Ghost Time

tracks. And the really bizarre thing is that from the air, you can see these big, thick black tire tracks, all the way from the highway, into an empty field that looks like it goes on forever. Then, about a half mile from the highway, the tracks end. They just end, like the car disappeared through a black hole or something.
    The reporter, this woman, was broadcasting live, from the highway, and she was laughing at something the guy reporter, back in the studio, was saying about it being as big as a baseball field and how it was one of those mysteries like those crop circles. All of a sudden, I got the chills and started shivering, like so frickin’ weird. And then Hicky, Tyler Hendricks, goes, Holy shit! They flew in a helicopter ? Then Toby Brock turns to him and he goes, Dude , we’re famous, and I don’t know why, but all the hair on my arms stood up, and I got the chills.

SUNDAY, MARCH 27, 2011
    (EIGHT DAYS EARLIER)
    2:37 PM
    It’s pretty weird that me and my mom both have boyfriends now. I mean, I don’t know that Raymond’s really her boyfriend, they’re so on-again, off-again. I keep hoping she’ll end it, but she doesn’t, and I just don’t get it. They’re nothing alike, and they don’t have anything in common, really, and Raymond—ugh, has the worst taste, okay? Just the shittiest eighties music you’ve ever heard. Like, sometimes I’ll be sitting in my room, drawing, and I’ll hear this awful guitar riff, like a song that’s so bad, I have to cover my nose like, What is that smell? And then, sure enough, I hear Rain Man pull into the parking lot, blasting Bad Company or whatever with his windows down, and I cover my face, like, Ohmygod, that’s who my mom’s going out with?
    Then there are times when it works in my favor. Like Sunday, when they went to see one of Rain Man’s friends in Albany. Mom said they wouldn’t be home until seven or eight, at the earliest,and I should make myself a sandwich for dinner. So I about pissed my pants when I heard “The Boys Are Back in Town” blaring out front—you know that song from Toy Story ? “The boys are back in town, the boys are back in town,” ugh—I love Toy Story , but I hate that song; I hate it. Anyhow.
    It was about two-thirty, and we were in my bed. I mean, we’re totally naked, but I was under the sheet, lying on my stomach, with my head at the foot of the bed and my feet in Cam’s lap. He was drawing high-tops on each foot, using one of my silver metallic pens to draw rivets, and I don’t know what made me think of it, but I go, Cam, can I ask you something? I got up on my elbows and I turned to look up at him, and he just smiled at my feet, inspecting his work. Hold still, he said.
    So I waited, watching him, until he put the pen down, and then leaned over, blowing on my ankle to make the ink dry, and then he looked at me, waiting to hear what I had to say. I wasn’t sure I should ask, but then I did. I said, How did your dad die? You’ve never told me, I said, sitting up, on my elbows. In almost six months, all he’d ever told me was his dad died when he was a little boy, and in all that time, I never asked. Finally, lying beside him, naked, I just felt like we’d reached the point I should know, you know? Cam didn’t say anything at first, he just looked at me, and then he started twisting my ankle to get me to turn on my stomach, so he could draw the back side of my high-tops.
    When he first started drawing shoes on my feet, when we first started going out, I used to be so self-conscious. Like whenever Cam’d twisted my ankle, trying to turn me over, so he could draw the back, I wouldn’t turn over, because I didn’t want himto see my butt all… butt . I’ll never forget the first time he tried to get me to turn on my stomach, and I wouldn’t do it, and he goes, Turn over, and I go, Why? He goes, Because I want to look at you, and that was it. I didn’t want to, but he asked, so I did.
    I turned over, on my stomach, and then I spread my legs. I felt so, so—scared, you know? So I turned around, looking at him, and he was staring. Just kneeling on my bed, staring at me, like that, and then, seeing the look on my face, he smiled and spanked my butt, then he fell on top of the bed, beside me, putting his face right up next to mine. He leaned forward, and I closed my eyes, because I thought he was going to kiss me, but then he took my nose in his mouth, sucking my nose, and I screeched. Stop it! Stop, you