Free Something Fierce by David Drayer Page A

“Thanks, Bro. See you soon.”
    He tossed the phone on the passenger’s seat. He shut the radio all the way off so there was just the sound of the road whipping by under the tires and the wind of this cold, clear day. His mind raced and meandered and then drifted. Though he hadn’t lived in Cherry Run for nearly twenty years, he’d been back to visit his family as often as possible over that time so it was easy to picture the funeral home on Main Street and his mom’s old red Cobalt sitting in front of it. He could imagine her walking to the car, slow on account of her arthritic knees, wearing her puffy, pink winter coat and jeans and the boots she was proud of because she’d gotten them for half-price at the end of the season last year at the Walmart in Clarion. “I’ll just set these away and next winter, I’ll have a brand new pair ready to go,” he remembered her saying. She wouldn’t be wearing a hat because she hated the way they messed up her hair, which was shoulder-length and dyed to maintain its original light-brown. He could see her getting into the driver’s seat too, but that was as far as he could visualize. “What’s going on, Mom?” he said, aloud, as if she would somehow answer him.
    Growing up, he’d idolized his dad, but his mom was his buddy. It was through her that he developed his penchant for believing in long shots and dreaming big. She was the first person he’d told that he wanted to be a writer. He’d just gotten his learner’s permit and she was teaching him how to drive. Even though he’d rarely seen her with a book, she’d told him that she knew he’d make a great writer. “Because I’m always reading?” he’d asked.
    “Nope,” she’d said. “Because you never miss a beat. Ever since you was little, you listened more than you talked; you watched people and you always wanted to know how things worked and why people was the way they was. If that ain’t the makings of a good writer, I don’t know what is.” She’d told him then she had always wanted to be a movie star when she was his age and had planned to go to Hollywood.
    “How come you didn’t?” he’d asked.
    “I didn’t know how to go about it, I guess. Hollywood might as well a been the moon. Plus I suppose I was scared. Just didn’t have the gumption to take off on my own. Then I married your dad and had you kids and,” she’d laughed, “here I am, old and fat.”
    He’d assured her that she was neither and she’d told him he was sweet but that mirrors didn’t lie. “Things are different with you though. You ain’t afraid. You jump right in. I don’t know where you got it, but you got it. You’ll be as famous as that Jack London or Stephen King,” she’d said, noting the two authors he’d read most often at that age. “You watch and see!”
    Despite his best effort over the past several years, he couldn’t help but feel he’d let her down though her faith in him was unyielding. She believed in him as much now as she did during those driving lessons all those years ago. This fact was as comforting as it was upsetting.
    Finally getting off the highway and driving down the winding country roads that led home, Seth found himself thinking about the long Sunday afternoon walks his family used to take together. It was something they’d done as far back as he could remember. Winter, spring, summer, and fall. Always in the woods. No parks—not that there were any in Cherry Run—but no well-marked trails either. The more remote, the better, like they were wandering around out there in search of something no one knew existed let alone thought to look for.
    When his mom’s knees started getting bad, the family walks took on a different dynamic. Mom opted for country drives. Dad wasn’t interested in country drives and though it was never discussed, it didn’t seem to bother either of them, and the kids, of course, adapted. Seth walked with Dad and the two younger sisters—Tina and