Off the Grid

by Lesley Choyce

  Although I worried about my father, I settled into a routine at school. I became old news, and kids mostly ignored me. I ran into Austin a few times and said hi, but he just ignored me. He had stopped hanging out with Jacob and mostly wandered the halls between classes, looking angry and alone.

  One day at lunchtime, I walked over to the park across the street to get some fresh air and look at the trees. I heard some noises and walked off the path to find Jacob sitting on top of Austin, beating the crap out of him. I came up behind Jacob, wrapped my arms around him in a powerful bear hug, picked him off Austin and held him in that grip. He started to scream at me.

  Austin’s nose was bleeding, and I figured he’d had the wind knocked out of him. He was having a hard time breathing as he got to his feet.

  Jacob finally broke free and spun around on his heels, ready to smash whoever had interfered. When he saw it was me, he stopped himself. “Screw you, asshole,” he said and then spit a big gob right in my face. As he started to walk away, I almost grabbed him again. But I didn’t. I let him go and wiped my face.

  Austin was holding his hand to his nose, trying to stop the bleeding. He’d gotten his breath back but looked totally whipped.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Why’d you do that?” he asked.

  I just shrugged. I was thinking about what he’d told me, about his mom dying in the hospital when he was young.

  He looked at me for a long, weird minute, then said, “How’s your dad?”

  “I don’t know. He’s still in the hospital. They haven’t given up on him yet.”

  Austin just kept staring at me. What I saw in that look was the face of a lost little boy, a kid who really hurt. Not just from being beat up, but from something deeper in him, some pain that wouldn’t disappear. “I hope he gets better,” Austin said. And then he walked away.

  Later that day, Alexis walked with me to the hospital. As we went by the library, we saw Ernest, passed out on the bench again. Alexis helped me prop him up. It took me a while to wake him up.

  At first he looked scared, until he could get my face into focus. “Cody?”

  “Yeah. You okay?”

  “Do I look okay?”

  “Nope. You look bad. You got to cut this out.” I thought about guys like Jacob, maybe even Austin, finding an old geezer passed out like this. If they thought they could get away with it, they’d kick him or beat him or maybe even light him on fire. I’d been following the news recently and was shocked at how mean and cruel some people could be, even some of the kids from my school.

  Ernest studied Alexis’s worried face and seemed to see something there. He turned to me.

  “What?” I asked. “What can we do to help?” I’d asked him that before, but he’d always said he was okay and didn’t need anyone’s help. Now something had changed.

  “I need a couple of weeks away from here to sober up.”

  “What do you mean, away from here?” Alexis asked.

  “If I stay here, I do the same old routine every day. It’s what I know. It’s just what I do. But if I could get myself away and be alone, I can work on this. I think I can change.”

  I had a bright idea. “You want to go live somewhere in the woods, like I did?”

  His face lit up. “Yeah.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “I think I am. Cody—I’m gonna die here. I can feel it. One of these times, I’m not gonna wake up.”

  “But if you go off on your own, somewhere in the sticks, there won’t be anyone around to help if you need help.”

  “Yes. That’s just it. I think that if there is no one to rely on but me… I think I can do it.”

  “You think you can handle living somewhere way out in the woods, completely off the grid?”

  “Kid, I’ve been off the grid for years.”

  I was thinking I should ask my parents before I offered, but I had a gut feeling I might not have another chance. By the next time I saw Ernest, he might be back on the bottle and not wanting to change. Or he might be dead. So I told him he could stay at my old home. For now, at least.

  He didn’t think I was serious at first, but then he began to smile.

  “The house is unlocked. There’s food there. And a well out back. But it’s a long way away. And, like I said, there’s nobody around if you need help.”

  “Like I said, I really need to be alone. I need to do this by myself.”

  I really didn’t know if an alcoholic like Ernest could go cold turkey. I knew it wouldn’t be easy—maybe it was even impossible. But I was willing to give him a chance. I started to explain how to get there, but he looked puzzled, so I tore a piece of paper from my school notebook and carefully drew a map.

  Alexis opened her bag and took out some money. “Go down to the terminal and take the bus. Get something to eat first,” she added.

  I pointed at my map. “Just so you know, the bus will only take you as far as here,” I said, indicating the town nearest to where I’d lived. “You’ll have to walk the rest of the way.”

  “I can walk,” Ernest said. He looked very determined.

  And then he gave Alexis a hug. And he looked me straight in the eye and shook my hand.

  “You guys are great,” he said. “I’ll see you in two weeks.”

  As he walked off toward the bus station, Alexis suddenly looked worried. “I gave him fifty dollars. Do you think he’ll blow it on booze?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But maybe not.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Three weeks after the bone-marrow transplant, my dad started to show a little color in his skin. He started to have an appetite. He was sitting upright when Alexis and I arrived in the room. He was starting to look like my old dad. And he started giving me lectures again. Some of the same old themes but also some additions. A lot of the old philosophy and idealism. But something else too. “Sometimes, Cody, the hardest thing you can do is let other people help you when you’re down and out,” he said. And I think I fully understood what he meant.

  The day finally came when my dad was allowed to leave the hospital. I’d like to say he looked cured and healthy, but he had lost a lot of weight, and he was pale and a bit shaky as he walked. “He’ll slowly regain his strength,” the young doctor said. “But we’ve done everything we can do. He needs rest, and he needs to be home.”

  It was hard to say goodbye to Alexis, but I knew I needed to be with my mom and dad. And I too wanted to be home. Except for Alexis and DeMarco, there wasn’t anything about school that I would miss. Alexis promised she’d come visit.

  “How are you gonna do that?”

  “I memorized your map. I’ll take the bus and then I’ll walk if I have to. I’ll call you.”

  I gave her a soft, sad look and a half smile. She understood. I didn’t have a phone.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll just show up.”

  My dad was a bit weepy on the trip to our old homestead. It felt weird to be on our way back to a world we had left behind, one that seemed a million miles from my life in the city and going to school. I hadn’t heard a word from Ernest, but I had told my parents about him. I knew it was possible he might still be there and that we might find him drunk or maybe even dead.

  But we were going home.

  When we arrived, walking the final leg of our long trail through the forest, I watched my dad taking deep breaths and seemingly getting stronger with each step.

  When we opened the door to the house, there was no one inside. There was no sign of Ernest, just a note on the table.

  Welcome back home, Cody. Mission accomplished.

  Ernest

  Lesley Choyce divides his time between teaching, writing, running Pottersfield Press and hosting a television talk show. He is the author of almost sixty books for youth and adults. Lesley lives in Lawrencetown Beach, Nova Scotia.

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