by Bryce Gibson
Mom and Morris were married later that summer. It wasn’t a big wedding with flowers and tons of people. Instead, they did it at the courthouse. I was the only person there to witness.
Morris moved in with us, and I liked him being there.
After Mom died in the car crash, everything changed. One morning, Morris sat down with me at the table. “You’re all I’ve got now,” he said. “You are the only person I have in the entire world.”
chapter eight
MONDAY MORNING SUCKED.
It was six-thirty, drizzling rain, and my shoulder throbbed. The twelve-hour pain meds that I took before leaving the house had yet to kick in.
I was leaning against an old fence post at the end of our road. The lopsided stop sign was cattycorner from where I was standing. It was where the school bus was supposed to pick me up. Without the added income of the brewery, Dad was going to start working overtime at the factory, and he would no longer be able to take me to school.
From the distance, I heard the sound of an approaching vehicle. I looked up expecting to see the bright yellow bus, but it was a vintage-style pickup headed my way. The truck eventually came to a stop in front of me, and the passenger side window came down. Tristan was in the driver’s seat. It was the first time that I had seen him since the night at the brewery. I assumed that he was on the way to an early morning class at Tech.
“Sucks, what happened to Cade.” He said it like he was expecting me to say something back. He lifted a cup from the truck’s console and spit tobacco juice into it. “Everybody says it’s your dad’s fault since you let us in there.”
I didn’t respond right away. Instead I kicked at a big clump of dandelion weeds that were growing on the ground right at my feet. “Is he doing alright?” I finally relented.
“He’s supposed to be back at school tomorrow.” Tristan looked in the rearview mirror and spit in the cup again. “Are you taking the bus?”
I turned to look down the road. The flashing lights on top of the approaching bus cut through the fog.
“Yes,” I told him.
“Well, let me get out of here then,” Tristan said. “I guess I’ll see you round.”
He drove away and a minute later the bus pulled up to where I was standing. After the bus came to a complete standstill, the door opened for me to enter.
It was the first time that I had ever been on the inside of a school bus, and everybody was looking at me as I made my way down the aisle. One guy had his leg stuck out and refused to move it. Instead, I had to step over. Thankfully, there was a seat at the very back. I sat and held my head down, not wanting to make eye contact with anyone. There was the sound of the door being pulled closed, and then I felt the slight jerk as the bus began to move.
Once we were going at a steady pace, and I could hear the hum of asphalt under the tires, I finally looked around, taking in my surroundings.
The boy and girl in front of me had on t-shirts that were turned inside out. To my right, a boy was wearing a cheap, brown wig that was flipped so that the underside stitches were visible over his head.
It was Spirit Week. Every day had its own theme. It was Monday—Inside Out Day. I had forgotten all about it. Like I would have done it anyway. I wondered if once I got to school I would find out that I was the only one that hadn’t participated, causing me to stick out like a sore thumb.
I turned my attention away from the other students and looked out the window.
As the bus passed through town, I saw that most of the businesses had decorated with the school colors of green and orange in anticipation of Friday night’s game. Crepe paper streamers and balloons were everywhere.
Once we were past the courthouse, the bus jostled over the old, unlined road for several miles and eventually pulled up to the front of the school. I waited in my seat until all of the other kids got off the bus and then made my way down the steps.
The first thing that I noticed when I walked through the front doors was the wide, paper banner that had been painted with bright blue and orange letters.
HOMECOMING DANCE THIS SATURDAY!
I didn’t talk to anybody all morning. At lunch, I sat outside at the same picnic table where I had sat the week before, but it seemed strange without Cade there. Somehow I managed to trudge through the rest of the afternoon. I barely paid any attention in my classes. All I could think about was going home.
LISA WAS WAITING FOR me on the front porch when I got off the school bus.
Like the other times that I had seen her, her hair was in two pigtails. By then I assumed that it was her usual style. She was wearing a pair of jean shorts, a white t-shirt that was tucked into the high waistband, and the purple fanny-pack was around her hips. She was holding her hand up and waving at me as I made my way down the gravel driveway.
Once I was on the porch, Lisa stepped to the side so that I could unlock the door. She followed me into the house where I immediately threw my book bag on the couch.
“So what is it like to ride the bus?” Lisa wanted to know.
“Really?” I asked sarcastically and turned to look at her.
“Sometimes I feel sheltered because I haven’t experienced things like that,” Lisa explained. “Remember, home schooled right here.”
“Yeah, you’re really missing out on all of the important things in life,” I teased.
“You know what else I’ve never done? I’ve never gone to a dance.”
“How about we take the bus to the dance Saturday night?”
Lisa laughed and let herself fall back against the wall. “You know, you sell yourself short, Blake Thomas. You’re hilarious to be around.”
It made me feel good that Lisa was laughing at my jokes so I continued. “If we take the bus, you’ll be able to kill two birds with one stone. The school bus and the homecoming dance.”
I went into the living room with Lisa trailing behind me and opened the door to Wolf’s crate. The big Labrador jumped out and nearly knocked me over when she reached her paws up to my chest.
A smaller crate was next to Wolf’s. Zee was inside. His short tail was flipping left and right. Wolf followed me, and I opened Zee’s door. As the puppy skittered across the floor, his excitement was so obvious that his whole butt-end was swishing back and forth. Dad had decided that I could keep the puppy, and Mrs. Reynolds said that it was a good idea. She said that bonding with the dog could help reduce tension and anxiety.
“Speaking of killing...” Lisa spun the fanny-pack around so that it faced the front. She unzipped the largest pouch. “While I was digging up dirt in the library last night, I found this.” She pulled a piece of paper out of the bag, unfolded it, and handed it to me.
It was an old, photocopied newspaper article. I took a minute to read it. According to the short article, Mayor Williston, Cade’s dad, was arrested for deer hunting out of season.
“So what? He was arrested for out of season night hunting. It’s not that big a deal.” I handed the paper back to her. “People do it all the time. And this article is almost twenty years old.”
“Well, but there may be more to it,” she said. “Let me show you where it happened.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the front door.
“Ahem!” I mocked the sound of clearing my throat as a way to grab her attention. “The dogs,” I pointed out.
Both of them, Wolf and Zee, were sitting side by side. They were looking up at us with the epitome of expectant, puppy-dog eyes.
“Oh. Right.” Lisa giggled and let my hand go.
I reached onto the lowest shelf of the antique table that was next to the door and pulled out two leashes, one of which I handed to Lisa. I clasped mine onto Zee’s collar and Lisa followed suit but with Wolf.
“Okay,” I said. “Now we can go.”
THERE WAS A SPOT ON the other side of the hop-yard that was so perfectly serene that it seemed like it had been ripped from the pages of a fairy tale.
To get there, we had to walk along a dirt road
that was dry as bone underneath our feet. Wrens flittered in the vines all around us. We followed the path all the way through the hop-yard until we emerged on the other side.
The collapsed building was on our left, and Zee pulled on his leash in an effort to explore the rubble of weathered board and tin.
“Daddy shot a big rattlesnake out here last summer,” Lisa said. She was holding her hands up, several feet apart, to emphasize the length.
The mention of the snake caused me to look closer at where I was stepping. I pulled on the leash guiding Zee away from what was arguably the snakiest place in sight.
“There’s an old man down the road that says he can hear a rattlesnake from miles away. He can smell ‘em too. He says they stink like a wet dog.” Lisa scrunched her nose at the description she was giving.
I followed Lisa’s lead through thicker weeds and bramble.
“Daddy says we shouldn’t have to worry too much right now though. The snakes don’t particularly like this kind of weather.”
The weather had turned cooler over the past few days. It was only the beginning of September, but there was already a slight hint of fall in the air. So much so that I wished I had worn a light jacket. The cool wouldn’t last though. The weatherman was predicting temps back in the nineties by the end of the week.
On the other side of the building we hung a sharp right. Then there was an abrupt, steep incline of several feet. A line of pines and oaks grew across the higher land. Lisa stepped up, following a well-worn path through the trees. I trailed behind.
A thick plume of black smoke rose up from the neighboring peach orchard where a tractor was pushing dead trees into a burn pile. A freshly plowed field stood in front of us. Mixed in with the odor of the close fire, I could smell the recently turned dirt. Without warning, the smell brought to mind images from long before.
I must have been a few years old at the time. A toddler, maybe. It was night. A full moon. I was crouched down low, peeking from behind a picket fence at a woman in a hooded red cloak. She was standing in the center of a freshly tilled garden plot.
“This is it. This is the land where Mr. Williston shot the deer that put his butt in the slammer,” Lisa told me, shattering the vague pieces of recollection.
“So?”
Lisa nodded her head. “Daddy rents it from him.”
It took me a second for what she was saying to sink in. If part of Mayor Williston’s charge had been for trespassing, like the write-up in the paper claimed, it couldn’t have been on his own land. He might have owned the land now, but he hadn’t back then.
“Let me show you something.” Lisa spun the fanny-pack around and unzipped the pouch. She reached in and pulled out a couple pieces of paper and handed them to me. “This is more snooping that I’ve been doing.”
The first paper was another newspaper article dated from nineteen ninety-six. The headline read WILLISTON HUNT CLUB TO OPEN THIS SEPTEMBER. Attached to the article was a photo of a group of men wearing camo hunting gear. Three of the men were kneeling in the front while the other three were standing behind. They were all holding hunting rifles.
Lisa leaned over and placed her finger on the photo pointing at one man in particular. I pulled the paper closer to my face so that I could get a better look at the person that she was trying to show me. My heart nearly leapt out of my throat when I realized who I was looking at. In the photo, Dad could not have been much older than I was now.
Lisa reached into the fanny pack and pulled out more papers. “It appears that your dad and Mr. Williston used to be friends.” She handed the paper to me. They were all photos of the Hunt Club. I saw Dad laughing with the other members. Some of the pictures were taken inside the building. The last photo was one of the exterior of the hunt club. It was a small square building made of board.
I lowered the picture and turned to look at the pile of rubble that was on the land next to us. “You think that was the clubhouse?”
“It appears so, and this last picture is the one that really got my goose.” She pulled one more photocopy out of the pack. This one she held up and turned it so that the front was facing me.
OFFICIAL MEMBER OF WILLISTON HUNT CLUB. It was a certificate that had been signed and dated on the bottom right.
“Daddy was part of their little group too. Daddy, your dad, and Mr. Williston must have had some sort of falling out over the years for Mr. Williston to be pulling the junk with trying to close the brewery, and I’m going to find out what it is.”
“Is it going to be that easy? I mean...”
“I’m going straight to the source. Friday night Cade will be at the football game and his dad is supposed to emcee the half-time event. The Williston house will be wide open.”
I was worried about what Lisa was planning. Mayor Williston didn’t seem like the type of person to take someone snooping in his business lightly.
All of a sudden, from my left, there was the yipping sound of Zee’s barking. I spun to look and saw a huge black snake—a cottonmouth—slithering through the dirt, headed right for the puppy. I jerked on the leash, pulling Zee backward.
A deeper, louder bark came from my right. Wolf moved with such force that she jerked the leash from Lisa’s hand.
As I was pulling Zee away from the approaching danger, Wolf ran past, kicking up dust. The Labrador pounced, and in one fluid motion, she clamped the snake in her jaws, killing it instantly.
After returning to the house, we let Wolf and Zee back inside, and I stood on the porch with Lisa. Off in the distance, dark storm clouds were coming in. There was the faraway rumble of thunder.
“Looks like I should be heading back home,” Lisa said. “I don’t won’t to get caught in a downpour.” She started down the steps.
“By the way, I was being serious about the dance,” I said.
She stopped and turned to look back at me. “Really?” She smiled. “Well then, I would love to be your date.”
“Yeah, me too.” Then I realized the silliness of what I said.
Lisa laughed.
After she was gone, I went inside, locked the door, grabbed my book bag from where I had thrown it on the couch, and went upstairs. Wolf and Zee followed me into my room. I sat at the desk and tried to do my homework, but, no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t concentrate. Finally, I gave up. Calculus could wait.
I opened my laptop and cruised around on the internet for a few minutes before logging on to The Reading Buddy site. Before I had a chance to look, I heard the sound of my phone ding with an incoming message. The phone was somewhere on the desk, underneath the flipped upside down textbooks, notebooks, and loose papers.
When I finally found it, there was a photo on the screen. It was a selfie from Lisa. She was wearing a white dress. I realized that what she was showing me was what she would be wearing to the dance on Saturday night. I jumped at the easy opportunity to flirt with her.
Obviously, I’m a boy, and boys really don’t put much thought into what we might wear, and if we do, we wait until the last minute. I put the phone down and went over to the old pressboard dresser on the other side of the room and opened the bottom drawer. It was where I kept everything that I hardly ever wore.
I reached underneath a stack of folded t-shirts and pulled out the darkest pair of jeans that I owned. I stripped down to my boxers and pulled on the pants. I had lost a lot of weight over the summer, and the jeans were too loose on my thin frame. I had to put on a belt to keep them up. Then I pulled on a white button-down shirt and tucked it in. I dug in my sock drawer until I found a blue bow-tie that Mom had made me wear to church one Easter when I had been in elementary school.
After I was dressed, I stood in front of the mirror. With a comb, I parted my unwashed hair straight down the middle. Not too bad, I thought. I held my phone up and took a picture of my reflection. I reasoned that if I sent the picture to Lisa, it could go one of two ways—she would think my efforts were cute or she would laugh her ass off at my expense.
It was a gamble I was willing to take, I hit send.
A few seconds later I got a reply.
HUBBA HUBBA! ;)
I smiled and felt myself blushing. As I was passing by the desk, I glanced over at the computer and saw that I had a new message from Charley17.
WHAT ARE YOU DOING THIS WEEKEND?
Mrs. Reynolds told me that, as I progressed, I would have to learn how to juggle many things: friendships, work, and hobbies. Lisa and Charley were already testing me on all of that.
Still standing, I hunched over the keyboard and quickly typed up a reply.
I’VE GOT PLANS. A GIRL.
I looked at the bottom right of the screen and saw the dot, dot, dot, which indicated he was typing up a reply. I imagined a pair of fingers drumming on a tabletop. And finally...
DOING WHAT?
chapter nine
COLLEGE SIGN-UP DAY was a big deal.
I trailed behind the rest of the class as we made our way like a herd of cattle along the covered breezeway that connected the main part of the school to the gym.
It was nearly three months until basketball season would start, and the inside of the gym felt empty. The goals were pulled up and both sets of bleachers were collapsed in on themselves. The building smelled like sweat and floor polish.
Fold-out card tables had been set up in a large square around half of the court floor. The representatives, all who looked like college students, were standing at their tables with pamphlets, clipboards, and brochures in hand.
A group of overly ambitious girls pushed past me to get to the table that they had their eyes on. It was hard to tell if it was the school or the rep—a tall, athletic guy—that they were most interested in.
I approached a table that didn’t have a soul anywhere around it. Even the rep’s chair was vacant. There was nothing on the tabletop except a thin stack of pamphlets and a clipboard where you could sign up to request additional information. I picked up the clipboard and noticed that there was only one name on the paper.
