The motorcycles rounded a bend in the road and before the boys lay a wide stretch of open highway, descending in a gradual slope. To their right lay Barmet Bay, sparkling in the afternoon sun. At the bottom of the slope was a grassy expanse that opened out on the beach, the road at this point being only a few feet above the sea level. The little meadow was a favorite parking place for motorists, as their cars could regain the road easily. - Hardy Boys, The Shore Road Mystery
The dime was still warm
from my mother’s hand
when she pressed the book into mine -
a blue cover smelling of dust and rain -
and something passed between us
that wasn’t money.
Elmira spring lifted off the sidewalks.
I was already halfway gone,
drawn toward mystery the way shade
pulls you off the street.
I took it where the day loosened its grip,
to the neighbor’s gravel driveway
between our house and theirs,
a strip of cool neither side claimed.
The stones pressed through my jeans.
Oil and dust lived there.
Sunlight stopped at my elbow
and let me be.
Inside the book, a road hugged water.
Danger stayed close to ordinary life.
Strangers knew too much.
Clues waited without asking.
I learned, page by page,
that questions could behave -
that answers came
if you stayed.
The pleasure of not knowing
pulled me deeper than fear.
Every sound sharpened -
gravel shifting, a screen door,
a mower coughing awake -
as if the world were offering hints
meant only for the careful.
I read slower, testing myself,
trying to see what the boys saw
before they spoke.
My father crossed the yard once,
work already claiming him.
He nodded -
as if this, too, was labor.
My mother moved through the house,
coffee gone cold, windows open -
a woman who knew
what a dime could become
if spent with care.
The mystery tightened, then opened.
The wrong man stepped forward.
The road released its secret.
I closed the book believing
that confusion had edges,
that attention mattered,
that the world could be read.
By then the shade had moved on.
The gravel held heat.
I stood, brushed my knees,
and carried the finished story inside.
What I didn’t know yet
was that I’d keep walking that road,
through other towns, other crimes -
following the old pleasure
of being led carefully into the dark
and returned altered.
I didn’t know it then,
standing up from the gravel,
that I’d keep walking that road -
through other towns, other crimes,
trusting the old arrangement:
attention in, understanding out.
That afternoon taught me
how mystery works,
and why I never stopped following it.
GBS jr
2017
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