“Quincy And That Unusual Friend Of His”
By Brian Roberson
Chapter 12
Quincy came riding out of his
garage on his bike, plunged down the driveway, and began pedaling his way
towards Chesterbrook shopping center in the warm late afternoon sunshine. He was
still mad at Erik, but he was also feeling badly that he had spoken to him so
harshly. After all, Erik had saved his life, made him laugh harder than he ever
had, and had been a terrific pal up to that point. He was also equally furious
at how Erik had acted while Timothy was over, as well as his unintentionally
causing turmoil between his parents, and indirectly causing that whole Spook
Stalkers fiasco which culminated in an armed man barging into his bedroom. As he
pedaled down the road, these conflicting emotions turned into an internal
argument, with points and counterpoints being bandied about back and forth
through his head.
Quincy arrived at the shopping center. His plan was to spend his allowance on a
couple of candy bars and a Super Big Gulp at the 7-11 in order to drown the
sorrows his fight with Erik had caused. As he rode towards the 7-11, he passed
the DVD store, and he could see Aaron behind the counter through the window. He
then turned around and parked his bike in front of the store and walked in.
As he walked into the store, Quincy saw Aaron waiting on two customers behind
the counter. He got behind the customers in the line, and stepped forward to the
front of the counter once they had left.
"Phone number please." Aaron said.
"I'm not here to rent anything. You're Aaron Bailey, right?"
Aaron looked at Quincy. "Yes..." He said.
"I live in Erik's old house on Forest Lane." Quincy said.
Aaron froze and seemed to draw in his breath a little.” Well..." He finally
said. "I don't really remember that address, you'll need to give it to me..."
"I'm not here to rent anything." Quincy said again. Quincy's parents actually
didn't let him watch movies. They said that Hollywood was a bunch of homosexuals
and liberals, so movies were banned from the house.
"Then how can I help you?" Aaron said, sounding irritated.
"I kind of have some questions about Erik." Quincy said.
Aaron then waited on a customer who had come into line behind Quincy. After he
was done he turned his attention back to Quincy.
"I'm guessing that Mr. Williams next door told you about Erik, right?"
"Well...sort of..."
"Does he still sneak cigarettes behind the house?"
"Yeah..."
Aaron smiled. "I guess some things never change!" Some customers came up and
Aaron checked them all out.
"So you were there when the accident happened, right?" Quincy said after all the
customers had left.
Aaron's face crinkled up in pain. "I really don't want to talk about this. Why
are you bothering me?"
"Because Erik is still in the house. I've seen him." Quincy said.
"Still in the house? That kid died 33 years ago! You weren't even a gleam in
your daddy's eye yet! How could you have seen him?"
"Because he's still there." Quincy mumbled while looking at the floor.
Another customer came up and Aaron quickly checked him out.
"Kid, this isn't funny." Aaron said quietly. "I think you'd better go."
"But..."
"I SAID...I think you'd better go."
Quincy sighed and turned to leave the store. He had lost his desire to go to the
7-11 so he simply went home. What Quincy didn't see is that after he had left,
Aaron went to his manager, asked to be let go early, went out to his car, and
briefly burst into tears behind the wheel. He then went into Corky's Restaurant
next door, and did beer after beer, and shot after shot.
Quincy rode home in a depressed mood. When he arrived, he found his mother
setting the table, and he sat down for a supper of roast beef, sweet potatoes,
and green beans, After dinner he went up to his room, but Erik was nowhere to be
found. He checked up in the attic but he wasn't anywhere up there either. He
went downstairs and checked the basement, but still, no sign. After he checked
the basement, Quincy went to the den and sat next to his dad on the couch. Steve
put his arm around his son, who nestled his head on Steve's chest, and the two
of them watched TV for two hours. Quincy then went upstairs, saw that Erik still
wasn't anywhere to be seen, and went to bed.
The next morning Quincy awakened, saw that Erik was still nowhere around, ate a
big breakfast downstairs with his family, and went to church. After church and
Sunday school, Quincy returned home and still saw no sign of Erik. Quincy's
first day of school was the next day, so he occupied himself by sorting out his
school clothes. Afterwards, he went down to the creek by himself, but it wasn't
the same without Erik being there. He returned to his house, and decided to go
to the shopping center again to get the candy bars and Super Big Gulp that he
had failed to obtain the previous day.
As he rode through the shopping center, he decided to stop at the DVD store
again to see if Aaron was there. He still had questions that he felt needed to
be answered, so he parked his bike in front of the store again and walked in. A
squat, brown haired woman who was behind the counter said that Aaron didn't work
on Sundays, but that there was a pretty good chance he was next door at Corky's
like he usually was when he wasn't working.
Quincy went outside and chained his bike to the bench, and then went to the
entrance to Corky's. He went through the door and found a divey, seedy little
restaurant with dim lighting and a small bar with three people sitting at it. A
couple were at a table towards the back with a pitcher of beer and a couple of
plates of food on the table. Aside from that, no one else was in there. Music
was playing and a recorded voice was issuing forth out of the video golf game in
the corner. Quincy didn't see Aaron so he was about to turn around and leave.
Just as he was about to, he saw the men's room door open, and Aaron come
stepping out and taking a seat at the bar. He downed his draft beer and called
to the female bartender to bring him another one. Quincy walked over to Aaron
and stood next to where he was sitting. Aaron turned and stared at Quincy in
disbelief.
"You again?" He said. Quincy just stood and stared at him. "I'm off duty now so
I don't have to talk to you, so beat it, Kid!" Aaron slurred as he took a big
chug of the draft Budweiser that the bartender had just placed in front of him.
Quincy continued to stare at him. "I said scram!" Aaron repeated.
"Hey Aaron!" A redneck looking guy on the other end of the bar yelled with a
grin. "Is this your nephew or are you running a babysitter service!"
"He's a kid from the store who's about to get his butt whipped!" Aaron
responded.
"Aaron, please. I have questions about Erik. Can't we talk for just a minute?"
"I told you already that I don't want to talk about Erik!" Aaron said. He
appeared to be more than a little bit drunk.
"I know that you saw the accident, I know that you were there. I know about the
Three Musketeers. I know about your dad kicking you out."
Aaron said nothing for a few seconds. "Well you and Mr. Williams seemed to have
had quite a conversation."
"Please. I just have a few questions and then I won't ever bother you again.
Please."
Aaron said nothing at first, and then got up off his bar stool. "I need to smoke
a cigarette anyway." He muttered. He walked out with Quincy following behind.
Aaron walked out into the sunshine with Quincy behind him, took a pack of
Marlboro Reds out of his pocket, tapped one out of the pack and lit it up.
"So what were you guys doing when Erik got hit?" Quincy asked after watching
Aaron take a couple of drags while he blankly stared out into the parking lot.
"We were kicking around a soccer ball in the front yard, if you must know."
"So why did he get hit by a car?"
Aaron paused. "He chased the ball into the street and got hit. Why?"
"So what happened then?"
Aaron took a deep drag and blew out a cloud of smoke. "He chased the ball out
into the
street and he got hit, that's all. What are you morbid or something?"
"It was almost his birthday, right?"
Aaron appeared to be reliving the events in his mind, and he began to speak with
a softer tone. "Yeah, and his first day of school, too."
"That must have been really sad."
"I remember that his mother had just called for him to go in, just before he got
hit." Aaron said, almost inaudibly. "After he got hit, while he was lying in the
street with his head smashed open, she came out and just sat on the landing. She
didn't say or do anything, she just sat. She sat there the whole time. When the
police came, when the ambulance came, when the neighbors were coming over to try
to comfort her, all she did was sit and stare at the spot where he had been
lying. I could hear Erik's dad screaming inside of the house at the top of his
lungs, but all she did the whole time was just sit there and hum this song over
and over again. She was still sitting there when my dad came and got me. I
remember the whole front of the house was filled with police cars and the
ambulance with the lights all flashing, and it had gotten dark, and all she did
was sit there." Quincy noticed that Aaron's cigarette had burned down into a
small rope of ash.
"You must have really been scared."
"I kicked it..."
"What?"
"I kicked the soccer ball. I kicked it and it went to the right of him... and he
chased it into the street... when he got hit."
To Quincy's shock, Aaron put his hand over his face and began to sob loudly.
Quincy didn't know what to do. He had never seen a grown man cry before, except
on TV. Aaron quickly got himself under control and wiped his tears away. "Why
are you making me bring all of this up?" He sniffled as he turned and faced
Quincy.
Quincy didn't know what to say, so he told Aaron the truth. "Because I need to
figure out why Erik is still here, and what I need to do to help him."
"Spencer told me that he had seen Erik in that house, and that he had talked to
him. I didn't believe him," Aaron wiped his eyes again with his sleeve and
turned back towards the parking lot. "So if he's there why don't you ask him
yourself ?"
"Because he won't answer, or he'll get mad."
"Well, I'm sorry, I can't help you. If you think that you saw Erik in that
house, then that's your issue. Erik is dead, dead and buried, and has been for a
long time." Aaron then turned around and walked back into Corky's. Quincy had
once again lost his desire for a snack from the 7-11, so he unlocked his bike
and rode back to his house in an even gloomier mood than he had already been in.
Quincy had to turn in early in order to be ready for the first day at his new
school. Before he turned in he called out to Erik again, but got no response. He
put on his pajamas, said his prayers, and soon drifted into a troubled sleep as
he lay in his bed.
The next morning, Quincy dressed himself up in the school clothes that he and
his mom had bought at the mall. He gathered his fresh, new school supplies into
his book bag, and after a hasty breakfast of cinnamon oatmeal, rushed out the
door to the car with his mother behind him. As the car pulled out of the
driveway, he glanced up into his parents bedroom window where Erik would usually
be, but all he saw were curtains.
Chesterbrook Academy was a short distance from Quincy's house on Old Dominion
Drive. In fact, it was right across the street from the shopping center. Carol
pulled into the front driveway and let Quincy off with all of the usual words of
encouragement and statements of expectations. Quincy winced in embarrassment as
she kissed him on his cheek, and he got out of the car and joined the crowd of
kids who were filing into the front entrance. As Quincy walked into the
building, he gazed wide eyed at his new surroundings, so he completely failed to
notice Erik following several steps behind, amidst the chattering gaggle of kids
on their first day of school.