What Follows After: A Novel (4 page)

“Timmy,” Colt said, “put the comic book down and eat your pie. It cost me twelve cents.”

“I don’t like it,” Timmy said. “The crust is too dry. Mom’s is way better.”

“Mom’s pie isn’t here. You ordered it, you eat it. That’s all you’re going to get till we get to Uncle Mike’s house.” Timmy ignored his older brother. “Okay, I’ll tell you what, you give me that comic book, and you don’t have to eat the pie.”

That got his attention. “What? No, that isn’t fair. This comic book for an old piece of pie?”

“’Course it’s fair. They both cost twelve cents. If you’re not gonna eat the pie, you owe me twelve cents. You got twelve cents?” Timmy shook his head no. “Then I’ll take the comic book. Or . . . you can eat the pie and keep it.”

“I’ll eat the pie.” Timmy huffed and set his comic book on the seat beside him, then picked up his fork and started poking at the pie. The fingers of his other hand started thrumming to the beat of “Do You Love Me” playing on the radio.

Timmy loved comic books, even more than toys. And he loved this Spiderman one the most. Some brand-new superhero that just
came out a couple weeks ago. He must’ve read it a dozen times already. Colt had read it once. It was okay, but he was more into baseball than comic books. But he had to bring it on this trip; it was the only way Timmy would come. Colt told him to pack light, so he could only pick two. He picked Spiderman and another fairly new one called the Hulk. Some great big green guy who goes around breaking stuff.

Colt had already finished his grilled cheese sandwich, which also cost twelve cents. He could’ve splurged and bought them both Coca-Colas for an extra twenty cents, but he had to conserve his money, so they drank water instead. Cost almost everything he had for these bus tickets to Savannah, where they were headed now. Uncle Mike and Aunt Rose, their favorite relatives, lived there. Aunt Rose was their mom’s sister.

“Do they even know we’re coming?” Timmy said. “Uncle Mike and Aunt Rose?”

“No,” Colt said. “I couldn’t take a chance. If I called them, they might say no.”

“What if they say no when we get there?” Timmy was still chewing.

Colt heard his mother’s voice in his head, correcting Timmy for talking with his mouth full. “They won’t.”

“But what if they do? You have enough money to buy tickets home?”

He didn’t. He barely had enough left to pay for dinner if the bus stopped again between here and Savannah. “It doesn’t matter, Timmy. They won’t turn us away. We’re family. Families stick together. They don’t send other family members out into the cold.”

“It’s gonna get cold tonight?”

“That’s just an expression. I mean they won’t make us go home.” Colt glanced at a wall clock. “Now, finish your pie. The bus driver
said we only got till three-thirty. That’s less than fifteen minutes. Then he wants us on that bus.”

He looked out the window, saw their bus parked right where it should be. He didn’t see the driver, who was probably still in his seat. The man said this was only going to be a twenty-minute stop. Two other buses were here when they arrived, one pointed north, the same direction they were headed. The other facing south. A few people from the diner had already left and were boarding that bus. He wondered where they were going. Obviously somewhere in Florida; that was the only possibility going south.

“Where are we, anyway?” Timmy said.

“I’m not sure. Somewhere north of Jacksonville. That was that big city we drove through a few miles back.”

“That was the biggest city I ever saw.”

“Me too. I wouldn’t want to live there.”

“Me either. Seems like you could get lost in a place like that without even trying.” He took another bite of pie. “Savannah that big?”

“Not even close. I heard Uncle Mike telling Dad about it when they visited two summers ago. He said it was just a little bit bigger than Daytona Beach. Supposed to be a neat place. It’s got all kinds of Civil War history stuff.”

“What’s the Civil War?”

Colt didn’t feel like explaining. “It’s a war that happened a hundred years ago. You’ll learn about it a few grades from now. Keep eating your pie. We have to go in a few minutes.” He had no idea how Uncle Mike and Aunt Rose would react when he and Timmy showed up tonight. They were always so much fun when they visited. They laughed the most and smiled the most too, of all their relatives. When Colt had decided to run away, they were the only ones he’d thought of.

They had to take Colt and Timmy in.

Or maybe—and Colt thought this could be what really happened—when he told them what was going on between his mom and dad, how they’d split up, how they’d made the boys lie about it to everyone, Uncle Mike and Aunt Rose would be able to get his folks to see how wrong it was, how bad they’d been treating him and Timmy, and get them talking about whatever had made them so angry with each other. Get them back together again.

Colt still had no idea what caused the split. But living like this was horrible for him and Timmy. Their mom was always depressed when she got home. She yelled at them all the time, made them do all kinds of chores she used to do. She complained about everything, how hard her life was now, how difficult it was being a single mom, like nobody understood what she was going through.

What she’s going through?
What
about us
,
what about me and Timmy
,
what we’
re going through
? Did anyone understand that? Did she? Did she even care? He wasn’t sure anymore. This running away would get him into all kinds of trouble, but he decided it was worth it.

Somebody had to do something.

He reached for his glass of water and took the last swig. Timmy’s glass was almost full. He was just about to tell him to start drinking but then changed his mind. They were gonna be back on that bus in five minutes. He didn’t want Timmy to drink all that water then have to go to the bathroom ten minutes down the road.

Speaking of going to the bathroom . . . He slid to the edge of his seat. “Hey, Timmy, I’ve gotta go. Do you?”

Timmy shook his head no. Something caught his eye out the window, and he turned to look. “Colt, Army trucks, look at ’em all.” His face lit up as he pointed. “See ’em?”

“I see ’em.” They weren’t the only ones looking. Everyone stopped whatever they were doing, including the waitresses, and
stared out the window. Then something even crazier happened. A train rolled down the tracks across the street. It was pulling tanks, big green Army tanks, on flatbed trailer cars, one right after the other.

“Would you look at that?” a middle-aged man in the next booth said as he stood to his feet, eyes fixed on the scene.

A man wearing a baseball cap at the counter nearby stood and said, “I’m telling ya something big’s going on. Something they aren’t telling us. And I bet it’s got something to do with Cuba. I’ve been reading rumblings about Cuba in the papers. I was a marine in World War II. All these troops and military vehicles heading south, there’s way more than they need for some war game operation. I’m telling ya.”

Another man spoke up. “Says here in the paper, they moved a whole fighter wing down to Key West.”

“See,” the baseball cap man said. “And what’s close to Key West? Cuba! I’m telling ya, somethin’s goin’ on.”

Another man, older, in a bright plaid shirt said, “I just heard on my transistor radio here, President Kennedy wants to speak to the entire nation tonight. He’s coming on at 7:00 p.m. on all three networks.” He looked back out the window at the tanks still rolling down the railroad tracks.

Timmy was now on his knees, totally fixated on the scene. Colt wanted to stay there and keep watching, but he really had to go. “Timmy, you gotta come with me.”

“Aww, Colt, can’t I stay and watch this? I’ve never seen real-life tanks before.” He was still staring out the window.

“I can’t just leave you here.”

“Please, Colt. You’re just going to the bathroom.”

He couldn’t see any harm in it. “Okay, you stay there till I get back. I’ll just be a minute.”

Timmy didn’t answer. Colt hurried toward the back where the restrooms were. He glanced toward their table once before heading into the men’s room. Timmy and everyone else were still staring at the trucks and tanks going by.

In the bathroom he thought about what that man had said, the one wearing the baseball cap. About something big going on, something they weren’t telling us. He figured by “they” he meant the Army, or else the government. Colt wondered if America was going to war. He sure didn’t want to be out there on the road riding a bus if war was about to break out and wished there was some way to be at Uncle Mike’s house right now.

He came out of the restroom a few minutes later.

What? Where was Timmy! Colt ran back to the table, calling his name. No one even looked at him. They just stood there watching the tanks and trucks roll by. On a radio in the corner, the Beach Boys sang the chorus of “Surfin’ Safari” over and over again.

His brother Timmy was nowhere in sight.

“Timmy,” he called out. “Timmy!”

He looked under their table, thinking maybe his comic book had fallen to the floor. But he wasn’t there. The Hulk comic book was still on the seat. But the Spiderman comic book was gone. “Has anyone seen my little brother? Anyone see where he went?”

No one answered. They all just sat there, watching the tanks and trucks go by. He ran outside. Maybe Timmy had gone out there to get a better view. Several other people stood around watching the same thing. But he didn’t see any kids.

He ran back inside the diner, into the other half of the building, which was a store. Running up and down the aisles, he called out Timmy’s name. He wasn’t there. Colt saw a rack of comic books and stopped there a moment. “Hey, mister!” he yelled to the teenager manning the register. “You seen a little boy in here a few minutes ago? Brown hair wearing a red plaid shirt?”

“No, sorry. But an older guy wearing a brown sweater and a gray fedora bought a stack of comic books about five minutes ago. Said he was buying them for his son. Was that your dad?”

“Our dad isn’t here.” Colt couldn’t stand there yakking, so he ran back to the diner.

He looked at their booth again, half expecting to find Timmy there. He still couldn’t believe he was gone. Where could he be? It bothered him that nobody cared. No one even paid attention to him.

“Let’s go surfin’ now
 . . .”
the Beach Boys sang on the radio. He decided it was time to make a scene.

“Excuse me, everyone!” Colt yelled. Not loud enough. “Excuse me!”

“What’s the matter, kid?” someone replied.

A few others looked his way, but still, most of them kept staring out the window. He walked behind the counter, right up to the radio, and turned it off. “Excuse me, I said.”

“Hey, kid, we were listening to that!” said a blond-haired guy in his twenties.

“Has anyone seen my little brother?” Colt screamed at the top of his lungs. They heard that. Everyone turned. “My little brother, Timmy, has anyone seen him? He was just here with me a few minutes ago. I went into the bathroom, and when I came out, he was gone. Did anyone see where he went?”

Almost everyone shook their heads no. A few just stared at him, confused looks on their faces. “You check the store next door?” someone said.

“He’s not there.”

“How about the bathroom?”

“I just came from there.”

“Maybe he went outside,” someone else said, “to see everything up close.”

“I checked. He’s not outside.”

“You check by the street, or just up here near the building?”

He hadn’t, but he didn’t need to. You could see the whole sidewalk area from the front door. “I looked everywhere,” he said. “Somebody had to see him.”

“We didn’t,” the blond guy at the counter said. “Now turn the radio back on.”

Just then, a waitress came out from the kitchen. “What’s going on? What’s all this yelling about?”

“My little brother’s missing,” Colt said, tears now in his eyes. “And no one knows where he is.”

“I saw him,” she said. “About five or six? Brown hair, so tall?” She set her hand about waist high.

“That’s him. You know where he is?”

“He ain’t missing. He just left with your dad. They must be waiting for you on the bus.”

Colt looked out the window toward the buses. What was she talking about? “That’s impossible. Our dad isn’t here. He’s back in Daytona, where we live.”

“Mustn’t be the same guy then,” she said. “Guess that wasn’t your little brother, either. Did you just come out of the men’s room?”

Colt nodded.

“Were there any other boys your age in there?”

“No, no one else was in there.”

A confused look came over her face. “Then I don’t know what’s going on. I saw a man walk toward the front door with a little boy, headed toward the buses.”

“What did he look like?”

“He was pretty tall, about six feet, I’d say. Wore a gray felt hat, looked like he needed a shave. Not fat but a little thick around the middle.”

“That’s definitely not my dad,” Colt said. Usually when women described him, they’d start off with how handsome he was, maybe compare him to a movie star. He never wore a hat anymore (said if President Kennedy wasn’t gonna wear one, neither was he). And he certainly wasn’t “thick around the middle.”

“Maybe not,” she said, “but that’s what this guy looked like. He and that little boy went right out the door, headed for one of those buses. He was carrying a stack of comic books.”

“Comic books?”

She nodded. “Must’ve had four or five of them.” She looked up. “You better get going. That bus is pulling out.”

Colt turned to look. It was the bus heading south, back into Florida. “That’s not our bus. Ours is that one.” He pointed.

“I don’t know,” the waitress said. “That’s the bus the man and little boy were walking toward.”

Panic filled his heart. He ran outside just as the bus pulled onto US-1, heading south. He ran after it, fast as he could. It kept shifting gears. He screamed out, “Wait, stop!” His voice was drowned out by the noise of the bus and loud trucks driving by in the left lane. For a moment, he started gaining on it, closing the gap. When he was just about to reach out and bang the side, it shifted gears again and pulled away.

He screamed again, “Wait, wait! You’ve gotta stop!” It just kept going; the gap grew wider every second. He moved farther out toward the right and looked up at the windows.

That’s when he saw him.

Timmy, a few rows up from the back of the bus, sitting by the window next to a man wearing a gray hat. Colt yelled out his name as he ran, over and over again. But Timmy didn’t hear him. He was looking down at something in his hands.

Colt kept running until the bus reached full speed and went through a traffic light up ahead. He stopped in a patch of grass just off the sidewalk, fell to the ground, and cried.