A Father's Dreams

by Andrew Petoski

  Jumping in the car, I pull forward and park it in the lot. Then I take Ed in for some eats.

  “On the house today boys. That’s a beautiful ride you got there Ben,” says Ron, the owner of the diner. We don’t get to order he just automatically makes us a seven ounce steak and eggs.

  Ed and I sit there as the few patrons that are there start chatting about my car and are bringing up stories of old muscle cars they used to have that they regret ever giving up.

  I sit there grinning ear to ear eating my steak, medium rare, warm and pink, just the way I like it.

  “So what are his plans for the car now?” Vikki asks Ed.

  “I’m not sure,” he tells her. They both look at me. I finish my bite, pause for a sip of coffee and then answer.

  “I plan on taking her around the lake for a weekend before it gets too cold. Then she’ll probably have to get covered up for the winter when I get back.”

  “Are you planning on taking anyone with you?”

  “Well I was thinking about taking the…no, not planning on anyone but if you got the vacation time I got room for one. Although I’m not sure what you would do with Derrick,” I respond.

  “Hell, that’s what grandparents are for. Just give me a weeks notice, and I’m there,” she says.

  “Will do,” I raise my cup of joe in a gesture of promise. Ed finishes before me because I’ve been paying my attention to the car stories from the old customers. I catch up to him and finish my eggs as Vikki brings over to go cups. I decline them.

  “Not in that car,” I tell her.

  “Oh, sorry I should have known,” she smiles sarcastically.

  Wiping my mouth I get up and start to head out to the car without Ed, too eager to get her purring again.

  I’m in the car with the engine going when Ed comes out. He hops in and looks at me.

  “Hey, I love this, but I got to get home to feed the pets. Can you drop me off?”

  “Of course,” we pull out and head towards Ed’s place. He has an old bungalow on the other side of town. It only takes a few minutes to get there.

  “Do you want me to wait?” I ask before he gets out.

  “Nah, you go ahead and have your fun today.”

  I wait for Ed to walk up the steps, passed his handmade porch swing he made for his wife. He fumbles a little with the lock but manages and disappears inside.

  From Ed’s I take the lake frontage road home and am sure to drive a couple miles under the speed limit so that everyone I pass has the time to take in a good look.

  Getting home I pull up in the drive and go right into the already opened garage. Getting out, I kiss the hood and then close the garage behind me as I head into the house. Shit, I forgot to take that new pill this morning, I grab the bottle and take one down with some cold coffee left over from this morning. I pace back and forth from the adrenaline of driving her around trying to figure out what to do next.

  9

  I go to the computer and bring up the search engine. First search I do is for “Hadley Curry.” She pops up right on the top for her social media link. I click on it and began to scroll through her pictures.

  Nothing on here is recent though. I had created her profile when she was a baby and all the pictures I have taken throughout her short years with me are on there. I was planning on doing everything from birth to graduation and then give her the password for a graduation present. That way she could look back wherever she is at the time and go through her memories of us, never forgetting or having to worry about losing those important times.

  Scrolling through I find the picture of her and Matt I have tucked away at the beach. I come across a picture of when we were traveling across the country for the Navy when I was younger and we drove through this bear park. Hadley had rolled her window down so she could see the bears better and got us yelled at by a ranger watching high in his lookout tower with a rifle. In the same picture is Matt cowering down in the car and crying because he was afraid of the bears climbing into the car and eating us. I leave this picture up an go to the kitchen to grab some chocolate milk and return.

  The screen had gone to its screen saver mode and when I moved the mouse it reset the page going back to the picture of the two of them at the beach. This time I scroll quickly to where I left off with the bears and following that was our trip to the zoo. The first picture from there was of both Matt and Hadley feeding a giraffe from a viewpoint we climbed up moments before. We barely caught the feeding time and the zookeeper allowed the two of them to help. The giraffe came over and ate right out of the both of their hands, wrapping its tongue around the food and Hadley’s hand which is right when I snapped the picture. The shutter was slow though and you can only see the slime trail from her hand to the giant’s tongue but I still remember her touching it quite vividly.

  The rest of the pictures from that day were just of the other animals we saw. Mostly they were pictures of goats, deer, a pair of otters, elephants and a great looking tiger on the prowl right in front of us through the glass. The one I stopped at though was of Hadley sitting up in the driver’s seat of an old truck painted with animals all over it. The engine and transmission had been taken out and the axles were welded so it could not move. It just made her so proud to sit up in that driver’s seat like daddy and take us all for a safari ride to look at all the animals.

  My chocolate milk was gone now so I went back for a refill and returned before the screen reset again. The next stop on my scrolling journey was the park I had dreamt about earlier with the canoe. Though I have no pictures of that as the only time we went there was when Hadley could just barely start running on her own. It was fall and she was wearing her cute halloween outfit. We didn’t do the long walk that day. We just played around at the park. Sitting on the edge of the woods before the path and ended up rolling all around the ground, leaves sticking to her costume for the day. She wanted me to bury her in the leaves so I kept going back and forth to the woods a few feet away to find enough to cover her little body. The picture shows her hidden in the leaves with just her head poking out and the net reveals her popping up, hands in the air throwing the leaves and covered in them head to toe.

  This is where her profile ends. She was taken from me before that Christmas and I would never get to see the joy in her eyes light up again. I’m just sitting there staring at the computer, like I’m waiting for a new post to suddenly appear, but I know that there won’t be anything else. Pressing the back button I let the page load back to the search engine revealing all the results for Hadley Curry.

  Scrolling through the pages I hunt for her. There’s an older woman with her own children sitting on a boat, a couple younger mothers and some random person with an emoji for a profile pic. The only thing even remotely close I come across is one preteen across the country with purple and red cropped hair, not my Hadley. I close the general search for her and go into state public records. I search my name and bring up the custody suit.

  Going through the public records, I pull up the history of court events to see if there has been any address update. Of course there is nothing there, but one could always hope. The last entry was the judgement from when I lost the children to their mother. The address on file from her with that was her mother’s home in Delaware. I stopped by years ago when I got the same itch but Hadley, Matt, her mother, and grandparents on her mother’s side were all gone.

  She was supposed to update her new address with the courts but for some reason she either just didn’t do it or they didn’t record it publicly to keep them out of my knowledge for their whereabouts.

  I go through about ten state public records searching for Hadley and Matt. This is the only time I hope they have gotten into just a little bit of trouble for shoplifting or something so that a record of their existence and where they are would pop up before me. My efforts come to no avail and I begin to give up my search for the day. I can only do so many record searches at a time before breaking down.

  Now you�
��d think I could just hire a private investigator to do this for me, and they would actually find them. I’ve tried that and ended up spending almost ten thousand dollars for nothing. Now I just barely get by with my disability income and I can’t afford such ventures anymore, leaving the work to myself when I am able.

  Having to take a break, I go outside and have a smoke. I make myself remember those good times with Hadley that I was looking at before and then my mind trails off to Matt. I may have not been able to find anything on Hadley but boys more inherently get into trouble, right? My odds of finding Matt then are better in my state public records search and thus better to find the both of them. I begin to get reinvigorated and put out my smoke to go back in on the computer.

  I start searching for Matt backwards on the list of states. Something popped up in Wisconsin for Matt Curry, and I began to get excited. Upon looking further into this Matt, I soon got disappointed as it was a forty-two year old Matt Curry that got hit for a DUI. Not my Matt either.

  With at least one hit I have hopes. Even though it was not my Matt the process proved sound as if they get any sort of record I will find them eventually. Again I cross about ten states off my list before I have to call it quits. You can only get through so much disappointment before you can’t take anymore. I try to be done with it before it becomes so much that I can still function without all the tears the rest of the day.

  Finishing off my search I go to the normal search engine once again and put in Matt’s name. Just the same as Hadley I had created a page for him to be able to look back and reflect on.

  Disappointing though much of the pictures were the same as Hadley’s just of Matt as we did just about everything together. I scroll through, remembering the same times and begin to feel myself getting down. Then I come across the one time we had together with just the two of us and my dad.

  He was four years old and had never gone fishing. My dad had an old fifteen foot outboard and just came out of the blue one day over to the house with it in tow. The boat had been sitting in his garage since I was a teen and had lost interest in fishing with him.

  The three of us had stocked up at Ed’s with bait, worms, and minnows galore. Then my dad took us to a secluded inland lake that had only two houses on it. The lake itself was about a hundred and fifty acres but with only two people owning the land on the lake there was seldom anybody out there.

  We spent all day catching large bluegills and an occasional small mouth. My dad loved the pan fish, and we kept everything but the small bass we had caught. About half way through the day Matt had gone to cast and caught my father right in his bald head. The picture that was posted was of my father’s bleeding head, hook and all still barbed in. We had managed to get it out a minute later, but it was certainly an event I would never let myself forget.

  That was the last time my father had seen Matt as he was taken from us soon after and my parents got into their accident about a year later. I always wonder if my dad was thinking of that time on the lake just before they got hit, remembering the good times as they flash before his eyes just before the end.

  I don’t know if that really happens to people but with as much as they show it in the movies one can only hope that their loved ones remembered them and their families and love comes pouring through full of bliss as they go away.

  I finish going through the pictures online, Matt helping my dad scale and gut the panfish in the bed of the truck when we got home. The last picture was of the three of us around my dining table eating the fried panfish we got earlier that day.

  I turn the computer off; I can’t go through anymore today. The screen fades black, and I stare at my reflection in the darkened monitor. For having such a good day I sure seemed to be a bit disheveled. I scratch at my beard, now starting to curl and decide it was time to go back into town and get cleaned up a bit.

  I take a shower before I go to the barber shop. I don’t like paying extra to have that shampoo and stuff done just so my hairs workable. After getting cleaned up I throw in a quick microwave dinner and stand around the kitchen eating it. I’m in a rush to get out the door so I burn the roof of my mouth on the cheap stuff. I need to force myself to eat here before I go spending money for bar food or something else to drop twenty bucks on when I got stuff here.

  Heading out, it is beginning to get dark and I realize the barber is closed on Sundays so I head to the cheap cutters where most of the school kids get their hair done at. I walk in about five minutes before they close and the one beautician just gives me that “oh come on” stare.

  “I’m just looking for a quick beard trim,” I tell her.

  “Alright, let me clean up quick,” she sweeps the last customer’s hair into the vacuum beside her and walks over.

  “What’s the name?”

  “Ben Curry,” she tries looking me up in the computer. “Haven’t been here in quite a while.”

  “No worries, I found you Mr. Curry, follow me,” she leads me over to one of the empty chairs and throws an apron around me. Not even asking what I wanted she takes out the clippers and begins to trim my beard. I’m too shocked to say anything and I’m kinda curious if she could read my mind about what I wanted. It only takes about ten minutes to finish, and she turns me around.

  “How’s it look?” she asks. I didn’t imagine she would get it right but she took about an inch and a half off my beard, rounded the edges to contour to my face and got rid of those annoying whiskers that poked out the sides of my cheek.

  “Looks good but could you…” I point to my mustache and she grabs a comb and trims it out real quick and recenters me in front of the mirror.

  “There, now you don’t have to keep tasting those meals after you eat,” she states.

  I laugh at the thought, knowing she was right and thank her for her work. Only five bucks later and I’m off walking into the night. The shops along the strip were either closed now or closing their doors and bringing down those chain fences to keep anyone out who had the balls to smash in the glass to rob them during the few hours they were closed. Now I could see doing that if you were a jeweler and had million in inventory but a cheap shoe place and one of those value stores, come on, that’s a little overkill.

  Leaving my truck where it is, I walk across the lot to the bar and grill that would be open for the net couple of hours. Now I know I just ate at home but the smell of wings coming from that place just tugged at my stomach, and I had to go over.

  Inside there were big screens on everywhere, about fifteen in all. I take a seat at the bar facing one of the big screens that had some off road truck racing on.

  The barkeep comes over and takes my order. I ask for a tall IPA and a menu. The guy brings back my drink and pulls a menu out from under the bar in front of me, handing it over.

  Always having the taste for apps, especially fried cheese I started staring there, but then I saw five baskets of wings being taken out from the kitchen and remembered what brought me there. Flipping to the wing section there are about twenty different specialty sauces to choose from mild to blazing hot.

  The barkeep comes back and asks if I’m ready. I order a dozen wings, half dozen hot and half dozen mild and sweet. He takes my menu, and I stare at the race going on.

  The trucks have to be going about a buck twenty and launch themselves over these huge jumps getting around ten feet of air and flying over fifty feet before landing and then drifting into the next turn. I actually looked into doing those races before.

  They do a dream league where amateur people are allowed to go through a fitness and vision test before being put into souped down versions of the pro trucks. You are given a complete pit crew and chief to help you out along with about an hour of practice time on the track to get ready for the main race. All this at only five thousand dollars per experience. Sounds like a lot but most of the trucks you’re running cost around one hundred and fifty grand so the five ain’t bad, but that, of course, doesn’t cover any damages to the truck that you m
ay cause. I tell you what both the pros and amateurs are rubbing paint a lot in those off road leagues, and there’s just no way I could pick up that bill.

  The wings soon show up with blue cheese, and I start with the fiery wings. The heat fries my lips, and my mouth is on fire. I take a good swig of my IPA and then am sure to douse the next one in blue cheese before letting it enter my burning lips. The blue cheese keeps the fiery sauce coated enough to not burn the lips, but it doesn’t help in the stomach at all. Don’t get me wrong they are good as hell, but the process of eating them is an experience all their own.

  My beer is soon gone and replaced before the conclusion of the hot wings. Then I slow down my eating and suck off every sweet yumminess of the honey wings I ordered. As I finish, the race ends and the channel gets changed to baseball. There’s some mixed martial arts on the big screen next to it, and I watch that for a while as I finish my second beer.

  I start to imagine what it would be like to start working out again, getting my bulldog body back and training for a fight. It starts to get my veins pumping, and with the IPA I start to feel like I can kick anyone’s ass in the bar. I look around for a challenger, but no one in here is worthy of my awesomeness.

  I finish my beer, tip the barkeep a couple bucks and head out. Having only two I’m still good to drive but still end up waiting about twenty minutes just to be sure before leaving. In the meantime, I stand outside my truck and stare up at the sky. You don’t get to see much of the stars above with all the parking lot lights shining down but you’re able to see enough to keep you peering up. I take out my phone and bring up my favorite celestial app that tells you what you’re looking at in the night sky.

  The red glowing ball I figure is Mars, but I’m wrong and my phone tells me it’s Jupiter. Disappointed in being wrong I begin to wait for a shooting star but am distracted by a satellite that begins its stream across the sky. I track it for a minute before it disappeared into one of the lights, and I lost track of it.