But Tommy was looking much happier; and Henry had taught him to reply:
“He’s only trying to find ’em, Rory,” and even Rory couldn’t resist—he laughed—and actually gave the big tabby a pat there, as he clawed through the shorts on his lap. There was the fish and the bird and Achilles to come, but next in line was the dog. It was Hector who paved the way home.
* * *
—
By then we’d hit December, and there was a single, immutable fact:
Clay was a 400 specialist.
He took the distance apart.
There was no one at Chisholm who could go with him, but challengers would soon be coming. The new year would bring Zone and Regionals, and if good enough, he’d make it to State. I looked for new ways of training him, and harked back to old motivations. I started, where he had, the library:
I looked at books and articles.
I scoured the DVDs.
All I could find on athletics, till a woman was standing behind me.
“Hello?” she said. “Young man? It’s nine o’clock. It’s time to close.”
* * *
—
In the lead-up to Christmas, he did it.
Hector went out and went missing.
All of us took to searching, and it was something like looking for Clay, except Clay, this time, was with us. We all went out in the mornings, and the others went out after school; I joined them when I came home. We even drove back to Wetherill, but the cat had up and vanished. Even jokes were falling flat.
“Hey, Rory,” Henry said, as we wandered the streets. “At least your balls have had a chance to recover.”
“I know, good bloody riddance.”
Tommy was out
on the outskirts of us, and mad and sad as hell. As they spoke he’d come running over, and tried tackling them down to the ground.
“You bastards!” He spat the hurt out. He flailed and punched away. He swung his boyish arms. “You bastards, you fucking pricks!”
At first they just made light of it, in the darkened street around us.
“Shit! I didn’t know Tommy could swear so well!”
“I know—that’s pretty good work!”
But then they felt the eyes of him, and the pain in his ten-year-old soul. Much as Clay had broken that night, in the future, in the kitchen, in Silver, Tommy was breaking now. As he fell to the road on hands and knees, it was Henry who bent and reached for him; then Rory who held his shoulders.
“We’ll find him, Tommy, we’ll find him.”
“I miss them,” he said.
We all fell on him.
We walked home that night in silence.