Joe Peacock

 

The Long Ride Home

Published in Trajectory, Fall 2015

 

At the bicycle shop I place the new bike seat on the counter and slip a Visa to a tall, older man whose age I cannot guess.

            “A nice saddle,” he says, taking my card. “I think you’ll be happy with it.” He forces a smile. As he glances at the card, ready to swipe it, he looks up. “Danny? Danny Bartlett from Mulberry Street?”

            I have a good memory for faces but can’t place him. “Do we know each other?” I say. Mulberry Street. An old acquaintance from my childhood? 

            “I’m the owner of the shop.” There’s a moment of silence. “I’m Billy Bronson.” He shuffles his feet in a shy sort of way.

            The name rocks me. My breath catches under my ribs. Billy’s Bikes, the sign over the entrance says, but I’ve made no connection. He extends his hand but hesitates, reconsiders, withdraws it to his side before offering it again.

            “Billy,” I say. I feel my face tighten. Be civil, I tell myself, and force my hand out to accept his greeting.

            “How long’s it been?” he asks.

            “An age. An eternity,” but I’m unhappy with that melodrama. “Forty years this past June.”

            He nods slowly, perhaps counting the years himself. “How’s your mother? I always remember her as a lovely woman.”

            The old ghosts begin pushing hard at me then, but I simply inform him of her death two years ago. I ask how he’s getting along.

            “The shop keeps me busy. You know how it is. Makes the hours go by.”

            As he chats about how he came to own the place, I study him, this man who’s only three years my senior. He looks tired, his face a series of lines and crinkles. A belly of flab is held captive above his belt. His shoulders sag and he’s gone to gray around a shining pate. I compare him to the image I’ve carried with me from my youth, but there’s nothing left from those years to recognize.

What do you say to a person you haven’t seen for four decades, a person who, when you last looked into his face, you despised? The banter, such as it is, wavers. I grow antsy. Billy raises the saddle to place it in a paper bag but pauses. He slides it from the clear plastic for a closer look.

            “This will get bad in a month or two,” he says, his finger at a small tear on the underside. “Let me order you another one. It’ll be here”—he glances at the day and date on his watch—“in three days. Friday. After twelve.” He makes a note on the sales slip and returns my Visa card.

            As I get ready to leave, I’m aware of his eyes glistening in the light of the afternoon sun filtering through the shop window. “Have you ever forgiven me?” he says.

*

On the drive to my sister Samantha’s place on Willow Avenue, I recall that day in June those forty years ago with a vividness that startles me. Outside, hot and green. Inside the bungalow on Mulberry Street, darkness. Shades drawn, a single light in the far corner of the living room. My older brother Jake alone, slouching on the sofa. Everything quiet.

            “Where’s everybody?” I ask when I walk in.

            “Jeannie’s been in a car wreck,” Jake says without looking at me. “Mom’s at the hospital with Uncle Luke. Don’t know where Samantha is.”

            “Sam was with me a second ago.” I turn around but she has disappeared. I have no idea what to say next. “Is Jeannie . . . okay?”

            “If she was okay she wouldn’t be in the hospital, dumb ass.”

            I wonder if there’s any reason to be worried. Lots of people go to the hospital after an accident. “Come on, Jake,” I say.

            Jake graduated from high school two weeks ago. He’s five years older than I am and likes to remind me that he’s smart and I’m not. Sometimes he can be a jokester, but this can’t be his idea of a joke. There’s no dance in his eyes or curve at the corner of his lips. I want to ask him exactly what’s going on, if our sister is really in danger, but his face has gone so blank that it scares me.

I ease down the hallway to my bedroom, locking the door behind me, and straighten the covers on my bed, pulling them into a neat alignment, fluffing the pillow. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to think about this. On the wall above my bed, a dying Christ leans out with a look of acceptance, a gash in his chest, trickles of blood at his hands and feet.

          Why doesn’t Mom call? I wonder if there’s anything I can do that will make a difference. Maybe a prayer, but I feel stupid, like I’m on stage and being watched by someone—or even worse, by God—who knows I’m just faking it. Jeannie might be on her way home right now, laughing about all the hubbub. You’re a phony, I tell myself. You’re thinking about praying only because you want Jeannie to be okay. I sit on the edge of my bed and try to work through it, try to get to a place where I feel devout and sincere, but nothing happens. I start a Hail Mary. When I get to “Blessed art thou among women,” my doorknob rattles.

           “Open the door,” Jake orders.

           I unlock the door and Jake shuffles into the room. His lanky body towers above me, the   nervous fingers of both hands combing through his hair. “Were you praying?” he says.

          His insight amazes me. How he manages tricks like this I’ll never know. “I’m wondering how serious it is,” I say.

           “How the hell am I supposed to know?” He looks out the side window to the house next door. “Mom gets a phone call and starts screaming. Doesn’t say a damn thing to me except that Jeannie’s been in a car accident. Next thing, Uncle Luke’s here and they’re backing out the driveway. That was two hours ago.”

I feel my heart thump hard in my chest. “Are you . . . scared?” Right away I know it’s the wrong thing to ask. He stares at me without saying a word and cracks his knuckles, his classic way of telling me I’m a knucklehead. After five seconds he shrugs his shoulders as if I’m the most pitiful excuse for a brother on earth and heads out the open door.

          I wish I hadn’t chased him away. Fear begins a slow jog inside me. It’s a cold feeling under my ribs, something I’ve never experienced before. My fingers tingle, my legs feel light as if they're floating. I wonder if Jake knows more than he’s saying. Maybe Jeannie’s in serious trouble. Out of the blue I think of making a promise, a vow to become a priest, something the nuns keep urging us to consider. Do it, I tell myself. Do it right now. It might work. But as soon as I’m about to say the words, I think of Pam and how much I love it when she wraps her arms around me, when she leans in to me from behind, her breasts warm against my back, and whispers with her spearmint breath into my ear. I know, of course, about the priestly vows of celibacy, and though I haven’t really been with a girl, I have no interest in never being with a girl for the rest of my life. I’m embarrassed that I’ve come close to playing a con game with God. But I want Jeannie to forgive me for not making a promise that I can’t keep. Not knowing what else to offer, I secretly hope God is pleased with my refusal to lie to Him. I rattle off a complete Hail Mary, just in case.

*

When I get to Samatha’s place, I tell her about my encounter with Billy at the shop.

            “Did you boys recognize each other?” Sam says. “That was a long time ago.”

            I mention my name on the Visa card. She asks how he’s doing.

            “Never married, no family. Owns the shop, but totally out of shape. He looks bad, Sam.  Old.”

            She smiles in a mischievous way she has and raises her cane, always by her side, giving it a shake. “We’re all old,” she says in a crone’s voice, followed by a chilling cackle, a bit too realistic to make me smile.

            Sam won’t be fifty until next spring, but it’s easy to see how her MS has aged her. Her silken blonde hair has been gray for ten years and she’s having terrible problems with her teeth, so I understand her little drama. “He’s only fifty-six,” I say, and wonder how much more I want to tell her. Sam and I have been close for years, so I continue. “He asked me if I’ve ever forgiven him.”

*

My sister Jeannie never much cared for Packy or Chuck, my best friends from elementary school. My father is dead—has been since I was five. Packy and Chuck don’t have fathers either—I don’t know if they’re living or dead, but I’ll never ask—and I feel a kinship. But there’s something I’ve never understood. I live a life of nickels and dimes, enough for a small vanilla cone, but Packy and Chuck order up fifty-cent hot fudge sundaes and banana splits.

            While we pass a football back and forth one afternoon during the first week of summer vacation, Packy explains it without my asking. Maybe he’s seen my surprise when he pulls out an easy fiver. “St. Joseph’s Cemetery has new baskets of flowers left on graves every week,” he says. “I know a florist who’ll give me half a buck for every basket in good shape I can deliver to him. No questions asked. Last week I made seven bucks.” He pats the wallet in his back pocket. “Chuck, too. There’s enough to go around.” He grins and gives me a little wink.             Seven dollars. A fortune. I’m impressed by this self-assurance from a guy my own age. But it occurs to me that Packy is stealing these baskets and I suggest that to him.

         “The people are dead, Danny. They don’t give a damn. Why should I?”

           There’s a perverse logic to his argument, so I make plans to show up the next night at his house a half hour before dark. We’ll meet up with Chuck and continue on to the cemetery.

            I think no more about it until evening, and then only because Jeannie confronts me on my way out the door to work at the teen club. I’m one of two rising eighth graders Father Robert has hired for the summer and the rest of the school year to man the snack bar. Fifty cents an hour. A buck seventy-five a week.

            “You’re not going to E-Teens looking like that, are you?” Jeannie says.

            We usually get along, my sister and I, but stuff like this pisses me off. She’s only sixteen but she sometimes thinks she’s an adult. “Looking like what?” I say.

            “An urchin.” She stands there with a hand on her hip.

            “Dag, Jeannie, lay off. I’m gonna be late if I don’t get going.”

            “Look at yourself,” she says in that maternal tone I hate. “Your tee-shirt’s filthy and so are your jeans. Totally disheveled. If Mom were here, she wouldn’t let you out of the house.”

            Hoping to return the insult, I stare at her, but she looks pressed and pretty in her navy skirt and white button-up blouse with the rounded collar. Every strand of her shoulder-length hair’s in place. I mope over to a mirror above the old upright piano in the living room and I’m surprised that I look so . . . disheveled. I hate thinking of Jeannie’s word, but she’s right. A second glance reveals the curse of this early summer’s crop of freckles spreading across my nose and cheeks. And I need a haircut.

            I turn toward my room and she joins me. “I want you to promise me something, Danny.” She stands there, not saying anything.

           “Well, what?”

           “Promise that you’ll never embarrass the family.”

           “What the hell are you talking about? That’s stupid.”

            Jeannie answers my question, but I don’t listen. I keep wondering how she could have known about the plans to heist the flower baskets. Not a chance, I tell myself. Impossible. I’m amazed, but I say nothing, admit nothing. I change my shirt and trousers, splash water on my face, run a comb through my hair, and jog the last quarter mile to E-Teens.

           After Mass next morning, I call Packy. I have a fever, I tell him, and can’t leave the house. “Don’t worry about it,” he says. “You can come next week.” 

            Next week. I haven’t thought about next week. At that instant I understand I’ve chickened out for one reason: my sister’s suspicion, which is nothing but a wild guess. By eight that night I’m seething. I decide Jeannie doesn’t want me to do anything that would embarrass her. I call Packy. “I’ll see you in twenty minutes.” 

            I amble down Mulberry Street. Men water their front lawns, kids play catch and hopscotch on the sidewalk. There’s a quiet and easy feel to the evening, muffled shouts floating on a warm breeze, laughter in the trees. I wonder why I’ve decided to do this. I need the money, of course, always in short supply at my house. But I’ve never broken the law before, and I think about that for a full block. In spite of Packy’s flip response to my question about swiping these flower baskets, I know someone has to care that they go missing. Halfway to Packy’s place, I consider Jeannie’s admonition again and think about turning around. I want to turn around.

            At the cemetery, I walk with my buddies into a section just down from the eight-foot brick wall we’ve hopped. I can feel my hands shaking, so I dig them into my pockets. The guys spot three fresh grave sites on a slight incline and we hustle toward the area. When we pass a fresh grave site with six baskets of flowers, Packy holds up a hand and we stop. Chuck tells Packy to meet him further down the hill when we’re finished and continues on his way.

            “Grab these baskets,” Packy says. “Dump the flowers on the grave and hook your arms under the handles when you’re finished.” He demonstrates. “You can get them all back to the wall in one trip. We’ll meet you there in three or four minutes. Wait for us.” He jogs down the hill to catch up with Chuck.

            I do as instructed, unhappy at how the carnations and gladiolas and mums spill out into an ugly pile. But it goes quickly and after two minutes I’m leaning against the wall with three dollars’ worth of baskets hanging on my arms. Packy was right, this is a piece of cake. They are finishing up fifty yards down—I can barely make them out in the failing light. Their laughter floats up on the breeze, out of place, it seems to me, here among the dead. I watch my pals, wishing they’d be quieter, wanting them to hurry up, and I consider running down to join them. Then, without any warning, two flashlight beams catch them full face and body. I hear adult voices.

            I ease to the ground and push against the wall, the baskets scraping the wall. I hold my breath. No one turns my way, though, and the shadowy silhouettes drift down the hill to the cemetery road, the flashlight beams dancing in crazy stiff-legged movements ahead of them. The voices of the two men rise up to me once in a while on the breeze, but I hear nothing from Packy or Chuck. I’m hoping my friends are going to be let go with a warning, that they’ll meet me up here at the wall in a few minutes. The flashlights go dark, the car doors open and then close with a thump, and though I can’t see them, I know my pals are in the car as it pulls away. The taillights disappear around a curve.

            I stand after the car is gone. My body is trembling and I can’t make it stop. I leap for the top of the wall but can’t reach it by myself without a boost, so I grab a basket, flatten the handle, and turn it upside down to use as a step. Glancing at the baskets scattered on the grass, I feel confused, wondering if I should throw them over the wall and carry them home with me. Don’t be stupid, I whisper out loud.  When I pull myself over the top, I rip my jeans and scrape my arm on the ragged edges of the brick. I creep toward home through side streets and alleyways, nursing my stinging arm with spit, cringing at every shadow, ducking away from passing cars. At home I sneak into my bedroom and try to sleep, but I toss all night, sure the doorbell’s going to ring, that a cop’s going to drag me off to jail with my mother speechless in the background and Jeannie saying, “What’s the last thing I told you, Danny? What’s the last thing I said?” Exhausted, I fall asleep at dawn.

            “The cops just got lucky,” Packy insists the next time I see him. A week later a judge in juvenile court orders the two of them to clean-up duty in the city parks, three hours every weekday for the rest of summer break.

            I’m shaken. I consider what I’ve done and what loyal friends I have. Honor among thieves is a phrase I’ve heard and now I know what it means. I’m dazzled by the fact that they didn’t betray me. More than that, I’m forced to think about Jeannie in a different way. Of course, I won’t   defer to her every wish. What astounds me is how she knew to say those words to me.

*

I look across Sam’s Victorian sitting room, cool and elegant on this fall afternoon. My gaze continues out the tall window to a lawn still shaded by huge oaks and maples, their leaves drifting down in lazy calligraphy. Another day dying. With the settling of a single yellow leaf upon her windowsill, that June Saturday from so long ago comes floating back.

*

As my nine-year-old sister Samantha and I are about to leave for the long walk to the Uptown Theater, I pause at the front door to eavesdrop on a conversation between Mom and Jeannie. Normally I wouldn’t bother. Jeannie is practically perfect. But I hear discordant tones and linger. Sam is waiting for me on the front steps. “C’mon, Danny,” she says. “We’ll be late.”

            I shush her and turn back to listen. The double doors between the living and dining rooms are partially closed, but I maneuver so I can see Jeannie sitting at the table, a half-eaten sandwich in front of her, Mom standing there with an strange look on her face.

            “Mom,” Jeannie says, “I really don’t feel well.”

            Mother places a hand on Jeannie’s forehead. “No fever.”

            “I can’t explain it. I just feel . . . icky.” Her lips part in a tiny smile, a compromised cameo of her beautiful smile full of white teeth and good cheer.

            Mom glances at the calendar on the hallway wall behind her. “More than a week before your period. Get out and breathe some fresh air. Have a good time.” She drapes a dishtowel over her shoulder and turns toward the kitchen. “And finish your sandwich. You’re too skinny.”

            She’s always saying things like that to us, so I’m surprised when Jeannie’s voice rises. “I don’t want to go,” she says to Mom’s retreating back.

            Mom turns in mid-step. “You’re being childish about this.” Then, more gently: “Billy Bronson’s the nicest boy you’ve ever dated. Perfect for you. He lives on Alta Vista.”  

            Nice on the surface, I decide. He seems conceited to me. And who cares where he lives.

            “Besides,” Mom adds, “you don’t want to ruin the day for three other people.”

            I figure Jeannie has a double date lined up with Billy and another couple, but I can’t  imagine where they might be headed. Who knows where sixteen-year-olds might go in a car. Then Jeannie puts her hands over her face and cries. Her shoulders shake. Jeannie never cries.

            Mom reaches for her. I’m sure she’s going to take my sister in her arms and tell her it’s okay, that she can stay home if she wants. Jeannie’s smart about how to get her way and I’m convinced she’s going to again, though I know the tears are real. But Mom snatches Jeannie’s hands away from her face and dries her tears with the dishtowel. “Jeanne Marie Bartlett, stop this silliness right now. You are not the center of the universe. Now get yourself up and ready to go. They’ll be here before you can say Jiminy Cricket.”

            During the few other encounters I’ve witnessed, Jeannie would reason and cajole and smile, and in no time Mom would shake her head and laugh, lifted off the ground, I’ve always thought, by the magic of Jeannie’s smile. Why hasn’t it worked this time?

            I wonder why she doesn’t want to go out with Billy. Icky seems kind of flimsy to me. I’ve been thinking for the past few weeks that she likes him, though I wouldn’t give you two cents for the guy.

            Jeannie shuffles across the room and disappears into the hall. I’m not used to seeing her teary eyed and almost call out to her to let her know that I’m on her side. Instead, I turn away and head to the movies with Sam.

            Later that night, when Mom returns from the hospital, she doesn’t speak to Jake or Sam or me. She leans on Uncle Luke’s arm like she’s forgotten how to walk. We’re gathered in the living room, but Mom doesn’t acknowledge us as she limps past. Sam, always the boldest, tries to go to her, but Mrs. Heimerdinger, our neighbor who’s brought us a pot of chicken soup, says, “Not now, honey. Your mother needs to rest.” I want to tell this old lady to mind her own business and get the hell out of our house, but I can’t muster up the courage.

            I still don’t know how badly Jeannie is hurt, but there’s a terrible foreboding hanging in the room. My chest is tight. Jake walks out the front door to the porch and I rush after him. I haven’t seen him for hours, not since he stalked out of my bedroom late this afternoon. The porch is dark, the crickets singing in the grass. I can see the streetlight through the leaves of the maple in the yard next door. “Jake?” I say.

            “Jeannie’s dead,” he spits.

            I wonder who has told him but cannot ask. I’m relieved to finally know. A bizarre, heady excitement surges through me at the realization that my sister is dead. In a moment, though, a chill falls on me like rain. I shiver, unable to keep my body still. Jeannie has been so present, always there when Mom couldn’t be, always steady and reasonable. “Nothing’s ever going to be the same,” I say to Jake, who at eighteen seems almost a man to me. I know why I say those words to him and I know what I want him to tell me, even if it’s that I’m a stupid kid who doesn’t know how the world works, anything, just as long as he assures me I’m wrong.

            “Of course it won’t be the same,” he says. “Not ever.” He floats down the steps and vanishes without another word.

            I peer beyond the porch to the lights glimmering in the windows across the street. Fathers have gone inside after working in their yards, mothers have cooked supper for their families, television screens flicker bright and dark against living-room walls, and from somewhere down the block I hear laughter from a front porch where some neighbors are enjoying a perfect summer evening. I envy their easy, uninterrupted lives, and I realize that I want Jeannie to return. I want to hear her story and see her smile. I want Jake to talk to me like I imagine a big brother should talk to his little brother. But none of it’s going to happen. Not ever again.

In the front yard, lightning bugs rise from the grass, their neon tails pulsing pale green. A week ago I captured them in a pickle jar with holes punched in the lid. It seems like years since then. I feel old. I think about my part in this death. Have I failed my sister by not trading my happiness at the foot of my bed this afternoon for Jeannie’s life? That’s stupid, I decide. But a quiet voice, persistent, niggling, suggests it’s possible, suggests I should have made the trade. 

            Most of what I learn of the accident comes from Sam, who tells me everything she hears from her friends. They seem to know more than I do. And I hear snippets of conversations from neighbors who drop by with chicken and ham and meat loaf for Mom so she doesn’t have to cook for us. There’s also an article in the newspaper the day after the accident.

            As best as I can figure out, Billy drove Jeannie and another couple to a private swim club some twenty miles from town. When they were not allowed to enter, he gunned his V-8 Chevy down the gravel road leading away from the club, raising a dust storm. The girls squealed—has someone told me this or have I imagined it?—as the car rumbled over the loose gravel and began sliding, out of control. At a curve the car rolled over and over again until it came to a dusty rest on its side at the bottom of the hill. Three of the teens emerged. Jeannie was pinned beneath the car. A finger moved, someone was quoted as saying, but then Jeannie lay still.

            The other couple was shaken: broken wrist, sprained ankle, bruised ribs, a slight concussion. Treated and released. Jeannie died thirty minutes after the ambulance arrived at the little county hospital.

            Billy walked away unhurt.

*

At Jeannie’s funeral, flowers in red and white and lavender cover the floor of the big room where the casket stands. Billy Bronson’s parents have sent a spray of fifty white roses that covers the closed portion of the casket. A nervous laugh floats across the room and I see Billy holding court with a cluster of his friends. There’s something resembling a smile on his face that makes me bristle. Uncle Luke drapes an arm around my shoulders and walks me to the casket. I stare at Jeannie, wondering if I dare touch her hand, which is wrapped in a rosary. Her fingers are so incredibly still. I’m bothered by the blankness of her face: not a flutter of an eyelash, not the twitch of a muscle at her nose or mouth. I want to see her smile again before I turn away. Uncle Luke’s body trembles next to mine, and when he cries I worry that I’m not crying too. I glance over my shoulder again at Billy, who suddenly seems like a kid to me, not a sixteen-year-old with a driver’s license. Mom is gliding toward him; she tiptoes up to his ear and whispers. His cheeks redden, turning his handsome face into an unhappy mask. Good. The son-of-a-bitch. Tall and athletic, he towers above her, but she takes his hand like he’s a child and they approach the casket together. I twist out of Uncle Luke’s arm and find a place to hide.

            The summer of Jeannie’s death limps by. The nights feel eternal as I toss about, trying to sleep. I dream about my sister, about Mom sending her off on that date, and not once do I intervene during the dream in spite of my dark knowledge. I see Jeannie’s finger move as she lay dying beneath the bulk of the Chevy, dust hovering in the air. I join Packy and Pam and Father Robert from church as we push the car from her body. I shake myself awake, turn on my side, try to invent another way to rescue my sister, and slip back into sleep to dream a different version of the same event. I am never able to save her.

            Mom begins drinking in the weeks following the accident. Beer at first, then bourbon. She works her job during the day, drags home, prepares our supper, and drinks away her evenings. Her words become slurred, her voice angry. “Danny do this” one minute, “Jake do that” the next. Sam seems shielded, I guess because she’s still pretty young. Mom has always been a disciplinarian, but this new meanness confounds me.

            Once, a week before the start of school, I wake in the middle of the night and head for the bathroom. There’s a dim light on in the living room, where Mom sits on the sofa, a drink in her hand. I watch for a few seconds from the darkness of the hallway, wondering what to do. Then she says, “The little goddamn son of a bitch.” She repeats it twice and I back away, certain she’s referring to me.

            When school begins, I am happy for it. I don’t know the mother I’m living with anymore. Jake is surly with everyone and never talks to me anymore, not even to tease me, and Sam is oblivious, the way kids are. I don’t know what else to do, so I read. I read and study and wonder if this is what life is supposed to be.                                               

            I’m sitting on the porch with A Tale of Two Cities one October evening toward dusk, a few months into the school year. A brisk wind is blowing away the remnants of summer, and I realize I’m restless from a stirring through the trees that seems to promise something important. At a sound, I look up and see Billy Bronson, hesitant at the bottom porch step.

            He is still for a moment and then shifts his weight to his other foot. He seems to be searching for something out of reach, something unutterable. The moment grows long and awkward. “How’s it going?” he finally asks.

            How the hell you think it’s going? “Okay,” I say.

            “Your mom at home?”

            I go inside to get her. “Billy Bronson’s out front to see you,” I tell her and continue out the back door to a lawn chair in the yard where I can read in peace. I can’t, though. It’s getting too dark. But it’s more than that. I wonder why Billy is here, and that makes me think of Jeannie. Her smile and the sound of her laughter have begun to fade from my memory. It scares me because it’s all I have left of her. What happens if I lose these pieces of my sister? Three minutes later, when I hear Billy’s engine rev on the street out front, I head inside.

            Mom is sitting at the dining-room table. “Billy’s coming to eat with us tomorrow night,” she says.

            “Why?” Something flips over in my stomach.

            “I invited him.” She frowns at me. “Did I need your approval?”

            “I just don’t understand it.” I almost suggest to her that there are three of us left whose lives Billy can still destroy, but I can’t say it. Instead, I search for words to explain something that’s impossible to explain. “It’d be nice if you asked us if we want to have him over,” I say, and look to my brother and sister, who are watching TV in the next room. “Hey, Jake, Sam. Do you all want to have Billy over for dinner tomorrow night?”

            Jake tugs at his ear and raises his shoulders in a shrug. “I’m not going to be here anyway. I’ve got to work.” 

            Sam claps her hands. “Yeah. He gives great shoulder rides.”

            “Never mind,” I say to my mother.

            “I’ve sent you to Catholic school all these years and you still haven’t learned how to forgive?” Mom says. Her words are slurred from drink. When she reaches for me I back away.

            “Why should I forgive the creep? He was smiling at the funeral home. How could he have done that, Mom?” My eyes sting. I make a beeline for my room.

            Though Billy is coming to dinner on Saturday evening, I decide I’m not going to be there to greet him. Next morning, I arrange a three-on-three football game with Packy and Chuck and some other friends at the sandlot a few blocks away. Five-thirty. It occurs to me I might get in trouble with Mom, but I’m not interested in breaking bread with Billy Bronson at six.

            The game is fun, the score swinging back and forth. We’re all friends on this fading green field, some fallen leaves skittering across the grass, and though we play tackle, we never try to hurt each other. My team has elected me quarterback. I’m just a little bit short for my age, but I’m quick and can throw an accurate spiral. Now we’re in the process of marching down the field for the tying touchdown. “Packy,” I say in the huddle, “go ten yards out, buttonhook, then take off for the right corner of the end zone. On three.” 

            My girlfriend Pam and her best friend, who likes Packy, sit on the sidelines rooting for my team. Having our own cheerleaders feels great.

            “Hike one, hike—”

            “Danny, your mom wants you home right now.”

            I signal timeout. At the side of the sandlot stands Billy Bronson, all six feet two of him. How has he found me? “We’re in the middle of a game here,” I yell.

            “Can I play?” he calls and strides toward us. “Packy and me against the rest of you.”

            I wonder why he’s doing this. He’s a high school junior, a first-string end for powerhouse St. Francis. Why would he want to play football with a bunch of eighth graders? I’m surprised he doesn’t have a game tonight. Who knows, maybe he does. It’s still pretty early. “No way,” I tell him.

            “Come on, then. I promised your mom I’d bring you home.” He puts a hand on my shoulder, but I jerk away and turn back to the guys. The next moment he grabs me on either side of my jeans at the belt line, lifts me up, ducks under my legs, and plops me down on his shoulders, rising to his full height. He’s three years older and almost a foot taller than me, but his strength astonishes me. I’m nothing more than a rag doll stuffed with cotton.

            “Let me down!” I explode, but he has my legs pinned. “Billy, goddamnit, let me down right now!” Lurching, I consider pummeling away at his face, biting his ear off, gouging out his eyes. My heart hammers and I can feel the reverberations to the top of my head. I know my buddies are wondering what I’m going to do. I clench my fists, but I have no idea what Billy’s capable of. Suddenly afraid of an ass-kicking, I do nothing. I glance at Pam and see her disappointment in the angle of her head and the purse of her lips.

            Billy, his hands clamped around my ankles, turns for home. He chats with me as if we’re buddies as he saunters down the sidewalk, but I don’t answer him. My face is burning while he talks about how good the fried chicken smells at my house and what a great evening it is. I search for a response that will injure him but find nothing. What will the kids on my block think if they see me on his shoulders? What are Chuck and Packy going to say to me about this? We pass the Schiller house halfway down the street and Mr. Schiller and his teenage son Mike look up from their yard work, shovels in hand, with the strangest expressions. The back of my throat sours with vomit.

            By the time we arrive at my front yard my legs are trembling. Something hot curdles in my gut as I take in a breath. At the bottom step leading up to the porch, Billy leans down and I slide from his shoulders.

Waiting there for our return, Mom seems sober and pleased. “Got a free ride, did you?” she says to me before beaming at Billy. “Thanks, Billy. That was sweet.”

            Billy smiles.

            I hear my voice and marvel at its clarity. “There was nothing sweet about it,” the voice says. “Billy was showing off, the same damn way he was showing off when he killed Jeannie.”

            Mom flinches as if smacked. “Danny, that’s horrible. Apologize this instant.”

            I’m exhilarated by the blush rising on Billy’s face. There will be no apology. Not on this day or the next. Maybe never. I rush past them into the house.

*

Looking up, I’m almost surprised to find myself still sitting in Sam’s living room. Strange, realizing she’s been here with me all this while. I know we’ve been talking, but I can recall only bits and pieces. I focus on the quiet beauty of the room, Sam’s partner Brittany’s amazing landscapes gracing the aquamarine walls, and realize Sam and I have never discussed the details of Jeannie’s death. How is that possible?

           "Are you okay?” Sam says to me. When I nod, she asks, “Have you forgiven him?”

            I study the fine Indian carpet on the floor of her sitting room.

            “That was eons ago,” she says.

            I shrug.

            Sam’s eyes flash. “Sweet mother of Jesus. You have to forgive him, Danny. He was just a kid.”              

A heavy breath escapes me, and I slap the sofa cushion. It occurs to me that Sam needs to hear the story of the football game, the shoulder-back ride and how it ended, so I tell her everything. Everything.

            “What I could never figure out,” I say at the end of the story, “is how the hell he found me.”

            “Billy didn’t want to go get you.”

            “Bullshit. He was all smiles.”

            “Mom asked him to look for you while she finished cooking,” Sam says, “to bring you home if he found you, but he didn’t really want to go. I guess I shouldn’t have, but I told him where you were, so I think he felt he had to do it.” She studies me. “When you walked in the house that night I thought everything was going to be fine, but you disappeared and we had to eat without you. Billy picked at his food, ended up leaving before anyone was finished. I always figured I understood why, but I didn’t. Not until now.”

            She rises, leaning on her cane, and hugs me hard as I get ready to leave.

*

Though I try to silence them, for the next three days Sam’s words replay in my head. I never knew Billy didn’t want to get me from the sandlot. He’d seem so pleased, so proud of himself for giving me that goddamned shoulder ride back to my house.

            On Friday I wait until four o’clock before I set out for Billy’s Bikes. No more awkward moments, I tell myself. In and out. During the drive I begin to realize that Billy and I, as kids, were not so very different. Obviously his family was wealthy, something that appealed to my mother, but otherwise both of us were simply boys—careless but not uncaring, not bad—just boys trying to make our way.

            Billy nods to me when I enter the shop. His is a face created from pieces of shattered mirror: shards glued carelessly, furrows deep and permanent, mosaic. At the counter he removes the new saddle from the plastic wrap and hands it to me. No flaw on the underside. I run my fingers across its cool, smooth skin. “Perfect.” I pull my wallet from my back pocket.

            He holds up a hand in gentle protest. “My gift to you.”

            I study him. Is he seeking forgiveness? For the price of a bicycle seat? I picture a smile, one sketched from a memory, not the one from Jeannie’s funeral, but the smile at the bottom of the porch steps after the shoulder ride home all those years ago. Something buzzes through me, potent as adrenaline.

            I want to grab him by his shirt collar, shake the son of a bitch, call him all those forbidden words I learned at thirteen. I search for something that will wound him, a verbal ass-kicking he won’t ever forget. The words won’t flow into the air, though, something captures them, snares them at the base of my skull.

            I look at him square, unblinking. “Run the card, Billy. I’ll pay for the saddle.”

He frowns. His face wrinkles and he shifts his weight from one foot to another, but he summons something up from his youth, a pluck I’ve forgotten he had, and stands to his full height. “Please,” he says. Above his open-neck polo a crimson flush deepens the crevices in his cheeks and forehead. A raspy breath emanates from him.

            I waver at the sound, a long plainsong moan that echoes in my brain as if it’s bouncing from stained-glass windows and through Gothic archways. It occurs to me that the moan has been cloistered inside him for most of a lifetime. I yearn to turn away, to rush out the door and never lay eyes on Billy again. Instead, I hear Jeannie’s voice, whose melody I barely recall. “Don’t embarrass the family, Danny,” she whispers. “Accept the gift.” I know, of course, that it’s not my sister’s voice.

And then I know it is.

I nod at Billy and reach for the saddle.