Pop

  “Sure were!” Charlie exclaimed. “Just ask Old Man Dingley. Remember the time we dumped out every nail in the store? He’s probably still sorting!”

  Mac chuckled appreciatively. “Remember when he chased us with his riding mower and knocked over that policeman’s wife in the phone booth?”

  “That was a classic!” Charlie howled. “He almost went to jail for that! And he’d just barely forgiven us for the time we put a football through the window of his car!”

  Mac chuckled. “Funny—I don’t remember that one.”

  “I do,” said Marcus pointedly.

  “Oh—oh, yeah,” Mac acknowledged.

  The conversation rollicked on. Wild football parties in both high school and college; cheerleaders with great legs; beer-chugging linemen who could belch the Pledge of Allegiance without taking a breath. The real Mac was at the wheel, and the teenager Charlie took to be Mac was over his shoulder in the backseat. Somehow Charlie was able to combine the two and satisfy himself that he was in the company of James McTavish. All this reminiscing was completely genuine.

  “Forget all that,” Mac roared. “Yours is the stunt that will go down in history. The Harrison game? The hawk?”

  The look that appeared on Charlie’s face was like nothing Marcus had ever seen there before. It wasn’t just that Charlie remembered—he remembered a lot of things, especially from the distant past. It was the sheer, unholy glee of this recollection—it transformed him from a middle-aged man into the crazy kid he sometimes believed he still was.

  Marcus sat forward eagerly, leaning into the split between the front seats. “What happened?”

  “You had to be there,” Mac supplied. “You had to know about the rivalry between our school and Harrison. They had this mascot—a hawk they called Harry. Just listening to it scream was worth your eardrums. God, we hated that bird. We hated that whole team. But it took Charlie to work up the diabolical plan to do something about it.”

  “It was no big deal,” Charlie put in. “I just stole the cage, that’s all.”

  “You’re leaving out the best part!” Mac insisted. He continued the narrative. “There’s a big dispute on the field, so nobody sees him. Next thing they know, Charlie’s charging up the bleachers with the cage under his arm. All of a sudden, the whole Hawks team is going after him. Everybody’s screaming, especially Harry. Those guys were going to kill you, right in front of our home crowd!”

  “I just had a job to do, and I did it,” Charlie said modestly.

  “Which was…?” Marcus prompted, wrapped up in the story.

  “Picture this,” Mac said with relish. “This crazy lunatic is at the very top of the stadium, tightrope-walking on the wall behind the last row of bleachers. I swear—a single gust of wind and he’s a grease spot on the hood of somebody’s car in the parking lot! It’s so damn scary that even the Harrison guys stop chasing him.”

  Marcus could relate. He pictured Charlie perched precariously atop the Paper Airplane, and on various fences and ledges around Three Alarm Park. Even now, the guy had a natural tendency to pick the highest, most precipitous spot in town and go dancing.

  Mac continued to set the scene. “Total silence in the stadium. And what does this maniac do? He starts singing ‘Born Free’ and pops the cage. The bird takes off into the wild blue yonder and is never heard from again.”

  “Did you get in trouble?” Marcus asked breathlessly.

  “Only for the rest of my life,” Charlie replied. “That’s how long it took to pay for the new hawk. Who knew those things were even for sale?”

  “Did you at least win the game?” Marcus asked.

  “Nah, we got killed,” Mac admitted with a grin. “Nobody beat Harrison. But I’ll tell you—from then on, I never once set foot on that field—even for graduation—without looking up to the back of the bleachers, half expecting to see Harry finally making his way home.” He turned to his high school friend. “It must have been like that for you too, huh, Charlie.”

  “Yeah … right,” murmured Charlie, suddenly vague. “Who’s Harry?”

  Mac was shocked. “The bird—Harrison’s mascot!”

  “Right … the mascot…”

  Marcus checked his watch. “Do you think we have time to stop for a snack or something? I think a soda or a coffee would do us all some good.”

  Charlie rebounded after pie and coffee at a truck stop about forty miles from their destination. He and Mac even reminisced about the greasy spoons and roadside luncheonettes the EBU Bears had frequented on their road trips. This included a diner outside Syracuse where the entire team had picked up food poisoning from the turkey chili, “… and let me tell you, the quarterback got more than he bargained for from the center.”

  Thirty years of no contact—plus Charlie’s illness—could not interfere with the capacity these two men had to laugh together.

  Mac glanced at the clock on the wall. “I don’t want to break up a good party, but we’ve got another party to go to. Let’s hit the head and then hit the road.”

  A few minutes later, Marcus stepped out of the men’s room and left the restaurant to join Mac, who was already standing by the car.

  “I see what you’re talking about,” Mac confided soberly. “One minute it’s the old Charlie who hasn’t changed since high school. But then it’s like somebody flips a switch. You look in his eyes and there’s nobody home.”

  Marcus nodded. “I know. I really appreciate your doing this, Mac.”

  “Don’t thank me. I should have done it years ago. I don’t see where he thinks you’re me, though.”

  “That seems to happen more around Three Alarm Park,” Marcus mused, “where everything is familiar. But in the car, he’s got your songs and stories.”

  Mac nodded. “I wonder what he’s thinking now—strange bathroom, no familiar faces.”

  Marcus suddenly looked stricken. “He’s been in there a long time....”

  The two ran back into the restaurant and flung wide the bathroom door.

  “Charlie!” Marcus called with rising dread.

  The stalls were all empty, the fluorescent-lit room deserted. A wide-open window told the tale. For reasons known only to himself, and probably already forgotten, Charlie had run away.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Mac was bug-eyed. “He escaped? From us? Why?”

  “Not from us!” Marcus was breathing so hard, he was gasping out the words. “At the moment he took off, he probably didn’t even remember we were here! Let’s just get him back, okay?”

  They ran outside again, looking around desperately. There was no sign of him.

  Mac was completely bewildered. “Do you think he went into the woods?”

  “I hope not!” An athlete like Charlie, with a head start in forested terrain, would be very hard to find.

  But Marcus doubted that the King of Pop was headed for the deep woods. He generally gravitated toward what was most familiar. A highway would make more sense to him than wilderness.

  Mac pointed down the road. “Oh boy—”

  A quarter mile away in the direction they’d come from, a tall figure strode along the soft shoulder, thumb up. Charlie was hitchhiking.

  With one mind, Marcus and Mac started running toward him, screaming at the top of their lungs.

  “Charlie!… Wait!… Over here!… Charlie!…”

  It was no use. Their voices were not reaching him. They watched in agony as a long-distance eighteen-wheeler came rumbling along the highway. At the sight of the hitchhiker, the driver began to gear down.

  Mac was horrified. “Don’t do it, pal!” he breathed.

  Marcus could not wrap his mind around the potential disaster that was unfolding before him. If this truck picked Charlie up, he could be three counties away within the hour.

  The indecision almost shattered him. Should they run faster? Head back for the car and a chance at pursuit? Memorize the truck’s plate number to supply to the police?

  He watched helplessly
as the driver got a good look at Charlie and decided against picking up this stranger who looked every inch the linebacker that he was. With a roar of its big diesel engine, the big rig sped on by.

  “I’ll get the car!” Mac wheezed, reversing field toward the rest stop. “Don’t take your eyes off him for a second!”

  Moments later, the Toyota pulled alongside Marcus, and he jumped into the backseat.

  Mac was worried as they sped to where Charlie was walking backward, still hitchhiking. “What if he doesn’t recognize us?”

  “It won’t matter,” Marcus reasoned. “He’s hitching. We’re giving him a ride. Just pretend we’re total strangers.”

  Mac closed the quarter-mile gap and rolled down the passenger window. “Where are you headed?”

  Charlie was momentarily unprepared for that question. “Home,” he said finally. “In the United States.”

  “That’s exactly where we’re going,” Marcus assured him. “Hop in.”

  It was as simple as that. Charlie sat down in the passenger seat, and they were off again.

  Mac lobbed an uneasy glance over his shoulder at Marcus. “Maybe we should be heading toward—uh—the United States right now. You know, home.”

  Marcus had been expecting this. It was one thing to accept that Charlie had Alzheimer’s, but this was Mac’s first life lesson on how a little confusion could quickly spiral into a dangerous situation.

  “It’s just a couple of hours,” he pleaded. “This might be the last chance he ever gets to be—his old self. We’ll be more careful. We can handle it.”

  “Doesn’t his wife know how serious it is?” Mac murmured. “If I was her, I wouldn’t let him out the front door.”

  “I don’t think he’s so bad around his family. You know—same house, same people. There’s a lot about it on the internet. Unfamiliar surroundings make the confusion worse. He probably looked around that bathroom, saw nothing he recognized, and lost it.”

  “You may be right,” Mac conceded. “But every mile we drive gets us that much farther from the familiar. What then?”

  “Put the tape on,” Marcus urged. “The EBU fight songs.”

  Charlie, who had been gazing out the window oblivious to their discussion of him, suddenly came to life. “EBU? I went to EBU.”

  “Me, too,” mumbled Mac, now subdued. “Small world.”

  He popped in the tape, and the music did the rest. Soon Charlie was singing, which lightened his friend’s mood.

  “You know, it’s homecoming today,” Marcus ventured from behind him.

  “No kidding.” Charlie looked wistful. “I wish we could go.”

  “It’s your lucky day,” Mac said ruefully, pushing a little harder on the accelerator.

  Troy Popovich jammed the last of his gear into his gym bag and swung the huge duffel over his shoulder.

  His mother watched with a jaundiced eye. “Why do I bother? I’m so careful to iron your clothes and to fold them, and for what? So you can wad them up like used Kleenex.”

  Troy shrugged. “So don’t bother.” He looked around. “Where’s Dad?”

  It drew Chelsea from the next room. “He’s not back yet?”

  “I’m sure he’ll be here soon,” her mother assured her. “He knows about Troy’s game today.”

  Brother and sister exchanged a look of silent exasperation.

  “Ever wonder which of our parents is the one with the brain damage?” Troy whispered.

  “Not funny!” Chelsea admonished.

  Mrs. Popovich sighed. “Well, he knew this morning, and I think he deserves the benefit of the doubt. Has he ever missed one of your games before?”

  He made a face. “You don’t seriously believe he’s got a clue who he’s watching, do you?”

  “The two of us talk about how you’re doing throughout the whole thing.”

  “Okay,” Troy said, “but what if he didn’t have a living, breathing cheat sheet sitting right next to him? Would he know then?”

  “Get out of here before I hit you,” she told him, not unkindly. “Go to your team lunch.”

  “Do you remember what time it was when Daddy went out this morning?” asked Chelsea.

  “A little after nine.”

  Chelsea checked her watch. Ten fifty-five A.M.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Whatever was or wasn’t going on in Charlie’s brain, when he arrived at EBU, it was obvious he was experiencing a homecoming unrelated to the event that was being celebrated that day.

  He leaned forward in his seat, looking around, taking in the ivy-covered buildings with their weathered stone facades.

  He remembers, Marcus thought excitedly. He knows this place.

  “Well, here we are,” Mac announced as they moved along the tree-lined drive. “Looks a lot smaller than I pictured it all these years. What do you think, Charlie?”

  Charlie peered straight ahead, frowning in concentration. “There’s a fountain—right there.”

  They followed his pointing finger. There were young people standing around a building that appeared to be a dorm or student center. No fountain.

  Marcus and Mac exchanged a knowing glance.

  “We should find the stadium,” Mac decided. “It’s almost—”

  “A fountain,” Charlie insisted. “With a guy on a horse in the middle of it.”

  All Marcus’s anxiety returned. Was Charlie hallucinating now?

  The Toyota passed the dorm, continued beyond a clump of white birch, and there it was.

  Mac nearly cheered. “A fountain! And a statue of a guy on a horse!”

  “Hey,” said Charlie, “I used to whiz in that fountain. You don’t forget a thing like that.”

  “Jeez, I think I might have been with you!” Mac exclaimed.

  They ran into a traffic jam as they approached the stadium parking. But then Marcus spied a sign: VIP LOT.

  “That’s right,” Mac chortled triumphantly. “We don’t have to wait with the common people. We’ve brought the King of Pop!”

  There was a little confusion at the gate because they weren’t on the list, until Mac announced, “Don’t you know who this is?”

  The attendant regarded Charlie quizzically for a moment, trying to place the vaguely familiar face. And then a middle-aged woman with a HOMECOMING COMMITTEE CHAIR badge came bounding over.

  “Charlie Popovich! Why didn’t you tell us you were coming! Everybody’s going to go crazy!”

  The attendant was impressed. “Yeah? You’re Popovich? I used to watch you play! Can I shake your hand?”

  Within a few minutes, Charlie was mobbed by well-wishers.

  Marcus watched like a proud parent. The fact that he had made this possible absolutely thrilled him. It was easily the most worthwhile thing he had ever done.

  He was so wrapped up in the moment that it took a few seconds to realize that the committee was walking away with Charlie.

  Mac was already on it. “Number one rule,” he told the committee chair. “We go where he goes.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not possible,” she explained reasonably. “There’s a limited amount of space on the dais—”

  “No deal,” Mac replied firmly. “You’re not hearing me. We can’t leave him alone.”

  She tried to make a joke out of it. “Are you his bodyguards?”

  “Something like that.”

  Eventually, Marcus and Mac were seated two rows behind the honorees—close enough to lay hands on Charlie if they felt they must.

  Charlie was between the Rogers sisters and EBU’s president. As word spread that the NFL veteran had turned up unexpectedly at homecoming, a procession of fans and old classmates paraded by.

  Marcus marveled at the way Charlie greeted each one with a firm handshake and a hearty “Good to see you!” No one ever would have suspected that this Charlie was anything less than what he appeared to be—a celebrity, the center of attention, the man of the hour.

  Mac nudged Marcus. “Look at him. An hour ago,
he climbed out of the toilet and tried to hitchhike to the United States. Now he looks like he’s running for governor.”

  Marcus nodded. “He’s really pulling it off.”

  But could it last?

  Chelsea ran into the house, slamming the screen door behind her.

  “Is he here?”

  Her mother appeared in the kitchen doorway. “You didn’t find him.”

  “I went all over town, all his usual haunts. Even Three Alarm Park.”

  Her mother checked her watch. “It’s only lunchtime. Troy’s game isn’t until three.”

  “This isn’t about the game!” Chelsea exploded. “Daddy’s like a bear who wanders into the middle of New York City! He could get hurt; he could hurt someone else—”

  “I’m worried, too,” said Elizabeth Popovich sharply, “but he’s been gone this long before. He’s always come back.”

  “Except the time Marcus had to go rescue him,” Chelsea reminded her.

  “That was one night. There’s no reason to believe it wasn’t an anomaly.”

  “We hid his car keys when the time came,” Chelsea argued. “What if we’ve passed the point where he can’t be left on his own at all? And now it’s too late?”

  “Don’t panic, Chelsea. Your father isn’t a bear in New York; he’s a man in the town he grew up in.”

  “Well, what about Troy? Shouldn’t we let him know Daddy’s still missing?”

  Her mother thought it over. “Not yet. We don’t know for sure that anything’s wrong. We don’t want to get him upset right before the biggest game of the year.”

  Chelsea stomped into her room, fuming. She understood that her mother was trying to think positively, but a couple of drops of water didn’t mean the glass was half full! How could she be so calm? The night of Luke’s party, if it hadn’t been for Marcus, who knows what might have happened?

  Marcus. That was the person to call. Of course, her father wasn’t at Three Alarm Park now. But maybe Marcus would have another inspired guess based on the special relationship he seemed to have with her dad.

  There was no answer at the Jordan house, so she tried Marcus’s mother at the newspaper office.