EQMM, May 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Every Sunday morning Pearl and I woke up to Maria Callas belting out an aria I couldn't understand the words to. We knew the music was an ongoing fight between her and my dad. You see, he went to the Pentecostal church on Sundays, and Mother stayed home, refusing to step foot in a building where they kept snakes under the pulpit. She wasn't against church, really, and she understood that Dad had to fit in to Harlow because he was the only doctor, but she felt worshiping God had more to do with how people acted every day. The “little things,” she used to say, “like a smile to a stranger, or a dime to a hobo, are worshiping too."

  My dad told me after she died that he'd always agreed with her, but he felt it was his duty to go to church on Sundays, just in case one of the snakes forgot they were in a house of God and bit somebody. It happened three times before he retired, and each time, Dad saved the believer from making an early journey to Heaven.

  So, it was on a Sunday morning that my friendship with Teg Saidlow really began. Mother forbade Pearl and me from practicing a heathen religion, so we were not allowed to go with Dad. Don't think we got off scot-free, though, we still had our duties to the Lord. And they came in the way of good deeds. “God didn't put people on this earth to sit on their butts on Sunday morning and listen to some madman trying to scare the bejesus out of them,” she'd say. “He put them here to do something to make the world a better place.” And that was that.

  Because of Dad's job, Mother knew everything that went on in Harlow. She just didn't talk about it like Pearl did. Maybe somewhere along the line, she learned a lesson, as Pearl eventually would, about when to keep her mouth shut.

  While she listened to Maria Callas, Mother would be in the kitchen cooking up a feast for Pearl and me to disperse to those who couldn't do for themselves. The baskets on our bikes were loaded with sweet potatoes, jars of chicken soup, leafy salads that she'd picked out of her garden that morning, tubes of salves, headache pills, and a list of names that had to be scratched off before we were allowed to come home and enjoy our own day of rest.

  Sorry, I get long-winded in my memories. I miss those old days when Teg Saidlow walked the world, and my mother hummed to Maria Callas as she cut up vegetables. Things were simple, but they weren't always clean. I get so damned angry sometimes listening to people wish for the past because it was so pure and perfect, I'd like to hit them upside the head. The world was bad then, too. Teg would tell you that if he could. The world has been a mean, ugly place since Cain and Abel, and to think otherwise, well, you might as well be as dead as the past.

  Now that morning, my heart sunk, because Loreen Bowman's name was on my list. The last thing I wanted to do was walk right into enemy territory. Big Mike had laid off Teg since Lehigh came into the picture. And he'd decided to make me an example to every other kid in our class who got better grades than him. After I snitched on him for copying off me in history class and told him that I wasn't ditching a test so he could be at the head of the curve, things got even more physical. I tried to trade lists with Pearl. I even offered to get lost on one of her outings, but she just laughed and sped away on her bike.

  Loreen was on solid bed rest for a week. My dad had seen her the night before. The story was that she had miscarried, but even my father was unsure of whether that was the truth or not, even though he didn't come right out and say it. He'd seen her in his office the week before and told her that Lehigh's baby was healthy as a horse, growing in her womb just like it was supposed to. I heard him tell Mother after he came home that things didn't add up. Of course, he took it personally when some sort of tragedy took place. He should've seen it coming, prevented it, saved a life, but he didn't see this, and it hurt him badly. My dad had a weak stomach when it came to losing babies. Mother had miscarried after I was born, leaving her unable to have any more children, and it broke my dad's heart. He relived that pain and suffering every time a baby failed to take that first breath of air.

  The Bowman place was about a mile north of town, hidden by a ridge of pine trees. I saved my delivery to Loreen for last. By the time I arrived, it was nearing noon, and most of the Bowmans were at the main house eating Sunday dinner. Don't get the wrong idea when I say “main house,” I don't mean to imply that it was anything grand. Very simply, the Bowmans lived in a collection of ramshackle houses and rusted trailers with no wheels. There was no sign of prosperity. Those years were long past. The main house was a collection of add-on rooms on an old farmhouse that had been built by carpetbaggers and pioneers.

  Lehigh's house sat at the back corner of the property, and I had to peddle past an empty barn that was guarded by a pack of yapping mutts. Mosquitoes swarmed over a green-scum pond just to the left of the house, and the stench coming from the barn was stinky enough to knock a buzzard off the fertilizer spreader.

  Teg was sitting on the front stoop reading a book.

  "Hey,” I said.

  Teg looked up from his book. He was reading White Fang. The jagged haircut was gone; someone had shaved his head for the summer. There's nothing worse than ticks or lice living in your hair, especially during summer, but I figured whoever had shaved Teg's hair did it more for economic reasons than for Teg's personal comfort. I had never seen Teg at the barber with Lehigh on Saturday mornings. He was still skinny as a rail, and he wore glasses that weren't quite as thick as Coke bottles but pretty doggone close.

  "I got some stuff for your momma."

  He closed his book and stood up. “Momma's in bed. What do you got?"

  "Medicines from my dad.” I wanted to drop the bag and go, just in case Big Mike showed up.

  "You're Doctor Kent's boy, ain't you?"

  I nodded. “Brady,” I said.

  "I know your name. Lehigh's people are taking care of her. You better just get on home. Momma said she don't want to see Dr. Kent anymore."

  "Well, I gotta leave this package somewhere, so I might as well leave it here and be on my way."

  "Nothin’ stoppin’ you,” Teg said. His momma coughed inside the house and I saw a shadow drift past the screen door.

  I shook my head. This was the first real conversation I'd had with Teg, and it wasn't too pleasant. Normally, I would've just turned and gone on my way, but there was something there, like he wanted to say something else, but he couldn't. Now, I didn't normally make it a point to strike up a friendship with someone younger than me, but the fear in Teg's eyes made me curious and sad. I forgot all about Big Mike. Besides, what was the worst thing the crazy lunk could do? Beat me up? He'd already done that. I'd just make up another lie to my mother about the scratches and bruises I came home with. Somehow, I'd managed to keep my war with Big Mike Bowman a secret, even from Pearl, and I knew it wouldn't last forever, but right then, I didn't care. I saw a little bit of loneliness that I recognized all too well.

  I set the package down beside the bike, shifted a bit, and looked around past the house to the woods. “You found the swimming hole down at the old quarry yet?” I asked.

  Teg looked over his shoulder and stepped off the stoop. “Momma's gonna get real angry if you don't leave,” he hissed as quietly as he could. “She starts makin’ a ruckus, it's hard tellin’ who'll show up."

  "I was just trying to be friendly."

  Teg looked at me funny, then said, “I don't need no friends, so don't be doin’ me any favors."

  "Well,” I answered, “I'm gonna stop for a dip on my way home. I was hoping not to go by myself."

  Loreen coughed again, and then appeared behind the screen. “Is everything all right, Teg-Baby?"

  "Yes, Momma, it's just Dr. Kent's boy bringin’ you some stuff."

  "Tell him to go home."

  "I already did."

  I knew that was my cue to get out of there, but before I climbed up on my bike, I told Teg, nodding at the book on the porch, that if he liked Jack London then he ought to read Treasure Island. He said he already had.

  * * * *

  The quarry had been deserted for years. The water was deep and
clear, surrounded by fifty-foot limestone cliffs. The limestone that came from the quarry was now part of the Empire State Building in New York City. I'd seen pictures of it in Mother's photo album, and I always dreamed I would go there someday. She said I would, if I wanted to bad enough. She was right. I went to New York City for a while, touched the limestone on that tall building as if it was a monument to Teg, but somehow, I ended up back in Harlow. Funny how things come full circle, but that's another story, and really, I don't think I got time enough to tell it. The only important thing is that when I was old enough, I wanted to get as far away from this town as I could. But the ghosts of the past followed me every damn place I went, so in the end, I figured I might as well just come back home and look ‘em in the eye.

  I wasn't supposed to go to the quarry. But tell a kid he can't go somewhere and it becomes the Promised Land. Nothing you say or do can keep them away; starve them, tie them up, ground them, it doesn't matter. Mother was more understanding about my need for adventure. But my dad, well, he'd seen more than one person drown in the quarry, and the last thing he wanted was to see me in the coroner's office with a gash in my head and my belly puffed up like a dead possum on a summer day.

  I didn't really expect Teg to show up, and truth be told, I didn't care if the little snot did. I was hot and tired, and a cool dip and a short nap sounded good before I headed home to my own dinner. I was just relieved that I hadn't seen hide nor hair of Big Mike. But Teg did show up. He appeared out of the woods, walking silent like an Indian might, and scared the bejesus right out of me.

  "You're awful jumpy for a doctor's kid,” Teg said.

  "What do you know about it?” I had one leg out of my trousers, and I tumbled over on my aching butt. “Damn it.” I rolled and kicked off the other leg.

  Teg burst out laughing. He laughed so hard he cried and had to sit down.

  "What's so funny?"

  "Nothin'. Nothin'. Except you look like the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz fallin’ off his post. I'm sorry,” he said. “I better go."

  "No, don't. I mean, you can stay.” I stood up, and pulled up my skivvies. “You ever swim here?"

  "Nope. I was kind of scared to. It looks deep."

  "It is, but here, let me show you, over here it's not so bad.” I made my way through a thicket and found a path that led down to the edge of the water. There was a twenty-foot bank of sand that eased slowly into the water before it dropped off to depths unknown. I dived in, expecting Teg to follow. “Come on,” I said. “The drop-off is fifteen feet out. You can see it."

  "You sure?"

  "I'm sure. I've swam here a million times."

  He nodded, took off all his clothes except his Fruit of the Looms, and jumped in.

  "Feels great!” he screamed. His voice echoed off the limestone walls and he laughed.

  "Yeah,” I said, “it does."

  I swear I heard someone in the woods that day, but I thought at the time it was a deer or a coon, even though it felt like someone was watching us.

  * * * *

  It's funny. One day a snot-nosed kid walks out of the woods in the summer, and the next minute he turns into your best friend. The joys of childhood, I suppose, are pretty much lost by the time you get to be an old man like me. Or taken from you. Innocence is robbed from you like a thief in the night carrying a long switchblade. But I didn't know any of that then. All I knew was that I liked being around Teg.

  He'd read everything. He told me about Don Quixote, and David Copperfield. He liked the classics, but his momma would buy books from the dime store and he'd been reading a lot of books by a guy named Raymond Chandler that first summer. He used words like “dame” and “gams,” and before long, much to my own mother's dismay, I was using them too.

  We went to the Rivoli together on Saturdays when Teg could break away from his momma, and we'd watch Roy Rogers or Francis the Talking Mule movies. Movies played forever in Harlow, but it didn't matter, we'd go anyway. I must have seen Francis Joins the Navy ten times. I think I still do a pretty good imitation of Chill Wills, but I'll spare you that talent for the moment.

  I never went to the Bowman place. Teg always came to my house. And my mother, well, she took him under her wing like the stray pup he was. Teg didn't talk about Lehigh or Loreen much, but when the subject came up, he got real quiet. Loreen had recovered from her miscarriage, but she didn't work for Miss Chad anymore. Lehigh thought that she should stay home and be a proper wife, which to Loreen meant sleeping till noon, making Teg do her chores, and moaning about some new sickness that had set in. It seemed the only cure for her was a whiskey bottle she kept under her mattress that she began sipping on as soon as her feet hit the floor in the afternoon.

  I think my mother was thrilled that I had a friend of my own, so she didn't push much, but I could tell she was a little nervous around Teg sometimes, like she was going to say the wrong thing. Dad was always coming or going, so he didn't seem to notice Teg being around as often as he was. He readily accepted Teg's presence as if he'd always been there. But Pearl, well, Pearl was Pearl, and that meant she had her chance to be as difficult with my friend as I had been with hers.

  One day Pearl was spouting a story to a circle of her friends on the porch about Lehigh Bowman getting drunk and almost running over Bobby Fuller, the high-school quarterback, with his police car. She didn't know Teg was in the house; he had been engaged in a conversation with my mother in the kitchen about the latest round of books he'd got from the library. The story Pearl was telling was all true, but she veered off the path a bit, as usual, about the time Teg came walking out onto the porch to go home.

  "...And that's when he belted Loreen one, right square in the mouth,” Pearl said.

  Teg stopped directly behind Pearl. Missy Bernice sucked in her breath and motioned for Pearl to shut up. Pearl didn't notice, she just kept at it. “Then he went after Teg."

  Teg couldn't take much more, so he pushed by her. Lord, I thought Pearl's legs were going to disintegrate right then and there. She stuttered and stopped, trying to apologize.

  Teg would have none of it. He just kept walking until he was off the porch, and then he stopped and turned back to Pearl.

  "Lehigh never hits anybody, Pearl. At least not where it can be seen by the light of day.” With that, he turned and started for home.

  Mother and Pearl had a big to-do after that little round of storytelling, and, well, things changed for Pearl pretty shortly after that, too. Because it wasn't much longer, a week to the day I think it was, that Teg Saidlow turned up dead.

  * * * *

  Pearl's current beau, Tommy McVey, was fishing down at the quarry when he found Teg floating facedown. Teg was caught under some brush and the fish and turtles were already starting to nip at his flesh.

  Tommy ran like lightning to our house, and Dad promptly called Lehigh Bowman. There was nothing my father could do, of course, but you could see it in his eyes, a glimmer of hope, a chance that he hadn't woken up in a world where another boy had drowned at the quarry.

  I begged him to let me go.

  Dad stiffened as he grabbed his black bag of wonders. “I don't want you to see that,” he said.

  A whisper in the form of Mother's voice drifted in from the kitchen. “Let him go, Earl. Let him see what happens when you swim at that quarry alone.” She assumed Teg had gone swimming, and that it would be a good lesson for me to see.

  Dad looked at me; the sheen of his face flickered deep red. The only time I saw that look was when I'd disobeyed him and was about to get a good swat on the ass. The red faded when he made eye contact with Mother, and he motioned for me to come along.

  All the way out to the quarry I kept praying to Daddy's snake-taming Pentecostal God that Tommy was mistaken, that it really wasn't Teg he'd found. But when we got there, I saw my prayers weren't answered, and it was the last time in my life I ever prayed to that God for anything.

  Lehigh beat us there, and he and Big Mike were pulling Teg out of t
he water.

  "Damn it. Damn it! What the hell am I going to tell Loreen?” Lehigh yelled as he dropped Teg onto the ground.

  Teg Saidlow lay lifeless on the ground, arms stretched out as if he was about to be fitted for a crucifix. His eyes were wide open, and he was completely dressed. I knew right then that Mother was wrong about that swim; Teg would've never swum with his clothes on. He only had two pairs of pants, and a few pairs of socks. Besides, he knew better than to walk into Lehigh Bowman's house dripping wet. Teg always swam in his underwear.

  "Stay back,” Dad said, just as if he were talking to a dog. I froze, watched as he scrambled to Teg's side and tried to breathe life into his mouth. He tried for more than twenty minutes to revive Teg, but to no avail.

  "How long you figure he's been dead?” Lehigh asked.

  "Hard to say.” Dad answered. “When'd you last see him?"

  "Last night. Loreen can't keep track of that boy. Sometimes she goes to get him for breakfast and he's done snuck out of his room."

  "I guess he could have been here all night. You sure you didn't see him at breakfast, Lehigh?"

  "Nope. Loreen was still sleeping. Neither one of them is early birds."

  "What about you, Mike? When was the last time you saw Teg?"

  Big Mike glared at me, shifted his weight, and looked away. “I ain't seen him for about a week."

  My father nodded.

  "Well, I guess he decided to go swimmin’ and banged his head, huh, Doc,” Lehigh said.

  "Could be, but I don't see any sign of that.” Dad had begun to examine Teg, running his fingers through Teg's hair, putting pressure on the skull, looking for a soft spot. “Not a drop of blood, though. I imagine the coroner's going to want an autopsy done."

  "I don't want Loreen to go through that."

  "Can't be helped, Lehigh, you know how these things work."