The Skull Collector

By J.R. Gonzalez

This is a story told in three parts, the first is Robbie; a kid who always tried to do the right thing and still fit in with the others, as uncomfortable as that sometimes makes him feel, and in doing that; someone close to him dies and then the real trouble begins. Then there is Henry, a man forced to fi

• Language: English
• Publisher: Global Summit House
• Release date: Jan 18, 2021
• ISBN: 9781637957110

J.R. Gonzalez

This is the sixth book by J.R. Gonzalez, who with each new book is proving that he is a master of horror; this book is a very worthy addition to that collection, originally intended to be part of a short story book, this book follows in the path of his last book, "The Wolf Man" and will be followed next by a story called "Nocturnal" which will reveal what happened to Carl Lingstrom after leaving that cliff side in his third book, "The Lingstroms." J.R. lives in Los Angeles and all of his stories take place there or end up there.

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The Skull Collector

J R Gonzalez

Copyright © 2021 J R Gonzalez.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by reviewers, who may quote brief passages in a review.

ISBN: 978-1-63795-712-7 (Paperback Edition)

ISBN: 978-1-63795-713-4 (Hardcover Edition)

ISBN: 978-1-63795-711-0 (E-book Edition)

Some characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Book Ordering Information

Phone Number: 315 288-7939 ext. 1000 or 347-901-4920

Email: [e-mail]

Global Summit House

www.globalsummithouse.com

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Prelude

Chapter One

Born In The Usa

The War Over There

Chapter Two

The Plan

Chapter Three

Bracing For The Inevitable

Chapter Four

Coins In The Fountain

Chapter Five

The End At Last

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Photograph by J.R. Gonzalez

Sometimes, when you are out and about and not looking for or thinking anything special, when you find something new and exci ting.

Even though, as I said, you’re not out looking for it, you find a bright and shiny new toy; it’s surprising, something that catches your eye on a day when you might have normally gone the other way, and would have missed it entirely, and quite possibly might have been much better off without it.

On the surface it might look good to you, but then, you lean in further, open your eyes and get a much closer look at it, and at that point, you might start to feel a little nervous, or uncomfortable, and yet, you can’t resist it, taking a chance, you pick it up, and carefully put it in your pocket before anyone notices and walk on.

It makes you happy for a moment, and your heavy load is just a little bit lighter and there’s a spring in your step, you smile a little better, the world looks a little prettier to you all of a sudden.

Then, when you get home and look a little deeper into it and find out a little more about it, then you get that creepy feeling in the back of your neck, the hairs on your arms rise up and then things like, If there was nothing wrong with it, why did I feel I had to hide it before anyone noticed? pop into your mind, but there’s no one around to answer, all you have is that inexplicable feeling of dread.

That’s when you might find that maybe it isn’t such a good thing after all; and that maybe you should have just walked away and left it alone, or even better; taken the long way home, missed it altogether; and lived a long and fruitful life.

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Prelude

Death makes angels of us all and gives us wings where we had shoulders smooth as raven’s claws.

-Jim Morrison, (1943-1971)

Robbie was never at any time of his life thought of as a bad kid, and he never went looking for trouble, and yet, more often than not, trouble seemed to have found its way to him easily enough; and that was what eventually messed up his best laid plans for all of the kings horses and all of his men.

When he was much younger, he got into trouble because his school yard friends took advantage of his good, and trusting nature, until he learned to cautiously trust them, they used him for laughs and he ended up in detention more than once because of things he didn’t even do.

Though it wasn’t something that he did, he watched a lot of the old gangster movies with James Cagney and Edward G Robinson in them, Pat O Brien as the priest and they never ratted on each other to save their souls so Robbie thought that was how it was, that it was one of the rules of being a guy, and even though it made him angry that they thought he did whatever it was, he never told them differently because he was being a guy.

One time, they ran up to him with a white tether ball, and told him they were going to the restroom, and asked him to hold it for them till they got back, and then left him there; literally holding the ball, and then going just far enough from there to see and hear when the teacher walked up and started yelling about bigger kids taking things from the smaller ones as she said that, she put her hand out and demanded the ball.

This was when he realized that this was one of the trigger points in his life; he didn’t like demands made on him, at least not when he thought they were unfair and as rude as she was at that time, she demanded the ball, and put her hand out that way expecting him to comply; he dug in his heels and refused until she grabbed him, turned him around and yanked him by his collar into the office, all while she was demanding something be done about this hooligan gone wild.

Robbie thought that his only real problem was that he was one of those kids that was always bored; he spent hours alone, using only his imagination and a few toys to entertain himself, and there were never enough challenges in his life; it seemed that, as hard as he tried and worked at it, he didn’t fit in easily with the other kids, the kids his age, and that started when he was very young, he had no tolerance for their tantrums and crying.

He couldn’t help it, but that was one of the biggest things that added to all of the other things that made it hard for him to make friends and then keep them; and since they moved around so much, there was no chance at all of building strong bonds and keeping them, he saw them as children, even though he was a child, he didn’t cry and throw tantrums as they did, he didn’t understand that behavior and never indulged in it.

There were some that might even say that it was because he was just a poor judge of character, but if that was true, it wasn’t entirely his fault; it was the way that his mother raised him; that he must always assume friendship, and even honesty from strangers, until proven wrong, and he never grew out of the habit, and probably didn’t fully understand where the lines were drawn, or how to clearly spot the difference.

When he changed tactics and went against the grain, he changed the way he did things, tried to alter the way he saw and thought about things in his life it didn’t work either; he tried to be like the others, not because he wanted to be them, but because everyone else seemed to like them so much, they gravitated to those guys more than the others, especially Robbie.

But that wasn’t because of the way Robbie looked or behaved, they just didn’t know him yet, they didn’t trust him because he was always the new kid on the block, the one that didn’t grow up there as the others did, and so he needed to prove himself before they let him into the inner circle.

It was hard for him, because he didn’t feel right doing it, he only tried doing it that way in order to get along with the popular kids, and he did the same things they did easily enough, but he didn’t really care about those things that were so important to them, he tried to get into it nearly as much as they did, but he couldn’t make those trivial things as important to him as they meant to the others, and sometimes they didn‘t even make any sense at all, as his grandfather would have said, Cain’t make no sense of it as he scratched his head, and just thinking about that image always made him laugh.

They were guys, so they were into sports, basketball, football and baseball, and he was good at all of those, but he didn’t want to join the team, wear uniforms and have to learn to play the way the coaches wanted him to; he preferred to play in pick up games, at the beach or after school in the park, just his friends against his other friends in a friendly game that was still competitive.

When he played basketball, Robbie found out that he could shoot from far outside, away from the basket, even from center court, as he did once, to win a bet and then a lot of times afterwards, it opened up the game and spread the floor out, made it harder to stop them from passing the ball to an open man when they had to come up and guard him, though he wasn’t the tallest on the court, that was still not an easy task because he had that shot, it would arc high overhead as they ran up to guard him and hit the bottom of the net, the sweet sound as they called it.

The bet he won was against another kid that thought he was better at sports than Robbie, and didn’t understand why no one believed him, he foolishly challenged Robbie into a game of basketball, thinking he was better at it or that he could beat him one on one.

As you might imagine, the game went back and forth, and eventually, Robbie had the ball in his hands, and was standing in what he called the coffin corner because they were playing one on one there was only the one basket, he stood where he could not retreat anymore, his heel was next to the line; nor could he advance the ball because he’d stopped dribbling and was waiting for the other kid to come and guard him.

You going to stay way over there? Robbie asked him that day, and then they both looked at the others that were standing there, watching the game and rooting for Robbie or the other kid, and then back at each other, You aren’t going to guard me? he asked, This basket wins the game! Robbie warned him, but he didn’t listen.

You’re not going to make it from there! he laughed, I will wait here for the rebound and then make my shot while you’re trying to get here and guard me! he said and then planted his feet and waited, looking up at the basket.

Robbie smiled at him, looked at the basket and measured the distance again, then he bent his knees, jumped and fired, the ball arced beautifully, high and away; rotating slowly as it flew across the space between them and then right into the basket, he hit nothing but net, and Robbie was still holding his hand up and laughing at him as if he never had a doubt.

Though he wasn’t good at dribbling, running with the ball, he was a good shooter, and a more than decent passer as well; those were things that his grandfather taught him, he spent long hours working with him, teaching him about the basics first, how to hold the ball, how important it was to get the rotation, to get the right spin on the ball; and to spot the open man when they had the ball and the defense came up to stop him, how important it was that the ball left his hand with that spin on it, how to plant his feet and bend his knees, even worked on how high to jump when he was away from the basket, that was how he discovered that he could shoot that way.

He hadn’t thought of his grandfather in a long time, as he had heard him say more than once in the time they had together, for a long minute and that made him sad, as if he now remembered that he lost something vital, a key to his life and his strongest supporter.

His grandfather was always a major influence in his young life, he was his mentor and the driving force that got him this far, the one that set his sights on certain values and principles that guided his decision making; those morals and ideals that were set into his mind and not easily forgotten once they were taken in by the boy.

There were few things he could look back through his memory for and find such a strong and vital image as that of his grandfather, simply because he was always there for him; though he worked and was a busy man, he always found the time to be there for Robbie when his own father could not, his father was there when he could be, but most of the time he was not able to be there for his son because he was out trying to put food on the table and didn’t have the flexibility that his father had in his schedule.

This was something that the boy was too young to understand until much later, he mistakenly thought that his father didn’t care, but it wasn’t that, he envied his father having that time with his son.

Then it happened, one day; he couldn’t be there anymore either, his grandfather suffered a heart attack when Robbie was at a school field trip to a museum, his grandfather was supposed to go with him but begged off at the last minute because he didn’t feel well.

Robbie tried to convince him that it was nothing and he should go anyway, that he might feel better once he got there, and then later when he found out why he wasn’t feeling so well he carried that guilt for a while too, thinking that he’d made it worse by trying to convince him to go when he should have insisted that he go see his doctor.

It also bothered him that his grandfather was gone so suddenly that Robbie never had the chance to say goodbye, something that was very hard to get over after all they meant to each other for so many years, Robbie lost his rock in the world.

Robbie wouldn’t remember or understand very much about the funeral, he was there, but only partially, for him, it was a day filled with jumbled images of people coming by, shaking his hand or touching his shoulder gently with tears in their eyes and sincere words that meant nothing to him, not because he didn’t care; in truth he hardly saw them, spoke to them and even less, he hardly knew any of them, and wondered where they had been all this time if they had so much love for him as they spoke of, and yet he knew that wasn’t being fair; he was just angry and hurt and felt such a strong sense of loss, understandable for a young man that adored his grandfather.

As they came by, he politely, if absently shook their hands; endured their hugs and somehow got through it until it was almost over, when he saw his grandfather lying in that coffin and whispered loudly at him, asking him to get up, and then gradually he became louder and harder for the others to ignore or hope that he would be okay.

Then, he went to the coffin and started telling his grandfather loudly, and with tears in his eyes, Come on! he cried, Let’s go play some more catch! he cried, I promise I won’t make you too tired! It will be fun again, come on Grandpa! he shouted until they gently pulled him away and outside where they tried to calm him, but he was inconsolable and broke away from them and ran as far as he could, until his lungs felt as though they would explode and then he stopped and cried until they found him and took him home.

It was decided then and there, that he was much too young for this, they decided that he could not handle the rest of the ceremonies and traditions of saying goodbye to someone that close to him; he was kept home for the final arrangements and the actual burial as they were afraid of what he might do next, his mother actually thought he would dive into the grave if he was there.

Keeping hm away didn’t sit well with him, and that was something else that always bothered him deep inside, though he never spoke of it with them, he was very angry at his father, he blamed him for doing that to him, though his father had nothing to do with it, and he was never asked about it either; had they spoken of it they might have cleared that up but it seethed under the surface between them for a long time because his father didn’t know.

Those trivial things the others thought were important were so small in his mind, he knew that none of those things would matter in five years time and no one would remember even doing them, that was another lesson he learned from his grandfather, not to sweat the small stuff anymore and don’t worry about the things you can’t control! those lessons were of tremendous value to him as he grew into a young man and had to face difficult problems in his life and find solutions to them and he had the confidence to find his way through them when the others couldn’t, because they didn’t know how to handle the stress as Robbie did.

He taught the kid a lesson, when he was younger, he was worried that he wouldn’t be popular, and since he felt that he couldn’t talk to his father about it, he asked his grandfather, and he didn’t understand why he wanted to be popular when he was such a good and loving kid, but he told him, Will any of this matter in a year? In five? he asked him and waited, and Robbie thought it would, at that time it was a very serious and important question, but he eventually understood and agreed with him, then he told him that it didn’t matter what others thought if himself as much as it mattered what he thought, and Robbie took that lesson to heart.

His grandfather was good for things that Robbie needed to hear like that, it helped him tremendously when the other kids were struggling with those self-image issues that always seemed to come along, but he wasn’t able to always provide the answers, yet Robbie appreciated that he tried even when he didn’t have the answer, and when he didn’t at least he was honest enough to admit that and didn’t try to guess at the answer or tell him something that he wasn’t sure of.

Robbie didn’t like the way some of those guys treated some of the girls for one thing, they were treated as if they were made to be used, and thrown aside, like yesterday’s newspaper, with very little (if any) respect for who they were, and what they might have wanted out of life or the relationship, or even how they felt about being treated that way, or why they felt that they deserved it.

It always surprised him too, that some of the more beautiful girls would put up with that kind of treatment, that it sometimes it seemed the more abuse that was dealt, the more they seemed to like it; it was as if some even might even welcome it, as if they felt that they should to be treated that way, payment for being prettier than the other girls were, as if that would make any sense to anyone but them, and some of them seemed to deliberately pick the ugliest or meanest guys of the lot and stay with them for a long time, until he got tired of them and moved on.

That other girls would put up with it that, the so-called normal looking and less attractive girls didn’t deserve it either, and it bothered him to think of them as less attractive; but it was how the others saw them and he didn’t know what else to say, calling them plainer because they didn’t have the curves or look as though they’d just walked off a Hollywood movie set didn’t sound right either, but eventually he’d get tired of debating that with himself and just accepted it for what it was.

For many of his young years, because of the work his father did, they traveled a lot, always moving around and going from town to town; sometimes up and down the state, other times they went a lot farther than that because of the work his father was doing and where it took him.

They sometimes went to different states, North, South, East and West, he was able to see the landscape and immediately know what direction they were headed in after a while, he would know where they were by the mountains and the direction of the sun, they travelled all over the country, and then eventually cycled all the way back to the beginning.

After a while Robbie felt as though he was caught up in a run of bad luck for a very long time, just because nothing ever lasted long enough to make it all work and seem real, to hold it in his hands and examine it, instead of trying to remember how it was and losing it eventually.

There were times that he literally went to bed in his room, or what he thought of as his room anyway, and when he woke up in an entirely different house and room because they picked him up and carried him to the car, drove all night and then carried him to the new room, it was not that they were being secretive or sneaking out in the middle of the night because they did anything wrong; it was just the weather, or the time they would need to drive there that determined that, and they didn’t know that it bothered him because he never told them that he needed roots.

He felt that in order for it to be important in his life, that it should have lasted for more than a few days or weeks, even a few months would have felt better than this felt to him, it wasn’t really bad luck for the family, it just meant Robbie felt that it was bad luck because the opportunity to work kept them moving, he didn’t understand the alternative because they never let him go hungry; even if they themselves didn’t have anything to eat.

Not understanding any of the sacrifice that was for all of them, he felt so frustrated, he couldn’t make any kind of lasting friendships, because they moved around so much that he wasn’t in any one place long enough to hold onto any friends he might make or people he might meet and want to know better.

It was impossible to plant roots and establish any kind of trust, any give and take that went with having friends; seeing their problems and how they dealt with them, being there for them so they would be there for you when needed, the kind of things he would need as he grew up, to help him deal with the issues that he was going to face.

There were times when the cycle was repeated, and they’d gone full circle, and he was back in the area where they started, some of his old friends were still living in the same area; but by then life had been going on for them anyway, without him and they could no longer find a common ground to relate to and become friends again, it felt forced and unnatural and they would give up and move on without that friendship.

The time he was gone was enough that they changed since then, and for that reason, they could not be friends, their interests and lifestyles changed and it wasn’t a fit anymore, or he would find that the family he was looking for also moved on, finding ways to feed and care for themselves and there were times that he never saw them again.

The money his father made was good, so they couldn’t argue about that; he worked on a good job making more than what might be called a decent wage, for operating a crane at a time when money was tight and there weren’t a lot of jobs to be had; a lot of people were out of work and struggling.

Then one day, the construction company his father worked for caught a huge break, and then this important, big money contract dropped into their lap, it meant lots of steady work for as long as they wanted it, but they would be travelling again, all the way across the country once more.

By a lucky twist of fate, they were now contracted to build all of the bridges and highways running through the middle of the country, going all the way from Chicago, Illinois, to Los Angeles California, the major highways and some of the little streets and roads in between, but the major parts of the infamous Route 66 were put together by the crew that his father worked with, he was a major part of that, even without the education and training that the others had; though they got the bigger checks and recognition for it, he’d done the real work and everyone knew it; any time there was a problem that the bosses couldn’t solve, they called on his father and he found the way through it and got it done.

They saw a lot of the country that way, but it meant nothing to the kids like Robbie who were too young to appreciate it, especially since he didn’t get the time to explore and get to know the area, not even long enough to get any mail, and he didn’t really understand; those people were the ones that felt that they gave it their all, and still got the short end of the deal, paid the highest price in the end, when it was all added up and examined closely, all the checks and balances were cleared.

It meant that they had no chance to grow, they had nothing that lasted very long in their lives, which were filled with a lot of goodbyes and tears in the middle of the night when they parted ways, until they got used to the idea, or maybe they grew numb to it was a better way to explain it.

Because they had to grow up in a way that some of them didn’t understand, they became listless, aloof; and they seemed to be cold or even uncaring with others, it was their protective instincts taking over, because they knew it wasn‘t going anywhere and whatever they had wouldn’t last long, maybe it was the birth of the sociopath for all they knew, they learned not to care anymore about anything outside of their families and what they could hold onto for more than a few precious days or weeks.

Their lives were filled with short friendships and no time to make enemies, no time for tree houses to be built; and it seemed that it was always time to move on before the grass grew long enough to need mowing, or at times not even time for watering.

He saw teachers that he liked, or felt drawn to; either because they were really inspiring in their lesson plans or just had a good way of relating to kids, then he’d lose them when they moved away and after a while, he became numb to those feelings; because it would hurt too much; if he liked a girl enough to call it a crush, he never acted on it because he knew they would be moving on soon, and sometimes her family moved her away before he did because they heard about a good opportunity or there was a chance for a better life somewhere else.

At times it was just because the teacher was a woman, and she was young and beautiful, or he liked something about her that he couldn’t define because it confused him and they’d be gone before he figured it out.

The other kids in some of those classes had time to build a relationship with her, the time to know and understood each other, and he was always the outsider and didn’t know how to get into that club and feel like he belonged anywhere he wanted to be; to have a sense of his roots, something to hang onto and identify with.

At one time, they lived in a town in California, it was called Santa Fe Springs and he liked the way it sounded, very western and cowboy to him, it was mystical and magical to him, as if life itself sprung out from this area or something; it was a stretch, but he was looking for a silver lining and that worked for him and his imagination was starting to blossom.

There was an irrigation ditch that moved through the edge of town and went all the way to the ocean, he liked to hike through there, and once in a while he would find sharp sticks that construction workers put into the ground with flags, markers for whatever they were doing.

Robbie would take those, and pretend that they were swords and he would sword fight imaginary battles with people that weren’t there, he spent hours there because he could use his imagination and no one would see him except the cars that raced by above him and didn’t know he was down there or didn’t have the time to notice.

He learned from the other kids there that the town was also called Canta Ranas by the locals, and it meant singing frogs and at first he thought that was really dumb, but eventually it grew on him and he thought of it as his home base when he was tired of travelling and thought about going home for good; he thought that if ever had kids of his own, that he would come back there and raise them.

It wasn’t how they planned it when they started off together, they were only trying to find the best way to raise him and take care of him, find their place in a world that was swirling around their heads, they worked so hard on those things that they didn’t know how he felt about it, they thought he was okay because he seemed normal and happy and he never complained; but he never complained because he didn’t know he was allowed to, that he had a vote in it.

They were so focused on chasing that dream that it seemed as though they didn’t care how he felt about it, but it was never that, they were so exhausted at the end of the day that they were asleep as soon as they hit the pillow.

That was some pathetic and lonely life for a kid, most of the things he did to keep himself entertained sprung out of his imagination; there was nothing else, the television he could watch was boring for him; geared for adult viewers more than children anyway.

He used his imagination to replace most of those things that he was denied, though not always intentionally, they were more important to kids than anyone realized, but his parents thought that if they did this for a few years that they would have enough money that they could make it up to him, give him the roots he wanted a buy the home they dreamed about.

The closer they thought they worked their way to that big day, the farther, and more elusive it became, and of course, the harder it became for Robbie to believe in that day and hope for its eventuality.

They planned to buy a house and settle down without worry about how to pay the bills; or the stress of having to work their butts off to pay for it and not have time for the kids.

It was quite possible that they never imagined that something terrible might happen; a tragedy that might result and one or both of them might die at an early age, while they were trying to make it work any other way; live some kind of life that didn’t have desperate or involve living from one paycheck to the next and being broke in between while they shuffled the bills around.

But you already know what they say about the best laid plans, and this plan was no different, because every time they thought they were making progress and salted some money away; something would come up and they would have to spend it and then borrow more to make ends meet, and as a result they were constantly borrowing from Peter to pay Paul and could never get ahead, no matter how hard they were trying.

There were other families that went along that same circuit too, traveling along on the same roads and sometimes sharing the same vehicles when things got really tough, and a lot of the times families were found sleeping in their cars even when it was far too cold to be outside, but they had no choice, it was just how it was and they had no time nor inclination to feel sorry for themselves and wrapped themselves in blankets and slept close together.

Every so often, they would see a car that they recognized pulled over to the side of the road; they knew that it belonged to someone they’d met along the way, and they would stop to see if everything was alright.

Sometimes they found friends, co-workers or acquaintances seemingly asleep in the car, mom, dad and the two point five kids that every family had; and they were fine, grateful for the concern, but other times they were dead, they seemed to have just given up; pulled over to the side of the road, parked the car and went to sleep and never woke up again, sometimes there was a hose that went from the tailpipe into the window; but other times there was nothing to explain it, they were just there, lifeless and huddled together against a cold world that already moved on.

There were some families that were living close together, finding ways to stretch the food budget and buy more or at least some of the other very much needed things, even those didn’t always work out.

Some arrangements didn’t always last long because there was always offers being made for other jobs, and some would break the deal and leave without notice because it was too tempting on the other side of that fence to turn down and they would leave the others hanging.

For most of the people that ran in those circles, maybe it was more enticing in the long run but it wasn’t always the smart thing to do; because the majority of the time, those jobs, almost as a rule never lasted very long; and they seldom, if ever went as planned or promised.

Sometimes it turned out that it wasn’t more than a rumor about the opportunity offered and it turned out to be false, and of course, they could never come back once they’d quit the job and walked off the site; there were always at least ten men behind him waiting to do that job for half the price because they had families to feed and times were tough.

Even so, a lot of those families either didn’t have kids yet, or they left them with their parents or other families while they went off and worked because they thought that would be easier for them, though some could not take the sense of loss for not being with their families, and would kill themselves because they thought about that more than what they were doing and had accidents because they were so distracted.

Others killed themselves by walking off the job, and not having enough money to make it all the way home and their bodies were found, laying by side the road where they became too tired or hungry to continue.

That meant that most of the time that whatever kids there were around to be found were almost always too young for Robbie to pal around with, or too old and would soon be off on their own and didn’t want a younger kid hanging around and cramping their style as some of them would say.

Because of all of that, this particular time, Robbie had an even harder time trying to have the friends or things he saw other kids in school have and that he envied them for; the things they seemed to have so easily and took for granted.

Now, was even more aware of the things they had, and was really feeling more of a sense of loss, that he was missing all of the things that he thought should be a normal part of his life; especially the roots that other kids had and that he was denied.

There were times that he thought that he might have been much better off had he not seen those things through the other kids, ignorance might have been bliss after all; and yet now that he’d seen them he felt their absence a lot more than before.

There was never enough time for anything that would help him; nothing to guide him, show him how to find the right path, the right way to live his life and how to find his place in the world; and he had no idea of who to turn to for help or even how to ask them if he could have come across them.

When he heard other kids carelessly talking about all of the boring things they did on their weekends; he thought they must be rich, but to be get over that he pretended that he never had time to go fishing or to the many theme parks that were springing up all over the land.

He wondered what their fathers did for a living and thought they were probably the same guys that ordered his father around at his job, the bosses that didn’t know their ass from a hole in the ground but got the breaks without doing the real work because they had that pedigree, that piece of paper that said they could.

But they were the first ones to go running to people like Robbie’s father when the shit hit the fan and they didn’t know what to do about it as it swirled around their heads. To Robbie, it seemed that they did so much in those two short days that he could never stop trying to imagine how much fun they had, and it sometimes drove him crazy.

Since it was their memories and not his; he didn’t know why he felt that way, and now he missed things he never had in his life in the first place.

But he did, he missed them even more when heard them as they talked about the things he wished for the most; he wanted to be a part of a real family life in a house that wasn’t rented or borrowed, a bed that was his for more than a few months and a room where he could at least hang posters up on the walls and call it his own.

He’d spent a lot of time trying to imagine what he would put up there, the typical kid things, posters of the Beatles, or the latest athlete that he admired, and he found that he liked football the best and looked for teams that were Strong in tradition and stayed in the same state and city for a long time, because he was denied those things.

He saw others that were into basketball and baseball, and even a kid that threw a fastball that went into the high nineties and a wicked curve ball that dropped off the planet at the last moment; long enough to tantalize the batter and make him think he was going to hit it out of the park, but to him; he admired that, but he thought football that took the most skill and athleticism and he liked that sport the most.

There were other things that he liked too, images of whales cresting out of the water or deep below the surface; and race cars as well; he found that he also liked older cars, the gangster cars of the twenties that had suicide doors and tales that would never be told again because the witnesses were all dead and the world had moved on.

There were other things; he wished that he never heard or learned about the word temporary, and was forced to live it as he grew up and learned what it really meant: temporary became nothing to him after a time because that seemed that was all he had in the end, that was his life and all that he could look forward to, until he grew up and changed that on his own.

When he thought about it, tried to imagine what might for him, a perfect day it didn’t take very much to make it that way, it would involve spending a lot of time with his family, getting up before they did, going to their room and laying with them for a while, talking and listening to them, just his mother and father and maybe a few sibs closer to his own age that he wished they would have given him, and then spending the day riding bikes or walking in a park.

He saw other guys, friends and brothers, guys that were always playing different sports in school, and sometimes he would see them after school too, they would be playing basketball or football and sometimes baseball, and he would always marvel at the relationships that those brothers shared between them.

Not all of them were really brothers though, and yet when he watched them play and interact within the game he could see there was a strong bond there, forged over the years as they practiced against each other to hone their skills and get better; he marveled at the ability that some of them seemed to have been born with; natural ability to be sure, but he couldn’t help but wonder how many days and hours were spent between father and son, or brothers, tossing the football or baseball around in the backyard or at the local schoolyard; and at the same time building a bond between them that nothing could ever shake.

Even the kids that weren’t brothers, yet called each other that, and acted as though they were, and then fought constantly as brothers often did, though each always seemed to be on the other side of the argument, or played on the other team, even those brothers found a way to get along when it was all said and done.

They worked hard and forged a bond between them and would take on the world for each other, and he so envied them for having that kind of support, that give and take interaction.

But when he asked his mother, in one of the few quiet times they had about why he didn’t have a brother; she would get really quiet, and when she would answer, she would almost always say something that he never understood because she would lower her eyes, and mumble something that he couldn’t work up the courage to ask her to repeat.

That was probably because talking about it hurt her so deeply that she would only be able to mumble the answer, and when he got older, he had a basic understanding of it; he had the inklings of an idea that he had a brother or sister that didn’t live very long and that saddened him more than he thought possible; it gave him an unexplainable sense of loss, he couldn’t stop thinking about what that brother or sister would have been like, how they would have grown up together and been there for each other because that was important to him.

Probably because he didn’t know or understand the whole story of what happened, and no one would, or could answer him, but he kept having nightmares about himself being the baby that didn’t live, opening his eyes and taking a breath, seeing the people that loved him surprised and excited at his being there, and then darkness as he died, without ever taking a step or speaking a word in this world.

After the first time they spoke of it, Robbie woke up the next day with that in his mind, he sat up quickly; gasping for air, and covered in sweat; and more than once he woke up and thought he was covered in blood until he turned on the light and saw that there was nothing but his own sweat.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d killed his sibling, that for some reason, it came down to a choice between them and he was the one that won, the fast swimmer that fought harder, and yet it bothered him that he was that selfish, that he couldn’t allow his brother or sister to live if it meant that he would not.

Then, on the other hand, he would have another dream where he did not swim fast enough or fight hard enough to win and he was the dead one, but it didn’t end with his death, he would wake up in another word, a parallel world where he could see and hear what everyone was doing in his family, yet he could not join in, when he tried to get closer, he ran into a solid glass wall that would not let him pass, and the harder he pushed at it, the more it would start to hurt his skin until he gave up.

If he shouted at them to try and tried to get their attention, most of the time, they could not hear him, even if he shouted and pounded on the wall, they would not react in any way that made him know they heard him; other times they would turn in his direction as if they did, but it was clear that they could not hear what he was saying, even if he shouted louder and pounded harder, from where he stood, it seemed that they thought they imagined something and there was no one there.

But since there was no one he trusted with asking about it, without being embarrassed, and hearing that it was like so many other things in his life, growing pains or probably something that everyone else knew about, so he never asked anyone else because he thought it would make him seem dumb for not knowing.

By doing things on his own, asking other family members when he came across them and other such ways and means, he found ways and pieced things together; and found out that he had once been a twin but the brother was miscarried.

That opened a whole new world of unanswered questions and emotions that he would never understand without help, yet there was still no on that he felt comfortable asking for that help; especially when they said that she couldn’t have kids after that, something else he didn’t understand since no one told him about the birds and the bees since his mother never thought of it and there was no one else.

It made him wonder what his brother would have been like; what sports and music would he like, what would be the things to make him smile and enjoy his life, how the family would have been different in a lot of ways, if they would have a friendly competition to be the favorite or he would be, simply because he was older.

He knew that sometimes his mother spent a lot of time thinking that she needed to replace the child she lost; he heard her telling his father one night when they thought he was asleep; that she was meant to have his brother, and that somehow, without ever opening his eyes to this world and taking a single breath; it just seemed so wrong.

As often happens, she mistakenly thought that it was through her own fault that the baby was denied or taken back from her; that it was something she either said or did, or something that she didn’t do, but was supposed to, and he punished her that way for her transgression.

One of her friends helped her though, she told her that ours isn’t a vengeful lord, but a generous, loving, and kind lord, and that if the baby was meant to be it would have been, but it wasn’t a punishment and she would never do anything that evil to deserve such heartache, she lived a good and honest life.

Then his mother became pregnant, and they all thought it was out of desperation, a feeling that she could not understand nor explain if it was to save her soul; but then that child died as well, and it seemed that Robbie was the only fetus she would carry to full term and deliver healthy and normal, he was meant to be an only child.

To Robbie, that meant that he was supposed to have a brother who would have been close to his age, but that he had died during childbirth and the subsequent brother as well, and then he mistakenly began to believe that it was his fault after all.

That most likely came from the explanation he kept getting from his mother, though she couldn‘t find the words to say it, and these days often mumbled in normal conversation anyway, they would both end up frustrated and angry but now he knew at least that she was telling him the truth about that part, he got the gist of what happened from there anyway and put the rest together as he grew older and learned more from others, things he overheard mostly when they thought he was asleep or she was talking to the doctor about something and didn’t think he’d hear or understand what they meant.

The only truth that she could explain as much as she did, since she didn’t fully understand it either; it was a truth that he had to settle for, simply because he knew that she herself understood very little at the time, and besides that; it was too painful for either of them to talk about, and in the end, the only thing they could give him in the way of an explanation was whatever they mumbled at the time and that seemed to always come back to that same point.

It bothered his mother so much that she could never really answer him, she tried to do that so many times but just couldn’t get the words out and she would start crying; making him feel bad just for asking.

Part of confusion his mother was feeling came from the medication they were feeding her, in order to help her calm down a bit, and cope with it as much as she could, it did help, but it also made her more sensitive and emotional, she dropped an egg on the floor and started crying so hard, it must have symbolized the baby she lost or something.

The doctor was called, she was brought in and given a sedative, and the she slept for three days, though it wasn’t always a restful sleep and they would come running when she would start screaming loudly at someone, or something to get the hell out of my room! as she would shout.

They would find her standing on the bed and pointing at something in one dark corner of the room, but no one else could see what she saw, and she was not awake, as animated and loud as she was, she was still asleep and they could not wake her, the doctor told them that might too traumatic for her and make it worse, so they would stand there and endure what they didn’t understand until she got tired and went back to sleep as though she‘d just brushed her teeth and said her prayers, and when she woke up a few hours later and the sun was out, she would never remember any of that, and they never brought it up either because it scared them, his father thought she was losing her mind, early onset dementia or something and it scared him.

He wanted to get her some help but was afraid if he did they would take her away, and though it was frightening and taxing on his energy because there were times she was up all night, yet he knew that he couldn’t ask his son to watch her while they made sure she didn’t hurt herself and there was no other way.

One day, he was in the waiting room waiting for them when he heard them talking in the hallway, and there was something the doctor said about fibroid tumors and that because of that; some of her plumbing needed to be removed, at least that was what he got from what little they spoke of, but it still made no sense to him, not for a long time; all he knew after they told him that much was that he couldn’t have a brother or sister anymore because she couldn’t have kids after that.

The other thing he heard him say was said when his mother went to the restroom and they were alone; that he thought her having her plumbing removed this way was also good for her peace of mind; that having the choice of getting pregnant and going through this once more was taken out of her hands, that the tumors took that chance from her and he thought that maybe she would live a better life that way.

He explained that it was just a theory and not based on any evidence or fact, but that knowing her as he did, and seeing what she’d been through and was fighting against even now, that this was the best course of action, as long as he agreed with that, they would proceed with that in mind.

Maybe he just felt in his heart that there was more out there, that real families had regular dental offices they went to, though he hated going there; the other kids knew regular doctors and schools they graduated from after a few years of study and not just a few months of attendance and then waiting for transcripts to show up from their last stop as they moved on to the next school or job and the next town on the circuit.

He tried to do things with his family, but it never worked out, either his father had to work overtime, or it was something that his mother couldn’t do because she was never mistaken for anything like athletic, and when she was a girl, she didn’t want to get her hands dirty, though she did play some sports, she would have rather curled up with a good book to read and escape from the reality of her life.

She had no brothers either, but she did have a sister, though they were never close, they still lived in the same city and spoke to each other, but when things got tough and they needed help, they never called on each other first, more as though there was no one else they could turn to; they’d exhausted all their other chances from other people who could not help anymore.

Her sister was first, but she was so dainty and girlie that she would never do anything that might make her heart race or cause her to sweat because she was working that hard, so when Robbie’s mother came along, her father tried to do things he that would be better suited for a son, and he made her feel that he wished that she was a boy, though he never did that to her sister.

She tried, not because she wanted to be a boy, she laughingly thought that being a boy was a step down in the evolutionary chain, but she knew that her muscles were different and she couldn’t do most of what he wanted her to.

As such, it wasn’t her fault that Robbie’s mother could never throw a spiral or play catch with a hardball, no matter how hard she tried, and if he tried to throw a curve ball or, heaven forbid; a fastball, he always felt bad, he knew it hurt her hand if she caught it so it was pointless, because he would have to walk at least halfway back there before he was close enough for her to reach him when she’d throw it back to him.

She played basketball and gave a decent game, he found out then that she did play in junior high; but now, she was older and she became tired quickly, since she hadn’t done anything of that sort in ages; and couldn’t block his outside shot so he’d get bored easily long before the mercy rule should have been called to end the one-sided game.

While he was at school, he was able to be himself for a while, it was a small escape of sorts for him because no one knew him there, and therefore no one told him what he could or couldn’t do and most people just ignored him altogether.

But he found that he didn’t have many friends with similar interests, it made him feel that the things he liked and wanted to do were wrong somehow, that maybe he wasn’t open to new things that he should at least take a harder look at, maybe there was something there and he was so opposed to it without knowing how it really was for the others, why they felt the need to do those things.

Because of that, he eventually drifted to other guys he would not normally tolerate, that he would have laughed at because they were so simple, so dumb and little or no moral compass; somehow he became friends with them; it was a stretch because now it was like he was stepping down the evolutionary chain.

These were guys that he would have normally laughed at because they were so stupid and had no idea what life was about, but worse than that was the fact that they thought they did; that they knew what life was all about and how to get theirs without having to pay the cost for it because that took too damned long for them and was too much work.

They were lazy as far as any kind of work ethic or goal-setting in their lives, they would rather spend their energy trying to find ways to steal what they wanted,