by Tom Macher
I left messages. Hey. It’s me. Just checking in. Wondering how you’re doing. Hope you’re okay. Thinking of you. Let me know what’s up. Are you okay?
Two weeks passed. No one called to talk about any funeral or wake. No one called, period. Not my mom. Not anyone who knew my dad. The weeks became a month. No word. We went off Flats and back on. I kept calling. Calling and leaving messages. Calling and hanging up before the answering machine came on. Hanging up and calling again. Calling and calling and calling. No one corrected me. No one said, Knock it off, you can hang up now, he won’t answer, that man is dead.
The baseball coach called the House. Legion tryouts, Friday. It barely registered. Nothing I could do on Flats. No way. But Ray and a few brothers pitched Program: What if we Group Funk it? Program smiled. Guys pulled on their cleanest wifebeaters, gelled their hair, spit-smoothed their eyebrows. You can imagine the scene—twenty-four junkies, butts hanging from their mouths, chain-wallets swinging by their legs, stepping between eager parents and their small offspring—as the whole House, minus me, ascended from the bleachers. I’d expected them to ditch out, rampage across campus turning over trash cans and emptying lockers in search of young snatch, but no one left. From the diamond, I watched them. Could tell by whose lips moved, and how quickly, the kind of shit they were talking. They catcalled and whistled. They chanted my name. It didn’t matter if I booted grounders or airmailed relays, they cheered, stomped their feet. Nice try, chin up, good throw. I stepped in the box. Their stomping intensified. The pitcher stepped off the rubber. He took a deep breath, removed his hat, and wiped his brow. The catcher rose from his crouch and stood next to me. I didn’t want to be at the plate anymore. I wanted to be with my brothers.
Are you okay? the catcher asked.
Yes, I said, blinking.
Are you sure?
Yeah. It’s just. There’s something in my eye.
* * *
WHEN I GOT HOME, a strange feeling came over me, almost ghostlike. As if hovering, I saw from both my own eyes and someone else’s, could see myself sign in, check the board for messages, pass through the group room to the backyard. It was eighty-five, sunny, a slight breeze from the southeast. Insects. A hummingbird lowered from the sky and hovered over some florets as they nodded in the wind. What I thought: I can die. It was clear, concise; a realization: I could kill myself. Nothing ever has to be bad. There’s a way to make the pain stop.
I felt at peace. And from my serenity, a clarity emerged. As dumb as I was, I knew I had to move on.
Program was in the office. I told him my plans.
Call group, at least, he said. Meanwhile—you know the drill. Take two brothers and pack your shit.
Ray volunteered. And E-Dog. But I couldn’t pack. I sat on my bed, watched Ray breeze through my things. We bartered over a pair of pants and some sneakers, settled on bad deals designed to put me ahead a few bucks.
Where you going, anyway? Ray asked. Where the fuck does a bastard go? It’s sad, really. He tossed my mitt on the floor and a ball rolled out. There’s nothing out there, he said. What will you do when you find that out? Will you come back? ’Cause you got nowhere, really. Nowhere at all.
Same thing got said in group. Didn’t change a thing. I slept in my clothes in the group room corner.
Program woke me, early. What do you need? he asked.
I need to leave, I said.
That’s fine, he said. Get the fuck off my Property.
* * *
WALKING DOWN WEST ROAD, I thought of this story my mom told me about some flowers that grow on the prairie. These flowers are only a few feet tall, but they have really long roots, she said, sometimes forty or fifty feet. It’s because of water. Prairies are arid. These roots keep growing, looking for water. And I was thinking of these flowers, thinking of what my mom had said, how their roots grow, how they keep searching for water. That was the thing now. I was thinking about flowers.
Year-Rounders
I developed an absolute radar for the absurd, the curious, the strange. A week after running away from the House, I found myself in a car and then on a train and then on the side of a highway in upstate New York, walking east toward the state line and mountains. I walked for a long time toward those mountains. I carried a gallon-jug of water and wore an overstuffed hiking backpack I’d stolen from the boys’ home. Tied to this backpack was my baseball bat.
The road curved and fell and rose again as it wound over the humped land. Somewhere on this road was a small town with the Farm of the Message. Somewhere. I knew the town was thirty miles from Albany but didn’t know where in town the commune was. I figured I’d ask around when I got there.
The highway followed the land up one hill and down the next, coming into and out of many small towns. From a hilltop, I’d see scattered farms, windbreaks, a water tower. Each of these towns had their own chamber of commerce, their own high school, and civic pride; they were all places people came from or stayed in or ended up at. I continued marching on, stomping along the shoulder, left arm extended, thumb up. No one stopped.
For hours, my excitement dulled the shit of walking, muting the humidity, beautifying the ordinary. I was alone, with no one to report to, and happy. I believed in fate, in God’s will—each passing car wasn’t the right ride, its driver the wrong companion. I needed to be on this road, trudging along. Nothing discouraged me. My quads burned, my calves cramped, a dryness cracked my throat, and I felt grateful. I can be stubborn, dumb. Cresting a hill after twenty-odd miles, I came to a deep turnout with views of the valley ahead and valley behind, the scant snake of asphalt in trees. A low sun cast shadows over the next valley of spotted fields, barns, and new rows of corn. A wooded ridge rose in the distance, miles away. The commune was on that ridge. Overgrown foliage had created a bowl at one of the turnout, shielded from the road. I dropped my bag, guzzled water. Then I shook loose a cigarette, and considered this foliage. It was a place to sleep, maybe, but also a place of privacy, for prey, a place to wait—a predator’s dream. I walked back to the highway’s edge. In the valley below, a car raced through the buckled farmland until it disappeared in trees. It reappeared and disappeared again, climbing the hill toward me. When I saw it again, I stuck my thumb out.
It slowed long before reaching me, as if the driver was considering the proposition, and, in its approach, I began expecting the ordinary—the car would drift to the side of the road and stop, I’d get in, and we’d be off. Instead, it passed by me and pulled into the turnabout, before circling back. It was a piece-of-shit car. The kind you can steal easy or buy for a few hundred bucks. American-built, four doors, faded maroon.
A man got out. Maybe six foot one, and thin, he wore gray slacks, had salty brown hair, glasses. Scattered gray stubble sparkled against his reddened cheeks. He had that look like he’d been drinking, maybe, or the last few days had been unkind, and he sort of stared at my T-shirt, a faded yellow thing with “Gonzales” written on it.
What is Gonzales? he asked.
A town.
Where?
Louisiana.
Is that where you’re from?
No.
Is that where your parents live?
I’m looking for a ride, I said.
It’s just a town?
That’s right.
And you have this town written on your T-shirt?
I couldn’t read his license plate but saw into a backseat papered with flyers. Someone had stapled his roof upholstery, but it had come unstapled and hung loose in places above the seats. There was a pair of binoculars on the dash.
It’s just a shirt, I told him.
That’s my name, he said. I’m Officer Gonzales. When I didn’t acknowledge this, he told me it was illegal to hitchhike in New York.
I wasn’t hitchhiking, I told him, smiling.
I passed you a while back, he said. And turned around. Now he smiled.
He was not the kind of guy you wanted smiling at you like that.
Don’t want anyone getting abducted out here, he said. Don’t want anyone getting in a car with someone and killing them or anything. Happens around here all the time. I’m police, he added, but he didn’t look like police and didn’t show me a badge. Where are you headed?
I told him.
Is that where you live?
Where I’m going to live.
You moving there?
I didn’t answer.
How old are you?
What’s all this about? I asked.
Are you a runaway?
No.
He stepped toward me. Then stepped again, each step barely perceivable, until he stood an arm’s length away. I’ll have to see your ID, he said. I’ll have to run it, see if you’re a runaway. If you are a runaway, I’m going to arrest you.
His old beater was no cop’s ride. How are you going to “run” my ID? I asked. You got a CB in there? Or something?
What’s your name?
I told him the truth.
Spell it, he said.
I started spelling it, but he got that creepy grin on his face, and I began backing up toward my bag. As I stepped back, he stepped forward. He was sure-footed, cocky. I watched his hands and hips, the width of his gait, the emphasis of his footfall, looking for a chance to run.
Where are you going? he asked.
I’m getting my ID.
His eyes shifted from me to my bag. Is that a baseball bat?
I smiled. Yeah.
Why do you have a bat?
I play baseball, I said, though in saying it, I knew it wasn’t true anymore—baseball was something I used to play when I was a child, and I wasn’t a child now. I looked up, hoping to convey this new understanding of things, but his posture had changed, his cockiness had all worn off. He began to lecture me, but not slow and steady, as he’d been all this time, and instead, hurried and scared—You’ll never catch a ride carrying a baseball bat, it’s spooky, how dare you, etc. He got in his car and sped off.
I admit it: I tossed my bat into the foliage. The dude was right. The next car picked me up.
* * *
LATER, I WALKED UP a steep hill past orchards and fields and Shaker buildings, and eventually, the road turned to gravel and there were more Shaker buildings, a cluster of them, and a barn and an old green house and some weather-beaten VWs. The guru was gone. Most of the businesses and people, too. Now it was just a few old-timers, their long hair tied in ponytails, Birkenstocks worn through at the treads.
I moved into a small room not unlike the room I’d shared with Lee and my mom all those years ago. I worked on the farm, strutting about shirtless, wearing cutoff fatigues and steel-toed boots. I started carrying a large hunting knife with a bored-out blade you could pull quickly from a hump of flesh, a real killing knife—no one was pulling my wrists through a banister now—and came and went, free. These were experiential days, each of them new, each offering another beginning, as if I’d been born again, as all my actions placed me on the cusp of recovering something that I probably never had. They were the kind of days where you’ll get in a car and go somewhere or jump in some water and swim without thinking and then you look up and there’s a snake or bear or a forest ranger, or you repose on a soft hill of fine fescue watching the sun slip over some pastoral fantasy of cows and red barns and hard work, where coffee tastes bolder, vegetables fresher, songbirds sing sweeter, fireflies shine brighter, and there are other runaways and dropouts around who aren’t junkies but good kids, smart, who merely foresaw the joke’s end and decided to do something different and follow the harvest from California, Florida, and Arizona, detasseling corn, picking blueberries, and chopping onions, their hair long and beards patchy, potato eaters and vegans, singers and painters, communal dwellers.
Was this how my mother had felt way back in 1970-whatever?
Everything seemed important, everything possessed meaning; no matter how small or inconsequential—cool water, blue skies, a dock in the middle of a pond, a girl in a bikini, rain, thunder, lightning. One day my friend Cody and I were sprawled in the grass on a mountain road, lying on our laundry bags, smoking cigarettes, when a minivan pulled up and two girls leaned out the window and we spoke to them and they conferred and, in conference, stole a glance—wish I had a picture of it—looking at us and then each other, this smile between them, a real sweet smile, not saccharine or over-the-top but sweet, a couple girls smiling sweetly over some boys.
That summer was all about summer. It was about eating processed pork off a stick. It was about water, swimming in it and drinking it. It was about hiking, or balancing on a single railroad track, the way silt at the bottom of a river feels between your toes. It was about cars, moonlight, fireworks, peanuts, cotton candy, chili cheese fries, and strawberry milk shakes. It was about how warm a bonfire feels when it is raining. And then one night—there is always that one damn night—one of these girls pulled my face close to her own. C’mon, she whispered. And would I need my boots, I asked, but she didn’t answer, just led me from that fire and into the woods, and we walked for a long while through these woods until we came to a clearing with tall grass and a hill, and we made our way up the hill and lay down in the grass and it was done.
The next day, I called my dad’s phone. I’d been calling a lot still. Maybe not every day, but often. Usually, I’d just let the thing ring a while and then hang up, but today I aimed to leave a message. I wanted to tell him what had happened. But something strange occurred: he picked up.
You’re okay, I said.
I’m fine.
I’ve been calling.
I know.
So, I said.
Yeah.
You haven’t called, I said. What happened?
I’ve been busy.
Busy.
There’s been some controversy, he said.
With?
Son, I can’t talk about it now.
But talk about it he did. He went on to suggest all manner of nonsense—investigations, double and triple homicides—not to mention there’d been a lot of calls to return, a lot of things to deal with, and so it went, nothing personal.
And in the end, I didn’t care about these stories. I was just glad he was alive.
* * *
THE SUMMER WORE ON to August, and I left for Cape Cod, where I hitchhiked around a bit. I had vague plans of going west and then returning. That’s what I told the girl. I’ll be back. I wanted to work the harvest on the commune, then go to New Mexico, where my bio dad said he’d be. I was just going to travel now. That was the plan. I had my backpack, my big knife, some matches, a few hundred bucks.
One afternoon, stranded outside a convenience store, I watched the endless summer people come into and out of this place with their station wagons and minivans brimming with coolers and folding chairs, kayaks and such strapped to their roofs. They gassed up, stretched, got back in their cars, and headed west. There was the commotion of children and dogs and exhausted parents, sunbaked, sweating oils and liquor and sugar, all sleepy-eyed and dreamlike, ready to be home.
A Nova pulled in. Two women, one pretty. The Nova was all beat to hell. They parked next to an air compressor and got out and sat on their hood and looked nervously at the road full of cars. One of them stood and began pacing. They spoke frantically with their hands or buried their faces in their hands or chewed skin off their hands. A car of teenage boys showed up, and the pretty one walked over and peered in the window and shook her head. Next was my turn. She slithered over and asked to see my fingernails.
I showed her, but she turned her nose. So I went inside, found a bathroom, freshened my areas.
I guess she never found anyone better or had forgotten me altogether. When I returned, she eyed me with renewed interest. Here he comes now, she announced. Jack Kerouac himself.
That’s right, I said. Now I’d like to read you a poem if you’ll let me.
She was kind of flirty—the better-looking of the two—but the other one just said, T
hat’s fine, let’s go.
I’d like to say I didn’t think about it, but that’s not true—I did think about it. Both too taut and jerky, they grinded their jaws and moved too slow. They had the feel of the victim—someone had done them wrong, and now someone would pay. And someone had done them wrong: purple-eyed, with a darkened cheek, the driver slurred through a busted lip and a chipped front tooth. She needed dental work, a damp compress, some TLC. She seemed a few years older than me. Both did. They were busted in a pharmaceutical way, with loose skin and coon eyes, all self-will, determination, and fuck you, and though I kept seeing the image of the one pacing back and forth angrily, I got that same stubborn thing myself—when I want something, I just don’t care.
I sat behind the driver, my bag beside me, but the driver turned and barked for me to sit bitch. She wanted to see me.
I thought it was a come-on and moved to the middle of the backseat.
The passenger leaned back and rolled her head, her sharp lips and mouth close to mine, her breath hoppy and sour. Do you party? she asked.
I like to have fun, I said, though I knew what she was asking, and this wasn’t an answer to that question.
We’re looking to party, she told me.
She was slinky, with defined limbs, her hair tied up, while the driver was kind of tall and built for hard use. Her hair lifted in the wind.
Empty cans of beer and cigarette packs littered the backseat. A discarded Filet-O-Fish wrapper got caught up in the breeze and sucked out the window. Behind me hung a clothesline with panties and crop tops. The girls wore little more than that—both had on bikini tops and cutoff shorts. They’d been at this whole summer thing awhile.
So, the driver asked. What are you doing later?
I had no idea. None. I could see, like I said, a few months down the line, returning to the commune for harvest, going west, but I was all out of concrete plans.
We’ll be in Plymouth, one of them announced.
I could meet y’all there, I said.
Oh, the passenger said, do you party?
She was so strung out.