Another Life

by Robert Haller

  “Rebecca,” Rachel said as her sister went back into the house for her jacket, “it’s way too late to be going out.”

  “Ben’s brother is missing—our cousin,” I heard Becca say as she put on her jacket and then grabbed something out of a drawer by the kitchen sink. “I have to help him look.”

  “Mom and Dad wouldn’t want you—” Rachel began.

  “Mom and Dad aren’t here,” Becca said, holding two flashlights and pushing past her sister to stand next to me on the front steps. “Come on, Ben,” she said. “My bike’s in the yard.”

  “Becca,” Rachel called, still standing in the doorway as we headed across the yard, “if you leave, I’m telling Mom and Dad.”

  Becca hesitated for just a moment. “So tell them,” she said, and grabbed her bike out of the grass. She handed me a flashlight. “Come on,” she said. We jumped on our bikes and cranked out of the drive and onto the road, our flashlights making thin stabs into the darkness.

  PAUL

  The kid was fast. Even before Paul had started smoking, drinking, and generally ignoring his physical health, he couldn’t run like that. DeShawn had taken off and was well across the giant parking lot before Paul even registered what was happening.

  Chasing after the boy seemed a ridiculous course of action. It also appeared to be the only logical and acceptable thing he could do.

  Maybe twenty seconds after he began running after DeShawn, who was now nearing the end of the lot, it occurred to Paul how this sight might be easily and terribly misconstrued by anyone who might happen to witness it: an older white guy chasing a young black kid across a rest-stop parking lot well after dark. He remembered what April had said to him after the locker-room incident—How was I to know what you were doing with him in there? And even though he was still running, even though this was not remotely the time or place for it, even though DeShawn had now reached the end of the lot, Paul began laughing. He couldn’t help it; the whole situation was just too ridiculous.

  By the time he neared the end of the lot, Paul’s laughter had turned to wheezing, and he had a stitch in his side. That wasn’t supposed to happen. He wasn’t even twenty-five, for God’s sake! He should be able to run for two minutes without feeling on the brink of a heart attack.

  DeShawn surely would have lost him, disappeared to who knows where in the darkness and the trees, if he hadn’t tripped over something in the grass just outside the lot. He stumbled, fell, and had to get back up. Despite the pain in his side, Paul forced himself to run faster. The steep hill slowed him down, but DeShawn was slowing down, too. Both of them were scrambling up the hill now, almost on all fours. Paul gathered his last vestige of strength to lunge out and grab at DeShawn’s legs, just catching his left heel.

  “Get the fuck off me!” DeShawn cried, kicking out violently and shaking Paul’s hand away.

  Paul stumbled back onto the grass, catching himself with his hands. DeShawn was still moving up the hill, but only barely. He was trudging up the incline like an oxygen-starved climber nearing the summit.

  Paul felt dizzy. His chest hurt. He could hear the traffic speeding by on 87, and the crickets chirring in the woods ahead. “DeShawn,” Paul gasped between breaths, “where the hell are you going?”

  DeShawn kept moving uphill toward the woods and didn’t answer.

  “DeShawn.”

  He whirled around, his face livid. “Just leave me alone! Okay?” he shouted. “All you people just leave me alone! None of you know me, so stop acting like you care! I don’t need you. I don’t want your help.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Paul said, “but just tell me where you’re going.”

  “I can’t take it back there anymore. I’m going back to Brooklyn.”

  “DeShawn,” said Paul, “you can’t do that.”

  “Yeah? And why’s that?”

  All the obvious answers Paul could give—you’re too young; there’s no one there to take care of you—would only work the kid up. “Look,” he said, “someday, yeah, you can go back to New York. Just not now, not tonight. The time’s not right yet, that’s all.”

  “You told me to leave,” DeShawn said, quieter now, looking at the ground. “You told me to leave and never come back.”

  “Well, I’m not somebody you should listen to,” Paul said. “I mean, now you should listen to me, but for the most part, my advice is shit.” He paused. “I know it’s hard, living up there, but sometimes you have to do the hard thing. That’s part of growing up,” he added, and immediately wished he hadn’t, since it sounded dumb and insincere. But he had always imagined that was what fathers said at the end of some big talk with their sons—not that he would know.

  DeShawn stood just above him on the hill, the forest a dark wall behind him. He was looking around. Paul waited, the night wind drying the sweat on his face, and wondered what the kid would do.

  LAURA

  I hadn’t brought a bathing suit. Normally, this would be enough of an excuse to keep me out of the water. Normally, even if I had come prepared, I would find some reason to stay out of the crowded pool. But tonight, I wasn’t Laura. Tonight, I was someone else.

  “Go Buffy! Kick her ass!” Jen was shouting underneath me. I was perched on her shoulders in the swimming pool, my arms locked with Jordan’s, who was on the shoulders of a boy I hadn’t met. Kids around us in the water were cheering and egging us on. I was already soaked from our first round of jousting and determined to redeem myself this time. But the boy Jordan was riding on was taller than Jen, and after a few seconds of mad pushing and tugging, I felt myself falling backward. But this time, I grabbed hold of Jordan’s wrists and pulled her back with me. Then I was underwater. My mouth was full of chlorinated water, and the back of my head hit something hard.

  Next thing I knew, Jordan was standing over me, asking if I was okay. I was laughing. “I’m fine,” I said. I was sitting on a folding chair at the side of the pool, a towel wrapped around me. But as I watched kids doing cannonballs into the pool or standing around it talking and drinking beer, I realized I felt a little sick. The back of my head hurt, and my stomach was queasy.

  “Okay.” Jordan looked at me doubtfully. “You just whacked your head pretty hard.”

  “Where’s my phone?” I asked.

  “We left all our stuff inside, remember?” Jordan said. She offered her hand and pulled me to my feet. “Come on, Buffy, let’s find something dry for you to wear.”

  I followed Jordan through the screen doors and back into the crowded house. The only sorts of parties I’d ever been to were alcohol-free get-togethers with other kids from church. Socially awkward Christmas parties where we drank fruit punch and played lame gift-exchange games. The girls sat stiff and awkward while the boys tried hopelessly to flirt with them. It was either that or evening worship rallies for the youth, where, under the influence of the rock music and the strobe lights, we fell down crying, confusing our feelings for our current crush with our feelings for Jesus.

  Here in this big, adult-free house on the outskirts of Albany, I saw what a difference alcohol made. All the boys were funny, and all the girls were ready to laugh. They touched each other’s arms in the kitchen; they danced without embarrassment to the hip-hop music blaring in the living room. But Jordan led me past all that, through the crowded downstairs to the stairwell, and upstairs into an empty bedroom, where my phone and bag were lying on the bed. The sudden quiet was welcome, though I could still feel the bass from downstairs pulsing through the floorboards. Jordan stripped out of her bathing suit and got dressed. Normally, I might have been a little surprised to have a girl I’d met only hours ago change clothes in front of me with no warning, but not a lot could surprise me tonight.

  I sat down on the bed and picked up my phone—a bunch of missed calls and voice mails that I didn’t bother to check—and opened my MatchUp app. He had already deleted his account. I blinked
twice and shook my head. Then I opened Google.

  Find Sex Offenders in Your Area. I clicked on the link and searched Albany, NY. It was scary how easy it was.

  There were so many names, it made me dizzy. Each had a link to a picture and profile. I searched “Banner” and got nothing. Then I searched “Martin”: three results. The second one was him. Sitting on the bed, I stared openmouthed. He was younger and his hair was shorter, but it was him: Martin Sitwell, level 2, and underneath was his address.

  Jordan had changed and was now going through our unwitting host’s closet, searching for something for me to wear. I opened a new tab and searched Martin’s real name. There was an article in a local newspaper, from 1999. Martin had been an English professor at a small private college outside Albany. He’d been caught having sex with one of his students. She was only sixteen. There were more details, but the online article cut off. Just a photo of him, looking angry and embarrassed. I wanted to see a picture of the girl, but that was it. I put down my phone, sat back on the bed, and closed my eyes, listening to Jordan pick out my clothing. I was suddenly tired. I just needed to sleep for a few minutes.

  My new name was Buffy, but really it should have been Dorothy. I was Dorothy, sauntering down the Yellow Brick Road in my hot red shoes, looking for something, though I couldn’t remember what. But I had bumped my head on the way, and now everything was confusing. The Wizard had been a major disappointment—a creep who couldn’t keep his hands to himself—and the Witch? I had yet to find her, but she scared me. I could see her craggy green face and hear her mad cackle.

  Some boy was standing in front of me, talking—talking to me, it appeared—holding a red plastic cup of beer in his hand. Looking down, I saw with surprise that I, too, was holding a cup, only half full. I brought it to my lips and took a long drink.

  We were in the living room, and even though the music was loud and all around us kids were dancing, this boy was trying to have a conversation. “So you’re a Mets fan?” he was asking me. He was tall and skinny, with eyes a little too big and just the beginnings of facial hair. “I’m a Yankees guy myself, but that’s okay, we can still be friends.” He tried for a charming grin, but I just stared blankly up at him. I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. “Your hat,” he said.

  I wasn’t wearing a hat, but when I reached up to touch my hair, I found, to my surprise, that I was wrong. I was wearing a hat—something I never did. A baseball cap, no less, I saw when I took it off. Bright blue. I’d been wearing it backward, apparently.

  “So where are you from?” the boy said a little doubtfully as I, perplexed, continued to examine the baseball cap.

  “Oz,” I said without hesitation.

  “Huh?”

  Someone grabbed my shoulders from behind, and I turned to see Jordan. “She said she’s from Oz, Dustin; deal with it.” She looked at me. “Buffy, your assistance is required in the kitchen.”

  With her hands on my shoulder blades, she began to steer me through the crowded room. “I’d stay away from that one if I were you,” she said in my ear. “He’s sort of a creep.”

  “Jordan, where did I get this hat?” I asked. I still hadn’t put it back on.

  “Are you drunk already? I gave it to you upstairs when I basically had to force you to get up and get dressed. To hide that horrible bump you got in the pool.”

  I touched the back of my head. Beneath my wet hair, I could feel a large, soft bump that hurt when I touched it. I put the hat back on.

  In the kitchen, a table stood in the middle of the room. On either side, plastic cups filled with beer were set up in a diamond pattern, in ridiculously perfect symmetry.

  “Okay, ladies, I found her,” Jordan said to the girls in the room. “Buffy’s here to help me kick your collective ass.”

  “What do I have to do?” I asked as she handed me a Ping-Pong ball.

  “Haven’t you ever played beer pong before?”

  I shook my head.

  “Don’t worry, it’s not too complicated.”

  I tossed the Ping-Pong ball and missed every cup. Jordan laughed and told me it was okay and to chug my beer.

  “Quick! Before it’s our turn again! That’s it!”

  On an empty stomach, I found I could drink and drink without feeling sick, though my head got lighter and my skin felt warm. After a few games, I looked around the room but couldn’t find Jordan. Then I noticed with mild surprise that Dustin’s arm was around me. He was laughing hysterically at something I had said. Although I hadn’t heard my own joke, I started laughing, too, because everybody else was and it seemed like the thing to do. Then someone was passing out brownies, and I grabbed one because by then I was really hungry.

  APRIL

  Phones only offered the illusion of control. You could call, you could text, you could leave as many messages as you wanted, but if the person on the other end of the line didn’t want to contact you, there was nothing you could do about it. After April called Jon and learned that her daughter had left the church saying she was having dinner with her grandmother but didn’t come back and hadn’t returned any of Jon’s calls or texts, April had hung up and called Laura. No answer. And after she called her own mother and confirmed that she had made no plans to have dinner with her granddaughter, April called Laura again. Her voice was tight and pinched when she left a message: “Laura, where are you? Call me.”

  Then April called the police.

  And after ten minutes of pacing up and down the kitchen, rubbing her face, shaking her hands, waiting for a call from her daughter that didn’t come, April knew she couldn’t wait any longer.

  When Jason came downstairs and asked her what was wrong, why she had shouted for him, why her face looked like that, she told him he had to stay at Dylan’s for the night because she was going to Albany.

  “What? Why?” Jason asked.

  April could have lied to her son, found some excuse to keep him from worrying too much, but she was sick of lies, sick of sparing people from the truth. “Laura’s missing, Jason. She left the church a few hours ago and they don’t know where she went.”

  Jason’s face was a portrayal of confusion that had not quite broken into fear yet.

  She walked up and put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m going to go get her, okay? I’m going down to get her.”

  Jason nodded.

  Fifteen minutes later, April was speeding south on 87, maybe faster than she had ever driven in her life.

  BEN

  We ended up back at the park. We’d ridden all around the town, and my legs ached from so much pedaling, and my voice was hoarse from calling out his name so many times.

  I skidded to a halt at the riverbank, the spot I had seen him last. The moon glistened over the surface of the river, its reflection dancing on the dark water like it was teasing me.

  I felt around on the ground until my hand closed on a stone. I chucked it as hard as I could at the silver reflection. The stone ripped through the water and disappeared. I found another stone and threw it. And another and another.

  “Ben,” I heard Becca say quietly behind me.

  Ignoring her, I felt around for another stone but couldn’t find any more in the darkness. I sank down onto the sand and put my head in my hands.

  “It’s my fault he’s gone,” I said into my hands. “If we never find him, it’ll be my fault.”

  “No, it’s not.” I felt Becca’s hand on my shoulder. “And we’re going to find him.”

  “What I said to him before he left … it was really terrible. What if that’s the last thing I ever get to say to him?”

  “It won’t be.”

  I took my head out of my hands and looked at her. Strands of her long hair had fallen out of her ponytail from riding her bike and now fell across her forehead.

  “How do you know?” I asked her.

&nbs
p; “I’m praying to God right now, praying that we find DeShawn.”

  Her calmness angered me. How could she be this relaxed? “Well, pray harder,” I heard myself snap, “because it’s not working!” Seeing her surprised and hurt face, I felt ashamed. This girl had helped me look for DeShawn for over an hour now, even though it was late and she would be in trouble with her parents when she got home. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean that. You should go home. Your parents are probably gonna be mad if you’re not back soon.”

  She shook her head and sat down next to me on the ground. “I don’t care,” she said.

  I looked out at the water. “Do you think God always answers prayers?”

  Becca nodded. “My dad says God always answers prayers, just maybe not in the way we hoped.”

  “That doesn’t really make me feel better.”

  “I know.”

  We sat there together on the ground. I don’t know if Becca was praying, but I was—or doing my best to try. I’d prayed for things before, of course, but the prayer had always been for me. I’d prayed that I had done okay on a math test, prayed that God would make me thinner, prayed that Bethany would like me. But this was the first time I ever prayed for somebody else, not myself, and it felt different, like maybe it actually meant something. I prayed DeShawn was okay. I prayed my parents would find him. I prayed he knew I hadn’t meant what I said. I prayed God would make me a better person, prayed God would listen to my prayer, and while I was at it, I prayed God was even there at all.

  PAUL

  Two Big Macs, two large fries, two sodas, and one McFlurry came to more than Paul had expected, and paying the McDonald’s worker, he couldn’t help joking that he remembered when fast food was unhealthy and cheap. The guy just gave him a blank look.

  Waiting for the food, Paul looked around him, shivering in the too-strong air-conditioning. It was late, and the whole building was nearly empty, the gift shop was locked up, and a custodian was swishing a mop over the ugly brown tile floor. DeShawn was sitting in the McDonald’s dining area, at a booth by himself. Paul had been a little worried the kid might bolt again if he left him there, but once he decided to take Paul up on his offer to come into the rest stop and get something to eat, he seemed pretty much resigned to his fate.