We Now Return to Regular Life

by Martin Wilson

  “Hey! I want to hear that,” I say.

  “Josh,” Dad says.

  “What? Dad, turn it back,” I say.

  Instead, he flicks the radio off completely.

  “What’s the big deal?” I ask.

  “I just didn’t want hearing that stuff to upset you.”

  “I’m not a kid. It’s all over the news anyway. It’s not like I don’t know anything.”

  “I understand,” he says. “It’s just. Well, some of it’s pretty serious. Stuff you shouldn’t have to think or worry about.” At your age, he refrains from saying but I know that’s what he means.

  We cross Woolsey Finnell Bridge, the water of the Black Warrior River muddy and cresting high on the banks since it rained last night. “How can there be seventy-three charges?” I ask.

  “I don’t know. It’s very upsetting.” But I can tell he does know, he’s just not telling me. And attempted murder?

  At home, I think of going online and digging around. But I just look at my laptop, like it’s some mysterious box I’m too scared to open. The easiest thing is to just get my homework done.

  Later, once Mom is home, I hear the two of them fixing dinner in the kitchen. I creep downstairs. Usually what they talk about is super boring—Mom’s job, Dad’s research and students and faculty crap. But today they’re talking about Sam.

  “Well, it’s a blessing,” Mom says.

  “I guess you’re right,” Dad says. “Sam won’t have to testify at a trial. He won’t have to relive any of that stuff.”

  I walk back upstairs and shut myself in my room. I still have homework to do. But when I sit down at my desk I just stare at my textbooks.

  I’ll take a break. That won’t kill me.

  I think about getting out the Box. The Box is where I keep all this stuff that I don’t want anyone to see. My Archie comic books. A few copies of Sports Illustrated that I saved because of the pictures inside—pictures of some of my favorite male tennis players in action. There was also my rock collection that I’d built up for years with Dad’s help. My Star Wars action figures that I used to line up on a shelf above my bed. My old stuffed bear that I stupidly named Teddy. I started the Box a few years ago, after the first time Nick came into my room and walked around, noticing all this stuff (but not the magazines, those I always stashed in my desk). “What’s this?” he’d asked, smirking, holding up Teddy by his leg. When he saw the Star Wars figures, he’d said something like, “Nerd heaven.” He wasn’t mean about it, really. But I knew, after that, I had to get rid of that stuff, or hide it. I mean, I was in sixth grade—time to grow up.

  There’s also a paper file in the Box, too, with one news clipping I saved from the weeks after Sam vanished. The paper did a story about how the neighborhood was coping or something like that. A photographer came and took some pictures, and I was in one. It was just a view up the street toward the house where Beth and her mom and stepdad lived, but in the far right corner of the picture you could see a figure in our driveway, just standing there and looking where the camera was directed. A kid. Me.

  I get down on my knees and slide the Box out and take the lid off. It smells a little musty inside, but there’s all that stuff. Poor Teddy, stuck in there.

  I hear Mom yell my name for dinner.

  I grab the folder and flip it open and there’s the clip, slightly yellowed, with the picture to illustrate the story. “Weeks Later, Pine Forest Residents Still Hopeful for Boy’s Return.” And there I am, on that August day. What was I doing? Staring at Sam’s house, like I expected him to come outside like he always did when I was in my yard? I remember how if I took my bike out and rode around, it was only a matter of minutes before Sam came out, too, like he was watching and waiting. He wasn’t that nice, but he seemed to want to spend time with me.

  “Josh, dinner!” I hear Mom yell again.

  I close the folder and shove the Box back under the bed.

  ===

  A few nights later, when I’m studying in my room, the phone rings. It’s always weird when the house phone rings. Usually it’s just telemarketers or the school or my aunt Helen, who lives in New Mexico and refuses to get a cell.

  A bit later, when I head downstairs to the kitchen, Mom and Dad are facing each other while leaning against the counters. They look upset.

  “What’s up?” I say.

  Mom looks at Dad, as if cuing him to speak. “Sam’s stepdad called. He—they—invited us to the Alabama game on Saturday. They were given tickets and have two extras. He said Sam wanted to see if you would come.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “I didn’t give him a definite answer. I just said I’d have to see if you had anything planned. I didn’t want to—”

  “We can go,” I say.

  “I thought maybe you had plans with Nick or Raj or those guys.”

  “No.”

  “I thought you didn’t like football,” Mom says.

  Big eye roll. You can’t not like football here—she should know that. “No, I like it fine. And it would be rude to say no, wouldn’t it?”

  “Well, we could come up with some excuse,” Dad says. I see him look at Mom, like he’s hoping she’ll help him think of something.

  “No, let’s go,” I say.

  And Mom crosses her arms over her chest and gazes at me like she’s baffled.

  “What?” I say.

  “You don’t have to do this,” she says.

  “Do what?”

  “Kiddo, it’s wonderful that Sam is home,” Dad says. “But I think—well, he’s been through a lot. He’s adjusting.”

  “You don’t owe him anything,” Mom says.

  “Are you saying we can’t be friends?”

  “No, that’s not what we’re saying,” Dad says.

  “It’s just . . . Well, Sam’s not the same person he was when you were friends back in Pine Forest,” Mom says.

  “I know that.” What they don’t get is that I’m not the same person, either. “I want to go. Can you call his stepdad and tell him yes?”

  “Sure,” Dad says. He smiles then, like he feels bad for having put up any resistance.

  I open the door to the back deck and walk outside, even though I’m barefoot and it’s turned kind of chilly. In one corner of our backyard there is a swing set that we’ve yet to get rid of, left over from the people who lived here before us. Dad says he might plant a garden there. But he hasn’t yet. We’ve lived here a few years, but it’s like we still haven’t fully settled in. Right then I think: What if we had moved here years earlier? Like, four years earlier.

  Then that day would never have happened.

  I start feeling pissed at Mom and Dad, for not taking me away from Pine Forest sooner. I hear someone step outside.

  “You have a good heart,” Mom says, sidling up next to me.

  I nod but don’t say anything.

  “I just worry sometimes,” she says.

  Like I don’t know that, I think to myself. It’s what parents do. But my parents especially. Maybe because of what happened with Sam. For weeks that summer they asked if I wanted to see a therapist. And even after they stopped hounding me about it, when school started, I knew they still worried about how everything was affecting me. I guess I had some bad dreams, but I stopped telling them about them because I saw it freaked them out. They got a little better after we moved, but not completely. Whenever they asked me “How’re you doing?” it wasn’t a tossed-off phrase. I could see on their faces that they thought I was fragile. And that’s how they were looking at me tonight—how they’ve been looking at me since Sam came back. “Don’t worry,” I finally say to her, even if I know it’s useless to try and convince them I’m fine.

  Mom puts her arm around my shoulder. You don’t owe him anything.

  But she’s wrong. I do.

&
nbsp; ===

  “They’re here,” Dad announces, yanking open the front door. Through the window I can see Mr. Manderson’s big dark green truck parked at the curb. I guess we’d both been anxious, dressed and ready to go for almost half an hour. We’re taking one car, Dad’s Jeep, because he has a spot in the faculty garage.

  It’s sunny out but chilly. I’m wearing a jacket over a maroon polo—trying to look like a legit Bama fan, I guess. Sam’s in jeans and a blue jacket, unzipped, a red button-down shirt visible underneath. We all meet halfway down the front walk. Dad and Mr. Manderson shake hands and make small talk while Sam and I just stand there. I haven’t seen him since that day we kicked the soccer ball around.

  “This should be fun,” Dad says, smiling in an encouraging way.

  “Yeah. We should whip Ole Miss,” Mr. Manderson says.

  Dad and Mr. Manderson sit in the front seat, Sam and I in the back.

  “We have good seats,” Sam says, taking out the tickets from his jacket pocket, displaying them like a hand of playing cards. “The athletic director sent them over to us. Just out of the blue. People keep sending me gifts and stuff. People I’ve never met in my life. From all over—not just Tuscaloosa. It’s weird. Mom turns most of it down now. She says it’s gotten out of hand. But she let us keep the football tickets.”

  “Must be kind of cool to get all that stuff,” I respond, realizing that’s a stupid thing to say.

  “I dunno. People just feel bad for me, I guess.”

  Why would people do that, I wonder, send stuff to a complete stranger. Like gifts can make everything better.

  After fighting through the game-day traffic, Dad finds his way to the garage and weaves his way up to his spot. When we get out of the garage, we’re surrounded by waves and waves of people wearing red and crimson heading to the stadium. Dad and Mr. Manderson sort of hem us in next to them so we all don’t get lost. Mr. Manderson especially—he always has one hand on Sam.

  At the stadium this old man scans our tickets and we pass through the gates, climb the stairs, and find our seats. Mr. Manderson and Dad go in first, then Sam and me. Sam’s right—they’re good seats. Right on the 50-yard line, about ten rows up.

  “You ever been to a game before?” I ask, trying to get some small talk going.

  He looks at me and kind of smiles, squints like I’m stupid. “You don’t remember?”

  “What?”

  “You and your dad took me to a few games. We were ten, maybe? That was the year Bama wasn’t too good so tickets weren’t as hard to get.”

  I remember going to games with my parents, or with just my dad. I think Sam must have us confused with some other people. Still, I go along with it. I say, “Oh yeah.”

  “You always got popcorn and I got Cracker Jacks,” he says.

  I feel kind of sad then, that he has to make up memories.

  A woman in the row in front of us with a sweatshirt on turns and smiles up at us. Every few minutes or so she keeps looking back, like she knows us. She’s older, but trying to look younger with too-tight jeans and hair dyed a shade of purple-red. When she turns around for the fourth time, she says, her eyes landing right on Sam, “You’re him.”

  Sam just purses his lips and looks at her, doesn’t acknowledge what she’s just said. And maybe he doesn’t know what she means, but I do.

  “You a big Alabama fan?” she says, breaking the awkward silence. Her voice is husky—she probably smokes. She looks at my father, then at Mr. Manderson—but they’re talking to each other, not paying attention.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Sam finally says.

  “It must be so wonderful to be home,” the woman says.

  I know she means well, but I can sense Sam squirming. “Yes, it is,” he finally says.

  The lady smiles, satisfied with herself. “I was just saying the other day that—”

  “We’re just here for the game, like everyone else,” I say, cutting her off. Maybe I sound rude because the woman wipes that stupid smile off her face and gives me a confused look.

  I shake my head at her—real quick, so it’s not obvious.

  She gets the hint. She smiles in an exaggerated way and says, “Well, you boys enjoy the game.” She faces forward and starts whispering to the man she’s with.

  Sam’s watching the field, taking it all in—the crowd, the hoopla, the cheerleaders, all the people still milling about.

  “It’s weird,” Sam says a few minutes later.

  “What is?” I ask.

  “Being recognized.”

  Right then the Rebels storm the field, and people in the small Ole Miss section across the field start cheering, but I hear some boos, too. Then Bama takes the field and the cheers that erupt drown out everything else.

  When things calm down a few minutes later, Sam leans over and says, “But Mom says I’ll be old news soon.” He smiles to himself while looking out at the field again.

  The referees are conferring with some of the players. The crowd still roars around us. The two bands are playing, at opposite ends of the field.

  “I hope she’s right,” Sam says, speaking louder now.

  Dad and Mr. Manderson go to the concession and bring back Cokes and hot dogs for me and Sam, and beers for themselves. After that, we settle in to watch the game. It’s easy not to have to talk. The action is steady, the noise constant. Bama fumbles early and the crowd groans, but soon they get the ball back. Alabama goes up 28–0 by the end of the first half.

  “So you play tennis now,” Sam says as we wait for the game to start back up.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “Mom says you’re pretty good. She says you were written up in the paper, for winning some tournaments.”

  I’d forgotten about those articles. “I’m okay.”

  “It looks kind of fun. Will you show me how to play sometime?”

  I look over, thinking he’s joking. For some reason, it seems weird that he’d want to learn how to play a sport from me. “Sure,” I say.

  “I know it’s hard and all. I’ll probably be terrible.”

  “You can’t be any worse than I am at soccer.”

  He laughs at this, and it’s weird because I get a jolt of the old Sam, and it’s a mix of good and bad—good because I haven’t heard him laugh at all, bad because I’m reminded of how Sam used to laugh at me.

  “You’re not terrible,” he says. “The other day you kicked the ball around pretty good.”

  “Yeah, right,” I say, and he laughs again, smiles, bumps his knee against mine. I turn to look out at the field, because for some reason I’m blushing. And to be honest, I’m actually having a good time, and it makes my stomach start to churn, like the hot dog I ate earlier is making me sick.

  “Maybe next weekend?” he says. His eyes are hopeful.

  “Sure,” I say. “That sounds good.”

  ===

  Later that night, long after the game is over, we’re home resting on the couch, watching a movie on Netflix while munching microwave popcorn. Mom pauses the movie to go pee. It’s just me and Dad.

  “Did we take Sam to football games before? Years ago?” I ask.

  Dad grabs a handful of popcorn. “Yeah, remember? I think a few times. They weren’t good games. We played Western Kentucky or Kent State.”

  “I don’t remember,” I say.

  “Really?” he asks.

  Mom comes back then and we restart the movie. But I can’t focus. I try to recall any details of those games. I have a hazy image of Sam and me, high-fiving each other when Bama scored. And Sam wanting more and more of my popcorn, and then him accidentally knocking over my Coke and saying he was sorry so many times I finally had to tell him to shut up. And how when we got home, he seemed sad to leave us, to have to go back to his house, and how I felt a little sorry for him.

  But ma
ybe none of that’s true.

  I spent three years burying any thoughts of him. Except for the day he vanished, all my other memories of Sam, good and bad, are as fuzzy as those dreams you try to remember when you wake up in the morning.

  ===

  “You have fun at the game this weekend?” Nick asks. We’re waiting for our rides after practice, as usual.

  “Yeah,” I say. “We went with Sam and his stepdad.”

  “Seriously?” Nick says.

  “He invited us. I mean, his stepdad invited us. They got free tickets.”

  “So you went?”

  “Dad didn’t want to be rude and say no,” I lie.

  “I would have said no,” Nick says.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t want to be around . . . all that. No way I’m hanging out with that kid.”

  I don’t say anything, because I’m a little annoyed. What does he know?

  “I mean, does he talk about it? About what happened?” Nick says.

  “Nope,” I say, which is the truth.

  Nick looks over at me then. Like he can’t figure me out. Like I’m a stranger. His hair is still too long. It’s starting to look dumb, like he thinks he’s a rock star or something. “I don’t get it,” he says.

  “What?”

  “I don’t get why you hang out with him.”

  I look away and start fiddling with the zipper on my tennis bag. When I look back at him, he’s still eyeing me, waiting. “I was there that day,” I say. Connected, I think.

  “Yeah, I know. You’ve told me that a million times. So what?”

  “But I never told . . .” And then I stop. The first year, after Sam was gone, while Nick and I started playing tennis, while we started becoming friends, there were moments when I wanted to tell him everything. About how Beth and I let hours go by before we told anyone where Sam and I actually had ridden our bikes. About the man in the white truck. I would always start forming the words in my head. I would practice and then I’d say, “Nick?” And he’d look at me, totally unsuspecting, and then I would chicken out.

  Like right now.