by J. Warren
“Afternoon,” he said, putting a hand up to the brim of his hat.
“Sheriff,” I said, nodding my head.
“Just on my way out to your place,” he said.
“Had to go for a walk,” I said.
“Pretty day for one,” he said. He stared at me for a second, his sunglasses reflecting my face, then said “Did you get those papers over to Ol’ Albert?” he asked. I nodded. “Well,” he said, turning his head and spitting a gob of something brown into the ditch, “I’ll get right down to it; somethin’s come up, and I need a word with you, if you don’t mind.”
“The bike,” I said.
He nodded, “Yahp,” he said, hooking his thumbs through his belt, “the bicycle.” He pronounced it “buh eye sickle”. “You musta’ seen that news conference,” he said, and I nodded. “Hell you must’a been, what? no bigger’n that,” he said, gesturing to his hip. My eyes glued on his gun, “Ol’ Albert traipsed you into my office, and you said someone come along and swiped it out the back yard, right?” he asked. I nodded. He nodded, too, only slower. “We ran the number, and that there is your bike, son. Got it down to the station. Yuh can have it when this whole shitstorm blows over, you want it,” he said. He looked down at his boots, then back up at me, “thing is,” he said, and spit a wad of something off into the ditch, “means I need to ask you a question or two. Won’t take long. Figure we can do that tomorrow.” He tilted his head to the side a bit after saying this, looking me in the eye.
“I was hoping to leave tomorrow,” I said, and immediately knew I didn’t mean it.
“Don’t mean to interrupt your plans. Why don’t you let me give you a lift back over to the station; you can get this out the way, then I can give you a lift back home?” he asked. I couldn’t see his eyes under the glasses, but I knew they were squinted down to pinpoints.
“I don’t know—,” I said, looking back toward my house. My skin was gooseprickled tight, and I was starting to shiver.
“Would it make any difference to ya’ if I said this might help us a damn sight?” he said, turned his head, and spit again. “I mean, son, this thing is gonna’ blow up into about as big a shit storm as a man can ask for. I’d like to have all my ducks in a row when the boys from the FBI come knockin’ on my door, if you catch my meanin’.” He pronounced it “eff” “bee” “eye” with long pauses between the letters. His head was tilted to the side, again.
I wanted to help; anything to help Randy get where he needed to be, but—and that’s when it hit me. Randy wasn’t in that coffin. He never had been. When they put that coffin in the ground, I’d been upset because I knew he wasn’t in it. Somehow, I had forgotten that. It seemed to me some part had remembered, though; in all the times I’d come for visits, I’d never once gone to Randy’s grave. I hadn’t even gone with the discovery of the remains. Randy wasn’t laid to rest—he wasn’t resting. I stood there, looking at the sheriff, for a few moments that seemed to last years. My skin relaxed.
“Sure,” I said, and walked toward the sheriff’s car. He nodded that slow nod, and walked to the driver side door.
“Let me move some of my paperwork,” he said, climbing in. He swept a fat stack of papers and a clipboard onto the floor. Leaning across the seat, he unlocked the door. I got in, and sat down as he turned the key. On the stereo was a song that seemed familiar. He closed his door, and I paused. ‘There’s still a chance,’ some part of me whispered, ‘run.’ I closed my door, and the sheriff put the car in Drive.
“I mean to tell ya’ this is a help.” He sounded grateful. The song’s familiarity drew my attention.
“Who?” I gestured toward the stereo.
“That there is Johnny Cash. Don’t tell me you ain’t never heard of The Man in Black,” he said. It clicked; this was the same song that had been playing on Kevin’s stereo when I’d walked out. Something about a man and how many roads he has to walk down. “When was it; hell, so long ago I don’t remember, but Roger Parker got me listenin’ to him.”
“You knew Mr. Roger?” I asked before I could stop myself.
“Knew him?” he asked, “boy, we served together.”
That was the day I found out that Sheriff Aiken and Mr. Roger were friends. Well, I don’t know that you could call them friends. They’d played poker together over at the VFW hall on Saturday nights, the Sheriff told me. “Ain’t no one in this town could shark me into foldin’ on a flush-build like Roger Parker, the son of a bitch,” he said. I thought that if he hadn’t been indoors, he might have spit after saying that name. I’d never known Mr. Roger’s last name. It seemed to fit perfectly. They each took turns grilling steaks for the rest of “the boys” at the hall every Tuesday, he went on to say. “Lord knows, didn’t have no cookin’ show over on the television, but I did alright. Ol’ Parker wan’t all that great, but shit, who’s complainin’?” I think they respected each other, or at least Aiken thought of Mr. Roger as an equal. The main thing I remember is that, looking back, they talked alike. Not the chopping off ends of words, or calling me ‘son’ or ‘boy’, but more that they had similar gestures; their eyes moved in the same way. I think I started, even then, to grasp what was to come.
Of course, when we got to the police station, the bike was mine. I knew it was before I even looked at it. The storage area smelled like cardboard, and the strange smell concrete takes on when it’s shielded from the sun.
He walked me back to the office, asking “Soda?” as we passed a machine. I watched him as he put the change in, and tried not to smile as he grunted bending to take the cans from the tray. He handed one to me, and took the other. We walked back to the office, and sat down.
“How long you in town for?” he asked.
“I don’t know, really,” I said, “a few more days, maybe less.”
“Well, small piece of advice, son—and the man says you can judge how good advice is by how much ya’ shell out for it, and this here’s free—but maybe while you’re here, ya’ might think about leaving the McPhersons alone.” He didn’t look at me while he spoke. He wiped the lid of the can off with the tail of his tie carefully, as if he were honestly worried about it being dirty.
“I didn’t—,” I began.
“Now,” he said, and went completely still, “son, don’t go that route. It ain’t polite, and, worse, if you start someone to not trustin’ ya’, ya don’t never get that trust back. You know damn well I’ve had that hospital watched ever since I noticed those newsfolk in town. So, save us both the trouble, and just listen to what I’m sayin’.” He looked down the hallway from where we were sitting. “This has been hard on Pete. He ain’t but half the man he used to be, and Gwen? Well, like I said, she ain’t never come back. Some say she’s the lucky one,” he smiled a bit at the corners of his mouth. A chill ran through me, and I stopped moving. “So,” he said, and something in him came back to life, “I need to ask you a few questions about the McPherson boy if ya’ got a minute.” I could tell that was rhetorical, though. He meant I was going to answer. I felt my shoulders tense. “You said you was how old, again, when the boy disappeared?”
“Umm—,” I started, and closed my eyes, willing the stammer to stop, “twelve.”
“Twelve,” he said, and shook his head slowly, just as he had before, “so the boy was ‘bout five, six years younger’n you?”
I nodded, “Yeah, give or—umm—take.” He nodded once.
“You ever have a scuff up with the boy?” he asked.
“No,” I said, “we never fought.”
“If I remember correctly, you and the McPherson boy was friendly.” I could tell the statement contained more than one question.
“I taught him how to swim.”
“Uh huh,” he said, looking at the floor again, “now, I don’t mean to cast dispersion on no man, but I gotta’ ask this question, considerin’ the day and age we live in,” he finished, paused, inhaled, then exhaled as his eyes slowly rolled toward my face, “was you and the McPherson boy mor
e than friends?”
“No,” I said, surprised. “I’m not—,” I started to say ‘gay’, but we had been boys at the time. For some reason, it seemed strange to call two little boys together ‘gay’. ‘Gay’ was Kevin O’Mally.
The sheriff raised his hand as if to stop me, “You don’t have to say anything else. Understand that I gotta’ ask that. I mean, hell, coulda’ been a lover’s spat or whatever the hell those boys call it.” I wanted to ask him if he thought that two boys that much different in age could be—and even in my head there was a pause—like that with each other. Then, I realized that I didn’t even know how I felt about it, so I didn’t ask.
“It—umm—it wasn’t,” I said. He nodded, and sat up straighter. He looked toward the door.
“Did that boy never say nothin’ about, I dunno’, maybe Pete hittin’ him or somethin’?” he asked.
I thought for a second, the said “No.” Pete had never laid a hand on Randy, and Randy had never been the kind of kid that adults have to hit. He had always been a quiet, shy, thinking little guy. I remember that most of all; adults loved Randy. It was me that most adults didn’t like. I mumbled and, as Mr. Roger put it, ‘lurked’. “Always standing around, watching everyone from the corner,” he’d said, “it ain’t right, boy. It don’t seem right.”
The sheriff nodded that slow nod of his, once more. “Had you ever met Gwen McPherson during the time you knew her boy?” he asked, his eyes hitting mine directly. Something in them made me want to scoot as far from him as I could.
“Only once,” I said.
“Some say she started to crack up before that boy went missing,” he said. Again, I could tell there were lots of questions in that statement. His eyes stayed glued to mine. I felt like squirming.
“She came to pick him up after one of the first swimming lessons. That was just before they got him that bus pass, I guess,” I said. He’d always talked about how much he liked riding the little bus that the town had. He said that the vibration made his chest feel funny, and he liked seeing people he didn’t know. Neither of his parents had ever come to pick him up from the Y after that. I’d offered to walk him home a few times, but he said he liked the bus. Like most kids, I guess, I didn’t understand that to have a kid that young ride a bus by himself is not only odd, but a little dangerous. Thinking back on it, it seemed shocking.
In that small space, I realized that I had forgotten a lot of things. Not forgotten, maybe, so much as stopped thinking about them. Randy, so much a part of my life in his absence, was missing. Not just from the town, but a lot of things about him were missing from my memory. In that small, quiet spot in the sheriff’s questions, I realized there were huge, dark fields littered with things I didn’t remember about Randy. I could see outlines and shapes of things, silhouetted by the light which was, just now, starting to creep over them. I started to shake a bit, and I felt that same weak-kneed feeling of my first roller coaster ride.
“Did you ever walk him home after his swimmin’ lessons?” the sheriff asked. “No.” I wanted to tell him about how I’d offered, and about how much I was worried for the boy’s safety in hindsight, but nothing more would come out. If it was possible to be on the verge of remembering something, I was about to, and I could already tell that, whatever it was, it was going to terrify me.
“As I recollect,” he said, looking down at the floor again, “you was a wanderin’ soul back then. Always saw you out and about on that bike of your’n. People told me you was out way past curfew, too,” he said, then looked back up at me, “did you see anyone strange, maybe not so wholesome lookin’, wanderin’ around town the day or anytime the week that boy went missin’?”
I wanted to jump on this new line of thought. I wanted to think about, and remember some drifter, looking vaguely like Charles Manson, that I could say ‘Oh, Yeah!’ about. I wanted there to be a manhunt and an arrest and a trial; I wanted there to be justice. Instead, I was stuck on the verge of remembering something. I felt it building in my head like the cresting of a wave that, just before it starts to curl, you know is too big, too dangerous to ride.
“I don’t—umm—I don’t know. I can’t remember—umm—that far back,” I said.
“Son,” he said, tilting his head to the side a bit, “you look pale. Are you alright?”
“Must be something I—umm—ate. Is it okay if I—umm—go?”
He squinted, “Well, I guess so,” he said, and stood up. I stood, as well. He walked to the little wall and pulled the gate open for me. “I’d be much obliged if you’d let me know if you’re going to leave town, alright?” I nodded and walked out the door.
I had almost reached home before I realized that I didn’t feel ill so much as shocked and afraid; it dawned on me that same moment what he meant when he said that last bit. I stopped walking, and my knees went weak, again. I sat down on the grass, not bothering to look at where I was. I knew the sheriff considered me a suspect.
TWENTY-TWO
My mother was cooking something. The second I opened the door, I could smell it. It was familiar, but the name wouldn’t come to the surface. I walked straight upstairs, though. My knees were still shaking some.
The springs of the mattress groaned under me as I lay down. I kicked my shoes off, and put my arm over my eyes, and rested for a moment. I wanted to leave; just pack my things into my bag and turn in the return-trip portion of my ticket. After all, the sheriff hadn’t charged me with anything—I could still leave. ‘But then, what about Susan?’ some part of me asked, ‘what are you going to tell her?’ I didn’t have to go home, though; Sarah had asked me to come stay with her for a bit. I had told my boss that I didn’t know how long I’d be gone. I could go stay with her and then tell her no to let anyone know I was there—disappear for a while.
‘They always run,’ some part of me said. It was right, too. Someone who runs immediately looks suspicious in ever movie where there’s a murder.
I stopped breathing. That’s right, some part of me said, murder. If the Sheriff was asking questions like that, then he knows more than what they released in the press conference. He thinks that maybe the boy was murdered. When I thought the boy, it was in the sheriff’s voice.
The possibility that something terrible had happened to Randy had always lurked in the back of my mind, like a shadow. I hadn’t ever focused on it. Even the last few days, when I knew on some gut level that the bones they found were Randy’s, I didn’t think about how they might have gotten there. I’d been busy with other things. It felt the same as the day I’d found out he’d disappeared.
I hadn’t been with him, that day. I’d made it a point to always try to be at his bus stop to walk him to his house, even though it wasn’t that far from the stop. I had a bike, so I got home a lot faster than he did. ‘Why didn’t you ever offer him a ride?’ some part of me asked, and I ignored it, like anyone would. I had asked myself the same question, even then. Maybe that’s what made the whole thing even more horrible. The day that Randy had disappeared, I hadn’t been with him because I’d gone looking for him. I was going to offer him a ride home on my bike.
I’d been sitting in my desk, ready for the bell. Mrs. Granford hated kids who did that. She always said “I dismiss you, not that bell.” She was old, and had warts. The only kid in the class who liked her was Veronica Ball. She was the only kid in the whole class that Mrs. Granford would smile at. She would always show her old, faded teeth whenever she said “Ball” during roll call.
I had already packed everything into my bag, and it looked like I was going to get away with out her noticing. I wanted to get down to Randy’s classroom door so I could say “Hey, why don’t you ride home with me, today?” I was excited about it, and nervous, too. The last two days, though, I had decided that I didn’t like the idea of him riding that bus. Again, who can say why kids think what they think, but I was determined that he wasn’t going to ride that bus, anymore. I watched the red hand wind around, ticking off the seconds, when I no
ticed that the class had gone quiet. I looked from the clock to find everyone staring at me.
“Well?” Mrs. Granford said. I turned my head toward the blackboard, and saw that she’d written out a list of words.
“Ma’m?” I asked. The class erupted into a fit of snickering. She frowned, and folded her arms.
“Which word will you be defining for us tomorrow, Mr. Kendall?” she said. She always did that; called people mister or misses and their last name. I’d seen a man do that in a war film my father liked—something about some place called Iwo Jima. I thought of her, sometimes, as one of those men; always yelling at someone without ever really knowing them.
I glanced at the word list. The vocabulary words; she would take the five hardest of the ten, then ask five of us to write one down. We would have to look them up that night, and come in with the definitions (and she wanted all of them, no matter how many) the next day. I was looking for whichever was the smallest word when the bell rang. I smiled quickly, grabbed my book bag and started to stand. The rest of the kids, all except Veronica Ball, began to do the same.
“I wish I knew where all of you think that you’re going,” she said, loudly. “Mr. Kendall has yet to tell us which of these words he will be defining for us tomorrow. Until he does that, we will go nowhere.”
Everyone slowly sank back down into their chairs. I was in a hurry, so I picked one. “Ennui,” I said. I pronounced it “En You eye”.
“The word,” she began, “is pronounced ‘on we’. It is a French word which we have adopted for use in English. Kindly try again, Mr. Kendall,” she said. I could see everyone staring at either the door or me.