Stranded in Plainfield

Eliot picked me up at five on the night of the game.

It was already dark out, and bitterly cold. Even though sports games weren’t his thing, the fact that I’d lost nearly half of my senior year of high school made him more willing to give in and take me.

He met me at the front door, and we hurried through the freezing air to his already-warm, running car. That, too was new. The last time we’d really been hanging out, over the summer, I was the only one with a car. But his job at the movie rental store had finally earned him enough money to buy one of his own—an old Ford Taurus. It was junk, but I couldn’t talk. My car was too.

We drove down Route 7 and out of town. There was nothing but farmland and cornfields between the towns of Clearview and Plainfield, but they may as well have been a brick wall. People only crossed from one town to the other when they had a really good reason.

Clearview and Plainfield had a visceral—and sometimes dangerous—rivalry. And it wasn’t just about sports. That had come later. The feud really began because Clearview’s largest business, RYNECORP, and Plainfield’s HaleTech Industries were bitter enemies. But the sports rivalry certainly didn’t help.

“So how are you feeling?” Eliot asked, placing a hand on my knee as we drove through the cornfields.

“I feel fine,” I shrugged. “It’s weird not remembering such a long stretch of time, but I’m just glad I made it out at all.”

“Well, I missed you,” he said, smiling.

“I bet I missed you too,” I replied. Honestly, I wasn’t sure what was going through my mind during that time.

He laughed, and we drove on, finally crossing the town line into Plainfield.

Everything felt different here. It’s hard to explain the exact vibe, but if I had to choose one word, it would be straight. The buildings were neatly lined up and symmetrical. The roads hardly ever curved. Even the houses felt different—white and boxy, like little laboratories—nothing like the homes back in Clearview.

Eliot shuddered as he made his way through town.

“This place gives me the creeps,” he said.

Even I was starting to wonder if we shouldn’t have just waited for a home game.

But within a few minutes, we were pulling into the parking lot at Plainfield High School. We got out of the car and hurried through the frosty air into the large, industrial-looking building. For all the sterile architecture, the inside of the school felt like any other high school—wide hallways, glass cases filled with sports awards and photos of notable alumni, and clearly marked signs directing people toward the gym where the basketball game was about to start.

Eliot and I walked down the hall and into the gym as both teams were on their respective sides of the court, practicing and warming up. There were a few other students from Clearview there, along with the parents of the players, but our side of the bleachers felt relatively empty compared to theirs.

Typically, the Clearview–Plainfield rivalry went something like this: we won most of the football games in the fall, and they won most of the basketball games in the winter. By spring, the rivalry fizzled out, since no one really cared much about track and field or tennis. Heck, I hardly cared, and Eliot was on the tennis team.

So as the game began, we fully expected to watch a loss.

But as basketball games go, it turned out to be a fun one. The score stayed tight through the fourth quarter, and even though we still lost, it was anyone’s game until the very end.

When it was over, Eliot and I hurried back to his car. It felt even colder than before. We talked briefly about getting something to eat, but neither of us wanted to stay in Plainfield any longer than necessary. We agreed on a place back in Clearview.

It should have been a normal night. Honestly, it would’ve been a great one—if not for what happened next.