I met Susan Norton after the first time I got violent. Despite the fact that I play football, I’m usually not very aggressive. Or, I wasn’t before. I was at my locker with the door open, getting ready for lunch. Putting all my books away and all that. Frank and Deborah were already down there, so I was in a bit of a hurry. I started hearing whispers in the hallway. It was strange, because they were hushed but also louder than everybody else around me. As if somebody was speaking directly in my ear. They were words I could understand, too, not those weird noises I had been hearing. I kept my face buried in my locker. Put my hands on either side to hold me there. And all of a sudden I was overcome with anger. My jaw clenched and I had this thought, like if I didn’t get somewhere else, out of the hallway and away from all those people, I was going to kill somebody. It was that quick, too. One second I was fine and the next I wanted to smash somebody’s face in.

It was just bad timing, really. The fact that that kid walked past me right at that moment. I think he was a freshman. Walking with his friend. Gossiping. And he asked really low if I was that kid. The one with all the scratches. I didn’t even hesitate. I turned away from the locker and grabbed him by the neck. One quick movement, like there were eyes in the back of my head and I knew exactly where he was standing. His hands went up around my wrist, but I didn’t stop. I took him straight back into the lockers across the hall. His head hit pretty hard. There was a light reflected in the locker and when his head smashed against it, the light creased into a halo around his head. And then I just didn’t move my hand away. My teeth were grinding together but other than that, I don’t think I was making any face. His face started to turn so red that his freckles disappeared and his friend started screaming at me to let him go. That I was killing him. When I finally did let go, the kid collapsed to the ground and I looked around and everybody in the hall was staring at me. Some had their hands up over their mouths. Mostly they were just standing there, not moving. The lights went out and they were just shadows. Shadows standing in the darkness, watching me. Waiting to see what I would do. Faceless and formless. They weren’t my friends or my classmates anymore.

I shoved my way past them all, running toward the side doors of the school. Every few steps, another shadow would walk into my way and I would push them aside. The doors came open so fast I don’t even remember touching them. And then there was blinding light and whiteness. And more shadows standing there in it. I blinked hard a few times, trying to clear my vision. My heartbeat pounded like drums in my ears.

Deborah said my name and it all went away. The real world appeared in a flash. The dying leaves rolling across the grass and the tan sidewalk and all the people watching me. She walked up to me and grabbed me from behind by the shoulders. I put one hand up onto hers and felt her cheek land on my shoulder.

“I’m here,” she kept saying. “I’m here.”

Frank opened the door for me as she led me back into the school. The other students were lined up like soldiers down the hallway, their eyes locked on me. There are these videos online that you can watch. I don’t know if they’re real or not, and even if they are, I don’t know why you’d want to watch them. But I heard about them. Videos of these soldiers in the Middle East, American soldiers, taking puppies from children and throwing them off the sides of cliffs. Why they do it, I can’t imagine. Maybe because they want to make the kids hurt for being born in another country. Or maybe, in their minds, they’re sparing the puppies from having a sad life in a poor place. But I think that when those few soldiers do that kind of thing, there are still a few others left who realize how sick it is. And those good soldiers probably look at the bad ones a lot like the kids in the hallway were looking at me that day. I was someone they looked up to. We even passed the freshman kid I choked and he looked at me like that. Not with fear, but with shame.

Deborah and Frank were naïve enough to take me back to the cafeteria, as if we could just go on eating our lunches and pretend nothing happened. I sat there, no food in front of me, staring down at the ugly blue table. Deborah tried to talk to me. She asked me what was wrong, what the kid said that made me so angry. I remember tracing lines with my finger against the tabletop. Frank didn’t try to talk to me. He knew I wouldn’t say anything. Not that he ever saw me like that before; I had never been like that before.

The principal showed up a couple minutes later and I followed her out of the cafeteria without protest. Even for her, I was silent. There was only one question I answered. When they asked if they should call my mom or my dad, I told them to call Dad. He showed up not long after.

At the behest of the principal, Dad asked me what was wrong. Dad, who was sitting there in his Carhartt jacket and blue jeans and tan work boots. Sitting there with stubble on his face and the smell of cigarettes on his clothes. And I felt so bad for him. He was worried about me. His eyes were big, his mouth open. He always seemed a little helpless. With my mom and with his money. But in that office, he actually looked afraid. I didn’t like it. I started to cry. Right there in front of the principal. I couldn’t help it. At first, I was shaking. Then the tears came. And the sobbing. I told him I was afraid and he asked me, afraid of what? I told him I didn’t know and he asked me if I wanted to go home. And I told him that I was afraid to go home.

I guess that was the wrong thing to say in front of the principal. She gave Dad this really upset look. Then she looked at me and back at Dad. Were we seeing a family therapist, she asked? Dad told her we weren’t. So she recommended one. The school corporation therapist. Her name was Susan Norton and she was young, but she was good. Dad got Susan Norton’s number and thanked the principal, who said I could come back in two days. In time for the next game. Of course.

We walked out of the school and into the parking lot and I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see that stupid green truck.

Dinner that night was tense. Dad was agitated. Mom was angry. Tabitha was clueless. My parents would only speak to each other in terse little phrases. “Pass the potatoes.” “Supposed to be cold next week.” “Stop making that sound with your knife.” I ate a little, but my stomach was in knots and it wasn’t Mom’s best meal, to be honest. Probably she was distracted when she was cooking.

I looked across the table, past Tabitha and out the sliding glass door. The fields were out there past the deck and the driveway. It was late enough in the year for the sun to set around dinnertime. Right now, it was an orange glob held up by the sharp tops of the cornstalks. All black and orange hellfire. Gray clouds were closing in. Everything out there seemed so distant. So huge. So intimidating.

“Are we going to talk about it or not?” I asked rudely. I couldn’t take it. Them sitting there, avoiding the obvious conversation; me, watching the world, feeling alone and angry. If it was Deborah at the table, or even Frank, I would have felt comforted. Even in silence.

And Mom said no. That we weren’t going to talk about it.

And I asked why.

And she said Tabitha didn’t need to hear it. That she would worry.

And Tabitha asked what there was to worry about.

And Mom said there wasn’t anything.

And I said that was a lie.

And Dad said that if I wanted to talk about it, we should talk.

And Mom said we would talk later.

And I said that Tabitha should hear it, because she had the dream, too.

And nobody moved.

“What dream?” Tabitha asked. I looked angrily at Mom and she looked angrily back at me.

“The dream about God,” Dad said meekly. As soon as he said it, Mom smashed her fists on the table. We all jumped. She stared to yell.

“How long have we gone without talking about this? And you want to bring it up now! This has nothing to do with it! Sammy made a stupid decision. That’s it.”

What ended up happening was probably one of the craziest things that ever took place at that kitchen table. Including the time Mom threw the gravy boat at Dad’s head one breakfast. Tabitha was crying the whole way to school and I had to walk her into the building holding her hand. Mom was passed out in bed by the time we got home. But I don’t think she was this angry even then.

I said to her, “You’re such a bully.” Dad said my name under his breath, but I didn’t listen to him. I put my silverware down and looked at her as hard as I could; she looked right back at me with the same eyes.

“If it’s not something you can’t control,” I said, “you want no part of it. You just ignore it and hope that it stops existing, but it won’t. Things don’t just go away.”

“You know what needs to go away? You. From this table. Now.” She barked it at me, which made me angry enough to knock over my glass of milk. It spilled across the table, but nobody moved to pick it up. Tabitha and Dad watched it run out of the cup, short bursts at first and then a slow, steady flow. But I wasn’t distracted by it, and neither was Mom.

“There is something wrong with me!” I yelled. “I’m seeing things, I don’t sleep. I almost killed a freshman today!”

“You’re acting out,” she said. “Football’s ending or you’re fighting with Frank or Deborah or maybe you just expect us all to treat you like Grandma Maisie does. The golden child!”

I asked her if she thought I was lying. She told me it was all in my head. So I asked her how many glasses of whiskey she drank that night. Tabitha started to cry. I told Mom maybe she should be the one going to therapy for her own problems. Dad groaned and grabbed Tabitha and took her out of the room. Upstairs, probably.

I asked my mom why she wasn’t scared. About the dream. She got to her feet and walked to the counter without answer. Her back was to me, her face nearly pressed up against the cabinets. We both spotted it at the same time. A half-full bottle by the sink. My eyes went back and forth between her and the bottle.

“You know you’re going to,” I said. “Might as well get it over with.”

In a second, the bottle was in her hand. She turned and threw it by the neck. Right at me. I raised my hands up to cover my face, but the bottle hit my forearm. There was an explosion of dull pain against my bone. It spun once before crashing into the sliding door. There was an explosion of glass followed by the piano sound of thousands of pieces falling to the ground. The bottle was intact, on its side out on the wood of the front deck. I turned back to her. Her eyes were red, but there were no tears. She disappeared from the room. The breeze from outside rolled into the kitchen.

Dad ran in. He cursed loudly when he saw the shattered door.

I sat in my room with my face in my hands, shivering. The furnace was off still and the huge opening in the front of the kitchen dropped the temperature in the house a few degrees. Tabitha was in Mom’s room. They probably weren’t talking much, just curled up together on the bed.

Dad’s voice came up the hall. I went downstairs to find him standing right outside the busted door.

“Your old man needs help,” he said, halfway playful and halfway serious.

I walked out on the deck to see a large roll of plastic sheeting and a toolbox. The sun was gone now, the only light coming from the half moon and the dusty porch light over the deck. There were already small bugs flying around it.

It took us maybe a half hour to hang the plastic over the doorway. I held up the clear sheeting while Dad hammered it into place. There was no way we would have money for a new panel anytime soon. For now, we were stuck with this embarrassing reminder of what our family now was.

After the plastic was in place, we rolled the covering up and carried it back to the truck. I think Dad got it from this barn he has out in one of his furthest fields. He keeps stuff there so he doesn’t have to drive back and forth, but I guess he didn’t have any plastic anywhere else.

He told me to sit down on the wooden porch swing we have out there, so I did. He ran inside for a second and in that time, I looked up at the clear sky. All the stars made me feel so peaceful. After Mom threw the bottle at me, things seemed more welcoming even up there.

Dad came back with two cans of beer. He tossed one to me and sat down on another chair. At first, I took a small sip. But Dad gave me this crooked smile.

“I’m not under any illusion that this is your first beer,” he said. So I smiled back and took a longer gulp. And neither of us said anything for a while. Which was nice.

Finally, he said, “What are we gonna do, Sammy?”

I didn’t want things getting very serious, so I asked, “How much beer you got?”

He laughed. And then he told me a story.

“Did you know I had the chance to go to Europe once?” he asked. “When I was in high school, they got this program together. Some kind of genealogy thing. Since ninety-five percent of the families around here are Irish anyway, they wanted to take some of us over there for a week. I was on the list to go. My dad saved up his money so I could. He saved for a long, long time. And about two weeks before we were supposed to pay for the trip, this guy across town put his car up for sale. 1966 GTO. You know what that is?”

I shook my head, because I know absolutely jack about cars. Neither does he, so it must have been a real special car to him.

“1966 GTO.” He said it again, like it was a magic spell or something. “My dream car. It was perfect. Beautiful. So, without asking my dad first, I got my hands on the trip money and I bought the car. I had fun in that car, too. I was driving a hundred miles an hour on back roads with my friends in the back and girls in the front.

“And you know what happened to that car? I turned off the headlights sneaking into a girl’s driveway one night and drove it right into a ditch. I had a friend come pull me out, but there wasn’t much I could do. It drove for maybe three months after that.”

I had to clarify, you know? Kind of rub it in. “You ruined a trip to Europe for a car. And then ruined the car for a girl?”

He got that smile again and this time it made him look no older than me.

“You know what my dad said?” he asked. “He cried when I bought the car. He wanted me to go on that trip so bad. And when I wrecked it, do you know what he said?”

“I told you so?” I guessed.

Dad shook his head. “He told me that fathers are built to sympathize. They’re built to understand what their sons are going through, but not their actions. He knew why I wanted to buy the car, he just didn’t think I would be dumb enough to actually do it. He knew why I turned off my headlights. He just didn’t think I would be dumb enough to actually do it.”

I laughed, but he kept going.

“That’s what I hate about all this, Sammy. I’m supposed to understand. But you’re afraid and I don’t know how to help. I can’t tuck you in or lay there with you ‘til you fall asleep.”

He finished his beer.

“If you want to see that Norton lady,” he said, “I’ll make it happen. I’ll talk your mom into it.”

He looked at the shattered glass on the ground and said, “Hell, she owes me anyway.”

He got to his feet and walked toward the house. I was still angry at Mom, though, so I had to ask. “Do you wish you would’ve made it to that girl’s house? Maybe you would’ve ended up with her instead of Mom. Save you a lot of hassle.”

Dad stood there, silhouetted in the moonlight against the siding. He shook his head, but he was still wearing that grin.

“That girl was your mom,” he said. “’Night, Sammy.”

I told him goodnight and watched him go inside.

The stars kept me company until my beer was gone.

I went to see Frank the next day. I called Deborah a few times. She didn’t answer at first. When she finally did, she told me that her parents wouldn’t let me come over. And they definitely wouldn’t let her visit my place. I said I understood, even if I didn’t exactly. They knew me. They were nice people. I didn’t like that they would turn their backs on me. And I especially didn’t like that they could have their say over our relationship. But I respected their wishes and thanked Deborah for being there for me. She said okay. We didn’t say we loved each other.

I didn’t even call Frank before heading over there. I didn’t want to be rejected twice. Dad let me take the truck since the drive is only a couple miles. I knocked on the front door and Uncle Ashton answered, tattoos exposed around the fringes of a white tank top. He wore beige cargo shorts that more or less matched the color of his teeth and his gnarly black hair was pulled back in a ponytail. He had a cigarette in his hands and he smiled up at me.

“If it isn’t Rocky Balboa himself,” he said with a greasy laugh. “Come on in.”

I thanked him and walked into the living room. There was a Kurosawa samurai movie playing on the TV set. Uncle Ashton sat down on an overstuffed love seat and flicked the end of his cigarette into an ashtray. A beer can sat open next to it.

“Not working today?” I asked. Uncle Ashton took a drag before answering.

“Go in at eight,” he said. “Eight to close. Frank’s in his room.”

I thanked him again and walked down the hall toward Frank’s room. The door was cracked open. I pushed it further to see him on his back in bed, wearing a pair of boxers and white tee shirt. He was young and handsome now, but oh so close to becoming Uncle Ashton in a few years. At least in the way he dressed.

The familiar voice of Simon Pegg greeted me before Frank could. He was watching one of those Edgar Wright movies for the millionth time. Not even laughing, just watching. He probably knew all of the gags and jokes by then, anyway.

Without a word, Frank scooted closer to his wall. I sat on the bed next to him and looked around the room I had seen a million times. It made my own room look so dull in comparison. There were movie posters in every corner, clothes strewn about the floor, and empty pop cans on the dresser. He was more of a seventeen-year-old than me, I guess.

“Deborah’s parents won’t let me see her,” I said.

“I know.”

“How?”

“She told me,” he said. “She texted me last night.”

“Oh.”

“He deserved it,” Frank said. “Just so you know.”

“The freshman?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know.”

He looked over at me and I realized that his resemblance to Ashton stopped there. Frank had his dad’s face. Sometimes I forget what his dad looked like until I get a really good look at Frank. I hardly look like my dad at all, but Frank is, as they say, the spitting image.

“You did the right thing,” was all he said.

When the movie was over, we decided to go on a walk. We stepped through the living room to a squeal and flash of movement. Uncle Ashton was on one end of the couch, reaching a shaking hand out to his beer, which had to be empty by now. Wendy, Frank’s mom, was on the other end, pushing her bangs out of her hair and looking down at the carpet. Frank froze. So did I. Wendy looked up, pretending to be oblivious.

“Oh, hey, hon,” she said. Frank didn’t say anything for a while.

Then, “Last night you said you were done with him.”

Uncle Ashton grabbed for his pack of smokes on the end table. Wendy shook her head. My face got red and I looked at the door, longing to leave the house and the naked shame of my best friend’s family.

“Not right now, okay?” Wendy said under her breath.

Frank nodded. “Not now, not ever, that’s fine with me,” he said. “Come on.”

I followed him out the door. He asked if I wanted to go on a cruise instead of a walk. So we hopped into the green truck and drove it around. We went out to the cemetery where his dad is buried. Frank rolled down his window and looked out over the stones, his chin resting on the lowered window. He didn’t cry or anything, just stared.