Later the younger boy would say one morning, dark still, less than eight hours of sleep between the three of them, that's the last time, mom, we're not going through this again, we're leaving, we have to leave this time, and she asked, are you sure? Because we could just get a motel?
They took that ridiculous route to the 5, thinking he could be following, that he had read their minds like he'd done before, down to Burns, first, then back and up and down and over to Eugene; she nearly forty and this boy, Lance, 15, cruising motels by the university, Springfield, out by the mall, nothing felt safe, and then for the next two days driving the I5-South, almost all the way to the end.
Camp Pendleton, everything's brown except the ocean and the sky, the sun hurts their eyes, sleeping on the floor and couch, she knows this can't last long, the younger boy looking sadder and more scared each hour that passes, she thinks her head will split wide open. But they're elated to see the older boy, her son, his brother, they've missed him so much. Pendleton, their refuge; daily she's ashamed of what she said to the recruiter when he'd first called.
Once he said, you know mom, I think I'm luckier than Lance is because I never expected any love from my dads so when I didn't get it, it didn't hurt me.
Advice, (warnings). Teachers counselors, friends, the police. The marine recruiter. You're going to have to be firm with him, make him straighten up and fly right, don't let him be a quitter, a wuss. Both her boys with broken fathers.
After boot camp he's at training when his sergeant calls her, demanding she tell him where his marine is, it's the first she knows he's missing. When he finally calls, he tells her how he walked off base, bussed to the airport, called his grandparents for a ticket. Well go back, she tells him, but he can't, he says, he's already smoked dope and he'll go straight to the brig. All he wants is out. Help me mom. The grandparents take him to a Rangers game, she pictures him in the hot sun, probably wearing his baseball hat, (ten years old, playing minor ball, begging the coaches to let him catch, and when they relent, the first pitch takes the mitt clear off his hand.)
The sergeant is impatient with her silence. Play God, he says, it's your call. Are you going to let him come running home to Mommy? Or do you want his U.A. to come out clean.
He's at Fuji on September 11th, and can't contact her for three days, but he's not even in any danger yet, that's months ahead. Oh, no, I'm sorry! Please come back. Don't die over there. I lied. I'm sorry. And while she waits and pleads and bargains, she pinches the softest skin under her arm, hard.
2005
They took that ridiculous route to the 5, thinking he could be following, that he had read their minds like he'd done before, down to Burns, first, then back and up and down and over to Eugene; she nearly forty and this boy, Lance, 15, cruising motels by the university, Springfield, out by the mall, nothing felt safe, and then for the next two days driving the I5-South, almost all the way to the end.
Camp Pendleton, everything's brown except the ocean and the sky, the sun hurts their eyes, sleeping on the floor and couch, she knows this can't last long, the younger boy looking sadder and more scared each hour that passes, she thinks her head will split wide open. But they're elated to see the older boy, her son, his brother, they've missed him so much. Pendleton, their refuge; daily she's ashamed of what she said to the recruiter when he'd first called.
Once he said, you know mom, I think I'm luckier than Lance is because I never expected any love from my dads so when I didn't get it, it didn't hurt me.
Advice, (warnings). Teachers counselors, friends, the police. The marine recruiter. You're going to have to be firm with him, make him straighten up and fly right, don't let him be a quitter, a wuss. Both her boys with broken fathers.
After boot camp he's at training when his sergeant calls her, demanding she tell him where his marine is, it's the first she knows he's missing. When he finally calls, he tells her how he walked off base, bussed to the airport, called his grandparents for a ticket. Well go back, she tells him, but he can't, he says, he's already smoked dope and he'll go straight to the brig. All he wants is out. Help me mom. The grandparents take him to a Rangers game, she pictures him in the hot sun, probably wearing his baseball hat, (ten years old, playing minor ball, begging the coaches to let him catch, and when they relent, the first pitch takes the mitt clear off his hand.)
The sergeant is impatient with her silence. Play God, he says, it's your call. Are you going to let him come running home to Mommy? Or do you want his U.A. to come out clean.
He's at Fuji on September 11th, and can't contact her for three days, but he's not even in any danger yet, that's months ahead. Oh, no, I'm sorry! Please come back. Don't die over there. I lied. I'm sorry. And while she waits and pleads and bargains, she pinches the softest skin under her arm, hard.
2005
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