Going Home - Chapter 3

I spent the next several days going through all of my options. I couldn’t get another job for at least two months, and even then, I wasn’t sure what job I could end up with. The only two jobs I’d ever had were playing football and being a police officer, and I couldn’t do either anymore.

I had managed to get a degree while playing at OU, but I’d done what a lot of guys who thought they’d be playing football and would never actually need a degree did. I went for something easy instead of something that could actually be useful. In my case, I’d gotten a degree in kinesiology, which with a teaching certificate meant I could be a gym teacher, but I’d never bothered to get the teaching certificate, since it didn’t seem to matter at the time.

There was only one choice really left to me, and it was almost bad enough to make me go crawling back to the lieutenant, begging for my job back. Almost.

Instead, I spent the rest of the next two weeks finding someone to sublet my place and arranging to uproot my life. In that respect at least, Terri did me a favor; since she left pretty much nothing besides my clothes, so I didn’t have to ship a bunch of stuff home.

Seventeen days after I’d been shot and fifteen days after I’d gotten fired to make someone’s budget sheet look right, I was back in West Virginia. I was standing in front of the small, two-story house I’d grown up in. When I’d been a kid, this place had seemed like a castle. My dad had picked it up in the early seventies when the housing prices in the area took a giant nose dive before bouncing back in the early eighties. My room had been on the second floor and there’d been this old tree whose big branches reached almost to my window.

I’d tried to make the jump for it one day when I was around ten, and missed it completely, breaking my leg when I landed. I didn’t realize at the time that would become my trademark.

Looking at it now, the house seemed so narrow, about the same width as a New York brownstone, but made out of wood and plank with a fenced-in porch out front instead of bricks with a cement stoop. I hadn’t been back since my Senior year of college, and everything seemed smaller than I remembered it. It also seemed more older, more run-down than I remembered.

The front yard had gone from this field where I could play catch with my friends, to a couple of small brownish patches of mostly dead grass. Intellectually, I knew it was the same size and I was the one who’d gotten bigger, but memory is a funny thing. Uber wasn’t a thing out here and any cab company would have charged an arm and a leg to pick me up from the airport and drive me the almost two hours to Buxton. Thankfully, small as it was, the town rated a Greyhound stop at the post office on the edge of main street, so I’d had options. My leg was screaming at me after hobbling the mile out of town to my parent's place, and I was sure mom would raise all kinds of hell when she found out I’d taken the bus instead of having dad pick me up, but I just couldn’t take that long car ride alternating between answering questions I didn’t feel like answering and awkward silences.

Here, at least, I could escape when things got too bad. I squared my shoulders, readying myself, and limped through the small, chain fence that boxed in the tiny yard and up the steps. Mom had always had bat-like hearing when it came to the front porch and had some kind of deep psychological aversion to letting someone get close enough to push the doorbell before she made it out the front door. She’d apparently still had the gift, because the front door popped open by the time I made it to the second step.

“Henry, what are you doing here? Why didn’t you call when you landed? I’d asked you to send me your flight itinerary. Did you take the bus and walk out?”

I suppressed a sigh. I knew she meant it from a place of love, but whenever things weren’t going the way she felt they should, she went into overdrive.

“It wasn’t that far of a walk. The doctor said I needed to try and move around some every day, to keep it from scarring up too bad, anyway.”

“Moving around some and walking a mile down the side of a road are not the same thing, and you know it.”

“You’re right,” I said, knowing that if I told her the real reason I didn’t want to be picked up, it would be a whole new set of hysterics. “I’m tired and just want to lay down. Can we put this off till later?”

She put her hands on her hips and pursed her lips, the warring impulses to get me to admit I was wrong and should have done as I was told fighting against her ingrained nature to take care of everyone around her.

“Fine. Just next time let’s try and communicate better. I put fresh sheets on your bed and dinner won’t be ready for an hour. Go wash up and lay down, and I’ll get you when it’s ready. Do you think you can make it up the stairs okay?”

“Yeah. I had to go up and down the stairs at my brownstone as I was packing up, so I’ve gotten some practice. I just have to take it slow,” I said, making my way up the rest of the steps.

She gave one final disapproving look before pulling me down to her level so she could give me a hug. I will say, one of the great things about my mom is that, while she could get annoyed with me easily, she didn’t hold grudges and moved on from her annoyance pretty quickly.

“I’m glad you’re home, Henry.”

“Thanks. I won’t be for long. I just have to figure out my next move and I’ll be out of your hair.”

“Stay as long as you need. You know your father and I are here for you.”

“Thanks,” I said.

She opened the screen door to let me through. Everything was almost exactly as I remembered it. The door led into the front part of the house, with the left half set up as a dining room with an old wood table that mom had gotten before I was born. It wasn’t fancy, but it also wasn’t the plywood piece of crap Terri and I’d gotten from Ikea. I’d fallen into it a few times over the years roughhousing with friends, and the table always came out better than I did in the exchange.

The right side was the living room, with dad’s recliner smack dab in the middle of the room, facing the TV, with a couch positioned so it kind of separated the living room off from the pathway leading to the back of the house and the dining room. Dad was in his recliner as usual, watching Sports Nation, which basically played on a repeated loop throughout the day, adding in new stuff segments as news broke. It was March on a Wednesday, so there wasn’t much in breaking news, which meant he’d probably seen everything once or twice already, but it didn’t matter. For him, it was almost a meditative experience as anything else.

“Henry,” he said in acknowledgement.

“Hey, Dad. How’s the mine?”

“Bud Freeman’s retiring. I think they’re going to make Larry the new shift supervisor.”

I remembered Bud Freeman. Looked mean enough to chew nails, but actually was a pretty nice guy. He’d been dad’s boss for about ten years, ever since beating dad out the last time a supervisor retired. Larry was a guy who started several years after dad did, which meant him getting shift supervisor over dad was a slap in the face. Of course, dad had a long history of saying whatever was on his mind and filtered none of it, which didn’t usually go over well with the higher-ups. I remember when Bud got promoted, dad made the same stink about him kissing all the right ass and being a company man.

“He’s retiring?”

“Has to. Got ‘the cough’ a few years ago and can’t keep up anymore. He’s going to move down with his kid in Florida.”

‘The Cough’ was one of the way miners referred to black lung disease. Most of them had lung damage in various stages caused by years of breathing in coal dust. They had protective gear, but only the rookies ever wore all of it. It was hot and it was difficult to breathe inside all that gear. It made your time in the ground each day feel like an eternity. I’d only worked there one summer when I was sixteen, and that was enough to tell me I never wanted to do it again. Thankfully, coach had convinced Dad I had a future playing ball and working in the mines might cause enough damage to keep me out of the big leagues. Of course, clean lungs didn’t really end up helping me after all, but those were the breaks.

“Damn, I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Yeah. It’s a real shame. Bud was a damn fine supervisor.”

“Yeah,” I said, not really knowing what else to say.

Except for when he felt like giving a lecture, dad and I only really talked about sports, the mine and my school work, and all of it in sort of a superficial way. That was just the kind of guy he was. He didn’t really see the need to spend too much time discussing any one subject, especially in those small windows when he got to relax.

“Henry walked all the way from the bus stop and said he’s tired, so he was going to go up and lie down,” Mom said, both ratting on me and rescuing me at the same time.

“Sure,” he said, and turned his attention back to the TV.

“Go on and get some rest. I’ll call you when dinner’s ready.”

“Thanks.”

She followed me through the door that led into the back of the house and waited as I turned and went up the narrow stairs. I’d always been a little annoyed with them, since I had a pretty wide frame and it sometimes felt like I was being squeezed as I went up and down the stairs. Although I liked to say both of my shoulders could touch the walls of the stairs at the same time, it wasn’t quite that narrow. I was glad they were so narrow now, however, since I could use one crutch to lean on and brace myself against the wall with the other as I slowly made my way up them.

Upstairs the guest bedroom’s door was closed, as always. Mom kept the thing practically hermetically sealed except for those rare occasions we had someone staying the night. I was very clearly forbidden from ever going in there, even when I came back home as an adult. I guess if Terri had ever wanted to stay, we might have gotten to use it, but she’d always refused to stay anywhere that wasn’t the nicest hotel in town, which ruled out staying with my parents. Of course, Buxton’s best hotel was a motor lodge a mile out the other side of town that only got business because it was the only hotel or motel for thirty miles in any direction.

Although it’d never be called luxury accommodations, it apparently rated higher than my parents’ house, because the few times we’d been back, she’d chosen that over staying with family.

The other direction from the stairs led to the room I’d grown up in. Because Terri had always wanted to stay at a motel when we’d visited, I hadn’t been in there except for a few seconds here or there to grab something, since college. Opening the door, it was like taking a time machine back ten years.

It looked like mom still came up here and cleaned occasionally, or at least she had when I’d asked to come home to stay for a bit, since there wasn’t dust anywhere. Other than that, everything was exactly as I’d left it as a teenager. Posters on the wall for bands that I thought were edgy and cool, none of whom were still together, and a few posters of women risqué enough for the teenage brain but clean enough that my mom would let them stay up.

The bookcase, which had been brought in by my dad when they had hopes I’d aspire to be a doctor or a lawyer, had only a handful of books, most unread. Instead, every shelf held a trophy or plaque from the days when I’d thought sports was everything and dreamed of being on the TV Sundays, running down the field to the cheers of fans. As a kid, I’d been so proud of each of these little symbols of victory and could relate how I’d won, or at least contributed to, each one. Looking at them now, most I couldn’t remember, even after reading the name of whatever sports camp or club league they came from.

Everything else in the room was fairly mundane. A dresser, empty now, since what clothes I didn’t take when I’d moved to New York to start my big life in the NFL my mom had sold off at garage sales or given to charities. The same thing for the closet, except for a letterman’s jacket from high school I guess I’d decided I didn’t need any more once I’d gone to college.

My leg was aching and I realized that I really had overdone it walking here, and hobbled over to the bed and lowered myself down on it. It was old and squeaked as I put my weight on it. They’d changed the bed out when I’d hit a big growth spurt just before my freshman year, but even so I didn’t remember the bed being this small. It felt like it could barely hold me, despite my memories of sneaking Terri up here when we were seniors and my parents were out late. We hadn’t lived in a palace or anything in New York, but this room felt so small it made even our tiny apartment feel like a mansion.

I don’t know if it was the flood of memories clashing with the reality of the room around me, or just how small it was, but it felt like the walls were closing in on me as I sat there. I don’t know if it was a panic attack or just all of the pent-up emotions about losing my wife and my job finally coming to the surface, but my chest felt tight and I started having trouble breathing.

Pushing myself up, I wobbled out of the room and paused for a moment before making my way back down the stairs. The mile walk from the bus station hadn’t done enough to clear my head. This tiny room after the cab, plane, and bus I’d been in most of the day was going to drive me crazy. I needed to get out of here and just get some air.

I hobbled my way back downstairs, surprising my mom as she came from the back of the house where the master bedroom was.

“Henry, I thought you were going to take a nap.”

“I’ve been cooped up all day and I need some air. I thought I’d go into town and just look around for a bit, until dinner time.”

“I’m not going to let you walk all the way back on that leg,” she said.

“I was hoping I could borrow your car. I swear I just want some time outside. I’m not actually a masochist.”

“Ohh. Do you want your dad or me to go with you?”

“Since when have you two ever wanted to go with me when I went into town? Seriously, you guys don’t need to treat me like an invalid. I’ll be fine for a little while on my own, I swear.”

“I’m just worried about you, sweetie. You’ve had a rough go of it.”

“I appreciate that, and I appreciate you letting me stay here while I figure some things out; but really, you don’t need to go out of your way. I’ll be fine.”

The look she gave me made it clear she didn’t believe me, but I hadn’t really expected anything else.

“Well, take my car at least. I don’t want you walking all the way there and back. And try to keep from walking around too much. You’ve already put a lot of strain on your leg. You really should be resting.”

“I’ll be fine,” I said again.

She was probably right and I wouldn’t be hurting in the morning, but at that moment I didn’t care. She grabbed her keys out of her purse and handed them to me, then watched as I made my way back through the front of the house and out the door. I swear I could feel her eyes on me as I pulled out of the driveway, but that might have just been my imagination.

Although I’d walked from the bus stop, it was on the very east edge of the main part of town, so I hadn’t actually seen much of it. My parents lived off of country route thirty-nine north of town, which turned into main street after it made a turn west at the corner created when the Peach River made an almost ninety-degree turn, also west.

When I was a kid, the river had usually been full, although even then calling it a river always seemed like a bit of a stretch to me. Now, I’d barely call it a creek with an unusually high bank. It hadn’t been particularly dry the last few years, so there wasn’t really an explanation for why the river had dropped off so much, although the safe bet was Dixon had something to do with it.

Dixon Mining had owned the mines in the area for as long as I could remember, although I’d heard they’d moved a lot of their operations up to Montana somewhere, switching over to fracking as coal became less popular. The mines were still running, but it was anyone's guess how long that could go on. Besides having a prominent place as the major local employer, they also had a bad habit of grabbing up natural resources otherwise used by the people who lived in the area, so if the water was being diverted somewhere, the safe bet was that Dixon was behind it.

I took the corner where thirty-nine became main street and pulled into the Hole In The Wall parking lot. The Hole In The Wall was one of several bars in town, sat next door to the post office, and lived up to its name. I’d honestly been surprised to see it still standing when I’d gotten off the bus, since the place had been falling apart the last time I drank there. I’d been eighteen, but being the football star in a town of two-thousand people had its perks.

I took my crutch out of Mom's car and started my slow progress down the street. Since the town was basically on the side of a mountain, the northern side of the street was raised about five feet off the ground while the southern side was basically even with the street, making for a kind of claustrophobic street. People not used to driving through here either went way too slow, afraid they’d bounce off the cement and stone of the raised sidewalk or drifted so far into the other lane of traffic that they were a danger to everyone else. Not that many strangers ended up driving through downtown Buxton, since there wasn’t much here for people not from the area to visit.

The town had gone through some hard times since I’d left, and a lot of the storefronts I remembered as a kid were now boarded up and empty. It wasn’t so bad that it felt like a ghost town, but it wasn’t far from that, either. The Whistle Pit, a pretty good BBQ joint, was still open, with the wide front patio area still full of tables, getting ready for dinner, although I couldn’t remember any time all of those tables with their folding umbrellas and plastic seats had ever been full.

Some of the places I’d loved like Archie’s, an arcade and basic home to juvenile delinquents was closed, its garish sign gone, and Dillon’s was apparently now a hardware store. I made it to the main cross-street and one stoplight in town, about halfway down the mile stretch of road that made up main street, before it turned into route thirty-nine again, and was deciding if I wanted to keep going or struggle up Oak Ridge towards the first united and the high school when a voice called out behind me.

“Henry?”

I turned and stared at the man who’s spoken, taking several beats to translate the slightly balding man wearing an opened flannel over a filthy white t-shirt into the kid I’d known growing up.

“Evan?” I said, surprised at how time had changed him.

Evan Farmer had been the team's quarterback and my best friend growing up, although we’d grown apart when I got recruited to play college ball and he’d ended up in the mines with his dad. He’d been a decent quarterback, but not good enough to get the kind of scholarship deal that would have gotten him out of Buxton.

Ten years about he’d been thinner, more clean-cut, with a chiseled jaw that the girls had gone crazy for. He wasn’t particularly out of shape, since working in the mines was a good way to burn off fat, but the well-defined muscles he’d spent time in the weight room every day had disappeared, along with the chiseled looks, although there was a chance it was hidden behind the mound of coal dust and dirt that covered every inch of him.

“I’d heard you’d gotten hurt playing ball, but that was years ago. I didn’t realize it was this bad,” he said, motioning to my crutch.

“Nah, this is new. After the injury I became a cop in New York. Got shot in the leg last week and am here recuperating.”

“A cop? Wow, that’s a surprise. Old sheriff Thompson would eat his hat if he heard you wore a badge.”

Evan and I had been local terrors growing up, and it was only our popularity in the community and the place football had in small-town America that kept us out of jail over the years. I wasn't sure if he was just mean or if it was us skating on little things like breaking and entering and arson, neither of which was nearly as bad as the threatened charges made them seem, that made him hate us so much, but he really had it in for Evan and me.

“He’s not still sheriff?” I asked.

Sheriff Thompson had been ancient for my entire life, which made it hard to imagine him still riding around in his SUV yelling at kids.

“No. He had a heart attack a few years after you left. Orville Cross is sheriff, now.”

“Orville? Really?”

Orville was a few years ahead of us, but had been a huge nerd that we’d picked on even two years behind him in school. He lived pretty far out of town where his family had a chicken farm. I couldn’t remember him even coming back in town after he graduated and I hadn’t thought about him in years.

“Yeah. His brother took over the business and I guess he was bored, ‘cause he ran for Sheriff two years ago and won. He’s not so bad, actually. Doesn’t hold grudges from back in the day, and is way less mean than Thompson.”

“That’s good, I guess. Still weird to hear he’s sheriff.”

“I know, tell me about it.”

“So, you’re still in the mines,” I said, gesturing at the general state of him.

“Yeah. Just got on morning crew with your dad, actually. Although I’m down in the pit every day.”

“Still, on morning shift that early is pretty good.”

The morning shift was where most of the old-timers worked. They spent a lot of time getting everything set up and blasting new sections, if it was needed, and generally did way less back-breaking labor that the guys later in the day. To be Evan’s age and get on the morning crew meant he was either very reliable, which would be the biggest change I’d seen yet, or he’d made some friends higher up that had swung easier work for him.

“Yeah, it’s pretty sweet. Five more years and I might be able to make it up into the trailer.”

The trailer was short-hand for where the mine supervisor and the foreman worked when they weren’t in the mine checking on things. Unless he had some very good friends or had something on someone higher up, that would be an even bigger change. Even the guys with decent educations who ended up back in the mines didn’t end up in the trailer, and Evan really didn’t fall into that category.

“You still married to the head cheerleader?”

“Technically yes, at least until the divorce is final.”

“Damn, that’s a shame. You two were out there living the dream and she was always smoking hot. You were like a god, getting into the NFL with her on your arm. I was jealous of you, man.”

“I thought I was one, that’s for sure. Just goes to show you how fast things can turn to shit.”

“I hear ya. So, you back just visiting or what?”

“No, I moved back while I’m figuring things out. The department I worked for was downsizing and they decided with my injury I was a prime candidate to get cut. With Terri leaving I didn’t really have anything keeping me in the city, so I figured I’d come home until I worked out what I’m going to do next.”

“Damn, how the mighty have fallen.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Well, I’m happy you’re around, again. We should get together and catch up. It’s about time the Brewer and Farmer show got back together.”

As the town terrors, we’d had all kinds of names growing up, but the Brewer and Farmer show was what Evan liked to call it when we went out to see what kind of trouble we could get out of.

“I’m not sure either of us are young enough for that again.”

“Yeah, maybe not, but we should still get that beer.”

“Sounds good. I’m out at my parent's and the numbers the same.”

“Awesome. Well, I was meeting some of the boys from the mine down at the 'Hole.' You’re welcome to join us. I can introduce you around.”

“I appreciate it, but I just got back in town today, and you know my mom would throw a fit if I bailed on the first night.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t want to cross her. I’m on shift this week, but I’ll give you a shout next week when I have a day off and we can get together.”

“Sounds good. It was good seeing you, man.”

“You, too,” he said, giving a half-wave with two fingers as he turned and headed off towards the Hole in the Wall.

Evan might look different but he was exactly the same guy I’d remembered from my misspent youth. I cringed at the thought that I might be the same dumb kid who’d tried so hard to get in trouble all those years ago.