Have you ever lost something . . .

 . . . and spent hours searching for it only to have its location revealed to you by your subconscious when you were least expecting it? If you have, then you’ll know exactly how plan B came to me.

It was late that night, long after I’d finally given up on everything that could be postponed until the next day. I laid in bed not really asleep but not really awake either. Fritzy was on my mind for blowing my mind.

We’re still friends, she had said.

Did she really have the ability to compartmentalize like that? Did I? The kiss was nothing more than a grain of rice in the bowl that was the entirety of our friendship. And yet what a grain it was. One that flavored the bowl with such a pungent spice, it was impossible to ignore.

I played out the day in the movie of my mind searching for clues as to what prompted the kiss. Was our friendship now in jeopardy? Was there a deeper motive, or should I take it for what she said it was, an act of kindness to help me become a man? There was the phone call in the afternoon. The report of Pirkle prancing about in his tighty-whities. The recent visits to her house where I’d been granted rare access to her bedroom. I pushed the rewind button, and it stopped at the place where I walked into her house that day. Where I dropped my keys in the metal bowl on the entry table. I rewound it again and pressed pause. I grabbed my phone.

“Wheeler,” came her sleepy voice.

“Did I wake you?”

“Yeah . . . what’s going on?”

“When Scolari comes to your house . . . does he put his keys in the brass bowl?”

Silence.

“I’m not sure. Maybe. Everyone usually does.”

“Plan B,” I said. “Next time he comes, you take his keys and let me inside his house. Then you go home and put them back in the bowl.”

“You know what you’re saying is completely insane, don’t you?”

I thought about it for two seconds.

“Yeah. It’s completely insane.”

“What if he has a burglar alarm?”

“We run.”

“Great plan, Wheeler.”

“I don’t remember seeing a burglar alarm sign out front or on the windows. Usually people do that if they have an alarm. But I can double check.”

“That’s called breaking and entering, and it’s a felony. You’re eighteen. You’d go to jail. I probably would too.”

“Well, technically it’s just entering. Not breaking because we’re using his key. No one will ever know, and I’ll be in and out in less than two minutes.”

“What if he has hidden cameras in his house?”

“He’s a piano teacher, Fritzy, not a computer geek.”

“Wheeler?”

“Yeah?”

“This is so fucked up I can’t even talk about it anymore. And it’s totally not you. In fact, I’m wondering right now if you’re on something.”

“Think about it.”

“I gotta go back to sleep. Bye.”

“Bye.”

Had the kiss somehow made me feel invincible? Had it scrambled my brains?

>>>

The following morning I saw it for the crazy plan that it was, and I probably would have dismissed it completely if three consecutive events hadn’t occurred shortly thereafter.

Event number one happened when I stopped by Mrs. Dickinson’s to pick up Lady.

“Hudson, dear,” Mrs. Dickinson said. “A word, if you don’t mind.”

Of course, The Boys did mind. Lady too. They knew their routine and didn’t appreciate any deviations from it. But when Jennifer struck a show dog pose, the others seemed to understand they must summon their better, more patient, selves. Felix teetered cautiously on his three legs before lowering himself to the carpet until further notice. Buster perched at Felix’s side, and Lady was content to gaze adoringly at her handsome Prince Jennifer.

“I saw Len Pirkle the other day,” Mrs. Dickinson said. “He stopped by the Senior Center, and of course I haven’t seen him for a good long while. But his appearance was . . . disheveled, if I can be so blunt. I wonder if you would mind sharing your recent impressions. He is still your client, isn’t he?”

“Yes, he is.” I squirmed inside. I knew she was expecting a good, long talk about the whole thing. She wasn’t the kind of woman who happily took “no” for an answer, and she was my number one client, after all. “But I can’t speak about my other clients, I hope you understand. Privacy issues.”

She looked me up and down and pursed her lips thoughtfully. The artist in me noticed the color of her lipstick, just a shade or two darker than her fingernails, but still complementary.

“No, I suppose you can’t,” she said at last.

But her look was clear. He’s your client so do something about it.

Event number two happened the following day when Pirkle called to see if I could stop by.

“If you’re coming out this way to visit your lady friend,” he added.

I hadn’t planned on it. In fact, I was planning to avoid Fritzy for a few days and let the dust settle, considering how dusty things had become. But he was asking, so I went.

“Have you been over there?” Pirkle asked. “To the neighbor’s house.”

I never felt comfortable in the living room where we were sitting just then. The neatness of it, the clean but sparse furnishings. It reminded me of one of those fake rooms they set up in a furniture store, unworthy of its name, the living room. I almost preferred the day it was vandalized. At least then it showed signs of life.

“Fritzy’s?”

For a crazy second I thought he knew all about the kiss since that was still foremost on my mind.

“The character who lives behind me,” he clarified with mild annoyance. “The one with the round window . . . the little girl.”

I swallowed my words before I could blurt out the fact that we’d gone over there but been turned away at the door. I almost said it, I was so eager to report that I’d taken some action on his behalf. But I remembered Fritzy’s warning about feeding into his paranoia.

“I haven’t had a chance yet,” I lied. “But I’ll do it soon, and when I do, I’ll call you from the window.”

“Good,” he said, nodding his head. “That’s why I called you. I’d like it if you could do that for me soon.”

Mrs. Dickinson was right. He was looking a little disheveled. And it was very unlike him.

“Mr. Pirkle, do you wanna go somewhere?”

He looked surprised. “A particular place?”

“Not really,” I said. “I just thought it might be nice to go for a walk. Or to get a cup of coffee or something.”

I really wanted out of that house. It reminded me of all kinds of broken things. Furniture. Memories. Promises. Lives.

“I can offer you a cup of coffee,” he gave me the skull-searching look which was comforting because it meant he was present. “But if you’d like to go out, then let’s just walk down the street a-ways. There’s a coffee shop about a quarter mile down. My treat.”

Anyone who saw us walking would have taken us for grandfather and grandson. A very tall grandfather with his very short grandson. It felt good walking with him. I already had a grandfather, two in fact. But the one who was the father of my dad—him, I rarely saw. In my mind, he was the sad man who lived a long plane ride away. Our grip on each other had loosened over the years until it felt like it was almost gone.

Something about Pirkle reminded me of that grandfather before he got sad. And something else about Pirkle reminded me of that grandfather’s son, my dad.

“How did you wind up here, sir? In this town.”

The houses were newer where we were. On my side of town, the houses were old and small with more mature trees but no such thing as sidewalks or even streetlamps.

“I was born here. Grew up here. It looked a lot different back then. Nothing but walnut orchards and grazing cows for as far as the eye could see.”

“I can’t imagine that,” I said, and I couldn’t even though I tried to turn asphalt into pastures and sidewalks into walnut groves.

A tiny white dog that couldn’t have weighed more than five pounds strained against its leash, dragging its heavyset owner faster than seemed possible. The dog stopped abruptly to sniff the tire of a parked car. The man pulled a phone from his pocket and poked at the screen before holding it up to his ear.

“You’ve heard of the one-room schoolhouse? Well I went to one. All the way from kindergarten to high school.”

“So . . . Chuck lived here too?”

“We grew up about a hundred yards from each other. Not too far from here. Of course, none of these houses were here back then.”

Somewhere behind us a car came to a sudden and unexpected stop. The screeching brakes startled Mr. Pirkle. We turned around but saw nothing.

“Must be over that way.” I pointed in the direction of a busier parallel street.

“I’m getting worse, Hudson. I know I am.”

“Have you seen her again?” I asked.

He nodded.

“Your mother . . . does she know things? I mean, if it comes to that.”

It was my turn to nod.

“My mom’s really smart. And she’s a great nurse. She’ll help you with anything.”

“If it comes to that,” he repeated. “I’m not so sure it will though. It depends which goes first, my brain or my body.”

“You seem really healthy to me, sir.”

“You mean physically? I suppose I am, but don’t forget I’m ninety. People don’t live forever, you know.”

And at that moment I understood he was rooting for his body to give out. In the war between mind and body, he only wanted his sanity to last long enough to see him through the rest of his life.

“I’ve built a lot of walls, Hudson, and now I feel them crumbling down. Peeling away like the skin of an onion. Sometimes it seems I’m traveling back in time to the places I’ve spent my whole adult life trying to avoid.”

“Did you have a happy childhood?”

We’d reached the coffee shop. It was one of those chain franchises filled, at that time of day, with young mothers and their pre-school age children.

“What could be unhappy about a childhood when you have a best friend and a doting mother? I lost my father too, Hudson. Did I ever tell you that?”

He hadn’t. With unspoken agreement, we turned back towards his house, leaving behind the steaming lattes unordered, unbought, and undrunk.

“How did he die?” I asked.

“He breathed in too much of that gas they used in the First World War. Mustard gas. Suffered from bad lungs for the rest of his life. I never had any brothers or sisters. My mother always said it was a miracle I was conceived.”

I thought I could see the years slowly draining away, leaving him back in time when he was a teenager like me again. And then one day he’d go so far back all traces of him would disappear. I knew I’d be left with regrets if I let him go off by himself, with no one to mark that time for him. Someone had to remember.

“Remember,” he said when I finally got in my car to leave, and for a second I thought he was talking about his life. But he wasn’t, of course. He was only talking about the girl in the window.

Event number three began later that night.

It was the time of night which I like to think of as my reward for completing another day and hopefully doing it well. Achievements or enjoyments, anything beyond just marking time. My reward could be playing a video game, or reading a book, or even just lying in bed daydreaming which usually led to nightdreaming. The point was that nothing had a claim on me then. Nothing beyond my own desires.

That night I laid on my bed thinking about Fritzy’s kiss, wondering what Alana would think if she knew, wondering if I could somehow cause her to know—let it slip accidentally on purpose. I thought about Bryce who worried about losing Alana but skipped doing the easy things that would make her happy.

How this muddled brew of subconscious meanderings led to what came next, I’m not really sure. But somehow, on legs that didn’t seem to be my own, I walked to my desk, and with similarly disconnected hands, I picked up my pencils and sketch pad and began to draw. Soon, words fell into place. Perfect words. And for the next four hours I didn’t move from that spot. When I finally stopped to review what I’d done, it was like I was seeing it for the first time. Ghost Soldiers, I wrote without hesitation in bold block letters across the top of the page.

There were five ghost soldiers, all Americans. The young father killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq. The high school dropout from West Virginia, drafted and sent to fight and die in the jungles of Vietnam. The marine who lost both legs and his life on the bare rock of Iwo Jima. The wheezing, gasping WWI vet who made it back home only to succumb to the ravages of mustard gas. The teenage boy conscripted to fight in the Civil War after all the grown men had already been called up—dead from diphtheria and a hundred miles from home.

The ghost soldiers move together as a band of brothers, traveling backwards and forward through time to fight and die again and again in each other’s wars. Young and old men battling ghosts and their own demons. Fighting alongside their brother ghosts. Every battle deepens their compassion. Deepens their understanding of the forces that dragged them into wars not of their own choosing. They watch over their loved ones from the spirit world. They relive their greatest sorrows and happiness, strengthened and supported by that brotherhood of five. They succeed in finding the humanity in their enemy. In themselves.

The characters were in the earliest stage of development. I knew I’d get to know them and absorb their worlds as my own. That could be months into the future. Maybe even years. But it felt important. It felt worthy, not just of me like Alana had said, but in a much broader context. Suddenly I felt a purpose to my life in a place that had previously been empty. It was more than just starting a business or impressing a girl or receiving a note from a teacher predicting I’d go places. Was it dark? Yes, very. But somehow it lightened me.

>>>

I floated through the next day and could hardly wait until that afternoon when Fritzy got home from a Christmas pageant rehearsal at her church. I was Superman on steroids. If a drug existed that could equal the high of a sense of purpose, we’d be a planet of junkies. I wanted to tell someone about it, and Alana was the natural person. But she was gone. Alana would have to wait.

In the meantime, plan B had taken on new meaning and urgency which only Fritzy could understand. But this time I wanted to talk to her about it face to face. It was too easy to dismiss it over the phone.

It turned out she was busy until after dinner, so as the sun set so did my faith in the plan. Only a few hours earlier I could have sold it to her or anyone else, believing in it with all my heart. I’d been so filled with self-assurance. Sitting with her in my car that night, I found it difficult to revive that conviction. But since we’d already discussed it once before, we were at least able to bypass the initial disbelief and charges of insanity. It wasn’t as shocking this time although we were both a little scared by it, treating it carefully like a ticking bomb. But the longer we talked, the less scary it seemed. Like allergy shots where allergens are introduced little by little until one day the patient has become immune. Or the violence on TV that desensitizes against the real thing. And since the end result was for a moral purpose, it helped in justifying the means.

After a while, this plan—plan B—felt less like a bomb and more like a helpful pet. A guide dog that was going to lead us toward a solution to a problem that was hurting a very good man. I think anyone could have arrived at that same place under similar circumstances. You only need to believe you’re acting in the name of righteousness. And that there is no other way.

Before setting the plan in motion, we had to eliminate all other options, so I attempted another visit to Mr. Scolari, this time by myself. I stopped by his house a few nights later around nine at night, a time Fritzy and I concluded a home burglar alarm would be enabled. It was Christmas Eve so I knew he’d be home. Alana would be back in three days. Plan B would take place in four. I did a quick check of the premises, saw no outside alarm signs and waited for him to answer my knock on his door.

He came quickly and, it seemed to me, without any indication that he had to first disable an alarm.

“Hudson.”

I knew I was taking a big risk but I had to try. Fritzy insisted on it or she was out.

“Mr. Scolari, could I ask you for a huge favor?”

“What’s this about?” he asked and I could tell he was annoyed.

The electric blue tones of a TV flickered behind him like a lightning storm.

“I wondered if I could take a look at your piano. I’ve been calling around to all the rental companies, and I want to make sure I get the right kind.”

“Now?” he said with disbelief. “Any standard upright piano will do for a beginner.” His body blocked the crack in the doorway. “You don’t need to see mine, it’s a baby grand which is totally unnecessary for you at this point.”

It’s a good thing it was dark because the anonymity of the night gave me that little extra courage it took to do something so stupid. What I was hoping for was to be invited in, and get to talking and then after a while I’d ask where the bathroom was and accidentally wander upstairs and call Pirkle from the window.

“Anyway, it’s pretty late Hudson. Good to see you.”

“Merry Christmas,” I said while he closed the door on my face.

I knew I’d never get another chance. Not while he was home.

I walked back around to Pirkle’s house and told him nobody was home. I’d have to try another time.

“I think you’re wrong, Hudson,” he said. “I just saw the little girl and this time she saw me too.”

It was late and getting cold. My mother was expecting me home. Brightly colored lights trimmed the outside of Fritzy’s house. The trees and bushes of one neighbor’s front yard had been transformed into a light show of electric greens and blues. A twinkling tree was centered in the front window of the house next to that one. The sky was black and speckled with glittering stars. All around me the Christmas spirit seemed to mock the rabbit hole of Pirkle’s mind.

“Merry Christmas, sir,” I said.

>>>

Three days later came the call I’d been waiting for.

“I’m back,” Alana said. “Totally jetlagged, but I really want to see you.”

“I want to see you too. Did you have a good time?”

“It was amazing. But I missed you. Can you come over?”

She’d never invited me inside her house before. We always hung out at my house which she considered more fun and relaxing. Did absence really make the heart grow fonder? Would it work for me and not for Bryce? Was I going to get her father’s blessing that night? I was just about to sit down for dinner with my mom but I was too anxious to get answers to those questions.

“I’m going to eat later,” I told my mom. “Alana just got back from Paris.”

My mom’s shoulders rose and fell as she sighed visibly, not audibly. She knew enough not to say anything.
“Cover your plate and put it in the fridge,” she said wearily.

Once I got to Alana’s, she threw open her door and hugged me tightly like a long, lost . . . brother?

“My dad’s not home,” she said as if to put me at my ease. It actually had the opposite effect. “He went straight to his office to catch up on work.”

So much for her father’s blessing.

Her house was a lot different than mine. For one thing, it was expensively and tastefully furnished and decorated. No threadbare sofas you could sink into for an afternoon nap like at my house. Her kitchen was all granite, stainless steel, and recessed lighting. No stained Formica counters and buzzing fluorescent lights. No teachers’ notes stuck to her massive refrigerator. My mom would have loved a kitchen like that, but we couldn’t afford it.

“Nice digs, Alana.”

Suddenly I felt an imbalance in our relationship I’d never felt before. Why hadn’t I ever been invited to her house? Why had Bryce? What was different about now?

“Thanks. My dad always lets me decorate whenever we move. He gives me a budget and I can pretty much do whatever I want.”

“You did all this?”

She led me into the living room. Like Pirkle’s it didn’t look too lived in, but it was beautiful. A curved buttery-soft leather sofa faced a huge flat screen TV. I could only imagine the hours I could waste playing video games if I lived there. Original artwork adorned the walls, and colorful glass sculptures were displayed in small alcoves.

“Mostly,” she said. “A lot of the art my dad and I collected during our travels.”

“Beautiful,” I examined, without touching, a glass vase that seemed to change from blue to green to gold depending on where you stood, and how the light struck it.

“You’ll be able to collect art pieces once you start traveling, Hudson.”

“Doubt if I’ll be able to afford anything like this.”

She took me by the hand and led me up the stairs to her bedroom.

“This is the room I reserve for the greatest art,” she said.

Bryce wasn’t lying. There were pictures of mine all over her walls. Sketches she’d saved from certain destruction.

Let me have it, she complained whenever I ripped a drawing from my pad in frustration. You’ll be famous one day, and then I’ll be rich.

I was beyond flattered.

“I can’t wait for you to see my new graphic novel,” I said. “I started it while you were gone, and this time I think you’ll approve.”

She looked at me with such delight and approval, I felt capable of anything. She seemed different. Happy. For whatever reason, the trip had been good for her.

“That’s fantastic,” she said. “I’m so proud of you.” But she didn’t ask when she could see it.

She took my hand in her own. Her fingers were soft and warm.

“I really did miss you, Hudson.”

“You were only gone for eight days,” I said.

Her sudden emotion was amazing, incredible, awesome—every superlative I could think of. But it also made me uncomfortable. My feelings for Alana never changed, so I wasn’t sure what was behind the change in hers.

“Didn’t you miss me?” she turned her pretty lips down to mimic a pout.

“You know I did.” My vision went fuzzy with desire for her.

She sat on the side of her bed, pulling me next to her.

“How much?”

Was she really flirting with me? It seemed like she was, but since it was so far out of the realm of anything in our past, I decided it was just wishful thinking on my part.

“A lot,” I said, and the memory of Fritzy’s kiss pinged my brain.

I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stiffen like they say happens just before lightning strikes. Alana lowered herself onto her back and pulled me towards her. The flowering vine running down the side of her neck gave off an intoxicating aroma. Since she was experienced, I followed her lead, and suddenly the body I’d only ever dreamed of was open to me—to touch, to smell, to taste. A gasp. Her fluttering eyelashes. The kiss. Clothes peeling away. Flesh pressing against flesh. Melting into each other. It was the fourth of July, Christmas, and my birthday all rolled into one. Inside of a dream. And then just like a dream, it was over, and I woke up as the new Hudson. Hudson, the man. Hudson who wasn’t a virgin. It was everything I’d ever fantasized about. And more.

Afterwards, we lay naked under her mauve satin comforter giggling like kids. She smiled at me in a way people do when they’re wondering what’s on your mind. But it wasn’t my mind she was wondering about. It was hers. I feared a Fritzy-type question.

Please, God, don’t let her say it, I prayed ungratefully to the God I only call on in times of distress. Don’t let her turn to me and ask if it was gross.

She didn’t. I summoned my courage.

“Are you really done with Bryce?”

“Of course I am.” She stretched forward to kiss me on the lips. “We’ll be great traveling partners, Hudson,” she said.

And it was only then that I got it. I’d just passed my audition.

I’d become a man, which gave me the courage to go through with plan B. I didn’t kid myself that Alana had gone to Paris for eight days and fallen out of love with Bryce and in love with me. I knew she just wanted to see if I passed. Not in terms of my love-making skills which were non-existent. Just in terms of the “gross” factor. Could she be with me, make love to me and not go running for the hills? Alana needed me to help her through the first part of life after parents. She didn’t need me the way I needed her, but she was smart enough to know there’d come a time when just being friends wouldn’t be enough for me. That’s what she wanted to preempt.

Did I realize all that at the moment? Not exactly in a way I could put into words, but I knew it in my gut. It didn’t matter to me. Not at the time.