Dylan had never seen a person drunk—at least he didn’t think he had. But he had sometimes wondered about it, after his dad confided that he used to drink a lot.
“How was the game today?” Sam asked. He rubbed the back of his neck.
The boys grinned at each other, and Ryan started to speak. “Dylan kinda decimated the pitch—”
“I need to talk to you for a minute,” His dad interrupted, addressing Dylan. “Maybe you boys can get together later.”
Ryan nodded. “Catch you on the flip side, Hondo!” He handed Dylan his baseball and swung the bat onto his shoulder, glove shoved on the fat end of the bat. Ryan straddled the Hobbitmobile and pedaled back down Nash Street. Dylan watched him lift a hand to wave at Mr. Geise, who was tending his azaleas.
“Hondo?” His dad raised an eyebrow and gave a thin smile.
“Frank Howard. Left field. The Senators?”
“Oh. Of course! Hondo. So how was the game today? Did I ask you that already?” Sam stood sideways to Dylan at the top step, his hands jammed in his jeans.
“It was okay. Some guy got hurt. I tipped the ball, and somehow it ended up in the pitcher’s...uh, groin.” Dylan sat in the glider, watching Ryan’s back as he disappeared around the corner up Stockton Avenue.
“Game called on account of...the pitcher got racked?” His father chuckled. Dylan grinned, embarrassed.
“Something like that. Something exactly like that, I guess.”
“Friend of yours, this poor fella?”
Dylan looked back down the street, at Mr. Geise wrestling with a bundle of azalea cuttings. “Not really. The guys call him Stinger.”
Sam grunted, easing down onto the glider. “I hear that boy is bad news. I hear he’s also a friend of your brother’s.”
Dylan watched the expression on his dad’s face change. How did Sam know about Stinger and James? Dylan untied and retied the rawhide knot on his baseball glove.
“You say Stinger was at the game today. He was the boy you...”
Dylan nodded, looking up.
“You talk to your brother?” Without pausing, his father looked out over the street, lowering his already-quiet voice another notch. “He tell you he got himself arrested?” Sam said the last word like it was coated with lemon juice, sort of spitting it out.
As the words settled, Dylan wasn’t surprised. He felt like he was living with a boy he hardly knew.
“What did he do?” Dylan asked.
Dylan suddenly wished he could take back the question. Not, “Why was James arrested?”, but “what did he do?” He felt guilty assuming his brother deserved to be arrested.
“They say he broke into the back of Mr. Wilson’s store and tried to haul the safe out the door. Mrs. Potts across the street heard noises and called the chief.” Sam said the words quiet, his chin resting on his chest, his hands in his pockets.
Sam’s choice of words sounded odd to Dylan. He asked, “They say?”
Sam plucked invisible threads from the knee of his pants. “James was walking down Stockton towards home early this morning when the police stopped him. He had a screwdriver in his back pocket. Chief Munro says it looks like the jimmy marks on Mr. Wilson’s door frame might have been made by that screwdriver.”
“So what’s going to happen to James?”
Sam raised an arm to wave to Mrs. Duncan as she strolled down the far side of Nash with her dog Gemini. Right on cue, Buster shot from under the porch, loping across the yard. Buster and Gemini had a ritual as old as time, involving the sniffing of each other’s rears.
“We don’t know yet.” Sam sighed and shoved a stray lock of hair back off his forehead. “Chief is pretty sure they got enough to charge him, after they finish running fingerprints. Seems everybody in the world has touched the Wilson’s front door.” Sam sighed. “James swears he had nothing to do with it. No alibi though. He was caught on the street well before sunrise.”
Buster trotted back from his visit with Gemini and bounded up the stairs. Dylan sat up to nuzzle the panting retriever. “They going to put James in jail?” Buster scooped his snout under Dylan’s hand when the boy paused.
His father shifted on the glider as Buster’s tail swatted his knee. “I honestly don’t know what will come of it. I kinda think a little time in the pokey might get his attention, but mother is adamant that he be home until...” Buster moved to Sam to nuzzle his hands, which were clasped now in front of him. “As if he’ll stay home,” Sam said under his breath.
Dylan didn’t know what to say. He too was worried about James and the way he’d been acting, as if a dark wind blew the friendly brother away, and left a brooding, defiant boy in his place. Of course, James wasn’t really a boy anymore, not like Dylan and his friends. James was old enough to drive, certainly old enough not to cry when he got in trouble. And yet, James had been crying today. What was going on?
“I know it’s not my business, but does James ever lay a hand on you in anger?”
Dylan swiveled to look at Sam. “No. Never. We argue some, but that’s it. Why?”
“Chief told me he thinks James and some of his friends might have beaten a boy over Millwood way. A few nights ago. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah.” Dylan sensed he should say more, but he didn’t trust all his thoughts just yet. They seemed to be running in different directions. He wanted to blame his father for coming home and upsetting the ways things were. But James had been angry for longer than just the time Sam had been back. Maybe it had to do with when Nana had told them their mom had passed. Maybe before that.
His father said, almost to himself, “James doesn’t act like he has the sense to know when to lay low. I don’t know this girl of his, but I hear she’s nice. And if he’d just keep his nose clean, he might have some money coming his way from Mr. Thompson’s.”
Dylan nodded, not knowing what to say.
“Lacking the good sense God gave a woodchuck.” Sam smiled without humor. “Remind you of anyone you’ve ever known? Apples don’t fall far from the tree.”
Dylan colored. Sometimes he felt like his father was more honest than was fitting.
Dylan started to rise. “Um, is there anything else?”
His dad looked at Dylan, seemed to ponder something for a moment, and reached over to pat Dylan’s knee. “I don’t want to worry you. Boys will be boys sometimes. If you ever, you know, just want to talk…” Sam’s voice trailed off.
Dylan paused, and turned back to his father. “James can be kind of, I don’t know, moody. But I know he would never beat up some kid just for fun.”
His dad looked up at Dylan over steepled fingers. “I hope you’re right. What makes you say so?”
Dylan thought for a moment. “Because he’s a good fighter. Really good. And he knows it. Most times, guys like that don’t need to prove something. And they don’t just go beating up folks.”
Sam nodded slowly. “I hadn’t considered that,” he said.
13 / Moon Launch
James eased the screen door closed behind him, lifting up the handle to silence the grate of jamb on door edge. The house felt occupied, but not warm. Am I already a visitor here? A distant relative, like—well, like his father was at the beginning of this summer? He felt the tension engulf him. If only… James felt a tiredness he had seldom known. It wasn’t just that dawn was minutes beyond the edge of the horizon. His head swirled with the new plan. Who was he kidding? There hadn’t been an old plan. Just some vague idea about getting out of Crane