Just about the time those words came out of Lee, we were passing the Yellow Dart. I stepped over and opened the hood.
“What are you doing?” Lee screamed in a whisper.
I didn’t say anything at all. Minutes later we were back at our bikes. Lee said, “If this guy is still here when the Lagorios come home, it’s really gonna hit the fan”.
I said, “Isn’t that a shame?” as I threw the distributor cap and spark plug cables into the orchard. We headed back to town without another word between us. The next day at church Karen let it slip that Yolanda was grounded probably forever. When I asked, with an innocent tone, why that was, Karen appeared slightly embarrassed, realizing she had spoken out of turn. Averting her eyes from me she mumbled, “I’m not supposed to talk about it”. So I let it drop. I never found out what happened to the guy with the yellow Dart.
But I do know that after that day I was over Yolanda.
Charlotte Painter came back to school after the holidays. She was different. I saw it from a distance and I heard the comments and the gossip that was all over the school because of the difference. She wasn’t cheerful anymore. By that, I mean that sweet, pleasant cheerfulness that had drawn people to her in the past. She was smiling and laughing a lot, but she was smiling and laughing at the guys that were always hanging around her like a pack of dogs. She was dressing differently also; tight sweaters, makeup, and hanging out in places she could smoke without the school staff seeing. She had changed. Her ordeal had changed her.
It was sad to see, because she was sexy, but she wasn’t pretty anymore.
In June of that year, just about three weeks before graduation, we all came to school on a Monday morning and found out that very late Saturday night or the wee hours of Sunday morning, Charlotte and two other people had been in a convertible and had raced to beat the Union Pacific train passing through Stockton. The train had won.
I heard a lot of stories about who Charlotte had been with and what kind of people they were. I heard speculations about whether they had been drinking and comments about Charlotte’s recent promiscuity and rumors that could not have had any basis in fact.
But all I could think about was the dirt bag who had raped and beaten her; the guy who took away her innocence and her joy and her will to live. I was angry. I was doubly angry in the knowledge that he might never be caught and might never even know what damage he had done.
I was tired of feeling helpless and tired of seeing the helplessness around me; an awareness in me that had slowly come to light in just this last sad year.
One day I heard Dad say that the Hardware store had been burglarized on Saturday night. They all happened on Saturday night. That was a part of what amazed me. They all happened Saturday night, so why wasn’t anyone watching Main Street on Saturday nights?
Now in those days not many people, even businesses, had alarms. Alarm companies with remote reception and security officers to dispatch didn’t exist then – at least not in small towns like Trinidud. So in the absence of any regularly patrolling law enforcement, downtown areas away from inhabited residences were pretty much deserted and unprotected during nighttime hours.
We were in the car as a family when my dad mentioned the recent burglary and it got me thinking. In my mind I charted out the places that had been burglarized over these last six months or so, and I realized that the burglars were systematically working their way down the north side of the street. There were a couple of places I didn’t think anyone would take the trouble to break into. One of those was between the Hardware store and the Rexall Drug store. It was just a small Salvation Army outlet that only had smelly sofas and stained clothes and broken toys.
From the back seat, I shared these thoughts with my dad, and I said, “Why don’t a few of the businessmen get together, and for the next couple of Saturday nights just camp out at the back of Rexall with the lights off and wait to see who breaks in? Maybe they could all have shotguns or something.”
My dad said, “Because that would be vigilantism and it’s against the law.”
It wouldn’t have been considered vigilantism in a Hardy Boys mystery, I thought, and they would have caught the burglars with the help of their police detective dad.
“Well, there’s no police or sheriffs patrolling out here,” I objected. “How are they supposed to protect their businesses if they can’t do it themselves?”
Dad muttered some brief, dismissive comment that told me he didn’t consider the subject worthy of pursuit, so I dropped it. In fact, if I remember correctly, what he said was, “Drop it”.
The following Saturday night, Rexall Drug store was burglarized.
For the first time in my life I was beginning to feel as though the only happy people in the world were the ones who could stomp on other people with impunity.
CHAPTER 6
On June 7rd, 1965, General Westmoreland requested a total of 35 battalions of combat troops, with another nine in reserve. This gave rise to the "44 battalion" debate within the Johnson administration, a discussion of how many U.S. combat troops to commit to the war. Westmoreland felt that the South Vietnamese could not defeat the communists alone and he wanted U.S. combat troops to go on the offensive against the enemy. His plan was to secure the coastlines, block infiltration of North Vietnamese troops into the south, and then wage a war of attrition with "search and destroy" missions into the countryside, using helicopters for rapid deployment and evacuation. Westmoreland had some supporters in the Johnson administration, but others of the president's advisers did not support Westmoreland's request for more troops, because they disagreed with what would be a fundamental change in the U.S. role in Vietnam. In the end, Johnson acquiesced to Westmoreland's request; eventually there would be over 500,000 U.S. troops in South Vietnam. http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/westmoreland-requests-44-battalions
It was a red letter day for my friend Steve Hines also. He had ridden his bicycle to the local auto parts store after school to pick up a filter and a couple of belts for his dad. When he didn’t show up back at home within a couple of hours his dad went looking for him. It wasn’t until Steve’s dad returned home, frustrated and fuming and ready to rip Steve’s lips off, that he was met in the front yard by his distraught sister-in-law who told him Steve had been taken to San Joaquin County General in Stockton.
One of the salesmen at Jake’s Auto Supply had gone around back to toss some cardboard and found Steve curled up behind a couple of oil drums in the alley. He had been badly beaten and was barely conscious when found. The total of the damage done was a broken right ulna, slight skull fracture accompanied by perfuse bleeding on the left side of his head, concussion, two cracked ribs and bruises all over his upper torso.
When medical personnel and eventually Sheriff’s Deputies were able to talk to Steve he was no help. He said that the last thing he remembered was approaching the store from the alley, intending to go in at the rear door, and dismounting his bicycle. His next conscious moment was when he opened his eyes in the Emergency Room and saw several strangers in scrubs bending over him.
The following day at school was Tuesday so my first class was English. As students milled around waiting for the final bell I heard Steve’s name being mentioned in serious tones, so I tuned in closer and caught the story as Mr. Ranier, the English teacher, filled in a couple of my classmates standing near his desk.
It was a mystery, so of course it was the hot topic all over school. And of course, since no one knew anything, everyone knew something; just none of it real. I knew though. I remembered a conversation I had with Steve early in the week.
The previous Friday, June 4tht, had not been a regularly scheduled school day. With final exams coming up several hours of the day had been designated study hall hours and the library had been sectioned off for students needing to do some last minute cramming.
In a rare moment of caring about my grades and knowing I needed to file away a few facts for my upcoming Social Studies final
, I had gone to a relatively deserted corner of the library and was settling in to do some reading about dead folks from dead years, when someone bumped my arm and made me drop a pencil.
My entire body tensed as I waited for a punch in the back or for my head to be slammed down onto the table top. When seconds passed and I still didn’t have the taste of table in my mouth, I looked up and over my left shoulder to see Steve pulling a chair back and sitting down. He scooted the chair up closer to the table and leaned in toward me. In a conspiratorial whisper he said, “Hey man, how’re you doin’ these days?”
His greeting confused me because the words sounded casual enough, but his demeanor was strained and his expression was one of concern. After a moment I leaned over and whispered back. “Um…I’m doing ok Steve. How’re you doin’ these days?” He just stared back at me.
“I’m not joking around” he said finally, as though there was a serious matter at hand and I was taking it too lightly.
“Steve,” I said, “You just asked me how I’m doing these days, as though we haven’t seen each other for years or something and…”
He cut my words off. “No!” then he realized that the word had come out too loudly for where we were. He glanced around briefly then went back to a near whisper. “I mean in the last few days, have you run into any of the Clays?”
“No. I actually haven’t seen them around at all come to think of it. Why?”
Steve looked around nervously once more before continuing. “Because I heard the Sheriff has been on their case, showing up at their house and wanting to talk to Johnny and Billy about the burglaries that have been going down on Main Street, and I also heard that they think you’ve been talking around, accusing them of it. Have you? Cause, Cole, I’m…”
It was my turn to interrupt. “No, Steve! I haven’t been saying anything to anyone. I mean, except you. And I’ve only said I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s them. That’s all. But not to anyone but y…” That was when I realized there was something strange about all of this. Where was Steve getting his information?
“Steve, how do you know the Christmas Club is saying these things?” I asked
His Roy Rogers eyes squinted and for the first time since I had known him they lost their laughter and looked only frightened. “Because Ronny cornered me in the park yesterday afternoon. It was by the gazebo and I didn’t even see him coming. He was just there and I had my back to the side of the gazebo and I couldn’t get around him. Cole, I thought he was gonna start beating on me right there, but I think there was too many people around. So he stuck his finger up and pointed it right between my eyes, and Cole, he said that me and you are going to regret going around accusing him and his brothers of things. I said I didn’t know what he was talking about, and he punched me in the stomach and called me a liar. Then he bent really close to my ear” and here Steve pointed at his own ear and leaned in even closer to me and whispered, “and said you and me better be watching our backs. And Cole, as he walked away Ronny turned back to look at me and he smiled, and just said, “Soon”.”
Steve sat back in this chair and just looked at me. I saw the fear in his eyes slowly turn to anger and he leaned forward again. “Cole, are you telling people you think the Clay’s did the burglaries or anything else?” As I shook my head he continued, “Because I like you and you’re my friend and all, but I don’t want to get beat up or worse just because you made some guys mad. And just because we hang around together at school they think I’m partly at fault!”
“Steve,” I turned to face him more squarely and just as someone on the other side of a book rack made a “Shhh!” sound, I said, “I promise you that I have not been talking about them to anyone. Not anyone.”
Steve looked hard into my eyes for another few moments and he seemed to relax just a little bit, and I felt that he believed me. But he was still worried and I didn’t blame him.
“Steve, maybe for just a while you should not be around me. I’m the one who pissed the Clays off but you haven’t done anything at all. The school year is almost over. We just have two more weeks. Let’s let things cool down, and maybe during the Summer we can get together and do some stuff. Ok?”
He nodded his agreement and without another word he left me to my study. Whatever concentration I had brought in with me was gone however, and after ten minutes or so of staring uncomprehendingly at my history book I happily closed the lid on a page subtitled The Emergence of Capitalism as a Dominant Economic Pattern and left the study hall.
So on Thursday morning when I heard the news about Steve and then heard the various rumors and speculations, I knew that I was the only one in school who actually knew what had happened to him.
I never did find out how it got to the Christmas Club that I suspected them for the burglaries. What had me stumped was that I really did suspect them. But I hadn’t said it to anyone but Nancy. Thinking back on it much later I considered that maybe she had told her idiot boyfriend, Ricky of our suspicions and maybe he had blabbed it to someone else, and word had gotten back to the Clays. That’s the way news travels in small towns. In the end it didn’t matter though. My friend was lying in a hospital bed badly injured and lucky to be alive, and it was my fault.
CHAPTER 7
After Steve’s beating and through the following summer months there was more of a police presence in Trinidad. By the term police presence, I mean that a Sheriff’s Department patrol car was occasionally seen driving slowly down the main drag. That really only meant that they were leaving highway 99 on route 26, catching county road 14 which became our Main Street as it passed through town, then getting on route 4 south of us and heading back into the city. They knew there was stuff going on in Trinidad, but unless they got a phone call reporting an incident in progress there wasn’t much they could, or cared to, do anything about.
The funny part is – and this serves to illustrate the psychological deterrent to crime that police generate just by being seen – even though I don’t think anyone ever saw the deputies pass through town at night, the burglaries suddenly stopped.
My beatings took a vacation also. Not because of police presence, but because I wasn’t as available to the Christmas Club for their perverse entertainment.
I got a summer job working for Mr. Mazurkiewicz. Mr. M was an old man in our church. He was a very old man in our church. He had sheep and a couple of cows, but mainly chickens. He was building a new chicken house and he was looking for cheap labor. I was under age, so I guess he figured he could get away with paying me fifty cents an hour instead of the $1.30 minimum wage, and not get flack from anyone. He didn’t approach me. He asked my dad if I was available and since I wasn’t working anywhere else my dad accepted the job for me. I saw them talking casually in the driveway while I was across the street mowing the church lawn for free. Now that is not to say I was doing it of my own free will. Since I was the Pastor’s son it was assumed that mowing the church lawn was very simply an extension of mowing the parsonage lawn. It makes perfect sense if you are a church deacon, treasurer or Pastor. If you are the Pastor’s son then it is slave labor. Whenever I asked my dad why it was assumed that it was my job to mow the church lawn that was the answer I got. “You’re the Pastor’s son. You live here. It wouldn’t make sense to pay someone when you are available to do it.” I would argue that I lived in the parsonage, not in the church. I would argue that I am not the only young man in the church. I would argue that there are many men in the church, and if they want to serve God mowing the lawn would be one good way to do it without having to go to a foreign land as a missionary or something. I would argue that if a Pastor moved in who had no sons they would have to find another way to get it done, so why not let them find another way to get it done now? None of these arguments worked; neither in Trinidad nor any other place we lived from the time I turned ten, which was when Dad let me mow the lawn for the first time, until I graduated from High School at age 18. So after mowing the backyard of the parsonage – the one b
ig enough for a Boy Scout troop to camp in – I rolled across the street and mowed the church lawn. And I did it for free.
After Mr. Mazurkiewicz left my dad walked toward me so I let the mower die. He told me about the great new job he had just found for me and said the rancher would be at the house to pick me up around 6 am the next day. It was mid June. It was hot. And the job I had been hired for was putting a metal roof on the chicken house.
That still didn’t sound too bad, until Mr. M. pulled up to his place the next day and I saw the chicken house was about seventy five yards long and there wasn’t a shade tree in sight.
Well, here is how my first day went on the job. First, I was not even quite awake. I wasn’t a coffee drinker until I was nineteen and on the night shift in Viet Nam. So I got up about three hours earlier than normal, had a bowl of cereal, got dressed and ran my fingers through my hair, and his truck pulled into the driveway just as I finished tying my sneakers.
I climbed into his truck and he drove to his ranch without saying a word. The ranch was about six miles from town, and he didn’t say so much as ‘Hello’, ‘Good morning’, ‘Boy, your glasses are thick’, nothing. Not a word. I was just the hired help, after all. When we pulled up into the yard he got out and started walking toward the barn. I had no idea what I was supposed to do, so I followed him.
As my eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness of the old barn I realized he was standing in front of a very large old ewe sheep. She was lying on her folded legs, head up, sort of like a sphinx. Her head was kind of drooping and bobbing. Mr. Mazurkiewicz was mumbling something to himself about her being old and needing to be put down. I had never heard that term, so my mind was asking, “…put down where?”, when he raised a hand and pointed at the sheep’s head. I didn’t even see the revolver until it popped and the ewe’s head snapped back.
The Everman Journal Page 4