A Gift of Time

by Merritt, Jerry

  “Hey, Arlie. We’re way south of our camp.”

  “Oh, crap. You mean we’re lost?” A hint of panic tinged his question.

  “No. We aren’t lost. The river just kept bumping us along and we didn’t notice it in the dark. There’s thick woods on the Alabama side now. We can’t make our way back through those in the dark. We’re going to have to climb out and go back up River Road and cross back from up there.”

  “I can’t do that, Cage.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m naked.”

  “Well, I am too.”

  “We can’t walk through town naked, Cage. We’ll get arrested,” he persisted. “Naked.”

  “Not if we’re careful.”

  “Oh, shit, Cage. You’re going to get us in trouble again. You never listen to me.”

  “Yes I do.”

  “No you don’t.”

  “Come on. We can climb out here and get up to the road. Check things out.”

  “Oh, shit. Oh, shit.”

  “Relax, Arlie. Nobody’s going to see us. It’s less than a half mile. Besides, it’s dark as the inside of a bear.”

  “Don’t talk about bears, Cage.”

  “Come on. It’s all right.”

  But, when we got to the top of the embankment, porch lights lit up on the road a lot brighter than I had anticipated. “Okay, I was wrong. It’s kind of lit up for a few of blocks before we hit the edge of town. We’re going to have to make a run for it. I don’t see anyone out walking their dog, though. You ready?”

  Arlie was standing with his hands in the fig leaf position looking up and down the road. He reminded me of a meerkat. He even had that same intense, stupefied expression on his face. Suddenly, with a small cry of panic, he jumped out onto the pavement and took off. The neighborhood dogs broke into a paroxysm of yapping and barking before he had gone fifty feet. Arlie stopped and crouched down in the road. A porch light came on. He twirled around and headed back toward me, but I was already sprinting past him at full tilt. I yelled, “Run.”

  The warm pavement felt good on my bare feet as I hurtled through the night with the dogs now in full alarm. A front door opened spilling light out into the street. A man yelled, “Who’s out there?” Arlie let out a few more heart-felt, “Oh shits.”

  About the time we approached my house, a car door slammed somewhere behind us. Then an engine cranked. I called out, “Follow me,” and we shot across my front lawn as headlights swept the road where we had been mere seconds before. We leaped the boxwood hedge lining the drive and tore around behind the garage. After several minutes, the barking tapered off to an occasional yap. I crept back down the drive and checked the road before waving Arlie down to me. We were just about to start out again when a patrol car turned the corner and prowled by right in front of us shining a spotlight down along the river.

  “Holy crap, Cage. They’ve called the cops on us.”

  “Pipe down, Arlie. You’re going to get the dogs started up again.”

  “Well, what do we do now?” he whispered.

  “We wait them out. That patrol car will turn around somewhere up River Road and circle back through. If he doesn’t see anything suspicious, he’ll probably head for the White Rabbit to grab a cup of coffee. Just stay calm.”

  And sure enough a few minutes later the patrol car cruised back by from the other direction and turned toward town.

  “Come on. Let’s go.”

  We hit the road running but hadn’t gone a hundred feet when Arlie starting giggling. It soon turned into one of those hysterical, heaving, after-the-danger-has-passed whoops you get when you’re still pumping out adrenaline and you can’t burn it off fast enough. As we hit the darker stretch, I picked up his refrain. We were hooting and hollering by the time we reached the river crossing. Plunging into the dark current, we splashed water and brayed like hyenas. By the time we struggled out onto the opposite bank, we were weak from our mirth. In the darkness, only the faint glow of lingering embers led us in the right direction back to our campfire.

  “Safe at last,” Arlie sighed and we burst out laughing again. “Where’s my clothes. My butt’s been out in public long enough.”

  ***

  The stars broke through the heavy overcast several hours before sunrise that early morning before Labor Day in 1954. With the moon long down, Orion and bright Sirius had commandeered the predawn sky. I know that because, by the time they rose, I had left Arlie sleeping fitfully in the tent to wander down along the river bank thinking over Aunt Cealie’s remarks. There in the dying heat of my first summer back, I wondered. Was I too sure of myself that I had changed the world for the better? Who could ever know such things until Fate had finished casting her lots? Certainly not me. As I blundered through my past, events remembered scattered before me, never having a chance to take root. In truth, most of what I remembered had never even happened this time around. My return had forced the Moving Finger back to cancel, not half a line, but entire pages. That mismatch now left me misplaced and disoriented. The best I could do was take extra care coming home next Tuesday. Maybe even that whole week. If Joey emerged from that week still with me, then the danger was truly in the past. An alternate past of terror, and torment, and guilt only I had lived.

  Chapter 23

  Tuesday morning Mom combed Joey’s blond hair one last time and tucked his shirt in for the third time. “Okay, Cager, you take good care of your brother today. Remember how nervous you were on the first day of school and how you got lost coming home.”

  “I remember. I’ll hold his hand all the way. I promise.”

  So we walked to school that day because Joey didn’t have a bicycle. The whole way we relived Saturday’s adventures across the river. Joey had a hundred questions and I answered them all in turn with my eighty years of expertise. His upturned face was a study in concentration as he took it all in.

  “Will I ever know as much as you, Cager?”

  “You’ll know more. I’ll teach you everything I know then you’ll go out and learn even more on your own.”

  His face lit up. I had never seen him happier and, in that moment, realized I couldn’t recall ever being happier either. Far too soon we strolled by the school flagpole and climbed the entry steps to go our separate ways.

  Arlie was already in the classroom by the time I arrived. The bell rang and we settled in, but Joey was foremost in my thoughts that day.

  At recess, once again I came up next to last chosen while Arlie brought up the rear. He shot me a glance that said, I guess they didn’t remember that homer after all. It was hard to move up from the bottom.

  Since there were two sixth grade classes, this year’s team makeup had some unfamiliar players. A big kid named Hartley McDuff took Arlie’s last-to-be-chosen position as his cue to start ragging on him. Hartley was the typical bully. Never starting anything until he was sure he had an easy mark. And Arlie looked easy in spite of all the hamburgers he had eaten during the summer. His thin arms and neck screamed out, I’m the one to pick on. I won’t dare fight back. And Hartley didn’t waste any time starting in on him.

  Arlie’s team won the toss, and Arlie took his usual seat on the far end of the bench.

  “Hey, Tinker Bell,” Hartley called down, “get your scrawny ass off the team bench.”

  Arlie just ignored him. Arlie had a lot of practice doing that. But it was the first day of school and Hartley was marking out his territory.

  “Hey, Beanpole, I’m talking to you.”

  Without even the courtesy of looking at Hartley, Arlie gave him the finger. And kept giving him the finger. Both teams could see Arlie giving him the finger and all eyes turned to Hartley to see what he was going to do about it. And I could tell Hartley knew it was time to put up or shut up. He leapt to his feet and stalked down toward Arlie. I moved in closer to first base just in case. Hartley grabbed Arlie by the shirt and snatched him up.

  “What’s the matter, Tink? Can’t you hear?”

  �
��Get your goddam hands off me.” It was a snarl. Arlie was finally fed up. Hartley, caught off guard, actually let go of him for a second then realized he had just telegraphed a hesitancy to carry out a threat. And to Arlie, no less. He gave Arlie a push. Not hard but it was enough for Arlie. Even I didn’t see it coming.

  It was the same flat palm to the nose Arlie had landed on me at the campsite. I was pretty sure I heard something crack. Hartley arched backwards so quickly he lost his balance and sprawled into the dust.

  For many of us it was our first ballgame with Hartley, and we didn’t really know whether he was any good at baseball, but clearly he was expert at bleeding. Blood bubbled out of his nose and spattered on his shirt as he blew out a gasp of shock and disbelief. Arlie hovered over him. It was, for Arlie, a stand taken by small, cornered animals that had nothing left to lose. And I suspected in Arlie’s case he really didn’t care what happened to him next. He was through being pushed around. If standing his ground meant taking a beating, that was fine with him.

  Hartley struggled upright, eyes narrowed, inner fires of unalloyed hatred radiating out at Arlie. Then he made the mistake of wiping his mouth on his sleeve. The amount of blood that came off was enormous. Too much, in fact, for Hartley. He blanched just before his eyes swiveled upwards, and he swooned facedown right there on the ball field in front of the entire class. As Hartley lay crumpled in the dirt, Arlie nudged him with the toe of his shoe then turned back to the team bench and sat down.

  Two tubes of smelling salts later Hartley finally managed to sit up for more than five seconds without passing out again, but it took the rest of recess to staunch the blood flow. Most of the kids were quick to point out Hartley had started the whole thing and Arlie had just protected himself. But a few of Hartley’s buddies had a different story. Arlie had sucker punched him. Over nothing. But order was eventually restored, though there was no game in Stubbinville that day. A teacher got Hartley a clean shirt from last year’s lost-and-found pile and we were back in class before everyone had had a chance to calm down.

  Hartley hissed threats at Arlie the rest of the morning but subsequent nosebleeds and a nose swollen to the size of a small turnip eventually got him sent home before lunch.

  At the final bell, kids poured onto the schoolyard and flowed out across the neighborhood. My heart raced until I spotted Joey standing alone by the flagpole where I had told him to wait for me. Today was the day he had vanished. Had I altered time enough to overcome such a loss? Until now I had been pretty confident I had. But this was the very hour, and I was no longer so sure.

  I took Joey by the hand and headed home. We were discussing what our next adventure across the river might be when Arlie pulled up beside us. He stayed on his bicycle pushing along with one foot, and before long we were planning a camping trip for that weekend.

  Then we turned down Escambia Avenue, and there in the shade of its massive oaks, the foundation of my unspoken dread materialized. The spot where a lifetime ago I had left Joey for just a minute to check out the dam and its spillway. Arlie was going on about camping, but irrational imaginings had seized my mind as unreasonable fear will do if you give it free rein. And though the day was warm and Joey’s hand was sweaty, I still clung to it tightly telling myself everything was going to be all right this time. I was prepared.

  I had just refocused my attention on Arlie when a flurry of hard breathing interrupted my concentration. I turned to see Hartley and three of his cronies bearing down on us. Hartley rammed Arlie with his bicycle and sent him careening down the grassy slope toward the newly formed pond. He fell off his bike just before it plunged into the water. Hartley’s gang dropped their bikes on the road and chased Arlie down like a pack of dogs after a lost cat. I almost let go of Joey to race after them but caught myself.

  “Come on, Joey. Stay with me. I’m going to help Arlie. Don’t leave. Do you understand?”

  “Okay, Cager. But what’s happening?”

  “Those boys are after Arlie. I’ve got to help him. But you stay with me no matter what.”

  I pulled Joey along to within ten feet of Hartley who was busily rocking Arlie’s head around like a punching bag while two of his cronies held Arlie up. A fourth carroty-haired boy with a protruding Adam’s apple stood grinning stupidly, waiting his turn. I stepped in between Hartley and Arlie and brought my elbow up into Hartley’s face just missing his recently smashed nose. It was close enough, though. Hartley howled in pain for several seconds before recovering enough to lay down a barrage of swearing as he swung at me, arms flailing like loose windmill vanes in a squall. I finally just blocked one of his wild swings and stepped into him with another blow that caught him squarely on the tip his nose. Blood splattered on both of us. Profanities filled the little park as he rolled around on the grass screaming in pain. Meanwhile, the two holding Arlie had dropped him.

  One tackled me around the knees while the other knocked me to the ground. Then all three pounded my back and neck. That went on for some time without doing much damage. I finally played dead, and, when they all stood up to kick me, I leapt up and swung at Carrot Top missing his chin but catching his bulging Adam’s apple before running over to Arlie. He was semiconscious and pretty well bloodied. Joey stood a few feet away crying and calling out, “Leave my brother alone.” But they grabbed me again and held me up like they had done Arlie.

  “Knock his teeth out,” Carrot Top wheezed through his contused windpipe.

  One of the two initially holding Arlie, a butch-cut, plump, little hooligan with dirty sweat rings around his neck, began punching me and doing a pretty fair job of it until I planted the tip of my shoe in his cojones. As Sweat Rings spewed lunch on his feet, Joey’s eyes grew wide with alarm. He had seen too much. I tried to pull loose from the other two but Hartley had overcome his pain and descended on me with a vengeance.

  Joey turned and ran for the road waving his arms and yelling for help.

  I managed to call his name once before Hartley hit me in the mouth. He continued with the pounding but I managed to keep my face turned away from the punches. After several dozen blows, I heard a familiar voice yelling from across the park.

  “You bunch of bullies is gonna get it. I done calt the po-leece and they on they way right this minute.”

  The battering stopped. The four glared insolently at Aunt Cealie for a moment before Hartley said, “Let’s git.” He and Carrot Top hoisted Sweat Rings up and all four scrambled up the grassy slope toward their bikes.

  Aunt Cealie finally made it across the park to me. “Micajah, oh lawdy,” She gasped for breath. “Joey been runnin’ up to the road calling for help and me trying to catch him but he never even heared my calls. A man in a car stopped and picked Joey up and done drove off jus’ as I got there.” Aunt Cealie’s eye reflected her inner terror. “It was that car I tol’ you ‘bout, Micajah. The one that come down the road by the river in the middle of the night sometimes. The one with the rattle.”

  I had never before been hit by such panic as fell upon me at hearing those words. For the second time in my life I experienced that strange broken symmetry of existence. That same unreal duality of standing on the mountain with Ell while my real self died next to her in the glider. Joey had been with me moments before: now he was gone. I finally managed to ask, “How long ago?”

  “Weren’t but a minute. He done drove off ‘fore I could get the number on the license plate firm in my head.” She wrung her hands. “Lawdy, I too old an’ useless to hardly remember my own name any more.”

  Had I just crossed back over seventy years, given up a life beyond human dreams, to have failed? That seemed to be what Aunt Cealie was telling me. I regarded her in disbelief. Stunned. Had nothing changed? Had my return been in vain? But new events were on the wing, changing everything. I had to act quickly. My world hinged on what happened in the next few seconds. “Do you remember any of the tag number.”

  “They was two naughts right together in the middle. I recalls that plain as
day.”

  My heart leapt. “Was it 75007?”

  “Yes. Two sevens too. I believe so. That jus’ might be it.”

  “Was it a black Packard?”

  “Micajah, I don’t know one motor car from the next. It were black and it were old. That’s all I know. Had a busted taillight, too.”

  I let out a sigh of relief. “It’s okay then. That’s Mr. Quintin’s old Packard. He must have picked Joey up.” So, Old Man Quintin had saved the day twice now. I turned my attention to Arlie. His eyes were swollen nearly shut and his lips puffy. I was afraid for a moment his neck might be broken from the hammering he had taken but the culprits were, after all, only sixth graders. Arlie groaned once and sat up somewhat dazed.

  “Is that Aunt Cealie?”

  “Yeah, she ran Hartley and his gang off. Told them the police were on the way.” I turned to Aunt Cealie. “They aren’t, though, are they?”

  “’Course they ain’t. How I gonna call the po-leece. I was just happenin’ by and a good thing, too.”

  I knew that wasn’t the real story. She had known what today was and even where Joey had gone missing before. And she was here to make sure nothing bad happened today. I didn’t even have to ask. We both knew what the other was thinking. I just nodded and said, “Thanks, Aunt Cealie.”

  “Don’t thank me yet, Micajah. Onc’t we see little Joey home safe and sound that be the time for any thanks.”

  Her words left a chill on the nape of my neck. She didn’t think this was over yet.

  “Well, let’s get Arlie up and over to my house. We can fix up his cuts and get an ice pack on his face before his eyes swell shut. At least we know where Joey is.”

  Mom was frantic when the three of us wandered into the kitchen.