Ride Up To Horseshoe Lake

Lloyd continued the surveillance from his bike, hoping the squad parked in Mrs. Linseed’s 
driveway would disappear and somehow fall off the face of the earth. He even prayed to 
God that if the police would leave, respond to some other call and never come back, he would 
stop writing the dirty letters. Then he stopped pleading, perhaps the police were there for other 
reasons, for some other disturbance. It was possible, Mrs. Linseed called the police for almost 
anything, loud mufflers, burning leaves, barking dogs. But as twenty minutes passed, then thirty, 
he grew nervous again. He could feel it, the squad was there because of him. 
As he waited, he began matting down his blonde hair in a stroke of worry, back to front, back to 
front... His chin, no longer pointing toward the Linseed’s was down close to his chest. Two kids 
on bikes whipped by, startling him enough to stop with his hair and bring the nail of his middle 
finger to his mouth. They had no worries, none of this magnitude he thought, working the torn 
nail with an eyetooth. He was a wreck, and them, just carefree bodies of noise. When the kids 
disappeared he began a slow coast down the street.
He was headed to Phoebe’s up on the hill. Although he wrote the four letters to Mrs. Linseed, it 
was Phoebe Helmers who created Neal -- the twenty-six-year-old construction worker, the 
Casanova made out to look like the author of the letters.  Letters that weren’t violent or mean 
spirited, but merely soft erotic love notes. School was out; it was something to help pass the time. 
It was Lloyd and Phoebe’s little summer joke.
It all started with some stationery. A gaudy, powder blue onion skin which had been a free gift for 
mail-ordering a set of interior decorating books. It was something Phoebe’s mother would never 
notice missing. It was perfect. Lloyd and Phoebe finished each letter off with a generous mist of 
Cool Water cologne. Since Phoebe’s father didn’t wear men’s perfume, they lifted what they needed 
from Lloyd’s father. 
Although Phoebe was the creator, the architect of the letters, her penmanship was too flowery, so 
that’s where Lloyd came in, playing the role of copy machine. 
“How ‘bout the word gigantic right here?” Lloyd said while writing the third letter. A practice pad of 
paper next to him, covered with signature experiments of the name Neal.
“Yeah, yeah gigantic is good,” she said, blowing cigarette smoke through the patio screen, “No, 
wait… immense is better,” she added.
“I already wrote gigantic.”
“Gigantic will work,” she said, “You’ve got to wash your hands though. What were you working 
on your bike?”
They spelled Neal out in the letters as tan, six foot, rugged jaw line. One letter declared how he 
could make Mrs. Linseed feel dirty if she liked, but not too dirty. I’ll eat the salty tears of you was 
about as racy as it got, although they looted plenty of ideas from Phoebe’s mother’s arsenal of 
supermarket novels and paperback erotica. Everything from tie-up games to blindfolds, to body 
oils, bath salts, scented candles, even mood music from Brazil. 
Mrs. Linseed had sparked Lloyd and Phoebe’s attention with her flamboyant, afternoon bike rides. 
Usually cruising down Glencove with no-hands, wearing mirrored sunglasses and a white visor. 
The letters had Neal claim to have spotted Mrs. Linseed biking in the subdivision while he worked 
construction, repairing pot holes and weather cracks. There had been a road crew in the area 
earlier in the summer, so it seemed credible enough for the letters.
As Lloyd turned the corner at Hillview and Glencove, he wondered what his father would say about 
e police, his mother about the dirty letters. It could get ugly if he was discovered. Things were shaky
 enough at the Marsh’s house. His father had been away a lot, on the road interviewing, trying to 
find the accounting controller job he had lost last winter. His mother slept during the day and 
worked nights at a bar and grill called The Well. A day sleeper with Lloyd around and his three 
younger brothers, ages six, eight, and nine meant she didn’t sleep much and walked around in a 
cloud.  The possibility of relocating if his father found work, the arguments about his mother’s part 
time job. This was not a good time. Lloyd was alone, and climbing the steep incline of Glencove 
Court, he felt it.
The three homes at the top of the Court were the nicest in the neighborhood. Built twenty years 
later than the original subdivision after some apple farmer sold off some of his land. Each one in 
the trio was painted white. One a Saltbox, with a four car garage, the other, a Tudor Colonial with a 
turret tower rolled into the side of it, and finally Phoebe’s house, a Grand Victorian with a wrap 
around porch. The homes at the bottom of the hill were not only older, but smaller than the big three.
 Ranches with swimming pools, swing sets, sand boxes, and lawn sprinklers. A quiet place. 
A garage door up, garage door down community. 
When Lloyd reached the top of the hill he was out of breath. Sweat was starting to surface on his 
forehead, and his armpits were beginning to stick to his shirt. There was a yellow Stanley Steamer 
van backed into Phoebe’s driveway with blue hoses sticking from its back and snaking into the 
garage. Phoebe was on her front porch wearing a red T-shirt and a purple and blue swim suit 
bottom. He decided to hold off about the police. Blurting out would show worry, he would have to 
wait, and slide it into the conversation.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” she replied, squinting from the cigarette in her mouth. There was a bottle of silver nail polish 
next to her, “Your hair looks particularly wild today,” she said. 
Lloyd ruffled his bangs some. 
Yep, he was back again, like every other morning after Phoebe’s parents left for work,  usually 
helping himself to the door, a soda, and the Playstation. 
 Phoebe’s mother was a real estate agent, immersed in building her little empire, while Phoebe’s 
father bought pharmaceuticals for Kmart stores in the Midwest. Her parents did not run her life on 
a tight leash like a dog, but more like a house cat, that you leave an extra helping of food and water 
for in case you slip away a little longer than expected. Phoebe liked her music with Parental 
Advisory labels on them, her video games rated M and her movies, R. Like Lloyd, she was fifteen, 
a stick, flat as a board as they say, but Lloyd didn’t care, he liked her looks. Her wide shoulders, the
 freckles below her eyes, the tiny black birthmark at her collar bone. 
 “Shane’s coming over,” she said, barely moving her lips -- looking over her nails. It was a hint for 
Lloyd not to get too comfortable. It was her pissy mood. One of many. One of many moods that she 
extended: the obnoxious, the sad, the needy, the manipulative, the funny, the giddy. This one, just 
pissy.
Shane Bowen was nineteen and home for the summer from some college in St. Louis. His parents
 were friends with hers. He had a mohawk, a fake id, and a car.
“There’s a cop car at Linseed’s,” Lloyd said, hoping the news would somehow rattle her, maybe 
enough to cancel plans with Shane Bowen. 
“Really,” she said, carefully placing her cigarette on the edge of the porch. She began moving her 
hands back and forth to dry the polish. She didn’t flinch, she wasn’t even thinking about the letters 
or the police. “What are you doing today?” she asked. 
“I dunno,” he said, drooped over his handlebars. “Outrun the cops.” This was a good answer he 
thought, smooth, carefree. He hoped she would bite, show some concern. 
“You think she called because of the letters?” She mocked, and picked up her cigarette to knock the ash.
 “Probably,” he said, managing a soft laugh as he pulled his front tire off the ground.
“Watch it’s like some federal offense because it was with her mail box,” she said.
His front tire fell back down. His stomach was getting sour. He didn’t want her to talk anymore.
“I heard sirens last night,” she added. She was telling the truth, the sirens had been wailing 
somewhere outside of the subdivision last night. It was around midnight when they woke her up. 
She had been sleeping for a couple of hours, and after the sirens had faded she heard her parents 
downstairs arguing about money. Then it became silent, accept for the ping of cubes hitting glass, 
then the crack and fizz of ice, soda, and liquor. Phoebe thought her parent’s fight had something to 
do with what her mother had spent at a Pampered Chef party but wasn’t sure. 
“You didn’t hear sirens…” Lloyd said. 
 “Someone’s a little agitated…” she said and smiled, then looked away toward the street. It was 
Shane Bowen, coming up the hill in a blue Dodge. It was an older car with a gritty, loud exhaust. 
The door molding on the passenger side was a couple bumps away from falling off.
 Phoebe stood up and looked herself down, particularly her breasts and how they poked her t-shirt. 
Lloyd stayed on his bike, hunched over, occupying himself by tightening something at the front fork
 and wheel hub of his bike.
Shane Bowen’s walk up the drive was stiff and hard on the heels, making his black boots click on 
the asphalt. He was tall and solid, but baby faced, with smooth blushy red clouds at the top of his 
cheeks. His mousy brown mohawk was matted down and sleeping. He was wearing cut off jeans 
and a T-shirt with a giant picture of George Bush across the front. Bush was grinning in the photo 
while the S in the word Bush was made to look like a swastika. His grin, his nose, his walk, 
everything about Shane Bowen was self assured.
“Nice lawn,” he pointed.
 “How’s it goin?” Phoebe asked. 
 “It’s goin’,” he said as the three met at the edge of the open garage. Shane nodded to Lloyd as if 
to say that everything with him being there was cool with him, then folded his arms and began 
twisting a bit, as if working kinks out in his back. 
One of the Stanley Steamer employees came out into the garage. He looked young, like he may 
have dropped out of high school. His cheeks and forehead covered in acne looked dry and flaky, 
pale from face medicine. He grabbed a plastic jug of purple solution from the van and a small bottle 
of Joy dishwashing soap. He avoided eye contact with the three of them and followed the blue 
hoses back into the house. A second worker emerged a short time later, an older man. He was black,
 dark skinned, and although closely shaven, his beard and moustache line soaked up the color of 
his skin, as if his five o’clock shadow bloomed before he had a chance to put his shaving kit away. 
He was big featured, big nose, ears, and hands. His lips were big too, as if it would take an incredible
 smile to see his teeth. He grabbed a silver thermos from the van and went back inside.
“You guys want something to drink?” Phoebe asked Lloyd and Shane.
“I’ll take a soda,” Shane said.
Lloyd said he wanted one too.
 Her mood had changed, she was happy now that Shane was there. Even her walk through the 
garage to the house was for him. Her butt was up, and her shoulders stiff. She moved slow. 
Shane stopped her just before she entered the doorway,  “ What kind of soda are you bringing me?”
 he asked.
“I don’t know…” Phoebe whined. 
“I don’t know…” Shane echoed.
“Well what do you want?”
“I’ll go with you,” he said, walking toward Phoebe. Phoebe smiled then wiped something off her lip, 
extra spit maybe, then glanced over to Lloyd before disappearing with Shane to the refrigerator in 
the basement. 
It was an old refrigerator with a tap handle stuck in its door, usually filled with a quarter barrel of 
Michelob Light and a couple cases of soda. Last summer Lloyd and Phoebe had filled two Kool 
Aid pitchers of her father’s beer, and a couple cans of Mello Yello to chase some vodka, then 
retreated to the apple orchards lining the outskirts of the subdivision. 

They had walked deep into the orchard, drinking for hours in the dark, talking about dead
grandparents, cremation, planets, and stars. Phoebe drank enough to cry, sobbing about howmuch
her parents used to care about her, especially her mother, but how work and money and commissions
and St. John tunics and Starbucks Grande Lattes and twelve dollar salads for lunch, had become
so God damn almighty. So damn important... Flustered, Lloyd offered a hug, then a kiss. She kissed
him back, before burying her wet eyes into his chest. Then she got up and got sick. After moving to
a different tree, Lloyd continued to finish off the second pitcher of beer, while Phoebe left for home,
promising to return with a blanket, and some food to absorb the alcohol.
But before Phoebe could reach the back door of her house she threw up again. The second time
around was more vicious -- loud and dry. Suddenly a floodlight was pouring over her off the patio
deck; her parents had come home early. After a sad, fruitless attempt to cover her stupor, she was
promised a lecture in the morning and sent to bed with ice water and a bottle of Pepto-Bismol.
Around midnight Phoebe’s parents were back in her room, shaking her awake. Lloyd Marsh’s
mother was on the phone looking for him. It took several minutes for Phoebe to focus, then after
a little water, managed to mutter something about their little booze camp in the orchard. Her parents
pleaded it was a big orchard, they needed something more specific. But Phoebe was too groggy
for detail, and after a series of unsuccessful prods, Phoebe’s parents, Lloyd’s parents, a half dozen
police officers, EMT’s, and a police helicopter from Milwaukee began combing the sublunary orchards.
The spotlight and noise of the helicopter woke up the entire neighborhood, except for Lloyd and
Phoebe. Phoebe, still in her bed, and Lloyd, passed out beneath the crown of a Macintosh tree.
Lloyd woke the next morning to his father’s voice, “I said, get in the God damn shower.” Lloyd
was still in his clothes from the night before, a pink colored, one hundred and fifty-dollar underage
drinking citation pinned to his T-shirt. His father poked him in the arm, “You’re going to be late for
work.”
Lloyd didn’t have a job, and as he showered, he tried to imagine what his father had cooked up for
punishment. Grass cutting, weeding, painting. He thought about Phoebe too, kissing and holding
her. What her mouth and tongue felt like on his mouth. The night was a movie playing out in his
head, until he pictured her turning over to get sick, then everything was back in real time.
In the kitchen his breakfast consisted of milk soaked Raisin Bran and a piece of burnt toast sitting
on a paper napkin of printed farm animals. The bread so heavily buttered it looked frosted. Next to
his breakfast was a stack of magazines, issues of his father’s subscription to Popular Mechanics,
Golf, and National Geographic. Lined up beside the magazines were two encyclopedias, A through
E and F through J.
“ Don’t feel good?” his father smiled. A toothpick moved with his lips as he talked. He was dressed
for the office.
“ Just tired,” Lloyd said softly. He managed a sip of orange juice which tasted acidic and almost
carbonated in his mouth.
“ Yeah right…” his father said. “We’re all tired Lloyd get used to it,” his father said while licking his
thumb, tending to a speck of something on his blue and gold tie. “You feel like everyone else in this
world… No one feels good… at least for any long periods of time anyway.”
His father slid some change off the counter, then his car keys, and dropped them into his front
pocket. He then sunk a black comb and a brown wallet into his back pocket, “Grab the books…
You’re spending the day with me..,” he said, snapping the clamp on his watch band, “You can’t
be trusted.”
Lloyd ate some of the cereal and took a bite of toast, an eyelash that had fallen and dropped into
the cereal was now floating in the milk. He was finished eating, and picked up the books and magazines
off the table.
His father sped quickly through the morning traffic with a fingernail at his mouth. He talked in
spurts, claiming how Lloyd was too young, too immature to comprehend the depth of the trouble
he had caused. The helicopter, the citation, the drinking, waking up the God damn neighborhood.
“ You think I like looking like a clown?” He was calm when he said this though, still biting his nail.
He looked tired and gloomy.
Lloyd thought that maybe his father wasn’t even thinking about last night, or the police or the
neighbors. He was looking too far out of the windshield, “You don’t even know what trouble is…,”
his father added faintly.
Lloyd figured the long night of chasing his degenerate son with helicopters was part of it, but knew
there was more. It was the layoffs at work, dodging the firing squad. “I’m fine,” he would say to Lloyd’s
mother, but began working more hours -- earlier mornings, later nights. Lloyd’s mom had even
accused his father of having an affair, “Let me smell you,” she had said one night at the supper table. Lloyd’s younger brothers had laughed, convinced they were being appropriate, convinced their mother was playing around, even though they didn’t understand the joke. It was the end of summer, and by December his father would lose his job at Richmond Oven.
When they reached the employee lot his father found a space in the very back near a patch of trees.
“ They’ll be plenty of shade here,” he said. He then pointed to the back of the building toward three
shipping bays, where a man in a blue work uniform kicked chocks under the wheels of a white semi.
“There’s a bathroom and water cooler by the docks there. If anyone asks, tell em you’re my son.”
“You’re leaving? You’re leaving me here,” Lloyd said.
“This is the rest of your summer,” his father answered, shaking his head. “Get used to it…I’ll be
back at eleven-thirty for lunch.” His father then pulled a black attaché case from the backseat and
started walking toward the building.
Lloyd slept for the first hour or so, then began paging through the magazines. At lunchtime his
father was more talkative, and drove with the radio on. Talk radio – a man going off in some nasally
banter about the family saga to freeze or not freeze Ted Williams. Lloyd’s father had hopped on the
interstate and exited a short time later, reconvening the lecture from the morning ride, adding that if
Lloyd continued this pattern, he could end up a boy with a man’s problems.
“ I know you know what I mean Lloyd,” he said and continued talking for another five miles until
turning at a white and green sign that read, Hudson Supper Club and Golf Course – Public Welcome.

The entire area around the supper club, club house, and golf course was surrounded by pine trees.
All the buildings were painted white and dotted with red, gray, and brown fieldstone. Golf carts were
parked haphazardly near the entrance of the restaurant as if its drivers had bailed out before
stopping, while the air surrounding the restaurant looked smoky and smelled of charcoal and
meat. There was a step stool of bristle near the doorway for dirty golf shoes, and the supper club’s
menu, written in fancy cursive was posted behind a glass frame.
Inside, big bay windows overlooked the golf course. A dual sided fireplace which was dark and held
together by a massive stone base that you could sit down to tie your shoe at if needed, stood in the
center of the dinning room. There was a buffet line opposite the windows, consisting of stainless
steel tubs, long armed spoons and ladles, a tower of white plates, a chef in a funnel hat, cutting a
slab of ham under a red light, and gray haired men decked out in golf attire, chit chatting with clean
plates flushed to their chest…The hostess seated Lloyd and his father next to the fireplace and
asked if they needed menus.
“ We’ll take the buffet,” his father said, “And two Cokes,” then glanced out the window toward a
heavyset man taking practice swings with a cigar stuck in his mouth.
Lloyd’s father filled his plate with mashed potatoes and brown gravy, a piece of white fish, and a
chicken breast branded and scarred by a black grill, while Lloyd loaded his with mashed potatoes,
ham, rolls, and butter tablets with paper tongues.
At the table, his father’s leg bounced as they ate, “We were suppose to go on a family vacation this
summer,” he said, pulling a dinner roll apart, “Your mother didn’t want to. She thinks I’m going to
loose my job,” he smiled.
Lloyd took one of the butter tablets and buried it into his potatoes.
“ Your mother hasn’t… She hasn’t talked to you about any of this has she?”
“ No,” Lloyd said, shaking his head. “I’ve heard you both yelling about your job though.”
“ I ‘spose we have,” he said under his breath, then picked up his butter knife, “I have qualities Lloyd,
they’re just not as apparent as I’d like them to be.”
His father continued on about his position at work. About staff that had already been let go. He said
if Lloyd listened -- listened carefully, he might learn something useful, but never really clarified what
that something was. “You have know idea the humiliation of being escorted out with a box…I am not
going to be the chump with the box. I’d leave first. I’d get in my car,” he pointed, “And I would drive
until that tank was dry.”
“ What would you do then?” Lloyd asked.
His father hesitated, as if baffled by his son, then recovered quickly enough and was back down
picking at his plate. “Lloyd, I was just talking,” he said, shaking his head, “Don’t fill up on bread
now.”
A waitress came by to fill their water glasses. She was pretty, had dark hair, and was slender. Her
hair was tied up in the back. His father watched her walk away, down down down… then shifted to
Lloyd and winked, bringing the napkin to his mouth as if there was something shameful to wipe,
“ There’s a desert table over there,” he said, pointing with his fork.
When they were done eating, they walked out by the golf course and his father mentioned
something about taking Lloyd golfing sometime. Maybe when Lloyd wasn’t in so much trouble.
The punishment of spending time housed in his father’s car had lasted only three days. It was too
difficult for his father to do as he pleased with Lloyd around. No private lunches, home at 5 o’clock,
no peace. Besides it also brought unwanted attention. Coworkers thought it was odd, “That your
boy out there,” they would say. His father, who would have normally brushed off the comments
was running scared and thought it was best to leave Lloyd at home and join the other wallflowers
at the office.
Surprisingly Lloyd had enjoyed the reading time: An article on transient memory loss called Ghost
World. A piece on the crew of Air Force One titled, Flying High Again, and a cover story about the
Printing of Currency penned, Men Among Thieves -- A Government’s Struggle to Stay a Step Ahead
of the Counterfeiters. He also read two small books he had received a few birthdays ago, one called,
The Life of Jim Thorpe, the other, Being Roberto Clemente.
After the three-day tour in the parking lot at Richmond Oven, Lloyd was on house arrest and was
given a long to-do list which included cleaning out the garage and basement. He tried calling
Phoebe every few days, hanging up if her mother or father answered. Was she still thinking about
the kiss he wondered?
He saw Phoebe two weeks later registering for classes, hanging on the arm of a tall boy with a large
Adam’s apple, crew cut, and earring. She just smiled to Lloyd, a mere suggestion of the night in the
orchard. It was a turning point, Phoebe was no longer, if ever, interested in Lloyd Marsh, he could
feel it, and he couldn’t help but want her more.

Shane returned to the garage with a soda, “Phoebe told me to come out here so you wouldn’t get
mad. You’re not mad are you?” he smiled.
Lloyd said that he wasn’t as Shane was pulling a basketball from a bin beneath a small workbench.
He bounced it once, then worked the ball in his hands as if it wasn’t hard enough.
“ Watch this…” he said, and carried the ball to the hoop. He eyed up a shot, cupping a hand at his
brow like a horse blinker, then extended his arm with the ball, and effortlessly sunk a hook shot.
Phoebe returned with Lloyd’s soda and took a seat Indian style on the blacktop. She started picking
up tiny stones and throwing them, one by one onto the grass. Shane threw up another shot, an
outsider, which clunked hard off the rim and nailed Phoebe in the knee. Lloyd retrieved the ball
while Shane took a long sip off his soda and pointed for Lloyd to shoot. Lloyd bounced the ball a
couple of times.
“ C’mon Lloyd,” Shane said, “While I can still bear children.”
Lloyd bounced the ball again, showing no sign of throwing it up.
“ Take it from there,” Shane said, “We’ll start playing horse. We play all the time at school. Usually
pretty pummeled,” he laughed. Lloyd moved with the ball toward the center court and threw up a
shot. The ball hit the backboard, spun along the rim, and dropped in.
The Stanley Steamer workers had returned to the garage for their break. The younger one stood
with one shoe up against the garage wall. His lower lip stuffed with tobacco had him periodically
raising an empty root beer can to his mouth. The older one had pulled a white bandana from his
pocket and began wiping his face and forehead while walking to the passenger side of the work
van. He opened the door and pulled out an asthma inhaler from the glove box. His eyes bloomed
with each pump into his mouth. He then coughed and returned the inhaler to the glove box. His
walk had a bounce to it, and his smile suggested that he might blurt out something funny or
ridiculous, but never did.
By the time the Stanley Steamer workers wrapped up their break and headed inside, Lloyd was
ahead with HO over Shane’s, HORS. The three refrained from showing interest with the Stanley
Steamer crew, not even for a two-second joke about the one’s acne, or the honk when the black
man blew his nose. They were wrapped up in their own business. The game of horse, the upkeep
of airs, Shane’s flirtatious jabs to Phoebe about the shaving of her leg and armpit hair. Those kinds
of things. “What are you into territorial pissing too?” she said.
Shane over laughed with an explosive, hoarse, wheezy roar, one that you’d expect to come from
a fat kid, “rrright,” he said backing up towards the hoop, only to trip over Phoebe and take a spill
on the driveway. The fall only made him laugh harder while the ball rolled over to Lloyd and nudged
up against his ankle, as if it were a dumb little puppy that finally came after calling its name.
“ I didn’t say I liked it, I said I didn’t mind a little hair,” Shane said.
“ Sounds like a fetish to me,” she said.
This led to a story about some school friend’s father that got excited by watching women walk dogs.
Phoebe went on about how the man spends time near county parks and trails, waiting, in the family’s
mini-van, conveniently equipped with factory smoked windows.
“ Sometimes for hours,” Phoebe said, “It’s a leash fetish…He’s been like late for work because of it.”
Shane and Phoebe laughed some more, even Lloyd, although the story only reminded him to start
worrying again about the dirty letters and the police at the Linseed’s house.
As the game wore on, Lloyd hoped for some reference of something like, “Boy Shane, you’re getting your ass kicked,” or “Boy Shane, you really do suck,” or, “Gee Lloyd, you’re actually pretty good.” But there was none of that, and like some old husband, Lloyd wanted Phoebe to take notice.
Sometimes he pictured hopping on a bus with her, maybe to California, maybe Arizona, or New Mexico. They could pass for sixteen and get jobs for the summer, work a Burger King drive-thru, or a Wendy’s salad bar. He often pictured himself seated next to her, sleeping on some bus, her head against a window. He fantasized about their home life in some month to month, sleeping in the same bed, buying groceries of toothpaste, band aids, ketchup, paper towels, rubbers, cigarettes. He pictured her wet hair on a pillow. He pictured her needing him... But after it was all said and done, or, in this case, all dreamt up and done, he’d settle for the four hour drive up to Horseshoe Lake. A car ride, alone with her, even if it was just to drive up there, circle the lake road, and turn right back home. Maybe stop for clam chowder and cheeseburgers at Schriners Restaurant right off the interstate. That would be enough for him. At least for a little while...
A burgundy colored Sable shot up Glencove Court just before making a fast, wide sweeping turn
of the cul du sac. It was Lloyd’s mom.
She didn’t pull into the driveway, instead she stopped in the middle of the turn around and
motioned for Lloyd to meet her. She was wearing a green and white bathrobe and looked tired.
Lloyd grabbed his bike.
“You need to come home,” she said, just before Lloyd reached her. Then the car disappeared
down the hill, and Lloyd got on his bike.
As he was riding away he could hear Phoebe voice, then Shane’s laugh, “What did you forget to
take your Ridolin?” she shouted.
That laugh, Phoebe’s smile, the police, his mom, the letters. It all made his heart pound. He could
feel it in his neck. Then he too disappeared down the hill.
Lloyd would need to keep his dry throat from swallowing. He would need to act surprised, shocked
by any accusations, because the look on his mother’s face, the way she tugged her lip with her
teeth, all spelled out her conviction. Somehow she knew about the cops. Somehow she knew her
oldest was involved.
Lloyd laid his bike down at the back patio and walked slowly to the door. When he entered the
house his father rose from the couch and disappeared into the kitchen.
“ Don’t quote me. That’s what the police said,” his mom shouted. She was yelling at Lloyd’s father.
“ I don’t believe the police are even over there,” his father said.
“ Ray… Look out the fucking window…” she said, stranded in the middle of the room. Tiny slivers
of dark hung below her sleepy eyes.
The phone rang as his father took a plastic bag of lunch meat from the refrigerator and tossed it on
the counter. He pulled out a gallon of milk too, and then slammed the refrigerator door.
“ It’s her again. I’ll answer it,” his mother said.
“ I don’t know anything about any God damn letters,” his father muttered.
Lloyd could see his brothers through the window. They were in the backyard, playing in the
sandbox, filling a yellow dump truck with sand.
“ Hi Bobbie, yeah… he claims…,” she said walking with the phone, then looked up at Lloyd and
pointed to the window, “Watch your brothers,” she whispered and returned promptly to Bobbie
Linseed, “I appreciate that… No… Not an issue.”
Lloyd’s mom walked with the phone into the front room, pushing her finger to her ear, even though
for that moment it was quiet in the house. His father was making a sandwich in the kitchen.
“ And it was signed Neal?” she laughed. “I don’t know... who knows. You mean like kneel with a k?
No. He’s not that clever,” she laughed. He doesn’t even know what a play on words means.” When
she hung up the phone, Lloyd’s mother went to the front window, looking down the street toward
the Linseed’s.
“ What are they calling in for backup?” His father said, eating at the table.
“ I’m glad this is all so amusing…Aren’t you the least bit embarrassed that she would even mention
your name?”
“ No,” he said with a ball of sandwich in his cheek. “It sounds as if the police think she is a little
nutty too. It’s funny… Up until she calls, you can’t stand Bobbie Linseed. You don’t trust Bobbie
Linseed. You make me promise never to go over there. And now, now you--.”
“ How does she know the cologne you wear?”
“ I’ve worn it for almost ten years!”
The cologne. The Cool Water cologne… Lloyd pictured Phoebe with a cigarette dangling from her
mouth, spraying the envelope and both sides of the letter with it. Even then, he thought she had
over sprayed.
The phone rang again and his mother picked up, “Yes, I’m his wife. Sure, he’s right here,” she said
and walked the phone to Lloyd’s father. She was smiling, but unhappy, “Officer has a couple
questions for you,” she said with her chin.
His father finished chewing what he had in his mouth. Then wiped his lips with his hand, “Hello,”
he said, “Yes, Yes it is… No problem at all. Sure. That’s right.” Then his father listened a bit and
Lloyd’s mother motioned for Lloyd to meet her in the living room. She walked briskly with her
head down in deep thought, pink Kleenex was balled up in her hand. She cleared her nose a couple
times with a quick snort and sat down on a plaid, high back chair that Lloyd had seldom seen her on.
It was furniture for looks, and for relatives at Easter and Christmas. She put her feet up on an
ottoman and picked at her sleeve as if she were removing a piece of lint and needed it to
disappear before speaking.
“ I’ll say this because I think you are old enough to hear it, but your brothers-.” She stopped.
She would cry if she continued.
“ Mom,” Lloyd said.
“ Apparently, your father has done something,” she picked at her eyelid, “oh… displeasing.”
“What happened?” Lloyd said. The swallow in his throat had dropped and cleared.
“ I don’t know yet,” she said, unraveling her Kleenex ball, as if she were getting ready to use it.
“ Your father has been spending time with Bobbie… Mrs. Linseed up the street,” she said, batting
the drapery, which only dropped her Kleenex and lost her initial intention of pointing toward the
Linseed house. “He promised me three summers ago he would stop this crap.” She delivered the
word crap in a quick, airy tone, which flared up in her mouth like a loud whisper.
After his father hung up the phone, he walked into the room to join Lloyd and his mother. His
sandwich was back in his hand, “They’re checking into the city workers that were out in the
subdivision last month,” he said, and took a bite off some of the ham that was sticking out from
the bread. Lloyd’s mom bolted from the high back chair to the bedroom.
“Your mother’s paranoid,” he said to Lloyd. “Accusations, that carry no weight.” His index finger
had sprung from his fist when he said this.
When Lloyd’s mother returned from the bedroom, she had changed from her robe into a pair of
jeans and a purple bra. A lavender shirt was on both arms but stopped at the elbows, “I asked you
point blank-”
“ Isn’t everything suppose to be point blank?” his father yelled. “I know. I know. I know six months
ago,” his father said, “How many times are we going to revisit this?”
“ Did you tell your son what you did six months ago?” she said. “Huh?” Her head was shaking
somewhat when she said this.
“ Your mother thinks I have a crush on Mrs. Linseed,” he smiled, even batted his eyes.
“ Remember when your father disappeared for a night,” she said quickly. “A week before Christmas,
remember hun?”
Lloyd shrugged.
“ He spent the night at Mrs. Linseed’s drinking beer.”
“I’ve known her since high school,” his father said.
“ What the fuck does that mean? Are you grand-fathered in or something?”
“ We just talked and I fell asleep! It was an accident.”
“ Well,” his mother said. She pulled the shirt up and over her head. “Finally. An admission of
something.” She folded her arms as if she were cold and leaned out, craning her neck, “You
and your main squeeze get in a tiff? Huh? What are you stalking her with letters…” Now Lloyd’s
mom was the one smiling.
His father got up and walked to the kitchen. He opened a bottle of beer and tossed its cap into the
garbage -- he wasn’t going to be taunted or questioned. He was done. Lloyd’s mother grabbed her
purse off the ledge in the hallway, a place she always kept it, and left the house. Then it was quiet.
It remained quiet, even when Lloyd’s brothers were in for the night. His father had made over-easy
eggs with toast and instructed the boys to put ketchup on them, which they did. He told Lloyd and
his brothers that their mom left early for work and should get ready for bed by themselves, then
stood the ketchup bottle on its head and stopped talking for the night.
Lloyd wondered where his mother was. He thought the mall, maybe trying on a pair of jeans or a
watch. Then he wondered what she was going to do after that, and he thought maybe she would
eat dinner, but not at the mall, he wasn’t sure where. He couldn’t picture where she would go to eat
dinner alone.
When they finished their eggs, Lloyd helped his brothers with their baths. He wasn’t worried
about the police anymore, or thinking about his mom, he was thinking about Phoebe, and what
mood she would be in tomorrow when he biked up to see her.

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