Chasing Fireflies: A Novel of Discovery

by Charles Martin

  That's about the time that everyone looked at me.

  One of the firemen knelt down and explained this in terms I could understand. When he finished, he said, "Son, we'll give you a flashlight and tie a harness around you so that if anything goes wrong, we can just lift you out." He raised his chin and sized me up. "You think you can do it?"

  Evidently, they had already chosen the smallest among them to try this very thing, because a dwarf of a man was squatting atop the well smeared with mud and dressed only in boxer shorts. He wasn't much bigger than me. If he couldn't make it, then they weren't kidding. I looked at all the people looking at me, then back at the fireman. Each forehead was framed in deep creases.

  I'd already had enough excitement for one day, but I figured we were on the upside. What else could go wrong? I nodded and then slowly pointed at Unc. "But he holds the rope."

  That night, after Unc and Aunt Lorna had turned out their light, I sat up and wrote a letter to my dad. When I think about the start of my writing career, I look back to this letter.

  Dear Dad,

  Today I almost drowned. We were fishing when I dumped the boat over. Got caught on a tree beneath the water, and Uncle Willee spent three minutes underwater trying to get my foot unpinned. He did. But his face turned real red, then blue, and tonight he's got a real bad hacking cough. I think he almost died, too.

  Then later this afternoon I climbed down into a well and pulled this kid out who was upside down and turning blue. He had fallen in, broken his arm, and couldn't get out. The fire department said they're gonna give me an award and the newspaper man says my picture will run on the front page tomorrow. But I was scared. I only did it 'cause up above me Uncle Willee held the rope.

  A lot has happened since I've been here.

  When I got here, Aunt Lorna baked two cakes-because I didn't know if I liked chocolate or vanilla better. Until then, I'd been passed over a lot and passed around from home to home to home. The kids on the bus call me a "reject. " I think that's what you are when you don't have a home.

  But Uncle Willee and Aunt Lorna gave me a room and helped me paint it whatever color I liked-which changed three times in the first three months. A few months ago, I wore holes in my shoes and Uncle Willee bought me new ones. Last Christmas they took me to Disney World, and I rode Pirates of the Carry-bean seven times. And when I wanted a bicycle, Uncle Willee worked nights to buy me one. It was an all-chrome, Schwinn Mag Scrambler with knobby tires and a Bendix brake. And then, a few months later, when somebody at school stole it, he worked nights again to match my savings and help me buy a new one.

  Since being here, I haven't needed nothing.

  Most days I wonder if I was just a mistake. Why did God make me? Am I really what the kids on the bus say I am? And I guess I get this look on my face, 'cause when I think that way Uncle Willee puts his hand on my shoulder, and I feel something like butterflies in my stomach. Uncle Willee says that's hope. At first I thought it might have been worms like I had before at that other home. I'm not sure what it is, but I think I like it. 'Cause when he does that, I start to thinking that maybe I'm okay. That maybe there's nothing wrong with me. That maybe God didn't make a mistake with me. Uncle Willee's hands are callused, real wrinkly, often dusty, and sometimes smell like horse poop. Usually there's a cut across one of the knuckles, 'cause he says his tools are worn smooth and they often slip.

  I won't lie to you. I still cry at night. I bury my face in my pillow so he can't hear me, but he's got good ears. He walks in, sits down, and when I look up, sometimes he's crying too. I never knew grown-ups did that, but his nose runs too. I guess that's why he always carries this white handkerchief in his back pocket. He's a good storyteller, 'cause he'll tell me about his daddy and how he lived. They're good stories, too. I like them. When he's finished, we go in the kitchen and eat ice cream. But we don't tell anybody 'cause I still think crying is for sissies.

  When I first got here, I'd sit up late at night and look out the window 'cause I thought maybe you'd drive down here and get me. I watched the headlights on the highway. I watched them come, then watched them go, but none of them ever turned down the drive.

  So I wrote this letter to tell you that tonight, I'm going to sleep, and I'm done looking down the driveway.

  Sincerely,

  Your son,

  Chase Walker

  The next morning I put my letter in an envelope, addressed it to "The Dad of Chase Walker," got Aunt Lorna to help me put a stamp on it, and then put it in the box and flipped the flag up. Then I waited on the mailman to make sure he took the letter. He did.

  Chapter 18

  That morning, after we visited Bo, Mandy and I stopped in at the boys' home. The receptionist was watching a reality TV show and waved me past with a potato chip. The folks in the cafeteria were cleaning up, and the air smelled like a mixture of Pine-Sol and bad chocolate cake. The janitor's yellow mop bucket sat empty, his mop was dry, and both were rolled up in the corner where the marks on the wall told me he kept it.

  I pushed open Sketch's door and saw what Aunt Lorna told me I'd see-the kid was teaching Unc how to lose at chess. The board was laid out on the bed where Sketch sat Indian style. Unc sat backwards in the chair with his legs on either side like he was riding in a saddle. He was resting his head on his arms atop the backrest and chewing on his lip. That meant he was losing.

  Most of Unc's pieces were laid across the bedspread at the kid's feet, and most all the kid's pieces were still on the board making a pretty tight semicircle around Unc's king.

  When I walked in, he tilted his hat back and said, "It's a good thing you showed up, 'cause I'm about to die ... again."

  "Don't look at me. He beat me in straight sets."

  Unc shook his head. "Buy you books, send you to school, and all you do is chew on the covers."

  Mandy walked in behind me. She didn't want to see Sketch as much as she wanted to see Unc. She'd been chewing on her fingernails ever since we got back into town. She curled her finger to summon him into the hallway, and he pushed back from the bed.

  "Here"-he offered me the chair-"take my place. You can't make it much worse."

  "Thanks a lot. Your confidence in me is inspiring." I flipped his baseball cap with my fingers, knocking it onto the floor. It exposed the bald spot and how his hair had shaped to his hat. He stepped out into the hall, twirling his cap in his hands while Mandy talked. I tried to eavesdrop while the kid concentrated, but chances were good he heard more than I did.

  In the crack between the hinges and the doorjamb, I could see that Mandy was talking a lot with her hands. "I just want to make sure you're aware of what you're getting into."

  "Yes ma'am."

  "I mean, it's been awhile since you two have done this."

  "Yes ma'am."

  "That boy's parents could show up any day, and you might not like what you see, but you've got no control. The law will literally put him in the car and watch them drive off."

  "Yes ma'am."

  "Here's the simple truth...." Mandy lowered her voice, telling me that she didn't like saying it any more than Unc liked hearing it. "There are more than five hundred thousand kids just like him around the country, and since we're pretty sure he's older than eight, the chances of his going anywhere but to another foster home before freedom at eighteen are about 70 percent against him. Once he gets past ten, which he might already be, the chances of his ever getting adopted are close to nothing."

  Unc twirled his cap and nodded, speaking softly, "Yes ma'am."

  "Are you listening to me? Because all I'm getting is this `yes ma'am' stuff that's hard to read."

  "Yes ma'am."

  She shook her head and put her hands on her hips. "Mr. McFarland, I admire what you're doing. You all are good people. This boy deserves a chance. And I think he's starting to make a friend of Chase in there, but ..."

  "Ms. Parker?"

  "Yes."

  "Your case is shiny, but it won't hold lighter fluid."


  "Excuse me?"

  "I appreciate what you're doing, and I understand why. I really do. Were I in your shoes, I'd do the same. And you're right ... the possibilities in that boy's future may hurt us. May hurt a lot. But I'm no stranger to the rain." He looked back at Sketch. "It's the hurting that makes it right ... makes it worth doing." He sucked through his teeth and put his hat on. "'Sides ... this ain't my first rodeo. So let us do what we're good at."

  She smiled and folded her arms. Through the crack in the door, we made eye contact. "Yes sir."

  Chapter 19

  ressed in his apron that read QUICHE AND FoND1 ME, Unc f shucked corn while Aunt Lorna picked off the silk. She'd given him the apron for their twentieth anniversary, and I laughed every time I saw it. On the steps, Tommye chewed on a fingernail while I wrestled an errant Confederate jasmine vine that had climbed through the railing. I wound it up the porch column as the four of us watched the phone. It's not like any of us were practiced at this. The thing that kept us going was the idea that no matter how imperfect and insufficient it was and we were, and no matter how little we knew about this kid, we were pretty sure that here beat any place he'd ever been before.

  Finished with the pile at his feet, Unc stood, ran his fingers around his waistband, and looked out over the plume of dust billowing across the pasture and blanketing the backs of his cattle. He took off his hat and brushed the brim with the back of his hand. "It's so dry the trees are bribing the dogs."

  It was nearly dinnertime when Mandy called. As the state's ad litem representative, she explained that she would drive with us to the boys' home and effect the transfer.

  We'd spent most of the afternoon cleaning house and spiffing up my room. Now it was T-minus thirty. When Mandy arrived, the five of us loaded into Aunt Lorna's Tahoe and drove to Brunswick. Since none of us quite knew what to expect, nobody said much.

  While Mandy and Unc handled some paperwork in the office, I wandered back to Sketch's room. The door was cracked, and he sat on the edge of his bed, one leg tucked under the other thigh, looking out the window. I watched him from a distance, and the vague feeling of familiarity fell over me. I used to do that.

  Tommye saw me lost in yesterday and tapped me on the shoulder and tucked her arm under mine. "Come on."

  Ten minutes later we drove out of the parking lot-the kid sitting between Tommye and me. Seems like passing off a kid ought to take a bit longer. Like there should be some universal ceremony where a heavenly trumpet-about the size of Italy-descends from the clouds, blows really loud, and alerts every race and nation that a child's world is getting rocked. Wishful thinking. It only takes two seconds to drop a kid on a doorstep, so our process seemed prolonged in comparison.

  We drove through historic Brunswick in pin-drop quiet. No one knew where to start. The only noise was the wop-wop of an out-ofbalance front right tire mixed with the ting-ting-ting of what sounded like a piece of gravel stuck between the treads.

  Leave it to Unc.

  We passed a Krispy Kreme, and the HOT Now sign was lit up bright red.

  In the Disney movie The Jungle Book, one of the characters is a snake named Kaa who is gifted with hypnotic powers. Whenever he wants to exert power over someone, he starts singing this silly song and his eyes start making circles that give him total mind control over his victim, who was, in most cases, the orphan boy Mowgli.

  Whenever Unc sees that sign, his eyes look a lot like Mowgli's.

  Unc crossed a lane of traffic and made an illegal U-turn across the median, bumping us around the backseat and soliciting a muted "Liam!" out of Aunt Lorna.

  His only response was to point at the sign and shrug. "Hey, I'm the victim here."

  Tommye laughed, and I just shook my head. We bobbed to a halt in the parking lot, where Unc turned to the kid. "You like Krispy Kremes?"

  Sketch shrugged.

  Unc's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean, you don't know?"

  Sketch looked through the glass of the store and then shrugged again.

  Unc shook his head. "We got to fix that. Come on." He held out his hand, which the boy took, and the two walked inside. By the time the rest of us got inside, Unc was halfway through his self-guided tour of how they make the doughnuts. The kid's eyes were wide with amazement, which only fed Unc.

  We walked out with two dozen doughnuts and a bag of holes. I carried the boxes and turned to Tommye. "You think we got enough?"

  We got in the car, Unc handed the kid a glazed and said, "Try this and tell me that it ain't the best thing you ever put in your mouth."

  Sketch bit into it, and Unc added, "Uh-huh. Good, isn't it?"

  Sketch looked at the box while shoving the other half of the doughnut into his mouth. Unc handed him two more-a powdered and a chocolate-covered. The kid swallowed, then bit into each, filling his cheeks like a chipmunk. Unc waited for his approval, which was to quickly inhale both of those as well. Unc turned in his seat, clicked his belt on, and looked at Lorna. "See?"

  Three blocks down the street, the kid had eaten five doughnuts and was starting to eye the bag of holes.

  We headed out of town and passed the cemetery where most of Brunswick either is buried or will be.

  Two years ago I wrote a story about the family-now third generation-that owns it. During my interview, we were walking across one small part of the expansive lawn, talking above the constant buzz of men on mowers and boys with weed whackers. They told me it takes the lawn guys a steady week just to keep the grass down.

  When I was in high school and stupid enough to think that Saturdays were reserved solely for fishing, I used to give Unc a bunch of lip about how long it took me to mow the pasture with his tractor, and how-depending on the tides-it oftentimes cost me the best fishing of the day. I took that stupidity with me to college and, because books can't cure stupid, I brought it back home again. So when I wrote my article, I was still suffering from that sickness.

  Unc read my article and left it on the kitchen table with one line circled in red. In the margin he had written Time to paint your butt white and run with the antelope. In English that meant, "Stop arguing and do as you're told." He was right, especially when it came to hard work-Unc had known a lifetime of that-but it's hard to tell a high schooler much of anything.

  A block or so past the cemetery, Unc spotted a long line of headlights approaching on the opposite side of the road. He pulled into the emergency lane, put on his flashers, and we all hopped out. Most of the rest of the cars on the street did likewise. Unc held his hat in his hands while the six of us stood quietly in front of the car. Escorted by police on motorcycles, the procession passed slowly and then pulled into the cemetery further east.

  Sketch looked at the cars, up at us, back at the cars, and then back at us. When I looked down, he had a doughnut in his right hand and his notebook in his left. Noticing that both Unc and I stood with our hands behinds our backs, he did too. I caught a glimpse of both Tommye and Mandy, who were trying their best not to laugh out loud. Neither Unc nor I knew the deceased, but evi dently everyone else in Brunswick did, because the line stretched for nearly a mile. After it passed, we loaded back up and merged in with the traffic. Unc caught the kid's expression in the rearview and spoke to his reflection. "Around here"-he waved his hand across the dashboard, which meant in the state of Georgia-"it's sort of a custom to honor people who've passed on."

  Sketch nodded and finished off his doughnut.

  We pulled onto our dirt driveway and started idling around the potholes. On the first pecan tree was an old hand-painted sign that Unc had posted some twenty years ago. The bottom of the board had rotted off, but it still got his point across. IF YOU STEP FOOT ON THIS PROPERTY, I WILL SHOOT YOUR A ...

  The kid read the sign and its meaning contorted his face a bit. I imagine that sign didn't make for too good of a first impression, which was probably why Unc turned around.

  "That doesn't pertain to you," he said, pointing. "Back some time ago, people used to ke
ep coming around here asking me a bunch of questions because they were mad at me. But that was a long time ago. You don't pay it no never mind."

  Sketch straightened, sat back, and nodded slowly.

  Aunt Lorna gave Unc a quiet stiletto finger in the ribs and said, "I told you to take that stupid thing down. He probably thinks we're a bunch of nutcases."

  Unc nodded and whispered, 'Well ... letting the cat out of the bag is a lot easier than putting it in."

  Tommye laughed out loud. "You can say that again."

  Mandy opened the passenger door, and Sketch climbed out. He stood clutching his notebook and the chess set, staring at the world around him as if he'd just landed on Mars-his face a mixture of fear and guarded excitement.

  In football, one of the defensive players is called a strong safetysort of a cross between a true safety and a linebacker. While linebackers primarily defend against the run, safeties primarily defend against the pass. Strong safeties do both. They usually line up about five yards off the tight end on what's called the strong side. When the ball is snapped they read, or "watch," a lot of things at once-the quarterback, the linemen, the tight end, even the running backs. Coaches like to say their heads must be on a swivel and they've got to grow eyes in the backs of their heads. The strong safety's enemy is the offensive receiver, who usually lines up outside him. Sometimes he's a decoy, other times he's the target of a pass, and sometimes he's a blocker. It's those times that he's a blocker that the strong safety must watch out. When the ball is snapped, the wide receiver makes a beeline for the strong safety, who's got an invisible bull's-eye painted on his helmet. The strong safety, who's concentrating on the play in front of him, can't see the receiver, who's coming at him from one side-the receiver is counting on this. It's the reason they call this move a crackback. A great strong safety senses the coming wide receiver without ever seeing him. It's a feeling thing that no doubt grows out of a survival instinct.