by Yocum, Robin
Tornik frowned. “I didn’t know about the letters.”
“A recent development,” Travis said, staring out into the night.
“Besides, what happens between you and your dad when you turn him over to the cops? He’ll obviously know that you ratted him out. That could get extremely ugly.”
Travis was silent as Tornik worked on his cigarette. “Maybe I’ll take care of it myself,” Travis finally said, turning toward the detective. “That cistern’s big enough to hold another body.”
Tornik pointed at Travis with the glowing stub of a Camel. “I hope that’s just bluster on your part. I know you’d like to kill the old man and get away with it, but you wouldn’t. You’d get caught; sure as shit, you’d get caught. Yeah, your dad got away with it, but that was because I couldn’t finish the job. If I stayed on the case, your dad would have gone to prison for a long time.”
“And now?” I asked.
Tornik sent a stream of smoke out the window and shrugged. “Now? We go on with our lives.”
“That’s it?” Travis asked. “He gets away with murder?”
Slowly, Tornik nodded his head. “Unfortunately, yes.”
Under the cover of darkness, Travis and I returned to the old family property the following Saturday night with a garden rake and a rusting, steel-wheeled wheelbarrow that had been forgotten in the weeds behind Big Frank’s garage. In the wheelbarrow, which Travis slowly and silently worked up the banks of Thorneapple Creek, was a flat stone that he had picked out of the creek bed earlier in the day. On it he had painted in black letters:
Beneath this stone lies the body of Amanda Virdon Baron.
Born: April 2, 1931
Murdered by her husband, Frank Baron: September 30, 1953
He moved the cement cap from the cistern and dropped the handmade tombstone inside. He said a prayer for his mother and apologized to her and God for not being able to seek for her the justice she deserved. When he had finished, we began the task of filling in the cistern, hauling dirt and scrap and stones from the property to the hole. We worked into the early morning hours, filling the hole a little more than a third of the way.
We returned the next Saturday to continue the fill. While Travis pushed dirt into the hole, I scavenged the hillside for pieces of pipe and board, a tree stump, two old car tires, and the rusting remains of a girls bicycle, all of which were dumped in the opening. Around the base of the foundation of the old house were loose stones that easily came out. I rolled them down the grade to Travis, who guided them into the hole. By midnight, we could see the bottom of the hole, not five feet deep. There were enough pieces of crumbling concrete and stones around the foundation of the house to fill in the rest of the way to the rim. When the hole had been filled to near ground level, we rolled the cement cap back over the opening, sealing forever the tomb of Amanda Baron.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
With only finals week left before our graduation, Travis had a death grip on the Ohio Valley Steel Scholarship. He would finish the year with a perfect 4.0 grade point average and as our class valedictorian. Margaret Simcox would be our salutatorian, finishing her high school career with an average of 3.96, four one-hundredths of a point behind, the “B” she had received in driver’s education dooming her to second place.
There seemed to be little chance of Travis blowing the lead. He was excused from the trigonometry final by virtue of having an average of one hundred for the year. The College Prep English class final was a term paper, which he had completed three weeks earlier and received a score of one hundred and six out of a possible hundred, collecting all six bonus points. Chemistry had been an in-class demonstration and talk, which he aced. Mr. Jankowski, our journalism teacher, graded us on the quality of the school newspaper over the course of the year, and he rarely gave anyone less than an “A.” The only class that remained was American Government, which was Travis’s strongest subject. Margaret had resigned herself to the fact that Travis would breeze through the exam and claim the scholarship, though it made her blanch to think he would use it to attend welding school, to which he had yet to apply.
Travis had been particularly quiet since the night we talked with Tornik in his car, which I deemed understandable. He stopped by the house the night we were eliminated from the regional baseball tournament. Artie Drago had been daydreaming in center field and let a lazy fly ball drop just ten feet away. It was one of those embarrassing mistakes that we would be reminding him of at our twenty-fifth class reunion. I was on the back-porch swing, savoring the last few minutes that I would ever wear any kind of uniform for the Brilliant Blue Devils. It had been a good run, I thought.
He came up and sat down on the swing. “Tough way to end a season,” he said.
I nodded. “No doubt. Glad it wasn’t me. That’s the kind of thing I’d wake up in the middle of the night and think about fifty years from now. Fortunately, I guess, it was Artie.” Travis smiled and nodded, the implied message understood. Artie Drago didn’t have the brain power to agonize over his mistakes. While such a mistake would haunt me for years, Artie had probably already forgotten about it. “So, what’s going on with you? You haven’t killed Big Frank in his sleep, have you?”
“That son of a bitch isn’t getting off that easy. If I kill him, it’s going to be while he’s awake. I want to make sure he knows who’s doing it.”
“Have you heard anything about . . .”
“No, Mitchell, I haven’t heard anything about welding school and let’s preserve our friendship by not discussing it any further.”
“Cheesus, who pissed in your oatmeal?”
“You bring it up every time we talk.”
He was trying to bait me. Over the years, I had become very astute at understanding when he was trying to pick a fight. “Bank on this: I’ll never bring it up again.”
He crossed his ankles and jammed his hands into the pockets of his shorts, the pressure he was exerting causing the fabric to stretch tight. “I can handle myself, you know. I practically raised myself,” he said after a few moments.
“I know you can handle yourself, Trav. That’s not the point. I know this whole thing is a mess, and I know it’s pinging around inside your head like a pinball, but I don’t want it to ruin your future.”
He got up to leave. “Don’t worry about my future,” he snarled. “I know exactly what I’m going to be doing. You don’t have to worry about me.”
I worried. It was my nature.
The American Government test was given on Friday, the last period before lunch. Once it was taken, our classroom obligations at Brilliant High School were officially completed. The test was easy, a basic review of the class highlights, and certainly nothing that Travis couldn’t handle. I had been working on the test for twenty minutes when Travis stood, shoved in his chair, and started for the front of the room. As he passed Margaret, he leaned down, draped an arm over her shoulder, and whispered a few words that sounded like, “Always speak kindly of me.” Then he winked and left the room.
Our final exam grades and our career averages were posted the next Tuesday afternoon. On the American Government test, I had gotten an A, Urb a B, and Travis a D. The D on the test gave him a B for the grading period. The full-credit B dropped him in the standings below Margaret’s half-credit, driver’s education B. His name appeared second on the career grade point average chart, behind Margaret Simcox, our valedictorian.
I tracked him down at the bakery warehouse, where he was still working a few hours a day. “You tanked it. Why?”
“What are you talking about?” he asked, poorly feigning ignorance.
“Don’t give me that. I heard what you said to Margaret. You said, ‘Always speak kindly of me.’ You threw the government test so Margaret could be valedictorian and get the scholarship.”
He continued to unload the empty metal racks from the back of the truck. “Mitchell, I don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about. I thought that government final was a
bear.”
“I don’t get it, Travis. Even if it’s welding school, you could have used the money.”
He shrugged. “Margaret Simcox, for all her arrogant, self-centered faults, has some direction in her life. She’s going to college. She can use that money. I don’t know if I’m even going to welding school, let alone college. And I checked. Either the valedictorian uses the money within one year, or it’s defaulted. The salutatorian can’t have it. So why let it go to waste?”
I took a seat on the edge of the loading dock as Travis moved to the next truck, unloading and stacking racks of trays. “Does this mean you’re going to make a career of loading and unloading bread trucks?”
Travis arched a brow. “Hardly,” he sneered.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I imagine they felt relatively safe. The only person they were concerned about hadn’t seen them in eighteen years, and Big Frank Baron had never been attentive to details, anyway. With the dozens of grandparents and aunts and uncles showing up for graduation in the crowded auditorium, Ronald and Esther Virdon slid right in, virtually unnoticed. They took a seat in the corner of the auditorium. Ronald sat stoic, eyes forward, shoulders straight, a look in his eyes that said he almost hoped Big Frank Baron saw him. The more-animated Esther sat away from the aisle, hunched, peering around her husband’s shoulders for a glimpse of her former son-in-law.
Travis had not told them of our discovery at the bottom of the cistern. If he did, he was certain his grandfather would kill Big Frank. Travis was so grateful for the new family, he didn’t want to chance losing it. Tornik, we were confident, would never say a word. Beyond that, the truth behind the mysterious disappearance of Amanda Baron was buried as deep as her remains.
When Big Frank entered the auditorium, attending the only function that involved his son’s high school career, Esther spotted him immediately. He was dressed in black slacks, pointy black boots, and a silver polyester shirt that stretched tight over his droopy belly. He had a gold chain around his neck that intertwined with his mat of chest hair. He needed a haircut; his locks were slicked back into a ducktail that hung over his collar, and a slick of sweat coated his jowls and neck.
From the lobby, I could see the look on Esther Virdon’s face when Big Frank entered the gymnasium. “Look how fat he’s gotten,” she mouthed. Ronald never budged, keeping his head, eyes, and erect shoulders forward. Big Frank walked past the couple without noticing them.
The Brilliant High School orchestra began playing Pomp & Circumstance as we entered the auditorium from the rear. We split, with Margaret Simcox leading half the graduates down the left aisle, and Travis leading half down the right. He saw his grandparents, but made no sign of recognition. I winked at Mrs. Virdon, who smiled. We sat in the first three rows of the auditorium. Folding metal chairs were set up on the stage to accommodate Margaret, Travis, and the local dignitaries, all of whom felt obligated to tell us how the worlds of industry, commerce, and higher education were anxiously awaiting our arrival. We, too, were certain that the Brilliant High School class of 1971 was destined for greatness. However, what we wanted most at that point was to get to the graduation parties, and thus paid scant attention to the principal, superintendent, or class advisor.
Then it was Travis’s turn to speak as class salutatorian. He stood before the hushed auditorium, and I got a chill. He was smirking, and I wondered if perhaps he would use this opportunity to tell all present of our adventure, and end the biggest mystery in the history of Brilliant, Ohio. It would be the most memorable speech in Brilliant High School commencement history, that’s for sure. Then again, maybe that was what he wanted me to think, just to rattle me a little. Even as we prepared to graduate, Travis continued to play me like an Ohio River bullhead.
Thus, as I nervously gripped the armrests, he began.
Do we fear the future? Does the class of 1971 know what awaits it beyond tonight? No, we most certainly do not. Too often, it is not the future that we fear, but the darkness in which it lurks. We fear what we cannot see. The future is not bleak, but it is dark, for we can only imagine what lies ahead.
As graduates, we have been told that the future awaits. Certainly, that is true. But the future awaits everyone, not just the graduates of 1971. What is out there? Only the unknown.
Some of us will not meet that challenge. We will shirk and give in to the future. Simply, we will give up. Why? I don’t think we know. Perhaps the future is simply more than we can bear.
To those members of my class that meet the challenge of tomorrow, Godspeed. It will be those people who shape the future. But there will be those who, for whatever reason, fail to step up to the challenge. Not because they are weak or lazy, but because they cannot, for whatever reason, summon the strength to face tomorrow.
Travis paused for a long moment, looking out into the crowd and allowing his words to sink in. His was not the typical, upbeat speech generally delivered by the number two honor student, and the crowd was captivated.
It may be your son or daughter that fails to meet your expectations. Encourage them if you can. Help them. Love them. Be there for them. Many of you know that life is difficult. Help each other along the path of life. For when a family fails to meet the needs of their loved ones, they can be lost in an instant, and lost forever.
The auditorium, save for a smattering of polite applause, was silent. Travis went back to his seat, and Principal Fishbaugh stuttered through an introduction of Margaret Simcox, who had prepared a speech comparing her graduation to the joy of watching her beagle, Daisy-Doo, giving birth to a litter of puppies. She hurried through the speech, accepted her scholarship from the president of Ohio Valley Steel, and took her seat.
“That was a very uplifting speech, Travis,” she said through clenched teeth.
Travis grinned. “As was yours, Margaret. I particularly liked the part where the puppy you named Apple Strudel kept biting your shoelaces.”
“Bite this,” she said under her breath, smiling as Principal Fishbaugh thanked the two speakers and began introducing the 1971 graduates of Brilliant High School.
As the families of the graduates came together after the ceremony, two figures slipped unnoticed out the back of the auditorium. They were pulling away from the high school parking lot before any of the others left the auditorium. At the foot of the stage, where graduates posed with teachers and relatives, Big Frank Baron stood until he caught his son’s eye. “I gotta go,” he mouthed, tapping his wristwatch. Travis nodded.
Earlier in the evening, as Big Frank dressed for the graduation, he had complained that it would make him late for his run to Buffalo. As Big Frank left the auditorium without so much as a congratulations directed toward his son, Travis walked over and joined my family. I wrapped my arm around his shoulder and we mugged for the school photographer. “We made it, buddy,” I said.
“We sure did.” He kept his arm wrapped around my waist and squeezed.
Travis posed for my mom with his honors diploma and his salutatorian trophy. Urb, Snookie, Johnny Liberti, and Brad Nantz came over for more group photos. My parents had a small open house after graduation, and I had to spend a few hours there doing face time with my relatives and family friends. My cousins Duke and Johnny were there. Duke planned to attend college and play basketball. Arrogant Johnny had signed a minor league contract with the Baltimore Orioles and, following his graduation, would be heading to one of their rookie league teams. He was there with Dena Marie Conchek, whose eyes were all red and watery from her crying over Johnny leaving. I stood and wondered what it would be like to have a woman as gorgeous as Dena Marie cry over me. Meanwhile, Johnny was scoping out every girl in the house and talking incessantly about someday making it to the major leagues with the Orioles, which made her cry even more.
Meanwhile, Urb, Snookie, Travis, Johnny, and Brad ducked out and hit the party trail. I wanted to be with them, but there was college money waiting in white envelopes in hands that had to be shaken. I told them I woul
d catch up with them later at Dwayne Robinson’s house.
It was 1971, and the cops in Brilliant gave all seniors an unofficial drinking waiver for graduation night. There was to be no drinking and driving, but drinking at the graduation parties was perfectly acceptable. Parents, too, went along with this. For many of my fellow graduates, it was truly a night to celebrate, as it ended a journey of twelve years, or, in the case of Johnny Liberti, thirteen. For several of my classmates, high school graduation must have seemed the educational equivalent of space travel to the ancient Greeks. For some, the right to receive their diploma hinged upon their final six-week grading period. Johnny Liberti, I believe, was passed along more out of pity than academic achievement.
The Robinsons were hosting a graduation party that was, in a sense, more of a celebration for them than their son Dwayne, who was the last of nine Robinson siblings to graduate from Brilliant High School. The Robinsons lived at the foot of Simpson Ridge, just up from the United Methodist Church. As I left my open house, my dad lectured me on the evils of drink and automobiles, and I promised both parents that I would not do anything that would enhance the possibility that I would become a statistic.
The Robinson party was held in their side yard, which sloped dramatically from the side of the hill toward Grant Avenue. Paper Chinese lanterns were strung across the yard. Lawn chairs and spent beer bottles were lined up around a makeshift volleyball court. Mr. Robinson was manning a grill full of burgers, brats, and hot dogs, which he offered to anyone who passed. “Mitchell, brat? Burger? Dog?” I wasn’t hungry, but Mr. Robinson was looking a little hurt that no one was eating, so I took a burger and a scoop of potato salad just to be polite.
Dwayne Robinson was a freckled redhead with a bad overbite and a perpetual smile. He was one of the most well-liked kids in our graduating class. He played three sports—football, basketball, and track—but none well. He just loved being part of the team and was the most upbeat kid I had ever known. He had enlisted in the Navy and was scheduled to leave for basic training in early July. Those of us who had grown up fearing we would be drafted and shipped to Vietnam thought Dwayne had completely lost his marbles. We were stretched out on a pair of chaise lounge chairs in the front yard—me with an RC Cola, Dwayne with an Iron City longneck. To the north I could see the tops of the few homes still lining Shaft Row, and then the river and the expanse of West Virginia hills beyond. Dwayne and I talked about the future, and there was an almost Christmas-like feeling to the day. There had been so much anticipation about graduation day, so much build-up, and here we were, sitting in the gloaming, the sun fading over the ridge. In an instant, it seemed, the big day had passed.