Dysphoria Page 9

  The Harpers were humble to their detriment, many said. It just ain't natural to keep so quiet about having so much, was the most common comment. But others chastised them for not giving to local charity drives and donation efforts. Why, Clara Denton is the poorest thing since the bread line and she gives two dollars to anything that pops up. And two dollars ain't easy to come up with if you're Clara Denton. Them Harpers are tighter than bark on a tree.

  But the views held against the Harpers changed often. On days when the drives and charity seekers were out, it was condemnation all around, even for young John, who was then hardly more than a toddler. People called them Independents, registered against all parties. People called them Republicans, taking part in the hoarding away of their ample part of America's slimy dispersed wealth. More than anything people called them cheap and tight, but never to their faces, because soon the drives would settle back down and things were just things again. Before long it would be that about twelve percent of Red Knife's population was reminded that they were employees of the Harpers and that they had full medical coverage and a wage higher than that of the national average. They were invited to Christmas functions hosted by the Harpers and then views would change. But for some of the Harpers, it took a toll. Such was the case for John, so the education goes.

  It began when George pulled his youngest son from school. The school principal, a round squat man named Benny Ward, who had a shiny face and very little hair and walked with the points of his scuffed shoes jutting outward, called on George the afternoon of the next school day. Ward had been informed that John was absent with no word from his mother or father.

  Benny Ward went out there, but he wasn't too forceful. If he'd wanted to be forceful, he would have sent his director of pupil personnel officer, Jim Hanover, a man feared by every child in Red Knife. Jim was the man who would take you from your mommy and daddy and put you in a different house with different people who would make you go to school. Jim lived alone and was rarely seen outside. A pale man with a face frozen with seriousness and a weight from his duties, he told Cramer during an oil change once that he couldn't do it anymore. He said he couldn't keep taking children from their parents and placing them in foster homes. The story is that Cramer just kept draining the oil and never said a word. There was a reason he picked Cramer to tell, most people said. Cramer's oldest boy, Clay, was taken when he was four years old. Clay still lived around town, but never spoke to Cramer again.

  But that morning it wasn't Jim who showed up at the Harper's farm, it was just Benny Ward wearing his tie too short and his pants hanging too far off his hips. George wasted no time in telling Ward that the reasons he pulled John from school were simple. He was being teased and tormented by the other students. They called John "Scroogy.” Because of all the teasing, John's grades, which were once the top of his class, had dropped to the basement. It was homeschooling from here on out, George was said to have told Ward. And that was that. Those who remembered Scroogy from school were the rare few who had memories of him at all. It wasn't long after George pulled him from school that the home set up began to bleed over into everything else. John would take his math test and finish and then be told to go outside and play, but John never did. Instead he would sit by the window in the kitchen and watch the others.

  That was when John Harper was eight years old. He wouldn't leave his house again as far as anyone knew. In late summer of 1967, a black car rolled away from the Harper's farm, which had been abandoned after the tragic end of the oldest son's death, and rolled away. Most knew it was weird John Harper they'd come after. He must have finally ended it. He was too young to have died of natural causes and a lonely suicide fit perfectly into the legend.

  Around church gatherings and picnics, the town whispered to one another that the end must have been a relief to the tormented man. He'd not been out of the house since his father pulled him from school, they said. He just sat watching by the kitchen window, mostly afraid.

  19

  Maysfield. About an hour drive from Red Knife. There was no choice but for Paul to ask a Big Sandy Transportation mini-bus to meet him at the IGA near Long Fork for a pickup. Mini-buses and non-taxis; public transportation in the hills was made of this kind of tattered fabric. The transportation outfit was created to get disabled people from place to place. But it became a system anyone could use, as long as they called and gave the mini-bus a route to pick them up.

  "Wake up and be gettin' ready 'cause I ain't paid to keep up with your business. Just get paid to drive. You gotta tell me where you need off at."

  The driver went quiet again. Paul had been following a set of railroad tracks winding along beside them in mostly a trance of sorts. It was nearly his stop. He moved from his seat and started his way up the aisle. Out the window he could see the railroad track moving closer in front of them until before long they were approaching the crossing where they had picked up the old man.

  "I need off at this crossing."

  Paul loomed above the driver, nearly on top of him. He felt wild. He smiled and had grabbed the top of the seat so that he looked like some kind of bird, a hawk maybe, spreading its wings. He lowered his head, looked out from pale blue eyes that gave him a hooded brow. The driver could see the man hadn't combed his hair because it was a pile of black corkscrews.

  "At the crossing you say? That'll do.” The driver turned back around and faced the road, away from the set of eyes still burning into his back.

  Paul watched the not-taxi pull away and put his hand to his forehead and felt a cold sweat there. He felt dizzy and realized he hadn't changed shirts today, and maybe not yesterday either. He wasn't sure he'd done much of anything since reading the newspaper reports at Hill's that night. Full portions embedded into his memory came back to him as he made his way to the small walk bridge just down the hill.

  "...Shannon's family did not comment on the incident, except to say they were pleased to have him home, and that he was recovering well, having suffered much physical strain during the ordeal...However, neighborhood friends of the Red Knife Junior High student, particularly those who were with him the day he disappeared, spoke briefly with members of the press shortly after the youth was discovered. On of those, David Shannon's brother, Hillman Shannon, said that he and his brother had been at Harper's Tipple with friends the day David Shannon went missing...Faculty at the school confirmed that David Shannon, Hillman Shannon and Thomas Spencer, of Pratt Hill Road, had apparently left school grounds just before the last hour of the day, having been marked as truant from their seventh period classes...According to school records, only two other students were absent on the day Shannon went missing , one, Larry Fenner, whom Principal Ward said had a "history of absenteeism." Spencer and Fenner were not available for comment...With very few clues as to exactly how Shannon went missing, one thing authorities have had little trouble in understanding, however, is where David Shannon was eventually found. The particulars of that scene have not yet been released to the press, but sources close to the family have said the 12-year-old was nearly starved when found and had suffered from exhaustion, apparent shock and dehydration..."

  Paul sat down on the bridge and put his head in his hands. Crossing his legs, he leaned over and listened to the water trickle beneath him. He had been there less than ten minutes when he felt a hand on his shoulder, soft and gentle, a nudge.

  "Look here, son."

  Paul turned quickly, startled despite the great gentleness of the touch and saw the old man, John Harper, standing on the bridge, tilted back on his heels with his hands in his pockets. He wore the same coat he had on the way to Lexington.

  "You like this bridge do you?" the old man asked.

  "No, not really.” Paul didn't know what else to say. "Do you remember me? You said you were John Harper, do you remember?"

  "Sure I remember."

  "Well, are you John Harper? They told me you were dead. Said you died.” Paul's head had started to hurt and now he stood up slowly a
nd ran his fingers through his hair. He could smell himself, rank and animal. He hadn't bathed in days.

  "I'm John Harper, yes, and you're Paul Shannon, David Shannon's only son. Is that right?"

  Paul didn't answer. Something was beginning to feel horribly wrong. While waiting for sight of Harper, he had taken out his wallet to get a clear picture of where he stood financially. The budget bonus he made just before leaving for the funeral was all but gone and the few dollars that were left would hardly pay for his ride back. He was broke, without a job, and in need of a shower, a shave, and a clean shirt. The wallet was still lying open on the bridge.

  "Why don't you just ask what you came here to ask, Paul. Just ask, and I'll tell you."

  Trickle. Trickle. Trickle.

  "What happened to my dad?” The words came out with little fanfare. It was merely a verbal addition to a thought that had been circling within him since he was old enough to remember anything. “I know some of it, maybe enough, there’s more there. I know it.”

  He had asked this question in the quiet dark more times than he had asked anything in his life. Saying them aloud now was only the logical next step. But in the past the question was mostly rhetorical; here there could be an answer. He felt sure there was an answer. "What happened to my dad?" he said again. A little louder this time.

  20

  "I have a plan," Dave said again.

  He stood behind the others who had joined Larry along the tipple's outer catwalk. Each of them dangled their feet over the edge and took in small breaths of summer wind, hoping for something cooler might blow into the valley from a far off mountain top.

  "You have a plan," Tommy mocked. He looked across the horizon. Fake puddles appeared along the scorched field. Except the puddles weren't water in his illusion. He imagined puddles of ice cold beer. Beer so cold it could bust a man's teeth.

  Dave was standing behind them now, or more precisely, behind Larry. He dug his knuckles into the small of Larry’s back and Larry winced and drew forward.

  Hill looked around at Dave and drew his eyebrows down. At that moment, he looked more like their father than he ever would again. He pulled up Larry's shirt and made a sweeping motion with his hand at two snaking bruises in the area Dave had knuckled. Larry went motionless and kept looking forward, but his eyes were fixed now, not so dreamy. He breathed through his nose and although his dry and tiny lips were pulled together, Hill knew behind them were a set of clenched teeth.

  Dave forced out an awkward half-apology and shrugged his shoulders at Hill. He sat down beside Larry and pointed to the pile of coal.

  "Can you see that shining in the sun down there on that pile of coal, Larry?” The rest of the group strained to see what Dave was pointing out. "I do believe that is a something that, if not a crowbar, would definitely stand in quite nicely to pop this lock off, Master lock or not."

  Silently, Larry stood up. He slumped toward the top of the ladder, but Dave caught up with him and put a gentle hand on his shoulder.

  "Now I appreciate that gesture, Hoss, we all do, but they ain't a bit a use in you climbing all the way back down that thing when all you need to do is go off this side over here, plop down in that nice soft coal and bring that sucker right on up. That pile is easy twenty, twenty-five feet high, and when it sits like that for so long it breaks down and gets softer, weathered, that kind of thing.”

  "What?” It was Hill. He turned around from where he was sitting and put his eyebrows back in the same place as before.

  "Don't give me that look, Hill. You know and I know — hell, maybe even Tommy knows — that coal, the way it’s laying like that is just as soft as stack of dish rags. It ain't gonna' hurt Larry. Besides we all know too that he's just about the bravest and toughest guy in this bunch. You might not want to admit it, but it's true just the same.” Dave was transformed to a pitch man, a traveling, one-man carnival barker. And he was throwing fastballs. "Who else would stand up at the Strand and sing 'The Old Gray Mule' with everybody there chomping on popcorn and waiting for the show? Who here would jump from the top of Clark's Tunnel into the back of a moving coal gon? We had to lift Dad's Chrysler and drive halfway across the state just to pick him up! And what was he doing when we picked him up?” Tommy shook his head, his eyes getting wider with every detail. Hill was now standing beside Larry and paying little attention. "He was taking bets with them locals on how many hot peppers he could eat in five minutes. He got through two and half jars with time to spare! Remember, Hill? We used the money for gas on the way back."

  Hill nodded reflexively and then turned away.

  "So then tell me, who else here is right for this job, this feat that will stand as a legend in this town?” His words were only partly sarcastic. The rest of the group could sense the realness beneath those words. The fact was simply that, although what Dave was saying was part of the routine meant to get Larry to do yet another crazy stunt, some of it, enough of it to make the rest remain quiet, was true. It would be Larry the towns people would remember years from now and tell their stories about. Their stories would not unfold the reality of what was his daily life, however, and that was his curse: to be remembered in the volumes of legend, yet not fully understood, not fully appreciated as a human being who could live through what was put upon him in his own backyard. It was these virtues for which Larry, had he been able and aware, would have chosen to be remembered. He found surviving his home life to be his greatest accomplishment, but the town would only remember hot peppers and coal gons. And tipples.

  But, at least he would be remembered.

  Hill and Tommy watched Larry inch forward toward the metal railing lining the catwalk. During most of Dave's speech about Larry’s past exploits Larry had stood perfectly still. His posture was the same as he gripped the railing, arms trembling and shallow-breathing. And he continued to scan the horizon. The afternoon sun was already becoming mellow, less blinding white and more soft yellow, dull. But drops of sweat chased one another from the top and sides of Larry's burned head, the exact center of which had turned the color of ripe peaches and flaked and peeled away in spots.

  "Nobody else, right?” Dave said.

  "Why don't you go down and get something to open the box with?” Hill said. He had heard enough of his brother’s speeches to not fall into the kind of trance others did. And he knew right and wrong enough to not get caught up in pushing Larry to do something deadly dangerous.

  "Forget it, then, I'll do it," Dave said and turned and was about to head down the ladder when a loose section of catwalk shifted beneath his feet and popped him four inches into the air.

  He turned in time to see Tommy, who had kept his seat along the edge of the catwalk, spring into the air and then land roughly back into place, his mouth gaping open and his head bent, watching Larry drop through the air.

  “Christ Almighty!” Tommy yelled out.

  Larry dropped feet first, no movement. No flailing about or arms spinning for balance. His legs were motionless, and as he turned in the air like a suspended needle the boys could clearly see his face. He could have been asleep. That was Hill's first thought as Larry tilted skyward and came into view. His eyes were open but looked absent and bored. He crossed his hands over his chest and then, just as he was about to land in the pile of coal, instant realization seemed to set in. He seemed to understand what he had done and pushed his hands toward the ground, useless and futile.

  Even from the hundred or so feet above, the boys could hear the sound of Larry landing in the coal. He hit about four feet from the center, feet first, and the sound was like a slab of raw meat being thrown carelessly onto a stainless steel counter. His body shifted in speed so suddenly that his neck snapped forward violently and as Tommy noticed what happened to his legs on impact, he leaned over the opposite side of the railing and spat green and yellow vomit.

  Larry's legs folded together like twin switchblades, bloating and creasing as they went. Both knees of his pants spread dark crimson just before h
e tilted to the left and flopped lifelessly to the ground. The sound of his voice booming through the valley was horrible. Tortured and full of regret and confusion

  Below, Larry's world shifted and swirled. He landed roughly in a field of blooming dandelions and now he could only see patches, small circles of yellow, swaying in front of his eyes. He could smell the warm earth beneath his face and could feel pinpricks of coal disrupted and now falling back onto his left cheek from the force of each scream he could manage. He tried to move, but his legs and hips were numb. He searched to feel the rounded proof that his hips were still there and realized his torso and much of his chest was also numb. In the seconds he lay motionless in the grass he remembered his mother explaining to him how death worked over a dying body. He remembered clearly and with growing horror her explaining that death would take a body slowly, first the toes and then the feet. The legs would follow and death would work its way up the body that way. Things would become cold, she said, and then finally death would clutch his heart and take the soul.

  Larry sat still now, no longer screaming, and waited for death to take his soul, understanding why his body, crumpled and broken, would be useless for any purpose. The soul would be the only thing left for use. Before the dancing circles of yellow melted and went dark, Larry's last thought was that his mother would just now be starting to peel potatoes for dinner, stripping away the skins while his father gathered them for the fire. He would just now be tossing the skins into the fire, Larry figured, watching them curl and waiting for his supper.

  21