“Oh boy,” I say.
“Move over. Let me sit. Now watch.” Alan starts the video and allows it to play almost all the way through, pausing it right at the moment Cody Tate says: “I had to like fight him off me.”
“Now, look at this. What do you see about this boy’s face?”
“He’s...he’s all scuffed up. A little bloody. Is that what you’re talking about?”
“Right. How did that happen? Or, I should ask, how would this video lead you to believe that had happened?”
“From me chucking him to the ground, I’d say.”
“Right. Now watch again.” Alan starts the video, and pauses it just before I put my hands on Cody’s shoulders. “Look, what do you see about his face?”
“He’s got the same cut on his nose...hey. And his eye. Holy shit.”
“How did they get there if you haven’t thrown him already?”
“Holy shit.”
“Exactly. I’d say we’re maybe not getting all of the story here, wouldn’t you?”
“Wow,” is the only thing I can manage to say. I begin to ask Alan to play the thing again, but the doorbell rings, and when I look out the window I see a police cruiser parked out front.
“Oh no,” I say, my knees feeling wobbly with the sudden, certain vision of my son in the morgue. “No, no, no.” He’s been killed in a car crash, I’m sure of it, and someone has come to officially notify me.
I didn’t have the chance to jinx it.
“Neil?” Lauren calls. “Should I get the door?”
“I’ll get it,” I say, and it feels like I’m floating down the hall and into the entryway.
Please. Please let this not be what I think it is.
I never got to say goodbye!
I open the door, and Pete Tran is standing on my front porch. At his feet, there’s an envelope lying on my doormat. The words “FOR NEIL KAZENZAKIS” are hand-lettered on it.
“Can I ask you a couple follow-up questions, Mr. K?”
“It’s not Chris?”
“Excuse me? What about Chris?”
“You’re not here to...? Sure.” I feel like I could collapse. “What do you need? Do you want to come in?” I consider for a moment mentioning Christopher’s absence, but I don’t want to complicate things. Pete stands ramrod-straight on the porch, his expression almost stern. He looks from me to the envelope, and back up again.
“No, I’ll be quick,” he says. He’s holding a notepad, and he scans his eyes over it. “You told us when we spoke to you the first time that you broke up a fight.”
“That’s right.”
“When did you first notice the fight?”
“Practice had ended, and I saw them across the parking lot.”
“Practice had ended, or it was still wrapping up?”
“I…I think we were done.”
“So practice was complete.”
“I think so? I mean, I’m pretty sure we were done.”
“What was it about the boys that first got your attention?”
“It just seemed odd that there was even a group there.”
“This fight you say you broke up, it had already started?”
“I guess I went over there when it was obvious something was going on.”
Pete nods. “All right. Thank you. You’ve still got my card, right?” I nod, and Pete glances at the envelope again. “Anything else going on, Mr. K.? Anything you want to tell me about? Anything unusual?”
“I’ve…been getting some emails,” I say, and Pete nods again. “Pretty bad emails.”
“We know about the emails,” he says. “We’re looking into it.”
“Some calls too. Pranks, threats.” Pete nods and makes a note. “And then,” I go on, poking the envelope with my toe, “who knows what this is.”
“Do you want me to open it for you?”
“Maybe you should,” I say. Pete picks the thing up, slips his finger under the sealed flap and draws out and unfolds a piece of paper. I can see through the back that a picture is printed on the sheet. The muscles in Pete’s face tighten, and quickly his grasp changes so he’s holding only the corner of the page and envelope between his index finger and thumb, like one would hold a dead rodent by the tail.
“I don’t think you need to see this, Mr. K.”
“You can show me,” I say.
“I really don’t—”
“Show me.”
Pete turns the thing around, and I need to brace myself against the house when I see what it is. It’s a picture of Wendy, a real photograph of my debilitated wife, in her bed in long term. Above the photo are the handwritten words: “WHY DON’T U EMAIL ME N E MORE NEIL?? WHY NOT??”
Pete turns the photo so I can’t see it anymore and holds it—still pinching it by the corner—away from his body. “I’m sorry,” he says.
“That’s recent,” I say softly. “The picture. She only got that quilt in the past week.”
Pete makes a note, thanks me and apologizes again, and lets me know that regular patrols will be coming by the house to keep an eye on things. I stay at the open door and watch him as he returns to his cruiser and drives away, and I realize Alan has come to stand behind me in the entryway.
“What was that all about?” he asks.
“I wish I knew,” I say. I wish I knew.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I don’t tell anyone about the photo. They don’t need to know, and maybe if I say nothing about it, I can make myself think it never existed. Lauren gets called out to one of her patients just before noon, and Alan suggests we take a drive to look for Christopher.
“He probably stayed over at a friend’s house,” he says. “We’ll do some drive-bys and look for his car. I bet we’ll see it parked somewhere.”
“That’s good,” I say. “Good idea.”
“Are you okay to drive?”
I laugh and say I’m fine, which is a complete lie.
“No, you’re not. I’ll drive us.”
“Do you even have a license anymore?” I ask.
“These are special circumstances,” Alan says. “Where are your keys?”
We load into my truck and Alan takes us toward town. It feels strange to not be in the driver’s seat, but Alan is in full control, and he seems to be savoring the experience of being back behind the wheel of something moving through real, and not virtual, space.
“You’re not going to have another seizure, are you?” I manage to joke.
“Keep in mind I never had one in the first place. Your rig drives pretty nice for being so old.”
“Thanks. I think?”
We start outside of town, through both of Port Manitou’s quasi-suburbs. I try to remember every haunt, every home of every one of Christopher’s childhood friends, and I direct Alan around accordingly. He keeps a running commentary going the entire time.
“Oh, Smithfields’ house, Angela got busted at a huge party there….”
We loop south of town, by a farm I know Chris has been to, by the State Park.
“…Kids have a kegger down here every weekend….”
We go up the National Lakeshore; Alan explains what’s going on to the ranger at the entrance to the parking area and she waves us through without having us pay. I spy a cream-colored Volvo wagon, just like Christopher’s, but Alan discounts it as I’m pointing it out.
“That car is missing the middle rail on the roof rack. Your son’s car has all of them.”
After the residential areas, I point Alan east, toward Wendy’s facility. He knows where we’re going without me having to say it, and he drives us there without direction.
“I’ll wait out here,” he says as he pulls into a space in the long-term lot.
Shanice is here and she greets me warmly, obviously having no idea what’s going on with me or Chris. It’s jarring, her happiness, but maybe good for me.
“No Christopher today?” she asks.
“Nope. I’m guessing he hasn’t stopped by?”
<
br /> She smiles. “Sounds like you two men have a little bit of a communication problem. Typical, typical.”
Oh, Shanice, if you only knew.
“If he stops by, will you call me? I’m thinking he might...well, he’s got a pretty busy day today, he gets distracted. He might forget he needs to call me. Or his phone might be dead. Will you call me if you see him?”
“Sure thing, Mister K.”
“By the way, you haven’t noticed anyone strange visiting my wife, have you?” Shanice shakes her head no, and I thank her.
I enter Wendy’s darkened room and take a seat next to her bed. She’s there, no different than she ever is. Air goes in, air goes out. I take her hand into both of mine and lean close to her ear.
“Where is he?” I whisper. “Do you know? Can you tell me?”
Nothing. Her mouth hangs open, her eyes stare without seeing.
“I need him to come home.”
I close my eyes and press my face to her shoulder. I remain still, this way, and in the stillness is something close to calm. I raise my head and kiss Wendy’s cheek.
“I’ll find him,” I tell her.
On the highway again, Alan points us back toward town and drives at a pace that seems maybe a little too leisurely for the situation.
“Well,” he says, rolling down the window, “at least we’ve got ourselves a pretty nice day. Maybe a little cool, but still very nice. Breezy!”
“That’s great,” I say, staring at the passing landscape. “Isn’t that great?”
“Just making an observation, Neil.”
My phone rings in my hand—I’ve stopped bothering to put it in my pocket—with an out-of-state number.
“Mr. K?” a girl’s voice says when I answer. “Hey, it’s Jill Swart.”
“Jill! How are you?”
“Is something going on with Chris?”
“Have you talked to him? Yes, something is going on with Chris. Please tell me you’ve talked to him?”
“Um. He kind of told me not to tell you that he called. He said he figured you would call me. But he was acting weird, so I wanted to tell you.”
“Do you know where he is?” I wave at Alan and whisper, “Stop the car, stop the car!” Back to the phone I say, “What do you mean, ‘acting weird’?”
“He told me he wasn’t at home. And maybe weird isn’t the right word. He was just really, really mad.”
“Did he tell you why?”
“Yeah. He’s…um.”
“He’s what? Jill, please, I am so worried, you can’t even understand how worried I am. This is not like him. Is he coming to see you?”
“God, no. His car wouldn’t make the trip here, I don’t think. But he talked about….”
“But he talked about what? Jill, tell me, please.”
“He talked about like…well maybe this is the weird part. He talked about being a chef? I mean, he was really upset and rambling and he talked about that and he said he hates Western Michigan and he feels like you keep pressuring him to go there. But mostly he was really upset about you. And that was it. I swear.”
“Do you have any idea where he is? Or was?”
“No, it was really noisy. It was kind of hard to hear him. And he was sort of rambling.”
“Okay, Jill. Thank you. If you talk to him again, please tell him to call me. Tell him I’m not angry with him, I just want him to call me so I know he’s okay.”
“I will, Mr. K. I think he’s all right. Just mad.”
We hang up, and I stare at my phone.
“What’s up?” Alan asks.
“Hold on,” I say. I dial Michael, and he answers breathlessly.
“Dude, I was seriously starting to call you right this second. I just got off the phone with Chris.”
“Where is he?”
“He wouldn’t tell me. And he pretty much commanded me not to talk to you. So don’t tell him we talked.”
“Fine, fine! Mike, what did he say?”
“He said he thinks he wants to go to culinary school—”
“That’s great, he can do that, where is he though?”
“Wait a second, he said he wants to start right away. I told him he needs a high school diploma or at least a GED—”
“What is he doing, Mike? Is he driving to Chicago?”
“I asked him, and he wouldn’t say. He asked me if he could crash on my couch, I told him he could but we needed to talk to you about it first.”
I feel panic rising through me again.
“Okay, Michael. If he just…shows up or something, keep him there, okay?”
“You got it.”
Mike clicks off, and I think I’m starting to hyperventilate.
“Neil,” Alan says.
“Hold on, hold on.” I feel like I can’t swallow, and I dial Lauren, but get her voicemail. “He’s going to Chicago,” I say after the beep. “I think he’s running away to Chicago!” I turn to Alan after ending the call. “Let’s go back to the orchard. Maybe I do need to call the cops. Oh, Christ.”
Alan puts the truck into gear, and we start back toward Port Manitou. We go through Old Town, and past the commercial docks and municipal marina, and Alan slows. He’s looking at something to our right, the side of the street opposite the waterfront and Lauren’s condo complex.
“There’s his car,” Alan says with complete nonchalance, pointing as he turns into a parking lot. Chris’s Volvo is parked at the back of the lot, behind a Dumpster. I have no idea how Alan managed to spy it back there, but I have the truck door open and I’m out on the pavement before we come to a stop.
“Come on, come on, Chris, where are you?” His car is locked and I press my hands to the glass to look inside. It’s clean, like it always is, and nothing seems amiss. It’s then that notice the pair of signs high on the building we’re next to. Two signs, one over the other. A thousand times or more I’ve driven past here, and I’ve never noticed these dingy signs before. The upper one says Western Union Money Grams.
The lower one says Greyhound Bus.
My jaw hangs slack. “He took…he took the bus?”
I dash to the front of the building and inside the terminal. “Hey,” I shout, and the two people inside, plus the woman behind the counter, look at me like I am clinically insane.
“Have you…have any of you seen a kid? A tall kid? My son…he’s….”
They all shake their heads, staring at me. Alan comes in and grabs me by the shoulders.
“Come on,” he tells me. “Let’s get back home and we’ll figure this out.”
I don’t speak at all during the drive home. I can’t speak. I’m not sure what troubles me more: the fact that my son has run away, or the fact that my son has possibly run away on a Greyhound bus.
“We’ll call the bus line,” Alan says as we turn onto my drive. Possibly he’s reading my mind. “We’ll see if he got a ticket somewhere.”
“They don’t just tell people that stuff. They only tell those things to the police.”
“We’ll call the police then.”
Inside, I go to the kitchen, and drop into my normal seat. Chris should be here; he should be right here, talking to me, joking with me, home from basketball camp with stories from the night before.
But he’s not, and the weight of his absence is oppressive.
I’m glad Alan’s here. It would be too much for me to be alone right now. He works about the kitchen, tidying things up, continually moving around.
“You want some coffee?” he asks me.
“I’m wound up enough already.”
“How about some tea, then? Herbal tea.”
“Sure. Fine.” I accept his offer because it’s easier than not accepting. Alan takes the kettle from the stove, fills it, and returns it to a lit burner.
“Where do you keep your tea?”
“It’s in the pantry.” Alan opens the door and looks around. “On the middle shelf,” I add. “Waist high.”
“Not seeing it, Neil.”
I sigh, and get to my feet. I tell Alan to look out, and peer inside the pantry door. And what I see, or rather, what I fail to see, makes my skin feel cold and my stomach drop. Christopher’s milk crate, usually there on the shelf, usually filled with bottles and jars of Asian spices, is gone. A great empty space is in the middle of our pantry. I see this space, and it’s too much: my son is gone, I fall apart.
In seeing this void, I break.
My knees buckle, and tears begin to roll down my face. I ease down to my knees, bring my hands to my face, and sob.
“Christopher,” I say through choking breaths. “Chris!”
This has happened to me. Once before.
In the months after Wendy’s accident, as the winter months crawled by, I retreated more and more into the old barn. I had a chair in there now, and glasses for my drinks; tonic had been abandoned for nothing but Xanax and gin. Hours were spent in thought. I’d bring a bound journal along with me, and when Carol gently asked me what I spent so much time doing in the barn, when my brother Mike came up and asked me not so gently what the fuck I was doing in there all the time, I replied that I was gathering my thoughts and writing them down. It was therapeutic, I told them. This was for my own good.
I was not really writing down my thoughts.
Sometimes Chris would knock at the door. “Dad?” he’d say through the metal door. “Grandma’s got dinner ready.”
Dad? Are you coming out soon?
Sometimes I’d come out. Eventually. A lot of times I wouldn’t. My brother, when in town, would bang on the door, on the corrugated metal sides of the building. I was too numb to be startled by it, too numb to really care.
“Get out of there,” Michael would shout, when Christopher wasn’t there with him. “I swear to fucking God, Neil, you need help! You’re going to wither up and die if you don’t come out of there!”
I did have help, though. I was seeing someone, weekly; I told her things were great and she gave me refills for Xanax. I was coping, I thought, in my own way.
The Banks of Certain Rivers Page 27
