by Rich Foster
By November, the winter sun was low in the southern sky. In the heavens above, sunlight played gloriously on Mount Justice and Desolation Peak but Mason Forks seemed to lie in the valley of death.
The accident happened on a morning for lateness. At the New Life Redemption Church the organist misplaced her music folder, so the service did not begin until five past ten. Even so, the congregation sang two hymns and still the bus had not arrived.
Lisa Goodman was late leaving her home. Robert awoke earlier and meaner than usual. At ten to ten as she was leaving, he lurched into the kitchen and demanded breakfast. He wasn’t really hungry; it was only an assertion of his dominance. She fried up a rasher of bacon and eggs. She served him quickly while trying not to appear in a hurry. When he was hung over, his temper was short and she did not want to set him off. After pouring his coffee she slid out the door while he ate. Her daughters waited patiently on the porch. The three set off, walking briskly toward the highway.
*
Outside of town Jason pushed the bus as hard as he could. He glanced at his watch. The service would have begun. He was late. That morning several seniors were slow getting out of their homes and onto the bus. While trying to make up time he drove too quickly through a creek crossing. Water spraying up from under the fenders stalled the engine. Opening the hood, he found sparks arcing off the wet battery terminals and the air filter wet. He dried them off and then lost five minutes cajoling the engine back to life.
He didn’t let the delay ruin his morning, despite his dislike for arriving late. The speedometer inched higher. The bus drifted wide on a curve. Stepping hard on the brakes, the pedal squished down to the floor. With quick pumping it firmed up. The bus held the curve and then suddenly they were out of the sunlight and into the shadow cast by the mountains. They were still half a mile from town and twenty minutes late.
The road straightened out and began the descent into town. He squinted as his myopic eyes worked to adapt to the dimness of the street. Seeing no traffic ahead, rather than downshifting, he let the bus hold its speed through town.
Lisa Goodman looked up the road. The bus was coming. It would be turning before it reached them. Organ music drifted down from the church reminding her they were late. She hurried her daughters into the road.
Halfway across the street May dropped the coins she carried for the offering plate. They stooped to pick them. Nearing his turn, Jason stepped on the brakes. Below the floor of the bus, a crack in the brake line opened up. Fluid sprayed on the asphalt. Jason pumped wildly; the pedal flopped loosely against the floorboard. He glanced down hoping he would see something other than what his foot felt. When his eyes came back up he caught a momentary glimpse of three dark shapes in the shadows on the road. He jerked the wheel to the side. Then they were gone.
The bus’s tires screamed as they grabbed at the asphalt. It was too late. Lisa and May went under the bus. June, the younger girl, was driven through the air. She dropped to the ground a limp, broken rag doll, on the far side of a hedge thirty feet away. The bus fishtailed, leaving long skid marks on the blacktop. Jason corrected for the skid. He briefly swore, “Oh Sweet Jesus.” They were his last words.
The bus straightened out just as it climbed the curb. Metal screeched and bent as it crashed into a large oak tree. The impact drove the passengers under the seats. The windshield exploded outward as Jason was ejected through it. He slammed headfirst into the tree trunk, crushing his face, snapping his neck, and dying on impact.
Inside the church, the opening hymns were finished. Reverend Leeds intoned the opening prayer for God’s Mercy when the sound of the crash swept over them. An usher in the back poked his head out the foyer door.
“Oh my God! It’s the bus!” he cried.
People spilled out of the church. From the parking lot, Calley could see the shattered windshield of the bus. She fled downhill. Worry and fear building inside her. Clouds of steam hissed from the radiator. Old people and children staggered off the bus as she arrived. A man in front tried to stop her; unfortunately he was too late. Darting around him she froze in her tracks. Jason’s arms and legs were all wrong. Nobody could lie like that. When she saw the pulpy red mass where the face should be, she threw up. Someone had the good sense to stop the Haskell children from getting down the hill as they tried to follow their mother.
The men helped clear the bus. A man laid his new trench coat over Jason’s body. The women tried to help Calley, who was in shock. She sat on the curb wailing. Her eyes were sodden scrunched slits. Her hands and body twitched as if she were spastic.
Other than Calley, an awful stillness settled on the scene. Voices instinctively became hushed whispers. Ambulances were called. Without a doctor, some church folks did their best to aid the injured. Others moved back as their initial curiosity turned to revulsion, suddenly feeling mortal, while fearing that death and disaster might be contagious. Hiram opened his hardware store and brought out first aid kits. Those who knew how, helped to bandage the passengers. There were broken limbs, cuts and bruises, but no other fatalities.
The eerie calm was broken by a hysterical scream. One of the ladies helping Calley saw an arm and leg dangling down from the engine compartment. The rest of the body was wedged out of sight. Pandemonium ensued. One man crawled under the bus’s frame; he found another body, a clump of limbs and rags twisted over the rear axle.
While the men who had the stomach for it, tried to see how they might extricate the bodies, a child persistently shouted, “What about her? Who’s that one?” Finally, an adult listened and looked over the hedge where the child was pointing. June lay motionless, face-down, in the grass. Her legs bent at peculiar angles. An off duty fireman hurried over. Without moving her, he checked her carotid artery. June’s heart beat erratically beneath his fingertips. He leaned close to her face. She wasn’t breathing and her pallor was bluish. Bracing her head, he rolled her over. With his fingers he cleared vomit from the back of her throat before beginning artificial respiration. Quickly, June’s color changed from blue, to grayish white, then slowly less ashen. The fireman pulled back, waiting. She breathed on her own. Someone brought a blanket to keep her warm.
Violent death was not a rarity in logging towns, like Mason Forks. Widow makers, left many families experienced in dealing with it. One family scooped up the Haskell kids and took them away. Another took Calley to her house, where someone else brought Valium and worked the pills to the back of Calley’s throat until she choked them down.
The church crowd waited for the emergency vehicles to come from Red Lake. Even with the light Sunday traffic, a small jam formed as passing drivers slowed to gawk at the scene. Meanwhile the fireman, having done all that he could for June, helped by temporarily splinting broken bones.
The bells on the Baptist Church at the far end of town began tolling as their service ended. Soon the cars from there would add to the slowdown, but before they finished ringing the wail of approaching sirens drowned them out.
Robert Goodman washed his breakfast down with a beer. He heard sirens. Emergency vehicles often sped through town, but these sirens changed pitch and stopped nearby. He shoved his bare feet into his mud boots before slipping on his grubby hunting jacket. He walked to the highway, a beer still in his hand.
From his vantage point he could see down the hill to the bus, the silent emergency vehicles whose lights still flashed, and the crowd that stood in a ring on the old mill lawn. Robert recognized certain death when he saw it. He ambled down the road to satisfy his curiosity.
A reporter snapped photos of paramedics looking under the bus. The goddamn thing hit some poor schmuck, Robert thought. He sauntered up to the front of the bus where Sheriff Gaines was talking to Reverend Leeds. On the ground, Robert could see, a pair of dress shoes sticking out below the hem of a raincoat. He swallowed the last of his beer, let out a small belch, and asked, “Who got it?”
Reverend Leeds looked over the sheriff’s shoulder. Horror filled his face as rec
ognition registered on who had spoken. “Mister, Mister Goodman…” he stammered. And then not knowing any better way to say it, or from anxiety, he blurted out, “Lisa and May were killed!”
Robert was confused. He looked toward the back of the bus where two paramedics and a fireman were extricating the body.
“What the hell are you saying?” he snarled.
“There was an accident. The bus hit your wife and daughters.” Despair filled Leeds’s voice.
Robert looked around as rage built in his face. Veins bulged in his neck and pulsed at his temples. He leaned in towards Lester and demanded, “Who’s the son of a bitch who was driving this piece of shit?”
The sheriff put one hand on Goodman’s shoulder and with the other pointed to the body on the ground. There was a momentary silence. Then Robert lunged free from the sheriff’s hand and began savagely kicking the body.
“You stupid mother-fucker! You stupid goddamn bastard!” he screamed. The body flopped with each blow of the heavy boots. The third kick flipped it over. Before Robert could launch a kick to the head, Sheriff Gaines threw a choke hold on him. Robert, kicking and fighting, was dragged away from the body.
Leeds, shocked by this violence against the dead shouted, “You disgusting animal, he’s dead!”
Robert lunged against the sheriff’s arms but only succeeded in making gagging sounds, as he tried yelling back at Leeds. His face was turning purple. The sheriff spoke calmly into Goodman’s ear.
“You’re upset. Try to control yourself. I’m going to let you go.”
He eased the hold. Robert sucked in great gulps of air. Sheriff Gaines relaxed his hold a bit more. Robert let his body go limp. Assured by this act, the sheriff released him. Instantly, Robert dove onto Jason’s body and began beating it with his large raw fists.
“My God! Stop him!” someone shouted.
Gaines was a big man yet failed to pry Goodman off. Finally he let go, pulled out his baton and laid it across the side of Goodman’s head felling him across Jason’s body.
Lou Harding, the reporter from the Clarion captured it all. It would run on the front page of the next day’s paper.
Robert came to with cuffs on his wrist, lying in the back of the sheriff’s cruiser. He had a terrible headache, which he assumed was a hangover. Sitting up he began to butt his head against the window. Failing to break it, he lay on his back, planning to kick it with both feet. Before he did, Gaines opened the door.
“One of your girls is still alive. They’re putting her into an ambulance. She’s in a bad way. Do you want to stop acting like an ass and go with her? Or do you want to go to jail?”
Robert had experience with the police. It was only when he was very drunk that he failed to act contrite when questioned by an officer.
“Sorry, sir. I’d like to go with her,” he said, hoping to avoid arrest
Gaines took the cuffs off. With a firm grasp of Robert’s arm he ushered him over to the side door of the ambulance. Robert got in. Gaines slammed the door.
The ambulance rocked around curves. June lay strapped to the gurney, a brace secured her neck, an oxygen mask hid her face, and her legs encased by inflatable casts. The siren overrode all the sounds inside. Robert put a cigarette in his mouth, which dangled from his lips, as he searched for his lighter. The paramedic seeing the cigarette grabbed it from his mouth, yelling “No! Oxygen!” Robert shrugged, took it back and put it behind his ear.
At the hospital June was whisked away. Robert was left to fill out admission forms. Under insurance he checked, “none.” Then he was alone waiting.
Three hours later, Sheriff Gaines stopped in on his way home from Mason Forks.
“Any news?”
Robert shook his head no.
“Are you going to be okay?”
Robert nodded to the affirmative.
Obviously, the man wanted to be alone. Gaines asked about the girl at the desk. The nurse said she was still in surgery. It might be hours. In either case the patient would be in a barbiturate-induced comma to avoid swelling of the brain. If she lived, it would be days, if not weeks, before she might be conscious. He passed this information along to Goodman, who took it with a shrug and no further comment. Gaines left for home. Five minutes later Robert left for a bar.
*
When the Valium wore off Calley Haskell found she did not have the luxury of time, for her grief. Her children needed her. Over the ensuing days they clung to her, lest she be suddenly snatched away like their father. Life, which had been so happy and pleasant, was suddenly something dangerous and full of pain. The children begged her not to leave their room. Temporarily, they all moved in together. She would rock Caleb in her chair, and sing hymns, as the other three children drifted off to sleep amongst muffled sobs.
People were more than willing to lend a hand, yet Calley moved through the day numbly. Some part of her, some nerve ending had been cut off, and she could feel nothing. Tears failed to form in her eyes. Friends came to visit with words of encouragement. But what do you say? What words could ameliorate her loss. They murmured platitudes about God’s will, or how Jason was in a better place. Calley barely heard them, she would nod, and finally they would leave.
Three days after the accident Reverend Leeds called on her. Sarah was in school and Mrs. Deitz had taken Jacob and Caleb off Calley’s hands. Lester told her they needed to make arrangements for the funeral. He made suggestions and she nodded. He would name hymns and she would nod. He took his leave of her, and she nodded a final time.
When he was gone she began to clean. All day she scrubbed the house with a blind fury. She scoured floors and beat rugs. She dusted shelves and waxed furniture. Slowly, she worked her way through the house, until she had cornered herself in the master bedroom. She looked at the bed that was disturbed on only one side. An anguished cry rose up from inside of her. She jerked open a dresser drawer. It crashed to the floor. Calley scooped up an armful of her husband’s sweaters, underwear and socks. She rushed out into the hall and threw them over the landing. Returning she flung the closet doors open. Ripping Jason’s clothes from the hangars she carried armloads to the rail and threw them off. Everything that was Jason’s, she threw out of the room. Lastly, she seized the pillow from his side of the bed. As she carried it, she caught his scent.
In her heart and mind the neural connections re-met. A wave of anguish swept over her. The pent-up tide of loss was unleashed. Tears flowed out of her. Wave after wave of body shaking sorrow rolled through her. She had never known such destructive pain, childbirth paled against it. Yet, on the other side of this pain there was no joy.
The afternoon grew late. Dark shadows filled the house. Somehow Calley managed to pull herself together before the children came home. Feeling foolish, she gathered up Jason’s things and packed them into boxes. The pillow she returned to his side of the bed. Then she went downstairs to prepare after school snacks.
Chapter Six
Reverend Leeds was at a loss. He found words failed him in the circumstance. The ones he did find, sounded hollow and trite even to his own ears. A funeral was easy to do when it was an older congregant who angels whisked home to glory. Even when men were killed in logging accidents, it was accepted. But Lester had no experience with mangled young people dead in the street.
His conscience troubled him. He vividly remembered Jason asking for money to repair the brakes on the bus. Perhaps Jason just lost control, He told himself. Maybe it had nothing to do with the brakes. But niggling at the back of his mind was the memory of the police taking samples of oily stains on the pavement.
He felt he should call on Robert Goodman, but he didn’t. Torn in making the decision, between his perceived duty and his revulsion at Goodman’s viscous assault upon Jason’s mangled body, he procrastinated. Goodman frightened Lester in a part of his soul he had never known. Knuckle gnawing fear rose every time he remembered Goodman shouting accusations after him. It came whenever he recalled Goodman kicking a bloody corpse
. And it came in the middle of the night when he remembered the bruises on Lisa Goodman’s arms and his shame that he had done nothing.
*
Jason’s funeral was scheduled for Friday. For some, the weekend would have been better, but winter had fallen on Mason Forks, logging was shut down, so for most locals, it did not matter.
Snow began to fall Thursday. The clouds were low and dark, covering up the mountains. At the cemetery a backhoe dug a rectangular hole. A man clambered into the pit and neatly squared its corners with a shovel. When he finished, he let himself be lifted out by the bucket of the tractor. He unrolled a piece of artificial grass over the mound of dirt. It looked silly against the blanket of white snow that covered the ground. The men left. Soon the snow covered the fake grass. Flakes drifted into the open grave which awaited filling.
At the church, Desmond prepared for the funeral. To his simple mind, this was not much different than preparing for a party. People lived and they died. He accepted that. He also accepted that there was good and evil in the world. The more complex questions of human suffering were beyond his capacity.
Desmond believed with the simple, unwavering trust of a small child. In his simplicity, his life was more fulfilling than many others. Worries did not assail him. God would do something or he would not. Desmond did not have to worry about it.
He also believed in heaven, where the streets were gold, and tears were no more. When someone died they would see Jesus. Desmond was happy for them. It would show. More than once during a funeral, he was noticed at the rear of the sanctuary with a broad smile on his face. The people thought it was an idiot’s grin.