The Year We Disappeared

Cylin details her early memories of life with a father in law enforcement. John Busby works the late shift (11 o’clock in the evening until eight o’clock in the morning) and sleeps during the day, so Cylin’s mother, Polly, keeps the kids out of the house during the day so John can sleep. On days when John wears his brown suit, Cylin knows he is scheduled to testify in court.

One summer evening (1979), after a full night shift and a day in court, John sleeps, and Polly brings the kids outside to paint her husband’s Volkswagen. Cylin remembers that evening from a series of photographs: Polly posing next to the freshly-painted car, herself sitting in the driveway with her pet turtle, her brothers Eric and Shawn in front of their house. She is grateful for the photo of the car because, by the next day, it will be riddled with bullet holes. 

The perspective shifts to John Busby as he recounts the events leading up to the Labor Day weekend shooting. After only three hours of sleep, he prepares for another night shift. On his way to work, a car follows him, pulls up alongside, and fires into his car, hitting him in the face. Without his service revolver and with no means of self-defense, he decides to flee. He throws the car into reverse and drives over curbs and through fences, almost crashing through a front door. Rolling out of the car, he uses his vest to staunch the bleeding (and to expose his uniform to civilians). The owner of the house helps him inside and tries to render aid. Meanwhile, another officer in the vicinity arrives and radios for an ambulance while securing the location.

While waiting for the EMTs, John can feel himself going into shock, and he fears he might die before they arrive. Unable to speak, he wants to communicate to someone—anyone—a description of the car from which he was shot as well as his blood type. He writes “not an accident” on a piece of paper (23). He suspects a man named Raymond Meyer, a career criminal suspected of arson and several murders. He also fears Meyer will target his family. A fellow officer with EMT training arrives and tries to keep Busby alive until the ambulance arrives, but the look in his eyes suggests he is not optimistic. 

Cylin contrasts her home life—messy, disorganized, half-assembled cars in the yard—with her neighbors, the Sullivans. The Sullivans’ home and yard are pristine, and Cylin suspects they don’t care much for the Busby children. The Busby’s live on a cul-de-sac, the Sullivans on one side and a 17th-century Pilgrim church on the other. Behind the church was “one of the oldest graveyards in New England” (28). Rather than feeling afraid of the cemetery, Cylin and her brothers see it as their private playground—on Halloween, Polly and the kids do “gravestone rubbings” of the more weathered and illegible grave markers. Despite these Halloween art projects, Polly tries to instill in her children a respect for the graves and those buried there.

On the night of the shooting, Cylin wakes up to the sound of her mother crying. Peeking out of her room, she sees two fellow officers in the house trying to comfort the sobbing Polly. They take Polly to the hospital, leaving the kids with their cousin, Kellie. While Kellie calls relatives, a strange car suddenly pulls into the driveway; Kellie immediately ushers the kids into the dark kitchen and tells them to be quiet. A man climbs out of the car with a rifle. Kellie and the kids run to their parents’ bedroom and hide in the closet. Although Kellie has turned off all the lights, she forgets to turn off the record player, and the music confirms that someone is in the house. He pounds on the back door. While Kellie answers the door, Cylin and her brothers hide in the attic crawlspace.

John drifts in and out of consciousness as he is transported to the local hospital. The ER doctors perform preliminary triage, noting tissue and bone fragments pushed nearly into his brain and eye socket. When Polly arrives, John fears for the safety of his kids, but one of the officers assures him they have dispatched someone to watch the house. Soon after, another doctor arrives, one with battlefield experience, and he rides in the ambulance as they move John to a more well-equipped hospital in Boston.

At Massachusetts General Hospital, the trauma doctors work frantically to save him, but the prognosis is not good. As he sinks into unconsciousness, he experiences flashbacks. He remembers his youth, riding with a gang, fighting other gangs, and being arrested and interrogated by the Boston police. He appears in court, and, although found not guilty, this is not his first time before this particular judge. To avoid a potential jail sentence for a repeat offense, he enlists in the Air Force.

John wakes up in the ICU 12 hours later. He ponders all the possible outcomes of his shooting. If the shotgun blast had hit an inch higher, he’d be dead. An inch lower, he’d be fine, but if he hadn’t been knocked on to the passenger seat by the first shot, the second shot would have killed him. He quickly realizes the futility of these mind games. He looks to the immediate future: “They wanted to kill me. And here I was, still alive” (47).