I knew the Christmas Club was never out and about until mid- morning, since they were always up until late night, so I planned to get up early and go back to fetch my bike from the orchard.
As I passed through the kitchen I realized it was very quiet in the house and wondered if my parents had gone out. But no, the Plymouth had been in the driveway when I was approaching the house, so Dad must be either here or across the street in the church office, and Mom never drove unless she was desperate. So…
There were no doors open in the hallway, but I could hear subdued voices in their bedroom. Then I heard a voice that wasn’t one of theirs. That made me stop in mid stride. I couldn’t imagine who would be in my parents’ bedroom talking to them, with the door closed.
I wanted to go to my room but it was directly across the hall from theirs and I knew they’d hear me go over the spot where the floor creaked. I began to turn back to the kitchen, thinking to check the laundry room to see if one of my shirts was in there, when their door opened and my mother stepped out.
When she saw me she looked surprised, then embarrassed, then just stood there awkwardly. So I stopped and looked back. I was waiting for her to ask where my shirt was and I was in the process of concocting a story when she broke the silence and to my own surprise, she wasn’t curious about my shirtless condition or the large bruise developing like a Polaroid photo on the side of my face.
“Hi Cole,” she said quietly “the District Superintendent is here and he’s talking to your dad and me.”
That was supposed to explain everything? I looked toward the door. “Well, why is he talking to you in there? Why not the church office or the kitchen?”
She glanced over her shoulder at the closed bedroom door. I could still hear the muffled voices of my dad and the D.S. coming from the other side. Mom approached me then, and putting a hand on my shoulder said “Let’s go to the kitchen.”
I walked with her, my head now in a spin. Something was definitely up. “Is Nancy ok?” I asked, suddenly afraid Icky Ricky had crashed his car or something. “Oh she’s fine!” Mom was quick to answer. Then, “Well, I guess she’s fine; I mean, she’s out with Rick, but I called Rick’s folks house and Nancy’s on her way home. Cole, have a seat.” She pointed to a chair at the kitchen table.
I sat down, watching her face and waiting for an explanation. She didn’t sit with me. She just stood in the middle of the floor and crossed her hands in front of her. Just as I was about to demand some information from her the bedroom door opened and closed down the hall. We both looked in that direction and the District Super came into view.
My mother suddenly burst into tears and he led her out to the living room saying “Let’s talk in here Darlene”.
Completely confused now, I just stayed where I was in that chair. The D.S. had glanced my way as he entered the kitchen, but he didn’t say anything to me, even by way of greeting.
I could hear the sounds of the two of them taking seats in the living room, the sofa’s familiar creak and the squeak that comes with all rocking chairs. My mother was sobbing for a minute or two and then I heard her voice, muffled as though talking through her hands. “What am I going to do?” she asked, “Nothing is ever going to be the same.”
The D.S. talked softly to her and I know he was giving her encouragement and comfort, but I cannot remember what he said because his words weren’t registering. I could only sit there, alone in that kitchen, and wonder what she meant by nothing ever being the same.
As they talked the front door opened and when it closed again Nancy walked into the kitchen and saw me sitting in the chair. I was relieved to see Ricky was not with her. I whispered, with my palms held up and my shoulders in a shrug, “Do you know what’s going on?” Nancy nodded and whispered back, “Let’s go out in the back yard.”
I stood and followed her out. She walked out onto the lawn from the porch and as I followed her I looked to my left and could see the Christmas Club in their front yard. Just as I saw them, Billy Clay and Scary Guy looked our way, so I stepped back under the cover of the porch and motioned Nancy back. She paused for a moment then realized what I was doing. She glanced furtively in the direction of the Clay residence and joined me on the porch with a raised eyebrow. “Cole, what’s going on? Are you still egging those guys on?”
I hope my face properly registered my shock. “Are you kidding me? I don’t egg them on; they just love to terrorize me! I can’t go anywhere without getting beat up or having to run a foot race with Ronny Clay!”
She didn’t seem to get the picture at all. “Well, little brother, when you pull a gun on people they aren’t likely to forget the experience.”
I wanted to pursue that topic of conversation with her at another time – ask her what she thought was the proper amount of time to make a person’s life miserable over one little evening of misunderstanding – but I wanted more at that moment to know what was going on with Mom and Dad. Apparently that was foremost in her mind also because she changed the subject before I could.
“Cole, something happened today between Jerry and Dad.”
I opened my mouth to ask what sort of thing happened between them but she continued, “I don’t know the whole story. I only know what Mom said when she called and asked me to come home. She said Dad stopped to get gas at the Gulf station and while he was filling up, Jerry pulled off the road and stopped, and got out of his car and punched Dad in the face.”
“He what?” my mouth dropped open and my mind tried to process the visual it was getting. My dad wasn’t the kind of guy people punched! He was the pastor, for Pete’s sake. He was also about six inches taller and forty pounds heavier than Jerry.
Nancy went on. “Like I said, I only know what Mom said on the phone. She said that Jerry accused Dad of touching his wife’s breast when he was there for a visitation. Marsha told him about it when he got home, so he went looking for Dad and when he saw him at the service station he got out and punched him. That’s all I know, except that’s why the District Superintendent is here. I guess Dad called him right away and asked him to come out from Stockton and help get it worked out.”
I sat back on the edge of a chaise lounge and just stared at a crack in the concrete porch floor. After a moment Nancy said she felt like she should go see how Mom was doing and she stepped back inside, leaving me alone to wonder how all of this could happen and what was going to happen next.
I didn’t see my dad at all that day. He stayed in the bedroom, and the one time I was in the hall when my mother opened the door to go in there I could see that it was very dark, as though a blanket had been put over the window shade to cut out all light. She was only in there for a minute and came back out.
I went to bed early to escape the pall of gloom that had descended on the whole house. Nancy had gone back out and I figured she would probably stay out late with Ricky, as had been her recent routine. When I got up at 6 am to go find my bicycle, my mother was on the sofa with a pillow and a blanket, still sleeping. By the time I returned home with my bicycle she was sitting in the corner of the kitchen with a cup of coffee, talking in low tones on the telephone. I only had to hear a minute of her side of the conversation to figure out that she was talking to her sister in Los Angeles.
This is just great, I thought to myself. Aunt Laura and Uncle Geoff have never been anything but condescending to my folks, and all Mom is doing now is giving them fodder for their next conversation about what a loser Dad is.
I went to my room and pulled out issue #2 of a new superhero named Daredevil. It had come out in June and I had read it three times already, but my room seemed like the best place to be these days. My world had been turning into a black fog lately and it had finally oozed its way under our front door.
CHAPTER 9
I hardly saw my dad over the next couple of weeks. He stayed in that bedroom, and as far as I knew in bed. When he came out it was to use the bathroom but even then he went straight there and back again without talking to
anyone. When Nancy was home she took him meals but it was only little things like a bowl of soup or some toast and coffee. When she wasn’t there Mom took food in and carried dishes out, but she never stayed in there for long.
The D.S. sent guest preachers to take the pulpit for those weeks. Of course, I was still expected to be there like a good pastor’s kid and sit right up front, so I got to hear the Superintendent’s lies to the congregation about Dad being sick, but don’t worry, it’s just severe laryngitis and he’ll be fine and there’s no need for cards and flowers; blah, blah..
Mom volunteered to be in the nursery so she didn’t have to sit in the sanctuary or see as many people. Jerry and Marsha were not there. No big surprise. Nancy was one of our two piano players and they always took turns so she was there for one Sunday but playing hooky the next. I sat with Betty and Karen. Yolanda was still absent and I never knew what her parents were telling folks about where she was.
Then came the phone call that livened things back up somewhat in the Everman home; not necessarily in a good way. On Saturday, July 24th Nancy and Ricky left on a day trip to Lake Tahoe to do some swimming and picnicking. Just before 4 pm the phone rang and Mom answered. It was Nancy calling from a motel room in Reno. She asked Mom to have Dad pick up the extension in the bedroom and after that was accomplished she told them she was calling to announce that she had just become Mrs. Richard J. Pindell.
My mother sat down in a kitchen chair and began softly crying, so I asked her what was wrong. Dad came out of the bedroom in his pajamas, walked to the end of the hall and looked into the kitchen, saw Mom crying, then turned and went back down the hall to the bedroom and quietly closed the door.
My mother looked up toward the hall with tears running down her face. She still held the phone to her ear but no one was talking. Exasperated, I said, “Will someone please tell me what’s going on?”
Mom looked at me, opened her mouth as if to say something, then she started crying harder. I was beginning to think there was something in the air that was turning everyone into nut-cases.
I walked over and held out my hand and my mother placed the receiver in it. I said hello into the phone, and Nancy, in a cheery, excited tone, said, “Hi Cole! How’re you doing?”
I said, “Well, Sis, I think I’m doing ok, but the other two people in this house are ready to weave baskets. What’s going on?”
“We just got married!” She repeated her announcement with glee. I said, “Who is we? Wait. You and Ricky?” “Yep!” she replied.
I gently hung up the phone and left the house.
I went to the river and spent the rest of the afternoon there, only coming home when it was getting too dark to see in the woods and I was famished anyway. I almost wished I hadn’t come back. When I walked in the door Mom and Dad were at the kitchen table arguing and blaming one another for Nancy’s decision to elope, and discussing what they were going to do about it. As Nancy had turned eighteen two months previously there really wasn’t a truck load of anything they could do about it, but I didn’t want to jump into that vortex with them, so I fished some leftover chicken and macaroni and cheese out of the fridge and took it to my room. Oh – have I mentioned the fact that there was no such thing as a microwave in 1965? If you wanted food heated there was the oven and there was the stovetop. But I wanted out of that kitchen so cold leftovers was just fine with me.
Well, at least they were talking again.
The next morning I was in the kitchen when Mom came out of her room for breakfast. Then I was going down the hall when Dad came out of Nancy’s old room and it looked like he had just awakened. I was starting to get the drift of things.
We didn’t see Nancy for another week and then it was for a visit. She brought her husband with her. She may as well have been holding a leash. He stood behind her looking sheepish and I was pretty sure he was scared half to death that Dad was going to beat him up. I don’t know, maybe another time Dad would have. But he was pretty much a whipped puppy those days also. So all in all, it was a pretty subdued gathering and I stood in the corner watching everyone just ooze patheticness. My dictionary says that isn’t a word, but you know what I mean.
Eventually Nancy got around to the main reason she was there. Ricky carried empty cardboard boxes in from his truck and they spent the afternoon loading up all of Nancy’s belongings. After a while Mom went in and helped her pack and I think it was therapeutic to a degree, because after a while they were laughing and talking about Nancy setting up housekeeping. They were going to live in a guest house that Ricky’s parents had on their ranch property out closer to Stockton. I was only going to see her, briefly, one more time.
The visit/moving day for Nancy was Saturday, August 7tht. The following Tuesday, on the 10th, Dad was on the phone for quite a while back in the bedroom. When he came out he seemed to have some of his old personality back. He was actually smiling, which made my ears perk up.
He waited until he knew he had Mom’s attention also, then clapping his hands together and sort of shaking them in front of his chest he said, “I’ve been on the phone with the District Superintendent. I’ve been offered another church.”
Strangely, Mom’s shoulders lowered as though a burden of pent up nervousness had been suddenly released. She smiled slightly but said nothing. She just sat looking back at him. So it was on me to ask the obvious.
“Where are we going?”
“Quincy!” he said, with that big smile, as if we all knew exactly where that was. Then recognizing my blank expression, he added, “It’s in northern California, in Plumas County up in the mountains. You’ll love it, Cole! Get the Atlas out and you can look it up.”
I did just that. I took the 1960 Rand McNally Road Atlas to my room and went to work finding Quincy, leaving Mom and Dad in the living room to discuss it.
The next week and a half went pretty smoothly. I managed to avoid the Christmas Club, spending most of my time at the river and trekking around in the woods for the primary purpose of being alone and away from the packing activity at the house. I was only held accountable for my own stuff and that didn’t take long. Once I carefully packed my comic book collection, my rifle, my archery set and my 8x10 photo of Lassie, which had been taken when an episode of the “Lassie” show with Jon Provost was being shot near where we lived and my dad procured a copy for me, the rest of my possessions and my clothing could just be unceremoniously tossed into boxes and taped shut, and that is exactly how it was done.
On Sunday the 15th my dad was back in the pulpit and announced at the end of the service that we would be “regretfully and reluctantly moving to take another church at the request of the District Office”.
Then Mr. Mazurkiewicz, as head deacon, stood to announce that the following Sunday, the 22nd, being the Everman family’s last, we would have a farewell pot luck and there would be a money tree for the departing family, “everyone please be generous and let’s show Pastor Don and Darlene how much we have appreciated them”.
I almost snickered aloud at that because due to snippets of conversation I had heard around the house over the months, I knew that Mr. M had been the main person to fight Dad every time he made a suggestion that would call for the church to spend any money or replace anything in the building that was either wearing out or dying out.
Another week passed quickly and uneventfully. Nancy and Icky Ricky stopped in on Wednesday evening. They had been out for dinner at some spaghetti place in Stockton and they both had such strong garlic breath they almost bowled us over from the moment they stepped in the front door and said ‘Hi’.
Ricky had been offered a job just south of Sacramento and they would be moving there in September so he could start work the first of October. So it seemed we were all escaping Trinidad, each starting a brand new chapter. Nancy and her new husband had a new job, new town, new life. Don and Darlene were getting a new church where nothing bad was circulating about them on the gossip-go-round and they could work on a fresh start with
one another. For me? Well, for me the primary consideration was that I was finally going to be done with the Christmas Club forever. But that was not yet.
On Saturday, August 21st, when our move was one week away and I was daring to think I was almost home free, I had my worst encounter to date and Ronny Clay was nowhere around.
I was in the grocery store where Mr. Clay was working. I had gone there to get a pepperoni stick and crackers and a soda to take with me down to the river. As I was approaching the front door to leave with my purchase, I looked up and on the other side of the glass door and coming in was Scary Guy. There was no way to avoid him. We were actually passing in the doorway. I felt my stomach climb up and sit down on my epiglottis.
I have already told you how much this guy creeped me out and that is putting it mildly. It always spooked me to see those eyes looking at me, even from the inside of the car or from half a block away as he lounged in the Clay’s front yard. But now he was less than three feet from me and he was staring straight into my face.
So I do not know what possessed me to open my big mouth at just the moment he came through the door. He was actually about to pass me by but he was looking at me and his mouth was hanging open in mock surprise at running into me. And instead of keeping silent and averting my eyes and just getting out of there, which is what I should have done, I matched his expression and then said, “You should shut your mouth before you catch a fly”.
In an instant the front of my shirt was balled up in his hand and he was backing out the front door, pulling me with him. Somehow, he got on the outside and the door began to close on his arm and he just continued to pull, using my face to reopen the door and drag me to the outside with him.
There were two guys with Scary Guy. I had never seen them before. They weren’t of the Clay family and I didn’t recognize them from school, but they were definitely with Scary Guy and stood flanking him as he slammed my back against the storefront, still holding my shirt, and drew his other fist back like a cobra ready to strike.
The Everman Journal Page 6