by Packer, Vin
A witness to this scene in the International Broadcasting Company building alleged that the father of the boy, Howard Berrey, salesman, had obviously forced his son to tell this falsehood.
“It was plain that the father was embarrassed and outraged at the kid’s failure,” the witness stated. “The kid was a wreck when he left I.B.C!”
Miss Margaret Schuster, age 59, could have escaped death had she not attempted to rescue the boy. Known as “Chuckles” to his family, the frail child apparently became fearful once the fire was underway in the Children’s Section of the library. He called to Miss Schuster, who immedately ran down the stairs to see what had happened.
“I tried to warn her to run,” said the boy, “but she was pulling at the fire extinguisher and telling me to get out of the building. There was smoke everywhere. I couldn’t see her any more. I ran up the stairs calling, ‘Fire! Fire!’”
One man was burned in a futile attempt to go after the librarian, and several others were driven back by smoke and flames.
The boy admitted that he had used kerosene to aid his firesetting. The Reddton Public Library had undergone a paint-trim job in honor of Memorial Day. The kerosene, along with several cans of paint, were stored just beyond the Children’s Section in the storeroom.
Damage was estimated at $40,000.
Miss Schuster is survived by a brother, Carl Schuster, of Reddton, and a sister, Mrs. Norma Arthur, of Selma, Missouri.
Too young to be charged with manslaughter, the boy was immediately turned over to juvenile authorities for detention, and eventual hearings in Children’s Court.
Howard Berrey, father of the boy, refused to comment. His mother, Evelyn Berrey, was under medical treatment for shock.
Chapter Eighteen
REGINALD WHITTIER
It was Saturday evening. Reginald Whittier had arrived back home late yesterday, almost as Memorial Day was at a close. He had dragged himself up the stairs of Whittier’s Wheel, exhausted from the drive, angry at himself for leaving Laura back in Montpelier without a word, and tired of being angry with himself.
He had come home where he was safe.
He had opened the door—left unlocked—and entered the dark living room of the apartment.
He had thought to say: “Mother? Mother?” but the dusty antique clock in the shop beneath him was striking midnight. He had smelled the odor of home, and for the first time since he had left this place, he had felt himself again.
Quietly, so as not to wake her, he had tiptoed past his mother’s door to the bathroom.
Then he had heard the familiar tones, precise, slow, sing-song sounds of her voice late at night; Psalms.
“As for the children of men, they are but vanity; the children of men are deceitful; upon the weights, they are altogether lighter than vanity itself!”
“Mother?” he had said. “Mother?”
But he had known better than to expect a direct answer. He was home … with Miss Ella; back at the Wheel with his mother and her ways.
“Have I not remembered thee in my bed?” the voice continued from the bedroom of his mother, “and thought upon thee when I was waking? My soul hangeth upon thee.”
“I’m home now, mother,” he had said.
For an answer: “These also that seek the hurt of my soul, they shall go under the earth.”
• • •
This morning, Reginald Whittier had gotten up at eight o’clock, the time he always got up when he was at home. He had walked into the living room and found his fresh orange juice, squeezed and waiting for him, in the same tall glass on the coffee table.
In the kitchen, his mother had been stirring her oatmeal on the stove.
“Mother?” he had said.
She had nodded at him without answering.
At eight-thirty, he had gone downstairs to the shop, turned the “Open” card to face the street side of the door, and walked back behind the counter … the way he always had when he was home.
So it had taken him this long to do what was expected of him; it had taken him from last evening to this evening to do it; and in between, there was the hell of self-hatred, and the anguish of Miss Ella’s silence; and there was the bitter knowledge that he would do exactly what he was doing.
He knelt by her rocker in the living room of their apartment with his head in her lap, her lap muffling the sniffling, agonized sounds of his confession.
“And then?”
“I couldn’t find a job. I was afraid no one would hire me.”
“Of course you were. That’s a normal fear, Reginald. Not everyone is patient with someone who stutters.”
“She kept telling me I didn’t.”
“A woman like that will tell any lie to get what she wants, Reginald.”
“We didn’t have any television. It was just a bare room.”
“Reginald, do you know I haven’t watched your set once since you left? I bought it for you. With you gone, I wasn’t interested.”
“There were other things. Things I don’t want to talk about.”
“You’ll have to get it all out of your system one day, but don’t worry about it now, Reginald. You’ve purged yourself sufficiently for now.”
“Thank you, mother.”
“The marriage will be annulled.”
“Shouldn’t I try to call her? Send her some money, mother?”
“You’ll have nothing more to do with that woman, Reginald!”
“She’s a girl, mother. I’m older than she is.”
“Just don’t give’ her another thought. You’re home, Reginald. You’re where you belong.”
“Yes, mother.”
“We’ll just carry on as though this hadn’t happened.”
“Thank you, mother. I’m sorry.”
“I have ample forgiveness in my heart, Reginald. Ample forgiveness!” His mother smoothed his hair with her hand. “I can remember when you came home from the Boy Scout Jamboree, with that awful disease on your body. We can just thank God you don’t have another disease.”
“Yes, mother.”
“Do you want to watch the television now, Reginald? The way we always do? Then I’ll fix a little dinner.”
“All right, mother.”
“Chicken, and mashed potatoes, and fresh peas!” said Miss Ella. “Your favorites, Reginald. All your favorites.” She took his hands from her lap and held them in her own. “When you were a little boy,” she said, “I used to kiss these hands and tell you that God gave them to you for good deeds to be performed.”
Reginald Whittier took his handkerchief from his trousers and blew his nose.
For a half-hour, he sat beside his mother watching the television set. It was a mystery story set in the South Seas. Miss Ella was audibly intrigued, but Reggie could not keep his mind on the screen. For one thing, he wished he dared walk into his bedroom and get the half-empty package of cigarettes from the bureau drawer. He wanted to smoke. Everything he seemed to want to do, and everything he seemed to say, reminded him of Laura. He remembered the way they had tumbled about on the floor—only yesterday—laughing and tickling one another, and kissing, like the married couple in that movie he and Laura had seen their first night in Montpelier. He thought of how Laura told him that she could cry when he was nice to her, and then he remembered the way he had cried in Mac’s Diner, the way everyone had stared at him.
She was better off without him. He was sure of that. He might have done something terrible to her, something he couldn’t help doing, just as he hadn’t been able to keep from criticizing her all the time for practically nothing at all. Just as he had not been able to refrain from calling her Tobacco Road trash. She was better off with him gone … But she was pregnant, and she had told him she didn’t want him to leave her.
“Isn’t this exciting?” Miss Ella said.
“Yes, mother.”
“I’m glad you’re home. I knew you’d come home.”
“Did you, mother?”
“I didn
’t have a real minute’s worry, Reginald.”
What about Laura? What about Laura right now, in the room by herself at the tourist home? She had been so sure everything would work out. She had never heard of a scrub. Of a shrub, she had, Reggie thought to himself, smiling, but not a scrub. Did she think he would be back “in a sec”? Was she washing out her underwear again and thinking Jeez, when will Reg be back? Reg. No one ever called him that before. Gloomy-ears, she called him. Gloomy-ears. And she had tickled him so hard he laughed until he was crying.
When his mother said, “Wasn’t that interesting, Reginald?” he realized he had not heard or seen any of the television film.
“Yes, it was,” he said.
“I knew that dark man in the Panama suit was the thief. I knew the moment I saw him. I’m going to start dinner while the news is on. That way we’ll be all settled with our plates in front of us by the time Electric Theater starts.”
“Yes, mother.”
“Is it good to be back, Reginald?”
“I told you that it was, mother.”
“You just forget all about it. We’re going to have a very pleasant evening.”
“I think I’ll go to my room for a while, mother.”
“Aren’t you interested in the news?”
“I can hear it. I’ll keep the door open.”
“It was terrible about that quiz kid, wasn’t it?”
“I don’t believe he was spoofing,” said Reggie, standing, stretching.
“No, I mean about the fire,” said his mother. “He set fire to the library. Yesterday afternoon. Right in his home town, and the librarian was killed.”
“Really?”
“It was in all the newspapers, Reginald. It came over the radio too.”
“I didn’t hear that.”
“Oh, yes. He was angry because his parents had pushed him too much.”
“I didn’t hear that.”
“It came over the radio. He confessed.”
Reggie walked across the room to his bedroom.
“Aren’t we glad we have all our arms and limbs, and we’re safe in our own cozy home, Reginald?”
“Yes, mother.”
“That makes the second Memorial Day weekend tragedy. There was that boy in upstate New York too.”
“I read about that.”
“That girl must have been some girl! Some nice girl, letting a boy take her out in the country that way, in the rain!”
“What’s the rain got to do with it, mother?”
“I’m fixing all your favorites for dinner,” said his mother. “Aren’t you glad you’re back?”
He did not answer her. If he were to walk into the bathroom, with the cigarettes in his trousers, his mother would never notice. He could smoke in there. There was a bottle of air-refresher in there, and he could spray some of it around to kill the odor. He opened his top bureau drawer to get the package of cigarettes.
Suddenly, his mother appeared in the doorway.
“I’m glad you’re home, Reginald.”
“You told me that, mother.”
“I wouldn’t have any other boy for a son. I’m glad you came to your senses.”
“Thank you, mother.”
“With children running around murdering and raping and setting fire, I’m glad you’re safe and sound and back here where you belong.”
“All right, mother. All right! We said we’d forget it!”
“Oh, I know there are things on your mind. Things you haven’t told me, Reginald. You’ll have to get it all out of your system, after dinner, when Mr. Danker comes.”
“Mr. Danker?”
“You can have a long talk with him. I won’t pay any attention. You and Mr. Danker can sit in a corner of the living room and have it all out.”
“What’s Mr. Danker got to do with anything, mother?”
“I understand you better than you think, Reginald. I know you want to get it out of your mind—all of it.”
“I said, what’s Mr. Danker got to do with it?”
“Now, we won’t discuss it before dinner. You know how an argument before dinner can upset your digestion. You’ve always had a queasy stomach, even as a little boy.”
“I don’t want Mr. Danker to come here, mother. Ever!”
“He tried his best to keep you from running off with that woman! He told me all about it!”
“She’s a girl. A kid! An eighteen-year-old kid!”
“She taught you to smoke, didn’t she? She taught you to acquire that filthy habit too!”
“You took them, didn’t you, mother?”
“Yes, I destroyed them. You needn’t bother looking in your drawer for them, Reginald.”
“I want them back!”
“Reginald, you’re talking to your mother!”
“I want them back!” he said, walking toward her. “I want my cigarettes back!”
“I destroyed them!”
“I’ll geh-geh-get them, I’ll geh-geh—”
“What are you doing? Reginald Whittier, what are you picking up in your hands!”
“It’s a ha-ha-ham-mer, mother.”
“I know what it is! Put it down, right now,” she said. “I’m your mother!”
“I know who you are,” said Reginald Whittier, raising the kitchen hammer in the air, “Muh-muh-moth-er!”
EPILOGUE
Chapter Nineteen
BROCK BROWN
CHARLES BERRY
REGINALD WHITTIER
(From the Labor Day issue
of a national news magazine)
ALL SHOOK UP
Almost to no one’s surprise, the past Memorial Day weekend was filled with tragedy characteristic of the holiday time. Among the statistics of automobile deaths, home accidents, drownings and racing-car crashes, there were three tragedies not quite as common to the normal long weekend—and yet, vaguely reminiscent of past Christmas, Easter, and Labor Day celebration periods, in this time of the youth gone cuckoo.
Manhattan psychiatrist Arnold Kurgler, commenting on the three murders committed by young people over the Decoration Day hiatus, said the reason for many such brutalities occurring on “special occasions” might well be attributed to too much family pressure.
“Children are usually underfoot more at such times,” said the paunchy, balding authority, “and if they are not welcome, if they feel that they are in the way of the cocktail party, the barbecue, the napping father, or the sibling who wants the family car at the same time they do, the inhibited resentment is triggered, and mere impulses may become raging compulsions.”
Manhattan Chief of Police Jack Graney chose stronger language to explain the phenomenon of the rise in crime among youngsters during holidays.
“We’ve watched this thing for a long time,” said cigar-smoking, hefty, tight-knuckled “Mutt” Graney, “and it all adds up to the fact that the kids are out to raise hell whenever there’s a few days with nothing for them to do! We put extra men on to watch it, and we’ve been proven right. This last long weekend in New York City, there were no murders committed by kids, only four known thefts committed by criminals under 18, and very few acts of violence of any other kind. When you know there’s going to be a rough time, you got to put on your gloves, stick in your mouthpiece, and go in fighting!”
Whatever the cause of juvenile crime, and if there is any consistency to its pattern during a vacation time, none of the youthful offenders of this past Memorial Day weekend were able to shed any light on the matter.
In Sykes, New York, handsome, immaculate 16-year-old Brock (“my mother’s maiden name—she was a Brock”) Brown was asked why he committed the rape-choke-knife murder of Caroline Bates, the same age. He gave the inarticulate, shoulder-shrugging answer almost any teen-ager gives for almost anything these days, from why he dances the fish, to why he leaves a girl’s brutally stabbed body on a back-country road and goes home to change his clothes and watch television. His answer? “I was all shook up.”
In Reddton, New Jersey, the parents of Charles (Chuckles) Berrey, poor loser on the Cash-Answer television quiz program, could think of no way to explain why their son set fire to the local library, causing the 59-year-old, white-haired librarian, Margaret Schuster, to die in the flames. They adamantly denied the rumor that their “Chuckles” had made the blaze out of anger at his failure to identify a zebra swallowtail butterfly, thereby losing $52,000 and allegedly inspiring his family’s scorn.
The eight-year-old had little to add to his parents’ silence on the subject. His statement? “I’m sorry.” His next thought. “I want my brother to have my knife collection. He doesn’t live with my family. He lives in West Virginia.”
The tall, stuttering, Vermont 19-year-old who beat his mother’s head in with a hammer in the sleepy New England town of Auburn, Vermont, was more direct in his response to the question: “Why did you do it?” but was by far the least endearing of the three.
“She wouldn’t give me back my cigarettes,” he said, “so I picked up the hammer and hit her.”
Brock Brown and hammer-killer Reginald Whittier were declared legally sane. Both will stand trial on charges of homicide. Quiz kid Berrey was released in his family’s custody due to his age.
At the Memorial Day weekend’s finish, the Eastern part of the nation, was almost as “shook up” by the shocking fact of these three sordid crimes as the “shook-up” generation itself.
THE END
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