The Boys of Summer

by Richard Cox

  Then David noticed how the ground, with each step, was sliding perceptibly beneath his shoes. He noticed how the trees swayed. Raindrops pelted branches above him, raindrops thumped the ground, and some of them must have been huge because the sound was louder than he would have expected. Now the trail bent around a thatch of mesquite trees and ascended a small red cliff. Thick, exposed roots were like steps that his feet used to propel him upward. They were slippery, though, and he nearly fell, and—

  I can see you . . .

  —the world seemed to flip somehow, as if down was up and up was down, and for a moment David thought he heard a guitar. As if someone had played a burst of music, a song he’d never heard before but somehow recognized anyway. Then he was on his back and looking at trees towering like skyscrapers. The raindrops pattering around him were percussion, the wind whistling through branches was music, and he imagined these sounds were the opening bars of the song he’d just heard. For a while he just lay there on the ground, listening to the forest and its music, and he might never have moved if something hadn’t hit him in the face. Something sharp, something that hurt. Something that felt like a rock.

  Was someone out here with him? Had someone been watching him?

  Then another rock landed nearby. And another. Except they weren’t rocks. They were hailstones. Falling around him, little marbles of ice. Another one crashed into his shoulder.

  “Ouch!” David yelled at no one. “Stop that!”

  The forest was not playing music. It was in turmoil. Trees bent this way and that. The wind shrieked. Raindrops and hailstones poured down around him. David pushed himself off the ground and started toward his house again. Again he felt a chilling and real sensation of being followed, of being watched. In the grass he noticed something white and irregular. It looked like a hailstone, but it couldn’t be, because the thing was the size of a tennis ball.

  More of them were falling.

  David took off, flying down the path as fast as his legs would take him. There was no point in trying for the house now; even if he made it out of the trees safely, there was a fifty-yard stretch of backyard lawn where he would be completely exposed to the sky. His only option was to stop at the fort and hope the roof could protect him.

  Most of the hailstones were small, cold and hard, but the bigger ones might crush bone with a direct hit. Broken branches fell to the ground, branches and hailstones that pounded the earth with unreasonable force. One of them fell into the path directly before him, a chunk of ice that thumped the ground so hard he could feel it in his feet.

  The sky was darker now, as if the sun were on its way down. David could see maybe fifty yards ahead and that was it. For the first time in his life a terrible and inconceivable thought occurred to him.

  What if I die?

  David was familiar with death like everyone was, but until today he’d never really imagined it for himself. Now the idea seemed as real as the hailstones falling around him. He could die. He could be gone forever and never know another thing or think another thought. What would that be like? How could he be here and then not here?

  A flash of light turned the sky to fire. Deafening thunder shook the forest. Branches were falling everywhere now, branches and leaves and hailstones so massive that he could barely credit what he saw. He ran as hard as he could. He ran for his life. And now he thought he could hear footsteps following his own.

  As if someone were behind him.

  In his mind he heard his dad’s voice, or what he assumed was his dad’s voice, cheering him on. Don’t look back, you can never look back. Except what it really sounded like was someone singing, like he was hearing that mysterious song again. I thought I knew what love was . . .

  And then, through the trees, he finally saw the fort. Hailstones bounced off the roof looking like marbles and golf balls and the occasional baseball. When he reached the door he fumbled with the latch but could not get it open. Any minute now the footsteps were going to catch him, and still David fumbled with the latch. Thunder exploded above him. It sounded like a gunshot and he nearly screamed.

  Just as he figured out the latch, a hailstone slammed into his ankle, striking the knot of bone there. Heat and pain flared up his leg. He gritted his teeth and crawled underneath the work bench even as his ankle threatened to crumple beneath him.

  From here David thought he might be able to relax, but when he looked between slats of wood at the storm outside, he imagined he was looking out the window of an airplane. Like he was taking off and watching the ground below him, which was pretty strange considering he’d never flown before and the only planes he’d ever seen were on television. He could not connect the storm to the vision of being airborne, of flying away, yet for a few seconds both realities were so vivid that he felt suspended between them. As if he were flipping a page of his life from one scene to the next.

  Eventually the assault of hailstones returned David to clarity. He closed his eyes and squeezed out tears and wordlessly begged whichever gods were listening to spare his life. He promised to be good and generous and do right by everyone, to be a giver instead of a taker, to be thankful to have survived the storm.

  His ten-year-old self couldn’t know that later versions of David would not live up to such standards, that over time his character would gradually veer in the opposite direction. Four years would pass before he met Todd Willis, before he heard the mysterious song again, and even then its significance would be lost on him. He would not fully comprehend the strangeness of this stormy evening for another twenty-nine years, after his father’s murder and a series of devastating fires that signaled the city’s eventual demise. By then his fate had already been written and rewritten and all he could do was watch helplessly as his life began its ferocious descent.

  Eventually the hail began to taper off and then stopped completely. David stood up, protecting his wounded ankle, and opened the door. Through the trees loomed the blackest cloud he’d ever seen. He hobbled toward the barbed wire fence, climbed through it, and ran like a madman toward his house. He was almost there when he heard the ominous ringing of the tornado sirens.

  It was a sound that would soon come to haunt his dreams.

  3

  The way Jonathan Crane’s life changed forever began with a loud banging on the front door of his house. The source of the noise was Bobby’s father, Kenny Steele, who was demanding to be let in. Jonathan’s mother, Carolyn, refused and had just hung up the phone after a frantic call to his father.

  “Dad didn’t answer,” she explained. “He’s probably on his way home already.”

  Bobby’s face was the color of paper. He opened his mouth as if to speak but nothing came out. Jonathan’s mom put her hand on his.

  “Don’t you worry. Sometimes adults get upset for no good reason. Hopefully we’ll get this straightened out without having to call the police.”

  Jonathan, who had never seen his father belligerent, wondered how Bobby could live every day with a man like Mr. Steele in the house. Of course later, when all this was over, he would regret having foreshadowed such a notion into existence.

  The banging was so violent it rattled the door in its frame. The whole house seemed to shake with each blow and Jonathan could tell his mom was growing more frightened by the second.

  “I think I’m going to call the police,” she finally said.

  But Bobby was hysterical at this idea.

  “Please, Mrs. Crane. My dad already had some trouble with the cops last year. Please don’t—”

  Carolyn was reaching for the phone anyway. She was about to start punching numbers when the banging abruptly stopped and Jonathan heard his father’s voice outside the door.

  “Can I help you?”

  “I’m looking for Jonathan’s daddy,” Mr. Steele replied.

  A moment of silence followed and then Jonathan heard his father’s voice again, this time farther away.

  “I’m Michael Crane. What’s going on here?”

  J
onathan didn’t make any sort of decision about opening the front door. He did it automatically, helpless to stop himself.

  “Honey!” his mom cried. “Don’t go out there.”

  “But Dad might be in trouble!”

  In fact his father and Mr. Steele were standing on the front lawn, face to face, so near each other their noses almost touched.

  “What’s going on here,” Mr. Steele said, “is your boy is trying to turn my boy into a pussy.”

  Jonathan rubbed his eyes and wondered if this scene was really happening. That’s what it looked like: a scene someone had written in a book. When you loved to read as much as Jonathan did, it was natural to wonder if you could write a story of your own, and lately he’d been trying to picture the events of his real life as written scenes. In this one, Bobby’s dad was wearing a flannel shirt and torn jeans and hadn’t shaved in days. He was upset because he seemed to believe Jonathan had corrupted Bobby in some way. But what, exactly, did he think had occurred? And did he honestly plan to fight over it?

  Ominously, the tornado sirens began to wail again. It was the second or third time he’d heard them in the past twenty minutes. Jonathan felt someone behind him and realized his mom and Bobby were watching from the door. The wind began to pick up and gusted so suddenly that it was difficult to hear what the two men were saying.

  “Look,” his dad yelled. “I don’t know what you think my son has done to yours, but whatever it is I’m sure we can work it out. Right now we should—”

  “Right now you’re going to tell your little pussy son to stay away from my boy. That’s what you’re going to do right now.”

  Jonathan didn’t understand why Mr. Steele was calling him names. And he could tell his father didn’t either, who with each passing second appeared to be growing more frustrated.

  “Listen,” his father said. “You hear the sirens. You know what they mean. Let’s talk about this another time when there’s not a tornado about to—”

  “There ain’t going to be no tornado,” said Mr. Steele.

  Until now Jonathan had barely noticed a white pickup truck sitting in front of their house. Presently the passenger door opened and a woman, Bobby’s mom, lurched toward her husband.

  “Kenny Steele!” she yelled. “I told you not to start a fight. We got to take shelter!”

  Jonathan sensed his father was weighing options on how to proceed. He looked angry enough to hit Mr. Steele, but he also kept glancing at the sky and the swirling clouds above.

  “I see where he gets it,” Mr. Steele said. “That streak of yellow in your son, I see where—”

  That’s when his father seized Mr. Steele by the throat. Jonathan could barely believe it was happening. All his life he’d been taught that fighting was more often the cause of problems than the solution, but now he understood that sometimes it was necessary to fight. The security he felt watching his father physically defend him was as powerful as the storm swirling overhead. Jonathan had never loved him more than he did in that moment.

  The security, however, was short-lived. Mr. Steele’s hands reached out and grabbed his father’s own neck, and soon they were both on the ground. It didn’t take long to see who was going to win the fight and who was going to lose.

  Jonathan ran forward, desperate to help, but Mrs. Steele stepped in front of him and jumped on her husband’s back. Michael rolled away from them, choking and reaching for his neck. Carolyn rushed to his side and tried to lift him off the ground.

  “Jonathan,” she said. “Come here and help me.”

  But his dad was already climbing to his feet. He wasn’t looking at either of them. He was looking at the sky. Pointing at the sky.

  “We have to get inside. We have to go now.”

  Jonathan looked up and saw clouds, swirling and black, so low they seemed close enough to touch. Beyond them, not far away, something was roaring.

  “Oh, my God,” Carolyn said.

  “Tornado!” Bobby screamed from behind him.

  The roar deepened, rumbling and unmistakable, like it was some kind of real life monster. Jonathan turned back to his dad, not knowing it was the last time he would ever make direct eye contact with him.

  “Run, son! Run inside.”

  “But I can’t leave you!”

  “Your mom and I will be right behind you. Run inside. Now!”

  Jonathan glanced at Bobby and his parents. He wanted to be angry for what had happened. After all, if the kid wasn’t such a moron, if he had any idea about the storms, Bobby would have stayed home and none of this would have happened. Still, there was no way for anyone to have known a real tornado would come right at them, and it certainly wasn’t Bobby’s fault his father had started a fight.

  The swirling mass approaching them wasn’t a weather event. It was a nightmare that had found its way into daylight. There was no hope for it to miss them. It was too large and it was coming right at them.

  “Come on!” Michael said. “Let’s all go inside before it’s too late!”

  His father made it to the door and took Jonathan’s hand. Together they ran toward the kitchen and more specifically the pantry.

  “Squeeze in there,” Michael said. “Carolyn, you too. Mrs. Steele—”

  His dad turned around and reached for Bobby and his mom.

  “You guys, also. Mr. Steele and I will have to hide in the guest bathroom.”

  “What?” Carolyn screamed. “We can all fit! Don’t leave us here alone!”

  “You won’t be alone. You’ll all be together. We’ll be right around the corner.”

  “Mike!”

  The sound of the tornado had changed. Now it sounded like a piercing shrill that made Jonathan think of water swirling down a giant drain. He didn’t think a person could be more frightened than he was now.

  “Let’s go,” his father said to Mr. Steele. “We’re out of time.”

  “Mike, no! Please!”

  His dad shut the door. The light wasn’t on and the four of them were thrown into darkness. With nothing to see, the only available sensations were the terrible sounds of the storm, and honestly the shrieking of the tornado was more than sound. It seemed to be draining oxygen from the air. Bobby and his mom were both crying. Jonathan himself was silent, straining to hear signs that his father was still out there, that he was still alive.

  “The bathroom is this way,” Michael shouted. “Come on, we can—” But his voice was severed by a world-ending crash of wood and glass, and a great weight drove Jonathan to his knees. He heard a terrible scream. A woman’s scream. He hoped it wasn’t his mother. He hoped his dad had made it to safety. He reached for his own body, hands searching for wounds or blood or some kind of signal that he was either hurt or okay, but he found nothing. His body didn’t seem to be there at all. And when he tried looking for a sign of what had happened, of where he was, Jonathan realized he couldn’t see anything. Everywhere he looked there was nothing.

  Nothing but white.

  4

  Alicia Ulbrecht was just nine years old, and there were many things that confused her, but one thing she knew for sure was her daddy could protect her from anything, especially thunderstorms. In her estimation he knew more about the weather than anybody in the whole world.

  The problem was, whenever bad storms came, her dad would take their car and his camera and drive out into the countryside to see the weather up close. That left Alicia and her mother to stay home and fend for themselves. Later he would return and tell stories about the amazing and terrible things he had seen, like uprooted trees, cars tossed around like toys, and houses leveled to their foundations. Sometimes he even shared photographs with her, images that never failed to send shivers up her back. Her favorites were the slender tornadoes, dark and sinister, framed against yellow skies.

  But today the storms weren’t out in the countryside somewhere. They were rolling into town, so close the weatherman on TV was explaining how this was a LIFE THREATENING EMERGENCY FOR WICHITA FALLS. A
nd her daddy was nowhere to be found.

  Later in life she would wonder if her inability to sustain relationships was borne out of a fear of abandonment that had been seeded at this moment. Maybe she had come to expect that even men of the highest character were cursed with an instinctive, nomadic need to hunt, to run away. This suspicion would eventually be reinforced when her mother took ill and required constant care, because even then her dad could not bring himself to stop traveling for work or hire someone to look after her. He would expect Alicia to assist, and naturally she did. She would never be able to turn him down for anything.

  At the moment her mother was frantic. She kept running into the yard to look for her husband, and then returning inside to check on Alicia. It would have been funny to watch her if it weren’t so dark outside, if the wind weren’t shrieking and the tornado sirens weren’t wailing like giant ghosts.

  “Where is he?” her mother cried. “He said he would come back if the storms got too close. Where is he?”

  Alicia knew, when a tornado was on its way, that she and her mother were supposed to climb into the tub and cover themselves with a mattress. But since no one was enforcing this directive, she was instead standing on her bed to look out the window. From here she could see the storm approaching, and also her daddy’s car if it ever turned onto their street.

  The sky looked like it had fallen to the earth. Black clouds danced and rolled at a speed that made them look unreal, like she was watching a movie in fast forward. Trash was landing in their yard, silver tape and cardboard boxes and papers, papers everywhere. A strange sound began to swell around her, like a long, powerful train speeding toward some unknown but prewritten destination. She imagined a boy, or boys, cowering before the storm. One of the boys thought he might be dead, but she knew he wasn’t because one day she would fall in love with that boy. Over the tops of houses, maybe two streets over, she could see the violent, swirling monster. The tornado wasn’t like any picture her dad had ever showed her. It wasn’t a tube or a funnel. It was a many-limbed monster, a giant spider twirling in pirouette. A car spiraled into the air. Blue-green light flashed near the ground, rapid pulses, one-two-three. The roof of a house was swept into the air and disappeared. Now the boy’s father was dead.