Four Saints
By Gordon Kearns
Part Three (Pages 20-30)
20
As I rose to leave, I remembered something Sally had talked about. "Oh, Dr. Hornsby," I said, "what do you think about the 'visions' I heard Deborah was experiencing?"
"Pure kid stuff," he answered. "Deborah could imagine up a storm. She probably did it for attention."
"I guess it could've been a little embarrassing if the newspapers had gotten hold of the story and opened up to the public all the problems she was having in school."
"That ...did occur to us. But then there's always plenty enough to worry about without wonderin' what the papers might say about a slip of a girl playing childish games in a meadow."
"Well, thank you for your help, Dr. Hornsby. I'd better be getting along so you can get ready for your assembly." He walked me out of the office, leaving our coffee and cookies untouched.
He had plenty of time to prepare for the weatherman. It was only one-thirty.
The front driveway-parking lot divided Dickinson School from its small front playground, which was used primarily for recesses. The giant rear field served the physical education classes. As I left the building, there was a group of children on the playground, doing what children on a playground do. On the near edge of the playground, by the driveway, three of the children had semi-isolated themselves from the rest. One of them, a boy, sat idly, chatting easily with two girls who were practicing gymnastic tricks -- cartwheels, round-offs, splits, and so forth. Having worked at the secondary level for so long, I was a little rusty at judging the ages of elementary children, but these appeared very much typical fourth grade-ish. I crossed over to them; I felt the need to find out something of what pre-teen children are like.
"Hit" I said. "You guys are pretty good at tumbling. You must work very hard at it."
"Thank you," one of the girls said.
"We have to practice a lot. Coach is going to pick some of us to put on a demonstration for the gym teachers' convention in January," the other girl added.
"The try-out's going to be in two weeks. We gotta be ready in a hurry," the first girl said.
"From what I saw, I don't see how you can miss," I said. "You've got great form: pointed toes and straight backs and all that."
"But we have to keep working and working at it; Coach will only choose the best," the first girl said.
The boy spoke up, "Are you a teacher or parent or something, Miss?"
"Or something," I answered. "I'm Miss Wallace; I'm a counselor at the high school."
"Like Miss Preston at our school?" the second girl asked.
"Yes, like Miss Preston," I said.
"I see you at church a lot," the first girl said. "You always go to the noon mass on Sundays. That's when we like to go. My father says they call it the bartenders' Mass. I have to attend the PSR classes on Monday evenings. The priest over there, Father Becker, keeps trying to talk my parents into sending me to school at St. Michael's. But they want me to have a more cosmopolitan education. I don't know exactly what that means. It has something to do with getting to know other people, I think. I guess they're right; I wouldn't of met Bucky and Marilyn if I'd of gone to Catholic school."
"Bucky and Marilyn?" I looked from one to the other.
21
"Bucky Quinn and Marilyn Hughes," The first girl said introducing her friends. "And I'm Shannon Weber."
"The girls are the gymnastics experts. Me, I'm just a gymnastics watcher," Bucky said.
"A Marilyn watcher, he means," Shannon said. "They're steadies."
Marilyn and Bucky didn't deny it, but their cheeks reddened brightly. To change the subject, Marilyn said, "It's a shame Deborah Irving isn't here any more; she would of made the demonstration team easy."
"That's right," Shannon added, "Deborah was the best in the whole school --including the fifth graders."
"Deborah Irving?" I asked. "Isn't she the girl who ..."
" ...was murdered and raped. Yes, that was her," Shannon said.
"Wasn't it awful?" Marilyn said.
"All the kids in school were sick about it," Shannon said. "Everybody loved her."
"When she was having her visions over at the soccer field, we used to go over there to be with her, to keep her company." Marilyn said.
"And ...pray with her sometimes," Shannon said.
Bucky: "A lot of the kids did. As Shannon said, 'Everybody loved her.' When school started this year, we were all expecting an assembly ...or something, to talk about Deborah; but nothing happened."
Marilyn: "They should of done something."
Shannon: "We realize they were afraid it would upset the kids."
Bucky: "It was more upsetting to the kids when they ignored her than if we'd of had an assembly. They should of done something."
Marilyn sat down beside Bucky. Shannon glanced quickly to where the teachers were standing. Then she said to me, "These guys are going to get in trouble some day. The teachers don't like it when we have boy and girl friends." She paused, looking down at the ground. "I think they should of done something for Deborah, too."
"Deborah was a good friend of yours then?" I asked.
"Well... sort of," Shannon said. "Deborah was everybody's friend. She didn't belong to any of the groups. She would talk and play with anyone. And none of us minded. We all liked her that much."
"She was always doing nice things for people," Marilyn said.
"That's right," said Bucky, "she used to deliver notes from some of us boys to the girls so the teachers wouldn't find out."
Marilyn: "Once I got sick at school. I had a real bad cold, and the teacher sent me to the nurse's office. Deborah was in the office at the time waiting to see Dr. Hornsby; she was in some kind of trouble --she was always in some kind of trouble with the principal. When the nurse put me on the cot and went to call my mother, Deborah slipped in and held my hand for awhile. She told me some story about a princess one time who had a bad cold, but was cured by the kiss of a handsome prince. We both giggled and wondered if Bucky might come in and kiss me and make me well again."
Bucky: "And catch your cold? No way. But one time when Marilyn was mad at me, Deborah talked her into letting me call her on the telephone and make up."
Shannon: "One time when I was having a hard time trying to do a back walkover on the balance beam, Deborah met me by the outside equipment after school and helped me get it right. She was more patient with me than any teacher ever was. And from then on I could do the trick."
A sharp whistle broke through the afternoon air.
"We're supposed to line up now, but they don't get mad until after the second whistle, so we can stay a couple more seconds," Bucky said.
Marilyn: "We could tell you a lot of stories about the nice things Deborah did for us."
22
Shannon: "All the kids could. Deborah was one of the nicest kids we ever knew."
Bucky: "That's why we could never understand why the adults were always so mean to her. She was always getting hollered at by some teacher or other, or being sent to the office, or having to sit in the corner or by the teacher's desk ..."
Marilyn: " ...or being given a test, or having to miss her recess for punishment."
Shannon: "She tried not to cry in front of the teachers, but sometimes when she thought she was by herself --like one time in a stall in the rest room --you could hear her crying very softly. It was a shame the way she was treated."
Bucky: "They should of done something for her after she died."
The whistle blew a second time. "We better go now," Shannon said. And as they began moving away, she turned: "Maybe us kids can think of something we can do for Deborah."
The threesome walked slowly towards where the rest of the students were grudgingly blending themselves into a pair of lines. Shannon walked slightly in front of the other two, masking from their teachers' eyes the clasped hands of Marilyn and Bucky.
As I moved to my car, I noted Bill Hornsby standing by the school entrance about to greet the t.v. personality who had just pulled up in a van marked with the Channel Two logo. Hornsby nodded his head in my direction, and I tossed him a casual wave in response.
I got back to MacArthur in the middle of dismissal. Organized disorder. Masses of teens were going in every direction, in total having all the characteristics of a demolition derby. However, as you focus in on specific bodies, nothing was random. Each was committed to a definite direction, casual and unruffled by the explosion of humanity all around. Pairs and triads grouped in attentive conversation intersecting without collision individuals shooting by like arrows, as they moved purposefully to the student parking lot, the buses, or waiting families or beaux in rumbling cars lining the driveway. As I dodged my way toward the doors, I was greeted with many "Hi, Miss Wallace"'s. Most of these kids knew me through some direct contact, such as individual or group testing, drug education, course counseling, discipline, or group or class discussions. I prided myself with being able to call most of them by name in return for their greeting. I worked mostly with freshmen and sophomores, usually in alternating years. And it didn't hurt my ego at all to be recognized by worldly-wise seniors.
I checked in at the office to gather messages and memos. Barry Daniels, the assistant principal, caught me as I was pondering their priority for response. He wanted to be assured that I would have the answer sheets and test booklets from the fall achievement testing checked, packaged, labeled, and ready for the inter-office courier by the deadline this coming Monday. I so assured him. I didn't mention, because he'd apparently forgotten, and I didn't want to add to his and, therefore, my burden of worries, that I had yet to finish giving the make-ups for those absent when the tests were originally administered. For myself, I wasn't too concerned. I planned to complete the make-ups the next day. I didn't think Barry was as concerned for the tests as he was for making sure I understood that if something were later found to be screwed up, he'd now able to say he reminded me of the deadline in plenty of time, and I said I had everything under control. Therefore, it wasn't his fault things went wrong. So, as I left the office, he was happy because he had divested himself of a responsibility; and I was happy because ...I was out of the office, free to worry about ...about ...about Deborah? I had become more preoccupied with a dead grade school girl than all my live adolescents.
23
*****
A few words of digression for the purpose of orientation might be in order. The Oak Forest Reorganized School District is located in Johnson County, which abuts the Central City limits. Oak Forest is one of the still expanding third tier of suburban districts radiating out from Central City. As such, it is a mixture of affluent bedroom yuppyism, small efficient "getting started" tract houses, conservative old communities, and the doggedly rural. In addition to the Interstate running the south side of the district, there are two major arterials lined with open and enclosed shopping centers, a myriad of condominiums, and what seems like a million eating places. Dalton is the most lively community in the area, and one of the newest. It grew out of the big truck stop, and now includes a plush, two story, massive shopping center (and teen hang-out), a six screen cinema, a roller rink, a half-dozen fast food restaurants, three syndicated and two mom and pop motels, a community swimming pool, a driving range, Dalton City Hall, and four major subdivisions, of which Green Glen, where Deborah Irving lived, is one. The Paul C. Metzger Memorial Soccer Park near Green Glen is part of the Dalton community. The park does not belong to the town or the county. The property is owned by Paul Metzger's widow, the fiercely independent seventy-six year old Linda Metzger (you'll hear more of her later). Mrs. Metzger has philanthropically permitted the development of a portion of her massive estate into a soccer field operated by the Dalton Athletic Association. She makes no bones about the soccer field existing solely through her kind consent, and she reminds the D.A.A. of this fact whenever she thinks they are acting at all sassy about what SHE ought to be doing.
The whole county is served by one police department and fire district. In religions we are cosmopolitan: a good mixture of Catholic, Protestant, and Jew. And the county votes a Republican majority across the board in every election.
Oak Forest is a one high school district. MacArthur draws its students from Wilson Middle School on the north end, and Kennedy Middle School on the south side. Brach, Marion, and Godfrey elementary schools feed Wilson. Neumeyer, Conway, and Dickinson feed Kennedy. As you've probably already gathered, we have a K-5-3-4 organization. Dr. Al Towbridge is our superintendent, Dr. Mark Stegman is the principal of MacArthur, and you've met Dr. Bill Hornsby of Dickinson, and my direct superior Barry Daniels. At the present time we are cooperating with Central City in a court ordered voluntary desegregation program.
*****
In my office I neatened up my papers, returned the calls of two parents and set up appointments to discuss their children's "Unsatisfactory Progress Reports," and started to re-check the alphabetical order of the ninth grade answer sheets. But, after experiencing a feeling of total indifference to the task, I pushed them off to the corner of my desk and began staring out the window at the dumpster. Finally, I picked up my purse and briefcase, and went to the teacher's lounge.
I was depressed. I was tired. I was hungry. In the teachers' lounge I sat on one chair with my stocking feet resting on another, munching on some potato chips. Thus I satisfied my hunger and weariness. The depression stuck with me, not permitting extraneous, more practical mental attitudes. So Deborah had somehow become my quest. Okay, go with it.
24
On the way home to my third floor apartment I stopped at the library and checked the microfilm newspaper files. I turned up little I hadn't already known. Deborah Irving was found dead in a motel room on Saturday, July 2, 1983. There was evidence she'd been raped. The body was discovered by the police, in response to an anonymous telephone call. No tangible clues were found. Police had no leads at that time.
Ordinarily, this kind of sensational story would have been allover the front page. However, it occurred at the start of Spirit of Seventy-Six Days, the metropolitan area's annual giant five day fair with its music and booths and ethnic foods and fireworks and people; and this grand civic event apparently took precedence in the media spotlight. Deborah was relegated to a small paragraph in the lower right corner of the front page, continued with picture on page eight. Within three days, what should have been the story of the year disappeared from the news. The last entry was an item reporting that the police department was dropping its investigation; the crime had obviously been committed by an itinerant who was probably a thousand miles away by now. Erasing Deborah, I thought.
One thing caught my attention, though: that picture accompanying the original story. It revealed nothing in particular about the crime. It showed only what those pictures usually show, some paramedics wheeling a stretcher to the waiting ambulance. On the stretcher was an unidentifiable mound inside a black plastic body-bag strapped to the stretcher. Several bystanders and detectives (they had their badges flipped over their breast pockets) were standing around. What interested me, however, was the policeman standing by the motel room door. He held a handkerchief to his eyes, apparently deeply affected by what had occurred. He was identified on the caption as Officer Martin Stansberry, who was the first to arrive on the scene.
My obsession continued. On an impulse, as I was about to leave the library, I looked up Officer Martin Stansberry's telephone number, and found myself dialing his number on the pay phone. What surprised me more than my calling him was his interest in talking to me about the case.
Garrett's is the gigantic 24 hour café at the truck stop in Dalton. We were sitting in a window booth sharing a carafe of freshly brewed coffee.
"Your call came as a shock to me," he said as he filled his cup. "Please, I hope you understand, it's not my usual practice to discuss department business with strangers. Who knows, you could be a reporter, or an investigator from SPOT --that's the State Police Oversight Team. But I doubt it. Your story's too real. Besides, I think I've reached the point of not giving a sh ...damn any more. I think in my heart I was hoping for ... waiting for ...ready for ...somebody to call, somebody I could say my piece to. Looks like fate elected you, Miss Wallace."
"Wally ...please."
"Wally ...and call me 'Marty.'" He sipped from his cup. Then: "Your reading of that picture was correct, Miss ...Wally. What I saw that evening bothered me ...bothered me more, I think, than anything else I ever experienced. And you better believe, in my ten years on the force I've seen some real horrors. Blood --plenty of blood, cruelty, violent death in every possible shape. I rarely lose sleep any more over what I see on my shifts. I certainly never allowed myself to become emotionally involved in my cases before. But in this situation the feelings wouldn't stay put. It's been grinding and grinding at my guts for three months now." A sip of coffee. "You know what was the worse, though? It was the damn cap they put on the case -- a regular damn cover-up --and the damned total indifference that child's murder was met with from the start.
25
Now when you've been on the force as long as me, you learn what it takes to be a survivor. So considering this unquestionably very deliberate official policy of indifference, along with the sensible advice of my friends, I got the message. Self-preservation dictated my keeping my emotions under control.
But then out of the clear you called, saying you needed to know about that night --in order to help some other kid, you said. That shook me loose. Now you've started something, Wally; and I hope you can handle it."
"I have to try," I said. "But first, I'm curious. You talked about a cap on the case, and a total indifference --and self-preservation. I don't understand."
"The same day the story appeared in the paper and on t.v., there was a big conference of civic nabobs in our precinct house. There was the police commissioner; Central City's Mayor Workman; County Executive Mack Spinner; Walter Harriman, the big wheel owner of the newspaper and Channel Two; our local religious leaders: Reverend Barton, Monsignor Becker, Rabbi Friedman ..."
I interrupted, "Rabbi Friedman?"
"Yeah, Rabbi John Friedman; and then there were two or three local politicians, including your own superintendent of schools, Al Towbridge; and, of course, our Captain Phil Schmidt. Nobody knows exactly what went in the Captain's crowded little office, but my contacts at headquarters told me the conference was initiated as a result of the raft of calls that poured into the commissioner's office from those same community wheels right after the story first broke. Us guys figured they were afraid that Deborah Irving, or her murder, or both could somehow be an embarrassment to our community. Whatever, when the conference adjourned, Captain Schmidt met with us and announced that if a break didn't turn up in a couple days, we'd be dropping the case. 'There's no sense in pressing an investigation that would most certainly be futile,' he said. 'And surely there was no sense in keeping the public's attention on this ...depressing occurrence when the metropolitan area was all caught up in the Spirit of Seventy-Six Days. Of course, nothing showed up, so it was concluded the murderer was 'The Itinerant'; and the media was duly notified. Deborah Irving was quite effectively swept under the rug."
"Erased," I said.
"Erased," he agreed. "And as far as I can tell, there's no way on earth for the case to be reopened."
The waitress brought us another carafe.
"All right, Marty," I said, "I guess I'm ready. Tell me ...about Deborah."
"Janet's Court is one of those independent motels on the north outer road here in Dalton. If you lean over this way, Wally, you can see the neon sign just over the top of that hill," he said, pointing out the window. "It's an old outfit, built back in the days before the interstate, when the outer road was part of the old retired U.S. Route 40. And it's built in the old style: each of its units is a separate small frame cottage with an attached garage. They're arranged so people can come and go without being noticed by guests in the other cottages. Janet's is used these days not so much for tourists any more as for locals, who take advantage of its cabin arrangement and abundance of trees and shrubs to conduct their ...affairs in relative privacy.
"Cabin 16 --the number is seared on my brain --Cabin 16 is located in the far northeast corner of the court." A quick sigh. "The lights in the cabin were on, and the door was standing half open. I pushed it the rest of the way. There was one bed, extending out from the wall opposite
26
the door, slightly off to the left. The bathroom would be on the other side of the wall behind the bed, accessed through an opening to the right, directly opposite the door." A shaky deep breath, which he let out slowly before continuing. "Deborah ...Deborah Irving was on the bed. It was neatly made up ...a red and white rose-print spread ...She was lying on her back, with her head ... with her head resting peacefully on the pillow mound ...as if she were taking a nap. Her hands were just, like, relaxed at her sides ...Her eyes were closed ...I almost made myself believe she was taking a nap.
"As I approached, I could see a small, dark red hole in the middle of her forehead, in a ring of burned gunpowder ...and ...and a single thin strand of dried blood that ran down between her eyes and across her left cheek ...down almost to her ear." A long pause. "Her shiny black hair looked as if it had been carefully brushed. I remember thinking it formed an attractive frame for her ...for her beautiful white face. Even her bangs looked as if they'd been purposely parted to allow a space for the bullet hole. She had on one of those thin polyester-cotton summer jumpers the kids around here like to wear in hot weather; you know, bare neck and shoulders ...kind of low cut, with narrow straps ...and short, the hem came to maybe two-three inches above her knees. It was a light, powder blue ...From close up I could see the smudges of blood allover. There were no shoes on her feet ...they were bare, you know? And tiny ...a child's tiny feet ...and ... and tiny toes ...Later, when the crime squad was there, I saw ...I saw that her underpants were also gone ...Her entire pelvic area was bruised. Blood was caked in her ...her crotch and, you know, along the insides of her upper legs. After she was taken away, they took the rose-print spread off the bed ...It had very little blood on it. But the sheet beneath ...God ...it was drenched with blood, and the pillowcase, where the bullet came out ..." Marty stopped. He rubbed his eyes, and then stared out the window for a few minutes. "When the coroner's report came down, it indicated the presence of semen in her vagina ...and ...in her mouth." Marty's eyes glistened in the café's bright lights.
"The night manager said the room had been rented much earlier in the afternoon, around two o'clock. No, he couldn't really give a good description. He thought the guy had a mustache and horn-rimmed glasses ... and a hat, a shapeless hat, like a lot of guys wear when they go fishing. The register was signed William H. Taft."
A pause, to give his strained emotions a chance to settle back to nearly normal. Then: "Everything about the crime shouted against an unknown itinerant: the use of the bedspread to cover up the worst of it all, with Deborah laid so carefully, almost tenderly, on top; the anonymous call to make sure she wouldn't lie undiscovered until the next day; the unthreatening open door and lighted room; the renting of the room hours before the murder would take place. It had to be premeditated."
"Premeditated?"
"Yes. I think she was picked to die because she was Deborah Irving, not because she was a pretty little girl who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Mostly, when a kid is murdered after a rape, it's either an out and out act of cruelty, or an afterthought --maybe to prevent her from identifying the rapist later. But it's my gut feeling that here the rape was committed to cover up the fact that murder was the intention in the first place."
"But why? Why would somebody want to kill this ...child?"
"Jealousy? Passion? I don't think so. This was too ...too neat, too orderly. Too premeditated. Did anyone stand to gain from her death? It's hard to see how; she had little or nothing to offer, at least that I could see. My theory was that she was a threat to somebody. I don't mean
27
a direct, personal, physical sort of threat. Something about Deborah Irving, because she was Deborah Irving, and did Deborah Irving things, something about Deborah Irving threatened somebody. And that somebody raped her brutally to divert our attention; and murdered her, because that was the idea from the beginning. And then he tried to show, himself or us or ...Deborah, that he really was a decent sort of guy by arranging her body on the bed gently ... and respectfully ...maybe lovingly. Nonetheless, this was a cold, deliberate act by somebody who was threatened by this nine year old child.
"Why would somebody want to kill Deborah Irving? I guess we'll never know. The case is closed and locked tight, which leads to that other big question: 'Why didn't anyone want us to try and find out who that somebody was?' For the same reason, I think: Deborah Irving was a threat to more than just the killer; she was a threat to one, two, or more of those big cheeses who met in the captain's office on the third of July --or to a cause important to them. I don't think it was just because of the bad timing of the crime, either."
"Deborah a threat? Why would anyone be afraid of an innocuous little girl like Deborah?"
"Maybe because --and you might know more about this than I do --maybe she wasn't so innocuous. I heard she wasn't what you'd call a typical student in school. And what about those 'vision' things? I mean, she wasn't your average anonymous kid. In fact, she was very visible. Visible people can be threatening."
"They want to erase her," I said half to myself.
"What was that, Wally?"
"Nothing." I looked out the window towards where the Janet's Court sign mutely, indifferently, sought prospective guests.
The waitress brought a fresh carafe of coffee to the table.
After a while Marty interrupted my wandering thoughts. "This boy you're working with. Tell me about him. What's there about him that has you working so hard on his behalf?"
"Scot Bennett. He's just a kid, a freshman, new to MacArthur this year. He's a pretty good student; at least he has that reputation from the middle school. It turned out he was quite close to Deborah Irving. I think he loved the girl; he implied as much, anyway. He came to school this year brooding about her; and it was getting in the way of his studies. That's how he came to my attention. He'd gotten a raft of unsatisfactory reports for the first month of school. Actually, he's been pretty surly with me. I felt sorry for him, but I still wanted to slap his face."
"Doesn't answer my question."
"I know. But there were a couple things he said --slapped my professional pride; but hit home, I have to admit. He said I didn't know him at all, in spite of all the records. He implied I was treating his friend's death impersonally. If I wanted to know him, I'd have to know his Deborah. He said they were trying to erase Deborah." Now I sighed. "And God, the more I get into this thing the more I think he might be right. Anyway, the depth of his feelings --the intensity; somebody with that kind of sensitivity ...I think is worth saving."
"I agree; and I think your Scot's right: Deborah Irving is worth saving
I didn't sleep much that night. Hell, I didn't sleep at all. Too much coffee ...and the recurring images of a motel room, and, looking as if napping peacefully, a child with a bullet hole in her head --and a bloody sheet and pillowcase.
It started to rain during the night. The weather bureau said it would continue off and on for the
28
next several days, something to do with the jet stream and a tropical depression and a stationary cold front. Not a cold cold front, only a bleary chilly one. It suited my mood.
Wednesday, October 12, 1983
I gave the make-ups in the morning. I ached a little behind my eyes, but it was tolerable. I didn't eat, opting instead to close my office door and rest my head in my arms on the desk. It was nice for a short while, until the knock on the door. I checked my watch; that would be Scot.
"Hi, pal. Sit down."
He slouched into a chair, making a barrier on the table with his books, as usual.
And, as usual, there was no future in small talk. "I was over at Dickinson yesterday," I said.
Nothing.
"I talked with the counselor. She worked with Deborah."
Nothing.
"I talked with a couple of teachers who had her in class."
A snort?
"I talked with the coach."
The hint of a smile; no more.
"I talked with Dr. Hornsby."
That did it. Scot rose from his chair noisily, grabbed his books, and started for the door.
I spoke out quickly --and loudly, "Last night, I talked with the policeman who found her body in the motel room."
He stopped and took in a deep breath, which he let out slowly. Then he returned to the chair, setting the books back on the table --but slightly to the side, opening the field for eye contact.
Well here goes, I thought. He wants to know everything. If I hold back, he'll think I failed him. He needs somebody he can trust. I have to put my schoolmarm's hat aside and be his friend first, before anything else. So I told him the story straight out, from beginning to end, in all its terrible details, exactly the way Marty Stansberry told it to me. I even included Marty's theories. The whole time I watched Scot closely. There seemed to be no outward reaction --until the part about the blood in her crotch and on the insides of her legs, and about the semen. His eyes glazed over and spilled some from both sides. Otherwise, he sat unmoving.
When I finished, he stared into my eyes for a few long seconds. Then, barely audibly, he said, "Thank you, Miss Wallace."
"Please, Scot, I do want to be your friend."
He stood up and walked over to look out the window, feigning interest in the trash truck emptying the dumpster. I didn't speak. With his back still turned to me, he said, "That was her favorite ...of all her clothes --the jumper, I mean. It was threadworn, and had no body left to it at all; and she'd outgrown it a long time ago. But it gave her a feeling of coolness and freedom none of her jeans or shorts or other dresses did."
He turned around and sat on the window heater. "Her birthday was last week; did you know?" His voiced quavered.
"I noticed. She would've been ten, wouldn't she?"
"She almost never got angry at people, you know --no matter what they did to her or said to her, or what punishments they gave her. She had her own 'Think System' --like Professor Hill's in The Music Man, only she called it her 'Imagination System.' When things would get especially trying for her, she'd imagine herself far away in some distant world she'd create for
29
the occasion, like Alladin's cave of treasures, where she'd play with the jewels and gold and stuff all the while the bad things were happening.
"The only times I know of her ever getting mad were when people would yell real loud at her. She hated to be yelled at. She couldn't get into her 'Imagination System' if somebody was yelling at her. But the time I saw her maddest of all was when old man Hornsby spanked her. He had another teacher in the office with him --Miss Parks, I think --and that didn't help at all. He made Deborah bend over and put her hands on his desk, and he started swatting her with a ping-pong paddle. The swats kept getting harder and harder as he went along. I think he got carried away. She counted ten hits, and then lost track. About half way through, she pee'd in her panties. Hornsby and Parks pretended not to notice, even though it was running down her legs. But Deborah was humiliated, almost beyond her endurance.
"As I was walking home with her after school, she suddenly stopped in the middle of a street, hiked her skirt all the way up to her chin, yanked off her panties, and threw them into a sewer as hard as she could. After that, she never liked anything about Hornsby, and she'd never speak to him, not even to say 'yes' or 'no' when he asked her a question. She was really mad.
"Miss Wallace, isn't it strange? Deborah would never hurt anyone. She was only ever kind to others. But people were always doing things to hurt her, or to change her. For a while they even put her on drugs to get her to learn how to read. But she never did take them. When they'd give her a pill, she'd only pretend to put it in her mouth, or she'd just slip it under her tongue and spit it out later. She was a very good actress."
He paused, holding on to that thought; then he continued, "If anybody was to invent an 'Imagination System,' it would've been Deborah. She could think up amazing things, even more so when there was an audience. She loved to be around people. Kids were the best because they appreciated her stories more. And most of the kids around here knew about her and her stories. If they saw her walking on the playground, they'd one way or another work their way over to be with her to hear one of her tales. There wasn't any limit to her stories. On the spur of the moment she could whip up an exciting tale or saga about darn near anything: spies, airplanes, talking fish, lions and tigers, fairy princesses, mermaids, hot air balloons, sailing ships, magic submarines ...anything."
Scot left the window and took a more precarious perch on the table, with his feet on a chair. I joined his mood; I pulled out my file drawer and propped my feet on it in unprofessional comfort.
He studied his hands for a bit. "I read a lot to her. She never had enough. And she loved to talk about what I was reading. She had better insight into the authors' meanings than most adults I've known. Mostly she liked fantasy things. The Hobbit and Through the Looking Glass were favorites; and some sci-fi authors --Joan D. Vinge and Robert Heinlien (she loved Friday). But she enjoyed almost anything that made her think, even heavy classics. We'd take a long time on them. David Copperfield took us a month and a half.
"One time I read King Arthur to her --not the kid's version; the regular adult version: Le Morte D'Arthur, by Mallory. She was fascinated by the Lancelot stories. She sympathized with Elaine --you know, the one who gave birth to Sir Galahad. Anyway, Lancelot was the father. Deborah thought they just made up that stuff about Lancelot making love to Elaine because he drank a magic potion. She couldn't believe that Lancelot was so cold he wouldn't sleep with a lady as sweet, loving, and beautiful as Elaine. It also upset Deborah that Lancelot wasn't allowed to ever see the Holy Grail because of his love for Gwynevere. 'It couldn't be a sin to love somebody,' she said.
30
"For most of the past three years we were together pretty much of the time --every second we could manage. I'd read to her, or we'd discuss books or history or politics or stars or trees or bugs or planets or geometry or babies or whatever. Or we'd chase each other: hide and seek or tag. Of course, if there were other kids around, we'd get into games with them. She could play a roughhouse game of soccer with the best of them. We'd play on the equipment at the school a lot. She was much better than I was in gymnastics.
"In the summer we were together most of the time --except for three or four weeks of summer school; we both had to go to summer school. Even then, we had most of the afternoons together. During the school year, on weekends we'd squeeze whatever time we could. That wasn't so easy; she had to go to church on Saturdays, and I had to do chores on Sundays. During the week we'd play after school, usually until dinner time. Dinner time was her curfew; and after dinner was my homework time, although often she'd sneak out of her house at night and climb into my window. It's about six feet above the ground, but she'd bring a step-ladder from her garage. We'd talk, or she'd just sit and watch me work. She liked for me to talk about what I was working on. She really enjoyed it when I was doing history. She liked American history --especially revolutionary times, and Thomas Jefferson. She loved to hear what he said about freedom and rights.
"Those nights I'd have to burn the midnight oil to finish my work. It was worth it to me, though. In the morning I'd drink some extra black coffee to keep awake in most of my classes.
His eyes began to dampen again. He waited over two minutes before continuing. "There was never anything ...you know, bad between us. Well, we did kiss once, real good --you know: French style, with our mouths open, and using our tongues. She heard the big kids talking about it. She just wanted to know what it was all about. I suppose I wanted to know too."
Another pause. Again he stared into my eyes, still reaching to trust.
"One time, last Memorial Day to be exact --it was a pretty hot day and all --we went skinny-dipping in Mrs. Metzger's pond. Deborah was very curious about, you know, what boys look like; and I liked the idea of seeing Deborah naked. We splashed around a lot, and played tag, and threw mud at each other. We ended up rolling around together in all the muck, rubbing mud allover each other. Finally, we went back into in the water and washed and wiped each other off --real thoroughly, you know." He blushed. "When we got back out, we lay down in the sun, side by side, and held hands, and talked about the sky and clouds. We didn't, you know, do anything wrong." He smiled, "Well... maybe the business of rubbing mud on each other --and wiping it off --I guess that was naughty. But I don't think there was anything bad. I wouldn't have done anything bad to Deborah. It was just a real fun time ...the best time we ever had. Looking back, I wouldn't change a thing.
"While we were lying there, I happened to turn my head, and I saw old Mrs. Metzger standing about twenty feet away, watching us. I had a moment of panic, until I saw that she was smiling. She put her finger to her lips for me not to bother Deborah; then she waved real friendly to me, turned around, and walked away, still smiling."
He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, allowing time to pass. Reluctantly, I broke into his thoughts. "What about the 'visions'?" I asked.
He laughed softly to himself. "In the ...last month or so, usually on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sunday afternoons, when we'd be around Metzger's soccer field, Deborah would suddenly stop what we were doing and walk over to the little meadow behind the goal posts. She'd sit down with her legs crossed indian style and her hands clasped in her lap, and just stay that way, without moving, for maybe forty-five minutes to an hour.
Next: Part Four (31-38)
Contents: