style="font-size:15px;"> “Look at me,” Anne said, in a tone both fierce and compelling. He turned and searched for her eyes in the shadows. “Do you really think that next week, or Christmas, or next year, we just get to waltz back into town like we went for a soda? If my father finds us he will kill you. And don’t count on him to sit here on his porch rocker, his gun on his lap, waiting patient for us to come scootin’ back up the walk.”
“Okay, okay. When can we meet again, Anne?”
“We can’t. Not until we leave. It’ll be too dangerous.” Anne thought for a moment. Then she outlined how they would communicate up to the morning they ran away.
“Do we really have to do all this, Anne?”
She exhaled, her bangs fanning up like netting in the darkness. Maybe it was his imagination, but even the chirping night creatures seemed to hush for a moment, expectant. “Roy Sampson will come looking. If we head south, he can’t know that.” In the dim moonlight, James could see her eyes pool and shine. “My daddy is a proud man. He will never ever forgive you. Or me.”
As if the night was suddenly more dangerous, they huddled closer. She trembled, though the air was warm and weighted. “Where do your parents think you are now?” he asked. James hadn’t wondered about that until this moment.
“I told them I was spending the night with Cherie. Cherie’s parents think that’s where I am too.”
“But how—”
Anne giggled and kissed James. “Cherie is the best kind of friend! First, I can absolutely trust her because I’ve covered for her and Rudy Mello twice now. Second, her bedroom is on the first floor!”
***
Heading north over the Bay Bridge on to the western shore seemed crazy at first. If they were headed south, why go the wrong way? But Anne’s plan was to head north, then west for a while, to create a false trail. James stopped in to Ledbetter’s Service Station on Canal Street to purchase a Pennsylvania Highway map. Doogie Owens, Stinger’s kid brother, was working in the bay.
“Planning a trip to the western shore? I hear that new bridge is high as the moon!” Doogie ignored the red rag in his hip pocket and smeared his hands on his caked jeans.
James shelled out 50 cents. As if just recalling something, he said, “I’d better take one for Maryland and Ohio too.”
Doogie handed back change and the maps. His greasy thumbprint stamped the front of Pennsylvania’s smiling Governor Scranton. Doogie picked at his nose and wiped his finger down his front.
“So what’re the maps for?”
“I’m thinking of taking a drive up to see Pete.” He opened the Pennsylvania map casually and glanced toward the western corner above Maryland.
“Pete Minsk? Where’s he now?” Doogie started at the clang of the air bell, and moved around the counter to pump gas for Mr. Geiger, easing out of his flaming red Falcon. When he came back, James had tucked the maps in his back pocket and sipped a Nehi, spinning his quarter on the crusted counter.
“Yeah, so…” Doogie had a disconcerting trait. His eyes did not track together, but tended to wander separate, like twin infants that are fascinated by everything but each other.
“Right. Pete Minsk. He moved up to Waynesburg, Pennsylvania. Near the turnpike. I got a letter from him and he says fishing is awesome on some river.” He tried to pronounce the name from memory, but it come out sounding like he’d drank a soda with a bee in it.
“Yock? Like yock yock?” Doogie grinned, one eye fixed on James, the other at some spot above him. James spoke slow, steady, trying to will the word onto the slippery walls of Doogie’s rodent-sized brain.
“How you going?”
James shrugged. “Not sure yet. Maybe the bus. You ever heard of that town?” James prodded.
Doogie looked puzzled. Doogie always looked puzzled. “Yock?”
“No. Waynesburg. Waynesburg, Pennsylvania. Like Wayne Feed. Only Waynesburg.”
Doogie shrugged. “Nope.” He brightened. “I heard of Cambridge though!” Cambridge was approximately 45 minutes away. James wondered if, even with the prodding of Chief Munro, Doogie would be likely to remember this conversation. Oh well, it wouldn’t do to overplay it.
***
James crept up the front steps of the Sampson house, stepping over the squeaky third tread. A corner of pink stationery peaked from the newspaper in front of the door. A note was folded in the newspaper, just as there had been every other morning since they’d last met in person. He knelt and slid the note out, then stepped back slowly, facing the door. The curtain behind the glass panel dropped silently back into place. He lifted a hand, turned, stepped over the third tread, and headed homeward.
James paused under the streetlight on the corner and unfolded the note.
Moon Launch 17 Monday 5 am.
Corner River and Elm. √√ XOXO
James refolded the note and walked slowly home. He smiled at Anne’s code. Double check everything, she had said. This is a moon launch. Whatever we forget, we can’t go back for. So check and double check.
The town slept. James swiveled his head as he walked, alert and calm, listening to the crinkling silence. Sometimes he imagined he was the sentinel of Crane Ridge, patrolling the streets while the town snored and dreamed. He felt safe in the enveloping night, when the mask of toughness he wore was laid aside.
The moon rested on his shoulder, following close. It draped the full boughs of the trees that lined the street in warm gold plating. He ran his fingers along the picket fence rounding the familiar darkened corner on to Nash Street. In a few days, he would be a memory ghost, a cipher that the night recalled, more and more faintly, until some future dark gloom, when another angry, lonely boy stepped out and walked these streets, walked through his ghost, and scattered it.
14 / Charcoaled Grill
Dylan pushed open the screen. “Don’t forget this,” His father said, tossing Dylan his baseball glove. He slowly mounted the stairs to his room. It was true what he’d said about his brother. James was a good fighter, but did it help or hurt James to tell his dad that kind of stuff? Halfway up the stairs, he heard Nana’s voice, soft as she passed on her way to the front porch. “—butter and banana” was all he caught. He grinned and bounded up the last of the steps.
The fan in the window was silent and the heat in the top bedroom settled on him. James was in his customary spot by the window. Dylan wondered how much of the porch conversation James had heard. Dylan slipped his glove under the bed and sat down. “How come you’re not outside?”
“How’d the game go?” James responded. Dylan described the highlights, and they both laughed. It was the first time Dylan remembered his brother laughing in a long time.
“You’re not mad I racked up Stinger? Accidentally?” Dylan hastened to add.
“Stinger and I have common enemies. That sometimes makes us allies. It doesn’t make us friends. He’s a bully, and I wouldn’t
