By Curtis Graham
PART ONE
"Know thou the secret of a spirit
Bowed from its wild pride into shame. O yearning heart! I did inherit
Thy withering portion with the fame,
The searing glory which hath shone
Amid the jewels of my throne,
Halo of Hell! and with a pain
Not Hell shall make me fear again--"-Edgar Allan Poe
Tamerlane
"Wretches! ye loved her for her wealth
and hated her for her pride,
And when she fell in feeble health, ye blessed her - that she died!
How shall the ritual, then, be read?--
the requiem how be sung
By you - by yours, the evil eye, - by
yours, the slanderous tongue
That did to death the innocence that died, and died so young?"
-Edgar Allan Poe,
Lenore
1
Jonathan Crum, known to his fellow faculty members as God, and to his students as Satan, had been a smoker for years. He had started in 1964, the year he had turned 17, and had been faithfully putting nails in his coffin ever since. When asked if he regretted it, Mr. Crum replied, "Regret it? Why should I regret it? I'm keeping millions of Americans at work."
So it was not uncommon to see him outside of the school building with a Winston jutting out of the corner of his mouth during his breaks. He had been doing it for years, and would continue doing so for a few more. He even had a few students smoke with him a couple of years ago, but they had graduated and begun careers of their own. He liked it better when he could smoke alone. It was nice and quiet. No chattering from annoying little teenagers who thought that they knew everything. Yes, Mr. Jon Crum, English teacher at the 4A Mount Rose High School, in Oakwood, North Carolina, preferred to smoke alone.
His father had been a dedicated smoker, as had his father before him, so it was no wonder that Little Jon (a nickname which he despised) would pickup his father and grandfather's nasty habit. It had begun like most do - peer pressure. All of the other kids his age were doing it; it was considered cool. And Jon, not one to fall behind in the trends of his times, started to do the cool thing: smoke. His lungs had been abused from years of secondhand smoke from his father and grandfather, and the mainstream smoke that he was now delivering just made the status of his lung tissue go from bad to worse. Now, as he stands leaning against the outside of the school's west wing, his right lung had, unknowingly, entered a semi-osseous state, while his left became entirely useless. Well, almost useless.
All around his feet lay used and discarded cig butts. Most of them were left there courtesy of Little Jon, and that was ultimately okay. If we were to take a closer look, we'd see Winston, the brand used by Mr. Crum, a few Virginia Slims, Camels, Marlboros, and various generic brands. Miss Lauren Willis, a graduate of Mount Rose High in 1995, had not only had Jon as an English teacher, but a smoking buddy. Her brand of choice: those Virginia Slims that we see on the ground before us. Jon and Lauren had had a mutual respect for each other, and he generally enjoyed her company, both in the classroom and out here in this vast wasteland. She only spoke when spoken to, and she had never asked him stupid, pointless questions. Yes, she was a middle-class Madonna, and Jon missed her company out here. But that was then, and this was now. We shall save our visit to the past for later, for we have stayed there for too long, and must be getting on with this story.
He finished off the last of his cig, and tossed it on the ground. He began to grind it into the sand with the heel of his loafer. The sun reflected off of something, and shined directly into God's hazel-blue eyes.
"Aw, damn! What the hell…?" He blocked the sunlight from shining into his eyes with his hands, and leaned in for a closer look. "What in the - ?"
Shall we see what he has inadvertently discovered? Let's take a closer look then, ay? It's hard to see due to being mostly buried in gritty sand, and so Jon digs a little. And what has he stumbled upon? Why, it appears to be an orb of obsidian, perfectly round, perfectly smooth. Not a single nook or cranny. No cracks or crevices. And yet, we seem to be receiving some impure vibes from this orb; something is not quite right, but we can't yet place our fingers upon it. As Jon picks the orb of obsidian up and holds it in his hands, it begins to emit a fierce glow.
"Huh - ?" And hark, the herald angels are singing! The sounds in the air begin to dull, and we feel foolish, for it was not the beautiful voice of the angel Israfel, but the tolling of the school's bells signaling the end of break, and the beginning of the end of school, that is. There is but one class to go, and so we shall let him go on and finish off this bright Friday afternoon with his final class of the day. It's high time that we visit someone else in this small town. Someone we've already mentioned, as a matter of fact.
And now we silently float high above everything. We can see the top of the high school from a bird's eye view, and we turn east, heading towards the highway. We follow the black-river for a few miles into the town of Oakwood. It's really a quiet town, where not much activity goes on, and a mishap can reach all ears within the space of an hour and a half. Surrounded by a vast forest, Oakwood is the only town around these parts of Cumberland County for hundreds of miles. We can see everything: the top of the church steeple, where Father Eric Fisher preaches his sermon each and every Sunday. Ringly Park, where a few families have gathered for an afternoon picnic, the little ones being typical children by playing on the playground, does not go un-noticed. We see a few 7-11s, Texaco stations, and the hometown market, Uncle Pappy's Place, where you can not only shop for your groceries, but also order a quick breakfast, lunch, or dinner to go. We pass over The Pub, where the town drunks and the husbands with unfaithful wives can drink in peace together. The old elementary school; the new elementary school; the housing developments; city hall - we see all. We take in everything.
Perhaps we'll visit some - if not all - of these places, but for now, we shall head to the apartment buildings in downtown Oakwood. We silently float over and above the intersection of Hatcher and Main, heading south towards the lake. We pass a few houses set about here and there; town houses, mostly. The set of apartment buildings that we're searching for is just beyond Forbidden Lake, whose history we'll know about later on in this story. Southern Main extends into Gunner Road, which curves around Forbidden Lake, and into the outskirts of town. Here the dense forest stretches for miles. One could easily get lost in these woods; it's happened before - but that's another story, which I'll save for a rainy day.
And now we find ourselves in downtown Oakwood, where the local Police Department is set, as well as the apartment complexes and local gymnasium. We visit apartment C7 on Griever Street, where Miss Willis resides. We slip silently through her kitchen window, and see Lauren still in her bathrobe, sitting at her kitchen table, smoking - what else - Virginia Slims. We can hear words barely escaping her mouth, but they don't seem to make any sense. However, what she is muttering this fine Friday afternoon doesn't matter.
We watch her stand up and pinch out the remainder of her cigarette in the glass ashtray on her small kitchen table. Her robe flutters as a breeze blows through her kitchen window, and we catch a glimpse of her left breast. She quickly pulls it close, and we watch in imperceptible silence as she disappears into the depths of her apartment. We shall leave her be, for it is clear that she is getting ready to face the world, and we should not deprive her of her right to privacy.
And so we exit her apartment in the same fashion from which we had entered - through her kitchen window. You and I fly high above Oakwood again; back up Gunner Road and Southern Main Street; around Forbidden Lake; back up to the intersection of Hatcher and Main Streets; north, pass the church, pass the park, pass everything. We pass all of Oakwood, and arrive at Mount Rose High. Let's take a look around inside this time, shall we?
We look through one of the second story windows and into a classroom. Oh, and who is the teacher that we see? Why, it is none other than Mr. Jonathan Crum - God/Satan - himself. His students sit in silence, save for a few clowns in the back row, whose conversations are no more than barely audible murmurs.
"Alright, then, here is your assignment for the weekend, ladies and gentlemen," he pronounced with some degree of spiteful happiness. The entire class lets out an on-cue groan. If we could read their minds, they would all be sharing the same thought: SSDD. He picks up his off-white chalk and begins to write on the blackboard, every now and then causing a few screeches as the chalk rubs against the board. A few students grind their teeth to this sound, while others simply cover their ears.
We move a little more to the front of the room so that we are able to see what he has written upon the blackboard. In his fine handwriting (from over his shoulder) we see this:
Mr. Crum
He moves his body out of the way so that the entire class, not just you and I, are able to see what he has written. He smiles at them - a rare event indeed - and folds his arms across his chest. The class begins to smile and slap high-fives to one another. We hear one of the detention-regulars say, "Hell yeah" loud enough for Johnathan to hear, but he doesn't seem to care - no sir, not today; today is Friday, and he has an orb that may be of some worth (he plans to take it to a pawn shop in one of the larger cities or towns on Saturday, somewhere to the east, like Raleigh, or perhaps Morehead City, to the south). For now, though, he has placed it in the inner-pocket of his jacket, which is draped over the back of his chair stationed behind his desk. We silently watch as he walks over to that exact chair, pulls it out, and sits down. He begins to shuffle through various anonymous papers, not really looking at them, only trying to give off the illusion that he is concentrating. The students, we notice, have begun to chat in louder tones, no longer caring whether or not Satan despises it. Some days, when Satan has his mind on other thoughts besides that of school, the clowns in the back could yell out such profanities as "queer!" or "goddamn baby-raping son of a bitch," or something equally ignorant and provocative of that nature, and none of them would penetrate his tin ear. (Just about any word or phrase that could be considered obscene or vulgar could be heard on any given day from out of their mouths.) This seems to be the case on this bright and cheerful Friday afternoon.
We watch as the books and belongings are gathered, everyone getting ready to bolt out of the room at the sound of the omega tocsin. The students pay no more minds to Satan. However, being the omniscient man that he is, Jonathan is very aware of what they are talking about. Contrary to what they believe as lost-in-his-own-thoughts, he is always listening and watching them.
Out of simple and innocent curiosity, let's move in closer to a small group near the back of the room so as to hear what they might be discussing. "And then Miss Houston starting talking about a person's omasum…"
"What the hell is that?" inquired one of the listening girls, looking honestly curious and interested.
The young man who had been speaking continued on: "…I think it has something to do with an asshole, or something like that…"
A few of the other girls formed equal expressions of disgust and distaste upon their faces, but paid attention, nonetheless. The center-of-attention, who had hair of the finest blonde, began again. "But anyway, she starting explaining about its functions and shit, and Billy Freese made this fart sound with his hands, and it was all loud and shit, and everyone started cracking up. It was so damn funny, man. You should have been there; I just about fucking died laughing." The small group tried to imagine this event and started giggling and snickering. They would continue on to converse about related topics, which have no real appeal to anyone save adolescents.
We weave our way through the aisles of desks, aiming for the front of the room, where Mr. Jonathan Crum is situated behind his desk, appearing to rummage through various papers and documents. Like ghosts we inch our way closer and closer to him - his eyes, as we now can see, have a faint, intelligent gleam in them…so faint, is this gleam, that one would not be able to notice it unless they were to stand directly in front of him and concentrate their line of focus into his pupils, as you and I are doing now. His thoughts are not on the papers, which he holds in his abrasive palms, but on that obsidian orb in his jacket pocket. That orb which he plans to take up to Raleigh or Morehead City and pawn on the morrow.
"Come on, come on…" The students in Class #200 are waiting for the final seconds of the clock to run down. "Five…four…three…two…one!"
The final bell of the day rings, and teenagers throughout all of Mount Rose High sprint out of their fourth periods. Most head to the bus parking lot, while others walk, and a few catch rides or drive. It is Friday, and most will go out to the clubs or to parties later tonight. We can hear the car and truck radios being turned on the WRCQ, the Carolina's Best Rock: Rock 103. The young man with the fine blonde hair sits in his brother's car, listening to the afternoon disc jockey as he plays the popular Staind song, "Fade." Many attempt to sing the lyrics along with the band. Others simply nod their heads or tap their feet to the beat. All in all, everyone is ecstatic about finally getting out of school, looking forward to the weekend ahead.
There are, however, a small group of less than fifty students who are remaining in Mount Rose for whatever reasons. A few are rehearsing their roles for the performance of The Taming of the Shrew, which they will perform Saturday night at seven o'clock in the school auditorium. Some of them are in the afternoon detention with Mr. Manson, the only male to teach Algebra One in all of Mount Rose; these are mainly the troublesome young men and women who have piercing in their noses, lips, eyebrows, tongues, navels, and, for some, even their genitals. A few have a multitude of hair colors, including jade, azure, pink, and even claret. A good number of them have either been suspended, expelled, or both, before, at some point or another. One could assume that the lot of them are into illegal substances - drugs and/or alcohol - and be correct. A very small, yet dangerous and unpredictable group of teens are sitting in detention on this fine Friday afternoon, and, to tell the truth, this knowledge makes Mr. Manson somewhat apprehensive.
We have seen just a few of the citizens of the little North Carolina town of Oakwood who are still at Mount Rose High School on this bright and cheerful Friday afternoon, but our attention should return to one in particular: The fifty-five year-old man who is sitting in Room #200. We head up the stairs and down the hall, to that room. The door is ajar, and so we slip in.
Lauren Willis rummages through her closet, grabbing sweaters and blouses and skirts and dresses off of the hangers, looks at them as if deciding whether or not to wear that particular article of clothing, and tosses each one to the floor. A thin line runs across her forehead and she creases her brow in concentrated frustration. Her dark hair lays in tangles over her shoulders, not yet having seen the teeth of a comb. Her face is naked of make-up, and a cigarette is pinched between her left index and middle fingers. The corners of her mouth twitches as she runs decisions through her head. She brings the fag to her lips and takes a long, deep drag. Her good friend, Andrea Macu, was a person who could facilitate such matters as what to wear. Had she been with Lauren at this moment, she would have been able to simply open the closet doors, grab a dress and hand it to her, saying "Lauren, this is it," and it would be perfect. Andrea had that gift. Lauren always told her, "Andrea, you should have been a fashion designer, or at least work for one." They would both laugh and smile at this, and while Lauren was being serious, Andrea never considered the idea as a possible career opportunity.
But Andrea wasn't here, and the wishful thinking that she would ring the doorbell or call at that exact moment didn't bring Lauren any closer to the solution to her clothing dilemma. She blew a heavy breath through her nostrils and pursed her lips. Why couldn't she have Andrea's sense of style? She sighed and finished off the last of her Virginia Slim, tossing the butt into the wastebasket in her bathroom, which was connected to her bedroom by a doorway. Lauren brushed her bangs out of her eyes and walked into her bathroom. She bent over the tub and turned on the faucet, watching the water run in tiny whirlpools down the drain, and waited until it was a warm, yet comfortable, temperature. She opened the space under the sink and grabbed a towel, bottle of shampoo-and-conditioner-in-one, and her make-up bag. She set the make-up bag on the countertop surrounding the sink, and placed the towel on the toiletseat. The bottle of shampoo-and-conditioner was placed on the rim of the tub. She quickly swiped her fingers through the descending water and smiled, satisfied. She turned the showerhead on, removed her robe, and turned to look into the mirror above the sink.
Looking kind of saggy there, Lauren she thought as she turned her upperbody a quarter to the left and than to the right. She stood there observing her body. Being only twenty-four, her body still has all of the right womanly curves and her breasts were still quite perky, yet signs of aging were being to show. "I've got to go on a diet," she said to herself. She made up her mind to do just that, and turned around and stepped into the shower and drew the curtain.
Little Jon stood up and walked over to his classroom door. He stuck his head out into the hallway, first looking to the left, and than to the right, making sure he was alone on the second floor. Not in the slightest bit one hundred percent content, he snorted and pulled the door close, shutting off his classroom from the outside world. He began to walk back to his desk when he noticed that the blinds on his windows were still open. His eyes widen and he quickly ran over and shut them, filling the room with darkness. His breathes quickened, and he clutched his chest for a moment. He coughed hard and heavily. He stiffled the last wave of coughs with his hand and tears sprouted in his eyes. He stood in that spot, trying to breathe.
After what seemed an eternity, he walked back over to his desk and sat down. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the orb. The orb glowed, and Jon got a strange feeling like that of a noli me tangere. For a split second the obsidian orb gave him the feeling that it is nocuous.
A sound could be heard coming from the hallway, and he jerked his head quickly in that direction, almost like an animal who smells fire. He heard a flash of running, and squinted his eyes in annoyance. "Damn nitwit," he muttered, "running through the halls. Thinks we're a damn track, or something." He returned his attention to the orb, which was no longer glowing as fierce. He lifted it over his head, and looked at it closely, inspecting it. He moved his head from side to side, scanning over the entire thing, inspecting every inch of it. For a split second it vibrated in his hands, startling him. He dropped it and it landed on the surface of his desk. Its dark, cloudy color suddenly faded away and it appeared the color of crystal.
"Ah, dammit!" he yelled through clenched teeth. He gently picked it back up and pulled it close to his eyes. He ran a single, callused, yellow hand through his thinning hair. "Shit!" he yelled outloud, while thinking, What's it going to worth now, huh? You fucking broke it!
He turned it over in his hand, feeling its surface. Only a single, solitary crack upsetted the orb's naturally smooth skin. "Ah, fuck it!" Jon slowly opened his hand, and the orb rolled out of it and back onto the desktop.
Inside of Uncle Pappy's Place, home of the famous Pappy Pepperoni Pizza, a group of about five or six teenagers are moving about the tiny store, some grabbing supplies for the road (including the all-important bag of Doritos), two of them are ordering some food to go at the counter from the cashier-boy, a pimply faced seventeen year-old named Duane Gregorson, whose face is almost always as red as his hair. His large, buck-teeth stick out from under his upperlip.
"Yo, Eugene!" one of the boys called from the second aisle.
Duane blushed a deep, ugly red at this, and quietly said to the two in front of him: "My name is Duane, not Eugene." Of the two at the counter, Olivia called back to the speaker in the aisle, grinning: "His name is Duane, dumbass!" The boy beside her snickered. Duane blushed an even deeper and uglier shade at her comment. The three young men standing in the aisles started to laugh. The one who had intentionally called the cashier the wrong name clutched his sides and laughed, his face turning as red as Duane's. Soon all of Uncle Pappy's Place is full of cruel merriment; all are laughing, except for the young man whom is the butt-end of the joke - Duane Gregorson.
Olivia and her brother, Carlos (who is the young man at the counter beside her) turned back to Duane. "We're sorry, Duane." He looked up at them very slowly, his cheeks still flushed with hurt and embarassment. They order five hotdogs to go, and he gives them just that quickly and efficiently. Carlos and Olivia take the food and meet the other three at the entrance. They leave, Duane watching them with silent hate.
Craig Dockery fumbles through his cassette tape collection in his Avenger, his left hand on the steering wheel, his eyes occasionally peering back at the red light hanging above the intersection of Faison Street and Miller Avenue, awaiting the moment it returns to green. His right hand pulls up the case for the Meat Loaf album, "Bat Out of Hell."
"This'll do, I guess," he says to himself, and sticks the tape into the cassette player lodged into the consol. The song "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad" begins to fill the air, and he mouths along to it, both hands placed on the steering wheel now, his fingers tapping against its leather cover. The light switches from its commanding red to its soft, gentle green, and the Avenger continues on down Faison Street, kicking up swirls of dust into the air, towards his job at K. B. Toys in the mini mall, located in downtown Oakwood. Of course, just about all jobs and businesses are located in downtown Oakwood.
"...now don't be sad...'cause two outta three ain't bad..." he attempts to sing, and fails.
At approximately 4:20 p.m. the Friday detention session ended, and the so-called future generation of America slumbered out of the room; Mr. Manson was openly glad to be rid of them - his heart rate began to lower itself to a healthy eighty-three bpm. He waited until they were out of hearing-range, and then sighed with relief. He wiped the line of perspiration from his brow, gathered his belongings and placed them neatly into his suitcase. He shut it tightly, snapping the locks into place with an audible click!
We exit backwards into the hallway and watch him leave the room, locking and closing the door behind him. We follow him with our eyes until he turns the corner and is gone. Let's head back up the staircase and visit Room 200 again, what do you say, old friend?
Jon sits at his desk, his head in his hands, trying to fight off the oncoming of a migraine. Pain flares through his temples like a bullet from a gun - bright sheets of agony run in out of his membrane like rivers, wild and untamed. It hurts him to think, to open his eyes, to even move. He slowly lifts his head a bit and begins to massage his temples. The pain begins to fade, and he can open his eyes - slowly, of course - without having to worry about awaking the bullet.
Along with the deterioration of his lungs, troublesome migraines have plagued Jon's health for years - they could be even more irritating than those gutteral coughs. About ten or eleven years ago, he had gone to see Dr. Weller at the Oakwood Home Hospital about these headaches; Dr. Weller was a graduate of Duke University who had his framed degrees and diplomas hanging on his office walls, and who looked no older than a senior in high school, had told the highly respected Jon Crum that his migraines were probably the cause of too much caffeine.
"I don't drink either coffee or tea," he had said with a sneer. He had been sitting in the lobby for almost two hours just to be brought to this young graduate who thought that he could solve all of the world's problems by making them cut down on their caffeine consumption. "And I have never tried a kola nut, so don't ask. I've never even been to Africa, and I don't plan to take a trip there any time soon."
Dr. Weller had simply smiled at his words. In his mind, the older they were, the more knowledge they believed they possessed. Well, ladies and gentlemen, according to young Dr. Michael Weller, graduate of Duke University, wisdom knew no age.
"Oh, of course you've never drank coffee or tea or have eaten of a kola nut. I never said that you did. I simply stated that maybe you've been taking in too much caffeine, which can also be found - in great abundance, I might add - in soft drinks, or, perhaps I should use a more familar term to you - soda pop." He leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his thin chest, his bifocals reflecting glints of sunlight from the window. Jon sat in the guest chair, debating on whether or not this little know-it-all doctor was worth a nasty comment from a man of great stature such as himself. He decided that he was not, and so he kept his mouth shut. He returned the abhor gaze and waited for Weller to begin to speak.
He was not disappointing. "Now, if you'd like, I could prescribe some pills that would - "
Jon raised his right hand to silence him. "That won't be necessary, doctor." He gave Weller a mock smile. "I shall simply be cautious of what I drink from now on, okay?" His smile widened. Weller grinned.
"I guess I could allow you to do that. However, the moment your headaches start to act up, I want you to come back and see me. Agreed?" He extended his arm. Jon shook his hand. "I agree," he said, not meaning either of those two words.
Now, sitting here at his desk, he actually began to question whether or not returning to Weller might not help the migraines after all. But that would be giving in to the enemy. That would be like walking up to the little prick and saying You win, do with me what you want. I'm yours to torture and starve. Throw me in a dark, damp prison cell and leave me there. Please. Never let me see the light of day ever again! Allow me to stay here in the dark, growing old and alone and gray, with no-one to watch after me in my limited years left here. PLEASE. He was not going to let that little know-it-all doctor think that he had been right after all. There was only one person that knew what was right for Jonathan Crum - one person who knew what was healthy for Little Jon - and that was himself. No, Weller would definitely not be seeing God anytime soon.
A quick, light rapping on his
(chamber)
door disturbed the bullet of its slumber, and it shot through his mind with a malevolent force. Oh, it hurt so bad to incur its wrath. However, despite the fact that his fellow teachers tried to convince him that the word "help" came with a name - Dr. Michael Weller - he, being the man that he is, chose to remain incredulous. Many times he had been told that his refusal to seek help from such a young physician was simply inconscient and stupid. His mother had always told him that he was an exact copy of his father - subborn as a mule and as solid as an oak when it came to a final decision. According to his mother, the late Patricia Englewood Crum, any woman that Jon should happen to marry would have to possess an iron will.
And had there ever been such a woman in his life? Of course there had: there's somebody for everybody in this crazy world that we live in; even somebody like Jonathan Crum. Her name had been Ali Godwin, and what a beauty she had been! They had met in 1965, the year Jon had been eighteen years-old; she had been sixteen, the ripe age of womanhood. He had had a job down at the local garage, working on cars, pumping gas, and, occasionally, selling packs of cigarettes...on the side. If his boss, a man known as Dirty Joe (not to his face, of course), had found out that young Jon Crum - which rhymed with dumb, a joke which he enjoyed using quite often (and only he found humorous) - had been selling fags without distributing a good portion of the profits he made into ole Dirty Joe's pockets, why, you could bet your money that the man who would become known as both God and Satan in time would be walking in the streets with no money and no job. Yes sir, no-one, absolutely no-one, cheated Dirty Joe Bann out, manager of Joe's Garage and Auto-Repair, out of a dollar, especially a young, charismatic eighteen year-old kid named Jon. (And what kind of a name was Jon, anyway? This question always pondered Joe's brain, which was protected by his considerably thick skull, covered in layers of oily and slick skin with bald patches of hair set about here and there. He always considered the name Jonathan inferior to a strong, important, biblical name like Joseph, the father of our Lord and savior, the messiah, Jesus Christ. Not that Joe actually read the bible; reading wasn't something he excelled at. He had only made it to the seventh grade, which he repeated three times. Dirty Joseph "Joe" Bann was definitely no scholar.)
It was a slow, hot day in the summer of 1965. Joe had left to run a few errands - Jon knew damn well that that wasn't what ole Dirty Joe was doing, but nodded his head when Joe had told him that was what he was going off to do - and he had left Jon Crum to tend to the garage and store. They had finished all scheduled appointments two days ago, and this left Jon with nothing to do but sit around and be bored. He had tried to read a few of the Auto Trader magazines, which were on the racks (and even a few of the dirty mags which were hidden behind the counter, but he found that, unlike his boss, they really didn't have any appeal to him), but it only allowed the outside-heat time to settle, becoming a sona inside the store. For awhile he stayed in there, convinced that the heat outside was simply unbearable; however, after some time, he decided that the trapped heat was worse, and so he placed the magazines back onto the racks (and behind the counter) and headed out to the front of the store and garage.
Like the inside of the store, the day and the heat were still and quiet. The streets were empty. No children played and screamed in joy around a burst fire hydrant. No grandfathers - most of them veterans of the big one, World War II - sat on their porches, talking of the days of old. No mothers prepared evening meals in kitchens with open windows. No fathers barbequed out in their backyards. No games of baseball, the diamond being the middle of the street, were in progress. Absolutely nothing was going on on that bright, hot afternoon day in the summer of 1965. Jon leaned back against the building's brick side, pulled out his pack of cigarettes, and opened the lid. He had one left.
"Guess I'll have to take me another one from the store." He removed the last Winston from out of the pack and placed it between his lips. He tossed the empty pack in the direction of a small wastebasket set against the building seven or so feet away from where he stood. It hit the rim and fell to the ground. "Dammit," he muttered. He began to walk over there; when he reached the spot, he bent over and picked it up. It landed inside the wastebasket.
"I guess you never played on any teams in high school," a sweet voice said from behind him. He turned around to address its owner. "Now, just what is that suppose - " He had meant to give the person a piece of his mind. However, her looks alone were enough to stop him dead in his tracks. From where he stood, she looked about five-foot-four, with dark brown, shoulder-length hair. Although the sun shadowed over most of her features, from where he stood, he could see her eyes sparkle, as if she had taken stars from the very night sky and placed them in her sockets. He was left in awe at her presence. He couldn't believe that he had even considered shouting at such a perfect young woman.
"Aren't you going to introduce yourself?" she asked, smiling. Even her smile was something to be desired. He didn't believe in the concept of Love at First Sight, but be damned if this didn't come close to it. He tried to speak, and no sound came. He finally managed to stammer his name: "I...I'm...J-h-hon... Jon." He returned her smile with an idiotic grin. He began to walk over to her. She did the same, meeting him halfway. "I'm Ali...Ali Godwin." She took his hands in hers, looking into his eyes. She was now in complete awe over him, as he was with her.
"I like that name - Jon."
At first he could do nothing more than return her gaze. His mouth became like cotton. He rubbed his parched tongue over his lips, attempting to moisten them. "Would you like some water?" she inquired. He nodded his head, and she handed him her bottled water. He finished what was left in it, and smiled apologetically.
"It's okay. I have more at my house. Speaking of which - " She looked up into the bright afternoon sky, which was bright and blue - a haven for the cardinals.
He wiped the perspiration off his brow. "It has become somewhat insalubrious out here."
"I honestly have no idea what you just said, but...I believe that I was thinking the exact same thing, Jon. Come on." She took hold of his hand again. "Let's go to my place. It's a bit cooler." She smiled.
He looked at the garage. She followed his gaze. "Oh, just lock everything up and put the CLOSED sign in the window," she whispered.
"But - "
She winked at him, smiled, and that was enough. He went in and straighten the inside of the garage and the store as fast and as accurately as he could, placed the black-based, red-lettered CLOSED sign in the store window, locked the door behind him, and met her back out front. They looked at one another and smiled, and, hand-in-hand, they were soon off to her apartment. Once there, they talked for hours upon hours, learning various facts and secrets and desires from one another. For the first time in his young adult life, Jon was willing - no, aching, wanting - to tell everything about himself to a stranger... this stranger. This beautiful stranger. She had this look about her that simply made him feel like he could fly, like Life had a purpose. He had never felt this way about anyone, not even his own mother, and he welcomed this new feeling. Emotions ran through him like runners in a marathon: fast and furious.
They sat on her small couch, looking deep into the other's eyes. Her's were emerald-green, his a mixture of hazel and azure. He reached over and ran his tobacco-stained hands through her marcelled hair. "I feel as if I've known you my whole life," she whispered into his ear. He leaned forward, and their lips embraced. "Be gentle," she whispered, and he promised that he would never hurt her.
The events that followed were acts best left done by adults in petto. Their love for one another was instantaneous. She had been with plenty of other guys, but they had all been mashers; Jonathan was different. He had this way about him that made her feel so... alive. So... free. For the first time in her life, she felt like a human being. She felt that he truly loved her.
She turned seventeen on Martinmas; three weeks later, they were wedded.
The rapping upon the door broke through these memories like rays of sunlight breaking through a heavy and dark storm cloud. He rubbed his forehead with one hand, while placing the crystal orb into his jacket pocket with the other. He put the jacket on.
"Come in, come in," he said aloud, while thinking What could you possibly want? Why must you bother me now? Haven't you a home and a family to -
The door opened, and a small, stocky man walked through it. "Jon?" He was the school's second male History teacher. Richard Groggden, his name was, and if there was anybody who could get underneath God's skin, it was this man, who got his nails manicured every six weeks at the local hair and nail salon, Hair and Nail Haven. He had bought a membership card a few years ago, and everytime he went in and spent over fifteen dollars, they punched a hole into the card; once there were twenty holes, he got a free manicure on his next visit; twenty more got him a free haircut.
He had one hundred and twenty-six holes on four cards.
Jon stood up, grabbed his carry-on bag, placed handfuls of papers into it, shut it, and began to walk towards him. Richard looked him over and backed out into the second floor hall. Jon took out his set of keys, locked the door from the inside, and stepped out beside Richard, shutting the door behind him.
"Jon? You okay, buddy?" Buddy? BUDDY? Just who did he think he was talking to? To this little failure of a man, Jonathan Kennedy Crum was a god. No, not a god - he was the one and only God.
"Don't be a nuisance...get out of my way, Rich," he spat out, and walked past him, not even sparing him so much as a thoughtful glance. Groggden watched him walk down the hall and out of sight.
"What in the hell is wrong with him?" he asked the empty hallway.
It was ten after five by the time Jonathan Crum pulled into his gravel driveway. He turned off the ignition, opened his car door, grabbed his carry-on bag from the passenger seat, and stepped out of his automobile. He shut the door, whispering something in Volapük as he locked it. He knew a wide range of languages, including artificial ones like Volapük. What courses he had not taken in college had been self-taught. He was always trying to be one step ahead of everyone else in this small town, including himself.
He sat upon his recliner, turning on the small lamp on the nightstand beside his chair. Its light illuminated the darkness, and he sat back in his recliner, his eyes closed, waiting for the headache to pass. While he waited, he was plagued with memories.
He could remember hearing about President Lyndon B. Johnson ordering the full-scale bombing of North Vietnam and sending the first set of American ground troops into South Vietnam. Ali took part in a few protest groups, but mainly complained within their home. The spark which lit her inner flame was the news of the inability of the Americans and the South Vietnamese to defeat the Communists. They read the papers everday, keeping up with the progress of the war. They read and she protested for the next couple of years, she not really showing her true hatred for the war in public until 1968. The war was costing America nearly $30,000,000,000 a year, and who was paying for a large portion of that sum? Why, none other than the good, wholesome tax-payers of the United States, which included Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan Crum. She had made a large poster-sign which read:
At first, he tried to convince her not to embarrass herself by taking that out for the public's eye to see, and she abided by his words. However, at the news of President Johnson's orders to bomb North Vietnam in March of 1968, she ignored her husband's pleas, and took the sign out of their house. Upon reaching the protest grounds, she was immediately arrested, along with twenty others. Jon heard of this from a neighbor some fifteen minutes later, and went down to the Police Department. The sheriff was a good friend of Jonathan's mother, and he let Ali go with worrying about a fine. In a small town such as Oakwood, if the sheriff was willing to turn his head at such matters, so was everyone else.
Why am I bring up these memories? he thought to himself. (Who else would he think it to?) He rocked the chair forward and back, unaware that he was doing so. He hated resurrecting the memories of the mid- to late-1960s. Any other photographs in his mind he didn't mind - they meant nothing to him. Remembrance of his wife, remembrance of the war, of that time, he loathed. But why would he? Check that, why should he hate them so? The answer is a simple one:
They were the best times in his life...which meant that they hurt the most. He didn't like being hurt, especially by memories his mind... regurgitated, for want of a better word. Ten years after Ali's death, he tried desperately to regulate his thoughts, feelings, emotions, memories. For some time, he considered getting professional help - he had been on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Nervous breakdown? Him? Jonathan Kennedy Crum? Even the most solid of men had a weak spot in their armor. No matter how long or how many times they polished and re-polished their helmet and breastplate and tuille and cuisse, they always missed its single fingernail-width crack. Even armor-clad men as observant as God. And what had been the crack in his armor? The one thing he loved and dreaded the most...the one person he couldn't imagine absent in his life: his wife.
"Are we still up for tonight? Yes...uh huh...I...yes, of course...okay...alright...I'll see you there...huh? Ten minutes it is...yes...okay...bye."
Lauren hung up her Uniden 900MHz cordless phone and walked back to her kitchen table. She picked up the butt she had lodged into the ashtray and finished it in two puffs. She tossed it back into the tray, which was overflowing with twisted and crumbled Virginia Slim butts. Back in 1995, she had been able to toss them onto the gritty sand-covered ground in the Smoking Area at school (you had to have a special symbol on your I.D. card that said you were 18 years-old and a smoker - anyone caught smoking outside of the designated area would suffer a mild punishment, like In School Suspension; anyone caught smoking inside of the designated area and wasn't a) 18 years-old, b) permitted to because they didn't have that little symbol stamped onto their I.D., or c) both, would be punished severely, like Out of School Suspension). Lauren had been a good girl - she had had the stamped symbol applied to her card when she became a senior. She could remember standing out there in between her classes and, sometimes, during her lunch period. Sometimes there were other students there - most of them underclassmen who had no business being there - and sometimes even teachers joined her. One man stuck out in her mind: her tenth grade English II World Literature instructor, Jonathan Crum.
What was that silly name we all used to call him? she asked herself. Even at fifteen she knew he had been a highly respected individual, both in and out of the classroom. The other teachers, especially, she recalled, her Political, Economical, and Legal Systems, otherwise known as P.E.L., teacher, Mrs. Spinner. That woman spoke very highly of him; there had been days when Lauren would look up from her worksheet on the Constitution and notice Mrs. Spinner staring dreamly into space. Her eyes smiled, a bright dancing blue that shined whenever she talked over Jon Crum. Was it love, or just a simple, harmless crush? Lauren questioned this numerous times. Mrs. Spinner had been the only person who had had a crush (or was it love?) on him - that she knew of - but she would listen to other members of the faculty staff talk about him. They looked up to him when it came to handling the rowdy students. They asked him for advice, and he gave it to them, whether it was what they expected or not. He had been like a leader to them, even a god, to some.
God. That's it...that's what they called him...and he had been Satan to us. Well, that was what everyone else had called him...Satan. She had liked him. She enjoyed sitting in his class and reading Oedipus Rex and Things Fall Apart and Night. A large portion of the class had a C-average or worse. Lauren had passed with a 96. She could remember him announcing the scores for the midterm exam one wet and rainy Thursday morning. He would call out a student's name, and if you didn't mind hearing your grade being announced in front of the entire class, you simply said yes. If you wished to hear it in private, you told him that you would like to go up to his desk and see it. She had said yes.
Miss Willis...you recieved the highest grade out of all of my classes...a 98. Well done.
A supposedly threatening whisper, but with no real authority behind it, floated to her ears from the desk in the aisle across from her: You suck, you numb cunt. She had simply looked over at this person - a large, redheaded boy with millions of freckles covering his face and large teeth - and replied, At least I'm not a dumbass, like a certain somebody who sits next to me. He had blushed at this, causing his already red face to turn an ugly shade of deep crimson. A wry grin spread across her face, and she inwardly laughed, satisfied with herself. It felt so good to be a smartass. Especially to this boy, who had nothing positive to say about anything.
What had his name been? she wondered. Isn't that Duane-boy down at Uncle Pappy's his brother or cousin, or something like that? I mean, they're related in some way, but I can't remember which.
She scratched her head and sat down. "Why am I even thinking about this?" She looked at the circular clock on the wall above her considerably small electric stove. She had eight minutes left to meet Andrea at her house. From there, they would head out to get something to eat, probably in Fayetteville...Oakwood didn't have that large of a selection of restaurants. She walked back to her bedroom-bathroom and looked into the mirror, fixing her hair with her hands here and there. She checked to make sure she had everything perfect: the eye-shadow, the mascara, the blush, the eye-liner, the lipstick. She planned to go to a club or two after dinner, with or without Andrea. Maybe she would even meet someone. You had to be careful these days, though. There were plenty of men old enough to be your father or grandfather who were willing to "show you a good time". Than there were guys around your age, sometimes a little younger, sometimes a little older, who seemed so... perfect at the club dancing and flirting with you, who turned out to be another Ted Bundy or Charles Manson or worse. She had met a man once who had been smart, humorous, and hot as hell (at least, that's what she thought - Andrea's taste in men differed just a bit from Lauren's). They had made plans to meet at noon at a park the next day. The both of them had shown up, and from there they went out to eat lunch - his treat - and soon they were exchanging phone numbers. In no time they had visited one another at their apartments and even spent the night there (most of the time it was him staying over at her place). They had been seeing each other for a couple of weeks by that time. Andrea had asked her how things were going one day while they were window-shopping in the Cross Creek Mall.
So...you and that Jeff pretty serious now, huh? Lauren had looked at a window display at Hot Topics. Yea, I guess we are.
How is he in the sack? Andrea had asked. Lauren had looked at her with an expression of embarrassed surprise. She blushed and whispered I wouldn't know.
What do you mean, 'I wouldn't know'?
Well, we haven't...I mean, we've never...you know -
Andrea glanced over at her with a grin that read I-know-exactly-what-you-mean written across her narrow face. What was that look for, Andrea? Lauren asked with a feeling that was close to malice. Never you mind she had replied. And so it was forgotten. They continued on through the mall, and Andrea began to talk about how her grandfather had suffered from splenomegaly and spondylitis and various other internal problems. Lauren could have cared less about Andrea's grandfather; her friend's question had turned on a light in a dark part of her mind - had alluminated a room in her brain that she hadn't opened before that day - a room which contained a question that Lauren had never thought she would have asked herself: just how serious were they, Jeff and she? They had slept in the same bed, but had never gone any further than that. He had even asked her once if she wanted to... explore. She had looked in the direction that the sound of his voice had come from. She reached over and touched his face in the darkness of her bedroom. I'm not sure if either of us is ready for something like that yet she whispered. He had sighed and rolled over, his back facing her.
Copyright 2002, "Little" Curtis Graham
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