by Brian Hodge
Aaron spent part of the afternoon out back with me. He brought along his sketchpad and pencils and made a few quick drawings — one of me, one of the back of the house, one of our neighbors’ Irish setter. Then he drew a cartoon of himself burning down Chuck Wagon Steak House, as Maurice ran around in confused circles pulling his hair out in red clumps.
“You like it? It’s yours.” Aaron tore the sheet of paper from the pad and placed it on my stomach.
I sat halfway up, and it struck me that more and more, I was starting to regard him as a peer instead of my bratty kid brother. “You don’t have to do that. It’s good work. It obviously speaks to you. Keep it.”
He shook his head. “That’s okay. I want you to have it.” He grinned. “Besides, there are plenty more where that came from.”
Afternoon slid into evening, and the evening turned out like so many others: Phil and Rick and me, and a case of beer to make us a foursome. Before too long we wound up at Tri-Lakes. Cruising felt alien, for a change. Cruising was a festive activity. Stopping fit in better with the brooding occasion. And Rick was definitely in a brooding frame of mind.
Rick lifted his hand, staring at his white-sheathed fingers. “Guess what we’d be doing tonight if this hadn’t happened?”
Phil and I discovered spots on the asphalt to stare at. I tried to picture the evening turning out as it should have: watching Rick in that smoky college bar, his nimble fingers soaring up and down the fretboard. Ordering round after round of drinks. Walking out after closing with a numb ringing in our ears. It would’ve been a highlight of the summer for Phil and me, and infinitely more for Rick.
“The guys in Eclipse had to get their regular guy to play.” Rick laughed bitterly. “He’ll be sitting on a fucking stool the whole time. How’s that for stage presence?”
Phil moved closer to him. “How about later, when those things come off and you’re better? You think maybe they’ll still be able to use you?”
Rick shrugged. “Who knows? But their situation can’t stay the way it is for very long. Either that chump they’ve got will straighten himself out, or they’ll dump him and get somebody else. Somebody else that’s not me.”
Phil grinned. “You never know. This fall you may just walk in someplace they’re playing and plug yourself in and blow the guy’s ass offstage. Chris, you take pictures for me, okay?” And then he pantomimed the whole scene … walking along in that carefree bounce Rick usually affected, then thrashing an air guitar and clomping around like Mick Jagger on stilts.
This got Rick to laughing for the first time in days, and I wouldn’t have traded Phil right then for anything in the world. We all broke up laughing, Phil harder than anyone, and I thought everything was going to be okay for a while. But then Rick’s face screwed up and he slapped his right palm against the car.
“Why the hell did this have to happen now?” He sounded close to crying. “Or why couldn’t it have at least happened to my right hand? I’d have to flatpick everything, but I still could’ve played.”
“Look on the bright side,” I said. “With those splints, you can play a wicked bottleneck slide.”
Rick gave me a look that made me wish the earth would grind open and swallow me whole.
“Sorry, Twang,” I said. “That was a stupid thing to say.”
He looked down at his shoes. “It’s okay.”
“Maybe you can use the time to write some new music,” Phil told him. “Some really good stuff.”
Rick brightened a little. “Yeah. I’d thought of that.”
“And maybe do some more work with your right hand on the piano. Hey, by the time you can go back to guitar, you might double on keyboards, too. You’ll be pretty fucking awesome. It’ll be like, Eddie Van Who?”
Rick grinned and nodded, and a new light shone in his eyes. Hope. He just may have been the most resilient person I’d ever known.
I finished my beer and went for a replacement. “Anybody else?”
“Not yet,” Phil said.
“Sure,” Rick said. “Got nothing better to do.”
I gave him a fresh one. He held it awkwardly in his left hand, prying at the top with his right fingers. “Owww! Sbit!”
I dribbled beer onto my chin with a start. “What’s wrong?”
“Bent back my fingernail! Son of a bitch!” He wound up and hurled the unopened can into the grove ahead of us. We heard the can smack off a tree, and then total silence descended like a curtain.
“Hey, come on, chill out,” Phil said softly, and both of us moved in closer to him. Again he seemed little more than a child whose world has suddenly collapsed around him in clouds of dust. His head was lowered, his hair hiding his eyes, but he began wiping them.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, and his voice cracked. “This has just been a shitty few days.”
Phil touched his shoulder. “You’ll have other chances. Believe me, you will, so long as you blow this town and go someplace where there are real opportunities.” He grinned. “You know all the crap I’m always giving you about all this? The only reason I do it is to keep that ego in check. I’m your fucking conscience. And I’m just waiting for you to ram it all back down my throat someday. Looking forward to it, actually.”
Rick nodded, sniffed. He started for the grove.
“Don’t worry about that, Twang,” I said. “We got plenty left.”
Whatever he mumbled back, I couldn’t quite understand, but it probably had something to do with my proverb that it’s a mortal sin to waste good beer. And I felt helpless, because I couldn’t articulate my real reason for wanting him to stay clear of the grove. I’d started feeling something else with us at Tri-Lakes, growing as the summer went on. Something that had reached a new level in its evolution. From the moment that full can bounced off the tree, I felt it with us again … watching, waiting. I held my breath as Rick disappeared into the grove.
“Jeez,” Phil said. “I really feel awful for him.”
“Yeah. Me, too.” My reply came more from reflex than thought. I strained to see Rick and couldn’t.
“Your crack about slide guitar didn’t help any, by the way.”
“Shut up, Phil, I think—”
And Rick screamed. Short, but loud, oh was it loud. And I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I heard a huge rustle of brush at the same time.
“What the hell?” Phil grabbed my arm, his fingers like a vise.
“Rick!” I shouted, paused a beat. “Rick! What’s going on?”
No answer. That scared me no end, because Rick had been in no mood to joke around.
Phil leaned into his car and hit the headlights. Glaring into the grove, they illuminated the foremost trees and emphasized the background shadows. A stage of green and black, with no sign of Rick. We called him again. No answer, not a sound.
Phil opened his trunk, removed a jack and a tire tool. He gave the latter to me. “Well?” His voice held a tremor.
I let out a big breath I’d been holding. And nodded. We walked side by side into the grove, makeshift weapons at the ready, trying to see everywhere at once. Our feet crushed sticks and dead leaves, and I winced at every little sound, sure that each one would bring something from the shadows to drag me off too. We parted upon reaching the largest tree, Phil going left and me right. Behind us sat the car, headlights burning brightly, safe and reassuring, our last connection to a sane and normal world. Before me loomed shadows, and vague shapes and underbrush. I wanted to run back to the car and never look behind me. Some friend. But I held my breath and raised the tire iron and pushed on. The woods came alive around me, and my skin was crawling.
Nothing so far.
“Rick?” No answer. No scrap of clothing. No blood. “Rick?”
“Chris.” Phil’s voice, flat and neutral. Back near where we’d gone in.
I worked my way around and found Phil standing by the largest tree. He pointed down toward its base.
The beer can lay there, torn open halfway across, like a
slashed throat, resting in a foamy splash.
“Pressure?” I said. “He threw it pretty hard.”
“Maybe. But he hadn’t shaken it up or anything. He just threw it. Period.”
We stood a moment longer, silent, thinking. Eaten with worry. Then I hit on what seemed an unlikely explanation. But I was grasping at straws, desperate to explain this in normal terms. And even if I didn’t have much faith in them, I still had to give that appearance.
“Phil? Do you think those assholes from Harden are out here? That his friends came back hoping we might show up again?”
Phil’s face drained a cheesy white and his eyes widened. “Maybe, but … they wouldn’t know Twang, and ... we were in your car then.”
“But they’d remember us just fine, I think.”
“They’ve got no grievance with Rick!”
“Do you think that even matters to guys like that?” I lifted the tire iron to my shoulder and surveyed the entire area. “So what do we do now? Stay and look, or go back and report this?”
Phil tightly shut his eyes, as if he could force it all away by the time he reopened them. “I’m scared shitless of what we might find, but let’s stay.”
And so we did. We shut off the headlights first to save the battery. Phil and I poked around the grove for another half hour, then widened our search to the clearings. The longer we stayed, the less I knew my Harden explanation made sense. I was the one they’d want, and they had ample opportunity to get me out there.
We gave up after two hours. On the way back into town, Phil and I didn’t say a word. Phil clenched the steering wheel and nailed his eyes to the road. I don’t know about him, but I was still shaking. Tears would come later. At the moment, I was too numb. I guess we were wondering what to tell the police, our parents, our friends. And mostly, I guess we were still trying to figure out what to tell ourselves.
But I had a secret that Phil didn’t have to contend with. Something was out there, stalking me. I felt that. And it was biding its time while needling away at the world around me. Denying me the chance of explaining it to myself or warning those close to me.
And whatever it was, it was through playing for small stakes.
PART II
LIMBO
Chapter 14
Rick’s disappearance fell under the jurisdiction of the sheriff’s department, and Phil and I had a number of questions to answer late that night. What time did we arrive at Pleasant Hills? What activities did we engage in while there? What time did Rick’s alleged disappearance take place? Why did we wait so long before reporting it?
The deputy who took our statements was a thoroughbred asshole, seemingly more concerned about our transgressions than Rick’s “alleged” disappearance. Were we aware that Pleasant Hills was still private property, and that we could conceivably be charged with trespassing? And if we thought we were fooling him by neglecting to mention that we’d had a few beers, we should think again.
The deputy leaned forward, tapping his pen against a form he’d been filling out, grinning. “And it’s plain to see that you boys are under legal age.”
I came close, very close, to telling him where to stick his forms, his pen, his trespassing threats, and his whole lousy attitude. But Phil grabbed my wrist and held it tight and I let the seizure pass. Pissing off the law wouldn’t be doing Rick any favors.
They sent a car up to Tri-Lakes to check things out, although Phil and I were free to leave well before the deputies checked back with any news. They would also take care of notifying Rick’s parents, a job I hadn’t wanted in the least. I wondered when I’d see his folks again, and under what circumstances.
Phil and I left the sheriff’s around twelve-thirty, the glow of the streetlights a shallow comfort on what had turned into the summer’s blackest night. In the distance, there came the sporadic chatter of Fourth of July fireworks.
“Straight home, I suppose.” Phil wasn’t looking at me; the steering wheel held his attention.
“Yeah.” My voice came out hoarse and dry.
Phil wheeled onto the barren street, drove a block and then some, and pulled back over to the curb. He turned to me and I saw big tears rolling down his cheeks, his mouth moving wordlessly. This broke the dam within me, and I let go too, a bitter release against a loss that was only now starting to seem real. Life without Rick … a concept so cruelly devastating that it couldn’t be felt all at once.
“What went down up there, Chris? What happened?”
I shook my head fiercely, biting my lower lip. “I don’t know, man. I just don’t know.”
Then Phil and I hugged each other in the front seat, crying on each other’s shoulders. We were beyond words, beyond action. Only reaction was left, and so we clung to one another and let it out. Because something had punched its way through the eggshell of our world and robbed us. Whatever it was, we couldn’t identify it, and therefore we couldn’t understand it. And if we couldn’t do either of those, we couldn’t fight it. I guess we cried for our own helplessness, as well.
Never so dark.
That’s how I viewed the house when I got home that night. With Phil’s engine fading down the street, I fumbled with my keys, got it right the third try. And then the house swallowed me up as surely as something had done the same with Rick.
My parents and Aaron were already in bed, lights out and doors closed. The house felt thick with a maddening silence, broken only by the tiniest creaks, the rhythmic tick of the grandfather clock, the noises all houses make in the dead of night when they finally have your attention.
I eased across the landing, up the stairs, and down the hall with the lightest of footfalls. With trepidation born of fears rooted in childhood that could only be buried, never vanquished … fears of my own home suddenly turning alien on me, becoming the aggressor. Sealing me up somewhere so that I’d never be found.
And then, finally, the symbolic culmination of just that act: my bedroom. Dark and silent, rectangles of moonlight imprinted onto the drawn curtains. Tonight it offered neither comfort nor reassurances, I realized as I undressed. Tonight it was my enemy.
Sleep was a long time in coming, and once it did, it was laced with barely remembered nightmares, endless replays of Friday night. When I awoke Saturday, I didn’t feel up to telling Mom and Dad and Aaron what had happened, but it had to be done. It cast a huge shadow over the entire day. Once my parents had overcome their initial urgency to pry every bit of information out of me, they each settled into a private trance, maybe contemplating the mortality of their own sons and wondering what the Woodwards were going through. I didn’t see much of Aaron before he left for work at ten, but he kept giving me sideways glances that made me feel like a display in a freak show.
I called the sheriff’s office later. No news. The deputies sent up the previous night hadn’t found anything other than a torn, empty beer can. They’d returned at daylight, still found nothing, and would soon be dragging the bottom of the pond.
Later that Saturday I was summoned to the station to speak with a detective to answer more questions. His name was Stanton, and he was cordial enough. I had to run down the entire story again, and as I did so, I figured that Phil would be called in too, so they could compare for inconsistencies. Stanton once insinuated that Rick might have run away — Phil and I may have been eighteen and free, but Rick’s eighteenth birthday wasn’t until September — heading someplace that would offer more opportunities for his music, and that Phil and I had come in with a cover story for him. I disguised no annoyance as I reminded Stanton that Rick’s fingers had gotten mashed, that his guitars would still be at home, and that he already had a promising gig.
Other than that, nothing else came of the meeting. But as Stanton and I were parting company, I picked up something from him that he probably wasn’t even aware of. It was as if he knew more about Tri-Lakes than I did.
And I felt he was thinking that I shouldn’t get my hopes up.
The afternoon crept slowly on
, and held eons of time. Time to do nothing but sit and stare at the walls and play album after album until I grew sick of music and vainly try to catch up on sleep I’d lost overnight.
There was also time to think. Not about what had happened, but about what was to come. A thought resided in the hidden part of my mind where you keep your worst secrets, the things you admit to no one else and don’t even want to admit to yourself. But I knew I would never see Rick again. He was gone, and suddenly the town we’d grown up in had a dark cloud hanging over it one that wouldn’t go away for a long, long time. Maybe never. Phil would be escaping its shadow in less than a month and a half — he had a brand new life to start. I found myself feeling envious.
It felt as though he was deserting me, but I could never fault him for it. Given half a chance, I might very well defect, too.
Phil, the first to leave for college. The guy who for as long as I’d known him always preferred a seat at the back of the class, near the windows. He’d idled away countless classroom hours by staring out the windows at the world beyond, thinking secret thoughts or not at all, tuning the teacher down to a meaningless drone. I’m sure a lot of teachers had early on given him up as a lost cause, using their clinically detached phrases. Poorly motivated. Underachiever.
And they probably never understood how he still managed to maintain a solid B average.
I’d only seen Phil respond enthusiastically to one teacher (although Phil did have a soft spot in his heart for Mavis Veach, but wouldn’t admit it): an English Lit teacher named Ben Goddard. We’d had him as juniors. He was around thirty, and looked it, but he was the type of guy who’d continue to look thirty for at least another decade. He walked around in — and frequently taught in, as well — a daze that many students attributed to bygone years of drug use, a daze characterized by tousled sandy hair, his head slightly tilted to one side, a serene expression, and a wistful little smile. Burnt-Out Ben, they called him. Phil and I suspected this wasn’t so, thinking it more likely that he liked to mentally remove himself from the scene and observe other people. He did some writing in his spare time, short stories and poetry, but this seemed to be more for his own amusement than any hope of a second career.
