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The boys of summer.

Johnny once sat under the bleachers, the scar on his tongue, a reminder of the time he bit it after falling from a treehouse. A sack full of yesterday's news in a red wagon, the first and last clues.

Eugene ... the other kid who dropped out of sight on Sunday morning, now the evening edition; now a black spot on the sun.

Why the two-year gap?

Departures and landfalls. But no explanations.

Mom and Dad never comfortable peering into the camera lens. Big brother breathing out vapors until something sparks and all
the old questions came back.

A detective's paradox. No bone. No fragment. No evidence. In his home garage hangs a poster of Eugene to remind him every day.

-- for Johnny Gosch and Eugene Martin
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