About the only thing I can remember is who gave me the go ahead on the night of the big jump, and I’m not saying.

It took around a year for the broken bones to mend and mingle back to normal. After that, the Army gave me a Good Conduct Discharge, plus 75% disability. It wasn’t too raw a deal, just a simple parting of ways, a mutual breakup. There could have been worse outcomes. On the copy of the Accident Report shoved in with my exit paperwork, I saw “Airborne Incident” was only one column away from “Jump Fatality.”

Most of the problems were, and are, with my head, the part that hit the ground first, according to the people who saw, followed by my cigarette-rolled parachute, then the rest of me. My brain, the doctors said, would take longer to heal, and would do so on its own sweet time, as if it were only an accessory to my body, a jumbled mess of aftermarket parts not covered by the warranty.

A lot of the time having a messed-up head isn’t all that bad. It becomes hardly noticeable, vaguely misleading.

But when things aren’t going well, that’s trickier. At best, it’s like trying to describe somebody describing something. At its worst, well, think about if you were hiking, say, somewhere dangerously remote, maybe along a stifling ridge in the Appalachians. You’re out in a forest, alone in the splendor of creation, walking beside a beauty shooting off like multi-colored ropes in every direction, the usual; and you look down at your compass––because you wanted to hike the real way, without GPS––and all the tick marks and bearing lines fall out of the bottom like a deep breath, the blood-red N dial scattering onto the piney woodland floor, and you’re left with nothing, alone, staring blank and dumb at a flat white surface of metal. Something like that.

I stay indoors mostly. I have all I need. My big sister Sam looks out for me. Sometimes she comes over with a friend or coworker she’s dragged along. Going outside isn’t so much impossible as it is irrational, outside the range of my radar.

Since I got out a year and a half ago I’ve lived next to Mr. Center and never once talked to him. I call him Mr. Center because of the way his house sits square in the center of his one size too big plot, boxed in by two chubby stripes of grass on either side. It reminds me of one of those houses in the movies––manors, they’re called––built safely behind clanking gates at the top of a mile-long driveway, right in the center of everything like a stucco northern star.

Not that Mr. Center has one of those insane, scabbed-over mansions. His is a plain enough place, everything about its outside neat and even, square shaped and gray with a calm red door and two or three second floor windows perched above the street like dust covered spectacles with a crack in the frame.

I’ve been told people don’t like Mr. Center. That came from some of the neighbors, who I turned on after about a week. They’re always leaving toys and bikes and baseball mitts on their clean front steps and sunny side-porches to show what great parents they are.

Their thing with Mr. Center and his house had to do with the layout being a “thoughtless, ugly sore.” They could get worked up about any damn thing.

“Whatever you say,” I said.

They don’t come around to say hi much anymore.

 

 The thing I like best about Mr. Center is how he cuts his lawn every day. I watch him do it most times, confused to the moon and back and partly in love with him for it. Whenever I find myself wondering if today will be the day he misses, that’s about when I hear the motor kick.

I’m not standing at the window for the whole thing. Just a peek is all I need, and with that I’ve pretty much got the whole picture. I have to watch him, though, at least for a minute. If I don’t, who will?

There’s only one tree in Mr. Center’s yard, tucked off to the side like a bad dream, an old crippled oak that throws out shade so thick you could scrape it up and put it in your pocket. He gets out to the yard around ten or eleven each day. I swear, it’s like a flat green tattoo, a leafy slipcover draped across ground. By the time he gets to the strips on the side it’s around noon or so, and he’s sweating over the mower, and what’s left of his white hair is heavy and wet like a towel dunked in an overfilled bathtub. He’s one of those old men who still looks in fighting shape.

I’d say he goes over the front part, the main part, at least six times. It isn’t very big, acreage-wise, but I guess he doesn’t want any rogue blades standing higher than the rest. He’s about the fairest guy I’ve ever seen.

 Sam is at the door. She told me she’d be coming by on Friday with Fred. Fred “just isn’t quite ready to pop the question,” according to my sources. (Sam and Co.) Sam will probably be dressed business casual. My bet is on the red checkered blouse. Fred wears brown glasses and is terrified of me.

 

The first time Sam brought him over, she was in the bathroom and I said to Fred, “Hey, Fred, you want to see my gun? I just cleaned it. Always gotta clean it after you shoot someone I mean go shooting at the range.” I laughed until my insides became my outsides. I don’t have a gun. Are you kidding me?

That Fred, though. He’s alright.

We three go into the living room. They take the plaid Saint Vinny’s couch. I sit in my chair, the kind of recliner that remembers, that asks you about your day.

“Sorry we didn’t bring you anything, Andy,” Sam says. “We’re taking off to Chicago for a show. Did we tell you that? Fred, did we tell him that?”

“I don’t think so,” Fred says.

“Well, Fred scored us tickets––didn’t you?”

“You bet I did.” Sam leans over and pecks him on the cheek. She keeps her ringless hand on his thigh after she pulls away. She wants a ring very badly, which means I do, too. Sam takes good care of me. It’s what she does best, patching and fixing tattered things. She also got the good genes, not like it’s hard to tell. She has full black hair and secret eyes, globes almost, like mini moons on a glassy night right there on her face. Mine are lunar, sure, but in a wasteland sort of way. And sometimes she’ll smile for no reason. The only explanation being she can’t help it. I like this about Sam, though it gets her into many types of trouble, at funerals and other serious, grin-free events.

But I wish they wouldn’t have come when they did. Mr. Center will be out any minute for his duty, and I don’t know what’ll happen to him if I’m not there to see. I don’t even want to think about it. If I do I might turn to slush and seep down deep beneath the floorboards, fall into the darkness of this crazy house.

“It’ll be a nice day for a drive,” I say. At least it’s true. All my blinds are up and the day is bright and clean. The sky is a floor just buffed. Every few minutes a couple clouds pass neatly overhead, not in any sort of hurry. The best kinds of clouds.

“And you’re going to be alright while we’re gone?” Sam says. “It’s only for the weekend, remember.”

“You know it,” I say.

“And you’re taking care of yourself? Last week when we were over you weren’t taking care of anything.”

I’m doing my best to look through and past the happy couple, scrubbing the air with all my senses. I become a scanner, dividing the air into quadrants, searching for disturbances that might tell of Mr. Center.

“Andy? Did you hear me? I asked if you were taking care of yourself. See, Fred, this is what I was telling you about. Isn’t this what I was telling you about?”

“Yes, I think you were.”

Sam crosses one leg over the other to form a stiff triangle of scorn. There’s a pool of shade asleep on the hardwood between us, yawning and rippled like a drowsy wave, switching shape every second.

“I heard you, I heard you,” I say. “And I am taking care of myself. Yes, I am. If I were doing any better, Sam, it’d be against the law.”

I got that from a TV show. Who knows which one.

“We’ll all three have a nice dinner when Fred and I get back,” Sam says.

I think I’ve offended her, something I never aim to do. She doesn’t deserve it. I try not to act in a way that might set me off if I were a stranger watching from the outskirts. That’s how I gauge myself. It’s a way to take readings on the day to day stuff––I turn nameless, forget everything I know.

“I’ll make some of my mom’s famous eggplant parmesan,” Fred says.

“It sounds like a treat,” I say. I want to get back into Sam’s good graces. She knows I like Fred, just isn’t happy with how I show it. “You two get going,” I say. “Have some fun. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. Make sure to get yourself a slice of that famous Chicago thin crust pizza.”

Sam sends me a laugh. Nothing from Fred. He keeps his mouth sealed shut until he says goodbye at the door. Sam hugs me. I’d like to give a million dollars to the pair who invented hugs. Or maybe put together a slideshow filled with pictures of all the people they saved. It’d be a long list, I think. I’d be on it. Everyone would.

“Drive safe, have fun, and all the other things,” I say.

And just like that, a minute after Sam and Fred drive out of sight onto the first miles of their weekend getaway, I hear the sound of a motor coughing, firing off towards outer space until it finds mechanic melody. The sky is overwhelmingly blue, cloudless now that Mr. Center is underneath it, and that drowsy smell of wildflowers is moving through the air like a song I can’t remember.

           

If I pay attention, if I really look, I can see the phone ring before I hear it. I’m sure it’s very logical, something to do with light moving faster than sound. I never quite understood that principle until one of my buddies in the Army told me how he saw his Section Leader torn to pieces by a bullet before he heard the boom of the powder dent the air. It was clear as could be after that.

With a call, though, the phone has this thin, half-second downtime between lighting up and ringing. It gets longer the more you notice it, that quiet, empty space.

It was about two hours after Sam and Fred took off with their big healthy smiles that I saw the flash then caught the sound. I don’t have a cellphone. Sam was the one who got me the landline. She checks to see it’s plugged in any time she’s over. It was her number that popped up, her voice I heard, frazzled and fragile, like she had to speak over the distance itself. I couldn’t hear her smile.

“We’re fine here,” she said. “Nobody is hurt or anything. Nobody hurt. But––Fred, seriously, hang on. But, listen, I took my AAA card out of my purse to make sure I had it before we left and, Andy, I didn’t put it back in. Look, we’re in a bit of a shitty spot here. I just need that number, Andy. My account or user whatever. Nobody from work picked up. Andy? Can you get it for me? Listen, I know. Andy?”

 

Well, I told her yes. Did I mean it? That’s a question for another time. It’s been fifty years since I hung up the phone, longer, maybe, ten-thousand light years, adjusted to measure time instead of distance, back to the world of watch-hands where the unit belongs.

Three minutes, real time. To walk to Sam’s is twenty.

I am sweaty and cold and boiling all at once. I am the last resort; this is known for sure. Lists have been checked and cross-referenced, and only my name remains, the last-ditch effort, a nuclear fail safe.

I move towards the front door and open it a crack. The day is still beautiful, this from the thread of air allowed indoors––not warm or humid; the kind of temperature that feels non-existent.

I have been called upon.

The phone rings again, only noise this time, unseen, one-dimensional. My head is heavy. I let it ring. I have been called upon, I say, this time out loud. I open the door to half-staff. I feel my task in bleeding colour, a million moments at once.

Mr. Center finished just after Sam called. I saw him stash the mower in his cobwebbed garage. Sam should have called him. He could be her hero. Mr. Center could be anyone’s hero. It’s about the only chance I’ve got, if I can make it over there. I step outside.

The sunshine is warm against my neck. There really isn’t any telling how many steps it’ll take to get to his front door. I run memories through my head on a reel, calculating, trying to get the impression of the terrain, the distance to be crossed. I can’t trust myself, not right now. I’ve gotta go back in time.

I rap what feels like all ten knuckles against the red-painted door. It’s thick enough to be bulletproof, world-proof. When it opens, there he is, broad and beckoning in that vortex of doorway-light. I want to fall down to my stupid knees, plead, grovel, tell him my sorry story, every nasty nut and stripped bolt, beg him for help, a lift to Sam’s, a different life.

He looks me over, up and down, as we stand there. He’s everything I’ve ever hoped he would be. A father to all. Veins like flexed tattoos walk up the length of his suntanned arms. I can’t look at him much longer, not when I’m like this. What he must think of me. I turn my face, and for the first time I see, on the side of his house invisible from my own, this stubby brick chimney peeking up from a jut in the home, standing right there, like its hiding on purpose, a tube all swaddled in vine leaf.

“You’re Andy from next door,” he says.

I nod.

“Apologies for calling you Andy. I can’t say I know your last name. I won’t even ask if you’re alright. You’re not, like, kicking or fiending, are you?”

I nod no.

“I heard about you when you moved in. It’s no surprise you ended up next to me. This neighborhood talks like an old lady’s book club. You gotta come in and have a glass of water. Do you need an ambulance here, Andy?”

I shake my head no.

“I was in the 101^st,” he says.

“Yeah? I was 82^nd,” I say.

“Twenty years at Ft. Campbell.”

“Not even three at Bragg.” I can barely stand being so close to him.

“Will you tell me what’s going on?” he says.

I tell him. I tell him everything, as quick as I can and it’s still too much. He is perfect as I talk. We disappear into a world of listener and listenee. I forget about the wind at my back. I make a note in my head to get a good look at the timeless front yard. This might be as close as I’ll ever get.

A smile like I’ve never seen makes its way onto Mr. Center’s face. At least two lifetime’s worth of living, walks along grand windswept beaches, heartbreaks and lovers, glimpses caught of mountain ranges growing by the second; it’s all there in that smile, piece by piece, ache by burning ache. I could’ve looked at it until I died.

“Good news and bad news,” he says. “It’s been a long while since they took my license. We don’t have enough time to get into it. But we have a way.”

He closes the door behind him and leads me towards the garage. It’s the luckiest I’ve ever felt, tagging along behind Mr. Center as he walks this walk I’ve seen him walk more than a hundred times. Little stones line a bed of flowers. He muscles open the door. How painful this is, to feel so blessed and be so helplessness.

The mower isn’t the first thing I see. My eyes go left.

“I got this when my grandson was still near enough. My daughter would bring him over. I thought he’d like it. We only ever used the thing once, but we had ourselves a time. It was more than worth it. Think it’ll work?”

A stump of dirty metal stitched with silver fire. Two banana seats. One stretched-out chain sagging like a beer belly. I move over towards the bike and touch it; it feels about ready to dissolve between my fingers.

“I’ll take the captain’s seat,” he says. “You just do what you can back there––so, which way are we going?”

The sun is high when we set off, like it’s trying to guide us.

The world whistles past, hunks and edges of sound, figures and blades and colors I’d never seen. I think my brain might blow, like somebody is pumping me full of insulation. Mr. Center looks over his shoulder at me.

“You alright?”

“Are we close?” I say. “Can you tell me if we’re close?”

“I don’t know if we’re close,” he says through the breeze. “Are we?”

“We are.”

“We’ll get there,” he says. “I’ll get you there.”

Sam thanked me like I’ve never heard. She was proud of me, she said, really proud. I prevented a nightmare of a headache, worse. You saved us, she said. I called and gave her the number while stuck to the floor of my living room, more than welded; the woodgrain and I shared an essence that day.

That’s when I fell asleep.

I was out clear through the rest of the afternoon, the entirety of the night, and woke up with daybreak warming the bleary side of my face. The flashing from the portal of my unhooked phone––the handset splayed out on the floor where I dropped it yesterday––tells me of messages. Both are from Sam. Got to Chicago on a loaner, weekend salvaged, excited for the show, you okay? please call back and let me know if you’re okay.

I feel Fred’s gratitude in the background static. The second message is the one I missed, telling me not to worry, that they would figure something out. It is nice to prove wrong this echo from the past.

The time comes for the sound of a motor. I wait for it and wait for it. Through the batch of trees on the far side of the street I see a glow of sunshine filter through the branches like golden water. I hear nothing. I’ll keep waiting, watching through the windowpane. I’ve done my work. This Saturday is meant for waiting.