Free Last Stop by Peter Lerangis

1
    H ERE’S WHAT I REMEMBER most:
    Heat.
    You could see it rising from the pavement in waves.
    Humidity.
    It slid off your skin, like hot oil off a skillet.
    Anger.
    Mine. At everything.
    Mostly at my friends—Heather, Max, and Clarence. They’d talked me into riding the subrail home. On the last day of the work week. When all the Franklin City municipal workers leave their offices early—exactly when we middle-school kids leave classes.
    I hate crowds. I hardly ever ride the sub.
    On this day each week, my dad used to give me a ride in a squad car. He worked for the city, too. He was a case solver in the Public Guardian Department.
    But I hadn’t had any rides home in six months. So there I was, standing shoulder to shoulder, dripping wet, on the putrid-smelling platform of the Booker Street station. Which leads to the other major reason I was angry.
    Dad.
    In fact, Dad was all I ever thought about. In class. At home. Whenever the voicephone rang. I’d picture him, and all I wanted to do was scream.
    Which wasn’t fair, really.
    For one thing, he was a nice guy. I loved him.
    For another thing, he was dead.
    Six months earlier, he’d left my mom and me. He got out of bed, dressed himself, and kissed Mom good-bye. When she asked where he was going, all he said was “Home.”
    He never came back.
    Dad was already totally off his konker by then. It had started with headaches, about a year and a half ago. Then sudden blackouts at odd times. Soon he was forgetting simple things. Talking baby talk. Taking walks and ending up in some stranger’s swimming pool in a neighboring town. Doctors checked him for everything—blood clots, tumors, Fassbinder’s disease. They thought it might be inherited, but Dad had no family records at all. He was an orphan and didn’t even know where his parents had come from.
    Whenever Dad strayed, Mom called the pugs, the good old Public Guardians. They would always bring him back. They were Dad’s loyal buddies.
    But this time, the pugs came up empty-handed. They contacted other departments in suburbs nearby. Eventually the search spread to include the whole country. A reward was posted for anyone who sighted Dad.
    Soon the radio call-in shows started. The TV talk shows.
    Tons of people thought they had seen him. Fishing in the Palm Tree Lakes. Moose hunting. Heading a religious cult. Hiding in a cave.
    But every lead checked out false.
    Mom tried to be optimistic. She began going to this therapy group. (She thought I should, too, but I said no way .)
    For weeks, I didn’t sleep. Whenever I closed my eyes, I saw Dad. Walking into my room. Sitting at the foot of the bed. Smiling.
    Then my eyes would pop open. And he’d be gone.
    I tried to believe that Dad was alive. But that made me feel horrible. Because if he were alive, that meant he didn’t want to see us. Or he didn’t remember us. Or worse.
    When the pugs gave up, I knew it was all over. I could tell by the way they looked at me, all soft and pitying. If Dad had been found, we’d have known about it. His face had been broadcast coast-to-coast.
    I tried to forget. I plunged into homework, chores, school activities—all so I wouldn’t have time to think of him.
    The worst part? He hadn’t said good-bye to me. In dreams I would say that to him, over and over. But he’d just smile.
    I kept seeing him everywhere. In shadows and shop aisles. In ball fields and on bikes.
    He’d left me. But he wasn’t leaving me alone.
    So the anger crept in. And grew.
    As I stood at the subrail station, the feelings were balling up in my head. Like a fist.
    Sweat prickled my neck. My shirt was soaked. I knew that when I got home, Mom would make me take a shower. We had to appear on a local TV show that afternoon. To talk about Dad, of course.
    I hated those shows. I hated being an object of pity. Answering dumb questions.
    And to make matters worse, my friends were acting like total idiots. Giggling. Making fart noises.
    I stepped away. And I