Forever (10 page)

“Want to go down and have a beer, son?” he asked Scott.

Why not, Scott thought to himself. “Sure, Dad.”

They sat in a booth and ordered a couple of Lone Star 24-ounce draws. For a while it was just small talk, wrestling, Army food, the Rodeo. Then it just came out.

“You know,” Wayne said, “you’re mother is still mad at me.”

“Why?” Scott asked.

“Because when you walked out the door that day and said ‘ask Dad,’ she did and I told her, and well, she’s been mad at me since,” he said.

“It was my decision,” Scott said, stiffly. “You just gave me the idea.”

Wayne shifted in his seat. “Are you still mad at me?”

Scott hadn’t expected his father’s reaction. “It was my decision,” was all he could come up with.

“I felt you’d skated for months,” Wayne said. “I didn’t want you to think you could just come home and skate there.”

“That’s just it, Dad,” Scott snapped at him. “I wasn’t going to skate. I wanted to get back into school, any school. But I also needed to feel like I was part of something again. When
Connel asked me to come in and help, I felt like that again. But you didn’t want to let me.”

“I didn’t say that,” Wayne said. “I just thought a few months at the stockyards would have done you some good.”

“It might have, Dad,” Scott said, staring at his beer, “if it had been my idea. It was yours and it would have meant I wouldn’t have been able to help with wrestling. I needed that right then.”

Wayne shrugged. “Maybe you did. Do you think this, the Army, was a mistake?”

Scott stopped short. No one had asked him that question in a while, and while he thought he always knew the answer, he suddenly wasn’t sure.

Sure, he hated being taken away from everyone and everything he knew and loved. He hated the haircut and the clothes and the people telling him what to do and all of that shit.

But the Army had also brought him Andy and the guys. It had made him a stronger person in a lot of ways and more independent. And it brought him Roni.

He had wondered aloud more than once if they would be where they are right now without the Army. If she hadn’t seen his picture, then went flying back to Greeley that night to see Maggie, then wrote that letter, maybe the whole world would be different. Either way, that was something he didn’t want to find out.

“I don’t know, Dad,” Scott finally said. “A lot has happened, both good and bad. I hate where I’ve been and the things I have to do most of the time, but there have been good points, too. Maybe not a mistake, but not completely the way I wanted things.”

“But are you still mad at me?” Wayne pressed.

“I’m not really mad at anyone, Dad,” Scott allowed. “I didn’t have to do this; I could have blown you off and just stalled until wrestling was over. You were trying to teach me a lesson by getting me to work at the stockyards. I was trying to teach you one by joining the Army.

“Tell Mom I’m not mad you,” Scott added. “She’s probably not going to let up until she hears that, is she?”

“Nope, but thanks, son,” Wayne said.

****

CHAPTER 11

By the time the family left on June 13, Scott had hit the home stretch back to Wild Horse.  He was excited about going home; he could see Rick and Maggie, Snakebite would be back in action, and, of course, Roni.

They kept the letter writing up on five-day intervals, but now they could talk on the phone a couple of times a week. The Sunday after the Mitchells went home, Roni came up with a plan for going apartment hunting.

Scott’s leave after basic medical started after graduation July 1 and EMT training started the 11th. Roni was working in the business office at the dealership, just as she usually did in the summer.

“What would you say to this?” asked the Master Planner. “We drive out to Manhattan on the 6th, take the whole day of the 7th to look around town, maybe look at apartments, then leave on the 8th and drive to San Antonio. Then I’ll fly back.”

“Drive what, the Sky Bird?” Scott asked. “That is way too nice to keep down here, and you need wheels.”

“Hell no,” she shot back with a cocky laugh. “You can’t have my car. You should go talk to my dad when you’re here.”

“Not the
Creamsicle?” Scott asked in mock disappointment.

“No,” Roni replied. “I’m not sure I’d ride to Denver in the
Creamsicle.”

The
Creamsicle was Scott’s battered old orange and white 1968 GMC pick-up. He bought it at McIntyre’s the day after his 16th birthday, and along with his motorcycle, it had carried him through some great times in high school.

Scott sighed. “OK, I guess I’m the only one who loves her,” he said of his old truck. “But she was my first!”

“Yeah, you’re pretty much the only one,” Roni teased. “And as for first, do you really wish Pam Kistler was still around?”

Scott lost his virginity to Pam when he was a sophomore and she was a senior. She was a wrestling cheerleader and wasn’t bad looking, but there was a strong chance she’d been a lot of guys’ first.

“Ummm…well she had big tits,” Scott said, contemplating his options, “but, no, I suppose not.”

“You realize if I were there right now, I’d kick you in the nuts, right?”

“Oh, yes,” Scott said. “This is one of the few times I could say I’m glad there’s 800 miles between us.”

“You better hope I forget that by the time you come home,” Roni said with a laugh.

A purple
Braniff 727 was coming through a cloud bank as it headed northwest toward Denver. Out the left side window, Scott could see Pueblo, and soon Colorado Springs. He looked east; he knew he couldn’t see Wild Horse, but he also knew if the Springs were on the left, the Horse was on the right. And in the background were the mountains. Scott loved the mountains.

He’d never been gone this long. For as far back as he could remember
, there was a faint line of the 14,000 Club peaks on the horizon. And when he would drive toward Denver to see his family in Lakewood or go in for a basketball or hockey game or a concert, the mountains would grow tall and protective like the craggy wall of an ancient castle. It was always a safe and reassuring sight.

The plane banked right as it closed in on Denver, and was headed straight north. The city spread itself out before Scott. He could see
McNichols Arena and Mile High Stadium to the west, downtown, and snaking routes of I-25, Federal, Wadsworth and Sheridan crossing the Metro like arteries pumping blood. One last long bank turned the plane in 180 degrees. Below him, Scott saw the runway going across I-70, which is where he was headed.

“Welcome to Denver, Colorado,” the flight attendant’s voice said over the plane’s intercom.

As he came through the door of the jetway, Scott’s eyes scanned the people at the gate, looking for light brown hair, a cute butt and a pair of baby blue eyes. And they weren’t right there.

He looked out across the concourse, and near a pillar in the opposite gate he noticed a familiar pair of discus-thrower’s shoulders with sun and chlorine-bleached blonde hair hanging above them. Between the shoulders and the pillar was the unmistakable shape of telephoto camera lens with long trails of blonde hair streaming down either side. Scott smiled, looked into the lens and flipped it off. A hand reached out from under the lens and returned the favor. As it did, he felt two arms wrap around him from behind.

“Hi baby,” Roni said. “I’m here!”

“And us!” Maggie ran up and hugged Scott, almost banging him in the back of the head with her camera.
“FOOOOOOTER! God I’ve missed you.”

Then, Rick came over, grabbed Scott in a bear hug and lifted him high off the ground as everyone laughed. Maggie kept taking pictures.

“Dude,” Rick said as he set Scott down. “Do you need anything? A wig maybe?”

“Dude.
Do you need to kiss my ass?” Scott said.

“Actually I don’t Footer, but thanks for offering!”

Scott, Roni, Rick and Maggie walked through the concourse; it was like the double date he’d always wanted. Scott was with his three best friends. He was so happy Roni had become so close with the two of them; it just felt right.

At baggage claim, Roni tried picking up Scott’s duffle bag and almost tumbled onto the conveyor as it barely moved for her. Rick snatched it just before it went back around.

“God, Footer, what is in here?” Rick said as he drug the bag over to Scott. “This weighs as much as Maggie.”

Scott shrugged, turned and lifted Maggie up over his shoulder. “You’re right, man.
Almost the same.”

The flight left San Antonio at 5:45 p.m., and took an hour and half, but because of the time-change, it was 6:15 at wheels-down. But by the time they’d pulled out of the terminal and Rick had turned his big white Ford station wagon east on I-70, it was nearly 7:30. Roni and Scott snuggled in the back seat while Maggie slid close to Rick.

“You have to go to Goodier’s to get fitted for your tux while you’re home, Footer,” Maggie was telling him.

“White?”
Scott said.

“With a yellow shirt,” Rick added.

“My dress is yellow,” Roni said.

Scott smiled as he listened to all of this and pulled Roni tighter to him. “What?” she asked as she looked into his eyes.

“This is the first time in four months I have been completely away from the military,” he said, glancing around him. “Feels pretty fucking good. Hand me a beer, Mags.”

Maggie reached into the 12-pack and fished out a Coors for Scott and handed it back over the front seat. “This is what I’ve missed,” he said. “No Coors in Missouri or Texas.”

At Limon, I-70 headed east toward Kansas, just as US 40 and 287 continued southeast toward Wild Horse. Rick tuned the radio to 1600 AM, KWHS, Wild Horse’s radio station.

“It’s 9 o’clock and if we timed this right, this one is for Scott Mitchell,” the DJ was saying, “who is on his way home from basic training and should now be in listening range. Welcome back number 73!”

The first notes of “Rocky Mountain High” then came through the speakers.

“Out-fucking-standing!”
Scott shouted. “Who did that?”

Roni smiled
. “Probably Kimmy; she’s been off the wall all week waiting for you.”

It was dark as Rick guided the wagon off the four-lane of Highway 40 and onto the ramp into Wild Horse. Roni and Maggie were both asleep. The town’s lights gave off a soft glow, a glow Scott knew all so well. There had been a lot nights when he lay on his bunk trying to picture that glow. Like the mountains, it had been a constant comfort for most of his life and it had been absent for three months.

“This place has never looked better,” Scott said softly.

“Hasn’t changed much,” Rick said. “But it has been kind of weird without you here. I think
there’s a lot of people who are going to be glad to see you.”

When Scott left for basic training, he was convinced no one really cared whether he left or not. After his fall from grace nearly a year before, he had the feeling there were people in Wild Horse who felt betrayed by his downfall. From the toast of Colorado to the toilet, in some ways it seemed as if he’d taken Wild Horse down with him.

But now he felt differently. In his correspondence from home, he’d come to the conclusion that either he’d been forgiven, or he’d been way off in his feelings. But Scott wasn’t sure he cared. He had the people in his life he needed and wanted, and the most important one was snuggled into him and dozing.

“Welcome home, Footer,” Rick said. The station wagon turned on to Princeton Court and was gliding up into the driveway of the Mitchells’ neat ranch house. The
Creamsicle was sitting out at the curb. The porch light clicked on as Wayne and Donna stepped outside and Kimmy sprinted past them, running toward the car. Maggie and Roni stirred.

Home.

****

CHAPTER 12

When Scott opened his eyes on Saturday morning, it might just have well have been the morning he left in March. He could smell breakfast cooking, and his room looked unchanged – the wrestling wall brackets from his conference and Regional championships from his senior year, the Farrah Fawcett poster, his number 73 jersey from UNC all hanging from the wall – except for one thing.

On his dresser was a framed picture of him and Roni from BCT graduation. She was in her blue dress and Scott was in his khakis and had his hat on. They were walking back from lunch looking at each other with huge grins on their faces and holding hands. It was amazing.

He pulled on a t-shirt and shorts and walked out to the kitchen. It was nearly 9:30, and Wayne and Donna were at the table talking.

“Good morning sleepy-head,” Donna said.
“Thought we might have to come get you.”

Scott grabbed a cup and poured some coffee. “Wow. That was 10 hours,” he said. “Where is everybody?”