Coming Back Home

The cup of coffee she poured was bitter and burnt. No amount of sugar made it bearable, so I pushed it away and asked for some fries and a rootbeer. She shuffled towards the kitchen and shouted towards the cook, who I remembered had shed his gown at graduation and ran naked across the stage. We had all laughed and cheered loud to the dismay of our families and neighbours. As he rubbed his sleepy eyes and headed into the back, to toss some fries into the deep fryer I didn't think about laughing. I turned to look out the filthy window of the diner and remembered how we all spent crisp, fall nights hanging out in the parking lot, sitting on the trunks and hoods of our cars, someone else's cars, laughing and talking about the days we would leave that town.

"Your coke," she said, sliding the glass in front of me. I glanced at her name tag. Rebbecca. I'd forgotten, but would never forget her face. She had been a cheerleader and spent her days walking around the hallway, enticing boys like me, frustrating the less hot girls.

"You're in that band, right?" she said. I took a sip of my drink. It wasn't rootbeer, but I said nothing and looked at her constricted pupils. I wondered what got her high, if she was holding, if she would share. I redirected my attention out the window again. A new generation of kids were sitting on the curb, sitting on the bumpers of their cars. They didn't even notice we were inside, staring out at them.

"You were in California for a while, weren't you?" She asked sliding into the booth in front of me. Looking back at her, I realized despite the wear and tear of time, she was still beautiful. Sure, her breasts no longer popped out the top of her tank top the way they once had. Her eyes were puffy and they didn't seem to focus on anything even though she was staring straight at me. I felt her foot bump mine under the table.

"Yeah. For a while."

"Why did you come back?" she whispered, sitting forward. Her hands were only inches from my own. I glanced back out at the kids in the parking lot. Two boys were wrestling on the ground. Girls were standing by, watching laughing.

"Why did you come back?" she asked again.

"I had some things to sort out," I told her, taking a sip of the coke. It's sweetness caught me in the throat. I coughed and asked, "Weren't you prom queen?"

"I wouldn't have come back," she said with a sigh. She took my hand and slid out of the booth. I followed her, looking back at the guy in the kitchen as he brought my plate of fries to the counter. He didn't even react as she dragged me into the 'employee only' bathroom and shut the door behind us. From the pouch of her apron she pulled a bag of white pills. She popped two into her mouth and asked me if I wanted one.

Six months clean, I reminded myself. Six months and one day if I could just make it until tomorrow.

I shook my head and stood very still as she pulled my jeans down. She knelt in front of me. I closed my eyes wondering how I ended up there. How the hell did I end up with the prom queen, who once pretended I didn't exist, blowing me in the bathroom of the diner I used to get high behind? I used to sit in those diner booths just dreaming this day would come. I never thought it would be quite like that. It wasn't supposed to be like that.

She got her feet, tried to kiss me. I told her I had to go. She squeezed my arm and asked if I was going to call her tomorrow. I said yeah. I thought about telling her that I didn't have her number, but something stopped me. I pulled up my pants, zipped up my fly. She followed me out to the door. She asked me if it really was sunny all the time in Los Angeles, like she hear on television, in the movies. I stepped outside and nodded, telling her it was exactly what everyone said it was. She asked if she would love it there. I nodded and said, "Everyone loves L.A."

A cold breeze caught me off guard. I zipped up my sweater and flipped the hood up over my head. I gave Rebbecca a wave as I cut across the parking lot and climbed into the front seat of my mother's station wagon. I started the engine and sat there, laughing to myself, wishing I could have told the boys what just happened. But they were miles away.

To ignore the loneliness I reached into the collection of CDs my mom kept under the seat. I flipped through some Elvis, Johnny Cash. I was about to grab Man In Black, but something else caught my eye.

In sharpie, written right on the CD, it said, "To mom. Listen to this when you miss me. Love Nick."

I slipped it into the CD player. The first note came with an echo. The garage never did have the best acoustics. My voice was almost inaudible over the drums, the amps. But I remembered that day so well as I backed out of the parking lot and headed down Main St, towards home.

"We wander these streets trying to figure out which ones takes us west," I heard my own voice singing words that meant more than anything I'd written in the years since. I drove around for over an hour. I listened to us, the way we were when we were only sixteen, with such big dreams, ones that were beyond us now.

Frost covered the huge front lawns. Multiple cars sat in the long driveways. The summer's patio furniture that sat on all the front porches has been removed. The curtains were drawn on the huge front windows. There were no kids hanging out at the park. The arcade at the edge of town had been closed down. It was hard not to wonder where the kids went when their eyes were glazed over, when their breath smelled of cheap beer or vodka, where they could spend time their their friends.

For a few minutes I stopped in the middle of the arcade parking lot. I remembered all the times with the guys, getting high in Kyle's car and waiting until we knew our parents were asleep before sneaking back inside our houses. I remembered the girls we met and the things we told them to convince them we weren't as small town as we obviously were.

I made my way past Kenny's parents house where we used to sit on the porch and talk about all the places we would go and all girls we thought we would marry. It reminded me of Sheena and our own big plans. I changed the CD back to the second track 'New York Skyline'. It made me think about the apartment Sheena and I were supposed rent and the children we thought we would have had by now.

I let the car roll to a stop in front of the house that my mother had told me Sheena moved into. In the eight months I'd been in town I hadn't come by, didn't have the nerve. Already I was trying to talk myself out of going up there, but the song was still playing and it was all I needed to motivate me. I pushed the car door open and stepped out into the road. I shivered in the cool, fall air and made my way up the walkway towards the front door.

It was later then it should have been. She would roll her eyes and asked me if I knew what time it was without a single hello. All the lights were still on. I knocked.

The door opened and there she stood with a baby in her arms. A tiny baby with blond hair and the bluest eyes.. She looked just like her mother. Sheena gave a sigh and said, "It's eleven thirty, Nick."

Her lips were pursed, but there was no shock or surprise on her face. Instead she ran a hand over her hair and pull her shirt flat.

"Should I go?" I asked her shoving my hands into my hoodie pockets.

"Just wait a second, okay?"

She disappeared, leaving the front door open, giving me the perfect view of the family photograph sitting on a tiny table, next to a vase of perfect daisies. In the photograph a smiling Chris Boyle smiled. He looked so smug with his arm around Sheena's tiny shoulders. In eleventh grade I punched him in the face for telling me that he would always be better than me. I was staring to wonder if he wasn't right all along.

She came back, pulling a hoodie over her self. She tucked her hands into the sleeves and pulled the door closed behind her. I stood there, thinking about how many times I had thought about her while I was on the road, while I was on stage, while I was in hotel rooms with girls who didn't compare. I thought that maybe I should have called her. Maybe then things would have turned out differently.

"You look amazing," I told her, "And even after a baby?"

It was as if she hadn't aged at all. It was as if she was still the same girl I held all those nights in high school, all those nights in my parents basement. Now I was back there, sleeping on the same futon, with the same sheets, but she wasn't.

"You look sober?" She raised one eye brow. I nodded and said, "Six months."

"Good." She gave a smile of encouragement. It was the same closed lipped smile she'd always given me when I was on stage. It was the same one she'd given me when I got the diploma I never thought I would been handed.

"Yeah," was all I could force out. For nights I had laid there, figuring out exactly what I would say when I saw her again, how to win her over, how to made her laugh.

"I wondered when you'd come back and see me," she whispered taking a step closer to me.

"Thought about it every day."

"Yeah. I got married." She bit her bottom lip and turned her eyes towards the road, away from my clenched jaw.

"Yeah and to Chris Boyle? Seriously? I hate this fucking town."

"You should be thankful, Nick," she said with a low voice. She walked to the porch swing and sat down. With a few long strides I took the seat beside her, shaking when my legs touched the cold cushion.

"Thankful?" I asked shaking my head, "Thankful for what? What the hell did this place give me?"

There was a long silence. I glanced at her face. Her lips were pursed tight as if she was trying hard not to say anything. I slid my hand from my own pocket into hers. I threaded my fingers between hers.

"I can't believe you're still here. Of everyone, I thought that at least you'd be able to get out, to stay out. Of all people," I told her with a long sigh. I didn't want to tell her that I thought maybe she would have been the one to get me out, to keep me out.

I thought about that time, when we were hiding in her basement, naked and sweating. She'd put her hand against my face and told me that we were going to find a way out of that town, no matter what. I wondered why that changed. I couldn't imagine why she'd stay.

"I hope one day you see it the way I do," she told me. She gave my fingers a squeeze and said, "But I have to go. I have to put Angie to bed."

"Yeah," I sighed, "You should get back to your family."

"I will. Thanks for coming by, Nick. I hope you keep well. Honest, you look good." She stood up and my hand fell from hers. She leaned down and kissed my cheek with warm lips. I wanted to grab her, kiss her on the mouth, but I didn't. I watched as she walked to the front door, pushing it open. She was just about to disappear when she stopped and turned to face me. I stood up and waited, knowing it was her turn to speak.

"I know you say you hate it here, but I think you owe this place a lot. If it weren't for us, for this town, you'd never have left, never saw all the things you did. Just try to remember that when you write your next album, alright?" She gave me her signature smile with a small wink. Before I could think of the right thing to say she closed the door. I heard the lock click. All the lights went off inside and I stood there alone. I exhaled and saw my breath hanging in front of me, suspended in the air.

I got back into my car and headed back to my parents' basement. I dialed the only number I knew and waited until I heard Kyle pick up. I heard him yawn before he said, "Nick?"

"Yeah, man, hey."

"How you been, dude? Please, tell me you've been writing?" Kyle asked. They were all waiting to know, probably sitting around discussing it and our future. It wasn't just my future I was waiting to mold it was all of ours.

"No."

He sighed and said, "We miss you at the jam sessions. It's just not the same without you."

"I have a favour to ask you," I told him.

"I know things got fucked up, but seriously, we need you, alright? Anything you need, let me know."

"You coming back for the holidays?"

"Yeah, man. Already got my ticket. I'll be staying until after Christmas with my folks."

"You think we could jam? You think we could write some songs together?"

Kyle laughed, "Definitely. You, me and the garage?"

"Yeah. I was thinking about calling up the boys. Seeing if they're coming home at all."

I could see it, see it working out. We'd spend our nights in the diner with Rebbecca screwing up our orders and never noticing. We'd spend afternoons in the garage, putting chords together and figuring life out through the lyrics.

"Yeah. Dan's moving back in a couple weeks and Kenny will be back for Christmas. I heard he's staying until February, unless you're up to do a few shows, get us back on the road for a bit," Kyle told me.

There was hope in his voice. He was doing nothing to hide it. It felt like those days when we were eighteen, sitting at the diner, plotting out where our first tour would take us and how we'd get the money together for the van. It seemed inevitable then. It seemed inevitable now.

"Let's do our first show here in town. You okay with that?"

"I'm more than okay with that, man. I'll tell the boys, cool?"

"Yeah, rad."

"Alright," he laughed, "I'll see you when I get home."

"Yeah," I said, laughing too, "See you when you get home."

I'll pull my hoodie up over my face.
I won't run away.
As fucked as this place got, it made me me.

Italics are lyrics from Hoodie Weather by The Wonder Years