At first, I didn’t really say anything. I just looked around at my family. They were holding their breath, waiting for me to say something. So I finally did. And it wasn’t pretty. You might not be surprised to hear that sometimes I have anger issues. Especially when people patronized me. I was rarely violent, but I’ll admit that I could get overly angry at stupid things. Mostly when they came from my parents.

I think I said something like, “How F-ing dumb do you think I am?! If you’re gonna spy on me, that’s fine, but don’t make up some BS story to tease me about it! It was a really embarrassing dream and I don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to rub it in! I mean, I thought you two hated each other, now you’re teaming up against me?”

I think I mentioned that my parents have been sleeping in separate bedrooms for a while? Well, maybe I should go into more detail about that, because then stuff that comes later might make more sense. See, we had a really long spell where we weren’t making ends meet. The bank almost took the house away from us at one point, but I didn’t know about that until much later. Since we weren’t making much money, my mom started spending what we did have on alcohol. She’s not an alcoholic or anything, so don’t get that impression. It’s just that adults deal with stress in funny ways. I guess kids do, too. Or adolescents, which is what I’d say I am. Like, I’ve been known to punch a wall when I get angry. That doesn’t make sense, it’s not like the wall pissed me off. Sorry about the language. In a way, whiskey was my mom’s wall. Or something like that, you know what I mean.

First my mom drank it all at home, which was okay because sometimes she’d let me have a little glass before bed. It tasted like poison, but after I had a glass, I couldn’t stop smiling. Maybe I have a predisposition since my mom likes it so much. But then her drinking at home became a problem, because she stopped smiling and started crying at a certain point in the night. Dad would try to help her out. He would put his arms around her and stuff. She would push him away and tell him if it wasn’t for him, she wouldn’t have anything to cry about anyway, so why should he be the one to help her? Tabitha and I saw her like that a few times before she decided to take her drinking elsewhere. First, it was her friend Barb’s house. That was good for her, because Barb was an older lady she used to work with at the bank. Barb’s husband died a few years back, so it was nice for them to drink whiskey and talk about husbands and kids and stuff. Barb ended up having a stroke, and she went to the nursing home and couldn’t drink anymore, which just made my mom want to drink for both of them. Instead of going to see Barb, she started going to the bar in town. I don’t even know what the bar is called; isn’t that strange? I’ve been living in Watersdale my whole life and there’s only one bar, but I don’t know what it’s called because I never had any intention of going there. I like to be by myself after I’ve had whiskey, not in a dark room with other people. But that’s what Mom did. After dinner, she disappeared most nights. This went on for a while, until one night when my dad went out to look for her. He saw her sitting at the bar talking to some other guy, a mechanic in town. What’s his name? Dave something? Anyway, Dave Something had his hand on my mom’s leg; other than that, they were just talking. But my dad flipped when he saw that and broke Dave’s nose on the pool table. Which would be really scary to see, because my dad is a calm guy normally. He’s quiet and he smiles a lot, those sad kinds of smiles that seem to be saying, Don’t worry about me. I hate those smiles. It makes me want to talk to the person, but they probably don’t want me to or they wouldn’t be smiling in the first place. So when my dad gets really angry, it’s scary. His face goes blank and it’s like there’s nothing behind his eyes. His usual voice is slow and has a drawl to it, but when he’s actually mad about something, the drawl goes away and he speaks loud and clear. I bet that’s how he sounded in the bar.

You’re probably wondering how I heard about this, so I’ll tell you really quick: Frank’s uncle is the bartender at the bar in town. He lives with Frank and Frank’s mom because Frank’s dad died when we were about twelve. I guess I should’ve said that when I first told you about Frank, because it’s a pretty big deal with him. Not that he talks about it a lot or anything, but basically it makes him nice, which is strange, because I would be really angry if my dad was dead. He probably thinks that it’s better to spend life being nice and happy than moody and mean. But Frank’s uncle, Ashton, saw all this happen with my dad and Dave Something. He didn’t even try to break up the fight because he said a man has to defend his honor. That makes me think of something they say in samurai movies, which is probably accurate because Frank’s Uncle Ashton loves samurai movies. Kurosawa is his favorite director. Do you know Kurosawa? He was this guy who adapted Shakespeare plays into samurai movies. He probably did other kinds of movies, too, but he’s only remembered for the Shakespeare samurai stuff. Which is really sad; I hope I’m not only remembered for one thing, you know?

Also, Shakespeare Samurai is a great name for a band. Have you seen that movie, World’s End? Simon Pegg is in it. Simon Pegg is Frank’s favorite person, which I don’t understand because Frank isn’t even particularly funny. He doesn’t really like Adam Sandler-type stuff, which is fine, ‘cause I don’t, either; he also doesn’t like Jim Carrey movies, which sucks, because I really like those. If Simon Pegg even sneezes, though, he acts like it’s the funniest thing in the world. In the movie, Simon Pegg’s character always says, “That’s a good name for a band, you should write that down.” If he was here, I’d probably tell him about Shakespeare Samurai. You know what would be cool? If you gave me some paper and pencils tonight so I could make some logos for Shakespeare Samurai, and then I can show you what I come up with tomorrow. Could we make that happen?

What was I talking about before? Oh yeah, Uncle Ashton. I call him that, too, that’s how close Frank and I are. He saw the thing with my dad and said he was just protecting his honor. So if I mention Uncle Ashton later, just remember that he’s not my uncle. He’s really Frank’s uncle.

Since that day at the bar, my parents have been sleeping in separate bedrooms. My mom doesn’t drink quite as much, maybe a glass before bed. But she stopped giving me whiskey, which kind of sucks if I’m gonna be honest. She reads a lot now. She reads a lot of young adult novels, which doesn’t fit her personality at all. Anyway, at the table, I thought it was weird that my parents would team up against me.

My mom tried to calm me down. “Sammy,” she said, “we aren’t making this up. Okay? It’s just a weird coincidence.”

My dad interrupted her. “Well, maybe it was.”

“What else would it be?” she asked.

“I don’t know, maybe Tabitha had something with the God thing.”

My mom rolled her eyes so strong that I thought they might plop out into her eggs.

“You Catholics are all the same,” she whined, “you could spot the Virgin Mary in a piece of toast.” Which made me kind of snort, because I was trying to hold back laughter. Sometimes she says stuff like that and it catches me off guard.

Then they got into it and it derailed the conversation away from the dream, which was okay by me because I didn’t want to talk about it too much more anyway. Pretty soon it was time to leave for school, so even though they were freaked out and I was freaked out, we couldn’t sit around the table talking about it any longer. Tabitha, Dad, and I all headed towards my dad’s truck in the driveway, which is like a green pick-up with a lot of rust around the wheels. I can’t even tell you how long he’s had it. Since I was a little kid, at least. I remember driving to school in it back when I went to the same Catholic school Tabitha goes to. Back then, the radio worked better and the cab smelled like the evergreen air fresheners Dad used to hang from the rearview mirror. Now it smells like a mixture of rust and sawdust. Nothing more than a work truck with receipts and candy bar wrappers stuck to the floor after several winters’ worth of wet boots stepped down on them.

Tabitha pouted the length of the sidewalk to the driveway. Dad was usually patient with her, but not after fights with Mom. He walked ahead of us, scooting around the front of the truck and into his seat without a word. Tabitha sniffled and I thought maybe she was crying. I put a hand on her baby blue, sleeveless tee and turned her toward me. I got down on a knee to see that there was a wet streak coming from one of her red-tinged eyes. Her brown hair was soft against the tops of my fingers and I smiled at her. She gave out a harrumph.

I started to sing to her, low enough so that only the two of us could hear. It was a song Mom always used to sing when I was little. She would carry me into this rocking chair, long after I was too old to be carried, and sit me on her lap. She would start to whistle a melody and then sing. A reggae song. Bob Marley. I skipped the whistling part but I looked Tabitha right in the eyes as I started to sing and she smiled. For a brief second, it was just the two of us in the world. Her with her pale face and freckles and brown eyes. Her puppydog smile.

I helped her up into the truck.

We headed toward town with a silent girl in the back, and I felt proud of myself. I think Dad was, too, because he gave me a sideways glance and a half-smile. I smiled back as I looked out at all the cornfields. You know how when the corn gets tall on both sides of the road, it’s almost like driving through a forest? You can see the blue sky and the white clouds, but underneath all that it’s just dark green. I get hypnotized by that. I think it’s beautiful. That was one of the last times I was ever entranced by the corn, though, because from then on I was mostly looking up at the sky. So that drive to school on that day was particularly memorable.

Tabitha had to be at school before me. Her Catholic school was in town, right across from the gas station where Dad got his coffee. My school was another couple miles outside the town, because it had to be centrally located in the county. We dropped Tabitha off. I asked her if she wanted me to walk her into the school the way I used to. She said no thanks and by the time she got to the front doors, she was giggling with one of her friends, a girl in pigtails named Chrissy. My dad and I both watched until she was inside, and I noticed out of the corner of my eye that we were doing the exact same thing: our right elbows were propped up, his on the console and mine on an armrest, and our pointer fingers were pressed up against our lips at an angle. I’m good at noticing stuff like that; it makes me feel connected to other people somehow. And I love my dad a lot. I love my mom, too, but it’s just different with him. He’s so easy to talk to. I wonder if other guys my age kind of feel awkward in a car alone with their dads. You know that feeling when you get into a car with just one other person and the two of you have never been alone in a car before? It feels weirdly intimate because you’re so physically close to each other and you can’t really get away. It wasn’t ever like that when it was me and Dad. I felt really comfortable, like I could just sit back and chill out.

We didn’t say anything to each other on the ride to the gas station, just listened to the radio. My dad only listens to AM radio, which is basically a bunch of people talking to each other really mean. That morning, I remember that the radio was full of static, so there we were, riding in his old truck, just listening to white noise with occasional phantom voices sneaking through. And that was okay with me, like I said.

You’ve probably been to the gas station in town about a million times. Do you know Paula, the lady who works the day shift? She’s the one who my dad always pays for his coffee and they talk for a while. He calls it shootin’ the crap, only he doesn’t say “crap,” you know? He grabbed his coffee and asked if I wanted anything. I got one of those Starbucks Frappucinos, ‘cause I don’t really like coffee but I’m seventeen, so I figured it was about time to grow up a little and make myself drink some. We went to pay Paula and I couldn’t believe it, but my dad asked for a pack of smokes. Now, I know my dad smokes sometimes. My mom is a freaking chimney. She chain-smokes almost all day. My dad isn’t like that, even though he told me back in the day that’s what he and my mom used to do. They’d sit around on the weekend listening to vinyl records like Johnny Cash and they’d smoke cigarettes the whole time. Only I’m old enough now to know that the cigarettes weren’t always tobacco cigarettes and I’m sure they got up to some other stuff, because I ended up being born somehow. But my dad had his rules, and one rule was that we never saw him smoking. He had one or two cigarettes a day and always when he was at work. So when I actually saw him buying a pack, that was pretty neat.

“Those things’ll kill you,” she said in a really disapproving way when she rang up the smokes. My dad laughed a little; I’m guessing they went through this exchange a lot.

“How’s Jason?” was all he asked. Jason is Paula’s husband. He’s a farmer, too. Some of my dad’s land borders Jason and Paula’s land.

“You know,” she said, “it was the strangest thing. He called me from the field out by the county line this morning. And he said the tops of the damn cornstalks were smoking.”

“Smoking?” my dad asked.

“Smoking!” she repeated. “There was steam or something coming out from the tops of the husks and the tassels were singed. At least, that’s what he said. But he’s fine, hon, thanks for asking.”

My dad paid her and she handed him the change along with the pack of cigarettes and said, “My dad died of lung cancer. He smoked these exact same cigarettes.”

“That so?” my dad asked, pretending to be interested. He’s always pretending to be interested in stuff that he couldn’t care less about. He’s a big guy, my dad, but you wouldn’t really know it usually ‘cause he has on a bunch of layers of clothing and always a Carhartt jacket. Farming is a lot more than just driving around in a tractor all day, though; there’s a lot of hard work. And you can tell he’s bulky. He’s tall, too, and has sort of the same hair color as me, but that’s about all we have in common. Facially, I’m much closer to my mom’s side of the family. There’s this kid I go to school with, he says he has Romanian features. I guess that’s what mine could be considered. Sometimes when she drinks, Mom tells me how much I look like her dad. He’s been gone for a while, but I’ve seen pictures of him in his early twenties. We both have a round nose that’s a bit wide at the bottom. And our eyes look squinty, like we’re always deep in thought. Which is rarely the case. He smiles in his pictures a lot more than I do, though. Which doesn’t make sense with the stories Mom has told me about the house she grew up in. She was an only child and I think her mom drank a lot, too. All I know about her dad is that he was in the Army and he was in a car crash that killed him.

We told Paula we hoped she had a good day and she said she’d try and then we got back into the truck and took off for school.

We pulled away from the gas station parking lot and onto the main street of town. Watersdale is strange. At the ground level, it’s all pretty ordinary. We passed the hair salon and the bar and the bowling alley, all with their yellowing signs hanging out over the sidewalk. Squares were cut out of the sidewalk here and there to let manicured trees grow. There’s an old theater in town, the Zephyr. I go there sometimes with Frank or Deborah to watch movies but I’m not a huge fan of it. There’s just one big screen the color of dirty teeth. It’s cheap, though, so sometimes it’s a nice way to spend a few hours on Saturday nights.

Above all that, above the Subway signs and out-of-business video stores, things look almost Gothic. The roof peaks are circular and come to points. There are intricate designs under windows with grinning demons and claws. A look of dying antiquity. There just isn’t much money in the town to keep it up. Everybody here is poor for the most part. There are some small business owners who do okay. And windmill people who came into town within the past ten years to build these monstrous, gray giants that tower over everything else. They’re big enough to have red blinking lights on them to warn planes that they exist. Those people make decent money. Farming is never a sure thing, though. You have good years and bad years. Agriculture is pretty much what sustains the town. People either do that or work in Cainsmouth, which is the nearest city. There’s a university there and stuff.

Watersdale always feels like it’s one step away from falling apart, really.

After we pulled out onto the highway that takes me to school, we started to talk. It took guts for my dad to say anything, because I was still pretending to be mad about them spying on me.

“We weren’t lying to you this morning,” he said. I told him I didn’t want to talk about it, but he said it was important that we did.

“I wouldn’t lie to you,” he said. “You know that. I’m honest with you about everything. It’s one of the nice things about you growing up: we can be friends now.”

With that, he lit up a cigarette and I about had a heart attack. He was really making a point here! After he took a puff, he kept talking.

“As a friend, I’m telling you that we didn’t spy on you. Your mom does sometimes, but I don’t. I dreamed about it, too. So did your mom. I’m trying to pretend like it doesn’t scare me, but the truth is, as soon as you get inside the school, I’ll probably start pulling my hair out.”

I laughed a little and he gave me a sideways grin. From the outside, it probably seems like we were being a bit nonchalant about the whole thing. How often do you hear about four people having the same dream? But we were all scared. Except Tabitha. I don’t think she was scared because she was young enough to say it was God and that was good enough for her. I watched my dad take another puff and understood that he wasn’t smoking because he was trying to impress me; he was smoking to calm himself down. It was a straight jacket.

Then he told me he could prove he had the same dream. “Ask me anything about it,” he said. So I thought for a while and right when the school came into view over the rise in the road, I asked him.

“What did their skin feel like?”

“Sandpaper,” he said. And he didn’t even hesitate.

Next Chapter: Chapter 3