Free Live it Again by Geoff North Page A

got immediately defensive. “It’s
better than junk food, isn’t it?” Was she going to control what he spent his
money on every week? Would he have to hide his purchases from her, too?
    She smiled and pulled the car out onto the
road. “It’s your money dear—you can spend it however you want. I was just
hoping you might be sensible and try to save some.”
    “Comic books are a great investment, mom. They’re
just as good as buying gold.”
    “I’ll take your word for it, since I don’t
have any money to spend on gold.”
    And that was that. The rest of Hugh’s first
full day as a ten-year-old went just as a ten-tear-olds day should go. In the
early afternoon he looked over his new comics and listened to Heather play her
favorite songs from the seventies over and over again on the record player in
her room. Those songs were new, he realized. This was the seventies.
    Later in the afternoon he choked back his
second cigarette of the day down by the dugout. He walked through the fields
with Colonel by his side, and explored through many of the bluffs scattered
about the home quarter. Gordo took some time out of his busy television
schedule to kick a soccer ball around the front yard with him. Hugh found it a
bit boring and oddly embarrassing, but his young body was filled with excess
energy that demanded to be burnt off. It was a wonderful feeling, being able to
throw his body to the ground without any fear of inflicting serious damage. They
took turns standing against the side of the work shed wall; each boy would take
ten shots and then switch positions. They were tied after four rounds so Gordo
decided the winner could only be decided by a wrestling match. Gordo won.
    In the evening, Hugh watched the sun set
over the dugout and puffed on another stolen cigarette. He really had to give
it up, he thought, as he flicked the butt into the water. Later that night he
pictured Cathy and the kids in his mind as he tried to settle into bed. He
cried himself to sleep.
    Sunday wasn’t much different than Saturday.
There was little to do but wait. Wait until he grew up again to reclaim his
first life. There were no big concerns a ten-year-old had to dwell on. No taxes
to pay, no dead-end job to drag himself to five days a week, no one but him to
take care of.
    He watched the stars come out in the west
from his bedroom window for the third night in a row. What could he have done
to avoid this? Was this really a second chance, or was he being punished for
making such a mess of things? Had time carried on since his body was sliced in
half? Had there been a funeral? Did his family miss him as much as he missed
them?
    Did he still exist? Maybe all of this was
just his dying brain’s last moments, a final electrical re-run in his mind of
sights and sounds as the synapses shut down. He’d seen that on a documentary
once. It made a lot of sense, and it had scared the hell out of him.
    No.
    He could smell the tobacco on his fingers;
he could hear the chirr of crickets, the buzz of mosquitoes beyond the screen
window. He could see the faint glitter of fireflies lighting up and winking out
around the fir trees.
    This is as real as it gets.
    Thirty plus years was a long time to
wait…doubting his very existence would make it unbearable.
    8, 12, 20, 23, 34, 36
    That would make the wait easier.
    Something
to look forward to.
    ***
    Watching Fabian take a beating on Monday had
definitely been something worth looking forward to. A tight ring of school
children surrounded the spectacle; Hugh stood closer than any of them, encouraging
his brother with each mean fist that pummeled the fat bully’s head into the
ground. It was hard to feel sorry for the kid. In a few more years the town
would discover that he was sexually molesting his little sister and torturing
neighborhood cats and dogs. He was a whole mess of social fuck-up, headed down
a road of hurt for anyone that got in his way. Let Gordo pound the tar out of
him, maybe it would