The Storyteller

by Aaron Starmer

  It wasn’t my Walkman, of course. It was the stupid walkie-talkie. I put it on anyway. I don’t understand a lot about frequencies and I thought maybe I could get a radio station if I fiddled with the knob. All I got was static.

  Instead of bringing it back and swapping it for the Walkman, I just wore it. I didn’t want to go inside and have Dad see my outfit and ask what I was doing. It was better to jog and find out if I liked it and shower the sweat off and then only answer questions if absolutely necessary. Besides, static isn’t so bad to listen to. Beats listening to your thoughts when your thoughts are a scramble of stories and you’re having trouble telling what’s real and what’s a dream and what’s a coincidence and what’s basically what.

  If you never jog and you suddenly jog, it’s not easy to jog. Didn’t help that it was below freezing out and the slush was now ice and my lungs were burning because they were working so hard trying to stay warm. I also had to keep watching the ground because I didn’t want to slip and I definitely didn’t want to see any more dead baby birds.

  It all added up to surrender. I was ready to quit almost as soon as I reached the Loomis house, which isn’t very far at all. There was a pickup truck in the driveway, the first vehicle I’d seen there in a few days. The back was weighed down with bags and boxes that were held tight with bungee cords. I changed my pace from a slow jog to a fast walk, which is basically the same thing for me. And that’s when it came through the headphones. A voice.

  “Knock knock … knock knock … knock knock…”

  There was no reply, so the voice replied to itself, in a slightly nasally tone.

  “Who’s there?”

  “Dorian Loomis.”

  “Dorian Loomis who?”

  “Open the door, Ian, Lou misses you!”

  It wasn’t funny. I’m not sure I even understood it. I mean, who the hell are Ian and Lou? Is that even a punch line?

  “Yep,” the voice said. “It’s Dorian Loomis. I go by Luminary or Bush Baby. The Red Baron sometimes. But right now this is me speaking as me, as Dorian. Speaking to anyone who cares to listen.”

  I cared to listen. I hurried a little farther down the road, past the Loomis house and the Carmine house, because Mrs. Carmine is a total busybody who’s always sticking her nose into things. To catch my breath, I sat on a big rock next to the sign for Seven Pines Road at the corner of Harriman. I listened.

  THE RECOLLECTIONS OF DORIAN LOOMIS

  Sometimes you gotta talk. To anybody. To the air, if that’s what it takes. I know this ain’t my regular routine, but routine can drop you so deep in a hole that you can’t dig out, and you can’t live in a hole your entire life. It’s all my way of saying that I’m done. I’m gone. I tried to do life the regular way, with family and an address. What good did that do?

  None. Absolutely none.

  I can’t talk to my brother. When we were both really young, we were all right. Got into adventures. Ran all around town causing a ruckus. He was funny. He could be fun.

  Not these days. Not these years, actually. Ever since we both went and grew up. Ever since before that.

  And his wife? Oh boy, beautiful woman, but I hesitate to even call her my sister-in-law, ’cause she don’t exactly act sisterly. She’s strange. I’ve seen all sorts of darkness in my day, so I know she has a darkness. Anyone who knocks ’em back like she does has gotta have a darkness. Anyone who hides things like she does has gotta have a darkness. Only I don’t know what her darkness is, or where it’s from.

  The fact that the two of them could pop out such beautiful children is a testament to … hell, I don’t know. Flowers grow from manure. Best way I can explain it.

  I should shut up, though. Talking ill of people who took me in is no way to talk at all. But then again, I also can’t stay with them anymore. Not with the way they handled Ma’s passing, like it wasn’t nothing at all. Not how they dealt with her suffering, like it didn’t matter at all. Not with the way they ignored my niece, with the way they’ve handled everything since she … left.

  Yes, left. Call me naïve or clueless if you want, but I don’t think she was taken. I think she left. I know her brother and sister think that too, because they’ve told me. And if we find her … when we find her … I hope that we can figure out what’s best for—

  Look at me. Now I’ve gone and said too much. Gotten too personal. I bet many of you can relate, though. Veterans. Guys on the long haul. Family is never easy, but it’s extra tough for ones like us. We live our lives the only way we know how to live ’em. Alone.

  Not an excuse. An explanation.

  Which makes me think of this other guy. He’s younger, but maybe he’s a bit like us. Maybe he’s more alone than even we could imagine. He had a brother, like I got a brother, but he lost him. It wasn’t his fault, losing his brother, but I know he feels like it was his fault. That’s how it always feels when someone you love is there and then gone. You coulda done something different, something better. It’ll drive you up the wall thinking about the possibilities, and that no doubt got the best of him.

  I used to talk about this stuff with my niece. She clued me in to the idea of alternate realities. Like, there are infinite versions of the world. Each a bit different. Existing, I don’t know where … somewhere. And an alternate reality is created every time we make a choice. The choice might be simple. Eggs for breakfast or pancakes? Even that can determine your reality, the entire course of your life.

  Not to get all philosophical, but that sort of thinking gets me remembering this day when I was eight and my brother—Neal is his name—was about thirteen and we did one of the stupidest things a coupla kids could’ve ever done. I’m guessing it was his idea, but I don’t know for sure. I wouldn’t put it past me to think up such insanity.

  It was summertime, but we got dressed up in our winter clothes. Snowmobile suits, hats, gloves, the whole nine. Even ski goggles. Basically covered every inch of our skin. Like we were wearing armor. Then we went into the garage.

  In the garage, there was a bucket of old tennis balls from when Ma took up the sport. She wasn’t using them anymore because she learned pretty quickly that none of the other ladies in Thessaly were into games that make you sweat. So the bucket was sitting there, untouched, right next to the barbecue gear.

  My brother and I took a can of lighter fluid and we sprayed a bunch into the bucket, all over the balls. Then we took a candle and attached it with a C-clamp to a sawhorse at the other end of the garage. Then we lit the candle.

  This was gonna be a game. A competition. We were five years apart, but still very competitive. Boys will be boys, as Ma used to say.

  The point of the game was to throw a ball soaked in lighter fluid through the candle flame and make it catch fire. For every ball that caught fire, the thrower would get a point. After each throw, we’d fetch the flaming ball and smother it. To be clear, we did have a hose nearby to keep things safe. That’s also what all the clothes were for. To keep things safe.

  Well, we started chucking the balls and having a great time. The game was to ten points, and after a few minutes, the score was something like four to one, with Neal in the lead. It was my turn and I had this perfect throw. Knocked the candle right from the clamp and set the ball ablaze. I woulda cheered too, but there was hardly any time to do a thing. ’Cause the ball came bouncing back lickety-split and landed right in the bucket. The whole thing went up like flash paper.

  You do smart things and stupid things in the thick of a moment, and the first thing I did was pretty damn stupid. I kicked at the bucket to try to put out the fire. Doesn’t take a genius to guess that this tipped the bucket over and sent flaming balls bouncing all across the floor. We started chasing them because we didn’t have any idea where they might end up. Lots of flammable stuff in a garage, ya know.

  In all the running around, Neal probably didn’t notice that his pants leg caught on fire. I sure as heck noticed, though. There’s that old rhyme about liar, liar, pants on fir
e. I don’t know where that comes from, but I think about my brother every time I hear it. The flames were on his legs like ivy on a tree, creeping up and wrapping themselves around. Looking back at it, wearing a whole mess of winter clothes was probably the stupidest part of this stupid game. Sure, it protected our skin a little bit, but it also made us a lot more flammable.

  With my brother on fire, I could have run away. I kinda wanted to. To be honest, it scared the dickens out of me. But I did what instinct told me, and instinct this time was smart enough. I jumped on top of him. These days they tell kids to stop, drop, and roll if your clothes are on fire. Not sure if they told us that when I was young. All I knew was that I had to smother the flames.

  I was a big guy. A strong guy, even at eight. I managed to tackle Neal and wrap myself around his legs. It worked. The flames were out in a second or two.

  But right away he pushed me away and started shouting, “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Saving you,” I told him.

  He looked down at his legs and he had to’ve seen the charred fabric. Impossible to miss. But he didn’t thank me or say sorry or nothing. He jumped up and hurried over to the garage door and threw it open. Then he ran around the garage kicking the flaming balls out across the driveway into the front yard, where the grass was still wet from a sun shower.

  When all the balls were put out, he pointed at me and said, “Why are you so stupid? Why’d you have to go and ruin a perfectly good game?”

  I shrugged and said, “Because I’m an idiot.”

  Not that I really thought I was an idiot, but he was my big brother and I hated disappointing him.

  And that’s when he spat on me.

  Right in my face. Right on my cheek.

  Which is the most disrespectful thing you can do to a person. Worse than even punching him in the nose. Even an eight-year-old knows that.

  Neither of us said anything for a few seconds. Then Neal sneered and stormed off into the house.

  I don’t know if he ever thinks back on that day. Probably not.

  I do. More often than I’d like. I’m thinking back on it now as I finish packing up the truck. An alternate reality split off that day. But it wasn’t the alternate reality where I let my brother burn. Where I ran away. Because that would’ve never happened, even if the thought had entered my mind.

  The path was about what he did. It was about his choice to spit on me.

  Life is a series of paths. To helping people. To hurting people. To leaving certain places and certain people behind. For better or worse.

  That’s what I’m doing now.

  That’s what I hope my niece did.

  So I’m gonna go looking for her. She’s too young to be out there alone, and I’m gonna do whatever it takes to find her. When I do find her, I’m gonna listen to her. Really listen. Try to understand her path. Which is maybe what no one has ever done.

  SUNDAY, 12/24/1989

  MORNING

  Sorry, Stella. It’s been a few days. I needed a breather. A time-out.

  No one responded to Dorian Loomis after his … I’m not entirely sure what you would call it. I called it recollections, but maybe it’s something different. In English class we read Romeo and Juliet, and in that play there’s something called a soliloquy, where characters yap away for a few minutes even if no one is listening. Maybe Dorian’s speech qualified as one of those. Whatever it was, I might have been the only person who heard it.

  He drove off shortly after he said it. I was still sitting on the rock, though I’d taken off the walkie-talkie. I waved at him, which caught him off guard. He waved back, but it was an Am I supposed to know who you are? sorta wave.

  Here’s the thing: I probably didn’t get it exactly right. I haven’t gotten a lot of it exactly right. What am I talking about, Stella? Well, let’s just say I’ve read books before. Nonfiction, they call it, otherwise known as “true stories.” But they’ll have long passages of dialogue or speeches that weren’t recorded or written down on the spot. So they’re drawn from memory. Let’s face it, our memories aren’t perfect. We don’t get anything exactly right.

  Which is why when I wrote down The Recollections of Dorian Loomis, I know I didn’t get it exactly right. How could I remember all of that? But I’m a storyteller, and it’s a storyteller’s job to take on other people’s voices. To present as real a picture of things as possible. Every storyteller will write a different story. Ask Dorian’s brother, Fiona’s dad, about that day in the garage, and he’ll tell you something different. Is one a better truth than the other? I don’t know.

  So are stories alternate realities? Jeez, I’m not sure I want to break my brain with that sort of thinking, but I guess they are in a way. And the stories they tell about Fiona, the things people in this town think might have happened to her, the places she might have ended up? Each is a different reality.

  And look at me, I choose to believe the reality that puts her down the hall from me, somewhere inside the brain of my weird brother.

  AFTERNOON

  The last few days have been a slog. Glen and Mandy still aren’t talking to me. Glen, I understand. I did bite the guy, which isn’t exactly model girlfriend behavior. Our last day of school before break was Thursday, and today is Sunday. Christmas Eve. So I’m sure he’s busy with family stuff, and it’s not like there have been a lot of opportunities to run into each other. Still, I thought he might call, and the fact that he hasn’t makes me think that maybe we’re not boyfriend and girlfriend anymore. I can’t tell if that’s a relief or not. It doesn’t feel like a relief.

  Mandy’s silence is more puzzling, but of all the puzzles in my life, it’s the one that can stay scrambled for a bit. Our friendship goes up and down. Not like a roller coaster, because the downs are fun on a roller coaster. Like a plane in turbulence, I guess. No, that’s not right either, because that means the ups are bad too, which they aren’t. I know I rag on Mandy a lot, but there are so many great things that she’s done for me.

  Like last year. I was going through a rough patch. Phaedra Moreau was giving me a lot of crap about my zits, which were in full bloom. She was stopping me in the hall and handing me Oxy pads and saying stuff like, “You know, it’s all about the grease in your pores. Wipe off all the sweat and slime and say buh-bye to the constellations on your face. You can thank me later.” Or she’d come up to me after every social studies class and just say a number. Six, or eight, or four. No, she wasn’t rating my outfits this time. She was counting my zits and telling me how many I had each morning.

  More of that typical Phaedra BS. I knew then, like I know now, that I should’ve ignored her, but Phaedra is impossible to ignore. She’s magic. Like a warlock. Like a ponytailed leprechaun. Only her power is the power to annoy the piss out of you. That’s not an exaggeration either. She makes me so angry sometimes that my body clenches up and I have to run to the bathroom. I know, Stella. Gross. What do you want? I’m being honest.

  And honestly, I don’t think I could deal with people like Phaedra without Mandy’s support. During the zit incidents, Mandy would sit with me and plot intricate revenge scenarios that always involved Phaedra’s running naked from the locker room covered in spiders while her clothes hung from the school flagpole. We never followed through with the plans. The planning was enough.

  I’d also sleep over at Mandy’s house sometimes. Apparently, I’m a bit of a sleep talker, and Mandy would hear me grumbling about Phaedra at night. So she’d sing to me to calm me down. I’d wake up hearing her off-key voice whisper-crooning a wacky song. Sometimes I wouldn’t even let her know I was awake. I’d listen with my eyes closed.

  Don’t you know you’re beautiful?

  Don’t you know you’re a shining star?

  Don’t you know you light up the room?

  In whatever place you are.

  Shooby dooby, bow wow wow.

  Dooby shooby, wow wow bow!

  The lyrics were always different, always composed by Ma
ndy, always silly, sappy, and exactly what a friend is supposed to say to you when you’re feeling awful. They helped.

  In short, Mandy paid attention to me. Paying attention matters. That’s all I can say about that. So the fact that she isn’t paying attention to me now worries me a bit, but, yeah, there are plenty of other things to worry about too.

  EVENING

  It’s Christmas Eve. Which means certain things. In our neighborhood, it means everyone puts out luminaries at the ends of their driveways. Yep, luminaries. As in the plural of luminary. Which is one of Dorian Loomis’s CB nicknames. Another coincidence? They’re hardly worth mentioning anymore.

  As for these luminaries, they’re basically white paper bags with jars and candles in them. When you light the candles, the bags glow in the dark. Very beautiful, actually, and my family usually goes for a walk to check them all out. It’s always best when it’s snowy, and it’s been snowy for the last few days. As I write this, there’s at least a foot on the ground.

  Be jealous, all you surfers out there in sunny California and Hawaii. We don’t have to dream about a white Christmas here in Thessaly. Pretty much guaranteed. Sometimes there are white Halloweens and white Easters too.

  As far as my parents are concerned, things are getting back on track for Alistair and therefore back on track for our family. At least that’s how they’re acting. We went out for our Christmas Eve walk after dinner and Mom hummed carols and Dad chucked snowballs at me and Alistair.

  Alistair seemed to enjoy it. “I’ve missed this,” he even said, which I guess meant he missed being a normal family. We all miss that, but I’m not sure we’re a normal family again. I’m not sure we ever were one.

  Mom was leading the way and she was careful to steer clear of the Loomis and the Dwyer houses, which was ironic, because when we were rounding the corner by Hanlon Park, we ran into them walking down the plowed street.