Going Places

by Kathryn Berla

  Scolari arrived on the wings of all those precious seconds. The ones that didn’t exist for me but were real for him. He did notice the unlocked door. Of course he did. He wasn’t operating on automatic the way I was. He wasn’t moving through a dream. He was always thinking first and foremost of the little girl in his house. The one he thought he was protecting. The one I guess he really was protecting. An unlocked door, well that was a red alert at the highest level. He burst into the house not even taking the time to close the door behind him. I was almost down the stairs by then, standing on the last step with the girl’s tiny hand still clutched in my own. And then, as if in slow motion, I saw the lights come on. I heard him call out her name.

  “Stella!”

  I’ll never forget that name for as long as I live. Stella.

  When he saw us frozen on that last step, he went ballistic. He charged towards me, I believe ready to kill. Like that deer in the headlights, I found it impossible to move. I found it impossible to speak. Then I released Stella’s hand and took the final step to face what was coming next.

  “You son-of-a-bitch!” was the last thing I heard him say before he swung his fist, catching me square on the jaw. I fell backwards and heard Stella scream.

  There was something hard on the back of my tongue. It was my tooth. I tasted blood. Lots of it. He swung again and again. His left hand held me down by my throat while his right fist made hamburger out of my face.

  “Son-of-a-bitch,” he said over and over again with each punch.

  I felt myself losing consciousness. I struggled to focus on something, anything. Even his fist. I coughed hard on the tooth that was making its way down my throat.

  I heard her before I saw her. To my rattled brain she looked every inch the avenging angel, complete with an aura of light. “Stop!” Fritzy’s commanding voice yanked me back into the world. “Stop it!” she screamed as she grabbed for the arm that was preparing to take yet another swing. Scolari was no match for her power. She pulled him off of me and put up her fists, ready to fight. I focused on my angel through the slits that had become my eyes.

  “It’s not his fault,” she said. “We were just trying to help someone. An old man.”

  I could hear Stella crying hysterically.

  “Now look what you’ve done,” Scolari’s voice cracked. “Look what you’ve done. Come here, baby.” He leaned over and Stella ran down the remaining steps and into his arms, burying her face in his chest

  I pushed myself up onto my elbows. The room was spinning. I saw Fritzy. I saw Scolari with Stella wrapped in his arms. I saw his bleeding knuckles and worried whether he’d ever be able to play the piano again. As for myself, I was beyond pain. I couldn’t feel a thing.

  “He won’t tell Mommy,” Stella sobbed. “He’s nice, Daddy. He said he won’t tell.”

  “Shhh, baby, shhh. It’s okay, honey.”

  I tried to sit up but fell back down on my elbows. Fritzy stood guard, waiting for Scolari’s next move.

  And then just like in the movies, Pirkle walked through the open front door.

  “Mr. Pirkle,” Scolari said. “What the hell are you doing here? What are you all doing here?”

  “This your little girl?” Pirkle asked as he walked past Scolari and knelt down by my side. “Come on, Hudson. You’re going to be all right, buddy. I got you.”

  He lifted me into his arms and took my entire weight until I was as steady as I was going to be. Then he walked me slowly towards the door. Fritzy came up behind us and took my other arm.

  “She’s my daughter,” Scolari said. “Her mother . . . she’s unfit. No child should have to go through that.” Scolari’s voice was raw with emotion.

  “Better sort it out with the judge,” Pirkle said without even turning around.

  “You don’t know what you’re doing. You don’t know what her mother’s like. I’m trying to save her.”

  Pirkle stopped in his tracks just as we reached the door. He turned around and gave Scolari the look.

  “How do you save someone by making them disappear?” he asked.

  Pirkle was right. He should know. He’d made himself disappear for most of his life.

  >>>

  Lucky for me, my mom was a nurse so I got to recuperate at home. Luckier still I was home-schooled because I would have missed a whole lot of school otherwise.

  Alana came to see me and burst into tears. She left five minutes later. She came a few days later and burst into tears again. She managed to stay ten minutes that time. It was too painful for her to see me in all that pain. To be fair, I felt like bursting into tears every time I looked in the mirror.

  Fritzy came to see me every day. Sometimes we just watched TV and sometimes we talked about what had happened. She gave me a hard time for being lazy and told me it was going to take her an extra six months just to get me back into running shape, but she supposed it could be done. She took over my Distress Dial duties, and Frankie took care of walking the dogs. At first her parents forbade her from seeing me, but she told them they could do whatever they wanted to her, but she was going to keep on being my friend no matter what. They let it go, saying that loyalty was probably a more admirable quality than a good choice in friends.

  As for my mom, I knew how much I’d disappointed her.

  “I can’t very well ground you now that you’re eighteen. And I suppose you’ve been punished enough. There’s nothing I can do to cure stupid, so hopefully you’ll use better judgment in the future.”

  I used the time to work on Ghost Soldiers, which I still hadn’t shown anyone. One day I heard my mom sniffling from my bedroom where she was changing the sheets. The sniffling kept coming at regular intervals until it became obvious it was more than her hay fever. I went to my room where I found her sitting on the side of my bed, my manuscript on her lap.

  “I remember the toy car,” she looked up at me when I walked in. “But I didn’t know you remembered it too.”

  I sat down beside her and took her hand in mine. She leaned against my shoulder and wept quietly.

  “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Hudson. You’re my boy. You’re my life.”

  I cried for the first time since I’d traded my regular eyes for puffy, black and blue slits.

  >>>

  One Saturday the doorbell rang and my mom led Mr. Pirkle to my room.

  “How you doing, son?” he asked. “You’re not looking too shabby.” He turned to my mom. “That’s one tough customer,” he said, and she smiled.

  “How did you know Scolari?” That question had been haunting me ever since I heard Scolari call Pirkle by name.

  “Once had a conversation with him at the coffee shop,” he said. “Didn’t remember his name. I’d see him at your lady friend’s house from time to time, but I had no idea he was my backyard neighbor.”

  “Why did you go to his house?”

  “You dialed my phone. I could hear everything that was going on.”

  My mother looked visibly upset, excused herself and left the room.

  “I’ve come from the doctor,” he told me in a hushed tone. “Just like we agreed.”

  “But you were right. There was a girl in the window.”

  “Well, I was right, but I was wrong too. You paid a big price for me, and I owed it to you. And to myself.”

  “What did he say?”

  “She said I’d do better in one of those places where there are people around who could keep an eye on me. Your mother was right. ‘Sundowners’ is what the doctor called it.”

  “So, what are you going to do?”

  “I got some names of places from your friend, Mrs. Dickinson, who, by the way, sends her best wishes. I suppose I’ll check out a few of them.”

  “You want me to go with you? As soon as I’m feeling a little better?”

  “I’d like nothi
ng more.” He ran his hand over his thick silver hair. “It took a lot of courage, Hudson. What you did for me.”

  But I knew I wasn’t brave. I never expected what happened.

  And Mr. Scolari who wasn’t really Mr. Scolari. He was Noel Albertsen who moved to our town two years prior when he rented the house in preparation for taking his daughter from the woman who was failing her, the drug-addicted mother. The courts repeatedly ignored the problem or at least overlooked it, but Noel Albertsen couldn’t. Fritzy’s mom had first seen his name on the bulletin board of a local music store. The fact that he came to his students’ homes was a big plus for her and many others.

  Can you kidnap your own child? Apparently. Can you ignore a law for good reason, or break a law that’s unjust? You can, but you have to accept the consequences. He did. I did. But he didn’t press charges against me, and I didn’t press charges against him either. In that way, we saved each other from even worse trouble than we’d already found. Over the next few months there were stories about him on the local news. Noel Albertson was sent to prison, and Stella was put into temporary foster care. A few months later he was released and Stella was returned to his custody when the judge determined the father was only looking out for his child’s best interests and had been forced into a no-win situation. Noel and Stella Albertson moved away to begin a new life. Did the system finally work? I guess it did.

  >>>

  Instead of growing closer, Alana and I began to drift after the night we made love. When I finally did get around to showing her the manuscript and drawings for Ghost Soldier, she was filled with praise. She finally gave me the validation I craved from her, but once I got it, I realized I no longer needed it. I found the reward in my work, and I found it all by myself. And there was something else I discovered. I didn’t really want to travel to Europe. I just wanted Alana.

  Alana and I made plans to go to the all-night party the night of our high school graduation. But that afternoon she called to say she couldn’t do it. Being in the school gym, (which had been transformed to look like Las Vegas) with Bryce and his friends for an entire night was way too depressing. Two days later she texted to say she’d be spending a few weeks with her mom and sister. I never saw her again. Three months later, her father was transferred to another city and their house was for sale.

  Alana Love had been disappointed early in life and seemed to seek out disappointment to confirm her world view. But beyond that, she was like a sweet summer breeze. Irresistible as it flows over you. Caresses you. But you can never latch on.

  Going places . . .

  Pirkle moved into an assisted living home where he lived independently with just the right level of support. One day a For Sale sign grinned like a fang from his front lawn. Eventually the sign disappeared, and a young family moved in. One day I saw them all piling into the van in the driveway—the parents and their two children, a small boy and his blonde, curly-haired younger sister.

  Pirkle wasn’t a Distress Dial client anymore. I never got another late-night phone call from him. We started over as friends, but maybe that’s what we were all along in our own way. I visited him nearly every day. And then early one morning, because I was his emergency contact, I got a call from the director of the assisted living facility where Pirkle lived. He’d passed away comfortably in his sleep. At last, he was at peace.

  My mother and Fritzy went with me to collect his belongings. The director gave me a small box.

  “He specifically said that nobody should open this except for you, Hudson. He said it was the only valuable thing he had to pass along.”

  With trembling hands, I opened it under the watchful eyes of my mother and Fritzy. It was a small metal star suspended on a blue ribbon. At the time, I knew nothing about the Medal of Honor. There was also a letter addressed to me, intended for my eyes only after he was gone. I couldn’t bring myself to read it, though. I wasn’t ready. Not yet. Lastly, placed carefully at the bottom of the box was the frayed photograph of the little girl. Of his little girl. And suddenly, I knew what I needed to do.

  >>>

  Fritzy and I planned a road trip right after graduation. Roundtrip, it was a distance of nearly two thousand miles. Our destination was Rock Springs, Wyoming—a small city where my internet sleuthing had finally led me to Pirkle’s daughter.

  There were few instances in my life when ringing a doorbell was such a heart-pounding event, but it seemed like they all had to do with Fritzy in one way or another. I thought about the time I rang her doorbell, awkwardly looking for a way to beg forgiveness for being such a bad sport during that first game of HORSE. Or the times I’d rung Scolari’s bell looking for a way to get in. Fritzy squeezed my hand, and I took a deep breath.

  When the door swung open, it was hard to connect the gray-haired old lady who stood before me to Maggie, the little girl in the picture I’d seen so often in Pirkle’s home. I instantly recognized her father’s eyes, the set of his mouth, his commanding presence—that much was plain. She had advance notice of our trip so we hadn’t caught her off-guard, but maybe nothing can prepare you for a meeting like that. I was the grandson her father never had, although I knew Maggie had children, even grandchildren of her own. Would she hold that against me? I couldn’t be sure.

  She invited us into her neat but cozy family room.

  “I’m a widow,” she explained. “Lost my husband just two years ago, but it still feels like he’s here. I’m always blurting out something or other to him.”

  Fritzy nodded her head seriously.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” I said. It seemed like such a trite phrase. One I’d heard people say when they were powerless to match the moment.

  “Can I get you something?” she asked, which brought a tight feeling in my throat. I remembered how Pirkle never let me spend more than a few minutes in his home without the offer of some type of drink.

  “No thank you, ma’am,” Fritzy said. “We stopped off for lunch before we got here.”

  “I know a little of why you’re here,” Maggie said. “From Hudson’s email. But why are you really here?”

  And for the first time in all those miles of traveling, I actually thought about the true answer to that question. Ostensibly, I knew why I was there. To offer the few possessions that Pirkle had left behind. But why was I really there? To capture a part of Pirkle which would allow me to hold onto him a little bit longer? Or was it the desire to solve the mystery of the little girl in the picture the way I’d solved the mystery of the girl in the window?

  “He left behind a few things. I wanted you to have them.” I reached into the small box I’d brought with me.

  “Really?” She arched an eyebrow at me in just the same way Pirkle would have. “You could have mailed those and saved yourself a long trip.”

  “We wanted to—”

  “I wanted to meet you,” I interrupted. Fritzy was always tried to shield me, but this was something I had to answer myself. “He meant a lot to me . . . your father. He talked a lot about you.” I held out the Medal of Honor.

  Maggie extended her hand to take the medal. She turned it over and examined it for the precious thing it was. Her fingers closed around it. “I had a real father, you know. I don’t want you kids feeling sorry for me. My birth father was . . . a complicated man, but I’m betting he left this for you.”

  “He did,” Fritzy blurted out, and I nudged her thigh with my knee. “What?” she hissed under her breath.

  “I had a real father,” Maggie repeated. “A real father who always stood by me. I would never do anything to dishonor his memory. This was meant for you. You keep it. Now, what else you got in that box?”

  I pulled out the tiny picture of the little girl, her hair a halo of ringlets. In a way, it was the hardest thing for me to surrender because it was Pirkle’s most precious possession.

  “There’s this.” I offered it to her, hal
f-hoping she’d turn it down.

  She stared at the photo as though meeting a long-lost daughter. A child given up for adoption only to be reunited many decades later.

  “I’ll keep this one,” she said so quietly, I had to strain to hear her.

  >>>

  As Fritzy drove the first leg home, I sat in the passenger seat watching the rolling hills go by, and I finally felt ready. Reaching into the backseat, I unzipped the side pocket of my backpack and pulled out the crumpled white envelope. I traced my fingers over the cursive letters on the front. For Hudson. I carefully ripped open the flap, pulled out the handwritten letter, and read.

  In the letter, Pirkle discussed his hope that I’d change my mind and go to college after all. He talked about other things too . . . Regrets . . . Blessings . . . The way a grandfather would talk to his grandson. He talked about a small fund he had set up in my name. One that would help to pay for college if I decided to go, and would otherwise revert to me at the age of twenty-five. But it was the last sentence of his letter that froze my heart.

  If ever there was a young man who was going places, it’s you, Hudson.

  I’d never told him about the note from my teacher, the one that taunted me from the refrigerator door, daring me to prove my worth to the world. It was an expectation I never wanted. Instead of filling me with confidence, it had the opposite effect and always made me feel inadequate. Was Mr. Pirkle’s letter a new curse from the grave?

  In the days that followed, I read the letter over and over until one morning I woke up and read it with brand new eyes. I suddenly understood that no matter what other people want or expect, only my expectations counted in the end. I realized that everyone was going places. Fritzy, me, my mom. Alana was going to places I’d never see. And Mr. Pirkle had been to Hell as a young man, but now I hoped he was in a better place, if there is such a thing.