County Line Road

by Marie Etzler

  Allison wasn’t at home, lying in bed. She was behind the wheel of her Mustang, out on the highway in the night, racing down the interstate at top speed. The city passed in a rush, and lighted buildings smeared into a blur. She threw her pewter wizard out the window to banish it and everything she’d ever hoped for. No magic spell or magic wand could make her life better now. The radio blasted, and she screamed at the top of her lungs until her throat burned and tears streamed down her face.

  The next day, as Allison lay in her bed with her laptop, her mother knocked on the door.

  “Are you feeling better, honey?” She opened the door.

  “Not really,” Allison said.

  “I just saw Cassie and her family pull up in their driveway,” her mother said. “They must have just gotten back from their trip. Would you like to see her?”

  “Not right now,” Allison said.

  “If you’re not feeling well, I can take you to the doctor’s. I’ll look up one in the new health insurance plan,” her mother said.

  “I don’t need a doctor. I’m just bummed out.”

  “I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry of flipped out about the mail that day,” her mother said. “You know, that letter for Michele. I called them and they said they’d take care of it. Anytime you want to talk, we can. We all miss her.”

  “It’s like one of my legs is missing,” Allison said. She hadn’t planned to say that to her mother, to admit so much. She tried to keep it all inside, to control it, but it wasn’t working.

  Allison started to cry.

  “I know,” her mother said and sat down with her. “We’re all limping along. You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to volunteer with the Special Olympics chapter here.”

  “What?”

  “Yes. I’ve been thinking about it, and I think I’m ready. I feel really good about it,” her mother said. “Maybe you want to come? Just check it out?”

  “No,” Allison said and sat up to blow her nose. “I can’t do that. Not now.”

  “Okay. If you want to later, let me know. I’m going to a meeting next week. If you change your mind…”

  Allison shook her head, no.

  “Want something to eat?” Her mother pet her head and wrapped Allison’s long hair into a pony tail. “I want chicken wings and fries.”

  “That’s so loaded with fat,” Allison said.

  “Oh, I know, but who the hell cares? I’m eating it, just this once. Come on. Well go to that place on Stirling Road.”

  “You drive,” Allison said. “But I have to get changed first.”

  Her mother left, and Allison pulled out a pair of shorts from her dresser drawer of her new bedroom set.

  Out the window, she saw Cassie and her little sister, Lindsay, carrying their backpacks from the minivan into their house. Their father heaved their rolled up tent onto his shoulders and walked up the driveway with it to their garage.

  Allison closed the blinds and got dressed to go.

  As she got in her mother’s Jaguar, Allison heard Cassie call her. Allison paused before closing the car door.

  “Hey!” Cassie said and waved. “I have great pictures to show you!”

  “I’ll come over when I get back!” Allison said, trying to sound enthusiastic.

  Lindsay kicked her soccer ball from foot to foot, bouncing the ball up and down until she missed and the ball rolled toward Allison.

  “Ally! Kick it here!” Lindsay said.

  The sound of her little girl voice caught Allison by surprise. Allison kicked the ball back, waved bye and quickly got in the car.

  “For a second there, she sounded just like Michele,” Allison said. “Let’s get out of here. I don’t want to lose it now.”

  “I understand how you feel,” her mother said. “I negotiate with myself all the time. You know what they say: ‘Fake it til you make it’.”

  “Yeah,” Allison said, looking at Cassie and Lindsay playing on the lawn. “I’m a big faker. Even Jimmy knows it now.”

  “No, you’re not,” her mother said. “You’ll work it out with him. If not, he’s not worth it. And you are.”

  CHAPTER 17

  The next morning, Jimmy woke up early. His face hurt, and when he looked at it in the mirror, he knew his father would be shocked when he saw it. Good, Jimmy thought, that’s what I need. Maybe he’ll listen to me now.

  He tried not to think about the argument between him and Allison. It didn’t make any sense. He was just tired and angry. He was over the panic, but he still couldn’t figure out what turned the night so bad. He thought, I’ll make it up to her. First I have to finish this.

  He looked in the living room and kitchen for his father but couldn’t find him. Then Jimmy heard music in his father’s room, and what sounded like boxes getting moved around, and his father grumbling. Jimmy tentatively stepped into the bedroom.

  “Dad?”

  “In here.”

  Jimmy saw his father in the closet, up on a chair, moving a box aside.

  “I can’t find my damn Marlins cap,” Earl said. “She’s got all these damn shoes. I’ll cut up her credit cards again.”

  Jimmy saw the box with the family photographs and thought about asking his father about the broken plaster cast he found there.

  His father looked at him and his expression changed from concentrated frustration to shock when he saw the bruise on his son’s face.

  “Your face,” Earl said, but Jimmy cut him off. Jimmy decided to wait on asking about the plaster cast – one thing at a time.

  “I know, but listen to me first,” Jimmy said. He explained about the store and the tapes.

  “They called yesterday,” Earl said. “I was going to go pick up the baseball today and take you with me. They open at ten. Be ready.”

  “I’m ready now,” Jimmy said. He clapped his hands and headed out of the room. He paused to listen to the radio playing on top of his dad’s dresser. “Who’s that?”

  “Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band,” Earl said. “Before your time.”

  “It’s cool,” Jimmy said.

  Jimmy started to feel like one piece of the puzzle might come together.

  He wolfed down a huge breakfast, eating just about everything they had: toast and an English muffin, scrambled eggs – the one thing he could cook – a bowl of cereal and the last of the Gatorade. He set the empty bottle on the counter with satisfaction. He even washed and dried his dishes.

  His father walked in carrying his baseball hat.

  “I got the lawnmower working again,” Earl said. “You need to cut the grass.”

  “I’ll do it when we get back,” Jimmy said. He stood up, ready to go.

  “You sure are sure of yourself,” Earl said. He shook his head as if he didn’t know what to make of this.

  In the car, Earl said, “You’re still grounded, for what you said about Linda.”

  Jimmy looked out the window. He wondered if it would be better to lie and say he made it up. But if he lied to his father now and he found out, that would make him look guilty in his father’s eyes for the rest of his life. And it would also make him a liar, the first step down to being a cheater, not what he wanted.

  “It’s none of your business what goes on between a husband and wife,” Earl said. “I can’t let that one slide. No matter what the store clerk says. To show you how important it is, I am restricting you. For now, no going out, no spending money, no anything. Turn over your ATM card.” He held out his hand.

  “Dad!”

  “Do it now,” he said. “Get it over with. I’ll hold it for you while I figure this out.”

  Jimmy pulled his wallet out of his back pocket. He counted his cash: nine dollars. That won’t get me anything, he thought. He handed over the bank card.

  “Someday you’ll understand,” his father said to him.

  At that moment, he didn’t care. As far as Jimmy could see, the future didn’t even exist anymore.

  Once they got to the memorabil
ia store, Jimmy got out of the car and hurried to the store entrance. He turned and looked back at his father, eyeing him critically and without sympathy. He seemed slow and old.

  Inside, the owner handed Earl the signed baseball.

  “This is it,” he said to Earl, as Earl looked it over.

  “Yes, it is,” Earl said. “Who brought it in?”

  “Hey, Bobby!” The owner called the clerk over. “Who did you say brought this ball in?”

  “Some kid,” Bobby said.

  “This kid?” Earl asked and put his hand on Jimmy’s shoulder.

  “I don’t know,” Bobby said, looking Jimmy up and down. “He was shorter, I think.”

  “That’s right,” Jimmy said. He stood with his shoulders back and looked at the clerk straight on. “Because it wasn’t me.”

  “Jimmy, relax,” his father said. Earl turned to the owner. “What about the store tapes, the video camera, to see who it was.”

  “We record over those every day,” he said. “I’m sorry. I only keep them in case there’s a robbery or something.”

  “Shit!” Jimmy said. Disgusted, he walked out. He never cursed in front of his father, but he didn’t care.

  His father followed him, but Jimmy turned up the sidewalk, away from the car.

  “Come on,” his father said. “I’ll take you home.”

  “Why?” Jimmy said. “Tell me. Who do you believe — him or me? I don’t steal, and I don’t cheat.”

  “I don’t think you did it,” Earl said. He looked at the ball. “I’ll get to the bottom of this.”

  “While you do that, I’ll be restricted,” Jimmy said. “But now, I’m going running. If that’s okay with you.” He bowed in an exaggerated motion. Jimmy suddenly no longer felt afraid of his father. He had nothing left to lose. What could he take from him now?

  He left his father standing there.

  When Jimmy disappeared around the corner, Cameron came out of the ice cream shop, carrying a skateboard.

  “Hello, Mr. Bodine,” Cameron said. “Was that Jimmy? I haven’t seen him in a long time. Is Mrs. Bodine here too?”

  “No,” Earl said.

  “Oh, I just thought maybe, since I saw her the other day,” Cameron said.

  “Saw her where?”

  “Here,” Cameron said, pointing to the store. “She’s real nice. Gotta’ go.”

  Cameron hopped on his skateboard and took off.

  CHAPTER 18

  Jimmy pushed the lawn mower through the overgrown grass in front of his house. He didn’t hear his father’s car pull up in the driveway.

  Earl and Linda got out, and Linda paraded two shopping bags.

  “Hi, Jimmy,” she said and waved, making the shopping bags slosh back and forth on her arm like water in a bathtub.

  His father came up next to him.

  “You missed a great game, Jimmy,” Earl said, taking off his baseball cap. “Did you watch it?”

  “No,” Jimmy shouted over the lawn mower. Then it stalled. It was quiet.

  “See the new hat I bought your father,” Linda said. “I bought a new night shirt for me, as a treat, since I paid off all my credit cards.” She smiled at Earl as if to say, See, I told you I would.

  “I’ll cut them up if you go over the limit again,” Earl said.

  “I’ll get new ones,” Linda said and swung her shopping bags in front of Jimmy to show them off. “And buy whatever I want, unlike some people.” She sneered at Jimmy, laughed and sauntered up the driveway with her bags.

  Jimmy’s resentment at Linda grew in him by the second. He felt like she was rubbing it in that she had money and he didn’t. She knew his father took his ATM card from him; she was the reason. Anger began to filter through his muscles, starting from his stomach like a crack in a sheet of glass that splinters and forks into a hundred smaller cracks and spreads until it ruins the whole glass.

  Jimmy restarted the mower. He shoved the mower across the thick grass, cutting down to the dirt in some places. He started to cut the letters “F” and “U” in the grass when the mower stalled again. He heard his father come outside.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” His father yelled. “Look at this grass! It’s all burnt. God damn it. Give me that.” Earl stepped in front of Jimmy and leaned down to adjust the mower. “You got it too low. How many times…hell. Give me that. Always the damn same, if you want something done right.” He didn’t even finish talking but started the mower and began to fight the tall grass.

  Jimmy went inside and took a shower.

  In his room, he pulled a work shirt from his closet and buttoned it up in front of the mirror over his dresser. He looked at his trophies for a minute. They lined the dresser from one end to the other. “So what,” he said. He tossed his t-shirt over them and left the room.

  “I’m going to work,” he said. His father was done with the grass and sat on the couch, watching ESPN. His memorabilia case stood next to him like a Labrador Retriever, polished and waiting, the returned baseball front and center. Jimmy looked away from the ball.

  Linda came in the living room in time to hear Jimmy say he was leaving.

  “Come home right after your shift,” she said with a sing-song lilt to her voice. “I’ll be watching the clock.” She pointed to the wall clock.

  “Leave the boy alone,” Earl said.

  After work, he and Double A walked into the parking lot.

  “I’m going to the mall to buy a bracelet for Anna, but I can drop you off at home first.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Jimmy said.

  “I thought you were grounded,” Double A said.

  “Fuck them,” Jimmy said.

  “You all right?” Double A asked.

  “No,” Jimmy said. “I’m not.”

  “I’ll be fast,” Double A said and started the car.

  In the mall jewelry store, Jimmy gazed into a glass case at a bracelet of blue gems that glittered like the light from Allison’s swimming pool.

  Double A stood next to him, looking at charm necklaces.

  “Do you think Anna will like this one?” Double A asked Jimmy, pointing to a charm of a heart.

  “I bet Allison would like one of these,” Jimmy said. “I wish I had some frigging money.”

  Behind the counter, a sales clerk chewed her gum in rhythm to the loud dance music pumping from the overhead speakers in the brightly lit store as she stared from Double A and Jimmy to the people passing by the store entrance, making their way through the busy mall. Despite the loud music, Jimmy heard the scratching sound the clerk’s fingernails as she worked away at an itch on the back of her head. Jimmy wandered down to the far end of the display case to get away from the noise.

  A security guard leaned against a mirror pillar, ogling a girl from behind as she bent over to peer in a jewelry case.

  Double A pointed to one bracelet. The sales clerk slid open the case door and fumbled with the bracelets. She finally hooked the right bracelet with one of her nails and took it out. She set the bracelet on a tan velvet pad to rub it with a buffing cloth. She adjusted her jacket sleeve and the name tag on her lapel that read “Sherle” and smiled as she handed the bracelet to Double A.

  “I’m getting this one,” Double A said. “Then we’ll go.” He handed the bracelet back to the clerk and got out his wallet.

  Jimmy felt a pang of envy as he watched Double A take a card out of his wallet. Jimmy really wanted to get something for Allison. He’d been a jerk to her and really wanted to make up for it.

  He looked around the store and at the people passing by in the mall. It seemed to him everyone was carrying packages or pushing carts laden with bags of stuff they purchased with ease. He remembered Linda showing off her shopping bags, and he grew angry.

  Jimmy moved down the counter to a rack holding sliver bracelets with butterfly designs. Jimmy saw the security guard busy adjusting his belt in the mirror. Sherle had her back turned to everyone as she rang up Double A’s sale at the registe
r. Jimmy leaned close to the counter, pretending to look in the case, his shoulder right next to a bracelet rack. His heart rate was up. He felt like a kid trying to take a candy bar, but he’d never even done that when he was little. Is this what it feels like, he wondered, is this the rush some people enjoy when they commit crimes? He felt sick instead. The same moment that he slipped a bracelet off the end of the display and into his pocket, he realized what he was doing – committing a crime – and he fumbled to get it out of his pocket and return it.

  The bracelet had slipped down into his pocket. Nervous and unable to be smooth, he couldn’t dig it out so figured it would be better just to get out of there. He turned to leave the store when the security guard stepped in his path.

  “Give it up,” the guard said. He held his big hand out.

  “I got nothing,” Jimmy said and tried to slouch past him sideways. He wanted to project a vibe of someone up to nothing, but it wasn’t working.

  Double A got his change from the clerk and turned just as the guard dropped his hand on Jimmy’s shoulder like the claw of a crane clutching sand from a pile at a construction site.

  “What’s going on?” Double A said.

  “Police business,” the guard said officiously. “Back up.”

  In that moment, the guard looked away from Jimmy to Double A and the guard’s hand came off Jimmy just enough to let Jimmy slip out.

  Jimmy couldn’t resist the urge and ran.

  He ran through the mall in fear. He was blind with panic, making the store lights and signs seem like streaks of light stretching by him. He didn’t see another security guard lunge out in front of him.

  The guard tackled Jimmy in a single grab, but Jimmy was moving so fast, he swung the guard around in a circle. They both stumbled, and for a flashing second, Jimmy was afraid he’d get injured and not be able to run track. He rolled on the hard floor and slammed his back into the foot of a bench of senior citizens. The elderly man and woman jerked their feet up in shock at the young man rolling under their shoes.

  Jimmy held his hands over his head as if to hide and protect himself.

  The guard grabbed Jimmy by the shirt and yelled, out of breath, “Stop!”, his big chest heaving in and out.