A Storied Man

(to return to Part Four, click here)

“I’m telling you, Mom, he’s been following me,” Trena said.

“Honey, we’re perfectly safe. I’ve never noticed anybody following us when you ride with me.”

“Well, he’s there, almost everywhere I go.” She shoveled another bite of Cap’n Crunch into her mouth.

They sat at the breakfast table, Trena with her cereal, her mom with a poached egg, canned peaches, and cottage cheese. Trena loved the taste of the Cap’n Crunch, but its sharp corners rubbed raw the roof of her mouth. She thought her mom’s breakfast was a little old-fashioned.

“I wish the landlord would fix that gap that connects our attic to the Helms’. Maybe we’ll just fix it ourselves. How big did you say the gap is?”

Trena pointed to her full mouth and exaggerated her chewing.

“Sorry, sweetie, whenever you finish your bite.”

Trena swallowed. “Big enough for me to fit through, for sure,” she said.

Everything else her mom said faded into the background as Trena started forming her plan to ditch the man who had been following her. If it worked, then she could catch a bus and go see Ronnie. Knowing she couldn’t do it by herself, she wondered whether Kerri Helms would help her.

——-

David never second-guessed himself when he went to Louise’s house. She was a paying customer — always paid in cash, in fact — so he managed to convince himself it was just his imagination. She wasn’t coming onto him; she was just a friendly, single, 50-something woman living alone, and she needed computer help. Life is not a porn film.

He had met her when they both worked for the City. She was the Fire Chief’s secretary, and he was the IT department’s desktop support guy. After he quit working there, a few of his former co-workers asked him to take a look at their home computers. Louise was the only one who made him uncomfortable.

“You want a drink?” she asked.

He right-clicked on the My Computer icon and clicked Manage. “No, thanks. I have to drive home.” What a stupid thing to say. Moron.

“It’s only one drink. Are you that much of a lightweight?”

“No, it’s not that. I just don’t need a mark on my driving record, so I’m kind of paranoid about it.”

“Suit yourself. The firemen always have at least a beer with me.”

It was well-known that the City’s firefighters did odd jobs on the side, and her house definitely was a fixer-upper. Before he thought about it, David said, “You could probably keep the entire fire department busy for a whole month.”

“Well, I’ve never heard it put quite that way, but you might be right,” she said with an insidious smile.

David’s armpits turned on the waterworks. Louise, don’t do that. He recalled something one of the City’s CADD guys used to say about her. Louise will put you on your knees, right after she gets on hers. He could drop clients like that if he could keep working for the big man who reminded him of a mobster.

He tried to focus on what he was doing — getting her fax modem to work, and when he couldn’t do that, he thought about the girl named Trena. He didn’t want anything bad to happen to her. I don’t know for sure that they plan to hurt her. They just don’t want her talking to that kid.

Knowing the big man, he had another hacker monitoring David’s Internet activity to make sure he didn’t flake out on them. That gave him an idea, but he needed a little time.

“Hey, I’ll have a drink after all,” he said. “Do you have the stuff for frozen piña coladas?”

Louise smiled and bounced into the kitchen. David pulled up the instant message client and entered the kid’s ID. A new source of nerves pushed tiny sweat beads out of the pores on his forehead.

“Hello? Is this Ronnie?”

He waited. Ice rattled into the blender while Louise hummed “Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones. Finally, after a brutally long two minutes, he got a reply.

“Yeah, is this Trena?”

“No, sorry. You shouldn’t try to communicate with her. It could mean trouble for both of you.”

“Is she okay?”

“As far as I know. Whatever you do, just don’t reply to her.”

The blender whirred and roared, then screamed.

“How do you know about me and Trena?”

“Don’t ask questions. Just trust me.”

“Does she know?”

The blender stopped. “Not yet. I’ll try to tell her, too. Gotta go.”

“No, wait.”

“Gotta go. Bye.”

“Bye.”

“One frothy beauty coming right up!” Louise called from the kitchen. “And I’ll bring our drinks, too!”

“God help me,” David muttered.

——-

Ronnie banged his fist on the keyboard, bouncing food crumbs out from under the keys. He got up and walked out to his balcony. This time, instead of kicking things, he yelled up to the night sky. No words, just a cry of desperation.

Who the hell was that guy, and what’s he have to do with Trena? he wondered.

He looked at the moon and remembered how bright it was the night Trena got hurt. “I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry.” His breath floated up, lost in the cold darkness. Countless stars twinkled.

He already knew he couldn’t tell anybody else that Trena had contacted him. Most of them would make fun of him, anyway. Although nobody but he and his mom, and Trena, knew everything that happened that night, only those living under a rock didn’t know about her accident. In a town that size cases so severe caught the rumor express.

Now he had something else he couldn’t share — this chat with a mystery person called, “goob2berdy.” What does that even mean?

He ran downstairs, skipping steps as he went.

“Mom! Somebody just told me not to communicate with Trena.”

Susan looked up from her book. “What? Who did?”

“Somebody who started a chat with me.”

“How is she?” She set her book on the table, beside her reading lamp.

“I don’t know. He cut it short.” Ronnie sat on the couch. “I don’t know what to think.”

“Try not to think about it too much. Your grandfather’s here and you need to get some sleep so you can get up and golf with him in the morning.”

“Golf? How can I think about golf?”

“I don’t know, but please try, son. He’s come a long way, and God knows we’re lucky he makes it here alive.”

It was true. Ronnie’s grandfather had regularly regaled the family with tales of truckers blowing their horns to wake him as he swerved into the left lane. Ronnie didn’t care about that at the moment, but he didn’t want to hurt his mom’s feelings. Or piss her off.

“I thought you’d understand,” he said.

“I know it’s important to you, but I need you here with us right now. With me and Daddy.”

——-

“Let me get this straight,” Kerri Helms said. “You want to climb over into my attic, spend the night here, and then go into my garage and climb into the back part of our minivan. And I have to make sure my mom doesn’t see you?”

“Yep,” Trena said.

The girls sat on Trena’s bed, going over the plan.

“Why can’t you just come over to my place through the front door?”

“‘Cuz then the guy will know I’m on your side of the duplex. I want him to think I’m still over here.”

“And you just sneak out the back of the van when me and my mom go to the store?”

“Right, and then I walk to the bus station,” Trena said. “And when it’s time to come back, I do it all in reverse.”

“I don’t like it,” Kerri said.

“Me neither, but it’s all I’ve got. You got something better?”

Kerri shook her head, then cast a thoughtful glance to the right. “You supposed to be doing all this climbing around when your back’s still getting better?”

“Don’t worry about that.”

“Riiight.”

(to be continued)

(to read Part Three, click here)

Susan noticed her feet again. Running around outside in the cold rain without shoes negated any healing effects of the vibrating foot bath. After Ronnie left her behind at the front door and bolted upstairs, she barely made it to the landing before she had to stop.

She leaned hard on the rail and drew a few deep breaths. “You’re getting too old for this impulsive shit,” she said to herself.

“Mom! She’s not online anymore!” Ronnie yelled from his room.

She groaned. “Hold on.” She slowly made her way up, using the railing like a crutch.

The look on Ronnie’s face reminded her of the time he said goodbye to a childhood friend in 6th grade. It had been hard for him, because by that age kids had formed cliquès, and he kept a few close friends rather than socializing in large groups. Although she had asked herself and Ronnie several times over the past year, again she wondered, Why hasn’t he heard from her at all? She didn’t seem to blame him for the accident. It’s like she and her mom just disappeared.

“She’s gone,” Ronnie said. “When I got here, I saw the message you said she sent, and then this.” He pointed at the computer monitor.

Her rain-soaked bangs not quite long enough to tuck behind her ears, Susan held them aside with one hand while she read.

“‘I gotta go.’ That’s it?” she said. “I’m sure she’ll be back. Just e-mail her.”

Ronnie was already on it. He pulled up his Yahoo! account and opened the message generated by Trena’s comment. Susan read the reply he typed.

“Trena. It’s me, Ronnie. I’m glad you found me! How are you? I have so many questions, I don’t know which one to ask first, so I’ll let that wait until I hear back from you.”

He went on to type about things that had happened since her departure.

——-

David sat on the toilet in his one-bedroom apartment, reading PC Magazine, trying not to think about that night’s work. He tried to wonder why the computer rag’s cover shouted, “How to pick the perfect HDTV” in bold red letters, but his mind kept wandering.

The big man’s declaration, “sounds like we got her, fellas,” kept echoing in his mind, along with, “Jerry, you go tell Anthony I want him workin’ this one.” Doing what?

His eyes wandered to the right as he thought about it, his gaze finally landing on the clothes hanging nearby. The bathroom would be considered spacious if it didn’t double as a walk-in closet.

A rhythmic thumping noise caught his ear. He finished up and walked through the closet to the kitchen, following the noise to the small corner where his space-saver washer and dryer stood. Something in the washer was out of balance. Something in there is always off balance.

David never could get things just right and keep them that way.

Not anymore. I have to warn the kid, or the girl. Or both. “But that money sure could help me get out of this cracker box apartment.”

Nope. Not gonna sell out this time. He reached into the dryer and grabbed a wet clump of jeans, then moved them to the other side. After he shut the lid, the washer whirled into action.

——-

Ronnie clicked the Send button on his Yahoo! mail. He put his head in his hands and tried to imagine how much courage it must have taken Trena to try to contact him. He hadn’t told his mom that she was in the Witness Protection Program, which had made it hard for her to understand why he held out hope that Trena might still want to talk to him.

She finally tries and I’m out in the woods with those losers.

“Son of a bitch!” Ronnie yelled.

He slammed the computer mouse on the desk and stood, kicking his chair over behind him. He stomped and squished his way to his balcony and slid the glass door so hard it smacked the door jamb. Enraged at his bad luck, he raised his foot and kicked the rail with his heel. The metal protested with a creak and a clang.

“Ronnie!” Susan said. “Stop being destructive. I’m not paying for another of your outbursts.”

Ronnie knew what she meant. A few months before, he had walked out on the patio and picked up a two-by-four, then proceeded to smash a bird feeder. He argued with his mom that no birds ever used it, anyway, but she said that wasn’t the point.

This time, she used the same excuse for him.

“I know your hormones are off the charts at this age, but you can’t break stuff every time you’re upset.”

“I’m not just upset, mom. I almost killed her, and then she ran off. I didn’t hear from her for over a year, mom. A year!”

“It wasn’t your fault, son.” Susan took a breath, sighed, lowered her voice. “You sound like you’re in love with her or something.”

“That’s not it. You know that. I just feel bad about what happened, and I thought we were friends.”

He was about to cry, and he was mad at himself for that, too. Stupid, stupid! Although Trena would be 13 to his 16 now, he still found abhorable the idea of them as a couple. When he’d met her and tried to make out with her, she was 12, and he couldn’t forgive himself for that. He’d let his desire get out of control, and she had paid the price instead of him.

He looked down at his crotch. “Sometimes I wish I could just cut this fucking thing off! I can’t even think straight sometimes,” he said. He put both hands palms-down on the rail and rested his forehead on them. Damn, my shoes are ruined.

“Whoa, buster, you want to hang onto that. Trust me. A teacher might hit on you one day, and then where would you be? I’m pretty sure you’d get a zero.”

“Quit trying to make me laugh, mom.” He chuckled, then wondered if other guys’ moms were twisted perverts.

“Besides, your grandfather’s coming into town tomorrow, I need you to be focused on him. Trena will try again.”

“You think she will?” he asked.

“I know it. You’re irresistible.”

——-

Trena sat on her bed, in the duplex she and her mom rented, trying to figure out a way to leave her house without the strange guy following her. He’d been at it for about a week, always skulking in the shadows and around corners, and tonight after she left the library was no different. She didn’t know who he was or what he wanted, but she knew it must have something to do with Larry.

She wasn’t supposed to sit without a backrest more than absolutely necessary, but sometimes she was willing to endure the pain to plop down on her bed and fold her legs up to read a few pages of her Harry Potter book.

This time, it wasn’t her pain that kept her from completely escaping into the wizard’s world.

She had tried to contact Ronnie, a risky move for someone in her position. To avoid leaving tracks on the library’s computers, she ran her Web browser from a USB key. Nothing was written to the hard drive, and when she finished she simply unplugged it and left with her privacy in her pocket.

It had ended sooner than she had hoped. Ronnie hadn’t replied to her anonymous comment on his blog nor a web chat. Maybe he’s not home tonight. She found that difficult to believe, because during the time that she lived across the parking lot from him, his bedroom light burned into the late hours almost every night. After 10 minutes of waiting for a reply to her chat, she heard the librarian’s final call for checkout. Trena had to give it up for the night.

She let the hardbound book fall to the bed. Should I give it up for good? she wondered. “Where are you, Ronnie?” She had failed at contacting Ronnie online, but she knew where he lived. If she could just get to him somehow, then she could share everything with him.

She wanted to tell him that she was healing. Only on long trips to the mall did she have to take her wheelchair, and she pushed it more than she rode in it. He would like hearing that she wasn’t the same broken little girl he had left for a moment in the hospital, only to return and find her room empty.

Perhaps vainly, she also hoped that he might notice other things that no longer looked like a little girl. She was taking on a more womanly shape, something her mother noticed and complimented. Despite her back problems, she was taller.

She smiled as she recalled the trouble their height difference caused on the night of her accident. The movies never showed things like that, so at first when Ronnie kept sliding higher, then lower, craning his neck different ways to keep kissing her, she wasn’t sure what he was doing. She finally understood when she felt something firm against her. It embarrassed her, but he was older and cute and she suddenly felt like a woman.

Then, just as quick, he stopped and tried to rush her out of there.

No other boys seemed to notice her then or now. When Larry’s pervert friends used to look at her and make her feel dirty (and a little excited), Larry didn’t even tell them to stop. “May he rot in Hell,” she said. So far in their new life, her mom hadn’t brought home anybody at all, and after what Larry put them through, Trena was sure it couldn’t get any worse.

(to be continued)

(click here to read Part Two)

“You’re sure she contacted this kid, the one who had the run-in with Lead-head Larry?”

David considered this carefully. When he took the job, he didn’t know it would be this serious. His computer support business was floundering, and he heard about a guy who needed to track a user’s online activity. The evidence wasn’t clear-cut, but he had a feeling that “all signs point to yes” wouldn’t do. The man asking — a tall, thick brute with unnaturally black hair styled in a comb-over, didn’t seem the type to consult a Magic 8-ball for his daily decisions.

“I’m not 100 percent on that,” David said. “But when I looked at the public stats for his blog, a computer for the girl’s local library was listed as a visitor. Lots of times. Just tonight, somebody who visited from that same IP address left a comment on his blog.”

“What did it say?”

“‘Please send me an e-mail.’ It was signed ‘anonymous,’” David said.

“The girl was seen at the library at that time, boss,” said a short, stocky man with a salt-and-pepper mustache.

“Sounds like we got her, fellas,” the big man said. He turned to the short man. “Jerry, you go tell Anthony I want him workin’ this one.”

“‘Got her?’ What does that mean?” David asked. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. Leaving these guys would mean leaving behind a big paycheck.

“Let’s just say we don’t want her talkin’ to that kid,” the big man said. “And we’re gonna help ensure that doesn’t transpire.”

David didn’t like the sound of that. I’ve got a bad feeling about this. He was fresh off a thankless IT help desk job. Breaking out on his own, while liberating, introduced stresses he didn’t have to deal with when he was just an employee. Business had been slow lately, with the popularity of Best Buy’s Geek Squad scooting around town in their Volkswagen Beetles. I hate those guys.

He got this latest contact from an acquaintance who had developed an encrypted database application for a drug dealer. There he was, out on his own, helping people he was pretty sure didn’t have anybody else’s best interest in mind. They paid well, and he needed the money for a class that would help him get a lot more business. Just this one shady job, and then he could be squeaky clean.

“Kid, you know what we’re doin’ here is strictly between us, right?” asked big man.

“Yes, sir.” David nervously wriggled his toes inside his shoes.

——-

“You think they’re done?” Ronnie asked.

Matt peered over Ronnie’s shoulder at the chicken nuggets on the skillet. “I don’t know, man. Take a bite.”

“Why the hell are we having chicken nuggets?” Billy asked.

“My mom’s friend gets a deal on stuff at the chicken plant,” Ronnie said. “You got steaks at your house, and a grill you wanna drag down here, go for it.”

Ronnie stabbed a nugget with his fork and held it aloft, regarding its golden breading. He took a bite and chewed slowly. “Ugh, disgusting. It’s still frozen.”

“You fuckin’ idgit. You brought frozen food to cook on a camp stove?” Billy barked.

“Hey, guys, hold on. What’s that noise?” Matt asked.

They heard a female voice occasionally saying, “ouch,” and “shit,” usually in sequence.

“Mom?” Ronnie called out. The second it left his mouth, he wished he could take it back. Maybe she wouldn’t find them — just wander in the muddy dark and quickly give up under the deluge. Besides, she trusted him, and he didn’t want her to see that gas can.

“Ronnie, where are you?”

This isn’t like Mom. She wouldn’t come out here unless something was wrong. He remembered the time she came and pulled him from his grade school playground to tell him his cousin was killed in a car crash. He had been embarrassed at first, but forgot all about it when he heard the news.

“Guys? Open up. I’m getting soaked out here,” Susan said.

“Well, fuck me. Big Ron’s mom’s joining us. We should have put out the ‘Milf’s Welcome’ sign,” Billy said.

“Shut up, Billy!” Ronnie yelled.

Matt unzipped the tent door and the rain fly. “Come on in. It’s all dry in here,” he said.

Susan ducked inside the tent.

“Mom, you’re not wearing shoes,” Ronnie said.

“You know what they say, barefoot and –”

“Shut up, Billy. Dammit,” Ronnie said. Then, to Susan, “You’ve got mud all over your feet.”

“Sorry I’m messing up your dad’s tent, Matt,” Susan said.

Matt grinned. “No problem. I can clean it.”

“There’s something I need to tell you, son, but not here,” Susan said.

Ronnie’s eyes grew wide. “Is it Dad?”

“No, it’s nothing like that. Just, come on.”

“Let me put my boots on.”

Ronnie crawled to a corner of the tent to get his boots. As he pulled them on, Susan tilted her head up and sniffed. “You boys been smoking in here?”

Matt quickly answered, “Just Billy.”

She looked at Billy. “What are you smoking?”

“Winston Lights.”

“Oh, good, I wouldn’t want one of those, anyway. Thanks for not tempting me.”

“Well, we’re havin’ chickensicles. Want one of those instead?” Billy said.

“Rest it, Billy. Let’s go, Mom.”

A gnarled tree, probably struck by lightning years ago, was Ronnie’s landmark to find the trail. He grabbed Susan’s hand and led her to it. His feet slipped so much he felt like a cross-country skier.

“Oh, a trail. That’s good information,” Susan said. “Next time I run out in a downpour to tell you Trena’s contacted you, I’ll remember that.”

Ronnie stopped and Susan’s face slammed into his back. He turned around and grabbed her shoulders, rain dripping off his bangs. “What did you say?”

“I said I’ll use the trail next time.”

“Not that part. You said something about Trena.”

“There’s a chat window that I’m pretty sure she opened.”

“Right now?”

“Yes, and I think she commented on your blog. I figured you’d like to know.” She wiped rain from her eyes.

“No way! Let’s go!”

It was Ronnie’s chance to hear that Trena was recovering fine, and let his guilt go for good. Or, he could find out she hadn’t progressed much, and sink farther into his regret and shame. Either way, he had to know.

He practically dragged Susan the rest of the way out of the woods and through the small field past the winterized apartment swimming pool. As they passed the door to the apartment where Trena got hurt, Ronnie shut his eyes and sloshed through a puddle too wide for Susan to jump over.

“Watch where you’re going, son,” she said.

At that point Ronnie didn’t care about the weather, nor his mother’s short legs. He was trying to find solace for his conscience.

(to be continued)

(click here to read Part One)

Billy sat, legs inside his sleeping bag, working to shove his lighter back into his front jeans pocket. He was smoking a cigarette.

“Put that out, idiot!” Matt said. “Dad’ll kill me if you burn a hole in this tent.”

“See, that’s your problem, Matthew. You care what your dad thinks,” Billy said around the cigarette as it wagged up and down.

Matt reached up and opened a small fabric flap to reveal a mesh window. He worked to scoop the smoke toward the window. “Seriously, even if you don’t burn something, this tent’s gonna fuckin’ stink, and then we’ll never get to do this again,” Matt said.

“Puss,” Billy said. He unzipped his side of the tent and flipped the cigarette into the damp darkness.

“Hey! The gas can’s over there!” Ronnie yelled.

“I know, Big Ron. Ease up. It’s raining like a sumbitch out there.”

“That doesn’t stop gas fumes from igniting,” Ronnie said.

“We’re not a massive fireball, so simmer. Man, somebody really needed that huff he passed up.”

Ronnie sat, thinking of how warm and dry his bedroom was at that moment. He had a TV, a computer, his stereo. With all that only a five-minute walk away, what the hell was he doing out in the cold woods with a couple of bickering gas huffers?

Trena’s departure now more than a year behind him, he did anything to spend time away from those apartments. His mind relentlessly recalled fleeting images of her crippling tumble down the stairs. Only a completely foreign scene had any hope of distracting him, so instead of the warm confines of home, a more remote location was the only thing that could improve the night. He felt guilty every time he sat inside on his ass while remembering that Trena probably still had no choice.

He recalled his last vision of her, lying broken in the hospital bed, barely able to write a few sentences on a notepad. Ronnie had stepped outside to give her some private time with her mother. A friend who was an orderly saw him standing there watching the waiting room television and invited him to lunch. When he returned, Trena was gone, and nobody on staff would give him any details. Despite his pleas, her school wouldn’t tell him anything, either. He hadn’t heard from her since.

I wish I could just talk to her.

——-

Susan sat at Ronnie’s computer to download pictures from her camera. She had been on a date at a country dance club, and her feet throbbed from hours of two-stepping. The relaxed 20-minute was never enough to slow her racing heart. Dancing gave her energy, made her feel like she was living again.

Since the divorce from Ronnie’s dad, she had dated a few men. The latest was a humble blue-collar worker with meager living arrangements. When she showed Ronnie a picture of her and Wit, she could tell that he was embarrassed by the mobile home behind them. Wit treated her well, though, and always showed her a good time. She didn’t care where he lived, and wished that Ronnie held the same opinion.

He pictures successfully copied to the computer, she opened up a Web browser and hit Ronnie’s blog. She liked to check up and see who had commented lately. Whether strangers or friends, his blog readers often turned his comments into a discussion forum. She liked that he had an interest in writing, and sometimes she liked to throw in mock motherly advice, without revealing her identity, just to have some fun.

When one commenter posted a picture of a model and said he’d like to “hit it,” Susan commented, “You better wrap that rascal. We don’t want anyone getting anybody pregnant on this blog.”

Now, a short comment about seven levels down caught Susan’s attention. Signed by “anonymous,” it read, “Please send me an e-mail.” She knew that leaving a comment required entering an e-mail address, which gave Ronnie the opportunity to clarify any confusing replies or start a private conversation. It did not, however, display the commenter’s address for anyone else to see. She found the latest comment a little strange, based on her assumption that most people who bother to type anything aren’t trying to start a one-on-one exchange.

She left her camera on the docking station and stood slowly. Her body told her to groan, but she didn’t want to sound like her ex-husband, who made a spectacle every time he sat down, squatted, or otherwise bent a major joint. She walked downstairs gingerly, using the rail to take some of the weight off her feet. I’ve got to start wearing some decent dancing shoes.

Needing something for her feet, she got the foot massage tub from the coat closet and the Epsom salts from under the kitchen sink. The old-fashioned treatment she learned from her mother worked every time — with a little help from the 800 milligrams ibuprofen she took. She pulled the hand towel from the downstairs bathroom and set it on the end of the couch on her way to the kitchen sink.

“Son, you really knew what you were doing with this detachable faucet thingy,” she said to nobody. Ronnie installed as a Mother’s Day gift earlier that year.

The water to the fill line, she poured in the Epsom salts and then lugged the small tub to the couch. As she set it down, it bumped the coffee table and sloshed water onto the carpet. “Shit!” She tossed the hand towel on the wet spot and set her left foot on top of it with all her weight. “I need a drink. I need a cigarette. Calgon, take me away.”

As she sat on the couch, the massage tub soaking and vibrating away the pain, she heard the sound of wind chimes coming from upstairs. She looked out the bay window at the trees under the parking lot lights. There’s no wind right now.

Then she remembered that sound.

It was the messaging software’s sound effect indicating an incoming message. Ronnie must have left the computer speakers turned up loud after listening to music. She ignored it and kept soaking.

After the bath produced two large, oblong prunes on the end of her legs, she lifted them out and rested them on the hand towel. She thought again of the instant message and the anonymous blog comment. Her lifelong habit of reading mystery novels, and Ronnie’s listing of his instant message ID, had her connecting the two. Her curiosity outweighing her respect for her son’s privacy, she negotiated a fair pace with her feet and headed upstairs.

There was one incoming message. Bright blue, in a typeface imitating handwriting, it was something her son needed now more than anything.

“It’s T.O. If this is Ronnie, then I can’t believe I found u.”

Forgetting her feet, she rushed downstairs, flung open the front door, and dashed out into the darkness to find Ronnie.

(to be continued)

Billy leaned over the gasoline can and unscrewed the lid, the scraping of metal on metal barely audible above a passing boat’s outboard motor. A few strands of his dirty blond hair dipped into the can. He put his mouth over the opening and sucked in the fumes.

He jerked upright. “Whooo! Yes!”

“Okay, man, now you come take a huff,” Billy said. His breath floated into the cold air and slowly disappeared.

The odor of gasoline hit Ronnie. He scrunched his nose and squinted. “I’m not a part of that,” he said. “I’m going to go light the camp stove and start the chicken nuggets.” As he turned to go, he covered his mouth and exhaled to warm his hands.

“I’ll go next,” Matt said. He unzipped his bright red sleeping bag far enough to lean over on his elbows.

The can rustled the leaves as Billy pushed it toward Matt. “Yeah, Big Ron, we know you’re more into pushing little girls down stairs,” Billy said.

Ronnie stopped for a moment and closed his eyes, fists clinched. He drew in a long breath and let it go slowly. The cloud of breath that floated into the black night faded as quickly as it appeared. “Don’t call me that.”

As he walked away, Ronnie heard Billy chanting, “Huff, huff, huff.”

Huffing gasoline. Freakin’ geniuses, Ronnie thought. He figured neither boy could afford to lose any brain cells, not to mention the hazardous chemicals involved, but there they were, huddled around a five-gallon can of unleaded.

Ronnie ducked into Matt’s tent to find the camp stove. In a corner sat a green metal box with a red Coleman sticker. Is that it?. He grabbed the handle and carried it outside. Although he had watched his father work one, he wasn’t sure he would remember the details.

Water dripped on his arm. As he looked up, a few drops splashed off his face.

“Aw, shit, it’s raining,” Billy said.

“Get the gas under the rain fly,” Matt said as he grabbed his sleeping bag.

Billy tried to cap off the can, but his fingers kept missing the mark. Ronnie ran out and took the lid. He screwed it on and hurried to set the can under cover from the rain. All three boys ran to the other side of the tent.

“Damn, boys, I’m three sheets to the bed.”

“That’s three sheets to the wind, Billy,” Ronnie said.

“Whatever. I’m fuckin’ high, fellas.” He retreated to the tent and zipped the door shut.

The rain started soaking through Ronnie’s hair to his scalp. “Hey, open that back up!” he yelled over the sound of the rain.

Matt unzipped the door and let Ronnie go in first. “It’s my dad’s tent. I don’t want to risk anybody screwing it up.”

Ronnie smelled smoke.

(to be continued)