Chapter 18
That afternoon, Rockfield Police Chief Rich Tolland was called over.
No introduction was necessary, since I’d known Rich since we were in diapers. But when we greeted each other, I felt like I was meeting him for the first time.
Rich then revealed the main purpose for his visit—me, and the circus I’d brought to town. He’d assigned two officers at the bottom of the driveway to disperse the crowds. He referred to them as “those damn bloodsuckers.” He must have then remembered that I was one of those bloodsuckers, because he quickly apologized.
“None taken,” I said, choosing not to explain that as of August my bloodsucking days had ended.
My father hadn’t grasped the concept that years and distance had turned Rich and me into virtual strangers, and began recounting tales of our childhood. In his eyes, we were still those twelve-year-old kids playing in the backyard. The stories led to the league championship game back in high school, where Rich Tolland—nicknamed The Toll Booth for his large size, and having to pay a price to pass through him—delivered the crunching block that allowed JP Warner to score the winning touchdown.
Rich and I sat politely through story-time, but we both knew it was a different lifetime. I’d been to over two hundred countries since graduation, while Rich lived two houses down from the house he grew up in. If my father didn’t mention it, I would never have known that Rich’s parents had both passed away, or he married a schoolteacher named Cassie, and they have two adorably chubby children who mirrored their father. Different lifetimes.
Suddenly another police officer entered the house. He introduced himself as Officer Jones, and politely stated, “Sorry to interrupt, folks, but I need to steal the Chief—we have some important police business to get to on the other side of town.”
There didn’t appear to be anything special or unusual about Officer Jones, yet his presence sent a shock wave through me. I studied him as he led Rich to the door.
I was unsure of what to make of my strange reaction, and too tired to try to analyze it. Probably some sort of psychological damage resulting from my capture, that I will be too stubborn to see someone about.
After a quiet dinner, my father got me caught up on all the local gossip, while my mother continued to give me the silent treatment. When I announced that I was headed for bed, she did briefly break her talking-strike to inform me that my old room in the “new house” was made up for me.
“It’s good to have you home, son,” my father said as I limped off.
I smiled. “It’s good to be home.”
Mom remained silent.
With the help of my cane, I exited the house and strolled down a lighted path of slate squares. My body creaked, and I felt a thousand years old as I hobbled along—even the soothing sounds of the rushing brook and chirping crickets couldn’t ease my pain. The bright moon reflected off the classic colonial known as the “new house,” although it had been there for a quarter of a century. My parents built it when Noah came along, believing that our family had outgrown the A-frame. The house was a replica of the Smith-Harris House, now a museum in East Lyme, Connecticut, which was a favorite of my mother. But it never had the same homey feel, and my parents eventually moved back to the cozier A-frame when all the kids had left the nest.
The smell was the first thing to hit me upon entering. It was the smell of my youth. It was the smell of safety. It was the smell of having all your dreams in front of you. And it was as intoxicating as ever.
I was so weary that I wondered if I would make it up the stairs. The most activity I had in the last six weeks was walking down the halls of Landstuhl, and occasional physical therapy sessions that almost made me beg to be sent to Guantanamo.
I hadn’t been in my childhood bedroom in years, and I immediately felt as if I were in a time warp. A few boxes that contained my mother’s history books were stored there, but besides that, it could have been 1990 all over again. Michael Jordan and Bon Jovi posters still hung on the walls. My Rubik’s cube still sat unsolved on my old desk next to a prom picture. Even though I tried to fight off the temptation, my eyes instinctively moved to the ancient picture of Gwen and me, posing in front of the A-Frame on an alluring spring afternoon.
I picked up the picture and studied it. She looked beautiful in a purple, formfitting gown with her long raven hair falling on her bare shoulders. I couldn’t help but to chuckle, noticing her glowing orange-ish skin that was the aftermath of Gwen falling asleep in a tanning bed during a misguided attempt to optimize her look for the prom. If someone could look beautiful and radioactive at the same time it was Gwen.
I began coughing, causing a sharp pain to stab through my injured lung, and sending me crashing back to reality. Sadly, I realized Gwen Delaney was just as much in another lifetime as Rich Tolland was. I placed the picture face down on the desk, as if that somehow would hide my regrets.
I viewed the bedroom once more. I was stuck on the idea of my mother treating my old room like a time-capsule. It reminded me of when a family lost a young child and would cling to their memory by not changing anything.
Perhaps she knew death was imminent for her son. I had escaped it for all these years—my number would surely be up soon. And the thing that scared me most was that Mom was usually right.
Chapter 19
I fell asleep the second my head hit the soft pillow. I slept for twenty hours, straight into Tuesday evening. I awoke, ate dinner with my quiet mother and chatty father, before returning to my coma until Wednesday morning. I felt like I hadn’t slept in fifteen years, and in some ways, maybe I hadn’t.
I spent Wednesday and Thursday hobbling around my parents’ property. And following my doctor’s order about trying to limit stress and exertion, I chose not to return Lauren’s endless phone calls.
By Thursday afternoon I was feeling frisky, so I limped to a wooded area on the edge of the property and cautiously climbed down a sharp slope to the brook. It was the spot where I first kissed Gwen. I thought about exploring the dilapidated tree fort where we carved our naïve mantra of
true love forever
into the bark, but the pain in my leg made me realize that forever wasn’t as long as I thought, and decided against it.
I thought about all the days that had passed since Gwen and I were last down here, and how much I’d changed since that time. Byron’s words popped into my head:
It’s not what you do, it’s who you are, JP.
The reporter in me agreed. But the youthful idealist hidden deep within fought against the notion. I was convinced that the JP Warner who would carve idealistic declarations into tree bark was the real me, and that J-News was just a detour.
I spotted the remnants of a tree-fort that Ethan and I had built when we were kids. I remembered the fight that broke out during its construction, resulting in both of us falling out of the tree. We ran crying to Mom, who would hear none of it, and sent us back outside until we learned how to play nice together. And since Ethan still hadn’t phoned his brother after he escaped near-death at the hands of crazed Islamic militants, it appears as if we’re still working on it.
By Friday morning I was ready to branch out, and decided to venture into town. But with my father having left for his weekly golf game, and my mother at work, I encountered a major stumbling block—I had no vehicle. So I called Christina. She claimed she was late for a class, but I knew school didn’t start until after Labor Day. After a brief battle of wills, she agreed to come to Rockfield to be my chauffeur for the day. Like myself, she was learning that living in that brownstone came with strings attached.
She arrived in style, driving my oversized, sand-colored Humvee that she often enjoyed tearing down Park Avenue in. And not one of those trendy Hummers the yuppies tool around in—this was an authentic military vehicle from Desert Storm that had a few souvenir bullet holes to prove it. It had been my ten-year anniversary gift from GNZ. Between my travel schedule and living part time in Manhattan, I’d never actually purchased a car in my adult life, and had only driven the Humvee on a couple of occasions over the years.
“You’re late,” I greeted her with an annoyed look.
She sent one right back at me. “Sorry, I had to update the fake JP Warner Twitter account I administer. The funny thing is, I try to play the character even more over-the-top than normal when it comes to your egomania, but people still believe it’s the real you. We’re almost up to a million followers.”
I was about to explain to her that twit is the slang British word for idiot, when she surprised me. She bull-rushed me and wrapped me with a hug. “I thought you were going to die, JP,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion. “And I’m so sorry about Byron.”
I was not in the mood to relive the capture, so I deflected, “Why—were you scared you’d have to go back to the dorms?”
“The thought crossed my mind,” she said with a wise-ass smile. It signaled a return to normalcy between us, now that the mushy stuff was over.
“How’d summer school go?” I asked
“All A’s.”
“How’s your friend—Dimwit or something like that?”
“It’s Daman, and I haven’t heard from him in months. Funny how he became less interested in me after your friend tried to execute him. And once word got around, let’s just say the boys haven’t exactly been knocking down my door.”
“And they say capital punishment isn’t a deterrent.”
“Very funny. Thank goodness those terrorists left your cranky personality intact.”
I let it go as I hobbled to the Humvee, which seemed to surprise her.
My directions took us to Main Street. On one side of the road was the high school I graduated from, and where my brother Ethan was currently a history teacher and football coach. It’s located next to a campus made up of the town hall, volunteer fire department, police station, and library.
Notables on the south side of the road were the bowling alley, Main Street Tavern, and the Rockfield Village Store. I focused on a weathered colonial that housed both a realtor and the local newspaper called the
Rockfield Gazette
. My teacher and mentor Murray Brown created the newspaper—the one I always dreamed of buying with Gwen if Murray ever decided to hang up the typewriter. But that was before life called, and for better or worse, I answered.
When we passed the high school, Christina noticed the name on the football field. “JP Warner Field? Wow, I’m impressed—did you get to come back like some conquering hero to christen the field?”
“I think they christen ships, not football fields. But no, I’ve never been there. I was supposed to attend the dedication, but got called to Kosovo at the last moment. My brothers Ethan and Noah stepped in for me.”
Christina thought for a moment. “Noah’s the cute one, right?”
“They say he looks like me.”
“In your dreams, old man. Is he single?”
“No,” I replied. He might technically have been, but I knew Noah was still emotionally attached to Lisa. He wasn’t available.
“When was the last time you were here?” she asked.
I thought hard for a moment. “Three years ago on Christmas. Opened my gifts in the morning and was on a plane to Haiti at noon.”
“You haven’t seen your family in three years!?”
“I’ve seen them,” I defended. “My parents come down to the city for dinner all the time. And every year I fly the whole family somewhere for a week’s vacation during the summer. Last year it was France. Unfortunately, this year I was a little tied up.”
“Sounds like an expensive guilt trip.”
I scrunched my face, digesting her words.
“So did they throw their sugar-daddy a big party when he came home after fighting off the bad guys in Serbia?” Christina asked, before honking at a slow driving elderly couple in front of us.
Thoughts of Ethan and my mother entered my mind. “No, actually they didn’t.”
“They probably just want to avoid all the cameras and microphones.”
“Maybe,” I said, but I knew it ran much deeper. It was time to change the subject. “Turn here!”
Chapter 20
Christina jerked the steering wheel to the right and swung the Humvee into the small parking lot of the Rockfield Village Store, almost tipping it over in the process.
“What’s this place?” she asked after we skidded to a stop.
“Rumor has it that an old friend of mine works here.”
I felt a sharp pain down my leg as I struggled to get out of the vehicle. I stubbornly tried to walk without the cane, but it was a failed experiment. I slowly made it to the front of the store and entered through the same creaky door I remembered from my youth. In fact, the whole place looked exactly as it did when I was growing up. Rockfield was one big time-capsule.
I immediately spotted the person I’d come to see. But as usual, he beat me to the draw. “Well, looky here,” Murray greeted me from behind the counter. Always an impeccable dresser, he wore red suspenders over his button-downed Oxford.
He was in the neighborhood of eighty, although nobody was really sure—the old journalist never revealed his sources on that one. His hair and mustache had turned much grayer since the last time I’d seen him, but he still had the same youthful twinkle in his eye.
I limped behind the counter to give him a hug. He was always rail-thin, and I could feel the bones in his spine as we embraced.
After releasing, Murray looked me up and down, focusing on my cane. “Looks like I’m still getting around better than you these days, John Pierpont.”
A horrified look came over Christina’s face, and she mouthed in my direction, “Pierpont?”
Murray’s focus switched to her. “John Pierpont keeps getting older, but his girlfriends keep staying the same age.”
Christina begged to differ. “I don’t know what you’ve heard but…”
“Young lady, are you questioning my sources?”