Free Sightings by B.J. Hollars

“regular” in the “reenacting game.”
    â€œThere’s no other rush quite like it,” Dad assured. “Not even drugs.” And then, an afterthought: “Or sex.”
    Meanwhile, Mom tried to make friends with the other pioneer wives who’d been lured into the charade. Sam and I caught her and a few of the other women sneaking to somebody’s car to flip through magazines and trade recipes for lemon meringue pie. Their husbands, too preoccupied with maps and figuring the best hypothetical route to the coast, failed to notice their wives’ transgressions.
    We children, who had become casualties as well, peered at our mothers longingly, questioning one another about the contraband we’d managed to smuggle back into the nineteenth century.
    Friday night, Sam and I joined a few other kids for a swim in a nearby creek. Our fathers approved – it was an acceptable activity given the time period we were trying to recreate.
    Thankfully, our fathers didn’t see what we did there. As soon as we tromped out of sight, a pack of kids (myself and Sam excluded) reached for their cell phones and began chatting casually with their friends from the future. Rampant were phrases like “so lame” and “so boring” and “I’d honestly rather be dead” – words that had no place in 1846.
    Sighing, I took off my authentic leather shoes and dipped my feet in the authentically cool stream. I kept expecting some bird to chirp overhead – this was nature, after all – but perhaps they’d caught wind of the reenactment and wanted no part in it.
    â€œYou signed up for the Pioneer Games?” asked Dennis Parker, dunking his feet beside mine. I recognized him from years past.
    â€œNaw, I was thinking about it but . . . I just don’t want to do anything that might make my dad proud of me.”
    â€œYeah,” he commiserated. “My dad forces me. But this time, if I win, he promised to take us to Orlando next year. My mom’s making him. I think she’s going to divorce him if he makes her wear any more bonnets.”
    â€œYeah. Maybe my mom, too.”
    It grew darker, and when we returned to the safety of the wagon train, the cell phones turned silent yet again. We gathered around small fires, watching as our mothers prepared rabbit stew while our fathers set to work constructing the bleachers for the following day’s festivities.
    In his one breach of authenticity, our father – the weekend’s Floyd Fowler – asked for a Phillips screwdriver, and a man begrudgingly handed it over so Dad could tighten the screws.
    While standing alongside the popping fire, I viewed my father in a way I never had previously: as if after taking all the wrong trails, he’d at last landed in the proper time and place. A part of me was almost happy for him. A small part.
    That night, we slept in the backs of wagons. Outside, the fires burned down while Sam, Mom, and I burrowed beneath blankets, using stuffed burlap sacks for pillows. From my place, I could see Dad’s shadow creep along the ground alongside the others. The men chuckled deep into the night, debating issues related to twine and birch bark.
    â€œI’ll tell ya something about twine, though,” Dad said. “It’s damn near the most durable material you can imagine. Hell, I’d take it over sinew any day.” The other shadows nodded.
    â€œI mean that,” he continued. “Show me a man with a spool of twine, and I’ll show you one lucky man.”
    Sometime before dawn, I felt Dad climb in beside us, tug on the blanket, and adjust the burlap sack.
    â€œDid I wake you?” Dad asked.
    I grumbled.
    â€œSorry, pal,” he said patting my head. “You just rest up for tomorrow.”

    The following morning, when my name was ticked off the participant list as a “late addition to the Pioneer Games,” I shot a look at my father