Time Control

by Rex Bolt

  It was developing into the kind of nonsense you see on those shows like Dateline and 20/20 that his mom and sister were always watching.

  The reporter played up the angle of Mr. Milburn going after Mr. Foxe, trying to kill him twice, was how he labeled it. Also bringing in the part now where Foxe gets a fancy lawyer who is putting the unsophisticated Beacon police department through the ringer. Forcing them a million ways to back up it being drunk driving. According to the lawyer, the police procedure that night broke all kinds of rules. Which wouldn’t surprise Pike, unfortunately.

  Meanwhile the newspaper article makes Mr. Milburn look like some kind of monster, like a time bomb ticking down to explode as he waits his opportunity to take another crack at Mr. Foxe.

  The reporter tried to speak to Pike because he had heard about Pike having the original fight with Foxe in the backyard, and then following it up by scaring Mr. Foxe at the skate rink. The reporter was thorough, Pike had to give him that, but he didn’t say a word to the guy.

  Either way, more bad all around for Audrey and Hailey, though for whatever reason, Hailey seemed to be handling the tragedy better than Audrey. Pike supposed that’s the way it worked, that one sister probably would, while the other carried the brunt of it for years.

  As for Mr. Milburn paying the price, Pike had seen it in movies and even a few books where the victim keeps on getting the worst of it. It never seemed believable in fiction, but here you were.

  Pike was still trying to wrap his mind around what Mitch had come up with, and what it all might mean.

  And the lefthanded stuff, and Criminy, now the blood type business.

  Though he couldn’t help it, he was intending to ask Dani her blood type last night, would he would have for sure if the new dude she was hooked up with didn’t interfere.

  Is that how it was shaping up? Okay, let’s go out on a limb and say the silver from the same New Mexico mine, if that’s what it was, that he and the Texas guy were apparently carrying around—let’s say Dani miraculously had the same silver in her mouth. Let’s say the Florida and Utah people did too. As well as Reggie Riley’s brother, even though he was probably hallucinating about an alien implant.

  Again, that doesn’t add up. You’d be hearing about hundreds more, at least, all experiencing the same shit.

  So what, there’s more layers to it now? Lefthanded, same blood type, or if not that, something else unique in their bodies that opens them up vulnerable to the effect of some weird silver?

  But that’s exactly where Mitch was going, wasn’t he.

  Again tonight when Pike got home from practice there wasn’t the greatest vibe around the house. His mom and dad were cordial to each other, but they barely interacted.

  Pike said he had to take care of something and would miss dinner, and he went to McDonald’s. He liked the dollar menu, and was able to scarf down three burgers without spending a lot.

  It was comfortable there, he was nice and satisfied now, and what was the rush going back home, so he started googling around.

  He tried: alien silver New Mexico.

  The top result was something called ‘Roswell Silver’. Which turned out to be a silly 14 dollar coffee mug sold by the local Walmart down there. It had a drawing an alien’s head on the side of it.

  Pike had heard of Roswell though, never paid attention to it, but looked that up now. First you had a TV series called Roswell from 2001. Pike wasn’t familiar with it and realized he would have been two years old, so no wonder. He skimmed over the plot description, and it looked like you had aliens disguised as humans, going to the high school down there. Oh no …

  But there was more on Roswell besides the idiot TV show. Its claim to fame apparently was something crashed there, outside of town on someone’s ranch, in 1947. There was a cult following now, of UFO people like Mitch.

  There were photocopies of two different newspaper articles from back then. The first announced a flying saucer had crashed. The second a couple days later said that was wrong, it was only a weather balloon.

  That made sense to Pike, of course. People want to believe in stuff, but you’re always going to find a logical explanation. Aren’t you?

  Except what he couldn’t quite get past, was if it was only a weather balloon why was the government there, and securing the area, and hanging around for days? Which is what seemed like happened.

  Pike called Mitch. “What would they be doing in New Mexico?” he said.

  Mitch laughed. “Good to hear you’re on track,” he said. “Saucers? Well, there’s one line of thought, a pretty compelling one I might add, that they were interested in our nuclear weapons … You know the world’s first nuclear test was down there in 1945 right? In White Sands.”

  Pike said he didn’t know that.

  “I’m guessing you’re asking about Roswell,” Mitch said, “the well-known incident. I’m not discounting it, but that’s a story for another day … Our thing now, what about this silver mine in Hillsdale? I put out an APB on my website today.”

  “What’s an APB?” Pike said.

  “All points bulletin. Old police term.”

  “Oh … and you’re looking for what, exactly, from your … followers.”

  “Simply if anyone has knowledge, hearsay or otherwise, of a UFO incident around Hillsdale.”

  “That a UFO … decided to put a spell on their little silver mine? … And that’s why I’m screwed up?”

  “You make fun of the concept,” Mitch said, “though I can feel you at least going back and forth now … One thing that’s hard to ignore, is your Mr. Riley’s brother … When he insisted an alien messed with his teeth, we in the UFO community take that quite seriously … That even though he may have indeed visited a dentist, as you did, a sixth sense likely told him a supernatural influence was involved.”

  Pike was getting a headache. He said, “So this APB … anyone answer?”

  “Not yet. Something else I verified—the mine closed in ‘54. For a long time. Decades. They opened it again in 1997.”

  “Okay … so then anyone could have got in there in those, what, forty years … and did something to that silver … contaminated it, or what not … Even a terrorist, for all we know … Why the heck are you so sure outer space stuff was involved?”

  “I just am,” Mitch said.

  Chapter 40 Main Event

  The team got on the bus at school Friday and spent the night at a motel in Clovis, which was across the freeway from the Fresno State campus.

  Pike had received some mild interest from one of the Fresno State coaches, but going here would be a whole lot different than Utah State … Not that Utah State was a possibility anymore, but still.

  The Fresno deal was you had traffic, malls and strip malls, stop lights and cement. A place like Utah, you had mountains and green and wide open spaces.

  Anyhow … the motel part was fun and he roomed with Clarke. There was another team staying there, Wickenger out of Visalia, from the other conference, playing their own semifinal, and they had some nice guys. It was refreshing to just kick back with them and get his mind off everything else.

  They had a team breakfast, and before it was over Coach got up and asked for quiet, and thanked everyone for being a part of it. He added the usual BS about just go out there and have fun.

  And then he had trouble finishing. He kind of choked up and started breaking down. Pike and Clarke looked at each other, like this is over the top, but if it made Coach feel good to get so emotional, what could you do.

  Unfortunately, at the main event, the game, no one for Hamilton had much fun. Ramsey Tech was too strong, had too many stud athletes on both sides of the ball.

  Pike was trying to keep them in it, was throwing it well, moving the chains. But guys weren’t open enough, as they were being shadowed and smothered by the Ramsey defenders. It was rough to complete much downfield, and Pike had to settle for chipping away short.

  Mea
nwhile Ramsey came at you all different ways when they had the ball. It unfortunately felt like men playing against boys after a while.

  Pike was tempted to ask Coach to put him in on defense, so he could help stop the bleeding, so to speak. But he knew that was only asking for trouble, since either he held back and Ramsey continued dominating, or he stepped it up and started hospitalizing guys with savage tackles, which would only draw scrutiny. And Hamilton was too far behind to come back anyway, so it wouldn’t even make a difference.

  The game ended, mercifully, and Hamilton lost by 42, 63-21.

  Pike looked around as he walked off the field. It was weird being down here, playing in a legit college stadium after being in the stands as a spectator at Utah State. Maybe it was true, this place really held 40,000. But there were what, 2 or 3 thousand here, tops? You had a scattering of Hamilton kids and parents who made the trip down, the same for the other team, and then there were the fans for the next game who’d gotten there early.

  The whole thing was kind of bittersweet, and Pike wondered if this was the last football game he’d be playing.

  He didn’t know it until they’d showered and were outside the locker room saying hi to people, that Audrey had come down.

  Pike gave her a long hug. “I’m awfully sorry,” she said. There was a tragic tone the way she said it, Pike thought, and now he was wondering if she was building up to breaking up with him.

  Luckily she only meant she was sorry about the game. But she looked so sad … so down.

  Pike told her first of all, forget about the dumb game. He tried to say a few things to her, distract her, get her to lighten up even a little. But it was tough.

  They were into early November, today was the 12th. So what did that make it … six weeks, since she lost her mom?

  Pike was thinking, Now’s when the real grind starts, isn’t it? … The state of shock is over, and now you’re facing the real world. And it can’t be a pretty sight.

  He hated to consider it, but the reality was, Audrey might never be completely happy again.

  Still, he got permission from Coach to ride back with her, instead of on the team bus, and he once again admired her for putting up a brave front, and by the time they hit the Beacon turnoff they were at least having a few laughs, here and there.

  Chapter 41 Flipping Channels

  It was Sunday and Pike was laying around on the couch flipping channels.

  Everything was anticlimactic all of a sudden. No more games to look forward to, no more practices, which even though no one really liked them, you got used to in a funny way.

  No more walking around school on Mondays with people coming up to you and saying good game, even teachers.

  College for next fall was a total question mark … Now there were six months left to be a high school kid. Pike supposed that was a good thing, but he couldn’t get past feeling deflated today and out of whack.

  The text came in from Mitch around 2. “Bingo,” it said.

  He’d gotten these Bingo-type messages from Mitch before. Some of them were overly-dramatic, but there usually was something concrete there when Mitch got all excited.

  This could be a pain in the ass to deal with right now. Pike wasn’t in the mood, and he shut off his phone and tried to get into a re-run of Hawaii Five-0. But he couldn’t, and he fell into a long, hard sleep, one foot on the couch and the other still flat on the floor, but that didn’t matter, he was out.

  When he woke up there was more weird news circulating now, disturbing shit. He hadn’t even thought about it, but, no, he hadn’t seen Foxe, the kid, at school for a while. Now it turns out Foxe may be hooked up with some oxy people over in Salinas. Oxycontin. Mean stuff. The scary word was a couple of them got caught breaking into houses, in Carmel, but that Foxe wasn’t one of them.

  This was hard to swallow. If even part of it was true, Foxe was screwed. He’s either a desperate addict or he’s a criminal now. At the very least, he’s AWOL from Beacon, and something was going on, none of it good.

  Pike thought of how when you skip a rock on a flat lake there’s always the ripple effect. One terrible moment, that couldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds, and now look at Audrey. And Mr. Milburn. You’ve got Foxe now. Not to mention his old man. And of course Hailey.

  The doorbell rang. It was Audrey. She was crying. Again.

  “Are your parents here?” she said. “I only saw the one car, yours.”

  “Come on in babe,” Pike said. “We’re good. We’re alone … What is it?”

  “This is so difficult to tell you,” she said.

  Now Pike was genuinely nervous, and he was starting to worry about Audrey’s mental health.

  He said, “No. Please. Don’t hold anything back. At this point … that’d be the least healthy thing you could do.”

  “I know you’re right,” she said. “It’s just so hard …”

  Pike eased her onto the couch. He was making a mental note to gently suggest, when the timing was right, she see some kind of therapist.

  He should have thought of this before.

  “My mom’s things,” she said. “It’s been too soon, but today, finally, I had the strength to begin going through them.

  “I’m proud of you … Has to be brutal, I can’t imagine … But you’re doing what’s necessary.”

  “There were boxes of letters, and so forth … Journals … Major diaries … I never knew what an excellent writer my mom was. And so prolific.”

  “What’s that mean?” Pike said.

  “It means she wrote an abundant amount … Hundreds of journal entries, quite personal, and some very long ones …”

  Audrey took a deep breath, folded her hands and stared at the floor. “Pike, your dad and my mom were having an affair.”

  It took a moment for the words to resonate. When they did, Pike’s legs started to feel weak, and it was as though he was sitting in the easy chair on the other side of the coffee table, detached, watching Audrey converse with some stranger on the couch.

  Finally he came up with one word, “When?”

  “I’m not sure,” Audrey said. “I had to stop reading … there may have been others as well …”

  She came into his arms. Pike tried to comfort her, but his mind was racing, and she felt so heavy against him.

  “Other people … ?” he said. not adding, but wondering, Others for my dad too?

  “I think so … and now I’m angry at her … Can you believe it? … What on earth is wrong with me?”

  “There’s nothing the matter with you,” he said, stroking her cheek. “She had her secrets, and she probably had her reasons … But you have a right to be upset.”

  “Thank you for that,” she said. Her face was soaking wet and her eyes looked badly bloodshot.

  “And now unfortunately I’ve got to deal with my dad,” Pike said. “Can you believe it? … Ah, I’m sorry … I know how that sounded, that didn’t come out right.”

  “It’s okay, I understand what you meant.” Aubrey was sobbing again though.

  Pike was trying to make sense of the timeline, and his parents’ recent behavior.

  “When you say you’re not sure when it happened,” he said, “were you able to narrow it down at all? … I mean, was it, like … going on right when the … incident occurred?”

  Audrey appeared to think about it. “I don’t think so,” she said. “It seemed to have been well in the past. Something that ran its course.”

  Pike realized Audrey may very well be lying to him now, for his benefit. Even through it all, these last six weeks, she managed to put others first. It was one of the several qualities he admired about her.

  The other side of it course is maybe it really was in the past, and that it wasn’t a full-blown affair but just a mid-life fling type deal.

  Which means … possibly his parents aren’t getting along right now for other reasons. Or Mrs. Milburn’s death got to her dad
period, even though their fling was long over.

  Maybe. It didn’t matter now, but still, Pike badly wanted it not to be true that his dad and Audrey’s mom were hooked up when it happened.

  Nothing would be worse than that.

  “Are you hungry?” he said. “You want to take a drive?”

  The doorbell rang again. What now? Pike excused himself for a moment.

  Standing there, shorts, sweatshirt, Dodgers cap, big sideways smile … Mitch.

  “What the HECK?” Pike said.

  “Mind if I come in?” Mitch said, stepping inside regardless, not waiting for Pike to answer.

  Pike closed the door and introduced Mitch to Audrey, who was standing up and had tried to quickly improve her appearance.

  “A pleasure,” Mitch said, letting his eye linger on Audrey. A little too long, for Pike’s taste.

  Audrey was back to her bubbly, sweet self. To an outsider, she was a typical high school kid having good times her senior year, everything ahead of her, and she and Mitch talked about college and careers and travel (Mitch telling her that backpacking through Europe when he was 18 was the best thing he ever did, and going into way too much detail).

  Pike was feeling excluded, but whether she was faking it or not, he could see this was good for Audrey. Finally their life discussion wound down, and she said she had to go, and she gave Mitch a minor hug on the way out, which clearly made the old man’s day.

  “Wow-ee,” Mitch said, when she was gone. “Have you got a winner there.”

  “Anyway,” Pike said. “You hungry? That’s what I was in the middle of asking my girlfriend. When you … most unexpectedly … dropped in. How’d you find me, you don’t mind me asking?”

  “Online white pages. Same way we tracked down our friend Wayne Lukaris. There was only one Gillette listed in Beacon, and Bingo!”

  “You keep using that word, don’t say than any more … And what, you just decided to take a little Sunday drive?”