Eagle Harbor

To the lover of wilderness, Alaska is one of the most wonderful countries in the world.

(John Muir)

Portrait of a Friendship

    Mrs. St. Clair, the English teacher at Eagle Harbor High School, gives Trevor Gage and his classmates an assignment to write a book.  Seventeen-year-old Trevor dreads the thought of penning a novel, and never imagines all he will discover about his father when he finally settles on a plot revolving around Johnny’s experiences with Evan Crammer.  After conducting hours of interviews with those people directly involved in the two times Johnny encountered Crammer, and after hours of research and months of writing, Trevor discovers that his book is missing a very important section – the reason why Johnny moved so abruptly from Los Angeles to Colorado in 1985, and why John Gage and Roy DeSoto lost contact with one another for fifteen years after that move.  Dogged determination on Trevor’s part uncovers the answers to those questions, much to Johnny’s anger. 

__________________

Papa was standing behind his desk, glaring at me.  I slowly walked toward him. I had no idea what he was so upset about until I got behind the desk, too, and caught sight of the computer screen.

“What’s this?”

Oh shit, I thought again, no longer caring that it was Sunday and I’d just gotten home from church. I knew I was a dead man.  I’d forgotten to delete the Scott Monroe file from Word after I’d printed it.

“Uh...something...something I was re...uh researching for my book.”

Papa took a deep breath. The kind a parent takes while he counts to ten and fights against the urge to strangle his kid. When my father finally spoke he asked in a tight, controlled voice, “Where’d you get this stuff?”

“I...I ordered it from the Los Angeles Times. From their...it was in their archives.”

Papa’s eyes narrowed. “You had no business sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong, Trevor.”

__________________

     It’s Trevor’s turn to be angry when Johnny makes a man-to-man request of his son to stop writing the book. From there, a chain of events occurs that leaves Trevor devastated and blaming himself for the death of someone who means a lot to him, and means a lot to his father.  It takes the arrival of an old friend to open the lines of communication between Johnny and Trevor, that in turn, will lead the way to a solid father and son bond that will last a lifetime.                                                                                       

     Portrait of a Friendship is set in the quaint town of Eagle Harbor, and takes the reader through Trevor’s senior year of high school.  Old and dear friends, including Roy DeSoto, play pivotal roles in Johnny and Trevor’s lives during this year of happiness, turbulence, sorrow, growth, and triumph.

Portrait of a friendship

By: Kenda

*This is the final story in the Dances With Rattlesnakes series. If you’re a new reader to Kenda’s Emergency Library, the ‘Dances’ stories might best be enjoyed if read in chronological order.

*This story is dedicated to all of the readers who have enjoyed the Dances With Rattlesnakes series. Portrait of a Friendship is rated PG-13 for the occasional use of strong language.

*Thank you, Jill Hargan, for the beta read.  When I wasn’t certain if this was a story waiting to be told, you assured me that it was.  In the process, a friendship has been born I wouldn’t have wanted to miss out on.

*Thank you, Icecat, for assistance with the picture of southeastern Alaska, where the fictional Eagle Harbor is located, and for assistance with the picture that appears at the end of part 8. How fitting that a story centered on friendship, involves assistance from both a new friend, and from an old friends. 

*Thank you, Audrey, Jane L., and Jill, for friendship, as well as for the brainstorming session on movies that appeal to teenagers. Thank you, Jane, for being the first ‘official’ reader of this story, after corrections and revisions were made. 

*Thanks to Janet of Johnny’s Green Pen website, for allowing me to capture from her photo gallery, the two photographs this story contains.  Thanks, Janet!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009

     There are only a few days of school left, but that didn’t stop my English teacher, Mrs. St. Claire, from giving us an assignment.  All twenty of us groaned at the same time. When a teacher tells you that she’s giving you ten months to complete an assignment, you know it’s going to be something you won’t like. 

Eagle Harbor High School has a student body of just eighty-three.  That means that some of the teachers we had as freshman continue to be our teachers through sophomore, junior, and senior year.  Mrs. St. Claire is one of those teachers.  When I was a freshman and complained to Papa about how tough she was, he’d tell me she was tough because she was trying to get her students to live up to their full potential, and then surpass it.  I’d just give him the ‘teenager’s look’ as he referred to it, every time he told me that.  I don’t know how he defined the ‘teenager’s look’ because he never told me, but ever since I came back home from the summer I spent with my mother, I’ve come to realize that Papa is a lot smarter than I gave him credit for when I was fifteen.  Because of that, I suppose he realized the ‘teenager’s look’ meant, “Yeah, right.  How stupid can you be? Mrs. St. Claire hates me.  She hates all kids. She became a teacher just so she could torture kids with tons of homework assignments.”     

     By the time I started my junior year last August, Mrs. St. Claire didn’t seem so bad any more.  I’m not the only one who thinks so, either. Most of the kids in my class feel the same way, and as the year progressed, we even started saying she was one of our favorite teachers. I don’t know if we’ve simply gotten used to her, or if we’ve matured since our freshman year, or if she’s loosened up on us because we’re no longer new to her classroom.  All I do know is that I’ve learned a lot from her.  She formed a book club at the start of my sophomore year and made me president of it, without even asking me if I wanted to be a part of the club in the first place. We read books I thought I’d hate, only to discover I was wrong. Or at least most of the time I was wrong.  I’ll never make it through the Scarlet Letter without wanting to slit my wrists, just because watching blood spurt from my veins would be more entertaining than trying read that stupid book.

We’ve written our own plays in Mrs. St. Claire’s class, and then performed them. We’ve published a monthly class newsletter, written short stories, long stories, poems – which I hate and totally suck at because I always make them rhyme, even when I try not to, and we’ve written from every point of view possible and then some.  Jake Shipman even wrote a story in the first person point of view as told by his iguana.  It seems whacked, I know, but Jake did a great job of sounding like you’d think an iguana would if it could talk. Mrs. St. Claire even gave Jake an A, and complimented him on being so creative.

We’ve kept journals during our junior year, too, and it’s in my journal that I’m recording all of this. Or maybe I should say typing it, since I keep my journal on my computer. A lot of the kids didn’t like this assignment – especially the guys, because they think it’s too much like keeping a diary, which everyone knows is a girl thing. But I’ve read that most of the military leaders in our country have kept journals, including Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee. I’ve also read that a lot of soldiers who fought in the Civil War – just regular enlisted guys - kept journals, and I think that’s awesome.  It gives us a view of the Civil War we never would have had otherwise.  A lot of history would have been lost without those first person accounts scribbled on any scrap of paper the soldiers could find.

One of the reasons I like recording things in my journal is because Mrs. St. Claire respects the fact that our journals are private.  She’s never asked to read our entries, and trusts us to follow through with the assignment and keep the journal current during this school year. (I don’t think she should have trusted Ethan Hackstrom or Travis Wieland, but since we’re not getting graded on our journals, no one’s ratting them out.) Mrs. St. Claire said someday when we’re grown we’ll read these entries and learn about ourselves as teenagers, while realizing why we’re the adults we’ve become.  It’s kind of hard to figure out now, but maybe when ‘someday’ arrives I’ll know what she means.

It probably sounds like Mrs. St. Claire’s Advanced English Class is all fun and games, but that’s not true.  She makes us do the kind of things English teachers are supposed to make kids do, like diagram sentences, and memorize the meanings to words like macabre and oligopsony, then tests us on them each Friday.  Man, how I hate Fridays.

     Because we’ve done all of these things and more, I was pretty confidant that we’d get to coast through our senior year.  The students in Mrs. St. Claire’s senior English class are the reporters, editors, cartoonists, and photographers of the school’s newspaper, so I knew that project awaited us when we return to school at the end of August.  I figure she’ll still make us memorize the meanings to obscure words, and the book club is going to get underway too, because she assigned us three books to read over the summer that are to be discussed in September.  I don’t mind that. I’ve always liked to read, probably because my pops started reading to me every night before I was even two.  By the time I was nine, I was reading on my own most nights before I went to sleep. Because of that, reading three books over the summer is no big deal to me.  I know I’ll have them done before Papa and I go on our annual trip to California in July.  But then today, Mrs. St. Claire gave us another assignment. One she said we didn’t have to turn in until April of our senior year.   

     “Each one of you is going to write a book,” she said, as though writing a book is as easy as composing a three sentence e-mail to a friend.

     Our groans were followed by exclamations of, “A book!” then everyone started shouting questions.

     “How long does it have to be?”

     “As long as you think is necessary,” Mrs. St. Claire told Dalton Teirman.

     “What’s it supposed to be about?”

     “Whatever you want it to be about,” Mrs. St. Claire said to Jenna Van Temple.

     “Are we supposed to tell it from the first person point of view or the third person?”

     “I don’t know,” Mrs. St. Claire smiled at Tyler Cavanaugh.  “You’re the writer.  You’ll have to decide what point of view best tells your story.”

     “Mrs. St. Claire,” I moaned, “do you know how hard this is gonna be?”

     “Only as hard as you make it, Trevor,” she said in a way that told me Pops is right.  She is pushing me to do the best job I can.

     “Does it have to be fiction or non-fiction?” I asked.

     “What do you think?”

     I sighed. “It’s up to me as the writer to decide that.”

     “You’re learning, Trevor.” Mrs. St. Claire winked at me. “You’re learning.”

      Mrs. St. Claire continued to field questions while she passed out what she referred to as Writers’ Guidelines.

     “If you ever attempt to be professionally published - regardless of whether you’ve written a short column for a newspaper, a story for a magazine, or even something as lengthy as a book, there are guidelines the publication you’re working with will want you to follow.  Therefore, these are the guidelines I expect each one of you to follow.”

     I scanned the sheet of paper Mrs. St. Claire had laid on my desk.  It told us how she wanted our manuscripts spaced, told us we were to number each page, told us that our names were to be on the upper left-hand corner of each page, told us the books were to be typed on a computer and what font we were to use, and told us we were to bind our books. The sheet provided suggestions about what types of binders we could buy at the Office Max in Juneau in order to get that job done without spending much money.  There were also pointers regarding research, a reminder of what plagiarism was, and a sentence that informed us we’d flunk Mrs. St. Claire’s class if she discovered our work was stolen from another source. The one thing Mrs. St. Claire’s guidelines didn’t tell us, was the one thing I was looking for – a topic to write about.  She didn’t even give us a list of ideas to choose from.  Before I could voice my disappointment over the lack of ideas, the bell rang that signaled the end of the school day.

     My classmates rushed by me as I slowly stood. I continued to read the guidelines as I scooped up my spiral notebook and English book.  I must have made a face, because Mrs. St. Claire asked, “Trevor, what’s wrong?”

     I looked up, and saw that everyone else was gone.  Evidently none of my classmates was nearly as worried about this assignment as I was.  I suppose that makes sense.  In three more days school will be out for the year.  I figured everyone else must be thinking that April is a long way off, and that we might as well enjoy our summer and not worry about the writing assignment until fall.  Usually, that’d be how I’d think, too.  Why I’m not thinking that way, I’m not sure. I guess there are several reasons.  The first being that I’m ranked number one in my class, and will graduate as valedictorian if I have another year of straight A’s on my report card.  Jenna Van Temple is ranked number two academically, so all it’s going to take is one slip on my part and she’ll ease past me.  I like Jenna, but I’m not going to let her take away from me what I’ve been working so hard for since I started high school. 

I know graduating number one in a class of twenty students isn’t nearly the accomplishment graduating number one in a class of six hundred would be, but still, the teachers here in Eagle Harbor are tough on their students, and we’ve always scored in the top percentile whenever we’ve taken tests that compare us with other kids in the nation.  Besides, whenever I mention to Papa that being the valedictorian at Eagle Harbor High isn’t anything to brag about considering how small my class is, Papa tells me he intends to brag about it on my behalf, and brag about it plenty.  Pops always gets this look of enormous pride on his face whenever he says that to me, which then makes me work twice as hard so I don’t disappoint him. That’s not to say Papa puts pressure on me regarding my grades, because he doesn’t. But ever since I was in kindergarten, he’s said he expected me to do the best I can in school. Since the best I can do usually means I earn all A’s, I’ve fallen into the habit of excelling at school, and haven’t given my efforts conscious thought in years.

     Mrs. St. Claire approached and stopped in front of me. “Trevor?” she asked again.  “Is something wrong?”

     “No...no. It’s just that...” I glanced at the guidelines, before giving her my attention again. I’m six feet tall now, and had to look down at the slightly built woman who’s eight inches shorter than me. 

     “It’s just what?”

     “It’s just that I don’t know what to write about.”

     Mrs. St. Claire laughed.  “Is that all?”

     “Is that all?  Mrs. St. Claire, come on!  I mean...well...look.” I thrust the guideline sheet toward her. “Have you read these?”

     “Certainly I’ve read them.  I wrote them, didn’t I?”

     “I don’t know. I guess. . .maybe. Yes.  Yeah, I suppose you did.”  I raked a hand though my hair, not realizing that action, or my stammering, or my upset, or the way I was standing with my left arm out and a pleading look on my face, meant that anyone who knew my father would have told me I was a chip off the old block.  “Look, Mrs. St. Claire, I...I don’t think I can do this.”

     “Oh, Trevor, of course you can.”

     “No.” I shook my head. “No, I can’t. I mean, it’s one thing to write a short story for you, or even a term paper...but a book?  No way.  I’m not gonna be a writer, ya’ know. I’m gonna be a doctor.”

     “And you don’t think doctors write books?”

     “Well...yeah, they do.  My mom and stepfather are doctors, and they’ve both written books.”

     “See there.”

     “But, Mrs. St. Claire, those are boring books. Medical textbooks. Nobody but medical students read them. If I wrote something like that, you’d flunk me for sure. You’d be asleep before you finished the first chapter. Besides, I don’t ever plan on writing a medical textbook. I wanna be an old-fashioned country doctor like my Great Grandpa Hamilton was. Just a guy who lives in Alaska, has a small office, and travels to see patients if they can’t make it to him ‘cause they’re too old, or too far away and don’t have transportation. I don’t plan to work in a big city, or be famous in the medical community like my mom and Franklin are.”

     “And what does that have to do with your assignment?”

     “Just what I said.  I’m gonna be a doctor, not a writer.”

     “Don’t be so sure about that.”

     “Whatta’ ya’ mean?”

     “Trevor, you just turned seventeen a month ago. You’re far too young to know what you will or won’t do.  Have you ever read any books by Robin Cook?”

     “Yeah.”

     “What does he do for a living when he’s not writing?”

     I knew she had led me right into a trap. When I hesitated, she said, “Trevor?”

I sighed. “He’s a doctor.”

“Yes, he is.  Robin Cook is a doctor, but he’s also a fiction author.  Therefore, don’t be so quick to tell me what you may or may not do long after you leave Eagle Harbor High School.”

     “Okay, I won’t.  But if I’m a doctor, I’m not gonna need a sideline like writing in order to pay my bills and stuff.”

     “No, you’re probably not,” Mrs. St. Claire acknowledged, “but who knows? You just might find out you enjoy writing, and someday on down the road you might want to pursue it as a hobby.  Not unlike Robin Cook. Or John Grisham, who’s a lawyer.  Or Tess Gerritsen, who’s a surgeon when she’s not writing fiction. Or Jonathan Kellerman, a child psychologist who writes mystery novels from the point of view of the protagonist he’s created, Alex Delaware.”

     “My hobby is gonna be flying.  I’ve had my pilot’s license since March.”

     Now it was Mrs. St. Claire’s turn to sigh. I could tell she was getting exasperated with me, in the same way I’ve seen my Uncle Roy get exasperated with my pops, when Uncle Roy is trying to make a point that Papa refuses to see.

     “Trevor, don’t be so stubborn.  You can do this.”

     “Can’t you give me another assignment?” I pleaded.

     “No, I can’t.”

     “Now it’s you who’s being stubborn.”

     Mrs. St. Claire laughed again.  “Since I’m your teacher, I reserve that right.  You, however, are the student, and a student that I know without a doubt can complete this assignment. Therefore, you’re not allowed to be stubborn about it.”

     I folded the guideline sheet in half and shoved it inside my English book while shaking my head.

     “I just don’t think I can do this.”

     “Well, I happen to think you can.”

     “But a book...to write a good book, that’s a lot of work.”

     “Yes, it is. That’s why I’m giving you ten months to complete the assignment.”

     “It takes some authors years to finish a book.  Some of them never finish their books.”

My teacher gave me a knowing smirk. “Trevor, you’re bound and determined to make this more difficult than it is, aren’t you.”

“I’m not making it more difficult than it is. I’m just pointing out some things you might not have thought about.”

     “Allow me to assure you, I’ve thought of them, and I have no concerns.”

     “That’s ‘cause you’re not the one doing the writing.”

     “Trevor...”

     “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. It’s just that...”

     “What?”

     “I already told you.  I don’t know what to write about.”

     “If you had half as much faith in yourself as I have in you, you’d already have an idea for that novel and be anxious to start typing it into your computer.”

     “Then I wish I had half of your faith,” I teased. I headed for the door with a sigh. “Thanks anyway.”

     “Trevor?”

     I turned around to face my teacher again.

     “Let me give you a little hint.”

     “Yeah?” I questioned, anxious for any hint, suggestion, or an entire plot line if it happened to come my way.

     “When you begin your quest for ideas, start that quest close to home.”

I could feel my brow furrow. “Whatta’ ya’ mean?”

“It’s my opinion that the best stories come from within the writer. I’m willing to bet that whatever story you have to tell, already dwells inside of you to a large extent. It’s part of who you are, and maybe through telling it, you’ll even learn more about yourself...or those you hold dear, than you already know.”      

     “Mrs. St. Claire, if I had a story inside of me, I wouldn’t be worried about coming up with a story to begin with.”

     The woman chased me out of the room by scurrying toward me and making shooing motions with her hands. 

     “Trevor, get going.  Go on with you.  Get home and start writing. Go, go, go!”

     I laughed as I ran from the room, but my good humor didn’t last long.  I stopped at my locker and filled my backpack with the books I needed to bring home, then walked out to the student parking lot and climbed in the Dodge Dakota pickup that Papa had bought used and given to me for my sixteenth birthday.  I’m responsible for maintaining the truck, including keeping it insured, and keeping the gas tank filled.  Because of that, I work at Gus Zirbel’s airport as often as I can.

I started the truck, put it in gear, and headed out to Gus’s.  The usual euphoria I feel in early June as a result of long summer days finally blanketing Eagle Harbor, accompanied by the end of the school year, was absent today.  Instead, I mulled over the prospect of writing a book.  By the time I reached the airport, I still didn’t have any ideas for a plot.  I suppose I’m getting myself upset over nothing, which my Uncle Roy says I’m good at doing in the same way my father was when he was younger.  Obviously, it’s unrealistic of me to expect I’d come up with an idea for a book thirty minutes after receiving the assignment, but as I drove to the airport I was sure Jenna Van Temple had a plot churning in her head, and was already home outlining it. And because of that, I’m certain my chances of being class valedictorian are hopelessly lost.

     I slammed my truck door and walked toward the hanger with my head bent and my shoulders slumped. It wasn’t until I heard Gus say, “Hey, Trev, you wanna test a new plane with me today?” that I lifted my head and smiled. 

I shoved thoughts of book writing aside as I soared through the clouds with Gus as my co-pilot. If I had a story inside me to tell like Mrs. St. Claire said, I couldn’t imagine what it was.  As I flew over the mountains that bordered Eagle Harbor on the east, and then banked the plane and soared over the ocean that bordered the town on the west, I momentarily forgot about the book.  I smiled as we flew over the roof of the fire department – the place I thought of as my second home.  I recognized Carl and my pops standing out in the back lot, and tilted a wing in greeting.  I was flying low enough now that I could see Papa look up and wave.  He couldn’t see my face, but he knew by my actions who was piloting the plane. I grinned, and then flew on.  The June sun glinted off the mountains.  It reminded me of how much I loved Alaska, and how much I’d come to realize that my life was here in the Last Frontier State, and always would be. 

The vastness and natural beauty of Alaska can’t really be appreciated until you’ve seen it from the air.  No matter what Mrs. St. Claire says; flying will always be my hobby.  Yeah, some doctors write books, but I’m not going to be one of them. 

Friday, June 5th, 2009

     School ended for the year at noon today.  I stopped by Papa’s office at the fire station to show him my report card.

     “This is great, Trev.” He put an arm around my shoulders and gave me a sideways hug. “I’m really proud of you.”

     “Thanks.”

     “What’s with the glum, ‘thanks’? You make it sound like this report card is filled with F’s instead of A’s.”

     “I might get an F next year.”

     “Come again?”

     I sighed, which I seemed to be doing a lot of lately.

“Nothin.’ Forget it.”

     I could feel him studying me and trying to gauge my mood.  We’ve come a long way since my freshman year.  Back then, Papa’s scrutiny would have ticked me off and caused me to lose my temper, which in turn, would have caused Papa to lose his temper, and would have made me storm out of the fire station after we got done yelling at one another.  Papa’s learned how to handle a teenager better than he did in those days, and I’ve learned how to be a teenager in my father’s house better than I knew how to be back then.  Because of what we’d both learned together, he didn’t push me to explain my remark, but instead said, “Let’s go to the diner and have lunch.”

     “I have ta’ be at work at two.”

     “We’ll be done before then,” Papa assured me.

We walked to the kitchen that’s shared by the Eagle Harbor Police and Fire Departments.  I said hi to everyone sitting around the table, while Pops let his employees know where he was going. 

     Carl Mjtko entered from the hallway that led to the police department. He’s Papa’s best friend here in Alaska, and Eagle Harbor’s police chief. Carl’s mother, Clarice, has been our housekeeper ever since we moved here when I was a year old.  She doesn’t baby-sit for me any more, but she still cleans and cooks for us, and stays with me on the nights Papa pulls a twenty-four hour shift.  I don’t think she needs to – I’d be fine staying all night by myself, but that’s an argument I’ve lost a number of times since I turned fourteen, and one I’ve finally quit instigating.  Besides, Clarice is both a mother and grandmother to me in many ways, so I don’t want to hurt her feelings by making her think I don’t need her.  In another year, I’ll be graduating from high school. At that time, Clarice’s employment with Papa will pretty much be over, except for the two or three days a week he’ll keep her on to clean and do some cooking.  Not that he’ll really need her to do those things when I’m away at college, but Papa doesn’t want to hurt Clarice’s feelings any more than I do.

Carl greeted me with a, “Hey, Trev!”

“Hi, Carl.”

Carl poured a cup of coffee, then leaned back against the counter top.  “So, did you give your pops a report card filled with A’s again?”

My eyes dropped to the tiled floor. “Yeah.”

Carl chuckled. “You don’t sound too happy about it.”

“I’m happy about it.”

“Coulda’ fooled me.” 

Carl has never married and doesn’t have any children, therefore he looks upon me as the son he’s never had.  Or so Clarice has told me on several occasions.

Carl stuck his broad chest out as though my accomplishments were a direct credit to him. “You guys know you’re lookin’ at Eagle Harbor High’s next valedictorian, don’t you?”

There was laughter around the table, where a lunch of barbequed meatballs and buttered noodles was just getting started. 

Crazy Kenny said, “I think Chief has mentioned that a few times in the last year.” 

Rick LaMeer teased, “A few times? At last count we were up to one hundred and five.”

Everyone laughed, even Papa, while I stood there turning red and wishing the floor would open up and swallow me. I wasn’t mad at Papa or anything – I know how proud he is of my grades and all, but the expectations weren’t something I wanted to hear considering the worries on my mind.  Now I felt like not only will I be letting Papa down if I’m not class valedictorian next year, but I’ll be letting down the entire fire and police departments, too.

Papa put his arm around my shoulders again. “Obviously, my son didn’t inherit the ‘brag gene’ from his old man.”

“Obviously,” Carl teased.

We said goodbye to everyone and turned for the hallway.  Papa never dropped his arm as we walked past his office, through the apparatus bay, and out the service door.  We stopped to check for traffic, even though the word ‘traffic; is misleading considering how quiet the streets in Eagle Harbor are on most days during lunch hour.  We could probably cross the road a dozen times with our eyes closed before our luck would run out and we’d be hit by a car.

Because it was twelve-thirty, Donna’s Diner was busy.  Everybody in Eagle Harbor knows my pops. He responded to greetings of, “Hi, Chief!” and “Hi, John!” as we headed for a distant table. Our progress was stopped several times when people engaged Pops in conversation. My grades were brought up again when Papa told Eagle Harbor’s mayor, Jim Beaumont, that we were having lunch to celebrate my report card. 

“Straight A’s again, Trev?” the rotund mayor winked and elbowed me in the ribs. 

On most days I love living in Eagle Harbor, but every so often I realize the drawbacks to small town life.  It seemed like all six thousand residents knew about my grades, and in truth, many of them probably did.

As we walked away from Mayor Beaumont and the town’s councilmen he was seated with, I rolled my eyes and said out of the corner of my mouth, “Please don’t tell anyone else about my grades.”

“Why not?”

“Just don’t.”

“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about.  Just the opposite. You should be proud.”

“You’re proud enough for both of us.”

“Well, if you’re not gonna blow your own horn, then I have to blow it for you.”

“Papa,” I pleaded with just that one word.

Papa laughed.  “Okay, okay.  I won’t say anything else about your grades...until I call your Uncle Roy, and your grandfather, and your Aunt Reah. Or aren’t I allowed to brag about you to them, either?”

“I guess that would be okay.” I pulled out a chair at the small table for two in a back corner and sat down beneath the caribou head that hung on the wall above my seat. “Just don’t call any of ‘em when I’m around.”

“No promises there. They’ll all wanna talk to you.”

I didn’t argue further.  My grandpa’s eighty-eight years old, so given his age, you never know when he might not be around to talk to any longer. Or so Papa has been telling me for the last couple of years now.  Aunt Reah is Pops only sibling and doesn’t have any kids of her own, so my accomplishments mean a lot to her, like they do to Carl. And Uncle Roy...well, he’s been Papa’s best friend longer than anyone else, and I have a lot of respect for him, so if Papa was going to make me tell Uncle Roy about my grades, I figured I could live with that. Besides, better than anyone else, Uncle Roy knows how Papa is.

     Donna, the owner of the diner, hustled over to take our order. She always gives us extra helpings no matter what it is we want.  Even if we just order cheeseburgers and French fries, like we did today, our burgers are thicker than anyone else’s, and our plates are heaped with fries.  Carl says that’s because Donna has wanted to date Papa ever since we first moved to Eagle Harbor.  I think sixteen years is a long time for a woman to have a thing for a guy who has no interest in her beyond raving about her cooking, but since Kylee and I started going steady, I’ve learned that women aren’t always easy to figure out.

     Donna squeezed her way through the tables. Her hips are as a wide as a barn door, which means she likes her cooking as much as Papa does.  She gave Papa a big smile that he returned. 

     “How are ya’, Chief Gage?”

     “Fine, Donna.  How’re you?”

     “I’m doin’ okay.” Donna shoved a thick patch of gray curls behind one ear and thrust her right hip sideways.  I think she was trying to be sexy, but if she was, it was lost on Papa. Or maybe he just ignored her hints. “There’s a good movie playing on Friday night.”

     That’s what Donna says every time she sees Papa, just like he always says in reply, “I’ll have a cheeseburger, fries, and a Coke to drink. How about you, Trev?”

     “I’ll have the same.”

     Donna scribbled our order on her pad. If it bothered her that Papa had once again deflected her offer of a date, you wouldn’t know it by looking at her. 

     “Say, Donna, you should see Trevor’s report card.”

     Papa started to pull my folded report card from his shirt pocket, but I kicked him under the table.  He’d just told me he wasn’t going to mention my grades to anyone else in Eagle Harbor, and already he was blowing it.

     “Sure, I’d love to have a look.” She smiled at me in the same way she’s been doing for years. As though being my stepmother would be second best only to being my father’s wife.

     “Uh...” Pops looked at me and saw me shaking my head.  “Guess I don’t have it with me after all.  Musta’ left it in my office.”

     “You can show me later.  Maybe on Friday night?”

     Pops countered the offer of the potential date. “How about those Cokes?” 

     And with that, Donna turned on the heel of her New Balance walking shoes, weaved her way between tables, and told one of the waitresses to get our drinks.

     “Now you’ve upset her,” Papa scolded me. “We probably won’t get extra fries today.”

     “I didn’t upset her. You upset her when you wouldn’t agree to show her my report card on Friday night.”

     Papa waved a hand at me in dismissal.  I never have figured out if he’s caught on to how interested Donna is in him, or if he thinks it’s all a joke on her part.  If he’s caught on, he’ll never admit it, because he knows how much the guys he works with will tease him about it, which is why I think he’s been feigning ignorance where Donna is concerned for years now.

     Mrs. Schwitec, an older lady whose husband was one of Papa’s volunteer firemen until he died of a heart attack a couple of years ago, brought us our Cokes. She talked to Papa and me for a minute, then hurried off to wait on other customers.

     The noise level in the restaurant rose as the bell over the door dinged over and over again, signaling the arrival of more people.  Pretty soon, every table and seat at the counter was filled.  Because we were at the back of the room, Papa and I could talk without shouting, but at the same time, no one could overhear our conversation.

Pops took the paper off his straw and stuck the straw in his Coke.  He took a long drink, then set his glass back on the table.  I did the same.  When my mouth was no longer filled with soda, my father asked, “So, what’s this about you getting an F next year?”

“I said a might get an F.”

“Okay, so you might get an F. Since you’ve never gotten an F, maybe you wanna explain that remark to me.”

“I don’t want to.  Like I said at the station, forget it.”

“Trev...”

I played with my glass, rubbing my finger over the cold condensation on the outside of it.  I could feel Papa staring at me.  The tone of his voice told me he wasn’t going to take “forget it” for an answer.

“It’s Mrs. St. Claire.”

“What about Mrs. St. Claire?”

“She gave us a stupid assignment.”

“Whatta ya’ mean she gave you a stupid assignment?  School’s out for the year.”

“I know. But she gave us an assignment that’s due next April.”

“Oh. Well, I don’t know what you’re so worried about then. Sounds to me like you’ve got plenty a’ time to get it done.”

“Yeah, maybe.  If I didn’t have to write a book.”

“A what?”

“A book.”

“You mean like a ‘book’ book?  The kind you read?”

“Yeah, the kind you read.  What other kinda book is there?”

“What’s it supposed to be about?”

“Whatever we want it to be about.”

“Fiction or non-fiction?”

“Either one. Whatever I decide.”

“How long is it supposed to be?”

I was beginning to think Pops had been sitting in Mrs. St. Clair’s class on Tuesday. He sounded just like my friends and I had sounded as we grilled our teacher about the assignment.

“However long it needs to be in order to tell the story.”

We took our arms off the table when Mrs. Schwitec brought our food.  Papa was staring at his plate when she asked us if we needed anything else.  When Pops didn’t answer, I said “No, thank you,” for both of us, which sent Mrs. Schwitec off to wait on another table.

I reached for the ketchup.  Papa frowned as he watched me make a pool on the side of my plate to dip my fries in.

“What?” I asked him.

“Donna gave you more fries than she gave me.”

I shrugged as I passed him the ketchup.  “So? Go out with her on Friday night, and she’ll probably give you all the fries you want for free.”

He caught the smile I was trying to hide.

“Very funny, young man.”

In-between bites of food, Papa brought the subject back to book writing.

“Listen, Trev, don’t worry so much about that assignment Mrs. St. Claire gave you.  You’ll do fine.”

“Now you sound like her.”

“Like who?”

“Mrs. St. Claire. Pops, I have to write a book.  A book. People like Ernest Hemingway write books, not a kid from a small town in Alaska.  What do I know about the world?”

“He was a drunk.”

“Who?”

“Hemingway. He was a drunk. Besides, I don’t think his books are any good. As an author, the guy is way overrated.”

“You’ve read Hemingway?” I asked. Papa told me once he hadn’t been much of a reader other than the sports section of the newspaper, and Wheels and Gears magazine, until after I was born and he started reading to me.  He began to read more then himself, but his interests have always leaned toward what’s referred to as ‘popular fiction authors’ like Joseph Wambaugh, Nevada Barr, John Grisham, and Tony Hillerman.

“Had to in high school,” Pops said, as he took a bite of his burger. “His books are boring.” 

“I’ll be happy if all I manage to write is a boring book. I’ll be happy with any book at this point.”

“You’ve only had the assignment for how long?”

“Three days.”

“Trev, cut yourself some slack.  Three days isn’t enough time to figure out a plot for a book.”

“Jenna Van Temple has hers figured out. She showed Mrs. St. Claire an outline this morning.”

“So?”

“So, she’s ranked right behind me, Papa.  If she gets an A on her book, and I get an F, she’ll be the class valedictorian.”

“First of all, you’re not gonna get an F.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I do. And besides, like I said before, you’ve never gotten an F since the day you started kindergarten.”

“There’s always a first time for everything.”

“That’s true, but in this case I’m confident that’s not gonna happen.”  He used a French fry as a pointer and thrust it in my direction in time to his words. “And I’ll be proud of you regardless of whether you’re the class valedictorian or not.”

“You won’t be proud of me if I get an F.”

“Trevor, sometimes you’re too much like me, ya’ know that?”

“How?”

“You’re like a dog with a bone. Let it go.  You’re not gonna get an F.”

“I will if I don’t get the book written.”

“You’ll get it written.”

“But--”

“Trev, you’ll get it written.”  Papa’s voice was both confident and stern, letting me know what was expected of me, and that I might as well quit fighting the inevitable.

“Okay, okay, I’ll get it written.”  I took two bites of my cheeseburger, chewed, and washed the food down with a swig of Coke. “So what should I write about?”

“Beats me,” Papa shrugged. “It’s not my assignment, it’s yours.”

“Pops!”

He laughed. “Hey, kiddo, it’s been forty-six years since anyone’s given me a high school English assignment. Heck if I’m doin’ your work for you.”

Now it was my turn to say, “Very funny. Just for that, I’m tellin’ Carl that Donna has the hots for you.”

“Carl already knows Donna has the hots for me.”

“Then I’ll tell--”

“Trev, this is Eagle Harbor, remember? Everybody knows Donna has the hots for me.”

“See? That’s exactly my point.”

“What’s your point?”

“This is Eagle Harbor.  How can I find a story to tell in Eagle Harbor, Alaska, where the most exciting things that happen are the fireworks after the Fourth of July picnic, Santa Claus riding in the Christmas parade, Donna having the hots for you, and Mr. Larson gettin’ drunk and sleeping his bender off in the fire station, while all of you tell his wife you don’t know where he’s at?”

“That right there sounds like a story to me.”

“Well, it doesn’t sound like one to me.”

“Then keep looking.”

“Huh?” I asked, as I dipped two fries in ketchup.

“Keep looking. If you keep looking, you’re bound to find a story somewhere. And maybe even one that’s,” he reached across the table and used his index finger to lightly flick the end of my nose, “right under your nose.”

“Pops!” I scolded, while looking around to make sure none of my friends were in the diner and had seen my father treating me like I was eight years old.

We didn’t talk about the book after that. We finished eating, and Papa paid for our lunch.  I got to the airport at one forty-five. As I worked on the engine of an old B-17 Bomber Gus owns, I spent a lot of time looking for that story Papa claimed would be right under my nose.  Trouble is, by the time I got home at seven tonight, I hadn’t found it yet.

Sunday, June 7th, 2009

     Now that school’s out and my junior year is officially over, I don’t have to keep this journal any more. But I’ve gotten so used to writing something every few days; that I’m going to try and continue it until I graduate next year.  It’s kind of neat having a place to record what I’m thinking, and what’s been going on in my life, without worrying about anyone else reading it. Papa knows I’m keeping the journal, but respects my privacy where it’s concerned and told me he’d never look at.  I never worry that he will, because Papa and I have a lot of trust in one another, which is a good thing for a father and son to share. I almost blew that when I was fifteen and lied to him about going to Anchorage with Connor, Kylee, and some other friends. That mistake on my part made for some rough times between Papa and me, but one thing I learned from those rough times, is that trust is not a God-given right, but rather it’s something you earn through your actions.  When I get down on myself about the stupid mistakes I made that summer, Papa tells me that he’s proud of me for learning from those mistakes. Then he tells me many grownups never learn from their mistakes, much less admit to them, so I’m on the right path to being an honorable man as far as Papa is concerned.  I always feel good when he says that, and his words inspire me to live up to the trust he’s placed in me.

     I worked at the airport from eight to three yesterday, then had to leave for a baseball game that started at four.  This will be my last summer playing in the Senior League within our state’s Little League organization, so I plan to make the most of it.  Papa watched the game from the stands, but had to dash to the parking lot when he was toned out for a rescue call in the bottom of the sixth inning. 

Kylee was in the stands cheering me on, too.  We had a date last night, so after the game I went home and showered, then picked Kylee up at her house.  We met Dylan and Dalton Teirman and their girlfriends at Ochlou’s Pizza Parlor.  Mr. Ochlou is a Tlingit Eskimo, but he sure knows how to make pizza like an Italian. Or so he always tells us.  Afterwards, we went to the only movie theatre Eagle Harbor has, and saw a third run film for a dollar each that we’d all seen before.  The movie’s a good one though, and the price is right, so like Papa says, who can complain when a night out with your best girl doesn’t cost you more than fourteen bucks?

     Kylee and I did some necking in her driveway after I took her home, but unfortunately the sun shines almost all night in Eagle Harbor this time of year. That kind of limits a guy’s enthusiasm for necking with his girlfriend outside her parents’ house, especially when her father is looking out the front window every five minutes.  Mr. Bonnette seems pretty determined that his daughter and I don’t experience much more than a goodnight kiss.  Sometimes I’d like to take things farther than that, and I think Kylee would too, but Pops has talked to me a lot during the past few years about a guy’s responsibilities when it comes to sex.  He keeps reminding me of the goals I have for myself of being a doctor, and opening my own office in a rural area where the people are in bad need of medical care, and then tells me that I might never reach those goals if I end up having to raise a family before I’m out of college.  Since I don’t want to get married before I finish college, let alone raise a family, I guess it’s for the best that the sun is still shining when Kylee’s curfew rolls around. Kylee’s going to college, also. She’s majoring in restaurant and motel management, and plans to run a bed and breakfast inn some day, so she doesn’t want to get married anytime soon either.

     Papa was working in the barn when I sat at the kitchen table and called my mom this afternoon to tell her about my grades.  She heaped praise on me like she always does, then said she’d mail me a one-hundred dollar check. I know Papa doesn’t like it that Mom rewards me for my grades with money, but all he ever says about it is, “Make sure you write your mother and Franklin a thank you note.” 

Papa and my mom were never married.  I learned more about their relationship from Mom when I lived with her and Franklin a couple of summers ago, but Papa never talks about the years he and my mom lived together in Colorado.  Whenever I would bring the subject up when I was little, and ask why Mom lived all the way in New York, while we lived in Alaska, Papa would just say, “Your mother loves you very much, Trevor.  The reasons she and I aren’t living together have nothing to do with you.”  That was easy to accept when I was four, but by the time I was fourteen it was harder to understand.  I wanted to know why my father hadn’t married my mother, especially because by then he was talking to me about sex and telling me a man had a responsibility to the woman who bore his children. It seemed to me then, like Papa had reneged on his responsibility, given the fact that my mom was married to another man and had made her life so far away from us.  It wasn’t until Mom told me it was she who hadn’t wanted to marry Papa, and that Papa had asked her to marry him numerous times, that I realized situations aren’t always as clear as they seem to someone who’s looking from the outside in, rather than from the inside out.

     After Mom finished telling me about the things we’d do when I visited her, Franklin, and my little sister, Catherine, later in the summer, I asked, “Hey, Mom, how do you write a book?”

     “How do I write a book?”

     “Yeah.  You know.  You and Franklin have written books.  I was just wondering how you go about doin’ it.”

     I could hear the amusement in her voice.  “Why do you ask?  I thought you were going to be a doctor.  Have you changed your mind and are now aspiring to be the next great American novelist?”

     “No, I haven’t changed my mind about bein’ a doctor.  And if it was up to me, I wouldn’t even be the next worst American novelist, but I think that’s where I’m headed.”

     “What do you mean?”

I explained the assignment Mrs. St. Claire had given us, then said, “So?”

“So?”

“So, how do I write book?”

“You just write it.”

“That’s not much help.”

“All right.  How about this?  You start at the beginning, and write it until you’re finished.”

“Mom...” I implored.

“Trevor, I don’t know what else to tell you, sweetheart.  That’s the best advice I can give you until you have more specific questions for me.”

“How much more specific can I get other than, ‘how do I write a book’?”

“First, you need to settle on a subject or plot, depending on whether the book you’re going to write will be non-fiction or fiction. Then you need to draft an outline. Then you need to do the necessary research. Then you need to conduct interviews with experts in various fields if your subject or plot calls for that. Then you need to incorporate all of your notes into the outline.  Then...”

I laid my head on the table and moaned.

“Trevor?  Trevor, are you still there?”

I lifted my head and answered into the mouthpiece, “Yeah, I’m still here.”

Mom gave me a few more pointers, all of which seemed overwhelming, considering plot ideas were still escaping me where this assignment was concerned. It’s hard to think of outlines, and research, and interviews, when you don’t even know what your book’s going to be about.

I thanked Mom, told her that I loved her, then pressed the button that disconnected the call.  I stood, crossed to the counter, and put the portable receiver back in its base.  

I turned around and stared out the bay window that faced the front yard.  The bay’s side windows were open, letting a breeze flow through the house along with the scent of Sitka pines.

I never heard Papa enter the laundry room, wash up at the sink, and then come into the kitchen.  I didn’t know he was next to me until he clamped a hand on my right shoulder.  I gave a startled, “Ah!” and jumped, which made him laugh.  He loves to sneak up on people and scare the crap out of them if he can.  You’d think by now I’d be on the lookout for him, but he can still catch me by surprise every so often.

It was only four-thirty, but Pops started pulling things out of the fridge.  He handed me a casserole dish of hash brown potatoes that Clarice had made, and asked me to put it in the oven on ‘warm.’  I did that, while Papa grabbed a plate of hamburger patties he had put in the fridge the night before. 

“I’m going to start the grill,” he told me. “You wanna get the buns, ketchup, pickles, onions, tomatoes, cheddar cheese, and anything else you want on your burger, and bring all of it out to the picnic table?”

“Sure.”

I spent the next fifteen minutes slicing cheese, tomatoes, onions, and pickles, and putting the food on a platter.  Thirty minutes after I had finished, we were sitting together at the backyard picnic table eating supper off paper plates. Our dogs sat around the table begging for scraps, and every so often one of us would toss them part of a hamburger or a piece of bun. 

We had to put our male Malamute, Nicolai, to sleep last year.  He had cancer, and it reached a point where he was suffering so bad that we couldn’t let it go on any longer.  Taking him to the vet that final time was the hardest thing I ever had to do.  Papa told me I didn’t have to go with him, but Nicolai was my dog as much as he was Papa’s, so I wanted to say one last goodbye.  I felt stupid crying over a dog, but I did cry, and for a while I was pretty sad every time I’d see something that reminded me of Nic, like his dish or his collar.  This Christmas Pops surprised me with two eight-week-old Malamute puppies, one female and one male, that we named Nadia and Zhavago. We still have Tasha, but she’s the same age as Nicolai was, so I know one of these days I’ll be forced to say goodbye to her as well.  She’s doing okay though, considering she’s thirteen. She really missed Nicolai after he died. If a dog can be depressed, she was.  She’s more like her old self now that Nadia and Zhavago are here. She even plays with them, though she has a hard time keeping up with them, since they’re young and have so much energy. She doesn’t seem to mind, however.  When she gets tired, she lays down in the yard and is happy to watch them chase each other, or fetch a ball I’ve thrown.

While we ate, Papa asked, “Did you call your mother this afternoon?”

“Yeah.”

“What’d she have to say?”

I shrugged and swallowed my mouthful of potatoes. “Not much.  Just talked about what we’d do when I go to New York in July.”

“Did you tell her about your grades?”

“Yeah.”

“If she sends you money--”

“I know, I know. Be sure to write her and Franklin a thank you note. I will.”

“Good. I don’t want her to think I raised you with no manners.”

“She doesn’t think that. Far from it.”

Now it was Papa who shrugged. “Whatever. Don’t much care what she thinks.”

I hid my smile within my hamburger. Of course Papa cares about what my mother thinks.  He always has.  It’s to bad things didn’t work out between them, because I know even after all these years he still loves her.  Sometimes I wonder if that’s why he’s never been serious with a woman here in Alaska – if the reason behind that is because he still loves my mom.  It’s hard for me to know for certain either way. I’ve heard all the excuses he’s given Clarice over the years. 

He’s not interested in a serious, long-term commitment.

He hasn’t met a woman in Alaska that he wants to pursue a relationship with. 

Between his responsibilities to the fire department and to me, he’s too busy to have a woman in his life right now. 

Whatever the reason, Pops seems happy being single, and since he has been single for most of his adult life, maybe a major change like marriage just isn’t something he wants.  Now that I’m almost grown, I kind of wish he’d find someone who’s special to him – some woman he could enjoy spending time with after I’m off to college, but when I mentioned that to Papa this winter, and told him it wouldn’t bother me if he had a girlfriend, he just laughed and said, “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine when you’re out on your own.”

“But if you meet a woman--”

“If I meet the right woman, I’m not against dating...or marriage even, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Okay. I just wanted to make sure.  I didn’t want you to think I’d be jealous or anything.”

“That’s not what I think,” Pops assured me, then he changed the subject and we haven’t talked about it since.

I finished my hamburger, wiped my hands on a napkin, took a long gulp of Coke, then said, “I asked Mom how I’m supposed to go about writing my book.”

“Oh yeah?  What’d she say?”

“Just to start writing.”

“Sounds like good advice to me.”

I sighed as I stood to help my father clear the picnic table.  “It doesn’t sound like good advice to me.  It doesn’t sound like advice at all.”

Papa laughed at my expression, and told me not to look so pitiful.  After we had everything cleaned up we went back outside and took a hike with the dogs. We were gone an hour. When we returned, I fed the dogs and the barn cats, while Papa fed the horses. Afterwards, we sat together on the picnic table enjoying the evening.  Alaska has such a short summer, and our area of the state receives so much rain, that we enjoy every bit of sunshine and mild temperatures that come our way. 

I was sitting on the ground roughhousing with Nadia and Zhavago, when Papa went into the house for the portable phone.  He came back out with the receiver and sat down on the picnic table bench once again.  He called my grandfather first.  After they had talked for a few minutes, he handed me the phone and said, “Tell Grandpa about your grades.”

I rolled my eyes, but did as Papa requested. Grandpa’s a great guy, and despite his age, still healthy both mentally and physically.  He’s lived through so much history. He was a boy when the Great Depression hit, and a young man when it came to an end.  He was amongst the forty-four thousand Native Americans who served in the military during World War II, and then went on to start a successful, self-owned business during an era when few minorities were able to do so.  As we talked, I started wondering if maybe Grandpa had a story to tell me that I could turn into a book. Besides the stuff I already mentioned, he’d grown up on an Indian reservation, and then had married a white woman – my paternal grandmother who died in 1967 - at a time when being in a mixed marriage could get a guy killed. I filed my thoughts in the back of my mind, deciding they were definitely worth contemplating over the next few days.

After Pops and I had talked to both Grandpa and Grandma Marietta, Papa called Aunt Reah.  She used to live in Newfoundland, but because Grandma Marietta and Grandpa are both in their late eighties, Aunt Reah moved back to Montana two years ago so she could help them when needed.  She owns a house in White Rock, the town near my grandpa’s ranch, and provides prenatal care to women on area Indian reservations.

Pops made me tell Aunt Reah about my grades, and while I talked to her I got to thinking that she probably has lots of stories to tell.  She delivered babies for women in Newfoundland, and now she was doing that for women in northwestern Montana. She’s also traveled overseas several times on vacation because she’s curious about other cultures and customs, so she’s seen and done a lot of interesting things in her life.

I was still mulling over the possibilities of getting some kind of story for my book from Grandpa or Aunt Reah, when Papa called Uncle Roy.  Roy DeSoto isn’t my real uncle, but rather, he’s Papa’s best friend, and has been for thirty-eight years.  Once again, Papa handed me the phone.

“Tell Uncle Roy about your grades,” he urged, while he ignored my eye roll for the third time that evening.

Just like with Grandpa and Aunt Reah, I realized Uncle Roy probably had a lot of stories to tell, too. He’d been with the Los Angeles County Fire Department forty-one years when he retired last summer. You can’t do all the things Uncle Roy has – everything from fighting fires, to being one of L.A. County’s first paramedics, to advancing in the ranks to battalion chief, to retiring as the paramedic instructor for the entire fire department, without having some exciting stories.

I thought I’d finally hit on an idea for my book as I handed the phone back to Papa, when just as quickly I returned to being overwhelmed. Now that I’d thought of three people who had led full and interesting lives, I didn’t know which one to talk to.  Grandpa could tell me a lot about the history he’d been a part of, while Aunt Reah could tell me a lot about living alone in remote areas of Newfoundland while assisting women with childbirth who would otherwise have no medical care, while Uncle Roy could tell me a lot about being a firefighter/paramedic for most of his adult life.  The subjects were so varied that it was hard for me to decide which one would make a good story. 

“Man, I can’t believe this,” I muttered, while petting my dogs.  “First I don’t know what to write about, now I’m worried that I’ve got too much to choose from.”

I sat on the grass and listened as Papa talked the talk of old friends with Uncle Roy.  It was comforting, because it reminded me of when I was younger, and used to listen as Pops talked to Uncle Roy while I did my homework at the kitchen table.  They’d reminisce about when they worked together, telling the same stories over and over again.  They never seem to tire of those stories though, and I never tire of hearing them. Their relationship has embodied and endured so much over the years, that even at the young age of eight, it stood out to me as a symbol of what friendship is all about - two people from different backgrounds and with different personalities, whose differences grow to become the strength that binds them together for life.     

Nadia chewed on my hand while I quietly wrestled with Zhavago. I smiled when I heard Pops start laughing at some story Uncle Roy was telling – a story Pops has laughed at dozens of times over the past nine years since he and Uncle Roy renewed their friendship. They’d lost touch after Papa moved to Denver in 1985. In a frightening chain of events, it was a pedophile serial killer named Evan Crammer who brought Uncle Roy and Papa back together again in July of 2000. My father had first encountered Crammer on an April weekend in 1978, when he had taken Chris and Jennifer DeSoto camping. Crammer tried to abduct Jennifer in the middle of the night.  Papa was stabbed multiple times while wrestling Jennifer away from the man, and was close to death when help finally arrived and he was transported to Rampart Hospital.

I thought over what little I knew of my father’s experiences with Evan Crammer as I listened to Pops gab to Uncle Roy.  For the first time, I wondered what had been running through Papa’s head when Crammer was attacking him. He must have been so scared. So frightened that Crammer would kill both him and Jennifer.  And then nine years ago, Crammer returned for revenge, and my father found himself facing the guy again while trying to keep Jennifer’s then ten-year-old daughter, Libby, safe.  For Papa, it must have been like reliving a nightmare, but whatever thoughts he’s had about those two experiences he’s never voiced. Or at least not to me, and not to anyone else as far as I know.

After Papa said goodbye to Uncle Roy and disconnected the call, he stood and walked toward the house. When he sensed I wasn’t following him, he turned around.

“You comin’ inside, Trev?”

I continued to pet my dogs, my mind barely focusing on his words.

“In a little while.”

“Okay. I think I’ll read the newspaper, then go to bed.” He bent and kissed the top of my head. “Good night.”

“Night, Pops.”

I sat in the back yard for another thirty minutes. By the time I locked the dogs in the barn for the night and entered the house, Papa had gone to bed.  I locked the door, took my tennis shoes off, washed my hands at the laundry room sink, and then sat at the kitchen table eating a piece of cherry cobbler along with a scoop of ice cream. Clarice is one of the best cooks in Eagle Harbor. I think half the reason she likes Pops and me so much, is because we appreciate everything she makes, and tackle it as though it’s our last meal. Or so Clarice says when she’s teasing us about our appetites, while wondering how we’re lucky enough to stay so skinny despite all we eat.

I put my dishes in the dishwasher, shut off the kitchen light, then walked through the great room. Papa had left a lamp on for me, though it wasn’t necessary.  It was ten o’clock, but there was still sunlight coming in through the windows.  I shut the lamp off and turned for the stairs that would take me to my room, then on impulse changed my mind about going to bed.  I went to the office Papa has that’s off the great room.  I flicked on the overhead light and crossed to his desk.

I sat down in my father’s chair, hesitating a moment before reaching for his lower right-hand desk drawer.  I pulled out two thick photo albums that contain pictures from the years Papa lived in Los Angeles.  Beneath those two photo albums were two manila envelopes. Without looking, I knew one envelope contained cards and artwork made for Papa by Chris, Jennifer, and John DeSoto when they were kids.  The other envelope held newspaper clippings regarding various fires and rescues Papa had been a part of during his years with the L.A. County Fire Department, and newspaper clippings about the attempted abduction of Jennifer that took place over thirty years ago.  I was eight-years-old when I found the artwork and newspaper clippings. Even though I was young, for the first time I understood my father had left a very important part of his past, and a very important part of himself, in the city he had moved from in 1985.

Curiosity got the best of me tonight.  I wanted to see if Papa had added any newspaper clippings about the abductions of himself and Libby Sheridan to his collection.  In all the years since that happened, I’ve never thought to ask.  Sure enough, a vast collection was there.  There were stories about the event in the Los Angeles Times, as well as in the Eagle Harbor Chronicle.  As odd as it seems, I’ve never read these articles, even though my name was mentioned in the ones that appeared in the Chronicle. After all, it’s not often that an eight-year-old kid stows away on a plane in an attempt to rescue his father from the clutches of a serial killer.

I read the articles, then read them a second time.  I picked up the articles that had appeared in the L.A. Times in 1978, and read them through twice as well. I could feel my brows furrowing with concentration as I slowly paged through Papa’s photo albums in an attempt to capture in my mind the young men he and Roy DeSoto had once been.  I didn’t realize how much time had passed until I looked up at the clock hanging on the wall opposite my father’s desk.  Uncle Roy and Aunt Joanne had given it to Papa for Christmas.  It was in the shape of a fire engine, with the face of the clock located on the engine’s door.  It was eleven-thirty, but I didn’t feel tired.  Instead, I was too excited to sleep, because suddenly I knew exactly what I was going to write about.

I scooped up a photo album and the newspaper clippings and ran from the room.  I charged up the stairs, never thinking about the fact that my father had been asleep for two hours now, and probably wouldn’t appreciate being woken up by his budding novelist.

I burst into Pop’s room with a cry of, “Papa!  Papa!  I’ve got an idea!  I’ve got an idea for my book!”

     And no, Papa didn’t appreciate being woken up. By the time we finished yelling at one another, I could have kicked myself in the butt for sharing my idea with him in the first place.

Wednesday, June 10th, 2009

I was too tired on Sunday night to finish my journal entry, (actually, the entry stretched into the early hours of Monday morning) so I ended it in kind of a dumb place.  Or at least I thought I did, until I read it again a few minutes ago.  It makes a person wonder what happened next, which reminds me of how a lot of authors end chapters. That prompted me to record in the notes I’ve started for my book:

 At the end of each chapter make the reader want to keep reading.

I’m not sure how much luck I’ll have at that, but I like how I ended my journal entry the other night, so maybe I’ll get the hang of that method if I practice it some more. For now, though, I’ll go back to the events of Sunday night.

Papa shot up in bed when I flung his door open and yelled, “I’ve got an idea for my book!”

He threw the covers back and started climbing into his blue jeans.  I realized then that he wasn’t fully awake.  I found out later he thought he was at the fire station, and that the klaxons had gone off.  I should have known he’d think that. After all of his years working for fire departments, if you wake him from a dead sleep he usually spends the first few seconds going through the motions of jumping into turn-outs before he’s oriented. 

It was when I turned on his bedside lamp that Pops realized where he was.  I had a sheepish look on my face as he collapsed back on the bed with one leg in his jeans, and one leg still out of them. 

“Ah...sorry, Papa.”

He scowled at me.  “Is the house on fire?”

“Uh...no.”

“Did you hurt yourself?”

“Uh...no.”

“Is someone tryin’ to break in?”

“Uh...no.”

“Is there a gas leak?”

“Uh...I don’t think so.”

“Okay then, what’s the emergency?”

“There...there isn’t one.”

Pops pulled his jeans off and threw them to the end of the bed. He sat on the edge of the mattress in his boxer shorts and raked a hand through his hair.  What hadn’t been standing up in spikes messed by sleep was standing up now.  I thought Pops looked pretty funny, but I was smart enough not to say anything about his appearance.

“So if there isn’t an emergency, would you mind tellin’ me why you threw my door open in the middle of the night while yelling at the top of your lungs?”

“Well...see I’ve...I’ve got an idea for my book.”

“Good for you, but don’t cha’ think that news coulda’ waited until morning?”

“Um...yeah, I guess it could have.  Sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”

Papa shot me half a smile. “You’re forgiven.  But next time there’s not an emergency, remember two things please.”

“What two things?”

“Don’t come in here without knocking first. And don’t wake me up if I’m already sleeping.”

“I’ll remember.”

“Glad to hear it, ‘cause your old man’s heart can’t take a lot more of these middle of the night jump starts.”

I laughed. “Yeah, sure. You’ll be jump starting when you’re eighty if that means you’re still working for the fire department.”

“Maybe,” Pops agreed, acknowledging in that one word his life-long love of being a firefighter-paramedic.

  He pointed at the things I was carrying in my hands.  “What’s that?”

I sat down next to him.  “One of your photo albums from when you lived in L.A., and these newspaper clippings.”

I thrust the clippings at Papa, but he didn’t take them.  He glanced down long enough to see the headline on the top one - A Hero Fights For His Life! - then looked at me again.

“What are you doing with that stuff?”

“Like I said, I’ve got an idea for my book.”

I could hear the wariness in his voice when he asked, “What idea?”

“It came to me when you were talking to Uncle Roy on the phone.  I got to thinkin’ what good friends the two of you have been for so many years, and then after I came inside I went to your office.  I started looking at these old pictures, and the newspaper clippings from when Evan Crammer tried to kidnap Jennifer, and then kidnapped you and Libby, and that’s when I knew what I’d write about. That’s when--”

“No.”

“Huh?”

“No.”

“But, Pops--”

“Trevor, I said no.  You’ll have to come up with another idea.”

“But I’ve been thinking for a week now and this is the first idea I’ve had.  And the great thing about it is just what you said the other day at Donna’s.”

“What I said?”

“It was right under my nose.”

“No,” he shook his head.  “Not that.  Not...not about Crammer. You think harder. I’m sure you’ll come up with something else over the next few days.”

“But, Papa--”

We don’t get into yelling matches often any more, but every once in a while we can still get pretty upset with one another.

“Trevor, I said no!  Now drop it. It’s late, and we both have to work in the morning.  Go to bed.”

“Pops, come on!” I jumped to my feet, still clinging to the photo album and clippings.  “This is the best idea!  No one is gonna be able to write a story better than this one!  Besides, I don’t have any other ideas.  This is the first good plot that I’ve thought of since Mrs. St. Claire gave us the assign--”

“Trevor, how many times do I have to say no?”

“You don’t have to say it any times.  All you have to say is yes.”

“Well I’m not gonna say yes.  Now go to bed.”

“Papa--”

Now it was Papa’s turn to stand up.  He’s taller than me by only an inch now, but even when wearing nothing but boxer shorts he can still intimidate me into good behavior when he shoots me that glare he has.

“Young man, I’m not gonna say it again.  Drop it, and get to bed.”

I resorted to the only defense I had left. Immaturity.

“Fine!  Fine, I’ll drop it. But when I get an F and Jenna Van Temple is valedictorian, you’ll have no one to blame but yourself!”

With that, I stomped out of the room and slammed the door behind me.  I marched to my room, and slammed that door for good measure. I tossed the photo album and clippings on my dresser, then spent ten minutes pacing the room while muttering things like, “He’s so stupid,” and “Fine, I’m not gonna a write a book at all then. I’ll flunk, and he can brag about that to his friends.”

When I’d calmed down some, I sat at my desk so I could type in my journal. This is the first year Pops has let me have a computer in my room, though he doesn’t let me have Internet access.  If I need to get on the Net I have to use the computer in his office, meaning he can check the History icon at any time to see what sites I’ve visited. I think Papa’s convinced that teenage boys do nothing but access porn sites if left unsupervised to surf the Net - which probably isn’t too far from the truth.  I’ve surfed the Net a few times with friends who are allowed to do so from computers in their bedrooms, so I know what teenage boys – including me - like to look at when they don’t have to worry about their parents checking up on them.

 I was surprised I could set my anger aside while I recorded the events of the day, but I could, which means I’ve learned something else about writing.  It’s therapeutic, and it allows you to escape to a place far removed from your current reality. Maybe that’s why I stopped my journal entry where I did.  Maybe my anger was too fresh, and I didn’t want to reenter my current reality. Or maybe I was depressed because I had to come up with a new idea for my book, or maybe, like I said earlier, I was just too tired to keep typing.  Whatever it was, I saved my entry to my hard drive and to a disk, then stripped to my boxers and climbed in bed.  I tossed and turned for over an hour. I was so upset with Papa for dashing my book idea that I couldn’t settle down.

When the alarm went off at six, I felt like I could use another seven hours of sleep.  Unfortunately, I had to get up because there were animals to take care of before I reported to work at eight.

I made my bed, then took clothes across to the hall to the bathroom and got dressed.  I could smell bread toasting in the toaster as I made my way down the stairs.  I entered the kitchen to find Papa setting a box of Wheat Chex and a box of Cheerios on the kitchen table.  Orange juice had already been poured into glasses that were setting on the table as well.

I headed for the laundry room.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“To the barn.” I refused to look at Pops. “Got chores to do.”

“You can do them after breakfast.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Sit down.”

I hesitated long enough for Pops to order again, “Trevor, sit down.”

I pulled a chair out and slammed the legs on the floor in the act of sitting. Papa shot me that glare of his again.

“I’ve heard enough slamming of doors and chairs in the past six hours to last me until you graduate from high school, so cool it.”

“I’m not gonna graduate now.  I’ll be lucky if the Merchant Marine will take me after I flunk Mrs. St. Claire’s class next year.”

“You’re not gonna flunk Mrs. St. Claire’s class.”

“I will if I don’t turn a book in.”

“You’re gonna turn a book in.”

“I was gonna turn a book in,” I said as Papa placed a plate of buttered toast in front of me, “until you told me I couldn’t write about Crammer.  You know, you can’t tell me what I can or can’t write. There is this thing called freedom of the press. The constitution says I can write whatever I want to.”

“That’s true, except the constitution doesn’t feed and clothe you, now does it?”

I scowled, but kept my thoughts to myself. I knew if I opened my mouth and said anything, what came out was going to get me grounded for at least a week.

Papa sat down across from me and filled his cereal bowl with Wheat Chex.  As he poured milk in and added two teaspoons of sugar, he said, “I’ve been giving this idea of yours some more thought.”

“I already heard you.  You said I can’t write it, so forget it.”

“You give up too easily.”

“What’s the supposed to mean?”

“Just what I said. You give up too easily.”

“I don’t have much choice, do I?  You said I can’t use that plot.”

Papa smiled. “Anything worth doing is worth fighting for.”

“Yeah, but don’t cha’ think I’m at kind of a disadvantage?”

“How so?”

“It’ my father I’m fighting with over this.”

“Good point,” Papa nodded. He didn’t say anything for a few seconds, then asked, “So, you’re sure you can write a book about Crammer?”

I wasn’t sure I could write a book about anything, but I didn’t say that to Papa.  I figured my father’s experiences with Evan Crammer were as good of a subject to settle on as any.  At least the research and interviews, as Mom mentioned were necessary, wouldn’t be too hard to come by.

I sounded more confident then I felt when I gave a firm nod, and an equally firm, “I’m sure.”

“All right, here’s the deal then.”

“There’s a deal I have to make?”

“Yep. There is.”

“I don’t think Hemingway ever had to make any deals when he wrote his books.”

“That’s because Hemingway wasn’t seventeen years old and living with his father when he was writing.”

“Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure.  And even if I’m wrong, we’re not talking about Hemingway. We’re talking about you.”

“That’s what I thought you were gonna say.” I put grape jelly on my toast, took a bite, chewed and swallowed, then asked, “Okay, what’s the deal?”

“The deal is that you first have to find out if anyone but Mrs. St. Claire is gonna read the book.”

“I can do that.  I can stop by her house on my way home from Gus’s today.”

“Okay.  If she’s the only person who’s gonna read it, then I’ll be more inclined to say yes.”

I grinned. “All right!  Thanks, Pops. I--”

He held up a hand.  “Hold on just a minute. There’s two more parts to this deal.”

“What?”

“You have to change everyone’s names. I don’t want anyone’s real name used. Not mine, not Crammer’s, and most of all not your Uncle Roy’s, Chris’s, Jennifer’s, or Libby’s.  You have to be willing to respect our privacy.”

“I will,” I promised. I was pretty sure fiction authors sometimes based their books on actual people and events, but changed stuff like names, places, and facts.  I made a mental note to ask Mrs. St. Claire about that when I saw her.

“The other thing is, you have to get permission from Uncle Roy, Chris, Jennifer, and Libby to do this. I don’t want you askin’ them questions, or bothering them in any way, if they don’t wanna participate.”

“Okay, I’ll talk to them as soon as possible.  I can call them after I get home from work.”

This had been Libby’s freshman year at UCLA.  She’s majoring in music, and hopes to play in a symphony orchestra after she graduates.  She lived on campus during the school year, but now that summer is here, she moved back to Jennifer’s house.  She works at a GAP, and when she’s not working, she plays with an orchestra that gives evening performances in parks around the L.A. area.  I knew I could get a hold of Libby and Jennifer at Jennifer’s house, and Chris is easy to get in touch with on most days since he works out of his home. I wasn’t as certain about Uncle Roy, because now that he and Aunt Joanne are both retired, they travel some.

“Is Uncle Roy around?”

“He was last night when I talked to him on the phone.”

“What I mean is, he didn’t say anything about him and Aunt Joanne going away this week, did he?”

“Nope. He didn’t mention any plans for trips until they go to Wyoming in August to see John and his family.”

“Okay. Then I’ll try to get in touch with all of them after I get off work today.”

“All right.  And if any of them say no--”

“If any of them say no, then I’ll come up with another idea.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

We talked about other things while we ate. I had just finished my breakfast when Clarice’s vehicle pulled in the driveway. I stood to carry my dishes to the dishwasher. After I had placed them in the lower rack and shut the door, I walked by Pops, bent down, and encircled his shoulders with my right arm.

“Thanks, Papa.”

He reached up and patted my arm.  “You’re welcome.”

“See you tonight. I’ll bring supper to the station for you, okay?”

“Okay,” Pops agreed.

Papa was starting a twenty-four hour shift that morning.  When I was little, Clarice and I took supper to the station when Pops had all-night duty, so he and I could eat together.  That ritual has continued, even though I’m not a kid any more. Now that I’m driving, Clarice doesn’t come with me. She either packs a hot meal for both Papa and me that I take as I leave the house, or I treat Pops to something like pizza from Mr. Ochlou’s, or burgers from Donna’s.

“Be careful today,” Papa said, like he has every day since I started driving.

“I will be,” I promised while heading for the door. “You too.”

I met Clarice coming in as I was going out.  She told me to make sure I stopped back in the house to pick up the lunch she was going to pack for me. I smiled my thanks at her and said I would.  While I was doing chores, I heard the fire department SUV Papa drives start up.  By the time I walked out of the barn ten minutes later, he had left for work.

I thought about everything I had to do as I went to the house to shower, change into clothes that didn’t smell like horses, and brush my teeth, before going to the airport.  Despite my confidence with Papa, I wasn’t certain how to go about asking the various members of the DeSoto family for the permission I needed to write the book. 

It wasn’t that I was nervous about talking to Chris, Jennifer, or Libby.  Libby is one of my closest friends, and Chris and Jen treat me like an older brother and sister might treat a favorite little brother.  I guess it’s kind of egotistical to refer to myself as a ‘favorite little brother’ but that’s the best way I can describe it.  Enough years separate me from Chris and Jennifer that they’re old enough to be parents to me, but my relationship with them has never included parental overtones. I look up to both of them in the way I imagine a kid looks up to much older and respected siblings.  Therefore, uneasiness didn’t play a part in asking them for permission to write a book in which the plot would mirror terrifying events they had lived through, but rather, figuring out how to ask, how to explain this crazy idea I had, was what had me worked up. After all, who was going to take a seventeen-year-old seriously when it came to a novel as complex as this?  And all for nothing but a dumb school assignment that seventeen-year-old wouldn’t be participating in if he had a choice.     

 On the other side of the DeSoto family coin, I was nervous about talking to Uncle Roy, which is kind of odd, because he’s never given me reason to be afraid of him other than the first time I met him. That was when I was eight and had stowed away to California.  I was too young then to realize that the man I thought was grouchier than the Grinch, was grouchy because he was worried about his granddaughter’s whereabouts and safety.  All I knew was one minute Roy DeSoto didn’t seem to like me very much, and the next minute I was calling him “Uncle Roy” and beginning to feel strong affection for the gentle man with the soft voice who comforted me while I cried for my missing father.

I’m still not sure why the thought of asking Uncle Roy for his permission to write this book was so difficult, other than to say that, like Papa, I’d never heard him talk about Evan Crammer.  Not that I’d heard Chris, Jennifer, or Libby talk about Crammer a lot either, but I have heard them say a few things about their experiences with the man – mostly in relationship to how grateful they are to my father for keeping them safe, and how he was willing to sacrifice himself for them.  Just the three of them talking to me that little bit about Crammer over the years gave me the impression the subject wasn’t off-limits with them.  Somehow, I’d always gotten the opposite impression with Uncle Roy.  Maybe it’s just because he’s not a guy to talk much about his feelings. Or maybe it’s because I’ve never really asked him about Crammer. Or maybe...well, maybe it’s because Evan Crammer is difficult for him to talk about, just like Crammer is difficult for Papa to talk about.  

After I was showered and dressed, I raced down the stairs.  I grabbed my insulated lunch bag from the counter, gave Clarice a kiss on the cheek, told her goodbye, and dashed out the door.  I arrived at the airport a few minutes before eight.  Although I usually hate it when Gus asks me to give his office a good cleaning (the guy is a total slob when it comes to keeping an organized file cabinet, putting away receipts for taxes, and throwing away papers he no longer needs) I was actually glad for such a routine chore. While I separated papers into piles, then filed, dusted, and swept, I rehearsed how I was going to present my case for the book to the DeSotos.  Even after three hours of talking to myself, I wasn’t sure if I sounded like anything other than a stammering idiot. If nothing else, Gus’s office looked great.  Or so he said as I ran by him on my way to my other job. 

Monday through Friday in the summertime I do lunch deliveries for Mr. Ochlou along with Dylan Teirman.  Kylee is a waitress at Ochlou’s Pizzeria, and if Dylan and I get our deliveries done early we help her out by bussing tables.  Besides pizza, Mr. Ochlou serves sandwiches and hotdogs, so he’s always busy between eleven and one-thirty. 

“See you around two!” I called to Gus as I ran out of his office, headed for my truck.

“See you then!  I’ve got a plane for us to load when you get back!”

I waved a hand in acknowledgment of Gus’s words. He hauls cargo all over Alaska, and down into Washington, Oregon, and California, too. 

It’s always good to see Kylee, and I’ve been best friends with Dylan and his twin, Dalton, for as long as I can remember, so working at Mr. Ochlou’s is as much fun as working for Gus, only in a different way, of course.  At Gus’s, I get to indulge in my love of flying. At Ochlou’s Pizzeria, I get to indulge in my love of Kylee.  Or at least I get to make ‘goo goo’ eyes at her from afar, as Mr. Ochlou is always accusing me of doing in that grumpy way he has of talking. I learned a long time ago that his bark is worse than his bite, so I never let anything he says get to me. 

I ate my lunch as I drove from the airport to the pizzeria. I worked at Ochlou’s from eleven-fifteen until one forty-five.  I punched out, said goodbye to Mr. Ochlou and Dylan, then grabbed Kylee and pulled her into the seclusion of the short hallway that leads to the public restrooms.  We exchanged two kisses before Mr. Ochlou yelled, “Hey, lover boy, be on your way so Kylee can get back to work!  I’m not paying her to keep your lips warm, Gage.”

Kylee giggled while I shook my head and rolled my eyes. 

“I’ll call you after work,” I promised. “I’m gonna eat supper at the station with my pops, but before I go home maybe I can stop by your place. We can take a walk and get some ice cream.”

“All right,” Kylee agreed. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“Yeah. Talk to you later.”

I stole one more kiss, then pushed the swinging glass door open and ran across the parking lot to my truck. As I came upon Mrs. St. Claire’s house, I saw her working in the yard, so decided it was as good a time as any to talk to her. 

Mrs. St. Claire acted happy to see me, which I thought was pretty nice of her considering no teacher probably wants to see a student during summer vacation.  Of course, here in Eagle Harbor that’s kind of hard to avoid, considering how isolated this community is from the mainland of Alaska.

I asked Mrs. St. Claire the questions Papa told me I had to.  She assured me that she’d be the only person reading the book, and she confirmed that fiction authors often base their books on real events, but take numerous fictional liberties to hide that fact from their readers at large.

“Sounds like you have quite a plot in mind, Trevor,” my teacher said, even though I hadn’t told her many details about my idea.  However, she’d been a resident of Eagle Harbor when Papa was kidnapped and I stowed away, so she was at least aware of the information given in the newspaper, and then whatever else had circulated as a result of small town gossip.

“Maybe.  I don’t know. First of all, I have to get permission from a few people to write it...people who were involved in the incidents.  If they say yes, then I’ll have to see if I can do something with it. You know, turn it into a real book.”

“I’m sure you can.”

“I’m glad you think so, because I’m not so certain of that.  Writing a book is already hard work, Mrs. St. Claire, and I haven’t even started yet.”

     Mrs. St. Claire laughed, then told me she was confident that I wasn’t afraid of a little hard work.

     Her mentioning hard work made me look at my watch. I thanked my teacher for her time, got back in my truck, and headed for Gus’s.

     I finished my day at the airport at four-thirty.  I smelled supper cooking when I entered my house at ten minutes to five.   

Clarice smiled as I walked in the door. “I knew you’d be home soon.  I’ll have food packed for you and your papa within the hour.”

“Thanks.”

I unpacked my lunch bag while telling Clarice about my day.  I didn’t mention anything about stopping to see Mrs. St. Claire. I didn’t want Clarice, or anyone else in Eagle Harbor, to know about the book.  Or at least not right then.  If I blew it and didn’t get it written, or if it turned out to be lousy and I got a bad grade on it, I figured the less people who knew the better.

While Clarice worked in the kitchen, I went outside and did chores.  I threw a ball a few times for my dogs before I fed them.  I petted all three of them, and promised we’d take a hike on Tuesday.  Between work, baseball, and Kylee, I don’t have as much time to play with Nadia and Zhavago like I used to play with Tasha and Nicolai. I guess that’s why I think of Nadia and Vag as Papa’s dogs, more than I think of them as my own.  Not to mention that they’ll be his companions after I leave for college.

When I was finished with chores I went into the house.  I cleaned up and changed clothes again, then slipped into Papa’s office without Clarice seeing me. She had the TV on that’s mounted beneath a set of cabinets in the kitchen. She was watching Jeopardy while she ate her supper, so she wasn’t paying attention to where I was. 

I shut the office door and sat down behind Papa’s desk.  I wiped a sweaty palm on the leg of my jeans, then laid my hand on the phone’s receiver. I took three deep breaths, picked up the receiver, and punched in Uncle Roy’s number.  I figured I might as well call him first, since he was the DeSoto I most expected to say “no” to my request.  If he refused to give me permission to write the book, then there was no use in wasting my time calling Chris, Jennifer, and Libby.

The phone rang four times. Just when I was expecting the answering machine to pick up, I heard a man’s voice say, “Hello?”

“Uh...uh...” I swallowed hard and wiped my sweaty palm on my jeans again. “Uh...Uncle Roy...this is Trevor.  Uh...Trevor Gage.”

Uncle Roy chuckled over the way I had supplied my last name.  “I’m not so old yet that you need to give me your last name, Trev.”

“Oh...uh...no. No, I didn’t mean...I don’t think you are.  Old, I mean. I don’t think you’re old. Sorry.”

The man must have sensed my nervousness, because his next question was an urgent, “Trevor, are you all right?  Is your father okay?”

“Uh...yeah. Yeah. We’re both fine.”

“Good. Good, glad to hear it.  You had me worried there for a second.  So, to what do I owe the pleasure of this call, young man?”

“I...um...Uncle Roy, is it okay if I write a book?”

And that was the brilliant way I tried to obtain permission from Roy DeSoto to write a book about his experiences with a serial killer named Evan Crammer.

Sunday, June 14th, 2009

I didn’t know being a writer was such hard work. Since Wednesday night I’ve spent every spare minute I have on my book, and I haven’t written even one page of it yet!  At this rate, I’ll have to repeat my senior year in order to finish the stupid thing. I said that to Papa this evening when he came home from work and found me at the computer in his office – the same place he had found me before he left for work at seven-thirty this morning.

Once again, Papa voiced his confidence in me. 

“You’ll have it finished before the deadline. Don’t get so high-strung over it.  Work on it an hour or two each day, then call it quits. If you do that, little by little it’ll get done.”

If you knew my pops, you’d know why I thought it was funny when he told me not to get so high-strung. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.  (That’s an old-fashioned expression, but it’s one Clarice uses all the time in reference to Papa and me. I’ve picked up on it over the years, and on some of her other expressions, too. Therefore, I find myself sounding like a seventy-seven year old woman at times, and not like a seventeen-year old guy.)

“An hour or two each day?” Even I could hear the disbelief in my voice. “Pops, there’s a lot more to this than I thought. I’m gonna have to spend every free minute I have on this book, and even then, I’ll be lucky to have it done by April.”

Papa shrugged. “Then pick another plot.”

I had a feeling there was more to that comment than met the eye.  Papa said it casually enough, but I got the impression that’s what he really hoped I do. Which, in turn, made me even more determined to write about Evan Crammer.

“No,” I shook my head. “No, I’ll stick with this one. Besides, I’ve already gotten everyone’s permission. I’m not gonna change my mind now.”

I meant that too.  No way was I going to change my mind.  Just getting in touch with all of the DeSotos, explaining my assignment, and telling each of them my idea for the plot, had taken a lot of time.  I had to call Libby after I got home from taking Kylee for ice cream on Wednesday night, because I hadn’t been able to reach her before I left for the fire station with Papa’s supper. Jennifer was on duty at the hospital when I finally got in touch with Libs, so I had to call back on Thursday night in order to talk to her.  

As I had expected it would be, talking about my book to Chris, Jennifer, and Libby was pretty easy.  Chris thought it was a neat idea, wished me luck, and told me he’d answer any questions he could.  He was eleven years old in April of 1978, and it had been Chris who rode my father’s horse, Cody, down a mountain in order to get help after Evan Crammer had stabbed Papa multiple times.  That’s all I know about Chris’s involvement, so I’m anxious to find out what he remembers about that weekend when Crammer tried to kidnap Jennifer, and Papa was seriously injured protecting her.

Getting permission from Libby to write the book wasn’t any more of a problem than getting it from Chris had been. Even though she must have some terrifying memories of her four days held captive by Crammer, Libby was excited about my book.

“That’s awesome, Trev. It’s a great way to let everyone know what a hero your father is.”

“It’s just for a high school English assignment,” I reminded her. “It’s not like it’s really gonna be published or anything.”

“You never know. It might be.”

I laughed. “Libby, I’ll be lucky if this so-called book of mine is interesting enough to hold a first grader’s attention when I’m finished with it.  There’s no way it’s ever gonna be published.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. You haven’t even written it yet.”

“No, I haven’t, but even when I finally do get it done, and even if it is halfway decent, Papa would never let me get it published.”

“Why not?”

“Beats me. He’s been kinda weird about the whole idea.”

“Weird?”

“Yeah. At first...on Sunday night, when I first told him what my idea for the book was, he got pissed off and told me that I couldn’t write it.  Then on Monday morning he changed his mind, but only if I met certain conditions.”

“Conditions?”

“Yeah, I have to get permission from you, your mom, Chris, and your grandpa before I can write it, and then no one but my English teacher can read it.”

“You mean even I can’t read it?”

“I dunno.  I guess you could. I think Papa just meant no one could read it who wasn’t involved.  But either way, you won’t wanna read it. Trust me, it’ll be dumb.”

“How can it be dumb?”

“I’m writing it, that’s how.  But before I can do that, I’ll have to call back tomorrow night and talk to your mom.  I already talked to your grandpa and Chris earlier today, so if I get a yes from your mom, I can start this ‘epic’ of mine.  Do you think she’ll be home by seven your time?”

Libby laughed at the sarcastic way I said the word epic, then told me, “Yeah, she should be here. She’s on a twenty-four shift right now, so if she’s not tied up at the hospital for any reason, she should be home by nine in the morning. I’ll let her know you’re trying to get in touch with her. And speaking of your epic, what are you gonna call it?”

“You mean aside from writing it, I have to come up with a title?”

“Yes, silly, you have to come up with a title. Who did you think was gonna give it a title?”

I scribbled the word ‘Title’ in my notes while I said, “Libby, take it from me. Don’t ever give up music to become an author.”

Libs laughed once more before telling me goodbye and breaking our connection. I called Jennifer’s house again on Thursday after I got home from work.  Jen picked up on the second ring. After I identified myself, she said, “Hi, Trev. Libby told me to expect your call.”

Jennifer’s been through some tough times with the death of her son, Brandon, when he was only six, and then her divorce from Libby and Brandon’s father not long after that, but you’d never know it. One of the things I love about Jen is that she always has a smile in her voice whenever she talks to you.  She’s a really positive, caring person, and that’s one reason she makes such a great doctor.  She connects with her patients in the same way I hope to connect with my own patients some day.  I know professors at medical schools preach against personal involvement, but how can a guy be a small town doctor without wanting to be personally involved with his patients?  Doesn’t make much sense to me, that’s for sure.

After we exchanged small talk, I explained my assignment to Jennifer.  Jen didn’t voice any reluctance to the idea, but on the other hand, I got the impression she didn’t take my assignment too seriously either. Like Chris had, Jennifer wished me luck and told me she’d help in any way she could.  She was sincere about all of it, but I’m pretty sure she was thinking it was just a high school English assignment, and since I’d never written much of anything before beyond what was required of me in Mrs. St. Claire’s class, how could I possibly turn her experiences with Evan Crammer into a full fledged novel? Which are exactly the same thoughts I have whenever the impact of what I’m going to attempt hits me.  It’s interesting that I fought so hard with Papa in order to get the privilege to write a book I have my doubts I can write in the first place. Just goes to show you that as soon as someone tells a Gage he can’t do something, he’ll turn around and prove that person wrong.  Or so I’ve heard Uncle Roy say in reference to my pops.  Guess that applies to me too.

The conversation I had dreaded the most when it came to getting permission to write this book, had been the one that turned out to be the shortest. Like I said, I called Uncle Roy first because if he told me no, then I’d be wasting my time to contact Chris, Jen, and Libby. Right away I got suspicious when Uncle Roy didn’t ask me any questions after I’d stumbled through, “I...um...Uncle Roy, is it okay if I write a book?” nor did he act surprised by my request.  It was as if he knew it was coming, which meant I knew who had called him before I did.

Uncle Roy told me that it was okay with him if I wrote the book, and that yes, he’d answer any questions he could for me.  I was ready to thank him and say goodbye, when my suspicions regarding a phone call preceding mine were confirmed.  As I was about to wrap up our conversation, he requested, “Trev, just do me one favor, okay?”

“Sure. Whatever you want, Uncle Roy.”

“When you’re writing this book, you need to keep in mind that this...this entire subject...time period, might not be easy for your father to relive. Don’t...well, just don’t give him any grief over it, all right?”

“Whatta’ ya’ mean?”

“I...I just mean it was difficult for him.”

Papa has always been my hero for a lot of reasons, not just because he protected both Jennifer and Libby from Evan Crammer and lived to tell the story.  Even during recent years when our relationship hasn’t always been smooth sailing, my father is the guy I most want to grow up to be like.  And like that guy, I’m persistent, which is why my response to Uncle Roy wasn’t an amiable, “All right,” but instead a probing, “Difficult how?”

There was a hesitation before he responded. “Just difficult. There...just give your father the respect he deserves, Trevor, and don’t put pressure on him where this subject is concerned. That’s all I’m asking. Will you do that for me?”

My response came quickly and without much thought.  “Yeah. Sure. I’ll do that.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

It wasn’t until after I hung up the phone that I really thought about what Uncle Roy had said. 

Just difficult. There...just give your father the respect he deserves, Trevor, and don’t put pressure on him where this subject is concerned.

Suddenly, it seemed as though there was more to this story than a pedophile serial killer intent on kidnapping Jennifer, and then years later, intent on revenge against my father.  I thought Uncle Roy was hinting at other things I wasn’t aware of, but if I was right about that, I didn’t have a clue as to what those ‘difficult’ things were.

By the time I arrived at the fire station with Papa’s supper that night, the other firefighter on twenty-four hour duty with him had already eaten and was in the parking lot behind the station washing the paramedic squad.  Pops and I had the kitchen to ourselves as we ate the baked chicken and rice Clarice had packed for us.

I answered Papa’s questions about my day spent working for Mr. Ochlou and for Gus, then told him of my plans to take Kylee for ice cream after I left the station. 

“How’s your day been?” I asked in return.

“Busy, but fine.”

Pops told me about a couple of runs they’d had, and then the three hours they’d spent searching Eagle Harbor National Forest for a lost little boy.  Between May and September is the peak tourist season here in Alaska. Since the National Forest borders our town, every so often the fire department has to scour it for a lost kid.  Fortunately, that kind of run has never ended in tragedy.  Or at least not in all the years Papa has been Eagle Harbor’s fire chief.

“Glad you found him,” I said of the missing five-year-old.

“Me too,” Pops agreed. “That’s a heck of a lotta territory to cover. About ten years ago we spent twenty hours looking for a kid.  I didn’t think we were ever gonna find her, and we were damn lucky when we did.”

I nodded. I vaguely recall that incident. I was seven, and since I always looked forward to Papa arriving home from work, I remember how disappointed I was when he didn’t show up that evening before Clarice put me to bed. Because of the lost little girl, he didn’t arrive until eleven-thirty the following morning. 

When we were done catching up with each other and were working our way through second helpings of Clarice’s chicken, I said casually, “I talked to Uncle Roy a little while ago.”

“Oh?”

“He said it’s okay if I write the book.”

Though Papa said, “That’s good,” he didn’t sound very happy.  He didn’t sound mad or upset...not like he’d been in his room on Sunday night, but he did sound disappointed, which I thought was odd since he was the one who said I had to call Uncle Roy in the first place.

“I called Chris after I talked to Uncle Roy.  He gave me permission to write the book too.  I called Jennifer’s house, but there was no answer.  I’ll call back when I get home tonight.”

Papa nodded, but didn’t say anything.

I waited for him to speak, but when I saw a minute tick off on the kitchen clock I broke our silence.  My tone was more curious than it was accusatory.  I was pissed at Papa, but I wasn’t stupid enough to start a fight that might put an end to my book.

“Pops, why did you call Uncle Roy?”

“Call him?”

“Yeah. I know you talked to him sometime today before I did.”

“Did he tell you that?”

“No, but I know you called him.”

“How do you know that?”

“ ‘Cause he’s a rotten actor. It was pretty obvious that he knew what I was calling about before I even opened my mouth.”

Without hesitation, Papa acknowledged, “Yeah, I called him.” 

“Why? Didn’t you think I’d tell him the truth about the book? Or explain my idea good enough?”

“No, that’s not it at all. I knew you’d be honest and give him a thorough explanation.”

“Then why did you call him?  So you could tell him not to give me permission to write it?”

“Now that would be kinda dumb, wouldn’t it, considering I was the one who said you had to call him to begin with.”

“That’s what I’m thinkin’.”

“Then you’re thinkin’ right.”

“So why’d you call him, Pops? I mean, I’m seventeen years old. I’m old enough to handle something like this without your help...or interference.”

“I wasn’t doing either of those things.”

“Then what were you doing?”

My father gave me his ‘look’ for a long moment – the one that tells me to back off and remember he’s the parent and I’m the kid. When he was done putting me in my place with just that look, he said softly, “I was letting an old friend know that if he didn’t wanna agree to being a part of your book...however indirectly, that it was okay for him to say no.”

“I woulda’ told him that.”

“Maybe you would have, but he didn’t need to hear it from you, Trevor.  Roy needed to hear it from me.”

“Why?”

“Because if you haven’t figured it out yet, you mean a lot to Roy DeSoto.  He thinks of you as the grandson he doesn’t have. The last thing he’d wanna do is say no to you.”

“So that’s why you called him? To tell Uncle Roy that he could put a stop to my book if he wanted to?”

“Yes, that’s why I called your Uncle Roy.”

“I don’t get it.”

“You don’t get what?”

“On Sunday night you told me I couldn’t write the book, but then on Monday morning you told me anything worth doing is worth fighting for. Now you’re acting like you don’t want me to write the book again.”

“I never said that.”

“Then why’d you call Uncle Roy?”

“I already told you why.”

“But--”

“Trevor, I don’t have to explain a thirty-eight year friendship to you.”

“I know, but--”

“And even if I did have to explain it to you, I couldn’t.”

“What’s that mean?”

Papa stood and gathered our empty dishes. “Just what I said.”

I would have hung around the station and bugged him more in an effort to get a straight answer, but he was toned out for a possible heart attack. He left the dishes in the sink and ran for the paramedic squad.  He turned around right before he opened the service door that led from the kitchen/dayroom, to the back parking lot.

“Have Kylee home by her curfew, and you be home by yours.”

“I will be!” I called as the door shut behind him.

I finished cleaning up the kitchen, loaded our dirty dishes in the dishwasher, and packed the casserole dish into Clarice’s insulated carrier.  I took it to my truck, climbed in, and went to Kylee’s house.  We walked to the Last Frontier Ice Cream Parlor, but it was so crowded with tourists that we ended up going to Donna’s Diner for milkshakes instead.  It was after I had taken Kylee home that I called Libby. Clarice was waiting up for me, just like she always does when I’m out on a date and she’s spending the night because Papa’s on-duty. She shut off the TV in the great room when I walked through the kitchen door.  Clarice told me goodnight, kissed my cheek, then headed to the bedroom we think of as hers, that’s behind the formal dining room we hardly ever use. 

I used the phone in Papa’s office to call Libby.  When she and I finished talking, I was too keyed up to sleep. Even though I still had to get in touch with Jennifer, I was anxious to start working on my book.  I pulled out all of the newspaper articles, read them through again, and began making notes.  From those notes, questions started to form that I wanted to ask my father and the DeSotos.  I used Papa’s computer to start a file I named, ‘Trevor’s Book’ for lack of anything better to call it.  Once questions started churning in my head, it was hard to stop them.  But when I glanced up at the fire engine clock and saw it was ten minutes after eleven, I knew I needed to go to bed. I had to work the next morning, so I had to be up early to do chores before leaving for the airport.

I took the newspaper articles with me on Thursday.  After I got off work I stopped at the library and made copies of them.  I didn’t want to lose any of Papa’s originals, plus I wanted the copies so I could highlight various sentences and make notes in the margins.

I worked on my notes and questions for a couple of hours on Friday night, and then again on Saturday night after I took Kylee home.  She’d come to my house for supper after my baseball game. Papa cooked hot dogs and polish sausage on the grill for us, and then after we’d eaten he went into the house to watch a movie while Kylee and I took a horseback ride.

I spent today organizing the notes and questions I have so far.  I want to make this as easy as possible for everyone, meaning I don’t want to fumble through papers in order to find my questions, or end up asking Jennifer the questions I meant to ask Libby.  I had papers spread all over Papa’s desk when he got home from work, but he didn’t ask me about them as he stood in the doorway still dressed in his fire department uniform.  I looked up when I sensed his presence.

“I found some things about Evan Crammer on the Internet.”

“Good,” he said, but without any of the usual enthusiasm he normally shows when I’m having success with a school assignment.

“I printed a bunch of stuff about him. Would you read it later?”

“Why?”

“I wanna get your perspective on it.”

“My perspective?”

“Yeah. You know, not everything that’s printed in the newspapers or on the Net is true.”

That comment made Papa smile a little bit, as though based on experience he was well aware of that fact.  “Oh really?”

“Really. So I need to know how much of this stuff I found on Crammer is fact, and how much of it is fiction.”

“Trevor, there’s a lot I don’t know about the man.”

“Maybe not.  But there’s a lot you do.”

“Look--”

“And is it okay with you if I talk to Doctor Brackett and Dixie?”

“Why?”

I picked up one of the newspaper copies. “Because this article from 1978 quotes Doctor Brackett in several places, and I know Dixie was on duty both times you were taken to Rampart – back in ‘78, and then again nine years ago.  Dixie mentioned that to me once.  I don’t know if I’ll use anything they tell me, but I figure as long as we’re gonna be in California in July, I might as well talk to them too. I don’t know if my book will have any hospital scenes in it, but it might.”

He gave a heavy sigh. For a second I thought he was disgusted with me for some reason, but when I studied his face, I decided he just seemed tired.

“Pops?” I prompted.

He hesitated, but finally said, “Yeah, you can talk to them as long as they both agree to it. If either of them says no though--”

“If either of them says no, I’ll drop it. I won’t bother them.”

“All right.”

“I’ll call them this week and get everything set up.  They’ll be at Uncle Roy’s reunion picnic, won’t they?”

“Probably.”

“Do you have their phone numbers?”

Papa pointed to his desk. “In my address book. It’s in the top left hand drawer.”

“Thanks.” I opened the desk drawer, saw the address book sitting in there by itself, then shut the drawer again. “So, will you read this stuff on Crammer for me?  And I’ve got a whole bunch of questions for you too.  Can we sit at the kitchen table and go over them?”

“First I’d like to change outta this uniform, then I’d like to sit at the kitchen table to eat supper, not to answer questions.”

“Oh...oh sure.  Yeah.  Okay.”  I tried to hide my disappointment.  Pops just doesn’t understand that a writer has to work while the urge to write is burning hot inside him. 

I had met Clarice for service at the Methodist church this morning, like I do on most Sundays. After the service was over at noon, she came to our house to put a pot roast, potatoes, and carrots in the oven. She’d left right after that to return to her own home in town. I could have saved her the trip to our place and put the roast in myself, but she insisted.  I think Clarice likes the feeling she gets from looking after Papa and me, even on days when we don’t need any looking after at all. 

I stood up and walked around the desk.  “Supper’s in the oven.”

“I can smell it,” Papa acknowledged. “Clarice was here, wasn’t she?”

“Of course. She thinks we’d starve without her.”

“We wouldn’t starve, but we’d eat a lot of hot dogs, Red Baron Pizza, and Swanson Pot Pies.”

“That’s true.”

I went to take the roast out and set the table.  I had carved the meat earlier, so by the time Papa was done changing his clothes everything was ready.

When we finished eating, we worked together to clean up the kitchen.  Once the dishes were in the dishwasher and the table and counters had been wiped off, I turned for Papa’s office.

“I’ll be right back.” 

“Where’re you going?”

“To get those questions I have for you, and to get those articles about Crammer.”

“Oh...uh...listen, Trev, I wanna take a ride on Omaha first.”

Omaha is Papa’s horse.

“But I thought you were gonna answer my questions.”

     “I will, but I need to unwind for a while first.  I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

     I couldn’t say much of anything but what I did.

     “All right.  I guess I can work on my research some more while you’re gone.”

     “I’m sure you can,” Papa agreed.

     It’s not like my father to be gone longer than he tells me he’s going to be if he’s running an errand, or taking a horseback ride. But tonight, he was gone an hour and a half beyond the ‘hour or so’ he had originally stated.  When I heard him come into the house I gathered up my papers and stood.  Before I stepped out of his office, he stepped into it.

     “Good night, kiddo. Don’t stay up too late. You’ve gotta work tomorrow.”

     “Where’re you going?”

     “To bed.”

     “But you said you’d answer my questions and read these articles when you came back in.”

     “Oh...oh yeah. Sorry. I forgot. Listen, Trev, I’m tired and ready to call it a night.  We’ll get to that stuff, I promise.”

     “When?”

     “Soon.”

     “How soon?”

     “Soon.”

     “But--”

     In an instant, his mood changed. He scowled and grumbled, “Trevor, I said we’d get to it.”

     “Fine! You don’t have to get so mad.  I didn’t do anything wrong.”

     “I’m not mad!”

     “Well you’re sure acting like you are!”

     He stood there a second, then nodded. “I’m sorry, you didn’t deserve that.  I’m tired.  We’ll go over your questions soon, I promise. Sometime during the week, okay?”

     “O...okay.”

     He must have still been feeling bad about blowing up at me, because he walked over, put his arms around me, kissed my left temple, and said, “ ‘Night, Trev. I love you.”

     He was acting so weird that I figured it was best just to say, “Good night,” hug him in return, and leave it at that, even though I had a lot of things I wanted to say – most of which would have started an argument.

     I heard Papa moving between the bathroom and his bedroom for a few minutes, then all movement from the upper floor stopped. I put my papers in order, saved my work to the computer’s hard drive and to a disk, then shut the machine down.  I stopped in the kitchen for a snack before heading to my bedroom.  I glanced down the hall and didn’t see any light coming from underneath Papa’s door, so I assumed he was asleep.

Because I wasn’t tired enough to sleep, and didn’t feel like reading, I shut my door and sat at my computer so I could type in this journal entry.  I didn’t bother to turn on the ceiling light, but just used the glow from the monitor for what light I needed. Papa hates it when I do that. He says it’ll ruin my eyes. 

I was sitting here typing when I heard him pass by my room and walk down the stairs. Since he didn’t knock on my door, he probably thought I was sleeping.  The light from the monitor won’t reach far enough to be seen beneath the space between the bottom of my door and the carpeting.  I kept typing, though a portion of my attention remained on my father’s whereabouts.  When thirty minutes had passed and I didn’t hear him come back up the stairs, nor hear the sound of the television drifting up from the great room, I snuck down the stairs.  I don’t know why I snuck, because it’s not like I was going to get in trouble for being awake, but some odd instinct...or maybe it was intuition, told me to keep my footsteps light.

I found Papa in his office. He didn’t see me peer around the door. Or at least I didn’t think he did at the time. He was wearing a red Eagle Harbor Fire Department t-shirt, a pair of blue pajama pants, and had his reading glasses on. If he had just come downstairs for a drink of water or a late night snack, he would have been wearing what he usually sleeps in during the summer time – his boxer shorts. Since he was wearing more than that, and had his glasses on, I knew he hadn’t just wandered into his office by chance, but rather, had intended on going there for some reason.

 Papa was sitting in his big leather chair and looking down at the copies of the newspaper articles I’d left on top of his desk.  There was something about the look on his face – sadness? guilt? remorse? - I still don’t know which it was, that told me it was best if he didn’t know I was there.  Before I could make my escape, he looked up.  I think he must have known I was there all along.  Guess I never was very good at sneaking down the stairs.

Softly, he said, “It’s not easy, Trevor.”

“What’s not easy?”

“These articles call me a hero because I protected Jennifer.”

“You were a hero,” I said. 

“No I wasn’t.”

“But you saved Jennifer.  You kept Crammer from hurting her even after he’d stabbed you.  And you did the same for Libby. You kept her safe. That would be a hero by anybody’s definition, Pops.”

He shook his head. “Don’t make me out to be a hero in your book, son. I’m just a man.  A man who has had both triumphs and failures in his life.  A man who has countered everything he’s done right, with one mistake along the way.” He looked back down at the article he’d been reading. “Evan Crammer killed eighteen little girls in the twenty-two years that passed between when I took Jennifer and Chris camping, and the day he kidnapped me. If I had somehow been able to hold onto him that night...or even been able to...well, to kill him with the knife he was using on me, all those lives would have been spared. All those little girls would have gotten the chance to grow up.”

Without saying another word, Papa stood and brushed past me.  In that brief moment, he laid a hand on my shoulder and gave it a light squeeze before heading up the stairs. 

Now I had my first clue as to what those difficult things were that Uncle Roy hinted about on the phone Wednesday afternoon.  Now I had at least a partial understanding of why he asked me to give my father the respect he deserves, and not to pressure him where the book is concerned.

Papa’s door was already shut when I came back upstairs.  I hesitated a moment before entering my room.  I wanted to go to him, but I didn’t know what to say that might make him feel better, so I returned to my journal. 

As I sit here, I’m realizing that for the first time in my life, I’ve seen John Gage not as my father, or as my hero, or as the chief of the Eagle Harbor Fire Department, but instead, I’ve gotten a glimpse of him as a man with vulnerabilities, sorrows, and regrets.

The more I think about the look I saw on his face a few minutes ago, the more I wonder if writing a book about Evan Crammer is such a good idea after all.

Monday, June 22nd, 2009

     Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday passed without Papa saying anything else about my book.  He didn’t offer to set time aside for us to go over my questions, nor did he offer to read the information I’d printed from the Internet about Evan Crammer.  I wasn’t sure what I should do. I kept my promise to Uncle Roy about not pressuring Papa, but even if that promise had meant nothing to me, I still couldn’t have pressured Papa into talking about Crammer.  Each time I thought of bringing the subject up, I recalled the look I’d seen on his face Sunday night, and remembered what he’d said about the eighteen little girls Crammer had killed between 1978 and 2000.  It’s obvious Papa blames himself for the deaths of those girls, even though he has no reason to. Evan Crammer stabbed my father four times that night, and then beat him the next day when Crammer returned for one last try at getting his hands on Jennifer. Given the severity of Papa’s injuries, how he thinks he could have prevented Crammer’s escape, I don’t know.  The point is, he couldn’t have. While a part of him probably knows that, I guess the part of him that instinctively wants to help others has a hard time reconciling that he’d done the best he could, and the choices Crammer made to go on killing children after he’d fled were just that – Crammer’s choices, not Papa’s.

     It was my mom who helped me find the patience I needed to get through the week.  By Wednesday, I was ready to throw all my newspaper copies and notes away. I figured I’d call my grandpa and see what information I could get from him that I could turn into a story.  The only thing that stopped me from doing that, was the phone call I received from Mom late on Thursday afternoon before Papa got home from work.  After we’d said hello and spent a couple of minutes catching up with one another, she asked, “What’s this about scrapping the idea for your book?” 

     I had been in contact with my mom through e-mail about my book ever since I’d settled on a plot. She doesn’t know much about Papa’s experiences with Crammer in 1978, beyond what little he told her once when she questioned him about the scars he carries from the knife wounds. She’s got a bit more knowledge of Papa’s experiences with the guy nine years ago. Mom and Franklin were vacationing in Paris when Evan Crammer kidnapped Papa, and I stowed away on Gus’s plane.  She found out about everything after it was all over and Papa was recovering from pneumonia at Rampart, while I stayed with Uncle Roy and Aunt Joanne. 

     “I just don’t think it’s gonna work,” I said in response to Mom’s question.

     “But, honey, you’ve already put so much time into it.  You got permission from the DeSotos like your father requested of you. You stopped and saw your English teacher.  You’ve made copies, and notes, and come up with questions to ask your father and the DeSo--”

     “I know. I know. But it’s just not gonna happen.”

     “Why?”

     I hesitated a moment, not sure if Papa would want me to be sharing something like this – stuff that’s really personal to him - with Mom.  Then I decided, what the heck, the two of them had lived together for almost six years, and during that time had created me, so I guess I have the right to share what I want to with Mom, unless Papa specifically puts certain subjects off-limits - which he never has.     

     Clarice wasn’t at our house on Thursday, so I was alone in the kitchen while I talked to Mom.  I told her everything, from Papa’s initial negative reaction to my plot, to the way he’d seemed to warm up to the idea, to the way he was now sending me mixed signals about it.

     “He just doesn’t wanna talk about it, Mom.”

     “Did he come right out and tell you that?”

     “No, but you shoulda’ seen his face on Sunday night when he was reading through those old newspaper articles.  He...I guess he’s done a good job of hiding how much his encounters with Crammer still bother him. Or maybe he can...you know, kinda forget about all of it as long as no one brings it up.”

     “Possibly. Where your father is concerned, it’s often hard to guess.”

     “Whatta’ ya’ mean?”

     “I mean your father is a complex man. There are a lot of facets to his personality, but those facets aren’t readily revealed to the outside world.”

     “Maybe. I guess you’d know about that kinda stuff better than me.”

     I could tell Mom smiled when she said, “I guess I would. Even after all the years that have passed since we lived together.”

     I didn’t have a response for that.  I’d gone through a time period when I was fourteen and fifteen, where I wished my parents were married, but it was Mom who helped me see that a marriage between them was never meant to be.  I’ve moved beyond being curious about their relationship.  I figure I now know about as much as either one of them will ever be willing to tell me, so I’ve learned to quit asking questions.

     “Anyway, I might as well come up with a new plot,” I said. “Papa told me he’d answer questions for me this week, but since it’s already Thursday and he still hasn’t--”

     “I’ve never known your father to break his promises, Trevor.  If he says he’ll answer your questions this week, then he will.”

     “But it’s Thursday and--”

     “Have a little patience, son.  The week isn’t over until midnight on Saturday.”

     “Mom!”

     She laughed at me, then said, “Trevor, the only advice that I can give you is what I’ve already stated. Be patient. Bide your time and see if your father brings the subject up.  If he doesn’t say anything about it by Sunday morning, then ask him when the two of you can sit down and discuss your questions.”

     “What if he won’t give me a straight answer?”

     “Tell him you need to have one, or you’re going to move on to a new plot.”

     “I guess I could do that. I mean, I guess I could give it until Sunday.”

     “That’s what I think you should do.”

     “Okay. Thanks, Mom.”

     “You’re welcome.”

     Mom and I talked a few minutes longer, then said goodbye. I had a date with Kylee that night, so Papa and I only saw one another briefly after he arrived home from work. He was waiting up for me when I got home at twenty after eleven, but he went to bed ten minutes after I stepped into the house.  

     Friday came, and still Papa didn’t say a word about my book. He acted like his normal self, joking and teasing with me like he does, and when Clarice arrived, playfully giving her a hard time over an upset she’d caused at a Methodist Women’s Guild meeting, which was the talk of Eagle Harbor.  You know you live in small town America when the biggest news is the uproar a seventy-seven year old woman causes because she refuses to back down about the way the eggs should be fixed for the annual Prayer Breakfast.

     I had a baseball game late on Friday afternoon that Papa came to when he got off-duty.  Afterwards, he treated Kylee and me to pizza at Mr. Ochlou’s, and then Pops went home so we could finish our date without him. The rest of our date wasn’t too exciting. We got ice cream, then went to Kylee’s and watched a movie with her six-year-old brother sitting between us on the couch. I’m pretty sure Kylee’s father put Chandler up to that, because when the movie was about half over Kylee’s mother looked into the living room and spotted Chandler. She shooed the kid out, and then I heard her say, “Oh, Rick,” to Kylee’s dad in a disapproving tone. 

     On Saturday, Papa and I slept in.  Or at least slept in for us, which means we were both up by eight.  Pops had the weekend off, and I didn’t have to be to the airport until noon.

     I could smell bacon cooking as I trotted down the stairs.  I was dressed in an old pair of jeans and a t-shirt since I had chores to do.  Papa was dressed in faded jeans, too, but rather than a t-shirt, he had on a blue work shirt with the sleeves rolled up and secured at his elbows.  His clothes indicated to me that he planned to work outside most of the day.

I grabbed plates from a cabinet.  “Morning, Pops.”

     He didn’t look up at me when he said, “Good morning.”

     He sounded funny. Not like his usual cheerful self. He didn’t sound mad or upset, but more like preoccupied.  Like his mind was on something besides the bacon that was cooking and the eggs he was scrambling in a Pyrex mixing bowl.

     “Are you okay?” I asked while I set the table.

     He looked over his shoulder at me.  Although his glance in my direction didn’t last more than a few seconds, I thought he looked tired.  So tired that I wondered if he’d gotten any sleep the night before.  He had been waiting up for me when I got home on Friday night like he always does when I have a date, but I hadn’t been out that late.  It had been about ten-fifteen when the movie ended.  I’d left Kylee’s a few minutes after that, and was home at ten-forty.  Papa had been watching MASH on the TV in the great room when I came in the house. He’d gone to bed when it ended at eleven.

     “Yeah,” Pops nodded as he returned his attention to his cooking. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

     I shrugged my shoulders, not sure what was wrong – if anything.

     He poured the eggs into a skillet while I poured orange juice into our glasses.  His back was still to me when he said quietly, “It was Roy and Joanne’s wedding anniversary.”

     I thought I heard him right, but since what he’d said made no sense to me, I asked, “What?”

     He swirled the egg mixture back and forth with a spatula.  “Their wedding anniversary. It was Roy and Joanne’s wedding anniversary.”

     I still had no idea what he was talking about, but assumed he meant that Uncle Roy and Aunt Joanne had just celebrated an anniversary.

     “Oh. Well...did you send them a card?”

     “No, I mean...the weekend...the weekend I took Chris and Jennifer camping. I had ‘em...I had the kids ‘cause it was Roy and Joanne’s anniversary.  I’d taken the kids for them every year since Roy and I had become partners.  It was kind of a tradition; I guess you’d say.  Sometimes I just stayed with the kids for a few hours at Roy and Jo’s house while they went to dinner, and sometimes the kids came and stayed at my place so Roy and Jo could have a weekend alone.  It was just Chris and Jennifer then.  John wasn’t born yet.  He wasn’t born until the next year.  In January of 1979.”

     Papa wasn’t looking at me, so he didn’t see me nod. I knew John DeSoto had been named after my father in honor of what Papa had done that weekend to keep Chris and Jennifer safe.  So the fact that John wasn’t born yet when Papa encountered Crammer for the first time, was something I was already aware of.

     “We were working three days on then in exchange for four days off. Man, that was a killer.  The department had decided to try a new rotation schedule.  At first, most of us liked it, but after a while, it burnt you out.  After a year, headquarters scrapped it, and we went back to our old rotations of twenty-four on and twenty-four off, or twenty-four on and forty-eight off.  That was a heck of a lot easier on us.  But that weekend I took the kids camping we had four days off, so I picked ‘em up after school on Friday, and was supposed to take ‘em back to Roy and Jo’s late on Sunday afternoon.” Papa gave his head a small shake of regret. “Never got ‘em there, though. By then Crammer...well, I didn’t get the kids home thanks to him.”

     Papa talked while he cooked. He never looked at me, as though he was afraid of what I’d see if I got a chance to make eye contact with him. I tried to ask him a question, but he just kept talking.  It took me several seconds to realize Papa was keeping his promise to talk to me about Crammer, but he was going to do that on his terms, not on mine. So much for all those questions I had typed up, organized by subject, and stapled together. 

     I didn’t want to leave the room for fear he’d say something I’d miss, yet I was afraid to ask him to stop for a minute for fear he wouldn’t talk again when I returned.  It was like he’d had to create the right mood for himself, and that by having his attention on making breakfast, he’d done just that. 

I watched as he prepared pancake batter.  Pops will be the first person to admit he’s not that great of a cook, nor does he like to cook.  He does a pretty good job when it comes to making breakfast though, but he’s still not the kind of guy who wants to make a seven-course meal when cereal and toast will do.  That day, he appeared to be intent on seven-courses, because he started frying sliced potatoes, too.

     I eased out of the room as quietly as I could, hoping he wouldn’t notice.  Papa’s back was still to me as he whisked the pancake batter in a bowl. He was talking yet, saying how he’d made Chris and Jennifer do their homework on Friday evening, because they’d be gone all weekend on the camping trip.

     “I wasn’t planning to have them back to Roy’s until about six on Sunday night, so I figured they’d better get their homework done. Roy called while they were sittin’ at my kitchen table. Joanne was on the phone in the bedroom. She was surprised that I was able to get the kids to crack the books on a Friday night.  She and Roy always thought the kids had me wrapped around their little fingers.  Most of the time that was true, but I could be strict with ‘em if it was for their own good.”

     I hurried to Papa’s office while his monologue continued.  I didn’t bother to get the list that I had titled, Questions for Papa. Like I said, I could tell he had no intention of telling me his story other than on his own terms. 

I opened the desk drawer where I’d put my lists, notes, newspaper copies, and information I printed from the Net.  I didn’t grab any of that stuff, but instead, got a small hand-held tape recorder like the ones you see reporters use, or that college kids use as a means to take notes while sitting in a lecture hall. When Mom had sent me the one hundred dollar check for my straight A’s, she’d also sent me the tape recorder, along with a dozen tapes and the necessary batteries. She’d enclosed a note with the recorder that told me I might find it useful when conducting interviews for my book.  I hadn’t really thought much about using it. I’d figured I’d just write down the answers everyone gave me to the questions I asked.  But on Saturday morning I silently thanked my mother for her insight, as I hurried back through the great room. I put a tape in and hit ‘Record’ as I entered the kitchen. Papa was still talking, but thankfully he’d only gotten to the point where he, Chris, and Jen were making camp on that Saturday in April of 1978.

I put the tape recorder half under the lip of my plate.  I hoped it was strong enough to pick up Papa’s voice, and then I remembered it was a gift from my mother, which means no expense was spared, and it’s a top-of-the-line model.  Therefore, I left the recorder where it was. I wanted it to be as unobtrusive as possible. I was afraid Papa would stop talking if he saw it.

He continued to tell me about that camping trip until breakfast was cooked.  I thought the pause in his monologue was only going to be long enough to allow him to put food on our plates and to get settled in his chair, but I thought wrong.  It was like someone had turned off a water faucet. Just that abruptly, he quit talking.  He sat down across from me and started eating.  When he said anything at all over the next couple of minutes it was, “Pass the syrup please, Trev.” Or “How’re your eggs? Did I put enough cheese in them?”

I slipped the tape recorder from the table to the empty chair next to me.  I flicked the button that shut it off. Pretty soon our conversation moved beyond the food, though Papa didn’t steer it back to Evan Crammer. Instead, we talked about the usual stuff, like my jobs, and my date the previous night with Kylee, and his job, and what was going on around town, and the softball practice that was scheduled for Sunday afternoon.  We play on the fire department’s softball team every 4th of July. There are always four practices leading up to the game, though why, I have no idea, because the members of the Eagle Harbor Fire Department’s team have far more enthusiasm than they do talent.  Or so Papa always says, and since we usually get our butts whipped by the Juneau Fire Department, I guess Papa is right.  Part of the reason behind that is because no one has to try out. Anyone who is associated with the fire department is welcome to play, which means we sometimes have kids as young as eight on our team, and guys as old as eighty.  But we always have fun, so Pops and I put aside our competitive natures for this one game a year.

After we were done eating, we cleaned up the kitchen, which was quite a project considering Chef Gage had gone overboard where breakfast was concerned. I decided I didn’t need to pack a lunch to take to Gus’s. Even with my appetite, there was no way I was going to be hungry again before five o’clock.

Papa didn’t bring up Evan Crammer again until thirty minutes later, when we were working together in the barn.  I don’t know what made me take the tape recorder outside with me.  I guess some kind of intuition told me that I’d better have it.  The recorder has a thick plastic clip on the back that I was able to slip over the waistband of my jeans. I did that, and then covered it with my t-shirt.

Papa turned the horses out into the corral, while I fed the cats.  It was when we were mucking horse stalls that Pops started talking about that weekend. He again waited until his back was to me and we were both engrossed in our jobs. When I realized he’d brought the subject back to Crammer, I reached under my shirt and flicked the recorder on.

     Papa’s words painted a picture in a way I’d never thought possible.  I’ve always known Pops is able to carry his end of a conversation, and then some, but until yesterday, I didn’t know he was such a good storyteller. He talked about hiking with Chris and Jennifer to a place they called the Pow-Wow cave, and remembered that they’d gone fishing that afternoon, and had eaten for supper the fish they’d caught.  Once it got dark, they told ghost stories around the campfire, or at least Chris told a ghost story.  Papa remembered that Jennifer’s attempt at telling a ghost story fell far short of it being scary, but then, she was only nine years old, and a girl at that, so what do you expect? 

     “I didn’t tell a ghost story,” Papa said. “Chris’s story had scared Jenny, and I could tell he was primed to scare her all night if given half a chance, so I decided we’d all be better off if the scary stories were put to rest for a while.  I didn’t want to be up half the night with a little girl who was having bad dreams thanks to her big brother.  ‘Cause of that, I told them about Katori.”

     He didn’t have to say anything more on the subject. I knew the legend of Katori, or He Who Dances With Rattlesnakes. When I was about seven, I used to beg Papa to tell me that story at least twice a week.  The poor guy had to have gotten tired of repeating it over and over, but I never got tired of hearing it, so as long as I was game for it, Papa was willing to tell it.

     Papa moved around the barn as we went about our work. I never interrupted his monologue by asking questions.  Sometimes there would be long pauses between his sentences, which caused me to assume that maybe he had told me all he was going to for the day.  But just when I’d think that, he’d pick up where he’d left off.

     The expression on his face never changed as he talked about waking up to Jennifer’s screams of, “Uncle Johnny! Uncle Johnny! It’s the Stone Ridge Killer! Help me, Uncle Johnny! Help me!”

     “At first I thought Jennifer was having a nightmare. Chris’s ghost story was about a guy called the Stone Ridge Killer, who snatched little girls from their beds at night.  I remember thinking, ‘Thanks a lot, Chris’ as I rolled toward Jen’s sleeping bag.  Only she wasn’t in it, and that’s when...that’s when I saw Crammer carrying her away from our campsite.”

Papa’s voice got quieter when he talked about how he fought with Crammer in an effort to get Jennifer from him.

“The guy was huge.  Musta weighed close to three hundred pounds, which means he weighed twice as much as me.  I remember being afraid one of us would hurt Jen. We were literally playing tug-of-war with her.  But I couldn’t worry about that, ‘cause I knew whatever he had in store for her if he got away with her still in his arms, was gonna be a lot worse than any cuts or bruises she might get while being pulled back and forth between us. Crammer...he stabbed me in the arm. I didn’t let go of Jen, though, and I think it was then that Chris was at my side and was trying to help me get Jenny from Crammer.  Chris wasn’t very big – pretty typical size for an eleven-year-old boy – kinda scrawny and not too tall, but he fought like a tiger that night for his sister. I was so proud of him. 

“Chris and I finally got Jenny loose, and I was able to shove her into Chris’s arms.  I yelled for him to take her to the Pow-Wow, hoping he’d know I meant the cave. I figured that was the place the two of them would be the safest. I’d camped up in the San Gabriel Mountains with the kids several times, and I’d always told them that if we ever got separated, they should go to the Pow-Wow cave and wait for me.  It was our meeting place, ya’ see, just like you and I had a designated meeting place in the National Forest when you were younger.”

I nodded my head, but didn’t say anything. He wasn’t looking at me, so he didn’t see my response to his words. Papa and I have always done a lot of hiking. When I was young, one of the safe guards he’d put into place was making sure I knew where I was to go and wait for him if we ever got split up for any reason while hiking in the Eagle Harbor National Forest.

 “I was kind of aware that Chris took off with Jenny. I could hear her crying, and outta the corner of my eye I saw that Chris had her hand and was runnin’ as fast as he could for the cave.  The woods were really thick just a few yards beyond where we were camping, and Chris ran for them.  He knew just what to do without me telling him. He knew the best chance he and Jenny had was to use the woods for cover as they headed for the cave. 

“Crammer and I...we were really fighting by then. Crammer – well, he was fighting with the intent to kill, while I was just trying to buy Chris and Jennifer time.  I figured the longer I could keep the guy occupied, the more likely it was that the kids would make it to the cave. I don’t know how long we fought before Joe – my dog – I’ve told you about him. He was a Malamute that the DeSotos had given me for my birthday a couple of years before the camping trip – well anyway, Joe attacked Crammer. I don’t know for sure where he’d been.  I think he was off in the woods somewhere when Crammer first took Jennifer.  I think Crammer might have put some food out for Joe, ‘cause he was a good dog and wouldn’t have normally wandered off, but I never did find out for sure if Crammer had lured him away, or if he was just off chasing a rabbit or something.  Anyway, Joe attacked Crammer.”

Papa walked to a corner of the barn and hung up the shovel he’d been using.  He got a pitchfork off a hook and went back to work.

“If Joe hadn’t been there that night, I’d probably have died.  Crammer had stabbed me four times by then, and had broken my left wrist and my collarbone. I didn’t have much fight left in me.  It was like the spirit was willing, but the body wasn’t.” He paused and looked out of the window, his concentration appearing to be on Nadia and Zhavago, who were chasing one another back and forth in front of the barn. “At some point I was aware of Crammer running by me, and Joe chasing after him. I tried to get to my feet.  I knew I needed to find Chris and Jenny.  All I cared about was getting to the kids and keeping them safe.  I guess I musta been in a lotta pain. I’m sure I was, but I don’t really remember it.  I just remember knowing that Chris and Jennifer were my first priority. That’s why I was so angry with myself.”

When he didn’t say anything else, I risked asking in just above a whisper, “Why?”

He looked at me for the first time since we’d entered the barn. “Because I couldn’t get to them. Because I passed out before I could make it beyond our campsite.”

“But you were seriously injured.”

He shook his head. “That was no excuse. The kids were my responsibility.  They were my best friend’s children.  It was...” He turned away from me again. “Not being able to get to Chris and Jen, not being able to make sure they were safe, was worse than being dead, as far as I was concerned.  Crammer could have stabbed me ten more times as long as I had the guarantee that Chris and Jennifer were all right. The last thing I wanted to do was go back to Roy and Joanne’s without the kids. The last thing I wanted to do was tell my best friend that I’d fucked up and his kids were dead.”

I’d never heard my father use the word ‘fuck.’ I don’t think he swears very much.  I was teenager before I heard him use the word damn in front of me.  He kidded me once and told me that he’d changed a lot of his ways after I was born.  Papa takes his responsibilities to me seriously, and the older I’ve gotten, the more obvious it’s become that he wants to be the best father he can be. 

“But you were hurt,” I said again.  “You had life threatening injuries. You’d been stabbed and--”

“No excuses,” he repeated. “None whatsoever. Maybe for other people where something like this would be concerned.  It’s not my place to judge what another man in my position would have done, or how he would have felt. But as for me where Chris and Jennifer’s safety was concerned – like I said, no excuses.”

     He looked out of the window again, as the dogs barked and a vehicle stopped in front of the barn.  Carl climbed out of his Ford Expedition. Papa rested his pitchfork against the wall and headed for the door.

     “It’s not that big of a deal anyway, Trevor.  I was in shock.  I really didn’t feel the pain.”

     And that was the last thing he said on the subject. “I really didn’t feel the pain.”  As though being stabbed four times is the same as getting four paper cuts, or falling off a bike and scraping your knees and elbows.

     I shut off the tape recorder.  I exited the barn a few minutes later, marveling at how Papa could sound normal while joking with Carl, as though he and I had just been talking about our weekend plans, or something we’d watched on TV, and not about the time Papa almost died at the hands of a serial killer.

     Like my mother said, Papa has many facets to his personality. I’m beginning to realize more and more how true that is, and how hard he works to hide his vulnerabilities. 

     I said hi to Carl, but didn’t stop and talk.  I had just enough time to shower and change clothes before leaving for the airport.  For a long time that day the words, “No excuses,” echoed in my head. 

     Whatever mood had prompted Papa to talk about Evan Crammer on Saturday, didn’t return to him on Sunday.  Sometimes he goes to church with me when he’s off on a Sunday, and yesterday was one of those Sundays when he did.  I tried not to read too much into that.  I wasn’t sure if his memories of that day in 1978 made him feel as though he owed God a thank you, or if he went to church for no other reason than Pastor Tom is one of Papa’s volunteer firemen, and sometimes ribs Pops over his lack of church attendance, or if he came with me because the Women’s Guild hosted a coffee cake brunch after the service.  With Papa, it could have been for any one of those reasons, or for none of them.  He likes the fact that Pastor Tom has brought informality to the Eagle Harbor Methodist Church. Blue jeans and khakis have become the norm for a guy’s Sunday best, so for all I know Papa went to church just because he didn’t have to dress up, and because Clarice slipped him an extra piece of coffee cake.

     We went home after the service, had sandwiches for lunch, and then got in the Land Rover and headed for the park where softball practice was held.  Three hours later, we were back at home. We cooked pork chops on the grill, took the dogs for a long hike, and then watched a movie.  When the movie was over, Papa went to bed and I talked to Kylee on the phone.

     I thought Papa was sleeping when I sat down and started transcribing his words from the tape to my computer.  I had my bedroom door closed, and wouldn’t have heard him leave his room if I hadn’t paused while typing. I was just getting ready to hit the ‘Stop’ button on the tape recorder, when I caught sight of Papa’s shadow from under the door. I let the tape keep on playing.  Papa remained in the hall listening to his own voice fill my room. 

     I thought Papa might knock and ask to come in.  As far as I know, that was the first time he would have realized I’d been taping everything he’d told me. But he didn’t knock, and pretty soon I heard him walk down the stairs.

     I finished my transcribing an hour later. I knew Papa hadn’t come back upstairs during the time I was working.  I saved everything I’d done to my hard drive and to a disk, then stood. I walked to my door and eased it open.  I peered down the stairs, but didn’t see any light coming from the great room, nor did I hear the TV. I didn’t exactly sneak down the stairs, but I did keep my footsteps light.  When I got into the great room I saw a light coming from beneath the closed door of Papa’s office.  He hardly ever closes the door when he goes in there, so I thought that was an unusual action on his part.  I considered knocking on the door, then decided not to.  I figured he was looking over the newspaper articles to refresh his memory, so he could tell me the rest of his story when he was ready.

     I never heard Papa come back upstairs last night.  I must have been asleep by the time he returned to bed – if he returned to bed at all.  He was in the kitchen making toast and putting cereal boxes on the table when I got downstairs this morning.  He said, “Morning, Trev,” to which I responded, “Morning, Papa,” and then we sat down to eat.  I didn’t ask Pops what he’d been doing in his office last night, and he didn’t say anything about it either.  I had brought my tape recorder to the table with me – it was clipped to my jeans again and hidden under my shirt – but Papa didn’t say anything about Crammer.  He left the kitchen for me to clean up because he was running late for work.  He looked tired again, and I wondered just how much sleep he’d gotten, if any. 

     It didn’t take me long to put our cereal bowls, glasses, silverware, and the small plates we’d used for our toast, into the dishwasher. We had Sunday’s breakfast, lunch, and supper dishes in there, too, so I put soap in the dispenser and started the dishwasher cycling.

     I went outside and fed the horses and cats, then spent a half an hour playing ball with my dogs. I didn’t have to be at Gus’s until two this afternoon. He was expecting to be back from Washington then with some cargo he wanted me to unload.  So until eleven when I reported for work at Mr. Ochlou’s, my morning was free.

     It was nine-thirty when I got back into the house.  I took a shower and changed clothes, and still had forty-five minutes to kill before I had to leave for the pizza parlor. Clarice hadn’t arrived for the day yet, so I knew that meant she probably wasn’t coming over until sometime in the afternoon, when she’d make supper and dust, or mop, or wash windows, or find some other chore to do that didn’t need doing nearly as bad as Clarice thought it did.

I went to Papa’s office with plans to pull out all of my research and see if there was anything else I could work on before I saw the DeSotos in July.

     As I walked into the room, I spotted a stack of papers on Papa’s desk, with a white envelope resting on top of them. I knew I hadn’t left anything there, and wondered if Papa had forgotten some reports he needed for work.  I walked around behind the desk and sat in his chair.  I pulled the papers toward me, planning to take a quick glance through them. If they were something related to the fire department, then I could drop them off at the station on my way to Mr. Ochlou’s.  When I picked the envelope up and turned it over I saw the word ‘Trevor’ scrawled across the front in Papa’s handwriting.

     I opened the envelope and pulled out a piece of white paper folded in thirds. I opened that and read,

     Trevor,

        Here’s the rest of the information you’ll need from me for your book.

     Love,

     Papa

     I set the letter aside, picked up the papers and skimmed them.  Papa had started where he’d left off in the barn on Saturday, with him passing out from his injuries before he got beyond the campsite. As I flipped through the papers, I saw that his story was actually two stories.  One ended with the night John DeSoto was born in January of 1979, and one ended with the day in July of 2000, when Uncle Roy took Papa and me to the airport, where Gus was waiting to bring us back to Eagle Harbor. The first story covered his initial encounter with Evan Crammer; the second story covered his more recent encounter, when Crammer kidnapped Papa and Libby.

     As my eyes scanned the pages, I focused in on Papa’s first ending: 

‘It meant more to me than I can say even today, that Roy and Joanne named their youngest son for me. I didn’t think I deserved that. Like I said, no excuses.  Roy was my best friend.  I’d have done anything for him or his family, just like they would have done anything for me, because that’s what friendship’s all about.’

And then I read his second ending:

‘Despite the circumstances that brought us back together, being reunited with Roy was one of the best days in my life.  To have our friendship back intact, and as strong as it had once been, actually made the hell Crammer put me through worth it. The bad times...I can actually say that thanks to Evan Crammer, the bad times that Roy and I went through have forever become a thing of the past. Friendship should never be taken lightly, and when you have a strong friendship with someone, you should cherish it and never think it can easily be replaced.’

I read his final words again. I have no idea what he meant by, ‘the bad times that Roy and I went through.’ When I first met Roy DeSoto nine years ago, I knew he and Pops hadn’t seen each other for a long time.  But whenever I’ve asked Pops why they hadn’t stayed in contact with one another after Papa moved to Denver, he’s always shrugged and said, “No reason, really.  Just distance, I guess.  I moved to Denver, met your mother, worked a lot of hours for the Denver Fire Department...time just got away from me.  Sometimes friendships don’t survive when miles separate them.”

I’ve never thought there was any reason for Papa and Uncle Roy not staying in touch for fifteen years, other than the reason Papa has always given me. Now I’m sitting here wondering if there’s even more to this story than what Papa has revealed.  And if there is, how do I get him to tell me about it?

Sunday, August 16th, 2009

     I’ve really neglected this journal the past month or so.  Between my jobs, chores, working on my book, baseball games, spending time with Kylee and my friends, reading the novels Mrs. St. Claire assigned us for the summer, and then being gone for the last two weeks in July and the first week of August, I’ve had no time leftover for my journal, or for much of anything else.

     I just read my entry from Monday, June 22nd. Man, do I have a lot of catching up to do.  So much has happened since that day with regards to my book. It’ll probably take me two or three hours to type it all up, but that’s okay.  These entries give me good writing practice, and besides, it’s raining today, Kylee’s working, Dylan and Dalton are working, Papa is working, and Clarice is in Juneau at a women’s retreat for our church. Since I have the house to myself, I won’t have any interruptions.

     Because Carl was working the night shift on that Monday in June when I last wrote in this journal, Papa asked Clarice to eat supper with us. Like I had thought she would, she’d arrived in the afternoon while Pops and I were at work.

Clarice took Papa up on his invitation. Her husband had been dead for a long time – years before Papa and I arrived in Eagle Harbor. Sometime after he passed away, Clarice moved in with Carl. He has a house in town that’s provided for him by the police department, just like this house is provided for Papa by the fire department.

Clarice never seems to be lacking for something to do, or lacking for company, considering she has nine brothers and sisters, and more nephews, nieces, great nephews, and great nieces than I can keep track of.  Clarice’s family and extended family make up a quarter of the population of Eagle Harbor, and probably more when you start talking about ‘shirt-tale’ relatives.  Those are the ones who know they’re related to Clarice in some manner, but can’t tell you exactly how.

I don’t know if Clarice didn’t have anything going on that Monday night, or if she just wanted to eat with us since she considers Papa and me to be family too.  Whatever the reason, she stayed and ate supper, then insisted on cleaning up the kitchen, even though Papa told her not too.  The three of us hadn’t sat around the kitchen table playing a game in what seems like forever, but we did that night.  I got Monopoly from my closet, and we played until Papa finally won at nine o’clock. We had a lot of fun. It reminded me of when I was younger, and Papa would invite Clarice to eat with us when Carl was working.  We almost always played a game back then before she went home for the night.

The phone rang as Clarice was walking out the door. Kylee had just gotten home from work, so we spent the next thirty minutes ‘whispering sweet nothings in each other’s ears,’ as my father refers to it.  Whenever he makes that crack, I roll my eyes and turn my back on him while telling Kylee, “My father is advertising his age again.”

Papa had gone into the great room and turned on the TV during my conversation.  After I’d said goodbye to Kylee, I called from the kitchen, “Do you want some of the cookies Clarice baked?”

“Sure!”

Neither of us had eaten dessert, so I put six chocolate chip cookies on a plate and poured each of us a glass of milk.  I was going to carry everything to the great room, but Pops flicked the TV off and came into the kitchen. We sat at the table, not saying much of anything to each other while we ate.

The overhead light was on, though the sun was still shining in through the bay window.  The long hours of summer sunshine is the main we reason we have room-darkening shades at our bedroom windows, along with heavy curtains.  Some families put foil over their bedroom windows in the summer in order to keep the sun from shining in. It’s neat to have it light so long, but it can really screw up your body’s sleep cycle.

I was the first one to finish eating. Because Clarice had been at our house when Papa got home, I hadn’t said anything to him yet about what he’d left on his desk.

“Thanks for typing all that information for my book.”

Papa finished chewing his last cookie, then took a long swallow of milk before finally answering me.

“ ‘Welcome.”

“I haven’t done more than skim it yet, but it looks like everything I need is there.”

He shrugged.  “I just told it like it happened.”

I could tell he didn’t want to talk about it. 

“Well...uh...thanks again. It’ll be a big help.”

“Like I said, you’re welcome.”

I waited until he’d finished drinking his milk, then said, “Papa, can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“What did you mean when you said ‘the bad times that Roy and I went through have forever become a thing of the past’?”

He hesitated long enough to make me think he wasn’t going to answer. 

“Didn’t mean anything by it.”

“You must have meant something by it.”

“Nope.”

“Pops...”

At first, I thought he was going to get mad. He sure looked like he was.  But just as quickly his expression changed, and I could tell he knew that any questions I had were a result of what he’d written, therefore he had no one but himself to blame for my curiosity. I could also tell he regretted including that information, and he knew that if he hadn’t stayed up all night typing, he might have been thinking clearly enough to exclude it.

“I didn’t mean anything by it, Trevor.”

“Then how come you lost contact with Uncle Roy after you moved to Colorado?”

“No reason, other than what I’ve told you before.  Distance. Lack of time due to my job. My relationship with your mom.”

“What did that have to do with it?”

“What did what have to do with it?

“Mom. What did your relationship with her have to do with you not contacting Uncle Roy?”

“Do you see as much of Dylan and Dalton since you started dating Kylee?”

“Well...I guess not.”

“Then you know why I lost contact with Roy.”

“But what did you mean by ‘bad times’?”

“Nothing. Poor choice of words on my part.”

He stood, carrying our plates and glasses to the dishwasher. 

“Is that really all there is to it?”

“Yes, son,” Papa said firmly. “That’s really all there is to it.”

Pops sounded like he meant that statement, but the trouble was, he wouldn’t look at me when he said it.

He seemed anxious to leave the room.  Suddenly, he was “tired” and “needed to get to bed.” 

Papa said goodnight and hurried for the stairs. He took them two at a time, disappearing onto the upper floor before I could say goodnight in return...or ask any more questions.

For the first time I realized how a parent always knows when his kid is lying to him.  I knew my father was lying to me that night, but since I’m the kid and he’s the parent, there wasn’t anything I could do about it.

I don’t give up easily, though. Or maybe I’m just too stubborn to know when to quit.  For the rest of that week, I tried to get an answer out of Papa regarding those mysterious ‘bad times’ but he stuck to his story. 

Distance.

Lack of time.

His relationship with my mom.

If there was more to it than that, my father was determined not to talk about it.  Since he hadn’t lost his temper over the issue yet, I would have kept bugging him if it hadn’t been for my trump card - the DeSoto family. 

After Pops had given me the same lame answer for the sixth time that week, I realized I could ask the DeSotos about this when I interviewed them for the book. I figured at the very least, one of them would provide me with the details I was trying to uncover.  Because of that, I didn’t question Papa about the ‘bad times’ again.  He seemed relieved that I finally let the subject drop.  He was no longer giving me a wary eye when we were in a room together.  It was like he’d been walking on eggshells around me, because he was afraid I’d bring up something he didn’t want to talk about.

I had everything with me that I needed when we left for Los Angeles on Saturday, July 18th. The newspaper photocopies, my notes, and the information I’d printed about Crammer from the Internet. My questions for the DeSotos, Dixie and Doctor Brackett, were all in a multi-pocket file folder in my suitcase.  I had packed my tape recorder in my suitcase too, and had my new laptop computer with me. My mom had shipped the laptop to me a week before we left. When I’d called to thank her for the gift I hadn’t been expecting, she said it was an early graduation present. She knew I’d need a laptop at college, but thought I could make use of it now for my book.  It was sure going to come in handy while I was at Uncle Roy’s house, and told Mom so when I thanked her a second time.  Papa didn’t seem too happy about the laptop when he saw it after work that night, but he didn’t say anything beyond, “Did you call your mother and thank her for that?”

Clarice told me a couple of days later that Papa had been planning on buying a laptop for my graduation present.  I felt bad about that – about Mom having bought one before he got a chance to.  Because my mom has always been generous where gifts and money are concerned, I suppose some people would think I have it made.  But when things happen like Mom buying me a present Papa wanted to get me, it’s not easy seeing the look on his face.  It’s as though Mom’s attacked his ego, or his self-worth as my father, by doing for me what he’d wanted to do.  I love Mom, but I hate it when she inadvertently hurts Papa like that. The last thing he should ever think is that he hasn’t been the best parent he can be.

The week we spent at Uncle Roy and Aunt Joanne’s was fun, just like it always is.  Papa got together for breakfast with two guys he used to work with out of Station 8, but other than that we did things with the DeSotos.   The week was capped off with the annual Station 51 reunion picnic that Uncle Roy and Aunt Joanne have hosted for the last twenty years or more. 

I’ve always thought authors had it made. I mean, what’s there to sitting in front of a computer and typing up a story from your own imagination, right? It seemed like a pretty easy way to make a fast buck to me.  Well, that week I once again learned what a time consuming job writing really is. 

I didn’t get to swim in Uncle Roy’s pool with Chris’s girls and Libby nearly as much as I usually do, and trips to the movies and mall with Libby were almost nonexistent this year.  Instead, I spent hours interviewing the DeSotos, Dixie McCall, and Kelly Brackett.  I’d planned to interview Dixie and Doctor Brackett at Uncle Roy’s picnic, but Dixie suggested I meet with them at her apartment on Tuesday.  Dixie lives in a senior citizen complex that’s like it’s own small town behind big stone walls and an iron gate. 

Aunt Joanne let me borrow her car that Tuesday. Dixie had invited Papa to eat with us, too, but he told her the book was my project, so he’d let me handle that, while he floated around Uncle Roy’s pool working on his tan.  Papa’s remark made Dixie laugh, and seemed to serve the purpose he was aiming for – to prevent Dixie from pressuring him into being present when I talked to her and Doctor Brackett about his medical condition after his encounters with Crammer.

     I spent four hours with the nurse and doctor.  In the end, I was glad I’d conducted my interview at Dixie’s home, rather than at the picnic. Doctor Brackett and Dixie gave me a lot more information than I’d anticipated. And since we weren’t at a picnic where people were having fun that Dixie and Doctor Brackett were missing out on, I didn’t feel like I had to rush.  If something they said led to me asking another question, then I didn’t hesitate to do so. I found out little things that were going to add depth to my story – like the fact that my grandfather made a scene when he first arrived at Rampart. He came straight from the airport carrying a copy of the L.A. Times.  Papa’s picture was on the front, because some reporter had snuck into the ICU the night before. Dixie said Grandpa was ‘fit to be tied’, whatever that means.  She also said that seeing my grandfather then, gave her a glimpse of what my father would look like when he grew older. She smiled at me.

     “Just like sitting across this table from you, makes me remember what your father looked like when I first met him forty years ago.”

     I don’t know why that comment made me blush, but it did. 

     “You blush just like your father did too,” Dixie teased, which only made me blush again.

     Doctor Brackett saved me from further embarrassment, by saying that Jennifer was the person to ask about Papa’s medical condition after his second encounter with Evan Crammer.

     “Jennifer was the attending physician that time.  While I remember some things about your father’s condition when he was brought to Rampart, she’ll be able to give you more details than I can.”

     “Thanks, Doctor Brackett.”

     I concluded my visit with Dixie and Doctor Brackett by thanking them for their time. Dixie said she wanted an autographed copy of my book when it was published.

     “I do too,” Doctor Brackett echoed.

     “It’s just for a school assignment,” I reminded them. “It’s not going to be published. It won’t even be very good.”

     I gathered my notes and tape recorder, then stood from where we’d been seated around the dining room table. Dixie stood as well.

     “You’re putting a lot of time and effort into something that won’t be ‘very good,’ as you put it.”

     “I wanna do the best job I can, but still, I’m no writer.”

     “You never know. You just might discover that you are.”

     I gave the nurse a teasing smile.  “Now you sound like my English teacher.”

     I turned and offered my hand to Doctor Brackett. He stood in order to shake with me.

     “Thanks again for taking the time to answer my questions, Doctor Brackett.”

     “You’re welcome, Trevor.”

     When Dixie and I reached her front door, I thanked her once more while kissing her on the cheek.

     “Thanks for all your help, Dix.”

     She laughed. “Now you sound just like your father, Trevor.”

     I blushed again. I said a quick, final goodbye and hurried out the door before Dixie could embarrass me further by comparing me to my father.  Not that there’s anything wrong with being compared to Papa, it’s just that it’s hard to imagine that he wasn’t much older than I am now when he first met Dixie. Trying to compare myself to him is almost impossible because he seems so...well - old.  Papa’s in great physical shape – he hikes in the National Forest, works out with weights, uses the treadmill in the station’s exercise center, bowls on a league the fire department sponsors, and jogs or rides his bike whenever the weather allows for it, but still, on average he’s twenty years older than my friends’ fathers.  I have a hard time thinking of him as the “rakish, impetuous young man he used to be,” as Dixie had said at some point in our conversation.

     Speaking of that rakish, impetuous young man who was now my father, Papa never asked me anything about my visit with Doctor Brackett and Dixie other than, “Did you get all your questions answered?”

     “Yep, and then some.” I smiled. We were seated at the round iron picnic table on Uncle Roy’s deck. “I also found out you were young once.”

     “Ha. Ha. You’re real funny.”

     “And that you were rakish and impetuous.”

     “I can tell you’ve been talking to Dix. Guess she and I will be havin’ a discussion at the picnic on Saturday about just what she can and can’t tell you.”

     I laughed. “You’ll lose.”

     “What?”

     I reached for the relish tray that sat between us and snagged a carrot. “With Dixie. You’ll never win any argument you have with her.  Even though she hasn’t been a head nurse in a long time, she’s still in charge.”

     Uncle Roy heard me as he carried from the house a platter of spare ribs Papa was going to grill for us.

     “Trevor’s right, you know.”

     My father sounded mildly indignant, though I could tell it was an act. “Right about what?”

     “If you tangle with Dixie, you’ll lose.” Uncle Roy handed Papa the platter and a pair of metal tongs. “Besides, Dix didn’t lie.”

     “And just what is that supposed to mean?”

     “You were rakish and impetuous.”

     “Impetuous I’ll reluctantly go along with.  But rakish? What the heck does that mean anyway?”

     “It means you thought were you hot stuff,” I teased as I stood to see if I could help Aunt Joanne get anything ready.

     Papa gave the back of my head a light smack as I ducked by him on my way into the house.  Pops and Uncle Roy spent the next ten minutes debating whether or not the word rakish applied to my father as a younger man. Aunt Joanne looked at me as we stood at the counter getting a salad ready. She shook her head and chuckled.

     “Those two will never change.”

     I leaned sideways so I could look out the patio screens. Uncle Roy was supervising Papa’s cooking, and now the two of them had changed subjects and were bickering over how much barbeque sauce should be brushed on the ribs.

     “Have they always been like this?”

     “Like what, hon?”

     “You know – best friends who spend about as much time arguing as they do not arguing.”

     Aunt Joanne chuckled again. “I’d say that sums up their relationship.”

     “Was there ever a time when they didn’t get along?”

     Aunt Joanne started to answer me. She opened her mouth, but I could literally see her have second thoughts before anything came out.  She seemed to carefully calculate each word she did finally offer me.

     “They worked side by side for eleven years, Trevor. Because of that, I’m sure there were times when they needed a short break from one another, just like there are times when Roy and I need a break from one another on occasion.”

     “Did they ever need a long break from one another?”

     “What do you mean by that?”

     “Did something happen that caused Papa and Uncle Roy to...well, to part ways with one another for a while?”

     I knew I was being evasive, but I also figured if there was something to the ‘bad times’ Papa had mentioned, then Aunt Joanne would know what I meant.

     She turned away from me in order to put the tomatoes back in the refrigerator. With her upper body half in the appliance, she said, “No, not that I’m aware of.”

     “Not even when Papa moved to Colorado?”

     She turned and looked at me.  I think she was trying to figure out how much I knew.  Like my father, I’m pretty much an open book, and unfortunately, Aunt Joanne read me like one that evening.  She must have concluded I was fishing for answers. Answers that she was determined not to give me.

     “No, sweetie, not that I know of.”

     “But if Uncle Roy and Papa are such good friends, how come they lost contact with one another during the years Pops lived in Denver?”

     “Oh...I don’t know.  Lack of time had something to do with it, I suppose. Your Uncle Roy was a busy man then. He was captain of Station 26 when your father moved away, and then was promoted to Battalion Chief a few years later. And John was still a boy, so Roy spent most of his free time coaching John’s Little League team, soccer team, and helping with his Boy Scout troop. Then the next thing you know Libby was born and...well, with everything that followed, Roy and I ended up helping Jennifer raise her.”

     Aunt Joanne kept glancing out the screen doors, as though she wanted to make sure Uncle Roy and my father didn’t overhear us.

     “There was the distance too. It was...different after Johnny...your father, moved away. He and Roy were used to dropping in on one another.  Used to helping each other with household projects, or giving each other rides to work if one of them was having car trouble.  The distance...well sometimes friendships don’t--”

     “Survive distance.  Yeah, I know. Papa told me.”

     “You’ve asked your father about this?”

     “Yeah, but he’ll only tell me the exact same things you just did.”

     “Well, see there,” she smiled at me while giving her head a firm nod. “That’s because there’s nothing more to it than that.”

     I might have believed Aunt Joanne if she hadn’t sounded like she was trying so hard to convince me of something she knew wasn’t true – and if she hadn’t put those tomatoes back in the fridge before she’d sliced them and added them to the salad.

     I let the subject drop, because Aunt Joanne asked me to carry the plates and silverware to the patio. I think she knew I wouldn’t keep asking her questions in front of my father, which is also why I think she was so anxious to go outside with me.

     The next day, Aunt Joanne let me borrow her car again so I could meet with Chris.  I drove to his house after breakfast.  He’d told me that nine thirty would be a good time for us to get together. By then, Chris’s wife, Wendy, was at work, his oldest daughter, Brittany, was at a basketball clinic, and his younger daughter, Madison, was at Disneyland with Wendy’s brother and his family.

     Talking to Chris is a lot like talking to Uncle Roy. If they’re in the same room together and you close your eyes, you don’t know which one is speaking.  The tone of their voices, as well as the pitch, are exactly alike. Jennifer and John are outgoing and exuberant, while Chris tends to be more quiet and contemplative.  Papa says Jen and John take after Aunt Joanne, while Chris is his father through and through.

I’ve always admired the way Chris handles his disability. He suffered a spinal cord injury during some kind of training exercise shortly after he’d joined the fire department.  He’s partially paralyzed from the waist down, and though he can walk using two canes, it’s a struggle for him to. Because of that, Chris generally uses a wheelchair to get around in.  He belongs to a wheelchair basketball league, and he also participates in the wheelchair divisions of 5 and 10K races. He says he’d like to race in a marathon someday, but because of the website design business he owns and his busy family life, he hasn’t made the time to train for the rigors of a 26 mile race yet.

Chris never complains about his physical challenges, and Jennifer told me once that other than a short period of time after Chris’s accident first happened, he’s never been depressed about his disability either. Chris has always struck me as a strong guy who never complains. The kind of guy you can depend on, and the kind of guy who makes a good friend.

Chris must have been watching for me, because he opened the front door before I had the chance to ring the bell.  I shook his hand, and before I could release my grip, Chris reached up with his other hand and clasped our hands together for a moment with a firm squeeze. That action reminded me of the way I’d seen Chris shake hands with his brother. It made me feel good to know that Chris thinks of me with the kind of...warmth? Does that sound too feminine?  Well, anyway, that I have a place of value in Chris’s life similar to the place his brother John holds.

I followed Chris to the dining room table.

“Is this a good place for you to conduct your interview?”

“Yeah, this is great.”

Chris transferred himself from his wheelchair to a cushioned chair at the table, while I took everything I needed from my folder. I turned my tape recorder on and placed it in the center of the long, mahogany table. I sat across from Chris, glanced down at my list of questions, and started our interview by asking him to tell me about the events that took place that April weekend of 1978.    

     My writer’s imagination was inspired as I listened to Chris.  I’d already heard this story from my father’s point of view, and while some of what Chris told me was exactly what Papa had said, I was now getting an entirely new perspective on that weekend as seen through the eyes of an eleven-year-old boy. 

     As with Dixie and Doctor Brackett, Chris’s story prompted more questions from me than what were on my list.  We talked until noon, stopped long enough to eat the sandwiches Chris insisted on making for us, and then at one o’clock the interview continued.

     Chris smiled at me when we were finally ready to call it quits at three. He concluded the interview by declaring, “If anyone defined the word hero that weekend, Trevor, it was your father.”

     “Based on what you’ve told me and what Papa has told me, I’d say you were a pretty big hero yourself.”

     “No, I was just a scared kid who prayed with all his might that he could stay on Cody’s back long enough to get help.”

     “That took a lot of guts,” I said. “Riding a horse that’s too big and strong for you down a mountain.”

     “Your father threatened to tan my hide if I left the campsite on Cody.”

     “He did? Really?”

     My father hasn’t spanked me more than half a dozen times in my life – the last time being when I was nine or ten.  I can’t imagine him ever having done that to one of the DeSoto kids.

     “Really.” Chris smiled again. “He didn’t, of course. He wasn’t physically capable of tanning my hide when he made that threat, and after he’d recovered from his injuries, all was forgiven where my transgressions with Cody were concerned.”

     I thought over everything I’d been told about that weekend so far.

     “Papa must have been awfully worried about you. Between you riding a horse that was too big and fast for you, and riding out of the campsite alone with Crammer lurking in the woods somewhere, Papa must have gone out of his mind wondering if you made it back to his ranch okay.”

     “According to Jennifer, he just about did.  It was a terrifying day for all of us, Trev, but now that I look back on it, I realize what a remarkable day it was, too.”

     “Remarkable?”

     “Yeah,” Chris nodded.  “I was only eleven, and Jennifer was just nine. Your father had lost a lot of blood and could have easily died before help arrived. Yet it was the strong bond that the three of us shared that caused us to pull together in an effort to help one another.  It was that bond that gave me the courage to do what I needed to in an effort to get help for Uncle Johnny, and in an effort to keep Jennifer safe. Your father inspired that courage I found, Trevor.  If it hadn’t been for my strong...love and admiration for him, I don’t know if I could have kept my cool and done all that I did.”

     I quietly sat absorbing Chris’s words. He’d fled through the woods in the middle of the night with his sister to hide in a dark cave. When he finally felt it was safe to do so, he’d left the shelter of that cave with Jennifer clinging to his hand, and had snuck back to the campsite in order to find my father. When Chris saw that my father was injured, he got Jennifer to help him apply the first aid skills he’d learned in Boy Scouts. Then after the sun came up and Chris saw my father’s condition was worsening, he’d made the decision to go for help, despite a killer being in the woods surrounding them.  Now, thirty years later, Chris takes no credit for his brave actions, but instead, says it was my father who inspired him to find the courage he needed to tackle all he did that weekend.  Pretty heady stuff.  And a huge, huge credit to the man my father was...and still is.

     I shut off the tape recorder and stood to clear the table. We hadn’t done more than push our dishes and glasses aside when we’d finished eating lunch.  Chris started to move toward his wheelchair, but I raised a hand that indicated for him to stop his movement.

“You fixed lunch. I’ll clean up.”

     I rinsed off our dishes and then put them in the dishwasher. While I wiped off the table with a damp dishcloth my eyes came to rest on Chris’s wheelchair.

“If you don’t mind me asking, how did you get hurt after you joined the fire department?”

     Chris glanced toward the French doors that looked out over a deck, and then to the backyard beyond it.  I immediately regretted opening my big mouth.

     “I’m sorry, Chris. I shouldn’t have--”

     He turned to face me again and smiled. “You don’t have to be sorry. Besides, there’s not much to tell.  It was just an...accident.”

     “What kind of accident?”

     “It...it doesn’t matter.  It happened a long time ago, Trev.  The only thing you, or anyone else needs to understand without a doubt, is that my accident was no one’s fault. No one’s. All right? Understand?”

     I had no idea why Chris was so intent on my understanding that his accident was no one’s fault, but when he said again, “All right, Trev?” I nodded and said, “Sure. All right. Whatever you say, Chris.”

     When Chris didn’t offer me further details, I dropped the subject.  This was another one of those questions that I’d always received vague responses to whenever I’d asked my father about it. Any time I’d questioned Papa about Chris’s injury, I was always told, “He had an...accident shortly after he’d joined the fire department.”  Now Chris was being just as vague, and I couldn’t figure out why.  I mean, if he’d fallen from a hose tower or something, did he think I was going to call him a klutz, or accuse him of having made a mistake? 

     As I was packing up my stuff I asked one last question.

     “Chris, do you know if my father and your father ever had some sort of falling out?”

     “Falling out?”

     “Yeah.  You know, a fight or something like that?”

     “I wouldn’t call what they do fighting, Trev. They bicker sometimes, but don’t let that worry you. They’ve always teased and bickered with one another. It doesn’t mean anything.”

     “I know. What I meant was a big fight. Some kind of bad disagreement. Something that caused them not to contact one another after Papa moved to Denver.”

     Chris was too quick to answer in my opinion.

     “Nope, nothing happened like that.”

     Before I could ask any more questions, the man transferred himself to his wheelchair. 

     “I need to head out and pick up Brittany. Her clinic ends at four. You wanna ride along?”

     “No thanks. I’d better get your mom’s car back to her.”

     “She can always use the mini-van if she needs to go somewhere.”

     “I know.” Uncle Roy and Aunt Joanne have three vehicles.  Uncle Roy’s beloved Porsche, the mini-van they use for family outings and when they travel, and then the car I was driving, Aunt Joanne’s Chrysler Sebring. “Still, she’s been really generous about letting me use it this week. I’d better not take advantage of that. Besides, Papa said I should fill the tank up for her this afternoon, so I need to do that yet, and then Libby’s picking me up. We’re going to dinner and a movie.”

     Chris grinned. “I’d say that offer sounds better than mine. You’d better be on your way then.”

     We left the house together.  I shook Chris’s hand when we reached Aunt Joanne’s car, and thanked him for his time.

     He told me, “You’re welcome,” then just as I was climbing behind the wheel he added, “And Trevor?”

     “Yeah?”

     “It was just an accident. Okay?”

     At first I wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but then he patted the arms of his wheelchair in order to give me a hint.

     I nodded slowly and said, “Okay,” even though I was now more confused than ever.

     I drove to the gas station a few blocks from Chris’s upscale neighborhood.  While I stood in the hot July sun filling the tank, I wondered again why it was so important to Chris that I understand the reason behind him being in a wheelchair was an accident, as opposed to his injury being a deliberate act on someone’s part. Suddenly, I felt like I was getting tangled up in the kind of mystery you only read about in good novels, and that the protagonist has to spend his time unraveling.

     I contemplated asking Aunt Joanne about Chris’s accident when I returned to Uncle Roy’s house, and discovered he and Papa were gone.  Aunt Joanne said they had just left to grocery shop for Saturday’s picnic and would be back around suppertime.

     “Did you get all the information you needed from Chris?”

     “Yeah, he was a big help.” 

I thought a long moment as I stood in the garage watching Aunt Joanne paint a three-foot tall wooden reindeer. Uncle Roy makes the reindeer, Aunt Joanne paints them and ties red ribbons around their necks, and then the reindeer are sold at craft fairs in the fall along with other holiday things items they make. 

“Aunt Joanne?”

     She didn’t look up from the workbench she was bent over, as she painted a bright red nose on the reindeer using a small brush.

     “What, hon?”

     “How long has Chris needed his wheelchair?”

     Aunt Joanne’s attention remained on her work. Because of that, I don’t think she gave much thought to my question. She answered without hesitation, “Let me see...it’s been twenty-four years this month.”

     I did some quick math.  “So he was hurt in 1985?”

     Her eyes darted to me when I stated the year. What she thought it meant to me I’m not sure, but I could tell she was concerned it meant something.

     “I...it was a long time ago, Trevor.  I think that’s right, but I could be off by year or two.”

     I didn’t believe her.  I was certain that she, as Chris’s mother, would know the exact day and time when he lost the use of his legs. Despite the wariness that had suddenly overcome Aunt Joanne’s tone, I forged ahead.

“If you don’t mind me asking, how did Chris’s accident happen?”

     She hesitated, then said, “During his paramedic training.”

     “I know that but--”

     The beep of a car horn in the driveway interrupted me.

     “Oh, look,” Aunt Joanne said with more enthusiasm than was warranted. “Libby’s here already.”

     I turned around and gave Libby a wave. I held up my folder as Libby got out of her car.

     “Just let me put this stuff in the house and clean up a little. I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

     “Sure,” Libs agreed. She stood talking to her grandmother while I put my folder and tape recorder in Chris’s old room.  I changed my shirt, then stopped in the bathroom to wash my hands and comb my hair. 

     We left ten minutes later. We said goodbye to Aunt Joanne, and then Libby walked ahead of me to her car. Aunt Joanne’s voice caused me to stop and turn to face her.

     “Trevor?”

     “Yeah?”

     “Chris’s accident wasn’t anyone’s fault.”

     “Pardon?”

     “The reason Chris is in the wheelchair...that wasn’t anyone’s fault. No one’s.  It was an accident, nothing more.”

     My brows furrowed together, but I didn’t get a chance to ask any of the questions that immediately came to mind, the first being, “What are you talking about?” because Libby beeped her horn and stuck her head out of the driver’s side window.

     “Come on, Trev!  I’m starving!”

     I remained where I was a moment longer, but Aunt Joanne said, “You’d better get going, sweetheart, or Libby’s liable to leave without you.”

     I wanted to stay and talk with Aunt Joanne further, but since I got the impression she wasn’t going to offer me any more information than what she already had, I said goodbye and jogged to Libby’s car.

During the course of our evening I asked Libby about Chris’s accident, but she didn’t know anything more than I did.

     “And that’s all anyone’s ever said about it?” I asked while reaching for a third slice of pizza. “Just that Chris had an accident while he was going through paramedic training?”

     “Yeah. Or at least that’s all that’s been said to me about it. Why?”

     “I’m just curious.” I thought on the subject some more. “Libby, has anyone...your mom, or your grandpa or grandma, or Chris, ever said anything to you about why my father moved to Denver in 1985?”

     “No.”

     “And no one’s ever said anything about your grandpa and my father going through a bad time that might have caused them to have a falling out of some sort?”

     “Not to me, no.  Why? Do you know something I don’t?”

     “I’m not sure.  Sometimes I think I do, but then when I ask about it I keep getting the same answers.”

     “What kind of answers?”

     “Just that Papa moved away to take a new job opportunity, and that distance and lack of time caused him to lose contact with your family.”

     “I suppose that’s the truth then.  Coincidently enough, shortly before Evan Crammer kidnapped me, I was looking through Grandpa’s photo albums. I had come across a lot of pictures of Grandpa and Uncle Johnny during the years they worked together at Station 51.  I knew who Uncle Johnny was based on stories Mom had told me, and pictures she’d shown me of him that were in a photo album she has. I asked Grandpa why Uncle Johnny never came to any of the reunion picnics, and he said he didn’t know where Uncle Johnny lived.”  Libby put another slice of pizza on her plate. “I guess they must have lost track of one another over the years.”

     “Yeah. Or maybe that’s just what everyone wants us to believe.”

     Libby laughed. “Trevor, you sound like a writer in pursuit of a mystery.”

     “I’m not pursing one, but for some reason I keep getting the feeling there’s a mystery for me to find if I’m willing to look hard enough for it.”

     “If you want my opinion, you’re trying to find something that isn’t there. Look at how close my grandpa and your father are. They sure don’t act like two people who had an falling out.”

     “Yeah, but what about the fifteen years between when Papa left Los Angeles, and when Crammer kidnapped him and brought him back here?”

     “What about them?”

     “Papa and Uncle Roy had no contact during that time, Libs. You said it yourself. Uncle Roy didn’t even know Papa had moved from Denver to Alaska. Uncle Roy had no idea where my father lived, and didn’t even know I’d been born.”

     Libby shrugged. “I still think you’re wasting your time trying to uncover something that doesn’t exist, but if you really wanna know the truth, ask my mom tomorrow night.”

     Which was exactly what I intended to do.  I was supposed to interview Jennifer and Libby the next evening. Jennifer’s house is just a few blocks from Uncle Roy’s, so at four-thirty on Thursday afternoon I set off for Jen’s on foot.  I carried my folder and tape recorder with me, and by quarter to five was knocking on her front door.

     We ate dinner first.  If nothing else, I was getting an abundance of good meals out of these interviews.  Libby and I cleaned up the kitchen for Jennifer since she’d cooked.   Jen’s house is similar in layout to Uncle Roy’s – a ranch style with the bedrooms all down one hallway, the living room, kitchen, and dining room in the center of the house, and a laundry room and attached garage on the other end.

     The phone rang while we cleaned the kitchen.  Jennifer picked up the portable and took the receiver into the living room as soon as the caller had identified himself. She’s been seeing a doctor that she works with at Rampart. Papa and I met him at the reunion picnic, and he seems like a nice guy.  Libby likes him, but I know she hopes her mom doesn’t think about marriage until after Libby graduates from college and has moved out of the house. 

     “It would just feel funny, you know?” Libby had said to me the night we went to dinner and the movies. “It’s been me and my mom living alone for so long now that I...well, it just wouldn’t feel the same.”

     “I know,” and I did, because I was in the same situation with my father.

     “I want Mom to be happy though, so whatever she decides, I’ll go along with.”

     From what I’d overheard Uncle Roy say to my father, I don’t think Libby has anything to worry about. Jennifer would like to remarry eventually, but wants to get Libby out on her own before she does so.  

     “Ron has joint custody of his two teenage daughters,” Uncle Roy had told my father one morning while we ate breakfast, “so Jennifer and he have decided they don’t want the stress of a blended family. They’re serious about one another, but they’re playing it smart. They’re in no rush to get married until all the girls are over eighteen.”

     My father said he thought that was smart, and remarked that he’d never had a desire to be a stepparent. “Too many problems waiting to happen. I give anyone credit who can parent someone else’s kids and do it well.  As for me, the thought has never held much appeal.”

     Jennifer said goodbye to Ron when she saw Libby and I were finished.  The three of us sat at the table, and once again I turned on my tape recorder. This session took longer than any of my others had, but then I’d expected that it would.  I was getting information from Jennifer regarding her experiences with Crammer in 1978, and from Libby about her experiences in 2000.  Add to that, I was getting Jennifer’s perspective of what it had been like to discover Evan Crammer had kidnapped her child, and then information about my father’s medical when he arrived at Rampart. It was a lot to cover in one evening, but we did it.

     It was after eleven when we finally finished.  I shut off my tape recorder and sat back I my chair.

     “Thanks, Jen. Thanks, Libby. You’ve both been a big help. This took longer than I thought it would. Sorry about that.”

     “Don’t worry about it,” Jennifer said with a smile. “For you, Trevor Gage, anything.”

     I smiled in return.  “Thanks.”

     Libby got up to cut each of us a piece of cake. No one had wanted dessert after supper, so Jennifer had said we’d wait until the interview was over and then have it.

     “Hey, Trev, don’t forget to ask my mom about Uncle Chris’s accident.”

Jennifer’s looked at me.  “What about Chris’s accident?”

“I was just wondering how it happened.”

“He had an accident during his paramedic training.”

“What kind of an accident?”

“Just...just an accident. An unfortunate accident that was no one’s fault.” Jennifer stood and walked over to Libby. “Here, honey, let me carry in the plates. You pour each of us a glass of milk. Nothing washes chocolate chip fudge cake down better than cold milk.”

I gave Libby a “See, I told you so,” look.  She shrugged her shoulders at me while she got glasses from a cabinet.

Libby finished her cake first, then stood and said good night. She had to open the store the next morning, so had to leave for work at eight-fifteen.  Jennifer and I said goodnight in return, and I called, “Thanks again for your time, Libby!” as she headed down the hall to her bedroom.

I helped Jennifer gather up the plates and glasses when we’d finished eating. 

“Jen, can I ask you one last question?”

“Sure, sweetheart. Anything.”

“Do you know why my father and your father lost contact after Papa moved to Denver?”

Jennifer turned her back on me as she bent to put our dessert dishes in the dishwasher.  Her body language told me she regretted being so eager with her, “Sure, sweetheart. Anything.”

“Lost contact?”

“Yeah. How come they didn’t call one another, or visit one another, like they do now?”

The supper dishes were in the dishwasher, too, so Jen pulled a box of soap from a cabinet. She added some soap to the dispenser and started the appliance.

“I don’t know, Trev.” Jennifer stood and straightened her canister set, though it looked perfectly straight to me.  “I’m sure they were both busy. John was still young, so Dad was involved in a lot of his activities when he wasn’t at work.  I’m sure the same is true of Uncle Johnny after you were born, isn’t it?”

“I guess. I mean, he raised me all by himself from the day I was born, so I suppose he was busy.”

“As a single parent myself, I can assure you he was. Sometimes...well, sometimes distance and lack of time prevent friends from maintaining the bond they once shared.”

“Yeah, but look at how tight Uncle Roy and Papa have become again in the last nine years.”

“What about it?”

“I just don’t get it. How come they have the time to be close now, even though they still live far away from one another and are both still busy, but they didn’t have the time to keep their friendship intact right after Papa moved to Denver?”

“I don’t know. That’s just the way life works sometimes where friendships are concerned.”

“I suppose,” I reluctantly agreed, while at the same time feeling as though there was a lot Jennifer wasn’t telling me.

     I picked up my folder and tape recorder from the table. Jennifer walked with me as far as the end of her driveway. It was a nice night – warm, but with enough of a breeze so that the heat of the day had dissipated after the sun went down. 

     “Thanks for everything, Jennifer - supper, the interview, dessert. I didn’t mean to take up so much of your time.”

     “Don’t worry about it. Like I said, for you, Trevor Gage, anything.”

     As I turned to walk to Uncle Roy’s house, Jennifer said quietly into the darkness, “Trevor, no matter what you uncover as you write this book, never forget one thing.”

I turned around.  “What’s that?”

“To this family, your father will always be a hero.  He’ll always be the man who saved my life, and who kept my daughter from harm. He’ll always be the man who fought to free me from Evan Crammer’s arms, even as Crammer was stabbing him.  He’ll always be the man who hid me with his own body and endured a beating he barely had the strength to withstand. Uncle Johnny would have willingly sacrificed his own life before he would have let Crammer know where I was, Trevor. And then when Crammer took Libby, the only comfort I had...the only thing that enabled me to have some hope I just might get her back alive, was the knowledge that your father was with her. He’s a hero, Trev. Plain and simple, your father is a hero.”

“He says he’s not.”

“He might say that, but I know differently, and so does my entire family. Therefore, just remember that what your father did for Libby and for me supersedes anything else. Anything at all.”

“Anything like what?”

“Nothing.” She shook her head. “Nothing.”  Jennifer pointed at her car. “Do you want me to give you a ride to my parents’ house?”

“No thanks.” The neighborhood is quiet, safe, and illuminated by streetlights, so I had no worries about going back to Uncle Roy’s on foot. “It’s only a few blocks. I’ll walk.”

“Okay. Goodnight then.”

“Goodnight.”

I stood on the sidewalk until Jennifer had gone back into the house.  I headed for Uncle Roy’s then, all the while wondering what Jennifer had meant by, “no matter what you uncover as you write this book.”

According to everyone I’d talked to so far, there was nothing to uncover. But if that was really the case, I sure couldn’t figure out why they were trying so hard to emphasize that fact.

     My last interview was with Uncle Roy on Friday morning. After a quick cup of coffee and a piece of toast, Aunt Joanne had left in the mini-van for Chris’s house.  His business has grown to the point that two days a week Aunt Joanne spends several hours at his house doing bookwork, answering the phone, and filing.

A few minutes later, Papa left in Aunt Joanne’s car to meet his old friends from Station 8 for breakfast. As soon as they were both gone, Uncle Roy and I sat at the picnic table on the deck so I could get the interview underway. Banana muffins and grapefruit slices rested on a plate between us, with my tape recorder setting beside the plate. We ate our breakfast while we talked.

     This interview ended up being the one I enjoyed the most. I started it by asking Uncle Roy how he’d met my father. Though I knew the answer to that question, something told me it was important to start at the place where this thirty-eight year old friendship had formed.  If my book was going to be about what one friend was willing to sacrifice for another, then I needed to know everything I could about the friendship that inspired me to choose this plot – everything. The good, the bad, and the ugly, as the expression went.

     I didn’t interrupt Uncle Roy, and didn’t refer to my questions even one time. I just let him talk, and through that, I learned more about my father than I had ever known. I discovered just how close he’d been with the DeSoto family during the years he’d lived in Los Angeles, and how much Uncle Roy had valued that closeness.  He didn’t say that in so many words, but the feeling was always present.

     Uncle Roy’s monologue unveiled each year as it progressed, from late 1971 when they’d first met, until the early 1980s when Uncle Roy became the captain of Station 26, and my father became the chief paramedic instructor for the Los Angeles County Fire Department.  Just when I thought Uncle Roy was going to say something about the year Papa had moved to Denver, he skipped ahead to the summer of 2000, when Evan Crammer had kidnapped Libby. 

     “It was a tough, tough time,” the man said. “Almost harder on me than when we lost...lost our grandson Brandon. You have to remember that when Crammer had tried to take Jennifer, I was unaware of it.  By the time Joanne and I found out what was going on, Chris was able to tell us that Jennifer was safe with your father.  Of course, I was really worried that Crammer would come back and try to take her again before I got to their campsite with the police, but still, at least I had some assurance that Jenny was all right.  When Libby was kidnapped...well, it scared me to death.  She was gone for two days before we knew who had her...and that your father was with her, thanks to you showing up, young man.”

     I smiled at the memory. “You sure didn’t like me much at first.”

     “It wasn’t that I didn’t like you, Trevor, it was just that I wasn’t...expecting you, let’s put it that way.  I didn’t know Johnny had a son, and for you to show up out of the blue, and then for us to find out you’d run away from your home in Alaska of all places...not to mention the news you brought us.  Well...it was pretty overwhelming, let me tell you.”

     “I suppose it was.”

     “But once I knew your father was with Libby, I had some hope.  Some hope that she’d return to us safe and sound.”

     “Jennifer said the same thing last night.”

     Uncle Roy nodded. “I think knowing Johnny was with Libby is what got Jennifer through those next few days.  I know that’s what got Joanne and me through them.”

     I asked Uncle Roy to tell me about the events that led up to him taking Libby’s place in the old ranger station where Crammer had been holding my father and Libs. I knew Crammer had called Uncle Roy late one night and demanded that he meet him, but I was uncertain of what had happened next.  My memory as an eight-year-old boy is of a girl I didn’t know showing up suddenly at Uncle Roy’s house. Upon discovering she was the ‘Libby’ I’d heard so much about, who had been kidnapped along with my father, I got really upset because Papa hadn’t come home with her, and no one could tell me when, or if, he was going to come home.

     “When Crammer got me to the cabin, he shoved me inside.  Your father was so sick, that even if I had been able to make a run for it, I couldn’t have gotten Johnny out of there with me. After Crammer left us, I did what I could for Johnny. Despite the circumstances it was good...real good to see him again.”

     Uncle Roy’s story progressed until he reached the point where my father suggested they try climbing up the chimney and making their escape that way.

     “It was a tight fit for me. I didn’t think I was gonna make it a couple of times, but Johnny wouldn’t let me give up, and he wouldn’t leave me behind.”

     “Good thing, too, considering Crammer started the cabin on fire.”

     “Yes, that was a good thing.  Being burned alive while stuck in a chimney isn’t exactly the way I wanna go when my time comes.”

     “I don’t blame you for that.”

     Uncle Roy then told how he and Papa made it out of the chimney and onto the roof of the ranger station just as Crammer returned. They would have hidden from him up there, but he started the building on fire, leaving them no choice but to jump from it and flee through the woods. The fleeing part was difficult, considering Papa was really sick with pneumonia, and Uncle Roy sprained his ankle when he landed on the ground. Uncle Roy told me how, despite these things, they ran for all they were worth. Crammer caught up to them though, and by then the fire had spread to the surrounding woods.

     “Crammer’s gun was pointed right at me. He was gonna shoot me, Trevor.  He was going to kill me. Your father...your father jumped in front of me just as Crammer squeezed the trigger. To this day, Johnny says all he was trying to do was knock me out of the way.”

     “You make it sound like you don’t believe him.”

     “I don’t. I think he took that bullet for me on purpose, but if he did, he’ll never admit it.”

     Uncle Roy told the remainder of the story then.  I stayed with him and Aunt Joanne during the two and a half weeks my father spent recovering at Rampart.  I knew Papa’s condition was serious, because I wasn’t allowed to see him during the first week he was hospitalized, but until now, I didn’t know just how close he’d come to dying.

     “It’s odd, you know.”

     “What’s odd?” I asked, as Uncle Roy concluded his story.

     “That out of such a bad time came a good thing.”

     “What good thing?”

     “Your father and I...uh...we...”

     He stopped there, as though he realized he was about to say something that he’d rather not. 

     “What?  My father and you what?”

“Just...just that we were able to get together again and renew our friendship. That was the good thing that came out of what Crammer did to us.”

“Speaking of that, I have another question for you.”

“I thought we were finished.”

“We are – we will be in just a second. Do you have time for one more?”

“Sure,” Uncle Roy grinned. “I’m retired now, remember? My time is my own.”

“Okay. Well...you don’t...you don’t have to answer this if you don’t wanna, Uncle Roy, but Papa...he wrote some stuff down for me about his experiences with Crammer, and when he did that he said...” I pulled out the papers Papa had typed up for me and flipped the stack to the last page.  “He said, ‘The bad times...I can actually say that thanks to Evan Crammer, the bad times that Roy and I went through have forever become a thing of the past. Friendship should never be taken lightly, and when you have a strong friendship with someone, you should cherish it and never think it can easily be replaced.’ ”

Uncle Roy allowed a long silence to linger after I’d finished reading Papa’s words.  When he finally spoke he said, “Your father’s right, Trev. Friendships are something to be cherished. And take it from someone who knows, just like Johnny said, friendship can’t be easily replaced.”

I didn’t say anything for a few seconds. I wasn’t sure how to ask what I wanted to without just coming right out and saying it, so finally decided that’s what I had to do.

“Uncle Roy, was there a time when...”

I stopped there, suddenly unsure if I should be so bold. It was one thing to ask Aunt Joanne, Chris, and Jennifer about this. It was another to ask Uncle Roy.

“A time when what, Trev?”

“Uh...a time when you and my father had some sort of fight that caused the two of you to lose contact with each oth--”

Before I could finish my question, the patio screen slid open. I looked up to see my father standing on the deck. His glare and deep scowl told me he thought I was poking my nose places it didn’t belong.

“Are you done?”

“Huh?”

“Are you finished interviewing Roy?”

“Uh...yeah. Yeah, we just got done.”

“Then thank him for his time, pick up your stuff, and go put it in your room.  After you do that you can help us get things ready for tomorrow. Those picnic tables Roy borrowed from his neighbors need to be washed.  You can start with those, then I’ll find something else for you to do.”

I could tell Papa was ticked at me just by his tone, let alone by his sudden need to find things for me to do. I guess he figured if I was busy, then I wouldn’t have time to ask questions he didn’t want me asking.

My eyes darted to Uncle Roy.  I’m sure I must have looked as uncomfortable as I felt, but if he was feeling any discomfort over my questions, or my father’s anger, he did a good job of hiding it.

“Thanks for letting me interview you, Uncle Roy. I appreciate it.”

“You’re welcome, Trev.”

I picked up my stuff and hurried past my father, who was still glaring at me.  I paused in the hallway with no other intention than to eavesdrop. Because the patio doors were open, I could easily hear every word that was said.

“I’m sorry about that, Roy. He shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“You don’t have to apologize.”

“Yeah, I do. It’s none of his business. He doesn’t...there’s no reason he needs to know. Not now. Not ever.”

Uncle Roy didn’t disagree with Papa, but then, he didn’t agree either.

“However you want it, Johnny.  I’ll handle it however you want me to.”

“It’s none of his business,” Papa said firmly. “If he asks again, you tell him that.”

“I think I can find a nicer way to say it, but okay, in one form or another, that’s what I’ll tell Trevor if it’s what you want.”

“It’s what I want.”

I heard the patio screen slide open as if someone was coming into the house, so I hurried down the hall to the room I was staying in. 

As I suspected would be the case, my father kept me busy the remainder of the day.  He had all kinds of things for me to do on Saturday morning too, in order to help Aunt Joanne and Uncle Roy prepare for the guests that invaded their backyard at noon. 

On Sunday morning I caught a plane that took me from Los Angeles to New York, where I spent the next two weeks with my mother.  Papa stayed at Uncle Roy’s one more day.  On Monday, he boarded a plane bound for Montana. He visited with my aunt and grandparents through Friday. On Saturday morning, Pops flew to Anchorage, where Gus picked him up in a Cessna and took him home to Eagle Harbor.

     During the remainder of my stay in Los Angeles, I didn’t ask anyone how Chris got injured, or why Roy DeSoto and my father lost contact with one another for fifteen years.  I didn’t need to ask, in order to have finally concluded that, in some way, those two events are connected.  Now, three weeks after leaving L.A., my questions still remain unanswered. I have a feeling that if Papa has his way, they always will.

Monday, September 7th, 2009

(Labor Day)

     Fall comes early to Alaska.  There’s already a “nip in the air” to quote Clarice, and once again we’re seeing more rain than we’re seeing sunshine. 

     School started two weeks ago.  I like being a senior. Finally, I’m at the top of the heap.  Papa said I should enjoy this last year of high school as much as I can, because someday I’ll look back on it and wonder where it went.  Old people say stuff like that a lot. I don’t understand why Papa thinks time goes by so much faster for him than it does for me, but anyway, I do plan on having fun this year.

     Aside from having fun, I’m busy, too. Dalton and I are co-captains of the cross-country team. We had our first practice a week before school started, and our first meet in Juneau on the third day after school started. I was elected secretary of the student council, which means I have even more writing to do since I record the minutes from each meeting, and I was voted senior class president.  I was surprised by that.  I figured Jenna would be our president.  She’s well liked, good at organizing things, good at scheduling events, and good at getting people to do stuff. Papa was really proud. He says this means my classmates think highly of me. When I told Pops why I thought Jenna should have been voted president over me, he smiled and said, “You’re good at all those things, too.”  I thought about that for a while, and I guess it’s true.  Clarice says I’m a “responsible young man,” and I heard Aunt Joanne tell Papa when we were there, “Trevor’s very mature for his age, Johnny. You have every right to be proud of the job you’ve done as his father.”

I think Aunt Joanne’s words made Papa feel good, even though his only response was, “Thanks, Jo.”  He’s not the kind of guy who cares much about what people think, but Uncle Roy’s opinion and Aunt Joanne’s opinion do matter to him.  

     Along with everything else I have to do this year, when Mrs. St. Claire assigned positions for the newspaper on the fourth day of school, she made me editor-in-chief.  I have no idea why, and I told her so after class.

     “Mrs. St. Claire, between the book you assigned us and my position as student council secretary, don’t you think I have enough writing to do?  I’m still keeping my journal, too.”

     “I’m glad to hear that,” Mrs. St. Claire said while she walked up and down the rows straightening desks.  I trailed along behind her.

     “So see, I’m doing tons of writing.  Can’t I be a photographer instead?”

     “No.”

     “Why not?”

     “Because Dylan and Dalton are the paper’s photographers.”

     “I can switch places with one of them. Dylan would probably--”

     “No.”

     “How come?”

     “Because I chose you to be editor-in-chief, not Dylan.”

     “But--”

     Mrs. St. Claire stopped what she was doing and turned to look at me.

     “Trevor, do you think the positions I assigned to you and your classmates were chosen at random?”

     I shrugged my shoulders.  “I don’t know. I never really thought about it.”

     “Well, I did. Think about it, that is.  Therefore, I can assure that I didn’t just throw your names in a hat and draw them out.  You’re the editor-in-chief because that’s where I feel your talents lie.”

     “But, Mrs. St. Claire, if you’ll give it more thought, I bet you’ll see that Dylan--”

     “Trevor, if you’d quit fighting it, you might discover what I already know.”

     “What’s that?”

     Mrs. St. Claire gave me a gentle poke in the chest.

     “That a writer lives deep inside this soul.”

     “Well if he does, I sure wish he’d make himself known.”

     “Don’t you worry,” Mrs. St. Claire assured me, “he will.  Now get out of here before Coach McKinney comes looking for you.” 

     I glanced at the clock. I didn’t have any more time to debate my position on the newspaper with Mrs. St. Claire.  I would have been late for cross-country practice if I’d stayed any longer. I called, “Can we talk about this later?” as I ran from her class.

     I heard her, “No!” as I raced to the boys’ locker room.  She meant that “No!” too, because I’m still editor-in-chief, despite my best efforts to have the job given to someone else.

     Aside from assigning newspaper positions on the fourth day of school, Mrs. St. Claire told us our books were due April first.

     All of us except Jenna groaned, “April first?”

     “I told you at the end of last school year the books would be due in April.”

     Dylan said, “But I thought we’d have until the end of April.”

     “Dylan, there are twenty of you in this classroom.  I need time to read the books before the school year ends, you know.”

     “I suppose. But if it’ll help, you can skip mine.”

     Mrs. St. Claire laughed.  “No, I won’t be skipping yours, or anyone else’s for that matter.”

     Jenna raised her hand and Mrs. St. Claire called on her.

     “Yes, Jenna?”

     “If we have our books finished before April first, may we turn them in?”

     “Yes, you may.” Mrs. St. Claire smiled at the perfect way Jenna phrased her request.  It probably validated her existence as our English teacher to know that at least one of us had listened to the endless grammar drills she’d put us through. “I’d welcome your books ahead of the deadline.”

     “If mine is already finished,” Jenna said, “may I turn it in now?”

     I laid my head on my desk and stifled a groan.  I’d barely started my book, and Jenna already had hers done. Just like I’d feared was going to happen.

     “Yes, you may, if you’re certain it’s finished.”

     “I’m certain.”

     I watched as Jenna paraded a thick binder up to Mrs. St. Claire, complete with a cover she’d illustrated herself using a charcoal pencil. 

     I’m doomed, I thought.  I’m totally doomed. She’ll be valedictorian for sure.

     In-between school, homework, cross-country, and worrying about Jenna being valedictorian over me, I work for Gus whenever I can, which is mostly on weekends now. Mr. Ochlou’s business slows down after tourist season ends, so while Kylee and Dylan still work for him on weekends, I don’t, unless he’s catering a party and needs extra help.  I play on my school’s hockey team, too. As soon as cross-country season ends in mid-October, hockey will start.  Youth group activities for the Methodist Church start again next weekend, too, and a week after that the fire department’s bowling league begins its season. I’ve bowled on my father’s team since I was thirteen. On Friday, Papa looked at September and October on the calendar. When he saw all the activities I’d written in, he turned and grinned at me.

“Looks like we have a busy year ahead of us.” 

     “Yep,” I agreed, while I set the table for supper. “Bet you’ll be glad when I’m away at college and you have more time to do things you want to.  You know, like you must have been able to do before I was born.”

     Papa was quiet a moment.

“I’ll be proud that you’re in college, but as for having more time to do things I want to...no, I won’t necessary be glad about that.  The years since you were born, Trev...they’ve been good ones. Every single one of them.”

     “Even the tough ones?” I asked.

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that some of my teen years have been rough on Papa, and I know the first year after my birth was difficult for him, too.  He was a single parent, lived far away from his family, and therefore had no help with running his household. When he was on duty, I was at a twenty-four hour day care center the Denver Fire Department ran for the children of its employees. When Pops wasn’t on duty, he saw to my needs, cooked, cleaned, did laundry, grocery shopped, and ran any other errands that were necessary.  I heard Papa tell Uncle Roy that he hadn’t slept more than three to four hours a night after my birth until we moved to Eagle Harbor, and Clarice came into our lives. 

“Raising Trevor alone that first year was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, Roy. That taught me to never again think a stay-at-home mom has it made. I wouldn’t trade Trevor for all the money in the world, but being both father and mother twenty-four hours a day is exhausting. For the first time in my life, I was getting’ more sleep when I was on-duty, than I was when I was off, believe it or not.  Moving to Eagle Harbor, and then hiring Clarice to help me out, was the best thing I ever did.” 

     Without hesitation, Papa confirmed to me, “Even the tough ones.”

     He must have read my mind, because before I could say, “I don’t get it,” Papa smiled and said, “You’ll understand when you’re a father.”

     Labor Day weekend is always cause for celebration here in Eagle Harbor, even if it is rainy and chilly, like it has been this weekend. We know the long, dark days of winter are coming quickly, so everyone finds an excuse to be outdoors.  For that reason, the fire and police commission hosts its annual Labor Day picnic for all department personnel, including the one hundred and twenty volunteer firefighters and EMTS. 

While Eagle Harbor isn’t exactly overflowing in population, the fire department has to cover five thousand square miles of township, water, wilderness, forest, and the combined populations of Barner and Yusik Islands. That large amount of territory is the reason for so many volunteers.  When Papa first came to Eagle Harbor, the fire department was in bad shape.  They’d had problems keeping a chief after the guy who’d been the chief for twenty years retired.  Because they’d gone through four chiefs in six years, the volunteer force was down to thirty members. Given the department itself only employs fourteen full time firefighters, and given the vast area the fire department covers, it was a “crisis waiting to happen,” as Carl has told me. It was Papa who built the volunteer force back up to the number that’s needed, and Papa who suggested to the commission members that it wouldn’t hurt them to show their appreciation of their employees and volunteers one day out of the year. I was three when the first picnic was held, and I haven’t missed any since.

If it doesn’t rain, we get together in a picnic area Papa reserves in the National Forest.  If it rains, we still get together in that picnic area, only under long, continuous rows of canvas that some of the men erect like roofs.  I’m looking out my window right now, and it’s pouring. Pops went to the picnic site at eight-thirty this morning, so I bet he’s one of the men putting up the canvas roofing.  He’s probably wondering where I am. He’s also probably figured out I’m not showing up until I know the canvas is in place and the food is cooking. I invited Kylee to the picnic, so I have to pick her up at eleven-thirty. When Papa asks why I wasn’t there to help with the canvas, I’ll tell him Kylee was still getting ready when I stopped at her house and that delayed me.  I can already picture the look he’ll give me right before he says, “Uh huh,” in that way he has of letting me know he’s aware I’m trying to pull one over on him. 

Before I started this journal entry, I sent the third chapter of my book to Mom. I don’t know what I’d do without her. She’s the one who gave me the push I needed to start the book.  While I was staying with her and Franklin at their home in the Hamptons, Mom helped me get the first chapter written.  I don’t mean she wrote it for me, or told me how to write it, because she didn’t.  But what she did do was give me pointers about how to turn my notes and research into a fictional story. That first chapter was so hard to write. I deleted the first paragraph ten times before I finally had something I was satisfied with, and that I thought was half way decent. Mom was sitting at my elbow and laughed when I collapsed on her desk.

“Don’t laugh.” I sat back up in my chair. “It’s just taken me half an hour to write one paragraph.  At this rate, I’ll never get the book done.”

“You will too,” my mother assured.

“No I won’t.”

“Each paragraph will come easier, Trevor, until eventually the characters will take over and tell the story.”

I thought that sounded pretty bizarre, and I said so.

“That’s nuts. How can the characters tell the story?  Even though this book is based on an actual happening, the characters are made-up, Mom. They’re not real people.”

“I know that, but you just wait and see.  You’ll reach a point in this story...maybe it will be at page fifty, or page one hundred and fifty, that I can’t predict, but at some point the characters will take over and tell the story for you.”

“How do you know that?  You’ve only written non-fiction books.”

“I’ve dabbled in fiction writing over the years.”

“How come you’ve never had anything published?”

“Because I’ve never tried to.  It’s just something I do as a way to relieve stress now and then.  It’s a hobby for me, nothing more than that.”  Mom tapped on the computer screen with one fingernail. “Now come on. Quit stalling.  The first paragraph has to lead to the second. Write it, son.”

Despite Mom’s promise, that second paragraph didn’t come any easier than the first had, nor did the third or fourth.  Mom told me I’d eventually find a rhythm to my writing.  She said it would feel like the mental zone I get into when I run.

“Your fingers will race across the keyboard typing words without conscious thought on your part, Trevor, just like your legs churn and your arms pump when you compete in one of your meets.  When you compete, don’t you reach a point where your body seems to be working independently from your brain?  Where you’re no longer thinking about what you’re doing, but instead, you’re just doing it?”

“Yeah. That’s called a runner’s high.”

“Well, writers reach that place to.  I suppose in this case you’d call it a ‘writer’s high’.”

I haven’t achieved a ‘writer’s high’ yet, but I hope I reach it soon. So far, I’ve had to think hard every time I work on my book, and I still end up deleting more than I keep. I do appreciate Mom’s help, though. Before I left New York, I had finished the first chapter and she’d proofread it for me.  She pointed out a lot of things that I took more notes on. She taught me how to tighten my writing by getting rid of adverbs and replacing them with more “powerful verbs” as she put it, and Mom taught me how to say the same thing with less words.  At first, I didn’t understand what she was getting at, but after she helped me rewrite the first chapter, I saw what she meant.  My writing was clearer and more concise when I took her advice.  That’s when I asked Mom if she’d proofread each chapter for me.

“I want to do all the writing myself,” I emphasized, “but if you could read each chapter and give me pointers, or find my typos, I’d really appreciate it...if you have the time, that is. I know how busy you are.”

Mom smiled at me. After all my years of living with Papa, I think Mom liked it that she and I finally had a project we could do together. She kissed the top of my head and promised,  “I’ll make the time, Trevor.”

That’s a promise Mom’s lived up to. She found a few minor mistakes in my second chapter that I had overlooked when I proofread it, then made a few suggestions.  I corrected everything I needed to, and made some changes based on her thoughts. A couple of things I left alone though, despite her suggestions, which Mom told me was okay when I talked to her on the phone about it.

“You’re the writer, Trevor. Above all else, you’re the person telling the story, not anyone else.  As the writer, you’re in charge of the story’s destiny, so you do with it as you think is best.”

That’s when I realized what a big responsibility it is to be a writer.  You’re actually in charge of something that no one else can interfere with, yet if you’re basing your book on a real-life happening like I am, then you want to be respectful to the people involved.  That’s why I asked Papa if he’d read each chapter as I finished it, too, just like Mom was doing.  I was shocked when he told me no.

“What?” I questioned, thinking I hadn’t heard him right.

“No.”

“But why?”

It was Friday night, August 28th – Papa’s birthday, and we were just leaving our house in the Land Rover. We’d been invited to Carl and Clarice’s for dinner and cake.

“Be...just because.”

“That’s not a very good reason. Mom’s reading each chapter for me.”

“Then you don’t need me to read them too.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Why?”

“ ‘Cause I wanna make sure I’m not...you know...screwing anything up with all the facts everyone has given me, or being disrespectful to anyone who was involved, or--”

“I’m sure you’re doin’ fine.”

“How do you know unless you read what I’ve written so far?”

“I’ll put my faith in you.”

“But, Pops, if you’ll just take a look at it. Just a quick look.  It won’t take long, I promise.  I just need you to--”

“Trevor, I said no!”

I was surprised by his anger, and even more surprised when he didn’t apologize for losing his temper.  Usually, Papa is interested in all my school projects, and will help me in any way I need him to. 

“But Mom’s helping,” I ventured in a timid voice.

“Good. Like I said, then you don’t need my help.”

“But--”

Papa swung the Land Rover into Carl’s driveway.  He pointed his right index finger at me and gave me a glare.

“That’s enough. You have my answer. Now let’s go inside.”

As we climbed out of the vehicle, Papa added, “And don’t you dare bring this up in front of Carl and Clarice.”

     “Okay, okay,” I snapped as I grabbed the present I’d bought for him from the back seat.  At that moment I didn’t feel much like giving it to him, but I carried it with me to the house.  I put on my best party face and so did Papa; therefore neither Clarice nor Carl realized we’d been fighting just seconds before we walked in their door. 

     Three years ago, when he’d turned sixty, the men and women who work for Papa threw a huge surprise party for him.  My father is never one to complain about being the center of attention, so he loved that party and the sentiments behind it. Then two years ago, Grandpa, Grandma, and Aunt Reah were here for Papa’s birthday, and last year his birthday was celebrated at the Labor Day picnic. Considering our moods when we got out of the Land Rover, I think Papa was as glad as I was that this year the gathering was small and quiet. 

We left around ten-thirty, loaded down with the presents Papa had received along with leftover birthday cake.  We rode home in silence, partly because we were tired and full, and partly because we were aware that if one of us said the wrong thing, the other was going to blow his stack. It wasn’t until my father parked the Land Rover in our driveway that he said anything.

“I’m sorry I disappointed you.”

I looked out of the passenger side window. I know I sounded like a pouting five-year-old when I answered him.

“You didn’t disappoint me.”

“Yeah, I did. Trevor, look at me please.”

I hesitated a second, but then did as Papa asked.  He didn’t turn the dome light on, so the inside of the Rover remained dark. His features were heavily shadowed, but I could still make out the regret on his face.

“I can’t read your book, son. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to read it.  I don’t...you just need to understand that there’re a lot of reasons why I don’t wanna relive that time in my life.”

“What reasons?”

“Reasons that are...private. Personal.”

“In other words, none of my business.”

“That’s right.”

When he didn’t say any more and a long silence lingered between us, I finally broke it.

“Papa, would you give me an honest answer to my next question?”

“I’ve never been less than honest with you.”

“Does that mean yes?”

“It means yes.”

“Okay then.  Do you regret giving me permission to write this book?”

Papa turned his head and stared out the windshield.

“Pops?”

“I’m sorry, Trevor, but...yeah...yeah, I do.”

Papa wouldn’t look at me when he climbed out of the Rover. He left the cake and his presents behind. By the time I entered the house carrying everything, Papa was in his room with the door shut.

I didn’t bring the book up the next morning, and neither did Papa.  It was Saturday, and we both had to work.  We left the house about the same time. When I got home from Gus’s at five-thirty, I did my chores, showered, and then took Kylee out for dinner and a movie.

It wasn’t Papa waiting up for me that night, but Clarice, since Pops was on a twenty-four hour shift.  The only thing I said about the book on Sunday was when Papa and I were eating supper.

“About my book?”

I saw his hand clench around his fork, but other than that, his voice and face didn’t give me any clues as to what he was thinking.

“Yeah?”

“I’ll just have Mom help me with it.”

Papa hesitated a moment before nodding. “I think that’s a good idea.”

My father left the kitchen that night without finishing his supper, or helping me clean up.  I don’t remember a time when he’s ever done either one of those things.  I wanted to ask him what he was so afraid of where my book is concerned, but I knew I wouldn’t get a straight answer, so I kept my mouth shut. That was probably a first for me, but one I think Papa was grateful for. 

Saturday, October 23rd, 2009

     Once again, way too much time has passed since I wrote in this journal.  Ever since school started, my journal writing has been hit or miss, with more misses than hits, as evidenced by the last entry, which was made on Labor Day.

Papa’s on twenty-four hour duty.  I worked for Gus most of today, and got off at five o’clock.  Kylee and I don’t have a date, because she’s working at Mr. Ochlou’s until he closes at midnight.  Clarice was at the house when I pulled in the driveway at twenty after five.  I did chores and showered, then took the warm crock-pot she handed me as I walked into the kitchen.

     “Beef stew for you, your papa, Carl, and anyone else who’s on-duty.  Here’s a bag with French bread and brownies.”  She shook a finger at me. “And don’t you eat all those brownies before you get to the station.”

     “I won’t,” I promised with a laugh. 

     “When will you be home?” Clarice asked.

     “I don’t know. I’ll probably hang around the station for a while after we eat.  I should be back by ten, I guess.”

     Clarice nodded.  My Friday and Saturday curfew is midnight. Unless it’s summer vacation, the rest of the week I don’t really have a curfew, because if I’m not at a school function, at the fire station, or working for Gus, I’m expected to be home.

“If you go somewhere else, call and let me know.”

     “I will.  Can’t think of anywhere else I’ll be, though.  Dylan and Kylee are working. Jake, Dalton, Jenna, and Tyler are in Juneau at a forensics competition, and the youth group activity started at four this afternoon, so that pretty much leaves no one to hang out with.”

      “Except for your papa and Carl,” Clarice smiled. “You can hang out with them.”