J.T. Warren - Remains

Mr. McPherson had everyone he talked to call him Pete. He ran a hardware shop over on Kent. He’s the one who built that new swing set at the Center park. Every time I went there on weekends, he’d be there with Randy. He’d always ask me to push the boy on the swings when he saw me, then he’d wander over by his truck and smoke a Pal Mall. I don’t think Mrs. McPherson knew he smoked. I tried to smoke once, and I puked. To each his own, or something like that, I guess.

I was thirteen that year. I was doing okay in school. We were supposed to be reading The Lord of the Flie s. A girl I knew—Jamie, I think her name was—read it and gave me copies of her notes. We made out sometimes. I read her notes just before the test. The book sounded pretty okay. I wished I’d read it. I used to think about that after.

Three years later, I decided to brave that stop sign on Hitt road. My dad had just bought me this huge old clunker from the junkyard up near Eukiah. It had spots of three different colors on it, but mostly it was primer gray. Dad and I worked on that car the entire year I was fifteen. When it was ready, I drove it for the first time. It was loud and ugly and way too big for me. I loved that car. The first night I had it, I cranked it and went out to that stop sign. I parked there, engine running, for a while. I thought about how maybe, if Randy and I had been friends, he’d be in the car. We’d maybe be listening to some music or something, and talking about Becky Morton.

After a bit, I put the car back in drive, and floored the pedal. I went flying past that stop sign with no idea where I was going. I don’t know why, but my head grew clearer the faster I went. I think I looked down after twenty minutes or so, and the needle shook near to eighty. I think I remember laughing out loud as the car slowed. I remember smiling.

After that I spent a lot of time out along the endless stretches of two a.m. highways. The faster I drove, the clearer my head got. I never took anyone with me, though. I liked being alone. People are always interrupting me when I’m sitting and thinking. I liked it out there because no one could catch up to me. I could think for an hour or so.

Sometimes time to think wasn’t a good thing, though. I got to wondering ‘what if’ a lot. Like what if Randy and I had been walking together that day? What if I’d have been a better friend to him and protected him. Growing up, my sisters and I lived in the flat fields surrounding our home. They were always pastel princesses, I was always their brave protector. It felt good to have that. It felt right to be that for them. Then Randy disappeared, and I wondered if I could protect anything.

There was a junkyard not far from my house. My sisters and I weren’t allowed to go to it, but the guy who owned it kept a small lot much closer. It was just across from the park. He had all sorts of junk there waiting to be sorted and brought to the real junkyard. I would go over there all the time with my friends from football, when I was still playing. We would crawl in and out of things all day. It was the best. We would pretend we were the survivors of a blown up world. My sisters were a lot different from me, though. They were smart and talked about things princesses should talk about; I found dirt clods and wondered how far I could throw them. They always tried to get me to join them in their debates about how to feed the peasants: I just wanted to take a sword and slay something.

I never told them, but I kept looking in the backseats of the abandoned cars, wondering if this was the one that had taken Randy. I kept looking for one of his shoes or the little metal necklace his mom had given him to wear. I don’t remember what it looked like, but I remember it was round and looked sort of like a dime. Some medal of saint something-or-other. Everyday on my way home, I’d search the inside of any new car that came in. At night, I’d sit by my window and look out toward where I knew the highway was. All my friends lived out that way. The whole world was that way.

After prom, we all chipped in together and rented this cabin near Lake Taboga. We all had sleeping bags and a fifth of something with River in the name. It seemed right. Jenny Marshall asked if I would take her and I wanted to but I also wanted to say no. Jenny was pretty, and I liked her and all, only she wanted something I can’t explain, but I knew when she asked that she wanted something.

I told her I wanted to see the lake, and she said she did, too. We went down to the rocks just before the sand and sat down. I spread out my jacket for her to sit on. While we were sitting there, I kept thinking about Randy. Wondering if he’d ever seen the lake. The whole time I noticed out of the corner of my eye her watching me. Then she touched my arm in a way no one had ever touched it. It made me tighten my hand into a fist, and flex my arm. It felt almost like she wanted to take my arm, to make it her own. I know that’s all crazy talk, but that’s how it felt.

She put my hand on her chest. My heart beat really fast and I couldn’t catch a descent breath. After a while, I moved my fingers some and she closed her eyes. She bit her bottom lip a little. To this day that’s the main thing I remember, the tiny indention on her bottom lip from her teeth, and how it slowly started to pop back up after she let go.

We did it right there on that rock. It was over really quick. She said that was alright, but I’m not stupid. I knew it wasn’t. I didn’t put my clothes on right away, though. That night was really cold, and parts of me were numb, but I didn’t get dressed. I stared at the moon reflecting off the lake and felt my bare legs touching the cold rock. I guess at some point she kissed my shoulder and went back. I stayed out there a while. I got to wondering if whoever took Randy had hurt him…or made him do things he didn’t want to do. I wondered if they’d ever find him, and if they did, would he get to do the thing Jenny and I had just done.

When I made it back to the cabin, the lights were off and everyone was asleep. I don’t know how long I’d been out there, but when I put my clothes back on, I was almost frozen. I stripped back off, and crawled into my sleeping bag. In the glow of the space heater, I saw Jenny’s face while she slept. I kept looking at her face, and then at the orange glow from the space heater for a long time before I fell asleep. What makes some men write symphonies, I wonder.

The reason I’m thinking about all of this is my father’s phone call, I guess.

My dad and I were close for a while. He used to ask me to go along and keep him company on long road trips. He had to make a lot of them all over the state, back then. He sold industrial vacuum cleaners to mechanics. To this day, the first whiff of the industrial strength floor cleaner in the morning reminds me of those times because the places always reeked of it. We would pile into his Cutlass Sierra, he in his best white shirt and slacks pressed to within an inch of their life and me in with a tucked-in short sleeve button down.

We used to sing to each other, too. He’d belt out the first line of a song right on time with the music. I remember when I was small, that was the funniest thing I had ever seen. I used to laugh a lot, and he used to like to make me laugh. That’s what I remember most. We’d sing along with the radio all day. If it was a duet, we’d trade off parts. I always had to take the girl’s part because dad’s voice was really low, but I didn’t mind. We liked corny old radio stations, and let each other cuss all we wanted..

After Randy disappeared, though, mom always wanted me with her. I didn’t get to go off with dad like I wanted to anymore. I used to mope around the house for days while he was gone. I withheld myself from her as much as I could as punishment. She would ask me questions and instead of answering them, I’d just grunt and nod. I did everything I could to let her know I wasn’t happy.