Wayward

CHAPTER EIGHT

"You know I have to tell them." A shadow sliced across Pete's face. It was only them, the lights of passing cars and the road. They would be home soon.

"You don't have to."

"If your mother ever found out I let that happen... well, let's just say she's not exactly a fan of mine to begin with." Pete scratched an imaginary blemish on the steering wheel. Jim would tell him it didn't matter. He had to. "What were you doing out there anyway?"

"I was looking for - I don't know what. Something."

"What kind of something?"

He wasn't sure how much to tell. "Just someplace else." He felt Pete's eyes boring on him.

"What's going on with you Jim? You haven't told me what happened to your tie." He thought of the ugly yellow tie. It had probably already sunk into the mud. He wished he never had to wear one again.

"Does it matter?" His cheeks felt hot.

The storm was worse now. The wipers swished against the windshield in a fervor. Jim could only see a couple hundred feet ahead of the car. His feet ached inside his shoes. There were still globules of dirt jammed up against the heel.

"Did someone take your tie? One of the other kids?"

"No, they didn't."

"You can tell me. I just want to talk," Pete said. Jim stared at the colored lines on the street and said nothing. The truck rumbled across the road. Okay fine. You don't have to talk. But listen. I might know something about what you're feeling. I mean look at me. How I live."

"You have a place."

"Do you know how hard it is to get your mom to even let me spend time with you?"

"I didn't think it was that big a deal."

"It is. She's afraid."

"Of what?"

"I don't know. Of you being like me."

Silence.

"I'm not different from everyone else," Jim said. "I don't want to be."

The truck bumped over something and shifted.

"It isn't a bad thing."

"It is a bad thing."

"It isn't. You just have to dial it back a little bit. Float under the radar. It works. It worked for me."

"I'm not like you though. You know yourself. You drive this truck and don't have a screen and I'm just not like that."

Right when Pete opened his mouth to say something a figure appeared in front of the car. They went off the road and up became down and Jim's ears were filled with the sounds of crashing, wrenching metal that seemed like they would never stop. The edges of his vision grew dark. He watched neon-tinted raindrops slide down the cracked window until his eyes shut.

###

Everything was black. His eyes were covered. He recognized his mother's voice. His father was there too.

"He shouldn't have been driving," his mother said.

"It isn't his fault," his father said.

"I'm the one who got him the truck. It's as much my fault as his."

"I told you I didn't trust him," she said. "I told you."

"That isn't fair."

Jim wanted them to stop. He was okay. He was safe. His body felt the way your foot feels when it falls asleep. It occurred to him that he could speak.

"Mom, Dad," he said. "It was Fritz. I saw Fritz."

His mother cried.

###

He watched his uncle's truck get crushed flat. The undercarriage of the vehicle spilled out from beneath it like overflowing guts. His father and his mother and uncle were all there. His mother pursed her lips tight. She said nothing, but she watched. His father put a hand over his uncle's shoulder. Pete's arm was wrapped in a sling. Jim had a few bandages of his own, but nothing serious.

"It's a damn shame," his father said.

###

A few days later, his father dragged the knife through the big box, splitting the tape in two. He pried open the cardboard flaps like a kid opening a Christmas present. Jim put some ice on his shoulder, where the purple bruise had begun to spread towards his chest.

"What is it?"

"Look at you," he whispered. His voice was dripping with awe.

"What is it Dad?"

"Eyes," he said. "And ears."

He held the smooth cylindrical device into the air, inspecting it in the light. Styrofoam peanuts sprinkled onto the floor. It was a smooth cylinder - simple at first glance. A closer look revealed that beneath a transparent surface, there were small, openings - lenses.

"It can see?"

"Sort of. It's like a sensor." His father held the cylinder in his palm and rotated it with the other hand. It spun like a top. "600 RPM. So it can see in every direction." He set it back in the box like he was laying a newborn down in a crib. Jim followed him to his tool bench, where he tipped one edge of a metal frame off the desk. "Get the other end of this, will you?"

It was light and easy to maneuver. They placed it atop the car, aligning it with some holes his father had pre-drilled into the body of the vehicle.

"You're adapting it, aren't you?"

While his father shored up the holes, Jim ran a hand along the vehicle.

"I guess you could say that, yeah."

"It's the only way it can survive?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Mr. Schreiber. He says things have to adapt to survive."

His father examined the look in his son's eyes. "It's not survival. I mean, it's a car."

"Pete's car didn't make it."

His father frowned. "I guess that's true."

###

Jim was the only one in school without a colored tie. They had to order a new one and it wouldn't arrive for a few more days. No one seemed in any hurry to help him get one, but Jim felt that he was completely out of place. Everywhere he went he received sideways glances from people who knew where they belonged. People surrounded by their color.

He worked his way through his classes, thinking of his uncle's advice before the crash. Fly below the radar. His mother was more strict than ever. She wanted to know where he was going, what he was doing and she asked him about his Life Track every day. She told him that it wasn't about what he wanted. It was about doing something challenging and following through. He asked her if she liked what she did and she'd changed the subject.

More and more, he found himself thinking of Red and his rites.

That night, he lay awake in his bed, staring at the ceiling and trying to imagine what the stars looked like. He thought about Red's voice and the light of the campfire that splashed against the walls of the pass - that scarce, auburn light. Some day soon even the memory would be distant.