To Probe A Beating Heart

by Wren, John B

  The coach thought for a few seconds, “Okay, done. Now what’s next?”

  When the roster was announced, the head coach called Averell into his office and explained the situation. “You aren’t that good with throwing and catching, but you try hard and we like that. We would like you to be involved with the team and we have a need for someone to help with the equipment and watch the score during a game. We would call you a manager. Whatta’ think ‘bout that.”

  Averell was smart enough to know that the coach was right, he was a terrible player. He also knew that the coaches wanted Jimmy to play and be happy and since Averell was his friend, that was why Averell was offered the job. He knew from the beginning that he was not going to be on the team but he wanted to be part of the group. His hope was that he might be put on as the last man, more as ballast than player. So when the coaches offered him the manager’s spot, he was thrilled. He could be part of a team, he would be one of the guys, he would fit in, he was ecstatic. All that Averell had to do now was convince Ellie that he should be allowed to be involved with the team. When he got home and asked Ellie, she did not ask what he would be doing, she didn’t care if he was a player, a manager or even a cheerleader, all she thought about was that it was another way to keep Averell out of her hair and she approved. Averell, again sensed that her approval was more to benefit her than him, but he didn’t care, he ran out of the house and over to Jimmy’s to tell him that he was going to be with the team, as the equipment manager.

  Jimmy was surprised that anybody would so excited at being in that slot, but it meant that Averell was going to be involved and would be together as friends should be. He gave Averell his first high five, and they laughed as they practiced a few variations that could be used when somebody scored a run or got a hit. The smile lasted on Averell’s face until he fell asleep that night.

  As the practice sessions passed, Averell proved to be good at his task. He kept things in order, fully accounted for all the equipment and was treated like one of the guys. The coach showed him how the score book was kept and allowed Averell to try it out during the three scrimmages that preceded the regular scheduled games. During those games he kept track of the scoring, at bats, hits, runs and errors. He also learned how to track the action on the field and enter it in the book.

  “Averell, nice job. The book looks pretty good, we have our first league game on Tuesday, why don’t you stay next to me during the game and keep the book. Before the game we have to set the line-up and figure who will come in for the pitcher in the fifth inning. So you will call the names of the guys, who’s up, who’s on deck and who is in the hole. You’ll keep track of the hits, runs and the errors. Are you okay with that?”

  Averell was in his glory, he liked calling the batting order at the beginning of each inning and keeping the guys on deck and in the hole during the innings. Even better was giving high fives as the guys came off the field. He was given a task and he did it well, the coaches were happy with his work and Jimmy was proud to see his friend shine. The baseball season at that age is very short and ended when the school year ended. Jimmy and most of the other boys played in a community league over the summer. Those teams were overloaded with kids who wanted to play. most were not good enough to make the school teams, but they were all better than Averell and he did not stand a chance of playing on one of the teams in that league either. He would have been happy to be an equipment manager on Jimmy’s team, but the coach of that team had a daughter who enjoyed being around the boys and had the job the year before. Averell was relegated to the role of spectator. After the community league had run its course, Jimmy went away to a sports camp for two weeks in Olean, New York and Averell stayed at home.

  * * *

  CHAPTER SIX

  It tasted terrible, stringy and tough . . .

  It was July, his friends were all involved in baseball and Averell was looking for a distraction. He was now nine years old and thought of himself as much older, more mature. When he noticed a group of older boys going into the woods, he decided he would see what was going on. He was quite adept at hiding and moving through the brush quietly. He followed them at a safe distance and watched as they set up a circle of logs to sit on and a smaller circle of stones in the middle, which they piled with small twigs and the larger sticks. Each of the four found a larger log and set them nearby, ready when needed. Then they sat around and started to talk. Averell crept closer and when he achieved a good vantage point, he listened to the conversation.

  “I got it, we just have to set it up and stay clear, when it trips, we will hear the rattling around and we can check it out,” said George, the tall one. “It has a thing like a wall that moves with a lever and it lets you squeeze the critter and hold him still and you can do things to him.”

  “That sounds fancy, but, okay, let’s set it up then” replied Tom, the heavy one.

  “Where should we do it?” asked the tall one.

  “How ‘bout over in that open area, there.” said Frank, as he pointed. He was the smart one, thought Averell.

  “Yeah, that looks good.” said the heavy one.

  Don didn’t say anything. Averell thought of him as the quiet one. The boys went into the clearing and set their trap.

  “Now we wait,” said the tall one, and they all went back to their seats around the unlit campfire. It didn’t take long and the trap was sprung. Tall and Heavy ran over to the trap and came back with a rabbit in the small cage.

  “Hey guys, dinner,” said Frank. “Somebody start the fire. Then we kill it, skin it, put it on the spit and cook it, then eat it.” The rabbit was not about to go peacefully, and when the tall one reached inside the cage to grab it, the rabbit bit his hand. A little blood flowed from the cut and Tall then angrily grabbed the rabbit and broke its neck.

  “Yeah, I’ll start the flames, you skin the little bastard,” said Frank.

  There was that word, bastard. Now he didn’t like these boys. And they didn’t know how to kill the rabbit. Tall one had to use his hands to twist it’s head around. These guys are stupid, except for Frank. He started the fire and Averell watched as he re-arranged the small twigs and progressively larger sticks, then he lit a small wad of dried grass and pushed it under the small twigs. As the fire grew bigger, he added more and bigger sticks until he could add a small log, then a second log and a few more smaller sticks. The fire gave off very little smoke and probably was not visible from outside the woods.

  The other three boys were skinning the rabbit and making a mess of it. There was blood everywhere and it was difficult to see any variation in the body parts. Frank took a green stick and sharpened one end on a rock and pierced a small piece of the rabbit, placed it over the fire and laughed at the other boys.

  “You monkeys couldn’t cook a hot dog without screwing it up.”

  “Yeah, well if you’re all that smart, “ said the tall one.

  “George, I am that smart, and you’re dumber than a bag of rocks.

  Here let me help you.”

  With that Frank showed the rest how to select a green stick, sharpen it and skewer a piece of meat, and cook it. The boys cooked and ate as much of the rabbit as Frank said they could.

  “The rest is not good for eating. And if you had been more careful

  skinning it, we would have a rabbit skin that could be used for something else, like a coat.”

  “Damn small coat,” said Tom.

  Frank looked at him and said, “You need more than one, dummy. You catch enough of them and sew the skins together, Then you can make a coat.”

  The quiet one smiled, but still said nothing.

  Averell was fascinated by the whole process. He wanted to try it. As he was thinking that through, the boys got up and prepared to leave.

  “We should gather up all the bits that we didn’t use and throw it away so nobody will know what we did.”

  “Okay Frank,” said George. He cleaned up all the pieces that he could find and wrapped them up in th
e remains of the hide.

  As the boys were leaving, Averell noticed that the trap was left behind, forgotten. He waited until the boys were out of the woods, then went back and picked up the trap. He wiggled the movable partition, looked at the spring mechanism and thought about bait. Perhaps a piece of an apple or some candy, as he was thinking about bait, he found a place to hide the trap and left it there. He did not want to explain it to Ellie, and even more importantly he did not want the boys to see him with it.

  The boys were back in the woods the next day and Averell once again crept up on them to listen.

  “ I’m sure that it was right here” said George, “I know it was.”

  “You’re a bonehead, you sure you didn’t toss it when the little bastard bit you?” said Frank.

  “No, I dropped it, right here.”

  They spent a few minutes looking in the brush near where George was standing. No luck, no trap.

  “Could someone have found it and took it home?” asked Tom, the heavy one.

  “I guess” said Frank, “Let’s get out of here. C’mon Don, let’s go.” The quiet one was still looking in the woods for the trap. He turned, waved and caught up with the others.

  They left, and Averell followed shortly, staying well behind and out of sight. He went back that night after dark and waited to see if anyone else was there. Nobody. He remembered the fire sequence and did it just as Frank had done. He built a small fire just enough to give him light. He sat on a log and thought about words he had heard, about Ellie, Sarah, Jimmy, Steve, Allen, then as he was about to put out the fire, he heard Stelian’s voice.

  “Why don’t we just live out here, in the woods?”

  “Who is that?”He already knew the answer.

  “Stelian.”

  “I don’t want to talk to you, go away!”

  Averell quickly put out the fire and headed home. When he got there, the door was locked. As he was about to push the doorbell, Stelian’s voice said “Use the key, you don’t want to wake Ellie.”

  He pulled the key from his pocket and very quietly opened the door. The clock in the kitchen read 12:06. If Ellie heard him she would explode in his face and punish him. He closed and locked the door, crept up to his room, took off his clothes and noted the smell of the camp fire. He dressed for bed and crawled in under the covers. In the morning when he went downstairs, Ellie was drinking coffee and he said, “Can I wash some clothes?”

  “Yeah, go ahead.”

  Apparently Ellie never knew that he was out as late as he was. She must have thought that he was in bed early. Averell didn’t know, didn’t care, he had dodged another punishment and didn’t care how. He took the opportunity to get all his laundry done and when he thought he was finished, Ellie told him to do four more loads that she had piled in the hallway. They were Sarah’s things.

  “Wash Sarah’s clothes, damn it,” said Stelian.

  Several days later, Averell found an opportunity to go back to the woods. Ellie had gone out, Sarah went to bed at 9:00 and Averell announced to Charlotte that he was tired and was going to bed. She seemed pleased and picked up the phone to make a call. She waited until Averell went up the stairs and she dialed a number.

  Averell had a Swiss army knife that he put in his pocket, he had also taken an apple from the kitchen, found a small flashlight and some matches he had hidden in his room. He turned out the lights and waited until he heard Charlotte and her friend come up the stairs and go into the master bedroom. When he was sure that Charlotte was getting busy with her boyfriend, Averell unhooked his screen and started across the roof. He couldn’t resist and walked over to the bedroom window and peered in. Charlotte and her boy friend were in the bed, naked, moaning and groaning.

  “They shouldn’t be doing that,” said Stelian.

  Averell shrugged his shoulders, turned and left. He got to the campsite and set a small fire. Then he retrieved the animal trap and set it up in the clearing.

  Stelian asked, “How long do we wait?”

  “Until it closes, we will hear it,” said Averell.

  It took an hour for the trap to spring. It was a squirrel, a grey squirrel. He knew that squirrels can bite and that he had to be very careful. So first, he had to kill the squirrel. He wiggled the lever on the side of the cage and the middle wall moved. He squeezed the squirrel against one exterior wall and with the animal not able to move, he locked the partition in place. He then used a flat rock to sharpen a stick to a fine point. The squirrel was very agitated and would not settle down. Averell maneuvered the sharpened stick to the squirrel’s neck and pushed. The squirrel thrashed with its mouth open making a choking sound for a minute then no movement at all. Just to be sure Averell pulled the stick out and repositioned it where he thought the squirrel’s heart would be and pushed hard and fast. The squirrel twitched briefly but ceased all movement after that. Averell felt a warm sense of pride wash over him as he looked at his work. He pulled the sharpened stick out of the squirrel.

  “That was pretty cool,” said Stelian.

  Averell opened the cage and shook the squirrel out onto a log. He opened his knife and made a clean cut from the squirrel’s throat to the crotch exposing the creature’s insides to full view. Averell did not know which bits were edible and which were not. Not sure what to do, he sliced out a piece of what appeared to be meat and skewered it on a sharpened green stick and held it over the fire.

  “That looks good, get another piece ready,” said Stelian.

  “One at a time,” said Averell.

  When it appeared that it was fully cooked, he took it away from the fire and blew on it before taking a bite. It tasted terrible, stringy and tough. This was not what he expected and spit out the rest. It was getting late and Averell thought it best to be home when Ellie came in. First, he had to get rid of the evidence. He collected all that remained of the squirrel and put it in the fire, and sat back to watch it burn.

  “It smells funny, maybe you cooked the wrong piece,” said Stelian.

  The smell of burning fur and flesh did not repel him, he sat calmly and watched and listened as the little animal crackled and sputtered as it burned. Averell had to add fuel several times to keep the fire going, trying to turn the body to ash. After a while, he gave up and with a stick he pulled the half burned body parts out of the fire and loosened the soft earth under a bush making a hole where he placed the remains. He found several stones that he placed over the remains, then pushed the dirt back in the hole and stomped it down with his foot. He returned the trap to its hiding place and made sure he had all his tools before heading for home. It was nearly midnight when he approached the edge of the woods and he saw an older boy with a girl walking toward him. He hid himself and watched as they looked around before going into the woods. Curious, he followed at a safe distance and they went directly to the campsite. They stopped and the boy looked around with a concerned expression on his face. He put his hand in the fire pit and quickly withdrew it.

  “Somebody else has been here, recently, this pit is still hot.”

  “Come on Jeff, let’s get out of here” said the girl.

  “Okay Sandy, let’s go,” he replied with an angry and disappointed look. Averell waited for them to leave and started for the street again. He stopped short and peered through the leaves and saw Jeff with two other boys and Sandy talking. They were looking around as if searching for someone. Averell sat down to wait them out. As he waited a car passed the woods, it was Ellie coming home. He wanted to get home just in case she opened his door to check on him. Not that she ever had before, but why take a chance. He picked up a few stones and threw them one at a time back into the woods. The boys heard it and charged into the woods with Sandy close behind. Averell then crept out of his hiding place and walked quietly across the street and down his block to home. When he was as far from the woods as he could be and still see the place where the boys were talking, he turned, paused and looked. They were still in the woods. He was half way there. Now to ge
t back in the house without being seen. He climbed up on the garbage can to the tree and on to the roof. He was getting pretty good at this maneuver. He walked quietly across the roof and opened his window and crawled in. He undressed and put on his pajamas and turned down his covers. His hands were filthy with both mud and blood. He needed to clean up. No sounds from down stairs so he opened his door and went into the bathroom. He washed up and since he was making noise, he flushed the toilet and opened the bathroom door to go back to his room. Ellie appeared at the stairs coming up and apparently going to bed.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I had to use the bathroom.”

  “Get in bed, it’s late.”

  “Okay.”

  He crawled into bed, pulled the covers up on himself and thought, “I made it, I’m safe.”

  “Yeah, safe,” agreed Stelian.

  He lay there in bed, thinking about the squirrel and seeing it’s eyes as he pushed the stick through its body. The animal’s reaction, it’s want to get free, it’s want to bite or scratch back at him, it’s want to fight to stay alive and the fear that it was about to die, to be another animal’s lunch. Averell was breathing heavier, the memory of that moment when the squirrel’s eyes went full wide, then blank, when it stopped breathing, was making him tense up, breath heavily and perspire. The excitement, the thrill, the final moment of life and he was in control. He wanted to do it again, he wanted to do it now. He wanted to feel that control over another being’s destiny. His body was tensing and he was sweating, he got out of bed and paced back and forth in his room, calming and cooling down. Then, as he relaxed, he sat in a corner with his back to two walls. He quietly said, “again, I want to do it again.”

  “Again,” said Stelian. Averell lowered his head and fell asleep squatting in the corner.