IGMS Issue 22 (13 page)

"Jake," Stephanie's voice hollered from inside. "Your father's here. Don't forget to put Sig on his leash."

She met him at the screen door just as he reached for the handle.

"He'll be around in a minute," she said through the screen. "He's out back with some friends." Henry saw the boxes behind her, stacked in the front room with handwritten notations on them: KITCHEN, J's BEDROOM, DEN.

"You need a hand with any of those, Steph?" Henry asked quietly, nodding toward the boxes.

"No. Greg's done a great job helping us get everything together. He's here now, finishing the upstairs bedrooms."

No wonder Steph wasn't inviting him in. "You sure? I can carry some boxes to the truck."

"We're not
carrying
them," Steph sighed impatiently. "The movers are coming on Monday. All we have to do is have it all packed, and we're almost done. Thanks."

Henry hated talking to her through the screen door. "Are you sure? I could at least bring down the head boards and dressers --"

"Henry, stop," Stephanie interrupted curtly. "I know this is how you show you care, by doing little jobs, but really, Greg and I have it handled. Just take your walk with Jake and Sig and try to get back before the mosquitoes get too bad."

Greg and I
. Henry hated the way she said it. There had been other men in her life since him, of course, but Greg was the one that made it all real. In less than a week they'd be gone, moved out of Buena Vista, and taking Jake with them. They were going to California, where Greg had gotten some big computer job. Henry tried to be glad for them. He
was
glad that Steph would finally have the security she'd always wanted, even if it wasn't him who'd be providing it. What he was really unhappy about was that, this time, he couldn't follow them. He had moved to Buena Vista to be near his son, and now they were leaving him here, like an unwanted dog.

There were footsteps on the sidewalk behind Henry. He turned and saw Jake standing there, not looking at him. Sig's leash dangled from his hand. The dog grinned up at him and panted in the evening sun.

"Hey, Jake," Henry said, clomping down the steps to join him.

Jake mumbled something, but still didn't make eye contact. Henry took the leash from him. Sig, their old German Shepherd, immediately trotted ahead, leading them back out toward Beech Avenue. Henry and Jake followed.

Henry no longer reached down for his son's hand. They simply walked together in silence.

Cars and pickup trucks passed them on Beech. A sudden breeze shushed in the bushes and carried trash along the gutter.

Henry finally asked, "So, you know anything about your new school?"

Jake sighed harshly and pushed his hair out of his face. "Same crap, different city."

A flare of dull anger lit Henry's thoughts but he pushed it back. Soon enough Jake wouldn't be using the word crap. Adulthood loomed over his son like a bomb. Henry pushed on. "You'll make new friends if you remember what I taught you. I bet they'll even have one of those half-pipes and stuff."

"I haven't skated in like two years."

The anger surged again, and this time Henry couldn't restrain it. "Why would you lie to me about something so stupid, Jake? I just saw you and those juvie buddies of yours skateboarding on the street not two days ago. You think I'm blind or something?"

Jake blinked aside at his father, his brow darkening. "That's skateboarding. I was talking about roller-blading. I wasn't trying to --"

"Call it what you want, it amounts to the same thing and you know it. You need to stop wasting your time on stuff like that and find something useful to do. Nobody ever got anywhere in life skateboarding in the street or mooning around on the computer all night and blowing off their homework."

Henry saw the folded sheet of school work poking from his son's back pocket. He snatched it up and unfolded it before Jake realized what he was doing.

"Hey! Give that back!"

Henry shook his head as he peered down at the creased sheet of paper. It was a spelling test with a big apple printed on the upper right corner. Across the top, in red handwriting, was a teacher's note:
16 of 20 -- Not bad!
The words were accompanied by a smiley face. The nape of Henry's neck bristled at the sight of it. He flipped the page over and stared at the back. It was covered with a large pencil doodle.

"What's this?"

"It's nothing!" Jake said, his face reddening. "Give it here!" He jabbed his hand toward the paper.

Henry stared down at it. The drawing showed a ridiculously muscular man wearing armor, a horned helmet, and enormous fur-fringed boots. He was holding a bloody sword in one-hand and a severed dragon's head in the other. It was very good.

Henry's first, irrational instinct was to crumple the drawing in his fists.

"I know I shouldn't be wasting time in class, all right?" Jake admitted grudgingly. "You don't have to say it."

Henry studied the drawing a moment longer. Finally, wordlessly, he handed it back to his son. Jake took it, folded it again, and stuffed it back into his pocket. They walked on.

Henry fumed to himself. He didn't want to yell at Jake. All it ever accomplished was to turn the boy sullen for the rest of their walk. If only Jake weren't so damned moody. So goddamned
odd
all of a sudden.

But of course, soon enough, none of that would be Henry's problem anymore. Other than the occasional phone call and summer visit. He shook his head bitterly.

Sig turned the corner onto Alpine, following the familiar route they had taken so many times before. Henry had originally named the dog Siegfried. That had been before the divorce, when the world had seemed just the sort of whimsical place for dogs with quaintly absurd fairy-tale names. As a child, Jake hadn't been able to say the word Siegfried, of course, thus Sig had stuck, and what a cute story that once had seemed. The dog angled sharply to the side and lifted a leg beneath the street sign.

"I was thinking we'd stop at Kenney's on the way back for a . . ." Henry began, but his voice drifted away as he looked up, toward the street sign that Sig was peeing on. The street sign was different. He frowned distractedly at it. The colors of the sign were different, but that wasn't the really odd thing. It was the street name.

"George?" Henry read aloud, still frowning.

"Huh?" Jake glanced back over his shoulder.

Henry looked aside at his son, and then up at the sign again. He pointed at it. "It says George Street. Not Alpine. What's that all about?"

Jake didn't answer. He didn't seem to care. A moment later, Sig tugged at the leash, finished with his business. They walked on.

It was nothing, of course. Maybe someone from the Public Works department had just screwed up and installed the wrong sign on the wrong corner. Dumber things had happened. But still.
Was
there even a George Street in Buena Vista? Lots of small towns had a George Street. Clyde had had a George Street. Henry had delivered
The Sandusky Register
along it when he'd been a kid. But he'd never heard of a George Street here. It nagged at him.

And then he saw the Dumpster. It was in the same place as always, up on the corner of Twenty-Sixth and Park, behind the now defunct Seventh Inning sports bar. Henry stared at it as they made their way slowly toward it, their feet crunching in the uneven gravel along the side of the road. There were words stenciled onto the Dumpster's side, words that Henry was pretty sure had not been there before. He read them with a strange mixture of disbelief and bemusement:

"Jake," he said, pointing with his left hand, "you see that sign? Up there on the Dumpster?"

Jake looked at the Dumpster, and then up at his father, squinting. "Yeah. What about it?"

"Has it always been there?"

Jake frowned and shook his head. "I dunno. Probably. What's with you and signs today, Hank?"

Henry nearly stumbled on the gravel. "What did you just call me?"

"What? Nothing. Jeez."

"What did you just say?"

"I said what's with you and signs today? You all hooked on phonics or something?"

Henry smiled, and then shook his head. The smile turned into a bemused laugh. "I could've sworn you . . ."

He didn't go on. Nobody called him Hank anymore. Especially not his son. It had been nearly thirty years since he'd last heard that name."

As they passed the Dumpster, Henry turned to look back at it. He couldn't see the stenciled letters anymore. The Dumpster was huddled against the cinder blocks of the old bar, growing dim in the shadows as the sun dipped below the town's roofs. Sig turned into the narrow alley next to the bar. As he did, the streetlamps began to flicker on, pulsing alight along the entire length of the business district.

Henry stopped in his tracks, his breath turning solid in his chest. His eyes went wide.

"Jeez, Hank, what's with you?" Jake asked, stopping a few feet away and glancing back. Sig tugged at the end of the leash. Henry barely felt it.

The business district of Buena Vista, Virginia, was gone. In its place, as solid and undeniable as the moon in the sky, was Main Street, Clyde, Ohio.

The imposing but nonthreatening brick of the Town Hall dominated the far end of the road. The clock on its tower glowed like one benevolent eye. Next to the Town Hall was the red painted façade of the Five and Dime store, the natty glass doors of Wilson's Men's Shop, and the twirling red white and blue of Rusty's barber pole. It was all there, buzzing faintly in the orange glow of the street lights. The slant parking spaces were mostly empty, but the cars that were visible were strictly pre-Reagan models. There was a GTO, a Corvair, and even a rusty old Maverick. The neon light of the Clyde Piper Bar sign reflected on its hood.

"Come
on
," Jake said, reaching to grab his companion's hand. "It's getting dark. If I don't get home, my mom's gonna have kittens. You act like you ain't never seen a flippin' rust-bucket Maverick before."

He pulled Henry forward, and Henry came, jerkily, his eyes still fixed on the inexplicable sight before him.

"I swear, Hank, you get any weirder, your old man's gonna nail you in a crate and send you to military school. Come on. You can borrow my Boba Fett card for the night if you want, but don't bend it all up, all right?"

"Okay," Henry said, not really listening. They crossed Main Street, keeping between the glow of the streetlights, and ducking across the parking lot of the Clyde Twist-E-Freeze. A minute later, they angled down a residential alley. Neat, postage stamp backyards and gardens lined the way, all separated by chain-link fences and gates. Henry watched, speechless, as they tramped toward home.

Soon enough, however, the yards changed. They grew darker and weedier. The cars parked on the gravel driveways were minivans and Toyotas, rather than old Fords and AMCs. Televisions flickered behind curtained windows, and Henry heard the sound of ESPN SportsCenter wafting from an open window. He looked up as they turned a corner, Sig still in the lead, panting at the end of his leash. They were back on Twenty-Third Street, heading toward Steph's house. Lights glowed from inside, strangely bright on the blank walls.

Jake reached up and took the leash from his father's fingers. Without a word, he ran ahead, clumped up the front porch steps, and slammed the screen door on his way inside.

Henry simply stood there in the twilight, his head swimming, rocking slightly on his heels. He was back in Buena Vista again. Not that he'd ever really left. It was crazy. It was completely nutso bonkers, as they'd all used to say back in grade school. He simply could not have seen what he thought he'd seen -- or heard what he thought he'd heard.

I swear, Hank, you get any weirder, your old man's gonna nail you in a crate and send you to military school . . .

But he had. And Henry was just too simple of a guy to deny it.

The next day was Saturday. Henry had the weekend ahead of him. Steph, Greg and Jake would be leaving on Monday morning, and then it would be all over. They'd be gone.

Henry moved around his little house that day like a ghost, fixing the odd cupboard drawer and oiling the hinges on a couple of squeaky doors. There was no point, really. The house wasn't going to sell, not in this market. The realtor's sign had been out front for almost three weeks, but there hadn't been a single call. This was why he couldn't follow his son to California, even if he could afford to live there, which he couldn't. Of course, Henry could have fought the move if he'd wanted to. The number for his family attorney was still posted on the fridge. But he had never seriously considered calling it. Deep down, he knew that Jake would be better off in California, even without him.

But there was more to it than that. They didn't really
want
Henry to go with them this time. That was the fact of it. Not even Jake.

Every time Henry thought of this, his mind switched gears, almost in self-defense.

He'd gone to Clyde, Ohio, last night. He'd walked there with his own two feet, right through time and space. And Jake had gone there with him. Henry remembered it, but he couldn't properly think about it. There was no sense to be made from such a thing. Unless, of course, he was crazy. But Henry didn't
feel
crazy. And it really had been . . . sort of nice.