JACK’S RING

Part One: Chance

The ball flew away, up, up…it seemed to pause before it plummeted back toward him. Then, up again. Harder this time. No pause. It hit the ceiling and struck the boy in the chest. He rolled over, coughing and winded. And feeling stupid.

His mother calling, “Ethan? Are you okay, honey?” didn’t help matters.

“Yeah, fine!” he called back, hauling himself out of bed and stowing the basketball in a plastic crate by the door.

Downstairs, his mother was pulling a casserole out of the oven.

“Dinner’s ready!” she said cheerfully as Ethan came into the kitchen.

Ethan ate as quickly as humanly possible, leaving more on his plate than he ate and heading out the door without another word to his mother.

“Hey!” she called after him, rushing to the doorway. He turned with an annoyed sigh.

“What?”

“Where are you going?”

He blinked. “Drew’s. I told you like, five times.”

She shook her head. “A ‘goodbye’ would be nice. Or an ‘I love you, mom’.”

Ethan rolled his eyes. “Bye, mommy! I love you!” he cooed, pulling a face then setting off down the block. As soon as he heard the door shut, he veered off down another street and sat on a bench. A city bus pulled up soon after. He got on. Paid his fare. Sat between a college student and a woman with a baby in her lap. Got off in a residential neighborhood. Walked three blocks and then up the steps of a nondescript two-storey house. Checked the address against the one written on his wrist one more time. Took a deep breath, and knocked.

The window sill had collected a year’s worth of dust behind the dark, heavy curtains. The window itself was layered with cobwebs. On the other side of the curtains, a man lay in bed, watching the ceiling fan spin in slow circles. He hadn’t gotten up in sixteen hours, hadn’t been out of the house in three weeks. His hair had more grey than black now, even thought he was only forty-three. A year had never aged a man like this one had aged Jack Parkins.

As the alarm clock hit 3:34 in the afternoon, he sat up, his feet slipping into his house shoes. He sat there for a few minutes, leaning his head down to stretch out his spine, letting his vision slowly clear. With a sigh, he went down to the kitchen to pour a bowl of cereal.

He searched the mound of dishes in the sink for a moderately clean one, and, plucking it from the pile, rinsed it out with lukewarm water, setting it on the grimy countertop. Filled it with the last of the cornflakes. Used the last of the milk, which had expired the day before. Ate half of it and left the bowl on the counter, going back upstairs.

He pulled a wrinkled pair of jeans on and yanked his stained nightshirt off over his head. As he did, a gold key fell down onto his chest, suspended around his neck by a thin silver chain. He shivered at how cold it was.

It was a key to the house across the street, although the new owners might have changed the locks in the past year. He doubted that. In any case, he had no desire to break in anymore. It was closed in, hidden again as he did up the buttons of his last clean shirt.

“Alright,” the tall blonde woman at the head of the table said. “Let’s start out with introductions. How about…your name, where you’re from, and your most prized possession. I’ll start. I’m Beth. I’m from here, and my most prized possession is the first picture I ever took of my daughter and Annie after we adopted her.”

She gave a glowing smile to her partner, who returned it before saying, “I’m Annie. I’m originally from Portland, Oregon, but now I live here in Lakeview. And my prized possession is my engagement ring…but,” she said with a pointed look at Beth, “I hope I’ll be able to trade it out for a wedding ring soon.”

There was a chorus of ‘awws’ and a few fake gags. The long table was crowded by a couple dozen kids between the ages of fifteen and twenty-one. Annie and Beth were a little older, since they were the leaders of the group. Ethan was on the right, between a tall black girl in horn-rimmed glasses and a boy about Ethan’s age with long-ish bleached hair and a lip-piercing.

When the circle came around to the boy, he said, “Um…I’m Chance Knight. I’m from Henderson, Kentucky. My dad got relocated here last spring…Uh…my prized possession isn’t really as deep as y’all’s…I guess it’s my dog.”

The circle broke out into snickers. Chance laughed self-consciously along with them, and Ethan realized it was his turn.

“I’m Ethan,” he said, looking around the table. “I’m from Evansville, Indiana. Live here. And my most prized possession…” he wondered if he should tell them. It was really personal, but he couldn‘t think of anything else. Well, he thought, guess I don’t have to say where I got it. He pulled a gold chain out of the collar of his shirt, a silver ring with a smooth black stone between his thumb and index fingers, “is this ring. It’s four hundred years old. Some guy found it at the Tower of London.”

“Where’d you get it? Chance immediately blurted, examining it.

Ethan smiled uncomfortably, tucking it into the top of his shirt. “My boyfriend back home…gave it to me.”

It was a lie, but he sure as hell wasn’t about to tell the truth to a group of strangers -- that he’d fallen in love with his mother’s boyfriend and stolen his ring after she caught them kissing.

The rest of the group introduced themselves while Ethan helped himself to the free candy in the plastic buckets on the table. Hidden among the mini candy bars and Hershey’s kisses were condoms and packets of lube. Ethan almost hesitated to eat the candy.

“So you’re from Evansville?” Chance asked, unwrapping a packet of skittles.

Ethan nodded.

“Yeah, I went there a lot. My mom and her family lives there. What side of town?”

“North. For most of my life,” said Ethan, trying to give Chance enough information to shut him up. “We lived on the East side for about nine months before we moved.”

“So why’d y’all move out here?”

Ethan cringed. “My mom…really didn’t like my boyfriend.”

“Hell, I guess not!” Chance laughed.

After the meeting was over, they all helped take down the rainbow flags and put away the food. Ethan didn’t think he’d come back. They hadn’t really talked about anything.

He and Chance sat on the porch with all the other kids, chatting about Evansville. As it turned out, he was a year older than Ethan, and they had gone to the same elementary school.

“That was before my mom and dad split up. We still lived in Evansville, but dad and me moved to Henderson when I was eight, so I only went for two years.”

“Did you go on the Camp Carson trip that year?”

Nah, but I went to Camp Carson every summer anyway, so I prob’ly didn’t miss much.”

“Are you serious?” asked Ethan. “Did you ever go after you moved to Henderson?”

With a chuckle, Chance said, “I went last year. It’s a long damn way, but it’s worth it to see everybody.”

“No way! I went last year! I can’t believe I never saw you!”

Chance shrugged. “Prob’ly just in different cabins. I was in 4A. You?”

“12B.”

“Well, shit, that’s why I never saw you. Did you do archery?”

“Hiking and swimming.”

“Are you going this year?”

Ethan laughed humorlessly. “Probably not. Mom doesn’t want me within a hundred miles of Evansville.”

“’Cause of the boyfriend? Was he really that bad?”

Ethan took a breath, trying to decide how much to tell Chance. “He was a lot older than me.”

“Ooooh!” Chance cooed mushily. “An older man! We talking college student or senior citizen?”

Ethan tried to laugh through his blush. “Try right in between.”

“Forbidden love!” Chance sighed dramatically through a snort.

Ethan stared off into the street, suddenly very annoyed with Chance.

“Aw, come on,” he said, still giggling. “I mean, he didn’t molest you or nothing, right?”

No,” said Ethan with an eye roll. “If anything, I molested him.”

Chance burst out laughing again. “Damn, you’re sassy!”

Ethan narrowed his eyes. “Sassy?” he asked.

“Anyway, as long as you’re both ‘consenting’ or whatever, I don’t think it’s a big deal. You just gotta make sure not to get caught or he’ll get thrown in jail.”

“Not in Indiana,” said Ethan casually. “Age of consent’s fourteen.”

“Really? Damn, I shoulda lost it while I had the chance. Here, I gotta wait two more years before I can without being ‘statutorily raped’.”

A sly grin spread over the other boy’s face. “Not if you get fucked at camp!”

“Hey, mom?”

Ethan was standing outside the door to his mother’s bedroom. Chance was a few feet away, leaning awkwardly against the wall.

“Yeah?”

“I’ve got a friend over, kay?”

“Who is it?”

Ethan shot a look at Chance. Just play along. “Chance Knight. He goes to my school.”

“Okay, but he has to find his own ride home.”

“It’s cool, he drove us. When do you want him out?”

There was a pause. “If he’s not staying the night, by eleven.”

“Right.”

Jack was standing in the doorway, surveying the damage his hiatus from normal life had done to his house. Having kept his house scrupulously clean for his entire adult life, facing a year’s dust and clutter and grime was overwhelming.

Where to start…?

He piled the remaining dishes into the sink and swept the trash and debris from the counters, then wiped them down. After the counters and ranges were back to their former glory, he started in on the dishes. It took him nearly until midnight, but he finally finished.

The house looked fantastic.