The Calling

by Robert Swartwood

  I turned back and nodded. “You do that. Have them send out Dean Myers.”

  “Deputy Myers? Why him?”

  “He’s my uncle.”

  The old man cocked his head, squinted back at me. Then his dry face grinned and he clapped his hands. “Goddamn, he is, ain’t he. Now I’m starting to see the resemblance. Well why didn’t you just say that before?” He stood up, grimacing at the action, and motioned me up onto the porch. “I’m Lewis Shepherd, the owner of this fine establishment.”

  His hand was small and calloused, and now, standing just a foot away from him, I noticed the mounds of dandruff on the shoulders of his dark shirt. When he turned, his bird’s nest of gray hair was full of it. He opened the door and waved me inside, and I followed him into the house. It was dark and cold, reeking of dust and stale paper. There were rows and rows of books, both tattered hardcover and paperback, on large wooden shelves or in brown unmarked boxes. A counter sat off to the side, an old-fashioned register on top.

  “Got anything in mind?” His cigar, half-smoked, was still in his mouth.

  “Not really.”

  “Well, if you find something you want, just go ahead and take it. Not like any of these books are going anywhere anyhow.”

  I asked him why he never opened.

  He shrugged, said, “Just fell out of the love, I guess,” and started toward the back, where steps led upstairs. “You can let yourself out when you’re done.” At the landing he turned back and surveyed his dusty inventory. “Hell, take two or three if you want. I ain’t gonna miss ’em.”

  I walked up to a box of paperbacks. They were all thin, less than two hundred pages each. Looked to be dime mysteries. “Are you sure you don’t want me to pay?”

  But the old man had already started up the steps, taking them slowly, his heavy boots clapping them one at a time. Then there was the sound of the door slamming shut.

  • • •

  WHEN I RETURNED a half hour later—with a battered paperback copy of Billy Budd—I found Sarah sitting in the same lawn chair Joey had occupied earlier that day. She wore black capris and a large white T-shirt, her strawberry blond hair pulled back into a ponytail. On the ground between her Keds was a plastic cooler.

  She said, “Hey,” but that was all. Her voice was barely a whisper.

  “Hey,” I said, surprised to see her. “What’s up?”

  “I um ... remember what you said yesterday, about hanging out? I was thinking maybe ... I made some sandwiches here.” She glanced down at the white and green Igloo. “They’re Fluffer-Nutters. And there’s some juice boxes and pretzels and ...”

  While she was the same Sarah Porter I’d met and talked with yesterday, she wasn’t. Something about her had changed. As she sat there, her hands folded in her lap, I glanced at the bulge in her belly, and I knew that was the reason. Except it wasn’t me who was put off by the reality of what now lived inside her. It was Sarah who was making this hard on herself, acting as if she was some kind of outcast.

  “Sure,” I said. “That sounds great. But ... where do you want to go?”

  And when she looked up I saw the doubt in her eyes, the worry that I wasn’t being serious. But then, when she realized my sincerity, she smiled. “Harris Hill Park,” she said. “My favorite place in the world.”

  • • •

  HER DIRECTIONS WERE flawless. She took us through Horseheads, past the Arnot Mall and Elmira-Corning Regional Airport, past all the stores and restaurants, then onto Big Flats Road that took us up the mountainside. It was about six o’clock when we arrived at what Sarah called the Lookout. Up on the side of Harris Hill Park (The Soaring Capital of the World, according to a large sign off the side of the road), we parked beside a picnic area and walked to a few benches looking down at the valley.

  “My mom used to bring me up here when I was little,” Sarah said.

  We sat on a black metal bench, the Igloo between us. A few benches down, an elderly couple sat with their arms around each other. A long wooden split-rail fence ran the entire length of the Lookout, keeping anyone from stumbling off the drop. Behind us was a playground, with slides and swings and a large contraption shaped like a plane. A few teenagers sat there smoking, while a few others juggled a hacky sack.

  “She used to tell me it was the highest place in the world. I don’t think I ever really believed her. But ... but it was our place, you know? She’d bring me here and sometimes we’d watch the gliders. But mostly we just talked.”

  I asked, “She doesn’t come up here with you anymore?” without thinking. Then, a moment later, remembering what Joey had told me earlier: “Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t—”

  Sarah shook her head. “No, that’s okay. It’s not your fault.” Then she frowned at me, asked how I’d known. I told her about Joey and she grinned. “I love that kid. He’s so cute.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. I glanced out into the valley, watched a jet as it made its approach to the airport.

  Beside me, Sarah sighed. When I glanced over, she was staring at the ground and shaking her head. I asked her what was wrong.

  “Just my mom,” she said. “She died the first week of September, two years ago. Right before 9/11. I remember actually crying about it that Tuesday, right after those planes crashed. I don’t know why, it’s not like I knew anybody who died there. But I was crying and my dad walked in. He thought it was about my mom. I told him it wasn’t, then wondered to myself why it wasn’t. And my dad said, ‘Thank God your mom died when she did. She’d be more of a wreck than you right now.’ And ... we just started laughing. It was so weird, the way we could actually laugh about something like that. But it wasn’t really laughing, you know? We were just ... getting our grief out. And I’ve always remembered it, because it’s true. My mom would have been a complete wreck. She was the kind of person who got sad when she saw dead deer lying on the side of the road. And I actually thought ... that it was good she died when she did, so she wouldn’t have had to see all that terrible stuff. Does that ... does that make me a bad person?”

  I told her no, not at all.

  Sarah shrugged. “Yeah, I know you’re right. Still it worried me for a while. But do you know what does make me a bad person? That drunk who hit her when she was jogging—I wanted him to suffer. She died instantly, and he was taken to the hospital where he died an hour later. I’d heard that his entire chest was messed up, and he was in a lot of pain. And later, when I was thinking and crying about it, I wished that he’d just kept on living a couple extra hours. You know? Just so that he could be in all that pain.”

  She’d gone back to staring at the ground while she spoke. Now she glanced at me and said, “I’m sorry. You don’t want to hear any of this. It’s just ... I feel so open with you for some reason. It’s kind of weird.” And she laughed briefly, a nervous sort of giggle.

  I smiled and shook my head, told her that was fine.

  Sarah wiped at her eyes. “So what about you? How long are you visiting?”

  “I’m not sure exactly. Could be a week, could be a month.”

  “Are you by yourself, or did your folks come up too?”

  “You mean your dad didn’t tell you?”

  “Tell me what?”

  “My parents,” I said, and at once it hit me how hard the rest was going to be to say. “They ... they’re dead.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry.” She reached across the cooler and touched my arm. “How long ago did it happen?”

  “Just last week.” My voice had become a whisper. I was staring off at single dandelion beside the fence, shivering in the breeze. “They were murdered.”

  “Oh my gosh,” Sarah said. Her voice too had become a whisper. “Did they ... catch the person who did it?”

  I shook my head. “That’s why I’m here. The police think the killer’s after me, so ... I’m kind of hiding out.”

  “But aren’t you scared?”

  I continued watching the lone shivering dandelion. I thought a
bout that morning I woke to that annoying low buzzing. It was just eight days ago but still it felt like a long time, a very long time, and looking at Sarah, I told her the truth.

  “I’m terrified.”

  For a moment neither one of us said anything. Behind us, on the playground, the teens all started laughing.

  Finally Sarah said, “When my mom died, I blamed God at first. I guess it’s just a natural reaction. Do you blame God for what happened?”

  I stared out at the sun that had about another hour or two before it set. I shook my head slowly and whispered, “I don’t believe in God.”

  A long silence fell between us. A few rows down, the elderly couple decided they’d had enough of the view for one evening. The old man placed a brown fedora on his head and held out his hand to help his wife up. When she stood, she pecked him on the cheek and then they started off toward their Cadillac.

  I watched them walk, the man with his arm around his wife’s shoulders, and thought about my parents. About how they would never get to do the same thing. How they would never grow old together, would never watch another sunset. How my mother would never again peck my father’s cheek, and how he would never again put his arm around her as they walked. And how, if they had the chance, they would never again tell me how much they loved me and then wait for me to tell them the same.

  • • •

  “SO WHAT EVER happened to your granddad?”

  We’d been sitting there for almost twenty minutes already, the conversation back on par with yesterday’s. Just random, nothing stuff like our favorite old school TGIF shows—hers was Family Matters (“I’ll actually admit I’ve always thought Urkel was funny”), mine Perfect Strangers—and what bubblegum flavors were the all-time best—she couldn’t decide between mango strawberry and watermelon cherry. The Igloo was open, and we’d both had one sandwich each.

  After taking a swallow from one of the four apple juice boxes, I said, “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve lived across from the trailer park my whole life, and I’ve sort of known Lily for about as long. I never found out the whole story, but I heard something about your granddad going to jail. And the way Lily always talked about him, he was innocent and it never should have happened.”

  I squeezed the tiny juice box as hard as I could. “Actually, they put him in a mental institution. He was insane.”

  “I’m almost afraid to ask, but what did he do?”

  “He tried to kill me.”

  She let this sink in for a moment, then shook her head and muttered, “Holy crap.” That was all. Nothing else, and from those two words I realized something.

  Ever since the day my grandfather tried to kill me I’d always expected the worst. So when I found my parents dead, I was shocked and I was horrified and I was scared. But I wasn’t surprised. Maybe it was a small voice in my head that told me a day like this was eventually going to come, and that I’d been waiting for it ever since.

  “I don’t remember much about it,” I said, staring back at that lone shivering dandelion. “I was in the second grade when he came and took me out of class. And we just got into his car and ... we drove.”

  I remembered the crazy way he rushed into the classroom. My teacher, Mrs. Jackson, had been up front talking about something, answering one of the student’s questions, and then all of a sudden the door opened and in he ran. He ignored Mrs. Jackson when she asked him just what he thought he was doing, and came straight to my desk, told me we had to go right this moment and then started dragging me. I hadn’t been scared. I actually thought it was kind of fun, leaving class like that. On the way out, I’d even waved goodbye to my friends.

  “The police eventually tracked us down. We were on the highway. My grandfather pulled over and just broke down crying. And I sat there watching him, all confused. I asked him what was wrong, and he told me he was sorry and that he loved me, that he wished things could have been different. Then when the cops opened the door and took him out, he looked right back at me and told me to know when to stop.”

  “To what?”

  “To stop. To know when to stop. I don’t know. Like I said, he was insane.”

  “But you said he tried to kill you.”

  “I’m pretty sure that was his intent. After the cops took him away, they found a gun underneath the driver’s seat.”

  Sarah sat back, speechless. I didn’t blame her. She had probably thought her life was messed up more than anyone else she knew, what with her mother and her ... her baby.

  Too bad she’s pregnant and doesn’t even know who the father is.

  And right then I almost did a very stupid thing. The thought of the baby and what my uncle said were too fresh in my mind, and I began formulating a question. I’d even opened my mouth to ask it when Sarah’s eyes widened and she gasped. She reached out, grabbed my hand, and placed it on her belly.

  “Do you feel that?”

  I didn’t feel anything at first. I started to pull my hand away when I did feel something, slightly, a small movement from inside her.

  “It’s kicking.” Her face was bright with a smile. “My baby’s kicking.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Suddenly the dour atmosphere had changed and it was thanks to the life inside Sarah. All our worries, all our thoughts and fears had taken a step back and now it was just the two of us, experiencing one of life’s miracles in its simplest way.

  She laughed, and I laughed, and at that moment I didn’t think about my parents or my grandfather or the sociopath stalking me. All I thought about was Sarah and her baby, and the joy she now shared with me. It felt good.

  • • •

  MUCH LATER THAT night, after playing several games of dominos and cards with my grandmother and Mrs. Roberts, I sat in my trailer reading Billy Budd. Or at least trying to read it. I couldn’t seem to focus and was rereading the first two pages when there was a knock at the door.

  It was Joey. “Ready?”

  “Ready? Ready for what?”

  He shook his head. “Boy, your memory isn’t t-t-too good, is it? Don’t you remember the Beckett House? You said you’d come down with me and John.”

  “I did?”

  Light shined on Joey’s face from the side, then swung over into mine. I had to hold the paperback up and turn my head before the light moved away and I heard John Porter’s deep voice.

  “So, Joe, you ready or what?”

  “Sure I’m ready,” Joey said. “But I don’t think Chris is coming anymore.”

  The light shined back in my face. “That so?”

  “Would you turn that stupid thing off?”

  The flashlight clicked off.

  John said, “Whoa wait, Joe. Where’s your sleeping bag.”

  Joey, staring back at me, shook his head. “I won’t need one.”

  “All right, dude, suit yourself.” John lit up one of his Marlboro’s. “Let’s go. The sooner we get you down there, the sooner I can get my ass in bed. I haven’t slept since Friday.”

  Joey stared back at me a moment longer. Then he nodded and they turned and started down the drive, toward the field and the line of pine trees. I returned to my cramped bed and sat back right where the light was positioned.

  I tried reading again, but after a minute closed the book. I kept thinking about Joey. About the way he stared up at me before leaving with John.

  “What’s the big deal anyway?” I whispered.

  A minute passed, and I tried reading some more. It didn’t work. I was no longer even seeing the words. All I saw was Joey’s face, and his dark, deep-set eyes. Before I knew it I set the book aside, grabbed my sneakers and headed outside. The evening was cool, the sky clear and shining with stars.

  “What the fuck am I doing?” I asked myself.

  By the time I reached the Beckett House John was heading back up the trail. But Joey was there. Of course he was.

  He was waiting for me.

  Chapter 9

  Even at night the Beckett House w
asn’t intimidating. Because of the clear sky, the moon shone light into the small clearing, but it wasn’t much. The surrounding trees created moving shadows everywhere, as the wind rustled their tops back and forth. Crickets hid chirping in the branches and tall grass.

  Joey sat in the house’s doorway, his arms resting on his pulled-up knees. When he saw me he slowly stood up, wiping at his eyes. He was crying.

  “Joey, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  He was lying, but I decided to ignore it and asked, “Why am I here?”

  “Your p-p-parents were murdered.”

  “No, I mean why am I here? Standing here with you in front of this stupid house?” I paused. “Wait. How’d you know about my parents?”

  “Can you t-tell me about them? About your mom and your dad?”

  I stared at him in the darkness and saw another person. Like when we’d been in the Rec House and he told me about his mother and how he didn’t have anyone except his dad. I’d felt sorry for him then, but here right now I didn’t know what to feel.

  “What do you want to know about them?”

  “Just something that sticks out. Something that made you love them.”

  The crickets continued chirping around us, the wind continued to rustle the tops of the trees.

  “No,” I said. “No, Joey, I don’t see the point.”

  “I just want to know if it’s worth it.”

  “If what’s worth it?”

  He stared at me, and for a moment I didn’t think he was going to say anything else. Then he took a deep breath and said, “Chris, the Lord has a plan for each of—”

  “Don’t,” I said. “I don’t want to hear it.”

  “But the Lord—”

  “Fuck the Lord. He doesn’t give a shit about me, and I sure as hell don’t give a shit about him. Sorry to break it to you, Joey, but you have to get out of that bubble you’ve been living in. You have to grow up and start seeing that this whole Lord thing is just a waste of time. That’s how life is.”