Embracing Darkness

by Christopher D. Roe

  The last thing the boys noticed amid their fear was that the stranger was dressed in dirty military garb. When the man coiled his mouth into a fiendish grin, the marble-shooter dared not look away to see what his companion was doing. He didn’t know that his playmate had since run away. The boy stayed there on all fours, motionless, too scared to flee. Then the stranger bent his knees, leaned forward on his toes, and brought his face close to the boy, who could feel the hot breath from the man’s nostrils on his forehead.

  Too terrified to move a muscle, the eight-year-old used his eyes to search for his marble at the stranger’s feet. Embedded within the asphalt under the man’s raised heel lay the remnants of his winnings, now completely pulverized.

  “Hey!” the soldier snapped. “Are you looking for your marble, you little jackass? I turned it into dust, just like I’m gonna do to you. Now stand perfectly still. You won’t feel a thing.” The man with yellow eyes brought his right foot up slowly, passing the boy’s chin and finally stopping at the top of his head, and left it hovering there for several seconds.

  The child closed his eyes tightly. He heard a loud thud, causing him to wet his pants. Opening his eyes and not knowing what had just happened, he saw both feet of the soldier planted firmly on the ground in front of him. Then he heard a laugh that crescendoed into cackles.

  Almost under his breath the stranger said hoarsely, “Get the hell outta here before I kick your little ass all the way to the moon!”

  The boy didn’t wait for the man to say it twice. He jumped up and made a run for it, forgetting all his marbles, which remained at the feet of Private Zachary Black.

  The soldier walked to the front door of Mason’s General Store, which had just recently reopened under the new management of Dwight Mason. Dwight’s parents, Mike and Beverly, had given up the business some time before, citing that they were getting on in years and needed to retire.

  Dwight, now married to a homely girl he’d known since grammar school, had reopened Mason’s General Store in the summer of 1940. This was a welcome event to the citizens of Holly, who’d grown weary of traveling to Stratham and Exeter to get their baking soda, chewing tobacco, and fruit.

  Zachary saw the “Be back in one hour” sign hung on the opposite side of the store’s front door. While waiting, he noticed that people walking by were staring at him but smiling. Private Black was, by virtue of his attire, a valiant soldier in a time of war. They nodded to the stranger, but he did not reciprocate their acknowledgment. Instead, he put his hands into his pockets, turned his back to them, and reread the sign on the front door of Mason’s.

  Zachary Black soon became impatient and irritated. When he pulled his hands out of his pockets, out came a folded up piece of paper that fell at his feet. He picked it up, opened it, and, deciding to kill some time, reread it. It was a newspaper clipping from the Biloxi Daily Bugle dated Thursday, April 10, 1942.

  A U.S. Army soldier is being sought in the death of Private Owen Anderson, a source close to the Biloxi military base said on Thursday. Private Zachary Black was seen leaving his barracks shortly before the blood-stained body of Private Anderson was found in a pool of blood on the floor of the barracks on Tuesday, April 8.

  Private Black was also a barracks mate to Private Rex Gunther, who had been found dead in the barracks back in February. Black was one of three soldiers who found Gunther’s body but wasn’t charged in Gunther’s death, which was ruled a suicide.

  Another barracks mate of Black is said to be cooperating with military authorities. He reportedly claimed that the missing Private had quarreled with Anderson shortly before Anderson was killed.

  Military officials consider Black to be armed and extremely dangerous. There is an outstanding warrant for his arrest.

  Private Black was interrupted by a bell, which rang loudly behind him. Dwight Mason was again open for business, and the bell above his door proclaimed this piercingly. The soldier folded the article up carefully, put it back in his pocket, and entered the store.

  “You got any work ’round here?” Zachary asked Dwight.

  The store owner studied the soldier. He had wanted to thank him for being in the armed services and fighting for the freedom of all Americans, but refrained from doing so because the stranger seemed threatening.

  “I asked you if you had any work here,” repeated Zachary.

  “No,” Dwight answered quickly but politely.

  Zachary Black tilted his head slightly to the left and lowered his eyebrows. “Can you at least tell me where I might find work, friend?”

  “Y-yes,” Dwight said, nervously. “Up there.”

  Zachary Black turned around slowly. Dwight kept pointing, walking past Black and out the front door. Zachary followed him. He joined the owner of Mason’s on the street and observed the man’s pointed finger. Dwight Mason was telling Zachary Black to look for work at St. Andrew’s Church.

  Argyle Hobbs had suffered a mild heart attack about a week after Jessie’s birthday while pushing a wheelbarrow of tools donated by Scarr’s Construction Company up the hill. Argyle had fallen over the wheelbarrow, consequently knocking it over, and therefore was spared from being run over, as it could have rolled back down the hill.

  For an entire month Father Poole enlisted the help of Billy Norwin, Jordan St. James, Theo Thomas, and me to do the yard work. It wasn’t too difficult. After all, four young boys like us, almost men, were doing the work of one old man. Billy took care of the heavy stuff such as lifting the tools and tar up to fix part of the rectory’s roof, a job that Argyle Hobbs had promised to do for the last four years but was too frail to accomplish.

  Billy was of the right build for the job, as was evident when he took off his shirt while doing any kind of physical labor. Perhaps he did it to remind us that he was the leader among us boys, or maybe because he wanted to impress the girls. Basically, I think, he displayed his muscles as a warning to anyone who tried to hurt him that it would be they who’d get hurt if any attempt were to be made against Billy Norwin.

  His sinewy physique was definitely a result of the fights he’d had with his father. At first his father would beat him senseless, and Billy would take it. However, when Billy was about twelve or thirteen, he started fighting back. Mr. Norwin, unlike his son, was short and pudgy, and he suffered from gout, diabetes, high blood pressure, night blindness and angina. These illnesses took such a toll that, by the time Billy was taken away from his father by the congregation of St. Andrew’s, it was he who was abusing his once abusive father. Rumors had circulated around town that, if Billy hadn’t been taken away from his family, Mr. Norwin would be dead within a year.

  Jordan took care of pruning the shrubs around the church and rectory; Theo regularly mowed the grass; and I helped keep the grounds around the Benson house tidy, which included doing a little bit of everything the other boys were doing over at the rectory. My job wasn’t difficult and even had its diversions. For instance, just as the Hartley house across the way had an ivy lattice that went up the side of the house, so did the Benson house. Sometimes when Billy would sneak away from his duties, I’d assume he was with Jessie.

  Once, shortly after supper, I went looking for Billy to see if he wanted to play Drop the Clothespin in the Bottle with some of the boys and me. I knew that with Swell most likely getting it on with one of the boys under the rectory, and Sister and Father Fin probably making love in the Father’s room (we older kids knew what was going on, but we’d never let Father and Sis know that we knew), Billy and Jess would definitely be keeping each other company, and I had a feeling I knew where.

  I climbed up the lattice alongside the Benson house and reached Jessie’s window less than twenty seconds later. Sure enough, she and Billy were on her bed just below my eyes, fully clothed (though Billy was wearing no shirt) and on top of the sheets, kissing passionately. As I maneuvered for a better view, one
of the pieces of wood I was standing on cracked. Jessie gasped, and Billy hopped up toward the window.

  He opened the window slowly while I remained motionless. Jessie had since run out of the room. For a moment I thought that Billy was going to just push me off the lattice. Although it would have been an eighteen-foot fall, I would have preferred that to being beaten up by Billy Norwin. He grabbed the collar of my shirt, methodically tightening his grip, then hissed through clenched teeth, “Get in here!”

  I hadn’t known a beating like that since my stepfather gave me his last thrashing before Mrs. Wickham came to my rescue, and that beating was for spilling salt on the table and forgetting to toss some over my shoulder.

  At breakfast the following morning I sat as usual next to Billy on one side with Jessie, who had only recently started to do so, on the other. Billy was bare-chested again, leading me to believe that he needed to show off his virility all the more to the other boys, especially with my two black eyes and busted lip right next to him.

  When Father Fin and Sis asked me what had happened, Billy looked at me with narrowed eyes. I didn’t say anything, but he spoke for me. “This clumsy fool was trying to remove all the ivy from the Benson lattice. He climbed up to the top, grabbed hold of too much, and yanked it a few times. When it didn’t give right away, he tugged harder, lost his balance, and fell. I had to carry the poor kid inside and upstairs. We practically had to nurse him all night, Jessie and me.” Then his eyes narrowed even further. “Isn’t that right?” he said to me.

  “Yeah, Billy. It sure is right. I’m glad you were there to save me. I thought I might have died.”

  Billy nodded slowly as he dug a fork into his pancakes. “Yeah, you were real close to death, boy, but you’re okay now, aren’t you?”

  From then on I went out of my way to make sure that I never angered Billy Norwin again.

  Billy was sitting on the grass not far from the end of “The Path to Salvation” sharpening an axe he was going to use to chop out the roots of one of the rectory’s hedges that had been dead for the last two years. Frankly the work had become too much for poor Argyle Hobbs, what with pruning, mowing, repairs, and so forth. Father Poole had taken pity on the old man and let him stay on to give him some sort of decent income. Adding to any financial pinch he was beginning to feel, Father Poole continued to pay Argyle his wages while the old man recovered at home, while the other boys and I did Argyle’s job as though they were our chores.

  There now was plenty for us boys to do, but we got it done and never complained. By the end of July in 1942 we had already resurfaced the damaged section of the rectory roof. In addition to this achievement, we also managed to straighten the electrical pole located halfway down the far end of the hill. The result was the numerous power cables leading into the two houses and the rectory once again becoming perfectly taught. We even cultivated a garden, lined flowerbeds around the church and rectory (not to mention along the front of the Benson house), planted grass seed, and watered the lawn daily. We went a step further and pulled all the weeds, especially those around the maple. By the time we were done, the top of Holly Hill looked as though it had been given a makeover by a professional landscaping crew.

  Billy finished sharpening the axe and got up. As he did so, he saw a tall and lean figure walking toward him carrying a small bag over his shoulder. At first he thought it was Father Poole but then remembered that Father Poole rarely left the hill since Sister Ignatius had fallen ill. As the man approached, Billy saw that he was wearing a tattered green Army uniform. Supposing that the man had come there on military business concerning Rex, Billy greeted the stranger.

  “Boy,” the stranger said. “I heard ’round town that you all were lookin’ to hire someone up here.”

  “No,” Billy said. “We’re managing just fine.”

  The soldier commented on the axe Billy was holding. “You know how to use that, boy?” he asked.

  “Sure, and I’m strong enough to use it.”

  “Well, if it’s all the same to you, I’ll just speak to the head of the house and hear it for myself. It’s my experience that little kids tend not to know shit about nothin’.”

  As the soldier made his way up the rectory’s stairs, Billy followed him. “You kill anyone?” he blurted out.

  The man stopped with an expression on his face that, had Billy known more about him, would have indicated that he was guilty of some crime. “How’s that?” Zachary Black asked.

  “Well,” Billy said, “you’re in the Army, aren’t you? I just figured you might have seen some action.”

  Zachary nodded. “Yeah, I’ve killed… more times than I can count.”

  As the stranger knocked, the small window within the rectory’s front door faintly showed the soldier’s reflection. Zachary noticed it immediately, partly because it wasn’t the same whitewashed door he had known as a teenager. He saw something else—the patch that spelled his name, BLACK.

  Zachary pulled off the patch just before Father Poole opened the door. For a second Black was worried that Father Poole would recognize him despite the fact that he was thirteen years older and his face had changed considerably since adolescence. The soldier also worried that Father Poole might know of the murder with which he now was charged.

  “Can I help you?” Father Poole said weakly. He’d spend the last few nights with Sister Ignatius, alternating between her room and his simply to get her moving around more than she had been. She was now in a bad way, spending most of her time bedridden these last few weeks.

  To Zachary Black the priest had aged considerably. He had gone from a young-looking thirty-seven-year-old man with thinning blond hair and round glasses to a tired-looking fifty-year-old with graying hair, thick-lens glasses, and poor posture.

  “I…,” Zachary began, hearing instantly the southern twang in his pronunciation. He cleared his throat and began again, this time modifying his speech to sound local. It wasn’t hard because he had grown up in Holly, and his own mother had hailed from this part of the country. “I heard down in town about how you might be having some work up here, Father.”

  His phony accent was convincing. Father Poole smiled at the young man and asked him to come inside.

  Zachary Black couldn’t help but examine the rectory in a brief moment of nostalgic recollection. Nothing had really changed except that the front door now had a panel of glass in it, and the walls were no longer white but now a warm beige.

  “Who told you I was looking for someone to hire?” asked the priest.

  “Dwight Mason said you might still be needing a handyman, although he also said that it’s been a month since he’d heard you were looking.”

  “Are you on leave?”

  “Huh?”

  Father Poole pointed to the man’s dirty uniform.

  “You’re in the Army, aren’t you?”

  Zachary thought quickly. When he finally decided what to say, he put his head down and pretended to sob faintly.

  Father Poole approached the young man and put an arm about his shoulder. “Would you like to talk about it, son?”

  “Sorry, Father. I don’t know whether I should. I mean, I’m not a Catholic.”

  “What’s your name?” Father Poole asked.

  Once again Zachary thought quickly. “Jack White,” he replied.

  “Well, Jack White,” said Father Poole. “Perhaps we can talk somewhere more privately.”

  The two men walked through the kitchen past Mrs. Keats, who’d been busy making a kidney pie for Sister Ignatius. Mrs. Keats didn’t even realize that the two men had passed her.

  From there they entered the sanctuary through a side door. It was then that Father Poole made his own attempt at small talk, asking the stranger what was in the bag. “Oh,” began White, “my whole life. And as you can see, Father, that isn’t much.”

/>   The two sat down at the end of the closest pew to where they had entered. Carefully placing his bag at his side, Zachary surveyed his surroundings and at once remembered the church in which he’d once served. He noticed that nothing was any different than it had been when he’d been an altar boy at St. Andrew’s thirteen years before. He tried not to let on to the priest that he was going through a moment of unwelcome nostalgia. Zachary forced himself to snap out of it and put his head down.

  “Are you angry with God?” asked Father Poole.

  “Why would you say that?” said Jack White, his yellow eyes fixed on Father Poole.

  “I just assumed as much. You were staring at my altar, and then you abruptly shied away from it. You even shut your eyes.”

  “Yes, Father. If you must know, I am angry with God. You’re very perceptive.”

  “Why are you angry with Him?”

  “Because he took my brother away,” Jack White said slowly, pretending to be on the verge of tears. He waited and then began sobbing again, this time heaving sighs. When he covered his face, Father Poole noticed a wedding band on his left ring finger.

  “Are you married?” the priest asked.

  “No,” answered White.

  Phineas was going to ask why, if the young man wasn’t married, he wore a wedding band on his left hand, but seeing how upset the stranger was, Father Poole decided to let him do all the talking.

  “I lost my older brother, Danny. He went off to fight in Europe and came back in a pine box. That’s why I’m wearing this. It’s his uniform. It was in with his other effects that were returned home along with his body. The uniform hasn’t been cleaned. It was like this the last time he took it off. It smells like him, feels like him. I sense he’s still around when I wear it. Anyway, Father, that’s why I’m wearing it right now. When I get angry or upset that he’s no longer here, I put this uniform on to remind me of Danny.”