The Year We Disappeared (13 page)

One evening, I told a teenage kid in his souped-up hot rod to
go park someplace else. He did so by peeling out, burning rubber on the pavement of the parking lot. I took notice of his car and plates so I could discuss it with him if ever we were to meet again.

About an hour later, Meyer pulled into the lot in one of his huge garbage trucks. And right behind his truck was the hot rod. Obviously, this kid was someone Meyer knew. I approached the car and asked the kid for his license and registration.

“What for?” he huffed.

“For the purpose of issuing a citation,” I told him.

“What for? What did I do?” the kid asked.

“You’ll know when I give it to you,” I said. I could hear the rev of Meyer’s garbage truck as he pressed down on the gas, just idling beside us. He was like an angry bull, stamping his feet and snorting. I knew he was watching my back, but he probably couldn’t hear anything I was saying.

“That’s my uncle—maybe you want to talk to him before you write me a ticket,” the kid said snidely.

I kept my mouth shut and slowly wrote out the citation: “Failing to use care and caution in starting, stopping, and turning a vehicle.” As I handed it to him I said, “Anytime you want some more, just come back to this parking lot. I’ll be happy to oblige.”

Meyer was still there in his dump truck, the big compressor kind with the prongs on the front used to lift and empty Dumpsters into the crusher compartment. The thing smelled, not just of burning fuel but of garbage. It probably wasn’t full right now,
but that was a stink you couldn’t get rid of. I found myself wondering if Meyer went home to his young girlfriend and his two kids smelling like that every night.

“Hey, cop!” he yelled at me. “What are you giving him a ticket for? He didn’t do anything!” I turned and walked around the truck to the driver’s side, then climbed up on the running board so we could talk face-to-face. This was the first time I had seen Meyer close up and personal, and I almost had to laugh. Here was this small, greasy-looking dude who had everyone in town scared to death. He looked like a real nobody: his ears stuck out from beneath his pomade-slicked black hair. He had a scrawny build, maybe five foot nothing, and the posture of a man twice his age. All of this combined with his sharp, pinched features reminded me of a troll.

“What’d you say?” I asked him.

Ray sniffed the air close to my face. “I said I smell smoke.” He grinned at me, deep lines cutting into his sharp face.

“You’re right,” I told him, pretending to sniff. “Kind of like the candles at somebody’s funeral, right?”

Two could play that game.

Ray looked startled—he wasn’t used to anyone standing up to him. Before he could say anything, I added, “So, Ray, if you’re planning to do some shopping here tonight, no problem. But if you’re not a customer, you’re gonna need to move out.” I climbed down from the truck and stood there looking at him. He stared back at me for a few minutes before slamming his truck into gear
and roaring out of the lot at top speed, his nephew following behind him.

I’d been contrary since I was a teenager. Always wanted to tackle the biggest guy on the football team, bodycheck the biggest hockey player, etc. It didn’t matter if I came out second best in the collision; I wanted him to know I wasn’t running scared of contact, and I’d be back to whack him again as soon as the opportunity presented itself. I was building my own little power base as somebody you didn’t fuck with. If you messed with the bull, you’d get the horns. I had my turf and nobody—Monty, Ray, or even the privileged locals—nobody influenced my behavior. I was either too dumb to feel fear or too proud to show any.

My theory about Meyer back then was that he might come across as a menace to a teenage kid or his wife, but he was really just a blowhard, a bully who’d throw his weight around where he could. And I suspected that, just as fast, he’d pull his horns in when a bigger bull was present. I was quite proud of myself—I’d faced Meyer down. He’d lost turf and I’d gained some. Most important, though, I’d sent him a warning: his power base didn’t extend to me; he and his supporters were fair game where I was concerned.

WHEN we pulled into our driveway, I noticed a police car parked there. And as soon as Mom stopped the car, another cruiser pulled in behind us. Mom got out and said hi to the officer. I didn’t know who he was. My brothers and I got our stuff from the car and went into the house. The door was unlocked and two cops were sitting in our living room. The TV was on, but one of them quickly turned it off.

“That’s okay,” Mom said, following us into the house. “You guys can keep watching whatever you had on.”

“We’ll just be outside if you need us,” one of the cops said. He was tall and had dark hair; I had seen him at a cookout earlier in the summer. I’d never seen the other guy before. What were they doing in our house? And why did the kitchen smell funny, like someone had been cooking something—meat and onions?

“Go unpack your bags and bring me anything you need washed,” Mom told us as she started in on the dishes that the guys must have left in the sink. My room looked the same way it had before we left, except that Kelly had made the bed for me. Everything was neat and put away. I unpacked my clothes and put everything back into the drawers. I hung up my new silk dress and brought the pink Izod shirt to my mom.

“I think this needs to be ironed; I want to wear it to school tomorrow.”

Mom looked at the shirt. “It looks fine to me,” she said. But then she looked at me for a second. “Leave it on the table, I’ll do it tonight.”

Later, when Mom needed to go to the grocery store, she made us all come with her. Usually we could stay home as long as Eric was there. He was thirteen. But not today. “Into the car,” Mom said.

“We’re going to Stop & Shop,” she told one of the cops as she went to lock the back door. She stopped with the key half-turned in the lock. “I guess I don’t really need to do that, do I?” She laughed, unlocking the door again.

The dark-haired cop laughed too. “I think we’ve got it covered,” he said. As we drove out of the driveway, I watched as his partner got into the police cruiser and pulled out behind us. The cruiser followed closely behind as we reached the stop sign down the street.

“Why is he following us?” I finally asked Mom.

“They just want to keep an eye on us, keep us safe,” she explained.

“Like the guys sitting outside Dad’s hospital room,” Eric added. It was clear that Eric and Shawn had been told that we would have police guarding us, even though no one had bothered to explain it to me. Maybe they thought I wouldn’t notice.

That night during dinner, one of the officers came to the door to use the bathroom and check in on Mom. She gave him a cup of coffee, and they talked on the steps for a couple of minutes about Dad and how he was doing. Later I was nervous to get into the tub for my bath. “What if that guy needs to use the bathroom again?” I whispered to Mom.

“Don’t worry about that; take your bath. If one of the guys needs the bathroom, they can wait.” She made me feel like I was being silly so I got into the tub, but I took the fastest bath ever.

After I had gotten into my PJs, there was a knock on the door again. “We’re just changing shifts, wanted to let you know,” the dark-haired cop told Mom. “The Teixeira brothers will be on tonight.” He pointed to two cops sitting in a cruiser in our driveway. I peeked through the shutters in the kitchen window to check them out, but it was too dark. I couldn’t tell if I knew them or not.

“You on tomorrow?” Mom asked the dark-haired cop.

“In the afternoon,” he told her. “The Bear will be here in the morning with Don to take over for these guys.”

In the morning, I was excited to get to school and see all my
friends. I dressed very carefully in my new corduroys and Lauren’s Izod. Mom had forgotten to iron my shirt, but it looked fine. It wasn’t until I was standing at the front door that I remembered lunch—we had forgotten to get me a new lunch box!

“I’ll just pack something in a paper bag,” Mom said, looking through the cabinets.

“I’m gonna miss the bus!” I yelled at her. How could she totally forget about lunch? She was going to ruin my first day back at school.

“Here.” She handed me a dollar. “Just buy lunch today, okay? We’ll get you a new lunch box after school.”

Mom knew I was a picky eater; I couldn’t eat the school lunch. But I took the dollar and stuffed it in my pocket as I headed out the door. I was alone; Eric and Shawn had already left for their bus stop to the middle school, which was down by the Zylinskis’ house.

“All ready?” someone asked as I was walking down our front steps. I stopped. It was Dad’s friend Arthur; he wasn’t wearing his uniform. “Let’s head on out, don’t want to be late.” Arthur was a huge guy—so tall he had to duck to get into the doorway of our house. His hands were about as big as my torso. We mostly just called him by his nickname: the Bear.

I turned and saw that Mom was watching us from the window. She waved like it was no big deal that Arthur was walking me to the bus stop.

“Where do you catch the bus?” the Bear asked me.

“In front of the church next door,” I told him, and we walked over together.

“So you happy to get back to school?” He seemed uncomfortable as we waited for the bus to come. I noticed a cruiser had pulled into the church’s dirt driveway.

“Who’s that?” I asked, pointing to the car.

“That’s a friend of mine. We’re just gonna make sure you get to school okay today. That all right with you?”

“Sure,” I lied. All I could think about was that the kids on the bus were going to see the cop car and how embarrassed I would be about it. I thought about asking him to stand farther away from me, but I was too shy.

We stood there in silence until the bus showed up. When I climbed on, Arthur got on the bus behind me. I went to find a seat while he talked to Mr. Arnold, the bus driver, for a minute. I didn’t know what Arthur was saying, but I saw Mr. Arnold glance up at the big rearview mirror over his head and look at me while Arthur was talking to him. Then Arthur shook the bus driver’s hand and turned to leave the bus, but before he went down the stairs he waved back at me. “Okay, Cece, have a great day.” My face burned red. He had used Dad’s nickname for me. Maybe no one had noticed. Mr. Arnold closed the door and the bus continued down the road to where we would pick up my friend Meg at one stop, and then Amelia two stops after that. I tried to put the morning out of my mind and focus on how
surprised my friends were going to be when they saw me. I wondered what they would think about my new outfit.

“Hey, Mr. Arnold, that cop car is following us!” a boy from the back yelled up to the bus driver.

“I know,” Mr. Arnold said, and I caught his eye in the big rearview mirror again. His face looked sad. I turned around in my seat and looked out the back window. Sure enough, Arthur and the other cop were following the bus. Were they going to tail us the whole way to school?

When we got to Meg’s stop, she got on and sat with a group of girls in the front, like she didn’t even see me. At Amelia’s stop, she wasn’t there, and I just shrugged down into my seat and put my forehead against the window. I was almost relieved that no one sat with me the whole way to school. Maybe no one knew that the cops were there for me.

I got off the bus and went into school. Mom had told me to go to the principal’s office first thing to let them know I was back. The principal wasn’t there, but the secretary told me that I could go to my new classroom. I had a teacher named Ms. Williams. Shawn had had her two years before, and she was supposed to be really tough. I always did well in school, so I wasn’t too worried about it.

As soon as I walked into the classroom, I was shocked to see Arthur and the other cop talking to my teacher. They stopped talking the second they saw me, and Arthur looked down like he
was feeling uncomfortable again. Our family was pretty close to Arthur’s family; he had been a friend of Dad’s since I was a baby. But suddenly I felt like I didn’t know him at all, like he didn’t know me. I didn’t understand why he was acting so strange, so serious. I wanted him to just be the Bear again and not be standing in my class talking to my new teacher. Everything was wrong.

“Cylin, this is your desk, up front, close to me,” Ms. Williams said. I could tell she was putting on a fake nice act for the officers. I sat down without talking to anyone.

“Let’s move this conversation to the hallway, shall we?” Ms. Williams said to them. They went outside and closed the door, but I could see them through the glass window. After a few minutes, Ms. Williams came back and started class like nothing had happened. She laid a stack of books on my desk. “Write your name in those and take them all home tonight and have them covered by tomorrow.” She really
was
mean.

I was so busy trying to keep up in class that I didn’t really get to talk to any of my friends. Besides, Ms. Williams made it clear that there was no talking during class. By lunchtime, I was ready for a break; I hadn’t used my brain so much in months. When Ms. Williams led us out of the classroom to go downstairs, the uniformed cop from this morning was standing outside our door! Had he been there the whole time? When our class went down the stairs, he did too. And then he followed us into the lunchroom and stood just inside the door. He never took his eyes off of me.

I went through the lunch line pretending that I didn’t notice him. The food looked terrible, and I felt like everyone was staring at me. I finally picked up a piece of pizza—it was cut into a square, not a triangle like pizza was supposed to be, and the cheese they had used on it smelled like throw-up to me. I sat at the table with my friends and everything seemed normal enough. Amelia gave me a big hug and told me how much she loved my new shirt. Her mom had driven her to school, but she said tomorrow she would be on the bus. I hoped that Arthur wouldn’t walk me to my stop again. We talked about Ms. Williams and how awful she was. I was so glad they hadn’t noticed the cop standing off to the side. Maybe things weren’t so bad. I ate a few saltines and drank some juice.