RIFFRAFF

Cory Zimmerman

Shirtless and shoeless, I sprinted down a deer trail as spring-loaded grasshoppers lurched out of the way. Jackrabbits scurried, sparrowhawks darted, blue jays fluttered, the rare cardinal perched on a sole American Elm, and a red-tailed hawk glided effortlessly about the prevailing winds. Big Blue didn’t grow much in my field; rather, milkweed, purple coneflower, and a gentler, kindlier pony grass, topped with fluffy plumes of silver-green flowers that parted like soft clouds in my wake as I shed my knickers. I tossed them on a branch at the tree line, and plunged into a hickory forest carpeted with ivy, spooking a family of white-tailed deer fleeing in leaps and bounds, the buck thrashing about with fury. Upon arching limbs, ornery squirrels snickered—getting a kick out of dropping nuts on my wandering noggin.

I’m thirsty for blood, and I trampled down the ravine in a wild holler about a great expedition amongst an invisible war party. Below, Big Creek meandered slowly in the valley bottom—weaving through White and Red Oak. And I slide down an eroded embankment into its waters muddied with rich soil. Sloshing upstream in hopes of facing the enemy head-on, I vowed never to return without victory, to seize the prize or die, knowing if I was courageous, I’d be allowed to wear feathers and paint like the braves in Grandpa’s books. So, I carried forth—giving it my all— trudging through sticks and muck, climbing over a beaver dam, and splashing neck-high into a deep murky pool, where dragonflies buzzed, water bugs scurried, and a water snake slithered off in surprise.

Encountering the enemy, I took my life into my own hands, rushing upon the Osage as blood and guts spilled out into the waters. As invisible arrows pierced bellies. And my tomahawk—a short rotten stick snapping in two with my swing—cracked two skulls in one fell swoop. It was an epic battle but a be-all to end-all; I grabbed a slain warrior by the hair, let out a yelp, and took his scalp with an ethereal blade. I was eager to return in triumph to my father—having put an end to this war, piece a’ cake, I thought, as I embarked upon the return to my village, drums carrying on through the leaves, bumbling about as young boys do—lost in the very real figment of my imagination—as I mindlessly swatted at the nettle stinging my calves. Oblivious to the thorns in my heels, my mind’s eye envisioned dancing about a blazing fire—prized scalps, spirits, held high, as the villagers foresee word of victory. On top of the world, I knew an honorable feast awaited me—PB&J with a tall glass of lemonade!

Walking into my yard, I heard shouting and plopped down on the exposed root of a large Bur Oak. I tossed my ball into the air, but let it hit the ground beside me, as my belly turned. My father was angry again. It had been that way since the robbery. We were living on eggshells, and I seized up, the ball, again, hitting the ground as he stomped down the back steps, letting the screen door slap shut behind him. He walked over to me and messed my hair, “Goin’ for a cigar,” he said and went to the garage. He started the Fleetwood, ground the gears, backed out of the driveway, and sped up Elm recklessly. The air was relieved; the birds returned, and I could breathe again—but I let the ball lay and peeked in the back door. My mother peered silently out of the kitchen window with a hollow gaze. With the creak of the hinges, she snapped out of it and gathered herself—straightening a towel on the sink’s edge. With a sudden hum, she dried her eyes on her apron, sniffed, and only then turned toward me.

“Would you like a sandwich, dear?” she asked.

“Can I get a pop?” I asked.

“Sure, dear, there is a nickel in my purse,” removing her apron. “I think I will plant some lilies today.”

I saw my father’s Fleetwood outside the beerhouse, as I rounded the corner for Gustine's, my favorite place on earth—a delight of colors and smells, and shapes, quantity and size of candy, sweets, lollies, confection, sugar!Chocolate, chewing gum, glazed, coated everything and anything candied a thirteen-year-old boy could dream of. Candy is different than cake or pie, you can eat them with your hands, and unlike cake and pie, which you have to share and wait until after dinner, a piece of candy was all mine, I didn't have to share with no one. But I break my Hershey's bar in half anyway and hand a piece to Clarence. He’d hollered at me when I was leaving, he was coming across the park, and he almost got hit by the trolley, the Bennet Ice wagon, a horse, and a honking Ford that had to swerve around him, nearly flattening him like a toad.

Clarence: Now, everyone thought Clarence ain’t quite white—a bumpkin, dirty, rural, ignorant, a spawn of incestuous-ness and such and so on. And word has it, his mother is his father’s sister. Anyhow, I wouldn’t doubt it, judging by the ears.

“Hey, Oscar! Wanna kick bottles?” he had yelled, hole in his toe. “Lost a tooth,” he says, making it across the street alive. “Look!” sticking his tongue through the hole as we walked into the alley, bottle clanking across the gravel. “That dang magpie stole my tinfoil ball, again, so I rolled up my sleeves and climbed that old dead hickory in the backyard for her nest. ‘Clarence Junior,’ hollered Ma, ‘get down here ‘fore ya fall on yer head and end up like yer pa!’ ‘What...?’ hollered Pa—”

Now, with all the confusion and hollering back and forth, there wasn’t anything unluckier for Clarence than being named after his pa, but his stories are epic.

“Not you, ya dang idiot,” hollered Ma, “I’m talkin’ to yer godforsaken son!”

Clarence Sr.: Unemployed by trade, side-hustle collecting pots of piss. The’d sell the piss to Mr. Tucket, who owned a tannery on the edge of town. Every Sunday, he dragged Clarence Jr. along, and while the townsfolk were at church, the’d make their way around town, gathering pots from folks’ front porches.

Mr. Tucket: A kind old man that gave Thomas an extra Indianhead for piece of candy, “Why here ya go, feller,” messing his red hair like a shaggy mutt. Mr. Tucket used the piss to remove the hair and fat from hides before turning them to leather. And for every bucket of piss, Mr. Tucket paid two pennies. According to my calculations, the math went as such: just enough for pork and beans.

“Anyhow, sure as heck, I lost my footin’ with all that dang hollerin’ and snagged my dang tooth on a dang branch on the way down—knocked the dang wind clean out of me. And

Yeller—”

Yeller: an old sun-bleached lab that spends his days chained to the old dead hickory.

“Yeller slobbered up my dang face. And Ma—”

Ma: Raggedy dress and greasy apron, handkerchief on her head, permanent scowl, one dirty-faced twin on each nipple.

Ma hollered, “What the hell ya doin’ down there in the dirt?” Tongue plunged into the newfound gap in his teeth. “Did ya lose your dang tooth?”

“Yep,” he tells her.

“Clarence, yer idiot son lost his dang tooth!”

“What?” Pa hollered.

Pa: Silver beard down to his chest and a sandwich short of a picnic.

“Pa—”

Pa: high on a branch in his overalls; shirtless; long hairs coming out of his ears, nose, and armpits; searching for Clarence’s lost tooth.

Pa hollered, “Yep, sucker sure is lodged in there, root an’ all.” And Granny—

Granny: Short and squat, with her balled-up fists on her wide hips, spoke straight as an arrow.

“‘I can see yer dick, idiot!” seeing Pa had that hole in his crotch he refuses to let Ma patch up. And with all the dang hollerin’, the neighbors poked their necks out their windows like turkeys taking in the top-drawer spectacle: the whole lot, born to purple—the great unwashed— even on the wrong side of the tracks.

Later, Granny stirred ham and beans on the stove with her knotted up old hands; her tiny, round, wire-rim glasses fogged up; underbite; shriveled lips. Clarence Sr. sat on the saggy front porch in his best and tucker and, with a whistle, rattled the dags of two ladies strolling by in their best—weeds grown about the lawn.

Clarence Sr.: a window peeper. Ms. Phillips once chased him down the road with an ax. He had claimed he was doin’ a good deed fixin’ up her crooked shutter. Clarence Sr.: his words are like a fart in the wind. Hell, he spent two nights in the town jail for public indecency.

Up in the loft Clarence pulled a mummified possum out the trunk and was wondering if he could pickle Yeller when she goes to dog heaven, just when Ma—”

Ma: chewin’ on a pickle, a filthy-faced twin on each nipple.

When Ma hollered, “Clarence Jr., get down here ‘fore ya fall on yer head and end up like yer pa!”

“What?” hollered Pa.

“Not you—you dang idiot!’ she hollared.

That was they jest of it.

Clarence Junior was my only friend.

“Wanna Tootsie Roll?” he said. “Stuck my hand right in the jar earlier when Mr. Gustine wasn’t lookin’.”

“Thanks,” I said, chewing away. “Wanna half of my Hershey's bar?” I asked.

“What? Your gotta Hershey’s bar?”

I watched him gnaw on it with one tooth, bragging, “I got to shoot a gun the other day! Out at the dump with my father and the mayor,” my finger in my ear, trying to wiggle out the last of the tring-ing.

“Ahh—I love the dump!” said Clarence, green with envy, as I suddenly see Susan walk by on Main.

“I gotta go,” I said, running off, making the excuse, “Sorry, my father will have my hide if I ain’t home for supper!”

“Hey, I wanna shoot a gun!”

Following Susan—Sweet Susie—My heart drug me by the toe. Passing the bank, it didn’t take long for her to take privy and look back over her shoulder. I stopped cold in my tracks and kicked a pebble. And with a ring of the bell, the trolley stopped, and I pretend to look in my pocket for a penny. She continued on foot, and I followed. Well-off the square, she paused at the corner of Maple and turned squarely around to face me. I paniced and stepped behind a large oak on Ms. Clancy’s front lawn, back to the bark.

Now, everyone knows not to step foot in Ms. Clancy’s yard. “The Hound,” they call her, as she has a hawk-eye for wayward kids.

“I can see you,” she said, and I take a hard swallow. “I know you’re following me,”

And in no time, Ms. Clancy lived up to her name, and came rushing off the porch—hammer and trogs—the best her old arthritic knees could wobble, broom in hand, “Get off my lawn, you little scoundrel!” Poodle cowering behind.

Wanting nothing more than to run up the tree like a squirrel, I swallowed a toad, dropped my head, and walked out from behind the tree—tail between my legs. “Don’t mind her—she’s just a lonely old lady,” said Susie.

I turned back to see Ms. Clancy grumbling as she struggled her way back up her steps with great difficulty, asking the poodle just what kind of dog he thinks he is.

“I ain’t followin’ you,” I said, “I was goin’ this way anyhow. I was gonna rdie they trolly but I didn’t have a penny,”

“Well, ‘spose if you are going this way anyhow—how about walkin’ me home? What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?” she asks.

I said nothin’, as the cat, indeed, had gotten my tongue. And looking into her eyes, they sucked me right in like a whirlpool, and I feared I might drown in the oblivion. “Sure,” I managed to say.

At Rail Road Street, I paused—I’d never crossed Rail Road Street in my life—the boundary that separated us & them, my father said—he’ll have my hide, I worried. She looked up at me, wondering why I’ve paused mid-stride, and I made a sheep’s eye back at her. And suddenly, possessing more courage than I knew I had, I put one boot before the other, taking that first step across the threshold, Rail Road Street, the tracks, and a block on, we crossed Oak. Hustling after her—hell, we skipped across Hickory. But I soon tenses as I could’t help but notice the houses growing smaller and duller each block further south—from two stories to one, from five, six, seven rooms to three, four, two, crooked, dilapidated one-room shacks, about heaps of trash, stray cats licking tuna cans.

“Come on,” she said, “what are you waiting for?

On Brush we go left, cross First Avenue, Second Avenue, and Third until we approach the last house on the left, just before the train yard, on the corner of Brush and Fourth. I can see P&O down the way. We stood before what I assumed was her humble home. The front door— with but one jarred window on either side—situating itself, the two-room shanty making a sad face, and I, backed away a bit. Walking up the dirt path, past a dead, leafless tree, she turned back to thank me. For what? I wondered, havin’ sewed my wild oats. Blushed, I waved, and scurried off, but suddenly felt overwhelmed with a sense of where the hell am I? And the mangy felines now appeared larger, eyes greener and meaner. The scent of trash was suddenly so pungent; hell, I’ll never eat tuna again! I told myself. Anxiously, I counted the number of rooms as they grew in number but didn’t take my first fresh breath until I crossed the tracks before my father, indeed, had my hide.

At home, a dinner plate heaped with turkey breast, mashed potatoes, and corn, smothered in gravy, awaited me alone on they table. My stomach rumbled as I spied far enough into the kitchen to see that my mother had forgotten the green beans again, but with the crinkle of a newspaper, I lost my appetite, as when I turned toward they study, I could tell by the glare over the top of his wirerim glasses as he uncrossed his legs and stood and walked past me with an empty tumbler in hand, his mood was sour. His silence turned my bowels. Ice clanked into the crystal, shattering the stiff silence. Where is my mother? I wondered as I took the opportunity to run upstairs while I could get away. In my room, I walked to the window, and looked out above the maples and oaks for the low part of town. “Susie, can you hear me? Susie, are you there?” And I heard the back door slap, and my mother’s soothing voice said something about the looming fall, and my father hollered, “Oscar, get down here!”

Saturday morning. My mother removed her modern beige Chanel drop-waist dress she’d purchased from Mrs. Willard Milleny’s Dress Shop and called on me to assist her as she stood in her knickers, digging through a drawer for aproper day-chemise. She asked me to help her lace her digestive organs into a suffocating s-curve corset. She then put on an outdated afternoon dress— taking the gilt off the gingerbread, so to speak. The simple pastel affair rightly suited the Women’s Club Meeting that gathered every Saturday morning for tea and liberal discussion.

The Woman’s Club: An association of like-minded neighbors, white, Protestant women of comfortable means, with husbands in positions of local prominence, intending to push referendum, initiate scholarships for girls, improve street lighting, protect the environment, and hold free milk clinics for impoverished mothers—but at the time, it seemed to me, little more than a book club, where they all sit around and gossip over tea.

“I left you ten cents on the table,” she said; Charley Dickens held snug against her compressed breast—opting out of the act of breathing, as the rest of mere mortals are so inclined.

I peddled for the square on my gent cycle, and, low and behold, I spotted Susie looking in the window of Mrs. Willard Milleny’s Dress Shop. I was happy as Larry to catch her eye just as I smacked into Henry’s Ford parked in front of Gambles and flew over the hood. I came out of a daze to see Henry staring down at me with wide, concerned eyes, and immediately I checked my front teeth with my tongue—thank God they were all there. “You alive there, son?” he asked, hands on his hips, leaning slightly toward me as though inspecting a toad squashed in the road. And the dangdestthought poped into my mind: that flattened squirrel I once saw walking home from school, flat as a sheet of Bible paper I tell ya, puffy tail, fluttering in the breeze—darndest thing I ever saw.

Susie ran over, and I scurried back into my right mind and scampered to my feet as she asked, “Oh my, Oscar, are you hurt?”

Embarrassed, I dusted off my knickers, saying, “Nope, I’m finer than frog hair!” trying to somehow act as though nothing happened, as though it was a stunt—look. I’m in one piece, two teeth, I show with a dance about, shine in my tooth—two teeth—in her direction. Not recognizing my own self, as I don’t know how to jig, I think of poor Clarence—riffraff as I try to shake off my father’s voice, his tongue plunged through they gap in his teeth. “Wanna get a pop?” I ask. “My mother gave me a nickel.”

“Yes,” she says, oh, her heavenly eyes!

Henry crinkled his forehead, auction forum under arm in disbelief, as he retreated a step backward from his curious inspection, hand to his brow, blocking the midday sun—thought on his mind: quite the peculiar edit to his otherwise typical Saturday.

“Wanna get a pop?” I ask again, looking around for my nickel.

“I said yes, silly,” she said, and I shrug, showing off my shiny Indian head. “Your’re weird, you know that?” she says.

The soda jerk slides two Cherry Smashers with two long-handled spoons down the counter, while drooling over endless jars of candy in every shape, color, and flavor imaginable, I ask, “Ever had a Bosco Bar?”

“Nope,” she says with a shrug and a slouch.

“Licorice Twists?”

“Yep.”

“Mothballs?”

“Yuck!” She crunches her face in disgust.

“Candy Cigarettes?”

“Nope.”

“Sea Foam?”

“Gross!”

“Boston Baked Beans?”

She snarls her nose again.

“Cherry Bombs?”

“Nope.”

“Turkish Taffy?”

“Yep.”

“Hot Bullets?”

“Nope.”

“Contraband?” “What’s that?”

“Flicks?”

“Yep.”

“Wax Lips?”

“Nope.”

“Why do you know so much about candy?” she asks.

“I don’t know,” I say, “I suppose because my father used to bring me here before the—”

“Before what?”

“Nothing,” I say.

Dillydallying about Jones Park, my fingers crossed we didn’t run into Jimmy as two wayward townies walked our way. Bills curled up, ball tossed back and forth, one with big ears, dirt around his mouth, as noisy as a cookstove falling down a flight of stairs. The other, overalls, straps held up with stubby thumbs, showed off his collection of cuss words, “Flapdoodle, gibface, arfarfan’arf, zounderkite, hedge-creeper, mutton shunter, wagtail,” and so on and so forth, tongue drug in the dirt. “Move it, peckerwood,” he said, as Susie grabbed my hand.

Walking down Chestnut, we past a funeral home housed in a large Victorian mansion.

“Built by a friend of Abraham Lincoln’s,” so said my father, I said. I looked up at a second-story window cloaked in a white lace curtain, and I pointed up, saying, “I once saw an old lady looking out at me. I think she was a ghost.”

“S’not true,” she said.

“I swear, it is!”

“Were you scared?” She asked with doe eyes—oh, her eyes!

“Not really,” I said. “I waved at her.”

“Did she wave back?”

“No, just stared at me, and guess what!”

“What?”

“I think she was naked!”

“No way, yuck!”

We laughed.

“Wanna see something weird?” I asked.

“Sure,” she said, shrugging, her cotton dress falling off one shoulder, and I tried not to stare.

Amidst the gently bowing branches of Greenwood Cemetery, rows of freshly chiseled monuments stood amongst century-old tombstones, crumbling and decaying with time, smoothed over by the wind and rain, marble angels that had been left behind by souls who had passed on, praying solemnly. As engraved in stone, final thoughts and words and epitaphs read:

A good life hath but few days,

But a good name endureth forever—

A fine and faithful wife.

And:

A kind friend to all—

Bury him deep on the meadow,

Drop on his grave a tear,

And sigh as you read the inscription,

A soldier and a friend is buried here.

“Over here,” I said, just past the Civil War plot, where I dropped to my knees and clear the overgrown grass from a small, flat marble slab.

“What’s it say?” she asked.

Running my fingers over the inscription, I read:

“Limb of unknown child”

She quickly stood and stepped back, and her eyes became sad, and she said, “I don’t like it here.”

“I don’t either,” I agreed, and grabbed her by the hand.

Swinging side by side in Big Creek Park, amongst rolling hills and broad oak trees, Josefine kicks her feet, swinging higher than me in her glowing cotton dress—she is radiant. She is light.

In the woods, about the valley bottom, below enormous branches jutting, outstretching like the arms of a goliath, our eyes widened at the girth of the colossal oak. I held out my arms and circle around its broad trunk, feeling the rough bark beneath my palms, exclaiming it to be the oldest tree in the woods.

“How do you know?” she asked.

“Because—it’s the biggest tree in the woods,” I said, as a breeze softly caressed its leaved, and her long hair on her shoulder, as I peeked from around the backside of the tree.

“I’ve seen bigger,” she said.

Dangling our bare feet above the muddy waters of the meandering creek, we tossed little pebbles and watched shadowed minnow dart below. I tried to grasp her muddied toes with my own, and she giggled, toes curled, bright red wax lips—I’d bought her—in her mouth.

“What do you wanna be when you grow up?” I asked.

Spitting out the lips into her hand, she said, “I don’t know—no one ever asked me that before.”

“Why do I never see you at school?” I asked.

“I couldn’t read very well, so the teacher told my Daddy the best thing I can do to be a good American is be a good homemaker,” she said, “so they sent me home.” And I thought of my mother, and how she used to work in a law firm back in Chicago, and how she now burned eggs for a living, and I wondered if that made her a good American, just as a Brown Thrasher flew up and landed in the shrubbery across the creek— singing out the most exuberant song. Susie whistled back, doing her darndest to mimic its tune. Miraculously, it responded before fluttering away.

“Wow,” I said, sitting forward, “it talked to you! Where’d ya learn to whistle like that?”

She smirked and shrugged her shoulders, saying, “Don’t know,” kicking her heels together in nervous excitement. And I reached into my pocket and pulled out a pack of Wrigley’s Double Mint gum.

“Want a piece?” I asked.

“Sure,” she said, taking a stick from my hand, unwrapping it, and folding it in on your soft, glistening tongue, and I tried not to stare, and away we chewed, smacking our chops together.

With a sudden thrash through the ivy, I leapt off the ravine and splashed like a cannonball into the creek below. A fish jumped, and she screamed out, and I laughed hysterically, and she scolded me. But I could hardly catch my breath, and I loved her, and I splashed her and wet her cotton dress. “Hocky!” she shouted, with a real live frown.

“Don’t be a cry baby,” I said, and she crossed her arms, scowling, and I used a root to climb the ravine, and sat beside her and used the outside of my forefinger to wipe mud from her cheek—her flesh, so soft! She looked back at me. And I casted my eyes into her gaze as the sun pierced the branches above in brilliant shafts, sparkling off the ripples in her eye. A monarch butterfly fluttering about, when SMACK—

I was hit with a stank wad of black mud right in the face.

“PUKE!” said Clarence out of nowhere, “You love birds make me sick!” and we screamed, and the birds fled from their perches. “You guys wanna see a dead body?” he asked.

Susie’s lip quivered, and face paled, and she felt she might faint. Her jaw gaping wide as she squeezed my hand on the bank down by the beaver pool as Clarence climbed onto the dam with a stick to where, indeed, a swollen purple mass had jarred into a log. He took a few careful steps toward it and reached out a nimble branch, and Susie, covered her mouth with a gasp, as Clarence pushed down on the shoulder of the body, and it bobbed and resisted. And she squealed louder, and danced in place, and rearranged the bones in my hand, and then grabbed onto my arm with all her strength, as Clarence pushed with more force, saying, “Dang,” until the swollen purple mass spun around, and its dark, empty sockets stared up at the sky. My eyes widened and I thought I might faint, as Clarence said, “Something ate he’s eyes,” just as he slipped on the dam and fell into the pool with a scream right next to the swollen mass of bloated flesh. Susie ran as Clarence came sloshing out of the water, scrambling up the muddy embankment—chest heaving, gasping for air. And a chill ran down my spine as a sudden wild wind scattered the branches above, and it took me a minute too long to realize Susie had fled.

“Susie,” I shouted, “wait!” but it was too late, she was gone, vanished from sight into the brush, leaving me all alone with the waterlogged corpse, rotten bullet hole just between its eyes, looking shocked to be dead, just as I did, to be alive, as Clarence said, “Dang.”

The floorboards squeaked, and I freezed as a gust blew open the door behind me. And I took one slow step back. Damn, it didn’t latch.

“Where have you been?” he asked, and I jumped in my shoes as he appeared out of nowhere, tumbler in hand.

“For a walk,” I said.

“In the rain...?” he asked.

My mother from the kitchen, “Oh my, you’re soaking wet. Go get yourself dried off— typhoid is going around!”

And I ran upstairs as “Damn boy, is up to no good” followed me through the floorboards.

CRACK, RUMBBBLE—it thundered as I peered out the window, clenching onto the seal with my cold, stiff hands. Leaves freeing from the maple, blots of rain trickled and bled, I thought of her tears behind glass. “Susie, can ya hear me? Susie, are you there?”

The next day I went looking for Susie but couldn’t find her anywhere, so I plopped down on the steps of the bandstand until Jimmy showed up and then I ducked behind a horse. Low and behold, here comes Clarence, and I even tried to duck from him, because I didn’t want hear a word about that damn dead body, but he was standing there waving right on the other side of its ass, and I felt foolish, even cruel not stepping out, so I did. But I knew one “Dang,” and I was going to knock his lights out.

“Wanna, toss bottles,” he asked, and not a dang thing about the body, and for the life of me I couldn’t understand how or why he just forget about such a thing in not time.

“Sure,” I said, and we walked to the alley behind Gustine's.

I tossed they first bottle at the wall, but it bounced off and clanked across the ground.

“Yeller’s dead,” said Clarence.

“What?” I asked, shocked. “Why, what happened?” I could only iamgine.

Chomping on a Tootsie Roll I gave him, Clarence told the story.

“Well, I was sittin’ out back, lookin’ up at the branch with my tooth stuck in it when Ma hollered. And the second I jumped to my dang feet, that ol’ dead hickory for no dang reason, tumbled right over—almost flattenin’ me like a toad—broke Yeller’s chain and all. And Yeller, well, he howled to high heaven and ran for the hills. But soon as Yeller hit the road, a Ford done plowed him over just like that—flattening ‘im like a toad.”

“Oh my God, I’m sorry,” I said, somewhat confused on the receiving end of yet another of Clarence’s odd tales, wondering if it’s a flat out lie. But knowing if he told me he found a dead body with a bullet hole between the eyes, I’d think it was a downright lie too.

“Yep, first and final run for the ol’ mutt,” he goes on. “Such is a dog’s life, anyhow, I ‘spose. But hell—gotta see the bright side, ‘least he died free! And anyhow, hell, Pa buried Yeller under the porch ‘fore I could get ‘im up in the loft an’ into the trunk, and hell if he had that hickory chopped up to bits by noon. Spose it ‘cause Gustine gave ‘im some medicine while back, says it’d help ‘im in his devilish ways. Some cocaine, er a ‘nother.” Clarence throws a bottle, shattering it against a brick wall, and pulls a Hershey bar from his back pocket.

“Wow, Hershey’s—where did ya get that?” I asked, wondering why I gave him my Tootsie Roll.

“I snagged it when Gustine wadn’t lookin’,” he said. “Pa sent me up to get ‘im ‘nother bottle of they medicine. I took a nip, not too bad, wanna try sum?”

“No thanks. Hey, why are you always stealin’?” I asked.

“Jus’ like stealin’, I guess,” he said.

SHATTER!

“Guess what, my jar of dead flies is almost full!” “Yuck,” I said as he took a nip.

“Whoo-wee,” he flaps his arm like a chicken and spins around once, “that’ll put yer pucker in place! Hey, Oscar, what you think ‘bout if I collect ham bones next. I was thinkin’ on it, but Granny caught my eye, and smacked my wrist with her dang wooden spoon. Four days for that dang welt to go away—she’s got one hell of grip with that ol’ spoon, I tell ya!”

“My mother is baking an apple pie today,” I said.

“Granny’s cookin’ ham and beans, again,” said Clarence, as I threw a bottle, but it bounced off the wall again, as he poked around in a trash bin.

“What are ya lookin’ for?” I asked.

“Nothin’, jus’ like diggin’ through trash, I guess,” he said, and I cringed as he buried his arm deep. “Damn, ain’t nothin’ worthwhile in this one,” he said and shrugged off the stench. “You should come an’ sit in that ol’ hickory hole with me!”

“I can’t—I gotta get home for supper,” I said.

“Again?” he asked. “Dang, but that apple pie sure sounds mighty fine!” he said, finger in his nose. He then rolled a booger and held it up to the light. “A booger—ain’t it a thing...? Hell, maybe I’ll start a booger collection. Fill up a whole pickle jar in no time!” He sneezed. “Weeds are a’ bloomin’,” he said, hacking and spitting and snorting a big snort. He stuck his finger back in his nose to scrape the inside of his nostril with his nail again—knuckle high, and I watched in amazement. “Caught me a trophy,” he said, a genuine smile spread across his face. Tooth shining bright.

“Who do you think shot him?” I asked.

“Who? The dang body,” I said. “Down in the creek, bullet between the eyes!” And with a flash, I spot her brisk by. “I gotta go!” I said and sprint down the alleyway after her.

“Hey, why you always chasin’ that girl?”

Susie turned back slowly, and I noticed her solemn face, “Hello, Oscar,” she said.

“Wanna get a pop?” I ask.

“Not really, I’m not thirsty,” she said.

“Wanna—take a walk...?” I asked.

“Sure, I guess,” she shrugged, but not in her usual way.

I kicked a pebble that bounced over three good sleepers as the backs of our hands touched in the train yard. “That’s where Daddy works,” she said, nodding toward P&O as we passed by, but I am not surprised.

“Susie, I’m sorry,” I said.

“Why are you sorry?” she asked. “At least he has a job—”

“About the dead body,” I said.

“Oh,” she said. “I don’t want to talk about it, I can’t sleep. I kept seeing his face looking in through my window. His voice calls out from the dead, saying, ‘Susie, can you hear me? Susie, are you there?’ Oh, it’s terrifying, Oscar,” she said, as she wrapped her arms around me, crying into the nook of my shoulder. She looked up at me, and I, down at her. Her eyes are soft now but welled with tears. She trembles all over as I did in my jaw. She looked deep into my eyes; hers, bloodshot, tear, now streaming down her face. I tried to wipe them on my sleeve, but she rised up on her toes, and I leaned toward her, and slowly, our lips touched. And after a long moment, of her heart beating into mine, she pulled away, saying, “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” I said.

“Hey, wanna come to my house?” you asked.

“Okay,” I say and pull a pack of Victoria’s out of my back pocket, “Want a candy cigarette?” I asked.

“Sure,” she said, and stepping from sleeper to sleeper, fingers interlocked, we puffed on powdered sugar and made our way for the low part of town.

The porch creaked as I stepped onto it, and as we walked in the screen door, it slapped shut on my heels, and I jumped as a man in a Henley undershirt looked up from his steaming mug. He says nothing but gives an odd look in my direction, and a young girl with a pale face opens a door, peers out, and then shut it again, disappearing behind it. An ancient woman sat motionless in a rocking chair by a cold stove in the small sitting room with fogged-over eyes. A half-dozen children sat silently on the floor, all with the same look of melancholy possessing their faces, all quit. I looked about the small kitchen at a denim coat and hat hung on a nail; laundry on a cord stretches from wall to wall—walls whitewashed but blackened with soot, and a picture of a man in an Army uniform holding a rifle behind cracked glass hung crooked on the wall. A severe cough emanated from that back room they girl had peered out from, and suddenly a woman exits they room, quickly shitting they door behind her.

“Momma, this is my friend Oscar,” said Susie.

“Hello, dear,” says her mother, grabbing a few things from the kitchen and then, “you’ll have to excuse me,” before returning back into the back bedroom. The children lower their heads as one squeezes his toes. A fly bounced off one shut window, the other open let more flies in freely, which buzzed about the ceiling— the entire house, humid and reeking of mildew and sickness.

“Daddy, this is my friend Oscar,” said Susie, to the man sat at the table, leaned on his elbows over a steaming mug, and a bottle of unlabeled rye.

“Howdy,” mumbled her father, barely making eyes.

“Daddy,” she said, seemingly annoyed, widening her own.

“Hello, Oscar,” he said again, in a friendlier tone, glaring into me with fierce but kind eyes, reaching his long arm across the table. I shook it, and noticed his hand are rough like rope, and his nails grimy. “Coffee?” he asked me.

“Ah, sure,” I said, as Susie put a kettle on the stove.

Sipping on her coffee, Susie swung her feet anxiously beneath her chair. Her humming eases the silence; until she asked, “What, you don’t like coffee?”

I quickly lifted my mug and took a small sip, but I spit it back in the cup with a terrible grimace as she laughs. “It’s just hot,” I said, but admit, “Actually, my father doesn’t let me drink coffee—he says it’s prohibited—it’ll stunt my growth.”

“Pro-hib-it-did,” her father enunciated, splashing a bit of bourbon in his coffee.

“I like it, sir—I just never had it before, is all,” I said.

“Here, this’ll fix’er up,” he said, reaching across the table to put a splash in my mug. I take another sip, and scolds my throat, and I lunged forth, with my head between my knees.

“Daddy,” yelled Susie.

“Hell, he’ll be alright,” he said, as I coughed and gasped and tried not to vomit on they floor. I finally got a breath, and say back up on my stool, face as red as a cherry bomb. I cleared my throat, and feeling that warm cozy feeling, said, “Its good,” and I took another small sip, and let it burn all the way down to where I felt it pool in my gut, and suddenly I felt a calm come over me.

“Oscar,” he says, as my feet begin to swing as fast as Susie’s, as he rubs his thumb along the rim of his mug, “Howard,” he said, and I smiled. “What is your daddy’s name?” he asked.

“Oscar,” I said.

“So, you’re a junior?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“Your surname?” he asked.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Your last name?” he said.

“Olsen,” I said.

“Ol—sen,” he enunciated. “Where’s your father work?”

“The bank,” I said.

“President?” he asked.

I took another sip of the bitter coffee, heart racing, “Yes,” I said, and I see Susie’s eyes widen, as her head shifts back on her shoulders, and suddenly she looks like a deer caught in headlights.

“Good man,” said her father, slamming down his mug, and I jump on my stool. “Your daddy, he rents us this here house,” he said, and shocked by the news, I suddenly realized I was sitting in my father’s house, small, ramshackle yes, but my father’s nonetheless, and I sat a little straighter on my stool.

“It was very kind of your daddy to rent us this house,” he said, and I took another sip.

“Wanna go play in the backyard?” asked Susie.

“Sure,” I said as Susie led me in the same direction the mother had gone, past the small bedroom where, the door opens a bit in a draft, and I spot her mother attending to a young man in bed, about my age—twenty, twenty-five or so. The boy’s spasming feet had kicked the blankets to the floor. His mother held a rag to his forehead, trying to calm his restless fit. His fists were clenched, and his eyes rolling back in his head as he tried to focus on me. The image was fleeting but burnt deep into my young mind. Susie opened the back door, “Come on,” she said, “That’s just my brother, he’s sick,” and with a rush of fresh air, we exit, as she said, “Grampy prefers to sit outside,” and I don’t blame him as I see him in an old wooden chair.

“Gramp, this is my friend Oscar,” she yelled. He was old, real old, and his skin showed every scar and mishap of the previous century—leathered and darkened by the sun, wrinkled like an old glove left out in the rain.

“Hello, sir,” I said, but probably not loud enough, as the old man’s eyes sat fixed on the horizon above an old lean-to shed, slanting heavily to the left.

Susie walked back inside, leaving me there with the old man, and for a moment I panicked, but soon enough she returned with a chair.

“Sit,” she said, and I did, their next to the old man.

“First white man,” he said.

“Grampy,” said Susie, this is Oscar, my friend, and he kept his eyes to the sky, but reached haphazardly for my knee. And after a drawn-out moment, in a dusty voice, the old man said, “First white man born in the state of Illinois. And you know what son, the Indians were the best friends the Tottens ever had.” I take my eye off his old, wrinkled hand, blotches of dark purple, and red-rashed, to see him staring directly into my eyes. “In the midst of sunshine, there are shadows. In looking back over my long life, I see those shadows, and they are long,” he said with that shaky rasp. “And in the light of day—those happiest times in life, they are brief, ever fleeting they are, those winter evenings at home around the old cabin fire. We used to stir the fire, close the doors fast and listen to Father’s stories late into the night, ‘bout the revolution—and what fades and flickers in the firelight mutters and sighs and yields reluctant breath, as if in the red embers some desire, some prophetic word, burned to defy death. Say, the old cabin home fireside can never be forgotten by any old pioneer living. We used to all be dreamers, as it were, around the old family fireside.” The old man, finally let’s go of my hand as Susie strolls about the backyard kicking weed blossoms that scatter in the breeze, as his eyes return to gaze the sky before asking, “So, you want to know about my life as an early settler?”

“Ah, yes, sir...?” I said, not knowing what else to say, and I could see the prairie sky reflecting brilliant blue, trickling spring water off his glossy, yet powdery eyes, unlike I’d ever seen. And the old man continued, and I twiddled my thumbs and watch Susie twirl about the lot.

“Father was the first white man to locate in the midlands, he came in the fall of 1818 and settled upon the southwest quarter of section 27, and the prairie upon which he settled is known even to this day as Totten’s Prairie. Some things change now in the twinkling of an eye. But when I was born in 1820, to answer your question, yes, it is said I was born and have lived in Illinois longer than any other white man now living. If another white man has lived in the state ever since ‘fore that, I would like to know his name. But yes, I believe I have lived in Illinois longer than any other man alive. I have been here for 105 years. And that is a long time. Back then, things changed slowly, until they didn’t. It was a savage life. I played with Indian children and had many a scrap with them. The deer, the lynx, the panther, and the wolf and wildcat were here. For sixteen years, I hunted in the forest of Illinois—in the pioneer days—and killed all kinds of game, from a rabbit to a panther. I have killed hundreds of them. Do you know that you can trap a wolf? Well, you can. This land was the best hunting ground between the two rivers. I killed a big wild male hog in ‘30 that almost everyone was afraid of—I was ten. He was a sort of holy terror to the settler, but I got ‘im one morning. Father gave me a dollar, and that ended it. Yes, I have been chased many a times by wild hogs and wolves too. It’s an easy matter to evade wild hogs, but wolves are different. Oh, we had many pests to contend with here in the old pioneer days. You do not know the fiber of men that settled here. Why, I never had a shoe on my foot until I was 15 years old. I wore Indian moccasins up until that age. We had no schools when I was a boy. Boys or young men, like me, were taught to hunt and fish for a living. At first, we raised small patches of corn, but we did this in order to have a little bread. In every pioneer cabin, starvation stared the settler and his family in the face. We did not have any money when we first settled. After the revolution, Father brought nothing with him to this country, and we found nothing here when we came. Coon skins passed as currency up to ‘35, but we had other furs equally valuable. I was a pioneer hunter, and I made some money from mink and other pelts. In fact, the otter pelt was the most valuable of all.” He leans his head back, and I thought he might fall backward in his chair, but then he rolled orward again, steading himself out, and eventually, twiddling with his cane handle, and went on, “I am the son of William Totten and Katherine Fishback—Susie—Susie—”

“Gramp,” she said running over.

“Fetch me my sippin’ cider,” he said.

“It’s right here beside you Grampy,” she said picking it up off the ground, uncorking they bottle and filling a cup that had also sat beside him. His hand shook too blady to hold it to his puckered lips, but Susie helped him take a few sips, before setting it back on the ground beside him.

“Now, where was I—”

“Your were talking about Grampy Totten,” said Susie, sitting down beside me butt in the dry, cracked dirt.

“Oh yes, yes, thank you sweety, “Yes, my father, William Totten came up from Tennessee, from land he’d been granted after the war of independence, but it wasn’t none too good for growin’. So, he came looking for richer soil, and here he found it,” he said, looking down at his hand crooked with arthritis, and I saw for the first time that he had pristine nails. “What do I know of the winter, of the deep snow? Let me tell you, I was ten years old at the time it fell. I remember the snowstorm vividly. Why, we have never had such a storm in this country, before or since. Undoubtedly this was the heaviest snow that ever fell in Illinois. After it ceased, we all went hunting, and we found ten dead turkeys under one tree. Their tails were just sticking up out of the snow. Why, so deep was the impression that I sometimes dream of it. Just the other night, I thought I was trudging through the snow with Father, Smokey Joe, and the Indians. It was nothing for my father or myself to kill two to four wolves a day. While the wolf is a cunning animal, he is easily caught if you know how to get him— Say, what do you think I believe about Indian children?” asked the old man.

“I’m not sure, sir,” I said, as Susie touched my calve with her fingertips, and goosepimple arose down my leg.

“Why, naturally, they are better than white children, they are the children of nature, and nature never errs. The Indian children never committed any damnations, but they would fight at the drop of a hat. The bucks did the hunting, but the squaws did the drudge work. Say, do you know that the Indian is straight naturally? His crookedness he learned from the white man, but of course, he is not as smooth as his white brother. The truest friends the Totten’s ever had were the Indians! Now, I am giving this history to you just as it comes to me. I am getting old, and my memory is failing me—”

And suddenly the old man grew quiet, leaned forward, and banged his cane on the door.

“Grampy,” said Susie, standing to her feet. “Let me help you,” and I helped her, help him from his chair, and I followed them inside.

Inside: Coughing. The stench remains.

Again, the sweaty, pale-faced boy and I met eyes before his pupils rolled into the back of his terror-filled mind. Only now, beside him stood a doctor leaned over him as he now heaved into a bedpan.

The children: docile on the floor.

The ancient woman: motionless in the rocking chair beside the cold stove.

Old Man Totten: turned and said, “I’m an old man, as you see—I have grown tired and must rest.”

Susie walked the old man into another bedroom, and when as she returned, she asked, “What do you wanna do?”

“Wanna go to my house?” I asked.

“Sure,” she said, “let me tell my Momma.”

I stood transfixed in the kitchen, her father is nowhere to be seen, and I looked at the photo of the soldier holding the rifle feeling rather bewildered—and I turned away from the photo to glance out the window and fixate up on the prairie sky. Something was swirling in my mind like milk in coffee, rather whiskey in coffee, a rambling piece of fragmented thought I could not get together, something beyond the boy’s suffering eyes, when Susie, her mother, and the doctor entered they kitchen.

“Oscar,” said the doctor, “is that you?” And I looked up to realize I had known this man.

Dr. Murphy: a close friend of my father.

Susie opened the screen door, “Ready?”

“Hello, sir,” I said, as I followed Susie out the door, the doctor making peculiar eyes at me.

And I heard, as he turned back to the mother say, “The boy is in the throes of typhoid—just thank God Almighty it’s not the Spanish Flu.”

Crossing the tracks, Ms. Clancy’s poodle was on the porch peering timidly, but “The Hound” was nowhere to be seen. Hand in hand, we took a left at my father’s bank and walked west down Elm passing Edison Phonograph and Baldwin Pianos, where a man yelled, “Move it,” shuffling under the weight of a Mason & Hamlin. By the tightening of her grip, I could tell that she had never ventured far beyond the post office. And her pace slowed as we crossed Ave A. West Elm was lined with sidewalks on both sides of the street, and I grinned, feeling foolishly proud. She looked up at the third-story attics and the windows of third-story bedrooms of homes fenced it with freshly painted pickets—pearly white, of course. At Ave B, we dipped down into a narrow valley, where the houses had classic Greek look, with tall columns, and even taller chimneys, and ancient shade trees towering out front. I kicked a chestnut, and it hobbled over the fine brickwork, as we strolled over the top of a gentle rolling hill, and crossed Ave C. With each step, I felt pleased as her eyes saw green and widened in awe as we’d made our way to the land of milk and honey. Down into a more expansive valley, we approached an estate with sprawling acreage of clover behind wrought iron gates of ivy. Set well back, the four-story Prairie School chateau had two prominent gables and a steep terracotta roof.

Its face: a geometric grid of large timbers. Confounding, I could tell.

A carriage house and gazebo sat by a small twisting stream. And a bronze plaque on the perimeter wall of river stones read:

RED CREST

“Oh my, I’ve never seen such a house,” she said in bewilderment. “I wonder who lives there—”

“Ulysses Orendorff,” I said.

“Daddy’s boss...?” she asked in utter surprise, brow crinkling in awe.

“I guess so,” I said, stopping in front of 315 West Elm—my humble home.

“You’re—Mr. Orendorff’s neighbor?” she asked, head shifting back on her shoulders—in that way it did.

“I guess so,” I said, with a shrug all my own.

She gawks at the veranda of my large, picturesque home, crisp white, behind a broad Sugar Maple.

My large, picturesque home: Dutch-gabled, my house has three red-brick chimneys, but her eye, naturally, shoots up the front-facing Queen Anne tower, topped with a cupola—finished with slate, fish-scaled shingles, and copper weathervane.

“Wanna come in?” I asked, eager to show off our silver spoons.

“No, I’ll wait here,” she said, stepping back from the looming edifice as her tone suddenly dampened with sour grapes. She was feeling quite noticeably uneasy.

“Oh, okay,” I said, a bit disappointed. “I’ll be back at the drop of a hat!” I said, not entirely sure why I was going inside, but deciding on possibly some fresh baked cookies, if my mother had whipped up any.

I looked back to see her mouth gape at the extravagance before her as I walked up the pathway lined with roses for my front door—freshly painted brilliant red. The overdoor gilded in gold lettering reads:

HAWTHORNE

(A name utterly unfamiliar to me.)

I quickly return with no cookies, but some licorice in hand. As I’m running down the path toward her, my father hollered from the porch behind me—and I froze at his tone, “I need a word with you!” he demanded.

I slowly turned back to see that look on his face, and my stomach dropped.

“But—” I uttered.

“Now!” he growled.

“I’m sorry, one second,” I say, as you nod slightly, and your doe eyes look worrisome. You turn away, as I return to my father.

In his study he awaited me, and as I entered, he said, “So, I see why we’ve been waiting dinner on you.”

“Um—” I attempted to utter.

“Now, think twice before you lie to me, son.” He scolded me, “You tell me, what are you, dead from the neck up...?”

“She’s just my friend,” I said.

“Your friend? And where does your friend come from?”

“Umm, Brush Street, I think,” I said, clenching one hand tightly in the other. “Can I go now?” I asked, halfway out of the study.

“Did I excuse you?” he asked, taking another sip from his tumbler.

“Um, no, sir,” I said.

“Brush Street,” he said, lips wet with whiskey. “Hmm. Now, it’s Brush Street in the low part of town?”

“Umm—”

“They answer is yes, yes Brush Street is in the low part of town, and you know you’re not allowed in the low part of town, only riffraff, crooks, no goods, and good for nothin’s, come from the low part of town. Absolutely, nothing of value on that side of the tracks, you know that! I’ve told you a million times, son!”

“But—”

Walking into the study quite confused, my mother says, “What’s goin’ on?”

“What’s going on, Roxy—your son has been playing merry hell in the low part of town with none other than a goddamn riffraff,” he said with a whip of the tongue, losing his composure in my mother’s presence.

“Riffraff...?” she said, puzzled.

“Take a look for yourself—the filthy thing standing in front of our godforsaken house, wearing nothing but sackcloth and ashes, frightening the godforsaken neighbors!”

I worried Susie could hear him shouting as my mother walked to the front door. Where she hollered back, that she didn’t see anyone, only Miss Smith walking her dog, and that Miss Smith didn’t seem frightened at all, and I ran to see for myself—and my mother was right—

Susie was gone.

And Miss Smith was, quite indeed, walking her dog, not frightened at all.

“You are not to see her again!” shouted my father. “You hear me, boy?”

“But why...?” I asked, voice cracking, heart aching, panicking, head twisting on my neck in every direction for her.

“Now, if you know what’s best, you’ll zip those lips shut before—”

“Before what?” exclaimed my mother, but any following words jam up in her throat—lips fluttering uselessly, as she searched for reason and meaning behind such sudden madness. And I felt my soul slipping from my body as I ran past her up the stairs. “Oscar!” she shouted, and then toward at father, “What is wrong with you?”

At my window, “Susie, can you hear me?” but caught myself not wanting to frighten her again in the night. So silently, amongst muffled shouts, I staired desperately out over the sugar maple trees for the low part of town, we out of sight, she was exactly where she was supposed to be.

“You need to get that boy off your Goddamn knee,” his terrible words carried up through the floorboards, and slide in under my door, along with the clink-clink of ice cubes against glass, crackling as he refilled his scotch.

Single malt: A gift from the mayor.

Roughly, one year later. I’d grown quite accustomed to coffee and finished off my mug spiked with a splash of rye, Susie lied on her back on the bed. She stared at the drooping ceiling, and I sat in a chair we’d found in the alley, leaning far back on its hind legs. We’d just had our first argument—over nothing, of course, but what seemed like everything. And I wasn’t too sure it was over or not. One could never tell with Susie. And I sat worried. Though I’d seen her like this many times, lurking in a deep sadness that dwelled in the back of her beautiful eyes—I suppose I didn’t have to tell her, she drives me mad. On her birthday of all days, that she was being a brat, but she was a spoiled lil’ shit and knew it! And besides, I felt for all I did, nothing I could impress her. And it was driving me mad. I’d strived for her attention daily writing her poem after poem—but hell, nothing! And I felt like I didn’t recognize her anymore, as she always left wondering, where has she’s gone? Like now, for instance!? And, what else to do but try to solve the riddle, again!

So, I grabbed a piece of paper and scribbled away on my leg. I folded it into an airplane and flew it across the room, right down the front of her dress. She shouted, and yanked it out, unfolded it, and held it above to read it silently. I’d been teaching her to read, but it was a slow go, and she still bumbled over a word or two here and there. And a mischievous grin spread across her face. And there, finally, I felt proud. At last, she was finally feeling it burn inside her, the same red-hot coal I’d carried around for too damn long. She sat up on the edge of the bed, and spotting the cocky grin on my face, she stood with a smirk of her own. I was thinking this is it, finally that sweet kiss, as she took a slow-step closer, placing one simple, slender, beautiful fingertip upon my heart-beaten chest.

But hell, looking back, I supposed I’d played it too cool, leaning all the way back on the legs the way I did, with too much pride for a woman, as I now found myself flat on my back on the floor, head throbbing. I’d taken a good whack, and I decide it was an excellent opportunity to play dead, as I loved to. Though I know what happened to her brother, it probably wasn’t they best taste in pranks, as Susie panicked, “Oh no!” falling to her knees at my side. She slapped me on the cheek, trying to wake me, fearing she’d killed me. “Oscar, Oscar,” she shouted, praying to God—finally, what I’d been waiting for. She leaned down with her soft, puckered lips to place them upon mine in desperation, and at the right moment, I grabbed the back of her head and kissed her so passionately, she pushed me away and cursed, “Damn you, Oscar, you scared the living daylights out of me.”

“Well, you knocked the daylights out of me,” I said, reaching into my pocket. “Here, Happy birthday,” I said with attitude, and Susie grabbed the three green paper packets from my hand that read:

Theilman Seed Company

“Lilies, tulips, and roses,” I said, as she broke into a wide beam.

Asking, “How did you…?”

“I see you always looking the seeds at Anderson’s,” I said.

“Oscar, this is the best gift anyone has ever gave me!”

“Do I finally get that kiss?” I asked but got a slap to they face instead.

Lying beside the creek, cool, moist clay kept our nude flesh cool despite the dank, humid heat of late July. Still, the mosquitos had a feast on our young blood—bodies covered in so many red welts, one would think we had the pox. Susie was fed up with scratching, swatting, and slapping her own backside, so much so that she screamed out in frustration, “Rrrr—that’s it, I got to get away from these blood suckers! It’s too dang hot anyways. Let’s go into townand get a soda!”

I agreed that we need to cool off, yet still, she’s had to drag me away with my trousers on one leg.

Town, 1840: With three hammers, a leather apron, and twenty-five cents in his pocket, a man named William Parlin rode into town. He opened his own blacksmith shop and invented the first steel plow in the world. And when Parlin’s blacksmith shop became P&O, it became the first plow factory on earth, and his contribution to the advancement of agriculture reached its climax on January 21, 1914, when his picture was placed in the Illinois Farmer’s Hall of Fame.

As we passed P&O on our way to Gustine’s—my favorite place on God’s green earth—

I told Susie about the “The Curse.”

“They say this town is cursed, you know—” I said, “that it’s built on top of an ancient burial ground.”

“This whole dang country is haunted if you look at it that way,” she said, “the whole world even.”

I kicked gravel, asking, “Why do you always want to argue?”

The curse: In June of 1835, a circus visited Cantonville, and a week later, founder Isaac Swan, his poor infant child, and three other people died in a devastating tornado. Swan and his child were found in the wreckage of their cabin, the baby dying in its mother’s arms—leading many to conclude that the tornado was none other than divine retribution for allowing the sin that was the circus into town. Oddly enough, when the next circus rolled into town some years later, another tornado also hit, taking another two lives with it, and destroying half of downtown. However, it would be the last circus to set up tents in Cantonville, as the local clergy thoroughly believed by then, that tents brought high winds—and that the showmen were to blame. They people of Cantonville never saw another trained lion, camel, or cotton candy vendor within town limits again, not after the city council superstitiously passed the ordinance:

We hereby ban any and all circuses indefinitely and forever!

We turned off the tracks to walk the alleyways for the soda fountain holding hands but stayed out of sight, butterflies in our bellies, bullies in mind, kicking bottles—with the angst that was the early-teenage years—as one jangled across the ground.

“Well, all I know is that I’ve heard spirits in the woods at night when you can’t see your own hand before your face,” I said.

“You act a fool sometimes,” she said.

“I know, I know. You know? One time I saw a monster out there,” I said.

“See, you’re acting a fool, again!”

“I’m serious—one day, I was walking down by the creek, and all of a sudden, I heard a branch snap, and when I looked over, a huge hairy creature was crossing the creek on a fallen log. It had hands that grasped at the log, just like this—” I held my hands up, fingers curved inward as though I was grasping a log. “It looked like a gorilla, but it had blonde wavy hair, and it was clean too, washed and brushed!”

“A good-looking monster?” she asked.

“I suppose,” I said, “it’s the honest to God truth. I never told anyone because I knew no one would ever believe me, and see, you don’t believe me either!”

“Come here,” she said as she held out her arms in that way she does when I was being self-pitiful, and I stepped into them.

“You gonna grasp me like a log?” she asked.

“I’m gonna grasp you like you’re my gal.”

“I’m your gal, huh?”

“I ain’t got no friends, but I got a pretty gal,” I said, kissing her.

“What about Clarence,” she asked, “He’s your friend, aint’ he?”

“What about him?” I asked, as we leaned against a cold brick wall. But I pulled away for a moment, asking, “You really think I’m a fool? Like Clarence kind of fool?”

“Of course,” she said, leaning in for another kiss just as we heard an angry shout.

“Hey, Richie Rich!”

“Oscar,” said Susie with concern.

And I quickly pulled her by the hand away from the shouting, trying to remain calm as Susie closed her eyes, placing one foot before the other, blindly trusting my lead.

“Hey, rich boy, what you doin’? Come here! Hey, Richie Rich, I’m talking to you!”

I recognized the voice but didn’t turn back to see Jimmy and his friends as his shouting, as I pulled Josefina along faster.

“Hey flabberdoodle—” a swift bottle came smashing down upon they back of my head, and all went black with flashing and twirling lights.

With me lying at her feet, Susie swung her arms wildly at Jimmy and the other boys who took turns kicking me in the ribs, again and again, shouting, “FUCKIN’ RICH BOY!!!”

I returned to consciousness to see Susie pinned against the wall. And I tried to scream out, but the wind had been knocked out of me by a boot to the gut. I saw double—four, six, eight, sixteen guys groping Susie under her dress through blurred eyes. I watched helplessly as they felt her up and down. But I was in such shock I hardly noticed the clothes torn from my body and the boot that came down on my skull.

Outer space: I’d been here before.

I had no memory of Susie crying over my battered body. She had used her dress to wipe the spit from my face and blood from my nose and lips and now it was a mess. I had no memory of them calling her a “dirt bitch” as they groped her breasts, but she certainly did. It had all happened so fast, like a dream, a nightmare. Now, I found myself somehow halfway across town, with no idea how I got there. Half my size, Susie held me up all on her own. My ribs were cracked, pain shot through my lungs, and I could hardly breathe as I struggle to take another step. My mind was lost in a swirl of concussion as she walked my nude, batttered body to the low part of town. “Dirt Bitch” echoing on through her mind and body, dehumanized and tremoring. Still, she was focused on putting one foot before the other as tears streamed like a river from her large eyes. And as she yelled, “Daddy,” and he spotted her walking me up the road from out the window, he came hurried out the door. “Daddy, help!” she shouted, and he came running.

He scooped me up in his arms, and Susie held open the door as he carried me inside, and told they kids to scram, as he laid me out on the old man’s bed—the old man had been dead since June, dying they oldest living man in the great state of Illinois. “grab so rags and warm some water,” said to Susie’s mother, as she sat down next to me, “Shhh, shhh, it’s gonna be alright, son,” she repeated, as she wrapped me in a quilt, as reality seeped into my conscious mind, and I sobbed into the old man’s pillow. “It’s gonna be alright, son, it’s gonna be alright—” she repeated, running her warm hand atop my forehead, as Susie collapsed to the floor in tears.

Soon, her father returned with warm water, and he checked the back of my head and found a large throbbing lump. “You know what to do,” he said to his wife, as Susie shied her eyes away from his sudden gaze toward her. And upon seeing her covered in bloody manhandling handprints, his jaw clenched, and he walked from the room and out the door into the backyard, places his face in his palms, threw back his head, and screamed two hundred years of rage into the sky. The birds flew. His eyes were maddened. He shook his head as violently as his hands trembled; his voice trembled as he plead to God for mercy, and then returned inside and asked, “Who did this, baby?”

“I don’t know—there was so many of 'em,” she said.

“Who’d you see, baby? You gotta tell me!”

“I don’t know—um, Jimmy, Jimmy was there,” she says, washing blood from my lips.

“Jimmy? You sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure, Daddy,” she said in tears.

And Daddy took a few long strides for the front door.

“Daddy, wait,” yelled Susie, but it was too late, he was out the door and gone.

“Come here, Susie,” said her mother, “come sit beside him, while I call on the doctor,” and Susie lifted herself off the floor and sat beside me on the bed, while I was in and out of consciousness. “Pu tthis on his forehead,” she said, and Susie placed they warm rag on my brow.

“I’m sorry,” she said. And leaned over and kissed me on my trembling lips as her mother returned with a pair of her husband’s clothes.

Susie was still shaken, yet calmer as the dressed me carefully. And afterwards, she continued to sit with me, running her fingers through my hair, careful of the throbbing lump as I gasped for breaths, whispering in my ear, “I love you,” and I crying with me, until Doctor Murphy arrived.

“Oscar? Is that you? Oh, my son—”

When Susie’s father returns, his knuckles were swollen. And as Susie heard the hinges squeak, their mournful eyes met. Doctor Murphy approached him and whispered something, and Susie watched as her father ran his fingers back through hair as they gravity, the weight of the situation just hit him, “Yes, I understand,” he said in response, and he came into the bedroom where I laid, and said, “It’s time we get you home.” And he slides his arms under me and lifted me, as Susie and her mother stepped back. “Your, know who this boy’s father is...?” he said suddenly angered, as he carried me from the room.

Dr. Murphy stood at the door and assisted Susie’s father as the placed me in the back of Mr. Murphey’s buggy. “I suggest, you all let me handle it from here,” he said as Susie and her father climbed into the back of the buggy beside me. “Well, then,” said the doctor.

Susie stood at her father’s side as he held me in his arms, as Dr. Murphy was to knock at the door, but the door swung open and my father walked out, stiff drink in hand, and my mother over his shoulder screamed. “Dr. Murphy, what is this?” My father shouts. Then at Susie and her father, “What have you done to my son...?”

My mother looked down at my half open eyes, “Oh, my, Oscar—”

“It appears, he was beaten up rather severely by some boys,” said the doctor.

“Beaten? What boys?” asked my father before screaming at my mother, “Will you quiet down,” as she scurries off in hysteria, hands over her gaping mouth.

“May me?” asked the doctor.

“Please, sir,” said Susie’s father, brushing past my father as he entered the house, and he took me into the sitting room and carefully laid me down on the sofa.

“Alright, alright, enough,” shouted my father, and Susie’s father stepped away from me, as Susie stood in the corner with her head down.

My father walked over to me to take a good look as I looked blurrily up at him, and he scolded me, “Damn, son, I don’t know why you can’t get along with the other boys!”

“He’s got an awfully big lump on his head,” said the doctor. “And probably some broken ribs too.”

“And whose clothes are you wearing?”

“Those are mine, my wife out them on him,” said Susie’s father.

As my mother rushed back into the sitting room with a rag filled with ice, and kneeled and placed it on my head, my father looked up in disgust.

“They took his clothes,” mumbled Susie.

“What?” Shouted my father.

“They stripped him nude,” said her father.

“My dear boy,” said my mother, brushing my cheek.

“Who stripped him nude?” asked my father.

“Jimmy and his friends,” said Susie, as my father disappeared into the kitchen, and they doctor followed.

My mother, looking up at Susie’s father, “Thank you for bringing my son home.”

“That will be all,” said my father returning with his tumbler full, and Susie, took one last look down at me, before her father escorted her for the door, “Come on, baby,” he said. “It’s time to go.” But she broke free of his arm and ran over to me and fell to her knees and whispered in my ear, “Oscar, thank you for the seeds, it’s the best birthday present anyone ever gave me,” before her father grabbed her by the arm and yanked her away. “it’s time to go,” he said loudly.

On the porch my father held out a wad of cash to Susie’s father, and he looked back at my father rather confused.

“Sir, we don’t want your money,” he said. “We’re just doin’ what we could.”

“How do you know my son?” asked my father.

“He and Susie here are friends,” he said. “Ain’t that right, baby?”

My father looks Susie up and down, “Is that right?” asked my father and Susie nodded.

“What was that? I can’t hear your head rattle,” he said.

“Susie, answer the Mr. Olsen.”

“Yes, sir, we are friends.”

“Friends—oh, that’s right, you’re that girl from out front?”

Susie looks down, as my father takes another drink from his glass—now mostly ice.

“Yes, sir,” she says softly.

My father cleared his throat, shook his head in a cocktail of shame and confusion, and raised his brow, saying, “Go on, take the damn money,” and Susie’s father reluctantly took the cash, as my father said, “That should handle the matter.”

“The matter?” asked her father.

“The matter,” said my father, shutting the front door in their face.

Walking down Elm Street, Susie asked, “What’s gonna happen, Daddy?”

Daddy put his arm around her, and Susie teared up and tucked her head into his crook, and they make their way back to where they belong—the low part of town.