I woke up in a tangle of sweat-stained sheets as the sun crept through the breaks of the shades. It was only 8:15 and the heat was already unbearable. Groggy and still damp, I threw on a t-shirt and a pair of swim trunks that stuck to my body like fly paper.

            Downstairs, I could hear Marti and mom fighting already. Apparently Marti had come home past curfew last night. This was nothing new and in her defense, even I thought 11:00 was early for a 17 year old, especially since she’d be leaving for college next summer. But any opportunity to fight, they took.

            I waited for the yelling to stop before I made my way downstairs. Marti and I crossed paths in the hall. Her face was red and streaks of make-up stained her cheeks. I played dumb and said hey but she didn’t respond. When she got to her room, she screamed something about moving out and never coming back and slammed the door.

            The kitchen smelled like bacon and cigarettes. Mom was running laps between the sink and the cabinets putting dishes away while she scolded dad, “Damn it, Harold,” she only called him Harold when she was really serious, “will you please back me up here?”

            Dad was sitting at his spot at the head of the kitchen table, only taking breaks from reading the paper to sip his coffee or light another cigarette. I was born about nine months after he got back from the war in Vietnam, so I didn’t know him as any different, but Marti and mom hated who he had become. He was always quiet and never did much except smoke cigarettes and read. In the morning he’d drink a pot of coffee and by noon he would trade the coffee in for beer, or sometimes liquor. “Jesus Christ, Harold, are you even fucking here? I swear, if you don’t cut this Benedictine bullshit…”

            “You mean Dominican, babe,” he said through the paper, “The Dominicans had the vow of silence.” She cursed again, grabbed the keys, and stormed out the back door.

            I grabbed a bowl from the cupboard and planted myself next to dad at the table. As I poured some Cheerios and milk he put his paper down, “Morning, boy.”

            He always greeted me by cupping the back of my head with an enormous hand and massaging it with his fingers. “Hey dad,” I said through a mouth of cereal. He dug through the mess of newspaper in front of him and pulled out the comics. He folded the page up, slid it my way, and went back to reading. I couldn’t understand why Marti and mom were so mean to him all the time.

            After rinsing out the bowl with little O’s pasted to it, I made my way to the door. “I want you to stay within an ear-shot, Jim,” dad instructed, “The paper says another kid went missing this week.”

            “I know. I will,” I replied heading out. This was the third one in two months. A fourth grader from school disappeared a while back while playing in his front yard. The police had no idea what happened. One minute he was there, the next he was gone. A bunch of parents, my dad included, got together to go look for him every day for the following week. All they found was his bike in the woods about ten miles away from his house.

---

 

             I rode my bike in small figure-8s in the street outside of Tony’s house waiting for him to come rolling down the driveway. Tony and I had been best friends for as long as I could remember. All the other kids on the street were either too old or too young to play with. So most of the time we’d just ride our bikes around until the street lights came on, go home, then do the same thing all over the next day.

            Just as I was about to give up on waiting, Tony came pedaling my way, “Sorry, man. My mom was being all weird about me going out.”

            “Cause of the other kid disappearing?” I asked.

            “Cause of the other kid disappearing,” he answered.

            We raced each other up and down the street until our shirts were soaked through with sweat. “This is boring,” Tony said, beads of moisture dripping down his face, “and hot. Let’s get some ice cream.”

            “I don’t know. My dad told me to stay close. Anyway, I don’t have any money.”

            “It’ll be fine. We’ll only be gone for a few minutes. And I just got my allowance yesterday; you can pay me back later.”

            It didn’t take too much persuading. It was too hot to turn down free ice cream and I had a huge crush on the girl who worked at the corner store. She was a few years older than us and had already begun to … fill out. And she wasn’t shy about showing it off.

---

            Standing in line, I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. Despite her constant smile, you could tell she wasn’t happy about being cooped up in a small shack serving little kids ice cream all day.

            As we got closer to the front of the line, Tony nudged me, “Hey, check that guy out,” I followed Tony’s eyes across the street, “He’s been staring over here since we pulled up.”  Behind the window of an old, blue pickup truck was a round, mustached face. Even as our eyes met, he didn’t break his gaze from behind a pair of thick, horn-rimmed glasses. Heat and all, a cold jolt crept up my spine.

            “What would you guys like?” Tony and I both jumped as she called for our order.

            “Uh… We’ll take two chocolate-dipped vanilla cones, please,” Tony unfolded a couple of crumbled bills and slid them across the counter.

            “Hey, how long has that guy been over there?” I asked her, my nerves still reeling.

            “Hmm? What guy?” She asked, digging into the giant box of vanilla delicious.

            As I pointed across the street, where the old pickup had been was now just an empty parking lot. I didn’t say anything, just accepted the weird look she gave as she handed us our cones.

            “We’re just being paranoid, Tony,” I said, less to reassure him than myself.

---

            On the bike ride home, I had a hard time enjoying the cone; partly because I couldn’t ride straight with one hand and partly because my bladder was about to erupt, but mostly because I couldn’t take my mind off of the man in the truck.

            “Hold up, man. I gotta whizz,” I said to Tony. I dropped my bike, handed him my ice cream, and scurried off into someone’s backyard behind a row of bushes.

            Just as I had finished, I heard Tony’s voice screaming, “Jim!” I ran back to the street but he was gone. All that was left were two half-finished ice cream cones melting on the pavement; even my bike was missing. I froze. Every nerve in my body locked. All I could think was, Get dad.

            I sprinted down the street. My legs were jelly and burned like fire, but somehow they kept me upright. I burst through the front door of our house, ran to the kitchen where dad was still reading the paper, and threw up all over the floor. He shot out of his chair and grabbed a wad of paper towels, “Whoa. James, are you alright?”

            I was hunched and panting. At first I couldn’t talk, but eventually I got out, “Tony… Tony…”

            In between gulps of air, I explained what we had done, apologizing profusely for leaving the neighborhood. I told him about the man in the truck and Tony disappearing. Without a word, he left the room and ran upstairs. I heard him shuffling around his bedroom closet. When he came back down, he grabbed his keys and handed them to me, “Go start the car, I’ll be out in a minute.” As I walked out the door, he was picking up the phone.

            I sat in the passenger seat shaking uncontrollably. Dad came out a few minutes later. When he climbed into the car, his shirt folded exposing the pistol tucked into his pants. “If you saw the truck again, would you know it?” He asked. The tone in his voice was completely alien, his posture looked painfully upright, and the usual distance in his eyes had turned into something very present. I wasn’t sure if the man in the driver’s seat was even my father. I started to cry.

            He cupped the back of my head, “Jim, this is very serious…”

            “Y-yes… I’d know it.”

---

            It was dusk and we had covered every street around the area. Dad would stop occasionally at different stores and restaurants asking about the truck but no one had seen anything. As the last light of sunset faded, dad looked to me. Tears were forming in his eyes, “We’ll start looking again first thing in the morning. Alright, champ?” I couldn’t answer. It wasn’t alright, but what else were we going to do?

            I cried to myself as we retraced our route home. It was the first time I had ever cried for someone other than myself. I had other friends, but not like Tony. He was a brother.

            As I began to recognize our surroundings again, I recognized something else. At the pump of the gas station near the corner store was the old, blue truck. In the bed were two bikes, mine and Tony’s.

            “STOP!” I yelled. Dad complied. “That’s him! Those are our bikes!”

            We sat in the car and watched as the mustached man pumped gas into his truck, his eyes scanning his surroundings. When he apparently seemed satisfied that no one was watching, he pulled the bikes from the rear of the truck and tossed them into a nearby dumpster. I looked to dad. His focus was sharp and his gaze emotionless. I opened my mouth to say something but he immediately shushed me.

            As the truck pulled out of the gas station, dad turned the lights off of the car and followed. He stayed a careful distance away, never getting closer than 30 feet. Eventually the truck pulled into a driveway not too far from our own house. Dad stopped the car on the street and left it running.

            “Son,” his eyes stayed on the man, “do you remember how to drive?”

            I couldn’t answer. On the last day of 6thgrade last year I had taken the car out one night with Tony just to see what it was like, but we never got caught. How could he have known?

            “Jim,” this time he looked at me, his expression asked the question again.

            “Yea... Yea, I remember.”

            “Good. If I’m not back here in 10 minutes, I want you to go home and call 9-1-1. No questions, ok?”

            I nodded.

            He got out of the car, quietly shutting the door behind him. I looked to the clock in the dashboard, 9:52. I began to count in my head, “1-1000, 2-1000, 3-1000, 4-1000…” When the clock switched over to 9:53, I restarted.

            Just as the digits turned to 9:55, I heard what sounded like a whip cracking but louder. A few seconds later, another. I began to shake again. At 10:00, dad calmly walked out of the front door holding Tony who was only wearing a pair of underwear. He placed Tony in the backseat. Tony didn’t say anything, only curled up and stared at nothing.

            Dad climbed back into the driver seat, turned the headlights on, and shifted the car into drive. As we pulled off, he cupped the back of my head.

Summer of '84
By: Dylan Gierok