the brown water, unable to see my reflection. The water is up to my calves when I reach the edge of the bank. Another step and the water will be up to my chest and I’ll be swept away. Maybe it’s better that way, I think. Maybe it’s better to float in the river than die at the hands of my father’s killer.
This feels like the dream, though I don’t think it is. My father’s truck is not in the river. There’s no shadowy figure standing on the roadway above, though now I know who it was. There are no feathers. There are no crosses. There is only the sky above, the rain falling down. The river rushing in front of me, hell rushing toward my back.
I turn and face what’s coming.
Once, when I was six, my father made me angry. I don’t remember what I’d
done, or what he’d said in response, but I made the decision to run away from home. I waited until the house was quiet that night. I loaded up my backpack with a pair of jeans. Three pairs of socks. Underwear. Two shirts, and a sweatshirt. I also packed a copy of The Boxcar Children, sure I could find an abandoned train car to live in and that the book would show me how. I went quietly down the stairs, jumping over the second-to-last one because it always squeaked.
I went to the kitchen and made three cheese and mustard sandwiches. I put them in a paper lunch sack, along with barbeque-flavored Bugles and strawberry Fig Newtons, each in their own baggies. I grabbed two Capri Suns out of the fridge and put them in my bag. I figured this bounty would last me at least three or four weeks, until I could figure out how to hunt for food. I contemplated taking a rifle, but they were locked up in the gun case in the garage, and I didn’t know where the keys were, so I packed my sling shot instead. And then, after further consideration, I also grabbed my boomerang that I hadn’t quite figured out how to make return just yet. I’d have time to learn.
I left a note ( I’m mad at you, so good-bye FOREVER!!! Don’t look for me!!! Love, Benji) before I left—it felt like the right thing to do. I opened the door into the night and started my journey into the wild unknown.
I’d barely made it to the end of the long driveway before I was sure something was following me. I’d forgotten a flashlight (much to my embarrassment and there was no way I was going back to get one) so I couldn’t quite see if it was an animal or not. I wasn’t scared of the dark, but this dark seemed darker than the normal dark. Maybe it’s a bear, I thought. Or maybe an otter. That would be kind of neat to see. I pulled my boomerang from my backpack just in case it was a bear and started walking down the roadway again.
The footsteps continued behind me.
I whirled around. “Who’s there?” I cried, my voice small. “I’ve got my boomerang, so don’t you mess with me!”
A snort of laughter came from behind a tree. “You should probably learn how to throw it first,” my father said. “Unless you’re just going to hit me over the head with it.”
I scowled. “What are you doing?”
Big Eddie stepped out from behind the tree, wearing his pajama pants and a blue shirt and the rubber boots he kept near the door for when it was raining. “Wondering what you’re doing,” he said easily. “Going for a walk at night?”
“I’m running away,” I said, putting the boomerang back into my bag. “Forever.”
“Oh? Is that so?”
“Yeah. I’m mad as hell.” I figured I could say that word now that I was a runaway.
He chuckled. “Are you? That’s not good.”
I glared at him before turning and walking down the two-lane road.
He followed.
“What are you doing?” I said, resolutely not looking back at him. “Going for a walk,” he said. “It’s a nice night.”
I huffed and didn’t say anything back.
I only made it half a mile before I got really hungry. Big Eddie stayed with me the whole way, talking about how pretty the night was, how many stars were in the sky, and did I see the Big Dipper up there? Or Orion’s Belt? I didn’t answer, but I did look up and find the constellations because he’d shown me how,