“Did you guys get NuWay?” Walcott asked, walking over to us. “Got any left?”
“O rings,” Drew said, holding them out to him. “Go to town.”
“Thanks, man,” said Walcott, taking the container from him. “I’m starving. I’ve been out here for, like, two hours and I’m only half done.”
“I’ve told you,” Drew said, tossing him a ketchup packet, which whacked him in the forehead, “if you do it in the morning, it’ll go faster. You know, because it’s light out then.”
“It’s hot in the morning,” Walcott said, sitting down next to Roger. “We’ve talked about this.”
Drew shrugged. “It’s your funeral.”
Walcott’s head snapped up. “Now, that would be a good song title,” he said.
“It already is,” I said, without thinking. The three boys turned to look at me, and I felt my cheeks heating up a little. My throat felt tight, but I continued, feeling like I didn’t have a choice. “From Oliver! You know, the musical?” Clearly, they didn’t, as I got three blank stares in return. “Well, anyway, it’s a musical. And ‘That’s Your Funeral’ is a song in it.”
“Bummer,” Walcott said. “Still, we might be able to use it. I’m not sure we have a huge crossover audience with musicals.”
“Walcott has a band,” Drew clarified. “Please don’t ask him about it, or he’ll give you his demo.”
“You have a band?” I asked. Drew groaned.
“I do,” Walcott said, wiping his hands on his khaki shorts and leaving faint grease stains behind. “The Henry Gales. It’s like emo-punk-alternative with a little hardcore edge. But we also do covers, you know, for weddings.”
“Naturally,” Roger said, smiling. “That’s awesome.”
“We played a show last night,” Walcott said, a slightly dreamy expression coming over his face. “And it was so fresh. It’s what it’s all about, you know. You’re telling your truth, to strangers, in the darkness. That’s all. And when it works, it’s amazing.”
“Henry Gale,” I murmured, only half-aware I was speaking out loud. The name meant something to me, but I couldn’t remember what. “Why do I know that?”
“It’s from The Wizard of Oz,” Walcott said. “Dorothy’s uncle.”
“Walcott has a lot of Kansas pride,” said Drew.
“As should you,” Walcott said. “State traitor, going off to Colorado and abandoning the Hawks.” Drew just shrugged. I got the feeling that they had this conversation a lot. “But check it out. Just got it done last week down at Sailor Gerry’s.” He lifted up the sleeve of his T-shirt to reveal a black tattoo that wrapped around his bicep. It just seemed to be a sentence, but the writing was stylized and gothic, and I couldn’t make anything out.
“What does it say?” Roger asked.
“Ad astra per aspera,” said Walcott. This meant nothing to me, but I saw Drew shake his head. “It’s the Kansas state motto,” he said to Roger and me. “To the stars through adversity.”
“Wow,” I said, turning these words over in my head. “That’s beautiful.”
“Isn’t it?” Walcott asked, smiling fondly down at his tattoo, clearly thinking that was what I was talking about. “Gerry’s a talented guy.”
“Come on, Walcott,” Drew said. Even with the lack of light, I could see he was rolling his eyes. “Aren’t you taking this Kansas thing a little far?”
“No,” Walcott said simply, rolling down his sleeve. “It’s my home, man. You’ve got to have pride in your home. You are where you’re from. Otherwise, you’re always going to be lost.”
“You just think that because you’ve never been anywhere,” said Drew.
Silence fell, and I ran my hands over the blades of grass that, I now realized, Walcott had cut. I looked up at him, knowing how he felt. Until three days ago, I’d never been anywhere either.
But it didn’t really seem to bother Walcott. He shrugged and brushed his hands off. “Well, I should get back to it,” he said. “Thanks for the food. Nice to meet you guys.” He headed toward the mower and started to climb up, then turned back to the three of us on the tee. “You don’t have to go away to know where your home is,” he said. “Everyone knows where their home is. And if you don’t, you’ve got problems.”
“If you have to look any further than your own backyard to find your heart’s desire, you never really lost it to begin with?” asked Drew, a little sarcastically. I turned to him, trying to figure out why that sentence sounded so familiar.
“Yeah,” Walcott said, starting up his mower shattering the stillness of the night. “Exactly.” Then he turned the mower and steered it down the hill, raising one hand to us in a wave before he disappeared from view.
We all just watched him leave, the three of us looking where he’d gone, as though we were waiting for him to come back. Then Roger picked up his Freddy’s cup, and I passed one to Drew. I took a cautious bite of mine, and then another. The frozen custard was thick and cool and sweet, and felt soothing on my throat. It was richer than ice cream, but had the consistency of frozen yogurt. And at that moment, it was exactly what I wanted.
“Sorry about Walcott,” Drew said after a moment. “I probably shouldn’t have said that. But he doesn’t see that he’s just wasting his life hanging around here. And he’s never been anywhere, or done anything….” He turned to Roger. “Back me up here, Magellan. I mean, you have to leave where you’ve come from. You have to go and see stuff. And that doesn’t mean that I don’t know where my home is. That’s bullshit.”
“But,” I said, curling my legs up underneath me. I hadn’t planned on joining in this conversation, but I found that the words were tumbling out before I could stop, or rehearse them. “But what if your home has disappeared?” I thought of the Realtor’s sign, and the WELCOME HOME message that wasn’t meant for me or my family—none of the people who’d actually lived there. “What then?” Roger looked over at me, forehead creased.