M. Buehrlen: The 57 Lives of Alex Wayfare

Like my Uncle Lincoln when he’s drunk at a wedding reception.

I went over that day hundreds of times in my head, trying to find something that backed my déjà vu theory. The Sunday School lesson hadn’t been about Noah’s Ark, or Jonah being tossed from a ship and swallowed by a whale, or even Jesus walking on water. It had been about Esau giving up his birthright to Jacob. I read the passage over and over, and nothing linked it to my vision of the ship. Even my art project – a drawing of Jacob’s ladder – held no nautical significance.

I had to let my theory go and accept that the visions were indeed random. They came and went, dragging me along like something hooked to its sleeve. It wasn’t aware of me, it just swept me along. My wants, desires, and needs never mattered. And soon, that’s exactly how I saw my life.

None of it mattered.

VISION NUMBER FOUR

After a year as a self-made pariah, I had successfully alienated myself from the kids at school. Whether or not I sat alone in the cafeteria was no longer a topic of discussion. No one commented on the fact that I walked home from school by myself. Even the teachers assumed I was just an oddball. One of the shy ones. They never talked to me about my lack of friends or interest in extra-curricular activities. I suppose they didn’t want me to feel bad. I had epilepsy, after all.

There wasn’t a day that went by I didn’t consider telling my parents about the visions or asking them for help. But I didn’t want to bother them. They had their hands full already. With Gran and Pops losing their farm and moving to Maryland to live with us.

With my sister, Audrey.

So I lost myself in my fix-it projects. Hunching over a circuit board, stripping wires, making connections – it all provided the clarity and focus I needed to forget about the visions.

When I’d taken apart almost everything in the house and perfected my repair skills, I moved on to custom modifications. I installed a touch screen tablet computer in one of the kitchen cabinet doors so Gran could look up recipes online at eye-level, listen to music, or watch TV while she cooked. I wired all the electronics in the den to a “movie night” setting, so with one press of a button, the projector would turn on, the DVD player would whir to life, the lights would dim, and the window blinds would lower. I even helped Dad get his old Mustang running again, and managed to increase the gas mileage while still maintaining its kick-ass power.

At school I immersed myself in drafting, computer programming, physics, and biology, and kept my pariah status intact by hiding out in the AV room or computer lab during lunch or free periods. My grades were top tier compared to what they are now, and I had a drawer full of brochures for the best engineering schools in the country, courtesy of Dad, who wanted me to become a biomedical engineer like him. The nerdy glasses I wore and my hopeless, shaggy mop of dishwater blonde hair helped round out my geek facade.

In a one-time effort to add an extra-curricular activity to my record, I briefly joined the Robotics Team in my sophomore year at the request of Mrs Latimer, the team leader and head of the AV department, but the Jamestown vision came on full force during our first competition. She found me huddled in a corner in the competing school’s vending machine room, all the lights off, rocking back and forth and stuffing myself with Oreos.

I was so hungry.

I was so terrified by what I’d seen.

Now even the smell of Oreos makes me want to puke.

After I dump all of that on Dr Farrow, I totally expect her to look at me like I’m crazy. I expect her to drill me on the visions. Those are why I’m here in the first place, and I’m getting impatient for answers.

But she doesn’t go there. Instead, she taps her pencil on her bottom lip and says, “Tell me about Audrey.”

For a split second, I think back to a few hours earlier, before I left the house for my appointment with Dr Farrow. Audrey was where she always was, sitting on the daybed on our screened-in porch. She wore fingerless gloves and a black bandana with cartoon pumpkins on it. (Halloween is her favorite holiday.) Her thin, frail legs were curled under her; one of Gran’s afghans was draped over her lap. Her homebound algebra homework was spread out on the coffee table before her, but she hadn’t touched it yet. Instead, she traced the words of Robert Burns on dog-eared pages with her fingertips. A shiny new bruise graced her collarbone.

I tried not to look at it when I kissed her goodbye.

“I don’t want to talk about Audrey,” I tell Dr Farrow. I look away and try to swallow the sudden lump in my throat.

She nods and puts pencil to paper. Then, “Tell me how it felt to tell your parents about your suspension.”

Oh. That.

DAD

The day of the Mr Lipscomb Incident, Mrs Gafferty called Dad in from work to tell him face-to-face. He sent me out to wait in the car while they talked, and I sank into the cool vinyl in the back of the Mustang. Waiting. Breathing in autumn air.

Even though the backseat was cramped, and I always preferred sitting beside Dad in the front, the back seemed fitting for that day. I was a criminal after all – captured and corralled – headed to the precinct.

There were no words on the way home. Tension weighed heavy on my shoulders in the silence. I pressed my temple to the rear window glass and watched the blur of curb and grass, the swirl of crisp leaves in the breeze, the rise and fall of power lines. They reminded me of the time Audrey and I climbed the old power line poles at the edge of Pops’ farm to steal those glass insulators the power companies never use anymore. They were the most exquisite shade of blue-green, like the Chesapeake Bay on a clear day.

Once Audrey caught a glimpse of that color, winking from the top of the power lines, she couldn’t rest until we had climbed all the way up and liberated each one. We carried them home, heavy and sagging in our stretched-out T-shirts. I spent a week fastening small lightbulbs inside each one, while Audrey coiled copper wire in intricate and lovely patterns around the outside. It was always that way with us. Whenever we found forgotten or broken objects, I would repair them and bring them back to life, and Audrey would make them beautiful. I was the stoic one with Coke-bottle eyeglasses. Audrey was the beauty, with a laugh that gave color to our world.

Mom called our hobby upcycling, a term that helped us sell several of our hanging lamps at one of the local boutiques in Annapolis’ historic district. The rest were strung up in my workshop in the attic, a constant reminder of those blue-green days when Audrey could climb and run and leave beautiful things trailing after her.

We arrived home sooner than I hoped. Dad pulled into our driveway, shaded by century-old sycamore trees ablaze with fire and gold, and cut the engine. Our house, a small brick Colonial, sat back from the road, nestled comfortably in those trees. It beckoned me inside, but I didn’t reach for my seatbelt.

Dad pulled his keys from the ignition. He turned around and rested an arm on the back of the passenger seat. His eyes were kind and gray, like always, but his lips were curved in a frown. His dusky blond hair looked like he’d raked his hands through it a dozen times. Probably during his talk with Mrs Gafferty.

“Do you want to tell your mom, or should I?” he said.

My gut tightened. I could already see the disappointment on Mom’s face. Hear it in her voice – a shadow behind her ever calm, ever even words.

Dad let go of his frown and a faint sympathetic smile showed itself. He knew all about my struggles with Mr Lipscomb. And Tabitha, for that matter. He was on my side when it came to both of them, though that didn’t mean he was OK with what I did. It just meant he understood. Which, honestly, pretty much made him the best dad in the world.