Billy Goat Hill

by Mark Stanleigh Morris

  My legs are wobbly, my stomach is even less steady, and my mind is in a tangle over what to make of the entire episode. I wish Festus and Jethro would come and tow me home and put me to bed. Luke, on the other hand, is fit as a fiddle, fully recovered and ready to tackle the next adventure on the agenda.

  “Let’s stop and sit for a minute, Luke. I need to rest.”

  “Sure. Do you want me to go up to Kory’s and get you a Royal Crown?”

  “Do you have any money?”

  He grins. “Nope. But I can swipe some empties from around back and cash them in.”

  “That might work at Sal’s, probably because Sal lets us get away with it, but don’t try it at Kory’s. We already have a bad name there. Thanks anyway. I just need to sit for a bit.”

  “Okay.” He sits on the curb next to me.

  Mac had lagged behind us coming up the path. Now he sits on the other side of me, rump on the curb, front legs in the gutter.

  “Hi, boy.”

  “Darn dog,” Luke mutters. “He thinks he’s a person sitting like us.”

  I give Mac a long scratch behind both ears. “I think Mac might be smarter than both of us put together.”

  Mac’s tail starts up, acknowledging the compliment. He gives my cheek a lick, which I take as forgiveness for ignoring his warnings about the storm drain. No matter what I do, no matter how stupid my behavior is, Mac always loves me and forgives me.

  Resting quietly at the curb, I think about the Sergeant. “I failed to think clearly and realize the danger.” I am amazed I’m alive to have those words haunt me now.

  I dig my fingers into the furry folds of Mac’s shoulders and massage my way up his neck. “Good boy, good dog.”

  Mac may have forgiven me, but I have not forgiven myself. Contrition weighs heavy on my shoulders, and no one is volunteering to massage mine.

  The walk home has never been longer. Each step treads hard on what little is left of my gossamer ego. I am convinced I have evoked the wrath of God. Being driven out of Three Ponds and flushed out of Cavendish Caverns proves it. Superstitious worry has turned into wary veneration. And now fear is compounding at an alarming rate, filling me with foreboding that the worst is yet to come.

  We arrive home to an empty house—no note from Lucinda, no singing Carl to sooth my battered spirit. The three of us sit on the front porch in silence until the sun goes down. Luke falls asleep on the steps, and I get him on his feet and walk him to his bed. We both reek of tunnel sliding, but baths will have to wait until tomorrow. It matters not that the fridge is nearly empty—we are too tired to eat anyway. I’ll make horsecakes for Luke in the morning. If there’s no milk, I’ll use water for the batter.

  As I tuck myself in bed, I try to banish a sinking feeling. I need to create a positive mental countermeasure before facing the dead man. I imagine that I possess an ampule of concentrated bravery. I apply a tourniquet, find a vein, and give myself a massive dose. It puts me to sleep, but I do not rest.

  The good news is the dead man of Three Ponds has the night off. The bad news is he has a substitute tormentor. The hanging man appears swinging like a pendulum from the catwalk under the train trestle. All through the fitful night, the rope groans—calling my name.

  ineteen sixty-two takes forever to come, or maybe it is 1961 that takes forever to leave. It seems Carl the gun-toting baker is suffering the same lethargic passing of time that I am. He is on probation for disturbing the peace and unlawfully discharging a firearm within the city limits. He mopes around looking long in the face, attending three AA meetings per week by order of the court. Recently his spirits have revived some thanks to Friendship 7 and John H. Glenn, Jr.

  Carl claims he’s quit drinking, but Luke and I know better. We watched him stash several cases of Brew 102 behind the old fig tree in his backyard today. He saw us peeking through the fence and then pretended not to see us.

  “Bottled bread yeast,” he sang out plenty loud enough for us to hear.

  Luke and I giggled and hunkered down behind the fence.

  “FIG-ure that,” Luke whispered.

  His pun cracked me up so that I had to get up and run around to the other side of the house.

  Carl is not a healthy role model, but he has always been relatively harmless. I have been extra considerate of him since the day he tried to shoot down the Russian cosmonaut. Strange as it might seem, even given how much his drinking problem serves as a painful reminder of Earl, on some murky level I identify with Carl. Truthfully, I don’t believe he is any less stable than I am. In fact, I think Carl is a hardworking, intelligent man. And he sure can sing. The difference is I haven’t yet been tempted by the curse of alcohol, and I hope I never am.

  But there is another difference between Carl and me, a big one. Carl enjoys the unconditional love and support of a wife, who by everything I can tell must be eligible for sainthood. Carl is more than a handful—the whole neighborhood knows that—but despite his legendary cantankerousness, his wife never seems to lose patience with him. She doesn’t give up, and I admire that about her. Lo the burden that Carl can be, she truly seems happy and content.

  Sometimes I watch her work when she tends her flower garden in their backyard. Half the time she seems to carry on a conversation with a nonexistent workmate. Once I dared to ask her who she was talking to.

  “Who am I talking to? Why, my best friend.” She smiled.

  “Really? Your best friend…who?”

  “Jesus. He’s a very good listener.”

  “Really? I should tell Him that I hope someday I have a wife who loves and cares for me as much as you love and care for Carl.”

  “My goodness, that’s just about the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. Bless you, Wade.”

  “My friend, Rodney, told me a little about Jesus.”

  “I’d say you have a good friend.”

  “He died.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “That’s okay. I have his Bible.”

  “That’s good. Do you read it?”

  “No. But I like having it.”

  “I’m glad you told me about your friend.”

  “I like talking about Rodney.”

  “He sounds like he was very nice.”

  “Yes, ma’am, he was. Can I ask you something?”

  “Of course…anything you want.”

  “I was wondering—why does Carl hate the Russians so much?”

  She appears slightly surprised. “My goodness, Carl doesn’t hate the Russians. As a matter of fact, he is a Russian. He was born and raised near Moscow and fled during the revolution. He made his way to the west and eventually became an American citizen. But he misses his homeland very much. It’s the Soviet government and communism that he has a problem with.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Well, I’m glad you asked. Answers come from questions. That’s how we learn things.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Well, real nice talking to you.”

  “Nice talking to you, too. Give that Bible of yours a little reading when you can. It’s full of good answers.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  No wonder Carl gets so worked up. What do you know—he’s a Russian. One thing is certain, the story of Carl attempting to shoot down a Soviet spacecraft will be told at least a thousand times.

  April Fools’ Day 1962 finds me prepared to detect and thwart any and all attempts by Luke to trick me. I feel certain he is trying to set me up for a fall of some kind, and I’ve been careful to note his every move. Like Carl, I have been moping along, struggling with my demons one day at a time, so I’m used to keeping my guard up.

  Before the day is over, I may indeed be proven a fool. But today there’s an enlivening newness about and I am enjoying some especially rare good cheer. I have good reason to be upbeat and happy—it is springtime and the smell of baseball is in the air.

  I’m sitting on the bedroom floor annoying Mac, who is in the middle of one of his random naps. Ti
ckling the tufts of fur between the pads of his paws is one of my favorite pastimes.

  I start to tell Mac one of my best Duke Snider tales when Luke bounds into the bedroom all out of breath. “Guess what! I know you won’t believe me—but the Sergeant just pulled up out front in Queenie!”

  I look at him cross-eyed. “Oh, come on now. You do better than that.” He’s been trying all kinds of unimaginative nonsense since we got up this morning, but this takes the cake.

  “No, really, I’m not fooling. It’s the Sergeant for sure. The tree is blocking the car, but I’m pretty sure I saw another person with him.”

  Yeah, right. He does seem quite serious, but I am absolutely not falling for it. Mac hasn’t raised an eyebrow, which is a highly reliable indication that no interlopers have entered Parker territory. “Okay, let’s see… I know—you go tell the Sergeant that Miss Cherry and I have gone to Hawaii on our honeymoon.”

  “I’m not going to say that.”

  “Go on—just tell him.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Okay, if you’re sure that’s what you really want me to say.”

  “That’s what I really want you to say.” He spins on his heels and leaves the room as quickly as he came in. Easily defeated twerp.

  Mac grows weary from my prolonged pestering and makes a halfhearted attempt to nip my hand. He adds a weak growl before laying his head back on the floor. With one eye open, he watches me apply a piece of floor lint to the tip of his moist black nose. His tolerance for this kind of abuse does have a limit. If I keep it up long enough, he’ll concede the space to me and retreat to another part of the house. End of game. Following him is not a good idea.

  Something startles Mac, and he snorts out a burst of air that sends the lint sailing in a perfect loop-the-loop. In the same fraction of a second, he’s up on his feet displaying an erect ridge of fur down the length of his spine.

  “Geez, take it easy boy. I won’t tease you anymore.”

  His glaring deep-brown eyes pierce the space I occupy like parallel X rays.

  “Aloha, tough guy. I thought you were in Hawaii.”

  Scar!

  Mac relaxes and puts a little wag in his tail. I turn around slowly and mouth the words, “April fools?”

  He gives me that handsome grin. “How have you been, Wade?”

  “Uh—fine, sir. How are you?”

  Luke leans his head in the door. “I told him what you said.”

  I give Luke a stern look, and he sticks his tongue out at me.

  “I’m good, Wade. I’ve got someone out in the car who would sure like to see you guys.”

  Mac jumps up on the bed and peers out the window. His tail goes into high gear, and he starts whining. “Molly, uh, the dog from down the street must be out there.”

  “No—it’s Cherry.” The Sergeant nudges me with his elbow. “You did say you wanted to see her again, didn’t you?”

  My jaw drops. The mere mention of her name sends me reeling. My hope of seeing her again has been dormant all this time. Now it comes surging back in a trove of giddiness that spills forth and fills me with an urge to bolt. “Miss Cherry is out there?”

  “Come on, tough guy. It’s not wise to keep a beautiful woman waiting. Remember that.” He tugs me along by the arm.

  A debilitating bashfulness comes over me as we walk out onto the porch. There she is standing by Queenie, both of them radiating beauty in a dramatic shaft of afternoon sun. Miss Cherry smiles and Queenie shimmers, their complementing stylish contours blending to perfection. The picture could have come out of a four-color Buick brochure—a gorgeous blonde leaning against the comely-lined four-wheeled work of art. Buy this car and you’re sure to meet a beautiful lady like this! But this is much more than a subliminal advertising message; this beautiful lady is real!

  I feel her smile from all the way across the yard and fall helpless to the magic of the moment. My wits stripped bare, something dashingly mature to say dangling just beyond my mind’s reach—I try to think faster.

  Mac reaches her first. His pretense is to assess her as a possible threat, but I don’t buy it for one minute. His behavior is farcical, although measurably better than my own. I watch as he gallantly tenders himself at her feet and gazes up with unabashed adoration. The scorpion of jealousy stings my heart as I watch him receive a caress behind the ears for his adroit opportunism.

  Worse yet, as if he has preeminent rights, Luke slips under her other arm and confiscates a generous hug. I make it to within six feet of her and stop in my tracks. I yearn for both of her arms to close tightly around me, but alas, all I can manage is a shy stare.

  “Hello, Wade.”

  The beauty has spoken directly to me. A reply is now mandatory. “Hello, ma’am. Um, you look real sharp, ma’am.” Oh for crying out loud, what a doofus!

  She giggles. “You look pretty neato-keeno yourself.”

  I do? Blue jeans with patched knees, faded striped T-shirt, old sneakers caked with storm drain scum. I do? “Gosh, um, thank you, ma’am.” My cheeks begin to tingle, and one of my shoes sort of digs its toe into the sidewalk.

  “Well, come here. Don’t you want a hug?”

  I step closer, biting my lip to stop myself from saying, Gee, that would be real sharp, ma’am.

  She lets go of Luke and grabs me, immersing me in an exhilarating teddy bear hug. Dandled and steeped in a stupendous embrace, I am rendered light-headed and flushed. Blissfully adrift on a sea of blithe confusion, I am in that cocoon time between boyhood and manhood when female tenderness can turn gears that don’t quite yet mesh.

  She holds me tight, lingering longer than I expect, pressing me like a precious flower in her book of special memories. Rocking me in her arms from side to side, she lulls me, frees me from all of my unearned burdens.

  I want desperately to tell her how much I’ve missed her, but I’m afraid if I do I’ll start to cry. Instead, I turn my head to the side and look at the Sergeant. I fish for a signal—a wink, a nod, even a raised eyebrow—anything that will tell me to bunt, take, or swing away. He only grins, but I see what I want most to see. He isn’t mad at me for my outlandish practical joke about Miss Cherry wanting to marry me. At least that is my interpretation. The hug is over, and suddenly it’s only half as long as I would like it to be.

  She stands me back from the car door. “Lyle and I brought you each a surprise to show you how much we, well—how much we like you.” Her voice is candied with a tantalizing lilt. She softly clicks her perfect teeth to tease us further.

  Luke squeals and dashes closer. “What surprise?”

  “Hmm, let me see now.” She feigns perplexity to build the suspense. “I wonder who should get the first surprise. What do you think, Luke?”

  “Me first, me, me, me!” Luke yips and skips about in a wild caper, and then prances in front of Miss Cherry like he used to do outside the bathroom when waiting for Earl to finish one of his marathon sessions.

  The Sergeant starts mimicking Luke’s dance. Miss Cherry swats his shoulder and tells him to quit it. He clowns with her by covering his face with his arms like a boxer inducing an opponent to waste punches.

  Finally, the Sergeant settles himself down and turns to me. “I thought I’d let you know I spoke to your mom about this first—and she said it was okay with her.”

  Bringing us presents is certainly unexpected, but I am more surprised that he would feel the need to seek Lucinda’s permission. I feel certain the gifts are not overgenerous—maybe some baseball cards or a kite perhaps.

  Luke is a different story. He is really revved up, high steppin’ at six thousand rpm. Put him in gear, pop his clutch, and he’d burn rubber for a quarter of a mile. “You better give Luke his present first before he explodes.”

  “Thank you, Wade! Yes! Me, me, me!”

  Luke has always been impossible to take on Christmas mornings. I just wish I could be as free with my emotions as he is. Not me. Mister keep-it
-all-inside Wade.

  Miss Cherry opens the car door, and I see two brightly decorated packages complete with curlicue ribbons sitting on the front seat. One is shoe box size, the other slightly smaller. She leans inside the car, pulls out the shoe box shaped gift, and hands it to Luke.

  To my surprise, Luke suddenly turns circumspect and stares strangely at the package. It takes me a moment to realize he’s looking specifically at the designs on the wrapping paper. He is clearly uncomfortable, possibly even on the verge of tears.

  I touch his shoulder. “What’s the matter, Luke?”

  “It’s c-c-covered with birds-s-s,” he splutters, the word birds hissing through his teeth with heavily salted disgust.

  The Sergeant chortles but quickly puts a hand over his mouth, while Miss Cherry clips short a peep-like chuckle and offers Luke an overly sweetened smile.

  Incredulous, Luke just stands there rigid as a redwood. The effrontery has stolen his glee, and he holds the offensive box away from his scowling face as though it were a smelly diaper.

  Miss Cherry becomes the picture of regret, and I surmise they must have picked out the bird-patterned paper as a joke. Hey, wait a second. How do they know about Luke’s mockingbird problem? The Sergeant attempting to play a joke is one thing, but Luke is far too cute for Miss Cherry to tease like this.

  Birds in the all-inclusive sense have become a serious subject with Luke, and Miss Cherry and the Sergeant obviously didn’t realize that joking about such a thing would be cruel. The moment turns awkward, and I can see they don’t quite know what to say.

  I look closer to inspect the feathered specimens and quickly note the gift wrap design is a Birds of the World pattern. “No catbirds, Luke.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I point at the different shapes and spout the names of whatever winged creatures I can think of. “I only see quail, pheasant, grouse, turtledoves, a couple of bobolinks and maybe one cassowary.” The truth is, I don’t know a pelican from a parakeet.

  “Oh…okay.” He needs only to hear the right assurances from his big brother.