Live it Again (4 page)

He found a suitable patch of bush less than
twenty yards from the lane turnoff and hunkered down to wait. He would need the
time to think things through. His older brother Gordon, or Gordo as everyone but
mom called him, and his eighteen-year-old sister, Heather, wouldn’t be bought
off by a melted chocolate bar. She might make him do her chores for a week, but
Gordo was a different matter. He was three years older than Hugh and had a whole
lot of hate reserved just for his little brother. This situation could offer
the bullying asshole so many opportunities. Gordo however wasn’t the brightest
kid in Braedon. He would undoubtedly beat the snot out of him, that was a given.
Hugh would have to accept it without telling mom and dad, but beyond that, he
couldn’t see his brother coming up with any imaginative forms of blackmail.

 
Big deal, some dirty dishes and maybe a
bloody nose.

He could handle that.

Why not blackmail Gordo? Surely he had
enough dirt on his brother to make him keep his mouth shut. In a few years,
Gordo would teach him how to smoke…couldn’t nail him for that yet. There was
the time the two brothers had snuck out one afternoon and shot the neighbor’s
horse with a twenty-two caliber rifle. How Gordo had mistaken its great brown
ass for a gopher had always baffled Hugh. It had only been a grazing shot, but
Bill Black had been mightily pissed that someone had done that to his favorite
animal. That wouldn’t happen for another year at least. Hugh needed something
now. What about the porno magazines under his bed?

Bad idea.

Gordo would pass those onto him in a little
while, and they were awfully good magazines.

No, there just wasn’t anything solid to
cling onto after so long. Most of his childhood memories were just snippets and
brief recollections. Smells and tastes, events and holidays, comic book covers
and old television shows. Substantial memories, the kind he could blackmail his
thirteen-year-old brother with were unavailable to him at the moment.

He lay down in a warm nest of grass and
felt the heat of the sun on his face when he shut his eyes. He listened to the
blue jays singing in the trees, a tractor working a distant field. He would’ve
killed for a cigarette.

The sound of gears grinding down awoke him.
Hugh sat up and saw the yellow school bus slowing down at the end of the lane,
a cloud of dry dust rose up behind it.

“Oh shit!” He cried out and started to run
for the road. His body was still half asleep, and he tumbled into the ditch
face first. Heather and Gordo had already stepped out and saw him fall.

“What the hell are you doing out here?” His
brother demanded. He adjusted the textbooks under his arm. “Why weren’t you on
the bus?”

Hugh’s head was a jumbled mess. “Because I
was out here, you idiot. How the fuck could I be on the bus if I was out here?”

“Don’t,” Heather warned as Gordo started
toward him.

She’d always stuck up for him.

Hugh wiped sleep from his eyes and looked
at her admiringly. She wore bell-bottom jeans and big clog shoes, her shirt
striped with vertical lines of black and white, the kind sports officials wore.
Heather was beautiful. Her straight, blonde hair was parted down the middle
with a pear-shaped curl at the shoulders, and her light blue eyes sparkled in
the sun. He grinned at the sight of her. What would 2011 Heather think if she
saw 1974 Heather again?

“What’s so funny?” she asked. “Why weren’t
you at school?”

The plan came to him all at once, and it
was a good one. “Fabian Bren said he was going to beat me up after class.” The
bus cranked noisily back into first gear and headed north to drop the Black children
off a mile away.

“Is that fat asshole bugging you again?” Gordo
asked. “Doesn’t he know you’re not supposed to mess with Big Bobby McBee?” Hugh
recalled the old folk-rock song his brother always loved to quote from.
‘Big
Bobby McBee was a mean som bitch- a mountain of a man with soccer balls for
fists- and shit-kicking shoes that was bigger than canoes’
Gordo wasn’t
anywhere the size of Big Bobby, but he was probably twice as mean.

Hugh nodded and gave his best pouty face. Heather’s
defensiveness had given him the idea. Gordo was a bully, and though he loved to
torment his little brother, he was the first in line to protect him. “He said
he was gonna make me eat my own shit…and then he said you were a dick-head.”

“Watch your language,” Heather said. The
three kids started walking down the long, curving lane.

“He said that?” Gordo asked incredulously. “You
want me to kick his ass on Monday?”

It must be Friday, Hugh thought. He looked
sidelong at his brother and felt a silent sense of pride. He wound pound Fabian
even if Hugh said no. Gordo had a big nose strewn with pubescent blackheads, a
thin lipped mouth and a pointy chin that jutted out with cocky defiance. His
hair was black and unruly, a perfect match for his attitude. He wasn’t much
bigger than Hugh, but he was a lot tougher. The thirteen-year-old was skinny
and agile, the perfect athlete, stronger than most kids a couple of years older
than he was.

Hugh hadn’t seen Fabian Bren in over thirty
years. “You may as well.”

Heather kicked a fist-sized rock into the
ditch. “What’re you going to tell mom?”

“Why tell her anything?” Gordo asked. Hugh
could sense his brother’s mind scheming behind those dark, beady eyes. He
almost felt sorry for Fabian. “She doesn’t have to know he missed any school,
as long as we keep our mouths shut.”

Heather nodded, not really paying much
attention, and produced a book from her backpack. “Check out the new year book.”
She handed it to Gordo. “Take a look at the teacher’s page. “Mr. Turd looks
like such a dingbat.”

Mr. Turd was actually Mr. Turrid, Heather’s
grade twelve science teacher. Hugh felt relieved as the subject changed from
skipping school to poking fun at black and white photos. It had been so easy. He
wouldn’t be in trouble with his parents, and Fabian Bren would get the snot
kicked out of him after the weekend.

They came around a final bend in the road
and Hugh stopped in his tracks. The trailer home where he still lived with
Cathy and his children in 2011 wasn’t there yet. In front of him now was the
home of his youth. The big, two-story farmhouse was exactly as he remembered. He
could see Heather’s bedroom window on the southeast corner, his oldest brother
Donald’s, was next to it looking out over the front yard and northeast section.
Donald had moved to the neighboring town of Whendel when he was in his early
twenties to pursue a career in accounting, so there was a good chance the room
was now empty.

On the main level Hugh could see the large
living room window and the strip of purple and yellow flowers beneath the sill.
Johnny Jump Ups
his mother had called them. In front of the house sat
her army-green station wagon, a junker even when Hugh was a kid, a tank of a
vehicle. He remembered how she’d looked sitting behind the wheel, barely able
to see over the steering wheel. Back in those days’ seatbelts weren’t mandatory
and Hugh had bloodied his nose more than once on the hard, vinyl dashboard. He
wasn’t sure if the thing even had seatbelts. It was a hulking deathtrap, but he
was already looking forward to taking another ride in it once again.

“Come on,” Heather said a few steps ahead
of him. “We’re not going to tell on you.”

Hugh trotted to catch up, and Gordo leaned
in to whisper. “You gotta learn to stand up for yourself more. I won’t always
be around to look out for you.”

They entered the front porch and kicked off
their shoes into an already messy pile of mismatched sneakers and rubber boots.
Their mother was always after them to keep it tidy. Hugh ran his hand along the
old wooden coat hanger. His dad’s dirty farm caps hung on the top hooks, he
touched the sweat stained brim of one with a picture of wheat stalks sewn onto
it.

Above that was an immense framed picture
entitled
The Return of Persephone
. Hugh never asked where the picture
had come from, or why it was placed in such an odd part of the house. The image
was a haunting scene of Hermes returning with the daughter of Demeter from the
depths of Hades. (Hugh had done his research). He’d long since forgotten the
name of the Victorian artist that had painted it. Before his mother had the
house torn down, much of the old junk had been divvied up between the kids; Gordo
had somehow ended up with Persephone.

Gordon Dudley Nance didn’t have an ounce of
artistic appreciation in his body, but it hadn’t stopped him from taking it. Hugh
heard that he’d sold it in a pawnshop in the city for forty dollars.

The smell of fresh pastry brought him back.
Heather and Gordo had already gone to the kitchen to sample their mother’s
butter tarts and mincemeat pies. Dad had always given her hell for baking in
the middle of summer
. ‘Hot enough without you heatin’ the goddamned house up
anymore.’
That meant he probably wasn’t home. He was a part-time farmer and
a full-time carpenter. He would be out on the road now, at some construction
site in some other town.

Hugh stepped up into a small hallway and
admired the family pictures along one wall. He entered the kitchen and saw his
mother. She was bent over the sink, scrubbing baking trays and washing
measuring cups. The sight was too much for him to bear. He sank to his knees
and moaned.

Gordo and Heather ignored him, their faces
stuffed with pastry. His mother stopped what she was doing and turned toward
him. “What’s the matter, sweetheart?”

Hugh hadn’t heard her speak in years. She
was still alive in 2011, but after his father had died, a big part of her must
have gone off with him. The doctors said it was dementia, senility settling in
early. She would be diagnosed in the late nineties with advanced Alzheimer’s,
and besides the occasional sigh of grief or bark of discomfort, Hugh would
never hear Marion Nance speak again. He rarely visited at the personal care
home in Whendel, he’d always been a momma’s boy, hated having to see her like
that. This was how he remembered her.

She called me sweetheart.

She’d always called him that. Hugh called
his own daughters that when he was feeling exceptionally loveable.

His mother wiped her hands on a dry tea
towel and came over to him. She placed an arm around his shoulders and kissed
the top of his head. “Did you have a rough day?”

“Nah,” Hugh struggled for words. After all
the pain he’d suffered watching her deteriorate, the years of sadness and
longing evaporated. This wonderful woman was whole again, in his life again. He
suddenly felt small and shy. “I’m just hungry.”

“Go wash up and I’ll have a plate ready
when you get back.” She gave his shoulder a final squeeze and went back to her
work. Hugh watched for a few more minutes as she dried the last of the bowls
and went for the bag of flour to start another batch of whatever it was she was
making. If he could live all eternity in one moment, this would be it.

“Go on,” she said, “wash up or I’ll make
you wait until supper.”

Hugh grinned at her lovingly and headed for
the bathroom. He passed a grey cat in the hallway and paused, trying to recall
which one it was. There had been dozens of cats growing up on the farm. He bent
over to stroke its fur, the green eyes became hostile slits, and it hissed,
baring sharp, little teeth.

“Fred…I remember you now, you vicious
prick.” Hugh straightened back up and regarded the animal with contempt. “Just
you wait, Freddy-Boy. You’re gonna crawl up into a combine this fall or next,
and it’ll be lights out kitty.”

As Hugh washed his hands he considered the
things he could make different this time. He could fink on Mrs. McDonald, but
he wouldn’t. He could try and prevent her husband’s death, and he probably
would.

Plenty of time for that.

It was the same with Billy Parton; he had
five years before the farm accident claimed his friend’s life. Should he make
sure Fred-the Fucked Up-cat stays in the house the day of the combine mishap?

No, some history doesn’t need to be
changed.

And what about Benjamin Nance? His first
son had died accidently in 1992. This time round he would be there to stop the
eighteen-month-old from tumbling down the basement stairs. Little kids are
tougher than they appear, the autopsy reported he’d survived the fall; it was
striking his head against the metal pail of rusty nails and screws on the last
step that had done him in. It would be three years before they tried for
another baby.

Hugh had eighteen years to live over before
that fateful day. Seven years before he met Cathy, seven and a half years
before he lost his virginity.

I’ll work on that one.

Eight years before he’d buy his first car, eight
years before he graduated from high school.

Plenty of time before those things
happen.

He studied the young, freckled face in the
bathroom mirror.

“It’s getting cold,” he heard his mother
call.

Plenty of time.