Judas Tree – Novella One - 2. The Middle

Part 4: Like Adam and Eve

Sidewalks are so boring – always the same – same pavement, light poles, mailboxes and sewer grates. But, to venture off through the green grass – to set off like a great space explorer through the beckoning unknown – that enlivened a simple task, like walking home, to the status of adventure. It’s only about three or four small-town blocks from school to Willetta’s house – the house of the family that takes care of me before and after classroom hours – until my mom picks me up after work. I’d cross the open space behind Judas Tree’s public high school, which was a huge field, and plunge into the quiet streets of look-alike houses. When alone, I’d pick a likely house, and keeping my bearings, walk boldly along their property line into their backyard. From there I’d assess the best way to pass into an adjoining yard, mindful of fence and dog – which were few – and emerge one block closer to my destination. I didn’t do this every day. I did not do this for long, mainly because people observed me and called around in a game of grown-up tattletale to find out who I was, so I could be warned not to do that. A couple of houses I avoided because voices would call out from windows. From one such house, a crotchety old man yelled from his tiny bathroom window – but on the second trip around, on another day, this ‘old man’ turned out to be a pimply teenager who couldn’t help laughing loudly with a couple of his buddies – all cramped at that bathroom window to try and scare me.

But there was one exception to those who remained indoors. A kindly man with slow gait and white hair hailed me on my second or third trip over his property. By this time I was more cautious, because Willetta, my host mom, had taken me aside, and with intensity told me one of the neighbors called. I did not deny walking a different path, but she told me to stop. My “Why?” could not be answered – Willetta made only vague reference to ‘bad people’ – so I went about my very occasional forays with greater stealth, so she wouldn’t be burdened with the hearing of them. The lure of grass and trees was too strong. But then this white-haired man greeted me.

At first I thought he was angry. I quick-turned to walk back down his driveway to the sidewalk, but in a moment he was at my side.

“What’s your name?” he asked with grinning voice.

I stammered, “I’m sorry . . . sir. I’ll be . . . going—”

“Nonsense,” he said, and put a fatherly hand on my shoulder. “Come and sit a spell.” Turning me around, and walking me back along the side of his house, he added, “Now. What’s your name?”

“Simon.”

“Well. Nice to meet you, Simon. You can call me Allen, all right?”

I nodded. His warm smile put me at ease. I was making a friend.

As Allen passed a screened window, he turned and called into the house, “Mother, we’ve got a guest.”

By the time Allen and I arrived in his backyard – I was familiar with it: a concrete patio, a line of blue spruce along the back, no dog – his white-haired wife was coming out the back door. She was brushing down her frilly-edged apron and patting down her hair.

“This is Simon. He’s going to set a spell,” Allen told her.

“Oh, you boys want some lemonade?” She tossed the question expectantly between Allen and me.

“Yes. Good idea, Mother,” Allen said with eager smiles at me.

She disappeared and Allen went to the side of his patio and stooped down. “Help me with these,” he said over his shoulder.

I went up to him, and he put a folding aluminum chair with green mesh webbing in my hands. I opened it as he set up a little table and a chair for himself.

“Well, heaven’s sake – Sit down, take a load off.” He motioned the action to me with open palms.

I did sit, and we looked out on to the quiet afternoon of his grass and grown-up trees. I had favored Allen’s yard because I liked spruce. We have one at home, and in clumps, as in Allen’s yard, I could get myself into the dark recesses and feel safe and unseen; somehow feel primitive and connected. I’d feel that way until the sap or the sharp needles would prod me to be on my way.

A robin appeared and hopped across the lawn.

“You go to Saint Lazarus – Right?”

“Yes, how do you know?”

“Oh”—he deflected any serious air with his smile—“I asked around.”

Allen and I sat there a tranquil moment or two. The screen door opened and a tray with pitcher and two glasses led ‘Mother’s’ way.

“Here we go, boys.” And she set it down. Immediately, Allen poured me a juice glass of pale lemonade and put it into my grip. As I sipped my first sweet-tart mouthful, Mother put hands on hips and made an odd expression to Allen. He made some quick gesture, like a flick of his fingers at her.

“Well,” Mother called out. "I know you boys want to talk.” And she left us.

Allen sipped and rocked back on his seat. I copied him, feeling the warm spring afternoon overtake us, leading us to a peaceful state. In fact, I felt happy, like I was wanting for nothing.

“So . . . ” said Allen quietly. “You like pictures?”

“Pictures?” I shrugged. “Sure. What kind of pictures?”

“Well, you see”—he leaned over to my chair, and I instinctively leaned in to receive his confidence—“down in the basement, I’ve got quite a collection of pictures. If you want to see them.” Then he added reassuringly, “Mother never goes down there. She’ll leave us alone.” Looking around as if some super-secret thing was about to be passed to me, he said, “You like looking at naked men . . . and women . . . ?”

I said the first thing that came to mind. “You mean, like Adam and Eve?”

Some cloud passed over Allen’s face. It puzzled me a moment. It looked like he was waking from a bad dream, but in a second, it cleared and something like the old smile returned.

“Yes, Simon – like Adam and Eve – in the garden, all alone.” He leaned back and sipped his lemonade. With half-a-glance back to me, he casually asked, “So, you want to see them?” Then he gently warned, “You must tell no one.”

“No . . . ” I put my drink down. “I have to get to Willetta’s house. I’m already late. I don’t want her to find out I’ve been walking through yards again.”

I stood up.

Nonplussed, Allen stood too. “Yes. It’s best if you go back along the sidewalk – But, if you come back tomorrow, I can take you down into the basement.” Again he offered a confidence, and bent it directly into my ear, “And you can see naked boys and girls.”

Something of a thrill passed through my spine. A strong twitch of curiosity made me tell Allen, “Okay.”

Now Allen’s face was flooded with smiles. He put his arm around the back of my shoulders and walked me down his driveway. At the sidewalk, he turned me to face his serious eyes.

“You won’t tell anyone, right? This is just between us friends; it’s between you and me. Right?”

I nodded, but something had changed about Allen. His look of a friend now cast a dark shadow across his eyes. Maybe it was just the way the springtime sun was back over his white hair, but something looked different.

“See you tomorrow,” I said, and hoisted my bookbag over my shoulder. I walked down the sidewalk, and at the corner, turned back to see Allen still in front of his home. He waved at me. I waved back and went on to Willetta’s house.

The next twenty-four hours, every time I thought of Allen, the warm expression he had for me, the calm and stillness of the setting within his yard, and his niceness, I felt little prickles of something move along my spine. I kept imagining his basement. What would it be like, this place never seen by his wife, presumably, not by any woman, where just ‘us boys’ were allowed to go. Would this basement be full of shelves, each shelf stacked with photo albums, like the kind my mom kept? Would he sit me at a table, a bare bulb over the open book he set in front of me? Black and white snapshots – what would the naked people be doing? And over and over, I heard Allen’s near-whisper of a voice “ . . . naked boys and girls . . . . ”

To say I was curious would be an understatement, and all day, when I thought about the folding chair, the blue spruce, and the tart sting of the lemonade, that prickly sensation would rise and fall and seem to settle in the lowest part of my back – from there, it would move front to center, then back to the rear again – and as this tingle crept, I slowly grew nervous.

Leaving school that afternoon, I had every intention of going to Allen’s house. I could see the scene – sitting out, the clump fortress of spruce in the background, a robin arrives, we go to his basement, creaky steps, the table, a chair – the pictures – then what? That I could not see.

As I approached the street to turn towards his house, I stopped. A voice in the back of my head, an insistent voice, said ‘No.’ It was not right.

I ran all the rest of the way to Willetta’s house, and I never walked through any yards after that. I did keep my word to Allen though, and never told anyone.

˚˚˚˚˚

The charley horse impulse in my right calf had lessened. Now the encyclopedia letters become heavier with each passing moment. I sneer – Miss Hill won’t win. This punishment is meaningless – just like the action I am being punished for. Better not think about the weight of the books – but is it better to go on with my train of thought?

I never walked on Allen’s street again. The two years from now back to then might be two centuries, as distant as it feels. My strongest sight is of those cloudy eyes at our parting. My strongest thought about the event is some shade of shame. No one ever knew. Not Willetta, not my mom, not Monsignor Helfgott, who I might have told in Confession – but why? I hadn’t done anything wrong. I hadn’t done anything at all. But now, my chief wonder was at Allen’s collection of ‘naked boys and girls.’ Where did he get such pictures? It meant that other boys like me, and girls too, had been with him, or with others with a camera – it was too much to dwell on – other than to wonder how many kids had actually seen Allen’s basement.

I shift weight on my feet. I sigh loudly. I desperately want other things to think about. And then, the meeting in memory of photos and trees soothes me into thinking about the one person I feel is a true thick-and-thin friend to me. But he is gone.

Suddenly, for no reason, I am overcome with sadness. I think of Jake. I think of his wild brother, Jeremy, and how rotten it is that they moved away. Visiting them on their grandmother’s farm was the best thing in my life. Now each time we go there – my dad driving along the bluff roads, windows down, him enjoying the trees and hills and clouds as much as me – it will never mean the same thing again. The destination was changed, even though I was going to the same place. If Jake was not there, it was not the same.

Yet, all in all, I couldn’t help but crack up to think of when we first met, and of their grandmother’s beautiful dog – a red-haired gentleman of a hound with a special trick he had taught himself.

Part 5: The Smiling Setter

When my dad told me we were going to visit Flo, a good customer of his antique shop, I never expected to encounter all that I did. His ‘76 Ford pickup rattled an old wooden bridge that had warning signs about no more than two tons on it at a time, but on the other side, far from Judas Tree, through miles of bluff roads with craggy heights and soft green willows and hickory, was this ancient floodplain of the Mississippi, and black-earth farmland.

My dad said over the road rumble, “See the bluffs over there?” He gestured out my side window, to the west. About five miles off were the misty-blue hills I knew to be across the river in Missouri. ‘Those,” he said, “used to be the far bank of the river.” Grinning at me, he nevertheless gripped the wheel tighter as we jostled into and then out again of a gravel pothole. “The near bank”—he pointed behind us—“was right here! Come the end of the ice age, the river was five miles wide.”

“Whoa!” I said, and meant it.

We passed by a neat and tidy farmhouse set back a good quarter-mile from the road. Some shade trees grew along the back three sides, but the house stood aloof of them, and looked like an old wooden toy block, so perfectly formed was it; this farm belonged to the Durham family. Driving past their homestead, somehow, anticipation grew, and at the next driveway after the blockhouse, after the two-ton bridge, our light blue Ford turned. A long gravel drive curved past an old white farmhouse that was nearest the road, past a giant tree growing behind the house, and off to a barn on the right-hand side. As my dad slowly steered and listened to his tires crunching gravel, I looked across this barn. It was not the usual dairy or hay barn. The whole thing was covered in new buff-colored aluminum siding, and at ground level, modern windows looked out with lace curtains tucked behind.

As the truck stopped, a woman came out of the barn’s back door. She was thin and animated, and around her heels with loving looks up into her face was a gorgeous dog. My dad waved to the woman through the windshield, looking like John Wayne – reserved, not too eager – and we stepped out into the summer’s day.

“Ed!” the woman called out. My focus was on the dog, but I saw my dad hike his waistband, and the adults greeted each other.

The dog ran to my dad, lowered his ears and head and wagged invitingly. But, my dad ignored him. Then the dog saw me. Up he came, and his back rose to my mid-chest level. He sidled me, sticking his back flank against my tummy, and with lolling tongue, glanced back at me. Of course, I petted him and he liked it. I suppose he liked me as much as I liked him. This type of dog I had not seen before. He had long straight red hair fringing all down his sides and legs, a low and flat dome between his ears, and he had big brown Bambi eyes to look at me with.

“My little helper.” My dad slapped my shoulder and startled me.

“How do? I’m Flo.”

“Simon.” I shook her offered hand.

“And that”—she beamed—“is Rex.” Then to the dog she said, “Aren’t you, Rex? Such a good boy . . . ” Rex went into ecstatics and turned a wet nuzzle into my raised palms.

I looked into Flo’s eyes. She was in her early 60s, same as my dad, and there was only goodness and generosity in her heart. That I could tell in an instant.

“What kind of dog is that?” I asked her.

“Irish Setter,” she told me proudly.

In the near distance I heard a screen door slam, and the light sound of gravel being run upon.

Flo explained to my dad, “My daughter lives in the house with her husband.” Then she added to me, “And – they have two little boys, both around your age.” No sooner had she said this than the two boys in question came running up. Flo went on, mussing their hair for identification, “This is Jeremy; he’s eight. And this is Jake; he’s twelve. How old are you, son?”

“I’m ten.”

I eyed the boys. They eyed me back. They both had long brown hair – at least longer than my blond crewcut – and wore jeans and tee-shirts with some team logos on them. Jake’s was yellow, with black letters; Jeremy’s was a Cardinal’s shirt. I was a bit jealous because my mom never let me wear tee-shirts with anything written on them. She also never let me wear just a tee-shirt; always something over it – but – oh, well.

“Let’s give them a tour,” Flo said to her grandsons.

“Oh – Boring!” Jeremy said, throwing his arms full in the air and lolling his head around. “Not me . . . . ” He then ran off to play.

“I’ll go, Grandma.” Jake said, and Flo squeezed him by the shoulder into her tummy for a moment, lifting Jake on one foot for balance. As she released him, Jake passed an embarrassed smile to me and shoved his hands in his jean pockets. It’s nice, I thought to be well-loved, and I could tell the boys were loved well by Flo.

And off we went. First, we went around our truck to look at the land. Behind the white house was an immense tree of some weird willow-type. Forty-foot tall with dark heart-shaped leaves and great drooping pods, it was mysterious.

Then we went through the first level of the barn – garage, kitchen, and to the unused front door entering into the dining room and living room combination. This last room alone was about as big as the section of my school housing grades one through four. Back through the garage, Flo paused at the bottom of a flight of steps. “Now, we’ll go see the loft – and my collections.” She had intoned this with an air of wonder to my dad and me. Everyone went up ahead of me, except Jake, and when we got to the landing, it was dark. The adults had moved off a few steps somewhere, and I stood, sensing – with nothing relating to sight or smell or sound – that some-thing cavernous lay right in front of me. It seemed as if the vastness of a church cut off from its windows was but a step beyond, though there was nothing to give it away, except the incredible pressure perceived from a void – a holy feeling. Jake moved from behind me, coming to stand next to me after mounting the last step, and it seemed for a moment I could feel his pulse with mine; he was expecting something great to happen too. Though he should know what he might see, something else, like a connection, was charged in the air between us, and it thrilled me. Neither of us moved, and then a loud switch was thrown, and dazzling light flooded. My dad and Flo moved into the open space a bit, but I stood where I was – transfixed.

Above me, a ceiling of barn beams rose twenty-five feet, left exposed and contrasting sharply with acres of white plaster between. The whole loft was open below these arched interlinking hands with every outer wall lined in cabinets – old ones, new ones, many with glass shelves, and all of them lit. The contents glimmered – art glass of many hues and descriptions, racks of cut crystal, paste-white porcelain, fancy painted German table china, and so forth, and so on and on. The open space of the floor between the cabinets was artfully mazed with antique tables and desks, glass display cases, and here and there, floor lamps, birdcages and statues on pedestals. Each case, every desk and tabletop, was full to the brim with carefully sorted exquisits of every variety. This one room looked like a private museum of the best taste, or an amazing secret department store of antiques.

I must have been slack-jawed or something, because next thing I knew, Jake was knocking me with his elbow. He leaned his upper arm against my shoulder, and bent towards me. I looked into his grinning smile, and he closed in on my ear.

“I know,” he whispered in suppressed excitement. “I like it up here too.” The skin of his forearm brushed against mine with warmth.

Seeing his face like this, hearing his voice like that, it seemed I was looking in some kind of mirror; hearing my own voice speak to me. Not as I was, but what I was to be in a couple of years. I too felt a thrill, and I laughed a little. I couldn’t help it.

After the tour, we were back in Flo’s kitchen. Above the sink, a deep shelf below a window looked out on my dad’s truck. On it were green plastic pots bursting over with pointy cactus – aloe vera, Flo would later teach me, good for cuts – but right in the center of the shelf, glistening in the sunlight was a glass pitcher. It looked weird. New, not an antique, with a bulbous base circled with big acid-yellow sunflowers, and a brown liquid filling it.

Flo was at the refrigerator. There was a loud clack of ice in glasses. “You boys want Sun Tea?”

“Sure,” Jake called out with gusto. I didn’t know what she meant, but in a moment, she picked up the sunflower pitcher and filled an array of glasses on the table.

“Sit!” Flo told my dad, and he did with his typical half-grunt of relief. Flo put frigid and sweating glasses in the greedy hands of Jake and me. Flo sat down and poured a big glass for my dad, saying to her side, “After your tea, you boys should go out and play with your brother.”

I brought the glass to my lips, locking eyes on Jake, wondering what ‘Sun Tea’ was going to taste like. Jake chuckled a moment. I must have looked disappointed. It tasted like tea to me – oh, well – I drank it all. Soon, Jake put his glass down with a thump and motioned for me to follow him. Out the screen door we went, careful to keep Rex inside. Jake nodded and started jogging towards the farmhouse. I sprinted with him.

I could hear two small dogs yapping along with Jeremy’s voice as he played with a tall sick. We came up to the giant tree and saw him using the stick to whack at pods on the lower branches. They fell, and the two small dogs – who I hadn’t seen before – ran around with eyes skyward. One dog was all white, just a tip of tan on one ear, and the other was mottled in dark gray-brown.

“What’cha doing?” Jake called out.

“Collecting cigars,” his brother called back, whatever that was supposed to mean.

Jeremy dropped his stick and ran straight up to me. “Let’s play Star Wars!” And instantly, he held out his hands like he was gripping something. He sent one foot back to brace himself.

“Play, what?” I asked.

“Star Wars!” Jeremy shouted.

I looked at Jake, lost. Jake explained, “It’s a new movie out this summer – about space fighters.”

Now I was excited, and asked, “You mean, like Space: 1999? I love Space: 1999!”

“Better!” Jeremy now swung his arms and started making whooshing sounds with his mouth. “It’s about fighting with laser swords! Come on!” I mimicked his stance and soon I was making whooshing sounds too. Jeremy and I fought our way halfway around the white farmhouse, and then halfway around the barn, with the dogs and Jake in tow.

Later, the three of us were pooped and lay in the grass with hands behind our heads. We looked up at the clouds.

“That one,” I said pointing. “That’s a squirrel with a big fat walnut.” I turned my head to Jake next to me. “See?”

“Well – maybe . . . ” Jake cocked his head at the sky.

“That one,” Jeremy cried out, “looks like Big Bird."

“Where?” Jake and I said together.

“There!” Jeremy pointed with his full arm.

“My God – you’re right!” I exclaimed. When I glanced at Jake for confirmation, he was laughing, but I don’t know at what.

After a quiet pause, Jeremy asked me in all seriousness, “You ever stop a fan blade with your fingers?”

“No,” I said. “That’s dangerous.” I pictured my dad’s old Emerson oscillating fan with the brass blades. That thing goes a million miles an hour.

“Dangerous . . . ? Wanna bet?” Jeremy propped up on one elbow.

I knit my brows. “Bet, what?”

“Bet a quarter that I can stop a moving fan blade with my fingers.”

With deflecting laughter, I tried to say, “I don’t think you should—”

Jake interrupted. “We know how,” the older brother chimed in with reassurance. “Don’t worry, Simon.”

“Come on!” Jeremy stood. “I’ll show you!”

In a moment, we were up and jogging to the farmhouse. The back part, closest to the tree, was a large screened-in-porch. We went in. A big modern box fan with plastic blades and covers was sitting on a table. Jeremy went over to it and popped off the closely spaced grill.

Jeremy said proudly, “Now, watch this.” Jake and I gathered next to him. Jeremy turned on the fan, and air rushed into our faces and pushed our shirts against our tummies and chests.

Jeremy raised his eyebrows a moment, and then made a determined grin. He slowly brought his right hand, with extended fingers, towards the whirling blades. I thought that when they were spinning, the blades looked like one big meat grinder. He paused, then drove his fingers in. For a moment, the fan motor protested with a muffled whine, and the blades slapped Jeremy’s fingers over and over. But the instant after that, the blades were still, with Jeremy’s fingers pressing on one of the blade section near the hub.

“See!” He beamed and pulled his hand away. We were again pelted with air.

I turned to Jake, my words cut up by the fan. “Your brother’s crazy!” And I made my point with a loco motion around my temple.

Without a word, Jake stepped past me, and Jeremy stood aside. The older brother did the same maneuver, and then smiled warmly at me. As he let go, his chopped words came up to dare me. “Now, you try.”

Laughing, I tried to stall. “I . . . ” I knew my dad would kill me if he found out.

Over the whir of the motor, Jake told me frankly, “If you want to hang out with us, you have to do what we do.”

“Yeah!” Jeremy chimed.

But then Jake reached out and put his grip around my wrist. He was firm, but used just enough pressure to compel me to his side. When there, he said into my ear, “Just try. I know you can do it.”

I nodded.

“Put your fingers out stiff.” Jake lifted my hand, show-ing me. “Only approach from this angle.” He used my fingers to point in the direction the blades were moving.

I straightened my spine. Jake and Jeremy moved to the front and were pressed by the wind. I bit my lip and dove in.

The sting of the blades slapping my fingers was momentarily numbing, but I pressed down and the blade came under my control.

I looked at the brothers with jubilant disbelief. They lit up, and Jake quickly came over to switch the fan off. He crooned in my ear, “Now, you are one of us.” As he pulled away, again, I couldn’t help but laugh at that odd mirror-effect that made me feel important, that made me feel connected.

“Yeah!” Jeremy sang out. “We’re crazy!”

While I was thinking this, there was a commotion at our feet. The mottled dog was sniffing the hind section of the white dog, and the white dog was protesting.

Suddenly Jeremy started to singsong, “Gay dog; gay dog! Max’s a gay dog!”

Now Max was trying to mount the other dog, and there was a toothy rebuff. Jeremy continued to sing, “Toby doesn’t want him, but Max is in Love – Love – Love!”

I looked at Jake amazed. “A boy dog can love a boy dog? Really . . . ?”

Jake, a bit weird, said, “That one does.” And then he added, “Let’s go back outside.”

So we ran, and the dogs followed after us in frolic.

Jeremy picked up his stick and beat at the strange tree again.

“What kind of tree is that?” I asked Jake quietly.

“Flo says it’s from Australia – a cigar tree – because they used to smoke the long pods.”

“Really?” I said in disbelief. “Smoke them?”

“Yeah, smoke them like cigars. She says down there it’s called a ‘F*g Tree.’”

“A f*g tree?” I said, thinking will the wonders of this day never end. “Why?”

Jake looked weird again; kinda sad. He glanced up into the branches, and I could sense a lie in his “I don’t know.”

I have to say, at that moment, looking at his profile tilted upwards and lost in his own thoughts, I have no idea why, but I knew I liked Jake. His brother was fun, wild; but in this kid two years my senior, I had met someone different from any of the boys in my class, perhaps more different than any boy I knew in school. Jake and I were alike. Liking him was like liking myself – the Big I put to peaceful rest.

As I was still thinking about him, Jake turned to look at the road. I did too. A tan boat of a Crown Victoria – same as Willetta’s car – turned into the driveway.

“Jeremy!” Jake was now all business. “They’re back!”

Jeremy dropped his stick and smoothed his shirt into his waistband.

The car pulled up to the screened-in porch and parked. A man got out and went around the front of the car, apparently not noticing us. He opened the passenger door and helped a woman out. The man had a short and shaggy beard with mustache the same color as the brothers’ hair.

“Our folks,” Jake said to me. There was something tense about the boys’ father.

Together, their folks walked up to us.

“Who’s this?” he asked Jake. There was no warmth in the question.

“Flo’s friend. His name is Simon.”

The man glanced at my dad’s truck, then at and over me. “Don’t call your grandmother ‘Flo.’ How old are you, son?” He meant me.

“Ten,” I said.

“Your school?”

“Saint Lazarus.”

“Oh . . . ” He pursed his lips, drawing his face hair together for a moment to completely hide his mouth. He turned to his wife. “Catholic.” She glanced at the ground. He pulled at his wife’s elbow and walked to the house. “Not too much longer, boys – Jeremy; Jake.” And before he went in, I saw Jake lower his eyes with one final, sharp, glance from his father. The dogs ran in with the older folks, and the screen door slammed behind them.

I couldn’t help but swallow hard – it was like forcing something bitter into my gut, because it looked like Jake was afraid of this man.

“Simon . . . ?” I heard my father’s voice. “Time to go.” I could see Flo, Rex and him standing by the truck.

I screwed up my nerve, and said quietly to Jake, “I want to come back here. Do you think I can?”

Now Jake’s half-smile came back. “Sure you can.”

Flo had one more treat for us. Standing by the truck door, Flo said, “Do you want to see Rex happy?” She had asked this of me, so I nodded. “You ever see,” she went on teasingly, “a dog smile?”

“No.” And I hadn’t.

“Sit, Rex.”

He did.

She bent closer to his face and crooned, “Are you a happy boy? A happy fellow? Smile, Rex. Smile!” And the dog, with some head bows, suddenly parted lips, top and bottom, to show his pearlies, while all the time his tail was sweeping the gravel.

“We didn’t teach him this. I suppose he just saw all the smiling folks around him and figured it was the way to show happiness.”

One more wonder I thought as we rattled back over the two-ton bridge, as we drove along the base of the bluffs with willows and hickories, and with the rose-tinted twilight jostling to the west behind us flooding my face through the truck’s side mirror. I couldn’t help but smile. I was a happy boy indeed.

˚˚˚˚˚

Miss Hill comes into the classroom. She’d long finished lunch, and watched the class at play for most of the break. She glances at me harshly, then sits at her desk to rattle papers. At them, she asks me:

“Learning your lesson?”

“Yes, Miss Hill.” I was fooling no one. As I move my glance off of her, I follow the length of the shelf. First past the globe – two-hundred and six countries – because I once asked Miss Hill how many nations were on Earth, and she told me to count, and she would tell me if I got the right answer. I figured later, she had no idea herself. Then, my glance followed the same path to the statue of Mary. ‘Still downcast?’ I considered. ‘What do You, Queen of Heaven, have to be worried about anyway?’

A quick glance up to the clock showed a pained, slow, red secondhand twitching; I still had six more minutes. And now, I wondered how last summer, so dazzling, so hopeful, turned out like this.

(to be continued...)