The Lights In the Sky

Chapter 12

On our way home, Mom offered to stop at a fast food place and pick up something to eat. It was an oddly kind gesture coming from her; normally, I would have jumped at the opportunity. As soon as she asked me, though, my foot started bobbing up and down. I was filled with this feeling that I had to get home. You know how you get when your favorite show is going to be on TV, but you're running like five minutes behind schedule and you just have to get there to catch it? I guess that's probably an irrelevant example nowadays, most people have stuff to record their shows and they can watch them whenever. Which I think is sad in a way. It's not such an event. I used to watch Saturday morning cartoons when I was little. I would sit there in my tighty-whities with a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch on my lap. All the good ones, you know. X-Men and Tiny Toons and that stuff. I mean, I actually got up early to watch that stuff. I couldn't just record it and then watch it later, that would've ruined the whole thing.

Maybe a better example is being late for a movie. Especially for somebody like Frank, who hates to miss the previews. He says they get you in the mood for the show. He's always saying weird stuff like that.

So I told my mom not to worry about the fast food, I just wanted to get home and nap. When we got there, there was a white and blue van in the driveway. Mom sighed and said, "Now what?" We walked up the driveway and saw Dad standing close to a man in a shirt and hat that matched the colors of the van. The man had a clipboard in his hands and a toolbox at his feet. They were speaking in quiet tones. Dad's face sunk when he saw Mom and I walking up the sidewalk.

"Everything okay?" Mom asked.

"Everything's fine," Dad said, "he's here to turn the heat back on."

"Thank God," Mom said. "So everything's set?"

My eyes kept darting up to my bedroom window, like I was expecting to see something up there. There was nothing but the alternating black and white of the blinds and the darkness behind them.

"Everything's set," the guy said. "Had to come out and manually reset is all."

Mom walked back into the house without a word. I started to follow her, but Dad continued his conversation with the man and I listened in from the deck steps.

"Listen," Dad said, "this isn't going to happen again. I hope that this can be something that stays between us. Been a rough year."

The man nodded.

"No worries, Brad," he said, "I keep work at work."

Dad nodded and patted him on the shoulder. "Thank you," he said.

The man turned to me and said, "You keep winnin' them games, alright?"

I nodded and didn't say anything. As the man walked back to his van, Dad looked at me. He was broken down. Willing to subjugate himself to another random person from town because of his embarrassment. It was better to grovel, in his mind, than to keep your mouth shut. I pitied him a little. I also despised him for a brief second. Despised his weakness in the way Mom probably did. And then I hated myself for it. Neither of us said a word before I went inside.

I went up to my room and stripped down to my boxers and tried to sleep. But I couldn't. I was too excited, but I didn't know what I was excited about. I kept scooting closer to the foot of my bed. I turned on some music and sat there, bouncing up and down to it, smiling like an idiot. You know in comedies, when a kid is acting like that and the parents ask them if they're high and everybody laughs? Well, I actually thought maybe I was high, even though there's no way I could've been. I didn't even get up to turn the light on. The sunset turned my room orange. I probably looked like a maniac if anybody saw me through the bedroom window.