Point of No Return (2 page)

“Oh—you're going by yourself?”

His dad looked darkly at him and said, “Your mother was going to come with me, but it's clear that we can't leave the two of you alone.”

Guilt poked at Jimmy's stomach. “I can go with you,” he offered.

“No, you can't.” His dad looked Jimmy full in the face now.
That
look was still there. “You're on restriction. For the rest of your life. Maybe longer. And when we get a minute, your mother and I are going to talk about what to do with you. I can't figure which is worse: the fact that you lit matches in your room or the fact that you tried smoking a
cigar
. Maybe they're equal. And there's Tony coming tonight when we told you before you left that you weren't to have friends in. And that music you were playing at a speaker-blowing volume. Not forgetting to mention the water balloon battle you had in my study
last
weekend, the fire you started in the garage with the blowtorch the week before, the call we got from the librarian about you and Tony knocking books off the shelves, the fight you had with Kelly next door over that bike, and, and…Jimmy—”

He stopped as if his anger had tied up his tongue. “Just go to bed,” he finally said.

In his room, Jimmy began unloading his pants pockets. It was something he always did before undressing and going to bed because, if he didn't, his mom might accidentally wash something like coins, a crumpled dollar, some gum he had bought at Town Center Drugs, lint….

So much for the left pocket. He emptied the right. More lint.

He tossed everything onto his dresser, where his eye caught the framed photo of Grandma Barclay. She'd lost a lot of weight since that picture was taken. The cancer did it. It had been eating her alive a few years ago, but everyone prayed for her, and it went into remission. Jimmy wasn't so sure prayer had made her better, but he didn't dare say so out loud.

You wouldn't know how ill Grandma was if you saw only the picture with its soft-focus close-up that made her wrinkles less noticeable, gave a nice shine to her white hair, and accented her bright blue eyes. They were stunning eyes, the kind that made Jimmy feel funny because he suspected they could somehow see much deeper than eyes should be allowed to see.

Grandma Barclay was a very devout woman. As far as anyone knew, she had never missed a day of church in her life. Hers was a deep-rooted, practical faith. It was as real and natural to her as breathing. Jimmy's father felt the influence of that faith and tried to instill it in both Jimmy and Donna. Donna liked church. Jimmy thought it was boring. He would've stopped going if his parents didn't make him attend. He once talked to them about letting him stay home, but they wouldn't hear of it. He had to go, and that was that.

Jimmy's parents fussed with him for a while about his lack of faith. They did everything they could to get him interested. But lately it was as if they had given up on him. His mom said that they had decided to stop worrying and let God do the rest.

That was fine with Jimmy, because God seemed to want to leave him alone, too.

Grandma didn't fuss about it at all. When she found out Jimmy didn't like church, she just smiled and said he would enjoy it eventually.
He would have to. The call in his life was too strong.

Jimmy didn't know what she meant by that. He wondered but didn't want to risk a lecture by asking. He got off easy, and that's all that mattered. But sometimes he thought about
the call
and tried to figure out what a call would sound like. Not that it would make any difference. When Jimmy grew up, he wanted to be a singer in a rock band.

All these thoughts swirled around in his churning mind as he fell asleep. The last thing he would remember was the sound of thousands of fans cheering him as he performed in a huge auditorium.

CHAPTER TWO

Saturday Morning

T
HE
O
CTOBER SUN
played peekaboo with Jimmy's left eyelid through the crack between the half-drawn curtains on his bedroom window. Swimming to the surface of wakefulness, he was aware of the irritation the sunlight caused him. He moved his head. The sunlight hit his right eyelid. He moved his head again. Relief.

But not for long.

Right on cue, his head throbbed. He rolled over with a groan and tried to open his mouth to lick the cobwebs off his lips. His tongue felt like a fuzz ball. His eyes twitched but wouldn't open. He was numb all over.

He rolled over onto his back again and rubbed at his eyes until they could open.

His room looked as if someone had hung a giant piece of gauze over it. He blinked. The gauze separated like a curtain, and he made out the specifics—so familiar and so cluttered. Posters covered almost every inch of wall space. The small desk was piled high with magazines, school papers, comic books, and only heaven knew what else. The closet was an outpouring of clean and dirty clothes, games, games, and more games. A chair was covered with more clothes. A small table held his CD player and surrounding stacks of CDs. And there was the ancient oak dresser with the Old West wagon-train lamp and 96-ounce beer mug half filled with pennies. Also on top, as a testimony to the night before, was the junk he had taken out of his pockets last night.

He moaned as he remembered what had happened.

He remembered Tony, the cigar, deep blue water, and…his parents coming home.

He scanned the room, trying to remember where he threw his alarm clock. He had no idea what time it might be. He sat up, and his head protested.

As he struggled to get out of bed, the door slowly opened, and Donna peeked in. She looked annoyed until she saw Jimmy swing his legs off the side of the bed.

“Mom wants to know if you want some breakfast,” she asked.

He shook his head. “Maybe later” was all he could manage. His tongue wouldn't let go of the roof of his mouth. After a moment he asked, “What time is it?”

“Almost lunchtime.” She retreated.

“Donna?”

She returned and said, “What?”

He hesitated, then: “Are Mom and Dad…still mad?”

“What do you think?” she asked and left again.

He gingerly stepped out of bed and grabbed at the nearest stack of clothes.

In the bathroom, Jimmy tried to use water to flatten some of his hair. It stuck out in 12 directions. He looked at his face. His eyes looked tiny. He leaned closer to the mirror and checked his chin and top lip for anything that might look like a beard. He couldn't wait until he was old enough to shave.

Grabbing the skeletal remains of a bar of soap, he scrubbed his hands. And he began to think—not the way the world's great thinkers do, but with all the concentration he could manage. He replayed the night before in his mind and wondered what made him act the way he did.

He searched his mind for something or someone to blame.

Blank.

Nothing.

He did what he did because it was what he
wanted
to do. That was all. There really wasn't any other reason, was there?

Something was just out of reach in his mind. A thought, a feeling…he wasn't sure. But it made him feel that something was wrong. Maybe something was wrong with
him
. Maybe he should try harder to behave himself. Maybe he should change somehow.

But he was only 10 years old. What could be wrong with him at the age of 10? How much can a 10-year-old be expected to change? He shrugged and walked out of the bathroom.

Mary Barclay sat silently at the table drinking a cup of tea. Jimmy halfheartedly ate some sugar-coated cereal that promised to be part of a nutritious breakfast. His head still sent dull thuds to his eyes. Did cigars make everybody feel so bad?

His dad had gone to Jimmy's grandma's house. It didn't really sink into Jimmy's mind what was happening, but someone called that morning to say his grandmother was in great pain and had to be put back in the hospital, and the doctors were playing guessing games about radiation and maybe chemo, but there were no promises, no guarantees, because she was almost 80 years old and not as strong as she used to be.

His mother looked Jimmy directly in the eyes and asked, “Why, Jimmy? Why do you get into so much trouble? The past few months have been one incident after another. Last night was the last straw. Why do you do it?”

His mouth was full of sugar-coated cereal, so he couldn't answer her.

“I wanted to see your grandma, too, but—” She looked down at her cup of tea. “I can't trust you anymore.”

Jimmy swallowed hard. He could tell by her tone that she wasn't just trying to make him feel guilty. She wasn't even trying to make him feel bad. She was speaking in a neutral voice as if she were telling him about the weather. That made it even worse. Jimmy searched frantically for the right words to say—something to convince her he could be trustworthy.

He couldn't think of anything. So finally he offered, “I'm sorry, Mom. I just got carried away. It won't happen again.”

The words sounded hollow even as he said them.

“That's what you keep saying over and over.”

“This time I mean it,” he said, on the edge of pleading. All his life there had been a bond of trust between him and his parents. Even when he misbehaved, the bond somehow stood firm. To lose it, to feel he had truly failed them, was more than he could handle. “I'll behave.”

“Don't tell me you'll behave. I know better. You feel bad this morning, but that won't last. You'll get with Tony and forget.”

He stood up to take his dishes to the sink. “It's not Tony's fault,” he said. He stood there, looking out the window into the backyard. The swings on the swing set moved gently in a breeze.

“I'm not blaming Tony. He's been like another son in this family. But he
does
influence you. You can't deny that.”

He turned back to face her and said, “Maybe I'm influencing
him
.”

She took a drink of her tea. “I hope not,” she replied. “I hope I raised you better than that. But since you got bored with church—” Her voice faded, the sentence left unfinished.

Jimmy knew where the conversation was going. He closed his eyes. He didn't want to talk about that. He wanted to go out.

“You say you'll behave, and then you don't. I don't think you
can
behave by yourself. I think you need help.” She watched him as she spoke. “So, until further notice, Tony can't come over, and you can't sleep over at his house. You're on restriction. And that means you have to come straight home from school—no Tony, no Whit's End, nothing.”

Jimmy's jaw tightened, and he looked away. He hadn't expected his punishment to be
that
bad.

Just then, somebody knocked at the front door.

Mary stood up, saying as she walked out of the kitchen, “I want you to think about how you behave and what it does to us…
all
of us. Another night like last night and I…I don't know what we'll do.”

Jimmy brooded as he listened to his mom walk to the front door and open it. Probably the mailman with a personal delivery, he figured.