Nate kept reminding himself that he came from adventuresome stock as he gathered the things he needed from the garage: a rope, a shovel, and an old moving tarp. He put them in a canvas duffel bag and hid it in the bushes outside his bedroom window. He sneaked back into the house, where he was supposed to be napping, and could hear the television in the living room. His mother was alternately watching soap operas and cooking dinner. School had been out for twenty minutes, so Nate started making noise to let his mother know he was awake. He was expecting Freddie to call and report on how it had gone with Grub.
The phone rang.
“I’ve got it.” Nate picked it up in the hall.
“You owe me big time,” Freddie said. “Grub was so mad that you weren’t there that he gave me a purple tittle-twister.”
“Big deal, I get one a week.”
“It hurts,” Freddie said.
“No lie, Sherlock. You tell Grub what I told you?”
“Who’s on the phone?” Nate’s mother said.
“Freddie Edwards. He’s telling me what I missed in school today.”
Freddie said, “That’s when he gave me the purple tittie twister. He was insulted that, one, you didn’t show up today and two, you had the nerve to challenge him to a fight.”
“What did he say?”
“The good news, I guess, is he said he’d be there.”
“Yeah? What else?”
“The bad part is he says he’s going to kill you.”
“Wow,” Nate said.
“Also, I think half our class is going to be there.”
“Perfect,” Nate said. “Skip going to be able to help with his car?”
“Said he wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“There’s something about an adventure. People just want to join in.”
“I think it’s the part about you getting killed that’s attracting everyone,” Freddie said.
Before hanging up, Nate reminded Freddie to show up at ten o’clock and to drive up with the car lights off.
Nate’s father got home at about six o’clock, and he and Nate’s mother went into their Friday evening ritual. Nate’s father took off his suit coat and pulled several bottles down from a tall cabinet in the kitchen. He then mixed himself a martini and made his wife a Manhattan. They sat down in the living room and Nate’s mother brought him up to date on all the gossip for the week. She always presented a curious blend of real people from her actual week and fictional characters from the soaps. Her husband never realized that and thought Davis Corners was populated with all these people having affairs and such. He would get up and freshen up their drinks two or three times and then they would sit down at the table with Nate for dinner.
The strong drinks usually put his parents out by nine o’clock, and Nate was relieved that this Friday was no exception. Everyone said good-night and retired to their rooms. Nate sat by his window, however, scanning the street for Freddie and Skip.
Shortly before ten, Nate saw Skip’s car come around the corner and turn its lights off. He slipped out the window, relieved to have his plan underway at last. He grabbed the duffel bag he’d hidden in the bushes and ran quickly to meet Skip and Freddie. He threw the duffel bag in the back seat and crawled in next to it.
“Parents asleep already?” Skip said incredulously as he looked at the dark house.
“For an hour, already.”
Nate thought, lets hear it for Friday night cocktails.
“What’s in the bag?” Skip looked into the back seat.
“Stuff for tonight,” Nate said, trying to sound mysterious.
“I hope for your sake you’ve got a bazooka in there,” Skip said. “Shall we go?”
“We need to go by Jim Frank’s place first.”
“What do we need from there?” Skip said.
“It’s hard to explain. Let me put it all together and I’ll show you.”
Skip put the car in gear but turned around one more time before letting out the clutch and moving on. “Did you really tell Grub Hanley to eat you know what?”
His tone of voice showed a grudging admiration for the daring of the deed, while at the same time showed a scorn for its stupidity. Nate winced at hearing the words referred to even indirectly. In spite of his newly-found bravado, Nate still couldn’t get over his years of upbringing and was embarrassed by what he’d said.
“Yeah, that’s what I told him.”
Skip pulled away, shaking his head and assuring Nate that Grub was going to kill him for sure.
The boys shot out State Road Forty-one and got to Jim Frank’s place. Nate told Skip to turn the lights off as they pulled into Jim Frank’s driveway. Nate was doubly amazed that not only was he being this bossy with Skip, who was three years older than Nate, but that Skip was taking it.
Skip turned off the lights and they rolled slowly up the dark driveway. Nate could hear every rock in the dirt road crunch slowly under the tires as they inched their way up. He could see a small dim light on inside Jim Frank’s house, but he couldn’t tell if Jim Frank was up and about or not. Skip stopped the car.
“What now?” Skip said.
Nate looked at Freddie. “Get out and help me get the statue.”
“We ain’t stealing Jim Frank’s nigger, are we?” Freddie said. “You never said we were going to steal stuff.”
“We’re not stealing it, we’re just borrowing it for awhile. It’s like he’s going with us on the adventure.”
Skip said, “Yeah, like I’m sure you called ahead and told Jim Frank we’re taking his statue out for a ride. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll drive up real quiet with our lights off, so we don’t wake you.’”
“He’ll never know it was gone, let’s go.” Nate shoved Freddie. They snuck up to the statue and Nate wrapped a tarp around it so it wouldn’t get chipped. The statue wasn’t as heavy as he’d expected. Somehow, he’d thought it would weigh as much as a real person. They put it into the back seat and Nate slipped in next to it.
Skip watched all this and chuckled at Nate and the statue sitting next to each other. “I don’t know which of you has the widest eyes right now.” He started the engine and slowly pulled out the driveway. Nate looked back one last time before they got onto State Road Forty-one and thought he could see a small, red dot of light glow bright, then get dim on Jim Frank’s porch.
They got to Founder’s Hill around ten forty-five. Plenty of time, Nate thought. It looked as creepy in the moonlight as Nate had hoped it would. It wasn’t much of a hill, but with its lone, dead tree on top, it could give one goose bumps just seeing it.
A local ghost story told about a lynching that had taken place many years back. The story said that some folks had hung a black man for stealing grain from the feed store where he worked. It had later come out that the owner’s son had been selling the grain on the side. The story went on that the tree had died out of grief for being part of an innocent man’s death. Of course, the story had the mandatory clause that on some nights you could see the ghost of the man hanging from the limb, and if the wind was right, you could hear him moan. Everyone in Davis Corners knew the story, and Nate was banking on Grub knowing it.
Freddie and Nate carried the statue up to the base of the tree and Nate went back for the canvas duffel bag. He pulled out the shovel and started digging a hole right beneath a big limb that stuck out straight from the tree’s trunk. Meanwhile, he had Skip move the car where no one would be able to see it. Freddie and Nate took turns for about forty minutes digging the hole. Finally, when Nate thought it was deep enough, he had Freddie help him lower the statue into the hole.
“Going to tell us what you’re doing?” Skip said.
“Just a minute.” Nate took the rope out of the duffel bag and made a noose on one end. His Uncle Henry had taught him how to do it, emphasizing that there had to be exactly thirteen loops above the noose part. He put the noose around the statue’s neck and threw the rest over the limb.
“Okay, here’s my plan. I’m going to hide behind the tree and hold onto the rope. When Grub comes up, I’m going to pull hard on the rope and moan. When Grub sees the statue rise up swinging and he hears the moaning, he’ll think it’s the ghost of Founder’s Hill.” Nate looked at Skip and Freddie triumphantly at first, then hesitantly.
“What happens after that?” Skip said.
Nate didn’t say anything.
“You don’t know what happens after that,” Skip said. “That your whole plan?”
“No,” Nate said defensively. “Grub’ll get scared and run away and we’ll tell everyone and he’ll be so ashamed that he’ll leave town or something, like his daddy did.”
“I don’t think so,” Skip said with a mixture of pity and disdain in his voice. “I think he’s going to beat the crap out of you and make you eat shit.” He looked at Nate for a few seconds and then grabbed his arm. “Let’s get out of here.”
Nate looked at Freddie.
“He’s right,” Freddie said.
Nate thought about the dream he’d been having and about how his grandfather looked at him when it was Nate’s turn to sing.
“You guys go on. I can’t.”
He knew Skip was right. It was going to be awful, but it would be awful on his terms and part of his plan.
Skip looked at him in disbelief and shook his head. “Well, you’ve certainly been a sport.”
Nate hoped that no one else from school would show up, but if they did, that would just be part of it. As it turned out, no one did. Davis Corners was a small town, and grade school kids being out at midnight didn’t happen too easily. He hadn’t even asked how Freddie had pulled it off.
It got close to midnight, and Freddie and Skip hid where they could witness everything. Nate took his position behind the tree.
After a while, Skip called out in a hoarse whisper, “Somebody’s coming.”
Nate looked around the tree and could see a dark shape walking toward the hill. In the moonlight, he could recognize the walk. It was Grub Hanley.
“You up there, butthole?”
Nate make an audible but noncommittal sound. He could hear Grub coming closer.
“You’ve done it now, butthole,” he said. “I brought a little surprise for you, a little something you can eat.”
Nate shuttered as he sat behind the tree. He repeated the noise to draw Grub closer.
“So, butthole, what’s it going to be?”
Nate could tell he was about twenty feet away. It was now or never. He pulled on the rope and made a howling kind of moan. In case Grub didn’t fall for it, he pulled the rope again and felt the statue swing and oscillate at the other end of the rope.
Grub said, “Eat this.”
There was a loud pop and a crashing sound like plates breaking. The rope went slack in Nate’s hand.
“He’s got a gun,” Skip yelled. “The bastard’s killed Nate.”
Just as Skip finished yelling, Nate could smell the gunpowder. He could hear Freddie and Skip scrambling down the back of the hill.
“Witnesses,” Grub said, almost under his breath.
Nate heard Grub scuffling down the other side of the hill. He lay there for a moment, totally confused. Then the events replayed in his mind and he realized what had happened. Grub had brought a gun and had shot the statue. The slack rope in Nate’s hand testified to the fact that there was nothing at the other end.
Nate thought to himself, Grub thinks he’s killed me and he’s run off because he thinks there were witnesses.
Nate began to laugh. Freddie and Skip had been right, he thought, it was the stupidest plan ever. Yet, it had worked out, thanks to Grub bringing a gun.
“Holy cow,” Skip said. He had come back and was staring at Jim Frank’s statue.
Nate peeked around the tree and could see the statue sitting next to the hole he and Freddie had dug. Half its head was gone, leaving just half of a smile and one, eerie eye staring at the boys. With half of the head missing, the noose had slipped off and the statue had fallen to the ground. Even so, the only damage seemed to have come from the gunshot, nothing else was broken. It finally sank in on Nate that Grub had come to kill him, and would have done a neat job of it, judging by the statue.
“Let’s get out of here,” Skip said in a voice just on the edge of panic.
The three boys ran to the car. Several minutes and several miles later they exploded into laughter and an incoherent babble, as all three of them recounted the story to each other at the same time. It was a great story, Nate thought, as he heard each of them put some new spin on the details. Grub, in the story, now approached inch by inch as Nate waited with excruciating patience saying “just a little further” to himself at each step. The statue surged out of its hole like a missile out of its silo and swung toward Grub, its eyes seeming to expand as it swung closer. Grub pulled the pistol cowboy style from his hip and shot with panic-filled eyes. Skip and Freddie chased him away screaming “murderer, murderer.” It was a great story, Nate thought. It was his story.
Skip and Freddie dropped Nate off and he sneaked back into his room through the window he’d left open. For a moment he panicked in the dark room and thought Grub was there, lurking in the corner. He let out a muffled yell and turned on his light. It was just some clothes draped over his dresser mirror. He turned the light off and sunk into his bed. He fell into a dreamless sleep, exhausted, yet at peace with himself.
Chapter 11
Copyright (C) 2009 Michael A. Hughes
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