Adrenaline shot into Kevin’s system. His heart trip-hammered in his chest. The ground moved beneath him—he imagined a stampeding elephant charging toward him from behind. The recent butt bruise no longer throbbed—only his heart did—it was the apex of that roller coaster ride. The top hill, he knew. Soon the ride would be over. Nothing else existed; him and the train.
“Kevin, please,” Billy whined again, fear spilling over in his voice.
“I’m fine,” Kevin yelled, pulled from his world of utter excitement. His voice was nothing next to the train sounds coming from the tunnel.
The train hit its horn again. Its echo reverberated down the tunnel. Startled by it, Kevin jumped. At least he tried to. Still seated, instead he just kicked out.
“There it is…I see the lights,” Jimmy said excitedly. “It won’t be long now.”
“Please. It’s not safe,” Billy begged. His face was a mask of misery, of guilt. It was full of all those things Kevin saw in his parents’ faces—adult issues.
Kevin would not move. “No.” This was his moment, the time when all the boys learned to respect him, to even admire him. It might be the chance he needed to become popular, more so than Johnny.
“I see…see…see…them too.” Tony’ s words stuttered out like machine gun fire. His excitement bubbling into fear made his stutter worse.
“Cool,” Jimmy said, staring at the open mouth of the tunnel.
It wouldn’t be long now, Kevin knew. Johnny would tell him to move any time. Placing his hands flat on the ground, palm side down, he started to get ready. This would allow him to push himself to his feet quickly.
He saw sweat glistening on Billy’s forehead. The other boys were behind him now as the train got louder, obviously watching with anticipation as the vehicle grew closer. Billy stared at Kevin with sad and confused eyes.
“I’ll be fine,” Kevin said, trying to ease Billy’s fear. It sounded like a whisper, though he was shouting.
Getting ready to jump up and run from the tracks, Kevin tried repositioning his legs by pulling them toward himself. The left one came easily. The right one did not. His foot was jammed under the wooden tie of the tracks. He tried pulling, pushing, even untying his gym shoe to get it free. Then he tried again. His foot wouldn’t budge.
“Move,” Johnny screamed, over the roar of the train.
Kevin realized the error of his previous assumption, because Johnny hadn’t just waited until the very last moment. He had waited longer. Probably because Johnny wanted to make it good, being Kevin’s last dare and all. The train had to be about halfway through the tunnel to make this much rumbling and noise, Kevin knew. Much too close. Especially now that his damned foot was caught. He yanked at it, pulled. Nothing. Even tugged at the cloth. His nails ripping across the material made a tiny scratching sound. He could feel it more than hear it. The sound of the train—too close now—thundered in the air.
“Help! Help!” Kevin screamed. It came out, but was lost in the general din of the train. The other boys didn’t hear it, no one saw the exasperated look on his face, and he couldn’t point to his leg to explain. Desperately he tugged at his leg again trying to twist it free.
Billy turned to look at Kevin one last time.
Kevin yelled again, “Help me. I’m stuck.” He was going to die. Billy couldn’t hear him either—the knowledge made him sick, and weak inside. His stomach ached, his bladder hurt. He was only ten years old. Sweat poured down his face.
Kevin’s mouth moved, but nothing came out—Billy saw—so he moved over toward his friend. Kevin pointed to his right foot.
Billy ran over to the other boys, trying to gain some help. Any help. They didn’t respond so he ran back and tried to free his friend. The other boys watched in stunned disbelief as Billy tried to wrench Kevin’s foot free. Billy tried everything, twisting, turning, pulling the foot. Kevin’s pants ripped, giving the impression his foot was free. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t.
Finally, Billy tried pulling at the wood. Nothing worked. Kevin’s foot was wedged. Jammed tightly in place.
The train sounded close. Billy ran over to the others again. “Help me!” he screamed in their faces. Anything to break their silent trance. They stood rapt in shock. Billy ran back to Kevin. Spotting a piece of wood lying nearby, he grabbed it up, shoved it under the board where Kevin’s foot was lodged, and put all his weight onto it, trying to pry Kevin’s foot free. Nothing.
Billy, too afraid to see how close the train was, because if he saw he might freeze up, worked quickly. Pushing with all his might on the board again, using all his weight, might help move the lever. The force he exerted was tremendous, especially considering his age and size. Like a mother lifting a car off her trapped toddler, adrenaline made Billy strong.
Kevin cried in agony as his foot came loose, toes snapping like firecrackers from the force of Billy’s lever. No one heard them except Kevin. He didn’t care. His foot was free.
Kevin stood up, leaning away from that foot. Before he knew what was happening, Billy shoved him hard to the right. Then the train came crashing through, rushing by inches from Kevin’s prone body.
The train moved slow—for a train—due to the oppressive darkness of the tunnel. The train conductor didn’t see the boys who were situated just outside the tunnel. Coming from such darkness into such bright light was blinding. At the last moment he applied the brakes. Too late.
Billy Hawkins’ body was struck, throwing him two hundred feet from the accident scene. He was pronounced dead on arrival. Billy’s parents and friends attended the funeral, where the gang mourned the loss of a truly brave boy.
Kevin’s right foot had four broken bones. His parents never allowed him to see the other boys again after Billy’s funeral.
Later that year, the state paved a street across the tracks close to the same location as the fatal accident. Billy’s parents, with some of their loyal friends, lobbied the city to rename the street after their dead son. They never succeeded. Though their efforts did get Billy’s’ heroism into the local paper, the street remained Elm Street. Everyone thanked the newspaper for immortalizing Billy Hawkins. A true hero.
* * *
Kevin went on to become a successful real estate broker. A short time after the accident, Kevin’s parents moved away from his roots to a large suburb of Los Angeles. It was easier than dealing with all the looks from their neighbors. And seeing the sorrow in Billy’s parents’ faces, after having lost their only child.
There was only one person who seemed not to blame Kevin. Billy’s best friend at the time, Beth Sierra. Over the last twenty-five years they remained in contact—writing back and forth. Kevin had grown closer to her than to some of his so-called good friends.
“Twenty-five years have passed. If pressed I can remember parts, but others are blurred. The events have faded in my mind,” he said in answer to her question about how much of the incident he remembered, this on the anniversary of Billy’s death. “It’s almost as if my mind has obliterated details of that day long ago. Like the memories are blurred beneath years of new, sometimes good and sometimes bad experiences, but never any as terrible as I feel that day was. Everything in my life changed from then on.”
“I’m sure it did. You were lucky, you moved away. I heard it all. People said the most awful things. Still, I’m curious about the changes. Were any of them good? I mean, I guess I know about some of them, at least some of the bad ones, but what about the good ones?”
“Sure good things happened to me. I grew up after all. It was a better fate than Billy.”
“Stop that. Don’t go blaming yourself.”
“You’re right. I doubt Billy would have wanted me to. It’s just that today makes me sad.”
“Me too. But don’t blame yourself. Let’s just talk about the good changes in your life since then.”
“Sure. Well, for instance I believe that I never truly liked adventure before that train almost hit me. At least not like I learned to love it.
You know this is the first time we’ve really talked about it, which kind of makes me realize how influential that accident truly was.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think that somehow after Billy died I changed. I mean I always liked carnivals and a little bit of excitement.”
“All kids do.”
“True. But after we moved away I started liking Chinese food.”
“As you get older you start to enjoy things you didn’t,” Beth said.
“That’s true too. But I always hated Chinese. I remember the first time I ate it and liked it. I can’t remember why, but my father had brought some leftover Chinese home from the office. Mother knew better than to serve it to me. I wouldn’t eat it.”
“Picky, picky.”
“Sure was. But for some reason, the next Saturday my mother was out doing the laundry, I think our washer was on the blink, and I had just gotten home from baseball practice at the high school. I was famished. So I dug in the fridge. Low and behold there was the Chinese. I passed it up three times before the smell prompted me to open it. For some reason, even though I always hated the smell, it was intoxicating to me.”
“Intoxicating?” Beth questioned. “Really?”
“Yeah it’s a strong word, but it’s the right one. I ate the food and it was the most delicious stuff I ever tasted. In the middle of it my Mom arrived home. She saw me eating it and stared. Finally she said, ‘You’re eating Moo Shu pork, do you know that?’ I said, ‘Yes. I guess my tastes changed.’ It just floored her to think I would now eat Chinese. And it wasn’t just that I ate it once in awhile, it became a craving of mine. “Then in the middle of sophomore year, all of a sudden, I became left-handed.”
“That’s impossible. You’re kidding me. Right?”
“Nope. I’m not. It really was weird. One day I wrote right-handed, the next day I wrote left. I never told anyone that but you Beth. But it’s the God’s truth. That was really weird.”
“I bet. You know what, I think Billy was left-handed too.”
“You’re right he was. I remember Jimmy used to tease him about being stupid because of it.”
“You were saying that you got into adventure. How so?”
“Well, I began taking up sports just for the sheer excitement of them. Like water skiing and snow skiing. Not cross-country, but the fast windy downhill type. Always, I searched for windier, steeper courses. Hell, I had hated sports in grammar school, but as I grew older I became addicted to that adrenaline rush. Anything. Once a sport lost its excitement I stopped doing it. Flying and hang gliding became boring after awhile. Too easy, not enough chance of failure.”
“Failure? You wanted to fail at flying?” Beth asked astonished. “You mean you wanted to die?”
“No. And no I didn’t have suicidal thoughts because of what happened to Billy. It was more like other sports held more chance of getting that high. Flying and hang gliding were too easy. With a mountain, or water beneath me I couldn’t always tell where the next tree or wave would be. So I became adventure addicted—I even tried bungee jumping when it first came out if that tells you anything.”
“It tells me you’re crazy,” Beth laughed.
“Maybe I am. It is almost like my drug of choice you know. I have friends who do cocaine, I have friends who drink heavily, and I have friends who pick up new sex partners nightly. That’s their thing. I don’t do any of that, but I do go wild for on-the-edge experiences. One time I even tried walking on a tight rope, just for fun.”
“That’s fun?”
“For me it was. I almost made it too, but slipped.”
“There was a net, right?”
“Nope. That was part of the thrill. No net. But I was lucky, I caught the rope.”
“You were lucky.”
“Yeah, it’s almost as if I couldn’t die. Especially considering all the amazing things I’ve tried. Like I was not fated to die just yet. So that’s part of what has changed.”
“Only part?” Beth asked.
“Well, a few other things happened.”
“Like what?”
“I was deathly allergic to penicillin as a kid. After a night of studying like crazy, I took this exam in college. Well I finished it, but I passed out. Pneumonia, they told me later. The doctors didn’t have a medical history on me and injected me with penicillin. Instead of a terrible reaction, it actually saved my life. It could have been a fluke or something I guess.”
“That’s true. Truth is stranger than fiction sometimes.”
“Yes. My interests changed in high school.”
“You told me, you became interested in sports.”
“That and I began to hate English, which I had always wanted to go into. For all my childhood I remember wanting to be a college professor.”
“A noble cause.”
“Yes I know it is. And you’re great at it.”
“Thanks.”
“But in college I turned to business. Something I had never been interested in before. I even took classes in Accounting.”
“So? Kids change.”
“They do. But I had always hated math before, even stunk at it. Yet I found that I got better and better at it. And science too. I had liked English and history as a kid, but as I got older I became more proficient at science and math. Weird, huh?”
“Kind of. Most kids who like the humanities don’t do well in the sciences, and vice versa. At least from my experience. Not that you couldn’t have liked both. But you said you did better than you expected.”
“I did. I got better in science and worse in history. Of course, who really cares about the Renaissance?” Kevin teased, knowing she taught history.
“That is strange. But not from a guy who turned lef-handed,” Beth teased back.
“I guess I deserved that bit of ribbing. One other thing has changed since Billy died.”
Some kids screamed in the background. Beth said, “Hold on Kevin.” Then she moved the phone from her mouth, but Kevin heard her talking to her kids anyhow. The words were muffled but discernible, “Go play outside kids. I’m trying to have a conversation on the phone now. Your father said to come inside it was going to rain? Okay, stay in, but go up to your room and play there.” There was a rustling sound, “Sorry Kevin.”
“No problem. Did I catch you at a bad time?”
“No. I’ve got a while before dinner. Go on. You were saying there was one other change since Billy. What was it?”
“I met a girl. I mean a woman.”
“Oh, that’s great. What’s her name?”
“It’s Rose.”
“How’d you meet?”
“That’s the odd part. We met in a country and western bar. I’d always hated country music as a kid, until well, until I was about eleven years old. A friend of mine, actually just an acquaintance named Jack, suggested we meet there. While I loved the music, I usually avoided going to these bars because most of them were dives. Yet, for some reason I agreed to meet him there.”
“You must have been bored that night.”
“Probably,” Kevin said. But that wasn’t it. Dives stank of stale beer and played music that was too tinny. That night was no different. But he was different. He found himself toe tapping and singing songs.
Rose came up to him and said, “Hi cutie.” She was too bold for him. He saw instantly that they had nothing in common. She dressed in skintight pants, and wore an open shirt revealing hefty cleavage. But from the moment she approached, he couldn’t stop staring at her. Her raw sexuality hooked him, he told himself. But there was more. Much more.
The spaghetti straps over her naked shoulders made him tremble with desire, something he had never done before. And she wasn’t the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. In fact, Sarah Thomas had been more so, and he had dumped her after two dates. Still Rose attracted him like no other, she had an ease about her. The feelings of knowing her from before, some other time, a time that never existed, struck him. He had never believed
in love at first sight, but she had changed all that.
Rose was crude, saying “Let’s get out of this dump,” after only saying hello. He normally would have refused, liking to get to know the women he slept with beforehand. This time, he had gone with Rose. Some feeling of rightness had pervaded everything, so he had done it. That in itself was unlike him, taking a chance like that.
“Hello?”
“Oops sorry. I guess I was just remembering how we met.”
“You old romantic.”
“Well, we’re planning on getting married next month. Valentine’s Day. Hope you and Dave can make it. That’s why I called in fact. And of course to catch up.”
“We’ll try. Make sure to send an invite though.”
“We will.”
* * *
Life went on. Rose and Kevin conceived a son, William. They started him in high school the same year that Rose found the nodule on her breast. It was the couple’s thirteenth anniversary.
Rose, the woman Kevin loved with his entire soul, died two short years after chemotherapy started. They cremated her.
With Rose’s parents unreachable in Europe for another week, Kevin postponed her funeral until they returned. That entire week his eyes remained fused with tears. Every morning he almost had to pry the eyelids from his face to open them.
The last hauntingly familiar thing he found out about Rose’s family was they had lived in the same small neighborhood he had for a time. The one where Beth now resided. His family had already moved when Rose’s landed. Eventually she moved away from them. Yet she had such fond memories she insisted upon having her ashes interred there.
The funeral took Kevin back there. To where Rose’s family resided now. To where he had lived so many years ago.
Deja vu kept occurring while driving into the area. He knew what was around almost every corner, remembered things he hadn’t remembered in years, and got confused when some major aspect had changed. Many had. His old house no longer stood on Pine Street. Instead, a three-story townhouse of red brick occupied the land. Many stores had come and gone in the years since his last visit.
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