Free Live it Again by Geoff North

pleasantly surprised and squeezed him
back. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you today, but I like it.”
    He grunted goodnight to Gordo from the
kitchen. The older boy said nothing. He was too involved with his fourth or fifth
hour of television to pay any attention. Heather was on the phone with a friend
so he gave her a friendly wave on his way to the bathroom to brush his teeth.
    When he got back to his room, Hugh pulled
the chair up to his window and watched the stars twinkle through the screen. How
many times had he sat there in the evening and stared out to the west? He wanted
another cigarette. He considered sneaking outside after everyone had gone to
bed.
      You don’t need to do that . You’re
not physically addicted to them anymore.
    That wasn’t the main reason for staying
inside. It was a long way to the dugout in the dark. Who knew what could be
lurking in the shadows?
    Childish fears…like the McFarlane house.
    He couldn’t escape those childish fears; he was ten years old again. Tomorrow morning he decided, right after
breakfast. No sense pushing his luck so soon.
    He pulled off his clothes and crawled under
the blankets. The bed squeaked and sagged in the middle. It was another
hand-me-down from Heather’s, and it had been Donald’s before her.
    After half an hour of restlessness he threw
the sheets back and let the breeze from outside wash over him. He pictured his
family so far away in the future, his mom wasting away in a personal care home,
his father long gone. Donald and Gordo had families of their own, and Heather
still alone, waitressing well into her early fifties. He could see Cathy, and
Dana, and Julie. He tried to imagine Colton’s face, but all he saw was his own,
reflected in the bathroom mirror of 1974. He wondered what color his son’s eyes
were, mild panic rose in his chest.
    Blue… of course they’re blue … like mine, like Cathy’s.
    Where are they?
    “I want to go back,” he whispered into the
black, hoping for an answer from the brown.
    The muffled sound of the television
downstairs answered him. A new episode of The Waltons was on.

Chapter 8
    Hugh went to Braedon on Saturday with his
mother for her weekly shopping run. She picked up a huge load of groceries for
less than forty dollars at Nelson’s, and the young boy helped her pack it away
into the back of the station wagon. The sour old bastard hadn’t said a word to
her about his attempted tobacco purchase the day before.
    “Are we going home now?” He had ninety
cents to spend, forty cents left from yesterday, and fifty cents his mother had
given him that morning.
    She fished around in her purse and gave him
three crisp one-dollar bills. “I’ll give you your work allowance a few days
early.” Hugh looked around, gave her a quick hug and headed for the pharmacy. “You
have to work for that,” she called out after him.
    He couldn’t buy the comic books he wanted,
his funds were limited, so Hugh settled on the idea of buying two copies of
each title he knew would be worth a lot in the future. One copy he would keep
as a gentle reader, the other would be stored away safely, only to be brought
out again to sell decades later. It wouldn’t make him fabulously wealthy, but
it was a healthy little investment, one that he would enjoy.
    He smiled politely at Mrs. McDonald and the
middle-aged woman scowled in return. He went to the back of the store and
carefully picked out his treasures. He settled for two of the fat, 100 page World’s
Finest books, two Spider-Man , two X-Men , two Tales of the
Unexpected , and two copies of Batman . He had thirty cents left over.
Normally he would’ve spent the extra on bubblegum or a roll of candy, but Hugh
shoved the change back into his pocket. That could be put toward another book
next week. He met his mom back at the car and gently placed the books on his
lap, mindful not to smudge the covers with his fingers.
    “Did you spend all of that money on comic
books?”
    Hugh