One of Us Page 8

  Rafe’s here along with Billy and Troy. They’re in uniform and he’s in his camouflage hunting jacket and if possible, pants that are even more wrinkled than the ones he had on yesterday. His blue tie is covered in leaping green and orange frogs. I pray it was a Father’s Day gift from a grandchild.

  A bulky woman made to seem even bulkier by the metallic sheen of her gray ski jacket is standing next to them. It’s Moira Kelly, a member of one of the largest local tribes. The patriarch is a good friend of Tommy’s, a descendant of Prosperity’s best friend, Kenny Kelly, who swung in the noose next to him, and the owner of Kelly’s Kwik Shop. Moira’s one of ten offspring that were produced during the twenty-odd years of Mrs. Kelly’s childbearing capabilities. The oldest sister, Glynnis, was Rafe’s second wife. Moira is somewhere in the middle and manages the store for her father. She and Rafe don’t get along.

  “What’s going on?” I ask Rafe and the two young cops who aren’t doing much of anything.

  “Parker’s taken a hostage,” Rafe replies without emotion while rolling a piece of candy around inside his mouth.

  “What?”

  “He’s trying to keep the gallows standing,” Billy Smalls explains. “He says Simon Husk was just the beginning and more people are going to die if they get torn down.”

  “He’s trying to keep the gallows standing because once they’re gone and Dawes starts fracking, he’ll have no place to mow,” Rafe adds.

  “I think it’s kind of cool,” Troy says.

  “Cool?” I wonder.

  “I mean, all the attention the town’s getting. It’s been a while, but we got a paranormal-reality TV crew coming here again. Someone from the show called the station about it.”

  “I hope it’s Ghost Sniffers,” Billy joins in. “We might get to meet Wade Van Landingham.”

  “Who’s Wade Van Landingham?” I ask.

  “He’s this psychic who sniffs out spirits,” Troy explains.

  “Intuitive investigator,” Billy corrects him.

  “I don’t think it’s Ghost Sniffers, though,” Troy goes on. “I think it might be World’s Creepiest Destinations.”

  “How about that, Moira?” Rafe says. “There’s a TV show about your lady parts.”

  She gives him the finger.

  “Isn’t anyone concerned about what’s going on here?” I have to ask. “He has a gun.”

  They all stare at me almost with pity.

  “You know Danny Doyle, Tommy’s grandson?” Rafe asks Moira.

  “Sure. He’s been in the store. He’s never friendly, though.”

  “That’s not true,” I practically gasp. “I always say hello.”

  “You never mean it.”

  “How can someone not mean hello?”

  “Don’t you live in the ’burgh’?” she says to me.

  “I’m on the other side of the state. Philadelphia.”

  “Eck. Philly. I hate that place.”

  “Have you ever been there?”

  “You don’t have to go somewhere to know you don’t like it.”

  “Yes. Yes, you do.”

  “I’ll never understand why anyone wants to live in a city.”

  I just nod. I don’t want to get involved in a discourse on the evils of urban life. I’m well acquainted with small-town moral superiority. I don’t bother telling her the worst things I’ve experienced have all happened here.

  “Parker!” Rafe suddenly shouts. “Give me your gun.”

  Parker’s head jerks up.

  “No.”

  “Come on. This has gone far enough.”

  “It’s not even loaded,” Parker shouts back, holding his rifle up in one hand.

  “Then why the hell do you have it with you?”

  “To make it look like I really kidnapped her. We want to get on the news.”

  Rafe looks around him at the multitude of cell phones hard at work posting photos to Facebook and sending video to YouTube.

  “Here’s what’s going to happen, Parker. You’re not only going to get on the news. You’re going to attract the attention of the state police, who might already be on their way here, and once they get here I can’t help you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Right now this is a harmless misunderstanding, but if a trooper shows up this becomes kidnapping and assault with a deadly weapon.”

  “What if I say I’m here willingly?” Birdie chirps up, her knitting needles flying.

  “Which carries a life sentence,” Rafe finishes. “You think about that a minute.”

  Another woman detaches herself from the crowd and starts heading in our direction. She’s half the size of Moira, wearing jeans, harness boots, a fleece-lined denim jacket, and red mittens.

  Moira notices me watching her approach.

  “Stop eyeballing my sister,” she warns.

  “I’ve never eyeballed anyone in my life,” I tell her, trying to control my exasperation again. “I don’t eyeball.”

  “You were eyeballing,” Rafe says.

  Moira leans toward me and lowers her voice.

  “Here’s the lowdown. Her name’s Brenna. She’s single. She’s got two grown kids. Two ex-husbands, both assholes. One’s a deadbeat, the other’s a foreigner.”

  I glance at the sister again. Was she actually married to a foreigner, I wonder, or just someone from Altoona?

  “You need to put an end to this, Rafe, before he really gets in trouble,” Brenna says upon her arrival.

  “I agree,” I say.

  She gives me a frank look with a pair of golden brown eyes that remind me of an amber amulet my mom stole from somewhere. She keeps it in a change purse along with her mother’s wedding ring, her own wedding ring, a charm bracelet of multicolored stones I bought for her at Woolworth’s when I was eight, a tiny bird carved from blue marble that she also must have stolen, and some petrified candy corn.

  “What if I say I won’t press charges?” we hear Birdie cry out.

  “You know Danny Doyle?” Moira asks her sister.

  “Not really, but I think I remember you,” Brenna says. “You were about four or five years ahead of me in school. You were some big cross-country runner.”

  “Not many people remember cross-country,” I respond eagerly.

  “That’s for sure,” Moira comments.

  “I wasn’t too bad,” I add. “My sophomore year I finished in the top thirty at states.”

  “Congratulations,” Brenna says.

  “Big deal,” Moira scoffs.

  I turn and glare at her.

  “I finished sixth my senior year.”

  “Double big deal. Who cares if you won it? How many runners get to shake hands with the president, or get a sandwich named after them, or get to bang one of the Kardashians?”

  “What is she talking about?” I ask anyone.

  “That was ages ago,” Brenna says to me, “but I’ve heard of you recently. Why would that be?”

  I’m about to suggest one of my many television appearances or the publicity surrounding one of my books, when all the warmth drains out of her honeyed eyes.

  “I read an interview where you said your hometown is full of ignorant yokels.”

  “I’d never say anything like that.”

  “Those were your exact words.”

  “I’m sure the quote was taken out of context.”

  “How do you take that out of context? You meant the good kind of ignorant yokels?”

  I start to defend myself. I open my mouth, but the festering childish words stay inside me where I’ve learned it’s best to keep them. People were mean to me first! I want to shout.

  I don’t get a chance to say anything. She and Moira walk away.

  Living well is supposed to be the best revenge, but it hasn�
��t proven true in my case. I should take some satisfaction in my success. I should own up to my comment because I said it and yes, I meant it and yes, it’s true. And all of that aside, no one around here thinks twice about making fun of the way I dress, the way I talk, where I live, what I eat; why shouldn’t I make fun of them?

  When I left for college, I thought I was going to fit in just fine in the Ivy League, but once I arrived there I was instantly branded . . . an ignorant yokel.

  It didn’t matter how smart I was or how ambitious, how many books I had read or obstacles I had overcome. I could earn my way into those hallowed halls with my brains and my fleet feet, but I was woefully unsophisticated and painfully poor and could never be a true part of the world that had formed the majority of the student body. I did befriend some of the rich and spoiled, but it was implicitly understood I was invited to their parties and onto their yachts and into their opulent homes as an observer, a foreign exchange student of sorts from an inscrutable barbaric land of past-due utility bills, faded hand-me-downs, and Tater Tot dinners.

  The truth is I’ve never belonged anywhere, and as much as I hate to admit it to myself, I wouldn’t mind belonging somewhere.

  I can feel Rafe looking at me by not looking at me. I don’t know what he’s thinking and it doesn’t matter because he would never express it out loud.

  During all the years I knew him while growing up there was only one time when I got into trouble and he was called upon to intervene. He gave me a talk that probably didn’t last more than a minute, but when it was over it was understood by both of us that this was the only life lesson he was ever going to put into words for me and that I should find a way to make it applicable to every crisis of conscience I would ever have in the future.

  In third grade, in a gallant effort to engage boys in art class, our teacher asked us to draw pictures of the deadliest monsters we could imagine. Then we had a contest where we were randomly paired up and the class voted on which monster would win a fight between the two until we came down to the ultimate victor.

  The other kids drew hideous creatures with blood dripping from their dagger claws and gnashing teeth. Some were fire-breathing; others acid spewing. One had machine guns for arms. Another shot lasers from his eyes.

  I drew a dome-shaped shell covered in armored plates and a poisonous slime. Inside, my monster could be seen curled up sleeping. He had no means of attack. He won by surviving.

  It was the only time I ever flunked a school assignment.

  The other kids teased me mercilessly and even my teacher sniggered. By the end of the school day I had moved past my usual response to this kind of treatment. I didn’t want to take flight; I wanted to fight. I was mad. The hottest part of my anger didn’t stem from the abuse, but came from the fact that I loved my picture. It was a great work of art, a hundred times better than the caveman drawings the other kids had done, and no one appreciated it.

  I wasn’t in any mood to negotiate the vagaries of school bus bullies. Lost Creek Elementary was a couple of miles from my house. Some of the route was along isolated country roads, but I had walked it before and I didn’t care.

  I started out and soon I came upon another boy. He was a first-grader. I didn’t know his name. I assumed he lived in one of the nearby houses behind the school or he wouldn’t be walking alone at his age.

  His age. I thought about it for a moment. Six. I was six the first time I went to visit my mom in prison. My great-grandfather Jack McNab was six when he watched his father hang. It was a milestone age, an age when a boy should already be a man, but this kid was obviously still a baby and more than that, he was fat, the one physical attribute on the list of reasons why other kids could call you names and destroy your self-esteem that I didn’t possess. Never mind the irony that I got made fun of for being too skinny.

  It would be so easy. I wouldn’t have to strain my brain at all. And it would make me feel good. It must make them feel good or they wouldn’t do it all the time.

  I jogged up beside him. He turned his big round face toward me in fear but then a brief flicker of hope shone in his eyes as he recognized the too-tall, too-skinny, too-quiet, nerdy, pale, weirdo, smart kid with the mom in jail and thought he was safe.

  “Hey, Fatso,” I said and waited for the rush of joy that was supposed to accompany hurting someone.

  It didn’t come. Watching his demoralized gaze drop to the ground, his shoulders bunch up, and his lower lip begin to quiver actually made me feel worse.

  “Hippo,” I tried again and gave him a shove.

  “Don’t,” he said to his feet.

  “What’d you say to me?” I responded automatically, not realizing I was quoting my father.

  “Don’t, please,” he sniffed.

  I shoved him harder.

  “What’s the matter with you? Aren’t you going to fight back? Are you chicken?”

  My next push knocked him on all fours. He scraped his hands on the roadside gravel and banged his knees and burst into tears.

  I still wasn’t feeling good. I was feeling worse. Before he could get up, I pushed him again and he fell over onto his side. I let loose and began flailing at him. It wasn’t punching or even slapping. I didn’t know how to do either.

  “I hate you!” I yelled at him, but I was lying. I didn’t hate him. I didn’t even know him.

  I hated that my mom was in jail. I hated that my sister was dead. I hated that my dad didn’t like me. I hated that no one liked me. I had a lot of hate in me but it wasn’t directed at individual people; it was directed at circumstances. How do you beat up a situation?

  He covered his face with his pudgy hands and I instantly recognized him as the monster in my picture hiding in his armored shell.

  By this point, I was crying as much as he was. I ran off into the trees.

  I didn’t venture back onto the road until it was starting to get dark. A few people slowed their cars and asked me if I wanted a ride, but I gave them my name and told them where I lived and promised I could get there on my own and they went on their way.

  Finally, I heard the sound of a slowing engine behind me and one solitary whoop from a police car’s siren. I turned and saw red and blue lights sparkling in the gloom of the fading day.

  It was Rafe. The same man standing beside me now, only then it was Young Rafe with his sulky good looks in his uniform with a gun strapped to his side. A law enforcer. A protector and server. The only person who ever took the time to explain to me what was happening to my mother. A man I admired but didn’t envy. A man I wanted to mimic but didn’t want to be.

  I trudged over to his open window.

  “Did you beat up that little kid?” he asked me.

  “I didn’t beat him up,” I replied.

  If only he’d have been there, he’d know this was appallingly true.

  He waited with his engine idling.

  “Yes,” I finally admitted.

  “Why?”

  I shrugged.

  “I don’t know,” I said honestly.

  “Get in, Danno.”

  I climbed into the car and I wanted to stay forever in the warmth and safety and the silent camaraderie. The only thing that could’ve made it better would’ve been a pizza.

  My own house would be empty and without food. My dad had been on disability for over a year now and was rarely home, spending most of his time at the union hall or drinking at the Rabbit. This was okay by me for the most part, but sometimes it was okay to have him around. I got lonely and he and his feet weren’t always mad at me.

  Dad would probably never find out about the incident, but Tommy certainly would. He’d be disappointed in me. If I had beat up a true bully he’d be thrilled, but picking on a little kid was never okay.

  Rafe looked at me then looked away.

  “Before I was a policeman, I was a soldier fighting
in a place called Vietnam. You ever heard of it?”

  “I think so.”

  “I’m not going to dwell on the subject. All I’m going to say is it was the worst place in the world. I suppose the Vietnamese like it, but for people from Pennsylvania it was like being in hell. Hot as an oven. Red earth.”

  He stopped himself from going on. I could see the effort on his face.

  “We had to fight in the jungle with forty pounds of weapons and equipment on our backs, but the heaviest thing I carried around was my hate.”

  I thought about this revelation the same way I’d contemplated the little fat kid’s age. I could see Hate hunkered on top of Rafe’s soldier backpack, a bristly black monkeylike beast with yellow eyes and long sharp twisted claws weighing him down.

  “Who did you hate?” I asked.

  “At the time, the enemy. The North Vietnamese.”

  “Why were they the enemy?”

  “We didn’t really know, but it didn’t matter. We were soldiers. It was our job to defend the country, not our job to decide when it needed defending.”

  “Why’d you want a job like that?”

  “I didn’t. It was given to me, and even though I didn’t want to do it, I couldn’t say no.”

  “Like when my dad makes me scrub the toilets?”

  “Exactly like that.”

  He put the car in gear and began driving.

  “I was a soldier and we were in a war so I had to shoot people sometimes. They were always far away or hidden in the jungle. I never had to see anyone up close. Then one time I did. I had to fight an enemy soldier with my hands. The way you did with that boy today.”

  The comparison was ridiculous, but I knew he wasn’t making fun of me and that made it even worse.

  “We had both lost our rifles, but I was finally able to get my handgun free and I pointed it at him. I should’ve shot right away. That’s what I was supposed to do but I didn’t. I looked at him and he looked at me. He was just like me. Probably the same age. Had a mom and dad somewhere who loved him. A family. A house where he grew up. Maybe a girl he liked.

  “I understood in that moment that I’d been lied to my whole life. There’s no us and there’s no them. There’s just everyone. And as soon as I realized that, all my hate went away.