Chapter 35: Going Home

We traveled most of the day, the car loaded with my clothes, my football gear, other sporting equipment and a footlocker full of underwear and socks. Except for Ned's constant counseling, the trip was uneventful, quite different from our first trip together when we didn't know each other very well. I'm not sure if the things he told me were his ideas or Mr. Oldham's. I even picked up on advice I attributed to Suzanne. Nothing he said was new. He reiterated what had been drummed into me over the past year. Although, there were some new ground rules that I was to follow.

We stayed in a motel overnight and were waiting for Judge Slocum when he arrived at his office on Monday morning. The Judge acted like he didn't remember me until Ned reminded him that Mr. Oldham had been entrusted with my welfare a year before. He recalled that he had received good reports about me. It turned out to be a short meeting. After telling me that he expected the good reports to continue and hearing me promise they would, the Judge said he would see me the following month. We left his office mystified as no meeting date had been specified.

The little house looked different than I remembered. Ned parked the car down the street and we sat there several minutes, taking in the neighborhood. The house was even smaller and closer to the neighboring houses than I recalled. "Are you sure you want to do this?" He asked and I nodded.

My mom came out the front door, like she had been expecting us when we pulled up in front of the house. She exclaimed about how much I had grown in the past year. Ned told her my height and weight, commenting that I had grown three and one-half inches and gained thirty-five pounds during the thirteen months I had been away.

Ned spent the morning with us, getting me set up in the house, making arrangements for me to have a bank account, a clothing store account, a sports equipment account and a place on the sophomore class roster. My records from C.M.A. had been forwarded to the high school and the principal was expecting me. Enrollment went smoothly and I was able to take the same classes I would have taken had I attended C.M.A. except the names of the courses were slightly different.

There was one major hang-up. The head football coach was reluctant to accept me on his team because football practice had been underway for over a month and he said I would be too far behind to catch up. Ned spoke to him privately and convinced him that I would not only be able to catch up, I would help the team. When we shook hands and said goodbye that afternoon I was enrolled in school and looking forward to football practice. Ned said he would call me often.

Coach Nelson begrudgingly introduced me to Coach Phillips, telling him to show me around and set me up with a locker. I recognized some of the players from the past, but they didn't pay any attention to me until they saw that I had my own pads and shoes. This caused some heckling and catcalls. They pegged me as a rich kid until Piggy Tipton told them who I was. "That's Sammy Kovel. He ain't got shit!" I silently thanked Piggy and noticed he was even fatter than I remembered him from the eighth grade.

I was relegated to practice with the freshmen, thirteen and fourteen year old kids who were getting their first taste of football practice. Ten minutes into the first blocking drill Coach Phillips swore at me for hitting a kid too hard and told me to run two laps. On my first time around the track I was running past the varsity team and I saw Coach Nelson watching me. His expression told me that he had already pegged me as a troublemaker.

We had a reunion dinner that night, my mom, Heather and me. Heather waited until our mother left for work before saying she was going out. I didn't give a shit. I was already sick of her whining about everything from her stinking job to her stinking boyfriend. I opened my biology textbook and studied the first five chapters. At 10 P.M. I rolled out my new sleeping bag in front of the couch and crawled inside. What had I gotten myself into? Everything had changed. The house was smaller than I remembered, my mother seemed older, my sister seemed grouchier and the town seemed smaller than I remembered. I missed the Oldham home. I missed the Baldwin sisters. I even missed Suzanne and I had a feeling that I would miss C.M.A.

It must have been around midnight when I was awakened by Heather's spike heel piercing my arm. The point of the heel speared my forearm, causing me to react while I was still asleep. "What the fuck?" I heard Heather say as she landed on the couch behind me.

"What the fuck? Turn on the fucking light," a male voice said.

"Sammy? Is that you? What are you doing down there?" Heather asked in a whiny voice.

"This is where I sleep," I said, getting to my feet, pissed at being awakened.

"Who the fuck is that?" The male voice asked.

"He's my brother," Heather said but he didn't hear her. He was too busy trying to remove my hand from around his throat and my thumb from his windpipe. I backed him to the door and pushed him outside where I left him on the ground, coughing and wheezing.

"What did you do that for?" My sister asked from her bedroom door, having switched a light on.

"I didn't like being woke up. Don't do it again," I said as I pulled the top of the sleeping bag over my body, preparing to go back to sleep.

"Don't tell me what to do," she said, really pissing me off.

"Heather, you're drunk. Shut your door and go to bed. We'll talk tomorrow," I said, trying to sound calm.

"You have no right to tell me what to do," she said, but by the time I got to my feet she was safely behind her door and I was standing in the dark. The next morning I tried to tell her how it was going to be, that I was going to occupy the front room and that I needed to get my rest. She was in no mood to listen.

I practiced with the freshmen team the rest of the week, really trying to abide by Coach Phillips' rules, but it was hard. I kept reminding myself that this was not Cromwell; they do things differently here. I only knew one way to practice; keep your helmet on and keep moving. As Ned warned me, this was not Cromwell.

At the end of practice on Friday Coach Thomas caught up with me and ran the last two laps by my side. He said he was the 'B' team coach and that I was to report to him on Tuesday, the first day of school. He told me not to think of it as a promotion. I was being moved away from the freshman team because parents had complained about their sons coming home with bloody noses. "We'll see how tough you are among kids your own size," he said at the end of the run.

On Saturday Heather complained to our mother about me ordering her around. Mom took my side, but not effectively enough to convince my sister that she was to respect my wishes. Heather was not impressed that I would be footing the grocery bill. She didn't think that entitled me to make demands concerning my living conditions, namely peace and quiet. The bickering gave me a headache and the house was too small for me to find a place to hide. I went for a run.

After fifteen minutes I found myself on the farm road leading to the pond where we were swimming that July day in 1985. Thinking back to that day I wondered what things would be like if it didn't happen the way it did, the farmer coming down the hill and chasing us out of the pond? Things had certainly changed for me; I had changed. Was it because of what happened that day or would I have changed anyway? I was back to the old question; what made me go home early that day? Was it Becky's bare breasts that made the farmer race down the hill and chase us off?

'Daniel Olsen' was hand painted on the mailbox next to the long dirt road leading to the farmhouse high on the hill. I looked up the road and saw the farmer walking toward me. He was a quarter mile away, walking down the hill, stepping out with purpose. Should I take off and avoid him or stay here and see what he wants? I decided to wait, something I wouldn't have done a year before.

Mr. Olsen gave me a strange look as he approached me and walked right past me. He didn't want me for anything at all. He had walked down the hill to get his mail.

"Hello young fellow. Do I know you?" He asked after he retrieved his mail from the mailbox and was ready to walk back up the hill.

"I'm Sammy Oldham... I mean Kovel Sir," I said, thinking he would recognize me from the previous summer. But he seemed to draw a blank. He shook his head, indicating the name didn't mean anything to him. It was just as well. I turned to run back to town when he called to me.

"You're that boy aren't you?"

I stopped and turned to see what he was asking. There was a scar across his nose that I had not noticed before. He looked at me closely. "I thought at the time it was you," he said, a kind of realization showing on his face. "You've gotten bigger."

"Everyone says that," I laughed.

"What happened to you? They didn't lock you up or anything, did they?"

"No Sir, nothing like that," I said.

"I knew it must be you that stopped that man from raping his sister. You disappeared right after it happened and no one seemed to know what happened to you."

"I was sent away but I wasn't locked up," I said.

"Well, it sure agreed with you. Look how much taller you are and all." Mr. Olsen grinned at me, proud of himself for guessing correctly about me. I said goodbye and took off running back to town. He waved and said so long. He had given me enough information to ponder but I still didn't know why his truck came down the hill the way it did. Had Sid, Freddy and Bobby come back to the pond that summer? These were things I would find out if I ever came out that way again.

Heather told us she was going out that night. I warned her not to wake me when she came in and mom seconded my order, but I got the idea it had gone unheeded. She purposely woke me at 12:30 A.M. with the same man in tow.

We got into a shouting match, which brought mom out of her room. The argument centered on whether the boyfriend was going to stay the night in Heather's room or not. She said mom allowed him to stay and it was her house, that I had no say in the matter. I countered by telling her I was already pissed at being awakened and for her not to try my patience further. The boyfriend, whose name was Jerry, spoke up saying he would kick my ass if I didn't move out of his way. There was enough light from mom's bedroom door being open for me to see that Jerry was drunk and was carrying a club of some sort. At least it wasn't a gun.

"Do you need that to kick my ass?" I asked, referring to the club he was holding.

"You ain't going to grab me by the throat again," he said. He was weaving about, unsteady on his feet. He got two blows in, one hard to my shoulder and a second one that glanced off my back as I clamped my thumb on his windpipe.

The screams of the two women stopped me from hitting him. The club fell to the floor and I backed him to the door. He was anxious to get outside where he could regain his breathing. I spoke to him while he was on the ground, telling him not to come back and not to buy alcoholic drinks for my sister. He assured me that he understood the consequences of doing either.

Heather was in her room, bawling when I went back inside the house.

"You're going to have to ease up on her Sammy. She's been through so much since the rape. Heather lost her self-respect. She dropped out of high school and has no friends to speak of. You've changed Sammy. You were a little boy when you left us. I didn't think you would change so much. I didn't think it was possible."

Heather wouldn't talk to me and nothing was resolved. I was beginning to have doubts about the advisability of my coming home. I was starting to think that Cindy had been right. I could have come home for a week and gotten the homesickness out of my system. I was already missing the Oldham house.

Suzanne phoned on Sunday afternoon and we talked for several minutes. Ned called soon after the call with Suzanne was concluded. He said she was concerned that I didn't sound happy about my living arrangements. I tried to convince him that everything was fine, but I wasn't sure he bought it.

On Monday I decided to go for another run. Finding my self at the end of the Olsen driveway was not surprising, only this time I had a purpose for being there. I ran up the driveway, looking for Mr. Olsen, looking for some answers.

Mr. Olsen saw me coming. He came out of his back door and welcomed me.

"How did you know I stopped the rapist?" I asked as soon as the farmer acknowledged me.

He gazed down at the pond before answering me. "You disappeared right after it happened. I put two and two together. I was right too, wasn't I?"

"Yes Sir, but I still don't know how you figured it out?"

Mr. Olsen invited me into his kitchen and after searching several stacks of newspapers he found what he was looking for. He handed me two newspaper clippings.