Four Years from Home Read online

  “Kate, how could it be someone from the school if it was a wrong number?”

  My irritation drew Sam’s pointed, turkey-laden fork in my direction, clearly a prelude to some threat he would utter if he could ever get the goop off the roof of his mouth.

  “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. All they said was something stupid. It was probably some kid making crank calls.”

  “But they asked for you.”

  “So it was someone who knows me yanking my chain. How should I know?” There were a million possibilities and they all knew it — every kid I’d ever tortured, every kid I’d ever been mean to — a million possibilities, and all of them believable.

  Mom’s voice was softer than usual. I liked her voice. It was always so soothing and gentle, except when she was yelling at me. “What did he say, Tom?” It was the kind of voice you knew you had to answer politely.

  “Nothing, Mom. Just something dumb and vague, like ‘I know what happened and I know what you did.’ Ooooooo, scary, huh?” Wrong answer. I could see that immediately. But I was the master of recovery. “Just kidding. Sorry, I just thought it was funny.”

  “It wasn’t,” Mary snapped. She was more the vegetable eater, which explains why she was able to respond so quickly despite the turkey glue. She never ate much meat and always finished every vegetable at the table. This was handy since I hated vegetables of every kind except ketchup and French fries. I used to call her Bean Sprout, but she didn’t much look like one right now. She looked more like an artichoke, as in she was ready to practice the art of choking me good for saying such a stupid thing.

  Kate put her hand on Mary’s to stop her. “What did you do?” she asked me pointedly.

  Having no clue what she was talking about I immediately took evasive action. “I hung up the phone.” Oh, that was a great comeback. I’d have to remember later to record that one in my annals.

  “No, you said the person said they knew what you did. What did you do?”

  Years of actually being guilty of everything are hard to get over. I guess I will always be the guilty one in the family, even when it’s an accident. “I ate all the leftover pumpkin pie?”

  Sam laughed derisively. “You’re such a jerk. Can’t you ever be serious?”

  “Maybe, but I don’t feel like being serious, all right?”

  I saw their hesitation. Now I had them and my escape from their intrusive grilling was assured. It usually came to me if I could just keep them going for a while. “I’m tired of being serious, okay? This whole thing stinks and I’m depressed. I need to be happy for a while. I miss Harry, too, but all this depressing depression is making me depressed.” God, I am so profound, so slippery. The Adventures of Tom the Eel, starring Tom Ryan, as Tom Ryan. Produced and directed by…

  Chapter 4

  Another day of leftovers and another day without word from Kenyon College — this waiting was getting harder and harder to take for everyone, especially me. I considered burying what remained of the turkey in the side yard, but there were two problems with that. First and foremost was the fact that all of my good burying spots were already filled with incriminating evidence from years past and probably didn’t have the space for a turkey of such gothic proportions. A yard is a wonderful place to hide things — like my BB rifle. I used that old rifle that I’d borrowed many years ago from my Uncle Kenny’s farm to put out many an annoying street light in the intersection of Caswell and Oregon Trail. I don’t know who the brain trust was who decided it would be a good idea to put a blinding light outside my bedroom window without my permission, but it was in my kingdom and I was well within my rights to remove it anytime I saw fit. Besides, it was a clear shot from my window at night and a piece of cake to drop the rifle into the bushes below to hide the evidence temporarily before Dad could reach my room and ask what the noise was. Then, next morning, I’d retrieve my gun, wrap it in a trash bag, and bury it in the soft ground under a bush in the side yard near the woods. I wondered if it was still out there and what condition it must be in after all those years in the ground. It was actually close to where I kept my rifle that I’d prepped a spot big enough to hold a dead body — I had a few choice enemies in mind for that one — but that’s another story.

  The second and probably more significant reason for not disposing of the killer turkey from Mars in the yard was that the ground was solidly frozen and snow-covered. I suppose I could have tricked or convinced Sam into helping me but Harry would have been much easier to recruit. Harry was always so easy about everything. I hated him for that. He would do pretty much anything I wanted without complaint, without being the least bit annoyed… maybe that was why I kept trying to break his impenetrable shell.

  Conner Road was a street that amounted to a superhighway for us as kids since people would drive fifty miles an hour on it. There was no traffic light, stop sign, or crosswalk, and we had to cross that road every morning on our way to Saint Catherine’s. It seemed like no one ever wanted to stop for us. As king, it was my duty to get my subjects all safely to school. And it was extremely annoying and humiliating for me to walk out in front of oncoming traffic, raise my arm just like the cops did to tell the cars to stop, and have them gun it and laugh as I jumped out of the way. They acted as if they had no idea who I was or what I was doing.

  Of course, as you might have guessed, I had my ways of getting them to realize just who I was and what exactly they were dealing with. There was a hill overlooking Conner Road that was the perfect high ground for a snowball bombardment. It was sparsely wooded, enough to conceal us, yet not enough to interfere with our fire. I recruited Tom Braithwaite, Pete Kulzer, Bobby Fey, and Harry. It was a perfect plan. The squad thought their mission was to fortify the Allied position on Pork Chop Hill. No mention was made of the bombardment to follow. They were on a need-to-know basis and they didn’t need to know that part.

  I was walking point with Harry on the way there when he asked, “What are we going to do once we build the fort, Tom?”

  “We’ll stock it with ammunition, of course.”

  It didn’t take Harry long to come up with his next question. “And what then? We’ll have a fort, ammunition and the perfect place to use it.”

  “I don’t know. I guess we’ll figure that out when the time comes.”

  “You’re going to throw snowballs at the cars on Conner Road, aren’t you?”

  “Don’t be stupid. Those aren’t my orders.” Technically, I wasn’t lying. I wasn’t planning on throwing any snowballs. I wasn’t that dumb. I was planning on them doing all the throwing. I was just going to be an innocent tag-a-long when the heat caught up with us, which it undoubtedly would. Little old me throw snowballs at cars? Why I would never do such a thing.

  “You know Dad will be mad.”

  “So? You’re not backing out, are you?”

  “If that’s what you want me to do, that’s what I’ll do, Tom. I just wanted you to know it’s wrong and we’re going to be punished.”

  Now, see? That’s what I hated about him — so damn smug all the time. I was using everything in my arsenal of trickery and deceit to get revenge and avoid punishment, and he went in knowing he would be punished and did it anyway. And he rubbed my nose in it! As if life were some simple cause and effect scenario that could be accepted and dealt with on the most basic of levels without all the trappings of emotions, complications, or sneakiness. Nothing in life was that simple. It wasn’t only good and bad. There was a lot in between that Harry never saw or understood, including me.

  The fort was a two-foot high wall behind which we stockpiled hundreds of rounds of ammunition. I even made a couple of “specials” — iceballs with rocks in them — that I tucked away in case someone I recognized came along. Like that guy with the Chevelle that I knew took great pleasure in swerving right at me when we were trying to get across the street — I had one with his name on it. When we were ready, I took out my binoculars and scouted the terrain.

  I dropped to one knee, le
tting the binoculars dangle from my neck and addressed the squad. “All right, men. The Nazis are using this corridor to resupply the Third Panzer Division — the one that’s been hammering us for weeks. Our mission is to disrupt that supply line so our boys can hold them off until reinforcements arrive. I’ve got to be honest with you. There’s little chance we’ll come out of this alive, but I’m counting on each and every one of you to do your duty. We’re soldiers and we represent our country and our way of life. If we let them down and quit now we might as well jump on a grenade and end it all.” Vic Morrow, move over. Tom Ryan was in command now.

  “Tom, there were no Nazis at Pork Chop Hill. Pork Chop Hill was in Korea. There were Chinese and Koreans there.”

  I was getting ready to carve Harry’s name into one of my specials when Private Braithwaite chimed in, “Weren’t there two Pork Chop Hills? I think there was one in Action Comics, too.”

  A dirty look in Harry’s general direction silenced further comment. I took Braithwaite’s cue. It was as good a lie as any for the time being. “The one in Korea was named after the one in World War II. The World War II one was the first one. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that the Nazis must be stopped and we’re the only ones who can stop them. But if anyone here has a big yellow streak down his back, you have my permission to desert. I’ll only guarantee that I won’t shoot you now. But if I ever lay eyes on you again in my country, you’re dead.”

  I stared them down, one after the other until my eyes met Harry’s. He was looking at me and smiling. He wouldn’t look away. The “special” in my hand broke apart; I squeezed it so hard. I should have beat the crap out of him right there, but I needed him. He was the best shot in the squad. “Fine, then we’re all in this together. I’ll call out the targets.” I pointed to an imaginary spot on Conner Road near the intersection. “When I say ‘fire,’ aim for that spot. Any questions?”

  The first convoy crested the hill, a slow-moving group of three vehicles — two trucks and a command car. I focused the binoculars on the driver of the lead car, a female. I didn’t know the Nazis had girl officers. I made a mental note to change my History of the Nazi Empire that I was writing. It was a fine art to judge the speed and distance of a car and determine the correct firing point. I was extremely adept at it, having had so many years of practice. They were moving up Conner Road pretty slowly because of the snow. Piece of cake…

  “Fire!”

  The volley fell well short of the target, landing somewhere between the lead car and the first supply truck. I half expected as much from their first try at it and was actually pleased that they had followed orders at all, even Harry. But I would never let them know it.

  “What the crap was that? I could have done better left-handed, standing on one foot, with both eyes closed.” I had their undivided attention. “I wouldn’t let you losers pitch whiffle ball to my little sister. You knuckleheads couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn.”

  “C’mon, Tom. Give us a break. We didn’t do that bad. Nobody’s perfect, you know.” Bobby Fey was a jerk then and, as far as I know, is still a jerk. The one good thing about him was that, despite his mouth, he was easily intimidated.

  “Zip it, soldier,” I barked. “We can’t afford to miss. If they spot us, we’re dead. We just got lucky that time. Next time, we could all be pushing up daisies.” I pointed again to the imaginary spot on the road that I wanted them to aim for. “There, you aim for that spot and fire when I say ‘fire.’ Don’t aim for the cars; you’ll never hit them that way. I can’t make it any simpler than that.”

  We waited for the next convoy. A single vehicle crested the hill… a Chevelle. It was him! The dirty Nazi who’d tried to run us down. This was going to be good. I had watched my boys fire off the last round and figured that there had been a second delay between when I called the shot and when they actually fired. I would take that into account this time. I reached for my special and let it rip before remembering that I wasn’t actually going to throw any snowballs so the blame could be squarely placed on the shoulders of the others.

  “Fire!”

  It couldn’t have been more perfect. My iceball hit the passenger-side door with a loud thud and three of the four snowballs hit the trunk. The Chevelle skidded to a stop and the driver got out, looking straight up at us. I gave him the finger and yelled, “Run!”

  We spent the afternoon basking in our glorious victory before splitting up and going home for dinner. Dad stood in the hallway waiting for us.

  “Jack Billups stopped by today,” he said, watching for a reaction from me.

  “Billups?” I knew the name from somewhere.

  “He’s on my paper route,” Harry offered.

  “Oh, right.” Now I remembered. When I had divided the paper route up into three smaller routes, I got the houses right around ours so I could be done in ten minutes, Sam got the heaviest route because he could carry the most, and Harry got the two streets that were a mile away before you got to the first house on the route. I wondered if they knew just how badly I had screwed them over. “What did he want? Was he here to pay his bill or something?”

  Dad had a way of ignoring any question that was designed to evade an honest answer. “How many times have I told you not to throw snowballs at cars? He told me that you caused him to drive off the road and into a ditch. You’re lucky he wasn’t hurt and his car wasn’t damaged.”

  “What makes him think it was me?” This was usually my first response, designed to uncover the evidence against me, before I decided which facts needed to be refuted, which could simply be ignored, and what lies were required to get me out of trouble.

  “He said the ringleader was wearing a Pirates jacket and a yellow watchman’s cap.” Dad looked squarely at my Pirates jacket and then frowned at me.

  Positive I.D. is hard to overcome, darned hard. An alibi would be required. “I was with Harry all afternoon. It must have been some other kid.”

  Dad focused on Harry. “Were you with him, son?”

  “Yes, Dad.”

  “So you were both throwing snowballs at cars?”

  “Yes, Dad.”

  That sniveling little jerk. Nobody likes a snitch. I should have hauled off and smashed his face in. The potential consequences of Dad’s retaliation killed that thought quickly.

  With my alibi gone, I needed a justification for my deed. It was my last defense. “We only did it to get back at him. He’s been trying to run us down all year. Plus, he’s lying. He never drove into any ditch. He’s a dirty rotten liar.” I explained in great detail how I was only protecting my brothers and sisters from the cars on Conner Road and how this jerk always gunned it and headed our way whenever he saw us trying to cross. I also was quite eloquent in detailing how I could see him laughing as we jumped out of his way. This, I followed with a summation of why we were perfectly justified in getting revenge on him.

  There is something very wrong with the American criminal justice system. It is supposed to rely on evidence, facts, arguments, and conclusions. From this a measured judgment is supposed to be made. Dad’s reply was my first realization that things didn’t work that way; they didn’t work that way at all.

  “I don’t care what he did. That’s his problem. You were wrong to disobey me.”

  That left me nothing to defend. I had to throw myself on the mercy of the court. “I’m sorry, Dad. I won’t do it again.”

  “One of these days someone will get hurt, or worse. And when that happens, saying you’re sorry won’t be good enough, Tom.”

  Dad was right. He always was.

  I can’t remember exactly what punishment we got, but I do remember that mine was much, much worse than Harry’s. It was as if I were more to blame for the whole thing, as if I were the ringleader and he just a willing stooge following my lead. You’d think I was Adolph Hitler or something. Well, actually, he was the stooge, but he knew what he was doing and knew that we’d get it if we were caught. And the more I thought about it
, the more I believed that he also must have known that I’d get it worse than him and he was probably looking forward to that. I think he enjoyed watching me get it. I remember making a mental note of this at the time in my “People to get back at” journal.

  The day dragged on. The sun had come out, the snow had begun to melt, and I spent most of the afternoon lounging on the sofa watching football with Dad. It didn’t matter what was going on in the world and how bad things got — there was always the TV. It offered an escape into a mindless, gawking world of action and non-stop droning announcers. Idiots. They were talking about the field conditions, on and on about the field conditions. Who cared? I know I didn’t. I decided that they must have been paid by the word, no matter how stupid, and penalized for every precious second of non-billable dead airtime. A brief fantasy of being trapped in a windowless room with a bald sports announcer passed through my mind. The fantasy ended with my filling his mouth with concrete mix and water and zipping his lips shut.

  The TV was always on in our house. It was more like another member of the family than an electronic device. I think Dad worried more about how it was doing than he did me. I wondered if he ever really worried about me, beyond my getting myself, or everyone around me, killed. The Steelers were getting their heads handed to them on a platter by the Giants. I suppose I should have been upset, but I enjoyed watching Dad boil while his team got beat. He never said a word but I could tell by the way he gripped the chair arms and ground his false teeth that he was in agony. I was instantly a Giants fan. Another victory for me…

  A distant alarm disintegrated a vivid dream about my quarterbacking the Ryan Giants in an absolute slaughter of the hapless Pittsburgh Steelers. We had a five-touchdown lead in the fourth quarter, and most of Pittsburgh’s starting lineup had been sent to the hospital with injuries personally inflicted by me. We were all standing around watching the paramedics put Harry on a stretcher. I had hit him pretty hard, too hard I guess. He looked dead. All the Steelers had left now to stand against me were Dad, Sam, Mary, and Kate. Dad was their quarterback. Mom, their coach, was on the sidelines crying. With the alarm came the ambulance that screeched to a halt on the fifty-yard line and turned off its siren. I felt sick to my stomach and woke up. The football game was over and Dad was gone.