Stay Away

by Ike Hamill

“Okay,” he said, shuffling along behind her.

  As she rounded the counter, leading the way, she saw his hand slip through the strips of plastic that cordoned off the refrigerator case. The bottle of soda went right up his sleeve and he held it there with a curled hand as he straightened his arm again. He didn’t need to steal—he must have known that a soda was his for the asking. Nicky didn’t say anything, but she waved him forward to lead the way when she got to the doorway of the office.

  # # #

  On the back porch of Dottie’s, Nicky sat next to Eric, just like they had done a million times, years before.

  “So, what happened to you? Last postcard I got was, like, February of seventy-three?”

  “No. I sent you card for your seventeenth birthday. It had a dog on it.”

  Nicky nodded. She pictured the card. It had been on her desk for a while. “Okay. Sure. It didn’t say anything though.”

  “After Mom died, I couldn’t really write.”

  “Your mom died?”

  She wanted to put her arm around his shoulder, but remembered the way he had stiffened when she had hugged him.

  Eric nodded.

  “When did that happen?”

  “Last year. Before Thanksgiving.”

  “So where have you been living the past nine months?”

  “Here and there,” he said. “I tried to come back before, but I ran into trouble.”

  Eric turned away from her when he said that. His eyes had a strange flat look. As magically as it had disappeared up his sleeve, the bottle of soda reappeared. Opening it with a Swiss army knife, he slipped the cap into his peace sign pocket. He drank about half of it in one swallow.

  “Cops?” she asked.

  Despite his army field jacket, Eric was way too young for the military. Besides, the draft was over. She couldn’t imagine what kind of trouble he was in if it wasn’t cops.

  “I wish,” he said.

  She was about to ask him what that meant when he cut through with his own question.

  “Why are you still here?”

  “Dottie’s?”

  “Dottie’s. Maine, in general. You always talked about getting out.”

  “To go where though?”

  He looked at her like she wasn’t speaking English.

  “Forget it,” he said, eventually. “I’m just tired. I went by the house but there was nobody home. You think I could crash on this porch for a little while?”

  “Yeah, of course, but you don’t…”

  She trailed off, thinking about his house. There were a million ways to get into the place, even if he didn’t have a key anymore. Certainly his aunt and uncle wouldn’t mind if he did that. But there was something else that was more important than where Eric took his nap.

  “Shit! Your cousin,” Nicky jumped up and looked at her hands, not understanding why neither of them still held the address book. “Do you know your uncle’s phone number at work?”

  “His what? What are you talking about?”

  “Forget it,” Nicky said. She left Eric there and scanned the back room, seeing her pack but not the book. She finally spotted it on the counter and ran to it. Flipping through, she finally found the entry for Carroll, Reynold.

  She dialed the number, cursing at all the nines. The phone’s dial always hitched just above the eight and it had to be nudged before it would spin properly. If she didn’t spin it at the right rate, the number wouldn’t dial.

  As she waited to see if it would ring, Nicky felt Eric approach behind her. He was much taller than when he had left and he had gained some kind of presence to him. That said, if she had to guess he was probably exactly the same weight as before. She wondered when he had eaten a decent meal last.

  The phone clicked and then rang.

  A man’s voice sounded far away. “Dunn’s flooring—help you?”

  “May I speak to Reynold Carroll, please?” she asked.

  “Hold up,” the voice said. She heard the sound of the receiver clomping onto a hard surface.

  Nicky put her hand over the mouthpiece and turned to Eric.

  “Your cousin, Lily, was in here a few minutes ago. She seemed really weird. It freaked me out so I wanted to call your uncle and let him know.”

  Eric nodded while he reached out a finger and hung up the phone.

  “What are you doing?” Nicky asked.

  “I’ll go find her, if she wants to be found,” he said.

  “But your uncle should…”

  He silenced her with a quick head shake.

  ERIC

  HE ADJUSTED THE STRAPS of his pack and tightened them. She wanted to object, but he needed to move on.

  “Don’t call. Like I said, I’ll track her down.”

  “You’re going to stick around though, right? Come back here when you find her?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Of course.” She looked like she believed him.

  Eric slipped out before she could change her mind. As he headed down the street, he tried to fix in his head what he was looking for. She must be driving the old Buick. His aunt had always said that Lily would get the Buick eventually if she kept her grades up. The canary yellow car should be easy to spot. It would have been faster to duck between the houses instead of sticking to the roads, but Eric knew better. People would tolerate a dirtbag walking down the sidewalk. If he tried to duck down an alley, the fuzz would be there in no time.

  Rounding the corner, the sight of the house from that angle stopped him. Back in Ohio, when things were at their worst, he would remember the crazy house that his aunt and uncle were always working on. Even though the floor plan was always changing, and even though there would sometimes be so much plaster dust on the floor that he would leave footprints, it had been the most stable place he ever lived.

  He saw new bright white trim around the vents of the cupola. Either his Uncle Reynold had finally gotten another ladder, or the had figured a way to climb up there without knocking off the slate shingles. Eric picked up his pace again—eager to find a way to become welcome in that house again. With a few more paces, he saw that he was in luck. The big yellow Buick was parked in the driveway, pulled almost all the way up to the side door. He was still fifty yards away when he saw his cousin open the rear door, toss something inside the car, and then get in. A moment later, Eric was sprinting towards her and the car was accelerating out towards the street.

  He waved his arms and yelled.

  “Lily! Hey! Lily”

  The tires screamed as she accelerated downhill, away from the house.

  Eric ran as far as the driveway and then straightened to a stop before folding over to catch his breath. As he panted, he saw her making the turn to head towards the green bridge. If she had gone the other way, he might have caught her by running down the River Walk. Across the green bridge, there was no hope of catching up on foot.

  “Shit,” he whispered as he spat out a sour mouthful of spit.

  Standing back up, he could feels eyes on him. A nosey neighbor must have heard the squealing tires and was probably pushing their curtains to the side to get a look at the hippy miscreant. Turning in a slow circle, Eric did see someone watching him, but it wasn’t from behind a window. There was a man standing down near the corner. He was dressed too nicely to simply be hanging around. Men in fancy business suits usually made Eric uneasy. The very sight of his unwashed hair and dirty jeans seemed to make them violently angry. In this case, the man in the distance looked just as uneasy as Eric.

  The man glanced around as he straightened his jacket and then raised a hand to wave Eric over to him. If he went over there, Eric could guess where that conversation would go. It always went the same direction. So, in response, Eric raised a single middle finger.

  He walked up the driveway towards his aunt and uncle’s house and hoped that nobody called the cops. The only thing worse than men in fancy business suits were men in fancy blue uniforms.

  The side door to the house was open. Eric had suspected
that it would be. Uncle Reynold had always said, “A locked door is a social contract written on the wind. The only people who will honor it are the people who would never steal from you anyway.”

  Eric would never steal from family, so he honored the unlocked door. Instead, he walked around back, where he could sit on the back patio where the neighbors wouldn’t see.

  # # #

  When he heard the sound of the car rolling up, Eric snapped out of his little nap. He stood up fast and his head swam. Barely able to breathe, he tried to smooth down his hair and straighten his jacket. He couldn’t blame his uncle for hating him now. He could only hope that Uncle Reynold would take pity on him and find a way to forgive him.

  Leaving his backpack on the chair, he took a deep breath and rounded the corner of the house.

  Trying to plaster a neutral smile on his face, Eric actually realized how stupid he was being a fraction of a second before it was too late. Absolutely anyone could have pulled up. The mail slot was in the front door, so it could have been a mailman. In fact, it could have been any type of delivery person. He didn’t hear the rumble of an idling engine, but the visitor could also have been the oil guy.

  And, in the absolute worst case scenario, it would be…

  “Cops,” he whispered when he saw the paint on the car.

  Eric turned to run, hoping that they wouldn’t chase.

  “Hey!” one of them yelled.

  Of course they did chase him. As Eric tried to vault the fence to the alley, a hand closed on his jacket and jerked him backwards. Eric weighed about as much as a bag of dog food and he folded like one as he hit the turf.

  A shiny shoe landed on his chest.

  “What are you running from?” the cop asked. Eric’s eyes went to his badge and read, “Saunders.” He didn’t know a Saunders, but the face was a bully’s face. He might as well have been back in high school, being hassled by one of the JROTC guys.

  The other officer, Libby from the name plate, crouched down to get closer.

  “What’s your name, kid?”

  Eric kept his mouth shut at first. In his experience, there was no surefire method for getting out of this jam, but they only ever got worse if he opened his mouth.

  Then he remembered why he was here.

  “Eric! My name is Eric Hoffer. I’m here to visit my uncle. My aunt and uncle.”

  The crouching officer looked up at the one with the boot on his chest.

  “Get up.”

  Eric waited for the boot to be removed before he attempted to comply. His back and butt were wet—he had landed in a soggy part of the yard.

  “You got some kind of ID? Library card maybe?”

  “What’s your uncle’s name?”

  “Reynold Carroll,” Eric said. He was careful not to let his eyes dart over to where his bag was parked on the chair. With any luck, they wouldn’t see it. It had his ID, but it also contained some things that would make his interaction with the fuzz problematic.

  “Carol who? Is that the last name?”

  “Yes. Reynold is his first name. R-E-Y-N-O-L-D C-A-R-R-O-L-L.”

  “If he’s your uncle, why is your name Clopper?”

  The question was dumb in so many ways that Eric had to swallow and think before he answered.

  “My name is Hoffer because my aunt is…”

  “Married name,” Libby said. “Your aunt is Zinnia Hoffer.”

  Eric nodded.

  The two cops turned away from him and had a conversation between themselves.

  “No ID,” Libby said.

  “Nope. You think it’s the guy?” Saunders asked.

  “From two days ago?”

  Libby looked at him with newly suspicious eyes.

  “I wasn’t in town two days ago,” Eric said. “I used to live here two years ago. I went to Mount Hope before I left.”

  Every word he said made their eyes narrow a little more. They clearly weren’t about to believe a word he said. Eric decided that he probably should have stuck to his tried and true strategy—they would only get tired of hassling him if he shut his stupid mouth.

  “Probably him,” Saunders said. “Peace sign on his jacket. That’s what she said.”

  Libby turned him around to look at the back of his jacket and then spun him forward again. Eric didn’t resist one bit.

  “I think he shit himself,” Libby said.

  “Better take him in,” Saunders said. “In case he’s the guy.”

  Libby nodded and pulled on Eric’s jacket. Eric kept his mouth shut as they shoved him in the back of their car.

  REYNOLD

  AFTER THE POLICE CAR backed out to the street and then sped off towards the center of town, the house was empty again—alone with nobody breathing life into it. For two-hundred years, it had sat, looking out at nothing in particular. Down the street, beyond the cemetery, grand houses with commanding views stood defiantly against the wind that blew up the river. Up the street, towards town, older houses were lovingly maintained to preserve their historic origins.

  The Carroll house was in between. It wasn’t one of the original houses of the town, built from the finest trees for the noblest of citizens, and it wasn’t one of the newer, expensive houses constructed in order capture a view of the water.

  The Carroll house had started small and had then been expanded. The original footprint, built on a shell of solid timbers, had been expanded in every direction eventually. The kitchen was added to the east side of the original rectangle when the chimney was expanded in the middle of the Nineteenth Century. At the same time, the roof was re-framed and raised several feet to expand the second floor, but the house was still a modest size, with just enough room for a modest family.

  A major expansion came to the little house when the First United Pentecostal Church moved in at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. They added the wing and bell tower. Eventually, the wing was divided into bedrooms and the bell tower was converted into a cupola.

  For years, the building was maintained and animated by the lively congregation. When they moved on to a new structure on the other side of town, the place fell into disrepair. Eventually revived as a domicile once again, only the front part of the house was renovated. By the time Reynold Carroll and his wife Zinnia bought the place in 1954, they had their work cut out for them.

  Hours after Eric had been hauled off, Reynold’s long Gran Torino rumbled up the drive. The brakes rang and the transmission clunked as Reynold shut off his car. Opening his door, he turned to his son in the back seat.

  “Gather up all that garbage. I don’t want you leaving it all behind, Wendell.”

  “It’s not garbage.”

  “Whatever.”

  Reynold kicked the toes of his boots against the risers as he climbed the porch stairs. They weren’t muddy at all, but it was habit. Each painted riser had a little divot from years of abuse that would prove it. Still shaking his head at the idiocy of his youngest son, Reynold sighed and pushed open the door. He tossed his keys on the counter, leaned against it, and folded his arms to wait.

  Wendell finally came through with all his garbage clutched to his chest. Red circles stood out on each cheek. Instead of melting his heart, the confused hurt on his son’s face only made Reynold angrier. Forcing himself to take a deep breath and hold it, Reynold unfolded his arms and let them drop to his sides as he exhaled.

  “Wait,” he said before Wendell could scurry off, upstairs.

  Wendell stopped—frozen in place.

  “If you’re not failing then you’re not trying hard enough.”

  “I am trying,” Wendell whined.

  Reynold squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his fingers to his temples. That tone that crept into Wendell’s voice sometimes—it was like he was perpetually two years old and ready to break out into a tantrum.

  “That’s not what I’m… Listen, Wen, I’m trying to say that what happened today is not a bad thing. I believe that you could have benefitted from a tiny bit more
reflection before you took action, but I understand that you were trying to be creative.”

  The whining answer made Reynold shut his eyes again.

  “I only did what they told me to do,” Wendell said.

  “Please—take a minute. You’re not in trouble, but please think about things you could have done to make this day go easier, okay?”

  Wendell began to cry. He wasn’t sobbing or wailing, but big fat tears were tumbling from his eyes and falling down his red face. In his hands, gripped tight to his chest, the papers, wires, and doohickeys were absorbing his tumbling tears.

  “Upstairs,” Reynold said. He couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  The boy turned and left.

  With a grunt, Reynold reached forward and pulled at the towel that was buttoned to the refrigerator’s handle. When the door popped open, he snagged a Miller and slumped back against the counter again. Peeling off the pop top, he tossed it over his shoulder into the sink while he dumped half of the can down his throat.

  Running feet pounded up the porch stairs and the door crashed against the bulletin board as his other son, Jessie, plowed through. The surprise only showed in his eyes for an instant. There was the tiniest hint of guilt in that look, but then it was tucked away.

  “Hey, Dad.”

  “Hey.”

  “What are you, uh… you know?”

  “I had to pick up your brother from school. Don’t mess with him—he’s upset.”

  “Okay.”

  “You didn’t see my car in the driveway?”

  “I guess so.”

  “And you didn’t figure that I would be home if my car was in the driveway?” Reynold asked.

  “I don’t know. Guess I didn’t think about it.”

  “Good for you,” Reynold said. He dismissed Jessie with a little wave and the kid ran off. His voice was starting to change, and every morning it looked like he had grown at least a quarter of an inch since he went to bed. But, at least Jessie was still blissfully unaware of the world around him. It was still possible to hope that he wouldn’t be getting into trouble for a couple more years.

  The door was still wide open. Behind it, smushed into the wall, was the mail that had been pushed through the slot. Reynold collected it and took it to the kitchen table. With another sip of beer, he began to open the bills.