Recurrence Page 4

  She was adept at utilizing her human resources, but she also withstood a wide variety of pranks and vandalism. She was called Mrs. Van-God and often shot with spit wads. Her abundant cleavage was a favorite target when she bent over a student’s desk. Snakes were placed in her desk drawers, her shoes were dropped out the window into the mud or snow, and mousetraps were set under her desk. Sometimes trashcans were set on fire or her lunch was stolen. Frequently, and even worse, water, thumbtacks or glue was put in her chair. Sometimes she learned who the perpetrators were and placed them at the front of the room, although this made her an easier target as well.

  Over time John became friends with Ronald, who seemed more conscientious than most of the boys. Ronald invited him to visit the Pelikoski farm on a Saturday. The distance was a mile-and-a-half by road or a mile by crossing through fields and woods. Since he was walking, John chose the shortest route. To his surprise Donald was there too. He was even more surprised to find that Ronald and Donald were brothers and that Wayne was not related to them.

  At first Donald was civil during the visit and the three of them played, explored and talked. Ronald taught John how to drive their Crosley car, a miniature station wagon that their dad had bought for the boys to drive around in on their large farm. That day they had a great time driving it through lanes and across fields.

  John caught on quickly and Donald became jealous and tried to outdo his performance. Soon he had the Crosley bogged down in a mud-hole in the woods and they had to leave it for their father to pull out with a tractor. Ronald berated him, and he stormed away cursing. John didn’t see him again at the farm.

  John wasn’t far into his shortcut through the woods on his way home when he was startled by the sound of a stick snapping behind him. He turned to find Donald coming up fast.

  “Now you’re going to get it Luther!” he hollered. He was brandishing a hunting knife with a four-inch blade. “I’ll cut your guts out.”

  John ran, dodging around trees and brush. He thought he could outrun Donald who wasn’t as tall, but what he really wanted was to reach his Louisville Slugger. He had left it wedged in the fork of a small maple tree before reaching the edge of the woods across from their farm.

  Donald ran behind him cursing and calling him a coward for running. John had gained just enough of a lead through the thick brush to be out of Donald’s sight when he spied a solid looking length of wood about two inches in diameter and four feet long lying near a downed tree. He had just enough time to pick it up and test it by grabbing both ends and slamming it down over his thigh. It was as solid as the bat.

  He ran on again for a short distance and then ran under a large maple tree with a low-hanging limb on one side. He stopped just long enough for Donald to get a glimpse of him and then pulled the limb around behind the trunk. Donald came on at a trot, and when he was close enough John released the limb. It struck him full in the face, knocking him down and to the side. He cried out but did not drop the knife.

  Donald was clawing at his face with one hand and had risen to one knee by the time John reached him. He continued his rise and was bringing the knife up in an arc toward John’s stomach when the club caught his arm just above the wrist with a loud whack. John saw the knife spin off into the brush as Donald yelled out.

  His hand was pointing off at a crazy angle but there were no protruding bones. John ran up and clubbed him across the shoulders while he was hunched over holding his hand. Donald moaned and fell over, then struggled to his feet. Bawling, he ran off toward home at a shuffling gait.

  “I’ll kill you next time!” John hollered after him.

  After he was sure Donald was out of range of both sight and hearing, he made a quick search and retrieved the knife. He decided to keep it for proof if anyone confronted him about Donald’s arm. He threw the club into a patch of briars farther on and retrieved his baseball bat.

  Donald had a cast on his arm when he arrived at school Monday, and he moved like an old man. Ronald spread the word that Donald had fallen from the haymow, broken his arm, and injured his back.

  Later Ronald pulled John aside and whispered, “Hey I’m sorry about the knife. I didn’t know he had it.”

  “OK—are we still friends?”

  “Yes, but can I have the knife back? It belongs to my dad and he doesn’t know it’s missing yet. There will be hell to pay if he finds out Donald took it and then lost it; not to mention what he was going to do with it. Oh, by the way, Donald got what he deserved. He won’t bother you any more.”

  John replied. “All right I’ll let you have the knife back as long as Donald keeps his mouth shut and leaves me alone.”

  “He will.”

  John wasn’t sure about Donald not bothering him again and would never trust him. He wished that he had at least one other friend he could show the knife to before he gave it back. He was afraid that his grandparents would call the police if he showed it to them. Wayne and Kenny were pretty friendly now, but not that friendly.

  CHAPTER 4

  The school year ended and there were no more fights or sniping. He was put on a train to Virginia for his summer visit with his paternal grandfather. His trip by rail started in Grand Rapids and he had to change trains twice before reaching Richmond, Virginia. The conductors of each train had steered him to the next gate and passed along instructions to the next conductor. John had no difficulty and was sure he could have done it on his own.

  He really liked the trip and the clackety-clack, clackety-clack, clackety-clack of the rails as the newly-green countryside flew by. He fell asleep passing through Ohio, and by the time the train reached the mountains of West Virginia, it was dark. He wasn’t able to see the mountains or the entrances to the tunnels they passed through.

  Changes in lighting woke him and he saw reflections on the walls of a tunnel. It gave him an eerie feeling to be in the dark with fast flickering reflections of the train and passengers just outside his window. The images included his face in different colors and shades: bright, dim, and non-existent. It was as if he were seeing his own ghost. The train would leave one tunnel and then enter another. The world outside the tunnels was dark gray with black silhouettes. This was followed by blackness and then the lighted reflections when his eyes adjusted.

  John didn’t really know his grandfather Tilman Luther, and the only time he had ever seen him was at the funeral. Then it had been just barely long enough to speak. He remembered him as being very tall and thin and having a big mop of black hair on top, while the hair on the sides of his head was cut short.

  In the depot in Richmond the next morning, he had no difficulty in recognizing him. He came toward John with an odd gait as if one or both of his knees were bent sideways. There was a big cigar clenched in his teeth and John noticed that he had very large hands and feet. He scooped up both of John’s bags with one hand as if they were weightless and removed the cigar from his mouth with the other.

  He said, “Come on boy let’s get some food.”

  They walked away from the depot with little conversation and he seemed reluctant to call John by name. John thought that it might be because his own son’s name had been the same. When they were seated in a restaurant just a few blocks from the depot, John asked him.

  His grandfather seemed surprised and said, “Well you’ve got gumption. I reckon I should call you John or Johnny; it’ll just take some getting used too. You do look a lot like your daddy when he was a boy.

  ”Please don’t call me Johnny.”

  “All right then, John. And you can call me Til, like everyone else does.”

  They left for home in Tilman’s old, red flat-nosed Chevy van that rattled, shook, and smoked. He could make it backfire at will and seemed to find it humorous to do so if he could catch people under an overpass or standing in a crowd along the street. The reactions were varied, with some people even diving for cover.

  W
henever they stopped, the front of the van looked so close to whatever was in front of them that John thought Tilman was going to hit or run over it; but he never did. He observed Tilman manipulating the column shift and commented that he had driven a Crosley and could drive a stick shift.

  His grandfather laughed, “Not this one, you can’t.” After a pause he said, “You’re a lot like your daddy.” Then he was silent for several miles.

  Later he started talking again and told John that the Luthers had migrated directly to Virginia from England four or five generations back.

  “I don’t know where they came from before that, but they settled around Richmond where your daddy and I were born. There’s no more of them left up there now, though.”

  After a minute he continued.

  “I went down to Virginia Beach to fish in the ocean and liked it so well that I never went back. I found work as a boss in a TV repair shop in Portsmouth. The population grew until there were too many people to suit me; so, I moved farther out, to where I am now.”

  After that he didn’t talk again for a while, and John was occupied looking out the window at the new scenery. Later he found that Tilman would go for long periods without talking, sometimes for even more than a day. John didn’t mind because when he did talk he was open and willing to talk about almost anything.

  The conversation continued, and he found out that Tilman had had an older brother. The brother had died in prison after robbing a bank and shooting someone during the robbery.

  When they reached his home, they drove up a steep gravel incline in a wooded area and stopped before reaching the level in front of the house.

  “Don’t get out just yet. Wait until I tell you,” Tilman ordered.

  He reached behind his seat and dragged a small metal toolbox to where he could open it. After rummaging around in it and cursing under his breath for a few seconds, he pulled out a claw hammer. He exited the van and disappeared with the hammer in his hand. The next thing John knew he was just outside the door on his side of the van, hammering at something on the ground. Then he straightened and walked on up the driveway, stopping once more to hammer at the ground.

  John could not imagine what Tilman was doing. He walked on up to the house and then back down to where he had last hammered. Reaching down, he picked up a snake and tossed it downhill against the side of the van. It hit with a thud and Tilman continued on down to the passenger’s side door, where he reached down and picked up another snake and dangled it outside John’s window.

  This was his first good look. The snake was thick-bodied, not thin like a garter snake or long like a blacksnake. The smashed head was still vicious looking, and the body was tan and rust colored.

  They drove on up to the level and Tilman motioned him out of the van.

  “Damned copperheads, they come out along here every afternoon no matter how many I kill. I wanted you to see them close up without getting bit. Now you know what to look for, so watch where you step around here—with every step you take. There are rattlesnakes and moccasins too but not often this near the house. Got it?”

  John nodded as he stared big-eyed back down the hill at the two copperheads.

  Tilman’s house was a modest-sized two-bedroom with lots of storage closets and bins. It was built at the top of a ridge with the backside extending out over a slope. The downhill side was supported on pilings that looked like telephone poles to John. The house had wood siding with peeling white paint and faded black trim. A full-length screened-in porch extended across the front and down one side. A refrigerator was on the porch near the door, and a modern washer and dryer were around the corner from them, near a window. There was plenty of room to walk around all of them.

  Tilman saw him looking at the washing machine and said, “When I’m ready to wash I just chuck the clothes out the bathroom window and then come around and get em. Don’t leave any clothes lying out here or on the ground, though. Something will make a home in them.”

  They continued inside to an obvious a bachelor’s domain, with linoleum in lieu of carpet. It was clean but slightly cluttered and the furnishings were utilitarian.

  “I cleared out a space for you in the back bedroom,” Tilman said as John surveyed the interior.

  John’s bed was an old canvas Army cot with a wooden frame and he thought it was pretty cool. There were two empty shelves about five-feet wide and a foot deep on the wall opposite the cot and an empty footlocker with the top open at the foot of it. The empty tray from the locker was on the made-up cot. It was all he would need.

  Tilman was saying, “I’ll have to work tomorrow so I’ll take you over to meet the neighbors after we eat. You can stay with them during the day while I’m gone. They’ve got a boy about your age that you’ll get along just fine with.” He fired up another cigar.

  “What do you do?” John asked.

  He seemed surprised at the question. “I never knew of a kid to ask about something like that before. Anyway, I work on TV antennas, mostly the cables. Around here you don’t get any signal unless you’re hooked up to an antenna on top of a big hill or a mountain. People share antennas with a splitter and amplifier and run their wires downhill to the house. We call the wires co-ax cable.”

  He paused to knock the inch-long ash from his cigar. John had noticed that there was an ashtray or a coffee can with a fold in the rim in every room and spaced along the porch.

  Tilman continued, “The elements take their toll from things falling out of trees or rolling down the hills, mostly after thunderstorms. The amplifiers are powered and sometimes lightning knocks out the power. It might hit an antenna and burn up the amplifier and fry the wires too. Sometimes animals will chew through the wires, short things out, and get electrocuted.

  My job is to answer calls from people who’ve lost their signal, and then go up to find out what’s wrong. Sometimes it will cost more than they can afford right then so they only pay me for going up there to check on it. They will do without for a while and then pay later to have it fixed.”

  John nodded as if he understood it all. “I’ll bet you see lots of wild animals, don’t you?”

  “Not so many, mostly varmints and snakes. There are lots of snakes. I’ve never seen a bear but there are some around. I have heard about cougars, but I don’t know if I believe that. There are bobcats too, but you hardly ever see one. Foxes, coons, groundhogs, and possums are abundant. Once in a while you’ll see a fox, but they’re like ghosts.” He paused and then said, “Let’s stop talking and get some food in our bellies.”

  After they had eaten, they walked over to the Mullins house about a hundred yards away. It was also at the top of the ridge and at the same elevation. The Mullins family was expecting them and welcomed John to their home. The only child was a son about John’s age.

  Burl had light brown wavy hair and an easygoing manner. When they met, he asked John if he liked to hunt or fish. He was pleased to hear about the fishing but surprised to hear that John had never hunted or even touched a real gun. He promised to show John his guns the next day and to show him around the area.

  John and Burl became close friends. They fished and explored the surrounding area for miles.

  That summer and for several following, they hitchhiked down Highway 32 almost to the North Carolina line and hiked into the Great Dismal Swamp to Lake Drummond; always killing a few snakes along the way. There was an abandoned pier on the lake that they could fish from, and it had a dilapidated shanty built onto it.

  A local legend was that some city slickers had come into the lake a few years before, traversing into it through the Intracoastal Waterway by boat.

  They were fishing and water skiing, but one woman decided to swim to shore. A few yards before reaching it, she screamed and stood up in waist deep water with several water moccasins hanging from her body and arms. She had gotten into a nest of them and was dead before they cou
ld reach her. The others had to fight them off with paddles and spinning rods to pull her aboard. Of course, each time the story was told; a few more gruesome details were either added or modified for effect.

  Sometimes when John and Burl fished, a water moccasin would try to grab a fish they had hooked before they could reel it in. The snake would always give up when they got the fish close to the pier. Fish that were bitten or too small, and most that had swallowed the hook, were thrown back into the lake. Invariably a snake would grab the crippled ones by the head, and holding the fish clear of the water, would swim off out of sight.

  They did have some close calls of their own though. Once while they were hiking along the trail, a water moccasin had bitten at Burl and gotten its fangs caught in his baggy, bloused pants.

  He was dancing around and shouting, “Get it off, get it off!”

  John was carrying Burl’s .410 single-shot but had never fired it and was afraid to shoot. He knocked the snake loose by striking it with the barrel. Both boys were shook up and the snake disappeared before John could remember how to cock the shotgun. It had released some of its venom inside Burl’s pants leg and they were afraid to touch it. He turned the pants leg up and they wiped it off with balled up weeds. He left it rolled up for the rest of the trip.

  On another occasion, during the middle of a hot day, they stopped to drink from their canteens. While they were standing in the ankle-high weeds along the trail, John felt something pecking against his boot. He looked down and was surprised to see a small rattlesnake striking his boot toe. He was standing on the snake and only a few inches were exposed. He was afraid to raise his foot, so Burl killed it with a machete. It was less than nine inches long.

  Burl’s eyes were darting in every direction. “There’ll be a nest of them around here somewhere. Let’s get the hell out of here!”