda happened, I know. Things always kinda happen with you and everyone else has to pick up the slack. It’d be nice if just once, just once you considered what I go through with them—.”

“I already told Dad that I can make it this year. I’m starting to pack—.”

“Good, because I won’t sit there and stare at them for twelve hours again. They hate me and they hate Diane worse. You know what dad thinks of her.”

I did. I don’t recall the words Dirty and Jew being put together that often before ever. My father had gone into a cursing fit the likes of which we’d only seen once before. To my father, the only thing worse than finding out his youngest daughter was a lesbian, was finding out that she had been involved with a Jewish girl for five years. I’d been there for that argument, and seen him do the math in his head.

What he was figuring out was that Diane and Sarah had met while Sarah was at college. To my father, that meant that they’d been living in what he would call sin while he was giving Sarah money for rent and groceries. To him, that meant Diane was taking advantage of him. I guess to someone raised with the idea that all Jewish people are money grubbing and doomed to hell, this was unfathomable: His money going to provide a love nest for two lesbians, one of which was his baby girl, the other, Jewish. He went out into the garage after speaking his peace and stayed out there until all of us had gone to bed that night. That had been the Thanksgiving four years previous.

He’d stayed in that garage until Sarah and I came in to say goodbye to him. He didn’t turn around, merely waved his hand with his back to us. She and I had looked at each other, and I don’t ever remember seeing her in so much pain.

“So, when will you be there?” Sarah asked.

“I guess today. I’m starting to pack, now. Is Diane coming?”

“Don’t be stupid, Michael.” She was the only person who ever called me Michael. Not even Diane did.

“When will you be in?”

“Tomorrow, early. You’d better be there.”

I promised her I would.

My nose started to bleed. In the bathroom I ran a cotton ball under some water in the sink, and jammed it in my nose. What had always amazed me is that the next year, she went back. Her devotion to mom and dad was so strong that even they openly disliked her being a lesbian, and hated Diane so much they never talked about her, Sarah went home every year for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

I asked her every year what things were like at the McPherson’s. She said that they were always nice, and that their lawn looked good. She said “immaculate” though. I guess that’s a college word. I turned around to go back to packing.

Instead of packing, though, I decided to call Susan, since I was already there near the phone. I just wanted to get it over with, really. I pulled the cotton ball out of my nose, looking at the dark red blood smeared on it. Something very far up in my nose felt hard and jagged. I threw the cotton ball into the toilet, and walked to the living room. I picked up the phone and dialed her number, but it was busy. I sat down on my couch and dialed again. It was still busy. I turned on the television and watched part of a game show, then I dialed again. It was still busy. I set the phone down next to me and began to wonder why she hated me all of a sudden.

Then the phone rang and I answered it. Susan asked, “Mike?”

I said, “Yeah.”

“Hi. Listen, I’m sorry I was on the other line. I see where you called a few times. How are you today?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” I said, wondering why she hated me.

“Okay. You don’t sound fine, though. You sound hurt.”

“No,” I say.

“Okay. I know you’re not telling me what’s going on right now, but I can’t make you, so I’ll just let it go until you want to talk. Did you take your medication today?” she asked, and I closed my eyes. I knew I had forgotten something.

“I can tell from you not saying anything that you didn’t. How about you go take that now?”

“It’ll screw up the schedule because it’s late,” I said.

“Mike, remember what Dr. Bledsoe said. Better it be late, and in you, then not in you at all.”

I stood up and walked to the cabinet. I took down the bottle of pills. In my head, for some reason, the third movement of Carmina kept playing. It felt like something important was about to happen, although I couldn’t tell you what. I still couldn’t, if you asked me to. I shook the bottle, listening to the warning rattle of the pills inside. I set the bottle down on the counter.

“I need to go visit my parents,” I said, then waited. I heard her exhale loudly. I could almost picture her resting her forehead in her palm, her eyes closed.

“What’s happened?” she asked.

“Nothing, really. I just—I just have to go see them.”

“Did your mother call?”

I felt like yelling ‘you never listen’ because if she had, she’d have known about my mom. About how she never calls anyone on the phone. I turned my back to the bottle of pills and crossed my arm over my chest.

“No. I just have to go see them.”

“But you promised me,” she said. I didn’t say anything in return. After a little while, I noticed that my heartbeat was very fast, my breathing very quiet. “When will you be back?” she asked.

“I guess—I guess maybe Sunday.”

“You guess?”

“I haven’t gotten the plane ticket yet.”

“Well, then how do you know that you can even go?” she asked, and I have to admit, in hindsight, that she was right.

“I dunno.”

I heard her exhale. I pictured her shaking her head side to side and then looking up at the ceiling.

“Have a nice flight, then, I guess,” she said.

I didn’t know what else to say, so I said, “Okay. Thank you.”

I heard her mutter something savage under her breath. I didn’t know what she wanted, though. Looking back, I guess what she most wanted was for me to acknowledge how upset she was at the sudden change in plans.

“Just—just call me when you get back,” she said. I’ve heard parents use the same tone of voice with their kids when they’re exhausted from correcting them all day. I wondered why she felt like that about me.

“Okay. I will,” I said, and she hung up. I knew she was mad, but I couldn’t figure out for the life of me why. I hung up my phone and turned around, seeing the bottle of pills on the counter. I felt confused. I wondered why I’d gotten them out. Did I remember to take one? I couldn’t think if I had or hadn’t. They’re down, though, aren’t they? That must mean you just took one, I thought. I nodded to myself and put the pills back in the cupboard. The next thing was to finish packing and get to the airport.

The entire time I kept thinking about bones: about how dry and brittle bones must feel, about how surprisingly heavy they must be.

Packing went exactly as slow as I figured it would. Even with the music playing in the background, it was still confusing and slow. Halfway through I couldn’t remember if I’d packed enough underwear. I sat down on the bed and cried. The whole time I told myself to stop being such a baby, to stop sniveling like a little girl. I screamed at myself inside to get up off the bed and figure out how many days I’d be there, then pack that many pairs of boxers. It seemed so simple, but I couldn’t do it. I ended up crying for ten minutes. When I was done, I stood up and walked to the kitchen. Dr. Bledsoe said that on days like this, it was maybe okay to take two pills. I took down the pills and shook one out into my hand. I almost threw it into my mouth, then cupped my hand under the faucet. I got some water, then gulped it down. I felt the pill the whole way, and almost immediately felt better.

I wrote down in the little book that I’d had to take two that day. He always wanted to know. It made me feel like a failure to have to write it. “I wish I could just be normal” I whispered to myself. The album was over, so the house was completely quiet, and I felt like the neighbors had heard. I felt like maybe they’d been waiting, ears pressed against the wall, for just such a proclamation. I felt like they all had just gotten huge smirking grins over their faces and, looking at each other with sly eyes, were nodding. They knew I was cracking up.

My head cooled down. I went back to packing. It took another hour or so, but eventually I felt confident enough that I could zip the suitcase closed. Then I looked back to the kitchen and snapped my fingers. It sounded like a gunshot in the silence. I’d forgotten to pack my medicine. I got it and put it in the suitcase

I picked up the phone again, and set it on top of the suitcase. Then I got the phone book and dialed the toll free number to one of the two companies that came into the local airport. The lady who answered was polite, but I felt like I was annoying her. I told her about how I needed to get home for Thanksgiving. She said that sounded nice. She said there was something leaving this afternoon that connected to another plane; I could be home by tonight. I asked her how much, inhaled through my teeth, did the math, then said “okay.” I gave her my credit card number and she asked me if I was excited about going home for the holiday. I said “I don’t know” and she gave me my confirmation number.

The ride to the airport was long. Sometimes I come out of the fog just long enough to really be able to judge distances and things. I never really noticed just how large this city really is. It sprawled all over the place like a kid stretched out in a chair before bed. My eyes kept changing focus from the bed to my face reflected in the window the entire ride.

Rain from earlier in the day was still puddle on the concrete in most places. I watched the buildings reflect like tiny porthole windows into other worlds. I used to think that a lot when I was a kid. I always wanted to know why when I stepped into the puddle, I didn’t fall into that other world I could see so clearly.

One time when I was watching Randy after a swimming lesson, I couldn’t tell you why, but I asked him if he ever thought that. He’d grinned his tiny lopsided grin and said he had. We’d taken off our shoes and walked into a larger puddle in the parking lot. We sunk into it to our ankles. We looked at ourselves in the reflection of the muddy water, our heads cocked to the side a bit.

Mrs. McPherson drove up and he waved to her. She saw us standing in the water and yelled out his name. She had stopped the car, and she got out, leaving it running. She came over to us and grabbed him by his wrist, yanking him along behind her. I remember her mumbling something angry about ringworm and broken glass. She snatched up his shoes and almost threw him in the car. She was still mumbling as the station wagon shot out of the parking lot. I waved after it and said goodbye out loud, the water slowly calming down under my feet. I watched myself a while in the water, then picked up my shoes and walked to the bench at the bus stop.

The interstate was full of cars as the cab merged from the off ramp. Like always, I made a game out of guessing the model year of each one. I’d gotten pretty good at this over the years. Not as good as Terry, one of the guys I worked with at the tire shop, though. A customer came in one time and parked the car. As the guy got out, Terry came up to me, throwing his cigarette down on the asphalt. He said to me “Eighty-nine Chevy pickup,” he said, “Dimes to doughnuts that man right there is about to ask for an alignment. When he does, he’s gonna’ tell Vargas that he’s heard a funny noise whenever he puts on brakes, too.” Sure enough, the work order came back for a rotate and alignment, and the ‘extra comments’ section said “check for odd noise in brakes.” Every car that came in, Terry knew the year and make, and was almost always right about what they’d ask for.

I always wanted to be that good. Not just at cars, but at anything. Cars, I guess, were just the first thing that I found I had any kind of talent at. Terry helped me get better. He was always pouring over manuals in the break room. I’d ask “Where’d you get that one?” every time a new owner’s manual would show up. He told me one time, without looking up, “My cousin out at Fairfield has a junk yard. Turns out most people don’t bother to take the owner’s manual out of the glove box when they throw away a car.” He’d tell me things he’d learned from his cousin about why most cars went bad. Brake lines couldn’t handle the amount of pressure for that year’s make and model, brake discs couldn’t hold up to the heat they said they did, etc. After working in a place with a guy like Terry, it makes you not want to buy a car ever again. This is why I don’t own one anymore.

From the sounds the taxi made, it had maybe a few hundred miles left on it before something major went wrong. I thought about maybe telling the guy, but decided not to. We exited the freeway and the airport stood out from everything else. The tower was the tallest building in town at that time. Since then, they moved in a bank from somewhere overseas, and the new building is bigger. Seven stories, that new bank building, all glass and shiny. The tower was rust colored, though, and mostly concrete. The blinking lights were the only remarkable feature besides its squat ugliness.

I always envisioned going to a bigger city, with a bigger airport. Pulling up in a cab and having the person ask “What terminal, fella?” There were only two here: one for people using the little puddle jumpers to get somewhere nearby, and those using the only-slightly-bigger puddle jumpers to get to a major city so they could take a real plane.

The cab pulled up to the curb and I paid him. He popped the trunk and I got my stuff out. He pulled away as soon as I closed the trunk. Inside, they took all the parts of my ticket that they needed and then handed it back to me. I never pay attention to stuff like that, really. I guess I should. The lady behind the counter was pretty at one time, but so many hours under fluorescent lights had left her faded out. She was talking to me and I was nodding and answering, but not really interested. I put my suitcase up on the conveyor belt and then walked to the gate to sit down. I watched a small plane come in from over the old wheat fields. The shimmer off the tarmac made it look like it was hovering before it touched down and began to roll forward. “That’s mine,” I said out loud for no reason.

FIVE

The first time Susan and I had sex, I felt like I was falling down. I felt it the whole time. There had been a few other girls after that first time, but never anything all that special. I saw a movie once where this crazy guy asked this FBI agent if she’d enjoyed the sticky fumblings in back seats and I thought, that’s exactly what it’s like. Up to that night with Susan, it had been for me.

It almost was with her, too, but she didn’t want it to be like that. I’d made plays for her, sure. What guy wouldn’t have? After a while, she hadn’t stopped calling, so I guessed she really did like me.

That night had been pretty special. Our fifth date, and we went to this place in Turmerville. We went to this little restaurant that serves all the food on metal plates and stuff. They make it like you’re at a mining camp, and all the waiters and waitresses dress like pioneers or something. The food was okay, but I always went because I liked to watch the people who went there. It was a place that everyone went to from our town. For some reason, no one ate at places back home. They all came here. The mayor, the town council, Ed who owned the supermarket and both gas stations. You could see anyone there.

Susan wasn’t all that impressed, I could tell. After a while I got to feeling pretty bad about it. “Stupid, stupid,” I kept saying to myself. I should have thought of some place nicer. Some place up in Eukiah, maybe. About halfway through the meal, I looked up at her, my heart thudding away in my chest, and said “I’m sorry this isn’t all that great.”

She looked at me and asked, “What do you mean?”

“We can leave, if you want to.”

“Mike, stop. This is an okay place.”

“You’re not having a good time.” I said.

“Really? And how exactly can you tell that?” she asked in return, setting her fork down on her plate.

“Your face,” I said.

“Oh.” She then went quiet. I didn’t say anything either. The next time the waiter came by, I asked for the check. She kept insisting that she wanted to pay, but I wouldn’t let her. My dad would have killed me if I did.

On the ride back in to town, she asked me to pull over near this cornfield. When I did she got out and I thought, This is it. She’s about to say that she can walk from here and I’ll never see her again. She walked around the car and I rolled down my window, bracing. She leaned in and said, “Turn the car off”. I almost started into the ‘It’s okay for you to not like me’ speech I’d been preparing since she and I met. Then I realized what she’d said and I turned off the lights, and shut the car down.

“Get out,” she said and stepped away from the door.

I rolled the window back up, and went to put the keys in my pocket. She grabbed my hand and took the keys, putting them in her own pocket. She giggled, took my hand again, and walked toward the corn.

“What are we doing?” I asked, and she shushed me. My mind raced and I felt that feeling begin. The one I described before, like falling down. It crept from under my ribcage and spread upward like a fire. My feet started to feel numb. The corn rustled and swayed in the wind: it sounded like some huge thing breathing in sleep.

We got to a place where most of the corn had been taken, already. She let go my hand and sat down, relaxing back on her elbows. I stood there staring at her until she patted the ground next to her. I sat down Indian style and she giggled.

“I scare you, don’t I?” she asked. I didn’t know what to say, but before I could, she said, “Do you want to have sex with me?” I couldn’t breathe. Parts of me jumped to life but other parts went numb, dead. I started to shake.

She reached up and took my hands, then put them on her body. I didn’t dare move them, though my mind was screaming for me to. She leaned back and I could see her close her eyes. I couldn’t tell you what broke the stalemate inside me, but I moved her shirt up and began to touch her stomach. She started to sort of wiggle and breathe ragged.

Thinking back, I guess it couldn’t have been that good for her, really. At the time, though, it was all I could do to think, let alone about making it any better for her. She undressed me, then told me to undress her. She had on the softest panties I’d ever felt. To this day, that’s what I remember the most; just how soft her panties were. It went on for what seemed like hours, but I somehow doubt it did.

I was on top of her and her legs were wrapped around my hips. I could feel her feet against the backs of my thighs. I could feel my heartbeat, taste the corn and dust on the air. I heard the long rows moving against each other like a huge chorus from one of the operas. I listened to her breathing and became lost in it. I heard her heart, and felt it against me.

I boarded. We taxied, accelerated and took off with no problems. The plane was so small the four other passengers and myself could all have conversed with the anyone in the cockpit without leaving our seats. It was an hour to Mount Pilot.

The whole way the plane bumped and slid, the wings creaked and groaned. They shook, too. “Wings are supposed to do that,” my father once told me on our first airplane flight. I’d been so nervous, and that’s when I think he first got the idea I wasn’t going to be the superman he wanted. Every time there was a sound, it seemed too loud or located too close. Every movement of the plane seemed like the pilot’s last desperate attempt to keep control before we went into a tailspin. I panicked and knew that I couldn’t show it, or else my father would be embarrassed. That somehow made it worse. I sat the whole time shaking, my eyes darting around, but didn’t say anything. No matter how I tried to hide it from him, though, he knew. My mother was oblivious, but my father knew.

After that plane ride, I started to sort of, I don’t know, crack up, I guess. Things seemed too intense all the time. Every time the car bumped or moved sideways an inch, I was convinced we were all going to die. I was about ten or so, and nervous. The doctor they took me to didn’t know much about kids, really. He told my dad to get me involved in boxing.

That’s how I wound up a swim instructor at the Y. My father signed me up for boxing. I went three times. Once to watch, with him. Once on my own. The third time I walked in, and there was Kevin O’Mally. He’d been out with the flu both the other times. When I walked in that third time, and he was standing in the ring, I froze. I don’t know if he saw me or not, or how long I was there, but he didn’t say anything. I walked out. On the way down the hall, I saw Mr. Douglas, the instructor coming toward class. I told him my mother had freaked out, that she didn’t want me doing anything as dangerous as boxing. I put extra emphasis on the word, so he’d think that it wasn’t my way of thinking. He put his hand on my shoulder, said he understood. I said that I liked it at the Y, though, and asked him if there was anything else that I could do. I didn’t realize it then, but Dr. Bledsoe told me that I was equivocating. He said that I was trying to make up for the lie by offering to do work as penance. It all happened pretty fast, really. I don’t know what I was thinking. I don’t know if he bought the lie, either, but he walked me over to the front counter and stood there with me until the lady came out of the office.

“Mornin’ Kate,” he said to the woman. I didn’t look up at her. I’d lied.

“Mornin’,” she said.

“Listen, Kate, do us a favor, eh? Mike here would like to find something useful to do around the place. We got anything like that?” he asked, putting his hand around my shoulders again. I counted the number of tiles that connected to the desk.

“Sure. We’re desperate for a sweeper. I think that Palter kid is gonna’ leave soon, too,” she said, and I felt her lean down toward me, “do you know how to swim, sweetheart?” she asked.

I nodded. I knew how to swim. My father had taught me when I was little by throwing me into the pool. The shallow end, of course. I’d felt pretty foolish after thrashing around and crying out when I was able to touch the bottom by tip toe. Since then I’d become pretty good.

“Good. When can you start, honey?” she said.

“You could start today, right champ?” he asked me.

I nodded. In a way, it felt like a beginning of something. I knew what my dad would say if he ever found out I quit boxing. Worse, though, would be what he wouldn’t say. He wouldn’t get mad or chastise me, but in his head, I just knew he’d think about what a dud he’d gotten for a son. Even that young, I knew that much.

Landing is always the best part of flying anywhere. It’s a relief to me. I feel like I can breathe again. The second the plane stops rolling, it’s like my heart goes back to beating at a steady rhythm, my eyes go back to normal size. The flight attendant talked to each person as they went by. All I wanted was off that plane. I tied not to think about how there was one more flight to get through, still. I tried to console myself with it being on a bigger plane. I tried to think about anything to keep myself from knowing that I still had another two hours of sheer panic to get through.

The airport smelled funny. New and old at the same time. I wondered if maybe all buildings had a smell. I imagined that they did, and wondered what my apartment smelled like. I walked to the lady at the counter and asked her if my connecting flight was on time and she said that it was. I don’t know why, but I also asked her what local weather was like back home. She clicked a few times on her computer screen and then said, “Rainy. Looks like it might be a little rough getting in.” I felt my stomach drop. I said, “That figures,” and she gave me a sympathetic smile. I walked to the gate and sat down, my jacket taking up the whole other seat.

Outside the windows, guys in blue jumpsuits were working on the plane. DC-10, I thought, more because it was one of the few names for a plane that I knew than anything else. The plane outside the window probably wasn’t a DC-10. I knew a few names, things my father had told me. He was a pilot back during the war. I had a sense that maybe he meant Korea or Vietnam, but I never asked. He had all sorts of funny names for planes. He was the one I got the term puddle jumper from. That’s what he’d done in the war: he and another man had flown soldiers back and forth to different islands in Hawaii. They had a puddle jumper they’d nicknamed Helga. He told me that the tattoo on his upper arm was the same picture they’d had put on the nose of the plane. When I asked him why Helga, he said that he’d tell me when I got older. He never did.

A woman with two little boys sat down on the same bank of chairs I was on. The boys were twins. It wasn’t readily apparent, though. Sometimes brothers, even twins, don’t resemble each other all that closely. I thought about Sarah. The woman doted on one, who seemed to want to stay near her, while the other went flying around the place. I tried not to let them see that I was watching, but the mother was beautiful. If you asked me why I felt she was, I couldn’t have told you. She wasn’t a cover model, that’s for sure. Still, something about her drew my eyes. Something about the way those boys were her entire world, the way she let them hold her entranced. Though the one that was running around would have annoyed most parents, she seemed to be completely taken with him. As the more mobile one would hang himself upside down across a bank of chairs, the mother would put her hand on the back of the more sedate one to say “look at your brother,” and they’d both laugh. I envied them that; a mother who wanted them, maybe even enjoyed being with them.

I wondered where their father was. At first, the slightly balding man who came over toward them seemed to be the father. Then he sat on a different row of chairs and pulled magazine from his bag. He seemed brutal, a tough. His knuckles were huge. The magazine was something with a man in boxing gear on the front.

A bit longer and a lady came over and started to unlock the doors leading down the ramp to the plane.

About fifteen minutes later, she called for us all to begin boarding. She said the flight was only half full, so there would be plenty of room if we wanted to use extra chairs for carry on items. Walking down the ramp, listening to the hollow thump of each footstep was hard to get through. ‘Just one more, just one more,’ I kept thinking. The plane smelled like a bus. I found my row and seat with dread. As I’d feared, I was just behind the wing. “Most stable seat in the house,” my father had once told me. I’d always found it the worst. Since it was the one place where motion came from, I felt it all; every turn, every change in speed. I don’t do so well with sudden changes like that.

One of the twins came by and sat on the opposite side of the isle from me. The mother followed. Before she was even in her seat, the twin already in his was chattering at her. He seemed fascinated. Just behind the mother came the other twin. He looked almost embarrassed. The mother whispered something to the boisterous one and he stood up immediately. She whispered something to the other one, and he stood up. They changed chairs. The quieter boy fell to examining the wings out the window, while the other twin got up and ran back to the restrooms, his feet thumping loudly all the way. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her smile and slightly shake her head. I leaned back into my seat.

All around me, the millions of tiny conversations of people who know they have to spend a few hours together without really knowing each other. The attendant walked back and forth, getting people stowed away neatly. “Squared away,” my father usually said.

After a while, the attendant closed the door and pressure in my ears made everything sound fuzzy. I kept stealing glances at the mother, who still had no idea anything was occurring outside the realm of her boys. Even as the attendant went through her speech, the plane backing out and then rolling onto the runway, the three of them were engaged in conversation. I wondered what they were talking about, and wished she was talking to me. I thought, they must’ve been on a lot of flights to not be scared. I wondered what it might feel like to be that cherished.

My headphones were playing pretty loud. I’d switched discs a few times, trying not to look out the window. Takeoff had been smooth and there had been no major bumps so far. My father always called the bumps ‘chop’. For some reason, the word made me think of thick soup.

One of the twins was asleep, and the mother was playing cards with the other. Out the window, clouds were passing by underneath us. The hum of the engines, the thrum pulse of them through the walls added extra notes to the music. It seemed to all fit, and I remembered all the car trips I’d ever been on with my family.

The main one that I think about was just after Randy disappeared. My father saw my mother moping around and decided what we needed to do was get away for a little while. He picked a couple of places and had all the brochures mailed to him. I was barely coming out of my room at that point, but he made us all come down for dinner every night. It was the one time we all got to be a family, he said. I think he thought a lot more about that than we did. It made mom happy, though, and that kept her quiet for the most part. Sarah and I never gave him too much trouble about it.

That night, when we came down, it was Sarah’s turn to set the table. I sat down and watched her put the forks on the wrong side of the plate. Mom always taught us to do things like set the table and brush our teeth out of this old book she had about manners and things. “You put the forks on the wrong side,” I said to Sarah, waiting for her to be completely done first. She looked at me, then at the table and rolled her eyes. I heard her whisper “god dammit.” I giggled, and then thought about Randy, so I stopped giggling.

My father came in right at that moment and said “Sarah, the silverware is all on the wrong sides,” without stopping. He walked over to the counter, and slapped down a large manila envelope. Sarah clanked the forks and knives around, practically slinging them. My father’s head came up and he gave her “the look.” She whispered “sorry.” Mom came from near the stove with the huge pot of mashed potatoes. She set them on the little plastic mat in the center of the table.

“Mike, will you get the corn, please?” she asked.

I was happy for the chance to do something rather than just sit there and wait. The corn was hot, and my fingers warmed quickly. I hadn’t realized they’d gotten cold. The smell was buttery and golden. I inhaled as I walked and almost tripped over my father’s foot. Sarah finished the settings just as I put the pot down on the table, and Mom took her apron off. We all sat down almost at the same time. My father was last.

“What’s in the envelope?” I asked

My mother made a swatting motion in the air near me. I looked over. “Grace,” she said.

I bowed my head, barely catching my sister’s already bowed head and clasped hands. “Father, we thank you for blessing us with what we are about to receive. Please watch over our children, and my husband, and all children everywhere, amen,” my mother said. My father mouthed ‘amen’. I wondered if someone had prayed like that about Randy. I wondered why no one had watched out for him. I felt a pressure in my chest, and my eyes stung.

“What’s in the envelope?” my father asked me, “Nothing much, really. Just our vacation, is all,” he said, his face pulling back into a sly grin. I smiled a bit, too. Sometimes the clouds parted and my real father came out. Those times were like finally being able to breathe after a long time underwater.

“Where to?” I asked.

“Where, papa?” Sarah asked.

“Oh, dear, Albert. Can we afford it?” my mother asked.

“Now, calm down, all of you. Calm down,” he said, raising his hand above the table, “I’ve decided that it’s high time the kids see a beach.”

I was ecstatic. My sister’s eyes got huge. My mother fell into a pit of worry silently. “I’ve decided that we’re going to take a drive down to see the Gulf of Mexico,” my father said. It sounded so exotic. “We’re going to drive down and stay in a town called Mobile in Alabama,” he said. Suddenly, it didn’t sound so exotic. I had though of Florida, that delicate crescent on the map in every textbook I’d ever read. I’d never looked more than once at Alabama in my life.

The next week, we were on the road. It was awful. Sarah was continuously over on my side of the backseat. She smacked when she ate. She smacked when she chewed gum. The seat made sick noises whenever she moved her leg because it was stuck to her. She whined to mom about how long it was taking. In the hotel rooms, she and I had to sleep in the same bed.

Worse, though, were my parents. They fought the entire time. She would “Albert, don’t you think it’s too hot for the children” and “Albert, do you think we could stop soon, my legs are tired” and then he would “Will you stop folding the map the wrong way” and “Can’t you please control them? They’re making it hard to think”. They bickered and my sister’s lips smacked the entire way to Alabama. When we got Mobile, it smelled like someone had passed gas the entire time we were there. “Paper mill,” my father had said when my sister pointed this out.

Mr. Rickels, a man he used to work with lived down there. He promised to take us all to some place called ‘Gulf Shores’. He had a daughter, Ainsley, who was fourteen. She was beautiful, and every time I tried to talk to her, I felt stupid and ugly. She and my sister became very close friends.

I guess that was the first time I got a hint of what was going to happen with Sarah, though. Sarah stayed in Ainsley’s room that night. When I got up from the couch to go to the restroom, I heard them whispering to each other as I walked past the doorway. Then I heard the distinct sound of a kiss, and the kind of moan that happens when someone’s mouth is closed. I’ve since talked to Dr. Bledsoe about what happened to me at that moment, and he said “You were thirteen and obviously hearing your first example of sexual excitement. I don’t think it matters that it was your sister.” I don’t know that I believe him.

I guess most people sort of freak out the first time they see the ocean. I got out of the car that day and there were these huge sand dunes. I could hear the ocean, but far away and faded. I thought it’d be just like on television. I’d seen beaches on television, but they never looked more than just interesting. When we got to the top of the dune, though, my legs were throbbing from the effort of climbing up the sand. My mind was very far away from them, though; the beach was almost too much to handle. I’d seen pictures of one, of course, but being on a real beach is something altogether different. The water wasn’t just a river, it was the ocean. I just kept hearing those two words in my head over and over; the ocean, the ocean. Every time the waves rolled in, that’s what they said. The girls went in the water and had a lot of fun. I sat at the tide line and just stared at the horizon.

“Having a good time, sport?” Mr. Rickels asked me. He’d come up behind me and kneeled down. He was fat, and his flowery bathing suit looked silly with all the hair on his body.

“Yeah,” I said, not trying to be rude, but wanting to go back to just staring.

“Ainsley and your sister have gotten to be buddies pretty quick, huh?” he said, smiling. I didn’t know what I was supposed to say, so I nodded. He stared out at them for a moment, then back at me. He smiled, then stood up, grunting. “You be sure and get in some swim time, champ. The water is great,” he said, then walked away. He kept looking back at the girls and I felt uncomfortable. I got up and walked down the beach.

On the beach, my father and mother were at it again. The sun and the heat made them half crazy, continuously bickering back and forth about who got the longer towel, who should go get the drinks from the little soda stand, etc. I had to get away. The beach was huge and the sand felt so warm shifting under my feet, and it helped to hear the hum of other people’s conversations as I’d walk by. It calmed me to see other families and how they were around each other. Every time a saw a little boy, he looked like Randy, though, so I tried not to focus on people. They became indistinct blurs as I walked. The sound remained, though. The millions of things that people talk about when they don’t think you’re listening.

I came back to the plane and noticed just how similar the background hum of people was to the way it sounded that day. The only thing missing was the soft but high pitched squeal of children hitting the cold water. Across from me, both boys were asleep, and the mother was reading a book. She looked whole.

Through the window I could see we were slowly descending. Every few minutes, a cloud that seemed miles below was closer. I felt the slight forward pitch of the cabin in my stomach and toes. ‘Not long now,’ I kept thinking. The music had long ago started to repeat and was halfway done once more. I wondered what my mom would look like. I wondered if my father would be happy. I wondered if Sarah would make it home.

That night, all those years ago, after we got back to Mr. Rickels house, I was exhausted. I’d run and swam miles that day. My skin was hot and my head miles thick. I lay down on the couch and was asleep almost immediately. I remember that the dream had something to do with being pulled gently to the bottom of the ocean. Something had long, silky tentacles wrapped around my legs. They were soft, caressing and stroking my legs but at the same time, definitely pulling me down to the inky-black bottom.

I woke, hearing someone else breathing near me. I held still and started to shake a bit. Someone had their hand down my pajama bottoms, cupping parts of me no one else had ever touched. I felt very thick headed suddenly, and my legs were numb. I couldn’t breathe and my heart pounded in my chest. Some small part of my mind was amazed, though, at the adeptness of the fingers. That section of my brain marveled that without me even being present, that part of me could grow, jump and react on its own.

The button on the front of my pj’s was undone, and I slipped out. The hand pulled out as well, but wrapped around me again outside of my clothes. With each slight movement of the fingers, my legs twitched. Something dark and heavy was growing just behind my hips.

Then a door opened down the hall. The hand disappeared instantly, and I felt a breeze as whoever it was rushed from where they had been kneeling. I heard first one door creak closed, then another, shutting less quietly or slowly. Then I heard the sound of water running, and a toilet flushed. That same creaking and shuffling steps back down the hall. The first door opened, and closed once more. I waited for a while, wondering what I would do if the hand came back. I watched the hands on the wall clock move for two hours before I fell asleep again. The hand never returned.

The next day, Mr. Rickels and my dad barbecued. Ainsley and my sister played off in the woods. When I said I didn’t want to go, my sister whispered something to Ainsley, and I knew what it was. She was telling her that everyone thought I was adopted because I didn’t act like any of my family. I was different. They left giggling, and I stayed. My mom kept asking me to help her with things. She seemed really happy I didn’t go, so I stayed next to her. She and my father barely spoke. Mrs. Rickels said she had to take care of something over at the church and didn’t return until well after nightfall. Mr. Rickels kept calling me sport, and touching my shoulder. When it was time to eat, Ainsley sat near me, and my sister sat across from her. Mr. Rickels sat next to my sister. The only reason I remember that so clearly is that all through eating, someone kept rubbing their foot against my ankle. I couldn’t concentrate, and it made me so nervous I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t look, either, to see who it was. I could hardly breathe, worrying someone would see somehow and get mad at me. My father kept asking me why I was so quiet. I just shrugged every time.

That night, I lay awake for hours, again, nervous and waiting. The hand didn’t return. I couldn’t resist, though, and touched myself in a similar way. When my whole body burned and my legs seized, my mind exploded outward, then plummeted back to me. I thought I’d hurt myself, broken something inside me. I was afraid, though relaxed. I crept down the hall and cleaned myself up. Dr. Bledsoe told me that imitation is a quite normal way to begin touching yourself. He asked me who I thought it was who had fondled me that night. To this day, I don’t know. Every night, though, until the day I met Susan, that hand beckoned and I welcomed the touch to my skin. Every night, I was thirteen, again, asleep on a couch in Mobile, Alabama, stirring awake to someone else’s fingertips.

“Attention, ladies and gentlemen,” the flight attendant’s droning brought me back from that other place I had been in. I was hot, confused, and my head felt full of cotton balls. She continued by telling us that we were in approach, what local time was, what the local weather was like, and asking us to return out seats to the proper positions. I did as I was told, and reset my watch. She said that we’d lose an hour, but somehow, I felt like I’d lost much more.

SIX

Airports are awful. The landing was bad, too. At one point, I swear we were only on one wheel. Even the flight attendant looked nervous. I just knew we were going to go over, but we didn’t. I felt like disaster was just barely averted. Getting off the plane, my legs were rubber. The mother with the twin boys was just behind me, and trying to hide the jitter in her voice, too, I could tell.

I managed to find my luggage. It didn’t really hit me that I was home until I walked out of the doors into the cold air. Home always smells like home, no matter how long you’ve been away, I guess. Outside I hailed a cab. He tried to hide his smile when I told him how far. Even at a fifteen percent tip, he’d have a good day. I got my stuff into the trunk, then settled into the corner of the back seat and slept a bit. I felt exhausted, so it wasn’t any trouble to drift off. I wondered if Olympic athletes felt like this after their event was over.

I dreamed of an empty bicycle rolling down the sidewalk. It was my old neighborhood, and I followed the bike for hours, it seemed. The dream made distance confusing, but it was very far. The bike never wobbled or even swerved; it was like someone was on it, and I just couldn’t see them. The bike went past Kevin O’Mally as he’d been in the sixth grade; bull necked and with a barely enough fuzz on his head to qualify as having any. I remember running faster to avoid any trouble he might give me.

The bike eventually slowed down and then came to a stop in front of Mr. McPherson’s house. I put my hand on the seat, and the bike slumped against me. Mr. McPherson was out on the lawn. I moved closer to him and the bike disappeared. He was trimming weeds away from the bushes in front of the big bay window they had. I said hello and he looked up, smiling.

He said, “Randy?” to me and I woke up. The taxi rattled around me. Cold air seeped in from where the window wasn’t snug with the frame. In the driver’s seat, the driver was humming something. His ID badge swung from his rearview. His name was ‘Ed’.

“How much farther?” I asked him.

“You been asleep about two hours. We’ll be at city limits in maybe another twenty minutes,” Ed said, “You are paying cash, right?”

I nodded and then remembered he couldn’t see me nod. “Yes,” I said and put my head back against the door. I tried to cram myself back into the corner. I looked over my clothes. My mother would have a fit that I went on an airplane in jeans and with no sport coat. She was that kind of person.

“Rough flight?” Ed asked.

“Yeah, I hate flying.”

“Just between me you and the wall? I do, too. Butcha can’t get anywhere anymore by car. Everything’s so spread out.”

“Yeah,” I said, to be friendly.

“You from out this way, or on business?”

“My parents live here,” I said.

“Oh,” he said, paused, then asked, “You hear about that set of bones they found out here?”

“No,” I lied.

“Yesterday’s paper says they think they might belong to a little boy, maybe. Found ’em over near Eukiah. Was in all the papers.” I closed my eyes and felt like someone had hit me in the stomach. After a while, when I didn’t say anything, Ed said, “They don’t know for sure, though.” He went back to driving. I dozed some more.

I thought about the first day I’d worked at the Y. They had me sweeping the halls. I didn’t mind, but my arm got really tired. I switched off. Working back and forth like that, I made my way down the hall and then to the smaller offshoots leading to the locker room and pool. I went back to the main room they’d shown me so I could put the broom away and that was when I met Mr. Roger.

I opened the door and he was sitting at the round table in the middle of the room. He was watching something on the television. I couldn’t see what it was, but it was in black and white. As I opened the door, he looked over from the screen almost lazily. He was smoking. The patch on the left of his dull gray jacket said ‘Roger’. I’m not sure, but I think that Mr. Roger was the first adult I’d ever seen smoke. That’s the kind of town we lived in.

“Shut the door,” was all he said, then looked back at the television screen. I stepped in and then shut the door behind me. I didn’t move any further into the room. I stared at him. He turned from the screen after a moment, when the commercial came on. He inhaled from the cigarette, then exhaled, his eyes squinty. “You got a name?”

“Mike,” I answered before I could think.

“Mike, huh?” he said. I knew it was one of those times when something sounded like a question but wasn’t, so I didn’t answer. “You the new kid they told me about, Mike?” I nodded. He barked a short laugh, then stubbed out his cigarette. “Well, come here, boy. I’m not going to bite you.”

I stepped closer to him. He was wearing the grey overalls that I would come to think of as his skin. I never saw him without them on. I walked to the edge of the table. His eyes never left mine. I felt like I was supposed to say something, but I didn’t know what. “Step around here,” he said and I inched around until he and I were face to face. He smelled like soap, and I felt sad. I wanted to look away from his eyes, but something told me I shouldn’t.

“I’ve seen you here. In the boxing class, weren’t you?”

He had me dead to rights. “Yes, sir.”

He nodded to himself as if I’d just answered a bigger question. “Let me see your hands,” he said, gesturing toward them with his own. I didn’t think I wanted him to touch me, so I didn’t move. He reached forward and grabbed them, holding my wrists. He inspected each set of knuckles, then turned them over and looked again. Then he stretched my arms out to full length. “Not a bad reach. Good knuckles; square. Why aren’t you in boxing anymore?” I shrugged. He let my hands drop.

“I don’t mind the help, boy, but you should be in boxing.” He paused as if he was waiting for me to say something, but I didn’t know what, so I didn’t. “Your father okay with you not being in the boxing class? He know you’re working with me?” He was like some sort of superhero. He knew all my secrets. I looked away.

“I see.” He reached into the pocket just over his heart and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He tapped them against his palm, then pulled one out. He set it between his lips, then put the pack away. He reached into the other pocket and pulled out a lighter, the whole time the cigarette dangled from his mouth. I felt like it was going to fall at any minute. He cupped one hand forward, the lighter just behind, and with a click, the cigarette lit. It was like magic. I couldn’t look away. His eyes were on the end of the cigarette the whole time. He clicked the lighter closed, put it down on the desk with a ‘thunk’. The metal was dull and heavy. He puffed twice, the smoke coming out the sides of his mouth, before he reached for the cigarette, taking it away from his lips. He held it with all five fingertips.

“Well, look here,” he said, pointing at me with his index finger, the cigarette pointed at the floor. “I won’t lie to your father. I don’t lie to anyone, not for anyone, do you hear me?”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

He nodded again. “If your father comes up here, I’m going to tell him that his boy dropped out of boxing class to push a broom around. I don’t know why you did it, and it ain’t none of my business, understand?” he said. I let out a small breath of relief. I thought he’d figured that part out, too.

He put the cigarette back, puffed twice more out the sides of his mouth, then pulled it out again. “Get a piece of paper and a ruler from the front desk,” he said and I almost ran to do it. I didn’t realize until that moment I wanted him to like me. I wanted him to be proud of me. I wanted to show him that I was a good worker.

I came back, setting the ruler and the paper in front of him like an offering. He immediately took out a small pencil, like the kind I’d seen at bowling alleys. He drew seven perfectly straight lines from one edge to the other. He looked up at the ceiling for a moment, then drew five straight down. On the far edge he wrote the days of the week. His handwriting was precise, tiny. It almost looked like he’d typed the words. In the top boxes of the five columns, he wrote ‘sweep halls’, ‘vacuum front carpet’ and a few other odds and ends type jobs.

“Every day you come here, you come to this room first. You get this list out. You do the things in this order, understand?” he asked. I nodded. “After each job is done, you’ll put an ‘x’ next to it, in the box. At the end of the day, you and me will go around and I’ll check. I’ll initial behind you. Got it?” I nodded. “Now, go take this list to the girl at the desk and ask her to make twenty copies for you, and ask her nicely if you can have a folder.”

I’d never had an adult talk to me like that. I did exactly what he asked me to do because he wasn’t using a pet name for me. In a limited way, he wasn’t talking down to me. He was treating me like I’d seen adults treat each other. I was his worker.

He never treated me as a kid, either. He just knew how to talk to me, I guess. Dr. Bledsoe says I transplanted him for my own dad in some ways. I felt bad when he said it, but he said it was normal and necessary. Mr. Roger became my hero, and I idolized him in ways I could never idolize my father, he said. Mr. Roger went along behind me every day, like he said he would, and checked each thing in order. When he found it done, he grunted and made a small checkmark beside my ‘x’. If it wasn’t done quite as he wanted it to be, he just motioned and then spoke one or two quick sentences. There was no yelling. Somehow, he knew exactly what I’d done and how to make it more like what he wanted. He’d gesture that the way I was holding the brush for the hallway bricks wasn’t right, or he’d make a motion of how to get the mop into the corners further. At the end of the list, he initialed it, handed it to me, and then went back to his own work. There were no words or pats on the back, yet I preferred this. Somehow, I knew that his silence meant more than a thousand ‘good jobs’ from anyone else. I worked hard to make sure everything was done exactly right. I even started to go behind myself and double check things before getting him to check my work. I wanted to be someone he thought of as good.

Even though he came into my life abruptly, and left it so suddenly, he seemed to have always been there. I still think of him whenever I’m thinking of how to behave in a situation. How he was the one who taught me to tie a tie, how he was the one who noticed the bad rash after the first time I tried to shave. He took over where my father disappeared. It was Mr. Roger

“Coming up on your street,” the cabbie said, and I sat up. We turned onto my road, and up ahead I could see my father’s truck in the driveway. The light was on in the front room. I looked at my watch. Just after eight o’clock.

I looked at the meter and took out cash. When the car pulled to a stop, I handed it through the small window. “Keep it,” I said and he said ‘thanks’. I stepped out and heard the trunk click. I pulled out my suitcase and re-shouldered my backpack. As I closed the trunk, I saw the front room curtains swish. The door would open in a moment, and it would start. I breathed in, then breathed out. The taxi made a turn in the driveway that used to be Mrs. Garraty’s, and then drove away. I stepped forward just as I heard the first deadbolt on the front door turn.

SEVEN

Of course, my mother was the one who opened the front door. I had figured as much. I knew he wouldn’t get up from the television. I had wondered if it would be my mother or father that came out first. I wondered if it was him, would he hug me or not. I suspected not. When I was little, he hugged me a lot, but that stopped a long time ago.

My father was not a gentle man. Some people believe that a boy needs that, I guess. He was never loud or hard with my sisters, but with me it was different. Dr. Bledsoe tells me that my father was abusive with me. I don’t know that that’s true. He wasn’t always. We used to sing to each other on car rides. Something did change, though. He became cruel, mean.

The moment I most remember that change was when he beat the dog. We had a dog that year. My sister Katy had whined all year about getting a dog, and finally my father had given in. She hadn’t wanted a puppy, though. She wanted a dog from the pound. She’d recently gotten to be close with a girl whose parents were members of a few of what my father came to call ‘terrorist organizations’. Mary Thomas was the little girl’s name, and Katy was like her shadow for months; one could not be someplace without the other immediately behind. I think they met at the school’s attempt to have a chess team. When it crumbled, Mary Thomas and Katy stayed friends.

My sister soon after began to beg to stay the night with Mary Thomas’ family. My dad didn’t mind, but my mother was very unsure of it. Katy was still young to her, whereas I saw her as three years older than me, and a virtual adult for all the freedom she had. Eventually, my mother consented, after a well placed phone call from Mary Thomas’ mother. Of course, my father had to take the call and then act as mouthpiece for my mother. He said that she was repotting an Easter Lilly, and her hands were too dirty to hold the phone. Undoubtedly, Mary Thomas’ mother was an avid green thumb, and she invited my mother over to see her Petunias. My mother never went, but Katy was able to go and stay with them overnight. Overnight turned into all weekend. In the space of six months or so, she was hardly returning.

When she would return, though, she and my father would have yelling matches. Sarah and I would were always sensitive to when Katy might return. The minute we saw her walking back toward our house, or heard the winding down of Mary Thomas’ mom’s ancient Toyota, we scrambled. Most of the time, we went for the back yard, but sometimes the attic. The goal was to get as far away as we could as fast as possible.

The screaming was because Katy would come home filled with her new view of the world. Later, I found out that Mary Thomas’ parents were avid members of Greenpeace and a few other similar organizations. Katy was continuously accusing my father either directly, or indirectly, as a part of ‘his generation’, of destroying the world. We didn’t know it at the time, but Katy and Mary Thomas were lovers, as well. This all came out much later.

My father, in an attempt to placate Katy, did get the dog. It was a mutt, and my father would always proclaim what he figured was the dog’s kind, saying things like “That dog is huge. I bet there’s bull Mastiff in there” or “That dog has no fear of water at all; his daddy must have been a Golden Retriever”. My father named the dog “Brutus” and was quite proud of the name. My sister named him “Wolf”. My mother simply called him ‘the dog’. For a time, we all enjoyed the dog, even my mother, though you’d have had to pay close attention to see it.

Katy, though, would only come home long enough to feed it each day, and perhaps (if she was waiting to be picked up by Mary Thomas) to play a few half-hearted games of fetch with it. For Sarah and I, though, the dog was a constant companion on our treks through the fields. Sarah and I brushed him, bathed him. It was Sarah with her kind hand that taught him to sit, to stay, to roll over. None of the rest of us could get him to do these things. His love for Sarah was like most people’s: singular and non-transferable.

None of us, to this day, really understand what happened to dad that summer, though. This was just before the Randy’s disappearance. Mom had taken to sleeping a lot and dad spent quite a bit of time out of the house. He would come home smelling funny and slurring his words. He started to yell at me for things he said I didn’t remember to do around the house. I once asked Sarah after one bout of yelling if she’d heard him tell me to take the garbage to the street and she said “No, it’s Tuesday. Garbage doesn’t come ‘till Thursday.” I still felt bad, though, for letting him down. Dr. Bledsoe said “You internalized your father’s own feelings of inadequacy.” I didn’t know what that meant, but I nodded as though I did.

If he was home when Katy came home, the fights were bad. The screaming seemed to follow me, no matter how far away I got. Brutus got very upset, too. He would scratch at the back door to get in. He did that whenever dad was yelling at me, too, but for some reason I always thought it was worse when he did it while dad was yelling at Katy. I tried to stop him, which only sent him further into fits. He scratched up my arms a lot. Later, after the yelling had died down, and I was waiting on the back porch for dad to go up to bed, Brutus would lick my arms where he’d cut them up. I’d let him, saying “I’m sorry, too.”

On that day, though, I couldn’t hold him back. The door was somehow not completely closed. Katy had come home and my father asked her where she’d been. I heard his slurry voice through the back door and I knew what was coming. I started walking away, thinking Brutus would follow me. After a time, I noticed he hadn’t, and when my father started to yell at Katy, and she started to yell back, I turned just in time to see the dog hit the door with his front paws. It was almost like he knew it would give. He ran in and before I could get there, had gotten between my father and my sister. I skidded to a stop just as Brutus lunged at my dad, teeth gleaming. To be honest, I don’t think he actually meant to bite my father. It didn’t seem like he had leapt far enough for that. I think it was just one of those things dogs do to show they mean business. In my dreams, sometimes, I see that moment in slow motion.

My father, in reflex, dropped the glass he’d been holding. He flinched. My eyes got as big as saucers at seeing my father flinch back in fear from anything. The shattering of the glass seemed like a gunshot going off. Katy hunched her shoulders and put her hand up over her face. Of us, only Brutus remained unfazed, his teeth bared.

The next few moments seemed like molasses. My father coming back to his senses from the fear place he’d gone to, my sister coming unfrozen, me struggling to figure out what had just happened. My father, with what seemed like lightning speed, reached out and grabbed the dog’s collar. The angle he had his arm at, Brutus couldn’t get his head around to bite, so my father dragged the snarling dog out of the room. His eyes locked on mine as he passed me by. My sister stood there, motionless, staring. The back door slammed, then the yelping started.

To be honest, I don’t know why I didn’t stop it. I stood there, listening to what he was doing to the dog, but didn’t move. It seemed to go on forever. “Rape victims often experience that same time dilation,” Dr. Beldsoe told me. The dull thud-thud of his fist, and the snarling that became yelping, that eventually turned into nothing were my entire world at that point. My sister turned for the door and left. One of the other images I see often in my dreams is that leaving; so calm, so ordered. She simply turned and walked out the front door. Sarah came to the top of the stairs and whispered “What’s going on?” but I couldn’t respond. I stood there and shook. Eventually the back door slammed and my father came back in.

“Why didn’t you get a broom and sweep up the god damn mess, son?” he asked, sweeping past me. He smelled of sweat and that other smell, the strong one of whatever it was he was drinking at the time. I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t even move. I just shook and stared. He shook his head and walked out the door to the garage. I went to the back door and looked out the window. Brutus was laying on the concrete, and I thought he was sleeping. I didn’t check.

Brutus never woke up, though.

Katy didn’t come back, and, in my eyes, neither did my father.

I don’t talk about this stuff much with Dr. Bledsoe, though. Little boys aren’t supposed to whine. Men aren’t either, but they have the added responsibility of making sure nobody else does, too. That’s what I learned from my dad. Dr. Bledsoe says I’m still angry with him for changing who he was; that I needed him to be stable and he wouldn’t be. He says that I wanted my father to be my hero and when he failed, I internalized. I wonder what he’d say if he knew all of what happened.

I could say that my mom shut off after Katy left, but that’d be untrue. She’d shut off long before. Like a lot of things, looking back on that made it pretty clear. I’d asked Sarah about it, once, four years ago. She’d said only “Yeah, I noticed, too. I never asked her what had happened.” Neither of us had. All we knew was that one day, dad was okay and mom, though strange, was mom. The next, my mother was almost never awake, and my father turned into the sort of man who’d beat a dog to death.

My mother stood in the door, the yellow light of the utility room behind her, using her hands to hold her robe closed. I wanted to pause, to stop walking and just look. It seemed like some image from a movie. I wanted it to go on forever. As soon as my foot landed on the car port cement, she started moving toward me. She was immaculate, even in her bathrobe. The light caught the gray in her hair perfectly. She seemed like some movie starlet from the black and white films; glamorous and regal. She stepped closer and I was reaching out to put my arms around her. Sometimes, no matter how old a person gets, all they want is for their mom to hold them, I guess.

Her face changed, though. She looked back over my shoulder and when I turned my head, I saw headlights coming up the road. I waited a moment, my arms falling a bit. My mother adjusted her bathrobe again. The car was big and yellow. As soon as it pulled into our driveway, I could tell it was a taxi. I thought it was the one I’d taken; maybe I’d forgotten something. Then the door opened, and Sarah got out. My mother immediately moved to greet her. The trunk swung slowly open. My sister was already mumbling and cursing at the driver. I stood there, staring as my mother tried to say hello to my sister, while she was only interested in getting her suitcase out of the trunk, and cursing.

Sarah had gotten dad’s gift for stringing obscene words together. I was never any good at it. I wanted to be, though. I always wanted to be. When we were little, and Katy was still around, we’d have contests to see who could string together the longest sentence entirely made up of curse words. The rules were that you could repeat something you’d said earlier, but there had to be five new words in between each repetition. I’d always get confused before I could even start to repeat what I’d already said. Not Sarah, though. Even Katy would lay there in awe of my sister’s power for cursing.

Tonight was no exception. My mom got close, and raised her arms up, trying to put them around Sarah. Once she heard the river of harsh language coming from my sister’s mouth, though, she backed up a step, and adjusted her robe once more.

Then my father came out. All I heard was “Who in the Sam hell left this god damned door open? Jesus Christ, what am I doing, warming up the—,” he paused, then changed into an entirely different human being, “My god, is that Sarah? Shit and shinola, that’s my baby girl. Come here to me, you,” he said and rushed to her. She closed the taxi’s trunk and rushed to my father’s open arms.

I was stunned. Something had happened in the last four years that I wasn’t a part of. My sister and my father were embraced and rocking side to side. My mother stood next to them, her hand on my sister’s shoulder. None of them were looking at me. I picked up my bag, and walked to the door.

My father caught my eye as I walked past, and he said “Well, Mike. I see you made it,” and his eyes closed. His arms squeezed around Sarah just a bit tighter. I stepped in through the door. My father went to the counter, picked up his wallet, and walked out the door.

The first thing that happened once I was inside was my body relaxed some. It was the smell. Someone told me once that every house has its particular smell. I relaxed the minute I smelled the stale pie crust and old mashed-potato smell of my parent’s house. I walked in to the kitchen and set my stuff down near the dinner table. Centered on that table were the ceramic salt and pepper shakers. I’d gotten them for my mom my first Christmas at school. They’d taken us to a small shop and given us thirty minutes to spend our money to buy gifts for our teachers or friends. I saw them immediately; a salt and pepper shaker set that looked like mushrooms. For some reason, I knew at once that mom would love them. She did, too. She said they were the best gift ever, and put them in the center of the table. They’d never been moved, or even used, that I know of.

I felt a small wave of tension in my stomach, and something flowing from my nose. I could hear them coming in. I went for the downstairs bathroom, my head tilted back at a crazy angle.

“Mike?” my mom called out.

I flipped on the light and rummaged in the medicine cabinet, looking at an odd angle down the length of my face, which was tilted toward the ceiling. I found a cotton ball, wet it, and was jamming it into my nose as my mother came around the corner.

“What is it, dear?”

“Dosebleeb,” I managed. In the mirror, I saw her shudder.

“Still get them quite a bit?”

“Nod neely az obten az hued dink,” I said.

My sister, drawn to whatever was happening in the house came to the door. She looked past mom’s shoulder and, seeing two spots of blood on my shirt, said “Gross.”

PART TWO

EIGHT

I set my things on the bed in my room. The springs still grunted like pigs. My mother had long ago taken out the racecar comforter-and-pillowcase set she’d insisted I have from the age of five on. She’d replaced it with a green blanket, covered by a darker green blanket with fringe. The green of the pillowcases was almost black. The curtains were a lighter shade, but overall, the room seemed like a deep forest. I thought back to Susan, and how she’d become a Buddhist for a week, stumbling from that into the yoga classes she’d been in ever since. Everything with her was ‘get an indigo car; it’ll be very good to stimulate your third eye, and keep you out of accidents’, or ‘get a green shirt; that will stimulate your Heart Chakra’. I still couldn’t tell the difference between indigo and blue. She would love this room.

“Mike, dear,” my mother said, standing at the door, “could you run to the store for me? I didn’t get anything for breakfast.” I nodded and pushed on the wad of tissue stuck up my nose. She handed me the keys to her car as I walked into the hallway, then turned to go help Sarah settle in. I stood there for a moment, listening to them.

“Sarah, dear, you look so thin. Is that girl—what is her name, dear?”

“Diane, mother,” Sarah said.

“Diane—is she not feeding you at all?” my mother asked, and I heard Sarah snort. I turned, and walked downstairs. In the living room, my father was parked in front of the television. He’d found highlights of the weekends football games on some news program. He was grinning to himself and squinting.

“I’m going out to the store,” I said into the darkness of the room.

He waved a hand at me, saying “That’s fine. Check with your mother and see if she needs something.” I started to reply, but decided against it.

My mother’s car was a fourteen-year-old Dodge. The light blue interior had long since gone gray, and the imitation-metal plastic of the knobs had long since worn from silver to white. The car smelled like the back end of a flower shop, near the dumpster; a graveyard for air fresheners in clever packaging. I had to roll down a window.

Street connected to street and I started to remember. Everything seemed to be the same for a second, then completely unrecognizable the next. The butcher’s was now a video rental store, but they never got all of the old paint out of the window, so a phantom ‘$ 0.55/lb’ hung in space next to a picture of Sylvester Stallone in full war gear. Seeing it made something in my chest grow hard, sharp. “The world is always moving on,” Dr. Bledsoe was constantly telling me.

Nothing had changed about the town. It seemed like any minute, I’d see myself as a kid go pedaling by. It was creepy but comfortable.

The grocery store was still in the same place, though. Delbert’s market had never moved. I walked in, feeling more than seeing the florescent lights flicker. The smell instantly brought me back; cabbage mixed with cardboard. I tried to tell Susan about it once, in another market, but couldn’t make her understand. This market had always felt like confusion and comfort at the same time, to me. As I walked in, I saw an old woman working behind the seafood counter. Without realizing it, I’d kept walking, though not watching where I was going. I felt my shoulder hit someone, and heard a basket clatter to the ground.

My eyes came up, and locked with Alvin Densmore’s. He was chubbier than I remember, and his eyes were dull. He had a huge blood-red apron on, and a name tag that said he was “Al” in fat marker strokes. His eyebrows creased together and he squared his shoulders.

“Why don’t you watch where you’re—,” he’d started, then seeing who it was, grinned, “Holy shit. Holy shit. Mike? Mike Kendall?” he stepped back as if unsure of his eyes. He stopped, though, and I could actually see the memory come back to him.

I nodded. “Yeah,” I said, and touched his badge. “Al?”

He smiled and looked at the floor; “yeah, well; too many chipmunk references, y’know?”

I laughed. He looked up at the sound, checking my face for something. I wondered what it was until it hit me; he wanted to know if I was making fun of him. I smiled back at him, and I saw his face relax.

“Here,” he said, bending down. He started putting my things back in the small basket I’d picked up. I bent to help him. “You back in town?” he asked.

“Just for the holiday,” I said.

“Oh,” he said, “you’re dad’s in here all the time.”

“Oh?” I asked, putting the bread back in the basket. We stood up at the same time.

“Yeah; I mean, I see him. He doesn’t know me or anything,” he said, shrugging. We walked to the small register behind the little counter. There was no computer screen or keypad; it was the same register that had been here my whole life. I laughed a bit, and gestured toward it. He shrugged and smiled at me, but before I could smile back, I saw his face fall.

“Pack of Slims,” a voice behind me said, and I froze. I don’t know how, after all this time, I knew instantly who that was, but I did.

I turned around to find Sheriff Aiken. I remember one time touching a car’s bumper in the school parking lot one December morning. That crisp, clean, icy feeling is the way I’d describe the Sheriff’s eyes in my own head. To anyone else, I’d say they were blue, but I’d know what I meant.

“Absolutely, Sheriff,” Alvin said, standing and moving off toward the wall where the cigarettes were. I watched him go.

“You Susannah Kendall’s boy?” the Sheriff asked. I nodded. The edge of his lips quivered upward, “Hell. Ain’t seen you in a coon’s age. How’s your mama?”

“Fine, sir,” I said. Alvin was rushing back.

“Where’d you disappear to, son?” the Sheriff asked.

“Got a job up north,” I said.

Alvin was nearly to us, when the Sheriff turned slightly, as if knowing exactly where Alvin had been, put his hand out, all without taking his eyes of me. Alvin put the pack in his upturned palm.

“Three fifteen, Sheriff,” Alvin said as if he didn’t want to.

“Hell. What sorta establishment you runnin’ here, boy? Highway robbery,” the Sheriff said, reaching into his breast pocket. He handed across four ones.

“Sorry, Sheriff,” Alvin said, opening the drawer and pulling out some coins. The Sheriff took them and put them back in the same pocket without taking his eyes of me.

“Awww, hell. Nasty habit, anyway. I gotta quit,” he said, “Ol’ Susannah Kendall. Now there was a looker, boy; I mean,” the Sheriff said, opening the pack and shaking one out. He put it between his lips. Alvin looked like he was about to say something. “You tell ol’ Susannah that I said hello,” he said and smiled. I tried not to think about a wolf. He walked past me, and out the door. I leaned in close to Alvin, who was trying not to look nervous.

“You tell ol’ Susannah I smoke five packs a day, boy,” Alvin said, doing a fairly good imitation of the Sheriff. We both laughed, looking at the door as if he would burst back through it and catch us. I got the oddest feeling that he was watching, even without being there. I shivered.

“Jesus, that guy,” Alvin said, still grinning.

“Yeah,” I said, “I thought he’d be dead by now.”

“No such luck. Believe it or not, I bet he’s not fifty-five yet,” Alvin said. I didn’t say anything, just looked over my shoulder back out the door. “He’s been damn near impossible to find last two days is what I hear,” he continued.

“Why’s that?” I asked.

“This whole thing with that set of bones they found. Newspapers start poking around here, looking for some answers. He knows he doesn’t have ’em.”

“What do you mean?”

“No idea who the bones are, is what I mean. I heard it slip around that they’re a little boy’s,” he said, and I froze. I must’ve not looked so good.

“You okay?” Alvin asked.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. I gotta’ get some stuff for ma and get back. She’ll worry,” I said, and walked away from the counter. Alvin followed behind me.

“How is your mom?” he asked, “I haven’t seen her in here in a little while.”

“She’s okay. She doesn’t like to go out of the house, though, you know that.”

“Yeah.”

I pulled out the crumpled list from my pocket and tried to remember where things were. After a few moments, I turned to Alvin. He must’ve seen something on my face, because he took the list.

“Come on,” he said, and I followed. “Yeah, he comes in just about every day. Picks up a pack or two of cancer sticks, some ground beef and a six pack of beers. That is, on the normal days,” he said, picking up a gallon of milk and putting it in the basket.

“Normal days?” I asked.

“Yeah. See, sometimes he walks through the doors in a bear of a mood. Usually because of his headaches.”

“Headaches?”

Alvin paused, and put a package of bacon into the basket, “Duh. How long did you live here for? You didn’t know about Ol’ Head’s Aiken? You never heard anyone call him that?” I shook my head no. Alvin grinned again, and grunted a laugh. “Huh. Yeah, he’s always had ’em. Bad, too. His nose even starts to bleeding.” Alvin handed me the basket, now full of things. He handed back the crumpled list, as well. Without moving he said, “That’ll be $34.26.”

I handed him two twenties. I remembered Alvin from the Y. On the ride back to my mom’s house, I thought about how he’d been the best boxer in that class I dropped out of. He beat Kevin O’Mally in the final tournament. I heard about it the next day as I was sweeping up the hallway.

Two boys came by in their Karate clothes, and one said to the other “You hear about that boy, Alvin Tuner?” and the other shook his head. The first one made the snorting sound that meant he was sucking snot down his throat, and continued “Knocked the crap outta O’Mally.” The second boy said “No way,” and the first said, “Sure did. One-two’d him right in the gut, then came up under his chin,” the first boy said, demonstrating with his own crooked jabs. “Fin Baker says it was—,” the first boy kept on, and the conversation undoubtedly continued, but the boys passed around a corner.

I stopped sweeping at that point. Alvin Turner had always been a quiet kid. Every time I see one of those movies about a quiet kid who goes on to be a champion, I think about how I saw Alvin Turner when he was a kid. Quiet, handsome, smart; everyone liked him. His dad was the town mechanic; he and Alvin got along really well. They went fishing every weekend. Hearing how he’d beat up Kevin O’Mally made me smile. I felt for a moment, that day that I should have stayed in the boxing class. I should have been the one to punch O’Mally’s lights out. I wished that I’d have been there to see it.

Alvin handed me back my change. “You hear much about that case?”

“Case?” I asked, coming out of my memories.

“The bones ‘n all.” He closed the till slow. I shook my head. “Rumor has it that they’re some kid’s, like I said. Perfectly preserved is what they’re saying, like someone buried them already picked clean.”

“Anyone seen them?”

“Nobody ‘cept Aiken and Clarke.”

“Jim Clarke?” He’d been our high school basketball coach and one of the science teachers for years. We’d always known he worked for the police, but I never imagined that he was a coroner. It was starting to feel like much longer than a few years since I’d been back. The last few times, though, I guess I hadn’t been very social.

He nodded. “The same.”

“I thought he’d have retired a long time ago.” I said, putting my arm around the paper bag, hugging it close.

“People say the same thing about ol’ Headache, too. There was talk about nigh on a year ago that someone was gonna run against him for Sheriff. Never happened, though,” Alvin said. I nodded. “Who all knows your back? I should see if maybe I can find Darlene Parker and—”

“Nobody,” I said.

He stopped, and his grin faded some. “Suit yourself. Maybe just you and me, then. We’ll go down to the Stop and have a few.” The Last Stop was the bar out by the interstate. When they’d come along and expanded the town from four intersections to eight, the owner had saved the stop sign that used to be the last one before leaving town. The place was famous for collecting bits of the town’s history on the walls. Nothing took pride of place like that stop sign, though; it hung dead center, over the bar, like some sort of religious symbol.

“Sure,” I said, smiling with everything but my eyes. I picked up the groceries and walked for the door.

Alvin waved. “I’ll call you up at your mom’s place.”

I could see him in the glass on the door as I walked out.

Pulling up in the driveway, I thought about how much Alvin Turner had changed after he did putting out Kevin O’Mally; how all the girls seemed to pick on him less. I thought about how his acne had cleared up, and how he’d stopped hanging around with his dad. He got dates. I wondered why he hadn’t made it out of town. I thought, I’ll try to catch up with him tomorrow, as I slid the car into park, and shut the lights off. All the lights in the house were off, as well. They’d all gone to bed. I got out of the car and walked up the steps.

“Hi,” Sarah said, and I jumped. The end of her cigarette flared in the dark.

“Hi.” I shifted the bag around to the other hip.

“You were gone a while,” she said, even though it wasn’t true.

“Yeah,” I said. The bag was getting heavy. The cigarette flared again in the darkness. “What are you doing out here?”

“Nothing really; just thinking.”

I waited for her to say something more. When she didn’t, I stepped past her. She stood and walked behind me. I started to rest the groceries on my knee to try the door, but she glided past me and opened it.

“You coming in?” I asked.

“No,” she said, turned, and sat with her back to the door again. I waited a moment, and wanted to say something, but didn’t. “What did you want to be when you grew up?”

I kept my hand on the door. “I don’t know. Not like dad, I guess.”

“That’s not a good answer,” she said.

“Why not?”

“Because, Michael; you can’t define something by simply saying what it is not. That’s not a definition,” she said. I opened the door.

“Oh.” I walked inside and used my foot to close the door. I was worried I’d trip over something in the dark on my way to the kitchen, but I didn’t. I even remembered exactly where the steps were. I had just finished putting everything away when I heard the front door open. I closed the refrigerator at the same time the front door closed. I heard footsteps go up the stairs. I stood stock still in the dark, empty kitchen for a moment, though I couldn’t tell you why. After a while, I tiptoed up the stairs to my room.

My skin gooseprickled as I slid out of my pants and shirt. I hesitated before taking off my underwear, feeling dirty doing it. Then I was under the covers, their crisp iciness against me. Rubbing my eyes with my thumb and forefinger, I yawned, and drifted slowly further and further downward.

NINE

My foot must’ve found a way out from under the covers or something. It got a little cold. I kept thinking that I’d just get out of bed, turn up the heat, and then get back in. It was Tuesday, my day off. I didn’t have to go in, so I could just sleep. As my eyes drifted open, I saw the room. I panicked for half a second thinking ‘oh, god, where am I? where am I?’ Then I remembered.

On the wall were still the posters I’d had when I was young; comic book heroes, the space shuttle, etc. They were nicer than bare white walls, but I didn’t particularly like them. I didn’t read comic books, really. People had given me the posters for Christmas each year and I’d taken them, put them up more out of a sense of duty than anything else. I didn’t want them to come over to the house and then see that the posters weren’t up. They’d decide never to give me anything for Christmas again.

The space shuttle was pretty, but I wasn’t all that interested in NASA. Most people I know weren’t. Sarah said “Why are we spending millions and millions for a program that doesn’t feed the homeless or get medicine for third world countries?” I didn’t know what to say to that. The light coming in through the curtains was slightly blue. A fly was washing its legs near the top of the curtains.

I stretched. My whole body moved in one long wave. I tried hard not to make a noise, even though it felt good. I listened to myself breathe. My eyes traveled over the room again. I lifted a small part of the curtain. I sat up to look out the tiny hole I’d made. Frosty fog clung close to the ground and the sky was gray, overhead. Breaks between the clouds were only there for seconds. Still, I could tell they were moving really fast. In the yard, the leaves were drifting down off the tree in droves with each gust of wind. I heard someone moving up the stairs.

I knew it was my mother. She was going to her room to wake dad. That meant that breakfast was done. I relaxed again, letting the curtain fall. I stared at that same ceiling I’d stared at for hours when I was young. All the same little faces and scenes played out in the dots and shadows. I thought about the dream I’d just had, putting my hands under my head. In the dream, I’d felt bodies squirming against me; lots of them. It felt like they were trying to grow up through me, as if I were dirt. I’d had flashes of being both the soil, tickled and caressed by the sprouting seeds, and my young self, sitting Indian style under clear plastic sheets, watching.

I noticed a spider’s web in the corner of the room.

I remembered that I needed to adjust the timing on mom’s car; it’d run pretty rough last night. I thought about maybe asking dad to help me. Then I thought about how he’d argue and tell me I was using the wrong tools. I decided to do it myself, and if he came out to ask, I’d already be too far along for him to help.

I heard my father’s voice down the hall. He was gruff, even on good days. When I was small, he had always had the best voice for imitating one of the bears in the Goldilocks story. Later, it had gotten a rough edge to it. It still produced that reaction, I found. My toes curled under the sheets hearing it. Just like then, I felt that any moment, he was going to open the door and start yelling at me. I became aware that I was naked under the sheet. I got up and put my pants back on. I went for the door just like I would back at my house, when I heard my mother’s voice. I rummaged around and found my shirt and slid into it. I opened my door slow. It used to creak, and I didn’t want anyone to hear me coming down, yet. I groaned under my breath, but no loud noises came. I smiled, and walked out into the upstairs hall. The bathroom door was open a little, gray light flooding out from it. The tiles would be freezing cold on my feet.

There was the sound of springs groaning and my father’s breath escaped him. I wondered if he’d ever been young enough to stand up without making a sound. The thick smell of breakfast came up the stairs. I looked down the hall and Sarah’s door wasn’t open, yet. I looked at the hall clock, still ticking away where it had always been. Seven-thirty. I hadn’t slept nearly as late as I thought I would.

I brushed my teeth, and when I looked up, into the mirror, it wasn’t me. Where was the tiny face, with high cheekbones and hair cut much too short? Instead of that boy, looking back from the glass was a long face, skin stretched taut over it. I finished brushing and spit, then looked at my face again. I wondered when the last time I’d really looked in a mirror was. The wallpaper hadn’t changed, the shower curtain hadn’t changed; why was I different? I heard the creaking stairs; people moving toward the kitchen. I waited until I didn’t hear them anymore, then shut off the light, and walked out.

I remembered which stairs would creak, and avoided them. When I was three-quarters of the way down, the place where the dividing wall ended, I stopped. One more step and I’d be visible to whoever was in the living room or kitchen. I knew the minute I did, there’d be questions, answers; talk. I smiled and waited, listening. I wanted this to last as long as I could make it.

Two years since the last time I’d come to stay: it seemed like it was five minutes ago. I’d loved it, but only the silent parts. I only liked the times when people were quiet and just—I don’t know, just being, I guess. I think there’s some Japanese religion that talks about that; how people are only who they really are when they’re quiet and don’t know anyone is looking. I liked that idea. Susan had told me about it one night; how she sometimes watched me after we were done. She said ‘it’s the only way I know anything about you at all.’ I didn’t know what to say to her, so I’d just gone to sleep.

I moved down to the next step. When I was little, I still used to be safe here; I could peek around the little half-wall and see what was going on if I stood on my tiptoes. Of course, now I towered over it.

My father sat in the recliner with the television going. It seemed like the television was always going in the house. The air was heavier down here; almost stale and hot. In the kitchen I could barely see someone moving around near the sink. I moved down one more step, just about to put my foot down on the floor when it creaked. My father moved the top edge of the paper just far enough to see me. I looked down and told myself to remember that that one creaked, now, too.

“Mike,” he said.

I tried to smile, but something wouldn’t let me.

My mother was just walking in from the kitchen, carrying my father’s plate and a cup of coffee. I felt stupid, standing there grinning. She smiled at me. “Good morning,” she said. She didn’t look as she sat my father’s mug down beside him. I knew if I lifted it, there would be a dried ring from the million other times she’d set it in exactly that same place. “Breakfast is ready. Sarah isn’t up yet, though. Would you go wake her?” my mother asked. I didn’t really want to, but I did anyway.

My sister hadn’t completely closed her door. It was old habit from when we were small. For a long time, even a while after Katy left, we’d go in to each other’s rooms in the morning. I’d wake up from some dream, or she’d wake up and be lonely. Some reason always came up. It wasn’t until Mom took Sarah off to the market with her just after her fifteenth birthday that it stopped. I didn’t figure out why for a long time.

Through the crack in the door came her smell, like rain on wheat. I closed my eyes and smiled, trying to remember. There was a small flash of something, far back in my mind. Wheat growing up to my chest and chasing something, the sun bright and gentle overhead. I came back as the door creaked a little. I’d leaned forward and nudged it open.

As usual, she was buried under covers. I could only see a toe on one end, and a strand of hair on the other. I moved in, walking as lightly as I could. I remembered trying to think of myself as a balloon, holding nothing but light, hot air for years, every time I snuck in. I crawled in on the left side of the bed, and settled myself down into the mattress. The covers were all bunched around her. I waited.

“Michael?” a muffled voice with no body asked.

“Yeah,” I said. The mound of cotton began to move and after a moment, a head poked out. The eyes were squinted closed.

“What are you doing?” she mumbled, her mouth pulling back into something resembling a smile.

“Mom says breakfast is ready.”

She nodded, her head making a rustling sound against he pillow. She didn’t move to get up. Neither did I

“I’m glad you two finally decided to come down,” my mother said, placing the pitcher of orange juice on the table. Again, I knew that if I looked, I’d find a ring there.

“I’m thinking I might get under the hood of your car today, mom,” I said, picking up toast. Sarah rolled her eyes. “What?”

“If mom wanted her car fixed, Michael, she’d take it to a mechanic. She’s not an idiot,” Sarah said, moving her eggs around with her fork.

“I’m aware of that,” I said.

“That would be wonderful. Thank you,” My mother said at the exact same time. “Albert,” my mother called, shifting her gaze up into the living room.

“No.” I almost dropped the toast, “No. Don’t tell him.”

“Why not?” mom asked.

“Just—I want to do it for you by myself. As a present,” I said. Sarah rolled her eyes again, and sipped coffee. My father never responded, which was just as well. I got up and brought the plate with the leftover eggs back to the table.

“Are you going to go and see Jayne Killian today, dear?” mom said to Sarah. I waited. As if on cue, Sarah rolled her eyes, and let her fork clink against her plate.

“Yes,” she said, exasperated, and then under her breath, “although, I have no idea why.”

“I imagine it would be nice to see old friends when you come back in town,” mom said. She wasn’t going to leave it alone.

“Especially when they’ve become nothing more than baby factories for their fat husbands,” Sarah said to the plate.

“Sarah! Honestly, such talk,” mom said, making a half-hearted swat at Sarah’s arm.

“What?” Sarah asked, “it’s true, isn’t it?”

“You could be nice to her,” mom said.

“What do we have in common anymore, Mom? I have a college degree, for god’s sake—”

“I will not have cursing at this table, young lady!”

“Gosh sake.” Sarah rolled her eyes as she picked up her fork again. “What do I have to talk about? She changes diapers, I write novels.” In the living room, my father turned up the television’s volume.

My mother went on eating as if she hadn’t heard Sarah at all. I waited, my shoulders tense, “What about you, Mikey? Will you be visiting while you’re here?” I almost asked her who she expected me to go visit with, but stopped myself. I had thought about trying to visit Alvin Turner today. I’d also thought about going out to the field, although I wanted to save that for late tonight. I thought about maybe going out to the gravesite, too.

“I dunno, Mom.”

Silence fell, interrupted by forks clinking against plates and the television.

Sarah got up from the table. My mother pretended not to watch her, but did. I waited. I remembered being younger, and the first time Katy had ever stormed away from the table. My father had said something about one of Katy’s “new” friends, and she simply stood up. She dropped her napkin on the floor pushing her chair back, and walked out of the dining room. Sarah and I hadn’t looked at each other, but we were looking directly at each other. My father took two more bites of his meatloaf, excused himself, and followed her. They screamed at each other for another hour and a half in her room. I remembered the tension in the house later, the way no one could sleep. All night, all I heard were the sounds people make when they want everyone else to think they’re sleeping; springs creaking, coughs, sighs.

Sarah turning off the tap woke me from the memory. “If you’re finished, too, dear, you can go,” my mother said. She always said that to me, because I always stayed with her until last. I didn’t want to go, though. Sarah walked past dad, out the front door. I wanted to stay, though.

TEN

My father only came out once while I changed the oil in mom’s car. Sarah was with me the whole time, though. She sat on the pavement, smoking, as I rolled under or out from under the car. He walked out into the garage about twenty minutes after I’d started. I could tell it was him by the heavy leather shoes he wore. I could see them from under the car. Sarah stubbed out her half-done cigarette.

“How’r things going?” my father asked. In his voice was something strange. I heard him grunt and start to kneel down. I crabbed out from under the car before he could.

“Fine, dad, just fine.” I pretended I needed a wrench. He stopped mid-crouch. I sighed a little, thinking of his knees.

“Would get out here myself and do this once in a while, but it gets so hard to get down there, you know,” he said.

“Yeah, I know,” I said, rolling back underneath. Sarah got up and walked inside. I watched the heavy shoes come around the car and stop near my head with a neat little scrape-scrape-thunkthunk. The wind through the hollow spaces was the only sound for a bit.

“See in the paper that they got those bones back here, now. The remains, I mean,” my father said. He leaned against the car, and I waited to hear the springs groan. Whenever the guys back at the garage would lean against the cars, there’s be a groan. I smiled, remembering how I thought that same groan came from their own mouths as they’d attempt to sit down or tie a shoe. I thought about all the times I’d gotten called ‘scarecrow’. I was surprised when the car didn’t protest my father’s weight. I tried to remember if he’d seemed thinner. “Jim Clarke is working on them, now. Good man, Jim Clarke. Good Christian man.”

Before I could stop myself, I asked “doesn’t he go to your church?”

“He does,” my father said, and his boots moved a little; the car shifted some. I thought about how in-tune you get with a machine when you’re underneath, and could be crushed at any moment. The oil was already sputtering, coming in two long, thin rivers. It wouldn’t be long now. “Mikey,” he said, and I could tell from the sound of his voice he was staring down the end of the road. “Your mother attends that church every Thanksgiving. She insists I go along. I don’t mind so much, except having to wear a tie. Thing is this; every year she asks Sarah to go. But your sister,” dad said, and somehow, I knew immediately where this was going, “she’s got her own ideas about things, Mikey. She’s into all this bra burning crap,” he said, and I thought that if this were a movie, he’d have a plug of tobacco, and he’d spit just then. He didn’t, though. “Your mother would like it if you went, since you’re here. She’d really like to have Sarah there, as well.” When he finished, his boots moved again: scrape-thunk-thunk.

I crab-rolled until my eyes peeked out from under the car. I set the wrench I’d been using down, picked up a larger socket for it, and took the smaller one off. I didn’t need them anymore, really. The next step in the job was to put new oil in once I got the cap back on. I was buying myself time.

“You want me to ask her to come along this year?” I asked.

He crossed his arms again, leaning back on the car. I felt the car move a fraction of an inch above me. He looked back down to the end of the road, again. “Your mother would like to ask you to discuss it with her. She knows that you two are close. Maybe you can make her see it in a way that your mother can’t.” As he talked, I rolled back under. I slipped the cap back on. I didn’t want to be under the car, anymore. I rolled all the way out, and stood up. The old overalls I’d found out in the garage had fit nearly perfectly. I’d assumed they were dad’s. I hadn’t gotten much grease on them at all. I walked to the small towel where the tools were resting. I picked the whole towel up and moved it over to the top of the huge tool chest on wheels my father kept out here. I wanted to ask him what he intended to do with it, since he didn’t work on anything, anymore. I put away the ones that hadn’t gotten used, and started cleaning the ones that had.

Dad walked from the car to the garage, and stood next to the toolbox. I felt his eyes on each tool I wiped down. It made me think of this scene from a movie Susan and I watched one time about King Arthur. The king watched his knights get suited up for battle in one part. I’d gotten goose bumps watching this look he gave one of them, especially as the guy sharpened and oiled his sword. It was almost like jealousy.

“So, will you? Talk to her, I mean. Maybe make her see some sense?” dad asked.

“I’ll see, dad. I’ll see what I can do,” I agreed without looking up.

He nodded, and walked back inside the house.

Coming back in the door, mom appeared out of thin air. “Mikey, dear, could you maybe go into town and get a few more things for dinner?”

“Yeah,” I said, wishing there was a reason to say no, “do you have a list written down?”

“Yes,” she said, and handed it to me. My eyebrows came together, then crept slowly apart. “Are you done with the car?”

“Yeah. Good as new again,” I said and expected—I don’t know what I expected, really. A thank you, some interest in what I’d done; I don’t know. Susan had always at least come and acted interested as I did things on the car for her. Mom nodded and went back to the kitchen. The smell of the turkey beginning to cook was powerful. I wanted to follow it, but then I thought that if I was alone with mom, she might ask me to talk to Sarah. I squirmed a bit, thinking about how hard it would be to not make some sort of commitment to her if she asked. I walked to the living room, instead.

Dad was parked in front of a pre-football game show. I checked the clock on the wall; I didn’t know they started this early. The ex-quarterbacks all looked clean and scrubbed raw in dark suits and matching ties.

“Did your mother give you her list?” When I’d nodded, he’d gone back to watching the television. I stood there for a few minutes, then left. I didn’t say it, but I thought, what didn’t I get last night?

Mom’s car ran a lot better. I felt a small surge of—I don’t know: something. I had correctly identified the problem and then corrected it, as Dr. Bledsoe would say. I wanted to call him and tell him. For some reason, though, thinking that made me mad.

It was the same anytime I’d have dinner with Susan. We’d both work on something; her the mashed potatoes and me the pork chops, or whatever we were having that day. I’d worry over ‘is there too much garlic?’ or ‘is the heat too high?’ When we actually had it on the table, she’d always say something like “These are great, Mikey,” then immediately, “I think the potatoes really set them off well.” I wouldn’t tell her, but it felt like she was saying something more than maybe what she was. Like I wasn’t anything without her. I’d never asked Dr. Bledsoe about it. I knew he’d tell me I was being silly and over-sensitive.

The streets were deserted. Every house I drove past, though, was cluttered with cars. It looked like a used car lot all through the neighborhoods. I drove to the end of the street, turned onto the main road, and made it to the store very fast. Inside, I looked for Alvin, but he wasn’t there. The store was empty of all the usual things for a thanksgiving. It looked like those pictures they show just before a natural disaster: empty shelves, empty aisles. It felt spooky, like a horror movie. I kept expecting someone to jump out from behind something and get me. I went to the customer service desk and asked to use the phone. After six rings, the phone picked up and it was Sarah.

“Jesus, am I the only one who has a set of ears around here?” she asked, “hello?”

“Sarah,” I said.

“Michael,” she responded.

“Umm, mom sent me to the store for some stuff, and they’re out of it. I have to ask her—,” I started.

“Yeah, hold on,” she said. I heard a hand muffle the phone and mumbling in the background. I watched an old woman buy groceries; she brought out one coupon at a time, each coming out of the purse in the exact order the thing was on the conveyor belt.

“Michael?” Susan asked, “she says to ask Miriam to get the things from behind the counter.”

“What?” I asked, trying to get my eyes away from the scene. The old woman looked so sad.

“She says she has a standing order for Thanksgiving day. They know to set the stuff aside for her. It’s with Miriam behind the service counter.”

It sounded so odd. “Hang on,” I said. The girl behind the counter was busy pulling packs of cigarettes from the cartons and putting them up on the shelves. “Excuse me,” I said and she turned around. Her name tag said ‘Miriam’. “Is there an order here for Kendall?”

She brightened, “Are you Miss Susannah’s boy?” the girl asked. I nodded, and she smiled. She opened a cupboard and brought out a bag of groceries. “These are already on her account, sweetie.”

I blinked and shook my head, “Okay. I got the stuff. I’ll be home in a minute,” I said, and hung up.

“Normally, we deliver these for her, but Jerry’s sick today, so we’re not making deliveries,” Miriam said, “happy Thanksgiving.” With that, she walked away. I shook my head again. I thought, if this was a movie, what would the point of this scene be?

On the way we passed the McPherson house. I hadn’t thought about it since I’d returned, but there it was on my left. Without thinking much about it, I slowed the car down to get a look. The grass had gotten very high before starting to die off this fall; it looked like some jungle from a science fiction movie. The car, an old station wagon, the same one she’d picked Randy up in so long ago, sat at the top of the driveway, missing three tires. Mr. McPherson had built a small roof over the side porch the year before Randy disappeared. I remembered walking Randy home all that summer, waiting at the bottom of the driveway to make sure his key worked. He’d unlock the door, walk in, then turn around and wave to me.

To this day I couldn’t tell you why I stopped the car just then, put it in reverse, and pulled into that driveway. I hadn’t been to visit Pete McPherson in the last few visits. I found myself trying to remember how long it’d been since the last time I’d been to see him and it hit me—not since Randy had disappeared. I hadn’t visited in close to a decade. I have no idea what made me go up the path to the door, or knock. Mr. McPherson answered the door, though. Too fast, I thought, things are happening too fast.

He seemed drunk. The smell of smoke came off of him, and behind him, the television was too loud. His face seemed sunken, withered. His eyes were dull brown.

“Hello?” he asked, squinting.

“Pete?” I asked, even though I knew who he was. I looked toward the car, then back at him.

“Yeah?”

“Hi. It’s me, Mikey Kendall,” I said.

His head moved back on his shoulders some, but his eyes re-appeared. He seemed like he was about to call me a liar. Then he smiled, and looked down at my shoes. His gaze came all the way up to meet my eyes again.

“Mikey?” he asked. I nodded. His smile got bigger. “How are you?” he asked, coming forward with his arms out. He hugged me. I don’t know how to describe what that felt like; I hadn’t been hugged by anyone except Susan in a long time. I hadn’t been hugged by another man since I was twelve. In fact, thinking back on it, I think it was Pete at the funeral. My mind started to drift back to that funeral, but I stopped it. Pete let go of the hug, and with one arm still on my shoulders, said “Come in, come in.” He and I walked into the house.

The gloom settled in as soon as I closed the door behind me. It smelled musty, almost wild. The windows hadn’t been opened in weeks, I guessed. It was odd to think about, but I had never been in the house before: outside it, near it, but never in it. Mr. McPherson led me into the living room. It was darker back here; no windows. The only light was the television itself. “I was just watching the game,” he said, taking books off the couch. He set them on the floor and gestured. I sat down. He lowered himself into the recliner near the wall. “Want something to drink? I got scotch around here somewhere—,” he asked.

“No, thank you. I have to get back soon,” I said, and ignored how his face seemed to fall even further. “I was passing by coming back from the store. I thought I’d—I’d stop in.”

“Last minute things for dinner, huh?” he asked.

I smiled, “You know mom,” I said. It wasn’t until after I’d said it that I remembered he didn’t. He nodded anyway. On the screen, a man in a red jersey and white tights ran with the ball until a man in black jersey and gold tights knocked him down.

“Who’s winning?” I asked, even though the score was on the screen.

“Huh? Oh, umm—no idea, really. Mostly just have it on for the noise, you know,” he said. I moved to get more comfortable, and my foot knocked over the stack of things he’d moved so I could sit.

“Sorry,” I said, bending over to straighten the stack. I kept on moving things even though he repeated “Don’t worry about that stuff,” four or five times. I didn’t mean to read the letterhead at the top of the stack, but couldn’t help it. Delany Hospital it said in bold black letters, and just underneath, Mr. Peter McPherson. When I tried not to read that, as I shuffled books back into the stack, I read the bottom line: Dr. Emmet Baker, Dir. Psychiatric Evaluation and Services unit.

“So, umm, where—uh, where is Mrs. McPherson?” I asked, sitting up. His eyes had gone back to the television. His stare was blank, and eerie. He didn’t blink.

He turned his head to me, and though his eyes stayed that way, his lips moved into a smile. “Hmmm?” he asked.

“Mrs. McPherson?” I asked, looking back down the hallway. It seemed as though no lights were on anywhere in the house.

“Oh. Well. Hmmm,” he said, shifting in the chair, “It seems that Gwen needed some rest from—things. She, umm, she needed to go away for a little while.” He turned back to the television and the smile disappeared.

I didn’t know what to say. “How long has she, umm, how long has she been gone?” I asked.

Without turning from the screen, he said “About three years now, Mikey. Three years.”

I didn’t move. I wanted to know why no one had told me. I wanted to know where she was. I calmed down, though, slowly realizing that I didn’t know who would have known in order to tell me. I was the one who hadn’t been home in four years. I was the one who hadn’t even visited Pete the last time I was home, or the year before that. I looked back down at the stack with the letter on top. I hadn’t seen him, except in passing, since the day of the funeral.

The phone rang. I jumped. Pete didn’t move. It rang again. Pete didn’t move. “Umm, Pete?” I asked. He turned to look at me. The next ring made him jump. It was as if I’d woken him up. He got up and walked out of the room. The next ring sounded, then I heard his “Hello?” On the screen, a man in black jersey sprinted down the field, and almost made the end zone before someone from the other team dove at his feet, knocking him down just short of the line. The crowd went wild.

“Yes, I’ve been keeping up with the news about that. Have you—?” Pete said in the other room, then there was a pause, “I see,” he said. After a moment, “Are they sure? I mean, they’re definitely a boy’s?” he asked. “Certainly. Well, I appreciate your calling. Please let me know. Thank you,” he said. The voice sounded hollow. There was a thunk in the other room. I got up and walked that way. I came around the corner just as Pete did, and we almost ran into one another.

“Is everything, ummm, is everything okay?” I asked. He looked up from the floor, and maybe some writer guy somewhere would say it better, but his eyes looked like glass windows into an empty room.

“Yes. Everything is just fine,” again, the hollow voice, “thanks for stopping by, Mikey. I’m sure you’ve got to get home.” He walked me to the door.

“Okay. Well, Happy Thanksgiving, Pete,” I said as he opened the front door. He was still looking at the floor.

“Same to you, Mikey. My best to your parents,” he replied, and I was barely through the door before he closed it.

ELEVEN

I had just put the grocery bags on the counter when Sarah found me. She blew into the kitchen and put her hand under my elbow. That meant we were going to have a discussion.

The first time she did that I was maybe nine. We’d been playing with her dolls out back, and she’d started taking off the doll’s pants. She told me to take the ones off the doll I was playing with, too. I didn’t really care; they weren’t my toys. When I did, she put the two dolls face to face and started making kissing noises.

I got really upset about it. To this day, she and I don’t talk about that. I sat in shock for a moment or two, then dropped the doll and ran inside. I think I cried. Of course, my mother found me. When she asked what was wrong, I told her. I didn’t know enough to not tell her. I didn’t even know what we had done, to be honest. All I knew was that it made me very sad and lonely inside.

Mom went downstairs, and outside. I curled up and went to sleep. When I woke up and went downstairs, later, Sarah was sitting on the couch. She stood up and I knew: she’d been waiting for me. She walked over, took my elbow, and without saying anything walked me outside. Even though she was younger, she was always able to move me around wherever she wanted me. When we got outside, she whispered-yelled “We was just playin’ undress-up. You better stop being such a baby.” What is almost funny to me is that over the years, this never changed. No matter how many new words she learned, whatever new book she used to back up what she was saying, it was pretty much always “stop being such a baby.”

She walked me out of the kitchen and onto the front porch. She closed the door and whisper-yelled, still holding my elbow “What is this shit about you making me go to church, Michael?” Just like every time before, I had no answer, so I looked at my shoes. They looked so big and awkward when compared with hers. “Dad comes to me and says ‘your mother would like you to speak to Mikey.’ He says, ‘he’s going to ask you to come to church with us this evening.’

I shrug, saying “when he came out earlier, he sort of cornered me into asking you. He used mom as an excuse.” She looked down, shook her head, nodded, then looked back up. I knew a whole conversation had just taken place.

“Fuck,” she said, and finally let go of me. She crossed her arms, and looked at her car out by the curb. Then she looked back at me. For a split second, there was something else in her eyes; something I’d never seen before or since. Then she looked down, and said “Fuck,” this time a little softer.

“You could, I dunno, go,” I said. In my head, there had been more there, and different words, but somehow they just didn’t make it out. She looked up, and her face back to the one I’d always known.

“Michael, do you understand at all what I am going through? No, scratch that. You wouldn’t. You can’t,” she said, rapid fire, “I am gay, Michael. Do you know what that means? That means I have a history of oppression that goes back just as far as—you know what? I’m not even going to have this discussion with you. I’m not going to that—that—church,” the way she said it reminded me of the way most people say the word cockroach. “Since you let them get you involved, then you can be the one to go tell them.”

“I didn’t let them do anyth—,” I started.

“You did, Michael. You did. You didn’t tell either of them that you weren’t going to act as some little go-between for them to manipulate,” she said, and walked away a few steps. I thought maybe she was going to her car. I wondered what I would do if she did go get in it; stay or go.

“God, why do I always feel like the token gay on one of those reality shows?” she asked, with her back turned.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

She half turned, already reaching for a cigarette. I wondered how many packs a day she smoked. “It seems like,” she said, smacking the pack against her wrist three times, “no matter where I go, or what I do, it’s always some battle about me and my sexuality. And it’s just—,” she slid the pack out of the clear plastic, “just not like that for Diane. No one in her life even makes it an issue,” she pulled the little plastic tabs open, and removed one of the white cylinders. She placed on between her lips, “No one ever asks her to go to church, or when she’s gonna’ settle down with some nice boy—.” She lit the end of it.

“Oh,” I said, “mom corner you again?”

She inhaled, held it, exhaled, all looking off at some point beyond the houses. “Dad,” she said. I nodded. “You lucked out; they’ll let you go off for two years and not excommunicate you.”

“Excommunicate?” I asked

“Yeah, like when a bishop or someone in the Catholic—,” she started.

“I know what it means,” I said, and the calm in my voice surprised me, “what makes you think that they would kick you out or whatever if you stopped coming around for a little bit?”

She inhaled, exhaled, looked at a cloud passing overhead, then back at me, “They’re old, Michael. Katy is gone, you’re not ever here; who’s going to take care of them?” she said. I don’t know why, but it felt like she was dodging my question. She went on smoking, and neither of us said anything for a little while.

Mom’s perfume hung heavy in the car. Staring at her white hair from behind, it seemed like a rock; dry and dull on the surface. She sprayed it into place so thick that when she moved, it didn’t. Her reflection in the passenger side window had a tiny little smile. I knew it wasn’t real. It seemed like she was practicing. We all knew the questions would come, and we all knew that she’d be the one to field them.

My father drove, of course. That meant the entire way there I nearly got whiplash from his continuous speed up/brake suddenly approach to keeping the speed limit. Mom had put him in a white button down shirt, and the collar was too tight. I could imagine the little red marks under there. Later, when he took it off, it would look like someone had tried to hang him. His face was blank. His eyes matched.

My mother had insisted on dressing me. Upstairs, I found she’d already gone through my suitcase and pulled out clothes for me. They were laid on the bed, the shirt even tucked into the pants, and the tie knotted around the empty collar. My mother’s definition of me was flat on the bed. While I stood there looking at it, feeling very weird, she walked by the door and said “Don’t forget to polish your shoes, dear.” For a split second, I was twelve again.

The ride was quiet. My parents stopped listening to the radio a long time ago. “No big band jazz stations anymore,” and “talk radio is just as full of obscenity as the pop stations,” my father said. I heard the wind move around the car the whole time.

When we pulled up in front of the church, I tried not to gasp. The last time I’d come in town, we hadn’t gone. In fact, I hadn’t seen the building in a while. It was falling apart. I could see the places on the roof where they’d patched, the job was so bad. One of the windows was covered over in brown paper bag duct taped to the frame. The antenna lay on its side at the crest of the building’s roof, and seemed ready to slide at the first major gust of wind.

Five other cars were in the parking lot; all of them old, rectangular, like mom’s. Dad pulled the car into a space and I swear I heard mom hold her breath for a second, then let it out. The half-smile never moved.

As soon as I got out of the car, I noticed a bee hovering around the radio antenna. I wondered how long it had been there; had the little guy followed us all the way from the house? It seemed unlikely. It seemed, too, that I was wondering about things a lot more than just yesterday. I thought about how, at some point, I was going to have to survive a plane ride home. It didn’t make me very happy.

“Susannah?” an old-woman voice called. I snapped back to find a turtle coming toward my mother. A huge old woman with a little metal cane was hobbling in our direction. She had shock white hair, and I could tell she’d recently had it styled, though it was dead. I tried not to think about pine trees a week after Christmas.

“Mrs. Dodgeson,” mom said, turning to me, “come here and say hello to Mrs. Dodgeson, Mikey.” I walked just behind her. My father was just behind me. The old woman reached us, and I was almost knocked over by her perfume. Her eyes seemed to thin out and stretch along the edges through her thick glasses.

“How are you today, Susannah dear?” Mrs. Dodgeson said. She kept glancing at me with these tiny little jerks of her eyeballs. I tried not to think of someone playing poker.

“Just fine, Enola. This,” mom said and gestured toward me, her little half smile ironed on, “is Mikey. He’s in town with us for a few days.”

“Mikey?” she said, her hand coming up and laying on my arm, “gracious. He does work in mysterious ways. Lord Jesus, but he does work in mysterious ways. Why, I haven’t seen you since you were yea high,” she said, and made a gesture with the hand that had been on my arm. She seemed relieved to be able to look at me, finally. I didn’t follow her gesture. I knew where she remembered me from. Like most old people, though, she assumed I couldn’t remember anything. “Why, you were even small for your age. Do you remember me, dear?” It seemed like she’d picked up this habit in her old age of exhaling on certain key words. It made them sort of shimmer, but like new paint over rotten boards.

“Yeah,” I said, “I do.” Already I didn’t like her, because I didn’t like that she’d made me feel any of this. “You worked in the cafeteria at school.”

“Oh, bless the children. I sure did. My my my my my but look at how you’ve grown,” she said. The ‘at’ she said was really close to the ‘look’, so it sounded like “lookit.” I tried not to think about the Sheriff.

“How are you today?” I asked. Today was making me feel smaller and smaller. I had to keep checking myself to make sure I wasn’t growing younger.

“Well, the hip acts up whenever the weather gets cold like this, you know,” she said and my mother made a sound, and cocked her head to the right. “And the left foot, you know. I may not make it through the winter with it still attached, they say. Thy will be done, though, I say. It comes and it goes, dear, it comes and it goes,” as if to illustrate this, she then began hocking up phlegm. I had to stop myself from grimacing. Even back in third grade, when we’d all sort of figured out about spitting, none of us had ever made sounds like that.

I looked around. I guessed most people were already inside. Dad was shifting from foot to foot. “How are you today, Mr. Albert?” Mrs. Dodgeson asked. Her eyes shifted over to him, but kept glancing back at me. Again, I tried not to think about poker.

“Just fine Enola,” he said, then leaning closer to my mother said, “maybe we should get on in, now.” Mom nodded.

“Well, Enola, how about if Mikey helps you in to find a seat?” my father said. The second it happened, her hand clamped down on my forearm.

“I couldn’t possibly impose in such a fashion,” she said.

“Nonsense,” my mother said, “it wouldn’t be any trouble at all, would it Mikey?”

I wished Sarah had come.

“No trouble,” I said. It was mostly because I realized there was no getting out of it. She smiled at me, and began to maneuver herself around so that we were standing side by side.

“Well, it would be nice to come in on the arm of such a handsome young man,” she said. My father walked to the door, my mother just behind. They disappeared before Mrs. Dodgeson and I had gone half that distance. The organ was already warming up, inside.

“My but you’ve grown, dear,” she said.

She didn’t say anything else until I found myself standing stock still as she leaned at least half her weight on my arm, lowing herself down into the pew. Next to her was a younger man, though his hair was just as shock gray. He looked at me, then back at her.

“Enola,” the man said, and I had the impression he’d have tipped his hat to her if he’d worn one.

“This young man is Susannah Kendall’s boy,” she said.

The man looked at me, again. Something was in his eyes, but I have no idea what it was. I just wanted to sit down so this could be over faster. In the back of my mind, I started to wonder what cigarettes tasted like.

“No,” he said.

“Yes,” she said, grinning.

“Well, isn’t that something,” he said, standing. He extended his hand to me. “Bud Gantner,” he said. The way he said it seemed to mean more to him than it did to me. I think I was supposed to know who he was.

I shook his hand, “I’m sorry, I don’t—um—I sort of don’t—,”

The smile on his face fell just a bit. “Well, that’s alright. I—,” he started.

“Robert delivered you, dear. Your older sister, too,” Mrs. Dodgeson said, “You’ll have to pardon me, though, I don’t remember her name. Memory is the first thing to go, you know,” she finished. He looked down at her, then back up at me. His smile was back to full power.

“I’m retired now, though,” he said.

“Didn’t he turn out to be just as handsome as he could be?” she asked.

“Filled out a damn sight more’n we thought you would, that’s for certain,” he said.

“Robert!” she exclaimed, but in a whisper.

He shrugged, “The lord is well aware I cuss, Enola. If he ain’t made peace with it by now, I suspect he never will.” I laughed.

“I hope I wasn’t—um—I hope I wasn’t too much trouble to deliver, Doctor Gantner,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say.

“Nah. Hell,” he said, and Mrs. Dodgeson flinched, “you wasn’t no trouble ‘till you came all the way out. No. Susannah had some trouble with your little sister, bless her heart, but you and Katy weren’t anything but baseball.”

“Baseball?” I asked.

“Yeah. I just had to play catch, was all. Most babies are like that,” he said, “just have to find a comfortable place to sit and wait for ’em to make up their minds. Lord, though, your sister Sarah,” he said, and shook his head, “we had the devil’s own time getting her out. It was like she was busy watching her favorite TV show and didn’t want to leave until she found out who dunnit.” He grinned. I did, too.

“Robert!” Mrs. Dodgeson whisper-yelled again. Still grinning, he looked down at her, then back up at me.

“Listen, why don’t you come over to Sully’s tomorrow night? We all kind of gather over there to blow off some steam post-turkey, you could say.”

“I’d like that,” I replied, and actually meant it.

“Honestly, Robert,” she said, shaking her head, then looking up at me, “a bunch of heathens, that’s what they act like. Drinking, cussing, playing cards—,” she said, and I could tell she was going to go on, but just then I heard a door shut. I felt the pressure on my ears go up. I looked over to find a nervous man standing behind a tall podium. Someone had closed the front doors, too. He was shuffling through his notes.

“I guess I better get back to mom and dad,” I whispered.

“Don’t forget, now,” he said.

“I won’t, Dr. Gantner.”

“Bud,” he said. I nodded and walked over to where my parents were sitting. When I sat down, my father leaned across my mother as if he was going to say something to me, but the man behind the podium began to speak.

“Brothers and sisters,” he said. His voice was quiet and smooth. “The devil is among you every day. Every day, he walks through the center of our towns, our cities, unrecognized. This is why we come to church; we must learn to recognize the devil. We must learn to see him for who he really is,” he said, looking up finally. His eyes were glassy and blue.

At that moment, my ears popped. Someone had opened the front doors. We all turned in our pews. The Sheriff had just walked in the door. They slid closed just as he took his sunglasses off. He put them carefully into his pocket.

“Rev’rund,” he said, nodding. He slid quietly into the last row of pews. We all turned around at different speeds, and I think I was first.

The young man swallowed, and I wondered if the Sheriff made him as nervous as he made me. I remembered the last time I’d been here, they preacher had been an old, old man. I assumed he’d died. A part of me wanted to ask mom, but I knew she’d just say “I’ll tell you later, dear,” and then she’d forget or I would and it wouldn’t matter.

The preacher cleared his throat, “As I was saying, we must learn to recognize him in all of his disguises. Perhaps if we had recognized the devil in time, whoever once was the puzzling set of remains our city has recently recovered,” he said, and I felt that word snap at me like a whip, “might still be a walking, talking soul.” I wanted to turn around and see what the Sheriff did, but I couldn’t. I thought, for some reason, that if I turned around, he’d be looking right at me.

“All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them; the Sermon on the Mount,” he said, and my mom’s eyes closed. “This contains the reverse, of course: Whatever is hurtful to you, do not do to any other person,” the young man said. He waited a moment, and I could see he was on his way to gathering back all of the steam he’d hoped to start out with before the Sheriff had walked in. I began to get the feeling the preacher wasn’t much older than me.

“If more people learned to recognize the devil in all his disguises, then perhaps the killer of this person of our town would have thought twice beforehand,” he said. I saw quite a number of heads nod. I couldn’t help but think that if Sarah were here, she’d say “Duh.” “Unfortunately, even on this day of thanks, there are posters up on the walls of the Post Office. Little boys and girls who won’t get to eat cranberry sauce or come to church, anymore. This saddens me. This saddens me a great deal,” he said. I got the feeling that, in someone older or smarter, what we were hearing would be something powerful. Instead, it was sort of silly, almost. It seemed like something was important, to him, though. I felt like maybe he was building to it, so I stayed tuned in.

After thirty minutes, though, the Preacher either gave up on trying to get to his point, or never had one. We sang for another ten minutes, after. The whole time, I kept getting icy chills down my back. I wanted to turn around and look, but I couldn’t. I was still afraid the Sheriff would be looking right at me.

At the end of the last song, the preacher closed his book with a thunk, and set it down. He made a prayer of thanks to the lord, asked us all to thank Mrs. Theodore for playing the organ for us this evening, and reminded us all that the collection plate was beside the door on the way out. He then walked to the small door beside the altar, and disappeared through it. It seemed very anti-climactic.

“New preacher,” my father said. I think he meant to explain something by saying it, but I didn’t know what. Everyone was standing up with grunts and sighs. Mrs. Dodgeson was rubbing her legs, and Robert—‘Bud’, I corrected myself—stood next to her.

The rest of the congregation was already on its feet. Everyone was anxious to get home to dinner, I guessed. The smiles that had disappeared behind empty faces came back. People milled out the doors, talking. Through it all, I kept expecting to see the Sheriff appear next to me, but he never did. In fact, I didn’t see him again until we’d all filed out of the church and into the parking lot. He was standing next to his patrol car, smoking. His eyes were squinted off into the distance. I’ve seen movies where actors try to imitate that exact look, but not one ever gets it right.

My father made a bee-line for the car. My mother hesitated as though she wanted to talk to some of the women, but they all brushed past her with smiles. She would take in a breath as if to say something and hold it as the women sailed to their cars. She’d exhale and keep that same ‘nothing’s wrong’ smile on her face.

“Come on, mom,” I said, “let’s get home. I’m starved.” She looked at me, and though her eyes said something, her face never changed.

TWELVE

My father had already started the car. If I asked, he’d claim that it was to get the heater started, but I knew better. He sat in the driver’s seat, facing forward. He was waiting to leave the church grounds. I know for a fact that if mom had gotten into a conversation, dad would be revving the engine. “To get the heater warmed up,” he’d say, but I would know better.

Mom walked slow to the car. I was beside her the whole way. The exhaust came out of the pipe thick and gray, hanging in the air for a few moments before disappearing. The engine sounded much better, though. Maybe I’d jigger the timing a bit before I went home. I thought for a moment, though, about that. Wasn’t this home? It didn’t feel that way. I watched water drops streak down the window as I opened the car door.

The second I closed the door, my father slid the car into reverse. I tried to look at his face in the rearview, but got only his eyebrow. My mother put her seat belt on; my father never wore his. He backed out of the parking spot.

The car jolted, and I fell forward. I hit my head on the headrest of the seat in front of me. My head buzzed loud, and things seemed to be moving too fast. There was some other sound, much louder, too. As I raised my head off the seat, it came to me: a car horn. A car horn was continuously blowing. I started to wonder how long that had been going on.

My father was staring straight ahead. His hands were still on ten and two. My mother was holding her forehead. “Is everyone alright?” I asked.

My father didn’t say anything, my mother nodded, and looked at me with her huge eyes. “Dad?” I asked, reaching forward. The moment I put my hand on his shoulder, he jolted. He looked around, his head twitching from side to side. “Dad?” I asked. Someone knocked on my window, and I jumped. I opened my door.

We had backed into Mrs. Dodgeson’s Buick. She stood next to her car, the driver side door open. Several of the congregation crowded around our car. The closest was Bud Gantner. He looked at me, reaching out his hand, and putting it under my elbow. “Everyone alright in there?” he asked, stooping some to look in at my parents.

My father said “Shit,” and then his door opened. Mrs. Dodgeson was moaning and leaning against her car. When my father stood up and came around the car, I saw a large, dark patch on the crotch of his slacks; he’d wet himself in the shock. I didn’t want to think about it, tried thinking about what damage might have been done to the frames of either car. My mind kept coming back to that: he’d wet himself.

“Gawtcherself a bit of a fender bender, huh?” the Sheriff said, strolling up to the two cars.

“I think we’re okay,” I said to Bud, then looked at the Sheriff. Bud nodded, then walked back to Mrs. Dodgeson. My father simply stood staring at the two fenders. I looked, too.

Neither car was damaged. I think the collision had scared us more than anything else. “I honked and honked,” Mrs. Dodgeson was saying. Dr. Gantner kept shushing her, and asking her to sit down. The Sheriff was already squatted down, looking under the rear fender of my mother’s car. Then he straightened with a grunt, and leaned over to look underneath the front of Mrs. Dodgeson’s car.

He sat upright, again, then pushed his hat back some off of his forehead. Then he whistled. He was quiet a moment, but I could tell he was looking at my father. My father’s face seemed dead. They were staring at each other.

“Well, now, it don’t look like there’s much,” Aiken said, putting one hand on each bumper. I saw the hat move, and I could tell he was looking at Dr. Gantner, “She alright?”

“Yeah. She seems so. I’ve asked her to come see me in the morning,” Bud responded. The hat moved and I could tell Aiken had just nodded. It moved again, and I could tell he was looking down at the bumpers, once more. “Albert?” Aiken said. My father seemed to come back from wherever he was. The hat moved again, and I could tell he motioned toward my mother with his head, “She alright?”

I came back, myself, and sat down in the back seat again. “Mom?” I asked.

“Yes?” she said. Her eyes were wide and sort of like dirty glass.

“You okay?” I asked. She nodded slowly. “You sure?” I asked. She nodded slow again. I got up out of the back seat. “She says she’s okay,” I said.

I saw Aiken’s cheekbone and chin at this angle. He nodded to himself. I got out of the car again. “Well, now; that’ll ‘bout do ‘er,” Aiken said, standing up with a grunt. He put a hand on his lower back, and something crossed my dad’s face. I have a very clear picture in my head of that moment to this day, but have never found a word for what that emotion might have been. I don’t know what he thought at that moment, but it was strong enough to slip through his mask. “Damn,” the Sheriff said, exhaling, “Ain’t been able to get up without hemmin’ and hawin’ for a long time. Do yourself a favor, boy, don’t get old,” he said, and flashed one of those million dollar smiles. My mom always told me that he was a real looker when they were back in high school. “You folks go on home, now. Come on by tomorrow, and I’ll have you somethin’ worked up to take to your insurance company,” he turned on his heel, and walked to his car. “Bud, you make sure she calls me, now,” he said. Without waiting for an answer, he opened his car door and disappeared inside.

We all moved back to our cars dazed. I felt like I’d been burned out inside and I had no idea why. My father got back behind the wheel. I closed the passenger door too hard and we all jumped. “Sorry,” I said to no one in particular.

“Come drive,” my father said, opening up his door and getting out. I felt lost and confused. I was starting to reach for the door handle when he opened it on his own. I got out, and looked at him. I couldn’t tell because it was dark, but I think he was shaking. As I got behind the wheel, I noticed I was, too.

The drive home was quiet. I remember thinking I don’t know if I’ve ever heard the wind this loud, before. I thought that if I had ever designed a car, I’d try to make one that cut down on wind noise so much. I knew that turning on the radio would be a bad idea. Dad would insist on some talk show station, and mom would want country. Instead, I just kept my mouth shut and concentrated on the road.

The whole time, dad was staring out his window. He had his hand up, and he kept tapping a knuckle against the glass. I’d snatch quick glimpses at him from time to time. I could feel the anger coming off of him, and something else. To this day, I can’t tell what the other thing I felt was, but it was strong.

We pulled up in the driveway as the sun was going down. Everything had that golden glow about it. Susan once told me that the Scottish had a name for that, but I can’t remember what it is. The word started with a ‘G’, I think. I’ve never been so good at remembering stuff like that. I thought about asking Sarah.

Dad was out of the car before I could even shut it off. Mom’s mask was still in place, though. “Thank you for driving for your father, dear,” mom said. She opened her own door and stepped out. I watched, painfully aware of how she struggled, of how thin her arms were. I got out, and cringed at how lightly she closed the door compared to the look of concentration on her face. I could tell even something as simple as closing a car door was getting hard for her. ‘When did she get so old?’ I asked myself, and found I had no answer.

Sarah came out of the hall just as I shut the front door. “Susan called,” she said, “she wants you to call her back.”

“Oh,” I said, surprised. I hadn’t called her to say I’d gotten in like she’d wanted me to. She was probably upset. I stood there, between the front door and the rest of the house, wondering what to do.

“Are you going to call her?” my sister asked, cocking her head forward. She always had that expression when she assumed I was stalling.

“Yeah,” I said, “I guess I should.”

She was just behind me as I walked into the kitchen. I picked up the phone and dialed the number. I walked over to the kitchen window, and pulled a small dent into the blind. I looked out into the backyard at the sliver of sun disappearing behind the other houses. I felt odd for a moment, remembering being much shorter than this and doing the same thing.

“Do you and she ever fuck, Michael?” Sarah asked. I gripped the receiver tightly and, in my ear, it began to ring. She grinned like a shark.

“What?” I asked, trying not to show how off-guard she’d just caught me.

Sarah smiled, “Susan,” she said, gesturing toward the phone, “Do you two ever fuck?”

“Why do you—ahem—why do you ask?” Fourth ring.

“I dunno,” she said, turning away. “I guess because I just always thought you were gay.”

“What? Why would you—?” I started to say after her, but then the phone picked up.

“Hello?” Susan said, her voice sleep-muffled.

“Hi,” I said, “I didn’t mean to—you know—wake you.”

“It’s okay,” she mumbled, “I sat down to watch TV and fell asleep.”

“Oh,” I said after a few moments. I thought about telling her about meeting Dr. Gantner, and about the accident. I thought about telling her about Sarah. My head filled up with all kinds of stuff to tell her, but then I started thinking about how much I’d have to tell her just for her to understand each thing. Instead, I stood silent for a while.

“If you’re busy—?” she said.

“No,” I replied, looking over at Sarah. My sister pretended to read one of the junk mail catalogues that had come in. She was listening in. “No, it’s okay. I’m sorry I—you know—didn’t call.”

“Yeah, I thought you might have, but you didn’t,” she said.

“Sorry,” I replied. Mom was moving around the kitchen, water running, pots clanking. At one point, several cookie sheets fell out of a cupboard she was using. The clatter made Sarah jump.

“What’s that?” Susan asked.

“My mother. It’s almost supper time,” I said, watching my mom slowly crouch down to pick the sheets up. Every time her knee popped, I flinched.

“Oh,” she said, then said something that sounded like “I fish juice,” but I couldn’t hear it. My mom tried to shove the sheets back in the cupboard they came from, and they fell again. When she started to fall, herself, she reached toward the counter to hold on. Not only did she miss, though, and fall, but she also managed to pull down some of the pots she’d sat on the counter, as well. The clatter was deafening.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Susan said.

Mom lay on the floor, and Sarah watched her with a blank expression. I started to put the phone down to go help my mother, but remembered Susan was on the other end. “Umm—my mom just—dropped some stuff. Can I—can I call you—maybe back?” I asked, staring. My mother floundered on the floor, trying to get a grip on something to pick herself up.

“Yeah. Okay. I’ll talk to you later, then,” she said, and hung up. I set the phone down. I put my arm under my mother’s, and pulled her to her feet. Her knees gave one last almost deafening pop. I was sure she’d just broken something. “Here, mom,” I said, moving her step by slow step to one of the chairs. When I had her comfortable, I turned to Sarah. She was still flipping through pages.

“Sarah,” I hissed.

She looked at me with an eyebrow cocked.

“Help,” I whispered.

She rolled her eyes, and closed the catalogue. She got up and we started to straighten the mess. Neither of us even wondered where dad was; we knew he wouldn’t come in until long after everything was cleaned up. Then, we’d have to listen to him criticize the whole thing, from start to finish: ‘Why didn’t you ask one of the kids to get it for you in the first place?’ all the way through ‘Most likely it was that piss poor stacking job one of you kids did that caused it in the first place’.

“So, do you?” she whispered.

I stopped and looked up at her. She wasn’t looking at me, only stacking pots on the floor. “I don’t want to talk about it,” I said.

“Why not?” she asked, still not looking.

“Because I don’t,” I said.

“Is she too much for you in bed, Michael?” Sarah asked, grinning.

“No, that’s not it—,” I started.

“Does she stay too quiet for you?”

“Sarah, stop—,”

“I just want to know if she—,”

“GOD DAMMIT!!” I said, standing up. I threw down the pan I was holding. It clattered loud on the floor, and rang out like a bell. She looked up at me, frozen. Mom’s back went stiff at the table. Silence fell. “I said I don’t want to talk about it,” I said through clenched teeth, “and I fucking meant it.” I grabbed the phone off the counter and walked out into the back yard. No one followed me.

I dialed the number to Susan’s apartment. It was busy. I hung up and stared out the window at the horizon for a while. I dialed the number again and it was busy. I hung up and noticed how I was shaking. I dialed the number again and got the answering machine: the phone was off, now. I sat down on the back porch, the concrete cold through my jeans.

The truth was that for the past two months or so, Susan and I hadn’t had sex. I watched the wind moving the blades of grass back and forth and I thought about what it’d be like to be a blade of grass. The truth was that for the past two months, I’d been unable to think about sex with Susan. I watched the grass, just swaying back and forth, unconcerned with the world around itself. The truth was that for the past two months I’d been thinking about something else a lot.

I dialed the apartment one more time, and when the answering machine kicked on, I said “Susan, it’s—umm—it’s me. Listen, I’m—I’m really sorry about—you know—about how things went, earlier tonight. I just—things here are—complex.” The machine beeped just then to let me know I’d gone on too long, and that it wasn’t recording anymore. I hung up. I stood up. I watched the grass for a few minutes more, and looked up at the first star glaring out against the horizon. Night was coming. I thought I should go inside, but didn’t want to.

I thought about how I’d never been to thanksgiving at anyone else’s house. Back before things got weird, I’d wanted to go to Randy’s. I never got up the nerve to invite myself, though, and then he was gone. “Happy thanksgiving,” I said out loud. I thought that most people wouldn’t do something like that, because it sounded stupid, but I did it anyway.

I must not have realized how long I’d been outside, because when I came back in, dinner was almost done. I hadn’t realized how cold my skin had gotten until the heat hit it. Suddenly, it felt brittle. I got goosebumps, and my chest hurt. I put the phone down on its cradle and walked up to my old room.

I closed the door and sat down on the bed. Then I lay back. As my skin warmed, my brain started on its old track. Had it been cold where he was? Did they hurt him before they finally killed him? I thought about the preacher’s sermon tonight; about that set of bones. I wondered how many families had ever had to go without even a set of remains to bury, like the McPherson’s had. I wondered which was worse.

At some point I must’ve closed my eyes. When I opened them, it was Sarah crouched down near me. Her hand was on my chest, and the other was playing with my hair. She’d remembered. I didn’t realize I’d been dreaming until I woke up with a start. All I could remember of the dream was that endless row of clear plastic domes. In the dream, I’d seen someone moving around in one; the silhouette of someone short. As I got closer, I heard a little voice humming something familiar, but I couldn’t place my finger on it. Just as I’d started to unzip the plastic “door,” I’d woken up.

“Hey,” Sarah said.

“Mmmm,” I replied.

“You must’ve been dreaming,” she said, her hands still moving. I nodded. “You just kept saying ‘no’ over and over again under your breath.” I wrinkled my forehead. She shrugged. “Come on, Mom’s got dinner ready.” She moved her hands, and I sat up. I didn’t try to hide it, because I knew she wouldn’t look, but I woke up hard as a rock. She stood up and left, and I waited for it to go down.

Of course, no matter what happened, none of us ever looked at the empty chair. Katy’s chair. Funny thing about it is, I don’t remember anyone ever saying anything about her not being there, after she left, either. She just wasn’t there. We did all kinds of strange things to make sure that we didn’t even have to pass the peas over her empty space. We pretended that space had never existed at all.

“The President will be giving a Thanksgiving address later,” dad said, cutting into his turkey. Mom made her “Oh? That’s really interesting” face and put a forkful of mashed potatoes in her mouth. She always did that when she didn’t want you to know she hadn’t been listening.

“Yay,” Sarah said flatly, and I tensed. I looked down at my plate. This was why I never came home for holidays, anymore. They hadn’t even waited. I felt it building up in my bones the way you could feel a thunderstorm coming.

“What is that supposed to mean, young lady?” my father asked. Even though Sarah was his favorite, there were limits. We all remembered the conversation he’d had with Katy. We remembered being banished.

My mother made a sound roughly like mmmm and, mouth still full of mashed potatoes, said “These are good. Albert, don’t you think they turned out very well?”

My father turned to her, his face showing he’d been successfully derailed, “Huh? Oh. Yeah. They’re okay,” he looked down at his plate, and took a forkful, himself. Sarah reached for her wine without putting anything on her fork. My mother noted this at the same time I did. I looked back down at my plate. I felt very small, like I needed to ask someone to pass things to me.

“Sarah, dear, you should eat something,” my mother said, hopefully.

“I’m not really all that hungry, mother.”

“But we fixed it for—,” mom started.

“I said,” Sarah said, setting her wine glass down deliberately, “I’m not hungry. I will eat when I am. In the meantime,” she said, picking it back up and bringing it almost to her lips, “I just want to sit here and bask in the glow of the heady conversation.” I couldn’t help but think it was a scene from a movie. I tried to think of what was going to happen next.

My father set his fork down and asked, “What is that supposed to mean?” I had predicted right. The sinking feeling wasn’t just in my stomach; it seemed to come from everything under my skin. I thought ‘some writer guy would be able to describe this much better’. Susan would be able to say something smart and funny about this situation. I couldn’t think of what it might be, though.

Sarah sighed, and that’s when I knew; she was thinking of this like a scene from a movie, too. She wanted it to be this way. I didn’t know what to think about that. I thought back, trying to remember if she’d always been this way. “What it means, father,” she sipped, “is that I don’t feel like eating. Regardless of your wishes that I eat whatever is put on my plate because you’ve been told that’s what good girls do; and after all, you’re a good tax-paying Republican citizen, so why wouldn’t your girl be a good girl?, regardless of those wishes, Father,” she said, and I thought that maybe she should put more emphasis on that word. I tried not to smile thinking that we should do another take to get it right. I still felt almost sick, despite how funny it was to have figured her out. “I will not eat when I’m not hungry.” She sipped.

“Now you wait just a damn minute—,” my father started.

“Albert—,” my mother said, at the same time.

No matter how small I felt, I wanted to shrink down into the chair more. I wanted to go invisible. I looked over at Sarah, and she had her chin at an angle, and the glass held away in one hand, wrist slightly limp. She was waiting; I could tell.

“What does all that about being a Republican mean?” he asked. He already had a pretty good idea, though. That was obvious.

“It means—,” my sister started.

“Would anyone like some pumpkin pie? I made it specially for—,” my mother started. I felt strange to see how hard she was trying to derail the whole thing. I tried to remember if she’d always tried; if she’d always failed.

“—that you’re a conservative, father. It means that you don’t want the status quo fucked with,” she said and my mother gasped, dropping her fork. I lowered mine slowly to the plate. “it means that right now, children are being turned into prostitutes, smokestacks are belching god knows what into the atmosphere for me to have to try to breathe, and men are being assassinated because they don’t want to give the United States oil at the rock bottom prices, and you want that all to continue. This war? This ridiculous war we’re fighting? How is that in any way about freeing people, as he likes to say in his little speeches? How? I’ll tell you how,” she said, and pointed out the window behind my father with the rim of her glass, “Money. Oil, specifically. We all know that this is about securing a country that produces oil; setting up a puppet government that ‘owes us’,” she said, making the quotation marks in the air with her fingers, “so that we can dictate to them what prices they’ll sell the oil. It’s that simple; yet we have to listen to his bullshit rhetoric time and time again about ‘freeing people’ and ’empire or terror’. It’s bullshit.”

My father took his napkin out of his lap, wiped his mouth, and put it on the table next to his plate. I watched as my mother looked at him, thought about asking him not to get up from the table, saw how useless that would be, and then went back to looking at her own plate. She put mashed potatoes on her fork, and brought them slowly to her mouth. I looked away, but I knew that she was chewing slow.

“You’re wrong, little girl,” my father said, standing up. His chair made a squealing noise going across the tile, “just as wrong as your sister was.” He walked out of the room. My sister sipped, looked at my mother as if just now seeing her, and something happened in Sarah’s eyes. I couldn’t tell what, but something, some sort of decision. She picked up her plate, and walked it into the kitchen. My mother was still frozen; the fork near her lips, her eyes down, her shoulders stiff.

My father had mentioned Katy. The rule was broken. I didn’t know what that meant; what to do now. Mom lowered her fork to her plate, and sat. Her shoulders still did not move. The television came on. In the kitchen, water ran. I wondered why Sarah had been so adamant about me coming home if this is how it was going to be.

The water stopped running. My mother got up and took her plate with her into the kitchen. I followed. Sarah was standing in front of the sink, cigarette in hand and a lighter in the other.

“Please, don’t,” my mother said. Sarah exhaled loudly and put the cigarette away. My mother set her plate on the counter and sighed. “Sarah, I think you should go apologize to your father,” she said.

My sister’s eyes got huge, “What?”

“I think you should go apologize to your father,” my mother said, without looking up. I wanted to put my plate down, but was afraid of the noise it might make; that they’d turn the tension on me, next.

“Why should I? I have a right to believe whatever I—,” she started.

“Because it’s Thanksgiving,” my mother said, and we knew from her voice that was all she intended to say. Sarah wanted to say more, wanted to fight more, I could tell. I don’t know much about women, but I’ve figured that out; when they’re in the mood to fight, then that’s what they do.

“Mother, why should I have to—,” she started.

“Sarah,” mom said quietly, “please.” Sarah exhaled loudly, looking down at the floor. Mom put her plate in the sink, and walked out of the kitchen. I felt as though I were in another country, watching Sarah through a telescope. She fidgeted for a moment. I could see her thinking. She didn’t look at me.

“Fuck,” she said, and walked out of the kitchen into the living room. I followed.

The news was on. I always hated the news, but dad insisted on making us watch it when we were younger. I never minded back when he was a good man. When he got older, meaner, though, we still had to sit with him for an hour while the news was on. We weren’t allowed to talk, though he made snide comments under his breath the entire time.

The stories were, of course, about the war. They weren’t calling it a war, but it was. I drifted off into my own world, and remembered the first time I’d seen a news story on Randy. They’d sent someone down from Pebble Falls. A big shot reporter. He’d written a story and they gave him airtime to tell it. It was “in an effort to bring real faces to the headlines” they’d said. They flashed five different pictures of Randy on the screen, and the man talked about him. He talked about the McPherson’s, too, but he got some stuff wrong. “Tonight,” the man had said, “a little boy is missing.” I didn’t want to watch, that night, but I did. I had to. I felt like I owed it to him. That was that first week. They still thought they might find him then. They still thought that, though probably hurt, he might still come home.

I wonder what things would have been like for him if he had come home? At the time, I wondered if he was tied up someplace, watching this show, waiting for something horrible to happen to him. I wondered what it would feel like to be that powerless.

I came back to myself because of the shouting. While I’d been away, they’d kept fighting.

“Daddy, I’m not saying that the United States shouldn’t look out for other countries—,” Sarah was saying.

“Then why wouldn’t we go over there and help these people?”

“First off, daddy, we have plenty of our own problems right here at home, and if the government were to spend half the money that they do on things like this to feed the homeless, put roofs over their—“

“Oh, come on. ‘Welfare, welfare;’ that’s all you people think about.”

“All what people, daddy?”

“You know what I mean. You whiners. Always ‘feed the homeless’ or ‘save the whales’. This world doesn’t work that way. If you want something, you have to take it. If those people want food bad enough, or a house, then they’ll get up off their asses and get a job,” my father said, and I hated him.

When he’d turned mean, I used to think that maybe I wasn’t his son. Maybe, somehow, I’d been adopted or something. Of course, I was already a teenager by then. It seemed ridiculous to me, even then. Still, he seemed so unlike me after he changed. I started to wonder if I’d change, too. I hoped not, but that was all I could do; hope.

“But, daddy, you just said that the government sent the armed forces over to help those people. How come it’s okay to help people in another country when we don’t—“

“Y’see?” My father asked, looking over at me, “Do you see what I have always had to put up with from you kids? I try to instill some values in you and instead I get my words twisted and thrown back at me. Shit,” My father said, and stood up. He walked out of the living room. I breathed, finally. But Sarah got up and followed him. I felt like staying on the sofa, but got up, too. I followed them.

“My own daughter, a god-damned pinko,” Dad said, and walked away.

“Daddy, I’m not a communist. I just think that this man, whom we did not

elect—,” she began

“If we didn’t elect him, Miss College Degree, then who did?”

“The electoral college, Daddy. They didn’t listen to popular vote, and they let him steal the election—,”

“I have heard quite enough of this, thank you!” My father said, and flung open the door to the garage. He slammed it behind. Sarah stood there, shaking. I wanted to put my hand on her shoulder, but didn’t.

Sarah turned around and walked back into the kitchen. I followed. She leaned against the counter. I got two tumblers down and put ice in them. I walked over to the cabinet and got down the scotch. I poured; one finger for me, two for her, like always. I got the soda from the refrigerator, and filled the tumblers. The fizzing was the only thing that broke the silence of the moment. I thought I could hear dad out in the garage throwing things around, but I probably didn’t.

When I brought the tumbler to Sarah, she had her head down, and one hand up over her mouth. Her thumb looked so skinny against her cheek. She took the glass with the other hand. The ice clinked against the sides.

“Shall we retire to the lanai?” she asked, a thick fake Georgia accent in her words. I nodded. It was what she always said.

We walked to the front door. I opened the deadbolt slowly, quietly. Our night porch time had always been sacred. If mom or dad had heard us going outside, there would have been questions to answer. We didn’t want to answer any.

Not until we were sitting outside in the cold did it occur to me that I’d just gotten the scotch down and not worried about getting caught. I’d gotten it down as though I’d bought it, not worrying what anyone would think. It made me feel like an adult. I wondered if that was for everyone, or just me. I wondered what I’d have said if my father had come back in, or my mother had seen. I smiled for a moment, thinking that Sarah would have offered to make one for mom.

We were sitting on the front porch, just like always. Sarah fumbled in her pocket for a moment, then brought out a cigarette. She did the same again, producing a lighter. Sarah was smoking and we were both drinking scotch and soda out of dad’s tumblers. It was just like old times.

Sarah exhaled like a dragon. The smoke billowed slowly out of her mouth. I always thought of dragons. I thought that, if I ever made a movie, I’d want it to look like that. That’s what smoking looked like. I’d always seen people do it in a hurry, just quick puffs and long jets smoke with a lot of noise. Sarah just sort of opened her mouth and the gray came out like words.

“Heard anything about Katy?” I asked her.

She laughed, tapped her ashes, inhaled again. “Our illustrious sister?” she asked. “Last I’d heard, she was in Costa Rica,” she said, playing our old game.

“What’s she doing there?” I asked, sipping my drink. I tasted the rum more than the coke.

“God, I don’t know,” she said, exhaling smoke, “some damn thing with the Red Cross or whatever bleeding heart cause she’s adopted this time. Whenever she calls, and I’m not there, she talks to Diane,” she said, “I hate that.” She took another quick sip, then looked over at me. How long have we been pretending, now? the look said.

“Is she going to come home ever?” I asked, noticing how thin and hollow the words sounded. I thought of me when I was little asking Katy if the sun would come back. We’d watched an eclipse together. My mom and dad had said it would be okay for us to go up on the roof. Katy had tried to shove me off, but Sarah made her stop.

“I don’t know,” Sarah said, putting the cigarette back to her lips.

“How is Diane?” I asked. I didn’t really want to know, but you’re supposed to ask things like that.

Sarah laughed on short little barking laugh, then said “Fine, as always. She’s gone home to mumsie and dadsies for the winter.” She always put on a fake Boston accent when she said those words.

“You don’t like her mother and father?” I asked. It was Sarah and her lover together; just a quick picture then blank. I inhaled some of her smoke, held it, then exhaled. I thought about being at the bottom of that pool at the Y all those years ago. I thought about how I used to dive to the bottom and look back up at the people on the side of the pool. I used to think about how maybe this was how they were supposed to look; wavy and blurry at the edges.

I inhaled and held it again. Then I exhaled and noticed that her cigarette was down to the filter. My nose and mouth felt dry and brittle inside. I wondered if I’d have a nosebleed later.

“It’s not that,” Sarah said, exhaling and sipping her drink, “it’s just—she has everything, you know? I mean, I love her, and I think she understands me. At least, she gets my writing, but—,” she said, letting it hang there. She in haled and exhaled loudly. The smoke drifted just above the words. The ice clinked in her glass. “What about you?” she asked.

“What about me what?”

“Susan?”

“Susan,” I said.

“Still?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“You’ve been seeing her for what, a year?”

“A little less.”

“Have you fucked her yet?” she asked.

I blushed, said nothing.

“I saw Kevin O’Mally at a stop light on my way into town,” she said. When I didn’t say anything, “How come you and he were never friends?”

“Why would we have been?” I asked. An image of him pounding his fists into another boy’s head flashed in my mind.

She moved a leaf with the toe of her shoe, “I don’t know,” she said.

The deadbolt clicked. Sarah and I looked at each other, and she threw the cigarette overhand as far as she could. She exhaled sideways out of her mouth. The door opened, and I looked back. Mom was there in her robe. The light behind her made her face hard to see. For a second, I was a kid again.

“Don’t you two want to go to bed?” Mom asked.

“In a minute, mom,” Sarah said. Just like when we were younger, Sarah’s voice toward mom was always a warning.

“Oh. Okay. Mike, will you take the garbage out?”

“Garbage day isn’t until Wednesday, ma. I’ll take it out tomorrow night,” Sarah said.

“Oh. Okay,” she said, and I heard her cross her arms. I could tell she was trying to look up and down the street, seeing what lights were on. “It’s very cold out here, isn’t it?” she asked.

“Goodnight, ma,” Sarah said.

Mom paused. I saw her tighten her robe belt. Then she said, “Goodnight. Don’t stay up too late.”

“Night, mom,” I said.

“Sweet dreams,” she said. After a moment, she closed the door. The deadbolt clicked.

Sarah and I looked at each other. She rolled her eyes, and took a long swallow of her drink. The ice clinked against the side of the tumbler.

“That damn old woman is going to drive me to drink,” she said. I laughed. She smirked.

“What are you writing now?” I asked.

“The new novel?” she asked, setting the glass down on the lawn. “It’s a period piece. It’s about a woman who goes home to her ten year high school reunion. The kids treated her like shit, and it’s been a huge weight on her the whole time, so she goes back. By going back and dealing with these people head on, telling them ‘you hurt me’, she heals herself. She stops writing romance novels and decides to start writing something worthwhile, something more like her life. On the trip, she meets a guy and they fall in love.”

“Oh,” I said, sipping.

“There’s a lot of music symbology in it, as well as a serious call to get off prozac for this generation. Jamie says that there’ll be a lot of interest in it when I’m done,” she said, picking up her drink. She drained the rest of it in one long swallow. Then she crunched one of the ice cubes. My shoulders tensed.

“She’s straight?” I asked.

“Who? The character? Yeah. Why?” she asked.

I shrugged.

“Do you think just because your sister is a big ol’ dyke that she can’t write something about a straight girl finding love?”

I don’t know why, maybe the warmth in my chest, but I asked “Was it Ainsley? That girl from Alabama?”

“N—no. How did you—? No. I was—I mean, I did—with her, I mean—but—,” she stammered. She cleared her throat loudly, then looked away. “I had already been with a few girls by then.”

“What?” I asked.

She cleared her throat again, then tipped her tumbler up, hoping to find a few drops. She set it down. “I said, I’d already been with a few girls before Ainsely.”

“Who?”

She snorted, “Shit, Michael. That was a long time ago.”

“Who?” I asked.

“I can’t tell you.”

“Why not?”

She stood up slowly, picking the glass up after she was standing. “Because I can’t. I’m going to bed.” She walked up the steps. Each on creaked under her feet. As she opened the door she asked, “You coming in?”

“Nah. Gonna’ stay out here a bit, maybe go for a walk.”

“Wherever it is that you always used to get mud on your shoes?” she asked and I started.

“What?”

She knelt down, “I never told mom or dad, obviously. That doesn’t mean I was never curious, though,” she brushed some dust off her pants, “There was always mud on your shoe the next day after you’d ‘stay out for a bit, maybe go for a walk’. I never asked, and—,” she said, “I guess I’m not asking now. Just—just be careful, okay?” Sarah said, and put her hand on my shoulder. It was warm and heavy and I felt better. Then it was gone. The front door opened.

“Okay,” she said, then paused, the door open. After a time, “Goodnight, Michael.”

“G’night,” I said. I heard the door close softly behind me.

THIRTEEN

The night grew quiet. The concrete was cold under me. The wind was moving my hair, and it made me think of Susan. I thought about how she’d play with it as we lay face to face, while she drifted off to sleep. I closed my eyes. In my head was a little movie I’d spliced together of all the nice moments we’d had: Her holding the light while I worked under the hood of her car, asking questions she didn’t care if I answered or not, her rubbing the back of my neck the first time she was around for one of my nosebleeds. That’s the one that I liked most. She didn’t get upset or start acting hysterical like my sister always did; she didn’t try to turn me into a child the way my mom always did. She just rubbed my neck and shoulders and spoke in this quiet voice that was like music. Randy got them, too.

I hadn’t been a swim instructor for very long. My first class consisted of two little girls from out on county road 13. They had a pool at home, but they had to stay at the Y until their dad could pick them up. They couldn’t afford two cars, so the girls were dropped off every day after school to wait. They’d decided to join swim and gymnastics. I liked them because they weren’t giggly like the other girls. They just smiled and did what you told them to do. They learned to swim very fast. About two weeks in, Mrs. Denkins came out of the office, and Randy was in front of her. He looked scared.

“Mike,” she said, pushing him a bit forward. I was in my swimsuit and the towel was wrapped around my shoulders. The girls had just left. “This is Randy McPherson. He’s brand new here, and he’s going to join your swimming class.”

He looked at the floor the entire time. I knelt down, like I’d seen the other instructors do, and held out my hand for him to shake. He did, but without looking at my face. “Hi,” I said. I stood up and put my hand just behind his shoulder and we walked away from Mrs. Denkins.

“Have you ever been in a pool before?” I asked. He shook his head. “That’s okay. I was a little older than you before I learned to swim,” I said. I’d heard one of the girls say it to a shy kid, once. He looked up at me, and his eyes seemed looking for something.

“Really?” he asked. I nodded. He smiled a little, just at the corner of his mouth. I came to recognize that as his full smile.

As we walked into the locker room, so I could show him where to change out, he stopped. His hand went to the bridge of his nose, and he tilted his head back at a crazy angle. “What’s the matter?” I asked.

“Nothing. Just a nosebleed,” he said. Something in the way he said it surprised me. Most kids I knew got panicky with a nosebleed, but he was just as calm dealing with it as he was when we were walking. I remember that, to this day. He just stood there, taking in big gusts of air through his nose. “It helps to make the blood clot up again,” he said when I asked about those huge inhales.

“I get those too,” I said and he nodded, looking down his up-turned face at me. I thought about that every time I got one. When the panic started to rise up, I let it go and thought about how calm he’d been that day. After about five minutes, he had let go of his nose and said, “Okay.” We’d continued right on like nothing had happened.

I remember when I was that young, I didn’t think about much. It seems like you only figure out how to think when you’re older. I did ponder a lot, though. That had been Mr. Roger’s word. He made it sound like there was a difference whenever he’d ask ‘You working, son, or pondering your toes?’ It always made me laugh, but he made pondering seem like some useless thing that way; something empty. Other times he’d say, ‘alright, now here’s what I need you to do, and think about what you’re doing, understand?’ So, thinking was useful and positive and pondering was empty, wasted.

Sitting on those steps, remembering Randy, seemed to me somehow in between. It seemed like something I needed to be doing, but wasn’t getting much out of. Back then, I thought about the boy; wondered what his parents were like, what they fed him for breakfast, how they dealt with his nosebleeds. Some people might think that’s some kind of crush or puppy love thing, but I think most people do a lot of wondering about the people they come into contact with every day. I was teaching him how to swim; I think that’s something that brings two kids very close together, no matter what their age.

I’d asked him, after a while, about the nosebleeds. I remember that I felt like I couldn’t stop myself. He came in early that day, and I’d been working. Mr. Roger had me emptying the garbage cans and putting in new bags. Randy came in and wandered all through the building with me. He didn’t seem to be waiting, was the thing. It wasn’t like he was just waiting for me to get done so he could go to the pool; he actually seemed to want to talk to me.

“How long have you been having them?” I asked, and felt stupid for asking. I hid it by working a little harder. At that time, we’d only been working together two weeks.

“My nose, you mean?” he asked. I’d nodded. “Gosh, I dunno; my whole life, I guess.” He was like that, the kind of kid who’d still say ‘gosh’ and ‘dang it’.

“Do your mom or dad get them?” I asked. I’d often wondered what his parents were like in those two weeks. He was so shy and so smart, and sometimes seemed almost afraid of his own voice. Now, though, I understand that it’s just something people do. When you meet an adult, you wonder who they date or who they’re married to; when you meet a kid, you wonder who their parents are.

“Mom says my dad does, but I guess he’s better at ’em, ‘cause I never see him get them anymore,” he said, and then a funny thing happened. The garbage sack I’d been tugging on was not going to come out of the container. He pulled the liner up so that it lay down flat, folded over itself in a way. He held on to that part and said “here, tip it.” I didn’t understand, but I started to tip the container over, and the bag slid free almost immediately. He’d kept the garbage from coming out by folding the lip of the sack over, so that when the container was on its side, the opening of the bag was still upright. He helped me pull the bag out. There was water at the bottom of the container.

“Thanks,” I said. He smiled.

“How much do they pay you to work here?” he asked.

“Not much,” I said. By that time, they were paying me. I think when the job began, Mr. Roger was thinking I’d wash out. After about a week, when he realized not only was I not going to leave, but that I did a good job, he started handing me cash at the end of a week. “An honest man gets an honest wage,” he’d say, “you remember that,” and I always did, only it was years later before I understood what that meant, and a few years after that when I figured out what he meant by it.

“Your parents make you do chores at home?” I’d asked.

“Yeah,” he’d said, and sniffled. His nose was always runny or bleeding. “They make me clean the bathroom. My favorite part is cleaning the mirror.”

“Why?” I asked, smoothing the new bag in place.

He shrugged, “I dunno. It’s just my favorite.”

“Well, it’s a lot like that. I do chores for an allowance,” I said. He nodded. I’d finished putting the new sack in the liner, and I bunched up the old one.

“You have a class now?” I asked.

He shook his head, “Waiting on my mom.” He nodded out the window, toward the road. Coming toward the curb outside was a large station wagon. The fake wood paneling on the side was faded so badly that the car looked like it had a skin problem. Something my dad would call ‘the mange’.

“Don’t laugh, okay?” he said. I looked at him. He continued to stare at the car.

“Why would I—?” I started to ask.

“Just—just don’t, okay? Please?” he asked. I’d never heard him talk in that tone of voice before. I’d always known him as excited and polite. He sounded almost like he wanted to cry. He moved for the door and I felt as though I was being pulled along after him. Looking back, I don’t know that I really wanted to meet his mother, but at the time, I didn’t feel like there was a choice. Something just pulled me along behind him.

The station wagon was enormous, and green. It seemed to be some old family pet that had gotten too huge to put out of its misery. The driver side door opened, and a woman with long blonde hair got out. She had huge, dark, round glasses on and I thought that she reminded me of an actress, one I’d seen before.

“Randall,” she said, walking around the car toward us. He was reaching for the door handle before he even got to the car. His steps were hurried. “Who’s this?” she asked, smiling at me.

“He’s a friend. Can we go?” Randy asked. He opened the door without looking back. She stopped a few feet from me, and smiled bigger. I thought for a second she was going to put her hands on her knees, bend over a little at the waist, and ask me what I wanted for Christmas. She seemed that sweet.

“Well, I’m sorry that Randall is being so rude today,” she said, extending her hand and walking closer. In the car, I could see Randy squirming. He closed the door with a slam. She jumped, and stared at him, her extended hand forgotten.

“It’s okay,” I said, looking at her, then back at him. She walked closer and extended her hand again, “I’m Mrs. McPherson, Randy’s mom,” she said. Her eyes were light green, and I thought about sage grass from a western movie.

I took her hand; it was soft and warm from the steering wheel. “I’m Mike.”

She let go of my hand and stood up. It wasn’t until that moment that I’d realized she’d bent over a little to look directly into my eyes. “So you’re the infamous Mikey, huh? Well, Randall tells me all about you. You’ve turned him into quite the little frog, haven’t you?” I didn’t know what to say, so I smiled. “Well, Mikey, it was a pleasure to meet you. You’ll have to come over some time for supper—,”

“Can we go?” Randy interrupted.

Mrs. McPherson rolled her eyes, and turned. She walked around the car, and it took everything I had not to notice how she was wearing shorts, and how smooth her legs were. Something about the way her ankles spread out from the long, thin curve of her lower leg made me feel too hot, and I stepped back into the shade of the building. Mrs. McPherson closed the door and pushed her glasses further back up on her nose. The station wagon rumbled itself around to face the road once more, then pulled out into traffic.

I don’t know how long I stood there, watching it go. When I finally came back around, I noticed that something was different. My stomach felt wobbly, and my knees weren’t doing so hot, either. Then I noticed; I’d gone stiff. My face immediately felt hot, and I got dizzy. I tried to relax, but it seemed like the more I thought about relaxing, the worse it got.

Just behind me, the door leading back into the lobby opened. I nearly jumped, but didn’t dare turn around. “You okay, hon?” Ms. Kate asked.

“Yep,” I said, “just—you know—thinking.”

“Oh. Okay. That your little brother?”

“Huh?” I asked, and caught myself about to accidentally turn around.

“That boy who just left; is that your little brother?” she asked.

“No, ma’m,” I said, finally remembering my manners, “he’s one of the boys I teach swimming to.”

“Oh?” she said, “Hmm. Spittin’ image of you.” I heard the door close. I started to panic again when I noticed that everything had gone back to normal. I sighed loudly. After one last look back down the road Randy and his mom had gone down, I turned and walked back inside.

That’s how it started, really. Or, I guess I should say, changed. That’s how it changed from being an older boy teaching a younger one how to swim, into friends. I smiled, back on the porch. I smiled and crushed out the cigarette. I liked thinking about him in the present tense, as if he were still alive. It was nice; warm.

FOURTEEN

The old ten-speed had long since been on its last legs. I had thought about maybe working on it for the rest of the night, but decided against that. I walked, instead. Funny how muscles remember things; what to do, where to go. I sort of put my body on cruise control and thought as I walked.

I’d taken Randy to the field once, about a year before he disappeared. I’d been on my way there on a Saturday when, riding down one of the side streets I almost never took, I saw him sitting on a curb. I liked this road in particular because it sloped gently to the right near the cross-street. Two things crossed my mind the moment I saw Randy, just a little blurb of dark colors against the lighter gray of the night: one was that it was him. Somehow, I knew instantly. The second was the time. It was already well past 1 a.m.

It seems so clear remembering the sound of the bike as I pulled to a stop near him. He looked up lazily, unafraid. “Hi,” he’d said, as if he’d expected me all along.

“Do you live near here?” I asked. Working around him so long, I’d seen his clothes, and the truck his mother drove. I knew the McPherson’s were from the other side of town.

“No.”

“What are you doing over this way?” I asked.

He stood, “Nothin’,” he said.

“Oh,” I’d replied. I knew that the Sheriff lived somewhere down this street, so I was nervous about staying too long. “You should get home.”

“Can I get a ride?” he asked. The streetlight behind me made wild sparkles in his eyes. I could tell he’d been crying.

“Sure,” I said. I knew from holding him up that he was light enough that I could balance us both on the bike. I leaned it down and he climbed on in front of me. He smelled like sweat and dirt. I flexed my leg and brought the bike up to its full height. Clicking down a few gears, I flexed my knee and let the slope of the road start us forward. My feet found the pedals, and with a lurch, we were off.

“Where were you going?” I asked.

“Nowhere,” he said.

“How long before they miss you?” I asked. I finally decided to stop craning my head to strange angles trying to avoid his hair, and rested my chin on top of his head.

“Hours,” he said.

I still wanted to go to the field. He didn’t seem to be in a hurry to get home, so I kept pedaling. It felt strange; the wind whistling past us, him against me. I asked Dr. Bledsoe once what he thought about it, and he said “Mike, it’s not that unusual for boys to experience a kind of love for one another at that age, especially if they have a secret to share.” I don’t know, though. It didn’t feel like that. Maybe some poet would be able to get at it better. All I know was that there was a strange tickle in my stomach at the two of us being out so late, together, flying down unlit roads.

After a few turns, we came to the large gate that lead across the town’s only golf course. The grass was better there than anywhere else in town, but it only had nine holes. They’d built it in one of the few unused lots out on the East end of town. To get to the field, it was either cut around on the highways, or go directly there over the golf course. Trouble was, my bike was a ten-speed; they’re not very sturdy. Still, I’d worked out a route that used most of the almost-level cart paths.

“Hop down,” I told Randy. I leaned the bike, and he did. I got to the gate, and slowly lifted the lever, flinching with ever screeching scrape of the metal. Randy was watching something far off in the distance, his hands in his pockets.

I handed the bike to Randy, “Hold this,” I said. I pushed the gate open very slowly, too, my shoulders so tensed up they were almost at my ears. I motioned for Randy to bring the bike and closed the gate after him.

“You okay?” I asked, taking the bike back from him. His eyes seemed to focus and he smiled. I got on, and tilted it for him. When we were both back on, I rested my chin on top of his head, again. I could feel his breath vibrate through our bones. With a kick and a shove, we were off.

My feet take me right to that same gate. I’m standing at it, noticing how short it is. I can rest my arms on the tops of the bars. Back then, though, it seemed some enormous black gate into an enemy land. A rusty sign on the gate proclaims :this land for sale or rent” and under that a phone number. I walk over to the bar and pull up the lever quickly. My shoulders start to tense at the screech the metal gives, but I relax them. ‘No one here,’ I tell myself and push the gate open.

Back then, though, we were worried about Derwin Collier. These days, kids call a guy like that a ‘rent-a-cop’. Back then, though, we didn’t know there was a difference. A guy in a uniform was a guy in a uniform. I was afraid every time I crossed over the golf course. Still, that made the crossing the adventure I remember it being.

“Collier?” I remember Randy whisper. I felt his jaw move through his skull.

“Maybe,” I said. The bike bucked and shimmied over the ground. Randy had dug his hands in under my thighs. He had a death grip on my legs. I smiled and, like most kids do when confronted with fear, pedaled faster.

Of course we took a spill. Being dark, the bike being overloaded, me showing off some, it was bound to happen. I remember one moment smiling and thinking how great it was to not be alone, but not have any grown ups around, too. The next minute, I felt my chin hit something squarely. I wanted to bring my head up quick to see where I was, but my neck wouldn’t move.

Back in the present, I crouched down to touch the grass. My finger touched the exact spot my head must’ve hit. I had always thought that maybe there should be a divot , a marker of some kind. There was nothing, though. I stood up, still looking at that spot. Then my eye wandered over to where Randy had fallen.

When I had finally gotten my neck to work, back then, I found that the bike lying on its side, one of the wheels still spinning. Just beyond that, Randy was sitting up. He was holding his head. His face scrunched up, his eyes closed. “Randy?” I said. It felt loud in my head, but he didn’t hear me at first, so it must’ve been a whisper. “Randy?” I said, louder this time, sure I was shouting. He opened his eyes and looked at me.

Then he smiled, and laughed. I moved myself up onto my elbows and watched him for a second, finally succumbing to the laugh, myself. We sat there, giggling at each other for at least five minutes. I stopped laughing first, and stood up. I reached out toward him, and he took my hand. His was warm, sweaty. I pulled him up, and he looked down at his feet, slapping grass off of himself. I could still feel his hand on mine. I have no idea why, even now, but while he wasn’t looking, I smelled my hand. It was like iron, and something else.

I picked the bike up, and made sure it was still working. He was looking off at something. “What?” I asked.

“Those trees,” he said, pointing. The trees sprang up along the edge of the golf course that butted up against the edge of the interstate. I told him as much, and he said “I’ve never been outside of town.”

I got on the bike, and tilted it for him to kick his leg over. “Where are we going?” he asked.

“It’s a surprise,” I’d said, and kicked the bike into motion.

My mind was wandering back and forth from those times to the now. My shoes crunching over the dead grass was competing with the sound of those tires whispering over the soft, wet grass of then. I can still hear him breathing, his back against me. I can remember feeling his shoulder blades against the edges of my chest.

We cleared the other end of the golf course, and the tires went silent again. The blacktop stretched out before us. I pedaled faster, and he relaxed.

After a time, we came to the field. The first time he saw the little plastic domes, all lit up on the inside, he gasped. I slowed the bike down gradually. When I stopped, he climbed off slowly. I did, as well, and walked the bike off into the ditch. I laid it down so that passing cars couldn’t see it; he stared at the domes from the ditch the whole time. We walked out onto the dirt together.

“I’ve been coming here a year or so, now,” I said. He nodded.

We got to the nearest dome, and I opened it. We stepped inside. I turned around to close the door behind us, and when I returned, he was already sitting Indian-style near the speakers. His eyes were closed. I sat down next to him. I don’t know how long we were there, just quiet, just being. After a long time, I felt like I should look at my watch. When I started to, though, he said “Don’t.”

“We might need to get going—,” I started.

“No,” he said.

I un-tensed my shoulders, and let my arm go back into my lap. He inhaled, then exhaled in one strong breath.

“What were you doing out tonight?” I asked.

He opened his eyes, and without looking at me said “Mom sometimes goes a little crazy. I have to get out when she gets like that.”

I’d seen a movie about a woman who went crazy. She’d started running around and yelling and breaking things. I tried to imagine Randy’s mom doing that, but couldn’t. “What—what does she do?” I asked.

“She just cries and cries,” he said, looking down at his own knees, “she won’t stop crying.”

“Oh,” I said. For some reason, I could picture that very clearly. “What—umm—what does she cry about?”

“I don’t know,” he said, “she just keeps saying ‘I’m sorry’ over and over again.” I could hear his voice quiver a little. I could tell something awful was about to happen, but I didn’t know what. I felt like I had to do something to stop it.

“Randall,” I said, grinning.

“Shut up,” he said, still not looking.

“Ran-dall,” I said, singing-songy.

“You promised,” he said. When he swung his face around to look at me, I felt like I’d been punched. He’d already been crying. His eyes were huge and puffy. There were little wet streaks running from his eyes to his jaw.

I reached out before I could stop myself, and put my hand on his shoulder, “I’m sorry,” I said. He looked down and his whole body shook. He was already crying. He was already crying, I kept thinking. I was stunned by what was happening; I’d never seen any other boys cry, ever. I mean, little kids, yeah, but not big kids like us. I thought I was the only one who still did.

Then he moved over toward me, and put his head on my shoulder. I didn’t know what to do, but before I could decide, my arms went around him. He was so small. His face was turned away from mine, and his hair smelled like sweat. I didn’t mind, though. I didn’t know what to do, but I didn’t mind. Then he started to quiet down some, and I started to think about what I’d say to him when he sat up. I didn’t know that, either. That made my stomach tight. What would I say? What would I do?

Back in now, I could see up ahead, the break in the tree-line that meant the end of the roadside trees and the beginning of the field. My shoes made soft whispering sounds on the asphalt. They seemed to be talking to each other. I wondered what some writer guy would make of that.

When he did sit up, he used his whole arm to wipe his eyes. He sniffled a lot. “I’m sorry,” he said, eventually.

“For what?” I asked.

He pointed, and the upper arm of my shirt was soaked through. I looked back at him, and said “Oh.”

“Don’t laugh, okay?” he said.

“I won’t,” I said.

“Promise?” he asked.

“Yeah, promise. We gotta’ go, though,” I said. I stood up. He inhaled, and I heard him almost sob, but catch himself. I offered him my hand, and he took it. I pulled him up, and we walked back to the bike. All the way back to town, we were quiet. His head was just under my chin, and his shoulder blades were against my chest. I didn’t want it to end.

When we pulled up at the end of his street, I realized just how close to my house he lived. “That one,” he said, pointing. Our two streets backed up against each other. His backyard was only four down from mine. I said so, and he smiled. “Will you come get me next time?” he asked. I said I would. I sat there and watched him climb back in his window. When he leaned back out, waved, then closed pulled his window shut, I biked home, and fell asleep.

Standing in that field again, I can feel my knees go wobbly. The field that used to go off into the horizon didn’t, anymore. While I’d been away, someone has bought the part I always called “the side field;” the part that hadn’t been used by the little greenhouse domes. Standing there, all I could see were the wrecked ruin of the little domes, and acres on acres of cornstalks.

The dirt didn’t make little noises under my shoes like it used to. It didn’t move, or billow in the wind, either. The dirt that used to smell so good had become just a thick layer of dust. I got to the first collapsed dome, and pulled back some of the plastic. Underneath were a pile of wood, and dried up plant remains. The air was thick with decay. I closed the flap immediately.

Another memory started to form, in my head; one that I had left behind a long time ago. We’d been inside one of the domes together. I could see Randy start to form, his face very close to mine in the memory. Then I remembered that I’d glanced from his face up at the dome ceiling. I stopped the memory there, looking down at the heap of plastic and wood before me. I couldn’t bear to look at what remained. I was afraid of what the rest of that memory would reveal if I let it form. Some writer guy would say I was haunted, probably; that this was a graveyard for the past. I never could think up stuff like that.

I walked away from the field, back out onto the road. The entire time I got that feeling; the one where you’re watching a movie, and the character walks out of a room, but you can see that just behind him, a hand reaches out of the darkness. I kept expecting to feel it on my shoulder.

Back up on the road, I could look along the trail I’d come from. The town’s lights were cold white just above the tops of the trees. I smiled. Funny, in all the remembering I’d ever done, I’d forgotten that the path out of town was uphill. I never remember that.

The door squeaked a little when I came in. I half expected Sarah to be waiting up for me. I thought I’d come in, close the door quietly, turn and see the tiny flare of her cigarette against the deep black of the room. I felt disappointed when it wasn’t there, in a way.

Getting up the stairs quietly, and into my room, was a little harder than I remembered, but no one woke. I shut the door, watching the patterns of light from the window play across it. I stopped for a second; I’d always wanted to be an artist, and paint that pattern. Something about the light on the doorway made me feel cold, but in a peaceful way. I don’t know; some writer guy would probably say that better. All I know is how it made me feel. It was like seeing an old friend after a long time away looking at that pattern again.

I toed out of my shoes, and was hit by the sour smell of them. ‘Of me’, I thought. I’d always liked that smell; my smell when I was younger. It hadn’t been as strong, then, and it had something more—young about it. I didn’t know any difference, then; it was just my smell. It was my smell. Thinking back on it, though, I could tell. Susan had told me that the best piece of advice her mother had ever given her was ‘don’t get old; just get more comfortable in your skin’. I thought about that, watching my silhouette on the wall as I stripped. I remembered being wafer thin through the middle, and whip-cord strong through the legs, arms. I never got the large belly of my father, but I thickened. I grew a stomach in place of the hollow that used to separate my ribs from my legs. I grew fur, as well. I couldn’t make it out in the shadow on the wall, but I knew it was there. I stood for a moment, in the cold cold air of my room, just feeling my body.

When I got under the sheets, it wasn’t Susan or even the old phantom of the bodiless hand that I thought about. I didn’t think about anything. In that still hour, it was only me, my body, and the explosion that curled me around my center; then, sleep.

FIFTEEN

I was riding on the back of an airplane as though it were a horse. I kept thinking that I should adjust the straps, some; that the saddle was loose. The sky was perfectly clear and when I looked up, there was a gorgeous red sunset. It seemed as though it were calling toward me. When I looked back down, though, the plane had changed into a long, black car.

The next thing I knew, I was inside, and too small to look over the seats. I could see the ropes around my wrists. I remember the hum of the air past the windows. The driver’s shoulder seemed miles away. The whole inside of the car was lit in the garish red of that same sunset I’d seen earlier. The driver started to turn around, and just as I was about to see the face of who ever it was, my eyes snapped open. My bedroom door was open, and Sarah was standing halfway to the bed.

“I’m sorry,” she said. Her face meant there was more she wanted to say.

“It’s okay,” I mumbled, and burrowed deeper into the pillow.

“Mom’s almost finished making breakfast,” she said, and walked to the bed. She put an arm on my thigh, “She says she’d like you to come down.”

I nodded without opening my eyes. I felt Sarah sit down.

“What was it about?” she asked.

“The dream?” I mumbled, still not opening my eyes.

“Yes.”

I waited a moment, then said “I was on an airplane headed into the sunset.”

She sucked in air past her teeth.

“What?” I asked, opening my eyes.

“Nothing. Was that all?” she was concentrating hard on the carpet near my empty bookcase.

“No,” I said, “then I was Randy McPherson.”

“Oh,” she said, standing. She walked to the door without turning around. At the doorway she said, “come on, before it gets cold.”

“Sarah?” I asked. She stopped. “What does it mean?” She shook her head without turning around, then walked away.

The room was still cold, but light streamed in past the blinds. I closed my eyes and thought, seven. Back in the apartment, this much light with this little warmth would have meant about seven in the morning. The cold pockets under the sheet contracted against my skin as I stretched. My body felt small. I pulled the blanket back and picked up my jeans off the floor.

“Good morning, dear,” my mother said as I came into the kitchen.

“Shirt,” my father said without looking up from his paper. He sipped his coffee.

I stood fixed for a moment. “Sorry,” I said, “I left it upstairs.” My mother shrugged and set a plate of pancakes on the table.

“Eat, before it gets cold,” she said.

I pulled the chair back and sat down. My father sighed loudly, and lowered his paper enough to look into my eyes. I looked back for a second, then down at the plate. The only sound for the next few minutes was the clink of fork against the plate. Then Sarah breezed in. My father finished his coffee in one long gulp, stood, sat the paper down on the table, and walked out the garage door.

Sarah kissed mom, then fixed her plate. My mother’s face wrinkled, and I could tell she wanted to go after him. Sarah put her plate down on top of his paper, and sat in the chair he’d just left. Mom came to the table and hovered.

“Did you sleep okay, dear?” she asked.

“He had a bad dream,” Sarah said.

“It wasn’t a bad dream,” I said, “just—.”

“The dream of being on an airplane means something, Michael. Did you bother to look it up?” Sarah asked, staring at mom.

“No,” I said, “I just sort of—.”

“Researchers find that just before attempting suicide,” Sarah said, and mom flinched, “patients invariably report having dreams about being aboard an airplane.”

“Is that true?” Mom asked. I didn’t say anything.

Sarah nodded, “worse; those whose dream of flying into a sunset always make successful attempts within a few weeks time.”

“Where did you get that from?” I asked.

“It’s in the books we use for the sophomores. P-S-Y two-ten, ‘the disturbed psyche’” she said, spelling it out.

“Oh,” I said.

“Well, that can’t always be true, dear. Mikey isn’t suicidal, are you?” she said, looking from Sarah to me.

“No, mom, I’m not,” I said. Mom smiled at me, then walked away from the table. “What the hell is your problem?” I hissed at Sarah.

“I’m just telling the truth.”

“You’re being a raving bitch is what you’re doing,” I said, and then felt the shock of what I’d just done.

Sarah’s eyes got wide.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “Shit. I’m sorry, I just—why are you—?” I asked, and stopped again. Sarah’s face fell.

Before she could answer, mom came back to the table with a mug of coffee for me. “Just like you always like it, dear; two creams, two sugars.” I hadn’t ever told her that I’d stopped drinking coffee a while back. I smiled up at her, and went back to eating.

“What are you going to be doing today?” Mom asked.

“He has to drive me to the airport,” Sarah said.

“What?” mom asked, putting her open palm to the center of her chest.

“Diane called. I have to return today,” Sarah said, taking the mug mom had given me, and taking a long gulp.

“But surely you could—,” mom started.

“No,” Sarah said, “no choice. I’ve already exchanged the ticket over the phone; I’ll be leaving at about three this afternoon. Michael will take me to the airport,” she said, and finished the last of the coffee with another long swallow as she stood up.

Upstairs, she was throwing clothes from the messy stack next to her bed into the open suitcase. I smiled; mom had always made us do that. Even in hotels, the rule had been a separate dirty clothes stack for each of us in some discreet corner. I leaned against the doorframe. She finished getting the clothes packed, and looked up at me.

“What?” she asked.

“Why are you leaving?” I asked.

“You wouldn’t understand, Michael.”

After a while, I said “Look, I’m sorry about—.”

“No, you’re not. Don’t lie.”

“But I didn’t mean—.”

“Yes, you did. You may have been angry when you said it, and that made you not care enough about my feelings to tell the truth, but you meant it.”

“Well, you’re being—,”

“Being what, Michael?” she asked.

“You’ve changed,” I said, and immediately wished I hadn’t.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I said, “listen, try not to—.”

“No, don’t change subjects. Tell me what you were going to say.”

“Nothing, it was like one of those things where you just sort of say something and you don’t know what you meant even though you’re the one who—“

“Tell me what you were going to say.”

“I dunno—it’s like—like you’re—hurt. Like you’re really badly hurt.”

She sat down on the bed, “What makes you say that?”

“You’ve gotten—I don’t know—cold. Like that, what you just said, all of that. It was really—sharp and cold,” I told her.

“How do you mean?” she asked.

“I don’t know how to tell you what I mean. It’s just—being there—coming back— you’re different; colder.”

She sat for a moment, nodding her head as if she understood what I was saying. I relaxed my shoulders some and breathed in. Then she brought both of her palms to her face, rubbing them in hard.

“Let me tell you something, Michael,” she said, “I have been out there, seen things you wouldn’t dream of. I’ve seen just how horrible this world really is, and I’ve reacted how I thought best. I’m sorry that I couldn’t come back here and be your dear little sister anymore. I am. But what I’ve been through has made that return impossible. So you are either going to have to get to know me as I am, or walk away from me. There is no going back.”

I put my hand on her shoulder, “We all think that, Sarah, but—“

“No,” she said, too loudly, and looked around, waiting for someone to yell at her. When no one did, she said “Do. Not. Start. With that bullshit about just smiling, or hoping, or whatever other idiotic greeting card thing they’re telling you this week. This world is a horrible place to be, Michael. Life is hard and disgusting and the only option we’re given is to take it or die.”

“But don’t you see that—?”

“See that what? What is it you’re asking me to see that I haven’t already seen?” she said without turning.

“Don’t you see that we all have to figure out a way to be happy?” I said, and wondered why. I wondered if that was what I really believed. I wondered where I had heard that if it wasn’t.

“Who says?” she asked, looked at the floor for a few moments, then “how long are you going to stay?”

“I don’t know…a little while. I guess they need me.”

She looked up sharply, “how do you figure that?” Her eyes were hard.

“I don’t know. Mom asked dad to call, and I thought—.”

“You thought you’d swoop in like some hero, and make everything all better just by being here?” she asked, standing up. I stepped back. “Hero, huh? You’re the new superhero-child? Well, you can have them. Dad is a raging homophobe who believes that the 1950’s were some sort of golden age, and mom’s turned into a fucking cunt—,” she got progressively louder as she went on.

“Hey!” I exclaimed under my breath. I looked back down the stairs.

“What, Michael? Are they going to disown us, too? You don’t have a thing to worry about. You’re not the queer one.” She went into the bathroom and started to put her thing in a re-sealable baggie. I wanted to smile at that, but things were too serious. This was another of mom’s inventions. Plastic baggies for shaving cream and shampoo bottles kept the leaks from destroying clothes. Mom was that Stewart lady long before there was a television show.

I moved closer to her “Did dad say something to you—”

“I don’t want to talk about it. If you want to stay here and make yourself the new hero child, that’s fine, Michael. You can count me out, though. You can fucking count me out,” she said. I could tell she was starting to cry.

I expected that she’d start talking the moment we pulled out of the driveway, but she didn’t. The only sound was the hum of the car. I reached for the radio, but I saw her roll her eyes, so I put my hand back down. She stayed quiet as we turned out of the neighborhood. She said nothing as we turned onto the highway. The blinker sounded odd and loud at every turn. I realized I’d never really heard a blinker before; there’d always been some other sound that covered it.

A church van passed us with a load of kids inside. One of them stuck her face against the rear window and waved to us. Sarah made a sound in her throat.

“What?” I asked.

“Kids,” she said, then went quiet again.

I wanted her to keep talking, I realized. I didn’t want to feel alone in the car. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Why do you have to leave?”

“Didn’t you ask me this already?” she returned.

“You didn’t answer, before.”

“You’re right; I didn’t,” she said, and put her elbow up on the window. She rested her head in her hand, and looked out the window. I settled back into driving. She reached into her purse and took out a cigarette. She rummaged through her purse, her face growing more and more stern. I pushed in the cigarette lighter on the dash. She stopped searching, and without looking up said “Diane’s been cheating on me.”

I didn’t know what to say, “Oh.”

The cigarette lighter popped out. She touched it to the end of the cigarette, then put the lighter back with a rough shove. She inhaled once, then exhaled as she rolled the window down. The inside of the car filled with smoke.

“So—so what are you going—umm—,” I started.

“I’m going back to move my things out. Melissa said I can live at her place with her lover and her son.”

“Is—is Melissa—,”

“Queer? Yes, Michael.”

“Oh. Well, that’s good that you have some place to—you know—.”

She inhaled, looked away out the window, exhaled.

“Only in post-modern times could someone fall in love with a murderer,” she said.

“What?” I asked.

“It was something Diane said. It’s true, too. She said that only in times like these could someone honestly think they were in love with a murderer.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, “who’s a murderer?”

“No one, Michael. No one. What it means is that—how to say this?—all bets are off, ostensibly. What it means is that you’re doing—all of us are doing, really—what you’re doing maybe isn’t right, but it is very right now.”

“What do you mean ‘what I’m doing’?” I asked.

“What all of us are doing: waiting to see what happens next instead of making things happen. It’s the postmodern condition,” she said and laughed. I couldn’t explain it, but the tone was so dark and poisonous that I shivered.

“Is that what that ‘postmodern’ stuff means?”

“No, not really,” she said, her voice like someone talking to a child. “That means something completely different. I’m just thinking about Diane because she’s a whore. No, what postmodern means is that no one acts like they are ‘supposed to’, and everyone applauds.”

“So what are you saying?” I asked her. The light caught her face and held it. I noticed how she looked, how she really looked. I thought of my sister as more like the me I saw in the mirror every morning than I ever felt. A tingle went down my spine, like cold water.

“Hollywood won’t let us kill off our heroes, Michael,” she told me, sighing. The light caught in her breath: it was cold. “They keep resurrecting them in movie after movie and they won’t let them die, like decent human beings should.” She turned to me, the half her face in soft silver, “What you’re trying to do?—I mean, do you really want to be a hero, Michael?”

I hadn’t thought about it. “I hadn’t thought about it,” I said. She nodded as if this somehow confirmed what she’d long suspected. “You?” I asked.

“What?” she asked, “like Sigourney Weaver or something?” She took a moment and thought, looking away. She turned back, “I think that there has to be something in us,” she sighed again, “I don’t know, something that needs a hero. Does that make sense?” she asked. I didn’t know what else to do, so I nodded. “I don’t know that there’s anything that,” she tilted her head up, as if the answer was scrolled on the moon, “archetypical in me. I don’t know that there’s anything in me someone else would want to make themselves like. Did you ever see those movies?”

“Which ones?” I asked.

“With Sigourney Weaver; the science fiction ones.”

“I think I did, a long time ago,” I answered, looking at the ground. I felt like it was some failing of mine that I didn’t know what she meant.

“It’s like that. That character she plays in them has something, something, you understand?” she said. I nodded, even though I didn’t. Her eyes searched my face, then she nodded, too. “They won’t let us kill them off, though. They won’t let us become the heroes.”

“What do you mean?” I asked her. I think I understand what she was talking, now, but back then I didn’t.

“Think about it. When you see someone in a movie do some really great stunt,” she said, exhaling smoke upward, her eyes rolled to look at me, “that’s exciting, and it sells tickets, right? But in the long run, what is it they’re saying to you?”

I shrugged.

“They’re telling you that you can never be that. You don’t know thirteen different martial arts,” she said, “you don’t know how to fly a plane after the pilot’s been killed. If some strange creature from another world was about to eat you, you wouldn’t get away.” Silence fell thick around us.

“Oh,” was all I could think to say. She nodded to herself again, and took a drag off her cigarette.

“I think maybe if they made movies about the real people who are heroes every day, no one would go see them. What does that say about what people want to be shown?”

“I don’t know,” I said. At the time, I remember wishing she’d just make whatever point she kept pushing for, and then be quiet or talk about something else. I stared at my shoes.

“Me either, but I’ve got some guesses. Like—take the devil for instance. Why is it the devil is always the hero, or at least the most interesting person in any movie or play where he or she shows up? And that goes all the way back to Milton, maybe even before. Everyone is okay with this because we all know that it is easier for us to be charismatic and evil than to attain some higher—I don’t know—good, or whatever,” she said. She stubbed out her cigarette.

We pulled off the highway and into the vast airport parking lot. I was amazed at how many cars there were. I didn’t know that this many people lived in town. I pulled the car up to the curb.

“Don’t get out. Pop the trunk. I’ll get my own bags,” she said, and reached for the door handle. Her arm seemed like some separate thing; a bridge put up a long time ago by people who had gone extinct, maybe. I stared at it for a second, thinking that it was resting against her body, not attached to it. I thought that some writer guy might think these kinds of things about that arm, about Sarah.

“Wait,” I said without looking at her. She paused, but I could feel the tension in her hand. She was ready to open the door at any second. “Why did you make me come if you hate them?”

She didn’t move, and we both stared straight ahead, “Because for once, I didn’t want to be the only one having to soak up all their ugly. I know that doesn’t make sense to you, Michael, but maybe it will. There is something horrifying about them, and about everyone in this town. It’s always been there, like some paper cut in my head. There is something drastically wrong with everyone here, Michael. I—I didn’t want to be the only one who had to soak it up for once,” she said, and I felt her arm relax without seeing it.

“Oh,” was all I could think to say.

“Thing is,” she said, and her voice sounded muffled. I wanted to look, but didn’t. “Thing is, you didn’t. It doesn’t even seem to touch you. You’re—it’s like you’re a part of it, or something. I don’t know. Fuck,” she said, and it was more like a whimper than an exclamation. She opened the door, and before I could turn to say goodbye, she was out of the car. The door slammed. I popped the trunk, and though I could see motion in the rearview, I didn’t watch her go.

SIXTEEN

On the way home, I decided something. I couldn’t have told anyone what it was, but something seemed more firm in my head. Because of that, I found myself in the parking lot of the YMCA. Being day after thanksgiving, it was closed. I got out, and walked to the front doors. Cupping my hands around my eyes, I peered in.

Nothing had changed. The front desk was still cluttered, the hallway was still clean enough to count the light bulbs in the reflections. Most of the time, when a building is empty, it seems hollow. There was still—something—here, though.

I jumped halfway out of my skin when someone came around the corner and walked straight to the doors. I kept thinking ‘run’, but I was frozen in place. She was tall and thick through the middle. I couldn’t see much more about her through the darkness, but she came straight at the door. A large ring of keys hung from a cord around her neck. She searched through them for a second, found the right one, then opened the door.

“Can I help you, sir?” Her accent was thick with somewhere else.

“I’m—I used to work here—when I was a kid. I’m back for a visit. I was just—,” I said. Her facial expression never moved.

“Oh. Well, we’re closed. You could come back tomorrow, though. Everyone’ll be back, then.”

“Oh,” I said, and my face must’ve fallen a bit. I hadn’t expected to be able to go inside in the first place, but when she appeared, I had hoped. She looked down, sniffed, then looked back up.

“I was just—I was just about to finish up with the books and things, though. If you—I mean if you’re—when are you leaving town?” she asked.

“Probably tomorrow,” I said. I didn’t know, but it seemed that things were heading that way.

“Oh,” she said, “what did you say your name was?” she asked.

I hadn’t said, “Michael Kendall. I worked here teaching swimming and as a part time custodian a while back. I worked for Mr. Roger.”

“Hell,” she said, her features softening, “Roger Parker?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Ol’ Roger,” she said, smiling to herself, “well, then—as long as you’re not some axe murderer or something,” she grinned a bit, but her eyes held a question, “you could come in for a bit.”

I smiled, “Thanks. I’m no axe murderer. Or, anyway, I’d be a lousy one,” I said as she opened the door a bit wider so I could get in.

“Why’s that?” she asked. I stepped past her, and stopped: everything looked so tiny. I remembered this front room as huge, but the chairs looked squashed together, now.

“No axe,” I said. She closed the door and locked it again.

“I’ll be back here,” she said, moving back down the hallway. I followed after her, still looking at the front room. It had seemed like some huge cave when I was young; it seemed like a tiny waiting room, now. She went down a side hallway to the main offices. I remembered having to run messages for Mr. Roger down that hall. I’d always felt so proud to have business in those offices. The adults saw me and knew my name and they would smile. They’d think I was a responsible kid, a good kid.

When I came back from remembering, I was still standing in the middle of the hall. I could hear her clicking keys. I walked down the hallway, and found myself pushing open the door to the locker room. The smell hit me; even though no one had been in here for the past two days, probably, the place still smelled the same. Old sweat, slow rusting metal, and powerful cleaning products. It was still humid, the air so thick I almost couldn’t breathe. None of this had changed.

Walking further in, I saw that on the next row of lockers, one of the doors was slightly open. I walked over to it and, without thinking, opened the door. Inside was a stack of dirty clothes, and underneath, some of the things that no boy ever forgets: a jockstrap and a cup were piled on top of a set of dark gray sneakers which seemed three seconds from falling apart completely. Someone had been in a hurry and forgotten to twist their lock one time to the right when they closed the door.

In the back of the locker was a small mirror. I looked in it and was shocked to see so old a face while smelling these smells, feeling the thick air against my skin. I closed the locker, and twisted the lock once to the right; the door snugged closed.

I walked to the back of the room, and leaned against the four foot wall dividing the shower area from the locker area. Five tree-trunk thick poles coming up out of a sea of tile; each one divided into six tiny triangle areas by a two foot wide metal panel that ran from six foot high down to four foot high. It was just enough to hide your face from everyone else if you were a kid. I remembered that.

The first time I’d had to take a communal shower had been almost traumatic. Until that moment, I’d never thought about what my body looked like. It was just my body, a little different from everyone else’s, but it hadn’t mattered. I smiled just then, thinking back on it, but it had been hard to deal with. Adult bodies were scary; huge and hairy in weird places; I tried not to look at them. They were loud when they talked to each other, and laughed. They didn’t seem to even notice that everyone was naked; it didn’t shock them at all.

Other boys closer to my age seemed like me, but I didn’t look at them either. That day had been the first time I’d ever seen someone uncircumcised, and it shocked me. Is something wrong with that boy? I’d thought, or is something wrong with me? The question had occupied my mind for a long time after. I guess when I really started through puberty, though, it sort of went away. Other things became more important.

I was still smiling when I came back to now. I could still remember how hot my face felt those first few days, and how my breath would catch. Eventually, it became no big deal, and I’d see other boys embarrassed and shock quiet their first time. I’d smile, and feel something in my chest seeing them. Seeing Susan sometimes, in the morning, when she hadn’t woken up yet, I’d get something very much like that same feeling.

I walked back out of the locker room, and down the hall to the pool. The water was completely still. I remember that it used to be like this for a few moments on Saturdays, just before they’d open the front doors. I’d come around to the back doors, and use the key that Mr. Roger had given me. I’d walk down the halls those Saturday mornings, and the adults would all say hello to me. I felt important. Then I’d change into my swimsuit and come down that same hall. The water would be just like this; still and smooth, like glass.

Again I noticed how everything had shrunk. The pool used to seem endless. I remember coming up, gasping for air after the first lap I’d ever done completely underwater. It had seemed like forever to get from one wall to the other. Looking down in the now, it was just a standard sized Olympic pool.

The door behind me opened, “Mister—umm—Kendall?”

I turned around, and it was her. “Yeah?” I asked.

“I’m sorry, but I need to get going. Are you—?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said, “I’m done.”

We walked back down the hall together. “So you worked for Ol’ Roger, huh?” she asked.

“Did you know him?” I asked.

“Did I? I’m his niece,” she said. We stopped.

“How is he? Can I visit him?” I asked.

“Oh,” she said, her face falling, “I guess you didn’t hear.”

I knew what that meant, “When did it happen?”

“’Bout three years ago. Stroke. He went to bed and just never woke up.”

Something in me fell. “Oh—I’m—I’m sorry,” I said.

“No, it’s okay. He was ‘bout ready to go, anyways. Always said he was just waitin’ around for the black chariot, and it was takin’ it’s own sweet time about getting’ there.” She smiled.

“Black chariot?”

“It was a poem. Aunt Zoe loved it. Emily Dickerson or Dickenson, something like that. ‘Bout a woman who says the chariot waited for her. He liked that poem,” she said, turning and walking again. I followed her out the front door. She locked it behind us. “Sorry you had to find out like this.”

“Yeah,” I said, “Listen, thanks.”

She walked toward the sidewalk, and I could just hear a bus coming from up the street. “Thanks for not being an axe murderer,” she said. Just as she made it to the bench, the bus pulled to a stop. She got on, and the bus pulled away.

I left the radio off for the ride back home. Something about that seemed right. Wind past the car windows made this hollow sound that I liked to listen to sometimes. Susan said it drove her crazy. I felt like I should have some sort of deep thought while the radio was off. It was like I wanted to have some powerful revelation, but nothing happened.

My head started to hurt long before I even pulled into the driveway. I could tell from the way the pressure was growing at the base of my skull that this would be a topper. I wondered if it was already too late to take medication. I figured it was.

I pulled the car into the driveway and shut it off, listening to the engine tick for a moment. In the garage, I looked at the bike as I walked past. Up the stairs to the kitchen, I kept wondering about little things; what mom would fix for dinner, if it was time to get new shoes. It bothered me that I wasn’t thinking about important things, and that I didn’t really want to think about them. Sarah was so smart; she and her friends must sit around and discuss important people, and important movies all the time. I wondered how she got so smart and I was still so stupid.

The kitchen was dark and cool. All the heat of breakfast had gone. On the counter, mom had left a note “Mikey, gone with Milly to get some things from the farmer’s market in Eukiah. Back in a few hours. You should call that nice Susan girl. Love, mom”. It was done in that flowing, loopy cursive that she had always wanted me to write in. My penmanship had always been blocky at best, so I never wrote in cursive except to sign checks.

The television was on, and I could hear the sound of a crowd. I walked into the living room. On the screen, two football teams were assembling on a big chalk line. I could just make out the number 10 on the far end of it. I’d never been excited by football. Not like dad was, anyway. The rules seemed too fluid to make any sense; not like engines. Engines made sense.

I sat down. Dad looked over at me, then back at the screen. “From last night. I taped it,” dad said.

“Who’s winning?”

“Score’s tied,” he said, “She leave?”

“Yeah,” I said, knowing he meant Sarah. He nodded without looking at me. “Who’s Milly?”

“Millicent Barnes. Your mother’s best friend. I swear those two are like Lucy and Ethel.” I could tell that was some sort of reference to something, but I didn’t know what.

“You don’t like her?” I asked.

“Woman’s a damn do-gooder. Works over at the Hospital with the loonies. Ever since they met, all your mother can think about is “the community”.”

She hadn’t said anything about it to me since I’d gotten back. I wanted to ask more, but his tone said not to. On the television, the referees blew whistles, and the players wandered around the field.

I got up and walked into the kitchen. The pressure at the base of my skull had turned into a vise creeping up around my ears. I realized I’d forgotten to go get my medication from upstairs. I picked up the phone and dialed Susan’s apartment. The phone rang twice, then picked up. A man’s voice said “Hello?”

I couldn’t say anything for a moment, then “Umm—is—is Susan there?”

“Yeah, hang on a second,” he said, then there was a loud ‘thunk’.

The phone picked back up, “Mike?” Susan asked.

“Yeah,” I replied, “who was that?”

An exasperated sigh on the other end, “I’m fine, Mike, and yourself? That’s good, thank you so much for asking,” she said, another sigh, “That was my brother. He’s in town for a little while.”

“I didn’t know you had a brother,” I said.

“That’s because you never asked,” she said, “it was a surprise visit. He showed up last night and we had Thanksgiving dinner together.” The phone muffled again, and I heard him saying something in the background. Then I heard her say something like “No, I won’t tell him that, and neither will you,” the phone unmuffled, “how was your dinner?”

“Sarah got into a fight with my father, and she left this morning. She and her girlfriend broke up, I guess,” I said.

“That must be very hard for her,” she said, the phone muffled and I heard him mumble something, and when Susan replied to him, there was a laugh in her voice, “Yes, he does, and in the pictures I’ve seen, she’s very attractive—but she’s a lesbian.” He said something else and she laughed hard. The phone unmuffled, “You still there?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said, “You’re—busy—I guess. I’ll call back some other time.”

“When are you coming home?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe tomorrow,” I replied.

“Okay. Call me and let me know, alright?”

“I will,” I said, and hung up. A second late I realized I hadn’t said goodbye. I felt like picking up the phone and dialing her again to say it, but realized how stupid that would be. I sat down at the kitchen counter, and noticed again how cold the kitchen was with mom not in it.

My head was pounding by this time. I walked upstairs, my head splitting with each step. My nose felt runny, and when I reached up to wipe it, there was blood on my finger. I stared at it for a moment. The morning had already been very busy, and I thought , this isn’t fair. I opened my bedroom door to find all my clothes out of the suitcase, stacked neatly on the bed. The collared shirts were in a perfect column, and the pants sat seam to seam. I rolled my eyes and said “mom,” out loud. I went into the pocket on the side and pulled out the bottle. I shook a pill from it, and walked to the bathroom. I had to sniffle back blood, again, and tasted it in my throat.

Pill in mouth, handful of water from the tap, swallow; second handful of water to finish. I stood up and looked at myself in the mirror. I thought, I should be able to see pain this bad.

I shut off the light and went back to the bedroom. Again, I rolled my eyes. I didn’t know how to feel about her going through my things. She’d of course say she was only doing my laundry because she had a load to do, herself. I knew the truth, though. She was snooping. She’d done it since I was a kid. I remembered coming home from school one day to find my bedroom completely spotless. That was the day I got a lecture from dad about lying. At the end of it, he asked me “Is there anything you want to tell me?” and I’d finally admitted that I’d been working at the Y for almost a year instead of taking boxing lessons. I knew exactly what mom had done; she’d gotten suspicious of something, then cleaned my room to find it.

I laid down on the bed, sweeping the shirts and pants off onto the floor with my hand, and remembered that they’d found the check stubs. I’d been cashing the checks down at the bank and saving the money. By that time I’d had a few hundred dollars sitting in an envelope under the bed. I’d never expected anyone to look for it.

“This all goes in your college fund,” my father said, then he asked “Where is all the money I sent with you to pay for the lessons?” He followed me back upstairs while I dug out the other envelope that I’d put behind a stack of old encyclopedias against the back wall of the closet. “I’m counting this; if there is even a dime missing, you’re repaying me,” he’d said. There wasn’t. I hadn’t spent any of the money he’d given me. Sarah told me years later that it was the number of times I’d been to the movies that week. Mom had decided that since I didn’t have enough money in my allowance to go that often, I must’ve been up to mischief, as she said. That was mom’s way of talking. That’s how I knew that Sarah hadn’t tipped them off.

I hadn’t planned on a nap. Usually the only way to stop the headache/nosebleed, though, was to lay face-up on the bed and slow my breathing down. I hadn’t thought I was that tired. I remembered looking at the patterns on the ceiling.

I woke to the room in dim light. ‘Five or six,’ I thought. I wondered how it had gotten so late. Downstairs, I heard someone moving pots and pans around. Mom must’ve come home. My bedroom door was closed, as well; she’d been up here. I knew that because my father would have never thought to close it. Shaky images ran through my head; small flutters of pictures. I tried to remember the dream I’d just come up from, but nothing was left of it. I thought about divers, and how they die if they come up from deep water too quick. My palms were dry, and my body was overheated.

I sat up; looked at the mess on the floor. Oh, I thought, headache. I wanted to bend forward and start putting things back in piles, but I didn’t. My arms were thick and heavy, and my skin was stretched dry.

The flickers in my head slowed some, and I noticed more than once an image of me in front of a mirror, looking at my face. The image had the feel of déjà vu, as though I’d seen this face somewhere before. Looking back on it, I thought, ridiculous: it was my face. In the dream, it hadn’t been my face.

I stood up. Going down the stairs, each step felt like it should be sending shoots of pain through my skull, but wasn’t. It was like I was aware of the pain, but only from a great distance. I’m sure Sarah would say something like ‘better living through chemicals, Michael?’ The downstairs was dark; dust floating through the dim rooms made strange webs of light in the air. The television was off. On the kitchen table was a note.

‘Gone with your mother to dinner with Millicent Barnes and her husband. Their grandkids are in town. Your mother’s idea. Back by ten. Food in fridge. –dad’

I opened the refrigerator. He was right; my mother had packed everything away into neat compartments and bins. She’d stretched plastic so tight over things that water had beaded up on the inside. Tomatoes, celery, lemons; the clear front on the crisper showed everything inside it. Moving the plate of turkey aside, I found a bottle of white wine. My face scrunched up. Wine? They’d never liked wine before. I thought, Sarah must’ve left it. I pulled it out and set it on the counter. I pulled the plate of turkey and set it down, too. I closed the refrigerator door and rummaged for a corkscrew. I found one after about ten minutes of opening random drawers, but it was so dull that it took me another ten to get the cork out.

I put my nose to the lip of the bottle. It smelled okay. I upended the bottle. Susan would’ve hated it. It was sweet and not very dry. Something nagged at the back of my mind, though. There was something I was supposed to do, and I couldn’t remember what it was.

I took the bottle and the plate into the living room. The remote control was settled into the cushion. I clicked on the television. A blank-faced blonde in a red sports jacket was facing front. Next to her, someone had posted a graphic of a skeleton with a question mark. I turned the volume up, and took a swig from the bottle.

“—bodies of four American civilian contractors were dragged through the streets. This brings the total dead since the President declared an end to the conflict to a staggering—.” I flipped channels.

On the next channel was a woman who looked almost identical to the first, only this one had black hair. Her sports jacket was blue. “—our top story tonight. News Five has confirmed that the bones found just outside Eukiah city limits this week have been transported here and are in the care of the County Coroner, James Clarke. News Five has also learned that assisting on the case is Placerville’s own doctor Robert Gantner. Our reporter was told, I quote, ‘the examination could take as little as two days, or maybe as much as a week’. Of course, News Five will keep you posted—.” I took another swig. Gantner, I thought, then it hit me: he’d asked me to meet him tonight for a couple of beers. I thought for a second, looking down at the turkey. It looked gray and dry. That was plenty enough thinking for me.

They’d taken the car, of course, and I hadn’t rented one when I got in. It wasn’t so bad, though; it was still around dusk, so the temperature hadn’t dropped too far yet. The walk was nice. I found myself looking at everything I passed and thinking things like, My first kiss—Mandy Killinger—Kinger?—, and feeling ashamed when I couldn’t remember the last names. My first can of beer, when I passed the high school football field. All of the stories came flooding back; things I hadn’t even thought of last time I was here.

I passed the grocery store, and wondered if Alvin was working. A young woman with long brown hair was getting out of some foreign compact car as I watched. Her door slammed and she walked toward the doors. I wondered if I’d ever known her. She could have been any one of a thousand girls I’d been in school with. I decided I didn’t; there was nothing familiar about her.

Further down the road, a stray dog peeked out from behind a dumpster. I whistled for it to come over, and it lowered its head as though it might. At the last minute, though, it bolted off toward some houses. It looked near death, thin and knobby.

Finally, I came to the side street that led toward the train tracks. He turned his feet down Upham Boulevard, and wondered at that name a moment. Everyone from Placerville pronounced it the same way, I thought, and said it out loud “Up Ham” I said. You could always tell when someone was from outside, because they said “You Fam”. Sarah was one of those. Even though she had grown up in town, she’d never gotten that right.

From the time any kid was about twelve, they knew where Sully’s was. More important, they all knew the legend of Sully, himself. Sully Baker had just returned from what he, to his dying day, called “double-yah-double-yah-two”. He’d gotten on a train in New York and had been on his way to Montgomery, Alabama, the story goes.

The train had stopped a number of times for food and to change conductors, but it had to stop somewhere just short of what is vaguely called “the south” because most of the railroad lines in the south had been constructed during the Civil War. For any number of reasons, the story went, the Southern leaders decided that they didn’t want to have the same gauge railing for locomotives as the North. For this reason, and because of the enormous cost of tearing up and re-laying the track, for quite some time anyone traveling from “the north” to “the south” had to get off of a train fit for the size track it was on, and switch to another which could continue on the different size track.

So, Sully Baker got off the train in Placerville. Something happened, though, according to the story; he decided not to get back on the train. Instead he bought a house near the railway station. During the war, Sully had been an ambulance driver. He tried to get work driving deliveries, but those jobs were already taken by people who’d gotten shipped back before Sully, who’d volunteered to be one of the last out. He railed about that all the way to his deathbed, people say. “Them damn deserters” he called them, “profiteers and weak-wristed sons-of-whores!” he was known to yell after too many beers.

The only other thing Sully Baker had learned to do during the war was to brew beer. He never told anyone the secret, though. “Bad for business,” he’d say and then change the subject to the White Sox, his only other area of expertise, they say. So he ordered some seeds, did some planting, and eventually started brewing his own beer. Turned out that most of the local men became very fond of that particular beer, and most liked Sully, himself. They started coming by asking for bottles of it, and Sully started to stack up money, always with a smile. He was getting one over on those “damn deserters”. After a time, he married a local girl, and was putting away enough money to buy the house they lived in. Kids came along and one day the wife said that she didn’t like the men always coming around, talking loud and spitting on her porch.

So, Sully bought a nearby house, moved his equipment over to it, and the men started showing up. He put some tables in, got a television, bought a few cases of this, a couple of bottles of that, and in no time had men coming from two or three towns over. Word got out, and because it was so close to the tracks, people could get off the train, have a beer or two while they waited, then catch their connecting train right as it was leaving. Sully’s, they started calling it for obvious reasons, and it became known to a lot of folks as the first decent place to grab a beer before heading home (or the last decent place to grab a beer before heading north). Sully hired a girl to be nice to the men, then hired another when Friday nights got too much for the two of them to work alone anymore. Important men were known to stop there, and Sully always had them sign their bar tabs, which he never let them pay. Most of those famous papers are still mounted on the wall to this day.

Eventually, of course, Sully died. I’m thinking about all this as I round the last bend and see the dilapidated old building ahead. The odd thing is that he never really named the place. It was always “Sully Baker’s place” to people of his generation. No neon sign out front saying anything. Of the four kids he had, only one, the next to last, was interested in the bar. That boy was named Dwight, “after ol’ Ike” Sully had always said. Dwight did what he could, but had no head for business, so he nearly ran it into the ground. It was his wife who stepped in and kept the place running. She caught him with one of the barmaids, and it maybe should have shocked people that she got the bar in the divorce, but it didn’t. She was the one who put the sign up that said, simply, Sully’s. Since then, the Baker family (through Dwights kids and their kids) had always owned it. All the town kids whisper about it when they’re younger, try to sneak in when they’re high school age, and forget about it when they go off to college and discover whatever the new, hip micro-brewery is for whatever town they end up in. ‘The ones that go off to college, that is’, I thought. The ones who stay? Sully’s is where they go Friday nights. Thursday nights, too, most of them, I thought, and smiled. I’m about to open the door when I notice that the sign has either not been turned on, or has burned out. For some reason, that feels important to me; it feels right.

I opened the door. Neon signs colored the drifting smoke from gray to red or blue. Something that sounded like a country singer who’d gone surfing was playing on the juke box. The five tables were crowded with overweight men and the corner booths with younger men with trimmed beards trying to impress women. The whole place smelled like an empty beer glass left out in the sun too long.

At the bar, five guys and one woman sat. None of them was under thirty, or two-hundred and fifty pounds. It reminded me of being in the break room at the garage. Behind the bar was one of Sully’s great grandkids. I hadn’t been here a lot even when I lived here, so I didn’t know his name. He seemed familiar, though, in that way some kid who was a senior and played football when you were a freshman does twenty years later. I walked toward the bar and, at the far end, a group of three men burst into laughter. One of them pounded the bar with the flat of his hand. I noticed one of them wasn’t laughing so much as smiling, like he’d just done something important. It was Bud Gantner.

He waved me over. I realized, as I walked, that people’s eyes followed me. Not in a mean way, but just in a ‘who’s this guy?’ way. They knew who the regulars were, and I wasn’t one of them.

Bud turned around on his stool and extended his hand. I took it and smiled. “Glad you could make it,” he said. The other men he was sitting with turned a bit, but kept their backs mostly to me. Bud gestured to his left at a bulky man in a gray pullover. “Mikey Kendall, this is Bart Tipton. Bart does contracting work here and in Eukiah.” The big man wiped his huge hand off on his pants, then extended it to me. I took it and smiled. Bud gestured to the other man, smaller but larger through the middle and with a beard. “This is Ed Kawalcek. He drives trucks for the bottling plant.” His grip was strong and I don’t know why, but I tried to grip back just as strong.

“Pleasure,” I said. Both men smiled, and Ed tipped his mug up to finish his beer.

“This here is Albert Kendall’s boy,” Bud said. Ed hid it fairly well, but I saw his eyes roll.

“Oh, yeah?” Bart asked. I heard it in his voice, too; my father wasn’t a popular guy.

“Yeah,” I said, “but don’t hold it against me,” I shot in. The men grinned some, and Bart chuckled once. I’d heard someone say something like that once, and I thought maybe it would work here. It seemed to. It looked like the tension in both men’s shoulders eased some.

“Find a stool,” Bud said.

Ed pushed his mug forward and stood, “Here, you can have mine. I gotta’ get home before the wife decides I’d look better stuffed and mounted,” he said.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

He nodded, did a sort-of half serious salute to Bud and Bart. Bart stood at that moment, too. “I gotta get, too, I suppose. Supper’s done cold and in the microwave,” Bart said. He turned to me as I watched Ed walk away and extended his hand, again. “Pleasure to meet you. Say hello to your dad for me,” he said. I shook his hand. He patted Bud on the back and walked away. I sat down where Bart had been.

The bartender came over and before I could answer, Bud said “Sully’s for him, and I’ll have another.” It smelled like he’d had a few already. I didn’t mind, though; he seemed very relaxed.

“So, Mikey, how the hell are ya’?” he asked. Two mugs full of light golden beer appeared in front of us. Bud took his to his mouth immediately.

“I dunno. So-so, I guess. How about you?” I took a sip of my beer and it was exactly what I remembered; sharp and cold.

“Not to good, either. I don’t want to talk about it, though. How’r your folks after that fender bender you had yesterday?” he asked.

My eyes grew huge, “Shit,” I said, “I forgot to get over and talk to the Sheriff about it. I doubt mom or dad remembered. They’re fine, though. Just fine.”

“I hear your sister was in town,” Bud said, and I could hear the question.

“She’s not very—religious,” I said, and sipped. He nodded.

“What’ve you been doing with yourself?” he asked.

I didn’t know. “I work at a garage. I’m seeing this girl. I dunno. I’m okay, I guess.”

“Seeing a girl? She pretty?” he asked in that way old men do.

“Yeah. She’s pretty. She’s not so happy with me, though.”

“Why’s that?” he asked, and sipped. The bartender was watching two huge men play darts on the back wall. I looked just as one missed the board and hit the wall itself.

“I dunno,” I said.

“Is that why only so-so?” he asked.

“No. Not really. I—I dunno—I had to take my sister, Sarah, to the airport this afternoon.”

“Ah. What happened?” Bud asked. I thought about how odd it is that over beer, two people can talk about almost anything.

“She doesn’t get along with mom and dad very well.”

“Don’t come to church, neither,” he said, “knowing Susannah Kendall, that don’t sit very well.” I nodded.

“Sarah,” he said, and sipped. He thought for a moment, then said “I remember that one.”

“Yeah?” I sipped my beer. It was cold going down and stung my mouth.

“Yeah. One of the more difficult births I’ve had to deal with. Both your sisters were hard pregnancies for your mother, if I remember rightly,” he said, sipping his own, “but Sarah, she fought. It was almost like…”

“Almost like what?” I asked.

He turned and looked into my eyes, “Almost like she didn’t want to come out. She kept squirming and fighting. That’s not unusual; the problem was she wasn’t working her way out, she was trying to work her way back in.” He sipped again, and looked back at the television. There was a long pause.

“What about me?” I asked.

“You were like ninety-nine-point-nine percent of this town: easy as pie. Came right on out with no fuss and even smiled at me. Almost every baby in this town comes out like that. Take that O’Mally boy over there, for instance,” Bud said, pointing with the bottom of his bottle. I started, and looked where he was pointing. At one of the corner table, was Kevin O’Mally. His hands were on the table, and he was hunched over a beer bottle. The shadows had kept him hidden from me. “That boy still holds the record for the shortest time I ever spent in a delivery room. Seven hours. I didn’t even have time to get my gloves on good,” he said, and laughed. As if he could sense us looking, Kevin looked up. Bud raised his chin and smiled. Kevin did the same in return, then hunched again. My heart was pounding, and I couldn’t figure out why.

“How’d Sarah turn out?” Bud asked.

“She’s a lesbian,” I said, and took a long pull from my beer. His eyes got large, then relaxed.

“Helluva world,” he sighed, shaking his head. He sipped, and mumbled something.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothin’,” Bud said. “It’s just—I never thought—,” he sighed again. “You know you see a kid, and you think that they can be anything, do anything. Then something—,” he said, and mumbled.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he said.

“No, you said something.”

He shook his head, took a sip of his whiskey, and rattled the ice. Then he looked at me and said “Had a talk with Jimmy Clarke today. Wanted my opinion on something.”

“What was it?” I asked.

“Them bones they found; he had the measurements and wanted a second opinion before he went to talk to Aiken about it.”

“Was there something wrong?”

“No. Those bones were from a perfectly healthy individual,” he said, then raised his glass to take another sip saying “a perfectly healthy seven or eight year old boy.”

A chill went screaming through me.

“Seen a movie once where something happened and the dead—,” he said, and paused, set his beer down, and stared off at the front door, “the dead got up and started eating folks. Helluva picture. I was a young buck at the time—I dunno, maybe thirty. Scared hell outta’ me. Slept with the lights on damn near two weeks. Still get pretty worked up about it, every now and again. Thing is,” he said, and seemed to snap out of whatever he’d been thinking, looked directly at me and said “Same chill that ran through me every time I remembered a scene from that movie and had to turn the lights on hit me tonight. Ran through me like lightnin’ today. It was like—.” I waited a few moments, and he took a swig of his beer, looked down at the table.

“Like what?” I asked, sipping my own.

“Like those bones was coming to life any minute. Like they was gonna’ get up off that table and—I dunno—like the little guy was gonna’ set up and start talkin’.”

SEVENTEEN

Things got really thick. There’s no other way to describe it. It seemed like that moment dragged for hours. Bud just stared at the bar in front of him, and I looked at the men playing darts. The beer was cold in my hand, and the sweat from it made my palm wet.

“I gotta’ take a piss,” I said, and stood up. This seemed to drag him out of his mood, too. He smiled and pointed at the back wall. Neon tubes spelled out ‘restrooms’, but only flickered blue every minute or so; other than that, it was dark.

I’ve always felt odd about hearing other people’s conversations as I walked past their table, though. I try to pretend I’m not listening, but you can’t help it; you hear these things, and they puzzle you the rest of the night. One couple I passed had a little girl at the table. They were doing that yelling at each other through clenched teeth so no one knows how angry we are because we’re in a public place thing. The little girl was doing her best not to cry while she ate a huge French fry slowly. Another table had three burly men, their beers in mugs rather than bottles. They laughed extremely loud at the girl who was taking their orders, but her expression said that whatever their joke was, she didn’t think it was very funny.

The door going into the restroom squeaked. It’s rare to find one that doesn’t. The echo of that tiny squeal seemed to be as loud as a jet taking off. A man said “Excuse me,” as he came out; I’d almost knocked him down with the door. He shouldered past me and when the door closed behind him, I was alone. There’s something very creepy about being in a public bathroom alone. The muffled music outside, the dripping sounds from the urinals; the whole thing makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up for a second.

I took the smaller of the stalls. I’ve never known why, but I don’t like peeing at the urinals, especially if other men are in the room. Something uncomfortable about not knowing where to put your eyes: some men stare at the wall, some look at the ceiling—some have animated conversations with other men right next to them. I’ve never gotten the hang of when it’s okay, and when you shouldn’t talk in the restroom, so I just always choose the stall. The door doesn’t shut all the way, behind me, though. I spent almost five minutes trying to fix the thing, my body screaming at me the whole time, but nothing worked. Finally, I gave up, turned around, and relaxed.

The door squeaked open right at that moment. Somehow, I’d known it would. Someone coughed and walked to the urinals. From under the little dividing wall, I could see someone’s sneaker. It was one of those black canvas high-tops that all of us kids from Placerville used to wear. That brought back memories; my mother had always wanted me to wear something else, but those were all I’d wanted. One time, she’d even gone so far as to buy my school shoes without me. She’d brought home these white leather sneakers with all kinds of colors and designs on them. She’d said “They’re so bright and colorful. That’s ‘cool’, Mikey!”, and I knew the moment she said the word cool what she’d done; she’d talked to some of her friends. My mother never used the word cool to describe anything other than temperature except that once. That year, instead of throwing my old high-tops out, I hid them just up the road at the bus stop. I’d wear her shoes to the bus stop, slip into the old shoes, then change back at the bus stop before going home. I’d thought I’d be the only one, but I found out within weeks that quite a number of the parents had done the same thing, and most of us kids had responded in the same way. There had been black canvas high-tops hidden all over the town that year.

When I came back out of my thoughts, I was finished. I zipped back up and walked out of the stall. Whoever had been at the urinal was done, too; the shoe had gone. I stutter-stepped, though, when I started for the sink; the shoe had belonged to Kevin O’Malley. He was at the sink, washing his hands.

His head was down, so for a second it was only me, my shocked reflection in the mirror, and the back of his head. His short, spiky black hair seemed so out of place with all the graying, balding, heads out in the bar. He seemed lost.

Instead of standing up, then noticing me, though, he did something odd. Kevin, still bent over at the sink, spat once, then cut his eyes toward me. It was only then that I began to wonder what he was doing. His eyebrows came together slightly, and his lips, though together, moved against each other. Something in the set of his shoulders changed. He reached over and shut off the tap without standing up. The only sounds were the echo of the last drip from the sink, and the muffled music outside.

Both of us were wondering the same thing. Me because I’d never talked to him, and because I wondered if he’d ever known how afraid of him I was. Why he didn’t say anything I’ve never figured out. Looking back, it also seemed odd to go that long without anyone coming in; most bar restrooms are a continuous flow of people. That moment hung there forever, though.

“Mikey Kendall, right?” he asked, barely moving his hips or legs as he stood up. He was wearing clothes that didn’t fit with the bar, either; dark jeans and a shiny black pull-over. Something about him made me think that he was lost.

“Yeah,” I said, “You’re Kevin O’Malley.” It wasn’t a question, because I knew who he was the second I saw him. I’d lived in fear of him for so long that something even deeper than his features was burned on me permanently. I guess some writer guy would say that better, but it’s the only way I know to describe it. I felt like I could be blindfolded and still know exactly where Kevin was in a room. It seemed so funny, at that moment, though; I noticed that my shoulders were higher than his. Age had gotten the better of us; I was taller than Kevin O’Malley.

“Ain’t seen you in a long time,” Kevin said, and sniffled. His right hand moved like he wanted to bring it up to his face, but he didn’t.

“Yeah,” I said, and I was about to say something else when a burly man waddled in past us. He unzipped and hawked up something deep from his throat, then spat it into the urinal as the splashing sound started. At the time, I didn’t know what to make of it, but I saw Kevin’s eyes follow the guy for a second; something hungry lived in that stare. Then he looked back at me, and with a flick of his head toward the door he turned and left.

I took a second to wash my hands, and wondered what I should do. He’d meant for me to follow him, obviously. I wondered if I should.

I must’ve spent more than a few minutes thinking about it, though, because the big man who’d come in shouldered up to me, trying to get some space at the counter. “Pardon me there, fella,” he said. I started, then moved aside.

“That there little queer boy ain’t givin’ you no shit, is he?” the man asked while he washed. I noticed his hands were so big, he couldn’t fit them both into the sink at the same time.

“Excuse me?” I asked.

“The little queer that ‘us in here a second ago. He wuh’n’t botherin’ you, was he?” the man asked, shutting off the water and pulling paper towels from the dispenser.

“Keh—,” I started, then decided not to say his name, “No. No, he wasn’t bothering me,” I said.

The man nodded to himself, then left. I looked into the mirror, and my eyebrows were pulled together so tight, the rest of my face looked pinched. I walked out the door, and almost right into Kevin. He nodded at me, and then walked down a short hallway that lead away from the bar. He opened a door with a sign above it that would have read Exit if it hadn’t been broken.

Outside, the smell of wet garbage mixed with the smell of woods. Sully’s had only been slapped into an undeveloped plot of forest land; that land crept closer and closer every year. Some day, it would have to be cut back. Kevin walked five feet from the back door of the bar and was standing next to a tree. I walked slowly toward him, hearing the door click shut behind us. Two feet away from the door, though, the smell of the garbage went away; only the wild smell of trees remained.

Kevin put his hands in his pockets, and I noticed just how thin he was. The light from around front and the full moon made most people look pretty whited-out, but Kevin was nearly silver. I noticed how sunken in his eyes were.

“Jesus, it’s been a long time,” he said, “how’ve you been? What’ve you been up to? Where do you live, now?” I couldn’t figure it out; Kevin was curious about me? His lips were pulled back from his teeth a little and it occurred to me he was smiling. He was happy to see me. He seemed small and something else; some poet would probably say he was withered, that he looked like a decayed version of the golden menace in my head.

“I’ve been good,” I said, still not believing. His eyes were bright and intent on me. “Working as a mechanic and—,” I started.

“You always were good with your hands,” he said, smiling. Something in his voice said that he’d always known how things would turn out.

“—seeing this girl—,” I stumbled.

“Of course. Happy good kind of life, right? You always were the good one,” he said, and looked away. I felt like asking him what he meant, but he seemed to be almost crazy, in a way. His eyes, his voice; something wasn’t right. I don’t mean that he didn’t fit with the image I’d always carried around in my head, I mean that something in the way he was acting was more like a dog that’d been whipped too much. He wanted something from me, and I didn’t know what it was. “I bet she’s a real looker, huh?” he said. I smiled at his tone because I didn’t know what else to do.

“Kevin, it’s really great to see you, but I need to—,” I started and his face fell. Not in the classic movie sense, where the actor falls apart, but it shifted just enough that I knew I’d said the worst thing in the world before I’d even finished saying it.

“Sure,” was all he said, over and over again, quieter each time. His head bobbed with each sure. His arms were twitching, though, and his breath was ragged.

“Kevin, are you—?” I started to ask, but before I could finish, Kevin feinted. He didn’t pitch backward like they do on all the television shows, though; he just crumpled. It looked like someone had snipped all of the wires that were holding him up at once. I stood there for a second because I didn’t know what to do. That feeling had never left me.

When I did check on him, though, he was breathing okay. His eyes were open and glassy, his pulse was far too quick, but his breathing was okay. His skin was shiny white in some places, but dark red in others. I picked him up and put his arm around my shoulder. I started walking us toward the back door to Sully’s.

“No!” he mumbled. His head lolled against my shoulder.

“What?” I asked, “Kevin, you passed out. I’m going to take you back inside so that maybe Bud can—,” I started.

“No!” he said, and stumbled. It wasn’t until after I’d gotten a hold on him again that I realized he hadn’t stumbled; he’d struggled. He didn’t want to go back into Sully’s.

“You don’t want to go back in?” I asked.

“No,” he said. He mumbled something after that, but the only words I could make out were “me” and “home”.

“Kevin, you’re not doing so good, let me have Bud—,” I started again, moving for the door. He stumbled again and fell down. When I bent down next to him, the spotlight above the back door shone clearly into his eyes, making him look like he was staring at something very far away. He was trembling, and his eyes were starting to tear.

“No,” he said, and his shoulders started to move up and down. It took me a second to realize he was sobbing. His eyes were still huge in the light. He was mumbling and again I could make out “me” and “home”, but also “Andrew” and something about “bad shit”.

“Do you want me to take you home?” I asked. Still sobbing and mumbling, he nodded. “Did you drive?” I asked. Again, he nodded. I reached past his arm to rummage in his hip pocket. His keys were easy to find, but he kept mumbling “later” while my fingers were in his pocket. I slung his arm over my shoulder and stood him up again. On the key ring was the logo for a car company, faded and worn. There weren’t many cars in the parking lot that night; most of the men inside always rode together in trucks. It was fairly easy to find his Honda..

It’d been a very long time since I drove a stick shift, so I was rusty at first. Kevin was still crying and nearly curled around himself in the other seat. On the stereo, someone was singing about the badlands, and I had to turn it down; he’d been listening to it very loud. “Kevin,” I said, “Kevin.” His head moved a bit, more like someone who thought they heard something out in the yard than like someone answering a question from two foot away. “Kevin, I don’t know where you live,” I said. He wasn’t responding, just staring and then crying. I pulled the car over, slapped it down into neutral, and dug into his other pocket. He mumbled something about “later,” but I came out with his wallet.

The photo of him seemed too young to be the person sitting next to me. The expression was blank and had some sort of hope in it. Just below it read his name, Kevin Anderson O’Malley, and then an address. I recognized it as being not far from here. It wasn’t a nice sort of place back when we were growing up, though. I hoped that it had changed. I folded the wallet up and set it on the dash, put the car in gear and hoped.

The area was out near the railroad tracks. No town ever has nice places to live there. Usually, though, the rent is cheap, payable in cash only, and there’s no credit check to worry about. As I pulled the car up into the grouping of buildings, I wondered how he kept it from being stolen. There were no streetlights out this far. Just past the headlights of the car, I could see figures moving in the shadows. They seemed to scurry out of the way of the light just in time to keep from being seen. It seemed like some sort of magic ability.

The numbers on the doors ran downward until I found the one. I put the car in park, and then shut it off. I kept expecting someone to tap on the window, or some horrible face to come out of the darkness. It seemed like a horror movie about to come true. “Kevin,” I said. His head lolled over the seat toward me. The shaking had stopped some, and his eyelids didn’t seem skinned back from his eyes anymore.

I don’t know why I decided to do it, but somehow I knew, even before I shut the car off, that I’d be staying with him tonight. It took a few minutes of maneuvering to get him out of the seat, then close and lock the car doors. He seemed to realize what was happening, though, because he helped in little, unconscious ways. His body would shift closer to me, or he’d pivot on his tip toe when I needed. For a second, it was nice in a way that I still don’t know how to describe; two guys moving in one direction together. I unlocked his door and walked him just inside. The only light in the place was coming from a small door just down a murky hallway. It seemed like a bathroom light, maybe.

When I closed the door and flicked the light switch, nothing happened. He giggled under his breath and mumbled something like “oops.” I saw a couch about two foot in and walked him to it. I tried to move him slowly onto the cushions, but he slipped and fell. His head bounced a little on his neck as his flopped onto the couch. I walked back to the door and locked it. When I turned around, his head was on the arm of the couch, and his body only in one cushion of the two; it looked like he was about to snap his neck. I walked to him and moved him down some, his head sliding down onto a pillow. I let go of his legs and looked at him for a moment. His eyes were still open, but no longer so wide it hurt me to see. His breathing was still steady, though. His skin didn’t look so blotchy.

The floor was covered in piles and piles of books. He had two planks of wood anchored to the wall with books stacked on them. I don’t know how, but I knew he’d made them himself. They were full to toppling with books. A small table was in front of the couch, and off to the side of that was a larger table with two thin chairs. That table was the only place clear of books. On it was a cheap looking stereo, and a few legal pads that were filled with scrawled words.

“Mikey,” Kevin whispered. I looked over at him, and felt how still the room was. “So good. Always so good,” he mumbled. I could see he was trying to use the toe of one shoe to wiggle out of the heel of the other. He kept missing. I walked over to him and slid his feet out of his shoes. He immediately put his socks up on my lap, and I leaned back; the smell was strong. Thinking back on it now, though, I remember it wasn’t bad as I’d always expected another man’s feet would be, it was just strong.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Bunk shit from Andrew. Too quick. Always too quick. Bathtub shit,” he slurred, and kept mumbling things like that. I didn’t know exactly what he meant, but I got the gist; he’d taken something in the bathroom just before I’d spoken to him, and it had turned out to be a lot stronger than he’d expected it to be.

He put his hand on his forehead, palm down, then gave a huge sigh. “What?” I asked. He shook his head without saying anything. All of a sudden, he sat bolt upright, and tried to get up off the couch. Before I realized what he was doing, though, he had fallen. He was lying on the floor, twitching before I could scoot forward to stand up. “Kevin?” I asked.

I stood up as he managed to get to his hands and knees. I came around in front of him and reached for his hands just as his back arched and he groaned loudly. I stepped back. It was so powerful it didn’t seem to come from him. It was more like the house was being warped and twisted by the wind outside. He looked up at me and his eyes were somehow bigger than what they’d been, even before. They seemed to be begging me for something. “Are you—?” I started to ask, when his back arched once more, this time higher. I felt sure he’d broken something. I don’t know how, but at that moment I got a very clear picture of what was about to happen. I knew I didn’t have long.

I reached down, got him to his feet, and practically carried him down the hall. I just managed to get him in front of the toilet before the next spasm. The clang from the toilet lid was still ringing through the house as whatever he’d had for dinner came hurling out of his mouth. His back had arched so far this time that he seemed to leave the ground for a second. I stayed at the door, but I turned my back; if I watched any more, I’d likely wind up doing the same thing myself. The sounds were almost enough.

I started to walk to the kitchen to get a glass of water for him, but the second I’d formed the idea to do it, between the gut wrenching sounds of one convulsion and the next, he managed to say “Don’t leave me, please don’t—.” The rest was cut off.

I don’t know how long I stood there. It seemed like hours, but it couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes or so. The clocks said that. When I turned back around, he was no longer on his feet. Kevin was lying on his side, his head hung over the edge. His skin was damp and yellow. His eyes were closed, and his face blotchy and red. I had counted a full 120 seconds since the least heave. Later, when I allowed myself to think about the details, I was amazed at the fact that there was no mess anywhere but in the bowl. I wondered, all those years later, how much different the scene would have played out if maybe I’d had to clean up after Kevin. Monday morning quarterbacks always make the best plays, though.

I leaned past him and pulled the shower curtain. I leaned a bit further and started the hot water. The shower belched once, then again before a steady stream came out. I put my hand under his head from the back, lifted it, and closed the toilet seat. I let his head back down slowly. He was breathing loudly through his mouth. I pulled the lever and the toilet flushed. I stepped back and grabbed his arms, lifting him up and putting him on the toilet lid. His head lolled back at a strange angle. He groaned. “What’r you doing?” he slurred.

“Getting you cleaned up,” I said. I’d had to do this before. One of the kids who started at the garage a year or so back had been only seventeen, high school drop out, but really good with cars. The boss took a chance on him, and in about two weeks he was already “one of the guys.” Of course, when he turned eighteen, we all took him out. Drinking age is twenty-one, of course, but there are ways around that in a city. We got him torn up on beer and tequila shots. Of course, someone had to stay with him; we’d been gauging how much to give him by ourselves, forgetting that he was smaller, weighed less, and hadn’t ever gotten to that point before. I was the one who was most worried, so I was the one (along with his roommate) who got him cleaned up and in bed. Needless to say, though, he didn’t make it to work the next day.

Something was different about this, though. I pulled off Kevin’s socks, then his shirt, all the while noticing little things. His wrists were very small, but his fingers were very long. His shoulders were broad, but not very thick. His waist was extremely small. I was very busy with the thought of getting him “taken care of” so I could go home to sleep, though, and didn’t pay enough attention to myself to notice. I leaned in and sort of draped his chest over my shoulder. I stood us both up, and unbuttoned his pants. The whole time he was breathing loudly and mumbling. I slid his pants down and his hands came around me in a strange reverse hug. I sat him back down, and finished pulling his pants off.

Kevin was naked. It struck me all at once. He was naked, and even though I’d been around other naked men without thinking anything of it, something about this seemed intimate. I was uncomfortable immediately. I tried everything not to look, but I couldn’t stop myself. I’ve always wondered what would have happened if I hadn’t. I wish I could say that I was above that sort of thing. It seemed better than my own. That’s what I most remember. As stupid and weak as that sounds; it seemed better—larger and not as ugly, somehow. When I realized I was staring, I felt I had to do something. I grabbed Kevin’s arms and stood him up.

For a second, I wondered how I was going to keep him standing up in the shower. He was somehow able to step over the sides, though, as if he knew for a split second where he was. As soon as the water hit him, he flinched, trying to curl himself forward into a ball. His skin seemed to go from yellow to pinkish, though. I felt like I was doing the right thing.

As soon as the water hit him, though, he seemed to go on autopilot. He ducked his head under the water and then scrubbed his face with both hands. The water over his body made me think of a skyscraper; most of the men I’d ever known had large bellies, and were covered in fur. Kevin’s body was whipcord straight, and smooth. I got that feeling, again, of something moving around in my stomach, and turned to leave. I was going to get a glass of water and see if there were any aspirin. As if sensing, though, he grabbed my arm and mumbled “don’t go.” He nearly fell over from moving too quickly, so I had no choice but to steady him. Both arms of my shirt got soaked through.

I started washing him. He’d managed to keep everything contained to just himself and the bowl. For some reason, that stuck out in my mind. He kept sighing and slumping one way or another. I tried not to look at his body; I tried not to think about how he looked like one of those paintings I’d spent hours in the library looking up. I tried to think about Susan, or this one model from a car ad that the guys had had blown up to poster size back at the garage. I heard my mother’s voice in the back of my head saying “shame on you, Michael Kendall, shame on you!” but even that didn’t work. My eyes kept wandering over his body and it made me angry.

“Ow,” he mumbled when I started to scrub too hard. I felt my mouth pulled tight into a frown and the tension in my shoulders. At some point, I’d taken my shirt off. From the corner of my eye, I could see it in a wet pile on the sink, my watch sitting next to it.

I shut off the water and leaned him against the wall. “Don’t go,” he kept mumbling. I moved to get the towel from the rack. It was a huge, plush blue one. I pulled the shower curtain the rest of the way back and handed the towel to him.

“Here,” I said, “dry off.”

He started to rub at his skin with the towel, but nearly fell over several times. I had reached to put my watch back on, but stopped. He wasn’t going to be able to dry himself. I’d have to do it. Some part of me felt soft toward him, his weakness at that moment. Another part of me felt something stronger, more red-orange, and that made me mad. I snatched the towel from his hands. He nearly fell over. “Get out,” I said quietly, but there was an edge in my voice that made him look up. He stepped gingerly out of the tub. I wrapped him in the towel so I wouldn’t have to look at his thin ankles and narrow hips.

I dried him off roughly. He hunched his shoulders against my efforts, and his face was drawn into a scowl. “Ow,” he kept mumbling, and sucking air in through his teeth. When I bent over to dry his legs, my face was directly in front of the part of him I most wanted to avoid looking at. I stared straight down, trying not to notice how small and clean his toes were, and always aware that part of him was right beside my face. I felt the heat off of him on my cheek. I stood up and wrapped the towel around his waist. “Go,” I said, and walked behind him a bit, putting my hand out to stop him from running into anything as he walked down the hall. I steered him back into what I assumed as his bedroom.

He made it four steps. I heard the thud. I found a light switch and saw the tiny bedroom. He’d hit the bed at about hip level and had just fallen over onto it, as if he’d done this a million times. I shook my head; his eyes were already closed, and his breathing already deep. His light blue sheets seemed to wrap around him like a hand. I moved the dark blue comforter up over his shoulders and turned to leave the room. It was as I was reaching for the light that I remembered the towel. I shook my head, walked back to the bed, and reached under. My hand slid along the smooth plane of his stomach; I felt his bellybutton just under my pinky. I found the edge of the towel and unwrapped it. I pulled it out from under the comforter and smoothed the blanket down.

As I turned to go, his hand shot out with the speed of fear and grabbed my wrist. “Please don’t go,” he said. His voice was almost clear, and I thought for a second that the whole thing might have been an act. Then he hiccupped and groaned, all without moving his head or his shoulders.

“I have to.” I needed to leave. I was starting to shake.

“Please stay. I’m scared.”

I closed my eyes. Whatever it was in me that was on the verge of being broken finally snapped. I knew I wasn’t leaving.

“Okay.” It seemed like someone else talking. Perhaps another me. “Just let me go make sure the door is locked.”

His grip on me tightened. “No,” he whispered.

“I’ll be right back.”

His hand slid off of mine, but I still felt the warmth there. Walking back down the hall to the front door, I kept thinking ‘leave’ over and over again. I knew I wouldn’t, though. I didn’t know what I wanted, or if I even wanted anything, but I knew I was going to stay with Kevin that night. I locked the front door and shut off the hall light on my way back.

He was in the exact same position as before, on his right side with his knees bent up toward his chest, his head curled as if to meet them. Whatever there had been in my chest that was red-orange and filled with anger had softened now. A sort of warm glow was in its place; a warmth that spread throughout all of me. I was still shaking, though. I shut off the light and I heard him make a noise like a question mark, “It’s just me,” I whispered, and stood there. In me was the same feeling I’d had just before putting Randy on my bike a million years ago. I unzipped my pants, and then slid out of them. Naked, I climbed into the bed.

Kevin slid backward, pressing his back against my chest. The part of me that I understood least that night pressed between us. He burrowed his face down into the mattress and made a soft noise I’d never heard a man make before. Before I could stop myself, I put my arm around him, and pulled him closer to me. Just before I drifted off to sleep, I noticed that the continuous chatter of my mind had, for the first time in at least a decade, gone silent.

EIGHTEEN

I don’t know how long Kevin’s hand had been roaming over me when I finally woke up. I’m not entirely sure why I reacted how I did, either. I got lost in his touch and didn’t come back to myself until long after we were both lying side by side, panting and damp. His smell was all over my skin.

Night streamed in from the single window in the room. The blue curtains were still, and each individual blind let one thin line of light through. Even in the dark, I could see his head was turned, and he was staring at the pulled blinds as if he could see right through them. I wanted to get up and leave right then, and at the same time, I wanted to pull him to me and hear his breathing against my chest once more.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

“For what?” I asked, surprised at how tender my voice sounded to me.

“Taking care of me.”

I didn’t say anything. He was coherent and together. I’d never seen anyone have a—a—what? I know all the television shows called what I’d just seen a “bad trip”, but what did that mean? Usually, something like that was followed by a scene of everyone gathered over the troubled teen in the hospital. He turned over on his side, and put his head on my chest. I breathed in and then out; my whole body hummed with stillness.

“Did you ever sit in your room, look out the window, and wonder if maybe the whole world had died, only you didn’t know about it, yet?” Kevin asked.

“No.”

“Some nights, after dad had—whatever—wailed on me—I’d just sit in my bed and stare out the window. Just sort of think about what I’d do if the world was over,” he said, and curled his knees up against me. The gesture was so feminine it made my chest hurt. I looked at his body, all the skin and bone and muscle, and felt sad.

“I spent so long—” He turned his head up and away, staring at the ceiling. I could tell he was trying not to cry.

“It’s—” I realized I didn’t know what I was going to say, “—late.” Too late, I knew that was the exact wrong thing to say. He blinked at me. “We should maybe get some sleep,” I said. Outside the window, the wind howled.

“It could all be over out there, in a movie or something, and we wouldn’t know,” he said.

“Does that scare you?”

“No.” He snuggled under the covers. “It makes me feel heavy and tired, like I don’t have to worry anymore.” I heard him breathing for a while, and I started to drift. “What would you do?” he whispered.

“Hmmm?”

“If the world was over, like if it had already ended and you were—I don’t know—left behind or whatever—what would you do?”

“I don’t know,” I said, “you?”

“Get on a boat and go way out in the ocean where no one is. I’d go out there and stay,” he said. The last words came out in a low murmur, “people fuck me up.”

I felt his hand begin to roam over me, again. There were just a few taps, at first, like someone testing ice on a lake with a pole. Then, the touch moved across my shoulders. My head pounded, and the room had a high-pitched electricity running through it. The touch went away, then I felt the bed move behind me.

A touch started at my waist, somehow more insistent, more conscious than before. It ran up my side to my rib cage, and moved slower over each of them, as if counting. I could tell this was a hand, and I felt it move forward. It came down from my ribs to my stomach. There it went from the brushing of fingertips to an open palm and warmth.

“Mikey?” Kevin whispered.

I didn’t want to respond; I wanted to become a stone. “Yeah?”

“Move closer; it’s cold.” His hand gently pressed on my stomach. I moved until my back touched his chest. He moved upward until his elbow sat on my stomach, and his flat palm rested just over my heart. I felt him breathe. My head pounded with white pressure; I felt as if I might pass out.

His hips moved against me; nothing horrible, just a tiny pressure. I exhaled, and again felt close to passing out.

“Mikey?” His breathe felt so warm against my neck.

I didn’t want to answer; I wanted to be a rock.

“Are you cold, too?”

I wasn’t; my whole body felt hot enough to explode. “Yeah.”

“Turn over,” he said.

I did. His arm circled around behind my back, the flat palm between my shoulder blades. I felt his muscles, huge and thick against my side. His jaw was there, next to mine, and I felt the warmth of his breath. His eyes were open in the dark, too. Something in the middle of me was warm, and liquid. My whole body vibrated. “Kevin,” I said, “I’m not really cold.” It sounded like a radio broadcast in another room.

“Me either,” he said. I felt the pillow move, and then felt his lips against mine.

Morning peeked in just under the blinds the next time I paid any attention. A loud sound from the bathroom, and the sound of water running brought me back from where I’d been. I hummed from fingers to toes. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t think my body and me; I thought I. Parts of me felt sore and used and alive, and I was tired; hungry.

The bathroom door opened, and Kevin crawled back underneath the sheets. I turned on my side and felt him against my back immediately. His nose moved against my neck lightly. I smiled, “that tickles,” I said. I wanted the smile to stay, but it faded quickly.

“Still awake?” he asked. I heard the grin in his voice.

“Yeah, but I need some sleep.”

Quiet fell between us, and my mind tensed for a second; the quiet was nothing like the huge spaces that opened up between Susan and I. This was closer; warmer. I didn’t feel like I had to fill this. I could leave it. I decided to. I became aware that my hand was over Kevin’s, both resting on my chest.

“Was this the first time for you—?” he asked.

“What?”

“First time you—you know?” Kevin whispered.

“I don’t—I don’t know, really. I hadn’t—umm—I hadn’t thought about it,” I answered. I heard him inhale and then exhale. I felt his hot breath against my neck and down my back. “Let’s—let’s talk about it some other time,” I said.

He didn’t say anything, but pulled me to him again. I felt his hands clasp themselves tighter around my chest, and his lips caressed the back of my neck. I felt my skin prickle. He kissed me on my neck exactly on top of one of the bumps of my spine. His hand began to play with my hair in long, slow strokes. My feet were warm. Every tiny touch moved through my entire body. We drifted off together like that. I have never slept that good before or since.

Somewhere in my sleep, I began walking down Hitt road. The edges of everything were blurry, and I remember thinking to myself “I’m dreaming,” only, it didn’t feel that way at all. I kept getting that feeling as though I were being watched. I felt very peaceful, though. My feet were carrying themselves along without any guidance, and I could focus on the crickets and how bright they sounded. I focused on how the sky was a deep blue at this time of night. My feet hit the asphalt with a steady pulse.

Just up ahead, I saw the stop sign and the four way where Hitt road crossed over Shelby. I said “Old highway 80” out loud, because that’s what Mr. Roger had always called it. He’d get this confused look on his face whenever anyone mentioned Shelby until you called it “old 80;” then his face would relax, and he’d nod.

As I stepped out into the road, I saw that someone was coming south on Hitt. It seemed like a bicycle. Even in the darkness, I could make out the rider’s pumping legs. I stood at the exact center of the four way, and waited. I’d always wanted to do that, but had never gotten up the courage. The bicycle got closer, and after a few minutes I noticed that it was my bike. I looked around for my bike, feeling like I’d just left it a second ago, lying on its side near the stop sign. There was nothing there, though, when I looked. The bike rider was closer every second, and I could already hear the wind rushing through the spokes. “Hey!” I wanted to call out, “that’s my bike!” but I said nothing.

Whoever was riding the bike was accelerating. The bike was flying at me. I honestly felt like I should move, or be run over. The moment I stepped aside, the bike whistled past me. Funny thing is that, at that exact second, everything went slow motion. I watched as the rider went by me, and felt the wind over my whole body.

The rider’s legs were long, and the torso lean. His shoulders were broad, and his neck long. His jaw was strongly angled, and his hair thick black. When he passed by, the smell of jasmine came over me. He seemed oddly familiar, though I’d never seen him before. I remember thinking to myself I should call out, get my bike back, but I didn’t know what name to call.

I grabbed for the bike to try and stop him. He turned to me with the blurry face of dream creatures, but I knew it was him. I knew he was angry at me for stopping him. He said “I’m just a message,” and tried to pedal away. I wanted desperately to ask him what he meant by that, but instead I felt myself let him go as I said “Be home for dinner,” for no reason. I watched him as he stood up to get more leverage. He and the bike flew off and I thought of a Valkyrie. I watched and watched, my head tilted up into the night sky.

Not that I opened my eyes, though; I became aware that the black space I was in was just my eyelids shut over my eyes. I wasn’t watching Randy anymore and something, something, was important about that. I had to—to—to do something? I was busy inside, trying to figure out what that was. The slow motion ended and, when I looked down again, I wasn’t at the four way anymore. I was standing in front of Delany Hospital. I watched as the boy parked my bike, locked it, then walked inside.

For a second, he stopped at the door, and turned around. He looked almost dead at me, and smiled. That’s when I woke up. The morning light had grown a bit more blue and less gray. I could tell it was getting later. I knew I had things to do, though. I just wanted another hour or so. The second I closed my eyes, I opened them again.

I had taken that long to sink in that the boy on the bike was Randy. Don’t ask me how I knew, I just did. Dreams are like that.

I couldn’t remember which was the real world. I thought I should close my eyes to get back to reality; that it was bad for me to sit and lounge in a world so wrong. Then I realized. It seemed so vivid; the smell of the rubber tires, the rusted red bike, everything. I felt guilty for being away from Randy when he needed me to help him—help him—help him do something, but I couldn’t remember what it was. I seemed so important just seconds ago, though. I should remember, I thought, in a way. I was still very confused, buzzing inside.

The buzzing slowed down gradually. Names came back for the things I was looking at: alarm clock, window, clothes basket, etc. I cooled off inside. Everything in me slowed down.

I came awake slowly and realized I was alone. Kevin wasn’t in the room. I pushed myself up onto my elbows, and looked around. The covers on the other side of the bed were rumpled and pushed back from the edge. I put my head back down on the pillow, wondering if he’d ever really been in the room with me at all. The door opened.

A jet of cold air burst in behind Kevin. For a stark second, his nearly naked body framed by the lamps above the highway and the golden yellow of the porch light. He closed the door, putting his hands up to his shoulders and rushing to the bed. He wiggled out of his jeans as he came, and sat down hard. He scrambled under the covers and immediately searched for my body with his hands. When they touched my skin, I jumped before I could stop myself.

“You’re awake,” he said.

“You’re hands are cold,” I said. He pulled me to him, his hands around my ribcage. His chest against my back. His skin warmed fast. Our feet tangled around each other. I shivered once, as my body cooled, then warmed with his.

“Sorry,” he said.

“Where’d you go?” I asked, feeling his lips and nose against the back of my neck.

“I needed a cigarette.”

“Oh.” I didn’t know he smoked.

“You’re so warm,” he said, nuzzling against me. He pressed his hips into mine from behind, and his stubble tickled against my shoulder. I started for a moment; I wanted to stay in the bed; the two bodies had made it warm in that way only two bodies can. I also wanted to run, to get away from this close feeling.

“I was worried for a second,” I said.

“Why?” he asked.

“I thought maybe I’d—,” I said, but let it drift off.

“You thought that maybe you’d what?” His words tasted like smoke mixed with the sweet smell of fresh sex. His hands roamed my chest, and I found myself relaxing as his fingers warmed.

I closed my eyes. “I thought that maybe I’d dreamed it.”

He laughed under his breath. I knew his eyes were closed, too. We stayed like that for a time, my breathing slowly coming to match his. His hands found themselves along my chest and clasped. He was nuzzled against me so close that it seemed as though we were the same person. I felt warm and heavy. My eyelids drifted downward.

“What now?” he asked.

“Hmmm?”

“What now? What happens to us now?” hespoke to my neck. whispered against my neck.

My eyes opened. I hadn’t thought much beyond what we’d just done and the sleep that was fast approaching. I just wanted to be here, warm and asleep. He was right, though; we’d have to figure out what had happened. The second one of us opened the door to leave, the world would pour in.

“What do you want to happen?” he asked.

“I have to go,” I said, and then feeling his body pull away a fraction, I added “soon.”

“Oh.” His body had already gone stiff against mine.

I felt the bed get colder. “I have to take care of something for my mom and dad,” I said, looking around to see where my clothes were. I found them in a pile near the window. I started to think about how to untangle myself from Kevin and get to them. Some part of me grew angry, though; I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want to leave to do something for them when they’d never done anything for, and I stopped myself at that moment. It felt odd, but I stopped myself; everything shut off for a second. It was like slow motion in a movie. I watched myself from inside, and actually saw the last word, the one I’d been about to say, floating there in my mind. Why had I started to think that?

“What are you thinking about?” he asked in this small voice. I was still “stopped” inside. My eyes rolled over to look at him. I decided to come back to the world.

“I was just thinking,” I said.

“About what?” he whispered.

“This,” I answered, “how hard it is to think about this.”

A little valley formed between his eyes, “What do you mean?”

“Were you—?” I started to say, then stopped. I realized that the question I was about to ask sounded stupid.

He smiled, “I was wondering when you were going to ask.” He shifted around some, getting comfortable. I noticed how little the mattress moved as he did; how light he seemed. “Yes, I was always like this,” he said, “and I always hoped I’d wind up right here; right where I am right now.” I made a sound that I didn’t understand. He looked at my eyes for a second, and I had to look away.

“But you hated me,” I said.

His lips pursed for a second, then he whispered, “Maybe for a little while. I was a kid; I thought it was your fault I—felt the way I did.” I looked back up into his eyes. “I was a kid; what did I know?” His shoulders moved slightly. Just then, my stomach growled. He laughed, and I laughed too. He reached out and put his hand on my stomach; it was warm, and made me breathe heavier.

“Aren’t you ever worried?” I asked.

“Worried about what?”

“I don’t know,” I said, looking at the floor. “Aren’t you ever worried someone will find out?”

“Half the town already knows, Mikey,” he said. He sat up, letting his hand fall from me. “You have been gone a long time, but I’ve been here my whole life,” he said, staring forward as if in a trance. “Most of the guys in this town were friends of mine at one time or another through high school.”

“So then why do they—”

He made a small noise in his throat like a laugh. “After one sleepover, Mikey, they weren’t very friendly to me anymore.”

I started to ask what he meant, then it hit me. I felt cold and hollow inside, staring at him.

“The rest of the men in this town know because they know which door to knock on when their wives and girlfriends get mean.” He turned and put his feet on the floor. He stood up, and the light moved over him. Again, my mind saw a skyscraper—tall and thin and flat.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

He went to the window, and peeked out of a blind. He let it slip out of his finger and it snapped loudly back into place. He turned his head slightly, and over his shoulder said “It means I don’t say ‘no’ a lot.” Something in his voice was empty.

“So, you mean you—?” I started to ask, but trailed off. I tried to see in him the boy who had so terrorized me. There was something there, the fierce set of shoulders and the ramrod straight spine. Something was gone, though; he seemed more like a little boy standing by that window than he ever had when he actually was small.

“It pays the bills, Mikey,” he whispered, “and that’s all I care about.”

“But, aren’t you worried?” I asked.

“About what?” he whispered.

“You know—getting it?” I asked. He turned toward me.

“Getting—?” he asked, his head moving forward from his shoulder.

“AIDS,” I said.

His eyes closed and he let out a long sigh. “You don’t get ‘it’,” he said, making the marks in the air with his fingers and I felt stupid, “by just being gay.”

“No, I know that, but I mean—well, are you scared you might someday with—umm—as many people as—umm—you say you’ve—?”

“Have you ever known someone who was living with it?” he asked.

I shook my head.

The look on his face said, thought so. He leaned back against the wall. “It’s like some—some fucking science fiction film. Like someone made the most horrible thing they could think up; something out of a zombie movie or something. You watch them smile and laugh,” he said, “sometimes you think that maybe it’s something God’s doing on purpose—not to wipe out gay people—but something to wipe out people,” he said, and looked down at the mattress, the whispered “Sometimes you wonder what the world is going to be like after there is a cure You wonder if the whole world will just have a big sigh of relief and then go on as if nothing happened. As if millions of people haven’t just vanished because of this—this—thing that acts like something out of a stupid drive-in zombie movie,” and with each word he crumpled some; some writer guy would say that better, but that’s what it looked like.

“So you think that it’s something someone did?” I asked after a long pause.

He glared at me, “I don’t know dick about it, Mikey. All I know is that I don’t have it, and it makes me feel like shit to be thankful for that. It makes me feel like a horrible person every day.”

“Did you—?,” I started, but my throat closed up. When it opened again, “did you lose someone to it?”

He looked at the floor, then walked toward the bedroom door. “Do you like your eggs scrambled or how?” he asked.

I felt stupid. I wondered if he’d always been this smart as a kid. I wondered what might have happened if we’d been friends then. He walked past me and out of the room. I sat on the bed for a while longer. Then I got up, and put my pants on. I looked at my shirt, thought about putting it on, but didn’t. I heard Susan’s voice from a few months ago in my head, “you never just slum it, do you?” When I’d asked her what she meant, she’d said “you always put all your clothes on, even if we’re not doing anything that day. My brothers were always running around without their shirts or socks on. It’s like they didn’t care who saw them. You even wear your belt right up until it’s time for a shower or bed.” I don’t think I understood what she meant until that moment. I didn’t care if Kevin saw me without a shirt. Somehow, that felt important.

When I walked into the living room, Kevin was standing near the stereo. He put a disc in, and pressed play.

“Who’s this?” I asked as the song started playing.

“Johnny Cash,” he said, and I noticed that when the man sang a line, Kevin closed his eyes.

“You like country music?” I asked.

His eyes opened. He looked at the front door, then he looked at me for a second. He shook his head slowly from side to side. He went into the tiny kitchen, and pulled a pan out from an overhead cupboard. He set it on the stove, then opened the refrigerator. I looked in over his shoulder as the scratchy voice on the speakers asked how many roads a man had to walk down before he could be called a man. I wasn’t hungry anymore. “I’m not really all that hungry,” I said. He stopped, then closed the refrigerator slowly.

Without turning around, he said “So, you’re leaving?”

“You seem okay, now. I don’t know how you aren’t still sick after last night, but…”

“You’ve never taken anything in your life, have you?” he asked, turning toward me. On his face, something had changed; something had grown more distant and cold. I shook my head ‘no’. He nodded. I could see him grow more distant with each second. His eyes, so clear and focused a moment ago, back in the bed, were growing cloudy. I could tell he was waiting.

It felt like I had to wrench my eyes away from him. I turned, and walked toward the door. I could feel his eyes on my shoulders the whole time. At the door, I stopped. I put my hand on the knob, and turned around. He hadn’t moved. “I’ll call you,” I said. He blinked, and looked down at the countertop. I immediately felt like I’d said exactly what he thought I would say; and that saying it had stung him very deeply. I didn’t know what to do; I wanted to rush back to him and do the things we’d done last night all over again. I wanted to do anything to make him not feel hurt. I wanted to leave, too. I wanted to get in the car and gun it.

I couldn’t see, but I know his whole body jumped with the click of the closing door.

NINETEEN

In all of the jumble and confusion, I’d forgotten that it was Kevin’s car I’d driven from Sully’s. I’d walked from my parent’s house. I’d have to walk all the way back. I looked up; the sun was just a little past the horizon. The large hand of my watch hovered near ‘7’, as if undecided. The morning was mild, though growing brighter. The road shimmered at the far edge every time I crested a hill. The only cars on the road were empty, and the shop windows all had ‘closed’ signs.

I looked down at my watch as I turned the corner and saw my parents house. It slid over the top of the ‘8’. The car was in the driveway. The paper was already gone from the front porch. Some small, naive part of me had hoped they’d still be in bed. I knew better, though.

The front door opened with a creak. I closed it and locked it. My mother appeared as if by magic the instant I turned around.

“Well, good morning,” she said in a way that meant she didn’t think it was one.

“Hi.” I rubbed my eyes. I was still tired, and I knew what I smelled like.

She looked at my shoes, then slowly up to my eyes. “Is that Mikey?” my father asked from the other room. I heard the rustling of the paper.

“Yes, Albert,” she responded.

“Where’s he been?”

Her right eyebrow cocked. I felt twelve all over again. I walked past her.

“I went over to Sully’s last night and had a beer with Bud Gantner,” I said. I heard my mother’s footsteps just behind me. My father was in his chair, his feet (in black socks, of course) propped on the ottoman. He didn’t look up from the paper as I slid by. My mother followed me all the way into the kitchen. She stood at the counter as I took down a box of cereal from one cupboard, a bowl from another. I had to wait for her to move as I went into the refrigerator.

“I wasn’t aware the Doctor Gantner drank,” my mother said. She meant she didn’t know I drank. That took me aback for a moment. I was thirty, after all; what had made her assume that I didn’t drink? “Susan has called this morning. She says she would like you to call her back as soon as you’re in,” she said as I poured milk. As usual, some slopped onto the counter. The disgusted click of her tongue sounded like a gunshot to me; I felt so small at that moment, all I wanted to do was to leave the house again. Before I could set the milk back inside the refrigerator, she’d already gotten the rag and was wiping up my mess.

I wanted to say I was sorry, but I didn’t know what I was supposed to be sorry for. “Thanks,” I said, picking up the bowl and moving to the table. She shook her head, and her hands went onto her hips.

“Well?” she asked. I stared at her for a second, then took a spoonful of cereal. She exhaled loudly.

“What?” I said with my mouth full.

“Michael James Kendall, you were taught better than to talk with your mouth full,” she said.

I made a show of chewing the remaining cereal, and swallowed loudly. “What’d I do?”

She rolled her eyes, “Where were you? Your father and I were worried sick—”

“You were not. Come on, mom, I was just out—”

“Drinking, yes I know! Making an ass of yourself, no doubt, as well.”

My spoon hung in mid-air. I couldn’t move. My head started to shake a bit. I’d never heard her cuss at me before.

I started to lower the spoon back to the bowl, but my eyes never left hers. After a few seconds, she exhaled loudly again, and stormed out of the kitchen. I heard her heavy steps on the stairs. I had just managed to get my neck relaxed when I heard the paper rustle, and my father came into the kitchen. He looked at me for a second, then asked “Any more of that left?”

I nodded. He went to the same cupboards. Without saying anything, he poured the milk and got a spoon. When he sat down next to me, I saw he’d fixed almost the same exact amount. He took a spoonful, and chewed for a second. I did the same.

“So,” he asked, without looking up, “who was she?”

“That’s not what happened,” I said, looking over at him, “I ran into an old friend from school. He was having a rough night and got himself too drunk to drive home. I took care of him. Crashed at his place.”

He looked up at me, nodded to himself, then began eating, again. I finished my bowl, and leaned back in the chair. Outside, through the blinds, the sun was going from yellow gold to pale white. “You smell bad,” he said. I smiled, and got up from the table.

The hot water streamed down over me, and I tried not to think about how much it felt like fingers. I tried not to think about whose fingers it seemed like. Every time it happened, though, it was either Susan or—or him—just behind my eyes. I didn’t want to think his name. Every time I didn’t think about his name, though, my body responded.

I was thinking about doing something about it when someone knocked on the bathroom door. I tried to cover myself with my hands, and thought, Christ, I am twelve all over again! “Yes?” I asked.

“Don’t forget, dear, you said you would go to the Sheriff’s office to take care of the paperwork from our little accident,” my mother said.

I didn’t remember agreeing to do that, but I said “Okay,” just to get her away from the door. I thought back to every time she’d ever come bursting in on me while I was showering or doing something else that I didn’t want to be disturbed while doing. My cheeks got hot. In a house with two sisters and a mother who didn’t believe in door locks, I learned to hide things. The second therapist had talked extensively about that. “Boundaries,” he’d said, “Michael, they’ve left you with no boundaries.” He’d been right, of course, but at the time it felt like he was attacking my family. I’d been twenty-two, what the hell did I know? I paid for that session and never went back.

I didn’t want to shut off the warm water, but I did anyway. The cold air filtered in so fast, my jaw tensed. I toweled off and slid into my jeans. At the mirror, I started to shave, but stopped. I looked at my face. Something in it was clearer than it had been yesterday.

I watched my eyes the whole time I shaved. It was like I kept expecting someone else to spring out from behind them. I washed the lather off and walked to my room. My mother had folded the clothes, again. I growled under my breath, and took a shirt from the top of one of the stacks. Sliding into it, I walked down the stairs. In the living room, I fell onto the couch with a loud exhale. My father didn’t look from the paper. I pulled my shoes on, again, and tied them. They were still damp from the long walk.

“I have to go take care of the paperwork with the Sheriff,” I said, “okay if I take the car?”

The paper shifted slightly, then “Sure. Keys are on the table.” I stood and went into the kitchen. My mother wasn’t there, and there was a real emptiness. On the refrigerator was a small note: ‘Mikey—call Susan ASAP.’ Below it was the number back to the apartment, as if I didn’t know it. I shook my head and, out of instinct, reached for the phone. I stopped myself, though. What would I tell her? My hand slid down off the phone slowly, and I left the kitchen.

After the long walk, the car felt like a luxury. I turned on the radio and dialed around a bit. I found an oldies station, and listened to it. The DJ said that it was “Wreck Wednesday;” all songs about car wrecks, all day long. I rolled my eyes, and turned the volume up.

I thought maybe I’d have to ask for directions on how to get to the Sheriff’s office, but didn’t. I remembered exactly where it was. The town moved all around me as I drove; life on the sidewalks, life in the windows—I felt cut off from it. I wondered what they’d say if they knew what I’d done. I dialed around some more on the radio, until I found one of my father’s talk radio programs. A baseball player had died recently, and everyone was talking about his career. I wasn’t listening; it was nice to have noise that was easy to shut out, though.

I parked the car just up the block. The meter read ‘expired’ in yellow. The sign above it said “No Parking 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mon.-Thurs.” I started to turn the car back on, but decided to let it go—I would be talking to the Sheriff, so it was unlikely anyone would be reading the meter. I got out, and checked my zipper. It wasn’t until that moment that I got nervous about seeing Sheriff Aiken.

As I walked, I remembered how he’d been a sort of scarecrow to all of us as we’d grown up. He lurked around every corner, in every darkened window. The Sheriff saw everything you did, and if you were bad, he’d come and take you to jail. Our parents planted this fear in us from the time we were small, and it grew with each strange story. Any time someone was missing from class for more than two days, we were sure the sheriff had taken them off somewhere and eaten them. Aiken was larger, and more horrible than life. I felt like I was walking into the den of some monster, and that I might not make it back out again. I wanted armor and a sword, like one of the movies Susan loved so much.

‘Placerville Police Station’ was stenciled on the glass, with a yellow five-pointed star just underneath. I took a breath and pulled on the handle. I stepped inside and, as the door closed behind me, I felt the cold air inside. A small wooden wall that came up to about my knees separated a five foot area from a larger area beyond it. A tiny gate lead from one to the other. I stepped toward it. A large desk, piled with paper, sat on the far wall, and a hallway began just behind it. From this angle, I couldn’t see where it went to. The window on the rear wall showed cars passing by through the slats of an ancient blind.

“With ya in a minute,” someone said from a back room. I heard the dull thud of boots on hard wood coming closer. I had to breathe in deep, then out through my mouth. One of my therapists had taught me that. I tried to remember which one, but couldn’t. The thudding grew louder until the Sheriff emerged from that hallway. He seemed to be adjusting his collar. He was looking at the floor. When he looked up, he stopped. His eyes squinted, folding the skin along his eye sockets some.

“Help ya?” he asked. His hands were near his hips.

“Um—I was just—,” I started.

“Say, son, I remember you from the other night down at the store. Albert Kendall’s boy, aintcha?” I nodded. He walked over to his desk and sat down.

I gestured toward the tiny gate, “Can I—?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said, smiling. I was immediately afraid of that smile. I remembered seeing pictures of barracuda; it was the same. He smiled and leaned back further in the chair, “Ol’ Albert Kendall. How is he?”

“He’s doing fine,” I said, coming through the small gate. It clicked shut behind me. I stepped closer to the desk as he put his feet up on it with two dull ‘thunk’ sounds.

“Yeah, I bet,” he leaned back even further, and I thought for a second he might fall over. He pulled out a cigarette from the top drawer of the desk. He lit it, puffed on it twice, then set the lighter down. He put his hands behind his head. “Ol’ Albert Kendall,” he said around the cigarette. “Well, you ain’t come this far just to hear me jaw about the past. What can I do you for?” He smiled a bloodless sort of smile.

“The other day at the church, umm—,” I started.

He took his feet down off the desk, and leaned forward. I had to stop myself from jumping back. “Hell, that’s right. Ol’ Albert smacked up into Missus Dodgeson. Ain’t it always the way?” As he talked, he rummaged through some papers. He picked two or three from the pile, read them, then handed them to me. I had to force myself to step forward. I took them. “Now, you tell Ol’ Albert I said it was okay if he reads those before he gets ’em back to me. When them folks up to New York or wherever call, I’ll set ’em straight.”

I nodded, and he smiled. I could tell that was supposed to be all. I tried to turn to go, but couldn’t. Before I could stop myself, I heard my voice ask “I’ve, uh—,” I began, “I’ve been reading about the case. The, umm, the remains?” I said. Something in his eyes went instantly from glossy and far away to focused and intent. I waited.

“God damn shame what this world has come to, ain’t it?” he asked, his lips still moving around the cigarette.

“Yeah,” I said, “Umm, I guess—I guess I was wondering if there’s been any investigation into who, umm, who the bones might belong to.” I said.

He sat up, the chair protesting the whole way. He put the cigarette in the ash tray, and put his arms on the desk. “They’s over at Jim Clarke’s place right now. He’s workin’ ’em,” Aiken said, then “Something on your mind, son?”

I swallowed, “Just—,” I started, stopped, started again, “just wondering. I dunno if you remember a while back, a boy named Randy McPherson came up missing.”

“You ain’t the first one come askin’ ‘bout that particlar case. When Jimmy’s done sawin’ away on ’em, I’ll get someone over here from the paper and give out somethin’,” he said, leaning back some once more, “God damned shame what happened to that boy. Pete McPherson wan’t never the same after that. Went a little loose in the skull, if you know what I mean,” he said, and I did, “Shit, I’s just a young buck back then, myself. Didn’t know nothin’,” he said. His eyes grew far away and he turned his head to stare out the window. He was quiet for a long time, and I started to think I should leave, but then he whispered “Gwen Ladd.”

“Excuse me?” I asked, craning my head forward.

“Gwen Ladd,” he repeated, “Was to ‘ventually marry Pete McPherson. Though, not right away, you can be sure ‘a that,” he said, turning his head to catch me out of the side of his eye “God damn shame, that was. You know Pete McPherson?” he asked, head still sideways. I got an image from a film Susan and I watched on sharks. Any minute, I expected his jaws to open impossibly wide, and four rows of teeth to glitter out. I nearly had to shake my head to clear it.

“Some,” I said.

He nodded to himself, and turned to look out the window once more, “God damn shame to waste a pretty gal like ‘at on someone like Pete. Now, book learnin’ is fine, don’t get me wrong, but Gwen Ladd?” he said, turning to face me again, leaning forward on the desk, his elbows spread wide, “that was the horse shouldn’t never been broke’.” I didn’t understand, but I didn’t know what to say, so I stood still. He looked down at the desk, and said “Last thing that woman needs is for someone to come along digging up that little boy of her’s.”

“Do you—?” I started to ask, but had to clear my throat. He looked up sharply when I did, “Do you know where she is?”

“Up ta’ Delany. Was you around when that boy went missin’?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” I answered.

He looked up at me, his eyes dialing down to that sharp hardness, “how old was you back then? ‘Bout eleven? Twelve?”

“Twelve,” I said.

He shook his head some, “That boy was her world, son. You got family?” he asked. I shook my head ‘no’, and he nodded once, to himself, as if confirming a suspicion. Then he said “That boy was her world. When he disappeared, well,” he paused, “I believe she didn’t see no reason to stick around.”

“But I thought you said she was at—?” I started.

He tilted his head a bit to the side, and said “Her body is in that loony bin, son, but Gwen Ladd? She stepped out for a cigarette some time ago, and ain’t been back yet,” he paused, “Twelve,” he whispered, shaking his head and looking at the desk. “I tell you this, boy,” he said, looking back up at me, “were the lord god himself to come back today?” he said, tilting his head up at me and squinting, “he’d burn us all down to cinder, and sweep us into the gutter.” Chills ran up my arms. “That’d be about right,” he said, and nodded to himself. My whole body flashed cold.

Somewhere on the ride, I started to wake up from whatever haze I’d slipped into.

To this day, I don’t remember leaving. I don’t remember driving. I don’t remember a lot, except running those final words over and over again in my head, like a movie. When I did wake up enough to know where I was, the car was off. I was in a parking lot. The sunlight didn’t look too much different than it had a bit ago, so it wasn’t much later. I looked out the window and saw that I was at the hospital. Not the emergency room, though; I was parked near the regular building entrance. As I watched, an old man and a younger man walked in the doors together.

“Why?” I asked myself, out loud. No one answered. I knew why, though. I thought back to that day, seeing Mrs. McPherson in the car. I remembered looking past Randy to see her, and the sun reflected in her eyes. I had to know, I guess. Some writer would probably describe that better, but all I understood was that I needed to know.

The doors slid open for me, and I walked inside. The hospital was cold and white. All four rows of chairs in the lobby were white leather. The whole place seemed too clean, a purposeful clean that made me feel queasy. I walked to the desk in the middle of the room. No one was there, so I waited. I watched the monitors showing patients and doctors moving around in black and white. Some cameras were pointed out at the parking lot: I watched a large bus stop outside, and an old black woman get out and hobble toward the front steps.

Just to the right of me, the bathroom door opened, and a man walked out in a white uniform. His ID badge dangled at from his beast pocket. As he walked behind the desk, the phone rang. He picked it up without breaking stride. “Delany admitting, please hold,” he said. He punched the little red button without even looking.

He looked up at me and asked, “Can I help you?” still cradling the phone between his ear and his shoulder.

He was familiar. I’d seen him before; something in the eyes. “Go ahead, it’s not all that important,” I said. He looked down at a page on the desk and tapped the red button again, “Delany admitting, thank you for holding. Can I help you?” He listened for a moment, his eyes roaming the paper in front of him. I couldn’t help but stare. I moved to get a look at his ID badge, and then it hit me. I’d seen those same eyes before, but in a girl’s face. His ID read ‘Leonard Marshall’ and in the photo, he was smiling. I’d seen that same smile, and those same eyes on Jennifer, his sister, so long ago. I flinched, thinking once more about the night I lost my virginity. ‘Lenny’ was ‘Jenny’ Marshall’s little brother by about five minutes. They were twins.

“Yes, ma’m, but I’m afraid visiting hours would be over before you could get here, though. Would you like me to connect you to the phone in that room?” he paused, waiting, then said “Okay, hold on just one minute.” He tapped a few buttons on the phone and asked me “Can I help you?” before he’d even set it back on its cradle.

“Lenny?” I asked, and his eyebrows shot up a bit. “Hi, I’m Mikey Kendall. I dated your sister—god, what? Ages ago,” I said. His eyes relaxed some. I could tell he didn’t remember.

“Ah. Okay. You’re not looking for her, are you? Because she’s—,” he started.

Before I realized I wanted to know the rest of what he was about to say, I said “No, no. Not here to talk to her.”

“Okay,” he said.

“What I’m actually here for is—,” I started before I realized that I really didn’t know what I was here for. I wanted to see Gwen McPherson, but I didn’t know why.

“You’re not a reporter, are you?” he asked.

My eyebrow shot up, “No, why?”

“They’ve been here, already. They’re asking to speak to Mrs. McPherson, poor woman,” he said. He leaned forward like someone in a movie and whispered, “there are a lot of people who think that those bones they found? They think those are Randy McPherson. Or, what’s left, anyways. You know, the kid who disappeared a while back?” I nodded. “Well, seems they want to ask her what she thinks about that.”

“How many have been by?” I asked.

“Four or five, for right now. Guy came from the Tribune, another from the Journal. One guy came in all the way from Duncanville,” he said, leaning forward a little.

“No, I’m not a reporter—but—well, I’ll be honest; I want to see her,” I said.

He nodded as if I’d confirmed something he’d been suspicious of all along. “Thought so. I don’t have any Kendall’s on my roster for today, so I know you’re not visiting any kin,” he said, “you know I can’t let you up, though.”

“None of them got up, either?” I asked.

He shook his head, “Nope. Doctor Baker says no one gets up to that ward without seeing him first,” he said, “and he’s away from the hospital, today.”

I looked down at the counter, my blurry reflection looking back up at me. I smiled and turned away. “Hey, wait,” he said. I turned back to face him. “You’re that guy she went up to Lake Taboga with that one time, right?” I nodded. “Thought so,” he said, and sat down in his chair. I wanted to ask him what he meant by that, but turned to walk away, instead.

For some reason, seeing Mrs. McPherson had become a burning thing inside of me. I still don’t know why, but it was all tied up in that same feeling I had the day I figured out that Randy wasn’t in the coffin they put in the ground. In my head, thinking ‘I want to see her’ was the same thing as thinking ‘it’s too narrow’. Randy had never fit in that coffin. I opened the driver’s side door and stared up at the windows, thinking ‘which one?’

The whole drive back to my parent’s place, I couldn’t tell you how I knew any of that. Gradually, it just became certain. I knew that, when the press conference was on the local news at six, those bones would be Randy’s. It was like someone was sitting at a keyboard, somewhere, typing this all out, and I was only finding out line by line. The worst part was that the feeling I had no choice in any of this happening settled into me, and my arms felt heavy. I wanted someone to hold me. I knew that I had to call Susan back, but I found that I wanted Kevin’s arms wrapped around me. I shook my head when I thought of that, and turned the stereo up louder. Unfortunately, my father had pre-programmed only A.M. talk radio shows and I was attempting to block out Kevin’s arms with baseball statistics. I snapped the radio off violently, and forced myself to think about Susan.

By the time I pulled back into the driveway, I was breathing heavy, and I felt cold. My shoulders were so tense I thought they were going to snap. I wondered why I hadn’t left, already.

TWENTY

“Bud Gantner called for you,” my father said to me as I walked in the door. I set the keys down on the kitchen table, “and someone named O’Mally.” I froze.

“Did—umm—did they say what they—wuh—wanted?” I asked without turning.

The paper rustled, “Bud just wanted to see if you were alright. He says you went to the men’s room last night and then didn’t come back. The other boy didn’t say,” then came the inevitable pause, the rustling of the paper, “that isn’t that O’Mally boy you went to school with, is it?”

“Yeah,” I said, “I ran into him the other night.”

“At Sully’s?” my father asked, and I could hear each word grate on my nerves like a polishing machine: in me, sparks flew everywhere.

“Yeah,” I said. Just then, mercifully, the phone rang. “I got it,” I said, and walked to the counter. I didn’t care who it was, as long as it stopped my father before he got going. “Hello?” I said.

“Michael,” Sarah said. I heard her breathe in, hold, then exhale. Her mouth sounded dry.

“Hi,” I said.

“How are you?” she asked, in that way that meant ‘I don’t care, but you expect me to ask’.

“I’m okay,” I said, already wondering if I was going to call Kevin at all, and if so, him or Susan first.

“How much longer are you going to be staying there?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about it,” I said. On the phone, there came another inhale, exhale, and then a low rumbling sound.

“Is that your cat?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said, “with Diane away, he won’t leave me alone for five seconds.”

“Where’s Diane?”

“She’s left me.”

All my trains of thought stopped. For a second, the entire room was quiet. I heard her shirt move against the speaker, and the rumbling got quieter.

“I—umm—I don’t know how much—how much longer. Why?” I asked.

“Because I was thinking—,” she began, trailing off. I waited. “Because I wanted to ask you to come stay with me a few days to—to help me get my things packed. I’m moving, you see; out of here, away. I’d like some help.”

I looked back into the living room. My father was just putting the paper down, and picking up the remote control. The television clicked on, and he began to rock the chair some. I looked back at the phone. “I—umm—I don’t know, Sarah. I—,” I started.

“That’s fine, Michael. I could have used the help, is all. I can manage, though. Thank you for your—”

“Wait a minute.” I looked at my shoes. “Just—just fucking wait a minute, okay?” I sat down at the table, the telephone cord stretched over my shoulder. “I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be here, Sarah. And I don’t know how much longer I’m—,” ‘going to be with Susan’ I almost said. To this day, I remember clearly having to will myself to stop talking. “—needed,” I said, “here. I had to go to the sheriff’s office today to get some—,”

“Sheriff’s office? Why? What happened?”

“—some papers. There was an accident at church the other night I had to go get the police report.”

“Aren’t those usually faxed or mailed directly to the insurance company?” “Probably in a real town, yes. Here, though, we have to deal with Aiken. You know that.”

I heard another inhale/exhale. I could tell she had calmed down some. “You’re tense, Michael. What is it?”

I turned to look at my father, and saw that the mid-day news was on. The graphic at the top right hand of the screen was a picture of a set bones in the dirt. “Sarah? I’m gonna’ have to let you go. Can I take some time to think about this? That’s not a ‘no’, just—I—umm—need a little time. Is that okay?”

She exhaled loudly, “I guess, Michael. Call me,” she said, and hung up.

I rushed into the living room just as the anchor person switched over to video tape of a small stage. In the audience were ten or eleven people in suits, all working furiously on yellow legal pads or tiny spiral notebooks. On the stage was a wooden podium. The state seal was on it. The national flag was on one side, the state flag on the other. At the podium was a man in police uniform. The caption underneath him on the screen read ‘Sgt. Abe Mills’. He straightened some papers he had in his hands, cleared his throat, and said “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen for coming out today. I want to assure you that we have been working ‘round the clock on the matter of the remains found just north of town four days ago. At this stage in the investigation, we have some conclusive forensic evidence. I’d like to turn this conference over to Doctor James Clarke, the forensics officer assigned to this case. After he speaks, there will be time for questions for either I, or Dr. Clarke,” and then he stepped to one side.

I sat down on the couch. My father, in his chair, picked up the remote and aimed it at the television. “Horseshit,” he mumbled.

“Don’t!” I said.

He looked over at me, his eyes squinted. I thought for a second he was going to ask me why not, but his eyes relaxed, and he settled the little box back down onto his thigh. When I turned back to the screen, a tall man in a blue windbreaker was behind the microphone.

“We’ve had to send some of the remains off to Eukiah for double checking; dental records and so forth. You all watch television, I’m sure you’re all familiar with what it is we do, now,” he said, and looked down. I got the impression he wasn’t happy about the new found popularity of his field of work. “But I’ve been working in this field a long time. I can tell you this. The remains are incomplete and, judging from some of the marks I saw on them, this is likely due to scavenging. We did have enough to work with, though, to sort of get the ball rolling,” he said. He looked down at his notes, flipped a page, then said “without dental records, I cannot be certain of the identity, but here are some broad facts. The remains are those of a male, approximately 6 to 8 years old,” he said, and the room came alive with murmuring. I closed my eyes. It seemed like a bullet had gone through me. To know, to finally know. The doctor raised his hand, palm out and shushed the crowd. He continued “I understand what you’re all thinking, and let me assure you, I’ll get the results of the dental record check out as soon as it’s back. Let’s understand something, though, folks,” he said, and leaned forward on the podium like a preacher. “Even if this little boy isn’t Randolph McPherson—,” the rest of what he was going to say was drown out. The room exploded into noise.

Hearing the name made it hard to breathe. For so long, he was just a face in the back of my head. A set of emotions tied in a knot that had a name only I knew. To hear a complete stranger speak that name made me tear up.

On the screen, the doctor got the room quieted down once more. “As I was saying,” he continued, and something burned in his eyes “even if this little boy isn’t the one missing for so long, that doesn’t make it any less of a tragedy. No matter who he is, this little boy was somebody’s son who never made it home. Let’s try to keep that in mind, okay?” he turned and walked off the stage.

Before Officer Mills even made it back to the podium, hands were up. He looked over at the doctor, who gestured toward the crowd as if he wanted nothing to do with them any more. Mills turned to face them. He pointed to one and said, “Sandy.”

A woman with long blonde hair and glasses stood up. “Thank you, officer Mills. I’d just like to ask: was anything discovered with or near the bones?” In the background, the doctor rolled his eyes and his jaw set.

Mills cleared his throat, and then flipped through a page of his own miniature spiral notebook. “About three feet down inside the dig, what was left of a bicycle was discovered. We’re still in the process of digging that up. We’ll also have more information for you on that as soon as we get it up and run the serial number,” he looked a bit further to his right and pointed at a man in a sport coat with short brown hair, “Dave.”

The man stood up. “Were there any indications of trauma to the bones?”

Mills turned toward the doctor. The doctor came forward, glaring at the crowd. “I am not authorized to answer that question at this time. Thank you, that’s all we have time for today,” the doctor said, turned, and walked off the stage. Officer Mills looked a bit confused, but turned and followed him. The room was alive with hands and people calling out after them.

The news anchorwoman came back on, saying “Of course, we will continue to have coverage as information comes in. To repeat what you just heard, the gruesome discovery of remains four days ago—,” she continued, but my father changed the channel. I couldn’t move or speak. Something in me had jarred loose. He was flipping channels until he found a baseball game on. He set the control down on his thigh. I stood up and walked to the front door. I heard him call after me “Where are you going?” but I didn’t answer. I opened the door and walked outside, shutting it slowly behind me.

I knew what they’d find when they ran that serial number.

TWENTY-ONE

I don’t know how long I walked. It didn’t seem all that long. After a time, though, I realized I was walking the old route out to the field. It felt strange not to be riding my bike. I stopped near one of the huge ditches that ran alongside the road. I could feel the memory coming on, but I tried to stop it. The second therapist I’d seen taught me how to do that, but I’d never been very good at it. I could feel it building up, like a summer storm, pressure just behind my face. My arms and legs felt heavy.

I was still there when the sheriff’s car pulled up. I had been so deep down that I hadn’t seen or heard it coming. I blinked at him, slowly, as he got out of his car. He adjusted his belt and put his hat back on. For a split second, I saw the salt and pepper of his hair. He closed the door of his patrol car and came toward me, his boots thunking on each step.

“Afternoon,” he said, putting a hand up to the brim of his hat.

“Sheriff,” I said, nodding my head.

“Just on my way out to your place,” he said.

“Had to go for a walk,” I said.

“Pretty day for one,” he said. He stared at me for a second, his sunglasses reflecting my face, then said “Did you get those papers over to Ol’ Albert?” he asked. I nodded. “Well,” he said, turning his head and spitting a gob of something brown into the ditch, “I’ll get right down to it; somethin’s come up, and I need a word with you, if you don’t mind.”

“The bike,” I said.

He nodded, “Yahp,” he said, hooking his thumbs through his belt, “the bicycle.” He pronounced it “buh eye sickle”. “You musta’ seen that news conference,” he said, and I nodded. “Hell you must’a been, what? no bigger’n that,” he said, gesturing to his hip. My eyes glued on his gun, “Ol’ Albert traipsed you into my office, and you said someone come along and swiped it out the back yard, right?” he asked. I nodded. He nodded, too, only slower. “We ran the number, and that there is your bike, son. Got it down to the station. Yuh can have it when this whole shitstorm blows over, you want it,” he said. He looked down at his boots, then back up at me, “thing is,” he said, and spit a wad of something off into the ditch, “means I need to ask you a question or two. Won’t take long. Figure we can do that tomorrow.” He tilted his head to the side a bit after saying this, looking me in the eye.

“I was hoping to leave tomorrow,” I said, and immediately knew I didn’t mean it.

“Don’t mean to interrupt your plans. Why don’t you let me give you a lift back over to the station; you can get this out the way, then I can give you a lift back home?” he asked. I couldn’t see his eyes under the glasses, but I knew they were squinted down to pinpoints.

“I don’t know—,” I said, looking back toward my house. My skin was gooseprickled tight, and I was starting to shiver.

“Would it make any difference to ya’ if I said this might help us a damn sight?” he said, turned his head, and spit again. “I mean, son, this thing is gonna’ blow up into about as big a shit storm as a man can ask for. I’d like to have all my ducks in a row when the boys from the FBI come knockin’ on my door, if you catch my meanin’.” He pronounced it “eff” “bee” “eye” with long pauses between the letters. His head was tilted to the side, again.

I wanted to help; anything to help Randy get where he needed to be, but—and that’s when it hit me. Randy wasn’t in that coffin. He never had been. When they put that coffin in the ground, I’d been upset because I knew he wasn’t in it. Somehow, I had forgotten that. It seemed to me some part had remembered, though; in all the times I’d come for visits, I’d never once gone to Randy’s grave. I hadn’t even gone with the discovery of the remains. Randy wasn’t laid to rest—he wasn’t resting. I stood there, looking at the sheriff, for a few moments that seemed to last years. My skin relaxed.

“Sure,” I said, and walked toward the sheriff’s car. He nodded that slow nod, and walked to the driver side door.

“Let me move some of my paperwork,” he said, climbing in. He swept a fat stack of papers and a clipboard onto the floor. Leaning across the seat, he unlocked the door. I got in, and sat down as he turned the key. On the stereo was a song that seemed familiar. He closed his door, and I paused. ‘There’s still a chance,’ some part of me whispered, ‘run.’ I closed my door, and the sheriff put the car in Drive.

“I mean to tell ya’ this is a help.” He sounded grateful. The song’s familiarity drew my attention.

“Who?” I gestured toward the stereo.

“That there is Johnny Cash. Don’t tell me you ain’t never heard of The Man in Black,” he said. It clicked; this was the same song that had been playing on Kevin’s stereo when I’d walked out. Something about a man and how many roads he has to walk down. “When was it; hell, so long ago I don’t remember, but Roger Parker got me listenin’ to him.”

“You knew Mr. Roger?” I asked before I could stop myself.

“Knew him?” he asked, “boy, we served together.”

That was the day I found out that Sheriff Aiken and Mr. Roger were friends. Well, I don’t know that you could call them friends. They’d played poker together over at the VFW hall on Saturday nights, the Sheriff told me. “Ain’t no one in this town could shark me into foldin’ on a flush-build like Roger Parker, the son of a bitch,” he said. I thought that if he hadn’t been indoors, he might have spit after saying that name. I’d never known Mr. Roger’s last name. It seemed to fit perfectly. They each took turns grilling steaks for the rest of “the boys” at the hall every Tuesday, he went on to say. “Lord knows, didn’t have no cookin’ show over on the television, but I did alright. Ol’ Parker wan’t all that great, but shit, who’s complainin’?” I think they respected each other, or at least Aiken thought of Mr. Roger as an equal. The main thing I remember is that, looking back, they talked alike. Not the chopping off ends of words, or calling me ‘son’ or ‘boy’, but more that they had similar gestures; their eyes moved in the same way. I think I started, even then, to grasp what was to come.

Of course, when we got to the police station, the bike was mine. I knew it was before I even looked at it. The storage area smelled like cardboard, and the strange smell concrete takes on when it’s shielded from the sun.

He walked me back to the office, asking “Soda?” as we passed a machine. I watched him as he put the change in, and tried not to smile as he grunted bending to take the cans from the tray. He handed one to me, and took the other. We walked back to the office, and sat down.

“How long you in town for?” he asked.

“I don’t know, really,” I said, “a few more days, maybe less.”

“Well, small piece of advice, son—and the man says you can judge how good advice is by how much ya’ shell out for it, and this here’s free—but maybe while you’re here, ya’ might think about leaving the McPhersons alone.” He didn’t look at me while he spoke. He wiped the lid of the can off with the tail of his tie carefully, as if he were honestly worried about it being dirty.

“I didn’t—,” I began.

“Now,” he said, and went completely still, “son, don’t go that route. It ain’t polite, and, worse, if you start someone to not trustin’ ya’, ya don’t never get that trust back. You know damn well I’ve had that hospital watched ever since I noticed those newsfolk in town. So, save us both the trouble, and just listen to what I’m sayin’.” He looked down the hallway from where we were sitting. “This has been hard on Pete. He ain’t but half the man he used to be, and Gwen? Well, like I said, she ain’t never come back. Some say she’s the lucky one,” he smiled a bit at the corners of his mouth. A chill ran through me, and I stopped moving. “So,” he said, and something in him came back to life, “I need to ask you a few questions about the McPherson boy if ya’ got a minute.” I could tell that was rhetorical, though. He meant I was going to answer. I felt my shoulders tense. “You said you was how old, again, when the boy disappeared?”

“Umm—,” I started, and closed my eyes, willing the stammer to stop, “twelve.”

“Twelve,” he said, and shook his head slowly, just as he had before, “so the boy was ‘bout five, six years younger’n you?”

I nodded, “Yeah, give or—umm—take.” He nodded once.

“You ever have a scuff up with the boy?” he asked.

“No,” I said, “we never fought.”

“If I remember correctly, you and the McPherson boy was friendly.” I could tell the statement contained more than one question.

“I taught him how to swim.”

“Uh huh,” he said, looking at the floor again, “now, I don’t mean to cast dispersion on no man, but I gotta’ ask this question, considerin’ the day and age we live in,” he finished, paused, inhaled, then exhaled as his eyes slowly rolled toward my face, “was you and the McPherson boy more than friends?”

“No,” I said, surprised. “I’m not—,” I started to say ‘gay’, but we had been boys at the time. For some reason, it seemed strange to call two little boys together ‘gay’. ‘Gay’ was Kevin O’Mally.

The sheriff raised his hand as if to stop me, “You don’t have to say anything else. Understand that I gotta’ ask that. I mean, hell, coulda’ been a lover’s spat or whatever the hell those boys call it.” I wanted to ask him if he thought that two boys that much different in age could be—and even in my head there was a pause—like that with each other. Then, I realized that I didn’t even know how I felt about it, so I didn’t ask.

“It—umm—it wasn’t,” I said. He nodded, and sat up straighter. He looked toward the door.

“Did that boy never say nothin’ about, I dunno’, maybe Pete hittin’ him or somethin’?” he asked.

I thought for a second, the said “No.” Pete had never laid a hand on Randy, and Randy had never been the kind of kid that adults have to hit. He had always been a quiet, shy, thinking little guy. I remember that most of all; adults loved Randy. It was me that most adults didn’t like. I mumbled and, as Mr. Roger put it, ‘lurked’. “Always standing around, watching everyone from the corner,” he’d said, “it ain’t right, boy. It don’t seem right.”

The sheriff nodded that slow nod of his, once more. “Had you ever met Gwen McPherson during the time you knew her boy?” he asked, his eyes hitting mine directly. Something in them made me want to scoot as far from him as I could.

“Only once,” I said.

“Some say she started to crack up before that boy went missing,” he said. Again, I could tell there were lots of questions in that statement. His eyes stayed glued to mine. I felt like squirming.

“She came to pick him up after one of the first swimming lessons. That was just before they got him that bus pass, I guess,” I said. He’d always talked about how much he liked riding the little bus that the town had. He said that the vibration made his chest feel funny, and he liked seeing people he didn’t know. Neither of his parents had ever come to pick him up from the Y after that. I’d offered to walk him home a few times, but he said he liked the bus. Like most kids, I guess, I didn’t understand that to have a kid that young ride a bus by himself is not only odd, but a little dangerous. Thinking back on it, it seemed shocking.

In that small space, I realized that I had forgotten a lot of things. Not forgotten, maybe, so much as stopped thinking about them. Randy, so much a part of my life in his absence, was missing. Not just from the town, but a lot of things about him were missing from my memory. In that small, quiet spot in the sheriff’s questions, I realized there were huge, dark fields littered with things I didn’t remember about Randy. I could see outlines and shapes of things, silhouetted by the light which was, just now, starting to creep over them. I started to shake a bit, and I felt that same weak-kneed feeling of my first roller coaster ride.

“Did you ever walk him home after his swimmin’ lessons?” the sheriff asked. “No.” I wanted to tell him about how I’d offered, and about how much I was worried for the boy’s safety in hindsight, but nothing more would come out. If it was possible to be on the verge of remembering something, I was about to, and I could already tell that, whatever it was, it was going to terrify me.

“As I recollect,” he said, looking down at the floor again, “you was a wanderin’ soul back then. Always saw you out and about on that bike of your’n. People told me you was out way past curfew, too,” he said, then looked back up at me, “did you see anyone strange, maybe not so wholesome lookin’, wanderin’ around town the day or anytime the week that boy went missin’?”

I wanted to jump on this new line of thought. I wanted to think about, and remember some drifter, looking vaguely like Charles Manson, that I could say ‘Oh, Yeah!’ about. I wanted there to be a manhunt and an arrest and a trial; I wanted there to be justice. Instead, I was stuck on the verge of remembering something. I felt it building in my head like the cresting of a wave that, just before it starts to curl, you know is too big, too dangerous to ride.

“I don’t—umm—I don’t know. I can’t remember—umm—that far back,” I said.

“Son,” he said, tilting his head to the side a bit, “you look pale. Are you alright?”

“Must be something I—umm—ate. Is it okay if I—umm—go?”

He squinted, “Well, I guess so,” he said, and stood up. I stood, as well. He walked to the little wall and pulled the gate open for me. “I’d be much obliged if you’d let me know if you’re going to leave town, alright?” I nodded and walked out the door.

I had almost reached home before I realized that I didn’t feel ill so much as shocked and afraid; it dawned on me that same moment what he meant when he said that last bit. I stopped walking, and my knees went weak, again. I sat down on the grass, not bothering to look at where I was. I knew the sheriff considered me a suspect.

TWENTY-TWO

My mother was cooking something. The second I opened the door, I could smell it. It was familiar, but the name wouldn’t come to the surface. I walked straight upstairs, though. My knees were still shaking some.

The springs of the mattress groaned under me as I lay down. I kicked my shoes off, and put my arm over my eyes, and rested for a moment. I wanted to leave; just pack my things into my bag and turn in the return-trip portion of my ticket. After all, the sheriff hadn’t charged me with anything—I could still leave. ‘But then, what about Susan?’ some part of me asked, ‘what are you going to tell her?’ I didn’t have to go home, though; Sarah had asked me to come stay with her for a bit. I had told my boss that I didn’t know how long I’d be gone. I could go stay with her and then tell her no to let anyone know I was there—disappear for a while.

‘They always run,’ some part of me said. It was right, too. Someone who runs immediately looks suspicious in ever movie where there’s a murder.

I stopped breathing. That’s right, some part of me said, murder. If the Sheriff was asking questions like that, then he knows more than what they released in the press conference. He thinks that maybe the boy was murdered. When I thought the boy, it was in the sheriff’s voice.

The possibility that something terrible had happened to Randy had always lurked in the back of my mind, like a shadow. I hadn’t ever focused on it. Even the last few days, when I knew on some gut level that the bones they found were Randy’s, I didn’t think about how they might have gotten there. I’d been busy with other things. It felt the same as the day I’d found out he’d disappeared.

I hadn’t been with him, that day. I’d made it a point to always try to be at his bus stop to walk him to his house, even though it wasn’t that far from the stop. I had a bike, so I got home a lot faster than he did. ‘Why didn’t you ever offer him a ride?’ some part of me asked, and I ignored it, like anyone would. I had asked myself the same question, even then. Maybe that’s what made the whole thing even more horrible. The day that Randy had disappeared, I hadn’t been with him because I’d gone looking for him. I was going to offer him a ride home on my bike.

I’d been sitting in my desk, ready for the bell. Mrs. Granford hated kids who did that. She always said “I dismiss you, not that bell.” She was old, and had warts. The only kid in the class who liked her was Veronica Ball. She was the only kid in the whole class that Mrs. Granford would smile at. She would always show her old, faded teeth whenever she said “Ball” during roll call.

I had already packed everything into my bag, and it looked like I was going to get away with out her noticing. I wanted to get down to Randy’s classroom door so I could say “Hey, why don’t you ride home with me, today?” I was excited about it, and nervous, too. The last two days, though, I had decided that I didn’t like the idea of him riding that bus. Again, who can say why kids think what they think, but I was determined that he wasn’t going to ride that bus, anymore. I watched the red hand wind around, ticking off the seconds, when I noticed that the class had gone quiet. I looked from the clock to find everyone staring at me.

“Well?” Mrs. Granford said. I turned my head toward the blackboard, and saw that she’d written out a list of words.

“Ma’m?” I asked. The class erupted into a fit of snickering. She frowned, and folded her arms.

“Which word will you be defining for us tomorrow, Mr. Kendall?” she said. She always did that; called people mister or misses and their last name. I’d seen a man do that in a war film my father liked—something about some place called Iwo Jima. I thought of her, sometimes, as one of those men; always yelling at someone without ever really knowing them.

I glanced at the word list. The vocabulary words; she would take the five hardest of the ten, then ask five of us to write one down. We would have to look them up that night, and come in with the definitions (and she wanted all of them, no matter how many) the next day. I was looking for whichever was the smallest word when the bell rang. I smiled quickly, grabbed my book bag and started to stand. The rest of the kids, all except Veronica Ball, began to do the same.

“I wish I knew where all of you think that you’re going,” she said, loudly. “Mr. Kendall has yet to tell us which of these words he will be defining for us tomorrow. Until he does that, we will go nowhere.”

Everyone slowly sank back down into their chairs. I was in a hurry, so I picked one. “Ennui,” I said. I pronounced it “En You eye”.

“The word,” she began, “is pronounced ‘on we’. It is a French word which we have adopted for use in English. Kindly try again, Mr. Kendall,” she said. I could see everyone staring at either the door or me.

“’on we’,” I said.

“Class?” she said, arms still folded, and glanced around at them.

“’on we’” came the murmur. This time, though, everyone was staring at me.

“Again,” she said. Outside the door, we could hear the raised voices and scuffling feet of people rushing to get to busses or the bike rack.

“’on we’,” everyone said.

“Very good,” she replied, picking up the chalk, and next to the list of words, she wrote a number. “Everyone kindly write down this page number,” she said, and the room erupted in groans. “We will be talking about this page in your history book tomorrow. Please come to class having already read it.” I could tell that everyone in the room, except Veronica, decided to try to remember the number. We all stood up from our seats. “What an odd method of writing down a page number. Mr. Hicks,” she said, calling on Andy. He jumped, and for a moment his nervous shaking got worse. Secretly, I think she liked making him jump. “Mr. Hicks, can you tell me what page number it is I have assigned for you to have read by tomorrow?” she stood in front of the number, so that none of us could see it.

I could tell I wasn’t the only one who was thinking the number very loudly, trying to get it to him. “Umm—uh—thirty five?” he asked. I closed my eyes. I heard Veronica laugh.

“Veronica Ball, can you help Mr. Hicks?” Mrs. Granford asked.

“It’s page fifty three,” Veronica said, making a show of having written the number down on her still-open notebook.

“Very good. Now,” she said, and we all knew that there was a lecture coming, “Perhaps I am unaware of your powers of retention, or perhaps they merely slipped for a moment? In any case, if your obviously impressive eidetic memory can slip even just this once, then perhaps you should have some sort of back up plan, don’t you think? It seems to me that you have a notebook. I have seen it, I think, am I correct?” she asked.

He was already pulling it out of his backpack, and the rest of us did the same. “Yes, ma’m,” he said.

“Well, then, it seems to me that a more trustworthy way of keeping track of this information would be to write it down in that same notebook, don’t you think?”

The sounds outside the door were already growing quieter. We could hear the busses revving their engines; bus drivers are some of the most impatient creatures on the planet, everyone knew that. We were all just waiting for the inevitable sound of those doors screeching closed, and the huge lumbering yellow things pulling away. We all wrote as fast as we could, then shoved the notebooks back into our backpacks. Zippers buzzed, and for a moment the room sounded like a beehive.

“Very well, then. Have a wonderful evening, children. You are dismissed,” she said, and I thought, for a second, I saw her smirk. She thought this was funny. We all knew that the kids who had to ride the busses were going to get yelled at. I knew that I was already too late to catch Randy. Teachers walked the kids to the busses until they were in third grade. He was already on one. From there, I knew he’d be dropped off at a stop near our neighborhood, and have to ride the city bus which came along a few minutes later. I thought that, if I hurried, I could catch him before he had to get on.

I never did catch him at that bus stop. My bike was missing that afternoon when I got to the bike rack.

I heard my mother coming up the steps. The first creaking sound I heard came at the exact moment I was remembering how I looked up from the bike rack to see the tail end of a bus turning off Park Street and onto Niles Road. I don’t know why, but at the time, I was sure something horrible was about to happen. Turns out, I was right.

She turned the knob softly, and I almost didn’t realize she was coming in without knocking until she was already in the room. I decided to play sleep. Nothing new, of course; I’d been doing it my whole life. Somehow, though, in the back of my mind, I always felt like she suspected; that I never got away with it. I tried to slow my breathing and quiet my heart, which had been racing with the memory of seeing that bus turn away. I stopped thinking, and just listened to her movement.

“Oh,” she mumbled, as if she hadn’t expected to find me home. I heard her stand still for a moment, then move quietly about the room, straightening. She wanted me to wake up, I could tell. I heard her make small clicking noises under her tongue when she picked up the towel from this morning off the floor. Her breathing changed each time she bent to move something from the floor to what she felt was its “proper place.” She paused, again, then I heard her walk to the door. I felt the small gust of wind as she opened it, and closed it again. There was a pause between the two, though, as if she took a moment to look. In that pause, I felt something flare up in my stomach, like a spark: guilt. I didn’t even know specifically what for, but it was there.

I took my arm away from my eyes, and looked over at the phone. My mother and I had gone through a war about putting a phone in my bedroom, but Sarah had weighed in on my side. It was still that ancient, milk-gone-sour color phone that I had spent so many nights staring at. I reached down and grabbed the phone line from where it snaked along the floor. I snatched quickly, and put my other hand out as far as I could reach it. It was an old trick from lying on my bed, praying for someone to call. I half expected it to crash to the floor before I could reach it, but it flew onto my palm like always.

I listened to the dial tone for a moment, then put my finger over the interrupt button. The sudden quiet was loud. Before I could stop myself, I dialed.

“Hello?” Kevin said after three rings.

“Kevin,” I said.

“Mikey,” he replied with a flat voice.

“Umm—I just—I—,” I started.

“Don’t,” he said.

“But I—Kevin, I have to—,” I tried to continue.

“No, you don’t. Unless you’re calling to say that you want to come over, hang up,” he said.

I didn’t say anything for a moment. He hung up. The sudden ‘click’ made me jump. Something in my chest contracted, and pressure built behind my eyes. I set the phone down on my chest, my finger over the interrupt button again. I picked it up, and dialed again.

“Hello?” Susan said.

“Hi,” I said, after a moment.

“Hey,” she said. In the background, I heard the television going, and someone laughing. “Super busy right now,” she said, “can I call you back?”

“Yeah—” I started to say.

“Great,” she said, interrupting, and hung up. I put my finger over the button, again, and listened as the house creaked. A wind came through, and the windowpanes rattled a bit.

I dialed again, and when someone picked up, there was only silence.

“I want to come over,” I said, and hung up.

PART THREE

TWENTY-THREE

I slid into my shoes as quickly as I could. I didn’t bother to lace them. Something in me was moving. I kept wanting to say ‘finally’, but that seemed an understatement. I got down the stairs two at a time. I was almost to the door before my mother said, “Goodness!” and caught me from the side-room. I stopped. “I came up a moment ago,” she said, “you were asleep.”

“Just remembered something. I gotta’ go. Can I take the car?” I asked.

“Well, I don’t know, honey. We’ll need to ask your father—” she said.

“Nevermind,” I said, “I’ll walk. I don’t know when I’ll be back,” I said, and opened the door.

“But don’t you want to take the car?” she asked. Something in her voice said that she was hoping for a delay of any kind.

“No, that’s alright,” I called as the door closed behind me.

I was about halfway to Kevin’s trailer before I realized I was jogging. Something in me was moving. I wondered if this was how trees feel when spring comes on. I felt as if trying to slow down would kill me, and I’d been dead so long. The sidewalk gave way to the bare shoulder of the road. That soon turned into hard-packed dirt. The entire time I tried to have a coherent thought, but couldn’t. The only thing I could even begin to describe as thinking was a continual amazement at what I was doing.

I was there so quickly that I felt, for a moment, that I must’ve come to the wrong house. I walked up the two steps, and knocked. I waited, looking around the park. The last time I’d been here during daylight, I had been leaving; I hadn’t noticed much. I could see, though, that most of the trailers were in horrible shape. Down the street, children played stickball in the dying remains of what was, at some time, a small park. One boy slid from a full run while a girl and another smaller boy attempted to tag him. Behind me, the door opened.

I turned to find Kevin wearing nothing but a towel. His hair was damp, and scattered in all directions. Water beaded on his skin. My eyes flashed as I stepped in, forcing him to step back. I felt as if the momentum I’d built up on the way over was in control.

I closed the door with one hand, and put the other on against his face, cupping his jaw. I drew him closer and kissed him. He resisted somewhat, but didn’t actually try to pull away. His eyes opened wide in shock, then melted down to closed while I watched. His hand was flat against my chest, still trying to push me away, but the pressure grew weaker second by second. I don’t know how long he let me kiss him, but at some point, the pressure returned to his hand, and I stepped back.

“What—?” he started, but had to pause to catch his breath.

“I want you,” I said. I hadn’t meant to say that, but in the act of letting the words out, I realized it was true. I realized I’d wanted him all along, even as a kid. I remembered that, even after getting out of the boxing class, I’d still snuck to the windows and watched almost every one of the practice matches he’d been in. I remembered that, at the time, I’d told myself I was watching his stance, and the set of his shoulders. “I’ve always wanted you,” I said.

“Wait,” he said, the pressure against my chest increasing. He was actually pushing me away. “I—,” he stammered, and I smiled, “I don’t—this is—this is too fast,” he said. In his voice, there was surprise and also something else, something I couldn’t recognize.

I put my hand on his arm, “I want you,” I said.

“But you said—I mean—you left.”

“I shouldn’t have,” I said, running my fingers along his arm.

“I—,” he started again, “Mikey, this is—maybe I didn’t explain to you what—I mean what I do—,”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said, trying to move closer. At that moment, I wanted his mouth on mine more than anything else I could ever think of. Something in my chest was pressing toward him; I needed his mouth on mine.

“I’m—Mikey, I’m a—,” he started, again.

“Shut up,” I said, amazed at myself, “and kiss me.”

His eyes changed, and the pressure against my chest lessened. I moved closer to him, and he tilted his face toward me. Our lips met and, in my head, there was a dull thump, as if something in a box exploded. The sounds of the room were more vivid, and my body grew so hot, I was certain it was glowing. I’d heard Susan talk about things like this in her romance novels, which I’d always turned my nose up at, but I felt this. I knew this, now.

When I came back to something resembling my senses, the light in the room was dim. I burrowed my head further down into the pillow, and heard someone sigh next to me. I moved a bit so I could see, and Kevin was burrowed down into his own cocoon. In my body, a desire to wrap myself around him rose up. I wanted to put him in me, to protect him from something. I reached out, and put my arm over him, the flat of my palm against the flat of his chest. I pulled him back toward me, and he moved. His lower back was against my stomach. I smiled, and closed my eyes again. In my head, there was a quiet; not the breath-held quiet of a jungle, but the settled quiet of a house—of a home.

TWENTY-FOUR

In the dream, I was inside an airplane, and looking out the windows at a blazing sunset over the Grand Canyon. I thought I should go forward, to the cockpit, to see out the front windows. The plane was traveling directly at the sun. Everything seemed so warm, and glowed the way things do at that time of day.

From behind me, though, someone kept whispering my name. I tried to turn around, but could only do it inches at a time. Each time I turned, the seat became less comfortable, and things glowed less. Every turn, that whisper got louder. By the time I turned all the way around, I saw that Kevin was making love to my sister in the seat behind me, his eyes on me the entire time. He wasn’t moaning my name, though; he was yelling it.

I woke up to him standing over me, shaking my shoulders. “Wha—?” I started to ask, when he put his hand over my mouth. His eyes were the same huge, intense things as they had been in the dream.

“He’s here,” Kevin whispered. When my squirming didn’t calm, he said “the Sheriff is here.” I froze. He nodded and slowly let his hand off my mouth.

“Why?” I whispered back.

“He’s early,” he whispered, and his eyes went to the bedroom door. Someone knocked on the front door loudly three times, and we both jumped. “Under the bed, or in the closet,” he said, and turned. I jumped out of bed and went into the open closet, shutting it quickly behind me. The dark of the tiny space grew heavy fast. I tried to slow down my breathing.

The creak of a door, somewhere, and voices. The click of a door shutting, and the voices growing closer. The creaking floor got louder until I could tell they were in the bedroom. There was a giggle that stopped short, and the heavy thud of a mattress. The rustling sounds of skin and cloth, and the muffled moans of mouths closed on one another. That was when it struck me what Kevin must have meant by saying “he’s early”. A pressure started in my chest, and it built with terrifying speed. I couldn’t breathe, it seemed, and, even in the dark, my eyes were growing blurry.

Then there came a slap. I talk about things that I remember to this day, but that sound is one which comes of its own volition. I remember it, even when I don’t want to. There was a stifled gasp, and then another slap. Someone moaned, and then there was the unmistakable sound of knuckles against bone.

A tiny little sliver of light came in from a crack between the door and the carpet. The sound of another punch and then a slap came, along with someone whimpering “not the face, please,” before I got down on my knees, and put my face to that small opening. I saw a set of boots near the bed. No sooner did I start to wonder where the other set of feet were, when the sheriff said “Stand up, boy.” The mattress groaned, and two bare feet appeared on the carpet, facing the boots. Another slap, and another punch. The bare feet disappeared, and the mattress groaned again. The boots disappeared, and the mattress groaned louder.

What happened next, I don’t want to go into too much detail on. Even in my own memory, I like to leave it fuzzy. At the time, I remember doing my best to keep still, and thinking about things my sister had said to me. I tried to think about how to spell the huge words she was always throwing around. It was hard, though, to remember whether or not the ending of ‘Liminal’ was ‘a’ then ‘l’ or ‘l’ then ‘e’ with the mattress groaning in a sick rhythm, and the sound of pain coming from one voice, while another whispered a string of curses and hatred. It went on for what seemed like hours. Sometime during it, I managed to find a relatively comfortable spot to sit, and leaned back against the wall without too much noise.

When the sounds died down to rustling cloth and muffled sobs, I came back to what could loosely be termed “reality.” Things still felt thick, and there was very little light, but my eyes were glued on that tiny sliver between the door and the carpet.

The sound of someone getting up off the mattress, and boots thunking across the floor made me lean forward. “Now, don’t go spendin’ that all at once, y’hear?” someone said, jokingly. The sobs wound down to silence. “And, if that Kendall boy comes ‘round, you send him away, y’hear? I don’t want you talkin’ to him.” The boots thunked away until a door opened somewhere, then closed. I reached for the door handle, and someone hissed “stay in there!” as loudly as a whisper can go. After a few minutes which stretched out into what I was sure over half-an-hour, the door opened. I looked up at what was left of Kevin.

TWENTY-FIVE

I finished putting the ice into the bag, and tried to put it against Kevin’s face. He stopped me, and took the bag himself. He put it against his cheek. I came from the sink and sat down at the small round kitchen table across from him. His face was drawn up in a grimace of pain, and his eyes were closed.

“Why did—?” I started to ask.

“Because sometimes he comes back in. Sometimes, he wants more,” Kevin said, without looking at me.

“That wasn’t what I was going to ask,” I whispered. His eyes opened, and locked on mine. “Why do you—? I mean—umm—uh—why do you let him hit you?” I asked. That wasn’t what I was going to ask, either, but I let him think it was.

“I—,” he started, “I let them do whatever they pay for,” he said, his eyes falling to the table with each word. I felt as if I was sinking, and my mind started to flash pictures, but I stopped it. I forced myself to focus on him.

“How—umm—how long, now?” I asked.

“For what?” he asked without looking.

“The—umm—the—uh—sheriff?” I stammered.

“Since always,” he mumbled, turning his head away. I was quiet for a while, and he looked back at me, “I guess I was maybe fifteen, the first time.” Those words felt like someone had punched me. “Funny thing about those boxing classes is that they don’t really teach you how to do anything other than box in a ring. I tried to fight him off, but—,” he whispered, and drifted off. “He left some money, though. At the time, I guess—I don’t know—I guess I figured that if I took that money, then that made me just as guilty,” he said, and paused. “The next time he came over, I—I asked for the money up front. That first time he—he didn’t hit me, he just forced me. After I asked for the money, though, he—,” again, the whisper trailed off.

“What did—umm—what did he—uh—?” I tried to finish a thought, just to move beyond the words we had already said, but nothing came of it. Quiet settled between us, and he took the ice pack off. Underneath, the skin was already turning purple.

He looked up at me. “He’ll kill me if he ever finds out I was with you.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Don’t you get it? I thought for sure you were smart enough to see…”

“See what?” I asked.

“How many nosebleeds you get in an average week?” he asked, looking at me as if this explained something.

“Four, sometimes more; why?” I asked.

“Lucky, then. I get about six or seven if I’m lucky. What about headaches?” he asked. Again, he looked at me as if all this was perfectly clear.

“Two or so,” I said.

He nodded, “Pretty lucky, then.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Mikey, you left, so you never really got to know any of the other people here. I did, though. People talk about all kinds of stuff when they’re lying next to someone they just got to live out a fantasy with,” he said, and shuddered. “Everyone who’s about our age and a little younger seems to have the same problems, Mikey: Nosebleeds, headaches, stuttering under stress. I talked to Dr. Gantner one time, and—,” he started.

“Did you have sex with him?” I asked before I could stop myself.

“No,” he said, “unlike most men I’ve ever met, Bud Gantner really is straight. Thing is, though, he told me once that he was amazed at how many babies were born within the last thirty years or so with these same conditions. He said something else that was very interesting, too.”

“What?” I asked.

“That almost every baby born here in Placerville in the last thirty years or so has been a boy. Not like every single one, but way over the fifty-fifty mark, he said.” I thought back and he was right. There always had been far more boys than girls in school. “For a time, I didn’t think anything of it, until I noticed one thing; there is a real resemblance between all the boys born in this town.”

I stood up and walked to the refrigerator. I got a few more cubes of ice from the tray, and walked back. I took the bag from him, and put them in. When I handed the bag back, he said “I know, it sounds a lot like that show with the guy detective who believes in flying saucers and stuff, and the woman who’s always trying to find a rational explanation or whatever, but it’s true.”

“What is it you’re trying to say?” I asked.

He set the bag of ice down once more, “I think that the Sheriff has been forcing himself on just about anyone he wants in this town for at least twenty years.” I sat down, again. “I don’t have any way to prove it or anything; I’m not a doctor or a scientist; but look at the facts. Almost every kid born in the last thirty years has been a boy, and they all have headaches and nosebleeds and most stutter when things get rough—.”

“The sheriff doesn’t stutter,” I interrupted.

“He doesn’t, no, but one time—,” he started, but then stopped. I waited. “This one time,” he continued, “he wasn’t—rough—or anything. He didn’t hit me or whatever. After, he just—he held me and talked. It wasn’t like he was talking to me, he was just talking. I think—I think his little brother had just died. He said something about how his little brother used to stutter so bad that his father couldn’t understand the kid. He said his father used to think that a demon had gotten into the boy, so he beat the kid every night while the mother stood over him and quoted bible passages. He said that, back where he came from, they called it a ‘cure’. They beat the kid so much, he said, that he tried not to talk to anyone for fear of stuttering. The only person he’d talk to was the sheriff.” He put the ice pack back against his cheek, with a sharp inhale over his teeth.

“I still don’t know that I understand,” I said.

“That little boy that went missing, the McPherson kid—,” he said.

“Randy,” I said.

“Yeah, him; you were close to him, right?” he asked. I nodded. “What color hair did he have?” he asked, and I flinched. Even though he’d been dead so long, hearing the past tense in that sentence shocked me.

“Black,” I said.

He nodded, “What color hair does Pete McPherson have?”

“Brown,” I said.

He nodded, again, “Gwen McPherson is a brunette, too,” he said, “you had high school biology, Mikey; do the math. There is almost no chance that the child of two people with brown hair could turn out with jet black hair,” he paused, then said “he had nosebleeds, too, huh?” I nodded. Something clicked inside me, and my whole body tensed.

“That would mean that—that—that you think I—that my mom—,” I stammered.

His eyes didn’t move from my face. He didn’t say anything.

“More like at least half the town, Mikey,” he said after a while.

I found I was sitting down, though I didn’t remember doing it. My body was going crazy, and my head felt like something heavy was sitting on it. I thought my eyes were going to pop out from all the pressure behind them. He stood up, and stared at me for a second, then walked to the sink. He dropped the ice pack in; the loud thunk made me jump. He stood there at the sink, watching me. I still felt like I had to come up with some reason that he was wrong, and that I could do that if only I could get my brain to relax some, but it wouldn’t.

“You don’t believe me,” he said, “I can tell. Thing is, you don’t have to believe me. There’s someone else who can tell you.”

“Who?” I asked after a moment.

“Get your clothes on, I’ll show you,” he said. That was when I looked down long enough to realize that I was completely naked. It seemed logical; he’d woken me, stashed me in the closet, all with no time for dressing. Since coming out, I hadn’t even noticed that I didn’t have any clothes on.

I stood and walked back to the bedroom. While I dressed, he came in. When he dressed, he didn’t put on underwear. He slid into his shirt differently than I did. His motions seemed somehow graceful and awkward all at the same time. It was like someone who danced alone all the time suddenly having to dance for an audience. Some writer would probably describe it much better, but his dressing seemed like something incredibly private that I shouldn’t be seeing. He put on his shoes without socks, and my mind, still reeling from everything we had spoken of, fixated on that.

“Aren’t you afraid of getting calluses?” I asked.

“No,” he said, standing, “I’m almost never in my clothes long enough to worry about it.” With that, he walked into the other room, and I was alone, sitting in the dark on the bed where everything had changed.

TWENTY-SIX

“Where are we going?” I asked. He stood up as I walked into the living room. I followed him to the door.

“The Hospital,” he said, his hand on the doorknob. He fished in his pocket and came out with his keys. He handed them to me.

“Why—?” I started to ask.

“Because I like it when someone else drives,” he said, and opened the door. I opened the driver’s side door, and it squeaked loudly. I sat down and began to adjust the seat. I hadn’t noticed how much shorter than me he was. As I was adjusting the mirror, he opened the glove compartment and took out a tiny white plastic bottle. As I started the car, he opened the cap and sniffed, then closed the top. “Want some?” he asked, offering the bottle my way.

“What is it?” I asked.

He grinned in a way that made my stomach tense.

I took the bottle. The label said Video Head Cleaner. “This is the stuff you use to clean the readers on your VCR,” I said.

He leaned back against the seat, his face relaxed and clear. “No, it’s not; just like it says on the label, it’s to clean your head,” he said, and giggled, “Drive.” He took the bottle back and kept it in his palm. I wanted to say something, but realized anything I could say would sound like some lecture. It was that moment above all others in my life, sitting there in the car with the ruin of a boy who had once terrorized me, that I realized I knew nothing about how life works. I started the car, and backed out onto the tiny dirt road.

“Did you want him?” Kevin asked as I made the turn onto Hitt road from the trailer park.

I looked over at him; his head was turned toward the window, and he was staring blankly at the trees and houses as the floated by. The window fogged every time he exhaled.

“Who?” I asked.

“The little boy,” he paused, “Randy.”

“What?” I asked.

His head rolled lazily over toward me as I pulled to a stop light. “The McPherson kid; did you want to touch him?”

“No!”

He smiled at something, and his head rolled lazy back over toward the window. He took the bottle, opened the cap, and sniffed again. He rubbed the back of his head against the headrest, and his eyes closed. The light changed, and I drove. I turned on the stereo, and that same voice came on.

“What is it with this guy?” I asked.

“Who?” Kevin asked from somewhere far away.

“Johnny Cash or whoever; what is it with this guy?”

Kevin inhaled loudly in that way someone does when they think a question you’ve asked is stupid, and said “He’s lonely, Mikey.” On the stereo, the man was singing about how hard it was to walk a straight line.

“So why do you want to listen to him?” I asked, turning off Hitt road onto Cadence. The hospital wasn’t far away.

“It’s nice to know that someone is as lonely as me,” he said. “After the hospital,” he said, inhaling loudly again, “you’ll understand.”

“Who’s at the hospital?” I asked.

“The only one that ever wanted it,” he said, drifting back to someplace far away.

“Ever wanted what?” I asked.

“This will all be easier to explain once you’ve been there,” he said, and raised his hand to hold off whatever I was about to say next, “I promise, I will explain it all when we get there.”

After a moment, I said, “If something so awful is going on around here, then why do you stay?”

He laughed, and leaned his head back against the headrest. He turned to look out the window, and I couldn’t tell if he was staring at the clouds, or his own reflection. “Mikey, you were never from here. I know that. When you get to know people, you figure out some things. I can’t explain it any better than that. The second I saw you walk into Sully’s with Doc Gantner, I could tell you weren’t from here.”

My stomach tensed. “You knew who I was?”

“I know who everyone in that bar is. Most of the guys I go with, though, are the people who just came in off the train. The locals, well,” he said, inhaling and exhaling loudly, “they tend to avoid me unless I’m there at last call.”

“There at last call?”

“Turn right up here,” he said, without even looking forward, “it’s a shortcut.”

“What do you mean by ‘there at last call’?” I asked. Something in me knew, but I had to hear the words.

“If I haven’t gotten anyone by then, one of the boys will get brave enough to come over, buy me the last beer of the night, and we’ll go home together,” he said.

I flinched. I had almost managed to forget, or maybe though—maybe I had thought he’d give it up. His voice didn’t show any signs of regret or shame. The same way I would describe changing someone’s oil or rotating a tire, he was talking about going “home together”. I didn’t feel like talking, anymore.

“Everyone keeps talking like they aren’t sure who those bones belong to, but I know,” he said.

“Who?” I asked.

“Stop being naive, Mikey; it doesn’t suit you,” he said, “Turn left here.”

I turned along the side street. It was what we’d always called a “Back alley” as a kid. We didn’t have any alleys in a town this small, but we’d seen them on television so often, we tried to make our town more normal. We added things like alley and downtown to our vocabulary, even back then. There were no such things in Placerville; just streets and dirt roads. This was a small street which, from the looks of it, had only recently been paved. Several blue dumpsters lined up along the small wall running along the sides.

“Up ahead, turn into the little opening in the wall,” he said, sitting up and leaning forward.

“Where is this?” I asked.

“This is the garbage truck service entrance,” he said, “the doctors figured it wouldn’t look so good for guys to come hauling garbage out the front door, so they had this built about six or seven years ago.”

“How did you know it was here?” I asked. He didn’t answer or even look over at me. He just stayed leaned forward, staring ahead, and I got the strange image of a man on the bow of a boat in a thick fog for a moment; he seemed to be steering us through rough water. I turned into the small service entrance that opened up behind the hospital. Several more blue dumpsters lined up back here, along with two green ones marked with a strange symbol. I pulled the car up next to that one and asked “here?” He didn’t say anything, but opened his door. I put the car in park and shut it off. He closed his door just as I opened mine. When I closed mine, it sounded like a gunshot had gone off. He turned sharply toward me, sucking air in over his teeth. I shrugged.

As he walked, I noticed he didn’t stumble or sway. I found myself watching how his body moved, and I shook my head. I remembered thinking about him when I’d first seen him in his boxing trunks; watching how his body twisted and flowed. Back then, I thought about it with envy—I’d always been klutzy. I recognized it in hindsight, though; I’d been admiring him.

He opened a white door. I followed him in, and he closed it slowly, his whole body tense. The corridor was well-lit, but no other doors opened onto it. It led straight to a turn.

I followed him in everything; the way he stepped, the way he breathed. This was all very familiar to him. I was burning to ask how and why, but I had a feeling I knew what the answer was. In a way, that made me want to ask more, but I knew that piercing ache in my stomach would start, and shortly after, the pictures.

The corridor kept getting wider, and then opened into an elevator lobby. Only one set of doors, here, but they seemed very wide. He pressed the button.

“Won’t that set off an alarm or something?” I whispered.

He turned toward me, and rolled his eyes, “If there was anyone paying attention, yes,” he said. The elevator didn’t ding; the noise simply stopped, and the doors opened. The car was huge, and there was none of the wooden paneling or paint designed to put friendlier faces on other elevators. This was simply a metal container located behind the scenes. The doors closed, and Kevin pressed ‘9’. The car started upward with a jolt, and I had to steady myself by grabbing onto the railing.

“Nine?” I asked.

“The loony bin,” he said, and grinned. I could see his eyes were still large, and bloodshot. Something in him was still flying. I thought for a second about hitting the ‘stop’ button and trying to get him back into the car. At that moment, though, I noticed he was staring at me out of the corner of his eye. The gesture was so unsure, so gauging, that I was certain he was searching for approval. For some reason, this meant a lot to him. I started to think, what could be so important that he—, but then I stopped.

I knew. With an immediate sureness, I knew where he was taking me. What was more, I knew he’d been here, before. He already had the answers to some of the questions I had wanted to ask when I’d come here earlier.

The number climbed from seven to eight, then nine. The car came to a stop, and the door opened.

TWENTY-SEVEN

“How are we going to get in?” I whispered, my eyes already searching through the barely open doors. He laughed in his throat, and stepped forward boldly. The look in his eye was that same one I’d seen once before.

Back during the Y days, Mr. Roger had gotten the grand idea to hold a boxing tournament. “We teach ’em to box,” he’d said, “but we don’t let ’em, if ya’ understand me.” I wasn’t supposed to hear, but then it is often the case with children that things not meant to be heard are hardest to keep quiet. Mr. Roger had been speaking with Mr. Terrance, the man Mr. Roger called “the Bureaucrat.” I didn’t know what that word meant, at the time, but I knew it was filled with contempt.

I was sweeping the outer room, where the secretary sat and answered phones all day. The door to Mr. Terrance’s office was cracked, and I had seen Mr. Roger go in there as I had started. “Make sure to get behind thuh file cabinets,” he’d said, and walked past. I had kept my eyes on the floor the whole time. He’d rapped twice on the door and then gone in after Mr. Terrance’s muffled “Come.” Mr. Roger hadn’t shut the door all the way.

“I understand that, Roger,” Mr. Terrance was saying, “but isn’t it a little dangerous?”

“Nuh, not the way I see it. We train them to do it right, don’t we? To be safe and sportsmanly?”

“Yes, I mean, of course we do, but—,” Mr. Terrance was saying.

“Then why not let ’em have a go at something?” he’d asked. As was the case with Mr. Roger when he wanted something, Mr. Terrance gave in.

Of course, Kevin O’Mally was the top ranked kid going in. Like a lot of things, I couldn’t tell you why I went to watch. Maybe I went because it was important to Mr. Roger. I didn’t like the idea of boxing, and the noise made me feel uneasy the entire time. Something about the way the men and older boys were watching and yelling made me feel as if any minute, everyone was going to start tearing into each other. I could see it on the faces of most of the boys, too. All except one: Kevin entered that ring and looked around him. He was like a tiny statue for a moment; defiant and powerful. I remember wishing I could feel like he looked just then.

The only other person who wasn’t yelling and jeering was Mr. Roger, himself. He stood at the back of the room, smoking a cigarette. He was in shadow, and I couldn’t see his eyes, but I knew, somehow, that there was something sad in them. Most of the other boy’s fathers and older brothers were there; none of them were anything even resembling adult, though. It scared me. I had to keep looking over at Mr. Roger to try to—to—what? Ground myself? Maybe.

Kevin’s match went on for longer than most of the others, but it wasn’t long before the other boy submitted. Kevin was focused; the noise and thick anger didn’t seem to faze him. There were a few times I thought I caught him smiling, but I was sure that couldn’t be. At the time, I was, anyway.

Watching him turn and walk down the corridor, though, I thought maybe he had been smiling that day. Mr. Roger hadn’t, though. I think maybe he wanted the contest to be one thing, but it turned into another. I think, maybe, it upset him to see the adults acting like animals. There weren’t any more boxing contests held at the Y as far as I know. I couldn’t say why, exactly, but I’m certain Mr. Roger was behind that.

I followed Kevin down the small corridor, but when it turned left, I stopped. Just ahead was a small nurse’s station, like the one in the lobby. Behind that desk was a dark man with a mustache. Kevin had just reached the desk, and was leaning over it. The man was smiling up at him, and they were whispering. I didn’t know what I should do, so I didn’t move. Kevin turned around, though, and motioned for me to come closer. As I walked, my knees were wobbling.

“Reggie, this is my friend Mikey. Say hi, Mikey,” Kevin said as I reached the counter. He turned his face toward me, and he was someone I didn’t recognize. There was a power there, a smug grin of something arrogant and dangerous. Reggie was dark, and his mustache was perfectly straight, which made me feel strange. None of the men back at the garage had ever trimmed their goatees and beards very well. My father, Mr. Roger, Sheriff Aiken; no one I’d ever seen other than people on television and guys at the garage had ever worn facial hair. Reggie was thick, and his shoulders stretched his smock until it seemed about to burst.

“What’s up?” he asked, not even looking at me. It all clicked, then. It made perfect sense how Kevin knew these back entrances, and why he was sure he could get me in to see Mrs. McPherson.

“Not much,” I said.

“Mikey here is studying to be a sick-oll—what do you call it? One of those guys like who looks into your brain and shit—,” he said, and I couldn’t help but stare. I wanted to ask him ‘what are you doing?’

“Psychologist,” Reggie said, and on his face, the same smug grin appeared.

“That’s right,” Kevin said, then looked at me, “didn’t I tell you how smart he is?” he looked back at Reggie, “So smart. So, anyway, do you think that maybe he could walk down and look at some stuff?”

Reggie stood up, and leaned on the counter. His arms were touching Kevin’s, and their faces were very close. I felt like I should look away, but something else was moving around inside me. They started whispering with their faces almost touching, and that’s when I figured out what I was feeling. I wanted to punch Reggie. I wanted to hurt him for ever having touched Kevin.

Reggie turned toward me, and looked me up and down. The smug grin never faded, then he turned back to Kevin and said, “Yeah. I guess while we do that, it won’t hurt if he wants to look at some charts and shit,” then he turned back to me, and his eyes roamed me again, “or you can come join us.”

Kevin put his hand on Reggie’s cheek, and turned his head back. “He don’t get down like that, baby. He’s strictly amateur.”

Reggie’s disgusting grin got wider, and he laughed in his throat, “Oh. He don’t do shit, huh?”

“Not like you like,” Kevin said, and his face matched Reggie’s. I wanted to scream and hit something. I wanted to walk out. Somehow, though, in the last five minutes, I’d begun to need to see Mrs. McPherson. It felt like some long and tedious process would all come together with that.

Kevin took Reggie’s hand, and pulled him out from behind the round counter. “Be good,” he said in a strange voice over his shoulder to me. They went into a small room right next to nurse’s station, Reggie’s grin never faded. The door closed, and I felt like crying. I wanted to go and bust down the door and scream ‘STOP!’

I needed this more, though. I needed to talk to her. That need had continued to grow, and now it was near emergency. The two feelings were so powerful that I needed to sit down; I was light headed, and my knees had yet to stop wobbling.

I sat down behind the counter. Just in front of me were six black and white televisions. Each one showed a hallway. I looked up; two hallways branched left and right from the nurse’s station. I could see that each one branched right and left after a while, too. I looked back at the screens; one camera for each hallway. It made sense. I started to look through the things on the desk.

I found a clipboard underneath a huge stack of papers. On it was a sheet of paper with a set of names, numbers, and other long words with measurements next to them. McPherson, Gwen was the seventh one down. I put my thumb under her name, and ran it along the line. It said 904, and then had a star. I looked at the bottom of the page; the star had “see doctor’s instructions” written after it. She was in room 904. I stood up, but my stomach stayed in the chair. My legs were wobbling. I could tell that if I sat still long enough and listened, I’d be able to hear what Kevin was doing. I didn’t stay still.

Each of the heavy wooden doors had a rectangular window at eye level. The glass was dull, and there was chicken wire just behind it. I stopped in the hallway between 902 and 903. I knew that the next door on my right would be hers. I stared at that door for a while, as if looking at it long enough would make it invisible.

I walked to the door, and put my fingers on the handle. The metal was cold. The lights were dim, inside. I couldn’t see anyone through the window. I turned the handle, but it didn’t budge. It clicked at me. I thought “key.” I looked back at the station. The key would have to be there, somewhere. As I walked back, I heard a muffled sound, and stopped. It was a rhythmic thumping, as if something were lightly hitting the wall again and again. I wondered what it was for a moment, before the certainty settled over me. My knees gave some. I caught myself halfway to the floor.

Just behind the desk there was a large steel cabinet. My eyes were drawn there. I walked to it, playing the song I’d heard earlier by Cash as loud as I could in my head. The cabinet had a place to insert a key. I hoped that it wasn’t locked. I reached up and tugged once, and the door came open with a small creak. The keys were on little rings with small white tags above them. Each tag had a number. I took the one marked 904. The music in my head got louder as I passed back by the doors until I got to hers.

I put the key in the slot, and turned it slowly. It clicked, and the handle gave.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Hospitals have a certain smell. Anyone in the world can be blindfolded and dropped off on a hospital ward and know exactly where they are. The room was dim as I pushed the door open. The smell was different, though, than the hallway outside. Somehow, it was darker; more like something horrible than something strange.

I came in, and shut the door behind me. On the bed, the sheets were rumpled. The nightstand was a jumble of sketch pads. Crayons littered the floor. Against the far wall, a counter and a small sink snugged up under a mirror. To the right of the sink was a wall partition. I couldn’t see what was back there, but I guessed a bathroom. As I stood there, I could hear the sound of water dripping. There was a sloshing sound, and then I heard a door open.

“Who is—?” I heard her say, before I saw her walk out from behind that partition wall. “—it,” she finished, stopping. The lights above her mirror made bright lights shoot through her hair. It looked like a halo, only tarnished like brass.

She was completely naked, and covered in water. Her hair was damp, and she was older, but it still looked like her. She was almost the exact same as I’d seen her on that day she came to get Randy from the Y. My eyes traveled from her lips to her breast to her hips before I could stop them. Something in my head knew I shouldn’t be looking, but I was. Something else in me, deeper down, liked that I was looking when I shouldn’t.

I thought, from the blank expression on her face, she was going to scream. Everyone in movies screams when something like this happens. She didn’t, though. Her face relaxed into a smile.

“Randy,” she said, her shoulders relaxing.

She came forward, and put her hands under my arm I stumbled. I caught myself. She wasn’t strong enough to help, but her touch made it easier to get the strength to stand. I tried to look at her eyes, but mine kept drifting to her breasts, her neck. I smelled her wet skin, and felt its warmth against me.

“This is a surprise. Where have you been?” she asked.

“I—,” I started; her tone made me respond, “I don’t know.”

“Well, you need to stay here with your mama,” she said, her hands still under my arm. She led me to the bed, and sat us both down. I tried not to look at her thighs, at her ankles. “Always out wandering. Gonna’ get yourself in trouble, that’s what.” She reached for my shirt and started to pull it up.

“What are you—?” I asked.

“It’s bath time, Randolph McPherson. No back talk. It is late and I am not in any mood to fool with you,” she said, and pulled my shirt off. My heart was racing. Her eyes were clear! She wasn’t seeing me, but her eyes weren’t murky or cloudy or any of a million other things I’d thought about for so long. Her eyes were clear.

“Mrs. McPherson—,” I started.

“What?” she asked with a small laugh, pulling away from me a bit. “What did you just say?” she asked, her face quirking into a lopsided smile.

“Mrs. McPherson, you’ve got to listen to me for a second,” I said. Her face stayed quirked to the side, “I need to ask you something about Randy, and about the Sheriff.”

“You stay away from the Sheriff, you hear me?” she said, and reached for my belt. I put my hand in the way, and she smacked it. “Boy, what are you doing? It is bath time.”

“I—,” I said, beginning to protest, but I saw that she wasn’t going to listen. Parts of me had begun to respond to her nakedness, though. My shoulders and elbows felt cold, while every other part of me was burning. I couldn’t catch my breath. “Okay, I’ll take a bath,” I said, hearing Randy’s voice in my head as I did, “but I want to undress by myself,” I said.

“Well, I never—,” she started, but then stopped herself. The smile faded. She sighed. “Alright. I’ve never known you to be so shy, though. Go on. But you wash behind your ears, you hear? I could prolly grow potatoes back there.” I stood up and went behind the partition. I was running out of time; somehow, I knew that. I knew that Kevin wouldn’t be able to stand being slobbered on for too long. Some part of me hoped that was how he’d feel, at any rate. Moving away from her made my body start to relax.

“Mom?” I said, and nearly choked. This was the only way, though.

I knew that.

“Yes, Randolph,” she said.

“Tell me about dad,” I said. My shirt was lying next to my shoe, so I bent to pick it up and held it for a moment.

“Your father,” she said, and sighed. “Your father was a police officer, Randolph. He wasn’t the nicest man, but he was a good man. You’ll understand that someday, honey. The difference, I mean. You’ll see it. I’m raising you to be a good man, baby. A good man. You’ll see.” Even though she was still sitting in almost the same position she had been on the bed, I could tell her mind was far away from here. Something in her voice said she was seeing something other than these four walls. Her tone was flat, and the words seemed to come at a steady rhythm. “Your father was a hard man, too. I don’t think you’ll take after him like that. He knew about Peter, though. He hated Peter. Thought he was a ‘weak little nanny boy’” she said, and her voice got deeper, as if she was attempting to imitate someone. “Said ‘that man over there gonna’ take a pretty philly like you to wife?’ He didn’t say it, but I know what he meant,” she said, imitating again. The clicking switch in my head was so loud, I thought someone might come running to find its source.

She was clearly imitating Sheriff Aiken.

“Said ‘that boy over yonder don’t know his pecker from a parkin’ meter, you can bet on that. He hated Peter, but had to keep up appearances. He said he couldn’t ‘do nothin’ unseemly’.” She said, and a chill ran across my shoulders. “I don’t hear no water movin’ around in there, boy,” she said. I leaned down and splashed my hand around a little. “So, one night I went out to meet him. Must’a been about midnight or so. God, I was just a girl, then. Just a girl. Just a girl,” she said, her voice getting softer each time, trailing off.

The room was quiet for a while, then I heard the sobbing start. I was frozen. For a second, I felt like I really was a little boy, again. I’d never heard my mother cry, and for some reason I’d never even thought that she had or would. This woman in the other room was not my mother, but there was something that connected us. I stood up, and walked around the partition wall. She was slumped over herself, bent at the waist. Her head rested on her knees. Her back and shoulders were shaking violently in long, racking sobs. I was frozen. I sat down on the bed next to her. Her sobs let out in tiny breaths from between her teeth, as if she were trying to clench them back.

“Oh, Johnny, what are we gonna’ do? What are we gonna’ do?” she whispered, her throat closed up by her crying. She lifted up just enough to turn her head toward me, and her face was a wreck. “Johnny, it’s your’n. It’s your’n, and he’s gonna’ know. What are we gonna’ do?”

Her eyes pleaded with me for some action, and I didn’t know what to say. Who was Johnny? I put my arm around her back, felt her bird-frail shoulder blades under my arm each time they rocked from her sobbing. She moved herself to fit into my side. Her head went onto my lap. She kept saying “It’s your’n” over and over again, but only bits of it would come out at a time. The rest was choked off by a sob or an inhale. After a while, though, the crying dyed down. She looked up at me, and sat up a bit straighter. For a while, we sat there, side by side. She would sob, then wipe at her eyes, then go quiet. I only looked at her out of the corner of my eye.

“You’re not Johnny, are you,” she said. “Don’t lie. I know I ain’t well. I know you ain’t Randolph, neither, so don’t try that.”

I didn’t move. “No,” I said.

“Don’t try to tell me who you are. I ain’t gonna’ believe nothin’ you say.” She wiped at her eyes again.

“Okay,” I said.

“I know Randolph ain’t comin’ home ever again. Somebody done took him. I know that.”

I nodded. After a while, when it seemed that she was stable again, I stood up to leave. I wanted to tell her everything I came here to say, about Randy, about the bones, about how I knew, but I couldn’t. I tried to the entire time we sat there.

“If you are who I think you are, then let me ask you somethin’,” she said. I turned toward her. She seemed to be waiting for me to say something, so I nodded. She looked down at her own knees, then back up, “Where’d you take him?” When I didn’t answer, she asked “My boy. Where’d you take him off to? I know it was you took him, else you wouldn’t’a come here. I just want to know where he is. I just want to be able to put him in that little box out yonder.”

I turned for the door, and she whispered something else as I turned the handle, but I didn’t hear it. I closed the door behind me, and locked it. I stopped, and almost turned to look in the window, but didn’t. I had just managed to put the key back in the box, and close the door to it when Kevin emerged from the room I’d heard noises in. The nurse was adjusting his shirt. Kevin looked at me, and his eyes seemed empty. I nodded. He looked down at the floor.

The nurse glared at me. “Hey, what are you doing?”

“Nothin’. Snooping around. Bored.” I couldn’t make my voice find a whole sentence.

“Well, get away from that. Shit, for all I know, you’re some perv come to fuck one of the ol’ ladies or somethin’.”

“Nah,” Kevin said, “he ain’t no perv, are you?” he asked, turning his gaze back to me. “Give us a sec?” he said, and his eyes moved quickly from my face to the elevator. I walked that way, but I already knew what was going to happen. As the door dinged open, and I stepped inside, I saw the nurse pull out his wallet, and the wad of cash he handed to Kevin.

TWENTY-NINE

The ride was silent for a bit. From time to time, I glanced over at Kevin while I drove. He’s staring out the window, or maybe at his own reflection in the glass. Just past his face, the stars twinkle. The streetlights do their best to block out everything else. The radio was off.

“Did she tell you?” he asked without turning.

“No,” I said, “but she—I don’t know—dreamed or something.”

He nodded, and kept staring. “Randolph,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“I’ve spent a lot of time with her,” he said.

“What?”

He huddled himself up tighter, drawing his legs up onto the seat. “She wanted someone to mother. Someone to fill the empty back up.”

“So you—you—what?” I asked.

“I let her talk,” he said. Something in his voice meant more than that, though.

“Is that how you know all of this?” I asked.

He nodded, but said nothing for a long time. We were almost to the turn-off into his subdivision when he asked “what was he like?”

“Who?”

“Randy,” he said, and turned his head some.

“I dunno. He was a kid,” I said. A picture formed in my head of him, his head barely above the water, the first time I’d tried to teach him to swim. Another picture flipped over on top of that one, as if they were actual photos, of Randy on my bike. Then I thought of the coffin, and how narrow it was. “Just a kid,” I said.

He shook his head, “he had to be more than that.”

“Why do you say that?” I asked.

“Because you’re in love with him.”

I pulled the car up into the dirt area near the front of the trailer. I turned it off. We sat for a while, not looking at each other or saying anything. “I don’t understand what you mean.”

He moved his feet down onto the floorboard again, leaning his side against the chair so that his head rested. He stared at me, then blinked slow, saying “You wanted to know what to do. That’s why you went to see her tonight.”

“Wanted to know what to do about what?” I asked, turning away from him.

“You know that there is no way the Sheriff can allow those bones to be named as Randolph McPherson.”

“What? You’re not making any sense,” I said. In his eyes, there was a distant gleam. He was looking somewhere far beyond me, far beyond the car’s window behind me.

“If they name those bones Randy’s, then there’ll be an investigation. The FBI will come in here, Mikey. You know that the Sheriff can’t allow that. You know he’s going to have to say that those bones belong to some drifter, or maybe a kid from that work farm up near Bigbee River. If he says that they belong to a boy who lived in this town, then all kinds of people are going to come in here, Mikey. This town has too many secrets to keep.” His voice was flat as he talked, and the words seemed to come at a steady rhythm. He was talking through some kind of trance, just like Randy’s mother had.

“But what if they are Randy’s? I mean, he can’t make them not belong to the kid,” I said.

Kevin blinked slowly, again, and sat up straighter in the chair. His eyes met mine, and a chill ran across my shoulder blades, again. “What makes you think he couldn’t?”

“But there’ll be DNA tests, or whatever, right? I mean something. Aiken said that Jim Clarke is looking at the bones. He’ll be putting out a report or something, right?” I said. A part of me could hear the pleading.

Kevin shook his head, “Do you think that the wives and mother’s around here are the only people he’s attacked? Do you think that a couple of illegitimate children and a hooker or two are the only secrets in this town, Mikey?”

“Then what am I going to do?” I asked.

“That’s what you have to tell me. You could just leave.”

I couldn’t. He knew I couldn’t, too. It showed on his face. “I have to—I have to—have to get someone to know that—that those are—are Randy.”

“Are you sure they are?”

“Yes,” I said, and felt as if something huge had been lifted off of me. I knew it, at that moment. To this day, I don’t know why it took all of that to make me sure, but I knew that I wouldn’t have come back unless I knew already. Somehow, with no evidence or idea even what might happen, I had known that these bones were Randy. I had known I was coming back to finally put him to rest.

Some part of me was certain that Kevin was right, too: the sheriff was going to do everything he could to make sure no one thought of the remains as Randy. He couldn’t let them.

“What does Jim Clarke have to hide?”

“Let’s just say he gets in to his work.” The tone in Kevin’s voice made it clear what he meant.

“How do you know any of this?”

“You were the one that left, Mikey, not me. I stayed here. I know these people. I know them.”

We sat there for a long time, just breathing. “What happens if I don’t believe you about any of this? What if I say that this all sounds like some sort of horror movie, and decide to get on a plane and walk away?” I asked.

“You still could. There will come a time when you won’t be able to go back the other way if you don’t like how things are unfolding, but that hasn’t happened yet.”

“So, what are you, some sort of guru?” I asked.

“Don’t take this out on me, Mikey; you’re the one who’s thinking about taking on the Sheriff. You can still walk away from this. All I’m saying is that what happens for you depends on what you decide to believe right now. You know those bones are Randy’s, though. I can see it in your eyes,” he said, and leaned forward so far, I thought he was going to kiss me. Instead, his hand found my shoulder, and squeezed, “Like I said; I know you went there tonight to see if she would tell you what to do. I know what she said to you, though. I think if you pay attention, you’ll find that she did tell you everything you needed to know.” He turned, and opened his door. The car light came on, and the shadows in the empty car were too much. I got out.

“If it doesn’t matter to you what I do,” I asked, grabbing his arm and stopping him; he didn’t turn around, “then why take me there? Why let me talk to her?”

His head hung down for a moment. He raised his eyes to mine, and I almost let go of his arm; something powerful and very old was in them. “because you asked me to.”

“What?” I asked. He shook free of my hand and continued toward the door. I followed after him. He opened the door, his keys jingling. I started to follow him inside, but he stopped. His arm was on the door, and his body blocked the doorway. He said, “You should go back to your parents house and think about it, Mikey.”

“How did I ask you to take me there?”

“Who else have you talked to about any of this?”

“Nobody,” I said, after a time.

He nodded, straightened, and closed the door. The click of the lock felt like a punch to the throat. I stepped backward off of the porch, and my shoes nearly slipped in the wet grass.

THIRTY

Every time a car passed me on my way back to my parent’s house, I expected it to be the Sheriff. Somehow, I just knew it would be. Every time it wasn’t, I exhaled again; but something still felt strange. I knew that he was watching, even if he wasn’t using his eyes to do it. My sister would call that ridiculous, but I knew. I wanted Kevin. I wanted Susan. I wanted someone, so that the sounds of my shoes on the asphalt wouldn’t be the only sounds.

The key in the lock was loud, and I was sure I’d wake someone as I came in. No lights were on, though. I closed the door behind me, and toed out of my shoes. I picked them up and crept up the stairs. Halfway up, I thought about eating something; I wasn’t hungry, though. It was an old habit. Coming in from my night rides to the field, I’d always get a glass of milk and whatever was left over from dinner before going to bed. Something didn’t feel right about it, though. The house looked the same, but everything had changed. I thought, just like me. I wanted to talk to my mother, to ask her what Kevin meant, and if what Mrs. McPherson said was true.

I stopped at the top of the stairs with the sudden realization that I believed it. That no matter what my mother would say, I believed what Kevin told me. I looked toward the door to my parent’s room. It was closed, as it had always been. Their room was off limits at all times growing up. The door remained closed. If any of us needed to speak to them, and that door was shut, then we simply had to wait.

When Katy had gone, Sarah had woken me up. She’d found it when she’d rolled over in her sleep and fallen out of bed. That couldn’t have happened if Karen had been in it. She’d read the note, and come to get me. “Door’s closed,” she’d said, and handed me the note. I read the note and cried. Thing is, I remember crying more because something so big was happening, and I couldn’t tell mom or dad. I knew I better not even knock on that door.

We knew because the last time something big happened, it was Katy. She’d just gotten her first period. I didn’t know it at the time; a few years passed before anyone told me. She was scared, and even though it was three in the morning, she knocked on mom’s door. I didn’t come out of my room, but the strange noise woke me up. I peeked out from the crack in my door. Katy was crying, and shaking. They finally opened the door after she’d been knocking for about forty-five minutes.

Mom was disheveled, and her makeup was all over her face. There was a large red mark on her neck, too. For years I tried no to think about it, but sometime after the third shrink I was seeing, I had to admit that mark was a hickey.

She closed the door immediately behind her, and began to whisper-cuss Katy. She never once asked what was so important as to break the central rule of the house. She just kept talking in that steady, forceful whisper. The only time she paused was when Katy would say “Yes, ma’m.” After a few minutes, I heard Sarah crying in her room. I noticed that my eyes had gotten blurry. I went back to bed. I don’t know what happened the rest of that night, but the rule had been solidified: there was no such thing as a good reason to bother my parents if the door was closed.

I went into my room, and shut the door behind me. The quiet, the alone came crashing down on me. I sat my shoes down next to my suitcase. I didn’t need to look; I knew that everything in it had been folded neatly. I sat down on the bed, and even with no lights on, I could tell my vision was getting blurry.

I cried. Something I hadn’t done in a few years. I wanted Kevin, or Sarah—I wanted someone so that I didn’t have to carry all this alone. I thought about how Kevin had carried this alone for so long, and that made it hard to breathe. I doubled over myself, my head near my knees. At that moment, I wanted nothing more than to be away from this house, this town. I knew that, down in the suitcase was a ticket I could exchange at any time for a return trip. I could go in the morning as soon as the airport opened, in fact. I looked at my watch; six hours until eight a.m. Six hours. I could sleep six hours, get up, get a shower, and go. I wouldn’t even have to say goodbye to anyone. I could just leave.

I was able to breathe, again. The crying slowed down. I kept thinking ‘six hours’. I took my socks off, and thought, I can patch things up with Susan. If I got home that early, I could catch her before she left for work.

I’ve hear a lot of people say ‘I was asleep before my head hit the pillow’. I always thought it was a stupid expression. That night, though, I honestly don’t remember laying down, or the thirty-minute shifting and re-shifting that I normally do. I went from thinking I could catch Susan before she left for work to the dream. I’ve often wondered what would have happened if I hadn’t had that dream. I want to call it something other than that, though.

It was like a telephone call from Randy.

What I remember is this:

I was standing in a room with only one light. It was a big, upside down, round metal dish with a light inside. The dish hung from a long cord that went somewhere into the darkness straight up. It was at head level, so that if I wanted to see inside it, I’d have to duck a bit.

At about waist level, underneath the light, was a long metal table. It was about seven foot long. Don’t ask me how, but I was sure that was its measurement.

The rest of the room was shrouded in darkness. I could tell from the shapes of the shadows, though, that this room had more than one sink on the wall, and that there were many small tables surrounding this bigger one. There were odd shapes of various sizes on those other tables. The walls were made from tile; I could tell from the way the light was bouncing off of them. From time to time, water would drip, and the echo made me more certain that the room was tiled.

On the table in the center was a large, nearly clear plastic bag. It was about four and a half foot long. A zipper ran straight up the middle. Either I whispered the word ‘body bag’ or someone else did. I found myself staring at it for a moment. I wanted to turn and leave, but I couldn’t. For some reason, my legs weren’t moving.

All around me, other sounds were echoing off the tiles. Sounds of a child pleading with someone to stop what they were doing. The sounds of a dentist-office drill bounced around for a time. There was a sound like a buzz saw, only smaller.

I could make out something sort of pale-peach in color inside the bag. I knew it was a body. I knew it.

I started to walk forward, even though I didn’t want to. I was sure that whatever was in that bag was going to wake up any moment. I was sure of it. I knew it was going to wake up and destroy me, somehow. I kept expecting to see its arm move, its fingers reach for the zipper. The sounds all died away to faint echoes, and I was standing an inch from the table. I kept thinking ‘no, no, no’, but my hands reached for the zipper. Even at that point, I was still waiting for the arm to move.

I unzipped the zipper, and all sound stopped. All I could hear was the thunder of obvious silence. The bag fell away, and inside was Randy. His eyes were open, and his lips were parted. It looked as if, any moment, he was going to say something. I stared at his face, his body. I reached up, again thinking ‘no’ the entire time, and put my hand on his chest. My fingers were instantly ice cold.

Then he blinked, and I jerked my hand away. He blinked again, and his head turned to the side. His eyes focused in on me. His chest never moved, though.

“I can’t,” I said, “I just can’t.”

He didn’t say anything, only smiled. His lips moved closed, and he smiled. He blinked once more, then closed his eyes. Someone whispered “Angels and ministers of grace, defend us,” then whispered it again. The sounds all came back, and the whispering continued. Someone kept pleading for a defender.

I woke up lying flat on my back, my hands at my sides, and my head lolled toward my right shoulder. I was in the exact same position Randy had been on that table. I immediately sat up. Outside the window, the sky was a light blue. I felt more than heard my parent’s door open. I knew it was my mother; the footfalls were quiet. He wouldn’t have worried about anyone else’s sleep. I followed her in my head with each creaking stair.

I wanted Kevin there beside me. I wanted to roll over and watch him sleep.

Downstairs, I heard someone mumble. I thought for a moment that my mother might be talking to herself. She had always done that; had imaginary conversations with my sister for leaving socks on the living room floor or me for leaving the kitchen light on all night. I was smiling to myself when I heard the other voice mumble back. I stopped breathing. I turned on my side and listening with my whole body, every muscle tense to the point of popping.

Old houses like this one were made so that everything that went on could be heard from any point in the house. Before baby monitors, parents had to be able to hear a crying child no matter where they were. I’d always wondered if my parents had heard me sneaking back in, and one visit after I’d moved out, I’d heard my sister talking to her girlfriend at the time. The doors between the rooms had been closed, and she had been whispering. That was how I’d found out she was a lesbian. It was also what made the utter silence of my parents’ bedroom frightening.

It went on like that for what seemed like years. Her mumble, a pause, and then a lower rumbling in response. I felt the pressure change, then, and heard the front door creak. It only did that when it opened. With my eyes closed, the image of Kevin sleeping came back, only it wasn’t him lying beside me; it was Randy. I was looking at the sun on his face as it might have been had he lived to my age. At any moment, I knew it was going to turn toward me and speak, and I thought that I would scream if it did. I opened my eyes just as the pressure in the house changed: the front door had just closed.

I heard the creaking as my mother came back up the stairs. I heard the ‘click’ as she closed her bedroom door. Who had she been talking to? I only heard the front door after the mumbling had stopped; whoever she was talking to had been inside, already. The voice had been low, manly. Who had she been talking to if not my father? I hadn’t heard him go down the stairs; I’d have known his steps.

Like a dark cloud, the thought came over me. I knew who it was in that instant, but I shook it from my mind. A chill ran over my skin, and my teeth started to chatter. It was hard to breathe.

What if Kevin was wrong, though? What if he’d made it all up?

Why would he? Why go so far as to beat himself up just to—to what? Still, for all the reasons that didn’t exist for him to make it up, there were just as many for him never to tell me about any of it. If the sheriff was the monster he claimed, he was putting himself in danger. At any minute, should Aiken find out, Kevin could be killed. I wanted to call him just then. I wanted to hear him mumble into the phone and get angry with me to prove he was alive.

I bent one of the blinds back with my finger. Just beyond the back yard fence, lights were coming on at the neighbors. The sun was up enough to cast glares on the windows. It had to be about seven or so.

I wanted to call Kevin. I wanted to visit Pete McPherson, first, though. That is where my answer would be. I don’t know how I knew that, I just knew. Whatever Pete said would determine what I was going to do. I swung my feet off the bed, and reached down into the suitcase. My fingers hit paper before cloth, though. Instead of a shirt, I pulled out my plane ticket. I knew what it said, but I read it again. The return flight was in ten hours. I could exchange it, if need be.

‘You won’t have to,’ I thought. After all, this was all too weird. The ‘little town with a dark secret’ was the standard staple of television movies, not real life. ‘It might be the drugs,’ I thought. If so, then I would visit Pete, and then go try to convince Kevin to get into a program somewhere. Maybe he would move to be closer to me. Maybe I could leave Susan, and be strong enough to stay with him while he cleaned up. Lots of maybes; not enough becauses.

Who had my mother been talking to? I wondered if maybe I just hadn’t been awake enough, yet. Part of my mind grasped that idea anxiously. ‘A dream’, it said, and I felt better. Maybe it was just a dream, and I hadn’t heard anything at all. I would know once I talked to Pete McPherson, found out what he’d been told.

I’d let this whole situation get about as strange as I intended to let it without doing some fact finding, first.

THIRTY-ONE

The hot water streamed over me. My shoulders felt bunched underneath my bones. I turned my back to the spray, and leaned against the shelf my father had installed for my mother’s things. I put my forehead against it, looking down at my toes. They looked strange. I wondered how long it had been since the last time I’d really looked at them. I stood up, and backed into the spray again, letting my head fall backward. I closed my eyes and leaned back until the water smacked against my forehead, flowing over my skull.

Kevin. I wanted to see Kevin. I wanted to go see him, and then leave this town. Did I want him to come with me? That was the question. What was I going to do about Susan? It had all seemed much clearer yesterday.

I shut off the water and reached for a towel. I remembered being so young that I was too short to reach the towel rack from the tub. I would climb out of the tub and grab the towel and then climb back in as fast as I could. While I was drying, my mind would always wander to the footprints I would leave on the tile. “Why is there water on the floor?” my mother would ask. I would shrug, and she would sigh.

I looked for those prints. I looked for those tiny feet. There was no trace. I could almost see them, though.

Downstairs, the television was on. The paper rustled as I came down the stairs. “Nearly eleven,” my father commented, without looking away from the headlines.

I didn’t say anything. My mother was at the counter, reading over a cookbook. A measuring cup and two eggs sat next to the book. “Whatcha’ makin’?” I asked.

She looked up, and her face split. Her lips and eyebrows were drawn into a smile, but her eyes were dull and lifeless. “What, dear?” she asked.

“What are you making?” I asked, again. I opened the refrigerator and took out the milk. I sat the jug on the counter, and opened the top. She watched me without moving anything but her eyes.

“I know, cup.”

Her smile twitched wider for a second, then re-settled. “I’m making some poundcake.”

“Oh?” I asked, “for who?” I got a cup and brought it back to the counter.

“I thought I might take it over to Mrs. McPherson at the hospital.”

I stopped twisting the cap, and didn’t move. “Oh?”

“Yes. It seems that she’s been very upset the last few days,” my mother said, reabsorbed in the cookbook.

“How—umm—how do you—uh—know?” I asked.

“About Gwenneth? Oh, I don’t know. Rumors floating around. I overheard someone talking about it,” she said, but her voice never changed it’s flat tone. “she was our neighbors, you know,” she said.

“What?” I asked. I still hadn’t moved, or even breathed.

“You don’t remember? It must’ve been—oh, I’d say a year or so before you started school.”

“Here? The McPherson’s lived here?”

“Oh, no, dear. She wasn’t Gwen McPherson, then. She was still Gwenneth Ladd. She hadn’t met Peter yet. She did that year, though. I introduced them.”

“She lived alone?” I asked.

“The milk, dear,” she said, looking at it with a flick of her eyes, then back to the book.

I twisted the cap closed once more. “Mrs. McPherson—umm—Gwen lived alone?”

“Of course, dear. You don’t think a young couple like that would have waited so long to have their first child, do you?” she asked. She had cracked the eggs, and was adding sugar.

“I don’t know. I didn’t—umm—I didn’t know.”

“You knew little Randolph, didn’t you?” she asked. Her hands only paused for a second, then she went back to mixing.

“I—yeah, I did,” I said.

“Tragedy,” she said and crossed herself.

“Have—did anyone say why they think that she’s been upset?” I asked.

My mother clicked her tongue, and shook her head a bit, “Well, it seems that people have gotten it into their heads that those little boys remains they’ve found, the ones from the ditch?” I nodded, though she wasn’t looking, “it seems that people are thinking that set of remains might be little Randolph.” I waited. She continued mixing. “People have been trying to talk to her. Reporters and the like.”

I nodded, again. “Ah,” was all I said.

“Imagine—” she shook her her head “—they have no shame. She’s resting, poor girl.”

“I—umm—I thought that I would maybe go see Pete today,” I said.

“That would be wonderful, Michael. My son, the good boy. I always told Doctor Gantner that you were my good child. The only one. The only one,” she repeated, and chills ran over me. She walked to me, wiping her hand on her apron. She put it on my forehead. “I don’t want to worry you, dear, but I think maybe you’re getting sick. You haven’t been yourself. Are you getting enough rest?”

I could see in her eyes that she was asking questions she was supposed to ask, but that her mind was far away. They were dull, and glazed over. I wanted to ask her about this morning, about the sheriff, about what Kevin had said. For that split second, with her hand on my forehead, I felt like I needed to confess to her. I closed my eyes, and her hand was the only thing in the world holding me up.

Then her hand went away. I opened my eyes. The room was cold, even with the oven. I looked away. I heard the squeal of the oven door as she put the cake in. I turned and walked away.

“Mikey,” my father said as I walked past. He said it low, so I knew automatically that whatever he was about to say I was not supposed to repeat to my mother. I stopped. He lowered a corner of the paper. “Your mother and I were wondering when you plan on leaving,” he said. I couldn’t stop my face from reacting. “We enjoy having you here, mind, but—well, we know you have things you have to do. I’m sure your girlfriend, Shannon, right?”

“Susan,” I said.

“Susan, right—I’m sure Susan must be missing you, by now,” he said. I didn’t say anything. He looked at me for a moment longer, and nodded to himself. The corner of the paper came back up. To this day, I still don’t know why, but I knew it’d be the last time we spoke.

The McPherson’s had always been so close that it seemed strange to have to use a bike or a car to get there at all. I’d spent so much time with Randy at the Y, and thinking about what his life must be like, that the house seemed only an extension of our own. The car hummed under me, and the radio played something in the background, but I wasn’t listening.

Instead, what I was hearing was that high pitched, near-squeal laughter that little boys have before they get teased for it, and start to laugh like their fathers. I was listening to the sound of a birthday party in my head.

When Randy turned seven, he’d asked to have his birthday party at the Y pool. His mother set it up with Mrs. Dryer. I knew she had to talk to Mr. Baxter, the Y director, too. I’d never seen him. The only thing I’d ever heard was Mr. Roger blast the man. “That damned pencil pusher,” he’d start off saying, then go into a rant about trying to squeeze blood from a turnip. ‘Still don’t know what that means,’ I thought, stopping at a 4-way. One of the signs had been riddled with tiny dents; they were BB holes.

So, ten kids from Randy’s class wound up running and yelling and laughing for a few hours. Mrs. Dryer told me that Mr. Baxter had asked me to be there. She said that they would pay me to lifeguard that Saturday evening. They closed down the Y, and opened up the pool to the kids. I was supposed to be there to remind the children to be safe around the water. What I wound up being was an extra springy diving board. “Throw me, throw me!” they kept asking. All except Randy. He was scared to be thrown like that. I could see in his eyes that he wanted to, but he was terrified.

The one time he did approach me, while most of the other kids were playing volleyball at the other end, he seemed so tiny. I always remember him being so small.

“Mikey, could—umm—,” he started, looking away.

“Yeah.” I put my hands up, linked together at the fingers. He put his tiny feet into my hands and I said, “remember, tuck forward as soon as you can.” He nodded. I lowered my hands some, then counted down from three. At ‘one’, I brought my hands up toward my chest as fast as I could. I felt him tense, and then he wasn’t in my hands anymore. I heard the splash behind me.

I looked up to see Randy’s mom staring our direction. She’d been watching the whole time. Something in me expected to see her face contort in horror. I expected that something had gone wrong, and there would be screaming any second. I knew he’d hit the side of the pool and was drowning.

Instead, what I heard was his laughter. It was this strange thing; he often grinned, but almost never laughed. I turned to see him smiling at me. His whole face was lit up.

Pulling up to the curb at the McPherson house, what I remembered was not only the laughter, but the empty. My hands felt the emptiness of that moment again; all of his weight had been resting in my hands, and then suddenly, it had gone.

THIRTY-TWO

I don’t know how long I sat in the car, just watching the house. I kept thinking ‘turn around’ over and over. I wanted to leave. Something like my father’s voice came up from inside me, though, and said ‘this has got to be done’. He’d always tried to instill that in me. I must have been about eight or so when I asked him “Daddy, when do I get to be a man?” It was one of those purely ridiculous things that kids ask that when you start to pick it apart isn’t so ridiculous.

This was back when he and I were still good. We’d been on our way back from the grocery store, or one of the other billion inane errands we were always on together. Back then he seemed to want me around more than he wanted mom, even. We’d just finished singing a song that was on the radio. I remember that he would stop and let me take the high-pitched parts.

He reached over and turned the radio down. Without looking at me, he sighed, then said “Mikey, a man is someone who does what he has to do, even when he doesn’t want to.” He was using that voice. The one he used reading bed time stories. I wanted that voice to go on forever. It seemed like he might stop there, so I started thinking of ways to get him to keep talking. I knew it had to be something that would get him to keep using that voice, though. If it was too silly, he’d switch into his regular voice with a laugh.

“Things like what?” I’d asked. It was the best I could come up with.

He laughed, and reached over to tug the bill of my baseball cap downward. I knew I’d failed, but that it was okay. “Just—things, Mikey. Just things,” he’d said.

It was that voice I was hearing in my head; my father before the change telling me that I must do this. ‘Before what?’ I asked myself, but there was no answer. I hadn’t really expected there to be one.

I got out of the car and walked to the door. The second I set foot on Pete’s lawn, though, I knew something was wrong. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I raised my hand to knock on the front door, and saw that it was already open a crack. It seemed like something you’d see in a murder mystery. I brought my knocked once, just a short little rap on it. The door swung open with a creak.

From where I was standing, I could see the destruction. The front room was filled with little nicknacks, things Mrs. McPherson had collected over the years, the last time I’d come, just a few days ago. It looked as if an explosion had happened in between now and then.

‘Don’t go in’ I thought, but stepped in, anyway. It felt powerful. It felt as if some wave was pushing me in the door, a wave that would be so hard to resist. I didn’t think I had the strength to stop myself. The moment I was in the house, the air around me seemed to grow solid. I can’t find any other way to describe that. It was as if some great decision, something effecting millions of lives, had just been made final. Some powerful step had been taken. I thought that any moment, the door would slam closed. For that brief second, I understood the word ‘fate’.

I was afraid. Every step I took, my shoes crunched on some broken glass. I got past the front room, into the living room. It was worse. The chair had been overturned, and holes had been punched in it with something big and sharp. The boxes that had been so neatly piled up were toppled, and papers were scattered everywhere. The room was dark, and the air felt heavy.

I moved back to the bedrooms. They were just as ransacked. I kept expecting to see blood, but there was none.

The house was empty. I moved back to the living room. I thought about picking up the phone and dialing the police; that would be the natural thing to do in any sane world. Something in me reminded me that this situation, this town, this world, had stopped being sane a few days ago. I stood near the telephone, wondering what I should do.

A low, rumbling sound went through the whole house, shaking it. I started, and turned. I jumped again, and nearly yelled. The first time had been because of the thunder; the second was because the Sheriff was standing in the doorway.

“Well, doggy. Looks like that storm is gonna’ set in a might sooner than we all thought,” the Sheriff said, tipping his hat a few millimeters back on his forehead. He put his hand on his hip, and gestured with the other one, “Just get here?” he asked. He grinned with one side of his mouth; the rest of his face didn’t move.

“Yes,” I said.

“I reckon you came lookin’ for ol’ Pete?” He looked down at the floor, as if he was waiting or my answer.

“Yes,” I said, “but he’s not here.”

“Nope, I reckon not,” he said, and moved toward me. He stopped at a box that was on the floor, staring down at the papers. He squinted as though one were particularly important, then ‘hmmphed’, and looked up at me “I reckon not,” he repeated.

“Do—umm—do you know where he went?” I asked.

“Well, I ain’t exactly sure, mind, but,” he said, and paused. He looked up at me, and when I saw his eyes, I went cold. Something in them was amused. It was the same sort of look you might see just before a snake strikes. It was a look that said ‘I know something you don’t know’ so clearly you could almost hear it. “but I reckon ol’ Pete had hisself a woman on the side-like.” I didn’t say anything, and the Sheriff moved to look down at the papers that had spilled out of another of the boxes. “Reckon he went to go be with her. Runnin’ outta here with a hardon, dumb bastard left the door wide open.” At the last part, he grinned that same way, again; it never touched more than his lips.

“Oh,” I said. I wanted to say more, but couldn’t. I was starting to shake.

“Thing that interests me, though, is why you come a’callin’ when I asked you specifically not to.”

“I—umm—I don’t understand,” I said.

“Well, now,” he said, grinning and barking one, small, dray laugh, “I don’t know as I believe that. See,” he said, putting his hand, curled into a fist, on his hip again, “I told you that all a’ this business with the bones and all, had really stirred ol’ Pete up. Yessir, I said that plain as day,” he said, then his voice dropped even further from icy to deadly, “and I distinctly remember someone dressed a lot like me, and bearin’ a striking resemblance saying something like ‘stay away from Mrs. McPherson, too’. Now, I could be wrong; memory ain’t so good these days. May be I need to get one a’ them tests, find out if I got that A.D.D. or not, huh?” he said, and chuckled at himself. Again, though, his eyes never changed.

“I wanted to say goodbye to Pete,” I said.

“Oh, I see. Leavin’ to go back to ta’ the city, are ya’? Well, that’s mighty fine. Glad you could come visit us; thing is, Pete’s gone. Up and left. As you can see, this town’s goin’ to hell in a handbasket. Vagrants and homosexuals,” he said, pronouncing each syllable of both words. If we’d been outside, I had the distinct impression he’s have spit on the ground. “Pete ain’t been gone but a few hours, maybe, and already someone done been in here and had a go at his wife’s things.”

I didn’t know what to say. “Well, I’s on my way back to the station to get some fingerprintin’ stuff. May be I could give you a lift back to your folk’s place. That’s where your stayin’, ain’t it?” he asked.

“Yeah. I brought the car, though, I could—”

“Well, then, good. Save me a’ extra trip,” he said, turning toward the door but not moving. I knew that he didn’t mean any of this as cordial as it sounded. I walked toward the door. I felt his eyes on me, even though they weren’t as I passed. I heard his boots clomp on the linoleum. He was just behind me. The hairs on my neck started to hurt because they hadn’t gone down, yet.

As we stepped out the door, I happened to look over at his police cruiser. I stopped, and heard him stop, too. In the backseat, was Kevin. Even though his head was down, I could see he had a cut on his forehead.

“Some problem?” the Sheriff asked.

“Umm—no,” I said.

“Oh. That. Just cleanin’ up some. Somethin’ I shoulda’ done years ago. Vagrants and homosexuals, son. Whole god-damned world is full of ’em,” he said, and then spit. I felt his hand on my shoulder, and though he used no force, I knew it meant ‘keep walking’.

Kevin looked up at me: his lips were bloody, and there was a large cut on the side of his face. In his eyes I saw total fear. He was terrified. I knew why, too. Without anything said, I knew that the sheriff had not only found out we’d been together, but that he’d come here specifically to find me. He’d known where I’d be. I knew one other thing, too, just as surely: Pete McPherson hadn’t left Placerville.

Pete McPherson would never leave Placerville again.

THIRTY-THREE

“What are you going to do?” I asked. His force on my shoulder let me know that I couldn’t stop moving. Somehow, down inside me, I knew that as long as I kept moving, there was a chance. ‘A chance at what?’ I asked myself, but there was no answer.

“With him?” the Sheriff asked, and chuckled one single low laugh. “Well, I s’pose what I ought to do is run him out to the stop sign on Hitt road, and tell him to start walkin’. Thing is, I know exactly what he’d do; two, three weeks from now he’d set up shop in some other god-fearin’ town and begin to work his evil. Let me ask you somethin’, boy; did ol’ Albert ever teach you what to do if you got a snake in your backyard?”

He stopped pushing, so I didn’t move any further. I could see on Kevin’s face that he knew what we were talking about, though. He was trying to decide if he still had any fight left in him. He was thinking ‘if I just give up, this’ll be over quick’. “No, he didn’t say anything to me about it.”

He laughed to himself as if I’d just proven something, “Well, I guess there’s no accountin’. When you got a snake in your backyard, son, the thing you gotta’ do is to root him out. You gotta’ make sure he’s got nowhere left to hide. Then, what you gotta’ do is to kill him when he shows himself. When he pops his head up outta’ whatever god forsaken hole he’s found, you gotta’ get him right then. No waitin’. You catch my meaning?”

“You’re going to—umm—,” I started.

“Don’t you worry yourself about what I’m fixin’ to do with this here faggot, boy,” he said, and I felt the ice and steel in his voice. “Say, how is ol’ Albert, anyhow?” he said, and though the words were friendly, the tone never changed. He reached past me and opened the passenger side door. His hand went to my shoulder. I slowly sank into the seat. He closed the door, saying “Mind your fingers, boy.”

As soon as the door was shut, Kevin whined, “Mikey, you’ve gotta’ help me, please, oh god, he’s gonna’—”

“Shh,” I hissed, and kept saying, “Shh! Shut up! Gimme’ a second. I gotta’ think.” The closer the sheriff got to the driver’s side door, the more panicked I felt. The inside of the car smelled like stale tobacco and piss. On the radio, someone was twanging about Tulsa.

The door opened, and the sheriff sat down. He kept the door open for a second, and pulled a cigarette out from his shirt pocket. He pushed in the lighter on the dashboard. Holding the cigarette up toward me, he asked, “You mind?” I shook my head because I didn’t know what else to do. My stomach muscles were clenched so tight, I felt like I was doubled over.

The cigarette lighter popped, and I jumped. He smiled to himself and reached for it. With two small sucks on the end, he lit it, and put the lighter back into the dash. He leaned over and closed his door, starting the cruiser. He turned the radio up a bit, and I could tell that the singer was a female. She kept lamenting having to live on Tulsa Time, whatever that meant. The sheriff pulled the gear shift down into reverse, and looked into the rearview. I saw his eyes pull tight. I felt more than heard Kevin shrink, and my stomach flopped. I stifled a gag.

Death was in that look.

The Sheriff put the car in drive, and we moved forward. “So, when’s your flight leave?” he asked.

“Today,” I said.

“Fine, fine” he said, nodding to himself. “Tell ya’ what I’m gonna’ do—I’m gonna’ take you to the airport myself,” he said, and smiled large. I tried not to think of a shark. “Police escort, like. Won’t you feel mighty high on the hog.”

“That’d be great,” I said, my voice completely flat. I looked down at his gun. The holster was snapped closed; no way to grab it quickly. Part of my mind puzzled over ways to get him to unsnap it, or even pull it out so I could grab for it. The other parts of me were all screaming about how ridiculous this all was. Mostly I was just numb, all except for my mind, which raced.

On the road, I saw the town fire truck coming toward us, its lights flashing. It was flying. “Must be a fire somewhere,” the Sheriff said. He sounded not the least surprised.

“Shouldn’t you—umm—maybe call them on the—,” I started.

“S’pose I should,” he said, and continued to drive.

“It’s your house, Mikey,” Kevin said from the back.

Without looking, the sheriff slammed his hand against the small mesh cage that separated the front seat from the back. The sound made me jump. The sheriff’s face didn’t move. A chill ran through me.

“You shut your hole, back ‘ere,” he said, the word coming out sounding like ‘air’. His hand went slowly back to the steering wheel.

“What did he mean by—?” I started. My stomach was already sinking. My mind was fighting against it, but somewhere inside I heard the truth in it.

“Nothing. That little faggot ain’t got enough sense to shut up when he’s in trouble, ‘s all,” he said, and looked into the mirror again, “I ain’t kiddin’, there, polly anna. Speak up one more time and find out what I’m fixin’ to do.”

The fire truck screamed past us so fast the wind rush moved the car a little.

“But, I mean, why would he say that it was my house if it wasn’t my house?” I asked. Then, silence. No one talked. Even the wind outside the car seemed to die down.

“Well, son, I s’pose that it might very well be your mama’s house,” he said. Just then, the doors locked. It’s amazing where your mind goes in situations like this; I remember thinking that there was no way a car this old had power locks. My body went almost limp. “I s’pose it just might be at that. I cain’t be for certain, mind. But considerin’ how much gasoline I poured on ‘er, that might just be your mama’s house.”

“Why?” I whispered.

“Come on, now; you know very well why. You little lovebirds been just a’ chirpin’ away, ain’tcha? You know very well why. Shame, though. Damn shame,” he said, and in his voice there really was a note of sadness. “Shame about Ol’ Albert, havin’ to go that way.” he said. My head was filled with the white noise of panic.

“Your daddy, son—your daddy was the meanest man I ever met, god’s honest truth. That ol’ boy was tough as nails. Thing was I didn’t think he had it in him. I wan’t in town but two months ‘fore he came stormin’ into my office. I’d seen him around, y’know? Saw he’d gotten all grown up since I’d left.

He came up to me, all puffed up, and started accusing me a’things. Things I didn’t do. Your sister was a dime store hooker, son,” he said, and my eyes got wide, “now don’t go shootin’ the messenger, boy; I ain’t tellin’ you nothin’ you don’t already know yourself. When she walked out of this town, I tried oncet to bring ‘er on back. She kept on truckin’.” he said, and went quiet for a time. My mind was starting to come back to me, but the only thing I could hear was his voice. “Your daddy tried to accuse me of diddling his little girl oncet she took it on the run. Now, there’s a lot a’things I done, boy, that’s between me and the lord. But I’ll tell you right here and now, I ain’t never, and I mean never in my life, diddled no little girl. You can take that to the bank. I tell you what, though; that cocksucker was the only man in this town ever stood up to me, and I mean ever. I hated having to put him down like ‘at. Was a shame. Thing was, it wan’t just you that got to snoopin’. Your daddy got a might bit nosey, too.”

“He killed them, Mikey, he—,” Kevin said, his voice quivering.

The sheriff’s jaw bulged. He pulled the wheel to the side and the car started to slow. “What did I tell you, little girl? What did I tell you?” he started asking with a hiss in his voice.

“So it’s true.” My whole body sagged under the weight of it.

“What’s true?”

I looked back through the mesh at Kevin, who nodded. His eyes were blurry, and his chin quivered. The sheriff looked over at me out of the side of his eyes, then glanced lazily back at Kevin. He shook his head, and turned his eyes back to the road.

“Boy, when I took this here town over, it wan’t nothin’ but a truck stop, ‘cept for trains. People bringin’ drugs through, women whorin’—I put a stop to that,” he said, poking himself in the chest three times with his finger. “I did, not any of them pansies on the town council, y’hear?” He shook his head. “Y’know, don’t nobody say mean things when you’re gettin’ results, now, do they? No, sir. I come in here and start cleanin’ this little shithole of a town up, and it’s ‘Aiken saved us a’gin. But a man starts to try to get cozy and—,” he trailed off. “After a while, son, you’ll see what I mean. You try to do your job, but all the little red tape starts to mount up in your way. All the little pencil boys start to pile up on ya’ thinking they can get some dinner of’n ya. Well, sir, I wan’t gonna’ take it.” He was slowing the car down. I watched as the needle started moving from 45 down to 40. I knew that if it ever reached the big white ‘5’, I was going to die. I knew it in all of my bones.

“Boy, don’t you never watch none of them Discovery channel shows?” he asked, and I waited. “First thing a lion does when he takes a buncha fee-males is to kill off all the cubs. Don’t want to have to support another man’s issue,” he said, jutting his head forward a bit and screwing his eyes nearly closed. The look would have been comical, if it wasn’t for the situation. “Way I see it, I’m just doin’ what I’m s’posed to be doin’” he said. “I could try to fight ’em down all I wanted, but in the end, I knew I’d have to breed ’em down. Only gawd damned thing the Brits ever did right, son: you can’t just burn ’em out, you got to breed ’em out, too.”

He was pulling the car to the side of the road while he slowed down.

Then he reached down, and unsnapped his holster. He meant to kill Kevin. Once he killed Kevin, I knew he was going to kill me for having seen him do it. I knew I had to get the gun. Even then, though, my mind kept screaming at me to be still; that this would all pass soon if I was just a good boy and sat still.

I lunged for the gun. Or, better, I tried to. My muscles were rubbery and my breathing was wrong. The only thing I managed was to hit the sheriff in the stomach with my limp hand. I missed the gun completely. By happenstance, though, my arm was lodged up under his, and he couldn’t steer well. He looked down at my hand and then back up just in time to see the telephone pole we were about to careen into. He put both his hands on the wheel and tried to jerk it to the left. I’ve never been able to figure out if he did that to try to avoid the pole, or to make sure my side smashed into it instead of the front.

It didn’t matter, though. The front end hit.

The last thing I saw before I went out was the dashboard coming toward me in slow motion. The last thing I heard was someone on the CB radio trying to reach the sheriff about a fire at my parent’s address.

THIRTY-FOUR

I was standing in a clearing, surrounded by miles and miles of trees. It must have been fall, because the leaves were this explosion of color. Overhead, a huge airplane screamed by, barely above the tops of the trees. I followed it with my eyes. Just as it went out of sight above the trees, I saw someone’s hair blowing in the wind. The hair was black. I wondered why I couldn’t see more of them.

When I looked down, it was Randy. He was dressed in his school uniform. He smiled at me, and reached out to take my hand. I put my hand over his, and then immediately jerked it back. His hand was warm, and that scared me.

I tried to talk, but nothing happened. He smiled again; his hand was still out for me to take. “It’s okay,” he said, but I never saw his mouth move.

I put my hand over his again, and closed my fingers. His palm was impossibly warm, almost too hot to hold. He turned and tugged me along behind him. We walked for hours over the fallen leaves, and uneven ground. The wind was blowing hard. I knew that because I could see his hair flying around, but I couldn’t feel it against my skin. The sun was moving faster and faster across the sky. As night came, a storm moved in. The moon came up and over us, flying. The trees were enormous and went on mile after mile. I thought, my legs should be tired, but they weren’t.

When the sun rose again, it seemed as if we’d jumped far ahead of ourselves without walking. We were standing next to an open space in the ground. He was beside me, and our hands, clasped, hung between us. The hole was perfectly six foot. I don’t know how I knew that, but I knew it as surely as I knew I was breathing air. Six foot long and six foot deep. I looked at him, and his eyes seemed to take up my entire vision. I could hear the buzzing of flies. “Katy,” he said, and smiled that smile of ‘I’m sorry’. He pointed into the hole. I looked, and with just the sliver of light that fell to the bottom of the hole, I could make out some finger bones nearly covered by dirt.

He let go of my hand. I looked back at him quickly, and saw that he was climbing down into the hole. “Where are you going?” I tried to ask, but there was no sound except the buzzing of a fly.

“This is where I go,” he said without looking up, and then disappeared. The flies seemed to be growing, because the buzzing was louder, now. It seemed like a horde of bees were above me.

I looked up to see where they were, and the buzzing got louder. I was sure they were all over me; that I was covered in them. I knew they were crawling through my bones and out my mouth. Still, they got louder.

When I opened my eyes, the buzzing was earsplitting. I wanted to tell someone to make it stop, but I couldn’t see anything. I could feel my body starting to wake up under me, though. It seemed hot and loud inside me. I wanted to move, but something told me not to. I wondered where Randy had gone, and then I remembered. ‘In the hole’ I thought.

“Mikey, please. Mikey, please get up. Mikey—,” someone kept chanting my name over and over, in a whisper. I couldn’t see them, but I knew they were nearby. “Mikey, Mikey, please—,” it kept saying.

“I can’t see anything,” I mumbled.

“What?” someone whispered from behind me.

“I can’t see anything,” I said, trying to speak more clearly.

“Lift up your head,” someone whispered, “and try to be quiet; I don’t think he’s dead.”

I tried to lift my head, and it moved. I tasted blood in my mouth. My nose was starting to wake up with the rest of me, and it hurt badly. I lifted my head some, and saw that I had managed to go partly into the dashboard. Blood was everywhere; on the spidered glass of the windshield, on the smashed dashboard, all over my shirt and legs. I looked around for a few moments, still dazed. The world kept swimming in and out of focus.

“Mikey, you have to get his gun. Mikey, hurry, please; get his gun and his keys and get us out of here. I don’t think he’s dead,” someone said. I turned, and saw Kevin lying up against the mesh divide between the front and back seats.

I looked down where I knew the gun was. The holster was unsnapped, and I reached for it, but my hand went awry, and hit him in the stomach. The wet smack of it made me retch, but there was also a grunt. I heard Kevin flinch back from the meshing with a startled yelp. I felt more than saw bloody mess coming from my mouth and hitting my pants. My mouth was alive with the taste of wet copper, like sucking on pennies. I moved my hand again, and got it around the gun. I pulled and it came free. It was enormously heavy, though. It took everything I had to lug the gun from the sheriff’s hip onto my lap. I reached for the door, but everything was still moving far too slow.

“His keys, Mikey; you’ve got to get his keys,” Kevin whisper-pleaded.

I stopped moving, and looked back over at the Sheriff. His head had gone sideways, for some reason, and had smashed a hole in the window just big enough for the top of his head to fit through. The broken glass was the only thing holding his head up. His body had gone forward into the steering wheel. As my hearing came back, I could tell that the bees I’d heard earlier was actually the car horn. Just past his shoulder, which was slammed against the wheel, I saw the sheriff’s key ring. The keys were in the ignition. I reached over to get them.

I was so weak that it took some wiggling to get the keys loose. “Okay, good; you’ve got to get out and open the door so I can get out, and then we can get away from the car,” Kevin whispered. I reached for the door handle, and didn’t have enough strength to pull it. I pulled again and again, and nothing happened.

“It’s stuck,” I mumbled.

“Hold onto it, and push yourself sideways; use your weight,” Kevin said.

I did, and the door clicked. I leaned back toward it, and couldn’t stop myself. I fell out of the car. My body was still numb enough that, while I felt the ground under me, I didn’t feel any of the pain of hitting the doorway of the car, or the stones under me. The horn was much louder outside the car than it had been inside. I looked up and saw Kevin peering out the side window. He waved and made a motion for me to hurry. I knew I needed to, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t move any further.

Just then, the horn stopped. I thought maybe I’d just gone deaf, and I let my eyes loll closed. A continuous banging sound, though, brought my attention back. I opened my eyes with the certainty that the horn had stopped. Kevin was pounding on the window, yelling. Something in me moved, and for the first time I understood what the something, the mysterious something that was always alert and awake in me was.

I sat up. The world spun around me, but I knew I had to stand. I made my legs move. I managed to get the key into the slot on the door, and turn. The door flew open, and Kevin jumped out. I felt someone grabbing at my hands, and then I felt lighter. Then someone was under me, and my head was cradled against someone’s shoulder. I could hear their breathing; it was ragged and shallow. I felt like I should tell whoever it was that they needed to relax or they’d wind up dead, but I couldn’t.

That’s when I heard the shot. It sounded like the muffled thump of someone fluffing a pillow, or the snap of someone putting fresh sheets on a bed. I knew it was a gunshot, though. It didn’t sound right.

“Wha?” I asked, trying to move to see.

“Gawd dammmit, you cock suckin’ mother fucker! You twisted little nancy cock sucker!” someone was yelling from nearby.

Whoever had me, moved me against something solid. I could see over the top of an enormous white field of metal. Someone was stilling yelling mean things, but I couldn’t see who it was. I saw Kevin go in front of my eyes, then disappear below the field of white.

“Don’t you dare, you nancy cock sucker! Don’t you mother fucking do it, you faggot piece a’ trash!” someone was still yelling.

I was up against the car, my head resting on the roof. The world stopped spinning. The sheriff had been taking us to kill us. I managed to lunge for the gun, and in the fight, the sheriff had run the car into a telephone pole. Then I thought, the gun!, and I moved so I could look for it. It wasn’t in my hand.

Kevin had it.

Kevin had shot Sheriff Aiken.

Aiken was the one yelling. Kevin hadn’t killed Aiken.

“Stop!” I yelled, “Stop, Kevin; don’t!”

“Why not?! Why the fuck not?!” Kevin yelled back from the other side of the car. I tried to slide myself along the car so that I could see him.

“Is he down?” I asked.

“Yeah, he’s down. And I’m about to fucking kill him!” Kevin said.

“Don’t. You can’t. Come—get me over there,” I said.

“What? Why not?” Kevin said, but I heard the crunching of gravel. He was moving toward me when his head popped up from the other side of the car. He came over and put his shoulder under my arm. The gun was still in his hand.

“Take me over there,” I said. My head was clearing very fast, and my body was screaming at me to stop moving, but I couldn’t; not now.

When I came around the car, I could see the sheriff. He was covered in blood, and the side of his face was barely held on. It almost flapped loose. There was also a large spot of blood near his left knee, and it was getting steadily darker. “Stop,” I said, and Kevin stopped moving. He leaned me against the car. He took a second to look at me, and I nodded to him.

“You boys better stop this horseshit right now, I mean. This innit—,” the sheriff started.

“Shut up,” I said, nearly whispering. Kevin turned and pointed the gun at him.

We stood that way for a few moments, me watching the sheriff, the sheriff watching me. Kevin stood with the gun on him, and it shook, but never lowered. “So,” the sheriff said, “what is it you plan to accomplish with this little show, boys? Do you think this somehow makes everything even-steven?”

“I said shut up,” I nearly whispered, then closed my eyes. When I opened them again, the thing that was inside me was at the front. I relaxed and let it come up. I knew what it was, now; I knew it wouldn’t hurt me. “And I meant it.” When I opened my eyes again, the sheriff’s face flinched.

“We gotta’ shoot him, Mikey. We gotta shoot him and figure out what to—,” Kevin started.

“You shut up, too,” I said.

The silence fell. The wind moved through the branches, like breath.

“My sister?” I asked the sheriff.

“What the fuck are you—,” he started to ask.

“Kevin,” I said, and Kevin understood. He pulled the trigger, and the sheriff’s other leg exploded. Blood flew all over the ground and onto the car’s paint.

“Shit! Fuck you, oh mah gawd! I’m gonna’ fuckin’ kill you, you cock suckin’—,” the sheriff continued, his eyes closed and his hands moving in vain toward his leg.

“I’m only going to ask you one more time. My sister?” I asked.

He quieted down some, and moved around less. “Your sister what?”

“Kevin,” I said.

When Kevin raised the gun to fire again, the sheriff burst out “I didn’t fuck her. I wouldn’ta never! She was too young!” I put my hand up, and Kevin didn’t fire. The gun stayed trained on the sheriff’s head, though.

“You did kill her, though,” I said.

“I had to,” the sheriff said, “I had to.”

I closed my eyes. “Why?”

“Your sister,” the sheriff said, and laughed, still squirming and trying to reach his shattered legs. “Your sister was the town whore, boy. Don’t tell me you didn’t know. She was pregnant by that boy Tommy Lyndon; the half-retard. She was always lettin’ him play with her, and I was gonna’ be gawd damned if I was gonna’ have another half-retard runnin’ around the streets of my town—,”

“Enough,” I said, and closed my eyes. The thing in me knew it wasn’t enough, though. I opened my eyes again, “and Randy?” I asked.

His eyes closed. I knew already, but that put the seal on it. Something in me sighed, and relaxed. This was the beginning of the end of it. I could rest, soon. It had all gone crazy, and there was no way to fix it back how it had been, but at least it would be over soon.

“Mikey?” Kevin asked, and the note in his voice said he didn’t know.

“It’s okay,” I said.

“You boys ain’t never gonna’ get away with this. Y’all can’t run forever, and soon enough, someone is gonna’—,” he was building up steam, and I knew I couldn’t let him. I knew I couldn’t let him get where he was about to go.

I looked at Kevin. He glanced at me, then down at the Sheriff.

One last thing, the thing in me said, and I nodded to myself. Standing there, with the gun in my hand, I will never be able to describe the feeling. I heard a woman on a talk show say, once, that the feeling she got on the last push before her son was completely born was powerful freedom, accomplishment, and a sense of tiredness that felt like dying. As I stood there, the light coming off the gun, and the sweat dripping down the Sheriff’s face, I felt just that. All those times my English teachers in high school had described that moment of ultimate action in a story or book; I finally understood. This was the last moment before everything resolved; I knew that, balls to bone. I steadied the gun in my grip, refocused my eyes on the Sheriff’s, and asked “Why?”

The Sheriff shook his head, and looked down. He spat some blood on the pavement, then looked back up at me. I could see in his eyes he was thinking of saying something insulting. At the last minute, though, he decided against it. “His mama wanted me to marry her. She wanted him to be my legitimate son,” the sheriff said, “she kept sayin’ that it wan’t fur her; that it was fur him. She said that if I didn’t marry her and make him legit, she was gonna’ tell somebody.”

I nodded to myself. It seemed so simple; so much like something on a stupid television show. I felt dumb for not knowing. “If he was gone, she wouldn’t have any way to prove it, anymore. She didn’t know about the others,” I said.

And he grinned. He grinned at me, through blood soaked teeth. “Ain’t half as dumb as Ol’ Albert always said you—,” And the gun went off just as I blinked. I turned away from what was left of him. Kevin stood there a bit longer, and the smell of gun powder drifted over me. It smelled right, somehow, as if none of this could have ended any other way. Something in me nodded, and I felt the strength in my legs going.

“Kevin,” was all I had time to say.

The world went blank, again.

THIRTY-FIVE

I woke up from total blackness. The only thing I had left of the sleep was the heavy, hot, slippery feeling in my limbs. My body wanted to stay asleep for the rest of my life. My head felt empty and my stomach wasn’t tense for the first time in a long time. The room smelled of fabric softener and something else, something clean. My mouth still tasted like wet copper, though. There was something cold against my head, and I wanted to talk but didn’t.

“Shh,” someone said, and a hand pressed against my chest. It felt heavy and distant, as if happening miles away.

“Where?” I tried, but my throat wouldn’t open. All I did was squeak.

“Shush, I said. Quiet,” someone said, this time more insistent. The hand patted my chest. The voice wasn’t Kevin; I knew that. I knew I should open my yes and see, but I couldn’t. “You’re safe,” someone said.

“Kev—?” was all I could manage before my throat closed again, and my arms got too heavy to talk.

“He’s in the other room resting. He’s safe, too.”

“The sheriff?” I asked.

“Seems to have up and left town; nobody knows where to,” the voice said, but something in the tone said ‘dead, son; dead’. It was then I recognized the voice. I smiled, and settled. “Kevin managed to tell us most of what happened,” Dr. Gantner said.

“Us?” I mumbled.

“The few of us that happened to be around when he dragged you into the hospital,” he said. I tried to nod, but nothing happened.

“Fire,” I said, trying to open my eyes. Things were swimming back to the top of my head, once more.

“I’m sorry, son. What they managed to pull out of your parent’s house wasn’t—well—,” the doctor started, then stopped. “I’m sorry.”

“The bones are—”

“Kevin told us that, too. Don’t worry. We’re going to bring that boy to rest, finally,” he said. I heard someone come into the room, and whisper “Doctor,” and then the hand on my chest patted one more time. “I have to go, now, but rest. You’re safe, and things are being taken care of. Rest.”

I tried to ask him to call my sister, but the moment his hand was gone, I felt heavy, and sank back into the ink ocean I’d been hovering over for the last few minutes. I sank deep.

Over the next week, people came to visit me to offer condolences about my parents. The story Bud made up was that I’d been in a rush to get back to the house after someone told me they thought my house was on fire. No one could know about the Sheriff. “A town is a very fragile thing, Mikey. It can be broken just like that,” Dr. Gantner had said, and snapped. It was loud, and made me jump. “Some of us know, though, Mikey. Some of us know what you did, and we’re grateful.” He treated me like a hero, and talked as if I’d been some great warrior.

I knew the truth, though. The thing in me knew, too: it was all an accident. All of it was just an accident. Maybe it was best no one know.

Kevin made it out of bed and came to stay in my room in the hospital. We spent a lot of time in the same room, not talking. I wanted to say things, to ask him things, but every time I was just about to speak, I realized I didn’t have any words. There were questions, but no words to go in them. I guess he felt the same. We watched a lot of television. I guess it would be better to say that the television was on a lot, though; I don’t remember anything that we saw. The noise was comforting.

I called my sister and broke the news to her. She sounded more relieved than upset. I understood that completely. I wanted to tell her about the sheriff; about Katy and about Randy and everything that happened, but I couldn’t. Every time I thought I might, all I could hear was Dr. Gantner’s finger’s snap like an explosion. “Can you exhange your ticket to come here, Michael?” she asked. I said I’d try. “You mind if I bring someone with me?” I asked. She paused for a second, then said “Sure.” I wanted to laugh, and tell her that it was the shortest sentence she’d ever uttered, but I couldn’t. There was the tickle of a funny thought down in that ink sea under things, but no laugh came up.

“I’m going to go to my sister,” I said during a commercial, “and you’re coming, too.” Kevin only looked over at me. He blinked, then looked back at the television screen, and said “okay.”

I never called Susan. I couldn’t go back to that city, or that job. Whoever the puppet was who’d been living my life the past few years didn’t exist anymore.

Toward the end of the stay in the hospital, Kevin and I had sex once. He cried the whole time. I asked him if he wanted to stop, and he shook his head. Even when we had to maneuver around my broken ribs, and he nearly fell off the bed, he still had eyes full of tears. Even while we laughed, holding each other, my shoulders were still wet.

Two weeks later, I went up to the isolation ward. I stopped at the desk, and showed them the paper Dr. Gantner had made for me. He’d left it under a cup of water and a few pain relievers. He’d known all along that I’d do this. The nurse looked it over once, then down at his watch. He looked up at me and barely stopped himself from rolling his eyes.

He got the key and walked me down to Mrs. McPherson’s door. He went to put the key in the lock, but I stopped him without looking. Through the window, I could see she was sitting on the bed with a pillow stuffed under her shirt. She was holding it with her hands, and rocking herself. Her eyes were closed. I could hear her singing. It was a lullaby. That was all I needed to see.

I turned and walked to the elevator without waiting for the nurse. He kept calling after me and asking questions, but I couldn’t hear him. In my head, I could only hear the sound of her singing. I hummed the song to myself as I got on the elevator, and smiled.

The announcement of the identity of the remains came the day I checked out. It brought reporters from all over to the state. Everyone wanted to know where Sheriff Aiken had gone. No one knew. Suspicion fell on him. I never asked Bud what they’d done with the body or the car, and he never volunteered the information.

I stayed with Kevin. We packed everything he considered essential into one suitcase. While we did, I thought about how fast things had gotten. Days were passing where I didn’t say a word. Time slipped past me.

At the funeral, the pastor spoke, but I couldn’t hear him. All I could do was look at the tiny casket and think ‘he’s there’. I knew he finally was. Dr. Gantner had brought Mrs. McPherson, who smiled to herself the whole time, and kept her hands on her belly, fingers splayed open. He stood near her. She met my eyes, once, and I thought for a second she might wink. It was as if she and I were the only ones who got some huge joke. She didn’t, though. Kevin stood by me the whole time.

I wanted the moment to last longer, but it didn’t. I can barely remember it; not like I remember the rest. They lowered the casket down and I stayed until the men were finally shoveling dirt onto the lid. Kevin took my hand and lead me back to the car. Dr. Gantner drove up; he’d taken Mrs. McPherson back to the hospital.

“Sorry to see you go,” He said, shaking my hand.

“No offense meant, but I’m not,” I said. He smiled and shook my hand one last time, then let go. He looked over at Kevin, and they hugged.

“You remember what I told you, young man,” Bud said.

Kevin nodded. “I’ll try.”

On the drive to the airport, I asked. “He said ‘your body is just flesh, son; no matter what people have done to it, it is still possible to remain pure.’”

I smiled to myself, and looked out the window, “He’s a smart man.”

“Yeah. I think he is.”

As we climbed above the clouds, the sun blazed from behind what was left of a storm front. The warmth came in through the window, tinting it orange and gold. I put my hand on top of Kevin’s, and smiled at him. His fingers gripped mine back. The warmth settled on my shoulder and my chest, and I wondered just how long it had been since I felt anything like it.

Copyright

Copyright © 2016 J. Warren. All rights reserved. Publication history of individual stories can be found at the beginning of this volume.

No part of this work may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, microfilm, and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published in 2016 by Lethe Press, Inc.

www.lethepressbooks.com

ISBN-13: 978-1-59021-606-4

This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictiously.

Cover design: Inkspiral Design

Content

J. Warren
REMAINS

PART ONE

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

PART TWO

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

PART THREE

TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-FOUR

TWENTY-FIVE

TWENTY-SIX

TWENTY-SEVEN

TWENTY-EIGHT

TWENTY-NINE

THIRTY

THIRTY-ONE

THIRTY-TWO

THIRTY-THREE

THIRTY-FOUR

THIRTY-FIVE

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