The Dreadful Revenge of Ernest Gallen

by James Lincoln Collier

  “Smart lad,” the specter said. “They were all involved. When you and your little girlfriend start looking into it, you’ll see how it ties together. Now just put away your pencil and paper.”

  “You can’t make me,” I said.

  “Oh, you think not?” It gave that rusty chuckle, like sandpaper on metal. “Wait and see.” The pressure in my chest began to loosen, the movement in my guts slowed, and then it was gone.

  I sat there feeling sad and shaken. Could the voice really prevent me from writing that letter? I had a feeling that it could, but I couldn’t see how. I had to try. I couldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t, and neither would Sonny.

  I picked up the pencil and looked at the paper where I had scrawled the words “People shouldn’t gossip about Mr. Hawkins when—” It seemed easy enough. All I needed to do was finish with “he isn’t here to defend himself. We shouldn’t jump to conclusions. We should give everybody the benefit of the doubt.” That would be enough. Then sign my name, give it to Grampa, and the whole thing was done.

  So I raised the pencil and leaned forward, and just then a new thought came into my mind: why should I have to write a letter just to please Grampa and Sonny? Was it my responsibility? Who said it was? I leaned back in my chair and stared up at the ceiling, my hand with the pencil in it dangling by my side. Now that I thought about it, the whole thing was making me kind of sore. What difference did it make to me that Sonny’s dad had walked off that lumber platform into midair? Mr. Hawkins wasn’t any friend of mine. When you got down to it, he’d hardly ever even taken the trouble to talk to me. Never gave me a stick of gum, had a catch with me, or took me out fishing with him. Why did I give a hoot about him?

  Or Sonny and Grampa for that matter. Why was I supposed to help out Sonny just because we played baseball together? I played baseball with a lot of kids. Was I supposed to write letters for all of them? The more I thought about it, the sorer I got. The heck with them all. I wasn’t going to waste my time feeling sorry for them. I threw the pencil onto my desk, crumpled up the piece of paper I’d been writing on, and tossed it toward my wastebasket. It bounced off the side of the basket and fell onto the floor. I let it lie there, and went downstairs to see if Grampa or Mom had come home yet.

  And I probably wouldn’t have thought of that letter again for a while, except that as I was clearing the dishes off the table after supper, Grampa said, “How are you coming along with that letter for the Chronicle, Gene? I ran into Al Samuels this afternoon and told him about it. He said he’d be interested to see it.”

  All at once I felt mighty ashamed of myself. I saw that the specter had beaten me after all. It couldn’t actually force the pencil out of my hand, or rip up the paper I was writing on—it didn’t have the power to do that. But somehow it had twisted my thoughts around and stirred up a lot of feelings that weren’t normal to me. I felt awful to think that the specter could rummage around in my head like that, adding and subtracting whatever it wanted. It made me feel like I didn’t belong to myself anymore. What else could it make me think?

  But I had to tell Grampa something. “I’m having a hard time figuring out what to say, Grampa.”

  “Keep trying, Gene,” he said. “It’s a chance for you to show your respect for Sonny.”

  But I knew now that I’d never be able to write that letter.

  Chapter 4

  On Saturday morning I met Sam at the offices of the Magnolia Chronicle. The skies had clouded over; there would be rain. Mr. Samuels was at his desk, hammering at his typewriter. He looked around when I came in. “Alice is in the back room, Gene,” he said. Then he went back to hammering.

  I went out into the storeroom. There were a lot of plain pine shelves around the walls holding boxes of typing paper, envelopes, packets of rubber bands, jars of rubber cement. The stacks of old Chronicles took up one wall and gave off an old, damp smell.

  Sam was already reading a paper. “You’re late,” she said.

  “Come on, five minutes late.”

  “Late is late.”

  “I suppose you were never late. I see you come rushing into school with your hair flying and your shirt untucked just before the bell half the time.”

  “Not half the time. Every once in a while,” she said.

  I decided to change the topic. “What year are you reading?”

  “You said it was when we were little.”

  “I don’t know for sure exactly. Mr. Hawkins said it was around that time. It could have been a couple of years earlier or later.”

  “Well, I’m starting with 1923,” Sam said. “Then we can branch out.”

  So we divided up the papers for 1923, and sat on the floor with our legs crossed and began turning the pages. “What exactly do you think we’re looking for, Gene?”

  “Anything about my grampa. Judge John Wesley Adamson.”

  “I never knew he had such a fancy name,” Sam said.

  “Remember, he was a state senator and a judge back then. It helps to have a fancy name to get those kinds of jobs.”

  “You mean if your name was Joe Snooze you couldn’t be a judge?”

  “How could you? Who’d pay attention to a guy called Judge Snooze?”

  She giggled. “Dad says most of the judges have been asleep for years anyway.”

  “Hey, this is serious. Let’s cut out the chitchat.”

  We were quiet for a bit, turning pages and reading. It was slow going, for your eye was always catching some interesting little story—a pig got into the Baptist church during morning services and raced squealing around the pews with the deacon after him with a broom; lightning struck Elmer’s corn silo and knocked out the hired man who was down below forking out silage; some old woman who remembered back when there were still Indians around Magnolia had a hundredth birthday party; new law setting a ten-mile-an-hour speed limit downtown. Not much real excitement to it, but it was different, and we kept stopping to read out loud to each other.

  It took us more than an hour to get through 1923. We decided to make a rule against reading things out loud to each other, unless it was really interesting—no more pigs in churches and hired men hit by lightning. We started off on 1924. The trouble was deciding what counted as really interesting and qualified to be read out loud, and what was just plain interesting and didn’t. Generally, by the time one of us had decided, we were already reading it out loud and it was too late. So by noon we’d gotten through only two years and a bit of a third one and had to quit. Sam had to go to a birthday party that afternoon and I’d promised myself I’d go to Snuffy’s to see if there were any deliveries. We agreed to come back Sunday after church. Grampa wasn’t big on church and didn’t care if I went, but Mom went a lot and was likely to make me go if I couldn’t find a way to wriggle out of it. The Chronicle office would be closed on Sunday, but Sam said she could get a key from her dad.

  So I went home for lunch—heated up macaroni and cheese with some leftover ham and peas stirred into it. We ate, chatting about this and that. Then, as we were almost finished eating and I was about to excuse myself, Grampa reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. It was wrinkled, but Grampa had smoothed it out. I knew right away what it was: the letter I’d started writing to the Chronicle about Sonny’s dad.

  Grampa laid it on the table facing me. There were the words I’d written: “People shouldn’t gossip about Mr. Hawkins.” “Gene, I went up to your room to collect your dirty laundry for your mom and I picked this up off the floor. I was going to throw it away when I realized what it was.”

  I bent my head forward and looked down at my plate. Of course it hadn’t been my fault, really; it had been the specter’s fault. But it felt like I had done something bad all the same. I took a quick glance at Mom out of the corner of my eye.

  She was looking puzzled. “What’s this about?”

  I raised my head. I couldn’t think of what to say. “It’s hard to explain,” I said.

  Mom wrinkled her f
orehead. “What’s hard to explain? There’s something going on around here that I’m not getting.”

  Grampa spoke to Mom, but he looked at me. “Gene’s the one who can explain it.”

  What was I going to do? Burst out shouting that I was being haunted by a specter that wouldn’t let me write that letter? They’d think I was crazy and take me to a nut doctor. “I was trying to see what to say in case I was going to write it.” It sounded pretty feeble even to me.

  Mom was still looking puzzled. “I demand to know what this is about.”

  “It’s no secret,” Grampa said. “Gene didn’t think people should be gossiping about Frank Hawkins. They shouldn’t be saying he jumped off that lumber platform when there isn’t enough evidence for it. Gene’s sure it was an accident.”

  It wasn’t an accident: Mr. Hawkins was murdered. But I couldn’t tell them that. “He was having dizzy spells. Sonny said so.”

  “If that’s the case, then write to the Chronicle about it,” Grampa said.

  “I don’t know what the fuss is about,” Mom said.

  I looked away from them out the window. We had a big maple tree in our front yard with a tire swing hanging from a big branch. Grampa had put it up for me when we moved here. He used to swing me on the tire swing when I was too little to swing myself, going way up until I was high above the world. I wished I was a little kid again, swinging on that tire swing, with nothing to worry about but seeing how high I could go. “I don’t think Sonny wants me to write any letter. He doesn’t like to talk about it.” I wondered how many lies my soul could take before it broke down.

  Grampa nodded. “Well, that’s understandable.”

  “Yes,” Mom said. “I don’t imagine it’s a pleasant subject for him.”

  I looked from one of them to the other. “Still, Mr. Hawkins didn’t jump off there.”

  “How do you know that, Gene?” Mom said. “You weren’t there.”

  I went on looking them in the eye, one after another. “I just know, is all.” Mom and Grampa were looking at each other, and I knew they were deciding to drop it.

  On Sunday morning I went over to the Chronicle office. Sam wasn’t there yet, so I sat on the steps and waited. In a couple of minutes she came rushing up, her hair flying, tucking in her shirt. “So who’s late now?” I said.

  “I couldn’t help it. Mom made me change out of my church clothes before I could go out.” Sam took the office key out of her skirt pocket. We went in, sat cross-legged on the floor, and started amid the smell of dust and old papers. We were working on the spring of 1925 when I hit on a story that caught my eye. There wasn’t much to it. The headline said Old Toffey Farm to Be Sold. The story said:

  The two-hundred-acre farm formerly belonging to the late William Toffey, whose family had occupied the farm for four generations, is under option for sale to Mr. Ernest Gallen of Chicago. Mr. Toffey’s great-grandfather, Albro Toffey, was one of the earliest settlers of Hardscrabble County, and later a figure in state politics. Mr. Toffey’s widow, Alma Toffey, says, “I hate to sell the old place, but it’s too much for me to keep up anymore.” Mr. Gallen says he is buying the place for “investment purposes.”

  The reason why the story caught my eye was because back when I was a little kid Mom and I used to go up to the old Toffey place berry picking. The Toffeys had been important people around Magnolia once. There was a Toffey Street in town and a Toffey Building downtown. I didn’t know much about it, but obviously the Toffeys had come down in the world from what they’d once been. The old Toffey house was a half mile down at the end of the road from the old house where we used to live, Grampa’s big house with white columns out front and the gravel driveway circling up to it. By the time I was four or five years old, big enough for berry picking, the Toffey house was standing empty. The fields were growing up to brush—small cedars, briars, saplings coming into the fields where cows had grazed and corn had once grown. But the berries were plentiful, if you got there ahead of the birds. Like most farmers, the Toffeys had put in blueberries and raspberries, which didn’t need much taking care of. Wild blackcaps had come in, too.

  So Mom and I would go down the road—dirt road then—to the Toffey house with our buckets and fill them up with enough berries for a couple of pies. Blueberry pie with ice cream—about the best eating there was in the world, I figured back then. Oh, I liked going down there with Mom. Mighty pleasant with the sun on my back, picking berries and eating a good few of them, too, when Mom wasn’t looking.

  But the old Toffey house took some of the fun out of it. Some of the windows were broken, the porch roof hung down at one end, the main roof sagged, the chimneys tilted. That forlorn old house scared me. Those dark, empty windows seemed like the eyes of an evil cat staring at us, just watching, always watching, waiting to pounce. Generally I managed to keep my eyes on the berry bushes and didn’t think about the house. But I couldn’t help glancing at it now and again. When I did, it gave me the shivers. Of course I was pretty little then.

  So that’s why I was pulled into that story. I hadn’t laid eyes on that old Toffey house since we’d moved away from there after the hard times came in 1930. Was it still standing? A lot of time these old abandoned houses burned down. Hoboes camping would set them afire by accident. Or somebody would burn one on purpose, just to watch the flames roaring and hear the fire trucks come rumbling up, their sirens wailing. So maybe it was gone. I didn’t know.

  “Listen to this, Sam,” I said. I read it out to her.

  “I don’t see what’s so interesting about that.”

  She was right. “It’s interesting to me. I used to pick berries up there with my mom when I was a little kid. I was scared of that old house.”

  “Oh,” she said. “I can see where it might be interesting to you, but it isn’t to anyone else.”

  “Why did your dad put it in the paper, then, if it wasn’t interesting?” I said.

  She frowned. She didn’t want to hear that her dad had made a mistake about what he’d put in the newspaper. “It might have been interesting to people back then.”

  “Yes, but what was interesting about it?”

  She reached over from where she was sitting, took the newspaper from me, and read the story. “Oh, sure, Gene,” she said. “This guy Gallen was going to use the place for investment purposes. There might be money in it. That was what was interesting about it.”

  We sat and considered it. “Maybe,” I said, “Grampa was going to invest in it, or something, seeing as it was a half mile down the road from his house.”

  “Let’s keep an eye out,” Sam said. “It might lead us somewhere.”

  We went on turning pages. From time to time we spotted a story about Grampa. Judge Adamson to Speak at Kiwanis Club. Or a picture of Grampa and some other high muckety-mucks in the lobby of the Magnolia Hotel. But by noon we’d found nothing of importance. Sam looked at her watch. “I have to go home for lunch.”

  “I better go, too.” So we put the newspapers back where they belonged, and left. Sam locked the door. “We aren’t getting anywhere, Gene,” she said. “It’s getting kind of boring.”

  “Well, if you want to quit, okay. I know there was something going on back then. Something serious.”

  “How do you know?”

  I was tempted to tell her. Carrying a thing like that around weighs you down. It would have been a relief to talk to somebody about it. But I’d decided against it. She’d ask a whole lot of questions. Knowing Sam, she would want to hear the voice herself. Or at least hear me talking to it. “Just from what Mr. Hawkins told me. He said that a man got killed out of it.”

  “Are you saying there was a murder? Dad would have known about that. It’s bound to be in the paper.” Her eyes were shining. “Well, if there was a murder I guess we ought to keep going.” That was Sam: set a mystery in front of her and she couldn’t resist.

  When I got home Mom was putting out bologna sandwiches and Grampa was reading the Sunday paper from St.
Louis. “How’d the Cards do yesterday?” I asked.

  “Not so good. The Pirates creamed them.” He laid the paper in his lap. “Sonny Hawkins stopped by a little while ago. He wanted to see you. He wanted to know if you’d written that letter. He said it was mighty kind of me to take it over to the Chronicle.” Grampa looked at me for a minute. “What’s this all about, Gene?”

  It was getting to be too much for me. “I can’t tell you,” I said. Mom had stopped what she was doing and had started listening.

  “You can’t tell us?” Grampa was pretty surprised. “What’s so bad that you can’t tell us?”

  “I just can’t tell you,” I said.

  “Gene,” Mom said, “you can always tell—”

  “No!” I shouted, waving my hands. “No, no.”

  “Gene,” Grampa said. “You’ll have to tell Sonny something.”

  It all came boiling out of me. “Just leave me alone, leave me alone.” I started to cry, so I flung my arm over my eyes and ran upstairs.

  “Gene—” Mom said.

  “Leave him alone for a bit, May,” Grampa said.

  I ran into my room and slammed the door.

  Chapter 5

  I lay on my bed looking at the ceiling, wiping my eyes and trying not to think of anything. I hadn’t been lying there for five minutes when I felt the voice moving around inside me like a little animal. “No!” I shouted. “Not you, either.” I began to drum on my stomach with both hands.

  “Well,” said the hollow voice, “we certainly are in a bad mood today, aren’t we.”

  “Shut up!” I shouted. “I hate you.”

  “Come, come, Gene. That’s a very unpleasant thing to say. We should love our fellow creatures.”

  I realized that if I kept shouting, Grampa and Mom would hear it and come up. “I’ll never love you,” I said, keeping my voice low. “Never.”

  “Oh, you might, Gene, you might. Never say never.”

  I didn’t say anything for a minute. Then I said, “What do you want?”