Vision (6 page)

“‘The Musicians.’ By Caravaggio. It’s at the Metropolitan Museum in Manhattan.”

“Never been.”

Mr. Cooper shook his head. “That’s criminal. We’re only three hours away.”

Bobby shifted in his chair. Charity again. “Three hours and a world away.”

“It just makes me sick how little of the world you kids up here get to see. I ought to take you myself.”

Bobby shrugged. “Don’t think my dad would go for it.”

Kenny Cooper took off his glasses and peered at him with the bright, blue-green eyes that reminded Bobby of a faraway tropical ocean. The fascinating subject of who Mr. Cooper, with his earnest good looks, was dating was a favorite topic circulating the halls of Greater Waterbury High. One rumor was that he was engaged to the governor’s daughter. Secretly, if Bobby really admitted it to himself, he not only looked up to Mr. Cooper, but would love to step right into his shoes and
become
him.

Kenny Cooper sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “The matter of Sergeant First Class Samuel Pendell. That’s not what I want to talk to you about today, Bobby. The deadline for your application to the Morton Conservatory isn’t until November, for early decision. But I’ve heard from your college advisor, Ms. Reilly, that you haven’t signed up for the SATs yet. You’ve got to have those scores for Morton.”

Bobby swallowed. Mr. Cooper would be angry if he knew Bobby had no intention of taking the SATs or following through on any of the teachers’ ambitions for him. First of all, he couldn’t afford the steep fee. But still the lies accumulated, the burden of them getting heavier by the day. “Mr. Cooper, uh, I—”

Beneath the flop of sandy hair, Kenny Cooper’s bright eyes seemed to pierce the rind of Bobby’s skin, to the blood running in his veins. “I know what you’re going to say, Bobby. I’m well aware of the situation in your home. I’m there every week. But I know you, too. I know that music is your life.” The teacher spoke with such fervor, such conviction, it only made Bobby feel even worse about his lies of omission. “It’s what pumps through your bloodstream. If you believe in your dreams, things will have a way of working themselves out.”

Bobby stood to leave. It was hopeless. And it was all going to end badly, with Mr. Cooper resenting the time he’d wasted on him. “I’m going to miss lunch.”

Mr. Cooper nodded. “I understand, Bobby. A growing boy’s got to eat. But you have to believe me—there is a path out of Graxton, if you’ll just work with me.”

“Sure, Mr. Cooper.” Bobby smiled tightly. Mr. Cooper was getting frustrated, that was clear.

Bobby headed for the door, then paused, swiveling toward the arrangement of photographs on the bookshelf. Something there had captured his attention and tugged at his cranium, as though a magnetic force was pulling him towards its source. The floor tilted beneath him. Savage pain ripped into the back of his head as a wave of nausea bubbled in his stomach. Smears of red streaked his vision.

Shit. Not this again
.

“What’s wrong, Bobby?” he heard Mr. Cooper say from very far away. The room was contracting like a tunnel, his vision blinking out.

Crashing through trees. Out of breath. Can’t go on. Oh, no
.

Reeling, Bobby slumped to the floor, his legs giving out. He lay there, curled up on his side, dazed with pain.

“Bobby!” Mr. Cooper shouted.

Bobby squeezed his eyes closed, pretending to be passed out. Keeping his body limp and slack, he heard Mr. Cooper call school security.

They lowered him onto a soft surface in what he figured was the nurse’s office. Someone with slim, cool hands poked, prodded, and lifted his eyelids. He listened while they discussed him.

Allowing his eyes to open to slits, it was as he feared—nothing but deep, vacant red. This time, though, superimposed faintly on the darkness was a vague afterimage—a blurred loop of someone crashing through the woods, running frantically. His ribs ached like it was
him
running,
his
veins throbbing with someone else’s adrenaline.

What the hell is wrong with me?

Maybe he was just nuts. He willed himself to see again, but no go. The pain bore down on him with more intensity. He lay still, afraid the slightest movement would cause his head to split open like an overripe tomato.

“What happened?” asked the voice Bobby recognized as the school nurse.

“He was fine one minute,” said Mr. Cooper, “and then he was on the floor.”

“Strange,” the nurse said. “His pulse is normal. His blood pressure is normal. I suppose we can have him brought to a hospital. You’re a friend of the family—what do you suggest, Kenny?”

“I’ll call his father and see what he wants me to do.”

Maybe he should let them take him to the hospital. Maybe there was something medically wrong with him. Bobby groaned so they would think he was just coming to.

“Can you hear me, Bobby?” asked Mr. Cooper.

“Yeah,” he whispered, though it hurt to speak.

“You passed out. Have you been ill lately?”

He didn’t dare sit up. His surroundings lurched and spun in the red darkness. “No. But I fell and hit my head yesterday.”

“He may have a concussion,” the nurse said. “You need an X-ray.”

“No!” Bobby protested. “Just let me lie here a while. I’ll be fine.”

In the end, after letting Bobby rest for fifteen minutes, Mr. Cooper helped him to his car. In the back seat of Mr. Cooper’s Jeep, Bobby stretched out, his body still leaden, his vision pocked with red.

“I would have taken you to the hospital, Bobby,” Mr. Cooper said.

“It’s probably just something I ate.”

“You said you hit your head.”

“I lied. I just—I’ve been having these weird headaches and dizzy spells, Mr. Cooper. But I can’t go to the hospital. I have work tonight.”

“This doesn’t sound good, Bobby. It could be stress. Or maybe—”

“Please, just take me home. I’ll figure it out. I can get checked up at the VA.”

“You promise you will?”

“Promise.”

Finally, after an eternity, Bobby felt the lurch of the Jeep as it climbed the steep driveway to his house. He sat up slowly and risked opening his eyes, relieved to find that his vision was mostly cleared. The headache had begun to recede.

Still wobbly, Bobby was out of the car before Mr. Cooper could undo his shoulder strap. But the teacher came around to his side and studied him, his face furrowed with concern.

“Let me help you inside.”

“No, Mr. Cooper, I’m fine. And thanks for getting me home, but it’s better I face my dad alone.”

B
obby waited until Mr. Cooper drove off before climbing the stairs. His body felt creaky, every movement jarring his tender skull.

Dad sat in the wheelchair, waiting. “What the fuck is going on with you?”

Bobby hurried past him to his room and flopped facedown on his bed, but Dad wheeled in after him. “You sick? Or are you faking?”

Ignoring him, Bobby mashed his face against his pillow, blocking out everything. He just wanted to melt into the bed and cease to be.

Dad wouldn’t let up. “Kid,” he said, his voice halting, “sorry for being such a prick.”

Listening to the whir of the old wheelchair’s tires on the worn carpet as Dad turned around and rolled out of the room, Bobby waited a beat before following him into the living room. He glanced at the clock. Noon. He had until four when the school bus brought Aaron back home. And until six-thirty when he had to be at work. The thought of facing Gabe wasn’t helping his fragile state. Plus, he still hadn’t gone back to retrieve the boat. “Dad, I’m sorry about last night. I lost my head.”

Dad stared up at him, his expression shifting like fast-moving clouds.

“Passing out at school ain’t normal. And yesterday you didn’t catch any fish. You always catch fish.”

Bobby paused. “Nothing’s wrong. Just tired, I guess.” “If you say so. You know, if there’s something you’re not telling me, I’ll find out eventually.”

“There’s nothing, Dad.”

Dad nodded. “Yup. Whatever’s going on will come to light if I bide my time.”

Bobby shrugged and headed back to his bed. He still felt strange and lightheaded.

“Bobby,” Dad said, “you wanna jam? It’s not often you’re home with time to kill.”

He felt like crap, but the slight quaver in Dad’s voice made him pause. Before Dad came home disabled, they’d always played together. They still did, on the rare occasions Dad was up to it, but mostly he claimed that playing aggravated the constant pain in his upper back.

“Sure, Dad. Okay.”

He fetched Dad’s battered guitar and his own, and sat opposite him on the couch. Dad remained in his wheelchair. It took a while to get the old thing in tune, but soon they were strumming away on “Saint James Infirmary,” a feverish light in Dad’s eyes. They switched it up to Bruce Springsteen and “Born to Run,” then to the Rolling Stones’ “Paint it Black.”

The rich, raw tones of Dad’s voice wove around him, then climbed crazily higher. Bleak as his life was, Dad’s soul still lived in his music. It was, Bobby realized, the only way they could ever really speak to each other.

After three songs, Sam Pendell had had enough. “Wish I had the strength to go on longer, kiddo.”

“It’s okay, Dad.”

Dad’s eyes were slipping closed. Bobby glanced at the clock in the kitchen. It was only one fifteen, and he was feeling much better. A plan dropped into his mind, as clear and pure as a moonbeam. And there was plenty of time to do it before Aaron got home at four.

The sky frowned over Graxton, the gray clouds low and brooding. A light drizzle had already begun to mist the grass. Bobby pulled on his fishing boots, cap, and flannel shirt. He grabbed one of Dad’s old work bandanas, left a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on a plate for him, motioned for Pete to follow, then left.

First, he stopped by Scratch Lake. After discovering that his boat had wedged itself into a little inlet that he’d need another boat to get to, Bobby put that concern aside. He had more pressing things to worry about. Like his eyes. And his mind.

Driving in the truck, he reviewed the times the spells had seized hold of him, how an indefinable tug had pulled at him before the red headaches hit.

Maybe if he could replicate the attack, just like it had happened in the woods the day before, he could understand what was happening to him. The strange visions, the sense of something pulling at him, the red blindness, the brutal headaches—somehow, they were all connected. The problem, real or imagined, was getting worse.

He had to get to the bottom of it. Fast.

Just as he steered the truck into the parking lot at the ball field, the rain came down in sheets.

“Stay in the car, Pete,” he said, patting the dog’s head. “No use both of us getting soaked.”

Bobby stuffed the bandana in his jeans pocket. From the back of the truck he rooted out Dad’s old steel toolbox and trudged through the wet field, up the incline to the woods. By the time he got there, his flannel shirt was plastered to his skin, but it was a warm rain. Annoying, but bearable.

On entering the woods, Bobby paused, wondering if the sense that had drawn him to the scrap of fabric would work in the rain, to see if it was real—or the first signs of mental illness.