Disappearance at Devil's Rock Page 13

  “Then, you know, one day at breakfast, Mom told me that Dad was going to live somewhere else but he was still my dad and he loved me very much and I’d see him but not every day, and that I could talk to him on the phone too, if I wanted. She promised I’d still see him, said it like a hundred times until I said, It’s fine. I know it wasn’t the next day, but it seemed like it, and it was breakfast again, and she was telling me that Dad wasn’t calling because he went away and she didn’t know how long he was going to be away, and that was all she said, I think. I don’t know. I was only four, right? And then, one morning I got up and my grandmother was there in the kitchen with Mom, and Mom told me something happened to Dad, something really bad, and that he died, and he was gone. I remember dressing up for the funeral but I kept taking off my clip-on tie. We were in church forever, and then after we stood in line and all these people I didn’t know sticking their huge-ass faces into mine, telling me I was a little man or some shit like that and rubbing my hair. I got so pissed at that. Didn’t want the tie, but didn’t want them messing up my hair, you know, I was supposed to be dressed up and looking nice. Mom didn’t tell me how he died until I was in fourth grade. I used to bug her to tell me and she’d say, When you’re older, when you’re older. There was this one random day I asked again, in the car, on the way back from school, expecting her not to tell me anything. Mom flat-out told me, right there in the car, that Dad wasn’t handling things too good, he was very unhappy, that he ran away and was gone for eight months and no one knew where he was and then he was out drinking, shouldn’t have been driving, and she thinks he was driving home, maybe, because of where he crashed. Over in Canton, not too far way, crashing into that big, stone railroad bridge, and that was it. He died.

  “He pops into my head at these totally random times. I’ll go days, maybe even weeks, without thinking about him. Then there’ll be days where I’m like totally obsessed with him. I get stuck there sometimes, wondering what he would look like, what he would think of me.”

  Tommy paused. Luis didn’t think he was done yet. Tommy scraped the small twig against the rock, wearing it down to a nub. He looked up, smiled at us, and added, “Or would he be a cool dad or a total hardo, right?”

  Josh said, “And, like the most important, what would his zombie contingency plan be?”

  Luis couldn’t believe he said that. It was probably the best worst thing he’d ever said, and they all laughed. Tommy the loudest.

  Tommy: “Yeah, I’ve totally thought about that! Seriously! What, you a seer too now?”

  Josh : “I’m gonna practice and get good at it.”

  Tommy: “And you know what’s weird, since summer started, I have been thinking about my dad a lot. Like a lot.”

  Arnold said, “Nah, that’s not weird. Not weird at all.”

  Tommy and Josh needed time to work off their buzzes before dinner. They were in no rush to get home, and they walked their bikes over the rocky, winding paths of Borderland. There would be no repeat of the painful mock-DUI demolition derby from a couple of days ago, especially not after everything Tommy had told them about his dad.

  Instead of being maudlin or contemplative, Tommy laughed at everything Josh said, even if it wasn’t supposed to be funny. Was it the two beers? For a kid that never said more than three words in a row (unless it was about zombie preparedness), he couldn’t stop talking, going on and on about Arnold and his seer abilities.

  Luis was miserable and tried to hide it by being nonresponsive. He knew it was better to not say anything, even if he couldn’t quite admit to himself that he was jealous of the attention Tommy had received today from Arnold. Two days ago it had been Luis and Arnold making the deeper connection and talking movies, and the other two had been relegated to the background, quietly listening in, nervously plotting how to dump out their beers without anyone seeing. Today, it was as though Arnold had dismissed Luis, determined him to be less interesting, less special. Proof? This second day at the rock had ended with Tommy and Arnold exchanging Snapchat usernames, and worse, Arnold had offered Luis and Josh his username as an oh-yeah-you-guys-can-send-me-messages-too-if-you-really-want-to afterthought. Luis didn’t even bother storing it in his phone.

  Tommy said, “The zombie stuff, sure, yeah, whatever, right? But there’s no way he could’ve randomly guessed that shit about your dad. That was amazing. He’s like a real psychic or something. Don’t you think that was amazing?”

  Luis said, “Amazing, bruh. I get it. Yeah. I guess.”

  Tommy: “You guess?”

  If Luis continued to argue against the amazingness of Arnold, they’d call him hardo and mock his always being the contrarian (it was a matter of time before one of them said, Classic Luis). He actually agreed with Tommy, that what Arnold had said today was legit and strange and more than a little scary.

  Luis said, “I don’t know. Like, parents get all over kids about homework. It’s what they do. He could’ve been talking about anyone’s dad or—” and he quickly added, “—or mom,” as though he could cross out the dad reference, still aware of the no-dad-talk-around-Tommy rules that had been in place for the entirety of their friendship, or in place pre-Arnold, anyway. “He could’ve said that same thing about Josh’s parents.”

  Tommy: “Classic Luis.”

  That stung a little, even though he knew it was coming and he sort of deserved it. He hoped that Tommy would understand what he was trying to do with his point-counterpoint, even though Luis didn’t quite fully understand it himself.

  Josh: “Nah. He totally described your dad. That was all him. Mine doesn’t go nuts over homework like yours does. Not even close.”

  Luis: “Whatever. I’m just sayin’ he might not definitely be, you know, psychic. Maybe he’s like doing a—a live version of catfishing, or something.”

  Josh drunk-laughed. It was fake and high-pitched and couldn’t have been more mocking or dismissive. Luis wanted to cry and kick him in the balls at the same time.

  Tommy shook his head yes with a big, fake, open-mouthed smile. Then said, “Nope. I don’t get it.”

  Luis: “So Arnold says something about homework and my father, right? Then he watches my reaction, and yours. You guys went totally stupid—”

  Josh: “Chirps!”

  Luis: “—whenever he said something that was true, or even close to being true, so he knew he guessed right and just kept going.”

  Josh: “Nah.” He dropped his bike, its frame clattering off a football-sized stone at the edge of the path. “Piss break.” He stomped off into the woods. Luis and Tommy walked a few yards ahead, and then they dropped their bikes, too.

  Tommy looked at Luis with a hopeful, we’re-done-talking-about-this-right? look.

  Was Luis implying that Arnold was ultimately trying to manipulate them? Maybe. And Luis couldn’t articulate that his jealousy was manifesting as professed skepticism, which was rooted in his near-constant feelings of inadequacy. Luis was aware that he’d never seen Tommy so outwardly happy. He felt bad that in a very real sense he was trying to tear that down. But he still kept picking at it.

  Luis: “Arnold said ‘someone important’ was missing, yeah? Say that to anyone and then they go Whoa, my grandmother died two years ago, how did he know that?”

  Tommy: “He didn’t say just someone. I mean, he did, but, you know, he was talking about your parents and Josh’s and then you guys were talking about like all parents and then he looked at me. He looked right at me and—and I don’t know, it felt so weird. Then he said—”

  Luis: “He said someone important was missing. That’s what he said. He didn’t say your dad first, and kinda let you fill in the blank.”

  Tommy really seemed to consider this, and as he did so, he went through a subtle physical transformation: his head tilted down toward the ground, nervous eyes mostly hidden by his bangs, arms wrapped around his middle, shoulders gone slouchy, bending his back forward, contorting his body into a question mark. That Tommy wasn’t more popula
r at school was at times a mystery, given that he was graceful, tall, handsome, and not totally blighted with acne. But it was this punched-in-the-gut posture Tommy carried throughout most of the day at school, as though some unseen sadness manifested in him physically and the desperate herds of classmates could sense this flaw, this otherness, within him. No one picked on Tommy or made fun of him like they did Luis and Josh; they stayed away from Tommy, and maybe that was worse.

  Tommy said, “No. That’s not what happened. At all. He knew about my dad. I can tell. He just knew.”

  Luis stopped himself from saying If you say so or That totally proves it, or similar go-to snark when he’s in the endgame of the argument. He wasn’t sure he wanted to win.

  Josh stumbled out of the woods, shouting, “I’m gonna be covered in ticks.”

  Luis picked up his bike and started walking ahead. He shouted back at Josh: “There ain’t no tick that can find yo’ dick!”

  Tommy was the last to pick up his bike. Picked it up like it was a delicate artifact, but then he caught up quickly to Luis. He said, “You’re so wrong, you know. So wrong. But let’s pretend for a second you’re not, okay? So—why would Arnold do that? Guess and pretend he can see stuff?”

  Luis: “I dunno—”

  Tommy: “Exactly.”

  Luis couldn’t tell if Tommy tripped over his own feet or if he lurched at Luis purposefully, but Tommy was suddenly looming in his space, looking down on him. The two boys didn’t make contact, but their bikes knocked their front tires, hard enough Luis almost lost his grip on the handlebars. Was the nicest guy in Ames attempting to physically intimidate him?

  Josh jumped on his bike and pedaled quickly ahead of them. He stopped at the edge of one of the brackish ponds. He tossed his bike, bent down, and splashed dirty water onto his T-shirt.

  Tommy and Luis both yelled, “What are you doing?” at the same time.

  Josh: “My stupid shirt still smells like beer!”

  Luis said, “You’re being stupid,” when he knew that Josh wasn’t being stupid. That he would do the same thing.

  Josh: “My mom’ll smell it and then she’ll kill me and then she’ll ground me forever.”

  Tommy: “Don’t forget to get behind your ears. Hardo Mom will check.”

  Luis: “You’re right. She’ll never ask why your nipples are wet with pond.”

  Josh: “My nipples are wet.”

  Tommy: “Sexy!” He ran over to the pond’s muddy edge, right next to Josh, put a hand on Josh’s back, and pretended to push him in. Josh cupped water in his hands and threw it at Tommy.

  They left the pond. Luis hung back behind Tommy and Josh. They flung mud and dirt off their sneakers at each other and resumed their deep discussion about the hows of Arnold’s seeing and recounting their reactions to it. Tommy was back to being adamant that Arnold had psychic ability, and that he couldn’t have guessed everything he guessed.

  Luis went quiet and listened closely to his friends. His jealousy and anger passed into a resigned sense of unease. He wasn’t unsettled because of Arnold per se; whether or not Arnold was actually some sort of psychic or a con man wasn’t the main issue. Luis was afraid that he and his two best friends—his only friends, really—were such hopeless, desperate losers that they were an open book, open for anyone to read.

  Elizabeth Talks to Dave, Dinner for Two, Notifications at Night, a Fight, a Sketch

  After Detective Murtagh left the house with copies of Tommy’s diary pages tucked inside a folder, Elizabeth’s mother and daughter abandoned her in the living room. Kate slouched to her bedroom, and Janice said she was going to clean one of the bathrooms and maybe the kitchen floor, too.

  With the avalanche of stress, the lack of sleep, continued red-line-level caffeine intake, Elizabeth’s heart races through a two-minute punk song of beats. She thinks about how easy it would be for her to lie down on the couch or curl up on Tommy’s bed and die of a broken heart, and she briefly indulges in a daydream where Tommy returns home to attend her funeral, and everyone there is happy he’s back, and they recognize the Faustian sacrifice Elizabeth made on behalf of her son. The faceless Arnold is at the funeral, too, hiding in the back of the crowd.

  Elizabeth shakes herself out of the daydream. She is not prepared to think about Arnold and the possibilities associated with him. He’s there now, though, looming like a threat that is a promise. She wants him to go away and to have nothing to do with her son, ever.

  Elizabeth makes another cup of coffee, spastic heartbeats be damned, and dedicates the rest of her day to phone calls, e-mails, and social media outreach, trying to keep the suddenly weakening flame of media interest in Tommy burning. During the initial hours of Tommy’s disappearance, all the Boston news crews reported live from Borderland and documented the police and their dogs and the search teams clad in orange vests as they scoured the park. With the search radius now extended beyond the park, it’s as though the media no longer have a focal point beyond a missing boy. Without a singular setting for their saga of loss and hope, the reports and interview requests are waning. The Find Tommy Facebook page traffic is already down 50 percent from two days ago. There have been no new tweets (other than her own) with #FindTommy in the last ten hours.

  Elizabeth reaches out to an online support group for parents of missing children and teens. She introduces herself with a terse any-advice-is-welcome post on the group’s message board. Response is instantaneous, as though a group of parents are on standby, ready to swoop in the moment someone new reaches out. Elizabeth is grateful, but she can’t help seeing herself a year from now, sitting hunched in front of the glowing computer screen, staring at this same message board thread waiting for the next post. Or maybe she’ll become another voice in their chorus of the damned, haunting the message board for the chance to share her digitized cautionary tale with one more person on the off-off-off chance they might know something about what happened to her still-missing son.

  Much of the advice the group shares with her is common sense, but still it’s good to hear. None of the members speaks in platitudes or prayers. No one spews the things-happen-for-a-reason bullshit. Thank God. These parents care, commiserate, and offer a tougher brand of emotional support. They are hardened realists who categorically do not trust the system that failed them and continues to fail them and their missing children. They tell Elizabeth that given Tommy is a teenage male and not a young boy it will become increasingly difficult to keep the media’s long-term interest, which is her only real chance of ever finding him or finding what happened to him.

  Inspired and terrified by the group, Elizabeth makes one more phone call before dinner, and it is to Dave Islander, a townie who is an editor and a reporter for the local weekly newspaper. Dave promised her a weekly update/feature on Tommy until they found him. That is very kind of him, and she is sure he meant it when he said it.

  She once played on a co-ed softball team with Dave five or six summers ago at the urging of two coworkers at the DPW who were not-so-subtly trying to play matchmaker. It was a ridiculous idea, but the kids were a little older, and Elizabeth really hadn’t done anything social for herself and by herself since William died. She agreed to play and was relieved to not be the worst player on the team. She hit well and could play first base and pitch adequately. Dave was the best player on their not-so-good team. He was in his early thirties, short, fast, and hilariously reckless with his body on the base paths and with his prodigious throwing arm from the outfield. The team went out for drinks after a handful of their games. The bars were always too loud or too crowded, and no one on the team knew Elizabeth well enough to know that a bar was the last place in the world she wanted to be. Elizabeth went anyway, mainly because she felt the pressure of the whole team willing her and Dave to make a connection. She didn’t drink any alcohol and kept looking at her watch the whole time, wondering if Kate and Tommy were in bed or if they’d ganged up on the overmatched teenaged babysitter, and it all made her feel like such a
mom and twenty years older than her teammates instead of her actual five to ten. Still, she looked forward to those stolen hours of games and occasional postgames. Dave was self-deprecating, charming in an Eeyore kind of way, pleasantly quirky, but not quirky enough for her to ask him on a date. She got the sense that the feeling was mutual, as he never asked her out, either. He ruptured a disc in his back the following summer and had since put on some weight that he carried with the oversized shame and regret of a scarlet letter.

  She says, “Hi, Dave? It’s Elizabeth.”

  “Hey there, Elizabeth.”

  Now that she has him on the phone, she isn’t sure what she wants to say or should say. There isn’t much Tommy news that she can share, really, so she says, “How’s your back doing?”

  Dave says, “Fucking horrible. I want to take it out to the parking lot and curb-stomp it.” He chuckles softly at himself and Elizabeth smiles at his inability to dial down the Eeyore act. “Anyway, I’m glad you called. I’m actually working on a column about Tommy as we speak. Haven’t been able to get much from the police department. What do you got?”

  “What do I got? A whole lot of crazy.” She has the urge to unzip herself and let everything spill out as though he’s an intimate confidant: tell Dave that she saw Tommy in her house or some form of Tommy, and was initially so sure what she saw was him, had to be him, but with each hour that passes she doesn’t know what to think. What if she tells Dave diary pages are being left in the house by the spirit or ghost or double of Tommy? Saying that out loud would sound totally ludicrous, even though she believes it, or is still willing to believe it. Is there a difference? What if it is Kate leaving the pages? Why would Kate do that? If it was someone else, who? And how did they get the pages there? She wants to tell Dave no one in the house is really talking to the others when they’ve never needed one another more. They’re all exhausted, broken, and struggling, or not struggling, but drowning, failing, crumbling, whatever goddamn –ing you wanted to use. Maybe Elizabeth should insist she and Kate see a counselor. There is no maybe about it. Elizabeth has rewatched for the four-hundredth time the surveillance clip her app recorded. That shadow isn’t there anymore and would Dave want to take a look and see if he can find Tommy in there, anywhere?