Chasing Fireflies

by Charles Martin

  Finished with the pile at his feet, Unc stood, ran his fingers around his waistband, and looked out over the plume of dust billowing across the pasture and blanketing the backs of his cattle. He took off his hat and brushed the brim with the back of his hand. “It’s so dry the trees are bribing the dogs.”

  It was nearly dinnertime when Mandy called. As the state’s ad litem representative, she explained that she would drive with us to the boys’ home and effect the transfer.

  We’d spent most of the afternoon cleaning house and spiffing up my room. Now it was T-minus thirty. When Mandy arrived, the five of us loaded into Aunt Lorna’s Tahoe and drove to Brunswick. Since none of us quite knew what to expect, nobody said much.

  While Mandy and Unc handled some paperwork in the office, I wandered back to Sketch’s room. The door was cracked, and he sat on the edge of his bed, one leg tucked under the other thigh, looking out the window. I watched him from a distance, and the vague feeling of familiarity fell over me. I used to do that.

  Tommye saw me lost in yesterday and tapped me on the shoulder and tucked her arm under mine. “Come on.”

  Ten minutes later we drove out of the parking lot—the kid sitting between Tommye and me. Seems like passing off a kid ought to take a bit longer. Like there should be some universal ceremony where a heavenly trumpet—about the size of Italy—descends from the clouds, blows really loud, and alerts every race and nation that a child’s world is getting rocked. Wishful thinking. It only takes two seconds to drop a kid on a doorstep, so our process seemed pro-longed in comparison.

  We drove through historic Brunswick in pin-drop quiet. No one knew where to start. The only noise was the wop-wop of an out-of-balance front right tire mixed with the ting-ting-ting of what sounded like a piece of gravel stuck between the treads.

  Leave it to Unc.

  We passed a Krispy Kreme, and the HOT NOW sign was lit up bright red.

  In the Disney movie The Jungle Book, one of the characters is a snake named Kaa who is gifted with hypnotic powers. Whenever he wants to exert power over someone, he starts singing this silly song and his eyes start making circles that give him total mind control over his victim, who was, in most cases, the orphan boy Mowgli.

  Whenever Unc sees that sign, his eyes look a lot like Mowgli’s.

  Unc crossed a lane of traffic and made an illegal U-turn across the median, bumping us around the backseat and soliciting a muted “Liam!” out of Aunt Lorna.

  His only response was to point at the sign and shrug. “Hey, I’m the victim here.”

  Tommye laughed, and I just shook my head. We bobbed to a halt in the parking lot, where Unc turned to the kid. “You like Krispy Kremes?”

  Sketch shrugged.

  Unc’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

  Sketch looked through the glass of the store and then shrugged again.

  Unc shook his head. “We got to fix that. Come on.” He held out his hand, which the boy took, and the two walked inside. By the time the rest of us got inside, Unc was halfway through his self-guided tour of how they make the doughnuts. The kid’s eyes were wide with amazement, which only fed Unc.

  We walked out with two dozen doughnuts and a bag of holes. I carried the boxes and turned to Tommye. “You think we got enough?”

  We got in the car, Unc handed the kid a glazed and said, “Try this and tell me that it ain’t the best thing you ever put in your mouth.”

  Sketch bit into it, and Unc added, “Uh-huh. Good, isn’t it?”

  Sketch looked at the box while shoving the other half of the doughnut into his mouth. Unc handed him two more—a powdered and a chocolate-covered. The kid swallowed, then bit into each, filling his cheeks like a chipmunk. Unc waited for his approval, which was to quickly inhale both of those as well. Unc turned in his seat, clicked his belt on, and looked at Lorna. “See?”

  Three blocks down the street, the kid had eaten five doughnuts and was starting to eye the bag of holes.

  We headed out of town and passed the cemetery where most of Brunswick either is buried or will be.

  Two years ago I wrote a story about the family—now third generation—that owns it. During my interview, we were walking across one small part of the expansive lawn, talking above the constant buzz of men on mowers and boys with weed whackers. They told me it takes the lawn guys a steady week just to keep the grass down.

  When I was in high school and stupid enough to think that Saturdays were reserved solely for fishing, I used to give Unc a bunch of lip about how long it took me to mow the pasture with his tractor, and how—depending on the tides—it oftentimes cost me the best fishing of the day. I took that stupidity with me to college and, because books can’t cure stupid, I brought it back home again. So when I wrote my article, I was still suffering from that sickness.

  Unc read my article and left it on the kitchen table with one line circled in red. In the margin he had written Time to paint your butt white and run with the antelope. In English that meant, “Stop arguing and do as you’re told.” He was right, especially when it came to hard work—Unc had known a lifetime of that—but it’s hard to tell a high schooler much of anything.

  A block or so past the cemetery, Unc spotted a long line of head-lights approaching on the opposite side of the road. He pulled into the emergency lane, put on his flashers, and we all hopped out. Most of the rest of the cars on the street did likewise. Unc held his hat in his hands while the six of us stood quietly in front of the car. Escorted by police on motorcycles, the procession passed slowly and then pulled into the cemetery further east.

  Sketch looked at the cars, up at us, back at the cars, and then back at us. When I looked down, he had a doughnut in his right hand and his notebook in his left. Noticing that both Unc and I stood with our hands behinds our backs, he did too. I caught a glimpse of both Tommye and Mandy, who were trying their best not to laugh out loud. Neither Unc nor I knew the deceased, but evidently everyone else in Brunswick did, because the line stretched for nearly a mile. After it passed, we loaded back up and merged in with the traffic. Unc caught the kid’s expression in the rearview and spoke to his reflection. “Around here”—he waved his hand across the dash-board, which meant in the state of Georgia—“it’s sort of a custom to honor people who’ve passed on.”

  Sketch nodded and finished off his doughnut.

  We pulled onto our dirt driveway and started idling around the potholes. On the first pecan tree was an old hand-painted sign that Unc had posted some twenty years ago. The bottom of the board had rotted off, but it still got his point across. IF YOU STEP FOOT ON THIS PROPERTY, I WILL SHOOT YOUR A . . .

  The kid read the sign and its meaning contorted his face a bit. I imagine that sign didn’t make for too good of a first impression, which was probably why Unc turned around.

  “That doesn’t pertain to you,” he said, pointing. “Back some time ago, people used to keep coming around here asking me a bunch of questions because they were mad at me. But that was a long time ago. You don’t pay it no never mind.”

  Sketch straightened, sat back, and nodded slowly.

  Aunt Lorna gave Unc a quiet stiletto finger in the ribs and said, “I told you to take that stupid thing down. He probably thinks we’re a bunch of nutcases.”

  Unc nodded and whispered, “Well . . . letting the cat out of the bag is a lot easier than putting it in.”

  Tommye laughed out loud. “You can say that again.”

  Mandy opened the passenger door, and Sketch climbed out. He stood clutching his notebook and the chess set, staring at the world around him as if he’d just landed on Mars—his face a mixture of fear and guarded excitement.

  In football, one of the defensive players is called a strong safety—sort of a cross between a true safety and a linebacker. While linebackers primarily defend against the run, safeties primarily defend against the pass. Strong safeties do both. They usually line up about five yards off the tight end on what’s called the stron
g side. When the ball is snapped they read, or “watch,” a lot of things at once—the quarterback, the linemen, the tight end, even the running backs. Coaches like to say their heads must be on a swivel and they’ve got to grow eyes in the backs of their heads. The strong safety’s enemy is the offensive receiver, who usually lines up outside him. Sometimes he’s a decoy, other times he’s the target of a pass, and sometimes he’s a blocker. It’s those times that he’s a blocker that the strong safety must watch out. When the ball is snapped, the wide receiver makes a beeline for the strong safety, who’s got an invisible bull’s-eye painted on his helmet. The strong safety, who’s concentrating on the play in front of him, can’t see the receiver, who’s coming at him from one side—the receiver is counting on this. It’s the reason they call this move a crackback. A great strong safety senses the coming wide receiver without ever seeing him. It’s a feeling thing that no doubt grows out of a survival instinct.

  Watching Sketch stand in the driveway, I thought to myself that if the kid gained 150 pounds, he’d make one heck of a strong safety.

  Unc grabbed a single duffel bag from the back of the car, and we all stood around and watched. He walked up to the kid, reached out his hand, and offered it. Sketch looked at it, at all of us, then slowly slipped his hand inside Unc’s.

  The two walked up the steps and disappeared into the kitchen, where Aunt Lorna had set the table. She followed. Mandy, Tommye, and I stood in the driveway quietly listening to her breaking the ice trays over dinner glasses. A few minutes later, Unc and Sketch walked back out again—minus the notebook and the chess set.

  They walked around the yard, through the barn, up to the fence where the cows were feeding, and finally across the yard, through the muscadine vines, and into the greenhouse.

  Mandy looked at the glass building and said, “Why’d he take him in there?”

  I smiled. “The orchid speech.”

  Chapter 20

  We strolled over to the greenhouse and found the light on and Sketch sitting up on a converted bar stool. His feet were nearly two feet off the ground. Unc stood off to one side, pointing out orchids and explaining how old they were, how long he’d had them, where they grow, and how they grow. I don’t know how many he’s got growing in that house, but I’d say it’s close to two hundred.

  “There are about thirty thousand species of these things, and it’s not exactly right to call them plants, ’cause they don’t grow in soil. Orchids grow mostly in trees or strange places. They need bark to grow, not dirt. They need water—constant water—but not too much. Too much drowns the roots, too little dries them up. They need light, but you don’t want to scorch them. Shade helps, too. They need fertilizer—that’s a fancy name for plant food. And they need air. You give them those things, and an orchid can grow most anywhere. Side of a tree, top of a house. Orchids can be fragile, but they can also be tough as nails.”

  He walked to the other end of the greenhouse and tied a small piece of rope around the stem of one that had leaned too far from its bamboo support. “All they need is a reason.” He returned and leaned against the countertop. “They like mild temperatures, not extreme hot or cold.” He leaned in close. “Some even smell . . . like chocolate, raspberry, lilac, or citrus. It varies.”

  He turned on a faucet underneath his bench. The faucet fed into a series of PVC pipes that ran around the interior of the greenhouse like a great maze. The pipes turned and twisted, hugging the contours of the house. Every so often a smaller tube ran out of a larger tube, then fed into an even smaller rubber tube that Unc had laid across the root system of his orchids. When the faucet was on, it spilled small amounts of water across the roots.

  “No matter what anybody tells you, the key is water. More heat, more water. Less heat, less water.”

  He walked back near the door, where he had moved all those that were blooming. Around the door was a plethora of purple, red, white, and even light blue blooms in all shapes and sizes.

  “If you spend some time with them, take care of their roots, give ’em a good place to live where they feel safe, and give ’em just the right amount of water”—he ran his finger along a stem with twenty or thirty blooms—“they’ll burst out in color and amaze you. ’Cause that’s what they do . . . they bloom. A bird in the rain forest will eat a seed, then crap as it’s flying over the canopy. That will settle in the fork of a tree some hundred feet off the jungle floor below, and yet that orchid will take root. It digs in, grows up, out, and blooms for all the world to see.”

  He sat down next to Sketch. “Now, we need to do one thing. We don’t know your name, and you don’t know your name, and that’s okay. We’ll come up with one.”

  Sketch’s head tilted sideways.

  “But we need to come up with something other than ‘hey you’ or ‘the kid.’ What have folks called you in the past?”

  Sketch opened up his pad and wrote quickly.

  “Snoot? That’s what they call you? Do you like that name?”

  Sketch looked at the word and shook his head.

  Unc agreed. “Me neither. Sounds like something you do with your nose. Now . . .” Unc pulled a pen out of his pocket and laid the sketch-pad across the potting bench in front of them. “How ’bout . . .” He paused, waiting for Sketch to write something. He read the word and nodded approval. “Michael is a good name. One heck of an archangel with that name. You like Michael?”

  Sketch shrugged.

  Unc looked at the page again and held his pen just inches from the paper. “How about . . .”

  Sketch scribbled quickly again while Unc read along. “That’s a good name too.”

  He looked at Unc, looked at me, and then tapped Unc in the chest with his pencil.

  Unc tipped his hat back and knelt down next to the bar stool. “Well . . . William’s a good name. It’s the name my father gave me . . .” Unc tried to laugh, but it was a cover, he was stalling. “But when it was just us two”—he lowered his voice—“he called me Buddy.”

  Sketch wrote again, eyeing the page and then showing it to Uncle Willee.

  Unc nodded. “Then Buddy it is.” He stood up, his knee joints cracking and sweat trickling down his neck.

  Sketch stared at his notebook, then closed it and hopped off the stool. When he stood up, he looked two inches taller.

  Mandy nodded. “Hi, Buddy.”

  He turned around like he was on a carousel.

  Tommye, who hadn’t said much all night, squatted down, held out her hand, and raised one eyebrow. She stuttered—something I’d never heard her do—and said, “B-Buddy. It’s one of my favorite names. Always has been.”

  The air was thick with moisture and heavy with the aroma of lilacs and raspberries the day that Unc gave me the orchid speech. When he finished, I remember opening up my lungs and taking the first deep breath I’d ever known. It filtered down into my toes and made me feel like I could have held my breath for a week.

  Sketch looked around the greenhouse, eyeballed us, then closed his eyes and filled his chest like a zeppelin.

  Chapter 21

  Following that first summer, Unc and Lorna enrolled me in third grade. In my various tours of foster and boys’ homes, I’d encountered my fair share of bullies, but this one was different. He was the son of a welder who lived farther west down Highway 99 and rode the afternoon bus with me. He began by name-calling.

  “Hey, orphan-boy . . . what happened to old man McFarland? Your Uncle Willee shoot him?” He didn’t let up. “And where’s all the money? You all buried it in mason jars in the backyard?”

  I guess with a name like Rupert he had learned to get the attention off himself.

  I ignored him, but when he didn’t get a rise out of me, he started slapping me on the back of the head. The bus driver saw it, but she must have been a sympathizer ’cause she did little to stop it. She hollered once or twice, but he smacked me close to a hundred times. The bus route drove past our driveway, so I was let off literally within sight of my f
ront door. My stop was just before Rupert’s. I knew things were getting bad when he forged a note instructing the driver to let him out at my stop—nearly a mile from his house.

  One afternoon it all came to a head. Rupert off-loaded behind me, and about the time the bus door shut he started laying into me. I guess he wanted the other guys on the bus to see how tough he was. He tripped me, rolled me in a mud puddle, pulled my backpack off me, and started kicking me in the ribs. I wrestled myself clear and out-ran him to the front door. I bounded onto the porch and nearly ripped off the door handle. I only had one problem—it was locked. And our front door was never locked. Unc always said, “Let them come. Anything I ever had worth stealin’s already been taken.”

  Hearing the sound of Rupert’s feet, I ran around the back porch to the kitchen and pulled on the screen door. Same thing. I banged on the doorframe and peered through the screen. Six inches from my face, Unc stood, arms crossed, looking back at me.

  I screamed, “Let me in!”

  Aunt Lorna stood at the kitchen counter trying her best not to look at me.

  Unc shook his head and said, “Chase . . . you got to learn to pick your battles.” He looked at Rupert coming around the back of the house. “And this is one you fight. Now get out there and stand up for yourself.”

  Rupert climbed the steps onto the back porch, dangling my back-pack in his hand. “Hey, chicken. Time for your homework.” He held it like a carrot, dancing around like a cross between a chicken and a turkey.