(2007) Chasing Fireflies - A Novel of Discovery

by Charles Martin

  He looked at me, and his expression changed from one of wonder to seriousness, to absolute conviction. "Chase, I don't believe in chance." He held up the jar. "This is not chance, neither are the stars."

  I was hurting inside, and the streaks shining on my face didn't scratch the surface at telling how much.

  He tapped me gently in the chest. "And neither are you. So, if your mind is telling you that God slipped up and might have made one giant mistake when it comes to you, you remember the firefly's butt."

  The laughter walked up behind me, wrapped around my tummy, and tickled my ribs, finally bubbling out my mouth-taking the hurt parts with it. That's something Unc was good at. He gave me his laughter and took my pain.

  He walked back into the pasture and began making wide sweeps with his arms. The air above him was lit with tiny flashing orange and yellow-green stars. Every few seconds one would glisten, shoot through the air in a circular pattern, and then disappear, only to be answered by another shooting star several feet away. No sooner had one quit than another started. Unc followed the circles, running here and there, pulling the lid off and then screwing it back on. Minutes later, he returned with the heavens in his jar. He offered it to me. My single scoop of the Milky Way.

  I set the jar on top of the fence post and settled back on the top rail, staring through the glass with the real Big Dipper shining through the other side. Unc was quiet a few minutes. He looked up and down the highway and in the distance, a single headlight approached-the 11:15 freighter to the ports in Brunswick. In the distance we heard the horn sound, hollow and haunting.

  He pulled the folded manila folder from his back pocket and struck a match on the fence post. He held the flame to a corner of the folder and turned it so the fire climbed up and swallowed the papers inside. He put his hand on my shoulder, turning the icy fingers warm. When the folder got too hot to hold, he dropped it in the pasture, and we watched in silence as the papers turned to ash. He turned me around, set his hands on my knees, and looked at me square.

  "Chase ... technically, it don't mean a thing."

  The fire burned out. The breeze picked up the flakes of ash and spun them on the air like feathers fluttering off an angel's wings.

  "Absolutely nothing."

  That night, I lay in bed watching my stars swim around inside the glass and light my room in flashes. Before he turned out my light, Unc squatted next to my bed and tucked me in. It was growing colder, so he wrapped me in a cocoon and pushed the hair off my face. "I'm pretty sure that if your dad had read those ads and could have answered them, he would have. And in my book, no matter what the state says or does, he still can." He tapped the lid of the jar. "If God can make a firefly's butt light up like a star, then anything is possible. Anything."

  Chapter 24

  to help ease the transition, I'd told Unc I'd hang around and maybe take Sketch into work with me if he'd go. I was watching him eat his cereal when Tommye walked into the kitchen, looking sleepy. She pulled the orange juice from the fridge, poured herself a cup, and sat at the table, her shoulder leaning against mine. She winked at Sketch, then laid her head on my shoulder.

  She spoke to me without looking. "I like Mandy." She sat up and crossed her legs. Her face was flushed, and her eyes looked glassy.

  I placed my hand on her forehead, and she pulled away. Still hot. "How're you feeling?"

  She shrugged me off. "I need to go to town today and thought maybe I'd make you my lunch date. You game?"

  "You gonna answer my question, or pretend like you didn't hear me?"

  "You gonna take me to lunch, or do I have to ask Spider-Man here?"

  The kid, whose head was on a swivel as we talked, looked at me, eyebrows lifted. He wanted to know just as much as she did.

  "You like barbecue?" I asked him.

  He looked at Tommye, who nodded at him and then wrote a secret note on her napkin and passed it to him. He read the note, turned the napkin, nodded, and slid the napkin across the table to me, then tapped it twice.

  I knew what it said without looking. Tommye and I had been eating at Hawg Heaven since we were old enough to drive each other to school and appreciate good barbecue. I finished off my coffee and looked at Sketch. "You like Hawg Heaven?"

  He looked down at the napkin and double-tapped it again.

  "Okay, okay ... I heard you the first time."

  He sat back. Tommye gave him a smile and another wink, and in less than a second his spine grew another two inches.

  As we were walking out the door, Unc appeared from who knows where and said, "Hey ..."

  Sketch looked up.

  "I have some work to do today and thought maybe you'd be my helper."

  Sketch looked at me, asking for permission to stay and at the same time wanting to know if I'd take him to Hawg Heaven another day.

  I smiled. "Yeah ... I'll take you some other time."

  Unc put his hand on Sketch's shoulder and looked at Tommye and me. "Good, 'cause I think they need to have some grown-up talk."

  I-[awg Heaven sits just north of the causeway that leads out of Brunswick and onto St. Simons Island. Famous for their pulled pork and breaded French fries, they're a local staple.

  We sat at a booth in the back, Tommye with her back to the room and still wearing her sunglasses even after the iced tea had been delivered.

  I leaned across the table. "Not too bright in here."

  She nodded and said, "Uh-huh."

  After we ordered, I noticed five guys in white shirts and ties sitting at the table in the center of the room whispering and looking our way. Every now and then one of them would utter a hyena laugh. A few minutes later, the tallest and broadest walked over to the table and sat down next to Tommye, brushing his shoulder to hers. He threw his business card on the table. His voice betrayed him-he was nervous.

  "My buddies bet me a good bit of money that I wouldn't walk over here, tell you I've seen most of your movies, and offer to let you star in one with me."

  Tommye slid her glasses down to the end of her nose, turned just slightly, and noticed the wedding band on his left hand. She was wearing a sweatshirt but looked cold, and the dark shadows behind her eyes had only gotten darker. She looked at me but spoke to him. "There was a day when I'd take that as a compliment, but I guess that really just tells you how little I thought of myself." She tapped his wedding band with her fingernail. "Go home to your wife and burn the movies."

  "Oh . . ." He turned, looked behind him, got a giggle out of the table, and then turned back to Tommye. He put his hand on her thigh. "I love it when you talk dirty to me."

  She read his business card and looked at the table behind her. "Robert ... you all got money?"

  He threw a money clip on the table. The wad was thick, and Thomas Jefferson's face sat on top.

  She eyed the parking lot. "You got a car?"

  "At least."

  She put her hand on his shoulder. "Let's go." She slid her glasses over her head and looked at me. "I'll be right back."

  Robert lit up like he'd just won the Georgia State Powerball. He stood up and waved her in front of him-some sort of sick version of a Southern gentleman.

  She slid off the bench, grabbed my keys, handed me her glasses, and said, "Hold this for me."

  "You sure you want-?"

  She waved me off. "Easy. I got this."

  She slid the ignition key almost an inch through her index and middle finger, faked a practiced smile, and threw a stiletto jab into the soft spot beneath Robert's Adam's apple. He grabbed his throat, choking, which opened him up to the vicious right that followed. One hand on his throat, the other on his groin, he doubled over and crumpled. His four wide-eyed compatriots stood up, toppling three chairs. Tommye straddled Robert like a calf roper, grabbed the guy's testicles with both hands and squeezed, using her thumbs for emphasis. The only thing louder than the waitress's scream was his-only it was an octave higher.

  She leaned over him and spoke loud enough for the sur
rounding tables to hear. "I made a couple hundred movies, and I regret every . . . single . . . one. I don't care what you've seen, watched, or dreamed, the only thing sicker than me ... is you."

  In one violent pull, Tommye ripped her hands upward, producing an involuntary and geyserlike vomit from Robert. "Maybe you wastoids could consider for just a moment that it's all a lie. Nothing but evil. On me ... and on you." She spoke through gritted teeth, holding back tears that I guessed she'd held a long time. "It's a sickness worse than what's floating in me." She looked out the window and shook her head, talking to the marsh and the ocean. "The only one sicker than me ... is you."

  Tommye looked around the restaurant, then kicked Robert, who had made it to his knees. The blow caught him in the stomach and dropped him. Tommye grabbed her glasses off the table and dropped back down into the booth, slid over to the wall, leaned against it, and closed her eyes. She was breathing heavily, her face was ghostly white, and she was sweating. Her lips were caked white and her tongue was blue.

  Robert slithered off the carpet only to find one of the cooks standing at his table with a rather large knife, asking him if he needed an escort out. The giggle-crew left, and the waitress delivered our food. She set the plates down and said, "Lunch is on us."

  Minutes passed as I tried to make sense of what Tommye had said. Between the naps, the fever, the dark eyes, skin-and-bones complexion, and fever blister that never went away, it all fell into place.

  All I could do was stare at her.

  Feeling the weight of every eye in the restaurant, and that maybe we'd worn out our welcome, Tommye called the waitress over and asked for some to-go boxes. We walked out, stepped into Vicky, and I sat with my foot on the clutch.

  Only after I turned on the causeway, drove to the island, and zigzagged to the lighthouse did the tears fall out from behind my sunglasses and land on my T-shirt.

  Tommye leaned against the seat, tired, her breathing shallow and measured, but when she saw the tears, she leaned across and wiped them with her palm. "Hey." She grabbed my chin. "Everybody dies. I'm just. . ." She shook her head and faded off.

  We walked around the lighthouse to the sidewalk that ran along the bulkhead where the Altamaha met the ocean. The sun sparkled painfully on the water, and somewhere off in the distance the jack crevalles were hunting in packs and tearing into the mullet atop the water. We sat on a park bench and watched the flurry.

  Lost in the horizon, I whispered, "How?"

  She laughed, leaned back on the bench, and laid her head on my shoulder. "You want the truth, or you want me to lie to you?" She read my expression and said, "Okay ... we'll try the truth." She crossed her arms, tried to breathe deep, and for the first time I heard a wheeze and a deep gurgle. 'Well ... it's pretty simple. You sleep with enough of the wrong guys and do enough of the wrong drugs with the wrong needles and do all that over a long enough period of time, and ... it's a given."

  "When were you going to tell me?"

  She shrugged. "I was trying to tell you today ... just maybe not like ... that."

  Moments passed.

  "What is it, exactly?"

  A long pause. "Three differing strands of HIV. Mixed with Hepatitis A, B, and C. There's some other stuff, but those are the biggies."

  "How long?"

  She laughed. "I'm not supposed to be here now."

  "What about the doctors? Can't they-"

  She shook her head. "I waited too long."

  "Well ... you're here now. Why can't we start now?"

  "The virus ... or viruses ... that I have are too strong now. They compete with each other. By attacking one, I strengthen one or both of the others, speeding things up."

  "I thought ...

  She put her finger on my lips. "Hey ..."

  "Why'd you do it?"

  "When I got to L.A., I found a place of respect and recognitionalbeit a sick and twisted version where I didn't have to hide my ... me."

  "But ...

  She put her arms around my neck and shoulders and slung her legs over mine. She spoke softly, "Damaged souls look for other damaged souls. And when we find each other, we coexist. Out there ... we were just medicating the black hole inside each of us. I found a family out there. And it took a lot of drugs to keep the family together."

  Another tear ran down my face.

  "Chase-" She ran her fingers along the veins in her arm. "This.. . this is a gift."

  I shook my head. "Not to me."

  "Chase, I'm done running. . . ." She looked north up the island. "He can't hurt me anymore. The girl you once knew ... I sold her a long time ago on some set I've now forgotten. I've done things ..." She shook it off. "I don't want to be her, and I don't want to live in her skin. I'm done."

  "I'd have come and gotten you."

  She kissed my cheek where the tear had fallen. "I know."

  "Why didn't you . . . "

  Another long pause. "I should have." She turned my face to hers. "Chase, I came home for you. I'm not leaving with regrets."

  The sun's reflection off the water was harsh and painful.

  She stood up, pulled on my arm, and said, "Come on, take me for a drive."

  Chapter 25

  lommye always had a thing with numbers. In first grade she was always the first to finish the sixty-second math quizzes. In fourth grade they started her in algebra, and in high school she scored a 5 on the AP calculus test. Whereas most of us just added them together, she saw numbers like pieces in a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle.

  I grew up reading the sports page and the ups and downs of players and their teams. While I read it for the drama, Tommye read the same pages and took away a wealth of information to which I seldom paid attention. She knew batting averages, on-base percentages, ERAs, win-loss records, etc. And she could file all of it away with an uncanny ability to recall any scrap of information at a moment's notice.

  At the breakfast table, I'd recount the story of a dropped touchdown pass by a league MVP, or a ninth-inning, come-from behind win on the shoulders of a home-run slugger, or who won the 100-meter dash in the Olympics. Tommye would sit Indian style, her bowl of cereal getting soggy, and whenever I'd take a breath, she'd straighten and fill in how many other passes that receiver had dropped, how many times the batter had struck out prior to his game-winning home run, and the split-times for second, third, and fourth place. Second only to her photographic memory was her excitement. Somehow, knowing that information and being able to fill it in on demand gave her the same fulfillment that the drama gave me.

  Oftentimes at night, when Unc and Aunt Lorna were watching a game, they'd let us turn down the volume and pretend to call the game. I was the play-by-play commentator, and Tommye was the color man. Unc never laughed so hard.

  TO some boys, Turner Field is better than Disney World. It was for Unc and me. Back then it was called Fulton County Stadium, but it's the same thing: the Braves played there. In 1991, after a long time of what Unc called "sucking hind teat," the Braves finally put it all together.

  This came on the heels of most of Georgia calling for Bobby Cox's head on a platter after he traded Dale Murphy to the Philadelphia Phillies. But we quickly forgave him when he brought in Tom Glavine, Steve Avery, and John Smoltz-who would win fifty games between them. Meanwhile, things in the field had gotten pretty good too: Dave Justice, Ron Gant, Francisco Cabrera, Mark Lemke, Gregg Olsen, Sid Bream, and the league's unexpected Most Valuable Player and batting champion Terry Pendleton. The Braves started slow that year, but went 53-28 over the last three months of the season and, winning eight of their last nine, edged the Los Angeles Dodgers by one game.

  After defeating the Pirates in seven games in the NLCS, the Braves found themselves facing the Minnesota Twins in the World Series. ESPN ranks that contest as the best ever played, because a single run decided five of the seven games. We watched all ten innings of Game 7 on television and mourned for a week after it ended.

  Then came the miracle of 1992.

>   It was a Cinderella season.

  The Braves had split six games with the Pirates and brought the NLCS back to Atlanta. If they won, they would earn a return trip to the World Series, and if they lost ... well, I'd have worn black for a month.

  Somehow, Unc finagled four tickets to Game 7 of the National League Championship Series. I still don't know how he did it, but I'll never forget sitting in my seat and hearing the guy next to me tell someone on the other end of his cell phone that he'd paid $2,800 for his two tickets. Unc wouldn't say how he'd got them, only that it was legal and that he didn't pay a dime for them. Which was good, because Aunt Lorna might have beat him if he had.

  On the morning of October 14, 1992, I looked into the mirror, smiled like a Cheshire cat, and dressed in every piece of Braves clothing I owned. Skipping school was just the start of it. We drove through the Zuta to Uncle Jack's house and picked up Tommye. She walked out the door wearing jeans, a wrinkled long-sleeve shirt, some makeup that shaded her eyes, and a cap that didn't say the first thing about the Braves or baseball.

  That should've been my first clue.

  We got to the game early, bought a program, and clung to the fence during warm-ups. Just before the start of the game we climbed up to our seats, which were located about forty rows up between home plate and first. The key here is that we had a perfect view of home plate. I ate hot dogs, corn dogs, popcorn, cokes, pretzels, and ice cream-whatever came walking up the aisle on the head of the guy carrying it. By the time the game started, I had mustard smeared from ear lobe to ear lobe and was so high on sugar and caffeine that my butt hovered an inch above the seat. The buzz was incredible.

  Somewhere about the fourth inning, I realized Tommye hadn't eaten a thing. At first I thought she was just taking it all in, starstruck. But as the innings turned over and I came closer and closer to jumping out of my skin, Tommye began to look like a turtle that had crawled back into its shell.