The Banks of Certain Rivers (35 page)

“Now, look at this. What do you see about this boy’s
face?”

“He’s...he’s all scuffed up. A little bloody. Is
that what you’re talking about?”

“Right. How did that happen? Or, I should ask, how would this
video lead you to believe that had happened?”

“From me chucking him to the ground, I’d say.”

“Right. Now watch again.” Alan starts the video, and
pauses it just before I put my hands on Cody’s shoulders.
“Look, what do you see about his face?”

“He’s got the same cut on his nose...hey. And his eye.
Holy shit.”

“How did they get there if you haven’t thrown him
already?”

“Holy shit.”

“Exactly. I’d say we’re maybe not getting all of
the story here, wouldn’t you?”

“Wow,” is the only thing I can manage to say. I begin to
ask Alan to play the thing again, but the doorbell rings, and when I
look out the window I see a police cruiser parked out front.

“Oh no,” I say, my knees feeling wobbly with the sudden,
certain vision of my son in the morgue. “No, no, no.”
He’s been killed in a car crash, I’m sure of it, and
someone has come to officially notify me.

I didn’t have the chance to jinx it.

“Neil?” Lauren calls. “Should I get the door?”

“I’ll get it,” I say, and it feels like I’m
floating down the hall and into the entryway.

Please. Please let this not be what I think it is.

I never got to say goodbye!

I open the door, and Pete Tran is standing on my front porch. At his
feet, there’s an envelope lying on my doormat. The words “FOR
NEIL KAZENZAKIS” are hand-lettered on it.

“Can I ask you a couple follow-up questions, Mr. K?”

“It’s not Chris?”

“Excuse me? What about Chris?”

“You’re not here to...? Sure.” I feel like I could
collapse. “What do you need? Do you want to come in?” I
consider for a moment mentioning Christopher’s absence, but I
don’t want to complicate things. Pete stands ramrod-straight on
the porch, his expression almost stern. He looks from me to the
envelope, and back up again.

“No, I’ll be quick,” he says. He’s holding a
notepad, and he scans his eyes over it. “You told us when we
spoke to you the first time that you broke up a fight.”

“That’s right.”

“When did you first notice the fight?”

“Practice had ended, and I saw them across the parking lot.”

“Practice had ended, or it was still wrapping up?”

“I…I think we were done.”

“So practice was complete.”

“I think so? I mean, I’m pretty sure we were done.”

“What was it about the boys that first got your attention?”

“It just seemed odd that there was even a group there.”

“This fight you say you broke up, it had already started?”

“I guess I went over there when it was obvious something was
going on.”

Pete nods. “All right. Thank you. You’ve still got my
card, right?” I nod, and Pete glances at the envelope again.
“Anything else going on, Mr. K.? Anything you want to tell me
about? Anything unusual?”

“I’ve…been getting some emails,” I say, and
Pete nods again. “Pretty bad emails.”

“We know about the emails,” he says. “We’re
looking into it.”

“Some calls too. Pranks, threats.” Pete nods and makes a
note. “And then,” I go on, poking the envelope with my
toe, “who knows what this is.”

“Do you want me to open it for you?”

“Maybe you should,” I say. Pete picks the thing up, slips
his finger under the sealed flap and draws out and unfolds a piece of
paper. I can see through the back that a picture is printed on the
sheet. The muscles in Pete’s face tighten, and quickly his
grasp changes so he’s holding only the corner of the page and
envelope between his index finger and thumb, like one would hold a
dead rodent by the tail.

“I don’t think you need to see this, Mr. K.”

“You can show me,” I say.

“I really don’t—”

“Show me.”

Pete turns the thing around, and I need to brace myself against the
house when I see what it is. It’s a picture of Wendy, a real
photograph of my debilitated wife, in her bed in long term. Above the
photo are the handwritten words: “WHY DON’T U EMAIL ME N
E MORE NEIL?? WHY NOT??”

Pete turns the photo so I can’t see it anymore and holds
it—still pinching it by the corner—away from his body.
“I’m sorry,” he says.

“That’s recent,” I say softly. “The picture.
She only got that quilt in the past week.”

Pete makes a note, thanks me and apologizes again, and lets me know
that regular patrols will be coming by the house to keep an eye on
things. I stay at the open door and watch him as he returns to his
cruiser and drives away, and I realize Alan has come to stand behind me
in the entryway.

“What was that all about?” he asks.

“I wish I knew,” I say.
I wish I knew
.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

I don’t tell anyone
about the photo. They
don’t need to know, and maybe if I
say nothing about it, I can make myself think it never existed.
Lauren gets called out to one of her patients just before noon, and
Alan suggests we take a drive to look for Christopher.

“He probably stayed over at a friend’s house,” he
says. “We’ll do some drive-bys and look for his car. I
bet we’ll see it parked somewhere.”

“That’s good,” I say. “Good idea.”

“Are you okay to drive?”

I laugh and say I’m fine, which is a complete lie.

“No, you’re not. I’ll drive us.”

“Do you even have a license anymore?” I ask.

“These are special circumstances,” Alan says. “Where
are your keys?”

We load into my truck and Alan takes us toward town. It feels strange
to not be in the driver’s seat, but Alan is in full control,
and he seems to be savoring the experience of being back behind the
wheel of something moving through real, and not virtual, space.

“You’re not going to have another seizure, are you?”
I manage to joke.

“Keep in mind I never had one in the first place. Your rig
drives pretty nice for being so old.”

“Thanks. I think?”

We start outside of town, through both of Port Manitou’s
quasi-suburbs. I try to remember every haunt, every home of every one
of Christopher’s childhood friends, and I direct Alan around
accordingly. He keeps a running commentary going the entire time.

“Oh, Smithfields’ house, Angela got busted at a huge
party there….”

We loop south of town, by a farm I know Chris has been to, by the
State Park.

“…Kids have a kegger down here every weekend….”

We go up the National Lakeshore; Alan explains what’s going on
to the ranger at the entrance to the parking area and she waves us
through without having us pay. I spy a cream-colored Volvo wagon,
just like Christopher’s, but Alan discounts it as I’m
pointing it out.

“That car is missing the middle rail on the roof rack. Your
son’s car has all of them.”

After the residential areas, I point Alan east, toward Wendy’s
facility. He knows where we’re going without me having to say
it, and he drives us there without direction.

“I’ll wait out here,” he says as he pulls into a
space in the long-term lot.

Shanice is here and she greets me warmly, obviously having no idea
what’s going on with me or Chris. It’s jarring, her
happiness, but maybe good for me.

“No Christopher today?” she asks.

“Nope. I’m guessing he hasn’t stopped by?”

She smiles. “Sounds like you two men have a little bit of a
communication problem. Typical, typical.”

Oh, Shanice, if you only knew.

“If he stops by, will you call me? I’m thinking he
might...well, he’s got a pretty busy day today, he gets
distracted. He might forget he needs to call me. Or his phone might
be dead. Will you call me if you see him?”

“Sure thing, Mister K.”

“By the way, you haven’t noticed anyone strange visiting
my wife, have you?” Shanice shakes her head no, and I thank
her.

I enter Wendy’s darkened room and take a seat next to her bed.
She’s there, no different than she ever is. Air goes in, air
goes out. I take her hand into both of mine and lean close to her
ear.

“Where is he?” I whisper. “Do you know? Can you
tell me?”

Nothing. Her mouth hangs open, her eyes stare without seeing.

“I need him to come home.”

I close my eyes and press my face to her shoulder. I remain still,
this way, and in the stillness is something close to calm. I raise my
head and kiss Wendy’s cheek.

“I’ll find him,” I tell her.

On the highway again
,
Alan points us back toward town and drives at a pace that seems maybe
a little too leisurely for the situation.

“Well,” he says, rolling down the window, “at least
we’ve got ourselves a pretty nice day. Maybe a little cool, but
still very nice. Breezy!”

“That’s great,” I say, staring at the passing
landscape. “Isn’t that great?”

“Just making an observation, Neil.”

My phone rings in my hand—I’ve stopped bothering to put
it in my pocket—with an out-of-state number.

“Mr. K?” a girl’s voice says when I answer. “Hey,
it’s Jill Swart.”

“Jill! How are you?”

“Is something going on with Chris?”

“Have you talked to him? Yes, something is going on with Chris.
Please tell me you’ve talked to him?”

“Um. He kind of told me not to tell you that he called. He said
he figured you would call me. But he was acting weird, so I wanted to
tell you.”

“Do you know where he is?” I wave at Alan and whisper,
“Stop the car, stop the car!” Back to the phone I say,
“What do you mean, ‘acting weird’?”

“He told me he wasn’t at home. And maybe weird isn’t
the right word. He was just really, really mad.”

“Did he tell you why?”

“Yeah. He’s…um.”

“He’s what? Jill, please, I am so worried, you can’t
even understand how worried I am. This is not like him. Is he coming
to see you?”

“God, no. His car wouldn’t make the trip here, I don’t
think. But he talked about….”

“But he talked about what? Jill, tell me, please.”

“He talked about like…well maybe this is the weird part.
He talked about being a chef? I mean, he was really upset and
rambling and he talked about that and he said he hates Western
Michigan and he feels like you keep pressuring him to go there. But
mostly he was really upset about you. And that was it. I swear.”

“Do you have any idea where he is? Or was?”

“No, it was really noisy. It was kind of hard to hear him. And
he was sort of rambling.”

“Okay, Jill. Thank you. If you talk to him again, please tell
him to call me. Tell him I’m not angry with him, I just want
him to call me so I know he’s okay.”

“I will, Mr. K. I think he’s all right. Just mad.”

We hang up, and I stare at my phone.

“What’s up?” Alan asks.

“Hold on,” I say. I dial Michael, and he answers
breathlessly.

“Dude, I was seriously starting to call you right this second.
I just got off the phone with Chris.”

“Where is he?”

“He wouldn’t tell me. And he pretty much commanded me not
to talk to you. So don’t tell him we talked.”

“Fine, fine! Mike, what did he say?”

“He said he thinks he wants to go to culinary school—”

“That’s great, he can do that, where
is
he
though?”

“Wait a second, he said he wants to start right away. I told
him he needs a high school diploma or at least a GED—”

“What is he doing, Mike? Is he driving to Chicago?”

“I asked him, and he wouldn’t say. He asked me if he
could crash on my couch, I told him he could but we needed to talk to
you about it first.”

I feel panic rising through me again.

“Okay, Michael. If he just…shows up or something, keep
him there, okay?”

“You got it.”

Mike clicks off, and I think I’m starting to hyperventilate.

“Neil,” Alan says.

“Hold on, hold on.” I feel like I can’t swallow,
and I dial Lauren, but get her voicemail. “He’s going to
Chicago,” I say after the beep. “I think he’s
running away to Chicago!” I turn to Alan after ending the call.
“Let’s go back to the orchard. Maybe I do need to call
the cops. Oh, Christ.”

Alan puts the truck into gear, and we start back toward Port Manitou.
We go through Old Town, and past the commercial docks and municipal
marina, and Alan slows. He’s looking at something to our right,
the side of the street opposite the waterfront and Lauren’s
condo complex.

“There’s his car,” Alan says with complete
nonchalance, pointing as he turns into a parking lot. Chris’s
Volvo is parked at the back of the lot, behind a Dumpster. I have no
idea how Alan managed to spy it back there, but I have the truck door
open and I’m out on the pavement before we come to a stop.

“Come on, come on, Chris, where are you?” His car is
locked and I press my hands to the glass to look inside. It’s
clean, like it always is, and nothing seems amiss. It’s then
that notice the pair of signs high on the building we’re next
to. Two signs, one over the other. A thousand times or more I’ve
driven past here, and I’ve never noticed these dingy signs
before. The upper one says
Western Union Money Grams
.

The lower one says
Greyhound Bus
.

My jaw hangs slack. “He took…he took the bus?”

I dash to the front of the building and inside the terminal. “Hey,”
I shout, and the two people inside, plus the woman behind the
counter, look at me like I am clinically insane.

“Have you…have any of you seen a kid? A tall kid? My
son…he’s….”

They all shake their heads, staring at me. Alan comes in and grabs me
by the shoulders.

“Come on,” he tells me. “Let’s get back home
and we’ll figure this out.”

I don’t speak at
all during the drive home. I can’t speak. I’m not sure
what troubles me more: the fact that my son has run away, or the fact
that my son has possibly run away on a Greyhound bus.