Chapter 20

1

That first day of school was a day of good news and bad. It always ran both ways, like a river forked around an islet.

            While the boys were gone, Lewis went back home with Barb’s Acura, with nary a new scratch to show. He suspected, in the spirit of humor, that she’d come out to the garage and take a gander, playfully walking around the vehicle and getting down on her haunches, just to squeeze out a laugh or two from her ol’ dad.

            But she was sitting at the kitchen table. He wasn’t sure for how long he was gone. He took a small drive. Just around town, stopping a few times to walk out into the woods and smell the trees. The leaves carried with them such an enlivening scent, something that would forever remind man, no matter how far progress has turned toward machines, that the real world, the world that existed before technology and hubris was always waiting there on the margins to remind one of how it all started. You really recognized beauty when you knew things. And Lew did know things now. It looked like she had been crying.

            “You okay, baby girl?”

            She only offered a slight smile, looking up casually as if she’d forgotten what she was just doing.

            “Patty down for a nap?”

            “He’s been down for the better part of an hour.”

            “And you?”

            “And me what, dad?”

            “You look like you could use some shut eye. Why don’t you go lie down. I can take care of Pat when he wakes up. He might like to hang out with ol’ grampa.”

            “I’m just waiting for a call. Nothing major. But I’d like,” she stopped and looked at Lew. “Thank you dad, but I’d like to get this call over with before I think of starting anything else.”

            “Fair enough.” He dropped her keys on the table and, as if to break the mood, chuckled, “you were always missing the driver side door, right?”

            Barb only smiled. “If this is round two, I’d like to see the other car.”

2

When the phone did ring Lew’s heart dropped. Because he knew the call she was waiting for. Her secrets were her own. He could respect that. Just as she should respect the choice he made.

            But the reality of that choice hinged on what she’d hear. Lew wasn’t in with the hocus pocus shit, and he always considered himself pretty rational, but the world was a place that could surprise you. Around every corner there was always either a miracle or mystery, something that made you stop and think and perhaps consider what you knew, or rather what you fancied you knew, might just be wrong. His life had been a series of choices that coalesced into something real, something tangible, and he hoped something memorable; meeting Betty, at that dance where she’d come with another guy, a guy who would one day die in Normandy, and allowing himself the opportunity to break any self-inflicted rules of conduct just to ask her for a dance, just to take her hand and feel how soft it was in his, that choice ultimately led to Barb, until an interconnected web of choices brought him here; from all of those post-coital cigarettes that had seemed so innocent at the time, but only brought the bad news and the meetings with oncologists until there was nothing he could do to save Betty, nothing he could do but temporarily retreat, become consumed by that very darkness where he could find scapegoats, in God, in unfairness; and Barb married Trevor beneath the Redwoods, and his idealism, his ideology, it always came before his family, and the choices he made, no matter how poor, brought Lew back into the fold, away from the darkness, and he could only laugh at how miraculous those unseemly coincidences were, that if the Low Breed had never come, he would have never been needed, his value as a father, a grandfather, hidden in the miasma of political disagreements. Choices were a circle.

            He listened to Barb pick up the phone, standing around the corner by the stairwell wall. He knew how she felt. He remembered when Betty got the news. They were together. Even when the doctor asked that he leave the room. Betty told the doc that was nonsense. That if it was bad news, he’d be hearing sooner than later, so what difference did it make?

            I’m sure I threw in an F-bomb too, Lew.

            He smiled. “You were stronger than I was.”

            I had to be. That’s what a mother and a wife is, bub. Strength. He knew Barb was the same, or else she would have told Lew about it. She would have told her dad about the lump she found, about the trips to Davenport, about the biopsy, about all of the waiting by the phone, about all of the crying. Because she wouldn’t have wanted to be alone. But this was something she was taking head on and he wouldn’t break that sanctum she built to hold some semblance of her sanity.

            Our baby girl’s not scared for herself. She’s scared for her boys.

            “Not if she gets the news she’s supposed to get. If I’m right, Bets, if I’m right, there will be a different kind of tears.”

            You don’t know what you saw in that hospital the day I left, Lew, you don’t. You only know what you want to see, because then it will make this miracle thinking of yours palatable. You weren’t always this stupid. I love you, Lew, but you’re insane.

            He didn’t say anything. He just listened. Over his heart. His raucous pulse. He could feel it in his throat. It was times like this that he’d love a smoke. Just one. He touched his finger to his thumb and rubbed. It was all he could do now.

            You’re messing with things you shouldn’t be, Lew.

            “You remember when we first danced? The big band, those fellas in the zoot suits. Things seemed simpler then.”

            We were younger then. Youth is simple.

            “I liked the way the world looked when I thought of the years ahead of us. What we’d have together.”

            Betty was silent. Maybe he was going crazy. But a part of Betty always remained, always in there, just a kernel of wisdom. Because she was always so wise.

            “I want Barb to hold that feeling too.”

            He closed his eyes. Barb was holding the phone, listening, playing with the cord. It was her tic, he supposed. He could only hear the slight muffle of the voice on the other end. Barb’s cracked mutters and her breathing, breaking any silence.

            You get what’s thrown at you, and thank God for what you already have. It wasn’t Betty’s voice, but it sure sounded like something she’d say. Maybe it was a truism he would have believed before coming to Reedy Creek. But he understood this was a breeding ground for something else. A test, maybe? He wasn’t sure, but it felt right. That answer.

            “It is?” she finally said, and for the first time it wasn’t a just a mutter but something more…ecstatic, he wanted to believe, but perhaps she still held reservations. She saw what her mother had gone through. And that was partially what stemmed her fear. That selfish fear, that fear born of one’s survival instinct. “Oh God, are you sure?”

            She was standing by the sink now, staring out the back window into the yard, into the sunshine. Her face was lit a heavenly yellow, streaming through her brown hair like ribbons.

            “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

            Three times. Lew watched her hang up the phone and sit back down at the table. Crying. A different kind of tears.

3

There was good news. And bad.

            Pug walked in the front door of his house just before 4:00. He threw his backpack by the stubwall blocking the front room from the foyer. He unbuttoned the top of his shirt, usually reserved for church but admissible for the first day of school, which his mother believed required the same sort of reverence as sacrament, where Bishop Harland told the same old stories with the same old anecdotes, and the choir sang the same old songs while the congregation joined upon the choir leader’s prompting. In her mind reputations were made upon first impression. And he was fairly confident the first impressions that mattered to her were how the teachers honestly felt about him. But the house was quiet, and the first thing he expected, as was the case on most days, was the celebratory yips as Chels ran excitedly into the room, skidding on the slate tile, nearly doubling over, and jumping into his arms, lapping at his hands with a hot, sticky tongue. Today it was different. Strange. And that pit struck his stomach like a ball bearing.

            “Mom?”

            He found her at the dinner table, the same way Lew would find his baby girl. She’d been crying, as if some force in the universe was seeking commonalities among the mothers of the Fenway Four. There was a notepad on the table, random scribbling across the pages. Pug knew his mom doodled when she was mindlessly talking on the phone. She always said it was her way of concentrating, that the act of multitasking was great exercise for the brain. The page in front of her was entirely filled with blue ink, circles and curlicues and geometric patterns until the margins were united in the center by a labyrinthine sketch.

            “I’m so sorry, Horace.” Her lips trembled. He remembered when she told him his grandma died a few years back. It was the same way. Coming home from school, hoping to wind down after a day of multiplication, and then the anchor of bad news brought down his spirits and his freedom to relax. “I just…she was right behind me when I…I don’t even…” She casually wiped her eyes.

            “Mom?”

4

“Adam?”

            “What’s up, Pug? You miss me already?”

            Pug wasn’t sure what to say. This was the hardest call to make because he knew Adam was indifferent from the get go. Croak was already on his way. He said he’d bring a flashlight. And Danny was riding his bike over. Wendy and Ange would do their own thing, he supposed, but in the end their efforts would have to combine.

            “Chels is missing, Adam…” He didn’t think he would finish the sentence. The way his mind worked, words were always faster on the cusp of his brain than they were to find the escape valve, and he could already hear the choking stutter that would turn his voice into a slew of sobs.

            “What?”

            “After grampa picked me up, I waved at my…at my mom and she stood at the door. She said she was…she was certain Chels came in. That she swore she saw Chels walk in before she closed the door. Buh—but when she realized Chels wasn’t inside, she…she drove around everywhere…she made some calls…she…she…” Pug stopped himself. His mom was broken up about this. And for the moment he wanted to blame her, but blame wouldn’t find and bring back Chelsey. Blame carried with it very little resourcefulness.

            “It’s okay, Pug. We’ll find her. I swear to God. I’m coming right over.”     

5

“You boys are so sweet. Did you want some chocolate milk, anything?”

            “No ma’am,” Croak said, though a glass of ice cold cocoa would fit the bill. It was warm outside, and he was pretty certain Pug would have them up and down each and every road in the Creek. The other three politely declined.

            “I’ll make a few more calls. I’ve got Wendy clipping out a few pictures. She and Ange can make up those Have You Seen Me ads and staple them to some trees.”

            The boys went outside. Danny went to his bike and picked it up off the driveway. “So what’s the deal then, Pug?”

            “Honestly, we can only start where we know she’s been.”

            “That’s smart thinking. Let’s say your mom did shut the door before she came in. Maybe she ran the vacuum or something and couldn’t hear Chels at the door, couldn’t hear her barking. So she wandered off. Probably away from Deermont. Toward either the diamond or Fenway. That’s my bet.”

            “And a good one. We should split up,” Adam added. “I mean, we spent the summer at Fenway and Chels was always there, nipping at your heel, Pug. I’ll ride there. Who wants to join me?”

            “I will,” Pug said. Of his friends, he was the most surprised that it would be Adam lifting his spirits, and right now he required that. He’d already pulled his BMX out of the backyard shed, dusting off the lawn clippings by the mower.

            “Okay, then we’ve got the diamond covered,” Croak said. “We may even go down Main. Check the Pizza Parlor, the Hobby Shop.”

            “Don’t forget BB’s Rentals,” Pug added. “She and I made the trek there a few times. Plus, she would have remembered Ange being there.” He smiled for the first time in what felt like hours. Because his buddies had given him hope. Adam had given him hope.

6

Chels wasn’t at Fenway. It seemed strange being back at the field so soon after crossing it with Lazarus. After learning the strange man in the dungeon had watched their games here. Because it took from the place, once an oasis, an escape from the hustle and bustle of Reedy Creek, the quintessential innocence that made it a blank slate for the imagination to turn it into something different. It was the prescribed magic of boyhood, of course, but it felt like something else. Like they became something else; like Danny became Ron Guidry and Croak really was Vin Scully announcing from the press box at Dodger Stadium in sunny LA, with guys like Jack Nicholson and Robert Redford cheering in the stands beneath the Hollywood glamour of that west coast light, and like Adam Kramer was Jim Rice watching the ball sail over the Green Monster toward that Citgo sign on the Boston skyline. They became something else here. But something had faded. The grass was longer, unkempt, and the magic of discovery had soured, like expired fruit, a banana sitting in tenebrous rot inside a soft peel.

            Pug let his BMX fall over and he walked toward the arc into the deadwood, staring out into the oblique bank of darkness and silence.

            “I really thought she’d be here.”

            “Maybe she was.”

            Pug looked at Adam. He’d never really had a friend like Adam. Back in Utah, even with the pretenses of equality espoused by the church, he still found bullying was applicable no matter the doctrine. And though he’d made friends, they were the type on the receiving end of the jibes. But now he had a cool friend. And he saw today at school what could, and most likely would, happen as the week went on, the month, and Adam tried out for the ball team and the girls flooded the stands to watch, and the coach realized his talent over the others’, and Pug was left just a missing name on each roster list in the hallway as the coach made his draft picks. And Adam would be devoured by his teammates and Pug and Croak, and maybe Danny too if there were better pitching prospects, would be discarded in the dusts of what once was. That was always Pug’s fear. Having Adam here now meant the world to him. Because he understood how temporary this could be.

            “Probably came looking for you. Found your scent. Likely followed it back to Main. I bet Croak and the Jew found her wandering.”

            Pug only smiled. He wouldn’t cry. Not in front of Adam. “A part of me wondered if she went in there again. Into the woods.”

            “She didn’t like it in there.”

            “But if it meant she thought I was there. Maybe she—” He looked at the piled woods, knotted and splintered, and only shook his head. It was a feeling. At first it might have been strong only for the fear it forecasted; Chels really didn’t like being down there, but if she suspected he’d gone back, that for some reason the draw of that place beyond the trees was powerful enough to keep provoking him to return meant she’d overcome her own restraints to check for herself. But he wasn’t sure a dog could reason like that. Or if she would.

            “She wouldn’t go back. She was freaked, man. She came, hoping to see us playing ball, to see you, and then she high-tailed it. I don’t blame her. This place, it’s different, isn’t it? Do you feel that?”

            “It’s like the place has, well, decayed. I think that’s the best way to put it.”

            “Well, you’d know, being the writer.”

            “It’s been over a week since you hit the homer, Adam. And that was the last time we played. I think the moment everyone knew we came here, your dad, grampa, Grimwood, the place changed. Became something we didn’t want, cause its power was our secret. Just ours.”

            “I can live with that.” Adam stared out into the woods as well. “Pisses me off. This place was so real.”

            “What if all of this…” Pug sighed and closed his eyes. What would come next, it was a sad thought. Something he couldn’t help thinking, of course, but something whose reality could really grab hold once the idea broke the sound barrier. Like a spell. “What if Fenway, what if Chels, what if all of this is just capping off what was perfect?”

            “I don’t understand.”

            “This summer was the greatest time of my life. Tops of the top. Baseball. This place. Exploring. We were all that mattered, you know. I listen to my dad sometimes, about his childhood, and he tells me never to take for granted these years cause in the end you can only wish to go back. And wishing isn’t real. This is the best time of our lives, Adam, has to be, and I’m scared once it’s over the world will look like Fenway. Will look like this field. And Chels won’t be there…you won’t be there. We’ll all be alone.”

            “That’s grim, Pug. Do you really believe that?”

            “I’m already nostalgic.”

            “What does that mean?”

            “It means I already miss yesterday. Because this place was real, Chels was by my side.” Pug slowly wiped a tear from his eye, hoping Adam didn’t catch it.

            “We’ll find her. The Creek ain’t big enough to hide her forever.”

            Pug picked up his bike and steadied it for a moment. It would be dark soon. “You nervous for tryouts tomorrow?”

            “I’m not thinking about it, Pug. Right now the only thought in the world I have is that you’re okay.”

            Pug smiled. It would be the best thing he’d hear all night.

            Until the phone call.

7

“You seen Pug’s dog?”

            Croak and Danny had ventured into The Hobby Shop. There was nothing to be seen at the school, and neither of them wanted to venture too close to the bleachers. Even from a distance they could see the smoke filtering up from the seats like factory stacks, and they knew some of the older kids were getting in a first day toke before classes got really serious tomorrow. So they pedalled fast away from the Secondary and up Main, speeding past Mr Sub and checking out the by-lanes to see if they recognized Chels’s mangy fur.

            “No pets.” Buddy smiled. It was such an asshole smile Danny wasn’t surprised the guy lived alone, and would most likely die that way too.

            “Not in here, but did you see her stroll by? She’s been missing all day.”

            “I ain’t seen jack,” Buddy said. His pride was sorely deflated, Danny figured. The Jew had gotten the better of him the last time the two had a chat. He hadn’t returned to gloat; a part of him supposed something like this exchange would be the result, so he strayed from the card store despite how badly he wanted to check out the racks, check out those cards in the display, the Ruths and the Shoeless Joe, those Cracker Jacks he always wondered how this guy ever obtained because they were gems. Rare gems. And worth a fortune. He saw his Nolan Ryan on display as well, in a new acrylic, nicely polished, sitting deftly beside a Tom Seaver. The price tag on the front was $200. It read: MINT CONDITION ONE OF A KIND. Danny wanted to chuckle. He was certain his dad had a bunch of those rookies at home.

            “I see you’re asking for a 100% upcharge on what you paid me,” Danny said.

            “That’s business, kid. I got it for a bargain.”

            “That right?”

            “It is. Lotta interest in that there. A lot. Had a gentleman in from Cinci, driving on through he said, but he popped in for a looksy, and what do ya know, here’s a Ryan, favorite pitcher, saw him once in Anaheim he said, wanted to lay down two-hundred dollar bills but didn’t have the cash on him. Said he’d be back, he did. And I might up the price again, cause interest is so damn high.”

            “Good for you, Buddy.”

            “It is, Danny. Now how about you? You still have that nice wad I handed over for this peach? Cause I can barter something with ya. Box of ’86 Donruss, fresh from the factory. Chance at a dozen Canseco rookies. And those are cherry, boy. How about it?”

            “We’re just looking for the dog.”

            The big guy smiled, leaning over his Formica tabletop, the entire surface groaning under his immense weight. “Not seen a dog. If the thing’s been missing all day, best bet is it was smoked on the interstate. I’d tell ya to check the 34, but I doubt your parents let ya doddle outside of the proper, do they?”

            It was an awful thought. One Danny tried to quash when he’d had the urge to think this entire search was groundless, that if Chels hadn’t come home something must have happened. If it wasn’t a car or truck passing on through, it was one of the animals lurking in the shadows. A coyote. And Chels might have put up a fight, for a bit, but she’d been acting strange for a few days now, not like herself, that’s what Pug said, so she would have tired quick and just let the predator get on with it. But he couldn’t say that out loud. He wasn’t sure what was going through Croak’s mind, but he knew the odds of this ending well were very small.

            “Ah, I’m just messin’ with you,” he said when he recognized the fear in Croak’s eyes. “Look, Dan, I know this shit comes up every time you wander in, I do, and I haven’t seen ya for a few days. It can get boring in here. What with summer ending, kids are just finishing up their vacations, folks making the best of their time before the rains come. Nobody but a few stragglers wanna see cards and comic books. But I like our chats. You need to get your dad back in here. I want to get a ’52 Topps Mantle from him. I heard from the man himself he’s got a good collection of them in mint. I’m a reasonable guy, Dan, and I’d let him take his fair share for one of those.”

            “I can’t speak for my dad, Buddy. The only guy he likes more than Mantle is Koufax, but since Brooklyn high-tailed it to LA, a lot of east coast Jews felt punched hard by the betrayal, so they turned to the Bronx. That’s what my dad did. And Mantle was his guy. He cherishes those cards. He’s let me see them, his ’51 Bowman and the Topps. Said one day they’d be mine, that cards, these things, they’re a better investment than real estate, because he said he doesn’t foresee a credit bubble bursting around card stock. Not unless somebody could globalize the hobby.”

            “Your pops said that, eh?”

            “He did.”

            Buddy stood back up and pushed strands of long hair off his brow. He was sweating. Though the boys wouldn’t know the word, the guy was corpulent, his face the color of burst capillaries, leaving him redder than a baboon’s ass. And less attractive. “Smart man, your dad. Look, I’ve accrued a good collection here. Not many people can claim to own a Goudey Ruth. Not without fuzzy corners. I might even part with one. You tell your dad that, will ya?”

            Danny looked at the Babes, in a line behind the glass. He wasn’t sure if his dad had one. They were out before his dad was born. 1933. “Yeah. I will.”

            “Good. Okay, haven’t seen the dog. I’ll keep my eye out. But keep your hopes honest. Tell Pug that, too. Quick: in ’61, how many times was Roger Maris intentionally walked?”

            Croak only scratched his head and looked at the Babe Ruths in a row. “I’ll leave that with Mr Baseball here,” he said, smirking.

            Danny loved the game. He played it with his dad, and once Buddy learned of his interest in baseball trivia, he joined in as well. Danny had been able to stump Buddy a few times, and vice versa. He wasn’t always a jerk. But his good manners were questionable. “It’s a tough question, cause Maris broke the home run record in ’61. Sixty-one big ones. Even without the stupid asterisk the Ruthies want tagged behind the feat cause the Yanks played more games that year than Babe ever did.”

            “You give up? You do and I get back one-fifth what I gave for the Ryan.”

            “That’s a shitty deal,” Danny said. “But I’m not giving up. You want me to say something big. Like a hundred-twenty. But it’s a trick. Cause he was hitting before Mick in the line-up. And nobody’s stupid enough to put Maris on base with Mantle behind him.”

            Buddy smiled.

            “So I’ll say zero. Cause no other answer makes sense if this is trivia. It’s gotta be outlandish.”

            “You’re a smart kid, Danny boy. But don’t let it get to your head.”

            “Jesus, Danny,” Croak said. “How you knew that just…”

            “Tell your pops, boy. We can trade back and forths as well, as long as he brings in a ’52 and an open mind.”

8

“I’m sorry, Pug. We looked up and down Main. Even talked to Buddy, and he hasn’t seen her around.”

            They were back on Deermont. They rode their bikes for what felt like hours but had only been an hour and a half tops. It was getting dark, and the boys knew their folks wouldn’t let them continue searching. Not on a school night.

            “Shit,” Adam said.

            Pug only looked down, still straddling his BMX as they stood on the street in front of the Nelson’s Tudor. “Thanks so much for trying, guys. It means…” His voice sort of broke and he turned around. Croak only grabbed his shoulder and squeezed. To show support. “I shouldn’t have brought her outside with me.”

            “No, Pug, we’re not playing that game,” Danny said.

            “Fuck,” he muttered, and the guys could tell he automatically felt guilty about it. The Mormon code and all. It somehow hammered home a moral compass that should not have always been pointing true north in boyhood.

            “She’ll turn up. She has to.”

            Pug looked at Adam. “What if…” It was such a sudden thought, but once he had it he figured it was the most obvious answer. It had a certain clarity, a puissant provocation, that not saying it felt somehow wrong. “Grimwood has the cameras, what if we asked him if he can see her…or if he saw her? He can point us in the right direction. I mean, we’re searching blind here.”

            Danny looked down at his shoes. And Croak looked off toward his house, toward the willow splintering up into the sky like a billowing tuft of moss.

            “It’s too dangerous, Pug. And you know it.”

            Pug hated Adam for saying it. Because a part of him knew he was right. That going to Grimwood was a mistake. But losing Chels was a bigger one. “Adam, I want my dog back.”

            “That’s not the way to get her back. Shit, Pug, we just told the guy we weren’t going to be his errand-boys. We did it like real assholes too. Christ, you were the mascot. And somebody hit that guy with the crazy stick a few times. The last thing we need to do is go knocking on his door so soon after stiffing him with a favor of our own.”

            “Adam’s right,” Danny said. He looked up at the camera on the light post. “We can’t welch on that decision.”

            “Think about what we dreamed, Pug,” Croak said. “I ain’t going back there. I know this is Chels we’re talking about, but I think Adam’s right. I think she’ll pop on by unannounced, and you’ll just shit bricks when it happens. If you…” He turned toward that utility house, that shed where they’d stumbled out during the fireworks, everybody’s heads craned upwards as four boys belched out of the hut, as if the four could even fit in there together at the same time. They’d walked the length of a fluorescent-lit hallway and come to a set of stairs and out they popped. On their street. As if by some odd magic. “If you go back to that shed, I bet the door’ll be locked and the inside will just be four walls and some tools and a back-up generator or something. Because what happened Saturday night was fucked up and it hasn’t sat well with me. Not one bit.”

            Nobody said anything for a moment. Not until Wendy and Ange showed up, both having cried their tears. Their faces were red and used up. Pug hadn’t seen them this worked up since they watched Terms of Endearment and he teased them until they forced him to watch it as well. And he cried like a little bitch. Those were their words.

            “Any luck?” Wendy asked, her voice broken. The two had been out with photocopied prints of Chels with a HAVE YOU SEEN HER note and the Nelson’s phone number. There were probably forty pages or so between them, and they either taped or stapled the bulk of them down the street and leading toward Main and the school.

            Pug only shook his head. Seeing his sisters made him want to cry. But he knew losing it now, especially in front of Adam, would convince the guys he might not be the type they want to chum with any more. God, it was hard to stay strong.

            “Shit, stupid dog,” she said angrily. Because anger was sometimes the most easily accessible response. She quickly wiped her eyes and went toward the front door. “Come on, Horace. Let’s see if anybody’s called mom.”

            “Just stay strong, bud,” Croak said, still thinking of that shed, still thinking that what they’d found in the farmhouse, under it, had been like a bad dream, the bookend of an incredible summer, and returning to that sort of exploratory phase would only end in terrible heartache. He wasn’t sure why, but he knew something strange was going on. He did. They all did. And he knew, even stronger, how powerful Pug’s love for Chels was, and he knew that sort of love would and could overpower fear. That love could be dangerous.

            “He’s right,” Adam said. “I’m not sure why, but he’s right. About that shed, about Grimwood. I had the same thought as well. That if we checked out the utility shed again, if we busted open the door, we wouldn’t find stairs.”

            “It isn’t magic,” Pug said. “We’re too old to believe in that anymore.”

            Adam smiled. “No, not magic. But strange. Wrong.”

            Pug thought about their conversation at Fenway, and the thought that he was too old for magic, to believe in it, made him sad. Incredibly sad. And now maybe he did want to cry. Even if it was in front of his friends.

            “Look, Pug, I can take one more go around. Call you once I get home.”

            “No, Danny, it’s all right.”

            “You sure?”

            Pug went toward his house, toward Wendy, who waited on the steps, tapping her foot impatiently. “I think so.”

            “You guys were really cool to help,” Angela said. There were tears in her eyes. Adam nodded and hopped on his bike. Danny did the same. “Cory,” she called out before Croak climbed onto his BMX and pedalled home. He only looked at her, confused. “Is your brother okay?”

            “I don’t think so.”

            “I’m sorry for what happened to him.”

            “What did happen?”

            Ange only brushed her hair out of her face, wiping her eyes again. “This stupid town, Cory. We all just want to escape it. Poor Chels. Poor Randy. Both…victims of this place.”

            “I don’t understand.”

            She only offered a smile. “I’m not sure I do either.” She looked toward her house, toward the big window by the front door where her sister was pacing, and where she could see her mom talking to her brother. Likely bracing him for the truth. No matter how many signs they put up, the news wouldn’t be good. She was starting to understand that. “This place just makes people angry. And maybe Randy got in the way. But I am going to fix it. Because Cory, I really like your brother. Would you tell him that for me?”

            “Yeah. Yeah, I guess so.” He hopped on his bike and rode home. To his older brother, high as a fucking kite in his room just to get over some of the pain in his ribs and nose, and to his mom, fretting at the kitchen table with an unopened beer by her tapping fingers. You could never stop worrying about the ones you loved. It was why Pug would make the choice he did, and Croak his own. Because the world was rolling on and crushing things in its path.

9

He thought he would cry himself to sleep. But sleep wouldn’t come. He knew that. Maybe he’d dream of the monster in the fedora telling him to kill his sisters, to slit their throats as they slept; and the true fear would only arise when he awoke in a pool of blood clutching to a kitchen knife he’d pulled from the drawer in the middle of the night before swishing Ange and Wendy’s throats.

            He sat staring out the window over the garage pitch, kneeling upon his bed, toward the utility shed at the end of the cul-de-sac where Mr Bob Arnold gave his speech during the BBQ. He was silently crying. He missed Chels. He hadn’t said his goodbyes yet, but a strong part of him held some very terrible suspicions. And he was having an even harder time trying to ignore that voice. Because you know it’s true. If you haven’t found her yet, you never will. So what was the answer? Trudging out to that shed and knocking on the door? The padlocked door? That you somehow walked out of the other night? He would have laughed if he wasn’t so heart broken. Because a part of him thought somebody might answer, that somebody was on the other side of the door waiting for him to come. And that part was so incredibly insistent he nearly told Adam to shut his goddamn mouth when he protested Pug’s right to try every avenue to save Chelsey. Why does Adam even care? He hates Chels. Has hated her from the get go. He made you take her to the woods. To the graveyard. What Lazarus called Rotting-Row. And she got sick. Yakked all over the place. Because Adam doesn’t give a shit if she’s lost or found.

            Everybody was hit hard by this. He could hear his sisters sobbing behind their closed door. Probably feeding off of each other. At that moment he was glad he had his own room.

            And the phone rang. He looked at his bedside clock. It was just after ten.

            Could be about Chels. I mean, who calls so late on a school night? Perhaps the brightest part of youth was the evanescent optimism. It was something Pug was certain would go away. Adulthood seemed mired by something called accountability, and that particular trait wasn’t so easily reconciled with spirit and hope; it was a sad thought, a miserable one, but he looked at grownups and understood there was a merit of truth to it. He could hear the muffle of conversation. It was probably somebody from his dad’s work. Calling about something important at the plant up north. The plant that brought them here from Utah. Though he knew he should have been upset about supplanting and coming to the cornbelt, after meeting the guys, his friends, he realized it was the greatest thing that ever happened to him. Because it resulted in the greatest summer of his life.

            Wait. Did the shed door open?

            He closed his eyes. The door was closed. Padlocked. But for a moment, as he sat quietly listening to the muffled conversation below him, he swore that shed door opened, swinging to reveal the gaping darkness of some mysterious endless maw, a tunnel that led like the empty artery into Reedy Creek’s beating heart. He heard footsteps now. Coming up the stairs. He knew his parents were probably coming to check on him, and that it would be wise to feign sleep, but he heard first somebody knock on his sisters’ door, and then his opened. His mom was standing at the threshold. He only sat there and stared at her, her face back lit by the hall light. His dad was in with his sisters. And he somehow understood this was where the reality of adulthood collided with childhood. Where the truth of bad things happening underscored the idealism of the way kids saw the world. He was both ready and he wasn’t; he knew all good things came to an end, otherwise this summer would have lasted forever.

            “Oh Horace, somebody found her. Somebody found Chels.”

10

His parents were so overjoyed that they let him ride with them to Main. He sat in the backseat, those feelings of loss, of unbearable pain turned to indisputable elation. He’d never really seen his dad smile like that. Maybe he understood what he’d have to put up with if Chels was really gone. Maybe it was selfish on his part. But his mom was crying. Even as they drove.

            “Some nice fellow from Mr Sub found her in the lane by the dumpster. She found some scraps and she was just relaxing.”

            “Mr Sub?” Pug asked, realizing the incredible coincidence, and how small the world actually could be, but not caring for what it meant. Trying to sleep tonight without her in the room was the hardest thing he’d ever done. Because his life was only complete with her in it. His life was habitually made up of familiar expectations, and listening to Chels sleep and lick herself in the darkness of his room was the one true reminder that he wasn’t alone.

            “Nicest young man, too. Called me ma’am. I expect it’s done of habit, but Norm, I’d like to offer him something. Some money.”

            “Of course,” Norm said, talking through a smile. “You look like you’re beaming, kiddo.”

            “I really thought she was gone for good,” Pug said, and now he understood the finality of that thought and what it really meant. How many lonely nights that would have left him. His heart was pounding. He forgot about what he thought he saw at the shed. Forgot about the very idea of contacting Grimwood to check backlogged tapes. To check his feeds, the way he had when they were in the Situation Room, in that enormous bunker that looked like CNN’s headquarters.

            “These silly animals certainly tug at the heart strings. Your sisters were crying harder when they heard the good news than they did when they heard the bad.” His mom turned to look at him and smiled. It was a deep smile, something Pug would always love about her, despite what he imagined went on behind those eyes. The constant judgement.

            They pulled up to Mr Sub. The place was closed now. The guy who called must have been closing up shop and took out the night’s garbage to the dumpster. And voila. A dog with a collar: Chelsey Nelson. And it had their phone number. Because they were responsible. And the employee had a good heart.

            He was standing outside, smoking a cigarette with Chels at his heel. The guy tossed the smoke when he saw the car pull up. Pug didn’t recognize him. He was tall and skinny, and his eyes were dark under the flickering Mr Sub sign; the interior of the place was still lit up, but the mains in the ceiling were off. He still wore his customary apron, some mustard having left its mark down the front, and his white pants were scuffed up near his sneakers. Pug jumped out of the car and Chelsey perked up at the sight of him; she toddled over and he grabbed her in his arms, letting her lick his face, no matter the shit she might have lapped up in the alley near the garbage.

            “Good girl, Chels. Good girl. How are you? My baby…”

            His mom came out after him and scrunched up Chels’s ears as she yipped, excitedly dancing around and hopping. A few years earlier and Pug thought she might have had an accident, like she used to whenever he came home from school and she left a little pool by the front door and his mom yelled at her to get outside.

            “Thank you so much, sir,” Brenda said. She shook the guy’s hand.

            “Name’s Bernard Valentine, ma’am.”

            “Oh, stuff the ma’am, Bernard. I’m Brenda Nelson. Husband’s Norm.” She gestured to the car and Pug’s dad only waved.

            Bernard.

            The shed door was open. Like an eye. Looking back at you. Pug looked up at the man. He’d never seen him in Mr Sub. Never. And Pug had eaten there more than a handful of times over the summer. His last meal was with grampa and the guys after Robert Wilson croaked. But he was a regular. His dad sometimes stopped in after work, or Ange brought home dinner after her shift at BB’s. The staff at the place wasn’t huge; it was mostly populated by students over the summer, but this guy was old enough to date his mom. Maybe even older.

            “For your trouble. It was incredibly gracious what you did. Our household was in shambles.” Pug watched his mom hand over a twenty-dollar bill.

            The man named Bernard looked down at the money with gratitude. “That isn’t necessary at all. I only did the right thing.”

            “Please. I’ve always believed in good deeds, but I also firmly believe those deeds must be rewarded.”

            Bernard smiled. It was a genuine smile, but something was wrong with his eyes. Pug could see it, he could, from his perch down on the sidewalk with Chels, still reeling around and licking at his face. They were dark. As if his pupils were fully dilated. “I truly appreciate it. I do, Mrs Nelson.”

            “Brenda. And trust me, Bernard, you’ve gained lifetime customers here at Mr Sub. And I will be contacting your manager with good tidings.”

            “I do truly appreciate it, Brenda.” The man bowed and Pug’s mom headed back to the idling station wagon. When she was in the car Pug stood up.

            “Horace, your dog’s sick. Real sick.”

            “What?” Pug said. “How do you—”

            The guy named Bernard Valentine, the guy with black eyes whose pupils sucked in the light around them like wormholes only stared down at him, and for that one moment everything around him didn’t matter: his parents, the slow traffic on Main and the few pedestrians across the street. They were somehow frozen, his mom only staring out at him with a courteous smile because tonight she was proven there was still good in this world, and she would no doubt stress how much of their good fortune was due to the church. It was clockwork with her. “We found her at the farmhouse. It’s where animals go to die, Pug. They come from all over.”

            “You’re lying.” It was all he knew to say. But he didn’t believe himself.

            “We’re doing the right thing telling you, Horace. If you don’t think so, that’s fine. Because it will keep happening. Tomorrow she’ll do the same. Cause she’s sick. And sometimes sick things want to die.”

            “Who are you?”

            The man named Bernard only smiled. “He did you a favor. What you might call a solid. I’d call him if I were you. You offended him. You knew he advised you on proper etiquette. If your answer was no, you should have told him to his face. He could have let your dog die where he found her. It’s what she wanted.”

            Bernard, Pug thought. Was it the man from the bunker? The man he thought was just a pair of enormous eyes and a hole in his throat where the endless cigarettes sat as he huffed and puffed through bursts of coffee?

            “You owe him now, Horace. You do. And keep this between us, right boy? Your friends like to stick their noses where they don’t belong.”

            Pug swallowed. Chels’s breathing was labored. He could tell she was staring up at this man with fear, that whatever confidence he’d projected to his mother was some sort of act. “You don’t work here, do you?”

            “I work everywhere. Call him, or I’ll slit your sisters’ throats. From ear to ear.” He handed Pug a piece of paper. It was a clip out of the Post’s front page from Saturday morning. A picture of the man named Clayton Miller the cops had found on his La-Z-Boy, dead of an overdose. There was a number written on Clayton’s forehead. A phone number.

            “Keep this between us or I’ll poison your meatball supreme you little fat fuck.”

            And Bernard walked away, skipping between the salon and Mr Sub toward the alley where he presumably found Chels. No, he found her at Rotting-Row, just like you thought. Because you knew she’d go there. That part you always ignore because you’re such a goddamn queer. A little pansy. Grow a pair, Horace, or are you going to let them turn you into a pug? Chels was only moaning, watching the man disappear into the darkness. Afraid of him just as Pug was.

            “You coming?”

            His mom rolled down the window. Pug looked down; the cigarette the man named Bernard had been smoking was still smoldering on the sidewalk. He had really been there. Just like the utility shed door had opened before the phone rang. He looked at the picture of Miller and the number written on his lineless head where very little hair grew. And would never grow again.

            Don’t tell your friends.

            They shouldn’t have made a joke of their rejection. No. Because they never suspected Mr Grimwood would be angry. Did they?

            “Everything okay, Horace?” Norm asked. “I thought you’d be over the moon what with Chels slobberin’ all over your lap. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

            Pug feigned a smile. “I’m just—shocked,” he finally decided to say. And it was the truth. Because one of the men who watched Reedy Creek from the bunker just threatened him because a goddamn Jew thought it would be funny to write a break up note on his back. All as a fat joke. He folded the newspaper clipping and jammed it into his pocket. As if to forget about it. “Mom,” he said, trying hard not to scream, to cry, to tell her what that kind man said when she left, as if he somehow knew what Pug had dreamed, as if he was standing there with him, maybe even handing him the knife. “I think Chels might be sick. She’s breathing weird. Been breathing weird. Maybe we could take her to the vet at lunch. You can pick me up from school.”

            She only turned and looked at him cautiously. As if she’d had the same thought. As if she’d watched Chels and wondered if this was it, if this was her time. Because they all had a time, they all had an end. “I think you may be right, Horace. She hasn’t been herself. Lately she’s just been lying down in the front room staring out the window.”

            Because she went to die. That’s where she went. Pug closed his eyes. He would call tomorrow. Yes. And he would not tell his friends.