Father Poole pressed his question about the ring in another way. “Was your brother married?”
Although Jack White didn’t know what Father Poole was getting at, he didn’t like the question. He narrowed his eyes and replied, “No.”
Father Poole turned away. He remembered having seen eyes that shade of yellow before. And when Jack White narrowed them, Father Poole’s memories of a certain angry young boy, much as this young man was, flooded his brain.
“How old are you, Jack?”
“Twenty-five.”
Zachary would be just about that age right now, thought Father Poole. But he soon rationalized that the eyes, the anger, and even the name (Jack in lieu of Zack, White instead of Black) were either simply an eerie coincidence or an irony dealt by God. After all, this boy looked nothing like the lonely and lost young man that Father Poole had once known. The stranger’s hair was much fairer, the nose shorter and wider, and the accent authentic. Being a born and bred New Hampshire man himself, Phineas could attest that Jack White was as Yankee as Yankee could be.
The priest chalked it all up to God’s working in mysterious ways. Phineas had failed with Zachary Black, and so the Lord was sending him another needy person the same age as Zachary would have been. God, believed Father Poole, had sent him Jack White to give the cleric a second chance to redeem himself after the debacle with Zachary Black.
“Very well, Mr. White!” Father Poole exclaimed. “Dwight Mason was right to send you here. I do have a great need for a strong man such as you. I have my, uhm, altar boys around here taking care of things, but at their age they shouldn’t have to work as hard as they do.”
Money was definitely tight, but Father Poole wasn’t going to let this poor young man down. Jack White needed his help. “Are you from Holly?” the priest asked.
“No, sir,” Jack White answered, cunningly. “I’m from Portsmouth. I came out this way looking for work.”
“I too am from Portsmouth. It’s considerably bigger than Holly, bigger than most towns around here. Why did you come this way? It seems to me that the opportunity for jobs here would be scarcer.”
“You’re right about that, Father, but I was planning on going as far south as Boston. The way I saw it was that I’d hit every town from here to Bean Town until I found employment. Holly would be more ideal than Boston for me, since I’d be closer to mom and dad. They’re all alone now since Donnie died.”
“Danny,” Father Poole corrected him.
“Uh, right. Danny. And I needed to leave home, Father. You know it’s hard facing my daddy when all he can think when he sees me is disappointment. ‘Why can’t you be more like Danny was, Jack?’ And it’s not easy facing my mamma either. ‘You remind me so much of your older brother, Jack! Why, every time I see you I see Danny!’ I couldn’t take no more, Father Fin. That’s why I’m here.”
It took the priest a moment before he realized that the young man had called him Father Fin. “How did you know that’s what they call me around here?” he asked.
Jack White knew he’d made a near fatal error. He quickly thought up an answer. “That’s what the boy with no shirt called you when I was inquiring about work up here. He said, ‘Just go right on up and call on Father Fin. He’ll take care of you.’”
Father Poole and Jack White talked particulars as they walked out of St. Andrew’s Church toward the Benson house. As they were passing the rectory, the two stopped. Both could have sworn that they’d heard a moaning sound, but they couldn’t tell exactly from where it had come. They listened for it again, but Sue Ellen and I lay still, not moving so much as a muscle.
Father Poole then said to the stranger, “Must have been the wind. We get a nice breeze up here from time to time during the summer. And oddly enough, on days where there’s no wind, the children climb the maple and somehow the wind kicks up. A few of them think the tree is haunted by a good spirit who asks the wind to blow so she can dance and show her happiness whenever the children sit on her. Come on, let me show you the rest of the grounds.”
Just then Father Poole noticed the tabby tail hanging from Jack White’s belt.
“Oh!” said Father Poole. “That’s nice. What is it? Looks a bit like squirrel, but it’s not, is it?”
Jack White took the feline tail in his hand, remembering how he’d strangled Marshall Howell’s pet until its neck broke, much as his father had done years before to the motel clerk’s cat. He ignored the priest’s question, and the two men walked on.
They then talked about wages, Father Poole admitting that he wouldn’t be able to pay much, and getting the young man some new clothes to wear, as he couldn’t possibly keep wearing the dirty Army uniform of his brother. Jack White said that he only cared about getting meals, a place to sleep, and perhaps some pocket money. This arrangement suited Father Poole, and the two men shook on it.
As they did so, Jack White took note of the large maple. He gazed at it in disgust, remembering that he’d never learned to climb it and resented anyone who did. His heart pounded hard in his chest as his mind filled with hate. Children in its branches were laughing.
“That there is the finest old tree you’ll ever see.” said Father Poole. “All the children learn how to climb her, but I remind them that she’s to be treated with respect and dignity.”
“Your altar boys, Father?” asked Jack White.
“Yes.” replied Father Poole after hesitating briefly.
“Isn’t that a bit dangerous for them, being up that high?”
“Oh, not really. Children have been climbing up there for years. Not these particular children, you understand, but I’ve had others who’ve lived here. They learn; they climb; they do it every day until it’s second nature. Then they teach one another. It’s like a cycle. That one lad whom you’ve already met… .”
“The one with no shirt?” asked Jack.
“That’s the boy,” Father Poole said proudly. “He can climb up that maple faster and with greater ease than I’ve ever seen anyone do. And my, uhm, my niece Jessie can climb higher than any of the other children. Truly remarkable, those two are.”
Jack froze and his heart began to pound even harder. “Jessie?”
“Yes, Jessie.”
“Strange name for a girl.” replied White, now noticing an erection in his pants.
Father Poole chuckled. “It’s short for Jessica. The boys nicknamed her that when she was little because she was such a tomboy. Still is, I suppose. She likes to get dirty in the mud just like the rest of them. I guess that’s to be expected when a girl grows up around nothing but boys whom she considers to be her brothers. I keep hoping she’ll discover dresses soon, but I have a feeling she’ll be discovering boys even sooner.”
“How old is Jessie?”
“She just turned fifteen.”
The stranger grinned again. “Really? She must be quite a sight.”
“She’s beautiful. We all adore her.”
“I’m sure I will too. Tell me, Father. Is she the only girl up here?”
“There is Sister Ignatius, our only nun in the church. She lives in the house right over… .”
“What I meant, Father, is whether Jessie is the only female child up here? I notice you’ve got a lot of boys. What about young girls?”
“Well, there’s Sue Ellen Hartley, who lives with her father over there in that house by the side of St. Andrew’s.”
“Remarkable,” Jack White said. “And tell me, Father. How old is she, this Sue Ellen?”
“She’s about Jessie’s age, a bit older, I think, but not by more than a month or two. The children call her Swell. So if you hear the name, you’ll know who it is.”
As the two men shook hands again on their deal, the wind carried to them another moan from the crawl space below the rectory. Father Poole paid it no mind, turnin
g toward the Benson house. However, Jack White stood in place and considered all that was occurring under the rectory. He grinned again, for this time he knew what was going on under the floorboards.
“Are you coming, Mr. White?” Father Poole called.
“Not yet, Father, but I will.” Then under his breath he added, “More than you will ever know.”
Twenty-Three
A Man Lurks from Sun to Sun
Saturday, August 1, began like any other. It was a cool morning, as was customary for this part of the country in midsummer, and there were almost no clouds in the sky. When the sun rose over the ocean’s horizon, it was first visible from the summit of Holly Hill. Anyone awake early enough on the hill would be in for a treat.
Ben Benson used to say to himself, after a long night on his front porch, “It’s no real cost to look at, that sunrise is, except sleep of course.” The sunrise each morning always made him think about how fortunate he was to live where he did and not in the town below.
It was funny how the residents of both locales pitied the other group. The 1,500 or so townspeople couldn’t understand how anyone in his right mind would want to live on top of Holly Hill, being as far removed as it was from the town itself. In stark contrast Ben Benson always said, and later Father Poole began to echo his old friend’s sentiments, that anyone who could not understand why some people chose to live on the hill was an ignoramus. “Why all you have to do,” Ben Benson said on occasion, “is to come up here in the wee hours, sit on the grass, and just take in that sunrise. It’s magical!”
The roosters on all the surrounding farms then crowed their daily orison; cats in town meowed at front doors for their morning dish of milk and sardines; and General Lee, never one for waking up earlier than necessary, looked up sluggishly from the corner of Jessie’s room and watched her open the bedroom window to greet Billy Norwin.
The two impetuous teenagers took turns climbing down the ivy-entwined lattice that was attached to the Benson house. It would have been quicker, safer, and less painful, since Jessie was climbing down in bare feet, to take the stairs, but she had no idea that Billy would show up at her bedroom window at 4:15 in the morning. While climbing down, she caught her right foot in a cluster of vines. She called to Billy, louder perhaps than she should have because her voice was loud enough to wake Sister Ignatius, if the old girl hadn’t been so tired and ill lately.
Billy reacted quickly. “SHHHH! Are you crazy?” he whispered. “Try not to make any more noise until we’re down.”
“I’m caught!” she said in a raspy whisper.
“Alright,” he answered. “I’m coming!”
As Billy retraced his steps back up the lattice, Jessie took in the horizon, where she could see blues and purples in the sky.
“We’re gonna miss it!” she said.
“Not a chance,” replied Billy.
As she saw the horizon, Jessie remembered what Billy had said the night before just after dinner. It was the reason why she was hanging thirteen feet above the ground shortly after 4:00 a.m. “Meet me tomorrow morning,” Billy had whispered, “just before dawn. I wanna show you something extraordinary.”
Jessie was enamored by everything about Billy Norwin. He was strong, handsome, hotheaded, protective, and mature for his age. She’d told herself after their first kiss on her birthday that she’d follow him to the ends of the earth if he wanted her to.
“Why so early?” she had asked. “What’s got you all fired up, Billy Norwin?”
“I saw something incredible as I was coming out from the crawlspace below the rectory early this morning.”
“You were with Swell so early?” she said, trying to sound as indifferent as she could.
Billy had explained to Jessie shortly after their first kiss that he would never ask her for her virginity—that is, not until she was ready to surrender it. But he also had made it clear that as a teenage boy he had desires and needs. And as long as he was paying Swell for the privilege of sex, it was nothing more than a business transaction between them.
Jessie understood Billy perfectly and didn’t disagree with him in the slightest. It was Sister Ignatius who had told her time and time again that boys, even those whom she considered her brothers, have something called lust. Although she still didn’t know exactly what lust was, it sounded awful to Jessie, and it was something she herself never wanted to have.
On one occasion Sister, after she’d seen Jessie wrestling Jordan in the grass for the last gum drop in a bag of sweets that Father Fin had brought back from town for all of us, felt the need to remind Jessie of a lesson in male sexuality. “The saying that ‘Boys will be boys’ comes from the notion that they all have innate desires and that it’s expected of them. They don’t care what trouble they get a young girl into. They do it anyway!”
Jessie had asked Sister what she meant by getting a girl into trouble.
The nun’s response was blunt. “You’re not too young to know where babies come from. You also should know that a pregnant and unmarried girl not only has to tell her parents that she’s committed a mortal sin, shaming her family, but also must carry the baby, deliver it in incredible pain, and then raise the child for the next eighteen years!”
“There are ways to get rid of it,” Jessie said innocently, not knowing the ire that this comment would arouse.
“Abortion is a sin, dear girl! What you’re talking about is murder!”
“But aren’t there exceptions, Sis?” Jessie said.
“Is a baby conceived for another reason besides love any less of a human being than you or I?” Sister growled, and left it at that, never to speak again of the subject with Jessie. Sister’s shift in doctrine regarding a woman’s right to decide when it came to her own body surely would have disappointed Nurse Ross, had she lived.
Billy climbed up the lattice about three feet until his face was flush with her ankle. He took hold of it gently with one hand and with the other grabbed the ivy that had trapped her foot. “Okay?” he asked.
“Okay,” she answered, smiling.
They made it down without further problems.
Jessie felt embarrassed to tell Billy that she’d never seen a sunrise before. Strange, she thought. Here we are on top of the world. I’ve lived here my whole life, and he’s showing me my first sunrise!
“I know where we can get the best vantage point,” Billy said excitedly as they walked toward the maple. “We’ll get to see it like no one else for miles around.”
“We’ll get that anyway. We’re on a hill, you know, and I don’t want to climb just now.”
Billy’s eyes widened, and he tilted his head, as if telling her to forget her fatigue and just do it.
“Okay,” she said.
“Let’s time each other to see who can get up there the fastest. I’ll go first. Count.”
He took a running start from fifteen feet back. As Jessie waited for Billy to finish his ascent, she read the messages in the bark of the trunk that was eye-level to her. There was the heart she’d etched with the inscription JB + BN. Nearby were other messages including JONAS & JOEY WERE HERE IN ‘35 and THEO IS #1.
Jessie was still waiting for Billy to finish climbing so that she could respond with her own tree-mounting skills. She had forgotten to count, being distracted by hers and Billy’s initials within the heart, so she came up with a reasonable number and started counting from there. She then walked around the thick trunk, dragging her fingertips across the bumpy surface.
Something was carved on the back of maple, the side that faced south. It was another heart. This one read PP + EF. Jessie wondered whether PP referred to Father Poole, but she couldn’t figure out who EF was. She didn’t have much time to think about it anyway, as Billy called to her anxiously, adding that if she didn’t hurry she was going to miss the sunrise.
They
sat about halfway up the maple atop one of the thick branches and wrapped their feet around another limb just below. By the time they’d gotten settled in the maple, it was 4:34 in the morning. The sun was finally coming up over the horizon, and different colors danced their way into the sky. The two said nothing throughout the entire chromatic display. It was the most beautiful thing Jessie had ever seen.
Jessie was awakened by a bright light. Squinting as her eyes struggled to open, she found herself leaning tightly into Billy’s body and tucked into his arms. He kissed her nose. She giggled and broke free.
“How long was I asleep?” she asked as she stretched.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “I’d say it’s about 6:45 or so.”
“I need to get back,” she replied. “Sis will be up soon, and she’ll throw a fit if she finds out I sneaked out of the house to come up here with you.”
Just as Jessie was getting ready to climb down, she noticed movement at the back of the rectory. Billy told her to wait.
They watched a tall figure emerge from the corner of the building. He was bare-chested, carrying his shirt in his right hand, and an apple and a switchblade knife in his left. He whistled an unfamiliar tune as he walked over to a hose and took a long drink of cold water. When he turned back around to face the maple, it became clear to Billy and Jessie that it was the man they’d come to know as Jack White.
He now was singing a song with which neither Billy nor Jessie was familiar. Its grotesque lyrics went as follows:
Here they come, the big fat piggies to the slaughterhouse. You can see the fear in one. He’s as timid as a mouse. Take him by the tail; hurl him at the cows!
Here they are, the big fat piggies, eating shit for lunch. Hear them sloppin’, chompin’, munchin’, making sounds that crunch while pissin’ on themselves, they start their brunchin’!
Embracing Darkness Page 40
