The Fallen Odyssey

Chapter 2: Remember the Maine

"Dad?" Justin called as he stepped through the front door, trying, as usual, not to look at the coat rack.

"Living room!"

Justin left his boots on and walked to the living room, which was also the dining room, depending on the time of day. Benjamin Holmes sat at the table. His glasses were perched at the end of his rather large nose, and he turned to look at Justin not through the glasses but over them. There was a chip in the left lens that had been there so long Justin doubted Ben even noticed it anymore.

"She'll be seaworthy by dinner," Ben said, showing off the hollow piece of plastic in his hands-the hull of the model ship Justin had given him as a Christmas gift that morning.

Justin looked at it and made an acknowledging sort of noise in his throat that was not quite a confirmation, not quite a sigh. It came out as a dull, noncommital, "Hmm."

Ben craned his neck to look through his glasses and used a tiny brush to apply some glue to the crow's nest. He looked so stupid doing that... Why didn't he just push his glasses up so he could see through them like a normal person?

"I'm thinking of calling her the Maine," he said. "Remember the Maine."

"Not really," said Justin.

"It wasn't a question," Ben said. "Remember the Maine. The Spanish-American War. Don't they teach history anymore?"

Justin looked around the table at the scattered bags of tiny plastic pieces and paints. "Where are the instructions?"

"******** the Maine! To hell with Spain!'" said Ben. "It was a battle cry. The sinking of the Maine is what sparked the war, but, to this day, nobody knows if Spain had anything to do with the Maine going down."

"Hmm," Justin said again, same inflection.

Silence.

"Did the Lewises lend you the salt?" Ben said.

Justin looked away. He had almost forgotten the pretense he had invented to leave the house. "It's Christmas," he said with a shrug. "How could they say no?"

"Good," said Ben. "Wouldn't want Uncle Paul and Grandpa getting stuck in the driveway again."

"Maybe they should just stay home," said Justin. "The plows haven't been out at all, and I think it's supposed to get even worse."

"I doubt that'll stop them," said Ben. "Uncle Paul said Grandpa really wanted to see you today."

"I guess I'd better clear the driveway, then," said Justin.

Without waiting for a response, he walked back out to the front door. He felt a pang of guilt for lying to his dad about where he'd been, but it would pass.

As he grabbed a pair of gloves from the closet, his eyes went automatically to the coat rack and the green jacket. It had hung there, unmoved and untouched, for almost a year. Exactly where his mother had left it.

From the garage, Justin grabbed a plastic shovel with a metal edge and a bag of rock salt left over from the previous winter, with an old Pittsburgh Pirates souvenir cup inside as the scoop. His breath showed in puffs of vapor as he got to work. The scrape of the metal edge against the ice echoed up and down Main Street Extension. Each time he cleared a row, he dipped the Pirates cup into the bag, pulled out a scoop of salt, and spread it over the concrete. The irony was that after a few rows, he actually was running low on salt. Hopefully Jeff had some.

As Justin turned toward the Emersons' house, a small brown object half-buried in the snow along their sidewalk caught his eye. He squinted and recognized it. He speared his shovel into the snow to stand it up, then walked to the waist-high picket fence separating the Holmes and Emerson properties.

Justin braced himself against the top of the fence. He did a few warm-up motions-he hadn't done this since he was a kid-and boosted himself up and over the fence to the Emersons' side. He crossed the driveway, walked to the sidewalk, and stooped to pick up the brown object: one of two stuffed Curious Georges.

Brushing the snow from its head, he carried it to the front door. He raised his hand to ring the doorbell but, on second thought, came up short. Instead, he tilted back the lid of the old-fashioned letter box mounted on the wall by the door. He placed George standing in the box. Then he rang the doorbell, turned, and ran.

This time, Justin took the fence in a leap, no warm-ups. He lost his footing when he landed on the other side and fell flat on his rear end. He started to stand but heard the Emersons' front door open, so he ducked low to stay hidden.

A pause.

"Well, look who's here!" Jeff announced, chuckling. "Come and see who's at the door!"

A moment later, a little girl's giggle floated across the frozen lawn.

"Must've hitched a ride on Santa's sleigh," said Jeff. His voice shifted, directed toward the Holmes house, and he added, "Thank you, Santa, for giving Georgie-boy a ride home!"

Justin cupped his gloved hands over his mouth. "Ho, ho, ho!" he bellowed.

When the Emersons' door swung shut again, Justin stood back up and brushed himself off.

Justin's gaze wandered to the basketball hoop mounted on the garage. Bending over, he scooped up a handful of snow, smashed it into a tight ball, and took a jump-shot. The snowball sailed in an arc, came down through the rim, and broke into a white cloud against the frozen net. As he turned, he realized he was being watched from his dining room window.

Ben Holmes, perched forward a bit in his wheelchair, raised both hands, pantomiming the referee signaling that the three-pointer was good. Justin tried not to smile but couldn't help it. He grabbed the shovel and returned to the half-cleaned driveway.