Hometown (8 page)

Okay. I’m in Pennsylvania, at least for the next thirty minutes, then the bus leaves. Bus tickets are so much cheaper than airfare. Think I can get a refund on the part of the ticket I didn’t use? By the way, those women were wrong. The Hershey tour was a dud. Coke was much better.
So,
how’s Minnesota? How’s the job, Dad? Everything okay? Were you guys worried about me? Sorry about that. Would you mind calling Mom? Thanks. See ya.

Dana.

Out and In
—

Border and his father argued about who would make the call to New Mexico.

“She’s your sister, it’s your mother, you call.”

“I’m going to bed. After all, you’re in charge.”

Border took an atlas to his room. Dana had piled up credits in high school and graduated a semester early. “I want to get out and get going,” she’d told Border. He found Atlanta and then Hershey on the map. He closed his eyes and circled his finger over North America. “She could be going here.” Tap. Tennessee. “Or here.” Tap. Maine. “Here.” Tap. Oops, the Arctic Circle. Maybe not.

He thought about his father’s grim smile when he’d pocketed the Volvo keys. So pleased with himself, so glad he’d devised a suitable punishment. In charge. Border tapped the map on Minnesota. “Me,” he said. “Here.”

Dana was out, Dana was going.

Border was in, Border was stuck.

Lunchroom
—

Hey, Jacob, okay if I sit here?

Sure. You guys met Border? Chuck chuck chuck chuck chuck. Move over for him. You move over. What is this stuff, beef barf? Anyone done with those math problems? Lookit Jenny K.; lookit that body; please, just once in my life. You make your own lunch? Don’t New Mexicans have accents? Maybe it’s pork puke. How come you walked to school? Screw the problems; I’ll be in summer school anyway. Who’s going to the game? Is New Mexico where the Grand Canyon is? Presser is the worst math teacher. Do you speak Spanish? I ditched once, ran into my grandmother at the video store. Who can drive to the game? Not Chuck. His name is Border, bugbrain. There’s the bell. Border Bugbrain? I thought it was Baker.

Friday Night
—

It was cold in the hockey arena. Border zipped his jacket, bummed some gloves, then borrowed a scarf, and still he was cold. He stamped his feet until they hurt, hunched his shoulders, hugged himself. Around him, a thousand fans screamed and cheered, shooting up and down in the seats. Border shivered.

Jacob took pity and suggested they leave. “I should have warned you that it’s cold in here. Long underwear is usually a good idea.”

“We can stay. I’m okay.”

“You’re freezing. Besides, it’s not worth it. Red Cedar will never make up four goals. We’ve lost this one.”

Jacob had consumed three sodas and needed the bathroom. Border waited for him in the arena lobby, amusing himself by flipping a quarter. Heads, tails, heads, tails, tails, tails. The quarter slipped off his thumb, hit concrete, and spun. He picked it up, straightened, and spotted Bryan and two companions watching him.

Border looked at the bathroom door. Where was Jacob? Zip, pee, zip—how long could it take? He eyed the three. He was bigger than any of them. Six-one, one-eighty. Go ahead, guys; this time he wasn’t rolling over.

“You stupid jerks, are you actually going to fight again?”

Liz leaned against the doorway to the girl’s john. Border smiled and relaxed. Saved. By a girl.

“Clarissa was looking for you, Bryan.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. She said you said you’d be here.”

“I am.”

“She’s sitting by Jenny and the others. Michael’s there, too.”

“Michael?” Bryan stiffened. “Why’s he sitting by her?”

Liz shrugged.

Bryan mumbled something and led his friends away.

“Poor Michael,” said Border.

“Where’s Jacob? I saw the two of you leaving. I need a ride.”

“Bathroom. He’s—oh, there. That took long enough.”

“Don’t get so personal,” said Jacob.

“Can I have a ride home?” Liz asked.

“I thought you were with Heidi and Kris tonight.”

“I was, but ten minutes into the first period Heidi got back together with Jeremy, and then Kris heard about this party that Brett might go to. I don’t want to party, so now I need a ride.”

“Geez,” said Border. “Michael and Clarissa and Bryan, and Heidi and Jeremy, and…and…”

“Prince Charles and Di,” helped Jacob.

“Is stuff like that important around here?”

“Stuff ?” Liz asked.

“Dating, going together.”

“Only one thing’s bigger,” said Jacob.

The crowd roared, the building shook, probably a Red Cedar goal.

“Hockey?”

Jacob tossed and caught his car keys. “Food. Let’s get some.”

Remembering
—

Liz and Jacob couldn’t agree on a restaurant. Border listened to the argument for a while as they drove around town, then said, “I’m pretty much broke. Let’s just go to my house. Dad got groceries last night.”

Jacob wasn’t shy and immediately hunted in the fridge and cupboards for something to eat. Liz looked elsewhere. Dropping her coat on a chair, slipping out of her shoes, she exclaimed, “It’s so weird! This house is exactly like ours, only it’s not.” She wandered out of view, looking.

Border sat idly while the brother and sister busied themselves in his house.

Jacob made a huge, everything-in-it omelet.

“Gosh, Jacob,” his sister said when he called her back to the kitchen. “Make yourself at home, why don’t you?”

“Don’t you want any?”

She lifted plates from a shelf. “I hope you used garlic.” They kept it up while eating. Border liked the banter; it reminded him of being with Dana.

“Found your sister yet?” Jacob asked.

Border’s jaw dropped and egg spilled.

“That’s not attractive,” Liz said. “Close your mouth.”

“Sorry. It’s just, well, I was thinking of her at that exact moment,” said Border. “The question surprised me.”

“I think you should call the police,” said Jacob.

“We’ve prayed for her,” said Liz. Jacob made a soft unhappy noise.

“You what?”

“During our family prayers, we said one for her.”

“Now he’s going to think we’re really weird, Liz.”

“What are your family prayers?” Border asked.

“What do you think? Every day before supper, we get together and say a few prayers. Can you handle it?”

Border speared a mushroom with his fork. “Sure. You’ll probably think I’m weird: I’ve never been to church. Not once.”

Liz shrugged. “Families are different.”

Jacob dropped his fork and lifted his glass of orange juice. “I’ll drink to that.”

“Well, maybe your prayers worked,” Border said after they toasted, “because my sister has turned up. No one’s actually seen her, but she left a message on the phone machine the other day. It’s like we thought—she had to transfer planes in Atlanta and she decided she wasn’t going home. I don’t know where she is right now, but I’m pretty sure she’s okay.”

“Do you miss her?” Liz asked.

“Impossible,” said her brother.

“Sort of,” said Border. “We didn’t live together, not since my parents broke up.”

“Do you miss New Mexico?” asked Liz.

“Yes.”

“I’ve only ever lived in Red Cedar,” said Liz, “and we’ve hardly ever traveled. What’s New Mexico like?”

Border took his time thinking about it all. What do you tell two small-town kids who pray every day with their family? Should he tell them about his friends and the hours they’d spend together drifting through the university campus or the nearby stores where they’d check out the comics, used books, vintage clothing? Or tell them how he liked to watch Alonzo at work in his body-piercing salon? Tell them about the coffee shops where he’d set out his hat and play until he’d earned enough money to feed all his friends? And pyroball? Border looked at their smooth, unblemished hands, used for praying, never singed.

They wouldn’t get it.

“New Mexico is pretty,” he said. “I miss the mountains.”

“We have a mountain in Red Cedar,” said Liz.

“What?” said Jacob.

“Where?” asked Border.

“There’s a nature preserve,” said Liz. “And there’s this mountain there.”

“She’s joking,” said Jacob. “It’s just a giant boulder.”

“I’ve climbed it,” she said.

“You haven’t,” said her brother.

“Have too.”

“When?”

“Hundreds of times.”

“Hundreds?”

“Often enough. Have you? Betcha can’t.”

“Course I can.”

“Try it.”

“I don’t do things just because there’s a dare.”

“Try it. Tonight.”

Jacob frowned. “Rock climbing at night? That’s stupid.”

“I’m up for it,” said Border.

Liz moaned. “That was awful.”

“What?”

“Your joke. It was a terrible pun.”

“Huh?”

“You are as dense as my brother.
Up
for it? Rock climbing?”

“You can’t be serious, Border,” said Jacob. “An hour ago you were freezing to death.”

Border stacked plates. “I’m warmed up now. And besides,” he said, “I’ll put on long underwear.”

Dogs in Baghdad
—

“Porter’s Park Preserve,” said Liz, as they drove along a dark road into a deserted parking lot, “was made possible by Porter’s Pork.”

“That’s a good one,” said Border. “Say it three times real fast: Porter’s Pork preserves Porter’s Park Preserve.”

They tried, they failed. They were laughing when Jacob parked the car.

“I’m not sure we’re supposed to be here after hours,” said Liz. “Maybe this wasn’t a good idea.”

“Maybe it wasn’t
whose
good idea?” asked her brother. “My idea,” said Border. “Let’s do it.”

“A flashlight might be nice,” said Jacob. And he leaned across Border’s lap and opened the glove compartment. “Here we go and… Voila! It even works. Hooray for Mom and Dad; they’re always prepared.”

“Not always,” said Liz as she opened the rear door. “That’s how they ended up with six kids.”

Jacob directed the flashlight beam along a trail of packed snow. Border followed the others, vowing, as he slipped and snow spilled into his shoes, to buy boots the next day.

The boulder loomed over the path, a massive shadow. “What do you think, twenty feet to the top?” asked Border.

“If that.”

“There’s a plaque on it that tells…” said Liz, and she took the light from her brother. “Here.”

Border leaned to read.

Glacial Erratic

The boulder before you is probably one of the oldest objects you’ll ever touch. Geologists have dated rocks of this type at 3.6 billion years. At that time pressures deep within the earth changed the boulder from granite into gneiss. This process occurred in an area that is now the Minnesota River Valley, ninety miles northwest of this spot. Less than half a million years ago, a lobe of an ancient glacier plucked this boulder from the surrounding bedrock, then transported and deposited it at a site just north of the preserve. It was uncovered during the construction of the interstate highway. This glacial erratic measures 20
x
17 x feet and weighs about 125 tons.

“Hey,” said Border, “that’s me. It’s talking about me.”

Jacob laughed, but Liz said, “I don’t get it. Because you’re big?”

“Now who’s dense?” said her brother. He pointed to the plaque. “Like the rock, Border was picked up and dumped in Red Cedar. He doesn’t belong here.”

“Do you really feel that way?” asked Liz.

“I feel,” said Border, looking up and running his hands along the rock, “that maybe I can do this.” He started climbing.

He’d climbed rocks often enough in the hills outside Albuquerque, though never at night. Still, climbing was mostly touch and balance and strength. He could hear Jacob behind him, breathing hard and grumbling.

Border reached the top, breathless, hands cold and scraped.

“Hello,” said Liz cheerfully. “That took a while.”

Her brother swung a leg over the top, pulled himself up.

“How did you get up here ahead of us?” said Border.

“There’s an easy way up the back. It’s practically a path. If you guys had waited, I would have told you. But no, you moron males had to charge ahead.”

Jacob rubbed his hands and swore at Liz. Border grinned. “I wish my sister were here. I bet you two would be friends.”

“Do you like your sister?” Liz asked.

“More or less. Depends on her hair color.” He looked around. Not much to see but a starry sky and dark patches where the trees were.

“What do we do now?” said Jacob.

“Enjoy it,” said Liz.

“How do we get down?” he wondered.

“Relax, would you?”