This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.
Tyler Buckspan
Prizm Books
A subsidiary of Torquere Press Publishers
PO Box 2545
Round Rock, TX 78680
Copyright 2013 by Jere’ M. Fishback
Cover illustration by Fiona Jayde
Published with permission
ISBN: 978-1-61040-515-7
www.torquerepress.com
All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever except as provided by the U.S. Copyright Law. For information address Torquere Press. Inc., PO Box 2545, Round Rock, TX 78680.
First Torquere Press Printing: August 2013
Printed in the USA
CHAPTER ONE
On a summer afternoon in 1963, a pickup with missing hubcaps and a cracked windshield left my half brother Devin at the curb in front of Grandma's house. Heat radiated from the asphalt road when Devin leapt from the truck's bed. He waved thanks to three men wearing straw hats who occupied the truck's cab. A pair of boxer shorts peeked from a grocery sack Devin carried in the crook of his arm. While the truck rattled off, he stood on the sidewalk, gazing at the house and using his hand as a visor. He worked the concrete with a sneaker toe.
Lanky and dark-haired, Devin was nineteen years old. His blue jeans sagged. His underwear showed, and his tight-fitting T-shirt was dark in the armpits. In one rolled-up sleeve, he stored a pack of cigarettes.
I sat on a glider sofa in the shade of our front porch, staring at Devin. A Green Lantern comic book rested in my lap, and I clutched a glass of iced tea.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"Who are you?" I answered, even though I knew.
I'd never met Devin, but Mom had told me all about him. A product of her first marriage, Devin was a high school dropout. He'd spent a year in a Georgia state prison, following an arson conviction. Just before his release, Mom had paid Devin a visit, up in Georgia, the first time they'd spoken in many years.
Now Devin would live with us.
"I don't know for how long," Mom had told Grandma over supper the previous evening. "The boy needs someplace to stay until he's situated."
My grandmother blinked behind her bifocal lenses. "I don't see why he can't live with Gordon, like before."
Gordon was Mom's first husband. My dad was number two.
Mom set her fork on her plate. Placing her elbows on the table, she glared at Grandma.
"I told you: Gordon and his folks have washed their hands of Devin."
"With good reason: he's a criminal and a mischief-maker. Do you think for one minute you'll change that?"
"I can try," Mom said.
Grandma shook a finger.
"The first sign of trouble, he's out the door. Understood?"
Now, Devin climbed the steps and approached me. Extending his hand, he told me his name. His long eyelashes and turned-up nose gave his face a girlish look, but his grip was firm, his voice deep for a guy his age. Like me, he spoke with a North Georgia accent.
I didn't rise when we shook. I only told him I was Tyler.
He asked, "How old are you?"
"Fifteen. I start high school -- ninth grade -- next week."
He narrowed his emerald eyes.
"You look younger, like you're fourteen."
Great. Why did people always say that? I wasn't as tall as some guys my age, and I was skinny, but I grew hair in all the right places. During summer break, I'd performed push-ups each morning, before breakfast. I started with two sets of twelve. Now, I was up to three sets of twenty-five, and it showed in my chest and shoulders.
Well, I thought so anyway.
Devin stared through the screen door, into the house. The bag in his arm crackled.
"Is my mom home?"
"She's on the job; so's Grandma."
My mother worked in Daytona Beach, as a stylist in a beauty parlor; she trimmed hair, did perms, color jobs, and manicures.
"I hate it," she'd told me countless times. "I'd do anything to escape that place."
Mom was petite, a slender woman with dark hair and eyes, copious makeup, and a nasal voice that quickly sharpened when something displeased her. She subscribed to a half dozen movie magazines. Often, she'd daydream out loud after reading an article about Ava Gardner or Elizabeth Taylor.
"Imagine being a film star," she'd once told me. "I'd spend my days sunning myself beside a swimming pool in Beverly Hills, or I'd live in Malibu, overlooking the Pacific. I'd do all my shopping at Neiman-Marcus and never touch a hair curler again."
My grandmother was a self-employed medium in Cassadaga, our tiny community in northeast Florida. In a cramped storefront, she read tarot cards. She conducted séances where she spoke with the dead. She also read palms and offered advice. A dozen other Cassadaga women did so as well. Believers came to our town from all over the southeastern United States, seeking spiritual guidance from the "gifted ladies."
"Don't tell your grandmother this," Mom had once told me, "but I think spirituality's bunk, a complete fraud."
Now, on the front porch, I set down my tea glass and comic book. Then I led Devin inside.
Built before the First World War, my grandma's house was wood-framed and two-storied, with a tin roof, heart of pine floors, two wood-burning fireplaces, and dormer windows extending from each of five, second-floor bedrooms. A man six feet tall could stand up straight in the attic. Grandma favored walnut furniture, damask drapes, and Oriental carpets. Sloping roof eaves kept every room dark, even at that hour, despite a plethora of double-hung windows. Aromas of mildew and mothballs permeated the place.
I slapped our lion's head newel post before leading Devin up the stairs. The treads creaked while we rose. Devin's tobacco-scented breath swept my neck. His body odor smelled like spoiled milk, and I crinkled my nose.
Don't they have toothpaste and soap in prison?
"This'll be yours," I said, leading him into the smallest of our bedrooms. An iron framed, three-quarter bed, painted in black enamel and draped with a chenille spread, hugged one wall. A bureau with a hazy mirror occupied a corner. Cobwebs swayed in several places where the water-stained ceiling met the walls. A dead cockroach lay upon its back, on a braided area rug.
After opening the closet door, Devin sniffed and shook his head. He opened the dormer window, sat on the bed. The springs beneath him wheezed. Setting down his grocery sack, he produced a lighter with a hinged lid. Then he reached for his cigarettes.
"You shouldn't smoke in the house," I said. "Grandma won't like it."
Shrugging, he lit up and inhaled. Then he blew a stream of smoke. It burned my lungs and made me want to cough, but I didn't let myself. The bluish haze rose to the ceiling, where the smoke hovered among the cobwebs.
I pointed to Devin's left hand.
"What are those marks?"
After he raised his arm, I stepped forward for a closer look. His first name, written in squiggly blue font, appeared on his thumb and fingers, one letter per digit.
"It's a prison tattoo; I did it myself."
I nodded and moistened my lips. "What's it like when they lock you up?"
He shrugged. "You wouldn't care for it: all these smelly, stupid guys. The food's lousy and the screws bully you; they--"
"Screws?"
"It's what we call the guards. Some are okay, but most are cruel bastards, and they're all on the take. For a price, you can get anything you want in prison: booze, drug
s, even sex."
I arched my eyebrows.
"They bring women inside?"
Devin looked at me and grimaced.
"Not that kind of sex. Use your imagination."
I blushed. Lowering my gaze, I shifted my weight from one leg to the other.
Devin cleared his throat.
"Like I said, you probably wouldn't like prison."
He drew on his cigarette. Then he made an "O" with his lips and blew smoke rings. The rings floated over my head while I cracked my knuckles, trying to think of something to say. Several seconds passed. Then Devin broke the silence.
"So, what's a guy do for fun in Cassadaga?"
I chuckled and shook my head. "There's a fresh water spring, half a mile from here; it's nice for swimming. Otherwise, you take a bus to Daytona; you watch a movie, go bowling, and stuff like that."
He rose and took a last drag off his cigarette, before flicking the butt out the window. Exhaling smoke, he turned to me and pointed toward Grandma's free-standing garage. Above its opening hung a plywood backboard with a basketball goal, a Christmas gift from my mom I had rarely used.
"Got a basketball?" Devin asked.
***
My grandma kept a quart-sized water jug in her Frigidaire. Now Devin and I passed it back and forth, seated on the rear steps of Grandma's house. We had both removed our shirts; we used them to mop sweat from our faces. I studied Devin's physique while he raised the jug to his lips, and his Adam's apple bobbed. His chest and shoulder muscles were defined, his biceps too. His belly was flat and striated, his nipples dime-sized and chocolate-colored. The hair under his arms was dark, like that on his head.
We had played four rounds of "Twenty-One," and Devin smoked me every game. His movements on the driveway were quick and precise; his jump shots were works of art. He dribbled behind himself, between his legs, running circles around me. He almost never missed a lay-up.
Now, on the steps, he told me, "Ball handling's the key to winning; keep your opponent guessing. Move fast and mix things up."
There were no boys my age in Cassadaga; the town was an old folks' community, I explained to Devin. My experience with competitive basketball was limited to pickup games at school. My skills, I told him, were dismal.
"We'll work on that," Devin said. Then he poked my shoulder with a finger.
"What?" I said.
He sniffed his armpit. "I'm hot and smelly. Why don't we visit that spring you told me about?"
My pulse quickened, and a smile crept onto my lips.
Tyler, you have a brother now.
Life had grown more interesting.
CHAPTER TWO
In 1948, when my mother divorced Devin's father, Devin was four years old. Mom declined custody of Devin, leaving him in the care of his dad and paternal grandparents. They lived in the north Georgia town of Dahlonega.
"I know it seems strange," Mom had once told me, "a mother leaving her son like that. But my nerves were shot at the time; I couldn't handle the responsibility."
I said, "How come you never visited him? Why didn't he ever visit us?"
"I did visit once, up in Dahlonega, just before Devin started kindergarten, but it didn't go well. You see, Gordon's parents, Dee and Herbert, never liked me. They poisoned Devin's mind, told him all sorts of lies about me."
"Like what?"
Mom raised a shoulder. "It doesn't matter. But when I visited up there, I tried to hug Devin. He cursed a blue streak and kicked my shins so hard they bled. After that, I kept my distance from him."
Back then, her divorce may have jangled her nerves, but despite this, Mom found herself another husband within a year: Roger Buckspan of Decatur, Georgia, the man who later sired me. My dad managed a legion of Amway salesmen, and we never lacked for skin care products or household cleaning solutions. His income, combined with Mom's beauty shop earnings, kept us comfortable in our rented bungalow.
Dad even owned a financed car, a used 1952 Oldsmobile Super 88 with a Rocket Power V8 engine, a convertible roof, turquoise paint job, and white sidewall tires. I loved riding about the streets of Decatur on summer evenings, with the top down. Wind blew through my hair, and glow from streetlights reflected in the Super 88's shiny hood.
While watching Dad Simonize the Oldsmobile in our carport one Saturday, Mom stood at a window and crossed her arms beneath her breasts. Then she shook her head. "I often wonder," she said, "if he loves that car more than you or me."
The Super 88 had problems. Its carburetor was finicky, and the engine had a tendency to stall out at inconvenient times. The engine also suffered from vapor locks, so if Dad turned off the ignition on a warm day, sometimes we'd wait forty-five minutes for the Rocket Power V8 to cool, before Dad could restart it. When this happened, my dad would curse General Motors, Georgia summers, and the Lord himself. He'd pound on the steering wheel while the Super 88 stubbornly refused to turn over. The car wouldn't make a sound when he turned the key, and we'd all sit there, sweating on the vinyl upholstery.
The Super 88's maladies were, in fact, the cause of my dad's untimely death.
On a July afternoon, when I was eight and the sun broiled Decatur's thoroughfares, the Super 88 stalled out while Dad crossed railroad tracks near the intersection of North McDonough Street and East Howard Avenue. According to eyewitness statements, Dad repeatedly tried starting the car, without success. A Seaboard Air Line passenger train approached while onlookers hollered at Dad to exit the Super 88.
"It seemed like the driver was glued to his seat," one woman told a stringer for the Atlanta Journal Constitution. "He kept turning the key over and over, but the engine seemed dead as a doornail."
Another witness said, "The conductor blasted his horn, more than once. Still, that crazy fellow wouldn't budge."
Dad's funeral was, of course, closed casket. A spray of roses and carnations, paid for by Amway, draped the coffin. The company's emblem appeared among the blossoms. Five dozen Amway salesmen attended the service -- stoop-shouldered fellows in alpaca business suits, wearing skinny neckties and scuffed brogues.
Unable to make ends meet on her beautician's income, Mom brought us to Cassadaga, where we had lived ever since, in Grandma's house. Mom hated the place; she called it "the sticks." She told me, "I'd give anything to live elsewhere, but right now it's not possible."
As I'd explained to Devin, Cassadaga was an old folks' community, so I attended elementary and junior high schools in nearby Orange City. Now though, I would attend high school in the town of Deland, seat of government for Volusia County.
I'd grown up without playmates, spending most of my free time reading books. Hardy Boys detective novels and Civil War history volumes were among my favorites. I'd solve crossword puzzles or play solitaire. Sometimes, I wandered through citrus groves, listening to the buzz of honeybees and inhaling the sickly sweet smells of orange blossoms while searching for arrowheads and shards of Indian pottery. On warm days, I often visited the spring I had told Devin about. I also kept a diary, at Grandma's suggestion; I made entries before bed each evening.
"I've done it since I was a girl," Grandma had once told me, shortly after we moved in with her. "Reflecting on events of your day makes life more meaningful. And it's fun -- every so often -- to pick up an old volume, to see what you were up to, many years before."
I had recorded my own impressions and activities in spiral notebooks for three years now. Already I'd filled a half dozen notebooks; I kept them hidden beneath a stack of sweaters in my bedroom closet.
In the fall of my sixth grade year, three years after we'd moved to Cassadaga, I contracted encephalitis, presumably from a mosquito bite. I was hospitalized with a high fever. They pumped me full of antibiotics. Then I was quarantined at home for weeks. I had no appetite and lost fifteen pounds; I looked like a scarecrow. I became so weak I barely made it to the bathroom to pee. I spent my days reading World Book Encyclopedia, making it all the way through the "R" volume within six weeks.
; By the time I recovered, I was so far behind in school my principal decided to hold me back a year; he placed me with the fifth graders. I didn't mind, really. Thereafter, I was the oldest kid in my classes. I'd always been small for my age, and for the first time in my life, I wasn't the classroom shrimp.
My grandma didn't own a television set. ("There's nothing but trash on TV.") Her console RCA radio, with its glowing tubes and bulky white knobs, picked up Orlando and Jacksonville stations playing Grand Ole Opry or Lawrence Welk, and I rarely listened to it.
When Devin arrived in Cassadaga, my life there had been lonely and dull.
But now, as I prepared to visit the spring with Devin, I asked myself: Are things about to change?
CHAPTER THREE
After slipping between two courses of barbed wire, Devin and I trudged down a path bisecting a forest of slash pines. Above us, squirrels barked and hopped about branches. Both of us were shirtless; we carried bath towels draped over our shoulders. Dappled sunlight reflected in Devin's hair. Our sneakers crushed pine needles, and a sharp odor of tree sap scented the air.
"This is private property, owned by a lumber company," I told Devin. "I've been here dozens of times, but I've never seen another person."
The spring was pod shaped, maybe the size of two tennis courts. Its sandy bottom was white as table sugar, the water clear. Sunlight reflected in the spring's placid surface. Devin sat on the trunk of a fallen pine tree, next to his towel. He removed his shoes and socks while I stood motionless, watching him. After standing, he reached for the button at his waist, popped it open, and ran down his zipper.
Already, my pulse raced.
Devin shucked his jeans to his ankles, kicked them off, and placed them next to his towel on the tree trunk. Then he looked at me and crinkled his forehead.
"Aren't you going to swim?"
I nodded. Leaning against the pine trunk, I unlaced a sneaker, my hands shaking. I glanced up, just in time to see Devin lower his briefs, and what I saw made my mouth turn pasty.
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