by Dan Chaon
When he opens the front door to grab the newspaper he sees that the mail has already arrived. He is aware again of that shudder of timelessness, that sensation of being unmoored. He could be twenty-five, or fifty. He could wake and find that actually Loomis had disappeared long ago and never come back, nothing left but a computerized age-progression photo on a card that advertised missing children. He could wake up and find that he himself was only twelve years old, listening to the refrigerator open in the next room, listening to the hiss of carbonation as his father cracked open a morning beer. There is a little snow on the ground as Troy extends his hand out the front door and sinks it into the mailbox. December 18, 2002, he thinks. That’s where I am.
And the dates on the letters confirm it. Here, look: a few bills, some junk mail, a Christmas card. He glances at the return address, then down to where his bare foot has left an imprint in the dusting of snow on the stoop.
——
He is halfway back across the living room when a voice calls out behind him.
“Troy!”
He is still sleepy enough, still deep enough in his head that it startles him badly. He whirls around, his hands coming up instinctively to shield his face, half expecting— What? An intruder? An attack? His eyes scope the room quickly before he locates the source of the voice: Here is Ray, sitting cross-legged on the floor behind the television.
“Jesus Christ!” Troy says. “What are you doing in my house?”
“Hey, Mr. Zombie Man,” Ray says, and Troy slowly untenses. Ray is setting up a video game console, poking at some buttons on the controller. “You are really out of it, do you know that? I said hi and you strolled right past me like you were sleepwalking. What’s the deal, man? Did you finally decide to start smoking weed again?”
Troy frowns. “No,” he says, and he folds the Christmas card in half and puts it in his pocket. “I just woke up.”
“You just woke up?” Ray exclaims. “Dude, it’s one o’clock in the afternoon. What were you getting up to last night?”
“Nothing,” Troy says. He shifts from foot to foot as Ray fiddles with some more buttons. The screen comes to life. There is the blast of heroic music, and a wrestling match announcer begins shouting.
“Geez,” Ray says. “Look at this. This is fan-fucking-tastic. It’s like the most realistic I’ve ever seen.”
“Ray,” Troy says, “what do you think you’re doing?” But Ray doesn’t look up. His eyes are focused on the screen as he starts up a game.
“It’s a present,” he says. “And not necessarily for you, my friend.” Troy watches as Ray begins to flex and flinch along with the wrestlers he’s controlling onscreen, his face hardening as the computerized action heats up.
“You didn’t have to do that,” he says, but Ray doesn’t look up. “That’s an expensive piece of equipment.”
Ray only shrugs. He’s not really that much different than he was when he was a teenager. He has a shaved head now, and a bristle of goatee, but his attitudes have remained the same, and even his body is as toned and neat as it had been when he was a stripper. He has never married, never even had a serious girlfriend. Looking at him, it would be hard to believe that he is a respectable business owner now, a member of the St. Bonaventure Commerce Association and the local Rotary Club.
“Look,” Ray says. “I didn’t buy it for you anyways, so don’t worry about it.” He glances up briefly, uncertainly, and their eyes meet. A myriad of things.
——
There has been some awkwardness between them lately. There have been more than a few times when they’ve had sharp words about the finances of the Stumble Inn, more than a few times when Troy has been made aware that he is, essentially, Ray’s employee. “You’re the manager,” Ray used to say, when Ray first bought the bar from Vivian. “As far as I’m concerned, you run the place. Your decisions are my decisions.” And mostly this had been true, but at the same time it was always clear that Ray was the owner of the bar. He was the owner, by this point, of four bars and one liquor store in St. Bonaventure and the surrounding towns. A local entrepreneur. They have never broached the subject of how much wealthier Ray was than Troy. No mention had ever been made of that valise full of drugs, which had been the original source of Ray’s good fortune. It was clear that Ray was much shrewder with his income than Troy had ever been.
But even after all these years, Troy’s social life still revolved around Ray and Loomis: a rock concert in Denver, a grade-school band concert in the tinny auditorium, a double date at a restaurant in which Ray and his girl played tag underneath the table, while Loo discussed species of birds with the woman Troy was supposed to be getting to know.
Troy watches as a tablet with the words GAME OVER hovers on the TV screen, and Ray smiles up at him sheepishly.
“Sit down,” Ray says. “I challenge you to a battle, man.”
——
Troy probably thinks too much about the past. He finds himself distracted by things he should have put out of his mind a long time ago—thinking about people like Lisa Fix, his old parole officer, whom he had dated for a couple of years after his release, before she’d left town for a job in Denver; or Vivian, who continues to sit regally at the same bar stool every night, Monday through Thursday, ever since her retirement. He can imagine how Ray would chide him: “What are you dwelling on that stuff for?” Ray would say. “How many years ago was that? Like, ten?” The truth is, he still thinks of these people almost every day—Judy Keene. Carla. Terry Shoopman. Jonah.
He lifts his head. Kick! Punch! Dodge! A couple of hours later, when Loomis gets home, Ray and he are still sitting there, and Troy hasn’t won a single game.
Ray is the first to notice when Loomis walks in. “Hey, Birthday Guy!” Ray calls, and he holds out his hands dramatically toward the television screen. “Behold!” Ray says, and Troy smiles sheepishly, looking up from his seat on the floor into his son’s face, as if Loomis is a grown-up and he is a small child.
“Hey,” Loomis says, and he lets his eyes rest softly on Troy—as if to say “Are you doing okay, Dad?”—before he grins politely in Ray’s direction. “Oh, my gosh,” he says. “Uncle Ray, that’s really cool. Thank you very much.”
“You just have to remember that it’s for you and not for your dad!” Ray says. “He’s been sitting here playing all afternoon. I can’t get him away from the thing.”
“Uh-huh,” Loomis says. He is reserved, as always, standing a little apart from them—still small for his age, though his shoulders are getting broader, his jawline is squaring off and becoming a man’s. He waits there at the edge of the living room as Troy stands up. He allows Troy to hug him, to push back his messy bangs and plant a kiss on his forehead.
“Happy birthday,” Troy says hoarsely, and Loomis accepts the fierceness of his father’s affection with quiet dignity. He grunts a little, gasping good-naturedly as Troy squeezes him hard. “I love you, son,” Troy whispers into his ear. “I love you so much.”
——
After Ray is gone, a quiet settles over the house again. They sit at the kitchen table eating cake and ice cream, comfortable enough in each other’s company. Happy enough, Troy thinks. He has tried hard to be a good father, and he knows that Loomis has made an effort to be a good son. They have had a solid life together, Troy thinks, though he wishes that they’d had a few more special moments, outside the routines of work and school, outside the rituals of watching television together and hiking out in the hills beyond the house. They don’t argue about things. They seem to live their lives together smoothly.
Still, as they sit there at the table, Troy can’t help but wish there was more time. He thinks about all the vacations they’d talked about and tentatively planned—to visit Washington, D.C., or Ireland, or South America—that they’ve never managed to afford. He thinks about the time he told Loomis he was thinking about taking some college correspondence courses, and Loomis had been so excited.
“We should just mov
e someplace where there’s a college,” Loomis had said. “I wouldn’t mind moving.”
“Well,” Troy said. “There’s the money issue to consider. I can’t just up and quit my job, right?”
And Loomis had shrugged. There was a deflation that Troy was aware of.
“I guess not,” Loomis said, and Troy knew that he had said the wrong thing, that he had brushed against the edge of some different life that Loomis had fantasized about.
“You know, Loo,” he’d said then. “I think it’s a little late for me to become a different person.”
And though Loomis had only been ten at the time, he’d made an irritable face. “Why do you have to be a different person to go to college?” Loomis had said. “Doesn’t it sound like it would be fun?”
“Yeah,” Troy said. “Sure.” And he didn’t meet Loomis’s eyes. That was when their relationship started to change, he thought. When Loomis started to worry about him.
He had begun to be concerned about Troy’s girlfriends. Suddenly, Loomis had recalled Lisa Fix and her pancake breakfasts, her stern help with grade-school math problems. “Whatever happened to her?” Loo said, and he had abruptly started to take an interest in the women that Troy went out with, even though no one serious emerged.
“Do you think you’ll ever get married again?” Loomis had asked him once, trying to be casual, but it had taken him aback.
“I doubt it,” Troy had said, as if it were a joke. “Who would I get married to?”
“I don’t know,” Loomis said. “One of these people you go on dates with, maybe.”
“Any of them that you like in particular? Just give me a name and I’ll propose.”
“Oh, right,” said Loomis, who had never liked to be teased. He turned his eyebrows downward, seriously. “What about Lisa Fix? She wanted to marry you, didn’t she?”
“Ha,” Troy said. “Did she tell you that?”
“No,” Loomis said. “I just thought . . . you guys were together for a long time.”
“I guess so. And we liked each other well enough. But, you know, I think Lisa Fix was interested in finding somebody a little more ambitious than I turned out to be.” He considered for a moment, looking carefully into Loomis’s eyes. “So what are you driving at, man?” he said, and ran his hand gently over the back of Loomis’s hair. “You miss having a mom, I guess.”
“Not really,” Loomis said.
“Do you ever think about your mom? I know we don’t talk about it much, and . . .”
“I don’t know,” Loomis said. “Not exactly.”
“Oh,” Troy said. He didn’t think this was true, but what could he say? Over seven years have passed now since they last spoke to her, and still there was no word. Would it do any good to tell Loomis that he was fairly certain that she was still alive, that she was out there somewhere, in a new life? Would it do any good to tell Loomis that he still half expects the phone to ring, one of these years?
“You know you can talk to me about it, if you want,” Troy had said, and Loomis glanced down at his fingers. “I mean, she’s your mom. You’ve got to think about her sometimes, right?”
“I guess so,” Loomis said. “I don’t remember her that well. Besides,” he said politely, “it’s not like I want her to come back and live with us or something.” And he paused for a moment, weighing his words. “I was just thinking that it might be good for you if you got married. I mean, I just want you to be happy, that’s all.”
And Troy had smiled, though Loomis’s earnest, worried eyes made his heart hurt. “I am happy, son,” he said softly. “I’m a very happy man.”
——
He thinks of this all again as he watches Loomis stirring his ice cream, turning it into soft-serve. They have a good relationship, he thinks. They love each other. Loomis is doing very well in school. He seems content.
“So,” Troy says, after a moment. “How was your day?”
“Fine,” Loomis says. “How about you?”
“The usual,” Troy says. “I slept until, like, one in the afternoon, and then Ray showed up, so . . .” He leans back in his chair, and then he remembers the Christmas card, still folded in the front pocket of his jeans. He puts his hand on it. “Actually,” he says. “There was one thing.” He smiles, awkwardly, and draws out the somewhat crumpled envelope. “Looks like we got a letter.”
“Oh?” Loomis says.
“From Jonah Doyle.”
Loomis says nothing. His eyes widen, then he looks down to his bowl and gives his ice cream another stir. This is another thing they don’t talk about very much. They don’t talk about what happened on the day that Jonah took Loomis to Colorado, the day Judy died. It’s not something Loomis remembers very clearly, or at least that’s what he says. Troy is aware that he has brought up another issue that might make Loo worry.
“Hm,” Loomis says. “I thought he was in jail.”
“No, no,” Troy says. “He’s been out for a while, actually. I told you that.”
“No, you didn’t. I don’t remember you ever telling me that.”
“Really?”
“I don’t think so, Dad.”
“Oh,” Troy says. “Well, he’s not in jail. He’s been out for a little while now, I think. I could have sworn that I told you.”
Loomis gives him one of his concerned, watchful looks. He has gotten Troy to cut his smoking down to almost nothing, and he has lately been taking note of Troy’s bouts of insomnia. “You know,” he has said, “sleep is really important for your health.” And then: “Are you worried about something, Dad? What do you think about when you’re up so late?” Now, looking at the card from Jonah, he pinches his mouth as if it might be another bad habit that Troy is acquiring.
“Why would he send us a Christmas card?” Loomis says. “That’s kind of weird.”
“I guess,” Troy says. For Loomis, Jonah Doyle is a distant and somewhat unpleasant memory, little more.
“I want to go set up that laptop,” Loomis says at last. “I have to tell you, that’s the best present I’ve ever gotten in my life.” He gives Troy another hug before he vanishes into his room.
——
Maybe it is weird, Troy thinks, as he sits there. Maybe his whole life is weird. He can imagine what Ray would have to say about it, or anyone in town for that matter. The event, as ultimately minor as it was, had caused quite a stir around St. Bonaventure, and people still referred to it as a “kidnapping.” “That kidnapping that happened a few years back,” people would say. It had been in the newspaper—even a small article in the Omaha World Herald—and folks in town had been pretty stirred up about it. Even now, customers at the bar would occasionally ask after Loomis— “How is he doing?” they would say, softly, as if he might still be suffering from the trauma. And Troy could only shrug. “He’s fine,” he would say, cheerfully. “Smart as a whip. Doing excellent in school. A really great kid.”
He would listen as people expressed their outrage toward Jonah. “I hope they lock that guy up and throw away the key.” Troy would nod.
What could he say? He seemed to be the only person in town shocked by the harshness of the sentence, the only person who’d blanched at the idea that Jonah should have been charged with felony murder for Judy’s death, certainly the only one who had mixed feelings about the charge of criminal child enticement, which is what Jonah eventually pleaded guilty of, among other things. Even Jonah seemed to think that he deserved what he got.
Troy, on the other hand, didn’t know what to think. There were too many things that he didn’t quite understand, too many small, unexplained mysteries that had never been answered.
——
He had visited Jonah a few times in prison. There hadn’t been a trial—since Jonah had pled guilty to all of the charges leveled against him—and this was another thing that Troy found inexplicably upsetting. It was as if Jonah was happy to go to jail, as if it were a fate that he had been waiting for, and he remembered sitting there at the table in th
e waiting room of the prison as Jonah shuffled in, wearing his gray prisoner outfit. Their eyes met, and Jonah seemed almost comfortable. He sat down across from Troy, and his gaze was steadier than it had ever been.
“Hello, brother,” he said softly, and Troy felt a shudder go through him.
“Hello,” Troy said. They sat there across from each other, and Troy tried to think of what to say.
“I guess you must be pretty mad at me,” Jonah said at last, but there was an edge in his voice that suggested it was Jonah who was angry with Troy. “I was kind of surprised when you said you were coming to visit, you know? I mean, I really made a mess of everything.”
“Yeah,” Troy said. “In a way. But—I don’t know—I suppose that I just wanted to talk some things over. There’s a lot of stuff that we never really got . . . resolved, if you know what I mean.”
“Like what?”
Troy shifted in his chair. The room they were sitting in was a small enclosed space, with glass windows on all sides. A guard stood outside the door with her arms folded, examining her fingernails distractedly, glancing occasionally to where they sat at the gray metal table. He sighed. What did he want, after all? He was aware once again of that feeling of having disappointed Jonah. If I had had your life, he thought.
“I don’t know,” Troy said at last. “I suppose I thought I’d get the real story. I mean, not just about Loomis but about . . . our mom, and everything. I’d like to get the real story about you, too.”
“So would I,” Jonah said, and smiled a little, a kind of private joke that eluded Troy completely. He had no idea what Jonah was thinking.
“I don’t know, Troy,” Jonah said. “I guess I had this idea that if I found you and put all these pieces together I could sort of solve the past—like it was a puzzle, you know? It’s just that now I’ve kind of realized that it really isn’t going to help me at all.”
