Vision (2 page)

By the time Bobby trudged into the living room of their little modular house, it was well past noon and his vision had returned to normal. Light streamed through the gritty windows, but Dad had wheeled himself to the darkest corner. He was just struggling into the easy chair in front of the TV, beer can already perched in the plastic cup holder.

“Took you long enough,” Dad grunted as he settled his long torso onto the chair, arranged his wasted legs on the footrest, and snapped his fingers. “Pete! Remote!”

Wagging his tail eagerly, Pete bounded to where the remote lay on the floor in front of the TV and clamped it between his teeth. Dad patted him absently on the head and took it from the dog’s mouth. “Pete’s the only one of you around here who’s good for anything. I keep telling that damn kid to leave the remote where I can get at it.”

The small flat screen had been a gift from Jerry last Christmas. Bobby cringed whenever he looked at it. It didn’t belong in the crummy room. It looked like charity. Which was exactly what it was. On the adjacent wall was the old upright from Mr. Cooper, the school music teacher who gave Aaron lessons. More charity.

The house was small, too small to get lost in. Too small to hide in, with just two tiny bedrooms, a miniscule bathroom, and a single kitchen/living room combo. Behind their flimsy quarters was a larger, more substantial house that had long since fallen to ruin—the old Pendell homestead. The plan had been for them to live in the modular while Dad fixed the roof. But Dad had been redeployed to Iraq; when he came back, his spine shattered by an insurgent sniper, he was in no shape to fix anything. The old house, their possessions and memories covered with sheets of plastic, had been left to slowly rot away, though friends had offered to help. Bobby blamed his dad’s stubborn pride.

“Where’s the A-man?”

“Back yard. That damn beatnik piano teacher is coming to give him a lesson.”

Bobby bristled. A few minutes alone with his dad was all it took to wear his patience thin. “Kenny Cooper is doing this for no pay. You can at least pretend to be polite.”

Because Bobby had once confided that, without his mom around, Aaron wouldn’t get to develop his musical talent, Mr. Cooper, whom the school knew as Kenny, had started coming around to give Aaron lessons.

“Which is another reason I don’t trust him. Nobody does anything for nothing.”

“Mr. Cooper’s just that way. He’s a good guy.”

“Good guy, my ass. He’s a thirty-five-year-old name-dropping asshole who never grew up. If I had his money, I could be a good guy, too.”

Dad flicked the TV to a baseball game, sucked down a long swig of the beer Jerry kept him supplied with, then lit a cigarette and stuck it between his teeth. Bobby suspected that, on some level, Dad was just plain jealous of Kenny Cooper.

Sam Pendell used to be the dad all the other kids looked up to. He’d coached Little League, football, even ran the local Boy Scout troop. The town might still remember the Sam Pendell that was, but they weren’t the ones who had to live with the Sam Pendell he’d become.

Bobby picked up strewn clothes on his way to the kitchen, his mind already tallying the contents of their pantry. Three jars of spaghetti sauce and two boxes of linguini. Five cans of beans. Dried lentils and rice. He’d have to make the food last. Payday wasn’t until this Thursday. And between the beer and the cigarettes and the pay-per-view porn his Dad threw his VA benefits away on, there wasn’t much cash lying around—but it was worth it to keep him quiet.

“What kept you so long, Bobby-o? Don’t look like you caught much of nothing.”

“Wasn’t a good day.”

Bobby threw the dirty clothes into a heap near the laundry basket in the hall by the bathroom. Tonight was laundry night. He surveyed the encrusted dishes in the sink. Letting the water run hot over his hands, he tried to push away the memory of the skeleton at the bottom of the lake, along with the terrifying red blindness. The body might not have been real, but the blindness sure was. What if it came back?

“When the fuck is it ever a good day, Bobby? But you always catch something. Did you even go? Got a girl or something?” Dad wheezed a dry laugh, then coughed. “Water. Bring me some water.”

Bobby filled a glass and brought it to Dad, resisting the urge to toss it in his gaunt face. Once, Dad had been handsome. His voice still had that rich, deep tenor. Like melting chocolate, Mom used to say. With that voice he’d won over Patty Sparrow, the daughter of Graxton’s only doctor, and married her. Bobby was Dad’s spitting image, everyone said. But except for the music, the similarity ended there. Bobby wasn’t a talker like his dad, but music was a language he couldn’t even remember learning. He’d just picked it up, like walking or chewing his food.

Three years ago, Mom had up and left. Bobby wanted to tell Dad that it was his poisoned words, not his shriveled manhood, that drove her away. She’d loved them all, but after awhile, how much could a person take? It was rumored she’d run away with a man from California and gone to Florida. Or a man from Florida, to California. Bobby’s grandparents were long dead, so she hadn’t gone to them; no one in Graxton had ever heard from her again.

If he could have, Bobby would’ve left, too, and never looked back. But every night, Aaron still cried for Mom. How could he let his little brother be abandoned twice?

The rumble of a car caught his attention. He peered out the window just as the red Jeep Grand Cherokee came barreling up their dirt driveway in a cloud of dust.

Bobby wished for once Mr. Cooper would be late for Aaron’s lessons, but today he was ten minutes early.

“Kenny’s here!” Aaron sang, racing in the back door, then right back out the front. Bobby watched from the window as Aaron leapt into the teacher’s open arms.

Dad was already asleep in the same ratty chair, snoring loudly with his mouth hanging open, the gray and black stubble peppering his sunken cheeks.

“Dad,” Bobby said softly beside him, “Mr. Cooper’s here.”

Dad startled awake. “Huh? Fuck if I care. Why’d you wake me?”

Bobby ignored him and scrambled around the living room, scooping up the clothes, dirty plates, empty potato chip bags, and beer cans that had accumulated around the room.

“It’s not like you’re going to impress him, kiddo. He knows damn well what a rat hole this is.”

Bobby gritted his teeth and gathered the items in silence. Dropping the clothes in the hamper, he dumped the dishes in the sink, grabbed the axe from the utility kit under the sink, and headed out back, letting the flimsy screen door slam behind him. A dwindling pile of wood for winter heating waited for him—both his gym and a convenient way to blow off steam.

A moment later, Pete pushed through the door and, tail wagging, watched as Bobby stripped off his T-shirt, hefted the axe above his head, and whacked the logs, one after the other in a savage downward arc until his muscles screamed with exhaustion. After most of the logs were split, his initial burst of energy spent, Bobby sank onto a tree stump and listened to the lilting strains of Aaron’s piano scales.

Kenny was putting Aaron through his paces, patiently preparing him for the day when he would audition for the prestigious Morton Conservatory of Music in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Aaron was making progress, struggling through a difficult piece by Franz Liszt, and Bobby had to smile. Aaron’s brains and musical genius would eventually get him out of Graxton.

But the panic from earlier still wouldn’t leave him. He had to calm down, somehow. He plodded quietly into the house, careful not to disturb Aaron at his lesson, and fetched his guitar, a beat-up old twin of his dad’s. Bobby’s fingers found their places on the strings. Guitar picking was his next best form of therapy, and quite possibly the only thing keeping him sane, other than Pete, Aaron, and the fish in Scratch Lake.

He plucked the strings, unspoken fears riding on the notes that flowed from his guitar, and began to hum a wordless tune. From the confusion of his mind, a song was forming. Time passed. Lost in the music, Bobby didn’t notice Aaron standing at the back door, dressed in his Little League uniform. Bobby stopped, the guitar still vibrating.

“You done with the lesson already?”

“That’s pretty good, Bobby.”

“It’s just a few chords.”

“But you make it sound so good. And your voice is great.”

Bobby smiled, stood and tousled Aaron’s still-sweaty hair. “Thanks, champ. How was practice?”

“Terrible. I suck.”

“Mr. Cooper is just challenging you with some really hard stuff. Stuff I could never play in a million years. Never say you suck. You don’t and you know it.”

Aaron fixed him with a hard stare. “Why not? You never admit how good you are. Anyway, I just wanted to tell you Joey’s mom is giving me a ride to the Little League game.”

“But I thought you wanted me to take you, A-man?”

Aaron lowered his head. “I did, but Dad says he’s got some chores for you to do around here instead.”

Bobby rested a hand on Aaron’s shoulder, the anger boiling up. “Guess I’ll come pick you up and catch the tail end.”

“Cool,” Aaron said, disappearing into the house. Bobby sat, guitar in lap, waiting for the anger to subside. He couldn’t lose his cool. Ever.

Keeping Dad’s poison from destroying his little brother was Bobby’s single-minded purpose in life—and so far, he was on track to succeed.

A
fter helping Dad with his daily physical therapy, watering the pathetic plants in the vegetable garden, and scrubbing down the bathroom, Bobby finally escaped.

Pete followed him jauntily to the truck, and Bobby paused at the driver’s side door for just a minute. Sunlight poured over the rolling hills, the spine of the blue Catskills visible over the treetops.

Graxton didn’t have much to offer in the way of opportunity, but its beauty always took his breath away. Memories of how Mom had taken them on hikes in the woods and taught them about the herbs she used for medicines and cooking flashed in his mind. Graxton was a place where cows grazed on green and gold rolling fields, where deep, clear lakes met thick evergreen forests, and Mom had never failed to point out the glory of nature around them. But with the beauty came the sadness.

Bobby wondered how much Aaron actually remembered about her. He also worried about what the hole she’d left in their lives, filled only with their father’s drunken ranting, was doing to his little brother.

Sunlight slanted across the sloping field in their front yard. Bobby forced the thoughts of loss from his mind. Instead, worry about the red blindness crept in and took their place. He shivered despite the heat and climbed into the truck, maneuvering down the steep dirt driveway to the wider gravel road below. He’d have to try and go back to fetch the boat tomorrow.

Corn grew in gentle waves on either side of their road. Three miles out of town, a few houses dotted the landscape, but mostly there were just cows. Bobby shoved one of Dad’s old Rolling Stones cassette tapes into the player and blasted it. Coco liked to tease him that he had an old soul. That somehow his psyche had gotten misplaced and stashed away, only to be born in the wrong time. Bobby smiled, the music and the rolling scenery lulling him into a semblance of peace. He might have kept driving if not for Pete’s loud barking. Pulling to a stop, Bobby looked in the rear-view mirror.

“What is it, boy? Don’t want to miss the end of Aaron’s game.”

Whimpering, Pete kept his gaze fixed on the side of the road. Bobby got out of the truck and Pete followed, sniffing along where the corn stalks met the roadside weeds. Bobby had almost gotten back in the truck when a girl in shorts, a tank top, and sneakers staggered out of the stalks.

She limped toward him, waving frantically. “Hey! Wait! Over here!”

“What the heck were you doing in there?” The annoyed words tumbled out and Bobby regretted them instantly. As she hobbled closer, he could see her white teeth and red-gold hair that gleamed like a coin in the sun.

“I was running. I wrenched my ankle.” The girl extended a hand. “I’m Gabe.”

Bobby took the girl’s hand and shook. “Gabe?” he stammered, his face gone hot.

“It’s short for Gabriella.”

Bobby dared a longer look at the girl. She was tall, only a few inches shorter than him, leanly muscled, with freckledall-over milky skin that looked like it couldn’t withstand very much sun. Just the same, the fragile skin was stretched over sinewy muscle, an athlete sculpted from a bar of Ivory soap. This girl, Bobby decided, was durable. She didn’t look like she’d break too easily. His heart picked up speed of its own accord and he had to struggle to keep the tremor out of his voice. “You shouldn’t be talking to strangers.”

The girl laughed and shielded her light eyes against the sun. “You don’t look all that strange.”

Bobby shrugged. “You can’t always tell.”

“Well, tell me your name and then you won’t be just a tall, handsome stranger who picked me up on the side of the road.”

Bobby felt himself blush. She had called him handsome. But words came easily to this girl, words she probably didn’t mean, while for him finding the right words was like panning for gold. “Bobby. Bobby Pendell.”

“Short for Robert?”

“Uh, yeah. But no one calls me that. Except my dad when he gets pissed off.”

“Well, Bobby Robert Pendell, right now I have no choice but to rely on the kindness of tall, handsome strangers. My cell gets no reception out here and if I’m not back at the restaurant for dinner my dad’s going to kill me.”

Bobby peered at the girl from under his trucker’s cap. Definitely a weekender. She was too buffed and polished to be anything else. “Which restaurant? There’re three in town.”

Gabe snickered. “That many, huh?”

Bobby stuck his hands in his pockets and looked down at his scuffed work boots. It was a waste of time worrying what this girl thought of him. She was clearly way out of his league. And he had more important things to think about. “Look, I, uh—I got to get somewhere. I’ll give you a ride, if you want. But I got to hurry.”

“Where are you going?”