Just then the front door of the store opened and Mr. Clay stepped out, yelling for us to stop. Now, I know that Mr. Clay knew his boys and he knew Scary Guy; probably even knew his real name. So it irked me that he was yelling at us both as though this was a mutual thing, when any fool would have been able to see I was no match for the older, bigger guy, and what I needed was rescue, not rebuke.
Therefore, while I have to admit that Mr. Clay coming out at that moment stopped Scary Guy from turning my face to oatmeal, I have to fault him for being a bit of a coward in not taking a stronger stand against the thug, and for that matter, his thug sons back at home.
Well, Scary Guy let go of my shirt and promised to see me later. I turned to head for home and he went back inside the store with Mr. Clay.
I continued up Main Street just to stay on the more public route in case Scary Guy decided to come running up behind me. I would get as far as the church then cut through the church’s side yard and across the parking lot and then across First Street into my house.
While still two blocks from the church I looked back over my shoulder just in time to see Scary Guy and his two sycophants heading up the side street toward First. He was either taking the quickest route to the Clay’s, or he was preparing to head me off before I could reach the safety of home. Based upon the urgency of his gait I was betting on the latter. I was correct.
As I cut across the church parking lot I looked to my left and there came the three of them, at a jog, and I wasn’t going to be able to avoid them. I wondered if my parents would happen to look out the front window in time to intervene in whatever was going to happen to me. I glanced toward the front of the house and saw that the curtains were closed across the living room window. Bad luck.
Scary Guy never slowed his jog. He caught up and got between me and my house, then executed a karate-type kick and caught me on my left side, midway between my armpit and my hip. I was thrown backward off my feet and landed hard on the pavement, dropping my bag of snacks and hearing the soft drink bottle smash. My breath was gone, not from the fall but from the kick. The pain was like fire in my rib cage and radiating around to my back. I sat up, struggling to get my feet under me and trying to get my lungs to work again. Then he kicked again and caught me on the other side only more toward my back.
One of his buddies said “Car”. Seeing Scary Guy back up a step and assuming a more relaxed stance, I followed his gaze down the street and saw a vehicle finishing a turn onto First from the side street.
Managing to pull myself to my feet I stooped slightly, swaying and holding my ribs with both arms and still trying to breathe properly. I didn’t know if I was capable of running, but if the car continued past us I would be in for more of a thrashing if I couldn’t get inside where I would be safe.
But the car didn’t go by us. It stopped and a young man got out. He was in civilian clothing, but he was wearing a revolver in a short holster on his belt. As he approached us he asked, not addressing anyone in particular, “What’s going on here?” With no response forthcoming from anyone, from Scary Guy because he didn’t want to answer and from me because I still couldn’t breathe, the man said, “I’m a Sheriff’s Deputy. My name is Officer Ramirez. Now I will ask once more. Is there a problem going on here?”
Now Scary Guy got all smiley and chummy and let out a small laugh. “Oh! No, Officer Ramirez. There’s no problem here. We were just having a little chat.”
Ramirez wasn’t stupid or blind. He looked my way and although I didn’t think he had come around the corner in time to see the kicking I was pretty sure he could tell that I wasn’t standing naturally. I was probably pretty red in the face also. To his credit, he didn’t take sides and exacerbate the situation by putting the thugs on the defensive, but he was going to make sure that whatever was going on didn’t continue.
I didn’t put two and two together at the time but thinking back on that day much later it occurred to me that he must have witnessed what happened in front of the grocery store and decided to keep tabs on everyone’s movements for a while. So my guess is that when he saw Scary Guy and his friends fast-walking off Main toward First he headed for his car and followed their direction of travel.
Anyway, Ramirez chewed us all out as though there was some mutually agreed-upon rumble going down there, and said if he had to come back he’d be taking the bunch of us to Stockton in a patrol car.
He asked if we understood, then he locked eyes with everyone in turn until he got nods in the affirmative. Then he got back in his car, but he didn’t drive off right away. Scary Guy shot me a look that said volumes, and he and his friends walked off in the direction of the Clay house. I glanced back at Ramirez as I headed for the parsonage and our eyes met. I hope he read the gratitude in mine because I was feeling a lot of that at the moment. As soon as I opened the front door I heard his engine come to life and he drove off down the street. That was the one and only time I ever saw Deputy Ramirez of the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department. For all I know he might have been a guardian angel taking human form. But spirit or flesh, he saved my bacon.
I stayed to myself most of the evening. When I came out for dinner my mother asked me if I was feeling ok because I looked a little pale. I grabbed at the opportunity to feign feeling sick and used it the next morning to stay in bed all day, which meant I missed the last Sunday at church and the pot luck. I also missed the opportunity to see the Lagorio sisters one more time. Mom told me later that even Yolanda was back in church and I kind of had mixed feelings about not seeing her. I guess it was mostly curiosity since my crush had been crushed months ago.
The truth was, I was in a lot of pain and I suspected that I had at least one cracked rib, so I just didn’t feel that badly about missing church.
I didn’t dare let my parents see me with my shirt off for the next couple of weeks because both sides of my body were going through some very artful color changes.
By the end of the following week I was moving around pretty good. My ribs were still sore and one spot was still giving me a pretty sharp pain, especially if I poked it, which I tried real hard to avoid doing. On Thursday I got up feeling a little cooped up and needing some fresh air. After breakfast I hopped on my bicycle and did some country riding. I wanted to go by the Mazurkiewicz ranch and circling around a few of the county roads I managed to take in the Lagorio residence also. I looked at the house through the orchard and gave a moment’s thought to going down the drive, but I just wasn’t feeling very sociable at the moment.
Besides, the day had turned pretty hot and I needed water and a sandwich and to get off that bicycle. So I went back to the house and spent the evening giving my ribs a break and gathering some strength.
CHAPTER 10
Friday, August 27th, I woke earlier than I had expected to, since I had laid awake much of the night thinking. That didn’t happen to me often. I usually drifted off shortly after climbing into bed and slept well. But that night I had stared long at the darkened ceiling of my room, thinking about the upcoming move. Everything in my room was packed and ready; just a change of clothes and my bed and bedding were left. So it wasn’t that I didn’t feel ready to go. It also wasn’t that I was anxious about the new place to which we were going and what I would find there. I just felt that there were so many open ends here in Trinidad. I was unfulfilled. Unfinished.
I had decided, since I had my personal belongings ready and my parents would be spending the day in those last minute frantic convulsions of fretting and packing and stacking that always accompanied the last day before the moving trip, that I would take one last bike ride to my beloved woods. I wanted to leave Trinidad behind, that was for certain. But I wanted to leave satisfied. I wanted to tie loose ends, if possible, and not regret having missed opportunities.
I was up before anyone else. After dressing I made my way through the maze of boxes organized and stacked around the living room, the odor of dust and cardboard chasing me through the house, and found a bowl and
spoon in the kitchen for some cereal.
As I rinsed the bowl I could hear someone stirring in my parent’s room. The kitchen clock told me it was almost seven thirty. I wondered for a moment who was up, then I realized that it had to be Mom because Dad was sleeping in Nancy’s old room most nights. Nancy’s door was still closed. I stared at it for a minute, wondering how going to a new town was going to work for them; how they expected it to fix anything. I supposed what they wanted most was a fresh start where no one knew them. I wasn’t aware of political ramifications back then, but when I thought about the whole nasty ‘affair’ affair in later years it occurred to me that the Methodist District Office didn’t need my dad in a new church as much as they needed him to be out of Trinidad. They believed his side of the story. If they didn’t they would have openly tossed him to the wolves. But although the New Testament provides instruction for dealing with situations in a Godly and loving way that preserves relationships and keeps churches healthy, it has long been the practice of organized religion to sweep unsavory situations under the proverbial rug and whenever possible, put those with the tainted reputation on the first bus out of town. Guilt and innocence have a much lower priority than appearances and, more importantly, incoming tithes and offerings.
As for myself, I just figured I’d mind my own business and get through my last two years of High School and get out of the house somehow. I didn’t have a plan, but there was a lot of talk about Viet Nam ramping up and I had a feeling I’d either be drafted or join some branch of the military and make my escape that way. After then it would be only Don and Darlene Everman, left alone to work out their own problems.
I heard Mom coming out of the bedroom down the hall so I slipped quietly out the back door, grabbed my bicycle and headed off down the street. Before going to the woods I wanted to ride around town for a while and save the trip to the river for when people were up and around.
There was a feeling of autumn in the air that early morning. It was still summer, of course, but there was a crisp coolness reddening my cheeks and making me shiver a little as I rode around familiar streets.
I considered that soon the leaves would be turning and falling, and then would come harvesting season for the walnuts. That was one thing I would miss since we were moving to the mountains in Northern California and too high an elevation for those trees. I liked the odor of the decomposing husks mixed with the damp earth of the orchard and the rotting fall leaves. I always enjoyed the passing of the summer heat and these visual and olfactory precursors to the winter holidays.
I can almost smell them even now, as I remember those days of my youth.
On that morning though, I wanted to see it all just one more time as it was.
As I peddled down Main Street, the still closed stores and the sparse traffic of the early day sort of made it feel as though it was mine just for that little while.
I watched my ghost self in the large store front windows, keeping pace with my real self as we passed the drug store and the hardware store and the grocery store where old Mr. Clay worked.
I went by the Post Office and Jake’s Auto Supply, behind which Steve Hines had been beaten almost to death, and the Salvation Army building and all the lesser shops and empty buildings, some of which I had never been in and had hardly noticed until now. I wanted some parts of Trinidad etched in my memory simply because I had lived there and had been through so much there.
I rode past the gas station where Jerry had punched my dad and even though I had not been there that day and was not a witness to the attack, I had a vision of it in my mind…well, I still do.
I left Main, riding one block east then turned north toward the High School. Once I was there I found I had no interest in seeing the campus again. I sailed by the Admin building and rounded a corner and went by the gym and then moved on.
Aimlessly now, I just coasted up one street and down another of the small town. On that morning I travelled some streets I had never even seen before. As small as Trinidad was, I was mildly surprised to realize there was so much about it I did not know. I smiled as I recognized one or two alleys as paths that I had taken once or twice in my attempts to avoid Ronny Clay and make it safely to home base.
As I thought about those times, all those chases, the times he had caught me and sent me home freshly bruised, frustrated, angry, feeling helpless, my mind went back to the hours I had laid awake last night dreaming with open eyes.
Turning eastward off First Street I headed toward my favorite out of town haunt. The woods. The river. It was time to see it once more before leaving it all behind forever. Of all the pretend adventures I had out there, this was going to be the adventure I would remember the best.
My route took me past the parsonage, where I knew by now my mom and dad were going back to work on the packing; probably getting down to the kitchen stuff and the bathroom stuff, probably without a word to one another as they wrapped our lives up in bundles and boxes.
As I continued on I looked to my left and was not surprised to see the older Clay brothers and Scary Guy, already out in that messed up junk yard in front of their house. They all had beer cans either in their hand or on the ground next to them. Typical, I thought; not even ten o’clock yet. Johnny and Billy were in lawn chairs and I think I caught a glimpse of Ronny on the front porch as I lifted both hands from the handlebars and flipped them all off with as big a smile as I could flash.
As though some gigantic, invisible puppet master had pulled all of their strings, in unison their mouths dropped open, all eyes went wide and round as sixteen inch pizzas, and they were instantly on their feet. Johnny’s beer can went flying in one direction and Billy’s beer-holding hand convulsed up and down with rage causing his beer to slosh out and splash down the front of Scary Guy’s shirt. But Scary Guy didn’t seem to even notice.
Recovering from the initial shock, they ran as one toward the Christmas Car. That’s when I turned my attention back to the direction in which I was headed, grabbed the handlebars with a death grip and pedaled for my life.
I could hear the Chevy’s tires squealing as they turned my way from the street in front of the house and the engine roared with acceleration. By the sound of it they fishtailed, then the tires got purchase on the asphalt and they were on their way. They were coming fast and as hard as I was pushing the bike I suddenly knew it wasn’t hard enough.
The pavement ended and then I was on dirt. I was only about fifty yards now from the trailhead that would lead to the swimming hole. If I could only get that far they wouldn’t be able to follow me in the car. After that all my hopes rested in their deciding to take a different route. Then disaster struck. I skidded sideways in my effort to slow enough to make the turn onto the foot path and the bike went out from under me.
I went down hard, dragging my left ankle over rocks and banging my head on the hard dirt. For just a moment everything went dark then all I saw was flashes of light. My head throbbed and my ankle was threatening to sue me but my physical pain was nothing compared to the horror of hearing the Chevy slide to a stop on the loose gravel just feet from where I lay, struggling to get out from under the bicycle and stand up. Fortunately, my head cleared quickly and I was able to regain my footing just as I glanced up and saw the rear door open and a tennis shoe hit the ground.
I turned without needing to see any more and ran for all I was worth toward the river. I had only taken a few steps when fingers dragged down the back of my jacket in a desperate effort to get a grip on me. The sensation only spurred me into greater speed as I hopped over a familiar root that snaked across the trail. My feet hit the ground again and I pushed off with renewed exertion. As I ran I heard voices calling out from back where the car had stopped and I realized they were calling the one chasing me to come back. The sound of footfalls behind me faded. I was afraid to even turn my head to look, but I was pretty sure I was no longer being chased. Then car doors slammed and the engine roared to life once more. The sound told me they were con
tinuing up the road that wound around and up the hill.
I splashed through a narrow spot in the river where several rocks rested just barely under the surface, allowing me to cross without wading deeply and without having to backtrack downstream. Once on the other side I dared to pause and look back, confirming that I was indeed no longer being pursued on foot. But that only meant I had not a moment to spare.
I ran through the trees, avoiding low-hanging branches and leaping where I knew there to be above ground roots in the underbrush. Had I not been this way so many times I could never have kept the pace. Nevertheless, by the time I broke out of the tree line into the open my breath was coming in ragged gasps and my legs were beginning to feel rubbery.
To make matters worse, the steepest climb was still ahead of me. The ground began a slow upward rise and I knew I was coming up on the final incline to the old watering stop. Navigating around a rock outcropping I was suddenly at the foot of the hill. Looking up I saw the trestle butting up and disappearing at the top of the rise. I stopped to catch my breath, but the distant muffled sound of the Chevy’s engine told me I didn’t have the luxury of breathing.
Using hands and feet I clawed my way up the loose shale, taking air in gasps with my mouth open wide, beginning to wish I was just about anywhere else but there.
Finally topping the hill and daring not to pause, I ran to the old iron ladder and climbed the water tank frame to the top. I was measuring the distance for my hop from the ladder to the tracks when the Christmas Car came sliding to a stop at the top of the cliff next to the tracks.
All four doors popped open and bodies bailed out of the car with cursing and shouts of ‘There he is!’ and ‘Get him!’ In single file they came running down the tracks as fast as the spacing between the ties allowed.
The Everman Journal Page 7
