Cracking the Bell

by Geoff Herbach

“I love your barn,” I said.

  “Yeah. Me too, bro,” Joey said. “Flugel Rock. Get it?”

  “I get it,” I said.

  CHAPTER 30

  OCTOBER 6: THE CRIMINAL

  After we downed the two frozen pizzas, Joey said it was time for tunes and reflection.

  He hadn’t asked why the hell it was my dad had left a message on his answering machine. I didn’t let out that I’d earlier been in a fight and had punched some Badger-clad jackass who tried to jump me for jumping his pal. Joey had, it seemed, noticed that my knuckles were scraped up and that I’d tied a bloody T-shirt around my arm, but he didn’t push me about this odd constellation of details. He waited for me to talk about it.

  We sat in the living room of his trailer, an ugly plaid couch and an ugly plaid love seat. I drank root beer like we always did when I visited (Joey kept Potosi Root Beer on tap in a “kegerator”-style refrigerator in the living room). The place was much neater than usual, which I mentioned to him.

  “Dude, it’s from you. More inspiration from your green notebook. I’m cleaning up my life!” He put a Getz/Gilberto jazz album on the record player that sat on a wood console. The music was Brazilian, he told me. From 1964. Over fifty years old and it still sounded good.

  “You take such good care of your music,” I said. “My dad has old records, but they’re all messed up. They skip. I don’t even know why he keeps them.”

  “The covers probably contain memories.”

  “He doesn’t take care of his memories.”

  “My gramps and my dad did, you know? They were lovers of the actual music on this vinyl. You couldn’t even play one of these suckers without cleaning it before and cleaning it after. They cared about shit more deeply than most people do.”

  I let that comment hang in the air for a moment, then got to it.

  “Hey. I don’t think you should talk about me as your inspiration, Joey,” I said quietly. “I don’t think I’m worthy of that. I mean, I know I’m not.”

  “You mean, that shit you said about going to jail?”

  “Yeah. That’s part of it.”

  “Did you do something bad?”

  “I fought some drunk guys. I beat them up.”

  “Oh!” Joey said. “That’s not nearly as bad as I figured. Nice! You can work that shit out with the cops, no problem.”

  “I’m in a bad place, though.”

  “Dude, I know. Your dad left that message. He was real worried about you because you kicked the shit out of a door and then ran away like a crazy man.”

  “He said that?” I asked.

  “He said something like that, yeah,” Joey said.

  “It’s true.”

  “Listen, can I tell you something while we’re getting real about this?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Before I came to get you at the cemetery, I called up your old man and let him know I was going to pick you up. I told him I’d let you hang out here for a while, but I’d make sure you got home, too.”

  I sat up straight. “You did what?” This didn’t feel like Joey. This didn’t seem right. This broke the rules for us. “Why, man? Why would you do that?”

  “He was worried, dude.”

  “Everybody’s worried. Mom’s worried all the damn time. But this is my life, not his. It’s not hers. It’s mine,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Joey said. “But I hate to hear a dad be worried. My dad didn’t get to worry about me and I think he’d want to know I’m okay. Plus, this . . .”

  Anger began to boil in my gut.

  He went on. “. . . I think my brain recently myelinated, you know what I mean? I feel like my frontal lobe turned adult in the last couple of weeks. That’s one weird-ass feeling, I tell you that. Having your brain suddenly grow?”

  I stood up, drained the root beer in my mug. “I have to go.”

  Joey placed the record cover he was holding down on the console. He spread out his arms, smiled. “Come on, bro. Just chill. There are some more things I want to tell you.”

  “No,” I said.

  “Sit down.”

  I didn’t.

  “That green notebook you’ve been writing in? You know how much that’s meant to me? How much that’s made me think?”

  “About how you want to screw me over?” I said, mouth getting dry, skin itching.

  “Chill. Come on. You’ve inspired me with your process, man. And it’s good, getting that Isaiah Sadler life in my lungs. That air makes my nut clear as a bell.” He pointed at his head. “I’m new, bro. I’m not just going to be weird Joey the hippie dude in the trailer.”

  “That’s too bad. He was the best person I knew.”

  “Well, I’m still him, but more. Because I’m not going to be just anything, okay? I’m going to be Joey Derossi the king of all goddamn hippie trailer dudes in the whole world. That is my path forward with this barn project. I have you to thank for that. You’re a quiet leader, Isaiah Sadler. You lead by example. I’m just following your lead, okay?”

  Just then, a set of headlights pulled up the drive outside Joey’s trailer. We both turned and looked out the window.

  “Who’s that?” Joey asked.

  “Is it my dad?” I asked.

  Suddenly the trailer filled with flashing blue and red light.

  “Whoa,” Joey said. “Wasn’t expecting that. Cop cruiser. Your dad must’ve told the cops where you were!”

  “No. No. This can’t be happening,” I said.

  Joey held up his hands in that universal signal to chill the hell out. “It’s cool. It’s going to be fine, okay?” Joey said.

  Someone pounded on the door with a heavy object.

  “Don’t let them in,” I said, shaking. “I don’t want to do this again. Please, man.”

  Joey laughed. “You fought with some drunks, bro. No big deal. Happens every night down at the bars.”

  The pounding came again.

  Maybe I should’ve welcomed speaking to the cops. I could tell them that I tried to stop a drunk driver but was attacked by another guy and only defended myself from that attack. Yeah, it was a stupid move on my part, but that was the truth. I was trying to save people. And I could tell them Grace just drove me, had nothing to do with it. I could tell them I was sorry. I could apologize to the guy I punched. . . .

  But no. Maybe I have some form of PTSD? Instead of facing the cop, I freaked out like when I was a little kid.

  I ran to the back of the trailer, Joey Derossi’s bedroom.

  Joey shouted, “Just stop that shit.”

  The windows in this bedroom were the size only a cat could wriggle through. I ran to the bathroom. I’d helped Joey install a wall full of glass bricks in there. No way out. I cut back into the living room, where the cop now stood.

  “Isaiah,” the cop said.

  “No,” I replied.

  “No?” the cop asked. “You’re not Isaiah?”

  “No. I won’t go,” I said.

  “That’s not an option,” the cop said.

  “You can’t arrest me,” I said.

  “Nobody said anything about arresting anybody,” the cop said. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  I still had the heavy root beer mug in my hand. Like a wild idiot on a reality TV cop show, I lifted it above my head. “No!” I shouted. “I won’t go.”

  “Bro,” Joey said. “What in the hell are you doing?”

  I threw the glass mug at the floor with as much force as I could. I don’t know what I was thinking. If I wanted to hit the cop, I’d have thrown it at the cop. If I wanted to shatter it, to create a diversion so I could run out the door, I’d have thrown it at the wall. But I flung it at the floor? At the carpet?

  It bounced left off the floor and crashed into the console stereo’s right speaker, breaking the delicate woven wood lattice, cracking the wicker speaker grille behind, causing whatever mechanism the grille protected to pop and then let out a loud, continuous hiss.

  “Oh shit!” Joey cried. �
�You killed Grandpa’s stereo!”

  “I’m not leaving,” I yelled at the cop.

  “The hell you aren’t, dude,” Joey shouted. “Get out of here. Go with the cop, man!” Joey knelt next to the speaker. He pushed his fingers into the hole I’d made, pulled out a piece of broken wood. “Look what you did.”

  I’d never seen Joey sad. Not once. When Joey talked about his dead father or grandfather, he was always happy. He told good stories about their lives. When he talked about his mom, who left town with a truck driver and now waitressed at a Norwegian troll-themed restaurant in Mount Horeb, he got a glint of joy in his eyes. “She wears an elf hat, dude!” When Joey talked about Hannah and Ray Gatos, it was always about a memory that made Joey laugh, not about death, not about sadness.

  Now he blinked at me, brokenhearted, tears in his eyes. It took getting involved with a disaster like me to find out the meaning of unhappiness. I couldn’t take it. That was enough.

  I held out my hands to the cop and said quietly, “Cuff me. Okay? I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”

  “Come outside and get in the car, you fool.” The cop turned, without cuffing me.

  “I’m sorry, man,” I whispered to Joey.

  “Get out, dude,” he said.

  I followed the cop out, leaving Joey and his cracked stereo behind.

  CHAPTER 31

  THE FIRST ARREST: PARALLELS

  I tried to write about this in my green notebook during the summer, but I couldn’t get through it all. I think this was the most scared I ever was.

  There was a mowing shed in Smith Park.

  Reid and Ben had run right after the three boys dumped the gasoline and set fire to the Christmas trees. Isaiah, for some stupid reason, couldn’t leave the site. He watched the flame lick upward through branches of these big trees, which had been carted in (there were only hardwoods in Smith Park, so the Christmas display relied on five cut pines in big metal stands). It took a few minutes for the fire to engulf the entirety of the evergreens. The wood crackled and popped. The yarn ornaments elementary school kids made for the display let off so much smoke as they burned. The city’s silver and red plastic bulbs melted and dripped.

  The strings of lights somehow stayed illuminated, though.

  In the flames, Christmas lights blinked as if nothing at all was happening.

  Isaiah couldn’t take his eyes off them.

  Then he heard shouts. Even though it was after midnight, the fires grew large enough to attract attention. The Christmas-light spell broke. Isaiah turned to see neighbors across the street coming out of their houses.

  He sprinted deeper into the park, toward the mowing shed he’d broken into earlier to get the gasoline. He entered the shed, pushed his way between a wall and a large John Deere riding mower. He backed himself into the corner and slid down, folding himself into a tight, tiny spot on the floor between the back of the mower and the wall.

  He tried not to move. He tried not to breathe. His position in the tight spot made it difficult to breathe, in fact. The fire nearby burned so bright it illuminated the corners of the door. Isaiah shut his eyes.

  He pulled in a gulp of air. Something in the interior of his winter coat crackled. He gulped another breath. Whatever it was crackled again.

  He hadn’t worn the winter coat since the previous winter. The weather up until Thanksgiving Day, two days before, had been unseasonably warm, and Isaiah refused to wear anything warmer than his hoodie. But when he was about to leave, to stay overnight at Ben’s house, Dad—who didn’t want him to go at all—had refused to let him out the door without putting on his warm coat. The temperature had dropped into the twenties during the day.

  He gulped another breath. The thing in his coat crackled again. He unzipped the top of his zipper and pushed his right hand inside. He had an interior pocket. He had to unzip that, which wasn’t easy given his balled-up position. He managed to get the zipper open. Inside the pocket, he felt a wrapper of some kind. He pulled it out.

  Reese’s Pieces.

  The previous Easter he and Hannah had sat in church with Grandma and they’d passed Reese’s Pieces back and forth while the pastor droned on about rebirth, the resurrection, rising from the dead.

  Sirens began to wail in the distance. Their volume increased.

  Isaiah opened the package of Reese’s Pieces. On Easter morning, the earth in Bluffton, Wisconsin, had been covered with several inches of new snow. He’d worn his winter coat for the last time that spring. This little package of half-eaten Reese’s Pieces was the same one he and Hannah had passed back and forth in church.

  “Died for your sins,” Isaiah said.

  He pulled off his gasoline-smelling glove and dropped three Reese’s Pieces into his warm hand. He popped the Reese’s Pieces into his mouth, chewed. They were crunchy. Tasted the same as before.

  “On the third day he rose again,” Isaiah said.

  The sirens screamed. He could see other lights competing with the light of the fire. Red lights. Blue lights. The sound of a car accelerating. Shouting.

  “He ascended into heaven,” Isaiah said.

  The lights kept blinking in those burning trees even as the flame consumed them.

  Red lights. Blue lights. Headlights. A cruiser pulled up in front of the mower shed.

  Car doors opened and slammed.

  There were voices. Chatter on a police radio. A pounding on the shed door.

  “Hannah,” Isaiah said. “Help me.”

  “We’re coming in, kid,” said the officer outside.

  CHAPTER 32

  OCTOBER 6: BACK HOME

  The cop didn’t take me to the police station. Instead, he drove east along the outskirts of Bluffton, past the swimming pool where I fought kids when I was little; past Smith Park, where I burned the Christmas trees; past the hospital where I went to have my head checked after the concussion; and finally into my neighborhood.

  The cop was young, not a guy I’d ever met before through Grandpa. He hadn’t said anything the whole ride. When we got near my house, I said, “Why aren’t you taking me to the station?”

  “For that crap over at Boulder Junction?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “We have your girlfriend over at your house. Mike Meisel from BCA is there.”

  “Grace is at my house?”

  “You and her are lucky. The guy you punched out at Boulder Tap had a warrant on him. He didn’t want anyone calling the cops. Left the scene before the sheriff even got there.”

  “I don’t know what’s going on, then,” I said. “Why am I in a cruiser?”

  “Like I said, Mike Meisel is at your house. This is a courtesy pickup.”

  “But you turned on your flashers when you parked at Joey’s.”

  “Mike said I needed to impress upon you the seriousness of the situation.”

  The cop pulled up in front of my house. The sun had gone down completely, so all the lights were on inside. There were several cars parked. Grandma’s, Dad’s, Grace’s, and a dark-colored SUV I figured was driven by Mike Meisel, Grandpa’s friend from the Wisconsin Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.

  “Looks like a party,” the cop said.

  He had to get out to open the door for me because the back door of the cruiser was locked. When I got out he wished me good luck.

  I had no idea what to expect but followed the sidewalk away from the curb. One foot after the other. Where would I run even if I wanted to? Part of me wanted to run. The part of my brain that said, “Do it.” But Grace was inside. And I broke Joey’s stereo. He was no longer on my team. Riley’s dad would drive me right back home if I ran there. Twiggs’s parents would probably do the same. And what if I got away, would I run from my family forever? So stupid. Just having the thought to run was so ridiculous.

  I entered the house, scared. In the living room sat Mom, Dad, and Grandma. Mike Meisel sat on a dining room chair, which had been pulled in. Grace was standing, pressed against a wall.
r />   Mike Meisel stood up when I came in.

  “Looks like we got him, Gin,” Mike said. “I’m calling it a day.”

  Grandma Gin, who was still dressed in her Badgers tracksuit, stood and hugged him. “Thank you for coming by,” she said.

  “Good luck.” He winked at me on his way out the door. All the cops were wishing me good luck. Didn’t seem like a good sign.

  Other than Grace, the rest of the people in the room stared at me with pale, exhausted faces. It was odd to have Grace there, joining them. Back when we were Bonnie and Clyde, she was on my team, not theirs.

  “So?” Mom finally said. “You’re not dead.” Her lower jaw began to tremble.

  “No,” I said. “I’m fine.”

  “You look like shit,” Grandma Gin said.

  “I’m not perfect. I’m a little messed up.”

  “Why?” Dad asked. “Will you please sit down and tell us why this is happening? We thought these times were behind us.”

  “You beat someone up at that terrible bar?” Mom said. “Why would you go there?”

  I took a breath and sat on the couch next to where Grace stood. Grace immediately left, crossed the room, and sat down on the chair where Mike Meisel had been. She wouldn’t look at me.

  “Time to confess your sins, boy,” Grandma Gin said.

  “I don’t like to talk,” I said.

  “It’s time to talk, Isaiah,” Dad said.

  “You’ve all never been that interested in what I have to say,” I said. I turned to Grace. “Except for you, Grace. You always listened.”

  “Please don’t drag me any further into this,” she said, still not looking at me.

  “Leave her alone, Isaiah. She’s a child like you are,” Grandma said.

  That made Grace start to cry. That made me start to cry. That made Mom and Dad start to cry. Not Grandma, though. She continued to glare at me.

  “Talk, Isaiah,” Dad said, sniffling.

  I thought about my green notebook. All in third person, to keep me from frying in my own sadness. Good idea, Joey. Before Joey made me write, I don’t think I’d have had the words to say.

  I took a breath. “I miss Hannah,” I said. “Since summer, I can’t stop dreaming about her again. I haven’t dreamed about her for years. And she’s so real in these dreams. I miss her so much and I’m older than her now, you know? I’m going to graduate from high school. She’ll always be in high school. I think that’s why she keeps showing up.”