by C Thomas Cox
She stood at my side and stared at me with a goofy grin while I took a bite out of the corner of the toast. "Do you want something?" I grumbled. I couldn't help my tone -- her stare was annoying. I wanted to get through my breakfast in peace.
"Just thinking that maybe we could go for a walk around the lake after you eat. Highs in the lower seventies are hard to come by this late in the spring."
She looked hopeful, but I shook my head. It was going to be nearly impossible to spend more than a short burst of time alone with Claire before she brought up baseball dad. I could not handle her patronizing smile or her overprotective stare, let alone the direct questions that I was sure she would eventually lob in my direction.
"Going to hit the river with Gene." It was only a half lie, as I was, in fact, going to venture over to Gene's place as soon as I finished eating. I didn't enjoy lying to Claire, but I rationalized that doing so would ease her conscience in the near term. Taking a longer view, I was confident that speaking to Gene would lead to a better life for her, as I expected that our chat would bring about a resolution that would prevent future episodes. Little did I realize that my search for my antagonist would nearly destroy Claire's life.
Chapter Five
After throwing on a worn pair of blue jeans and an insulated flannel shirt -- a charcoal gray plaid version that Claire despised, as it reminded her of the cumulonimbus clouds that signal an approaching storm -- I hopped in my Ford pickup and rumbled toward Gene's place.
Gene lived in a nineteen-forties cedar-shingled rancher overlooking the Susquehanna. Although more than a handful of shingles were chipped, moss-covered, or altogether missing, he didn’t care. Ever since Helen, his wife of forty years, divorced him four years prior, maintaining the home and its landscaping did not make it onto his to-do list -- a reality to which the voluminous dandelion population also attested. Instead, he focused on running the baseball league and hitting the river as frequently as possible.
When I pulled up, Gene was power washing the fish scales and worm guts off of the inside of the hull of his trailered aluminum jon boat. "Hey stranger!" He released the trigger and laid the wand on the ground as I walked over. "You want to join me on the river?" He pulled a packaged fishing lure from his pocket. "This new crankbait just arrived from Bass Pro, and I bet it'll get the attention of some hesitant smallies."
I shook my head. Normally, I would relish the chance to spend the Saturday before Memorial Day on the water. That morning, however, the knots in my mind would not allow me to relax with my fishing buddy. So I lied. "Sorry, but Claire's enlisted my help transporting twenty casseroles from the church to the soup kitchen."
"That Claire...she's a mighty good lady." I nodded.
"Actually, I just stopped by to ask you, as commish, what I hope is a quick question."
"Shoot."
"Do you mind pulling out the roster for the 10U Mud Hens?"
He led me through his garage and into his kitchen, where he picked up an half-inch-thick stack of papers resting on the corner of the counter. As he began to leaf through them, he said, "Do you mind telling me what's going on? Do you think I should suspend one of the boys?"
I shook my head. "No, nothing like that. In fact, at last night's game the players didn't question even one of my calls."
"Ah," he replied. "An overreacting, overprotective parent. I've seen more than my share of them." He grinned and pulled a red pen out of the nearest drawer, and then held it menacingly over a page that he pulled out of the stack. "Do you want me to ban the parent?"
"Nah, it wasn't that bad," I said. I was not about to let him know the trauma baseball dad had inflicted.
"Then what’s the deal?"
I tried to casually peer at the paper in his hand, but I didn't want to appear too zealous. I wasn't close enough, however, to make out the names. "One of the boys left his hat under the bench, and I just want to return it. I'm pretty sure I can find his name on the roster."
I felt my face flush, as Gene cocked his head and stared at me for a few seconds. Though I was certain he didn't know the real motivation behind my request, I was not prepared to answer any additional questions. "Wow, I've never seen an umpire go so far out of his way for one of my players." He patted my shoulder, and I chuckled like a boy who had just lied to his teacher about the fate of his homework.
He handed over the roster, and I pulled a notepad and pen from my pocket. I leaned over the counter and stepped through the last names one by one. Delaney. Schmidt. Leiphart. I glanced up to see Gene watching me intently. Johnson. Nope. Nguyen. That's it!
I held my finger beneath the name and jotted it down on my notepad. Bradley Nguyen. "You sure that's the right one?" Gene asked.
"Yep." I was glad that Gene nodded in acquiescence. "Do you have the list of parents?" He again rifled through the stack. This time, he pulled out a sheet with Mud Hen Emergency Contacts as its heading.
I slid my finger down the first column of the list until I found Bradley Nguyen. I then scanned to the right until I reached the column labeled, Father. Blank. Blank! The damn thing was blank!
In the column just to the right of the blank Yen Nguyen was listed as Bradley's mother.
"Why isn't his father's name here?" I glanced at the remainder of the sheet, and Bradley Nguyen's dad was the only one missing.
"Must've passed away." Gene shrugged his shoulders. "We require, on the registration form, the names of both parents or guardians, even if they're separated or divorced. In my experience, death is the only situation where only one of the parents or guardians is listed." I gritted my teeth so loudly that I was sure Gene could hear their surfaces scraping across one another. I was just relieved they didn't crack.
"So you're telling me that the man who..." I checked myself before revealing too much. "The man who rooted for Bradley wasn't his father?" Gene nodded. "Then who the hell is he?"
Gene shook his head. "Maybe the mother's boyfriend. Maybe an uncle or grandfather." He paused and looked at me quizzically. "Why does it matter, anyway? Can't you just return the hat to his mother?"
My plan had quickly gone awry, and fear of the future episodes I now anticipated began to take over. I leaned against the laminate countertop with trembling hands and grimaced. My legs felt as though they had turned to straw. But I think my rapid, shallow breaths were the reaction that really caught Gene's attention. "You okay? Want a glass of ice water...or an ambulance?"
"No," I whispered between pants. "I'm fine." I forced myself to substitute deep breaths for shallow and, after a few minutes, my legs began to regain their strength.
In the meantime, Gene had poured that cold glass of water and set it in front of me. "Thanks," I said before taking a gulp.
After setting the glass down, I gingerly made my way along the counter, sliding one hand along its surface in case my legs weakened again. "You sure you're okay?"
"I'm fine, Gene. Thanks for the help."
"Wait, don't you want Bradley’s mom's name and contact information?"
I was about to decline -- after all, the whole hat story was merely a ruse -- but I realized that doing so would increase Gene's suspicion. Besides, perhaps I could somehow use that information to track down the man on the sidelines. A man who I'd just learned was not, as I had previously presumed, a baseball dad. "Oh, right...yeah...would you mind writing it down?" He scribbled it in my notepad, and I shoved the pad and pen back into my pocket.
"Thanks again," I said as I shook his hand. He followed me to my truck.
"You sure you couldn't use some time on the river?"
"Wish I could. But those canned goods won't deliver themselves."
He knitted his eyebrows. "I thought you said you were delivering casseroles."
Ugh! I was blowing it yet again but, in my defense, I was under an inordinate amount of stress. "Right, casseroles. Sorry. Delivered canned goods last week. I can't keep Saint Claire's volunteering straight." I chuckled. He seemed to buy it.
I pulled t
he notepad out of my pocket and tossed it onto the passenger's seat. I then climbed into the cab of the truck and took off down the gravel road, sweat beading on my brow, with no clue as to what I was going to do next.
Chapter Six
Feeling defeated, I pulled away with every intention of heading back home to consider my options...if, indeed, I had any remaining. My palpitating heart, however, pleaded with me to do whatever I could to find the mysterious half-eared man. Besides, I was sure Claire expected me to spend at least a significant portion of the day on the river, so arriving home after less than an hour would kickstart her suspicions. And I didn't feel right making up some excuse as to why Gene and I didn't go fishing. Although I did lie about my trip to his house, I didn't want to make a habit of fibbing to my wife.
I pulled over just before I hit the main road and I stared at the notepad. I need to do this. Taking a deep breath, I picked it up and flipped it open to the page on which Gene jotted Yen Nguyen's address. After powering up the GPS unit affixed to the center of the dashboard, I typed the address in the destination field and pressed Start Route. "You should reach your destination in approximately ten minutes," said the robotic female voice.
Although ten minutes in the truck typically passes with ease, every minute of that journey felt like an eternity. My chest tightened like a vice. Dripping sweat burned my eyes. And a mallet pounded against the inside of my skull.
Regardless, before noon I reached the street on which Ms. Nguyen lived. Driving at a cautious fifteen miles per hour between the seventy-five-foot-tall oaks that sheltered the front lawns of the aluminum-sided split-levels, I looked for the mailbox adorned by the number decals indicating her address. I spotted it to my left about thirty feet out, tapped the breaks, and drifted to a stop across the street.
My fingers involuntarily began tapping the top of the steering wheel. Meanwhile, I began to question what I was even doing on the Nguyen's street. Before I entered their neighborhood, adrenaline flooded my body as I was drawn toward their house. Once I drew close, however, I had no idea what to do next. I most definitely couldn't walk up the cracked concrete walk and knock on the front door. "Uh, excuse me, Ms. Nguyen," I could picture myself saying. "Can you tell me the name and whereabouts of the Vietnamese man rooting for your son at yesterday's game? I want to talk to him about his behavior. After he threatened to kill me, I suffered through a horrible episode, the likes of which I hadn't experienced in thirty years." She would call the cops -- or, at the very least, consider referring me to a nearby psychiatric ward. Although those calls may have been justified, I didn't want to run the risk.
Sneaking around the outside -- or inside -- of the house in the middle of a sunny Saturday didn't seem like a good idea, either. Although oaks lined the street, there were no trees beside or behind the Nguyen home, and the few scattered azaleas that hugged its perimeter wouldn’t provide me any cover. The lot couldn't have been more than a quarter of an acre, so I was certain I'd stand out like a landing craft arriving on Nam O Beach. That wasn't an option.
Instead, I picked up my smartphone -- Charlie, our only child, had shipped it to me the previous Christmas -- and snapped a quick photo. In case my memory failed me yet again, I thought an image of the house and yard might come in handy in my future attempts to find the mysterious man. I wasn't quite sure why, but I figured at the least it couldn't cause any harm.
After I laid the phone in the center console, I shifted into drive and released the emergency break. Before I hit the gas, however, I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, slight movement of the Nguyen's front door. I threw the shifter back into park, rotated the visor downward to obscure as much of my face as possible, and lowered myself in the bucket seat. I had to see who came out.
After the door opened, Bradley was the first to step over the threshold. Actually, it was more like a leap. Dressed in swim trunks and a tank top, he appeared ready -- and excited -- to go for a swim. He obviously didn't care that it was barely seventy degrees out.
He turned and waited for his mom to appear, which she did shortly thereafter. She didn't, however, exit alone. Just behind her, a man emerged holding her hand. The low brim of his baseball cap, as well as his reflective sunglasses, initially obscured his face. However, as he walked toward the driveway -- and in my direction -- he put his fingers on the arms of his shades. I watched closely for him to remove the sunglasses, as I was certain this was the man whom I had erroneously called baseball dad. After all, his build and complexion rekindled in me the explosive rage that ruled my previous evening.
As he removed the glasses, however, I learned that this man was Caucasian rather than Vietnamese. My stomach dropped.
The instigator at the baseball game could not have been Ms. Nguyen's boyfriend. A relative, perhaps? That appeared to be the only realistic option remaining.
Chapter Seven
Without any way to identify the Vietnamese man -- other than, of course, harassing Yen Nguyen -- I headed home. I figured I'd been gone long enough to suppress Claire's suspicions. She would believe, without question, that I spent the late morning and early afternoon fishing with Gene. Just to be sure, I picked up a dozen nightcrawlers at the nearest convenience store and tossed half of them into some nearby bushes. I then placed the carton next to the fishing rods in the bed of the truck.
Shortly after pulling out of the lot, I happened to glance in the rearview mirror while pausing at a stop sign. Although a black Buick sedan stopped directly behind me, I swore I noticed a silver Pilot pull up just behind it. I turned my head, blinked several times, and then looked again at the reflection...just to make sure my eyes weren't deceiving me. They weren't. Unfortunately, the distance between us made it impossible to make out the face of driver.
When a five second honk exploded from the Buick, I stopped staring in the mirror and hit the gas pedal harder than I wanted. My truck lunged forward. The back of my head crashed into the worn, leather-wrapped headrest, leaving me with an instant headache. I shook it off the best I could, and glanced again in the mirror. The Buick turned left onto a side street, and the Pilot drew closer. Its driver was also sporting sunglasses, making it difficult to identify his face with any degree of certainty. Pennsylvania's antiquated driving laws that do not require front license plates didn't help, either. Otherwise, I would have looked to see whether the plate's numbers were camouflaged like those on Half-Ear's Pilot.
Regardless, the Pilot's continued acceleration provided me enough evidence to believe that the maniac from the game was after me. I shoved the gas pedal to the floor. Although I was hesitant to do so on the narrow residential street, I had no choice. I just prayed that an unwitting four-year-old did not run out in front of me. I leaned over my steering wheel and studied the road, just in case.
When I hit fifty miles per hour, I glanced again in the rearview, expecting the Pilot to be feet away from my bumper. When I did so, however, I was shocked by what I saw.
It was gone! The Pilot had vanished entirely! I couldn't believe it.
Only two possibilities could have resulted in such an abrupt end to our encounter. Most likely, the driver of the Pilot following me was not, in fact, the man whom I had been seeking. His acceleration was probably due more to his rush to reach his weekend destination than as a result of some devilish intent.
If, however, driver was the man I sought, he probably just accelerated toward my taillights to throw a scare into me. As I had decided the previous night, there's no way he was the monster into whom my mind had transformed him. After a brief chase, he likely decided not jolt me into cardiac arrest and turned away. At least that's what I assumed at the time.
Looking back at that chase through the lens of the subsequent horrors that I was about to endure, I now question my thought process entirely. I wonder whether a silver Honda Pilot was following me at all.
Chapter Eight
Blood was pulsing through my veins during the entirety of the drive home. Not only was I on edge as a result of t
he chase I may or may not have experienced, but I was about to lie to Claire yet again. I knew, though, that I didn't have an option.
I pulled up to the detached garage and pushed the button on my visor-mounted automatic garage door opener. Before I'd pressed the button, I had planned to make a show of pulling the half-empty worm carton out of the truck's bed and walking it into the kitchen, where I'd insert it in the refrigerator. A minor detail, yes, but one that would convince Claire without having to utter a word. However, Claire's Corolla was missing from the garage. Apparently, she had decided to drive over to the lake and take a stroll by herself.
Although I knew my absence must have disappointed her, the relief I felt at not having to confront her overwhelmed my momentary guilt. Instead of figuring out how to appease her, I could spend some time prepping myself for my next episode. An episode that would likely be worse than the first one.
In the time that had passed since my incident in the backyard, details of that vision gradually crept back into my mind like the Viet Cong who slunk toward our encampments in the seventies. The details weren't comprehensive, but they enabled me to cobble together a reasonable picture of what I thought I saw. An imagined invasion that I wanted to avoid at all costs. An imagined attack that, as I recalled even more details, felt as though it had become a part of my reality.
After shoving the worms in the fridge -- I still wanted Claire to see them when she arrived home -- I stepped through our glass slider onto our flagstone patio with Scout, our Golden Retriever, at my side. Although he appeared to smile broadly, as Goldens always do when anticipating a game of fetch, my face did not reflect any degree of happiness. In fact, I was certain that anxiety, pain, and dread were adjectives that more accurately described the emotions my face expressed.