I listened to the radio as I went, which my dad had permanently set to a sports station. Everyone was speculating about Davis Blake, but there was no new information. I thought I might be able to find out more from my father, if he felt like sharing, or if he told me by mistake. Sometimes he liked to rant to me about how bad/stupid/useless people were and what a wrong/misguided/backward way they were doing things. I learned a lot about the Woodsmen and the league in general when he went off on one of these tirades, a lot that I probably wasn’t supposed to know. I had even heard about the big Nico Williams trade when the Woodsmen had sent him to the Cottonmouths a month or so before it had gone down, but I had kept it quiet.
I drove for much longer than it should have taken, worrying about the car and the road, and worrying about Davis Blake’s injury, too. Finally, my phone told me to turn left, so I carefully guided the wheels into a two-track which ran through the sparse trees just off the shoulder, then delved deeper and deeper into the hardwood forest. Teddy Hayes lived here? Back in the woods in the middle of nowhere? That didn’t make sense, because he was a youngish guy. According to the paperwork about him that I had lying on the passenger seat, he was older than me at 27 to my 22, but it still didn’t seem like he’d want to throw in the towel on society and isolate himself out away from town. But maybe his parents had lived here—maybe this was like an original homestead when his ancestors first came to northern Michigan as pioneers.
It was much easier to handle this road; I could just follow the tracks and go as slowly as I wanted. There was no one behind me to honk and road-rage that I was taking my time, and to get furious because I liked to brake for every intersection, if there was a stop sign or not. So my anxiety over being behind the wheel lessened and I could let my mind wander over the guy I was going to meet.
I developed the pioneer story more in my imagination as my father’s beautiful car bumped over another rut. Maybe this Teddy Hayes had grown up on his family’s land in a two-room cabin with no electricity, no cell service, and a hand-dug well for water. He had little to no formal schooling, but he did have a big dream: someday, he would play football for the team he had listened to on his crank radio, the Woodsmen. Since he lived without electricity or a phone, he probably had no idea that because Davis Blake had been hurt in the game today, now this dream was coming true. And here I was to tell him!
I imagined myself knocking on the door of his log cabin, with moss on the roof and smoke curling out of the stone chimney. Teddy would be sitting at the kitchen table with his parents and grandparents, all of them drinking homemade lemonade out of mason jars. His grandma would be blind and he would be the person that she depended on to tell her about the world. And he would describe me to her as I came into the cabin.
“She’s just like an angel, Oma,” he would explain, looking at me reverently. “She’s tall, with blue eyes like the morning sky and beautiful, long hair.” And the grandma would ask what color, and Teddy Hayes would say, “Dark red, like mahogany. Not in the least bit orange, ok? Just because I said she was a redhead, don’t let your mind go straight to carrots, Oma!”
My dad’s car bottomed out, scraping on the dry dirt and making me wince and, in any case, I had lost the mood of the story a little bit. I slowly rounded a corner, edging between the trees, and came upon a house. Not a log cabin, though, just a normal house, a 1970s A-frame style. There was no moss on the roof or smoke coming out the chimney, but that made sense since it was 80 degrees outside. And it didn’t look big enough for a multi-generational living situation, either, so no Oma who needed him to describe the world. Was this Teddy actually some kind of weird recluse? Why else would he live out in the woods and not answer his phone? Who needed to be personally summoned in this day in age?
I tried to fix my kind-of mahogany, definitely not carrots hair as I walked toward the A-frame. My hair, as well as the rest of my body, was sticky with the heat, the anxiety of the drive on the highway, and the worry about Davis Blake and his injured knee. I lifted the heavy shawl of it off my back and neck, letting the cooler air between the trees wash over me.
There wasn’t a button for a bell, so I knocked on the front door and waited. “Hello?” I called, and knocked again. It was quiet back here, so far from the road, with only birds and
