Tom's Treasure

by Henry Givens

CHAPTER TWENTY

  “And he’s been hanging ‘round me ever since,” Tom added with a loving smile. “I just can’t seem to get rid of him. Not that I really want to, of course.”

  Jeanette added another chapter, “After that Sunday, Phillip had changed so much that none of the girls would have anything to do with him.”

  Now that really puzzled Arthur. He couldn’t help but ask, “Why not? Didn’t he change any?”

  She answered, “That’s just it. He changed a lot. It was such a dramatic turn around that we thought he was just faking to get us to fall for him. It turned out that it was only our imagination.” Then she playfully added, “And a lot of wishful thinking on the part of a few of the girls.”

  In mock amazement Phillip asked, “Who?”

  “You know who, …….Philly,” she teased.

  “Oh, her,” he replied, “Well, I would have never given her a second thought.”

  “You dated her for three months.”

  Arthur looked at his Uncle Phil and raised his eyebrows in a ‘she-got-you-with-that' kind of look and asked, “Oh, really, ……….Philly?”

  Phillip stumbled for a reply, “W-e-e-l-l-l, it was that third and fourth thought that made me ……..uh……you know.”

  Arthur just couldn’t let it rest. He echoed Phillip’s words with a roll of his hand that asked for an answer, “Uh…….you know………….?”

  Phillip smugly replied as he rolled his hand also, “Yeah, I’m sure that…….uh,….you know.” He looked quizzically at Ryan and continued, “Doesn’t he know about…….uh,…..you know?”

  I can’t say that Olivia ……stared……at Ryan. Let’s say she was earnestly awaiting his reply.

  “Actually we have had several discussions……….about……you know,” he said as he fidgeted with the pizza slices in the Hawaiian deluxe box.

  This would be an appropriate time to discuss the seating arrangements at the table where this saucer-eyed lady named Olivia had just quietly placed her hands palm down on the kitchen table. Immediately to her right was her sweet little baby, Wendy. To Wendy’s right was Arthur. To Arthur’s right was the lovely Jeanette. To Jeanette’s right and at the other end of the table was Phillip. On Phillip’s right was Ryan. On Ryan’s right was her beloved grandfather. At this point in time, two of the males at the table were just barely out of arm’s reach. However, that COULD change if she stood up.

  Arthur looked across the table at his father with a divinely angelic expression and said, “Oh, and thanks for the magazine, Dad. I really loved it. Especially the pictures.” After which he smiled and held his hand up with his thumb and forefinger touching in the ‘OK’ sign.

  Ryan smiled back with a polite and fatherly smile as he responded, “You’re quite welcome, Arthur. I had fun picking it out for you.”

  The saucer-eyed lady whose mouth just dropped open rose about two inches off of her chair before her beloved grandfather reached out and grabbed her hand and said, “Don’t bite, Olivia, don’t bite. Can’t you see they’re just baiting you?”

  Arthur became preoccupied with something in his glass. Ryan somewhat turned to Phillip as if he was going to ask him a question. Ryan tried to remain serious but just had to glance at Olivia. His smile broke into a snicker which caused him to lower his head and Arthur to slide down in his chair before they both busted out laughing.

  Ryan looked apologetically at his wife and said, “Honey. It was the latest edition of The World of Ninja magazine. I always buy it for him.”

  She eased herself back down, scooted her chair back a bit, raised one eyebrow and got that look on her face. She sat sideways in her chair so she could cross her legs and began to drum on the table with the fingers of her right hand. “You know,” she stated with a slow and easy drawl, “it’s a poor game that two can’t play.” She looked over at Jeanette who imitated her expression and drummed her fingers also.

  You’ve heard of those awkward moments of silence I’m sure. Well, the guys around the table at the Hollis house were experiencing one right now. Ryan tried to lighten things up a bit by rubbing his hands together, putting on a great big smile and suggesting, “Hey! Isn’t it about time for a story? Huh?”

  Well, one person was surely ready. “OK!” Arthur said as he slapped his hands on his knees for emphasis. “But, it’s got to be the best one. I mean the absolute best one. If you only have time for one, then make it the best one.” Arthur was so wound up that he was bouncing up and down in his seat.

  Phillip couldn’t help but laugh at him so he managed to say, “Calm down, Arthur, calm down. There were so many that it is hard to think of the best one.” Then, he looked over at Tom he asked, “How about it, Dad? Which one would you say was the best?”

  Tom thought for a minute and then answered, “How about the camping one. That one took a lot of behind the scenes planning.”

  Phillip's eyes got real big as he said, “Oh, ho ho ho. Great call, Dad. That one was a doozy. Oh, Lordy, where do we start on that one?”

  Tom answered him by saying, “You can start by telling them what a bunch of losers I was blessed to teach. SINCE all those losers were your best friends.”

  Phillip objected, “Aw, Dad, we weren’t all that bad. Besides that, you and the youth pastor came up with the idea of splitting up the teenagers.”

  Tom stubbornly argued, “Well, if the boys and girls hadn’t been acting like love-crazed baboons, we wouldn’t have had to split you up into a boy’s class and a girl’s class.”

  Arthur objected, “Aw, Grandpa.”

  Tom defended himself, “You should have seen them the first Sunday they were apart. They acted like they were prisoners on death row, all mopey and staring at you with their arms crossed. They wouldn’t talk. They wouldn’t answer questions or participate in any way. So, the youth pastor, his wife and I came up with a plan that was just guaranteed to work. Take it away, Phillip.”

  “OK,” Phillip began. “Dad came up with a great idea that had the boys pretty excited. He sold them on the idea of going on an overnight camp out at the church camp grounds. The church had four big cabins down by a lake. It was a beautiful spot and the lake was always stocked with fish. The guys went for it from the start.

  "Dad picked us up in the church van and had a trailer full of wood behind it. The back seat was piled high with groceries and drinks. Everybody said about the same thing when they got in. They all wanted to know if we were going to spend the whole weekend or what.”

  Tom interrupted, “Little did they know.”

  “You are so right, Dad,” Phillip continued. “These guys fell for it hook, line and sinker. Shucks, I even fell for it. He usually tells me in advance of a good joke but this one surprised me.”

  Arthur butted in, “Wait. You mean Grandpa let you join him in some con jobs?”

  Phillip replied, “You bet he did. A couple of times we planned some stuff so complicated that it took two weeks to plan out.”

  Arthur looked at his grandfather with a wide grin, “We got a lot of talkin’ to do. Remember, the Bible says not to be a respecter of persons, Grandpa.”

  “Well, look who’s quoting scripture now,” his mother interjected.

  Tom answered, “There will be plenty of time for that later. Let’s let Phillip go on with his story. Remember, he has a plane to catch.”

  “OK,” Arthur answered nervously.

  Phillip went on, “Here’s how the camp ground was arranged. There was a big open area with two cabins on either side. Each cabin would sleep about ten people very easily. Each one had two bathrooms in it. The lake was on the opposite end. There was a big open space between the front two cabins and the back two cabins. That made it real easy to build as big a campfire as you wanted.

  “Well, Tom pulled in to the far side of the campground and pulled the van and trailer between the last cabin and the lake. We get all of the stuff out of the van and put stuff in the fridge and all that. Those that had swimming trunks went swimming and the ot
hers started placing wood according to Dad’s instructions. That was the good thing about going out with Dad. It was always a learning experience. Anyway, he showed us the best way to stack the wood so that it would catch fire easier and burn hotter.

  “It was dark by the time we got through playing and running and swimming. Dad lit the fire and in no time we had a good blaze going. We had to wait until the fire burned down to embers before we started cooking the hot dogs so Dad decided to tell ghost stories. The first two were pretty lame. The last one he declared was a true story from his childhood.

  “Now, I had heard him tell stories before, be he really threw himself into this one. He leaned forward in his chair, his eyes got wider, and he spoke quieter. And, it worked. The guys got quieter and their eyes started darting around looking to see who might be getting scared. The truth was, we all were.

  “So, Dad goes into this thing about this mountain lion that started messing around some of the houses near the edge of his hometown. Everybody knew that it was a mountain lion because it would let out this blood-curdling scream like a woman would when she got scared, only about ten times louder. And, that’s really the truth. It would do that especially just before it got ready to attack something to scare it. Whatever it was after would be so scared that it would freeze from the fear and be easy prey. Or, it would be so scared that it would stumble and fall while trying so hard to get away.

  “Then, the cat began to attack things close to people’s houses like their calves or a dog or something. It would always sound the same. The people would hear a scream really, really, close by. Then they would hear a bunch of thumping and thrashing around. When they would turn on the lights and go outside to see what was happening, the cat would disappear into the woods. It would leave behind a dead or dying animal. Usually the throat would be all torn apart and one of the legs or a big portion of the animal would be missing. Then, Dad went on to describe yucky stuff about the bloody parts and just gruesome stuff.

  “He ended it by saying that the cat was never found and seemed like it just wandered off to find easier pickings. And, immediately, he slapped his hands on his legs, got up real quick, and changed the tone of his voice. Then he declared that the fire was ready and for everybody to follow him to the van and trailer to get the rest of the wood to make a bonfire after they were through cooking. He started walking to the van which was parked away from the sight of the campfire.

  “Let me tell you, he had this planned perfectly. Just as soon as the last of us was around the corner and out of sight, ten female voices let out this blood-curdling yell. Five men started stomping the ground and shaking the bushes. Tom ran around to the campfire and yelled ‘Oh my gosh’ real loud. Of course, we boys were not going to linger in the dark, so we ran around the cabin and looked, too. On the far edge of the cabin area, about 100 feet away, was a man staggering towards us. He looked like he was all bloodied around his face and neck and he had his arm tucked inside his shirt like it had been torn off. They had him painted with red florescent paint all down his side. He did look a sight, now. They had taken their time and painted him good. Well, all we saw was a quick glimpse of this bloodied figure stumbling towards us, moaning and then falling to the ground.

  “Everybody screamed or yelled. Two of the guys whose voices hadn’t changed yet, actually screamed like they were little girls. Boy, did we ever rag them about that. Freddy, the guy standing next to me, started running fifty miles an hour in one place and yelling, ‘Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.’ And, his dad just happened to be there. Big Al, came out from around the corner of the far cabin, smiled real big, held out his arms and said, ‘I’m right here, son.’ Freddy stopped in his tracks and got this goofy look on his face as he gasped, ‘Da-a-a-d?’

  "Then ten little female voices, three big female voices and five male voices including the dead guy started laughing at us brave campers who had been shaking like a leaf. The youth minister got up off the ground and showed us his arm was still attached. His wife and the entire teenage girls’ class stepped out from behind the bushes where they had been hiding. Then some of the dads of the boys stepped out from behind the far cabin and were laughing at us. Finally, it dawned on us brave little lads that we had been had and we laughed, too. Of course, the boys went over to their respective dads, you know, playfully punching them and carrying on.”

  As everybody at the table started laughing, Arthur chided, “Aw, Grandpa that was terrible. You shouldn’t have done those guys that way.”

  With a great big grin on his face Tom answered, “Ye-e-a-a-h, you’re right. I shouldn’t have done it that way. I should have made one of the ladies or one of the teenage girls get all bloodied up.”

  Olivia reached over and playfully tapped Tom on the arm as she objected with a smile, “Grandpa, that’s even worse.”

  Tom looked over at Phillip and said, “Yeah, it would have been wouldn’t it?”

  Phillip raised his eyebrows as he questioned the group, “Are you sure you want this derelict to stay here? We’ll be back in four weeks. We can pack him up and take him back home with us, you know?”

  Olivia grabbed Tom’s hand, “No way. He stays here for the rest of his life, even if it’s twenty or thirty years. We’re gonna love him like he’s never been loved before, warts and all.”

  Jeanette started laughing real big. The others at the table only chuckled. Curiosity got the better of Arthur, so he asked, “What’s so funny, Aunt Jeanette? Haven’t you ever heard that one before?”

  “Yes, I have,” she said as she calmed down, “but we were just talking about that camping trip and what she said made me think of a girl that had warts all over her hands when she was younger. What was her name, Honey?”

  “Beverly?”

  “Yeah, she was always wearing those sleeves with holes in them for your thumbs. And when she would sit by one of the boys, she sat with her arms folded so they wouldn’t try to hold her hand. Boy, she was really embarrassed about it,” she said.

  “Did they ever go away?” Arthur asked.

  Jeanette answered, “She grew out of them, I think. The doctor gave her something and they disappeared.”

  “What made you think of her?” Phillip asked.

  “You and that campfire story, you goof,” she replied.

  “Oh,…….that,” Ryan said as he cleared his throat. He looked at his watch. “Oh, my look at the time, I guess we had better be going.” He scooted his chair back and asked Jeanette, “You coming, Sweetheart?”

  Jeanette started drumming her fingers on the table again, “Not until we continue the campfire story.”

  Have you ever seen somebody who had that my-goose-is-cooked look? Well, Phillip had it. He sat down and looked at Arthur and pleaded, “Arthur don’t believe a word that you’re about to hear. They are going to try to say that I chased her all around the campfire that night.”

  Arthur knew this was going to be good and that his best ally would be Aunt Jeanette. Much to her delight, he scooted his chair as close as he could and slipped his arm inside of hers. With that disarming smile and that innocent look he had learned to give, she was just about putty in his hands. He sealed it by sweetly saying, “Aunt Jeanette, I know that you’re the only one who would ever tell me the truth about this matter. So, go ahead.”

  Olivia was still holding Tom’s hand so she bounced her head on it a couple of times and said, “Oh, p-u-u-l-e-e-e-ze.”

  Did Jeanette just blush a bit because of an eleven-year-old? Well, maybe not. She started explaining, “Well, he didn’t chase her around the campfire like you would think of chasing someone. However, he would try to sit close to her and she would find some pretense to get up and move. He would find another reason to get close to her and she would move. It went on for almost the whole night. He finally gave up and went to sit by Tom.”

  “Were you there?” Arthur asked Jeanette with a sly smile.

  “Yes. I certainly was. But he never came to sit by me,” she pointed out so sweetly.


  “Uncle Phillip?” Arthur questioned.

  “I know. I know. But, I was only fifteen at the time,” reasoned Phillip.

  “And there was, Phyllis, the blonde who was brunette a couple of times,” Jeanette continued playfully. “And then there was, Tammy from Alabamy, as he so sweetly called her to try to win her favor. He tried for three months to get her to go with him on a date.” She was looking down at Arthur when she finished the sentence. With a sly smile, she darted her eyes in his direction and mouthed the words, “Ask him.”

  Arthur leaned forward a little and asked, “How was the date, Uncle Phillip?” And, he giggled.

  “If you must know.”

  Tom chimed in, “We must. We must.”

  Phillip muttered, “It figures,” before he went on. “I call her my one night stand.”

  Olivia and Jeanette exchanged female glances and Olivia just had to butt in, “I’ll bite, but I’m not too sure I’ll like the answer. Just what do you mean, ‘One night stand?”

  He looked around the table with one of those hopeless looks and said, “Huh. One night with her was all I could stand.”

  Everyone at the table but Phillip broke out into laughter. After it all settled down again, Jeanette prodded, “And?”

  He knew he couldn’t get out of it so he continued, “Her parents would not let her go out alone. So, we went to a local hangout burger joint and ate burgers and fries with a bunch from the school. Big, bad old me had to haul off and tell the funniest joke I knew. It went over too well. She started laughing and then would snort in the middle of her laugh. Everybody thought that was extremely funny, so everybody started telling jokes just to hear her snort. Gratefully, her parents moved away six months later.”

  “And then who did you date?” Arthur wanted to know.

  “Well…..”

  “Let’s see, there was Brenda, and then there was Lucy, and then Mary Beth moved into town and Romeo was the first to move in on her,” Jeanette began to fill in. “And after he got his license there was Judy for two dates.” She stopped and smiled at her husband and fluttered her eyes at him.

  “Go ahead. Go ahead,” Phillip said as he crossed his arms and got a very bashful look on his face. “I know you can’t wait to tell everybody.”

  Jeanette looked down at Arthur and said in a mysterious almost sing-song manner, “And the next one was W-w-willow-w-w. At least, that‘s that way he said her name to the other guys when he thought none of us girls were listening.”

  Everybody at the table chuckled but Arthur. He couldn’t help but laugh. “Now, that’s funny, Uncle Phillip. Was she pretty?”

  “Oh, yeah,” he answered. “She was a tall, slender young lady with long, black hair. She had let it grow until she could almost sit on it.”

  Tom was having a time. He had watched all of this unfold years before. Phillip had always confided in him about all of the girls. He watched as Arthur looked from Phillip to Jeanette and back again and paused before he even started to ask. He could tell by the look on his face what was racing through Arthur’s mind. He quietly motioned to Olivia to be quiet and listen.

  Out it came. “But….Uncle Phillip…..when did you finally meet Aunt Jeanette?”

  “Oh, I’ve known Jeanette practically all of my life. We grew up in the same neighborhood. We went to church together. She was there around the campfire that night.”

  “She was? Oh, yeah, that’s right,” Arthur said as he remembered. But, he just couldn’t help himself. He turned his head sideways and asked, “Then how come it took you so long to ask her out?”

  Phillip answered the best way he could, “Arthur, I guess I was too intimidated by her.”

  “Why?” Arthur asked in complete bewilderment. As he looked at Jeanette and then back to Phillip, he blabbered, “If it had been me, she would have been the first one I would have asked. She’s stack…… uh,….” he glanced quickly at his not-smiling-at-all mother, “she,….uh, she’s………..all there.” With his eyes firmly fixed on his mother, he slouched back in his chair with a blank look on his face and said, “All there, Mom. That’s all I said, that she was all there.”

  Jeanette went from guffaw to almost hysterical laughter. The guys were only about two decibels under her. Wendy laughed because everybody else was laughing. That left Olivia and Arthur frozen as they stared at each other. Olivia was more than shocked that such a thing could come out of the mouth of her angelic son. She was about two seconds from telling him to go to his room when Jeanette stopped her.

  “Oh, don’t,…….don’t,” Jeanette gasped. She leaned over and hugged Arthur and gave him a kiss on the forehead. “Whatever you were thinking about, Olivia, don’t do it. I am so flattered by that compliment." She looked over at her husband and continued, “If his Uncle Phillip had been half as forward as Arthur was, we could have dated a lot longer and enjoyed ourselves instead of lending ourselves to heartache.”

  Phillip pulled himself together to admit, “As I have said before, Jeanette was the most beautiful girl in the crowd. And I WAS intimidated by her beauty. I never thought in my wildest imaginations that she would ever go for such an ordinary guy like me.”

  Jeanette looked straight at Arthur and confessed in front of everyone, “I really didn’t have any thoughts of dating Phillip. He was jumping from one girl to another and I did not want to get involved with any guy like that. I just didn’t want the hurt.”

  She gently held Arthur's cheek in her hand as her voice became quite serious. “But, I kept hearing parts of conversations with the girls he had dated. Every one of them said that he had been a gentleman, he didn’t say ugly things, he never put his hands where they shouldn’t be and he said sir and ma’am to their parents.”

  She looked over at Phillip and they exchanged smiles as she finished, “I guess you could say that I was first attracted to Phillip by what the girls said about him. Then, I would smile at him when we passed in the hall at school. That turned into finger waves. And, dropping a book out my arms right in front of him didn’t hurt either. Then…..” She pulled her arm from around Arthur and pretended she was reeling in a big fish while saying, “bzzzzzt, bzzzzzzzt, bzzzzzt, click click. I caught him.”

  As laughter filled the dining room, Olivia had a change of heart. There was no way that she could be mad at her little man. Jeanette had just taught him a very important lesson that would guide his thoughts and actions for the rest of his life. Indeed, God was busy building something in her son since her grandfather came home. She was not about to interrupt what He was doing.