Stay Away

by Ike Hamill

“That’s what everyone says,” Holdty said. “And that’s why they never have what you need. You can walk through that place all day and not find what you want.”

  “We have to buy one from the store then?” Jessie asked.

  His friends shrugged. Nobody wanted to commit to the idea that they were going to have to shell out money for something that they found.

  “What’s this for?” Wendell asked.

  “Shut up,” Jessie said.

  For some reason, Holdty actually answered him. “We got a moped. We’re trying to fix it up.”

  “Why don’t you trade for the parts?” Wendell asked.

  “Didn’t I tell you to shut up?” Jessie said, turning to glare at his brother.

  “Dad always says that any proposal that can’t be scrutinized automatically has merit,” Wendell said.

  Fish screwed up his face like he had just eaten something sour. “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “Don’t listen to him,” Jessie said. “He has no idea what he’s saying.”

  Again, Holdty was the only one who showed any sympathy. “Listen, kid, if you’re thinking about the Trading Tree, it won’t work. You still have to give money, so it’s the same as buying the parts.”

  “That’s all bullshit,” Jessie said.

  “I don’t know…” Holdty said, putting up a finger.

  Jessie knew what he was going to say—he was going to bring up the incident that Wendell had spread around. They were being so naive.

  “You guys paid a pervert to look at his dick,” Jessie said. “You don’t need a magic tree to do that. All you need is a burning need to waste the money in your pocket.”

  “You weren’t there,” Fish said.

  Jessie rolled his eyes.

  “If I had been, I coulda saved you a lot of embarrassment.”

  “Why don’t you ask him? What’s the harm in that?” Wendell said.

  “Listen,” Jessie said. “I told you that if you could keep quiet, then you could stick around. Have you been keeping quiet?”

  “He’s okay,” Holdty said.

  “Who asked you? This is an important lesson in following instructions,” Jessie said. He raised a finger to point at Wendell and then pointed to the trail that led back towards the road.

  Wendell crossed his arms in defiance.

  “Let’s walk over to Mason’s,” Fish said. “I’ve been soaking the carb. Maybe the pitting isn’t so bad.”

  Jessie looked at his brother and then at the culvert. A wicked smile spread across his face.

  “Yeah. That’s a good idea.”

  Holdty led the way. Walking through the culvert was easy. Jessie and his friends had been doing it for years. They spread their legs wide and bounced back and forth on the curved wall so they wouldn’t have to get their feet wet in the foul water. The best part was that the idea of moving through the pipe scared the bejesus out of Wendell. He would never follow them. It was fit punishment for not following the rules.

  Jessie looked back at his brother and shook his head.

  “You’re welcome to come,” he said. “The culvert almost never collapses, trapping everyone underneath.”

  Wendell looked too mad to cry.

  That’s how Jessie left him.

  WENDELL

  HIS BROTHER WAS BEING a shit. It happened more and more. When they had lived together in the same room, things had been different. Back then, they had shared everything but fought for separation. Now, they shared very little and rarely fought at all. To Wendell, it barely felt like they were still brothers.

  He unfolded his arms as he walked up the path towards the road. He briefly considered walking the long way around to Mason’s Pit, but he would get into trouble if anyone saw him crossing the Lewiston Road. That was his northern boundary.

  Wendell decided that it would be more satisfying to go directly home and hang out in the back yard. Eventually, his mom would spot him and figure out that Jessie had ditched him. Jessie would get into trouble without Wendell even having to rat him out. As his father would say, “That would be the tits.”

  Climbing up to the road, Wendell wanted to cross over to the other side to get away from the cemetery. It wasn’t safe to walk there, though. The stone wall ran right along the pavement and a passing car could crush a kid without even seeing him first.

  Wendell stayed on the cemetery side. It wasn’t all that scary during the day. The vertical slabs of rock were quiet. He imagined that the dead didn’t stir until the sun had set. Movement in the distance nearly made Wendell’s heart stop. For a moment, he thought he had been wrong. Maybe the dead were stirring already. A car passed behind him and he didn’t even flinch. His attention was locked onto the shape.

  Relief flooded through him when he realized that it was just the old man. He might be a pervert, like everyone said, but Wendell wasn’t afraid of him. He had seen a naked person before, and there was nothing scary about them.

  The idea came to him like a whisper in his ear, and it instantly made sense. Wendell picked up his pace, hoping to catch the man before he went away.

  As he walked, Wendell thought about school. It was starting to be the favorite part of his day. It had taken a long time, but he was beginning to figure out how everything worked, and it was all because of a special class that he was in. It was just him and two other kids in the class, and they met every day, just after lunch. The teacher, Mr. Hanson, talked to them about what happened that morning and how they felt about it.

  At first, Wendell hated the class because he didn’t know what he was supposed to be learning.

  “We’re learning the machinery of interaction,” Mr. Hanson said, but that meant nothing to Wendell at the time. After several months, he thought he understood. In all those situations where people got mad at him, Wendell was finding out that there had been clues before the anger that he could have read. By reading those clues, he could sidestep disaster before it hit him.

  Taking the class was like gaining a superpower. With the steps that Mr. Hanson taught him, Wendell was able to slip through the world almost undetected and do the things that he wanted to do without getting into trouble.

  That class was on his mind as Wendell approached the old man who was standing by the tree.

  Wendell wondered what Mr. Hanson would have observed.

  “He’s wearing nice clothes,” Mr. Hanson might say. “They’re fancy, pressed, and clean. What does that make you think of him?”

  Wendell answered Mr. Hanson’s imaginary question with a whisper. “The man is being serious. This is not his recreation time.”

  “Good,” Mr. Hanson might say, “but what about his setting?”

  “He’s standing by a tree next to a road,” Wendell whispered to himself.

  “And what might that tell you?”

  “Maybe he’s lost? Maybe he’s confused?”

  “Or…”

  “Or maybe this is where he does his business?”

  “Does he look like he’s doing business?” Mr. Hanson would ask.

  “Yeah. Kinda,” Wendell whispered.

  He was getting close enough that the man might hear him or see his lips moving. Wendell decided that the questions from Mr. Hanson would have to wait. Afterwards, if things went poorly, he could consider what he should have done differently.

  The man raised a hand and tipped his hat towards Wendell.

  That made Wendell smile—the man did seem like he was there to do business, and maybe that business was going to be with him.

  # # #

  “Hello, young man,” the man in the suit said.

  “Hi,” Wendell said. He stopped about a dozen feet away, just in case. Wendell wasn’t much of a sprinter, but he thought he could get away from this old man easily enough. Especially because the man was standing carefully on the roots of the tree, presumably to not get his fancy shoes dirty.

  “Have you come for a trade?”

  Wendell nodded and thought to ask how the man knew. He didn�
��t get a chance.

  “What is it you would like to trade for?”

  “How much would it be for a carburetor for a moped?” Wendell asked. He pictured the word in his head before he tried to say it out loud—that was one of the things that Mr. Hanson had taught him to do.

  The man reached up and laid a thoughtful finger across his lips as he looked off into the distance. Wendell had figured that the answer would be a quick deferral—surely he would have to go look it up or make a phone call.

  “Do you know the make and model?” the man asked.

  Wendell shook his head.

  “Year?”

  He shook his head again. If he really thought about it, he might be able to come up with the year that Steve Jackson had lost the thing, but it hadn’t been brand new. Steve Jackson never would have been able to afford a brand new moped.

  “That’s a tough one then,” the man said.

  Wendell nodded and started to back away.

  “Hold on,” the man said, putting up a hand. He leaned forward but still looked like he had no intention of stepping down off the roots of the tree. “I didn’t say it was impossible, just that it was tough.”

  “Can you find out about how much something like that would cost?”

  “I don’t see what cost has to do with it,” the man said, giving Wendell a shy smile.

  Wendell didn’t understand. He tried to think of what Mr. Hanson would ask him—“Do you think that there’s something about the man’s expression that doesn’t match what he said?” Wendell answered the question in his head. “Yes, there was a mismatch.” He still didn’t know what it meant.

  “I don’t understand,” Wendell finally admitted.

  “I don’t sell things,” the man said. “I trade them.”

  “Oh.”

  “Sometimes, the trade involves coins or money, but not always. You see, cost is not the most important factor.”

  “Oh,” Wendell said. He tried to think about how this would change the situation and then finally came up with it. “What would I have to trade for a caboor…” He had to picture the word and then it came out. “Carburetor.”

  “As I said, that’s a tough one.”

  Wendell sighed. This was going in circles.

  “I hate to answer a question with a question,” the man said. “But could I ask you something?”

  “Sure,” Wendell said, stifling the urge to point out that he had just asked.

  “How do you feel about a journey?” the man asked.

  REYNOLD

  REYNOLD PICKED UP THE cartridge of film from the counter and turned it over in his hand.

  Zinnia came out of the bedroom with a hamper.

  “You want me to take this in?” Reynold asked, holding up the film.

  “Yes. Would you mind?” She pushed out her lower lip so she could blow hair out of her eyes. Her lips remained lopsided. Had he not been so irritated, he would have laughed.

  “It’s not that I mind doing it, but I do kinda resent the implication.”

  “The implication?” she asked, shifted the load over to her hip as she cocked her head.

  “You have a tendency to assume that I’ll take care of all the errands because my job is more flexible than yours. Every now and then, it would be nice if you would actually, like, ask me when you want a favor.”

  She narrowed her eyes and then glanced pointedly down at the laundry basket.

  “Maybe your timing is not the best? I happen to be doing your chore for you at the moment.”

  “That’s a chore. This is an errand.”

  “I fail to see the difference,” she said, hiking the laundry basket up again.

  “Forget it.”

  While she pushed through the door to the back room, Reynold tossed the film cartridge up in the air and caught it again, frowning at it. He decided to walk it out to his car so he wouldn’t forget it in the morning. The lights were just coming on down at the River Walk as Reynold tossed the film on the front seat and shut the car door. Right on time, he saw Jessie walking up the street.

  “Hey,” Jessie said. “What’s for dinner?”

  “Meatloaf,” Reynold said. If Jessie had just taken a deep breath, he would have been able to guess. The scent of it had infused the whole neighborhood.

  “Cool.”

  Jessie began to head towards the house. His shoes were muddy. There was mud up to the cuffs of his jeans.

  “Shoes off. Roll up your cuffs, too. I don’t want mud everywhere. Actually, if you rush, you can get those jeans in with the load your mom is about to put in the washer.”

  “Okay,” Jessie said.

  Reynold watched his son take the stairs two at a time and open the door.

  “Shoes, Jessie?”

  “Right.”

  Jessie let the door close and sat down on the top step to remove his muddy shoes.

  Reynold shook his head. At one point, Zinnia had argued that Jessie must be really smart. He was always in his own little world, thinking Jessie thoughts. Over a game of Monopoly, she had formed this opinion and then shared it with Reynold that night.

  “Did you see what he would do?” she asked. “He would roll the dice and then forget to move his piece before he dropped back into his own world.”

  “You think he’s on drugs?” Reynold had asked.

  “No. I think he’s preoccupied. There is something else that he is concentrating on and it’s taking up all of his focus.”

  “Trust me,” Reynold had said, “I have been a boy before and they’re about as deep as a mud puddle.”

  At that point, Jessie hadn’t been old enough to be preoccupied with girls, or Reynold would have blamed it on hormones. In his opinion, their son was blessed with the ability to turn his brain completely off. Eventually, that might serve him well as everyone else got ulcers and heart attacks from the daily grind.

  Zinnia had maintained that as Jessie aged, they would see a great shift in him. He would move from distraction to intense thought and he would turn out to be the smartest of their kids. As he watched his son toss his muddy shoes down to the driveway, Reynold was pretty sure that Jessie was exactly as smart as he would ever be.

  “Hey,” Reynold said. “It’s going to rain tonight. You think maybe you should put those on the tray in the back room? Maybe even rinse them off?”

  “Okay,” Jessie said. In his muddy socks, he descended again to fetch his shoes.

  “Take your socks off, too, bud.”

  “Okay.”

  Reynold followed his son inside to make sure he stuck to the instructions. In the laundry room, Zinnia was examining each garment before putting it in. She got pretty obsessive about stains, which was the main reason that laundry was Reynold’s chore. He could get it done in a reasonable amount of time. She stopped Jessie before he could throw his socks in.

  “Rinse those,” she said.

  “You want me to take over?” Reynold said.

  “No. I got this. Jessie, take off those pants, they’re filthy.”

  “Okay,” Jessie said.

  “Where’s your brother? Is he filthy too?”

  “I dunno,” Jessie said. The statement was uttered so frequently that it came out in one quick slurred syllable. In a generation or two, Reynold supposed that people would be communicating like gorillas—just grunts and screams.

  “Go get him,” she said, raising her eyebrows to punctuate the command.

  “Where’s he at?” Jessie asked.

  Zinnia put her hands on her hips.

  The light started to come on behind Jessie’s eyes.

  “Oh,” Jessie said. “He should be home already.”

  “You were supposed to be watching him,” Zinnia said.

  “We were down at the River Walk, headed towards the dam, and he said that he wanted to come home. I figured he was already here.”

  “I’ll go check,” Reynold said quietly, leaving his wife to her wrath.

  She was already gearing up before he made i
t through the kitchen.

  “When I ask you to watch your brother, I expect you…”

  Reynold chuckled to himself as he climbed the front stairs. Zinnia had been stirring for a fight for a few hours, and Jessie was going to catch it right on the chin. Rounding the corner at the top of the stairs, he already knew that Wendell wasn’t in his room. His youngest had a particular way he liked to keep his door when he was in there. It was something about the way that the sound hit the panels. Wendell had explained it more than once, but Reynold had always nodded and ignored.

  Still, he poked his head through. The bed was made and the pencils were parallel to the side of the desk. Wendell was out.

  “Wendell?” Reynold called, in case he was in earshot.

  Next, he headed through the door to the upstairs back hall. He almost wanted to kick off his shoes before he walked on those planks. Eric had done a tremendous job with the finish. The young man was a craftsman. He took his time when he worked on something and never hesitated to start over if the results weren’t coming out right.

  The year before, when Eric had announced that he wouldn’t go back to school, they had come up with a compromise. Eric could stay as long as he got his GED and earned his keep with work. Suddenly, the projects that normally took Reynold months were accomplished in days. They had finished the upstairs hall, renovated the second room, and fixed up the laundry room. Eric was even working on the rec room.

  Zinnia worried that Eric wasn’t going to live up to his true potential, but Reynold had never been happier. Having Eric back was like having another set of hands.

  He found him in the hall closet with just his legs poking out.

  “Eric?”

  “Yeah?” Eric wriggled out with a piece of trim in his hands.

  “You seen Wendell?”

  “Not since the photo, why?”

  “He was supposed to be with Jessie, but Jessie came back without him. He must be around here.”

  “I’ll help you look,” Eric said.

  “No, don’t bother. Looks like you have your hands…”

  He didn’t finish. The shriek from downstairs made Eric drop his trim and jump up. The two of them raced up the hall and then flew down the stairs. Reynold thought that if he slowed, even a little, his nephew would plow right over him. Zinnia never screamed like that. The hair was standing on the back of Reynold’s neck as he burst through the doorway to the kitchen and saw his wife at the door.