Going Home - Chapter 4

My mother was putting food on the table when I got back home. I tried to hide how much discomfort I was in as I washed up and sat at the table while she put out food. Between walking from the bus stop and my walk down Main Street, I knew I’d pushed myself too hard and I didn’t feel like an ‘I told you so’ lecture.

I wasn’t the type that just liked to sit around in one place, to the point where I didn’t often make it through watching an entire game without getting antsy, so sitting with my leg up felt like torture. The pain started to dull after I sat for a little bit watching her and my Dad go through their getting ready for dinner ritual, so I probably didn’t do any real damage. I just needed to maybe take it a little easier from now on, if for nothing else to guarantee I stayed on this crutch for the least amount of time.

Dad sat down, staring blankly at his hands, waiting for Mom to put down the last of the food and join us, just like he’d done my entire life. There wasn’t any small talk and we basically just sat there quietly, waiting. Say what you will about Dad, he respected Mom and he’d drilled into me from when I was young that we didn’t start dinner without her. The few times I’d tried to rebel against that as a kid had earned me a swift smack on the back of the head and a few foodless nights in my room. I guess the lesson had stuck, since I didn’t even think of reaching to the plates already on the table until Mom sat down and scooted in her chair.

“How was your walk?” Mom asked once she sat down, always being the one to start dinner time conversation.

“Not bad. A lot of stores have closed up since the last time I was down there.”

“Times have been a little tough,” Mom, always the optimist, said. “They’ll come back when things get better.”

“Companies have been cutting jobs for ten damn years,” Dad mumbled through his roll. “Even when the economy’s been good. Moving folks out to Montana or getting rid of them. Jobs ain’t coming back.”

“Last time I talked to Jolene, she said she’d heard there was a furniture company that was thinking about opening up a small thing up here.”

“That’ll be the day,” Dad grumbled, basically ending that topic.

After a minute of silence I said, “I ran into Evan Farmer.”

“Ohh, that’s nice,” Mom said, not making eye contact.

Although it wasn’t particularly fair to Evan, she’d blamed most of my youthful indiscretions on him, and clearly hadn’t forgiven him for any of them yet. Of course, that was partially my fault I’d since I hadn’t said anything while she’d added to his tally of misdeeds. It was easier letting him take the blame than dealing with her scorn.

“He said he got moved to day shift,” I said, turning to Dad.

While Dad had never defended Evan, he hadn’t placed the same amount of blame on him, since he’d been the one to deal with the sheriff and others when we’d gotten into trouble, and seen just how much of it I’d really been responsible for.

Instead of his normal silence, he grumbled and half rolled his eyes at Evan’s name, saying, “Of course he did. Easier to cause trouble on day shift.”

“He’s been causing trouble?”

“One of managements ‘bully-boys,’” Dad said sarcastically.

“Really?” I said, surprised, even though it explained some things.

Dad had a vendetta against the company and what he and some of the other guys called ‘bully-boys’ for years. Generally, they left the day-to-day stuff up to the mine foreman and the other supervisors, which were guys who got their position out of merit as much as seniority, since an incompetent person in those positions could cost the company a lot of money, which was the one thing they found truly important.

Occasionally, though, the company would need some sort of dirty work done that guys who made supervisor wouldn’t be willing to do. Roughing up undesirable employees, getting rid of protestors, and occasionally helping break strikes. This far out, it didn’t make sense to bring in outsiders who wouldn’t know all of the ins and outs, so Dixon tended to find a handful of current employees with more flexible morals than the rest. In exchange for favorable treatment, they’d occasionally get ‘suggestions’ from management to do whatever the company couldn’t do officially.

The rest of the guys hated them, but couldn’t actually do anything about them, which led to all sorts of animosity. Worse, from Dad’s point of view as one of the older guys still on the books, most of the bully-boys wanted to be on the easier day shift, which meant he had to deal with them more than the younger guys, which made them his favorite topic of conversation.

“I’d wondered how he’d gotten on day shift after less than ten years on the job. I’m surprised, though. He wasn’t ever one of those kinds of guys in school.”

“A thug? Sure he was.”

“Come on. He could be rough sometimes, but he wasn’t a bad guy.”

Both Mom and Dad gave me looks before Mom said, “Evan has always been a problem child, and a bad influence on you. Just look at how much better you did once you got away from him.”

“That’s not really fair, Mom. I was as much of a problem child as he ever was. Just cause I grew up doesn’t mean I wasn’t a jerk back then.”

“Mmm,” she murmured, clearly not buying it, before changing the topic like she did every time things got contentious. “So, we haven’t really talked about it. How are you handling everything?”

“Fine, I guess. I didn’t really love the job, so losing it isn’t that big of a loss, except I have to figure out what I want to do next. As for Terri, that had been falling apart for a while. I’m pissed at her, but not really sad she’s gone, either.”

Mom, who’d never liked Terri, left that part alone and focused on the job part, saying, “Do you have any ideas of what you’re going to do?”

“No. I mean, my degree with no work experience, basically the only thing I’m qualified for is being a gym teacher.”

“I think Orville Cross might be hiring. Did you hear he’s sheriff?”

“Yeah, I heard. It’s wild, but I don’t want to be a cop again. It sucked the life out of me.”

“It’ll be different out here than the city and Orville’s a good man and you two knew each other in school.”

I didn’t want to point out how terrible I’d been to him and that Orville would probably want nothing to do with me. While there were parts I’d enjoyed, I’d been serious when I’d said I didn’t really ever want to be a cop again, so it didn’t really matter one way or another. I also knew from her tone that Mom would keep arguing if I kept saying no.

“I’ll think about it,” I said instead.

She knew that meant no, but she at least let it drop. She tried out a few equally as undesirable employment choices before finally letting the entire topic go and switching to sharing the latest gossip she’d heard from her friends, which is what she always did when Dad and I’d made it clear we weren’t eager to participate in the conversation anymore.

Mom hated eating in silence, and if we weren’t going to join in, then she’d just use us as sounding boards to let her gossip out where it’d do the least harm. I had to give it to her, it was a much more well-adjusted strategy than the ones other housewives had, since Dad and I didn’t really care about the drama and never really spread it beyond the dinner table. It also worked out well for her, since it gave the rest of her friends the impression that she was great at keeping secrets, and made her the go-to source for all of their gossip. By now, she had the system finely tuned. When it came to gossip, she was a strategic genius.

The next month was spent just kind of … existing. I had my severance and, because I was at my parents, wasn’t spending much, although I did feel bad enough about mooching that I chipped in for groceries and was planning on giving Mom some money to help with the bills.

I was getting enough in my severance that I could have afforded rent for my own place, but I was hesitant because the severance would eventually stop and I wanted to have a new job first. Besides, I didn’t want to actually stay here, which made the idea of being locked down to even a six-month lease unappealing.

I’d sent out some resumes to major towns I thought wouldn’t be completely awful to live in, but there hadn’t really been a theme to any of them. I’d applied for a couple of sales jobs that looked like they paid okay, although seemed totally soul crushing, and a few positions where they’d used so much business-speak and were so circumspect that it wasn’t even clear what I’d be doing.

I’d also started looking into coaching jobs in a couple of cities, but so far the steps I’d have to take before I even applied was causing me to hesitate. Each state had its own licensing for teachers that I’d have to go through to get my teaching certificate and it was late in the semester for public schools, which meant there wouldn’t be an actual job for almost six months. I was saving enough now that even without my severance I would have enough to bridge the gap until I started getting paid, but that meant I’d need to stay here until it was time to move to wherever I got the coaching job, so I didn’t eat through that money in the meantime.

A month of living with my parents as an adult was enough of a hit to my self-esteem, especially with the looks Dad had started giving me, that I didn’t think I could make it that long as a dead beat.

In the end, it was all starting to feel like a trap. They didn’t want to stay here any longer than absolutely necessary, but the absolutely necessary amount of time I’d need to stay here to get a job I was qualified for was longer than I wanted to stay here.

Ultimately, I decided to try and have it all. I picked Texas, which had fairly lax licensing requirements, mostly to try and shorten the process, and applied for a few school districts. I’d worried that, since I didn’t have any experience, I’d have some problems but either they were really hard up for teachers or the combination cop and ex-pro football player looked good on paper, because I’d already had several reach out. Of course, all of the positions had to wait until basically August at the earliest before I could start, which meant I’d need to stay here for four more months.

I also had to get my teacher certification first, which meant studying and doing homework to prepare for the online test I’d have to take. If staying at my parents’ house wasn’t enough of a punch in the ego, doing homework in my childhood bedroom certainly was. I very nearly took a job as a ‘marketing contractor’ that I was pretty sure was actually a scam run out of Africa, just to escape the personal hell I’d found myself in.

After that first night, I only occasionally managed to get out for walks. I wished I could go every night, if only to pretend I wasn’t in my current condition, but each time I was barely able to get out of bed the next morning because my leg hurt so badly. I’d then spend the next week babying my leg so I could get start moving around again until it started feeling almost normal, or as normal as it did at all while still recovering from the surgery. As soon as it felt back to normal, I’d go back out for another walk, and start the cycle all over again.

I mostly confined my walks to Main Street, maybe stopping to eat at one of the local places or drink at the Hole in the Wall, but tonight I decided to range a bit further. The longer I stayed in my old house, and in my old room, the more nostalgic I felt for the old days. After my weekly lecture from Mom about why I shouldn’t go out walking and how I’d just end up in pain for a week, I drove past Main Street and turned down Oak Ridge towards the high school.

The rush of memories and emotions as I pulled into the parking lot was a little overwhelming. A lot of the town might have changed, but the school was exactly as I remembered it. Parking, I got out and walked up to the fence that separated out the football field, looking at where I’d had some of the greatest nights of my life. If I could almost hear the cheers of the crowds and see the lights shining down on a Friday night.

I couldn’t help but laugh at myself, standing here, reliving my glory days while still living in my childhood home. I was a caricature of the high school jock that peaked in high school and then burned out. All that was left was to get a job flipping burgers and I’d be ready to become a living cautionary tale.

Shaking my head at the state of things, I turned and hobbled away from the field, back towards the parking lot. I thought it might be a nice change to see this all again, but now that I was here, it just amped up the negative feelings I’d had. I was almost to my car when I looked across the street at the small strip center where we’d spent so much time. There was the florist that seemed to make its money selling corsages and homecoming mums to college kids, a small book store that I don’t think I’d ever stepped foot in, and little coffee place where we used to go and get pastries and drinks after school.

Or that was what should have been there. It looked exactly the same, except the sign had changed. Instead of ‘the coffee spot’ sign that had called kids for years, the sign now just said ‘Rositas.’ I stood by the car for a moment, trying to work out if they were still a coffee spot when I saw someone come out with a brown bag that looked like it had fast food in it and get into the only car in the parking lot.

Mom was making cabbage and potato soup, which I loathed, and I was curious, so I decided to hobble my way across the street and see what had become of my favorite high school hangout.

As soon as I pushed through the door, I could smell tacos. I’d been to enough bodegas and small taco stands in New York that I was intimately familiar with the smells, and this seemed to be a particularly good version of it.

What I could see of the restaurant wasn’t that much different than when it had been a coffee place, which I guess wasn’t that surprising considering what they had to work with.

“Hello,” the woman behind the counter said.

She was clearly not from West Virginia, which in a small town like this, made her unusual. She had jet black hair, a dark tan complexion, and a very noticeable accent I’d heard many times before.

“Hi,” I said, making my way up to the counter. “I saw the sign from across the street and wandered over to see what this was. I used to live here a long time ago and it was a coffee place back then.”

“Yes. Annabelle sold me the place about a year ago so she could move to Florida and retire.”

At the mention of the name, the face of the old lady that used to run the coffee shop flashed into memory. I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me before, because she’d seemed ancient when I’d been in school. The fact that she’d kept the shop open this long was honestly a miracle, when I thought about it.

“I see. How did you end up buying it? Sorry, that came out rude. I just meant I can’t remember any Puerto Rican’s living in Buxton before and, way out here in the middle of nowhere, it’s not really the kind of place people stumble upon.”

“How’d you know I’m Puerto Rican?”

“I recognized your accent. I moved back from New York and there’s a really big Puerto Rican community. The guy who ran the corner bodega near my house was from Puerto Rico and he had the same accent.”

“You lived in New York and then moved back here? That’s quite the change.”

“It really is, but I think I asked you first.”

She gave me a considering look and I thought for a second she was going to tell me it was none of my business, which would have been fair, I guess, before she gave herself a small half shrug, as if saying ‘screw it’ to herself.

“My brother was in the army with a guy who was from here. They were best friends or whatever and his friend talked Tommy into moving here when they both got out. Tommy hated living in Puerto Rico and swore he was going to live on the mainland when he could, so he was all for it. He even bought some land when they were both on leave and they were making plans of starting some kind of business. They both died when their truck hit a land mine, or whatever, and Tommy left me the land in his will. I was kind of just, existing, back home and thought I owed it to Tommy to see his dream through for him, so I packed up and moved here. I had some money and Tommy left me most of his savings, and I got a real good deal on this place. I figured everyone likes tacos and with the high school across the street, there would be lots of customers when school was in, so I bought it. Now you know my whole story.”

“How long have ago did you open?”

“Not long. Just after Christmas. Early enough that I was able to make money from the school before summer started. Annabelle had warned me to prepare for the ‘off season’ as she called it, since when school wasn’t in, I’d make a lot less money, so I wanted to get a few months of ‘in season’ in before summer started.”

“I bet you did great. The food smells wonderful.”

She looked around for a second, again considering and said, “Tell you what, it’s slow and I was a little bored. I’ll give you a plate of tacos if you sit down and tell me how you ended up back here. Deal?”

“Deal,” I said.

The food really did smell great and she was seemed nice, even if I’d started off a little rudely. Spending some time talking with her and eating tacos was a big step up from going home to cabbage soup or drinking with borderline alcoholics at the Hole in the Wall.

She went into the back while I paced around the small dining area, looking the place over. Even though there wasn’t a lot in the way of decor, it still felt really different from when this a coffee shop. Back then, there were shelves with coffee-related paraphernalia, only for display, and random trinkets the owner had picked up over the years. Thinking back on how I remember it looking, I’m surprised I didn’t find it old and stuffy, like I’d always imagined a bread and breakfast would look. Instead, I just remember the place feeling cozy

The new setup didn’t feel any less cozy, just different. Gone were the old lady nick-knacks and random collection of coffee cups. Instead, there were a few signs in Spanish that I assumed were from her hometown, a menu board with the day’s specials, and a glass frame with medals and unit patches that I assumed must have been her brothers. I’d never served, so I only recognized a few of them, but there were several, so he must have been a good soldier. A lot of guys on the force were ex-military and they’d occasionally explain something when it came up in conversation, which helped a little in identifying what I was looking at.

I recognized the two purple-hearts, which meant he’d been wounded once before his death, since I was pretty sure you couldn’t get two for one incident, and the combat infantry pin, which meant he’d seen active-duty ground combat.

With the medals and unit patches was a small picture of a Hispanic guy in uniform who I assumed was her brother next to a white guy who I didn’t recognize. That was probably his best friend, who’d convinced him to move here after their service. He would have been four or five years older than me, so I wasn’t surprised I didn’t know him. Buxton was a small town, but it still had about two thousand people so it was impossible to know literally everyone, and I would have been a little kid when he was in high school.

“That’s Tommy and James,” Rosita’s voice said from behind me.

I turned to find her with two plates, each holding three tacos, the steam still rising off of them. She sat the plates at a table near the framed memorial and motioned for me to sit down with her.

“He looks like a good guy.”

“He was the best. I looked up to him my whole life. Thought I wanted to be just like him.”

“Did that include wanting to join the army?”

“Yes, but Tommy forbid it. But, you have me talking about myself again. I thought the deal was food for your story. I brought the food …”

I hadn’t even realized I’d started probing again, but her life was so much different than mine, I really wanted to know more about how she ended up here. I picked up one of the tacos and took a bite while thinking of what to say. It was delicious. It was some kind of pork, I thought, cut up small and cooked until the outsides were almost crispy, but the inside was still juicy. The tortilla wasn’t that flavorless white disk you got at fast food places. It was smaller and had a thick taste to it, almost like what I remembered from tamales. It didn’t overpower the meat or the green salsa she’d put on it. Instead, everything melded together into this burst of flavor.

“Wow, these are amazing.”

“Thank you. I make it all here from scratch every day. But I think you may be stalling.”

“I promise I wasn’t. I was just hungry and these things knocked me for a loop. I think you asked why I moved back here after living in New York.”

“Yes. Don’t get me wrong, I like the town, but New York has all of the museums and shows and stuff happening all the time. It must be very exciting.”

“A little too exciting. I was a police officer and got medically retired after a ten-year-old shot me in the leg,” I said, pointing to the crutches.

“My God, that’s horrible.”

“Tell me about it. My wife had just left me, I was out of a job and couldn’t walk, so it seemed best to move back here for a little bit while I figured out what I was going to do.”

“You didn’t like being a policeman?”

“I liked parts of it, but it wasn’t what I grew up wanting to do or anything. When I was helping people, it was great. I felt like I was doing stuff, but other days it was getting yelled at for just doing my job. I’d be ordered to direct people away from a street or something because of construction or a parade, and they’d bust my balls … excuse me, they’d yell at me for not getting their way. Getting shot by the little kid though, that was the last straw. I don’t want to ever be in a situation where I have to decide between getting shot or shooting a child to save my life.”

“That sounds terrible. I hadn’t even considered that. I can see why you don’t want to be police anymore.”

“It’s not just being a cop. That’s what New York was like all the time. Sometimes it was great, but other times you’d see the worst parts of humanity just walking down the street. I grew up here and am a small-town boy at heart. I just don’t think I have it in me to live in the big city, no matter how much culture they have to offer.”

“I can see that. I guess, never having lived anywhere but my small town in Puerto Rico and here, I can only imagine New York as a place I’ve seen on TV and not how it really is. You said you were married?”

“Yep, six years, and one of them was good. We were high school sweethearts and she had big hopes of me becoming a famous football player. We went to the same college and got married right after we graduated. I got signed and she thought it was the beginning of the dream, and then I blew out my knee in my first game and that was it. After that we kind of just held on out of habit more than anything else. I guess her feelings for me went when the dream did, until she decided she’d found someone better to hook up with. She actually handed me the divorce papers the night before I got shot.”

“She sounds awful. I couldn’t imagine marrying someone who only wanted to be with me because they thought I could give them something.”

“It wasn’t all bad and I really did love her, and I’m pretty sure she loved me. What is it they say, high school romances never work out? We got to know each other as kids, and just grew apart, I guess. She’d probably give you a different story if you asked her. I have to go back to New York next month to sit down with the lawyers.”

“Did you say you played for the NFL?”

“Sort of. I got drafted out of college and they were giving their new players a shot at playtime during a pre-season game. I went out, played my first down, and a two-hundred and seventy-pound lineman shattered my leg to the point they had to put in a plate to keep the bone together. It healed up enough to walk, and even run, but not to play at that level. I never even made it to the actual season. The thing about major sports teams, they can make you famous, but as soon as they have no use for you, they just throw you out with the trash. They paid for my medical bills, paid the out clause in my contract, and that was it, I didn’t play sports anymore. Terri, that was my wife, wanted to stay in New York, so we started looking for work. My leg healed up and a guy I knew suggested I apply to the police academy, so I did. I was on the street for two years when the kid shot me and I ended up back where I started.”

“You have to keep reinventing yourself. A football player. A policeman. Now something else. I think it would be hard to keep having to figure out who you are every couple of years. Wasn’t there something you really wanted to be when you were a kid?”

“I thought I wanted to be a football player, but I think I just wanted people to like me. Don’t get me wrong, I loved playing the game, but I’m not sure I ever got real happiness out of it. The police thing was just something to do so I could stay in New York.”

“So, what are you going to do now?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out. I spent too much time partying and living it up in school, but I did make it out with a kinesiology degree. That’s good enough to go be a high school coach somewhere, especially with my football background.”

“Do you want to be a coach?” she asked.

Weirdly, I realized that was the first time anyone, including myself, asked that questions. It seemed like the only option to me, so I’d been pursuing it, but I hadn’t stopped to consider if that’s what I really wanted to do.

“Honestly, I don’t know,” I said, eating another taco and staring at her brothers’ medals, thinking. “I don’t really think so. It just seemed like the option I had left.”

“Do you think that deciding who you’re going to be, just because it’s the option you see, is the best thing to do? I’d be worried I’d end up doing something I hated, or having to start over once again.”

“I don’t know. Like I said, I really hadn’t considered it. I guess my only concern is, if I don’t do that, then what do I do?”

“Instead of asking yourself ‘what do I do’ you should ask yourself ‘what do I want to do.’”

“That’s not a bad idea. I guess the only thing I know is I don’t want to stay in Buxton.”

“See, that’s what you don’t want to do, not what you …” She started to say before the phone rang. “One sec.”

She got up and reached over the counter to answer the phone.

“Rosita’s,” she said. “Yes … maybe thirty minutes… ohh, then closer to forty … yes … yes … okay, we’ll see you in forty minutes.”

As she leaned over the counter, talking I couldn’t help letting my eyes drift over her. It had been hard to see, behind the counter wearing the apron, but she was an attractive woman. Not rail thin like Terri had always kept herself. She was a woman and had a woman’s body, with wide hips and, from what I could see, amazing curves. As physically attractive as I realized she was, I also realized that what I really wanted was to just talk to her some more. She was almost magnetic with how she drew me in as we talked, getting me to say a lot more than I planned and her voice was almost musical. Honestly, I think I could have heard her read the phonebook and been completely enthralled.

She hung up the phone and turned around, I think catching me checking her out as I quickly looked away.

“That’s a pretty big order and it’s going to take me some time to make, so I’m going to have to cut this short. I appreciate you keeping me company though.”

“No problem, I really enjoyed it and the tacos were wonderful. Maybe I can come back and we can talk again.”

“I think I’d like that,” she said, giving me a little smile as she picked up our plates and went back into the kitchen.

Walking back across the street, I didn’t feel the sense of failure and dread that had plagued me since I’d come to Buxton.