Wayward

CHAPTER TEN

Quivering flares of light. He slid his screen back into his pocket.

Lynn didn't bother to tell anyone that she had dropped out, so for a week, a rumor circulated that she'd gone missing. Jim walked by her trampled plants every morning. They had shrivelled and crumbled so much that even a gust of wind could carry pieces of them away. He had taken a deep gulp of air from the respirator that morning. It was going to be a long day.

His head was telling him to move on. Let go of the auction. Let go of thoughts of Red's rites. Let go of Fritz. His head told him the way forward - school, colored ties and hard work. His heart hadn't caught up yet.

Mr. Schreiber paced the lecture hall, droning on about cell structure. Light exploded from his pocket. He tried to cover it, but now there was a man's voice, garbled, trying to escape. He tried to cover it with his hands, but it was too bright. It grew so hot that he cried out and tossed it into the air.

Someone in the classroom screamed in fright.

Every pair of eyes in the room fell on him.

"What the -" Schreiber said.

The screen clattered to the ground, still exhibiting frame by frame pandemonium. Jim held his hands up in surrender, stammering, searching for an explanation, but he didn't have one. The screen shrieked with white noise.

Jim covered his face. Everyone was looking. The boy with no tie was drawing attention again. His palms were dewy with sweat. He was embarrassed. He was ashamed. He was Lynn.

The colors on the screen flashed with vibrant brilliance and the screen projected itself throughout the classroom. Every student in the room was looking at images of some other world. There were fractured glimpses of rushing turquoise waterfalls, hills coated in lush green vegetation, crystalline mountains and sun-kissed rocks. Flashes of wonders that they had never seen before.

He couldn't get it to stop.

His face was lava hot.

It was loud and piercing. He threw it on the ground, hard. It cracked but did not shatter. Then it was silent and he was breathing hard and everyone's eyes seemed to wonder what he would do next.

He left the screen on the floor and got out before he was burned alive under the heat of several-hundred unrelenting stares.

###

That night, the record player stopped spinning and no one could get it to work again.

###

"Jim. You okay?"

It was morning. The screen sat face up on the table, staring at him. There was now a crack that spiderwebbed across it. His hands were shaking enough to make his fork clatter against his plate. "What? Yeah. Yeah, I'm good.

"Look." His father was still standing there with a dirty plate in his hand. "I know it's not an easy day for you." Jim didn't want to look at him. "It isn't an easy day for your uncle either."

"I know."

"Maybe give him a call."

"I know I should."

"It would mean a lot for him to hear from you."

Jim set down his fork and took a gulp of water. The helpless cubes swirled around. "I don't know what to say to him," he said.

His father nodded. "I know," he said. "But things always keep spinning," he said. "They always will."

"Maybe uncle Pete can come work for you."

"He just might."

Jim could already picture it. His favorite place in the world - the last bastion of his childhood - with boarded windows and locked fences. His father washed up, picked up his screen and pulled on his coat.

"I know you wanted to go Jim. Your mom and I -"

"It's okay dad."

"I'm just not sure he's himself right now." His father looked old as he stared through the window. There were wrinkles starting to form around his eyes. They were the wrinkles he got when he smiled. "I'll see you tonight," he said. "The guy should be here to pick up the car tomorrow. Mom's home Wednesday."

"Okay."

He seemed like he wanted to say something more, but he only to shook his head and left, patting Jim's shoulder. He shut the door and Jim was alone.

Through the blinds he watched his father's car disappear down the road. He shot to his feet and threw the rest of his breakfast into the trashcan. He pulled on his shoes and bolted to the garage.

The lightweight metal frame that surrounded the old car wobbled when he shook it. He had loosened it the night before. His father had said it himself. The rotating thing on the top of the vehicle was the car's eyes and ears. He tipped up one edge of the frame and carefully set it on the garage floor. He put the "eyes and ears" device in the trunk, bracing it with towels.

He scrawled a note on a slip of paper.

Taken for one last drive. Pick up at auction.

- J

###

He struggled with the gears, the pedals, the wheel. He was afraid.

He couldn't imagine that anyone ever rode in these steel deathtraps without suits of armor - let alone helmets. It was a rickety start. He let it roll backward out of the garage. The brakes were testy, but he grew more comfortable as he went. You learned quickly when everything depended on it.

He pried his eyes away from the rear view as his house disappeared. A moment later, he was in flight and the world rushed by so quickly that he forgot about what he was leaving and thought only of where he was headed. A last ride - a maiden voyage. It was the perfect day to run away.

###

There was a sign for MultiTerra Developments halfway down the long red road that led to the auction. He pulled past it and parked the car inside an old, abandoned building across the way. He lost control of the car and knocked over a large trashcan, sending aluminum cans clattering against the concrete. He hoped no one had heard him and covered the car with an old tarp that he'd stashed in the trunk.

When Pete saw him, he didn't seem excited or even surprised. His eyes were low and his breath was stale and Jim realized why his parents didn't want him to come.

"Thank you for being here," he said. He wasn't very convincing. "I thought they hated me after the accident."

"Of course they don't," Jim said. He meant it.

"Man he must really think I'm off the deep end to drive out here."

Jim had told him that his father dropped him off as a surprise.

"I wanted to come."

"Yeah." He spat in the dirt and covered it with his boot.

Jim followed him. Inside, everything was already starting to close down. Boxes piled to the ceiling. Cabinets wide open and empty. Masking tape. Cardboard. A lone, unzipped suitcase. The floors were unswept. Pete's boots tracked all the way to the office, where he held the glass frame containing the first dollar the auction ever made. His sullen reflection stared back at him.

"I told you it's changing," he said. His face was red. "The world's leaving me behind."

"That isn't true."

"They're levelling it." His voice was low, almost a whisper.

"What?"

"Everything. It'll all be bulldozed. To make the way for the future." The words were like a knife plunging into Jim's heart. He stared at the first dollar and Jim tried to think of something to say, but there was nothing. What place would his uncle have in this new world? What place would he have?