I remember that Golden Hill Park was empty. There was nobody at the picnic tables, except for a bearded man and an orange haired woman sharing a bottle of something. No other kids climbed on the playground. No couples snuggled on blankets, and no girls skipped Double Dutch near the tennis courts.

This was unnerving. It was peak summer. The park was usually full of people, even early in the morning.  I waited another twenty minutes for my buddies to show up, but, when they never arrived, I decided to walk back and stop at the cafe.

My mom was a public school teacher, but she worked the morning shifts during the summer for extra money. This was an on-going source of debate and tension with my father. He was a writer and activist with principles that often interfered with his ability to hold onto full-time employment.

She saw me from across the room as I sat down at the counter. “Grady, what are you doing here?” My mother’s eyes narrowed, and I thought I saw a flash of fear. “You came here by yourself?” She hustled toward me. “Where’s Mike and Edgar?”

“I went to the park and they didn’t show.”

A little panicked, she asked, “Are they okay?”

“I… I don’t know.” I shrugged.

She put her hands on her hips. “Does anybody know where you are?”

A dozen smart ass responses came to mind, but I knew better than to be sharp with my mother, especially if I wanted her to poach me some food from the back. The truth was that nobody knew where I was or what I did during the day, and I never asked for permission to go anywhere.

This was 1983. The term “helicopter parents” wasn’t coined for another seven years, and devices able to track the whereabouts of children, as if tagged animals, wouldn’t become available for decades. Most of the time my mom and dad were simply glad when I was out of the house and not sitting in front of the television, which my father called the “boob tube” as well as a “cancerous tool of the government and corporations to render us as unable to think critically.”

“I have to take care of a few tables, and then I’m going to call your father to come pick you up.”

I wasn’t sure what I had done, but I was smart enough to understand that I’d made some sort of mistake and attempted to deescalate the situation. “I can just go home, mom. It’s just a few blocks. No problem. I do it all the—“

“No.” My mother cut me off. “You cannot simply walk home. Not right now. Not today.” She paused and stared at me, making sure that I understood that there was to be no funny business. She had “the look,” and I knew better than to keep talking once she’d given me that look. “Promise me, Grady,” she said. “Promise me.”

“Promise you what?”

“Promise me you will wait here until I can get somebody to take you home.”

I nodded. “Sure, mom,” I said. “I promise, cross my heart.”

She softened. Then my mother put her hand on the back of my neck, pulled me close, and kissed the top of my forehead. “Good boy, Grady. That’s a good boy. I’ll get a cinnamon roll for you to eat while you wait.”

###

My dad did not come to pick me up, which wasn’t surprising. He was likely somewhere protesting the proliferation of nuclear weapons and President “Ray-Guns” as he liked to call him or at a coffee shop writing another anti-capitalist screed for Hard Resistance, a ‘zine irregularly distributed throughout San Diego’s Gold Hill and Old Beach neighborhoods.

It was, instead, my grandfather. Poppy arrived in his shiny, maroon Buick not long after I’d finished my cinnamon roll. I was just beginning to draw pictures of superheroes and monsters in my sketchbook, which I took with me everywhere, when he entered the café.

Heads turned. Conversations slowed. Poppy did not fit in. He was the opposite of California cool, and, even though he’d been retired for eight years from the Detroit police force, it was as if there was an arrow and a bright neon, flashing sign floating above him that said in capital letters: COP.

He never went out in public without wearing a suit and a tie along with a fedora, even when the temperatures soared. His face was a series of sharp angles, and his eyes were deep and suspicious, always taking everything in, evaluating. For an old guy, he was also still very muscular.

In the morning he could be found standing in front of the mirror wearing just his boxers and a white t-shirt. In each hand was a barbell—twenty pounds, one hundred reps, every day— then squats and push-ups, twenty-four each. That was his routine.

I could hear him in the other room. The exercises themselves made little noise, but Poppy’s breathing was distinct. He didn’t just take in a breath. He sipped it, like he was sipping through a straw, restricting the amount of air that he allowed his body to consume, surely making the exercises even more difficult.

Poppy made eye contact with my mother, then gave her a nod once acknowledged. He remained in the doorway, as she finished up with a customer and I wiggled off the tall stool at the counter. My mother and I both arrived at the same time.

“Thank you for coming,” she said.

Poppy continued to scan the room for potential threats. “I was about to take a drive anyway.”

My mother’s mouth turned into a frown. She did not like Poppy’s drives, not that she knew exactly what they entailed, other than the fact that her father-in-law usually arrived back home smelling of beer and cigarettes. “Right,” she said. “Well, you can just drop Grady off at the house and be on your way.”

Poppy considered this. “And you will be home when?”

“Not until after the lunch service, probably two or three.”

“Very well.” Poppy tipped his hat, and then turned and walked out the door.

I looked at my mother, nervous and in need of reassurance. Poppy was new to me. He’d only been living with us for about a month, and, prior to that, I’d only remembered seeing him one other time. He and my father were, as my mother said, “not on the best of terms.”

Yet, here he was. Poppy told me later, much later, that he came to California to escape the ghosts. “I couldn’t live in that house anymore with Sandy gone,” he told me. Sandy was his wife and my grandmother. Then he said, “It was suffocating, plus the old neighborhood was going to shit.” 

He opened the door, and I climbed into the front seat. It was the first time I’d ever been inside. Poppy’s Buick was like the fanciest tank ever made. He kept it spotless, as if it just rolled off the lot. The Buick was spacious and comfortable. Its seats were leather, and the trim was so polished that I could see my reflection. It was nothing like my parent’s station wagon. 

“This is nice,” I said.

Poppy said nothing. He turned the key and a burst of cool air came through the vents. I hadn’t really noticed how hot I was until that moment. I closed my eyes and let it wash over me as Poppy shifted the car into gear and pulled away from the curb.

When we got to the house, he put the Buick in park and waited, expecting me to get out, but I didn’t move. I didn’t want to go back into the house. It’d be another couple of hours before the afternoon cartoons began along with reruns of Gilligan’s Island and the Brady Bunch. In the meantime, there’d be nothing for me to do and nothing to watch except soap operas and baby shows, like Sesame Street and Mister Rogers.

Poppy must’ve sensed this. So, he turned to me and took a good long look, up and down. Then he asked, “Have you ever shot a gun, kid?”

###

We stopped at a gas station along the way. I waited in the car, and then Poppy emerged with a Styrofoam cooler filled with ice, a Dr. Pepper for me, and a 12-pack of Coors for him. We continued east for about an hour, past the new developments off Highway 52.

“There’s a place up ahead,” Poppy said. “I like it. It’s a good spot.” A half mile further, he turned onto a gravel road that rose even further up into the hills.

“Is this where you go on your drives?” I asked.

“Sometimes,” Poppy said. “Not always.” He pulled over at the crest and turned off the engine. I got out at the same time as him, and then I waited as Poppy took off his suit jacket and his hat. He laid them carefully in the backseat. Then, he looked at me and pointed to the cooler. “Grab it.”

As I got the cooler, he popped the trunk. Inside there was a shot gun wrapped in a quilt, two boxes of bullets, and a plastic case, which I later learned, contained Poppy’s service revolver. As he removed the shotgun and shells, Poppy said, “First thing I gotta do is drink one of those beers.”

“Why is that?”

He smiled. “So we have a target, kid. We need something to shoot.”

Under the shade, Poppy rolled up his sleeves and got to work on his can of beer. A few sips in, he relaxed. I waited a little longer for him to relax a bit more, then I figured it was safe to ask the question that had been on my mind all morning. “Do you know what’s going on?”

He took a deep breath, obviously thinking about how he should respond. Then, Poppy answered my question with a question of his own. “Your mother didn’t tell you?”

“No,” I said. “She didn’t say anything.… just made me promise not to go outside alone.”

Poppy considered this, nodding his head slowly and continuing to drink his beer. Everything seemed to weigh heavily on him. Then, Poppy said, “I don’t understand that at all. You’re old enough to know what’s going on.” He looked at the scrubby hills in the distance, weighing his words carefully. “I understand it’s not something that any adult wants a kid to know or even think about, but there comes a point when kids need to know. You need to understand that there are bad people in the world, Grady. Evil exists. Pretending like we’re all just one happy family is exactly that—pretend.”

“Did somebody get hurt?” I asked.

“Don’t know for sure, but probably.” He got up, picked up the shotgun, and walked out of the shade. He went toward a grouping of large rocks, finishing his beer as he went.

I followed him. “So what happened?”

My grandfather wiped some debris off the top of a rock, then he put the empty can on it. “A boy, about your age, disappeared. He went to return a video at the store last night, and he never came home. That’s all I know, and I figure that’s all anybody else knows at this point.”

Then he handed me the gun.

###

The missing kid was Jason Kraft. He was a grade behind me at Roosevelt. Jason wasn’t a friend, but I’d seen him around. We’d probably played ball a few times. Golden Hill was like that, a small town within the bigger, small town of San Diego. There were only a handful of places where kids hung out and so we all bumped into one another.

As I lay in bed that night, my shoulder bruised and sore from absorbing the kick-back of Poppy’s shotgun, I thought about Jason Kraft. I tried to think about why somebody would take him, and I couldn’t think of one good reason.

There was nothing special about Jason. He wasn’t the smartest or the dumbest. He didn’t look like the kids on the cover of Tiger Beat, but he wasn’t ugly or deformed in any way. He wasn’t from a rich family for sure, but I don’t think he was poor. He was just normal. He was just like me.

###

I wasn’t allowed to go outside and play with my friends, Mike Miller and Edgar Lopez, the next day or the day after or the day after that. Until further notice, my mother decreed that there “shall be no running around the neighborhood.” This was crushing. Me and my friends talked on the phone a little, but it wasn’t the same.

I had a lot of ideas bouncing around in my head, theories and fears, but they were stuff you could only say late at night with a flashlight or while throwing a baseball or wading into the ocean.

The home phone, bolted to the kitchen wall and limited by a four-foot cord, was not appropriate to discuss such things. It wasn’t private. Parents could overhear, and I wasn’t sure how they’d react.

            Other things changed, too. We now watched CBS News 8 every night. In the past, the television was turned off when my mother returned from work, and it didn’t go back on until after dinner, if at all. My parents preferred books, both of them usually read at least two or three simultaneously, and Poppy enjoyed drinking and smoking in the backyard while thumbing through the latest Playboy magazine.

Our new routine was to gather around the television, all of us.  The broadcast began with the anchor looking somberly at the camera, and, with his deep baritone voice, announcing how many days Jacob had been missing. He would, then, provide an update followed by Jacob’s parents pleading to the public for “any information.”

The reporters were deferential on the first few days, but the questioning got more confrontational by the end of the week. The Police Chief became defensive and irritable, and Jacob’s parents seemed to recede further into themselves. Both grew older, smaller, and weaker every day that their son was not found.

Sometime late in the second week or maybe the beginning of the third, the Police Chief announced the creation of a tip line. They offered a $25,000 reward for any information that led to the return of Jacob Kraft or the arrest of the individual responsible.

Poppy grunted and shook his head. “That’s it.” He got up from the chair. “That’s how you know it’s the end. Every noisy neighbor and nut job on the West Coast is going to be calling that line, and the cops will be running around chasing shadows for months. Whoever did it, he’s right here, probably no more than a mile from that kid’s house.”

Then Poppy walked out of the room, pulling his pack of cigarettes out of his pocket as he headed toward the door. I watched as my mother and father exchanged looks, and then my mother got up and turned off the television. The days of watching the evening news were over.

The new routine was done, and we were back to the old routine. Except I was still not allowed to run around the neighborhood as I’d done in the past. In my adolescent brain, this was completely unfair. My protests became louder and more strident with each day. To placate me, my mother said, “Why don’t you call your buddies and see if they want to sleep over tonight.” Within an hour of her uttering those words, Mike and Edgar arrived.

      We watched movies, ate popcorn, and then huddled around our school yearbook, talking trash about teachers and debating about who was the prettiest girl. Around one-thirty my mom flashed the lights, “time to call it a night boys. The walls are thin, and your father and I need our sleep.”

“Poppy doesn’t seem to mind.” Even as I said it, we could hear my grandfather’s snores coming from his bedroom down the hall. Mike and Edgar laughed, and my mother worked to maintain her serious face.

“Well, just because your grandfather can sleep through a hurricane doesn’t mean that I can.” She turned and waved her hand. “Good night boys.”

Her declaration that the night was over, did not mean that the night was actually over. It merely shifted into a quieter phase. Up until that point, we’d avoided talk of Jason Kraft or anything of substance. We were too busy reveling in the normalcy of being together, razzing each other, and dreaming about the unlikely scenario of passing a note to Nicole Fontaire—our consensus winner of the ‘Cutest Girl In School’ award— and that she would check the box for “yes, I will go with you.”

This quiet chatter continued for maybe an hour. Then Mike, in a whisper, asked, “You guys think he’s dead? My brother says he’s dead, probably dumped up in the hills or chopped up and fed to the sharks.”

“Don’t say that.” It was Edgar, and he wasn’t playing around. There was a tremble in his voice, that I hadn’t ever heard before. “He can get away. Even if the guy got him, he can still get away.”

“Not a chance,” Mike said. “This isn’t the movies.”

“I never said it was the movies. I’m not an idiot. I’m just saying he can get away.”

“In real life nobody gets away. He’s dead,” Mike said.

I sat there as my two best friends went back and forth. Their voices rising.

“He might be dead, but he might also be alive. It’s a possibility. That’s it. Why can’t you—”

“Because it doesn’t work like that.”

“And you know how it works?” Edgar asked. “Based on what?”

Mike didn’t have much to say to that, and, after a pause, he said, “Because happy endings are for babies.”

At that, Edgar lunged at Mike. The two began wrestling and hitting one another. We’d all wrestled a million times before, but this was different. This was real.

I stood up, wanting to intervene, but it was too dark to see where or how to break it up. The fight continued, and I was unsure of what to do. Then, I got the idea to just turn on the lights.

Mike and Edgar froze, probably thinking that they’d woken up my mother. Both turned to me. Mike’s hair, normally perfectly parted, was sticking up in all directions. His shirt torn. Edgar didn’t have any bruises, but his eyes were red and tears streamed down his face.

“I want to go home.” Edgar looked at me. His soft features now hard. His hands still balled in tight fists. “I’m going home.”

“It’s the middle of the night,” I said. “Who’s going to take you home?”

“I’ll walk.” Edgar knelt down and began rolling up his sleeping bag.

I looked at Mike. He seemed just as confused as I was, but, if I wanted him to apologize, that wasn’t going to happen. Mike viewed the world in black and white. In this situation, I knew Mike believed that he was the person who was owed an apology, not the other way around. Edgar was the one who started it.

“Just wait until morning,” I said. “Don’t be stupid.”

“I’m not stupid.” Edgar continued packing up his backpack. “I’m leaving.”

“No, you’re not.” The voice was low and harsh.

All three of us jumped and turned. It was Poppy. He stood in the doorway, wearing a dark blue bathrobe. He waited for somebody to challenge him. None of us did.

Then he pointed at Edgar. “What’s your name?”

Edgar wiped away the tears and a little bit of snot that had run out of his nose. “Me?”

“Does it seem like I’m talking to somebody else?”

Edgar’s eyes grew wider, and then eventually stammered his name.

“Okay.” Poppy took a step toward him. “Your mother expects you to spend the night here. If you want to call her, wake her up in the middle of the night, and ask her to come get you, that’s fine. That’s between you and her. Got it?”

Edgar nodded.

“Otherwise, you’re staying right here.” Poppy’s eyes narrowed. “Got it?”

Edgar nodded, but this did not satisfy my grandfather. Poppy took another step forward. “Tell me you got it, kid.”

Edgar said, “I got it.”

Poppy took hold of Edgar’s shoulder and gave it a little squeeze. “Good. I’m glad we understand one another.”

I figured that was it, but, when I woke up a few hours later, Edgar was gone. I thought of Jacob Kraft, and Edgar walking back to his house in the dark. I thought of what Poppy would do to him, when he found out that Edgar left.

In a loud whisper, I called out his name, then I groped the floor where Edgar should’ve been, but he was not there. His sleeping bag and backpack were also gone.

I got up, now wide awake, and walked through the small dining room, and then crept toward the kitchen. Pre-dawn light came through the windows. Its soft blue illuminated the familiar squares: oven, refrigerator, microwave, cabinet. Then I took another step, and I heard the crying.

Edgar was on the back stoop with all of his things. His head down, defeated.

I sat next to him. “What are you doing out here?” I asked. “Is this about what happened with Mike?....Don’t worry about it. You guys’ll be fine. Not a big deal.”

Edgar said nothing, and I didn’t push. We sat there for about twenty minutes, just watching the night sky continue its transformation to the day. It was spectacular. The stretch of clouds looked like gigantic scoops of sherbet ice cream--- pink, orange, and red.

“It’s beautiful,” Edgar said.

“It is.”

“Thanks for sitting with me.” Edgar took a jagged breath, then turned to me. “What would you say if I told you that I knew something about Jacob—about the guy who might’ve taken him— but haven’t said anything? Like….could I get in trouble for that?”

###

Edgar did not want to go, but Poppy did not negotiate with anybody, particularly kids. We rode to the police station on West Market Street. Edgar was in the back, and I was in the front with my sketchbook. Inside, the woman at the front desk wanted us to simply call the tip line, but Poppy refused and I believe he frightened her.

An hour later, we met Detective Peter Drillias. In some ways, he looked like a younger version of Poppy. He wore a dark suit, nothing flashy. He had the same eyes, always scanning the room and evaluating.

“Nancy says you’re a retired cop.” Drillias sat down on the chair across the table from us in the small conference room.

Poppy nodded in response. “Detroit,” he said. “Thirty-five years.”

“Long time. Don’t think I’ll make it past twenty.” Then, Drillias flipped open his small notepad. He wrote down all of our names, addresses, and phone numbers. Then, “So what’s the story?”

Poppy looked at Edgar and prompted him to begin. Edgar was hesitant, but then told the detective what had happened. It was the same as what he had told me: two weeks before Jacob disappeared, he had an encounter at dusk while walking home from the corner store; a man in his thirties, heavy-set; a gun pointed at him; a demand for Edgar to get in his car; and then the heavy-set man drove away when a woman walking her dog turned a corner and began walking toward them.

When Edgar was done, I opened my sketchbook, tore out a page, and put the picture of what I’d drawn on the table. Drillias looked at the picture of the man that Edgar had described, then he at my grandfather, and finally back at Edgar. He didn’t ask any questions. Instead, he said, “Thank you for coming in.” Then, Drillias closed his notepad and rose from his chair.

“That’s it?” Poppy wasn’t yelling, but there was a growl beneath the question.

“Yeah, that’s it,” Drillias said. “I got a room full of other people that I have to talk to. We’ll follow-up, if it’s appropriate.”

“You know those people have got nothing,” Poppy said. “But you can work with this.”

A corner of the detective’s mouth curled into a patronizing smirk. “I get it,” he said. “You’ve been out of the game and you miss it. A situation presents itself, and now you’re the lead detective again. Happens all the time around here. Guys retire, but somehow find an excuse to drop on by.”

“I am not some bored ex-cop.” I watched as my grandfather wound tighter, which previously seemed like an impossibility. His eyes turned cold. “This is legit.”

      “Is it?” To Edgar, “Your family come up from Tijuana or down from L.A.?”

Edgar remained silent, unsure if the question was sincere or some sort of insult, or maybe both.

“Answer me, kid,” Drillias said. “You’re not from here or, at least, your family isn’t, right?”

Edgar’s cheeks flushed and his head dropped. “L.A.”

“Makes sense. Don’t blame you at all. That place is a hell hole, but here you are, and probably life ain’t as great as you thought. You were poor up there, and, even though you moved down here, you’re still poor.”

“Stop it.” Poppy rose from his chair, but the detective continued.

“So you heard about the reward, and all of a sudden you see your chance to be a hero and get a little money as well. Don’t blame you for that, either.”

            “This kid is telling the truth.” Poppy watched as Drillias ignored him and walked toward the door. “You’re leaving?”

“Yes,” Drillias said. “I’m leaving.” He held up his notepad. “I’ve written it down and it’ll be filed with the hundreds of other stories just like little Edgar’s that I’ve listened to for nearly a month.” He, then, left the room.

None of us moved. We remained in stunned silence, until Poppy eventually said, “Let’s go boys. There’s nothing more for us here.” It was the only time I’d ever heard my grandfather talk like that, not the words themselves, but what was behind the words: defeat.

Edgar got up and followed Poppy out the door, and then I rose. I took a step, but then noticed my drawing was still on the desk. Detective Drillias hadn’t even bothered to take it.

I picked the drawing up and followed Poppy and Edgar down the hallway. With each step, my anger grew. As we entered the crowded waiting area, I saw Detective Drillias talking with the woman at the front desk. He was flirting with her, as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

I walked toward him, and then I took my picture. I slapped it into his chest. “You forgot this,” I said. “For your file.”

###

The detective, of course, never called. Jacob Kraft simply became one of many kids on the side of a milk carton, and life went on much the same, but different. Edgar drifted away. Even though Mike was fine with that, I tried to keep the old gang together, but my efforts were unsuccessful.

Edgar withdrew. He always had an excuse as to why he couldn’t play ball or hang at the park. When school began that fall, Edgar wouldn’t eat lunch with us. He found a new crowd. By the end of junior high school, we might occasionally say hello while passing in the hall, and, by the end of high school, we were strangers.  

 Poppy died seven years later. Cancer got him, just like it got my grandmother. We were close. Going out to shoot beer cans with him continues to be one of my most vivid and happy memories of growing up in Southern California.

Although we talked a lot, we never talked about what happened in the police station that day. I think it hurt him, being brought low like that in front of me and Edgar. Poppy was a proud man. What the detective said cut deep, likely because my grandfather wasn’t sure whether or not it was true. Maybe he really was just another old-timer, hungry to get back in the game.

For me, Detective Drillias was a wobble of a spinning top. One of many that I saw in the coming years, as that spinning top began to skid off the board. Early signs that we couldn’t pretend that San Diego was somehow special, immune to the changes happening all around it.

Thirty years passed, and then my old drawing of the kidnapper filled the television screen. I recognized it immediately. Then, the local Bureau Chief for the FBI praised his investigators for never giving up. He announced that the perpetrator had been caught and promised to reveal where Jacob’s body had been buried along with three others.

I was stunned. I shouted for my wife. She ran into the room, and I pointed at the screen. “They caught him,” I said.

“Who?”

I started to respond, but stopped as my old friend, Edgar, approached the podium. He was now bald with a thick beard, but I still recognized him. Edgar told the story of Detective Drillias, and he was thankful that someone had finally listened to his story. When asked about the reward, Edgar said that he wouldn’t keep it. The reward would be donated to Voices for Children, an organization that supported kids who were victims of abuse and neglect. An organization that gave voice to those who were often ignored, just like he was. 

THE END