(2007) Chasing Fireflies - A Novel of Discovery Read Online Free PDF Page A

could do to a penny.
    Like a record that's scratched, the soundtrack skips again, but I think I heard footsteps, maybe boots, because today I don't so much see them as feel them. I saw a flash, a long shadow crossed over me, big hands wrapped round about me, and I felt the belt loop pop off like a shirt button.
    Another skip. I opened my eyes and saw the rusted underside of the train cars whizzing by just inches from my head. As the wheels screamed to a stop, they skidded against the steel rails and showered me with orange sparks that stung my cheeks.

    Up to this point, the memory is like an Ansel Adams photograph: I feel long whiskers, hear the rib crack, see sparks, touch cold steel, and sense warm wet jeans. But here, at this moment, it blurs. Fades. Blacks out. Like the projector jammed and the lamp burned a hole in the tape. I turn to see him-the man connected to the shadow and the arms-but all I see is a hole where his face was, and when he opens his mouth all I hear is the film tab slapping the machine through the feeder.
    No matter how many times I play and replay the tape, I cannot hear him and I cannot put the words back in his mouth. And yet I know, when he opens his mouth, he calls me by my name. My real name. The one he gave me.
    For twenty-five years since then, through three foster homes, two boys' homes, and finally to Unc and Aunt Lorna's house, I have listened to the names people call each other and me. Hoping, somehow, to hear the whisper of my own.
    I'm told that because I'm a foundling-aka a "doorstep baby"-I was given a name upon discovery. The director of the home assigned names to the nameless much as meteorologists do to hurricanes. Evidently it was a busy year, and the staff had progressed through the Vs when somebody pitched me overboard. Sometimes I wonder if Moses ever felt the same way. The story is that come Monday morning, the staff threw all the "W" names that they could think of into a hat. That done, they repeated the process for a first name-in much the same manner as people pick lottery numbers.
    Even now, when someone calls me by the name on my driver's license, Chase Walker, it's as if they're asking for someone else. Like my entire life is one of mistaken identity. I know this because when they say it, it doesn't fill in the blank on the tape. If you want to know what I'm talking about, spend an entire day introducing yourself as someone you're not, and then listen when people call you by that name. You'll understand.

    When I was thirteen, tired of living between hope and nowhere, I saved my money and bought a book of names, something pregnant couples flip through at night, and read five thousand names aloud. Alone in the woods I whispered, then shouted, trying to remember. But his voice, like the Silver Meteor, no longer rides these tracks.

     

Chapter 3
    the Brunswick hospital has never been much to look at. It is the definition of function over form. Not waiting on me, Unc strode out of Vicky and was the first to punch the button for the elevator.
    As a farrier, Unc spends a lot of time in barns and around horses. Given this, his uniform, if you want to call it that, is pretty simple. Dirty hat (either a Braves baseball cap or his dirty Gus hat, depending on his mood and whether or not the Braves are in the pennant race), a denim long-sleeve shirt (snaps, no buttons), faded Wrangler jeans fraying behind the heel, old boots twice resoled, leather belt with Mon," stamped across the back, and either a red or blue handkerchief tied around his neck. He says it keeps the dust off, but I tell him it looks like a bib and he should use it to dab the sides of his mouth. Because the Braves are up five games, and because Chipper hit a three-run dinger last night, he's wearing his cap right now.
    We stepped onto the third floor and walked down the hall to room 316. A guy in a suit sitting in a chair reading a SWAT magazine stood when we walked up. He looked at me. "You the reporter?"
    I