Adam worked for a week and a half whittling and sanding the block of wood until it had the smooth rounded appearance of an Indy 500 race car. Before he attached the axles and wheels, Devon painted it a bright red and affixed the decals to the sides and hood.
The next day, after Adam had attached the axles and wheels, Devon said, “Thank you, Daddy. It’s purty. I hope we win.”
Adam smiled and said, “Well, son, I think we may have a good chaince. Let’s see how she rolls.” He took a piece of plywood from the garage wall and placed it against the edge of the back porch, making a ramp from the porch to the backyard. He placed a wedge of wood at the bottom of the ramp so that the car would move smoothly into the grass. “Alright, son. Put ‘er at the top an’ let’s see how she rolls.”
Devon held the car at the top of the ramp and said, “Gentlemen, start your engines.” He released the car and it rolled quickly and smoothly straight down the plywood and onto the grass, where it came to a sudden stop. “Yay!” Devon yelled excitedly. “It worked!”
“Course it did, son,” Adam agreed. “You an’ me make a good team. I think we jus’ might have a winner there.”
For the next week, Devon would walk into the utility room several times a day to admire the car where it sat atop the washing machine. He was so excited he could hardly sleep. He was certain that the car was going to finish first. The days seemed to pass interminably slowly. Finally, it was Saturday.
Adam was going to Reverend Doyle’s church that night, so Marie would be taking him to the race. Del and Gloryann were left with the Browers to watch television. Devon’s spirits were soaring as the car descended Pennyroyal Hill and turned left at the bottom of the hill onto North Dixie Highway.
“So where is this church?” Marie asked Devon.
An icy fist of fear grabbed Devon’s stomach. “You didden call Miz Fugate an’ ask her?” Devon asked incredulously.
“No,” Marie replied, annoyed. “Why would I do that? I thought you knew.”
Devon desperately tried to remember what Mrs. Fugate had said. Anxiety was building. “I think there was a ‘First’ in the name.”
“You think? Devon, you can’t remember nothin’. What street was it on?”
“I . . . I don’t think she said the street.”
“Well, that’s a fine howdy-do. Ya doeknow the name o’ the church or the street. You expect me to go on a wild goose chase all night?”
Devon just turned his head and looked out the window. Tears filled his eyes. They weren’t going to be on time.
Marie drove all over town, stopping at every church and finding every church locked. Finally, they went back to the first church they had passed on the way to the other churches, the First Christian Church on South Main Street, and found the race. Marie and Devon walked into the meeting room, Devon clutching the race car. The finals between a green car and a blue car were taking place, the cars poised at the top of the ramp. The cars were released, and amid much shouting, the blue car won. A heavy weight seemed to drop onto Devon’s soul. “We missed it,” he mumbled bleakly. They turned and left the church.
“I guess the next time, you’ll learn to remember,” Marie told him in the car.
“You coulda called Miz Fugate,” Devon replied, crying.
“Don’tchou put this on me. It wudden my race. It was yours.”
“You still coulda called ‘er.”
“Don’tchou sass me, boy! I don’t wanta hear another word.”
They drove in silence up Pennyroyal Hill, Devon heartbroken, and Marie silently fuming at her son. “Blame this on me! I don’t think so,” she thought. “You was almost a girl,” Marie blurted out.
“What?” Devon asked, the heaviness in his heart instantly expunged by fear. “Wha’da ya mean?”
“You was almost a girl,” Marie repeated.
Devon had been born with hypospadias, and when Marie had taken him to Dr. Perkins for his first examination when he was three months old, Dr. Perkins had asked, while he was examining Devon’s penis, “Why, Marie, how does this baby pee?” At that moment, Devon released a powerful stream of urine straight into the doctor’s face. “Oh, that’s how he does it,” Dr. Perkins remarked, as he calmly walked to the sink and washed his hands and face. Marie just chuckled. Wiping his face with a towel, he turned and faced Marie. “Well, Marie, we’re going to have to correct that, or this boy will never be able to stand up and pee.”
“How do ya do that?” Marie asked.
“We’ll have to make an incision on the underside to move the opening up, and use the prepuce as a graft.”
“The pre—what?”
“The prepuce, the foreskin.” He could see that Marie was still confused. “The end part of the penis.”
“Oh,” Marie said, relieved. “I thought you was gonna do an operation.”
“We are,” Dr. Perkins said. “But it’s minor. Nothing to concern yourself about. The baby will be in no danger.”
“When will you do this?”
“Just as soon as I can make the arrangements. Probably in a week or two.”
Marie could never talk to her son about such an intimate sexual matter as his penis, so her comment about his almost being a girl was as close as she could come to telling him the truth.
They drove the rest of the way in silence, Devon wondering what his mother had meant, and Marie proud that she had been so courageous to broach the subject.
One Sunday, after Sunday school and church service, the Hensleys went to Brother and Sister Kite’s for dinner. Sister Kite had a new recipe for apple pie that she wanted Marie to try. They lived in a house on the west bank of the Great Miami River at the foot of Pennyroyal Road.
While the women prepared the meal, Adam and Brother Kite sat on the screened patio, talking and looking out at the river. The boys were in Jerry’s room looking at his collection of comic books. Gloryann was sitting on the linoleum floor in the kitchen playing with the Kites’ calico cat.
“Ya know,” Adam said to Brother Kite, “I think God has spoken to me.”
“Oh?” Brother Kite commented. “When did this happen?”
“One mornin’ in church, while Brother Doyle was talkin’ about the still, small voice o’ God. The thought just come to me that I oughta go to Snyderville an’ win my brother’s an’ sister’s souls for the Lord. I think it was God, tellin’ me that I need to change my life an’ become a preacher an’ sow the seeds of his word in Snyderville.”
“Hallelujah, Brother Hensley. Hallelujah. Praise be his holy name.”
“Amen to that,” Adam agreed. “I think we’re gonna go up there soon to see if God has paved the way for me.”
“Good for you, Brother Hensley. You know you’re just storin’ up rewards in heaven by bringin’ more sheep into the fold, don’tchou?”
“I know. That’s why I’m gonna do it. It feels right.”
“Have you told Marie?”
“I mentioned it in the car on the way here, an’ she said if God wants me to do that, he’ll pave the way, an’ I believe that.”
“Amen to that. She is so right.”
Marie opened the screen door. “Dinner’s ready.”
“Alright,” Brother Kite said. “Brother Hensley, let’s go enjoy God’s bounty.”
Adam stood up. “I’m right behind ya, Brother.”
After a dinner of fried chicken, green beans, pork and beans, mashed potatoes, gravy, and biscuits, Devon, Del, and Jerry got fishing poles and bait from a shed behind the house and went fishing. The adults retired to the front porch where they watched the river, enjoyed the apple pie, and discussed Adam’s plan to minister to the sinners in Snyderville. Gloryann sat on the floor beside them and played with the cat.
Jerry led Devon and Del down a dirt path to a fence with a gate that said: “No Trespassing. Violators Will Be Prosecuted.” He lifted the latch and pushed open the gate.
“I don’t think we should go in there,” Del said.
“Why not?”
Jerry asked. “This is where the best fishin’ hole is.”
“Yeah, but it says ‘No Trespassin’. Ain’t we breakin’ the law?”
“Nah. I do it all the time. You ain’t afraid, are you?”
“No. I just don’t think we should break the law.”
“I ain’t been caught yet, and I live here. We just gotta be quiet when we walk past the house.”
They walked silently past an unpainted shack beside the river with the drapes completely drawn over the windows. Del and Devon looked apprehensively at it as they passed. Jerry led them to a sandy bank of the river shaded by oak trees. He took the lid off a Crisco can, plunged his fingers into the dark soil and extracted a wriggling night crawler. He held up the hook on his fishing pole and pierced the twisting worm three times with the hook until the worm was firmly impaled. Then he cast his line into the river. Del sifted through the dirt until he found another worm and then baited his hook as Jerry had done. He handed the can to Devon. He gingerly sifted through the damp dirt until he felt something move. He lifted a six-inch worm from the can and looked at it. It was slimy and squirming. He always hated to put a worm on a hook but did it out of fear of being laughed at by Jerry and Del. By the time he had shoved the worm onto the hook, Del had cast his line into the river. After several attempts, Devon managed to cast his line out into the middle of the river.
They sat down on the sandy bank and quietly watched their bobbers ride slowly up and down on the placid river. Birds chirped in the trees overhead. Somewhere behind them they could hear the drumming of a woodpecker. Suddenly, Devon’s bobber disappeared.
“Ya got one, Dev!” Del shouted. “Reel ‘im in slow!”
Devon began turning the handle on the reel to pull in whatever had taken his bobber below the surface. As he pulled the line in towards the bank, his pole arced down close to the water. He could feel something heavy on the end of the line. He was excited.
“Ya got a big one, Dev! Bring her in slow,” Jerry advised.
When the line was directly underneath the tip of the pole, Devon lifted the line clear out of the water. A large green turtle hung on the end of the line. It was suspended there, momentarily caught between heaven and Earth, like all of God’s creatures. The turtle suddenly let go of the hook and plopped back into the river.
“Ah, Dev, you were so close to havin’ ‘im!” Jerry exclaimed.
“Shoot!” Del commiserated. “You was seconds away from reelin’ ‘im in. He musta just been clamped down on the worm.”
“I reckon,” Devon said. He pulled the line all the way in and looked at the hook. A third of the dead worm remained on the hook.
They fished for another half hour but, getting no bites, decided to go back to Jerry’s house. As they walked silently past the unpainted shack, the front door flung open suddenly and a paunchy man in a ripped tee shirt and dirty blue jeans yelled in a deep voice from the doorway, “Wha’chou sumbitches doin’ on mah propity?”
“Run!” Jerry yelled.
They ran toward the gate, Jerry carrying the can of worms and his pole and Del carrying the fish bucket and his pole. Devon ran after them. Suddenly his pole was jerked out of his hands. The hook was caught on a bush beside the path!
“Ah’m gonna git mah gun an’ air-condition you sumbitches!” the man in the doorway screamed.
Devon turned, seemingly in slow motion, to retrieve the pole. The hook was stuck in a small branch of the bush. He wrenched the branch off, grabbed up the pole, and stumbled towards the gate. The man disappeared from the doorway.
“Hurry, Dev! Hurry!” Del urged outside the gate, which he was holding open for him. Devon rushed through the gate just as the man stepped out onto the porch with a shotgun in his hand.
“You bettah stay offa my propity, o’ next time you gonna find some lead in yo skinny asses!” the man threatened.
Jerry slammed the gate shut. “Whew!” he exhaled. “Made it.”
Devon slumped to the ground, white and trembling. He began to cry. “I thought I was gonna die!”
“Nah,” Jerry assured him, “I don’t think old man Dobbs woulda really shot us. He just likes to scare people.”
“Well, he scared me,” Devon whined.
“C’mon, Dev,” Del urged as he extended his hand to Devon. “Let’s put this stuff away and do sump’n’ else.” He put his arm around Devon’s shoulders after he stood up. “You’ll be OK,” he said soothingly.
They put the fishing equipment in the shed and walked around to the front of the house where a white dock extended fifteen feet out into the river. Del and Jerry picked up some stones along the river and walked out onto the dock to see who could skip the stones the farthest upstream. When Gloryann saw the boys on the dock, she opened the porch door and came down the front steps with the calico cat to sit beside Devon, who was still shaken and sitting on the bank, watching the boys.
“You keep a close eye on your sister, Dev!” Marie shouted from the door.
“I will,” Devon shot back.
“Where ya been?” Gloryann asked.
“Went fishin’. Almost caught a turtle.”
“What happen’?”
“Guess he didden wanta be caught ‘cause he let go o’ the hook and fell back in the river.”
“Oh. Ya catch anything else?”
“Nah. Almost caught some buckshot.”
“What’s that?”
“Nothin’.”
The calico cat left Gloryann’s petting and sauntered out onto the dock where the boys were playing. Gloryann stood up and tried to emulate the boys by throwing rocks into the water. Devon stepped onto the end of the dock and watched the boys. Jerry was best at skipping his stone farthest, as he practiced every day. Devon, still shaken, did not feel like joining in. He watched the boys for five minutes and then stepped off the dock, which suddenly collapsed with a splash into the river, taking Del, Jerry, and the cat with it.
“Wha’djou do Devon?!” Adam screamed from the porch. They all rushed to the riverbank.
“I didden do nothin’,” Devon replied.
The boys and the cat surfaced immediately. They swam to shore. The cat shook itself and then started to groom. Jerry and Del clambered up the bank and Del asked Devon, “What happen’?”
“I doeknow. I was just watchin’ you from the end o’ the dock an’ when I stepped off, it fell into the water.”
“You didden do nothin’?”
“No. Cross my heart.”
“You boys come inside and put some dry clothes on,” Sister Kite instructed.
“That dock musta been twenty years old,” Brother Kite commented. “Thank the Lord nobody was hurt.”
“Amen,” Adam said.
Devon began to sense that there was something about himself that was out of the ordinary.
Chapter 4
Devon grabbed the grapevine that hung from a gnarled oak tree, walked up the hill as far as the grapevine would extend, and ran down the hill as fast as he could, wrapping his legs around the vine as he swooped out over the creek as far as he could. He loved being in the air and looking up at the clouds as the wind whooshed against his arms and face. He dropped just short of the creek and rolled as he hit the ground.
“I almost made it to the other side that time, Rig!” he shouted back to his cousin, who was waiting for the grapevine to return.
“I saw that!” Rig replied. “I think I can make it to the other side!”
“Try it then!” Devon encouraged him.
Rig was the pug-nosed son of Marie’s brother, Rufus. He was of average height and build and had brown hair cut in a burr like Devon’s. He wore blue jeans and a white tee shirt.
“Alright! Here I come!” He swung out from the hill, straightened his legs out in front of the vine like a trapeze artist and dropped and rolled right beside Devon. “Shoot! I thought I had it that time!”
Devon laughed. “We’re never gonna make it!”
“Maybe not, but it sure is fun tryin’. Ya
wanta go to the haunted house?”
“OK.”
It was the last week in August, the week before the start of school, and Devon was staying at Uncle Rufus and Aunt Uma’s house for the week. Del had stayed at home because he was going to Franklin Junior High School every day for band practice. He played the trombone. Devon and Rig had been swinging on the grapevine for an hour, attempting to make it all the way across the gurgling creek. No one had ever made it all the way, including Rig’s older brother, Travis. But it was always fun trying. Now, however, their hands were red and chafed from the vine, and they just wanted to rest, without admitting it to each other.
They walked north along the creek, stopping to overturn rocks along the way to see what creatures were hiding there. They found crawdads, which would scuttle away to the opposite bank, and water bugs, which Rig would squash with his tennis shoes. Devon pretended to do the same, although he never actually killed any. He did not enjoy killing things. Uncle Jonnie had had an influence on him.
The haunted house was on a hill west of the creek. It was a wooden, two-story house and had vestiges of white paint still clinging to the clapboards. All the windows had been broken by vandals. There was an unpainted wooden barn southwest of the house. Tall weeds surrounded the house and barn. Rig and Devon always approached the house quietly, as if they might be disturbing ghosts, or were afraid that someone, or some thing, might suddenly jump out at them. They always walked all the way around the house to check if there was anyone there. Devon felt an icy pang of fear in his stomach as they approached the cellar door on the southwest corner. The door had long ago been removed by scavengers or fallen inward, but the boys were too frightened to venture into the subterranean darkness to discover what lay beyond the entrance, which was now just a gaping black hole fringed by ferns and milkweeds. They approached the back door and entered the house by walking on the door, which lay on the kitchen floor.
“Let’s go upstairs,” Rig whispered to Devon.
“OK,” Devon whispered back.
Fiery Rivers Page 9
