As I feared, I was stiffer than a two-by-two as I rousted myself off the porch and climbed into the truck. The man climbed behind the wheel and silently handed me a chocolate bar. He hadn’t said a word since ordering me out of the house in the middle of the night and I knew better than to speak out of turn. Uncle Pete had taught me that.
What’s the point off asking a question when you know you won’t like the answer? When a stranger barges into your bedroom in the middle of the night and orders you to get out of bed quickly that cannot be a good thing. Even a ten year old knows that and I was two weeks shy of turning eleven. As for Mom and Uncle Pete, God only knew what they were up to.
‘Don’t worry about them’, the man had said. There was not menace in his voice, yet he made it quite clear there were not to be any more questions. Even though I was afraid of Uncle Pete, part of me wished the mystery man was a friend of his, to whom I had been entrusted for whatever reason. But then Mom or my step father would have mentioned something about me going away. Unless they had to leave in a hurry, which happened a lot. After all, it wasn’t the first time I had to leave in a hurry whatever shabby house we called home at the time.
When the truck got on the highway I knew that wherever the guy was taking me it wasn’t close so I settled myself comfortably in the chair and pretty soon fell asleep.
I sat down at the table and ordered a meal. There were a few other guests. Truckers by the look of it, people who minded their own business. Even if I were to ask for help, I doubted any of them would take their eyes off their plates long enough to look at me. When the man came back from the restroom he ordered black coffee for himself. He’d got rid of the black cap to reveal a headful of black hair nicely combed back and he smelled of cheap soap. He tried to present a calm face but I could feel him watching me nervously as I shoved the greasy fries into my mouth and chewed as fast as I could on the hamburger, which was surprisingly tasty. Or maybe I was just very hungry.
Back in the truck, the man seemed to relax a bit and put on the radio, tuned to an oldies station. I felt better, too. Since he had just fed me a copious meal, hopefully he wasn’t planning on killing me. Maybe there was a perfectly logical explanation for all this secrecy and it will be revealed to me in good time. Maybe it was part of Mom’s plan to get away from Uncle Pete, as she had threatened so many times during their drunken fights. Running away separately made sense, as Uncle Pete would certainly chase her, not me. I was unimportant to him. I imagined Mom putting on a wig and big dark sunglasses before boarding a bus. I was sure she’d be on a bus, since Uncle Pete’s old Toyota was still in the driveway when we left. Imagine Uncle Pete’s fury when he woke up to find the house empty.
‘Why are you laughing?’
The man’s voice woke me from my crazy day-dreaming and I realized the plan in my had was just dumb. Here I was, in the middle of nowhere with a man I had never seen in my life with no idea where he was taking me. I started to cry.
It was dark when the truck pulled up in front of a small house, at the end of a dirt road. Surrounded by tall trees and overgrown bushes, the place felt creepy and isolated, but I had no option but to follow the man inside.
‘We’re home’, he announced as he motioned me into the living-room, complete with a brand-new sofa and a big-screen TV. What caught my eye was the white cardboard box beside the TV, which had the Nintendo logo on it. I’d always wanted a game console, but I’d never dared to ask for one, as money were always an issue between Mom and Uncle Pete, even when he came back from one of his business trips with wads of bills stuffed into the pockets of his jacket.
‘It’s for you’, the man said, following my curious gaze. He was shaking and I could see tears welling up into his eyes. He seemed agitated as if a terrible fight was raging inside of him and then he pulled me into his arms, holding me tight, squeezing me and ruffling my hair.
‘I’ve missed you so much, Tommy’.
A deeply buried image emerged from the depth of my memory. Mom arguing with the man in front of me, whom I now knew was my Dad. And his name was Robert. Robert, as in ‘I should never have left Robert’, as I once heard Mom saying one night when Uncle Pete came home drunk and slapped her when she said there was no beer in the fridge.
It all came back to me - how I used to dream we’d go back to living with Dad and Mom would stop drinking or taking those pills that made her walk like a zombie and Uncle Pete won’t be there anymore to kick me around. Those dreams had ceased years ago and I had all but forgotten Dad.
When he finally let go of me, I asked Dad if Mom and Uncle Pete won’t be looking for us.
‘Don’t worry about them’.
I wanted to ask how could he know that for sure, but that was a question I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer to.
Story written for @mariannewest's freewrite challenge, the weekend three-prompt special!
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