Sightings (15 page)

Housen had a box of trophies and, thankfully, didn't award me any of them. I was already “sucking Housen's ball sac,” according to Trent Gordon. But not anymore.

Adam Green took Most Valuable Player and a tight-end named Richard Vix unsurprisingly took Most Improved.

“Hey, they don't call him tight-end for nothing,” Housen chuckled when Richard rose to collect his trophy. He caught himself too late, but nobody thought anything of it but me.

Then, Housen started in on his speech, omitting most of the parts about crotches and groins and tight heineys. It made for a pretty short presentation. He just elaborated on how we should be proud of our 8–6 record, how it was a team effort built on grit and dedication, and how there was no “win” in “team.”

“Cuz when you rearrange the letters,” he clarified, “it doesn't spell win. I guess you could spell ‘meat' or ‘tame' or ‘meta,' but you can't spell ‘win.' Not with those letters.”

The parents nodded.

“But the real turning point in our season,” he continued, “had to be when ol' Rex Yancey sailed that perfect field goal right between the crossbars. Remember that kick? Against Davenport? The kid's got a leg on him, am I right? Anyway, thank you very much.”

Housen sat down and sipped his lemon water. A few of the parents clapped. Dad tousled my hair, then turned to the rest of the parents and said, “I gave 'em that leg, you know.”

After dinner, everyone dawdled in the parking lot while Mrs. Green tried to fill out the snack assignments for the upcoming basketball season.

“You trying out for basketball?” Dad asked. Daryl and the others were busy playing monkey-in-the-middle with the Most Improved trophy.

“Naw,” I said, watching them. “I don't think so.”

“Why the hell not?”

“I don't know. The coach sort of sucks. He makes everyone run till they puke.”

“Builds character,” Dad pointed out. “Puking always builds character.”

We leaned against Dad's Miata while Mom continued chatting up the mothers.

“How's she been?” Dad asked, fiddling with his toothpick as he watched her gesturing to the others.

“She's been okay.”

He nodded.

“I didn't slip off because of her. She knows that.”

“Okay.”

“Not because of you either,” he added. “I just . . . I got this itch. Sometimes you just gotta scratch it, know what I'm saying?”

I didn't.

Eventually, the three of us rendezvoused, scrunching ourselves into the tiny car. Mom sat on my lap.

“Buckled in?” Dad asked.

“Buckled!” Mom smiled. She was trying hard to love him more than ever.

Nearby, Coach Housen carried the empty trophy box to his Blazer, blocking the center lane of the lot.

“Move it or lose it, pal!” Dad honked, revving his engine. He didn't even recognize him.

I slouched low in my seat as we screeched past, hiding behind my mother. In the rearview, I saw Coach remove his hat and clasp his hands before him.

Dad shouted so we could hear him over the wind.

“She's pretty nice with the top down, isn't she?”

A year later Dad drove off for an oil change, only he never came back. His paintbrushes and easel were still in the garage so we didn't bother calling Vermont. In fact, we didn't call anyone. He was no longer worth the long distance.

I graduated from the eighth grade later that year, and at the closing exercises Principal Cody called my name for the Faculty Prize, an award sort of like a sportsmanship award for academics, to the guy who got a lot of Cs but seemed to work pretty hard for them. Later that night, we had punch and cookies by the tetherball courts behind the school.

We were having a good time when I noticed Housen far off near the baseball field, chalking the lines with the roller.

I wandered over, watching him from behind the aluminum bleachers.

Housen started work on the third baseline, then wiped his brow and leaned against the backstop.

He turned, spotting me.

“Well look who it is! Mr. Rex Yancey in the flesh!”

I came out from hiding.

“Heard you took Faculty Prize. I told 'em you were a hard worker. Christ, I'd been saying it for years.”

“Thanks, Coach.”

He shrugged, spitting into the dirt, then rubbing it in with his shoe.

He continued chalking. I followed a few steps behind.

“Ever seen one of these?” he asked, pointing to the roller.

“I've seen them.”

“You ever use one?”

I shook my head.

“Here.”

He handed it off to me.

“Now the trick is to get the lines nice and straight. Just keep your eye on the base ahead of you. That's the trick. If you look straight down at the chalk your line will be all cockeyed.” He rephrased: “It won't look . . . good.”

I nodded, working the roller up and down the dust.

“There you go,” he coached. “Nice and easy, give her a generous dusting.”

Far off, by the tetherballs, fathers were gathering their sons beneath their arms, telling jokes, smiling.

“Got any summer plans?” he asked me, breaking my stare.

“Oh, I don't know,” I shrugged. “I'll probably mow some lawns. Try to save some money. For college or something. I should start early.”

He nodded.

“Well there's always a football scholarship. I wouldn't rule that out entirely.”

“Naw, I really should just mow, probably.”

He laughed, patting my shoulder. “There you go again, always doing things the hard way, aren't ya?”

I nodded.

He looked at me as if trying to solve a riddle.

“All right, give me that,” he said at last, commandeering the chalk roller. “I'll take 'er from here. Get the hell out of here. Go enjoy your summer. Be a kid. Raise some hell.”

“I'll try.”

“You better do more than try!” he laughed. “Mothers lock up your daughters, you know what I mean?” he winked.

I nodded.

“Get on, then,” he shooed, waving me off, and continued chalking the lines.

But I didn't.

I just planted myself on the bleachers, waiting.

Around town, people were turning on bug zappers and lighting citronella candles and extending hammocks between the lengths of trees. They were waiting in line for ice-cream cones or filling out job applications or shooting baskets in somebody's drive. They were sliding into backyard pools and riding skateboards. Pyramiding the charcoal on the bottoms of grills and adjusting the sprinkler heads. Walking barefoot. Drinking orange sodas. Dodging the low swooping bats.

Meanwhile, I just sat on those bleachers. And I'd sit there for another half an hour or so, until he finally exited the shed and noticed me there.

I don't remember much after that. It was all so long ago.

Probably, we just wandered, kicking up dust and trying not to disturb the freshly laid chalk.

Just talked. Talked and talked.

Until there were no words left for us to say, nowhere left for us to wander.

In his mind, The Confederate lived in a log cabin in the backwaters of Tennessee, beside a rocky canyon and a stream that, many years back, overflowed with the thick blood of Yankees.

Though in reality, he resided in a twentieth-century Cape Cod on the outskirts of Nashville. A glowing
BP
sign illuminated just beyond the neighborhood trees. It was a fine home, complete with a two-car garage, a professionally manicured lawn, even a
WELCOME
mat in the backyard that played “Dixie” when stepped upon with the necessary force.

The Confederate had a son, Confederate Junior, though most called him Junior for short. Still clinging to his baby fat, the fresh-faced seven-year-old was thick around the midsection, though what he lacked in physical prowess he more than made up for with gusto.

While training in the backyard, The Confederate often commanded, “Junior! Bayonet ready?” to which his son snapped to attention, proclaiming, “Yes sir, Drill Sergeant, sir!”

It was a declaration that caused the old man's heart to swell.

His son –
his own flesh and blood
– possessed the ability to maim and wound and return honor to the Confederate States of America.

“Then affix bayonet, dear child!”

Junior attached the metal blade to the end of a rifle with the diligence of a well-trained soldier under the command of General Thomas Jonathan Stonewall Jackson – God rest his soul and bless him. It was all one glorious motion: the insertion of the blade, the quarter turn, followed by a stomped foot.

The Confederate cared deeply for his son, proving it each time they went hunting in the woods. When their stalking ended in gunfire, it was Junior's shot that broke the soundless forest first. The Confederate resisted his itchy finger, only indulging in the safety shot after his son's barrel was already cleared. Junior – still young and not yet calloused by war – often missed, and it was The Confederate's shot that typically downed the deer, its knobby legs crumpling to the vegetation first while the remainder of heft toppled soon after.

After each kill, Junior asked innocently, “Affix bayonet?”

And while his father fully appreciated the gusto with which his son slaughtered, he had to deny the request.

“Sorry, pal,” he'd say, clapping a hand to his son's grays. “Think this one's already dead.”

The Confederate had a wife, a maker of time machines. She was a stay-at-home-scientist whose paychecks were stamped with the insignia of Vanderbilt University, though her work received private funding from blackout groups within the deepest bowels of the U.S. government. Once a failed psychic, she had turned her attention to the tangibles, the ease of atomic weights, the certainty of conductors. If she wanted to see the future, she reasoned, then she would have to build it herself. Two PhD's later (one in rocket science, CalTech Class of '94; the other quantum mechanics,
MIT
'01) she walked across a stage, shook a few hands (endured a few jokes about being called “Dr. Dr.”), and earned herself a glimpse into the unknown.

When asked what she did for a living, The Confederate boiled it down more simply: “She's a Yankee sympathizer!” It wasn't entirely true, though he thought it accurate enough.

He had convinced himself that his wife's interest in overcoming the barriers of the time-space continuum would inevitably benefit the North.

“But Charlie, don't you see?” his wife argued. “The benefits of time travel would positively impact all of us. The
entire
country. It would allow us the privilege of foresight.”

“Oh, Lynda,” he chuckled, shaking his head. “That's all well and good, but you've forgotten about
hindsight,
dear. Does anyone ever stop to consider hindsight? The lessons of the past?”

In the early years of their marriage, he'd obsessed over her work, causing her to wonder if that's where the attraction lay. He could often be found loitering in the basement, casually inquiring what that button did, or that wire. Faithfully, she would explain everything, adding the occasional, “But please, don't touch. I mean it.”

He'd pause, his hands hovering just inches over the machinery, the bulbs and switches beckoning for him to come just a little bit closer. He'd absorb all he could, even when he only understood half of it.

“So let me get this straight,” he reasoned, clearing his throat. “Time travel goes both ways, right? I mean, let's say I want to go to the Battle of Fredericksburg, but later, I wanted to jump to . . . I don't know, the Battle of Vicksburg. Then on to some future battle that hasn't even happened yet. Something with lasers. Lasers versus Robots. Could I do that? Could I go to the Lasers versus Robots war directly from the Battle of Antietam? From a scientific perspective, I mean. What's your expert opinion?”

“Well . . . technically,” his wife conceded, erasing the formulas and speaking only in hypotheticals. “That's our great hope; that we might correct the errors of the past while simultaneously testing the future. But it's more complicated than that. There are paradoxes to consider, causality, mutable timelines. I think you're failing to see the drastic ramifications of altering the cosmic plan . . .”