Half the Distance

by Stan Marshall

  “Where have you been?” I asked.

  “Where have I been?” He screwed up his face, and asked, “Where have you been?”

  I relaxed my stance, and he pushed by me. He tossed his John Deere cap onto the end table and sat on the couch. He nodded for me to sit down in Dad’s recliner.

  Nice of him to invite me to sit in my own house.

  “You were the one who wouldn’t wait for me after practice Monday. You shot out of there so fast I didn’t have a chance to tell you Coach Holloway made me help the equipment managers stow the football gear. Neither of them is tall enough nor strong enough to lift the wood crates up onto the racks.”

  I started to ask him about his sitting with some of the football team at Bulldog Benny’s, but he beat me to the punch.

  He asked, “Why didn’t you come into Benny’s? I know you saw me.”

  “I figured you had made your choice, you know, joined the enemy.”

  “What?” Law raised his voice. “I told you Sunday, I was sorry for not sitting with you on the bus. How long are you going to hold a grudge?”

  “You were talking to two guys from the team. I didn’t think I’d be welcome.”

  “I was talking to Dion Vervalin and Troy Grant, asking them if they thought you really were guilty of holding.”

  “What did they say?” My curiosity trumped my anger.

  “Dion said he was on the ground with two hundred fifty pounds of offensive guard on top of him, and Troy was in front of you pursuing the ball carrier.”

  “So, I’m still out of luck.” Just one more disappointment.

  “Maybe not.” Law scooted forward on the couch. “Trap Vargus told Troy that he heard Hayden tell Richie York he knew you weren’t the one who held.”

  “Whoa, whoa.” I tried to scoot the recliner closer to Law, but it hung up on the Oriental rug. I leaned forward. “Okay,” I said. “He said he heard that someone said they heard somebody say they used to know a guy who knows someone who said they might have seen the guy who might have held? Is that about right?”

  “You wanna hear what they said or not?”

  “Okay, who said what?”

  “Hayden was following the play right behind you. He would have seen everything.”

  “And?” I prompted.

  “After the game, Hayden told Richie it wasn’t you who held.”

  “Who was it he saw, then?” I was beginning to get my hopes up.

  “Before Hayden got a chance to say, Lance and Jamel walked in and told him to forget what he thought he saw. Then Jamel jerked Hayden up and slammed him against the lockers. He grabbed him by the throat and whispered something in his ear. He lifted Hayden a foot off the ground, then threw him to the floor.”

  What a jerk.

  “Do you think Hayden’ll talk to me?” I asked.

  “Maybe. It wouldn’t hurt to ask, but it’s Jamel we have to worry about. At six foot ten and four hundred pounds, he’s gotta be scary to a one-hundred-sixty pound wide-out.”

  “Jamel’s six-five and two eighty-five,” I corrected.

  “Still, to Hayden he has to look like Godzilla.”

  Law and I were both big boys. Law was six-four, two fifty, and I was six-three, two thirty-eight—a little small for a college defensive end, but I hoped I’d grow some by the end of my senior year. Another couple of inches and thirty more pounds of muscle would be nice. If not, maybe college coaches could switch me to linebacker. They do that sometimes, if the player possesses the raw talent.

  I asked, “Do you know where Hayden lives?”

  “Over in Oaklawn Park, I think.”

  “Maybe we should go over and talk to him.”

  Law grimaced and shook his head. “We’ll have to wait until next Saturday and see him at work.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “He and his family are out of town for Thanksgiving,” said Law.

  “And you know this how?” I asked.

  “Troy told me when I asked if he thought Hayden would talk to you.”

  “And?”

  “He said he didn’t know.” Law tilted his head and shrugged. “Maybe. Lance and his trained ape, Jamel, can be pretty persuasive.”

  I dropped the subject for the moment. I warmed up some leftover beef stew for lunch and pulled out a couple of TV trays. We watched an ancient rerun of Law and Order on the tube while we ate.

  “How many Law and Orders do you think they’ve run on TV?” asked Law.

  “Four hundred sixty-nine million, one hundred seven thousand, three hundred forty-four, give or take a couple.”

  I actually enjoy being a bit of a smart-mouth.

  As the preacher’s son, I’m not allowed to cuss or to tell dirty jokes, no matter how funny or innocuous they are. I can’t smoke or drink, and Dad doesn’t like me seeing R-rated movies or playing M-rated video games. I keep my M-rated games in the E10-Plus rated plastic case of milder games, like Snowboarding Jasper Mountain and Extreme Ski Jumping 2. Although she’s never said so in front of me, I got the idea that Mom thought Dad tended to go a little overboard with some of his rules. One night, when they thought I was in my room, I heard Mom tell him I was a good kid, and he ought to back off some. Dad loudly and adamantly disagreed.

  So, the way I see it, what Dad doesn’t know can’t hurt me.

  One of Dad’s cardinal rules had to do with girls and sex. For this one he had Mom’s unequivocal and complete agreement. I would be guilty of ruining the lives of my whole family, the church, and a generation of Nelsons to come if I were to get a girl pregnant.

  One day, Dad said, “Were you to impregnate a girl”—who says impregnate nowadays?—“our family would be disgraced, and I would be dismissed from my job. It is also very likely that I’d be barred from any other pastorate in the denomination.”

  “Aren’t Christians supposed to be tolerant and forgiving?” I knew I was pushing it.

  “There’s a definite difference between being forgiven for a sin and paying the consequences for your actions.”

  In her soft, soothing tone, Mom said something odd. “Your father doesn’t need any more distractions in his ministry. He needs your support. Especially now.” I wasn’t sure what distractions I would be adding to, and neither she nor Dad would elaborate.

  I knew Dad was having a tiff with the church deacons over something one of his staff did, but he never said anything about it being a big deal. One evening, during our family Bible study and prayer time, he asked us to be praying about an “issue” regarding someone on his staff. He wouldn’t say anything more, and since he didn’t bring it up again, I took it to be something minor.

  »»•««

  Law and I played a video game, Virtu-Vision’s Pro Football, Live Edition. I clobbered him forty-nine to thirteen. He kept forgetting to substitute his players on long drives, and they kept running out of energy. When time finally ran out, Law said, “The game was closer than the final score suggests. I was only fifteen points down at the half.”

  I wagged my head in dismay. “Yeah, but it was a ton to none at the end, and that’s what goes in the record book.”

  Redirecting the conversation, Law asked, “When’s your mom and the Rev due back?”

  “Dad had said he and Mom would be here by noon.”

  “It’s way past that now.”

  I checked the clock over the TV—almost three. “If they aren’t here by four I’ll call Dad’s cell.”

  Law checked his phone. Verifying the time, I guess. He asked, “Wanna play again?”

  “I would, but I’d hate listening to all the whining when I kick your butt again.

  Law folded his arms across his chest and faked a mad face. “You wish. I can take you blindfolded and one hand tied behind my back.”

  We took a break, and I grabbed four ice cream sandwiches from the freezer. “You want some?” I tossed two onto the couch beside him.

  “Yeah, but only a couple. I’m watching my figure.”

  “Law,” I sai
d, “could we be serious for a minute?”

  “Sure, shoot.” His goofy crooked smile disappeared, and he sat up straight.

  I told him about Josh, the hidden booty, the video game, and Kevin, his punk friend.

  “You’re kidding. An Audi R8?”

  I nodded.

  “An R8. Man, that is sick. I’d kill for a car like that. What color?”

  “I don’t know. Metallic silver or, I think, maybe white. It was dark out.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “To tell the truth, I don’t know whether to talk to him and make him turn the stuff in anonymously, or just rat him out to Dad.”

  “Why not ask your Mom? She’s the reasonable one, right?” Law rolled up the ice cream wrapper and tossed it across the room into the wastebasket. He yelled, “Two points.”

  “She’s got enough to deal with right now. Besides,” I said, “she would just tell Dad anyway. They don’t keep secrets from each other.”

  “Every married couple has secrets,” challenged Law. “I saw this TV show once where they took a portable lie-detector to the mall and offered random people fifty dollars if they would get hooked to the machine and answer ten questions. They asked stuff like, ‘Have you ever stole anything from your work?’ and, ‘If you had a chance to steal a hundred thousand dollars from a Vegas casino, and knew you would never be caught, would you?’ Did you see it?”

  “No, I don’t watch reality TV. It’s fake.” I was in a foul mood.

  “Well, they asked them if they’d ever kept a big secret from their spouse, and guess what?” Law didn’t give me a chance to answer. He blurted out, “Everyone failed! They all lied on all the questions. Every single one.”

  “That can’t be true,” I said.

  “You didn’t see it.”

  “Like I said, those shows are all fake.”

  Law didn’t reply for a minute and then changed the subject back to the problem at hand. “Man, what your little brother is doing is serious business. They send kids to boot camps and detention centers for this sort of stuff.”

  “I know.” My stomach churned. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “You could phone in an anonymous tip to Crime Catchers on Channel 7.”

  “I don’t want the little twerp thrown into jail. I just want him to stop doing it and give the stuff back.”

  “Again—what are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know. Dad has always said if either of us ever got in trouble with the cops, he wouldn’t do anything to keep us out of jail.”

  “You only have two options, right? So which is it?”

  “Option three. I’m putting it off until Dad gets home.”

  “It sounds like you’re leaning toward ratting the kid out.”

  My chest sank as I blew out a long slow breath. “I honestly don’t know.”

  Chapter Seven

  When Law left at ten ’til four, I dialed Dad’s cell. He didn’t answer. I tried again at a quarter after and at a little after five. Still no answer. I was beginning to worry.

  At five-thirty, I got a call from my Aunt Sue Ann from Houston. “Todd, honey, your dad wanted me to call and see if you and Josh would come stay with me over the Thanksgiving holidays.”

  Sue Ann was my dad’s younger sister. Eleven years younger. Her first husband, Russell, was gunned down right in his own driveway—murdered for less than forty bucks and a fake Rolex he bought in Mexico. They never did catch his killer.

  Aunt Sue has been married three times in all. She divorced the last one a couple of years back and declared from then on she would be the one doing the heartbreaking, and from what I could tell, she’d been true to her word.

  “I don’t know, Aunt Sue. Josh and I have plenty of people we can stay with right here in Branard.” Why isn’t she saying anything about Mom? The news must be bad.

  After a short pause, she said, “Honey, it wasn’t so much an invitation from me as it was an executive order from Douglas.”

  Who besides my dad would go by Douglas instead of Doug, especially around his family?

  “He wants you and Josh to drive over here this evening.”

  I was about to ask why when she said, “Your mom is having chills and fever, and her back is hurting really bad right now. The doctors want to run some tests to make sure it’s nothing serious. You know, to eliminate certain things.”

  Sheer terror seized my heart. “Has the cancer come back and spread to her spine?” I almost choked on my own words. “I read on the web that sometimes happens with breast cancer.” I fought back the bile rising in my throat.

  “I’m sure everything will be all right. They just want to be sure. You know? Not take any chances.” Her voice was shaky and a little weak.

  I love you, Aunt Sue, but you’re lying.

  She finished relaying Dad’s instructions. “Throw enough stuff together for the rest of the week. It’ll be fun. We’ll all go to the Sharks’ football game on Saturday.”

  “I thought they played on Sunday,” I said.

  “Not this week. It has something to do with it being on TV.”

  I wasn’t crazy about spending the rest of the week in Branard anyway, and I looked forward to seeing a pro football game. I wondered who Houston was playing. I hoped they were playing the Dallas or Pittsburgh. I don’t know why, but I can’t stand those two teams and I love to root against them.

  “Your dad expects you and Josh to be here by nine at the latest.” She spoke with an emphatic tone, sounding remarkably like Dad. Well, they were brother and sister.

  I called the Brunsons and asked Kevin’s mom to get Josh ready to come home. I asked, “Has he been behaving himself?”

  “Oh yes, no problem at all. He and Kevin camped out in the backyard both nights, and we hardly knew they were there.”

  Yeah, because they weren’t there, lady. They were out playing their real-life version of Urban Scavengers and Street Punk Drifters.

  »»•««

  An hour out of Branard, I pulled off the road to have a chat with my little bro.

  “Josh, I know about you and Kevin breaking into cars and stealing stuff.”

  As I expected, the little spazoid denied everything. Not only did he deny it, he did so with language that would make a Bourbon Street pimp blush. I wanted to throw him out of my truck and leave him there in the middle of nowhere. It would serve him right.

  I had planned to be both adult and clinical when talking to Josh, but his attitude stunk, and I wasn’t in the mood to tolerate his bull, not after all I had been through. I lit into him. “You stupid little jerk, do you realize how devastating your getting arrested and going to jail would be for Mom and Dad?”

  His answer was biting and arrogant. “I guess you’re gonna rat me out to Dad, huh? You always were a rat-fink squealer.”

  That’s rich, even laughable. From the time Josh could first put two words together, he had been a world-class tattletale. If I refused to share, he tattled. If I broke a glass, he tattled. If I got home two minutes late, he’d run straight to Mom and Dad, whining.

  “I’m not telling yet,” I said. “I guess it depends on what you do.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “For one thing, you’ve got to lose the attitude,” I said. “And after that, we’ll have to figure out how to make things right.”

  “Make things right? How do you propose I do that? You gonna force me to be your slave or something?” The attitude began to creep back into his tone.

  “No, you have to give the stuff back.”

  Josh didn’t say anything more. Neither did I.

  I pulled back onto the highway, and neither of us said another word all the rest of the way. We got to the Houston city limits at ten minutes after nine. My cell phone rang a few minutes later.

  I was surprised to hear Dad’s voice. “Todd, you guys were supposed to be at Sue’s by eight. You had us all worried sick. Did you know that?”

  “I’m sorry, Dad, but
Sue said by nine. By the time I drove over to get Josh, and he and I got packed up, it was almost six thirty.” I waited for Dad to say something, but he didn’t.

  “GPS says we’re less than four miles from Aunt Sue’s house now.”

  He sighed into the phone.

  “We did the best we could without speeding.” Dad was a real stickler for obeying laws. I assured him, “We’ll be there in five, ten at most.”

  “See that you are,” he growled. “I don’t mind telling you, I am really concerned about how you’ve been acting lately, but we will deal with that later.”

  I wanted to say, “I’m looking forward to it,” but didn’t.

  We pulled up to Aunt Sue’s in seven minutes. Her house was a huge two-story built sometime around the turn of the century. It had a green tile roof with four dormers. Dad’s Chrysler was nowhere in sight.

  Aunt Sue emerged from around the side of the house. “My sweetieeeees,” she squealed as she ran toward Josh and me. She squeezed us both, first one, then the other. She herded us into the house and told us to wash up for supper.

  She said, “We’re having barbeque cheeseburgers tonight with chili cheese fries and root beer in tall, frosted mugs.” Aunt Sue was my favorite cook in the whole world. She was the Julia Child of junk food.

  “Where’s Dad?” I asked.

  “He’s spending the evening at the hospital again. Your Mom’s fever spiked, and they decided to go ahead and admit her, just as a precaution.” My heart sank. I remembered how sick Mom had been before. I tried to push the fears and dreads out of my mind.

  I called Dad’s cell, but he didn’t answer.

  Aunt Sue said, “Cell phone service at the hospital is patchy, but Douglas said he’d be here soon. Visiting hours were over at nine.” She motioned to the entry closet. “Y’all grab a couple of TV trays and set them up in front of the couch. I’ll bring in the grub.”

  As we pigged out, we watched a pay-per-view movie about a computer geek who built a time machine that only went back or forward three days at a time. Weak plot, dumb jokes, and sophomoric antics, exactly the sort of mindless swill I needed.

  We were watching the outtakes at the end of the movie when Dad came in. He looked awful. Unshaven, wrinkled shirt with rolled-up sleeves, and sweat stains under his arms. He stopped by the couch to give Josh and me hugs and then went straight to bed. It looked as though I would get yet another night to anguish over the Josh dilemma.