by Henry Turner
Nobody knew my blood type and why would they, but they had this type O negative, universal blood type, they said, and it kept me going till I got crost town. I’d been shot in the back, shot through the gut, shot in the leg. I had four ribs broken, fractured skull, busted collarbone, busted wrist, cuts and bruises. Lost, they say, more blood than should’f killed me. My face was all purple and black and when they got me down there, hospital, they cleaned me up and wrapped me up, and Leezie says my face didn’t even look like a face but a sort of big purple and black balloon, and my whole body was wrapped over double in so much gauze and plaster cast and all trussed up with cords like I was hogtied.
Some people ask me if I remember anything from being asleep so long.
I got to say no.
But what I tell’m is that the usual thing when you fall asleep is you start to dream, and when you wake up, that dream is done.
But me, it worked the other way.
’Cause I didn’t dream none at all when I was sleeping. But when I woke up, life was like a dream.
Because that’s when they all started coming. I mean all of’m. Colonel Brest and Mr. Harrigan and Officer Dryker and Marvin and Richie and parents I never met and everybody. And other people I did not know, like the governor, and even people from television coming by so much they had to throw’m out.
But I didn’t see’m, I was asleep, and it was Leezie and Sam Tate who did the talking for me, though there weren’t that much they knew.
The police found out everything about Peter Hodsworth, and Miss Gurpy, too, and all that about him being her friend’s son who was born out’f her knowing some rich man who was already married, and how she died when he was born, Miss Gurpy’s friend, I mean, so Miss Gurpy raised’m, to keep that rich man from taking him away. But she didn’t like him ’cause by killing his mother getting born he killed the only person she ever loved, so she said. But she’d promised to raise him, in secret, too, so the rich man never knew, and now everybody talks about how in the places she put’m things was done to’m that made’m crazy like he was. But me, I don’t believe that last part, ’cause I had some nasties done to me, ’specially back when my daddy was drinking, and even though I took a few in my time you don’t see me going and killing nobody.
I was trying to remember when I’d first seen’m, and I think it was four years back. I’ll tell you what he was. He was a man who hung with boys. He knew the boys in the neighborhood who got rich parents and smoke a lot’f weed and do other drugs.
There’re other guys his age who hang with boys. Richie Harrigan’s one of’m. It looks natural, because they still act like boys, ain’t too different, but they got more money ’cause maybe they got a job and they got cars’n stuff, and it’s fun to hang with’m, ’specially when they got the best drugs and that sort of stuff, and always have something to drink, liquor, I mean. Me, I don’t do drugs or drink, but a lot of boys do, and for them, Peter Hodsworth is just about the coolest friend in the world to have.
And that’s the thing, ’cause he weren’t from around here. He was from Florida, lived down there most of the year, and just come up north a month or two now and again. So when the police went around questioning people, after Tommy Evans got took, they never questioned him, because they had no record of him, and no boy ever mentioned his name. And anyway he prob’ly weren’t even around, but down in Florida, living in that trailer they say he had.
’Member that boy Skugger? He was Hodsworth’s boy, Skugger was, and Hodsworth never laid a hand on’m. Skugger didn’t know nothing about what Hodsworth really did. He was just Hodsworth’s friend and got to know him, and Hodsworth gave him drugs for free, and pretty soon Skugger, he needed those drugs every day, and to keep getting’m for free he’d introduce Hodsworth to all his friends, boys like Tommy Evans and Tuckie Brenner and Jimmy Brest, and together they’d all meet in secret places and have parties and get high. And since Hodsworth knew these boys was taking drugs they never mentioned his name to the police when they was asked if they knew anybody who they think might’f been taking the boys, because first, they didn’t think it was him, ’cause he acted like a friend, and second, he’d’f talked and said things to get’m all in trouble and chucked out of school.
But what Skugger never knew was sometimes Hodsworth spotted a boy alone, like Tommy or Tuckie or Jimmy Brest, and he’d ask’m in the car if he knew for sure no one was watching, and he’d ask’m to keep their head down just like he asked me, ’cause he’d tell’m he was taking’m somewheres to get high. And the place he took’m was his house next to Simon Hooper’s, which Miss Gurpy had bought for’m, a place from where they’d never come back.
He didn’t have no idea what was really going on, Skugger, I mean. He was just sort’f like Hodsworth’s stooge, and made Hodsworth look like a friend of the boys and not the one killing’m.
But I know you know all that, and prob’ly more’n me, ’cause I don’t watch them news shows.
Miss Gurpy, they didn’t do nothing to her but put her in the hospital, that place where Richie’d been, Wharton Evans, and that’s because she weren’t complicitous, as some people called it, meaning that she never helped him catch the boys, but that he’d scared her so much and threatened to kill’r so many times she did whatever he wanted. And what with who she was already, being half-crazy herself since her friend died, and with all her mess in her house and that tinfoil under’r dress and other craziness, nobody really could blame her as a killer, though they did put her up like I said, and forever.
And that fake jewelry she had, and them dresses and gloves? They gave her some of that, ’cause she called it her memories and begged’m for it, begged her doctors, sayin’ it was all that was left of her past, and they was the things Hodsworth took away from’r to hurt her if she didn’t do just exactly what he wanted. For all I know she’s walking around Wharton Evans right now dressed up like she was forty years ago at them beaches and parties with’r friend.
I know you know about Hodsworth and what he done to the boys, and I ain’t gonna tell you any more ’bout what he done to’m when they was alive. I told enough.
One thing I gotta say is they found two other boys in that house. I went through all the rooms, like I said, but didn’t even see’m, but that’s ’cause where they was, which was in those sort’f ceiling cubbies you got in some houses, crawlways in the ceilings you only get to through little trapdoors too hard to see in the dark. And both them boys lived too, though one was in the hospital almost long as me.
But they found a lot of dead boys too. I mean pieces of’m.
One’f them boys was from Georgia, boy on the bed, and there was lots of boys I never knowed from states all over because to not get caught Hodsworth would mix it up and grab boys wherever, out of state. When he was done with’m, and killed’m, he’d drive out and dump’m, sometimes close to home, like where I found Tommy Evans, sometimes Florida, like he done Tuckie Brenner, sometimes other places. They’ll never find’m all. They don’t even know how many boys he took, but it was many. Because in his rooms they found things that put it back eight/nine years he been doing this, or more, ever since Miss Gurpy took him out of Wharton Evans and put him up in the house that nobody knowed she owned.
Damn I’m tired.
Scuze my language.
Anyway, when they first come I didn’t see’m ’cause I was still knocked out. Then I come to and I was so achy and yelling all the time they didn’t let nobody in and I was on painkillers all day all night, and all trussed up for two months more. There was so many cards they took’m and put’m in a book, nurses did, one’f them photo-album books, ’cause they was in the way of the wires. Best is from Marvin, one where he wrote down I got triple luck. That’s funny, I wanna talk to’m ’bout that. I turned fifteen lying there, and Leezie, she wanted to throw me a party but I said I weren’t up for it. But I got more presents dropped off than ever before in my life. Flowers, too, everywhere you looked. And one thing I’ll say is if you sick
, there ain’t nothing worse to have around than flowers, just the wrong smell to have. But thank you all anyway, that was real nice of you.
Anyway I’m all right. Got a tic. Arm sort’f flinches now and again, got it they say getting hit in the head, hitting it when I fell off the fence or maybe on the doorjamb. But they say it might go ’way, you never know. Anyway it ain’t so bad, not like Mrs. Murphy’s son, who fell out a tree making a fort when he was seven and hit his head on a stone, and got all palsied after that, and now’s damn near forty and works up Lowry’s grocery store and can’t help but pull your hair when he goes to pat your head.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I was home a week when they came, I mean Colonel Brest and Mr. Harrigan. You gotta remember what I said about Richie, I’m sure you do, ’bout how he got arrested on suspicion and really was under twenty-four-hour surveillance just like he thought, and was worried ’bout his reputation, him having been a drunk and all, and gettin’ so nervous his daddy was set to put him back in Wharton Evans. But now all that was thrown out, as they say, ’cause everybody knew Richie had nothing at all to do with the crimes.
Mr. Harrigan was real happy that what I found cleared his son, and while I was asleep he’d talked to my daddy and done some things, and so had Colonel Brest, and like I said, it was about a week after I come home that they come by to tell me about it, figuring that was long enough for me to feel better and not get riled by what they say.
They was downstairs, it was noon I think, and they asked if I could come down but Leezie, she told how I couldn’t walk the stairs yet, so they come up. It was Mr. Harrigan who come in first, and then Colonel Brest and then Daddy. Daddy, he was smiling. I ain’t seen that for a year’r more and I was glad. Can’t say how much glad. But I knew something was up, and then Daddy, he told me that these was the fathers of Jimmy Brest and Richie Harrigan, that they had some things to tell me.
Mr. Harrigan, he wore what you see’m in at the bank, suit sort’f silver gray, and he a hard-looking man. Chunky-looking, boxy, and got silver hair like his suit, same color, and a face I swear’s like a stone and don’t smile much never. But I’m trying to tell you how his face looked that day and it looked like I can’t tell you. ’Cause I ain’t never seen that look before. It was like he was so glad ’bout what I’d done, he wanted to smile but his face looked hard and stiff ’cause he weren’t used to being glad, or at least showing it on his face, so his smile was sort’f busted up and sort’f trembly, if you get what I mean. I mean a smile was there, but sort’f stuffed in there and was having trouble getting out. Still, I could see without him even talking that what he wanted to do was maybe grab me or something, hug me, I mean, and that’s the best I can say.
Anyway, what he did say was, Billy, while you were in a coma Colonel Brest and I cleared up a few financial difficulties your family has been having.
Then my daddy says, yells, really, That’s right, Billy! They bought back the house! He smiled big sayin’ that.
Mr. Harrigan looked a little surprised at my daddy just blurtin’ out like that, and then looked back at me on the bed.
Yes, he said. What your father says is correct, Billy.
I tell you, the way he talked was funny, so serious and straight.
Then he said, The house has been completely restored to your father’s possession. It is his, fee simple, which means—
That means it’s all mine, Billy! Daddy said. I don’t owe nothing! That loan I got was bad, Mr. Harrigan found that out!
Daddy clapped his hands then, and Mr. Harrigan, he grinned just a little.
Yes, it had some discrepancies, Billy, he said.
I felt confused, so I sat up and looked at him.
Now, you gotta know something. This Mr. Harrigan was a man who’d never talked to me before and never would’f, ’cept maybe to say I belonged in jail or the boys’ home. And now here he is with Colonel Brest, who before was just the same about me, and they in my room, and telling me all these things.
So I gotta tell you.
I felt embarrassed.
’Cause sitting there hearing this, all I could think about was how a year back I went and tossed a paint bag on Mr. Harrigan’s car. Mercedes car. New one. Right there in the parking lot outside his bank. Oil paint, too, primer, red as a cherry, and hard to get off.
So now I looked at Mr. Harrigan and I tell you my face must’f been red like the paint and I said, Mr. Harrigan I just want to say I’m sorry for what I done to your car a year back. Be honest, just being here with you makes me a little embarrassed, sir. I mean, doing that with a paint bag, that was real dumb of me, and I’m sorry.
He looked down at me. His face didn’t even change. He just said, Billy, I’ve forgotten what you did to my car. You probably had your reasons, anyway. I believe on a previous occasion I was rude to your father when he came to the bank to discuss some financial matters with me. I believe it is I who owe you and your father an apology. I give that apology now. I am truly sorry for what I said. I assure you that it will never happen again.
I mean, yeah, he meant a time a year or so back when he throwed my daddy out the bank. Daddy’d come in asking for money or to complain about that house loan, I forget which, and Mr. Harrigan, he’d cussed’m and tossed’m out, and that did rile me, I s’pose, which had me chucking that paint.
But Mr. Harrigan was looking at me, ain’t took ’s eyes off me. He says, Billy, no price can be put on what you have done. For my son, and for the Colonel’s. You must understand that.
I was staring at’m. What the hell could I say to that?
I said, Thank you.
Once Mr. Harrigan was through telling me ’bout all he done, he shook my hand and my daddy’s and said he was needing to get back to the bank, and he shook the Colonel’s hand too, but the Colonel said, to me and my daddy, said, I’d like to stay a moment longer and have a word alone with Billy, if that’s all right with you, sir.
He called my daddy sir, he did.
My daddy, he said, Sure.
And then it was just the Colonel and me, and we was alone in my room.
Now I ain’t said it, but the Colonel, he was all got-up like for a parade. Had on his dress uniform, they call it, with one of them hats like a cop wears, ’cept with gold and silver on it, and gold and silver on his uniform, too, and shiny shoes all black, and enough little colored plaques on his breast pinned there and enough medals and bars to make your head spin. And I forgot to say, too, but all this time he had a box in his hands, nice-looking box, closed with a sort of silver clasp.
But he didn’t say nothing at first. Just stood there looking at me.
He was biting his lip to make his mouth still, and his eyes were almost gonna cry, but not with sadness, with something else. I mean his face was sort’f shaky.
He said, Billy, when you woke in the house, you broke out and could have run home. Is that true?
I said, Yessir.
But you went back in the house and found my son, even though that man had beaten you for over an hour?
He was starting to cry and I couldn’t look at him. I said, Yessir.
He said, Billy, there are some people . . .
Then he couldn’t go on.
Second later he looked right at me and started again, said, Billy, once I saved a few men and was given a medal. Some people might think the same thing could never happen to you. I won’t allow that.
He opened the box in his hands and took out a medal on a string, ribbon sort of string. Star-shaped medal. He come over to me and looped it over my head. Then he stepped back. I’m presenting you this, son, for acts of uncommon valor. I used to think I knew what courage is. You have improved my understanding.
He stood straight and saluted me.
God damn.
I looked at the medal, looked down at it hanging there. Then I looked at him’n said, Thank you, sir. And I saluted him back, which made him happy, I guess, ’cause I seen him smile a bit.
We didn’t say n
othing then. And me, I thought about some things I’d heard.
Fact is, I knew that the Colonel never really took to his son Jimmy. Up my way, you always hear that kind’f thing about people, families, ’cause nosy people talk, saying he liked better the one named David, or Davey, like he was called, who died in the war, but really ’cause he got sick on a transport boat. And people knew now how Jimmy bopped my nose that day with that basketball, because you know how Richie said a neighbor lady said she seen him beat Jimmy up and told Dryker? Well that same lady talked now about how Brest had hit me, which she’d seen and knew about all along but never thought to tell until just now.
So thinking about what really happened that day in the house, I said, Sir, I don’t really think I deserve this. Jimmy, your boy, some people have said nasty things about him, said he didn’t stay like I did. But he didn’t run away from me. You gotta know that. He come back just like me and he pushed’m. And he ain’t done that, I wouldn’t be here, that’s for sure and I know it. He’d been in that hellhole for weeks with that nut, you gotta understand that. Me, I’d only been there a few hours, that’s all. You gotta know he was brave, sir. You gotta understand that.
Colonel Brest, he didn’t say nothing for a minute, but I seen a little light in his eyes.
Then he said, Billy, I’ve known grown men afraid to do what you have done.
No, sir, I said. They’d’f done it. I weren’t all that brave, honest. You just had to be there. Anybody would’f, ’cause there weren’t no other way.
He crooked a smile then, like he knew something somewhere behind what I said that I didn’t even know myself. Then he said, nodding his head and his eyes bright like he was looking not just at me but at a whole bunch of people, said, Billy, they all say that.
Then he come up a foot and looked down right at me.