A Summertime Journey

She walks into the living room and sits on the opposite side of the couch and places her coffee cup on the end table. She lights a cigarette, and we both sit in silence until she finally says, “I kicked Darren out last night. He won’t be coming back, so you don’t have to be scared anymore.” She reaches over and rubs the top of my foot with her soft hands. I squirm across the couch next to her, and we cuddle—mother and son, with Bear at our feet. At that moment, I couldn’t be happier or feel safer. My adventure with Emma now is nothing more than a forgotten dream.

CHAPTER SIX
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AS JEREMY AND I walk down the middle of the street, joking with each other and playing “bloody knuckles,” excitedly talking about the upcoming party, we hear footsteps coming up behind us—fast. My head swivels just as Jeremy’s knuckles smack mine and I hear a loud “clonk” and instantly, like a quick fuse on a stick of dynamite, the pain burns up my arm. Bloody knuckles is not a game for the faint of heart. It’s both about reflexes and how much pain you can endure. Both participants make a fist and touch like “fist-bumping” hello. One tries to crash his knuckles down on the other hand before that person can pull away. If that person makes contact, his turn continues. If he misses, it’s the other person’s turn. The game continues until one person can’t take the pain anymore and quits.
I turn in time to see Ryan and Joey neck and neck, blazing down the street toward us. Both of them are friends, and we hang out a lot when we skip school and hide in our “fort,” a burned-out, abandoned trailer. The trailer is two rows down from the single-wide trailer I currently live in with my mom. Ryan’s odd in his own way. He’s a sixties throwback and wears an old green Army jacket all year, no matter the weather, and loves to read history books, especially war history. His favorite musical artist is John Lennon. Most nights, he sits in his room, reading and listening to The Beatles on his record player. Joey is more of a heavy-metal rocker; in fact, he would probably fit quite well in Larry’s gang. I’m not sure why he hangs out with us. He has parachute pants in every color and wears nothing but black rock shirts or muscle shirts and has a long metal feather earring in his left ear. His prized possession is a Sony Walkman cassette player with orange foam ear pads. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him without his Walkman.
“Wuz up, douches!” yells Joey as he streaks past us, slapping Jeremy in the back, making a loud thwack as he goes by.
“Nothing, dicks, what are you guys up to?” Jeremy belches out, stinging from the hit.
“Just gettin’ ready for summer,” Ryan says as he pulls a Marlboro cigarette out of his back pocket and lights it with a dirty white Bic lighter. He takes a long drag, bends over, and starts coughing and hacking. I swipe the cigarette from him and take a drag.
“Dumb shit, you just got done running.”
He flips his shoulder-length blond hair back from his eyes, as he does about a thousand times a day, stalling for time as he prepares an epic comeback in his mind. Suddenly, his attention turns to the left side of the street, about two houses down. Walking across the manicured grass of a single-story white craftsman house toward the road is a calico cat. We didn’t know it then, but Ryan was traumatized by a cat when he was younger: he found a black-and-white short-haired with a bobbed tail and snuck it into his room. He was hugging and petting it when it latched onto his face like the creature from the movie Alien and left war wounds on the back of his head, ears, and even his nose. Ryan screamed and launched the cat into the wall next to his door. Once Ryan recovered, he opened the door and chased the cat under his living room couch. Eventually got the cat outside and it never returned. He has hated cats ever since.
The cat stops at the edge of the grass, darts its eyes left and right to make sure the coast is clear, and bolts into the open road. Ryan, who sees the cat before any of us, is already in a dead run toward it. The cat makes it about halfway across the street before it decides there’s no escaping and hunkers down. I believe I can see the fear in its turquoise eyes as Ryan steamrolls toward it. As Ryan catches up to it, he lifts his leg and kicks the cat like a football. It reminds me of a scene from Charlie Brown, but this time, no one pulls the football away at the last second. For me, it happens in action-scene slow motion, and I can hardly believe what I’m witnessing. The cat lets out a shriek of pain as it flies awkwardly through the air and finally lands on the hard cement and continues its trek to cross the street, madly darting its eyes everywhere, scared to death. I’m mortified, stunned, and mad. Very mad. I run toward Ryan and launch all 120 pounds of me at him and tackle him in the street. We start rolling over each other, trying to get the top position. Our arms and legs tangle together as I make every effort to connect my fist with Ryan’s mouth. He eventually ends up on top of me, straddling my chest with his legs; his fists are getting ready to rain down on me when Jeremy and Joey hook him under each arm and toss him off me. The fight seems like it lasted thirty minutes but only actually lasted seconds.
Panting, I say, “What the fuck, Ryan, you prick, why did you