The Benevolent Lords of Sometimes Island

by Scott Semegran

  Good kid? I thought. Since when was Bloody Billy a good kid?

  “He’s missing. Has been for a while, at least since the time you were out on the godforsaken Sometimes Island with your friends. What are their names?”

  I blurted out an answer like an obedient dog. “Randy, Brian, and Miguel.”

  Sheriff Hill adjusted his hat while I watched the toothpick shuffle back and forth in his gash of a mouth. His bristle broom mustache swept the top of the toothpick.

  “That’s correct. Randy, Brian, and Miguel. They told me Billy supposedly followed you out to the Meyer lake house. Is that true?”

  You talked to Randy, Brian, and Miguel? I thought. Uh oh.

  “Am I in trouble?” I said, my voice trembling.

  “Why would you be in trouble, son?”

  I looked down at my comic books, rubbing my neck some more.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’m just trying to find this boy, Billy Callahan. You understand?”

  “Yessir.”

  The sheriff hawked a loogie from deep in his throat, then swallowed it back down. “Why did you go to the Meyer lake house? Did you run away from your parents?”

  “No sir,” I said. I felt every nerve in my body poke through my skin, exposed to the world.

  “You see,” I began, sensing the relief that would come if I just told the sheriff the truth. I cleared my throat. “You see, we found Billy’s backpack one day after school.”

  “You found it?” he said, more interested now. He sat up and adjusted his cowboy hat. “Did it have anything in it?”

  “Well, to be honest, it had money in it and—”

  “Money, you say? How much money we talkin’ about? Twenty dollars?”

  “Well...”

  “Fiddy dollars?”

  I stammered. “More like a couple thousand.”

  “A couple thousand?!” he blurted. The toothpick was breakdancing at this point. The sheriff’s raised eyelids revealed the yellow of his eyes, stained from years of arduous public service. “And do you think Billy knew you had his backpack?”

  I didn’t respond.

  “Sounds like you didn’t find it. In some parts of this great state of ours, they would say you stole Billy’s backpack.”

  “Stole it?” I said. This was a shocking development to me.

  “That’s right. Why didn’t you give it back to him?”

  “Well, you see,” I continued, swallowing a gob of spit first. “He bullied me and my friends. He threatened to—”

  “Bullied, huh?” The sheriff pulled the toothpick from his mouth and flipped it around. He slowly inserted the unchewed end back into the chapped slit under his mustache. “I see.”

  I turned my gaze down to my comic books. On the cover of one, Spider-Man was being choked by none other than The Lizard. I felt the muscles in my neck constrict my esophagus.

  “Billy got spotless references. You see, I asked around. Do you understand?”

  I nodded.

  “Okay, so you found Billy’s backpack and didn’t give it back to him. So, then what did you do with it?” He leered at me, his dirty eyes illuminated. “Tell me the truth.”

  I racked my brain for the next course of events. I became light-headed.

  “Well, you see. I called that boy Tony who works at the marina up at the lake.”

  “Canyon Lake Marina?”

  “Yessir.”

  “The boy who works for his parents?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Why’d you call him?”

  “To come pick up me and my friends and take us to the old lake house.”

  “And you took the backpack with you?”

  “Yessir.”

  The sheriff inhaled deeply. “I see. And did you pay Tony any money from this backpack you may have stole?”

  I didn’t answer right away. I searched his dirt-colored eyes for any sign of hostility or judgment, but I didn’t find any. He just looked at me the way you look at an instruction manual for an appliance.

  “Maybe. I can’t remember.”

  “And you realize that the Meyer lake house is private property. In some places, they would say you were trespassing.”

  “But it’s abandoned!”

  The sheriff’s eyebrows slowly raised.

  “Son, don’t you raise your voice at me,” he said, wagging an indignant finger. “That’s not polite.”

  I looked at the floor. “Yessir.”

  “So, let me get this straight,” the sheriff began, then rubbed his chin, the toothpick jabbing at the heavens. “You and your friends took a stolen backpack to private property, then broke in?”

  “The back door was open...”

  “No matter. That’s still illegal entry. How did Billy find you?”

  “I don’t know. He just showed up and threatened to beat us up.”

  “Because you had his backpack?”

  “Yessir.”

  “So, then what’d you do?” He leaned back in the chair, splayed his legs, then adjusted his pant waist.

  “We ran away from him and got in a boat.”

  “A boat? Where’d you find a boat?”

  “At the end of the pier. Tony brought it.”

  The sheriff leaned forward. “So, you and your friends got in a boat. Then what?”

  “We started it and tried to get away.”

  “Did Billy get in the boat with you?”

  “No, he jumped in the water as we pulled away.”

  “And that’s when you went out to Sometimes Island?”

  “Well...” I began, then stopped. The events of that day riffled through my mind in no discernible order. “We didn’t want to go to the island. It was an accident. We crashed into a rock.”

  “And Billy? Did he swim out to the island?”

  “He tried to. I saw him in the water. Then he disappeared.”

  The sheriff sat up, stiffening his back. “He disappeared in the water? You’re saying he drowned?”

  “I don’t know.”

  At this point, without warning, my eyes sprung a leak. Again, just like at the marina. Then with the initial appearance of tears, a wellspring of emotions burst out. I sobbed profusely. The sheriff sighed, then roughly cleared his throat. He unbuttoned his left shirt pocket and pulled out a handkerchief, then handed it to me.

  “Calm down, son. I’m not here to make you cry. Just asking questions.”

  “Am I in trouble, mister?” I said, words wedged between sobs and gasps for air.

  “No, no, you’re not in trouble. I’m just trying to find that boy, Billy Callahan.” He unbuttoned his right shirt pocket, the one under his shiny badge, and pulled out a Dum Dum lollipop, then handed it to me. “I was saving this for my grandson, but I think I’d prefer you have it right now. Pretty gal at the bank drive-thru gave it to me. You like lollipops?”

  I nodded, then wiped my snotty nose with my forearm.

  “Who doesn’t?” he quipped, then chuckled. “You understand I’m just doing my job, right?”

  I nodded.

  “So, what’s with the water works?”

  “Well...” I started, then snuffled. “I guess I was trying to tell you he bullied me and my friends.”

  “Of course. Boys will be boys.”

  “And he beat us up behind the 7-Eleven after school one day when we were getting Slurpees.”

  “Boys be roughhousin’ all the time.”

  I looked down at the lollipop in my hand. I twirled it between my thumb and forefinger, reading the brown lettering on the wrapper. It was root beer flavored: my favorite. I looked up at the sheriff who uncrossed his legs and sat back in the chair.

  “You see, Billy Callahan is just a boy, just like you. And he got a mama that loves him, just like you. His mama is worried sick, just like yours would be if you went missin’. He’s somebody’s son. You understand, don’t ya?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Good.”

  We stared at each other for w
hat seemed like forever, his gaze on me, steady as I imagined his shooting stance to be. His eyes penetrated my thin skin. I knew he knew something about me, but he didn’t have to say anything. He just knew.

  “Welp,” he said, then stood up, lifting his cowboy hat slightly, tilting his head forward as a salutation. “Thanks for your time. I hope you enjoy that lollipop. I like strawberry, personally. Reminds me of when I was a boy. Good day.”

  He opened the door to my room and turned to me before leaving.

  “You remind me of my grandson. Sensitive. Soft-hearted.” He smiled. “Be good, ya hear? If you think of anything else, tell your mom to give me a call.”

  Then he left my room, closing the door behind him. I heard my mother chatting with him, even laughing at what I imagined were his cowpoke jokes. Heavy footsteps. The sound of a door closing. Light footsteps to my room. My mother slowly opened my door.

  “You doing okay?” she said, looking somewhat concerned.

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you want me to make you a microwave burrito?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. I’ll check on you in a bit after Steve gets home from work. I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  She closed the door.

  I looked at the empty chair where the sheriff sat, the indention from his rump still in the vinyl seat. I could still smell him. His presence lingered in my room like a somber ghost or the dense haze from a smoldering cigar. I unwrapped the lollipop and placed it on my tongue, twirling it around in my mouth with my index finger and thumb. The saliva in my mouth took on the delicious flavor of the candy. I enjoyed receiving the unexpected treat, but not enough to forgive Sheriff Hill for the way he treated me. And in my own room of all places! I became emboldened in his absence. I raised my profane middle finger in the air, aiming it defiantly to the universe.

  “You’re the dum dum!” I said, then wiped my wet nose with my forearm.

  I picked up a piece of paper with a scene I had been coloring before Sheriff Hill came into my room. It was an elaborate fight scene I penciled between Spider-Man and my favorite nemesis to the teenaged web crawler: Doctor Octopus. I colored the scene late into the night, then went to bed without eating dinner.

  29.

  The rest of the summer ground along like beach sand in the seat of your bathing suit. Although sitting in my room and drawing comics was fun, its luster soon wore off. For some, routine can be stifling, even when that routine involves your favorite things in the world. I missed riding my bike around my neighborhood and just—you know—being outside. I missed my freedom that I took for granted before the misadventure, before experiencing real-life danger while stranded on an island without food or water. The funny thing was, once my parents brought me home from the Canyon Lake Marina and sentenced me to solitary confinement in my bedroom for the rest of the summer, they didn’t mention my time on Sometimes Island again—for something like two decades. And even when they did mention it again much later when my wife and I were raising our own rascally children, they made it sound like I was off at summer camp somewhere, sleeping comfortably at night in air-conditioned cabins under the watchful eyes of camp counselors. So weird. But that summer when I was stuck in my room, that was a tough one.

  And I missed my friends: all of them. I enjoyed the occasional clandestine visits from Brian, but they were few and far between. The letters from Miguel were much appreciated, but they didn’t replace seeing his goofy face in person, and listening to the new things he learned about some ancient rulers who were supreme jerks to their lowly kingdoms. I hate to admit it, being that I loved all my friends, but I missed Randy the most. Maybe it was because he was in a different state that summer, rotting away at his grandmother’s house in Louisiana. Or maybe it was because he almost died out there on Sometimes Island, and that was on me, since it was my idea to sneak away to the abandoned lake house. Sheriff Hill did a pretty damn good job of seeding my young mind with sinister doubts about my motivations. Maybe I was actually a bad kid after all, as he seemed to suggest, sitting in my room and intimidating a kid like me. Or I was just too stupid to understand the consequences of the choices I made in middle school. Who is wise enough in middle school to understand the choices they make, and how they affect others? Nobody.

  Sitting in my room all summer with my guilty conscience did a number on me and, for the first time in my young life, I looked forward to the first day of school like it was Christmas morning. I couldn’t wait to get out of my dreadful house, ride my BMX bike to school, and see my three friends again. On the morning of the first day of school, I met my friends in our usual meeting place at the front under the pecan tree. It’s where we always met and I was pretty certain they would be there. At least two of them were there when I walked up: Brian and Miguel.

  “Hey guys!” I blurted. I was so excited to see them. It was like no time had passed since seventh grade ended the previous spring.

  “Hey dude!” Brian said. He was munching on a strawberry Pop Tart. Typical.

  Miguel eyed him as he ate it. “You gonna eat both of them?”

  “Yeah.”

  Miguel licked his lips. “You sure?”

  “Where’s Randy?” I said, looking around for my friend.

  “He’s trying out for foothh-ball. He’ll be over in a bit-thh,” Brian mumbled, his mouth full of pastry.

  “Football?” I said. Something told me this was not good news.

  “Yup,” Miguel added. “He wants to be a jock and get all the chicks.”

  “You don’t need to be a jock to get chicks,” Brian retorted, visibly annoyed with Miguel’s theory. “You just need to be smoooooth.”

  I burst into laughter. “Oh, oh Sheila!” I sang.

  But Brian wasn’t amused, returning a grim look. “I’ve moved on from Sheila.”

  “But—”

  “Parents sent her to boarding school,” Brian added. He wadded the Pop Tart wrapper into a tiny ball, then shoved it into his backpack. “And she’s not coming back.”

  “What time does the assembly start?” Miguel said, looking at a brand new Casio digital wristwatch.

  “Assembly?” I said.

  “Nine o’clock. Get with the program,” Brian quipped. “Jokers.”

  Just then, Randy trotted over, wearing practice football gear, a damp jersey without a number on it, and a football helmet in one hand. His skin glistened with sweat and his face flushed.

  “Word up!” he said, happy to see us. “Anybody else trying out for the team?”

  “Nah,” Brian said. “I got more important things to do.”

  “Like what?”

  “Things.”

  Randy turned to me, still panting from tryouts. “You should try out for football. We can be on the same team.”

  “I’m not good at football, or sports in general,” I said, looking down at the asphalt ground. I kicked a pebble with the toe of my canvas shoe. “Is there an art team?”

  “That’s funny!” Randy blurted, then guffawed.

  “I’m starting a history club,” Miguel said. “You should join my club.”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “We could use an illustrator for our history reports,” Miguel added.

  “Hmmm. Sounds interesting.”

  Then the bell rang. All the kids outside, hundreds of them, shuffled slowly to the main building to go inside.

  Randy put his helmet back on. “I’m going to change. I’ll meet you at the assembly. Save me a seat!”

  He ran to the gym while Miguel, Brian, and I slowly walked toward the school entrance.

  “If he makes the football team, we’ll never see him again,” Brian said. “Stupid.”

  “Totally,” I agreed.

  Inside the school, we were corralled with all the students—some faces familiar, many new—through the halls to the auditorium / cafeteria. Most of the time, it was the cafeteria with row after row of eating tables. But this morning, rows of plastic ch
airs were configured to face the stage at the far end of the enormous room. On the stage sat a wooden podium—the school mascot (a shrieking eagle) emblazoned on the front—where the school principal would give his annual “state of the union” address to all the students and faculty. I could think of a million better ways to spend our morning than listening to Mr. David Roosevelt (no relation to our school namesake Franklin D. Roosevelt, just a weird coincidence) spew chunks about school spirit and shit like that, but we didn’t have a choice in the matter. The three of us sat toward the back. Brian saved a seat for Randy, his backpack keeping the seat for him.

  “I hope he shows up soon. I can’t keep this seat for long.”

  “He’ll be here,” I assured Brian. “He wouldn’t miss this exciting event.”

  “So exciting!” Miguel said. The three of us chuckled.

  We watched the entirety of the school meander in while the principal manned the podium, waiting for all seats to be taken, rifling through index cards with copious notes on them. Randy appeared out of thin air, storming the row where we sat, almost tumbling our chairs over.

  “Thanks for the seat, turd burglars!” He panted like an overheated Labrador Retriever, still sweaty even though he showered.

  After a few more minutes, the principal turned on the microphone, then rapped it with a knuckle. The amplified knock reverberated through the auditorium, quieting the din of the students discussing who they made out with over the summer or if the cafeteria food would improve this year.

  The principal roughly cleared his throat, then swept a loose clump of hair back onto his thinning pate. “Good morning students of F. D. R. Middle School. As you may or may not know, my name is Mr. Roosevelt—” The entirety of the student body sniggered, to the principal’s consternation. “Still not sure why that’s funny. Anyway, I would like to welcome you back for this glorious school year of 1986 – 87!”

  A smattering of applause. Some whispering.

  “And to all the incoming sixth graders: Welcome! I know you’ll feel at home in no time and harness the eagle spirit. Go Eagles!”

  More limp applause, accompanied by a whoop and a high-pitched whistle.