The Calling

by Robert Swartwood

  But now, a little more than a week later, I planned to break that promise. What it was I’d ask him I didn’t know, but I knew when the time came I’d think of something. If not, I’d improvise.

  Jack Murphy’s farm was located on the eastern edge of Lanton Township, in large rolling fields about fifteen miles from my house. It took us twenty minutes to get there, Steve taking his time because he thought that the slower he drove, the sooner I’d tell him what was going on. Too bad for him, I kept my mouth shut and enjoyed the ride.

  The farmhouse sat a quarter mile off Lewiston Road. The drive was paved and ended beside the first of two barns where Jack kept his cows. There was about a fifty-yard gap between the barn and the house, with a stone walkway leading up to the porch steps. I remembered driving out here at night to meet Mel, lying out on the fields and staring up at the stars. She’d hated the fact her dad stopped being a teacher, had instead decided to become a farmer. She was popular at school, sure, but still the fact she was a farmer’s daughter was a title that had become solely hers, and which she absolutely loathed.

  When Steve parked and we got out, he glanced around and frowned. “That’s strange.”

  “What is?”

  “Every other time I’m out here, his dogs always come running.”

  It was true. There were two dogs that constantly ran the Murphy property, a German shepherd and a Husky. Their names were Ben and Jerry. They were Patty’s dogs, little nine-year-old Patty who I had once thought of as a little sister, a girl who would always want me to partake in her knock-knock jokes, who would always say, “I really like you a lot, Chris. Even more than Mel,” saying her sister’s name as if it was diseased.

  We stood on either side of the cruiser, both our doors shut. The sky was clear, the day was warm, and the smell of hay and cow dung was thick in the air. It was a familiar smell that I’d somehow forgotten, the months erasing the memory of the odors from my mind.

  Steve rested his hands on the hood and stared at me. “All right, Chris. Now that we’re here, what’s going on?”

  “Where do you think he is?”

  “How the hell should I know? His truck’s parked over there. It doesn’t look like Karen’s home though. At least I don’t see her car anywhere.”

  Jack Murphy’s Dodge Ram was parked beside the barn. The wide double doors were opened; I could hear the cows shuffling and mooing in their stalls. I wondered briefly why none of them were out in the field when I turned to face the house.

  That’s when I felt it.

  A sudden sense of wrongness, like a pang of ice shooting through my soul. It pulled me forward, and before I even knew I’d begun walking, I heard Steve behind me.

  “Hey, where do you think you’re going?”

  The house was three stories, its first two stories stone, its third story covered in white siding. Its trim and shutters were sky blue. It almost looked as if it’d been built during the Civil War era. A large oak tree stood a short distance from the house, a tire swing hanging from one of its high branches. On the second floor were two windows that faced front. The chill pulling me forward was coming from the open window on the left, which I knew was Patty’s bedroom.

  I was almost to the porch, my sneakers crunching the gravel on the walkway, when I heard her faint voice coming from that window.

  “No ... Daddy, stop ... please.”

  So soft, so small, yet I sensed the fear there, the urgency, and before I realized it I’d begun sprinting up the steps. The front door was open, the only thing keeping the outside world away a screen door. I crashed through this and then I was inside, the fragrant scent of apple cider hitting my nostrils, while behind me Steve called for me to stop.

  I noticed a collection of things as I ran toward the stairs—the antique pots on the floor, the two dogs tied up in the kitchen, the framed pictures in the hallway of Jack Murphy and his wife and daughters—but none of it mattered to me, because now inside I heard her voice more clearly, I heard her moans and her gasps and her pleading.

  I took the steps two at a time. Blood pounded in my ears. When I reached the second floor I went straight for the closed door, opened it and walked right in.

  He had her on the bed. She was naked but he still wore his briefs. Her arms were being held up above her head and she seemed to be struggling with her legs, which he kept in place with his knees. He outweighed her by more than one hundred pounds, him being at least forty while she wasn’t yet even ten years old.

  He looked back at me. His face was naked without his glasses, his lustful wild eyes now filled with confusion and bewilderment.

  “What,” he started to say, but that was it.

  Everything was silent in that single instant. Even Patty had stopped her whimpering and pleading. Downstairs, one of the dogs started barking. Then behind me, the sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs. Seconds later, Steve grabbed my shoulder.

  He meant to pull me back, meant to ask me just what the hell I was thinking. But then he stopped. He saw what I saw.

  He whispered, “My God.”

  • • •

  TWO POLICE CRUISERS showed up five minutes after Steve made the call. Jack Murphy was read his rights and placed in the back of one of the cars.

  Patty Murphy was taken in the other cruiser to her grandparent’s place across town. She was silent the entire time, tears dried on her small face. She had seen me, had looked right at me, but didn’t say anything, didn’t even wave. The guy who had played along with her knock-knock jokes, the guy who she said she liked a lot, even more than her own sister who was the guy’s girlfriend, was now somehow a stranger to her.

  I stood on the lawn in front of the house, beside the tire swing. It was an actual tire, a worn Goodyear. Ben and Jerry had been untied. They hadn’t seen me in a couple months and had come up to me right away, wanting to be petted, but when it became clear they were being ignored they started to roam the property, oblivious to what was taking place.

  Steve waited until the car with Jack Murphy left, then came and stood beside me. He crossed his meaty arms and sighed. “He’s not saying a word. Guess he’s going to wait until he gets his lawyer. But I’ll tell you what—he’s going away for a long time. We ... well, I really shouldn’t be telling you this, but we found pornography on his computer in the den. Child pornography. It was actually on the screen when one of my men passed the room, so he went and did a quick search. There are thousands of files.” He shook his head. “And as it turns out, Karen is away. Down in West Virginia for the week.”

  In other words, Mel was off touring Europe for the summer, Karen was down south on one of her retreats, where she met a group of other artists that shared their love for pottery in the same way she did. Meaning that Jack Murphy had been left alone with his nine-year-old daughter for at least a week, Jack Murphy who’d had been addicted to child pornography all this time but never let the desire control him until today.

  “Christ,” Steve said, “things come in threes, don’t they. First your parents, then the Youngs, and now this.”

  I looked at him. “The Youngs?”

  “Your uncle didn’t tell you? I thought I’d mentioned it to him. Shannon Young was driving with the boys Monday afternoon. They went through an intersection and a truck ran the light. Smashed right into them. Killed them instantly.”

  “What about Pastor Young?”

  “He wasn’t in the car. But he’s been a wreck ever since. Real shame, that. Real shame, all of this.”

  The dogs raced past us, Ben nipping after Jerry’s tail.

  Steve cleared this throat. “Now, Chris, I’m going to ask you something. I’m not sure if I want to hear the answer, but I’m still going to ask because I feel I have to. How did you know?”

  I waited a moment, then another, then said, “I didn’t.” I still smelled the mixture of lavender and sweat from Patty Murphy’s bedroom, like it had somehow gotten into my clothes, saturated my skin. “Let’s just leave it at that.”

&nb
sp; Steve seemed to allow my words to soak in, because he stood there for a while, stock-still. Eventually he nodded. “All right then. I guess I can live with that. That’s fine by me.”

  I thought about Joey and what he told me to do about Jack Murphy. The rational part of my mind had needed this to be nothing, to be just one big mistake so it could call Joey a liar and throw everything Moses had told me back in his face. Now I saw that couldn’t happen, because Joey had been right and I had no reason not to believe.

  But unlike Steve, it wasn’t fine by me.

  • • •

  JUST BEFORE SCRANTON, I stopped at a Sunoco station to fill up and take a piss.

  By then it was already three o’clock. I’d gotten a late start dealing with Steve and trying to persuade him to let me go back to Bridgton by myself. He was still shook up after the whole Jack Murphy incident and seemed to sense that something else was going on but kept his suspicions to himself.

  There were only four available pumps, as two were out of order. Cars were waiting, so after filling up and paying inside, I moved my Cavalier to the side lot and parked between the building and an old red Celica. The bathrooms were outside here—one men’s, one women’s.

  I tried the men’s door but it was locked and someone inside shouted, “Almost done,” so I stood back and waited. I glanced at the bare picnic tables on the grass, then at my own car. I tried not to think of my grandfather’s Bible inside on the passenger seat. While before I’d been curious to see what was written, now I wanted nothing more than to get it out of my life.

  From inside the bathroom I heard the cranking noise of the paper towel dispenser, barely audible over the busy afternoon traffic on the highway.

  I had about another two hours of driving left. I wondered what my excuse would be for leaving when the red Celica parked beside my car caught my attention.

  Only two doors, its paint was faded and peeling, and the rear windshield had been shattered or taken out. What replaced it now was a sheet of heavy plastic kept in place by duct tape.

  Something’s in the trunk.

  I had no idea what it was but that same chill raced through my body like it did back at the farmhouse. I was drawn to it, needing to know what was inside, but before I could even take a step forward the men’s door opened and a small Hispanic man walked out. He barely looked at me as he stepped off the curb and walked around to the Celica. He took one glance at the highway as he opened the door, and as he did his eyes widened just a bit.

  I glanced over as well. At first I couldn’t connect what he was looking at, and then I saw. A Pennsylvania State Police cruiser had just pulled in and was waiting in line at the pumps. When I looked back the Hispanic man had already gotten into the Celica. The engine coughed to life and the car slowly backed up, its brakes squeaking. It then started forward with some hesitation before pulling out onto the highway.

  “Hey,” I said, but it was barely the shout I’d intended, and I watched the car go, my body motionless, thinking there’s something in that trunk and wondering just what the hell I was supposed to do about it.

  Then it was gone, lost in the continuous line of traffic, and I turned away, entered the men’s room. By the time I got back in my car and started off toward Bridgton again, the thought of that Celica and what was in the trunk was the farthest thing from my mind.

  Chapter 19

  When I returned to The Hill around five that afternoon, my grandmother sat by herself on the swing beside her trailer. It was still positioned facing down into the valley. I parked, left the Bible in my car, and walked up to her.

  Her cane rested between her legs, her hands in her lap. She stared out at the ragged horizon, her small face set, her eyes squinted. Even though I stood right there, she refused to look at me. I opened my mouth but didn’t say anything. I couldn’t think of anything worthwhile to say, so I looked away toward Moses’s RV. The Metro was gone.

  “He’s not there.” Her voice was soft and low. “He left about an hour ago. He came over and asked me if you were back yet. I told him I had no idea. I told him I thought I knew my grandson, but I guess I don’t. No grandson of mine in his right mind would run off and leave his grandmother scared to death like that.”

  I said, “I’m sorry,” but it sounded weak even to my own ears.

  “Your uncle’s not happy. He doesn’t understand either. Just what could possess you to go all the way back home, Christopher? And why did that man know more about where you were than us? He’s just a stranger. We’re family.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “We are family. But what about a month ago? What about last year? Were we family then? Until my parents died, did you ever wonder about me? Did you even care?”

  She stared back at me, giving me an expression I would have expected to see had I just slapped her across the face.

  I opened my mouth, meaning to apologize. But the shock in my grandmother’s face turned to anger and I wanted nothing more to do with her, so I just walked away. Five steps to the drive, where I meant to turn toward my trailer, but then I saw Sarah coming out of the Rec House. She carried a paperback in her hand. She was headed toward Half Creek Road.

  I started up the drive toward the road. Sarah had just looked both ways and was crossing it, and as I passed the Rec House I called her name.

  She turned around on the other side. Shielded the sun from her eyes with the paperback. I stood where I was on my side of the road and stared back at her, uncertain now what I wanted to say or do.

  Finally I came up with two words.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “What?” She frowned. “Why?”

  “For before. I shouldn’t have said those things to you.”

  “And why’s that? You were being honest. That’s nothing to apologize for.”

  A pickup truck came up the road, lumber stacked in the back. Sarah gave a quick wave to the driver as he passed us. I waited until it was gone before crossing the road.

  “Because I made you upset,” I said. “I’m sorry for that.”

  She started walking toward her house. “I told you, there’s nothing to be sorry about. You did the one thing almost nobody else in your position would have done.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “You were honest. Why should you be sorry?”

  The garage door was open. Inside John Porter was busy working on his Firebird. “Perry Mason” blared from the stereo, Ozzy Osbourne singing about kids riding painted horses.

  Sarah started walking but then stopped. She glanced at the garage before looking back at me.

  “In fact, I’m going to be honest with you. Remember that day you met me in the Rec House? Did you even wonder why I was in there? I go there every time my dad and brother are home. Because since my mom died, they’ve both started hating each other. There’s no reason for it. Did you know my dad lost his pinkie finger while he was working when we were kids? John used to call him Pinkie behind his back. Now he calls him that to his face.”

  She pushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

  “My mom was the glue that held our family together, and now without her it’s falling apart and I can’t put up with it anymore. Don’t you get it? That’s why I was there that day, because I was hiding from the silence that comes from both of them. It scares me.”

  She shook her head.

  “And you, Chris, you scare me too. But not in a bad way. It’s just ... I want to be your friend, but I know it wouldn’t work out. Because right now I’ve got no friends. All those people that call themselves my friends at school are fakes. I’m an outcast, that’s all I am, and I’m afraid if I get close to you I’ll somehow drive you away. Either that or pull you down with me.”

  She kept her gaze level and steady.

  “I mean, don’t you get it yet? Don’t you see who and what I am? Look back across the road. That’s a trailer park, for Christ’s sake. And do you know what that makes me, just because my dad—who’s also a truck driver—owns that tra
iler park?”

  She paused, willing me to answer, but I didn’t.

  “Trailer trash,” Sarah said. “That’s what I am, Chris. No matter what I do, I’ll always be trailer trash. No matter if I played the clarinet in school, or got good grades, or tried out for the debate team, or”—she held the paperback up—“read classic literature just for fun. Nothing I do can change my place in life. Believe me, I’ve tried, and it was never going to happen. I am what I am. And then this trailer trash girl got herself knocked up. Isn’t that just the perfect ending to my crappy life story?”

  She waited, letting that last question hang out there between us, and when she realized I wasn’t going to say anything she turned and started up the steps. Opened the front door and disappeared inside.

  It was a couple of seconds before I realized John now stood in the doorway of the garage. One of his Marlboro’s hung in his mouth. He nodded at me to come over.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, once we stood facing each other. Behind him, in the garage, Ozzy now sang about seeing the man around the corner waiting. “I don’t give a shit what all that was about. I know you’re a decent guy and my sister’s crazy, so whatever. But how you holding up after Sunday night?”

  “Not bad. How about you? I thought you were grounded.”

  He was inhaling when I said this; now he laughed, coughing out smoke. “Yeah, right—grounded. I guess you could say that. I’m only grounded when my old man’s home, and he left like an hour ago. He’ll be gone tomorrow night too, which is sweet, ’cause me and a few of my buddies are crashing this pre-graduation party.” He paused, gave me a look, and said, “Hey, you wanna come?”