by Geoff North
He found a suitable patch of bush less than twenty yards from the lane turnoff and hunkered down to wait. He would need the time to think things through. His older brother Gordon, or Gordo as everyone but mom called him, and his eighteen-year-old sister, Heather, wouldn’t be bought off by a melted chocolate bar. She might make him do her chores for a week, but Gordo was a different matter. He was three years older than Hugh and had a whole lot of hate reserved just for his little brother. This situation could offer the bullying asshole so many opportunities. Gordo however wasn’t the brightest kid in Braedon. He would undoubtedly beat the snot out of him, that was a given. Hugh would have to accept it without telling mom and dad, but beyond that, he couldn’t see his brother coming up with any imaginative forms of blackmail.
Big deal, some dirty dishes and maybe a bloody nose.
He could handle that.
Why not blackmail Gordo? Surely he had enough dirt on his brother to make him keep his mouth shut. In a few years, Gordo would teach him how to smoke…couldn’t nail him for that yet. There was the time the two brothers had snuck out one afternoon and shot the neighbor’s horse with a twenty-two caliber rifle. How Gordo had mistaken its great brown ass for a gopher had always baffled Hugh. It had only been a grazing shot, but Bill Black had been mightily pissed that someone had done that to his favorite animal. That wouldn’t happen for another year at least. Hugh needed something now. What about the porno magazines under his bed?
Bad idea.
Gordo would pass those onto him in a little while, and they were awfully good magazines.
No, there just wasn’t anything solid to cling onto after so long. Most of his childhood memories were just snippets and brief recollections. Smells and tastes, events and holidays, comic book covers and old television shows. Substantial memories, the kind he could blackmail his thirteen-year-old brother with were unavailable to him at the moment.
He lay down in a warm nest of grass and felt the heat of the sun on his face when he shut his eyes. He listened to the blue jays singing in the trees, a tractor working a distant field. He would’ve killed for a cigarette.
Chapter 5
The sound of gears grinding down awoke him. Hugh sat up and saw the yellow school bus slowing down at the end of the lane, a cloud of dry dust rose up behind it.
“Oh shit!” He cried out and started to run for the road. His body was still half asleep, and he tumbled into the ditch face first. Heather and Gordo had already stepped out and saw him fall.
“What the hell are you doing out here?” His brother demanded. He adjusted the textbooks under his arm. “Why weren’t you on the bus?”
Hugh’s head was a jumbled mess. “Because I was out here, you idiot. How the fuck could I be on the bus if I was out here?”
“Don’t,” Heather warned as Gordo started toward him.
She’d always stuck up for him.
Hugh wiped sleep from his eyes and looked at her admiringly. She wore bell-bottom jeans and big clog shoes, her shirt striped with vertical lines of black and white, the kind sports officials wore. Heather was beautiful. Her straight, blonde hair was parted down the middle with a pear-shaped curl at the shoulders, and her light blue eyes sparkled in the sun. He grinned at the sight of her. What would 2011 Heather think if she saw 1974 Heather again?
“What’s so funny?” she asked. “Why weren’t you at school?”
The plan came to him all at once, and it was a good one. “Fabian Bren said he was going to beat me up after class.” The bus cranked noisily back into first gear and headed north to drop the Black children off a mile away.
“Is that fat asshole bugging you again?” Gordo asked. “Doesn’t he know you’re not supposed to mess with Big Bobby McBee?” Hugh recalled the old folk-rock song his brother always loved to quote from. ‘Big Bobby McBee was a mean som bitch- a mountain of a man with soccer balls for fists- and shit-kicking shoes that was bigger than canoes’ Gordo wasn’t anywhere the size of Big Bobby, but he was probably twice as mean.
Hugh nodded and gave his best pouty face. Heather’s defensiveness had given him the idea. Gordo was a bully, and though he loved to torment his little brother, he was the first in line to protect him. “He said he was gonna make me eat my own shit…and then he said you were a dick-head.”
“Watch your language,” Heather said. The three kids started walking down the long, curving lane.
“He said that?” Gordo asked incredulously. “You want me to kick his ass on Monday?”
It must be Friday, Hugh thought. He looked sidelong at his brother and felt a silent sense of pride. He wound pound Fabian even if Hugh said no. Gordo had a big nose strewn with pubescent blackheads, a thin lipped mouth and a pointy chin that jutted out with cocky defiance. His hair was black and unruly, a perfect match for his attitude. He wasn’t much bigger than Hugh, but he was a lot tougher. The thirteen-year-old was skinny and agile, the perfect athlete, stronger than most kids a couple of years older than he was.
Hugh hadn’t seen Fabian Bren in over thirty years. “You may as well.”
Heather kicked a fist-sized rock into the ditch. “What’re you going to tell mom?”
“Why tell her anything?” Gordo asked. Hugh could sense his brother’s mind scheming behind those dark, beady eyes. He almost felt sorry for Fabian. “She doesn’t have to know he missed any school, as long as we keep our mouths shut.”
Heather nodded, not really paying much attention, and produced a book from her backpack. “Check out the new year book.” She handed it to Gordo. “Take a look at the teacher’s page. “Mr. Turd looks like such a dingbat.”
Mr. Turd was actually Mr. Turrid, Heather’s grade twelve science teacher. Hugh felt relieved as the subject changed from skipping school to poking fun at black and white photos. It had been so easy. He wouldn’t be in trouble with his parents, and Fabian Bren would get the snot kicked out of him after the weekend.
They came around a final bend in the road and Hugh stopped in his tracks. The trailer home where he still lived with Cathy and his children in 2011 wasn’t there yet. In front of him now was the home of his youth. The big, two-story farmhouse was exactly as he remembered. He could see Heather’s bedroom window on the southeast corner, his oldest brother Donald’s, was next to it looking out over the front yard and northeast section. Donald had moved to the neighboring town of Whendel when he was in his early twenties to pursue a career in accounting, so there was a good chance the room was now empty.
On the main level Hugh could see the large living room window and the strip of purple and yellow flowers beneath the sill. Johnny Jump Ups his mother had called them. In front of the house sat her army-green station wagon, a junker even when Hugh was a kid, a tank of a vehicle. He remembered how she’d looked sitting behind the wheel, barely able to see over the steering wheel. Back in those days’ seatbelts weren’t mandatory and Hugh had bloodied his nose more than once on the hard, vinyl dashboard. He wasn’t sure if the thing even had seatbelts. It was a hulking deathtrap, but he was already looking forward to taking another ride in it once again.
“Come on,” Heather said a few steps ahead of him. “We’re not going to tell on you.”
Hugh trotted to catch up, and Gordo leaned in to whisper. “You gotta learn to stand up for yourself more. I won’t always be around to look out for you.”
They entered the front porch and kicked off their shoes into an already messy pile of mismatched sneakers and rubber boots. Their mother was always after them to keep it tidy. Hugh ran his hand along the old wooden coat hanger. His dad’s dirty farm caps hung on the top hooks, he touched the sweat stained brim of one with a picture of wheat stalks sewn onto it.
Above that was an immense framed picture entitled The Return of Persephone. Hugh never asked where the picture had come from, or why it was placed in such an odd part of the house. The image was a haunting scene of Hermes returning with the daughter of Demeter from the depths of Hades. (Hugh had done his research). He’d long since f
orgotten the name of the Victorian artist that had painted it. Before his mother had the house torn down, much of the old junk had been divvied up between the kids; Gordo had somehow ended up with Persephone.
Gordon Dudley Nance didn’t have an ounce of artistic appreciation in his body, but it hadn’t stopped him from taking it. Hugh heard that he’d sold it in a pawnshop in the city for forty dollars.
The smell of fresh pastry brought him back. Heather and Gordo had already gone to the kitchen to sample their mother’s butter tarts and mincemeat pies. Dad had always given her hell for baking in the middle of summer. ‘Hot enough without you heatin’ the goddamned house up anymore.’ That meant he probably wasn’t home. He was a part-time farmer and a full-time carpenter. He would be out on the road now, at some construction site in some other town.
Hugh stepped up into a small hallway and admired the family pictures along one wall. He entered the kitchen and saw his mother. She was bent over the sink, scrubbing baking trays and washing measuring cups. The sight was too much for him to bear. He sank to his knees and moaned.
Gordo and Heather ignored him, their faces stuffed with pastry. His mother stopped what she was doing and turned toward him. “What’s the matter, sweetheart?”
Hugh hadn’t heard her speak in years. She was still alive in 2011, but after his father had died, a big part of her must have gone off with him. The doctors said it was dementia, senility settling in early. She would be diagnosed in the late nineties with advanced Alzheimer’s, and besides the occasional sigh of grief or bark of discomfort, Hugh would never hear Marion Nance speak again. He rarely visited at the personal care home in Whendel, he’d always been a momma’s boy, hated having to see her like that. This was how he remembered her.
She called me sweetheart.
She’d always called him that. Hugh called his own daughters that when he was feeling exceptionally loveable.
His mother wiped her hands on a dry tea towel and came over to him. She placed an arm around his shoulders and kissed the top of his head. “Did you have a rough day?”
“Nah,” Hugh struggled for words. After all the pain he’d suffered watching her deteriorate, the years of sadness and longing evaporated. This wonderful woman was whole again, in his life again. He suddenly felt small and shy. “I’m just hungry.”
“Go wash up and I’ll have a plate ready when you get back.” She gave his shoulder a final squeeze and went back to her work. Hugh watched for a few more minutes as she dried the last of the bowls and went for the bag of flour to start another batch of whatever it was she was making. If he could live all eternity in one moment, this would be it.
“Go on,” she said, “wash up or I’ll make you wait until supper.”
Hugh grinned at her lovingly and headed for the bathroom. He passed a grey cat in the hallway and paused, trying to recall which one it was. There had been dozens of cats growing up on the farm. He bent over to stroke its fur, the green eyes became hostile slits, and it hissed, baring sharp, little teeth.
“Fred…I remember you now, you vicious prick.” Hugh straightened back up and regarded the animal with contempt. “Just you wait, Freddy-Boy. You’re gonna crawl up into a combine this fall or next, and it’ll be lights out kitty.”
As Hugh washed his hands he considered the things he could make different this time. He could fink on Mrs. McDonald, but he wouldn’t. He could try and prevent her husband’s death, and he probably would.
Plenty of time for that.
It was the same with Billy Parton; he had five years before the farm accident claimed his friend’s life. Should he make sure Fred-the Fucked Up-cat stays in the house the day of the combine mishap?
No, some history doesn’t need to be changed.
And what about Benjamin Nance? His first son had died accidently in 1992. This time round he would be there to stop the eighteen-month-old from tumbling down the basement stairs. Little kids are tougher than they appear, the autopsy reported he’d survived the fall; it was striking his head against the metal pail of rusty nails and screws on the last step that had done him in. It would be three years before they tried for another baby.
Hugh had eighteen years to live over before that fateful day. Seven years before he met Cathy, seven and a half years before he lost his virginity.
I’ll work on that one.
Eight years before he’d buy his first car, eight years before he graduated from high school.
Plenty of time before those things happen.
He studied the young, freckled face in the bathroom mirror.
“It’s getting cold,” he heard his mother call.
Plenty of time.
Chapter 6
“You’re acting awfully queer today,” his mother said as she poured a steaming cup of tea.
Hugh raised his eyebrows, a little surprised at the comment. “It’s good to be home again,” he said wiping tart crumbs from his face.
“You make it sound as if you’ve been gone forever.”
You have no idea.
He reached across the kitchen table and grabbed a copy of the Braedon Weekly Times. The date at the top read June 17, 1974. The headline and accompanying picture were just as boring as any crap they printed in the future. It showed a teenage girl he didn’t recognize holding the reins of a horse in one hand and a trophy in the other. ‘Braedon Resident Places 1st at Summer Fair”.
“What’s the date, mom?” He asked innocently.
“The twenty-first, dear. Your sister graduates next Thursday.”
He watched her drink the tea. It steamed about her rosy cheeks as she gulped it down.
She must have a throat lined with steel.
He nodded his head and helped himself to a second butter tart. “Where’s dad working this week?”
She placed the half-emptied cup in its saucer and looked at him quizzically. “He’s been working on the new veterinary clinic in Ashern all month. How could you have forgotten that?”
He couldn’t have asked a simpler question. Perhaps it would be best to keep his mouth shut for a few days, just go with the flow. “I just miss him. Is he coming home this weekend?”
“I’d hoped he’d be back tonight, but there’s been a bit of trouble with a few sick workers. He’ll be home Wednesday by the latest.” She finished her tea and went back to the sink. “If he knows what’s good for him, he won’t be back any later.”
Hugh remembered Heather’s graduation all too well. His father was there along with the rest of the family. He’d gotten in trouble for spitting on cars from the fire escape balcony at the community center with Billy Parton. It had been one of the most embarrassing moments of his young life when Steve Nance had marched up those stairs and dragged him down by the ear. He could still picture them all lined up at the bottom of the fire escape; could still see the expressions on their faces. Donald rolling his eyes contemptuously---Gordo, grinning from ear to ear, elated at his brother’s humiliation---and of course there was Heather, bawling her eyes out into mom’s shoulder, screaming at the top of her lungs how her special day was ruined. Hugh imagined over the following decades that the entirety of Braedon’s thirteen hundred residents had also been present to watch the event, but he was pretty sure that was just his mind making a bad situation seem a whole lot worse. At least that’s what he hoped.
“He’ll be here,” Hugh said.
His mother nodded. “I’m sure he will. Now why don’t you go upstairs and clean your room, it’s a terrible mess.”
My room, he thought. He excused himself and raced up the stairs, pausing to look at the giant mule-deer head mounted on the wall in the upper hallway. His dad’s father had been a hunter; he’d presented the trophy kill to his parents as a wedding gift. His mom had been infuriated and demanded the atrocity be put out of sight. His dad argued but finally had to give in. They’d compromised and instead of being stored away into the attic, the head was mounted on the second floor where company wouldn’t have to see it.
My room.
He went to the furthest door on the right.
My wonderful, messy childhood room.
There were clothes half-hanging from the dresser and strewn about the floor. He plopped down on his unmade bed and listened to the familiar old squeaks the box spring made. Across from him sat the bookshelf his dad had made for him. It was stuffed with books he’d managed to lose over the years. Most were well read and tattered, hand-me-downs from Donald, Heather, and Gordo, but he hadn’t loved them any less. Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth, the Time Machine, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula were some of his favorites. He pulled out an especially beaten copy of H.G. Well’s War of the Worlds and flipped through the yellowing pages nostalgically. He should’ve made Colton read these instead of letting him grow up on video games and television.
The walls were covered with posters cut out from magazines and comic books. Batman, his favorite, was pasted all over along with a few of Superman and the characters from Star Trek. The biggest picture was of Farah Fawcett in her legendary red bathing suit. His mom had insisted it come down, but she’d relented after a long talk with dad, and Farah continued to grin down at him with her wavy bangs until the early eighties.
There were model airplanes and spaceships from half a dozen science fiction movies displayed on their plastic stands, some hanging from nearly invisible strands of fishing line. Another bookshelf, made to specific measurements by his dad, held his growing comic book collection. Most of the older comics had been donated by Donald. These were the war and western books from the sixties, a few issues of Donald Duck with ten cent covers. There were about two hundred more that he and Gordo had bought during the early seventies. These were the titles he loved; the superheroes and the horror books. He would have to find a good supply of cash soon if he wanted to buy the gems he’d seen that afternoon in the pharmacy. It would have to be a steady supply too, if he wanted to build a truly impressive collection.