Edenville Owls

by Robert B. Parker

  We were on the bandstand. It was sunny, and pleasant for winter. Joanie was sitting in the sun on one of the bandstand railings. I was walking around the perimeter of the bandstand as we talked.

  “Concentration camps,” I said. “What did he say about them?”

  “He wouldn’t talk about them,” Joanie said. “Just that they were awful.”

  “I think they killed Jews there,” I said.

  “That’s what Uncle John says.”

  There were a lot of veterans around Edenville. Guys who’d been on ships. Guys who’d been waist gunners in B-17s. Guys who’d been in North Africa. Guys who’d been in Italy and Europe and the Pacific. Some of the guys had been wounded. Some of the guys who’d been in the Pacific were still kind of yellowish from some jungle disease they’d got. Philly DeCosta was deaf in one ear from being an artillery gunner. Most of them wore some part of their old uniforms around. Leather flight jackets, pea coats, and a lot of old field jackets with the insignia still on them. I still knew most of the patches the way I knew all of the airplanes. Screaming Eagle for the 101st Airborne; blue and white stripes for the 3rd Division. Corporal’s stripes. Captain’s bars. I always wanted a field jacket, a real one, worn by a real soldier. But the war was over, and I had missed my chance. Unless there was another one. I felt sort of guilty, and I never said it, but I hoped there’d be another one.

  “Do you suppose this man is a Nazi?” Joanie said.

  “Hard to figure a Nazi preacher,” I said.

  “Maybe he isn’t really a preacher,” Joanie said.

  “He says he is. He gave a sermon. People come to listen.”

  “Still doesn’t make him a real minister,” she said.

  “No.”

  “Are you going to go back for the youth meeting?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Are you afraid?”

  “No.”

  “I would be,” Joanie said. “He sounds awful.”

  I shrugged.

  “Remember we promised never to lie to each other,” Joanie said.

  “Maybe I’m a little scared,” I admitted.

  She smiled.

  “Maybe,” she said.

  “But I don’t know what good it would do me to go,” I said.

  “Because you know all you need to know about him?”

  “I guess.”

  “I agree,” Joanie said. “What we need is to know what’s going on with Miss Delaney.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you have a plan?”

  “I’m figuring,” I said.

  “If you go to that man’s youth meeting ever,” Joanie said, “I could go with you.”

  Wow!

  “I think it’s only for boys,” I said.

  “Isn’t it always,” Joanie said.

  EVEN the small movie theaters in second-level cities were impressive. All of them had big velvet curtains on either side of the big screen. There were gilt-trimmed loge boxes on either side of the theater, just like real theaters where they put on plays in New York. Usually there were two movies, a newsreel, maybe a cartoon, previews of coming attractions, and sometimes a short subject, Robert Benchley or some other person like that…. Every week during the war, on Saturday afternoons, unless we were playing basketball, we went to see double-feature westerns at The Art Theater on Purchase Street in New Bedford. These weren’t westerns like Duel in the Sun with Gregory Peck, or My Darling Clementine with Henry Fonda. They were more grown-up movies in which we had little interest. In fact, often we hadn’t even heard of them. If we did see them, we thought they were kind of slow. Instead we saw Tom Mix and Rocky Lane; Wild Bill Elliott and Bob Steele; Buck Jones, Sunset Carson, Ken Maynard, Johnny Mack Brown, Hoot Gibson, and Randolph Scott…We saw every Tarzan movie starring Johnny Weismuller. We would have died to be Boy. We were saddened as Johnny Weismuller got heavier and heavier. We never doubted that the movies were shot on location. The whole question of sex bothered us a little. If Jane and Tarzan were married, who married them? If they weren’t married, then what were they doing living together out there in the jungle? Someone told me that they had actually gotten married at the end of one of the books, but I never found the place, and for us, Tarzan was a figure of the movies…. We also went to any Boston Blackie movie we could find. Blackie was played by Chester Morris, who was also on the radio: “Enemy to those who make him an enemy. Friend to those who have no friend.” We watched Tom Conway as The Falcon and anything Bing Crosby was in: Going My Way, The Bells of St Mary’s, and the Road pictures he made with Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour, which all of us thought were hilarious. Even with these movies we were not at all sure it was not shot in Rio, or Singapore, or wherever. It was years, even after seeing many real cities, before I could imagine a city as looking different than the back lot city of noir films, and B movie detective stories. It was like movies were more real than the life I was actually living.

  CHAPTER 24

  I had to find out what was going on between Tupper and Miss Delaney. The only way I could think of was to listen in on them when they were together. And the only way I could think of to do that was to find a place in Miss Delaney’s house where I could get in and hide and listen to them. It had to be a place I could get to easily. I’d have to see him go in and then sneak fast into the listening place.

  I spent several winter afternoons looking at the house. Old Lady Coughlin was the town librarian. So when Miss Delaney was in school and Old Lady Coughlin was in the library, there should be nobody at their house. There wasn’t. Except weekends. I had to get in to get the lay of the land in there. I couldn’t do it on a weekend. I would have to skip school. The entrance to the second floor, where Miss Delaney lived, was separate from the entrance to Old Lady Coughlin’s. So the dog wouldn’t be a problem. He might yap, but so what.

  I went to school on Tuesday morning, made sure Miss Delaney was there, pretended to go to the boy’s room, and skipped out the side door with my book bag. The library didn’t open until an hour after school started, and Edenville was too small a town for a school-age kid to get away with hanging around on the street. I went up to St. Ignacio’s and hung around there. It was like a branch church, and it was always open. But Father Al was only there on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I figured if I got caught skipping school to sit in the church, how much trouble could I get in?

  I liked it in the empty church. The Mass on Sundays was boring. But when it was empty and I was in there alone, I liked the way the sunlight came through the stained-glass windows. I liked the silence, and the hint of incense, and the statues of the Virgin by the altar. I didn’t much like the crucifix above the altar. It seemed kind of gruesome to me. But it was part of the whole church thing.

  I was doing bad things…skipping school, breaking into Miss Delaney’s house, spying on people…But I was doing them for a good reason. I was trying to save Miss Delaney…. Miss Delaney said she didn’t want me to save her. But she needed to be saved from that guy. Oswald Tupper was creepy. And there was nobody else to help her…. Sometimes I wished I hadn’t been looking out the window that day when I saw them for the first time…. It was kind of fun, though. I wondered what Father Al would say.

  When it was time, I went out of the church and walked down past the library. Being outside, walking around on a school day, I felt like I was naked in public. As I went past the library, I could see Old Lady Coughlin at the desk. I went on to her house and walked straight up to Miss Delaney’s door like I was supposed to be there. I tried the door. It was locked. I looked in the keyhole. I could see the key inside. I took a newspaper page from my book bag and spread it flat and slipped it under the door. Then I took my jackknife and put it in the keyhole and pushed the key from the hole. I heard it land on the floor inside the door. I put my jackknife away and crouched down and carefully pulled the newspaper out from under the door. There was the key, just like it was supposed to be. I’d read about a guy breaking in by doing that trick in Black Mas
k Magazine. I was thrilled that it worked.

  I unlocked Miss Delaney’s door and went in. I could feel my heart. I could hear it. The sound filled my head. I was breathing hard. The guy in Black Mask hadn’t been scared. But I was in Miss Delaney’s house. What if I found something awful? What if I got caught? I went up the stairs and into her kitchen. Everything was neat and clean. There was a coffee cup and a saucer with toast crumbs on it in the sink. I went slowly through the house. Downstairs the dog was barking. I looked in her bedroom. I felt embarrassed. But it was just a bedroom. Everybody had them. I thought about her undressing to go to bed. My throat seemed to close. I felt like I couldn’t swallow. I looked in the living room and in the dining room. She must have used the dining room table as a desk. There were papers and stuff on it, in neat piles. I didn’t touch them. I went back to the kitchen. I went back out the kitchen door to the stairs, and up the stairs to the attic. The attic was unfinished. There was a window at either end. There wasn’t any floor, but there were boards laid down that you could walk on. In one corner there were a couple of suitcases and a few cardboard boxes. The rest of the attic was empty. I could still hear the dog barking on the first floor. The space between the rafters was full of insulation, but in several places the insulation was pulled aside and I could see some wires going into a metal box, probably for ceiling lights. I crouched down and put my ear close to one of the boxes. I could hear the dog really well. I stood up and went to the back window. I looked out at the roof of the second-story porch. To the left was one of the big old trees that grew near the house. I nodded to myself. Just like that vacant house we’d snuck into. I tried the window. It was locked. I unlocked it and tried again. It opened easily. I closed it again and left it open just a crack. Then I went back down the stairs and locked the back door and left the key in the lock. I went back up to Miss Delaney’s apartment and went down the front stairs and came to the front door, which had one of those locks that locks behind you when you shut it. I had my book bag. I had the piece of newspaper in the book bag. I had my jackknife. I took a breath and opened the front door and went out.

  CHAPTER 25

  I hid my schoolbag in the boys’ room and threw the newspaper away in the trash barrel, then went upstairs to my classroom. I felt so strange. I felt like somebody else. I opened the back door of the classroom silently and slipped in and sat down.

  “Bobby?” Miss Delaney said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said.

  “Where in heaven’s name have you been?”

  “Boys’ room, Miss Delaney.”

  She nodded.

  “See me after class, please,” she said.

  When class was over and I went to the front of the room, Miss Delaney said, “Are you feeling all right?”

  “I was feeling kind of sick,” I said. “But I’m better now.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me where you were?” Miss Delaney said.

  “I…I was embarrassed,” I said.

  She smiled.

  “Yes,” she said. “I can understand that.”

  “You can?”

  “Of course,” she said. “Some things are embarrassing.”

  I nodded.

  “But we have rules,” Miss Delaney said. “And you can’t just disappear for much of the day and I let it go.”

  I nodded again.

  “You’ll need to stay after school today,” Miss Delaney said. “For an hour.”

  That wasn’t bad.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said.

  She looked at me for a moment. She had very big eyes. Like Joanie. Except hers were brown and Joanie’s were blue.

  “No argument?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “And what is all this yes ma’am and no ma’am business?” she said. “You are usually quite a bit more mouthy.”

  “I did something wrong,” I said. “I know it. I think the punishment is fair.”

  She looked at me some more.

  “Very mature,” she said.

  “Thank you.”

  I was pretty sure she knew I was lying. But she didn’t say so.

  She just smiled and said, “Now go sit down, and while you’re serving your time, please write me a two-page essay on why we have to keep track of the students in our classes.”

  I went back to my desk, sat down, and got out some lined paper and a pen. I was a good writer. The essay would be easy. I knew that. Miss Delaney knew it too.

  I felt bad lying to her, and worse because I thought she knew it. Just like I felt bad about sneaking into her house. I seemed to have to do a lot of bad things to do a good thing. It made me uncomfortable. It was kind of spoiling the adventure. But it wasn’t just an adventure—Miss Delaney really needed help. What I needed to do was talk with Joanie.

  CHAPTER 26

  I went up to the Reverend Tupper’s youth group meeting on Sunday afternoon, and slipped into the back row. There were maybe fifteen other kids there. Too few to hide among. The reverend spotted me.

  “Bobby Murphy,” he said in his mock Irish brogue, “sure and ye be welcome among us, Bucko.”

  I nodded and tried to look pleased. Actually I was so nervous, I thought I might throw up.

  “You are just in time, Bobby, to join us in our opening pledge.”

  Everyone stood up, so I did too. We stood at attention.

  “Until I die…” the reverend said.

  Everyone said, Until I die…

  “I will serve…”

  I will serve…

  “This flag…”

  This flag…

  “And the great country it represents…”

  And the great country it represents…

  “So help me God.”

  So help me God.

  We all sat down. Reverend Tupper was wearing a tan uniform, kind of like a Boy Scout leader, except instead of a kerchief, he had a black tie. Over the tie he wore some kind of medal hanging on a blue ribbon around his neck. Behind him on the wall was a big American flag with a crucifix. The same one that had been in the house trailer church.

  “As always,” the reverend said, “we begin by reviewing the truth of our mission. The flag of our country is red, white, and blue: red, for the blood shed in the defense of our way of life; blue is for the true-blue loyalty of those who have defended our way; and white for the color of the founding fathers.”

  All of us sat silently.

  “Those of us who served in the war, including those who won the Medal of Honor”—he touched the medal—“as I did, went to war to keep those colors clean and pure. We trusted this country and we were lied to. We were not preserving those sacred colors. We were fighting to advance the cause of godless Communism. We were fighting to repress white Christians. We were making it more possible for black and yellow hordes to mongrelize the population so that racial purity and Christian virtue could be banished. We were manipulated by Franklin Delano Jewsavelt and international Jewry, who conspired to demonize the German people and advance the cause of godless Bolshevism in the name of victory.”

  We all sat perfectly still listening. It was unbelievable. I had never heard anyone talk that way. I wasn’t exactly sure what he was saying, but it was certainly different than anything anyone else had ever said to me about the country and the war. He used words like nigger and kike, as if they were perfectly okay words. He talked as if Jews weren’t white. He spoke of a yellow invasion from Asia. He spoke of the Communist plan to rule the world by stirring up rebellion in the inferior races. He talked like it would have been better if we had joined the Germans and defeated Russia. I was completely amazed.

  “I too was deceived,” he said. “I fought in this war, on the wrong side, killing Christians on behalf of Jews and Bolsheviks. I was given a Medal of Honor for it. And I am ashamed. I am ashamed of the medal, and I am ashamed of myself. But it is not yet quite too late. We still have a chance to save our nation and our race. It is you who are our chance. You strong, young white Christian men who can choose
fertile, young white Christian women and form the breeding stock for a race of cleanliness and purity.”

  He stopped and gestured toward us with both hands and bowed slightly and clapped, apparently for us. The boys in the audience began to clap back and pretty soon there was loud applause. I clapped along with the others.

  “Together,” the reverend said, “we will move forward. Together we may save our race.”

  More applause.

  When it died down, the reverend said, “Next week we will begin systematic instruction, with some guest instructors.”

  Then he stood at attention and we all stood up at attention and he put his right fist over his heart.

  “White and Christian until death,” he said.

  We all put our right fists over our hearts.

  White and Christian until death.

  CHAPTER 27

  I was walking Joanie home from school. I knew Nick saw us. And I was pretty sure he didn’t like it. But I had to talk with her. And I couldn’t wait. I felt as if my skin were stretched too tight over the rest of me. I talked all the way to the corner of her street and down, and stopped outside her house and kept talking. Joanie listened and nodded and listened.

  Finally she said, “Let’s go down to the bandstand, I don’t want to go in yet.”

  I could have kissed her. The thought startled me a little in the middle of my long talk. I could have kissed her. I wanted to kiss her. I had never really kissed a girl before. A few on the cheek at spin the bottle games. But real smoochy kissing, no. I wasn’t exactly sure how to go about it. Besides, if I kissed her, it would change everything. She might get mad. And even if she didn’t, she wouldn’t be my best friend anymore. She’d be…I wasn’t sure what she’d be. It made me feel strange.

  The bandstand was empty as usual. And the harbor was where it always was, empty in winter, only a few boats at mooring.