J. Gonzalez - They

They drove around Irvine for ten minutes, making small talk as Vince navigated Frank around the city, trying to find someplace they could pull over. Frank didn’t want to talk in a public place like a bar or restaurant, and he was reluctant to go to Vince’s home, and especially his office. Vince thought it was odd that a man that looked like he wouldn’t be afraid of anything could be so nervous and scared about talking to him about Laura and the mystery surrounding his mother’s death. But then his mother had been pretty paranoid in the end, hadn’t she?

For the first five minutes, Vince’s heart raced with nervousness. He still didn’t know what Frank was up to, what his motives were, and he was tense every time the big man moved or said anything. His stomach knotted itself as they drove; Vince had an insane thought that the man was going to drive him out to a remote section of Irvine or Laguna Hills and do something hideous: beat him up, torture and kill him. Why he thought this he hadn’t the slightest idea, but he supposed it had to do with the strange nature in which the man had suddenly stepped back into his life. Why would you track down a boyhood pal you hadn’t seen in over twenty-five years and then behave real paranoid around him? It didn’t make sense.

Frank checked the rearview mirrors constantly as they drove. Apparently his paranoia wasn’t limited to just Vince being followed.

Vince relaxed more as he realized Frank was following his street directions in finding a quiet spot to pull over. Vince remembered a small park that was near a library and the Town Hall. He directed Frank to it and they drove in silence as the Saturn purred down the suburban streets. It was a nice, warm day. The sky was blue with specks of white fluffy clouds scattered about, and there was a nice offshore breeze blowing from the west. It was probably close to eighty degrees and it was only twelve o’clock. Vince figured he could get away with being away from the office until at least two, so he hoped Frank would tell him what was on his mind so Vince could go about the task of asking his own questions.

They approached MacArthur Boulevard, and Vince directed Frank across the intersection. The park was just ahead of them, to the right. Frank pulled the Saturn into a parking slot away from other cars and killed the engine. Outside, a group of kids played scratch baseball in the open field of the park. To their right a group of women were seated at a picnic table scurrying about like busy bees, unloading baskets of food and talking as children played around them and on the playground. In short, it was a normal summer afternoon in the park.

Frank turned toward Vince, his mirror shades menacing in the closed space. “Okay, I think we’ll be cool here.”

“Nobody followed us?” Vince asked. He felt silly asking, but it seemed like a joke to him. He tried not to let his skepticism creep into his tone of voice.

“No,” Frank said. Then he jumped right into the subject at hand. “Do you remember any part of our childhood?”

“I thought you were going to tell me about my mother?” Vince asked, the cockiness of their earlier encounter at the restaurant creeping in. “And what do you know about Laura being—”

“First things first,” Frank said, holding up one leather clad hand to halt Vince’s flow of questions. “I’ll get to your questions as soon as I can. I promise. Please, just bear with me. How much of our childhood do you remember?”

Vince sighed and backed off from his confrontational stance, realizing it wasn’t going to get him anywhere. Might as well play Frank’s game his way. “I just remember snatches of it.”

“Like what?”

Vince shrugged. “Kindergarten through second grade basically. I remember playing with a bunch of other kids after school. I think you were one of them. There was a little girl with blond hair… our parents were friends with her parents—”

“Nellie,” Frank said. At the mention of that long lost childhood name of the little girl Vince had played with, he felt a sense of nostalgia.

“Yes,” Vince said.

“What else?”

“I remember…” Vince thought hard about this, dredging up long buried memories. “Just various people that used to come by. I don’t remember who they were.”

“Do you remember any names?”

“Just you and Nellie,” Vince said, trying hard to dredge his memory. “I remember a guy named Tom… I think he was your father.”

“He wasn’t my father,” Frank said, almost spitting the words out. “He had a hand in raising me, but he wasn’t my father.”

“I remember an older guy. An Uncle I think.” His searching mind unearthed the name. “Sammy, I think his name was? Uncle Sammy? That sounds weird, but—”

At the mention of Uncle Sammy, Frank turned away from Vince, his hands gripping the steering wheel. He appeared to be visibly affected, as if he’d just heard a set of fingernails being scratched against a chalkboard. “That’s Samuel Garrison,” he said, softly. “Yeah, you got that right. What else?”

Knowing that the mention of Samuel Garrison bothered Frank immensely and wondering why, he plunged on. “There were others, I don’t remember all their names. There was an older couple named Paul and Opal… that’s an old fashioned-sounding name, isn’t? Opal? I remember a black guy, real thin, friendly… a real cool dude. Sharp dresser. I think his name was Bobby. There were a couple of young guys that my dad used to hang out with. Maybe it was my mom’s boyfriend. I’m still not so sure who my dad was . They looked like hippies. A lot of the people that used to come around were kinda hippie like, but they were also respectable. You know, normal looking.”

Frank was nodding. “You remember more than I thought you would then. Much more.”

“I remember you and I used to play together,” Vince continued. “We used to play with Nellie and a couple other kids in my neighborhood. Sometimes there were kids whose parents our folks hung out with. I don’t remember their names.”

“I remember them, too,” Frank said. “I don’t remember names much myself. I had to dredge them up with the help of regression therapy.” He motioned to Vince. “What else?”

Vince shrugged. “Just… it all ended. We moved, and you weren’t around anymore for some reason. I don’t remember why. Or maybe it was you and your folks moved.” He concentrated, trying to remember. “Yeah, I think that’s right. My mother told me you and your folks moved.” He looked at Frank. “Is that right?”

“Pretty much,” Frank said, looking out the window idly, as if he didn’t want to answer Vince’s question. He turned to Vince. “Anything else?”

Vince tried to remember but he couldn’t. The images floated in his mind, intermingling with the dreams: the darkness dream, the dream in which the weird man tried to kill him. They all swirled in his head like a kaleidoscope. He felt weird telling Frank all of this, especially since he barely knew the man, but then it was Frank Black, his childhood friend. There’d been a bond between them twenty-five years ago, almost brotherly like, and despite the long gap of not seeing him he felt he could tell Frank everything. He told Frank a watered down version of his mother suddenly packing him up in the middle of the night and moving back east. He related what he remembered about the drive. “Now that I think back on it, I get the feeling that my mother was running from something out here,” he said. “What she was running from, I don’t know. But I remember how nervous she was during the drive. Her determination to put as many miles down every day, her insistence that we stay in out-of-the-way motels, our changing cars every few states.”