Chasing Fireflies

by Charles Martin

  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 zig-zagged to the lighthouse did the tears fall out from behind my sun-glasses 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 recognition—albeit 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

  Tommye 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 touch-down 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.

  On the single greatest night of my shared history with the Atlanta Braves, Tommye didn’t voluntarily utter a single number. She wasn’t spiteful or angry, and she’d answer if I asked her, but most of the time I didn’t know how to ask the question to get the information. When it came time for the seventh-inning stretch, Tommye didn’t sing along.

  The Pirates carried a 2-0 lead into the bottom of the ninth inning under ace pitcher Doug Drabek. I looked at the scoreboard and shook my head. The Pirates were three outs away from going to the Series, and we were the same from going home. But the Braves’ leadoff batter, Terry Pendleton, hit a double. David Justice—the tying run—reached base on an infield error, and then Drabek walked the bases loaded. Looking at a problem, Pirates manager Jim Leyland pulled Drabek and replaced him with reliever Stan Belinda. Belinda gave up a run on a sacrifice fly by Ron Gant but rallied the Pirates and managed to get two outs.

  In the previous inning, I had bought and finished my second ice cream bar. By the time third-string catcher Francisco Cabrera walked up to the plate, I had chewed the stick into a matted web of splinters. I was not hopeful, for which I have since confessed and sought forgiveness a hundred times, because Cabrera lined a 2-1 pitch from Stan Belinda to left field and scored David Justice.

  The game was tied and Sid Bream was advancing to third, and we were going into extra innings. But then an extraordinary thing happened. Sid Bream was tall, bumbly in a loosely athletic sort of way, and as Unc liked to say, could run all day in the shade of a tree.

  That was, until he rounded third base.

  Pirates left fielder and eventual National League MVP Barry Bonds fielded the ball as Bream put his head down and began throwing his arms, legs, and body toward home plate. The entire stadium sucked in an enormous breath of air, willing Sid homeward. Bonds’s throw, unlike Sid, was a rocket. Sid and the ball arrived home—simultaneously. Catcher Mike LaValliere caught the ball, extended his arm, and Sid threw himself at the plate in a gesture that even now is known around the baseball world as “The Slide.”

  Braves announcer Skip Caray stood in the press box and called the play: “Swung, line drive left field! One run is in! Here comes Bream! Here’s the throw to the plate! He is . . . safe! Braves win! Braves win! Braves win! Braves win!”

  The place erupted. People were hugging total strangers, the players emptied the dugout, mobbed Sid at home plate, and then got tan-gled in a huge pile on the field. It was five minutes before either Unc or I quit screaming. Crazed fans were running across the outfield, and fireworks were exploding overhead. I had never seen more people more happy at one time in my entire life.

  Except Tommye.

  She was gone. Twenty minutes later she reappeared, unaffected, saying there’d been a line at the bathroom.

  On the drive home I started listening to that part of me that asks questions. I had two: who in their right mind went to the bathroom at that moment in the game and, given the fact that Tommye hadn’t eaten or drunk a thing since we’d picked her up that morning, what need did she have of a bathroom? I looked through the darkness of the backseat and studied her. As we passed by the streetlights, or into the light of oncoming cars, the shadows betrayed her. Between the flashes, I saw the face of the little girl who ran through the Zuta that night in her flannel gown.

  Chapter 26

  Tommye and I drove north up the island, through the security gate at Sea Island, and past the country club. When we got to Uncle Jack’s house, she said, “I’ll be right out.”

  I leaned against the hood while she unlocked the door, ran upstairs past the rather loud objections of a cleaning lady I didn’t know, and then ran back out three minutes later. She had a duffel bag under her arm and a giddy smile on her face. She waved over her shoulder at the still-screaming cleaning lady, jumped into Vicky, and said, “Let’s go.”

  I was sure they’d stop us at the security gate, and I was right. The guard walked out of the house, held out a huge hand, and said, “Excuse me, sir, you want to step out of the car?”

  When I did, he walked around to Tommye’s side and said, “You too, ma’am.”

  Tommye said, “Honey, you’re gonna have to do better than that.”

  He opened the door and reached to put his hand on her. “The owners will be here shortly, as will the police, and I’m told they want to charge you with breaking and entering and grand theft.”

  “Oh?” Tommye smiled and shook her head. She dangled her keys and driver’s license in front of him. “How can I be accused of breaking into my own house? And if I own it, then how’s it stealing?”

  “Ma’am?”

  She handed him her license. He read the name and the address that matched her dad’s. “Oh, well . . .”

  She turned to me. “Chase, get in the car.”

  The guard stepped back, and I did as she said. He handed her back her keys and license, and she said, “Tell my dad I left a few other things. I’ll be back in a few days.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You can raise the gate now.”

  He raised the gate, and we drove through. I said, “You want to tell me what’s going on?”

  She laughed and said, “Not yet. But that’s coming. Let’s drive to the old house.”

  “What, you mean . . . ?”

  “Yeah, the Zuta house.”

  “You got a key to it too?”

  She grinned. “Or something.”

  Uncle Jack had moved out of the Zuta not long after Tommye left. He’d built on Sea Island, and his Zuta mansion has been vacant ever since. The only things he kept there were his horses, and by now he was down to just one, an old quarter horse named Lil’ Bubba. Son of Big Bubba, Lil’ Bubba must be twenty years old now, and nothing about him is little. He stands nearly eighteen hands and some twelve hundred pounds on the hoof. He stays in the pasture, watches the cars drive to and from Jesup, and probably dreams about the days that Tommye and I rode him bareback across the Zuta. I d
on’t know why Uncle Jack has kept him all this time, but I think it has something to do with Unc.

  Tommye and I pulled up to the wrought-iron gate, and I touched it with the bumper. It creaked, and rust busted off the hinges as it swung open. The grass was waist-high along the driveway, mostly weeds, and the house was in desperate need of paint. Flakes were chipping off around the windows and soffits, and the front door was swollen at the bottom where it had taken on water.

  “You got a flashlight?” she asked me.

  I pulled one out of the center console and handed it to her.

  Tommye slid it in her back pocket and stood staring at the house a long time. Without looking at me, she said, “You remember my brother?”

  Peter was one more unanswered question. I had never met him, because he had shot himself in the head not long after I moved in. I used to ask questions, but nobody had any answers, only shrugged shoulders.

  She pointed toward a basement window. “He died in that room right there.”

  Tommye wasn’t talking with me as much as she was talking at me. The questions were piling up, but this was no time to be a journalist.

  She walked to the side of the house and picked up an old brick buried in the dirt beneath a cracked clay pot. Then she went up the front steps, peered through the glass of the front door, and without a word, threw the brick through the glass. She reached in, unlocked the door, and walked in.

  She crossed her arms and looked around. The house smelled of mildew, and there was black mold growing on the walls. The bad kind, the kind you don’t want to breathe. Tommye pulled her sweatshirt up over her mouth and circled behind the steps. She opened a big heavy door, clicked on the light, and walked down.

  It smelled musty, and the sump pump had apparently quit working years ago; stagnant water puddled on the concrete floor. She stood at the base of the steps and leaned against the wall. She shined the light around the room, and I heard something scurrying off into the recesses of the basement.