Chapter Text
August 16, 2009
It was a hot summer day, the kind that reminded people of hellfire. The sun was shining brightly in a blue, cloudless sky. The Van de Kamps arrived home from Zion Baptist Church, and not long after there was a knock on their front door. William walked out of his downstairs bedroom and made for the door, his dog Scout following behind him. After a second knock, he opened it to reveal Jesse Dixon standing there in his jet-black church suit.
The Dixons didn’t attend the same church they did. They went to St. Margaret’s Catholic Church in Riverton. His parents had once told him it was the only Catholic Church around, and there weren’t too many Catholics in Fremont County. Most folks attended other churches. William often wondered what was the difference between Catholics and everyone else, but hadn’t yet found a real answer.
“Hi Jesse,” he said. “What’cha doin’?”
“Hello Billy,” greeted Jesse. “I’m goin’ fishin’ and was wonderin’ if your daddy wanted to go with me.”
He turned to glance behind, but didn’t see either of his parents in the dining or living rooms. “Pa’s still upstairs changing out of his church clothes. Ma’s upstairs, too. Do you wanna come in and wait for him to come down? You could probably eat lunch with us, if you want.”
Jesse hesitated and seemed to eye him suspiciously. William got a strong feeling that he was nervous about coming in the house.
“No, that’s all right,” he finally replied. “I’ll just get on home. Elthea will have lunch waiting for me. Give my message to your daddy, now.”
“Yes, sir. I will.”
With a quick nod, he turned and walked off the front porch, and William closed the door. The feeling he had lingered, and he strongly suspected that Jesse Dixon did not want to be alone with him if he could help it. It wasn’t a good feeling. He was one of the few people whose opinion mattered to him the most. The thought of Jesse being angry at him, or worse, disliking him, was enough to give him a stomach ache. He always deemed any difficulty or annoyance as “foolishness,” and William lived in fear of his ever judging him to be so.
After he ate his lunch, he packed his sketch pad and colored pencils into his new backpack and walked out of the house, his loyal four-legged companion following at his heels. As he stepped out through the back door, he called out to his mother to let her know he was going outside. He walked through the garden, passing the many rows of herbs and vegetables, until he came to the wooded area that separated the Van de Kamp property line with the old Ferguson farm where Jesse and Elthea Dixon lived.
Removing his backpack from around his shoulders, William sat down beneath a sprawling shade tree, soaking in the sweetness of the place with every breath. Songbirds and butterflies fluttered to and fro, squirrels and chipmunks skittered across the grass, bumble bees drank nectar from wildflowers, and the raucous buzzing sound of cicadas filled the air. Unzipping his backpack, he removed the sketch pad and flipped to the last page he had used.
On the page was a drawing of a pretty woman’s face he had started earlier that morning before church. He didn’t know who she was, but he had dreamt about her last night and every night for the past month. Before, his dreams of her had only occurred once in a while, but they were happening more often now. Sometimes he dreamt the woman was happy and smiling, even singing. Sometimes he dreamt she was sad, with tears running down her face as he tried desperately to reach her. But she always faded away before he ever could.
Gazing down at the outline on the page, William reached for his box of Crayola colored pencils. It was the 50-pack, his favorite, that he had gotten when his mother had taken him back-to-school shopping last week. Back in May he couldn’t wait for school to end and summer to start, but by the middle of July he wondered at the long days passing so slowly and how to fill the hours. Now that school was to start up again in just two days, he felt something like a small sense of regret over wasted time.
He chose several colored pencils and began filling in the woman’s hair on the page. It was red, like the color his light brown hair turned when in the bright sunshine. After he finished with her hair he colored in her face, and then her eyes. They were a lighter shade of blue than his much darker ones. When he had finished the drawing, he stared down at the page. A hundred questions filled his mind.
“Billy!”
His mother’s voice snapped him out of his reverie. He quickly packed away his sketch pad and colored pencils, and hurried back toward the house. As he approached the back door, he saw her standing in the doorway, an apron tied around her waist. The most useful piece of clothing she owned, she’d once said to him. Looking up at his mother’s face, taking in her brown eyes and dark hair, an image flashed in his mind of her large, deep granite saucepot, boiling water, and mason jars.
Martha Van de Kamp greeted her son with a smile. “Hon, can you run over and ask Elthea if she has any rubber jar rings? It’s the middle of canning season and I’ve run out.”
“Yes, ma’am,” William nodded.
Five minutes later, he knocked on the Dixons’ back door and then opened it without waiting for a response. “Hi Elthea,” he said, stepping inside. She was in the kitchen, still in her green church dress, ironing Jesse’s shirts.
She smiled as she looked up from her work. She never seemed to mind him traipsing in and out of her kitchen, or having him underfoot on days when she was working over at his house. All day long he’d hear her humming or singing as she went about doing housework, leaving a trail of melody wherever she went. “Hi, baby. What brings you over here on a Sunday afternoon?”
“Ma is canning and ran out of rubber jar rings. You got any?”
Elthea shook her head. “Sorry, I don’t. I ran out of them myself the other day.”
William sighed and sat down at her small kitchen table. “You got any cowboy cookies in your breadbox?”
She smirked, setting the hot iron aside. “Not today. But I’ve got something else that’s just as good.” Walking away from the ironing board, she moved over to the countertop and sliced him a piece of cake. He watched her retrieve a plate and fork, before getting out a small glass and pouring some ginger ale.
“Here you go, baby,” she said, setting the plate and glass down in front of him on the table. “Banana spice cake.”
William thanked her and watched her move back to her ironing board. “How do you walk around in those high heels, Elthea?”
She gave him a smirk as she picked up the hot iron. “Same way you walk around on those flat ones.”
He nodded and then began drinking his ginger ale in morose silence as she returned to her ironing.
“What’s the matter, hon?” Elthea looked at him as her iron glided around the buttons of a shirt.
“Nothing.”
She pursed her lips. “Come on, now. You look as dark as thunder. What’s on your mind? You worried about school starting up again? Third grade, and getting a new teacher. It’s a big deal.” She smiled.
William picked up his fork, lightly stabbing his piece of cake. “I had another dream about her last night. She was crying.”
“The redheaded woman?”
He nodded. “I wish I knew who she was. But I feel like I know her. But I don’t know from where. I’ve never seen her before… except in my dreams. I see her every night now.” He paused, hesitating to voice anymore aloud, and took a bite of cake. After swallowing, he finally got up the nerve to ask the one question that had been on his mind for months. “Do you… do you think she could be my mother? I don’t mean Ma, I mean…”
Elthea stilled her iron and looked up at him. “I know what you mean. Well, now, I suppose anything is possible.”
“I tried to get to her in my dream, but I couldn’t. It’s always like that.”
“Hon, don’t you fret too much over dreams,” she said with an easy smile and reassuring voice. “Dreams are funny. No use trying to make sense of ‘em.”
William finished eating his cake while Elthea told him all about the movie she and Jesse had seen on Saturday night. He wasn’t exactly sure what it was about, except Eddie Murphy and aliens. He knew she loved going to the movies, or the Cheyenne Little Theatre to see live shows, where she could watch actors sing and dance on stage. He watched her move about the kitchen, still telling him the details of her favorite scenes.
An image flashed in his mind of a building with a neon vertical sign out front that said Acme , with titles and times listed on the sign underneath in large red letters. And then an image of standing in front of a counter, a girl with a blonde ponytail handing over popcorn, candy, and soda. It was as clear as a picture, except the memory wasn’t his. The closest movie theater was in Riverton, over 20 miles away, and he’d never been there before.
“Jesse laughed and laughed,” Elthea continued. “He loved the movie.”
Her words brought him out of his reverie. “I’ve never heard Jesse laugh like that.”
She scoffed. “Nonsense.”
“How long you and Jesse been married?” he asked.
“Oh, a long time: 22 years now. Some days it feels longer than others.” She smirked again. “But he’s a good man, my Jesse.”
“How come you never had any kids?”
Elthea shrugged. “It just wasn’t in God’s plan for us, I guess. We’ve got you hanging around, though. You’re enough of a handful as it is.” She grinned at him, her eyes glinting humorously.
William watched her spread another wrinkled shirt across the ironing board. “Were you born in Wyoming, or did you come from somewhere else like me?”
She looked up from her work. “My, my, you’re full of questions today. I don’t think you’ve ever asked me so much about myself before.” She stared at him curiously. “No, I wasn’t born in Wyoming. We came to America when I was six years old, and came up here to live near some relatives. My folks were islanders.”
“What island?” he asked.
“St. Lucia, in the Caribbean. I’ve told you all about the Caribbean before, hon.”
He thought for a moment, wishing he could run away someday and see those glittering islands, where women carried baskets of fruit on their heads and nobody ever had to wear snow boots. “Have you ever been back to St. Lucia?”
“Oh, a long time ago,” she answered. “Before I was married.”
William stared down at the table, drumming his fingers on top of it. “Do you ever wish you still lived on the island? That you were in your real home? Where you were born?”
Considering him for a moment, she thought she knew where these questions were coming from. “Folks always miss they home. But, hon, Fremont County is the only home I’ve ever known. This is where I grew up. This is my real home. This is where my family is, my friends, everyone I love. This is where I belong.” She smiled. “My folks came here because it was a better quality of life. There wasn’t a lot of work on the islands. A lot of poor folks.”
“We’re poor.”
Elthea shrieked with laughter. “No, you’re not, not by a longshot. You don’t know it, and maybe it doesn’t seem like it compared to other folks in town, but you’re rich. You really are.” She shook her head, sighing. “Baby, you don’t know what poor is . Take Jesse’s daddy. He lost his job many years ago and then their family was poor. And I mean dirt poor . Eventually he found work again, but for a long time Jesse and his brothers and sisters grew up with next to nothin’.”
William chewed the last bite of his cake and drank down the last of his ginger ale, quietly thinking while he watched Elthea work. Like her husband, she was tall and thin, and had a graceful way of walking. He decided it was because when she was a child she’d probably been allowed to go barefoot year-round on the island, spending her days with palm trees and beaches and ever-sunny skies. Her skin was smooth and glossy, and she had the biggest, widest smile, completely unlike the somber Jesse. But, as his Pa once said, opposites attract. He supposed his Pa was right.
He then asked another question that had been nagging him for a while. “Does he like me?”
Elthea hung a freshly pressed shirt on one end of the board. “Jesse? He likes you just fine, hon.” She chuckled. “I can’t picture Jesse disliking anybody, unless they truly deserved it.”
Despite her words, he still wondered about Jesse; he could have such a frowning, disapproving air about him, especially when people came around the farm who he felt shouldn’t come around. Or whenever William had one of his “episodes,” as his Pa called them. He tried to control them as best he could, particularly in school, but sometimes odd things happened and he couldn’t help it. There were times when he’d catch Jesse turn one of those frowning looks of disapproval in his direction, and it would twist his stomach into knots.
He sighed. “Where’s Jesse? Is he still fishing?”
“Yes, he took his pole down to the creek. Did your daddy go with him?”
“No, he had to tend to the cows, he said.” William got up from the table, thanked Elthea for the cake and ginger ale, and then went out the kitchen door. He ran to the back of the Dixons’ yard and looked down to the creek, one of many waterways that fed into the nearby Boysen Reservoir. He saw Jesse in his skiff, edging along the bank.
He went down the slope of the hill and stood waving on the bank until he got his attention. “How’s about a ride?” he called out.
He nodded, and William kicked off his sneakers, pulled off his socks, and waded out a couple feet before climbing over the stern of the little skiff. He took in Jesse’s blue jeans, burgundy and white baseball tee, and sneakers. “How’s the fishing going?”
“Oh, you know… Fishing’s fishing. I caught a few yellow perch, is all.”
“You like fishing, huh?” asked William.
“I like it.”
That was Jesse. Sometimes he could hardly ever get him to speak more than one sentence at a time. But William knew he was full of all sorts of thoughts, thoughts that seemed so big and important he felt if he could just discover what they were all about he’d be better off. Some days his thoughts were louder than others, and some days William couldn’t hear them at all. He’s wiser than many, which makes him wiser than most, his Pa had once said.
Jesse rowed a little, then stopped to fish a little, remaining silent.
“School starts up on Tuesday,” William said.
“So, it does.”
Silence.
“Do you reckon I’ll still be the tallest in my class?”
“Might be.”
Silence.
“Jesse?”
“Huh?”
“Eric and Joey Kuykendall are gonna be in my class this year. They got held back. They won’t be going to fourth grade.”
“Those twins who gave you some trouble a few months back? Did you ever tell your mama and daddy about what happened?”
William shook his head. “They’d just make a big fuss over it.” He started chewing on his lip. “I haven’t seen the twins all summer, but they still think I’m a freak. They said so to Tommy Pierson. He told me at the county fair.” He paused. “Do you think I’m strange?”
“We’re all a little strange.”
“The other kids in school say I’m spooky. I think I’m a different sort of strange.”
“Maybe, maybe not.”
Silence.
“Jesse? Do you think my birth mother knew I was strange? And that’s why she sent me away? I wish I knew.”
“Maybe you’re not supposed to know. It’s never good to go rooting around in God’s business too much.”
William nodded, and thought maybe the woman with red hair was part of God’s business and that he’d better leave it up to Him. Sighing, he turned and gazed out at the water. Despite his reserved manner, Jesse Dixon wasn’t a man he could ever take for granted. He was as much a fixture in his young life as the walls or the roof of his house, as much a steady figure as his own parents. It may have been Elthea who fed him and looked after him, but every day Jesse’s quiet presence asserted itself in a hundred small ways and he had become like a second father to him.
To William, he had the look of a pirate, with a strong, square jaw, prominent nose, high cheekbones, and chiseled lips. When he smiled, his perfectly straight teeth flashed a brilliant white, though there wasn’t much of this shade in his eyes, whose brown centers were surrounded with a white that sometimes looked almost yellow or reddish. His short-cropped hair was like a wool cap atop his head.
His hands were long and beautiful, and his fingernails were perfectly shaped, rounded at the ends, almost purple in color, with paler half-moons, and always well-kept. All the veins in his hands showed under the dark skin, but he had much lighter palms. One time, William had asked Elthea if the reason his palms were so pale was because he’d scrubbed them too hard. She’d laughed and laughed over that, but he hadn’t been sure what was so funny about it.
He was tall and lean and strong, but despite his size William rarely heard him coming or going when he was around. If he concentrated, and Jesse was at ease going about his work on the farm, not realizing he was nearby and watching, he sometimes believed he could hear the man thinking. Not now, though. His posture was kind of stiff, as if he was on guard.
Like his Pa, Jesse was his hero. His quiet, strong presence gave off a sense of authority that inspired obedience and respect. When he was around, William felt safe and protected. He felt no pressures that unsettled him, only the strong desire to gain his approval and friendship, and he felt like he still had some ways to go to meet that end. He often observed Jesse’s dignified manner, his intelligence, his flashes of dry humor, the bright look that told William he’d done something right, the dark look that told him he’d done something wrong, or his groaning sounds of disapproval whenever he was misbehaving.
William encountered those noises when he again interrupted his concentration and tried to make conversation. “Jesse?”
Another groan. “Hmm?”
“What if something happens to me?”
Jesse gave him a look and heaved a sigh. “Happens to you when?”
“When I’m in school, and I get… you know, funny. Like last year, after I had an episode, and the twins jumped me and called me a freak. What if it happens again?”
He sat in silence for a moment, thinking the matter over, while bobbing his fishing pole up and down. “Well, I’ll give you a piece of advice, very good advice that I learned at a young age and I’ve followed all my life: Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery.”
William sat quietly, taking in what he had said. “Have you ever killed anyone, Jesse?”
The man scoffed. “Of course not, boy. It just means that when under attack, a man’s got to defend himself.” He gave him a look. “Do you know who gave me that advice?”
He shook his head.
“Malcolm X.”
“Was he your teacher?”
Jesse shrugged. “In a way. He taught me through books. I’ve read his articles and speeches, his biographies, seen videos of his conversations. When you get older, I’ll lend you my books and you can read them.”
William thought for a moment. “But who is he?”
“He was a great man when he was alive. He was against every form of discrimination. He believed all human beings should be respected as such, regardless of their color.”
“What color?”
Turning, Jesse gave him a curious look. “Their skin color, son. I don’t suppose your parents have ever told you that y’all are different from me and Elthea?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“Well, doesn’t Elthea teach you anything useful when she’s around the house?”
He chewed his bottom lip. “She taught me how to sew a button onto my shirt last week.”
“Good Lord.” He set his fishing pole aside. “Show me your arm.”
William lifted his bare forearm and leaned over, placing it next to Jesse’s larger, outstretched arm.
“Now, what do you notice about ‘em?”
“They look different.”
Jesse nodded. “Yes, they’re different. Different, how?”
He looked down again. “One’s light and one’s dark.”
“That’s right. And there’s some folks out there who take this difference very seriously, who believe folks with dark skin aren’t human beings.”
“But why?”
He sighed. “Because some folks have hate in their hearts. A black person is just as individual and particular as a white person, is a human being all the same. But there’s some people in this world who believe it’s the whites who’ve inherited the earth, and they don’t want darker folks to have any part of it.”
As William lowered his arm, a sad feeling welled up inside him. “But that’s not fair. Did you learn all this from Malcolm X?”
Jesse’s mouth twitched, as if he was trying to fight a grin. “Partly. Mostly from life. There aren’t a lot of black folks in Wyoming. In larger cities and towns, sure there are some. But besides Elthea and me, there’s none that live in this town. There aren’t any in that school you go to. I’ve been treated differently all my life, been called freak and much worse. So, don’t you pay no mind to what them boys say about you. Keep your head held high and remember what Malcolm X said.”
He stared at his raised brows, his expectant look, and knew he wanted him to recite it. “Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, and respect everyone.” He paused, thinking. “But if someone puts his hands on you, send him to…”
“Well, uh… maybe don’t go quoting that last part,” he interrupted. “It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to go around repeating that at your age. Just focus on the first part for now, and listen to what I’m telling you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you won’t let the other kids get you down. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
“Then shake on it, son.”
William smiled, and offered his hand to the outstretched palm in front of him. “Shake, Jesse.”
*****
A little while later, after the skiff had been tied to the small dock, they walked back up the hill toward the house, where Elthea was standing outside the back door waiting for them. And she wasn’t alone. He took one look at his mother to know she was hot under the collar.
“William Jackson Van de Kamp, where in the blazes have you been? I told you well over an hour ago to come over here and fetch some rubber jar rings. Or have you plumb forgot?”
“But Elthea didn’t have any, Ma. So, I went down to see Jesse while he was fishing.”
His mother heaved a frustrated sigh, closing her eyes and shaking her head.
Jesse and Elthea exchanged amused looks. “Martha, we were gonna be heading into town to the store in a bit,” she said. “We can pick up some rubber jar rings for you. I have to get some for myself, anyway.”
“Billy can get them,” she replied. Taking some cash out of her apron pocket, she handed the bills over to her son. “Go to the store with the Dixons, buy some rings and more mason jars while you’re at it, and come right back; don’t go anywhere else,” she admonished him. “Don’t wander off to the arcade, or over to B & K’s. Is that clear?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He had the tendency to go off on his own, ditching her inside the store and running off down the street to spend his pocket money at the candy shop or on a few rounds of Space Invaders.
Soon after, William was climbing into the backseat of Jesse’s blue Chevy Silverado. They took the five-mile drive into town. Shoshoni, with a population less than 700, did not have the variety or conveniences of a small city like Riverton. Most of its shops and businesses were contained within one four-block radius in the center of town as well as the library, post office, elementary school, community recreation center, police station, and town hall. North of this radius lay the high school and various churches.
Upon reaching the only traffic light in town, smack dab in the middle of the four-block center, where Idaho and 2nd Streets crossed, Jesse turned left and drove several yards before reaching the White Buffalo Trading Post. After the truck was parked and William got out, he observed the side lawn of the big house across the street, where a dog was chained to a tree and incessantly barking at passersby. His parents called that house the Mansion, and he could tell it wasn’t a good thing by the way their voices sounded when they said it. He knew who lived there: Mr. Russell Spence and his wife, Mrs. Linda Spence.
Russell Spence was a retired businessman, and both he and his wife were on the town council. They were the richest people in town, and also the meanest. He often heard his parents describe him as “a grouch” and “a cheapskate,” and he sensed the disapproval whenever he was mentioned by them or the Dixons, which only deepened his own dislike of the man. Mr. Spence strongly believed in his own importance, but he wasn’t so to William, or the rest of the town’s youth. He was actually their nemesis. Arrogant, mean, and selfish, he was a child-hater to the bone. All the kids in town knew they were never to use his massive yard as a shortcut or he’d sic his dogs on them.
He was short and round, forever with a cigar hanging out the corner of his mouth, his expression was continuously unpleasant, and his tone of voice was always disagreeable. He was in the dog-breeding business, a hobby he’d picked up after retiring several years ago. He owned Welsh Springer Spaniels, beautiful dogs with long, soft coats in a dark, rich red and white pattern, and eyes full of playfulness and affection. They were the sort of dogs that people loved to pet, but of course, no one ever dared pet Russell Spence’s dogs.
William knew the adults didn’t much care for Mr. Spence either. Whenever there was a town meeting to discuss improvements, he could be counted on to oppose anything progressive based on general principle. He could start an argument in an empty house, his Pa had once said. A few months earlier, his parents and the Dixons got home late from a Town Council Meeting due to Russell Spence holding session for several hours because he didn’t want the town to pay for the upkeep of the community center’s pool. After they’d come home, his Ma had said he was so cheap he wouldn’t give a nickel to see Jesus riding a bicycle.
Several weeks ago, Russell Spence made a comment to Mr. Matuschek, who owned the barbershop, and somehow it got back to his parents. Mr. Spence said, while watching Ma drive by with Elthea in the passenger seat, that the Van de Kamps were too familiar with their inferiors, who should be kept in their rightful place. His parents had only rolled their eyes when they’d heard it and his Ma said that Russell Spence had his nose so high in the air he’d drown in a rainstorm.
“Jesse and Elthea aren’t our inferiors just because they work on the farm with us. They’re not servants. Mr. Spence is just afraid that the Dixons are superior to him,” his Pa had said. “And they are.”
Turning away from the Mansion, William walked with Jessie and Elthea into the store. The White Buffalo Trading Post was several businesses in one; there was a general store, a restaurant, and a gun shop. The general store had everything from groceries and household goods to alcohol and tobacco to movie rentals and fishing supplies. The restaurant served breakfast, lunch, and dinner daily, and Tony Nucci, the cook, had a wide variety of American and Italian food on the menu. The gun shop was only open three days a week, and had a selection of firearms, ammunition, and hunting supplies.
Once inside the store, Elthea grabbed a cart and they started shopping. Soon a whole bunch of mason jars and extra rubber rings were retrieved off the shelves. When they made their way back toward the front of the store, Jesse stopped at the newspaper rack and picked up The Washington Post. He perused the front page. “A university in Virginia is running some paranormal science center and they’re testing all sorts of nonsense,” he said to Elthea.
“What’s paranormal mean?” William asked, the word sparking his interest. “Is it something… not normal?”
Jesse glanced down at him. “You should look it up in the dictionary when you get home.” He finally shook his head and set the newspaper back down. “Good Lord, white folks sure do some foolish things.”
“White folks?” William furrowed his brows as he looked up at him.
“Yep.”
He nodded his head in agreement, becoming serious. “Yes, sir. White folks.”
Jesse chuckled and Elthea starting giggling, her eyes sparkling as she stared down at him, her marvelous laugh like music to his ears. “What am I going to do with you, child?” She bent down and gave him a kiss on the cheek as she hugged him to her side with one arm.
“God Almighty, don’t that boy know that is a black woman?”
William started to turn, looking for the source of the words. His gaze then fell on Mr. Russell Spence, standing about 20 feet away, leaning against the counter where people usually stood in line to get their hunting and fishing licenses, staring at them. As usual, a cigar was jammed in his mouth, but he wasn’t speaking to anyone, just standing in front of the counter by himself. But the words had been loud, loud enough for him to hear. He turned back and looked up at Elthea, who was still laughing to herself. It seemed like she and Jesse hadn’t heard it at all.
“That boy’s got the wrong idea,” the voice spoke again, and then it said folks will start calling him a something-lover if he wasn’t careful.
Again, he turned, and there was Mr. Spence, still standing at the counter staring daggers at him, and yet silent. He knew in his heart that Russell Spence had been the one saying those things, even if he wasn’t speaking them out loud. The man had only been thinking the words, but he’d heard them just the same. But William didn’t understand what he was saying. He’d called him a word he’d never heard before, and he didn’t know what it meant. But the man's tone of voice told him it was something mean and ugly, and he couldn’t imagine anyone saying mean and ugly things about Elthea, or Jesse.
“What’s the matter, hon?”
Startled, William spun around and looked up at Elthea’s concerned face, swallowing. “Didn’t you hear what he said?”
Her brows knitted in curiosity. “What who said?”
Sighing, he shook his head. “Nothing. I’m fine.”
She eyed him suspiciously. “All right, then. Well, we’ve got some more things to get on our list. So, come on.”
He nodded, and decided to turn back around one last time before they walked off to make sure his mind wasn’t playing tricks on him. But Mr. Spence was moving away from the counter and out the store exit, the bell on the door ringing as it opened and shut. Through the large storefront windows, William watched Russell Spence strut across the street, heading over to the big house.
Half an hour later, they were in the checkout aisle and William noticed a group of boys around the claw machine against the wall near the entrance door. Tommy Pierson, whose family farm was just a half-mile up the road from the Van de Kamp’s, was moving the lever and frantically pressing the button, trying to direct the claw toward his chosen prize. The Kuykendall twins, Eric and Joey, were watching and spouting advice, along with Lenny Casper and Dale Phillips. Again, he was reminded of the fast-approaching first day of school, a sense of dread coming over him.
Once the mason jars and other items had been paid for, they made their way toward the exit. As they walked, William couldn’t help but stare at the laughing boys, feeling left out of their games, excluded from their group. Just as they reached the exit, Jesse told them he’d join them outside in a moment, as he’d forgotten something at the bait and tackle counter. After William and Elthea left the store, he turned and walked over to the boys at the claw machine, coming to a stop just behind them and clearing his throat.
The claw dropped, the three metallic prongs wrapped around a purple stuffed dragon, but as it started to lift up, the toy slipped from its grasp and the claw returned to the start of the machine. The boys groaned and turned around. The sight of Jesse Dixon standing over them made their eyes widen.
“I hear you boys have a problem with Billy Van de Kamp.”
Their mouths fell open. Leonard Casper, a boy of ten with a suntanned face covered in freckles, was the first to recover. “Don’t you think Billy’s kind of a weirdo, Mr. Dixon?”
He pursed his lips. “The point is not what I think. The point is, do you?”
The boys all exchanged looks. “Sorta,” answered Dale, an eleven-year-old with a mop of red curls on top of his head.
“There’s nothing humbug about Billy Van de Kamp,” said Jesse. “You boys all go pallin’ around with each other, but you ought to let him come and pal around with you. He spends too much time with us grown folks, or all by himself. It’s not proper, not fitting, to treat a person that way. He’s a good fellow to have around.”
“No kidding?” Joey Kuykendall replied skeptically.
He nodded. “No kidding.”
The other twin, Eric, furrowed his brows. “In what way?”
“That’s what y’all should find out. He might have a few tricks up his sleeve that’ll surprise you. Now, school starts on Tuesday, and if I get wind of any foolishness, I’ll just have to tell Mrs. Van de Kamp to pay your mamas a visit. You boys understand what I’m saying?”
The boys exchanged nervous glances before looking back up at Jesse and nodding. “Yes, sir,” they answered.
He gave them a stern look and a polite nod, before turning and leaving the store. As Jesse made his way over to his truck, he saw that a small crowd had gathered outside, everyone staring across the street. William turned at the sight of his approach, and then pointed over at the side lawn of the big house. One of Mr. Spence’s dogs, chained to a tree, was still barking for all it was worth, and its owner was shouting for all he was worth to make the dog be quiet. Folks on both sides of the street had stopped what they were doing to ogle the commotion.
Red in the face, huffing and puffing, Russell Spence threw his cigar on the grass and marched over to the house, disappearing around the corner. Seconds later, he was walking back carrying a garden hose in his hand. He stopped a few feet in front of the tree, turned the hose on full blast, and then aimed it at the dog. The animal tried to escape the jet, running to and fro, until finally circling the tree until it was completely twisted up in the chain and couldn’t run anymore. Whatever Mr. Spence’s intentions, the water hadn’t made the dog quiet down. It cowered on the ground, shivering, giving off loud whimpering and yelping noises that twisted William’s stomach.
Enraged, Mr. Spence threw the hose away, which immediately began writhing about across the grass. He undid his buckle, pulled out his belt and folded it in half, and starting beating the dog’s rear end. People were so shocked they could only stare frozen in horror, mouths open and eyes bulging. Until Elthea stepped forward, her voice ringing out loud and clear. “For shame! Russell Spence, you control yourself!” She turned to her husband. “Jesse, do somethin’.”
Determined, he began to move to cross the street, but then Mr. Spence looked over. “Don’t you dare set foot on my property or I’ll call the police and have you arrested for trespassin’!” He then went on an irate tirade about folks minding their damn business, his dog still cowering and yipping in terror, and then he returned to the task of beating the noise out of it.
William had never been so angry in all his life. He hated that Russell Spence. He was mean and ugly and cruel. Breathing hard, his hands balled into tight fists, jaw clenched, hot tears falling down his cheeks, he felt the dog’s pain and fear. He stared across the street, wishing the man could get a taste of his own medicine. Suddenly, the garden hose snaked into the air and turned its jet on Mr. Spence, dousing him from head to toe. He screeched and spun around. The hose continued to snake towards him, and he received a blast of water full in the face. The belt in his hand then swung around, seemingly of its own accord, and began smacking him upside his head as he cried out. It appeared as if Russell Spence was beating himself with his own belt.
Onlookers didn’t know whether to laugh or worry, and a mixture of confused sounds were heard among the gathered crowd. Jesse and Elthea turned to gaze at each other, mouths agape. They then shared a look of realization and stared down at the child standing between them, staring determinedly at Mr. Spence. Hurriedly, Elthea crossed herself, muttering “Lord Jesus” under her breath, and grabbed hold of William, turning him toward the blue Chevy, where Jesse was quickly opening the rear passenger door.
As soon as he was safely inside the back seat, buckling his seatbelt, the antics across the street at the big house suddenly stopped. Mrs. Linda Spence came flying out the back door, berating her husband all the way back inside the house, the door giving a good, loud whack when it shut behind them. Jesse pulled out of the White Buffalo parking lot as the crowd on the sidewalk began dispersing, the poor dog soon forgotten.
The drive back to the Van de Kamp farm was a quiet one. What had happened back there to Mr. Spence, William knew he had done it, he’d made it happen, but he wished he knew how. He kept glancing into the front seat, where he could see Jesse and Elthea’s concerned faces, their eyes frequently darting into the rearview or side mirrors to gaze back at him. It was obvious he had scared them, a feeling which twisted his guts into knots. These odd episodes were starting to happen more often, but he didn’t know what to do about it. William stared out his window in morose silence, believing he was definitely a different sort of strange, wondering if something was wrong with him, worrying about what could happen to him if it got worse. He then remembered the newspaper Jesse had been reading inside the store, and decided to look up the word ‘paranormal’ in the dictionary, just as he’d said he should.
*****
September 26, 2009
On a warm Saturday afternoon, William found himself standing next to his family’s large chicken coop with Tommy Pierson, Dale Phillips, Lenny Casper, and the Kuykendall twins. The coop resembled a small wooden house, painted white and red, and it was home to six hens. At its tallest point, the peak of the tiled roof, it was almost seven feet high. The boys had gathered in front of it, Tommy Pierson having suggested a novel idea they’d all took an instant shine to.
Tommy had had a rough week. On Monday morning, he’d been the last one to arrive in the classroom. After hanging up his backpack and sitting down at his desk next to William’s, he’d promptly buried his face in his arms and burst into tears. The teacher had to escort him out of the room and they were gone for a long time. She then returned to the classroom without Tommy and he didn’t show up at school again until Wednesday. He spent the day in silence, not speaking to anybody, and occasionally weeping from time to time. Finally, on Thursday he’d told William what the trouble was: his older brother, Terry, who was in 10th grade and went to the high school, was having big problems.
So, on Friday morning while waiting for the bus, when Lenny and Dale had announced the completion of their latest project, Tommy felt the need to have some real fun with it. The two boys had brought this project with them to the Van de Kamp farm: a large kite measuring eight feet across. They’d used more than twenty-five square feet of canvas and had gotten Dale’s grandmother to stitch it for them on her sewing machine. The frame was light, a cross made of bamboo, and they’d worked hard, along with the twins, in Lenny’s cellar to finish it.
Yesterday at school, upon the announcement of the completed project, Tommy had proposed they test the kite out as a hang glider. It was soon decided they would test it by flying off the roof of the Van de Kamp’s chicken coop, and so on Saturday afternoon they put their plan into action. It was soon settled on that Dale, the oldest, would try it out first. He easily climbed to the roof, and then Lenny lifted the kite into the air until his friend grabbed hold of it. Holding the kite over his head, Dale leapt from the roof and made the easy jump into the bed of mulch that lay next to the chicken coop. Soon all the boys had followed suit.
“It’s not much of a jump,” said Tommy, scratching his head.
“We can’t test it as a hang glider on this thing,” Lenny said, pointing his thumb at the coop. “It’s not tall enough.”
Dale nodded. “We need a higher roof.”
The boys walked around the property a bit before their eyes fell on Jesse’s Cape Cod greenhouse a short distance away, its peaked roof measuring twenty feet off the ground. Carrying the large kite, Dale led them across the invisible property line that separated the Van de Kamp farm from the Dixons’ place.
Elthea, with a basket under her arm, on her way to pin clean laundry on the clothesline, stopped when she saw the boys. She smiled, although her eyes squinted suspiciously. “And what’re y’all up to?”
“We’re going to fly,” William answered.
“I don’t think it’s windy enough to be flyin’ a kite, hon.”
He went to correct her, but the twins hushed him, shaking their heads for him to keep quiet. They kept on walking until they reached their destination. Turning around, they made sure Elthea was no longer in sight before they commenced with their plan. But as soon as they all lifted their heads to look up at the roof, they simply stared up at it for several moments. William could see that Lenny and Dale were starting to have doubts about the whole thing. Seizing his moment to impress the older boys, he stalked off toward Jesse’s tool shed, retrieved a ladder, and returned to the group. After placing the ladder against the wall of the greenhouse, he took the kite from Dale’s hand and began to climb while the boys held the side rails.
Struggling to hold onto the large kite and maintain his precarious hold on the ladder, he soon made it to the greenhouse roof. On his knees, he scooted himself carefully along the peak until he was several inches from the front ledge. He gazed down at the boys, their wide eyes staring up at him twenty feet below.
“Go on,” said Lenny, his freckled face wearing a smug expression. “I dare ya.”
William grasped the kite more firmly, took a deep breath, and jumped. For a few seconds, he felt the wind catch and lift him into the air, a glorious feeling, but then the air as good as disappeared, and he began plummeting to the ground. There was a terrible crash, and the sound of shattering glass. As he hit the ground, he felt an intensely sharp pain in his left leg. He had fallen through one of the lower front glass panes of the greenhouse, and landed on the wire pyramid frame Jesse used to grow his cucumbers and squashes.
He tried to sit up and check just how badly he was injured, but he was too dizzy. He had felt, and heard, something snap when he fell. The boys rushed into the greenhouse, and when they took one look at the amount of blood spurting from his leg, they turned and ran, screaming for help. As William lay bleeding on the ground, the sky above him still spinning, tears streaming down his face, he suddenly had a vision of the woman with red hair. She leaned over him, worried, panicked. She kissed his head. There were tears in her kind blue eyes. He felt her lift him up into her smooth, gentle arms, cradling him against her chest. Was he dead? Had she come to take him to heaven?
“Billy!”
He knew that voice. It was Elthea’s. Blinking his eyes, he now looked up to see Jesse Dixon leaning over him. “Good Lord! You really gone and done it this time, haven’t you? What in Sam Hell were you thinking?”
William grimaced. “Foolishness,” he muttered.
Chuckling darkly, Jesse nodded. “That’s right, boy. Foolishness.”
“If man were meant to fly, God would’ve given him wings,” admonished Elthea.
Wiping away his tears, she helped her husband lift him out of the broken vegetable frame and lay him on the grass outside the greenhouse. Jesse knelt down next to him, assessing the damage. He then walked over to the clothesline, pulled down one of Elthea’s slips. After tearing the undergarment into strips, he hastily formed a tourniquet for William’s leg. Using garden stakes, he fashioned a splint.
The pain was secondary to William compared to the feeling he got at being the center of concerned attention: Elthea holding him and wiping his brow, Jesse tending to his wound, Tommy Pierson’s blanched face, the Kuykendall twins’ shocked gaze, Dale and Lenny looking guilty and ashamed. He was soon lifted into Jesse’s arms and carried home, where he was greeted by the panic-stricken faces of his parents. The other boys followed them inside the house.
Not long after, he was lying in his own bed, where he rested for about fifteen minutes before there was a knock at the bedroom door. He turned his head to see Dr. Franz Kafka, his pediatrician, walking into the room. The doctor took one look at the makeshift splint and tourniquet, and nodded his head, his eyebrows rising in approval.
“And whose handy work is this?”
“Mr. Dixon did that,” Dale said. Lenny, Tommy, and the Kuykendall twins nodded enthusiastically.
“Nice work. You should’ve been a physician, Jesse.”
William looked down at his bandages. “It’s a good thing Elthea’s underwear was hanging on the clothesline,” he quipped dryly.
The kids chuckled, and Dr. Kafka moved over to stand by the bed. His hands went to the splint. “How badly does it hurt, son?”
To his surprise, the pain was gone. What once had been agony, now felt like nothing. He felt fine. William shook his head. “It doesn’t hurt anymore.”
The doctor eyed him, and then turned to address the Van de Kamps and Dixons. “Was he given any pain reliever?”
Martha exchanged a questioning look with Elthea, and then shook her head. “No, doctor. He wasn’t given anything.”
Dr. Kafka carefully removed the garden-stake splint and put his hands on the boy’s leg, gently feeling the bone. He hummed to himself. He then removed the bloody tourniquet bandage, rolled up the blood-soaked leg of his blue jeans, and examined his skin. He turned the leg this way and that, glancing at William with each movement, his brows raised questioningly.
He only shook his head. “Nope. Doesn’t hurt.”
Standing up straight, Dr. Kafka scratched his head. “Now, are you sure this boy’s leg was actually broken?”
Everyone in the room stared at the doctor for a moment, their gaze then falling on William. Although they remained silent and did not speak, he could hear their voices whispering. He sensed the other boys’ surprise, and them now thinking him to be even more of a weirdo than before. He sensed Jesse and Elthea’s doubt and confusion, sensed his parents’ worry and fear.
“I see no sign of injury in the leg,” said Dr. Kafka. “I don’t know where all this blood on the bandages came from because the leg is perfectly fine. The bone feels sound. There’s been no tearing of the skin, no cuts. He’s in no pain. It looks to me like there was a lot of fuss over nothing.”
Mr. Van de Kamp swallowed, his eyes darting to the other people gathered in the room. “Well, thanks for coming out here, Doc,” he said, shaking the man’s hand. “We appreciate you checking on it, all the same. If there are any other problems with the leg, we’ll take him to the clinic in town.” He hastily turned to the kids in the room. “Okay, boys. Time to get on home. It was nice of you to come over and spend the afternoon with Billy, but I think that’s enough excitement for one day.”
Amid the boys’ confused protests, wondering what had happened to him and why, Jonathan ushered them out of the bedroom. Martha and the doctor then left, followed by Jesse and Elthea, and then William was alone. His stomach was in anxious knots again, a sense of guilt rising up inside him. He felt that his father was worried about him, scared even, and not because of his jumping off the roof of Jesse’s greenhouse.
He sat up on the edge of the bed and rolled down the bloodied denim of his jean leg, quietly waiting for his Pa to come back. As expected, a couple minutes later Jonathan Van de Kamp reentered the room, closing the door behind him, moved the brown foam-filled chair shaped like a baseball glove closer to the bed, and sat down facing his son. Elbows going to his knees, he folded his hands in front of him and sighed.
“I’m sorry, Pa,” he said sheepishly.
“You did a very foolish thing, William.”
He nodded. “Yes, sir. I could’ve been hurt.”
Closing his eyes, Jonathan shook his head. “You were hurt, Billy. You were. And everyone saw that you were. But then you weren’t. Those boys are going to go home and tell their families, who will then tell their neighbors. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”
“I didn’t do it on purpose, Pa.” He stared his father’s disbelieving expression, and then corrected himself. “I don’t mean the jumping off the greenhouse part. The getting better part.”
“Billy, we’ve talked about this before, many times. You have to keep these… things you can do a secret.”
He nervously played with his fingers. “But I don’t make them happen. They just do.”
Jonathan sat up straight. “I know, son. But you’ve got to find some way to control it. Folks around here… if they got wind of anything… out of the ordinary…” He sighed. “Some might go around saying your gifts are acts of God. Others, well, they might go the opposite way and call it works of the Devil. Either way, they’d be scared.”
“Which is it?” William asked, wide-eyed, feeling desperate for answers.
“What?” He stared at his son, brows furrowing.
He swallowed against the lump forming in his throat, his eyes become wet with unshed tears. “Did God do this to me? Or the Devil?”
Jonathan smiled sadly. “I know it wasn’t the Devil. That’s for certain. As for God… well, I don’t know about all that.”
“But why do these things have to happen to me?”
“I don’t know.” He sighed again, and decided now was the time. “You wait right here. I’ll be back in a second.”
William watched his Pa stand up from his baseball-glove chair, walk across the floor, bypassing the white baseball-shaped ottoman, and disappear from the room. Waiting quietly, he wondered what was going to happen. He listened to his father’s footsteps on the wooden staircase, heading upstairs, and listened as he walked back down a few moments later. Reentering the bedroom, Jonathan handed his son a white envelope.
He stood up from the bed as he took the envelope from his father’s hand. Looking down, he saw his name written on the front of it, but it wasn’t his Ma’s handwriting or his Pa’s or his teacher’s, Mrs. Doyle. He flipped it over, seeing that it had already been opened. Slowly he pulled out a white piece of paper and set the envelope down on top of his bedspread, a gray duvet covered with colorful depictions of vintage baseball players in blue and white uniforms. Unfolding the paper, he began to read.
“My dearest William,
One day you'll ask me to speak of a truth – of the miracle of your birth. To explain what is unexplained. And if I falter or fail on this day, know there is an answer, my child, a sacred imperishable truth, but one you may never hope to find alone. Chance meeting your perfect other, your perfect opposite – your protector and endangerer. Chance embarking with this other on the greatest of journeys, a search for truths fugitive and imponderable. If one day this chance may befall you, my son, do not fail or falter to seize it. The truths are out there. And if one day you should behold a miracle, as I have in you, you will learn the truth is not found in science, or on some unseen plane, but by looking into your own heart. And in that moment, you will be blessed, and stricken. For the truest truths are what hold us together, or keep us painfully, desperately apart.
Your father and I love you more than you will ever know,
Mom”
He read the words over and over again until the tears in his eyes blinded him, and he could read no more. But through his blindness, he saw her face again. The red hair. The kind blue eyes.
“She calls you a miracle,” Jonathan said softly. He sighed as he sat back down in the chair. “But I can’t say whether that’s a miracle of God, or of science. And it seems like she didn’t know either.”
William nodded, sniffling as he wiped the tears from his cheeks with the back of his hand. She also said there was an answer, a truth that was out there for him to one day discover, a truth about him and his birth. He looked at his Pa, not knowing what to say.
“And this question, Billy, might be bigger than you or your birth mama or Martha and me, or even this town,” Jonathan continued. “But people fear what they don’t understand. And when they’re afraid, people can do terrible things. I want nothing more than for you to get the answers to all your questions, but more importantly, I want you to be safe. So, when I say that you need to keep the special things you do a secret, it’s only because I’m trying to protect you.”
William suddenly remembered what he had done last month to Mr. Spence. Was he dangerous? Was this why his birth mother had sent him away as a baby? Was this the reason they were kept apart? What if it only got worse? Raw emotion welled up inside him. Would his Ma and Pa send him away, too? “Tommy Pierson’s older brother had to go away to live with his aunt and uncle.”
Furrowing his brows, Jonathan stared at him, not seeing how this piece of information was connected. “Yes, I think I heard something about that.”
“His parents couldn’t handle him anymore. He was setting fires in the high school and had other problems at home. Tommy said he wasn’t normal, that he was disturbed. He went to Chicago because it’s a big city where he can go to a special hospital. But Tommy said his parents didn’t know if the doctors could fix his brother, or if he’d ever come home.”
He still gazed at his son, wondering for a moment what he was getting at, and then made the connection. The emotional burden the young boy was carrying around made his heart heavy.
William’s emotions nearly choked him, and he felt hot tears pricking his eyes again. “I wish I wasn’t special, and that the other kids didn’t look at me funny. I wish we could just pretend I wasn’t adopted, that we could pretend I’m your real son. I wish I was normal like everyone else.”
Reaching out, Jonathan gently grasped the boy’s arms. “You are my real son. You are my son. And I don’t want anything bad to ever happen to you. No matter who you are, or what you’re doing, you are a blessing. You’re an answer to our prayers. And when we have a blessing, we have to treasure it and keep it safe. We don’t take foolish risks. Right?”
He nodded tearfully.
“So, you need to do everything you can to control that special side to you, to keep it a secret, even from your friends in school. Are you gonna give me your word, Billy?”
“Yes. I promise.”
Nodding, Jonathan smiled. He then gazed at his son earnestly. “And I promise you that we will never send you away.”
Emotions overwhelming him, William moved forward and threw his arms around his Pa’s neck, and cried into his shoulder, the woman with red hair and the letter momentarily forgotten.