Wild Reckless

“I kind of thought I was his home,” I answer, my chest hurting.

“You are,” Gus says. “But Owen’s used to people leaving. And he’s never prepared for it. Billy’s death did a number on him. He needs to know he has a place. Right now, he’s looking at Iowa, at that numbskull uncle of his, as a security blanket for his future. He’ll have somewhere to go, something to do…someone to be.”

I’m starting to understand more, and I’m starting to feel more hopeless. I lean forward as Gus does, and I watch him move one of his checkers. He puts it in a place where it’s vulnerable, where I have no choice but to jump it and keep it as mine. So I do. He makes the same move again, and I jump again. We play without talking for a few minutes, and I grow a small stack of Gus’s checkers, feeling bad that I’m winning, and wondering if I should start making different moves to let him catch up. And then, he moves one more into place, and I see it. He’s been baiting me. As I sit back and look at the board, only a few of his red checkers left, the rest of the board covered in my black, I see the trail he’s left behind. My mind does the math, and I know instantly there’s no way I can win.

“Give him a place,” Gus says, picking up one of my pieces and handing it to me before working his way out of the chair to stand. He holds his hand on my shoulder, his eyes penetrating mine, his smirk full of confidence and assurance.

A place.

I think about Gus’s words the entire way home, about how nice it feels to know your future, to have a plan before you. I think about the way I felt on that stage, when I quit playing for everyone else—and I played something for me. I found my place that very instant. I don’t know where it will take me, what college, if a college at all, where I’ll be able to play that kind of music. But I know that I need to be able to do that in life if I want to feel that feeling again, to feel alive.

The thoughts and ideas linger in my head the rest of the day, into the late hours. My mom is home tonight, so Owen stays at his house. We text a few times, and I promise to let him know when my mom heads to bed so he can come over, but by midnight, she’s still awake. I hear her on the phone with someone, and she shuffles into the small spare room downstairs for privacy. I think she’s talking to my dad. She’s been hiding their conversations from me.

Eventually, Owen gives up on our plan, texting me goodnight, looking at me once more through the window before turning out his light. I turn mine out as well, but my conversation with Gus keeps rolling through my head.

There’s no way I’m sleeping, so I pull my laptop up from the floor and flip it open. I look at pictures of DePaul. I click through their basketball program until I find the picture of the man I saw with Owen, the one who gave him his card. He’s on the coaching staff. Then I type the words: BILL HARPER WOODSTOCK DEATH.

The obituary is the first thing to come up. It’s a scan of an old, yellowed clipping from the Woodstock News. I read the list of survivors over and over again—James, Owen, and Andrew. That word…survivors…it catches me. Surviving someone—I don’t know that there’s a better way to describe Owen.

I flip through a few more pages, some of them not the right Bill Harper, some of them stories about the warehouse Bill worked at, condolences from longtime co-workers and friends. I’m about to flip the computer closed when a small photo catches my eye.

Owen’s dad is standing in front of a big forklift, his hair hanging heavy over his eyes, his face so much like his son’s. But it’s the face next to him that stops me. It’s familiar, and the name with it can’t be a coincidence.

I don’t sleep at all, too anxious to get to the next day. I greet Owen in the driveway in the morning, and he’s a little surprised to see me up so early. He’s leaving with Andrew, his brother’s school bag slumped over his back, his body wearing sadness like a suit.

“Don’t you get to sleep in later now?” Owen asks. His hair is still wet, and it smells like his shampoo. I kiss him on the lips quickly, breathing the scent in through my nose to remember it, then run back to my own car.

“I do, but I have to do something for English. It’s an extra-credit thing, and I have to get it in this morning,” I say. I can tell Owen doesn’t believe me, but I keep moving forward, waving at him, closing my door, and driving off without glancing back. I know I’ll have a good half-hour at school before he shows up. I just need Mr. Chessman to be there, too.

I’m hopeful when the teachers’ lot is halfway full, and when the light is spilling out from Mr. Chessman’s classroom, I pick up my step into a light jog. I startle him when I stumble through his door.