The Long Way Home

by Richard Chizmar

  I wish I could say that I had stopped drinking anyway, but that would be a lie. I had purchased a small silver flask from one of the guys on the road crew and had taken to sneaking shots of vodka during lunch breaks and before bedtime. I didn’t miss the parties and beer at all. Hard liquor delivered a much better burn.

  Sam came home for two weeks during winter break and it was then that I finally understood how deeply I had fractured our family. He greeted the three of us at the front door with a big smile and hugs, and then we went into the kitchen to drink hot chocolate, listen to his stories, and poke fun at his scraggly attempt at a beard. It felt good being all together again, laughing and joking, almost like old times.

  After our parents had turned in for the night, I heard a knock at my bedroom door. “Come in,” I said, knowing it was my big brother, expecting the good feelings to continue.

  I couldn’t have been more wrong.

  The smile was gone from his face. He eased the door closed behind him and sat on the edge of my bed, his eyes holding not a hint of his previous warmth.

  “Don’t say anything, just listen,” he whispered, waggling a finger in my face, and I could see then he had come to hate me. “When you screw up again, and you will screw up again, because that’s what fuck-ups do, Mom and Dad are not going to be there for you. I’m not going to let them. You’ve wasted enough of their savings already.”

  I started to say something but he cut me off. “Shut up, Charlie. Just shut up. Do you know Mom doesn’t go to St. Stephen’s anymore because of you, because she couldn’t handle the gossip? Do you know Dad was going to cut his hours last year, but instead he’s put in for overtime?”

  I shook my head, unable to form the words even had I been permitted.

  “I’ll do my best to keep up the act for Mom and Dad,” he continued, “so their holiday isn’t ruined like everything else you’ve spoiled for them, but you need to stay out of my way. I can barely stand the sight of you.”

  He got up and started for the door, then stopped.

  “I know you think this is what they want, you here under the same roof, but the best thing that could happen is for you to go away and never come back again. You broke their damn hearts, Charlie.”

  I waited for him to slip back into the hallway and close the door, and then I whispered, “I’m sorry” to my empty bedroom.

  ****

  The best thing that could happen is for you to go away and never come back again…

  I moved over into the slow lane and wiped the tears from my face, listening to the horrible words ricocheting around inside my head.

  Never come back again…

  Almost like a warning.

  My heart thundered in my chest as I remembered the details of that night, the sound—the conviction—of my brother’s voice, the glint of loathing in his eyes.

  Never come back again…

  I spotted the neon glow of a Wal-Mart sign in the distance and hit my turn signal for the next exit.

  ****

  Sam returned to school the first week of January and, as far as I knew, our parents never suspected a thing.

  Work was slow—the asphalt crew transformed into a snow removal crew during the winter, and it had been an unseasonably dry couple of months—so I started getting a serious case of cabin fever. To alleviate that dreadful sensation of the walls closing in, I started sneaking out a few nights a week after my parents went to sleep, something I hadn’t even resorted to in high school. It was easy. I simply crept down the carpeted hallway and staircase, slipped out the basement door, and walked into town.

  I didn’t go to local bars or even liquor stores.

  Instead, I crept around like a phantom in the night, ducking into shadowy alleyways and behind trees and rows of shrubbery each time headlights swept across the roadway. I glimpsed the glow of television screens in windows and heard muffled conversations beyond closed doors and envied the people living those lives. It was during those late night walks that I truly realized what I had become: an outsider.

  Sam came home for a long weekend over Easter break. Once again, he put on the fake smile and phony friendly voice, and Mom and Dad ate it up. The family was back together, that was all they cared about.

  There was no closed door, follow-up lecture this time. We both knew it wasn’t necessary after the last one.

  On the Saturday night before Easter, while we were hauling empty garbage cans up from the curb, Sam confronted me. “I know you’ve been sneaking out at night.”

  I was stunned but managed to be defiant. “What in the hell are you talking about?”

  “Don’t play dumb with me, Charlie. I heard you last night.”

  “That was the first time,” I stuttered, cursing myself for being so stupid.

  “You’re lying. I talked to Stan Burris. He’s seen you at least three or four other nights. Slinking around town like some kind of pervert.”

  “Stan Burris is a fucking idiot.”

  “Maybe so, but if you do it again, I’m turning you in.”

  “To who?” I asked, my voice rising in anger.

  He leaned the garbage can against the side of the house and walked inside without answering.

  Despite the warning—hell, maybe because of it—I snuck out the very next night. And made the biggest mistake of my life.

  ****

  It kills me now to admit this, but as the weeks dragged on that winter and my late night wanderings continued, at some point I crossed the line from innocent voyeur to petty thief. I broke into sheds and garages and cars and stole items ranging from purses and wallets to tools and sporting equipment. I kept the cash and sold the rest to a coworker on the road crew who owned a quarter stake in a pawnshop.

  To this day, I still don’t understand why I did it. Virgil told me once I most likely started breaking the law again because it was what was expected of me at that point. I don’t know if he was right or it was just a bunch of self-help mumbo jumbo, but the truth of the matter was: I felt more alive when I was walking the edge.

  On Easter night, after a long day of feasting on honey-glazed ham, scalloped potatoes, and green bean casserole, watching home movies, and playing a marathon game of Hearts at the kitchen table, Mom and Dad turned in early at shortly after nine o’clock. Sam followed an hour later. I closed up house and my bedroom door at ten-thirty, and then opened it again and snuck out at fifteen minutes after midnight, extending my middle finger when I tip-toed past Sam’s bedroom door.

  As I made my way across town, I had the distinct feeling I was being followed, so I doubled back and hid behind a tree, searching the shadows for movement. But I didn’t see a thing. Not even a roaming dog or cat. Chalking it up to paranoia and my overactive imagination, I continued on my way until I found an unlocked work truck parked along the curb near the intersection of Broadview Avenue and Tupelo Road.

  I eased the passenger door open, quickly switched off the interior light, and was about to lift a silver tool box out of the back seat, when I heard someone call out behind me.

  “Hey, what the hell you doing?”

  I turned to run, but before I made it more than five or six feet, I was tackled to the ground.

  “Fucking punks stealing my shit.” The man was large and strong and pissed off. I elbowed him in the head and rolled out of his grasp, started to take off running again, but he grabbed my ankle and held on for dear life.

  I spun and tried to kick him away, but he was too fast. He twisted my leg and sprang to his feet, throwing punches as he did. I felt a whoosh of air as the first punch missed my nose by less than an inch, and then a fist glanced off the side of my head and my ear started ringing. I quickly back-pedaled, struggling to stay on my feet, but he kept coming.

  “Kill you, motherfucker,” he bellowed.

  I believed him, too.

  He lunged and c
aught me on the shoulder, and I felt my left arm go numb. He immediately reared back and attacked again. I ducked and he missed, and I instinctively put all my weight behind a wild right-handed haymaker.

  I felt my knuckles connect with his jaw and heard two sounds almost simultaneously: the loud crack of bone on bone and the louder crack of his skull hitting the sidewalk.

  He lay there on the ground, unmoving. I watched as a dark puddle spread around his head.

  I stood there, knowing I was in big trouble, hearing Sam’s voice telling me he knew I would screw up again because that’s what fuck-ups do, my eyes darting back and forth in the darkness, torn between running away and banging on the front door of the man’s house and waking someone to call for help.

  And then sirens shattered the night and I saw flashing lights getting closer, closer, and I knew the decision had been made for me.

  ****

  I sat in the Wal-Mart parking lot and finished activating the Nokia burner phone I had just purchased, along with two candy bars and a bottle of Gatorade. Then I punched in the numerical code printed on the back of the plastic card and added ninety minutes of airtime. That was more than I would need.

  Once I was sure the phone was working, I pulled out of the lot and merged back onto the highway. It was dark now, going on nine o’clock, and the traffic had grown even lighter. I left the radio off.

  After a few miles, when I felt ready, I grabbed the phone from the passenger seat and called a number by memory. It rang three times before it was answered.

  “Hello? If you’re selling something, you need to take a hike.”

  I laughed. “Dude, you sell tractors.”

  “I beg your pardon. I am a distinguished merchant of only the finest farm equipment in the land.”

  “So you’re pretty much a used car salesman.”

  “Your words hurt me, Charlie. Deeply. Now what can I do for you and whose phone are you using? I don’t recognize the number.”

  “I picked up one of those cheap throwaways. I called to tell you that my father died. I’m on my way home as we speak.”

  The sound of the television in the background went silent and Virgil’s voice changed. “Ahh, damn. I’m sorry, kid. You okay?”

  I shrugged. “I think so. Lots of thoughts bouncing around inside my head.”

  “That’s normal, Charlie. You and your father had a…complicated relationship.”

  “You mean I was the black sheep of the family and ruined his life, don’t you?”

  “That’s bullshit. You made mistakes and so did he. You’re both too stubborn for your own good.”

  “Anyway, I just wanted to let you know in case I don’t make it back for the meeting next Thursday.”

  “That’s fine. You know you can always attend a meeting at home, if you feel the need. I can look up the details for you if you’d like.”

  I surprised myself by agreeing, “I’d appreciate that.”

  “Charlie, you know it’s okay to say you called to tell me about your father because we’re friends, too, right?”

  “Ummm, sure.”

  “I mean we are friends, Charlie. I’m more than just your sponsor.”

  “I know that.”

  “Okay, just making sure. I think you need to be reminded that you’re a decent person once in a while. Not too often or you’ll get a big head, but every once in a while is okay.”

  “Thanks, Virgil.”

  “Don’t mention it. Now tell me about those thoughts bouncing around your head.”

  “Ahh, you know, reliving the past, trying to figure out why I did the things I did, the usual.”

  “Play, rewind, play, rewind, and so on, is that how it goes?”

  “You know it.”

  “Just remember what I always say: The past is the past for a reason. Learn from it and move on. Believe in the good things.”

  “What good things?”

  “Don’t start with me, boy.”

  I smiled. “Yes, sir.”

  “Let me ask you something before you go, Charlie.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Do you remember when you first started coming to meetings in Burtonsville?”

  “Of course.”

  “You remember old lady Henderson?”

  “Sure.”

  “She was an old witch, crotchety and cranky as hell. No one liked her very much, including me.”

  “I remember.”

  “Well, you changed all that. You were the new guy but you took the time to talk to her about her family. You didn’t let her nasty-ass mouth scare you away. You even fixed her car that one night in the parking lot.”

  “So what’s your point?”

  “My point is you didn’t have to do any of those things. She was one of those people who made it very hard for others to reach out and help. But you did it anyway.”

  “Okay.”

  “My other point is you have a good heart, Charlie Freeman, and that’s rarer than you think. You’ve made your mistakes and paid for them. Accept the fact that other people—other good people—also make mistakes. Sometimes big ones. You have to forgive and move on. That big heart of yours will lead you to good things soon enough.”

  ****

  For the second time tonight, I wiped tears from my face. I wasn’t much of a crier, never had been, but that goddamn Virgil had a way with words. But it was more than that. I wanted to believe the kind things he said about me so badly it made my heart ache.

  I checked the time and was surprised to see that it was nearly ten o’clock already. Another couple hours and I’d be back in Salisbury for the first time in almost seven years. It didn’t seem possible, both my long absence and my unplanned homecoming. My father was dead. I was an ex-con. It all felt like a bad dream.

  I remembered waking up my father one night when I was probably only seven or eight years old after I’d had a particularly scary nightmare. Instead of being angry at me for interrupting his sleep, he’d taken me into the kitchen and poured a big glass of milk and we’d gone outside into the back yard and sat side-by-side on the picnic table next to Mom’s garden.

  He put his arm around me and pointed out Mars and Venus in the night sky and showed me how to find the Big Dipper and the North Star. We talked baseball and fishing and monster movies and I asked about the bullfrogs and the crickets that were making so much of a racket that night. Then, and I remember this as clear as if it were yesterday, I asked him about fireflies. What did they do? Where did they come from?

  After a long pause, my father looked at me and said, “Well, you know how I told you about frogs and the different purposes they serve?”

  I nodded. “They eat insects and bugs, but they also get eaten by fish and snakes.”

  He pulled me closer. “That’s right. Fireflies are a little different. Sometimes I think God creates something special just to remind us that the world is beautiful, that magic still exists.”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “Well…like the Grand Canyon for instance, or the ocean or the moon,” he said, pointing high above our heads. “And fireflies.”

  “Fireflies are magic?” I said, looking up at him, transfixed.

  “I think so, Charlie. I really do.” And then he hopped down off the picnic table and headed for the house at a jog. “Stay right there. I want to show you something.”

  He returned a couple of minutes later with one of Mom’s canning jars. “If you don’t tell her I poked holes in the lid, I won’t.”

  “What are the holes for?”

  He smiled. “Come and see.”

  I followed my father into the darkness then and he showed me how to catch fireflies with my bare hands, carefully, so as not to harm them. We ran in circles, chasing magic that night, slipping and falling on the wet grass, laughing and yelling under the
stars, just the two of us, a father and son dressed in pajamas, best friends, and nothing else mattered in the whole world.

  ****

  I blinked away the memory and reached for the phone again. I had purchased it for a specific reason, and it was time to put it to use.

  I punched in the number and half hoped that I had remembered it incorrectly.

  My hands were shaking.

  I heard a familiar voice and a loud beep.

  I left a brief message, my voice strong.

  I hung up and glanced at the clock.

  Ninety more minutes, and I would be home again.

  ****

  Salisbury was a working-class town with a population of nearly 20,000 people. But it seemed smaller than that. Divided into a half-dozen slices-of-pie communities by several large farms, the houses were modest and well maintained, the land low-lying and flat and much of it thickly wooded.

  I tapped my brakes as I approached the old Pepsi bottling factory and was not the least bit surprised by the lack of change it had undergone. I had worked my first job at the plant—the summer I turned fifteen—hauling cases of empties out of the back of trucks and sorting them onto a conveyor belt. The three-story, white-washed building looked exactly the same as it had when I was a teenager.

  Another couple of miles and I slowed again as I drove past the Perdue Farms corporate headquarters. Perdue Chicken was the town’s largest employer, providing work for more than 2,000 residents, including my father and Uncle Bobby. Even at this late hour, the parking lot was full and the windows blazed with light, the night shift just getting started.

  Everything about the town looked the same to me—the high school, post office, pizza shop, even the gas stations—like I had stepped into a time machine. I guess it shouldn’t have shocked me as much as it did, considering it had only been seven years, but for some reason I couldn’t put my finger on it did. Seven years felt like a lifetime.