A Hollow Dream of Summer's End

~ A Hollow Dream of Summer’s End ~

A Novella

By

Andrew Van Wey

Copyright Notice

Copyright
©
2012, Andrew Van Wey.

This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events, places, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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Published by Greywood Bay.

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this one is for my childhood friends;

we never left each other to the monsters.

we grew up.

we became them.

- august 2012

1.

THE SUMMER SHOULD HAVE lasted forever.

Or at least that was how it felt to him in the waning days of August, sitting in the treehouse on the cusp of the night that never ended.

It was impossible that time should slow down, this he knew. It was the opposite; all the grown-ups said that. Yet somehow the summer had distorted, distended, stretched out until every single day was packed and the hours were full of adventure.

It had begun with a bell at two forty-five on the last day of May. The classroom doors at Guinda Elementary had burst open and the students spilled forth into the freedom of summer. They had waved off the fifth graders, a few high fives and
see-you-laters
to the former rulers of the school. They had reigned for a year, but now they were off to be recycled, back to the bottom of the heap that would be middle school. Such was the way of things; such was the system.

It was a day of chaos that reached a frenzy in the final hours. A day of homework torn and crumpled and thrown to the wind; a day of summer promises and plans; a day where the next three months lay out before them as wide and vast as any of the three friends knew. For Brian, Freddie, and Aiden it was a day of endless possibilities, a horizonless future and all that the golden glow of summer promised.

As soon-to-be fifth graders, it was the first summer they had that was almost totally free. The first summer they could stay out until dark. It had hardly begun and they were already making plans in the parking lot at school, their bikes nose to nose while Freddie roller-bladed around them.

"We could totally bike to the old water tower," Brian said, studying his hand-me-down smartphone, stickers hiding the countless cracks. "It's only, like, five miles maybe."

"Five? Try ten, tool." Freddie took the phone. "It's past the cemetery."

"Tool? Your mom's a tool," Brian snapped. "A power tool."

"What does that even mean?" Freddie laughed.

"A di-di-dildo," Brian stuttered as he often did when trying to come up with a witty retort. "Like, industrial strength. Vroom-vroom!"

"You're both tools," Aiden said. "The water tower's nowhere near the cemetery or five miles away. It's here." Aiden double-tapped the map app with greasy fingers, zoomed in. "By the Baylands, see?"

"That's like...” Brian gulped, stifling his stutter. “That’s uber far.”

"Uber?”

"It’s German. It means more-than-super.”

“Is your name German for dumbass?”

Brian reached out to punch Freddie in the shoulder, but the lanky kid was a weasel. The second he saw knuckles, Freddie back-skated and darted off, out of Brian's reach.

"I'll remember that," Brian warned.

"Ah, you'll forget it in five minutes," Freddie teased, turned, and then fell onto his ass in the parking lot.

"Karma!" Brian laughed. "See!"

"Damn." Freddie winced, studied his scraped calf. There'd be scabs, a few pebbles for sure.

"Here, you re-tu-tu-tard." Brian hopped off his bike and offered Freddie a hand. "Up and at 'em," he said, and pulled the lanky boy up.

"Guys, I bet if we left in the morning we could get there by the afternoon," Aiden said. "It's totally doable."

"Then let's do it," Brian said. "Just as long as we don't gu-gu-get lost."

"So what if we do?" Freddie said. "That's half the fun, isn't it?"

2.

THEY DIDN'T GET LOST that Saturday, or the Sunday that followed.

In fact they only got lost once that summer, on the old road between the Bixbee Meadow and the Campus Dorms that lined the Alder Glen graduate school. Their adventures, on foot or by bike or even by bus—something they weren't supposed to take, but did—emboldened them. They found the borders of their world growing, the lands beyond the suburbs and the neighboring cities less frightening. As each day passed they added another adventure—big or small—to their summer accomplishments until there were too many to count.

They bicycled up the windy roads past the university to Foothill Park and back half a dozen times. They climbed Moss Hill and explored the boulder fields and marshes around Estrelle River. They carved their names on the red bricks that made up the crumbling ruin of Frenchman’s Tower. On one of the hottest days, Freddie found a rope swing on the western shore of Alto Lake and launched himself into the water with a somersault and a splash. Only later, as he climbed out, did he discover he'd left his crummy flip phone in his pocket. His mom would be mad; money was tight for his family. Yet it was a small price to pay for the thrill of the swing, like the cuts and bruises and the occasional scraped knee, of which there were many.

In July they spent four weeks at Alder Glen Sports Camp, rotating between baseball, soccer, and lacrosse in the mornings and spending the afternoons at the pool playing water-polo or Marco Polo. They won most of the games they played, Freddie pitching fastballs and Brian belting out triples and one home run. After sports camp they biked home, Freddie donning his blades and sliding down the rails or grabbing the back of Aiden's bike at breakneck speed, pedaling down the tree-lined streets of Alder Glen.

The nights were filled with video games and scary movies, a never-ending cycle of sleepovers between their three houses. Freddie's family lived in the south end of town, where the Craftsman houses had yet to be torn down to make way for McMansions, and where English was often a second language. He was the youngest of four brothers and a sister; Baby Freddie they called him when they weren’t pinning him down and farting on his chest. Whenever Aiden and Brian spent the night they tried to avoid the chaos of microwave meals, wedgies, and teenage testosterone. Perhaps Freddie’s parents figured with five children and an income that was hardly middle class, survival of the fittest was a necessity. Or perhaps after all these years they were simply too tired to care.

Brian’s parents did care. At least, his mom did. His parents were divorced, had been since second grade. It was the same year his dad had fled a fraud investigation all the way back to Hungary, leaving his mom in debt and Brian with a curious case of a lingering stutter. He lived with her in a tri-story townhouse with a jacuzzi that burbled late at night. She was a lonely woman who spoiled Brian and his friends, stuffing them with candy whenever they visited, and somehow never failing to find a way to participate in whatever sports teams and after-school activities he was involved in. Brian rarely spoke of his father, only that he was always "away on business" and would visit soon.

Aiden was the only one who didn't live in Alder Glen proper, at least not on the weekends if his dad would have his way. For half Aiden’s childhood he had watched his dad tinker in the garage in the evenings, building computers and writing code. They had never been poor—or, perhaps, if they had Aiden had just never noticed. They always seemed a step ahead of Brian and Freddie's families.