Drowning of Stephan Jones (4 page)

When a lot of parents were collapsing mindlessly in front of the tube, Judith would be happily swapping stories about her day or reviewing Carla’s homework assignments. And who but her mother would have early-on hooked her on to the greater and grander world beyond Rachetville, Arkansas, through books? One of Carla’s earliest memories of her mom was of her whispering into her ear, “Inside every good book is a secret.” But it wasn’t until Carla was an awful lot older that she came to understand that those “secrets” her mother had dangled before her questing eyes had more to do with the pains, the sorrows, and the joys of being human than they ever did with secret hiding places or buried treasure.

Carla came to believe that there was a direct correlation between her being “very understanding” and the books that she had read. All her friends commented on her quality of being good at listening. So for her the
real
value of books was not merely to increase her vocabulary or to give her a wealth of fascinating facts, but to allow her to have emotional experiences far beyond her own limited existence.

Without Judith’s influence, her own sharply felt appreciation of others and what they felt would probably have been more blunt. Carla knew that she had so very much to be grateful for, and she
did
feel grateful, yet sometimes she felt angry, too! Angry that she had to stand up and take the backlash as well as the occasional tongue-lash for her controversial mother. Why couldn’t she just be a member of a totally respected, completely uncontroversial family, a family like the Harrises?

There was anger, too, that Judith’s choice of a husband had been such a poor one, leaving Judith husbandless and Carla fatherless. That made Carla determined that when the time came for her to marry, things would be different. As she watched that
handsome and prosperous Harris family cross Grove Street, she thought how wonderful it would be if she could be disowned by Judith and adopted by Larry and Elna. And the second thought she had was how terribly shabby her first thought was. She stopped right there on Grove Street and asked herself how could she even think of such a thing. But as a matter of fact, she
did
think of such a thing—and, what was worse, she thought about it a lot.

“Hey you know, I was just thinking about you,” Andy Harris was saying. He flashed first Carla and then Debby a smile so dazzling that it looked as though he were auditioning for a toothpaste ad. “I was wondering if you’ve recuperated yet?”

“Recuperated?”
Damn!
Why didn’t she know what he was talking about? Her mind had really wandered. “Uh ... from what?”

“You were in our store yesterday—I saw you—don’t tell me you missed that really gross stuff that went on!”

“Carla, I’m really sorry, but I’ve got to go,” Debby broke in. “I promised some of the kids that I’d meet them at Lindy’s house and I’m already late.”

“I’ll call you tonight,” Carla yelled at the back of her already departing friend. She thought how Debby Packard had given her one more reason to love her. Knowing when you’re not wanted and knowing exactly when and how to make a graceful departure, well, Debby couldn’t have done it better if they had been rehearsing it for years.

Andy scrunched his thick, though naturally well-shaped, eyebrows together in a way that made it clear that he was about to say something serious. “Some people ...” He began shaking his head just as though he were wishing it weren’t so. “The way some people act ...” He whistled low through his front teeth. “It’s enough to make me puke, honest to God!”

Carla was more than relieved, she was downright thrilled to learn that Andy was as outraged by the two strangers’ public
humiliation as she was. The previous night, when she had told Judith about the confrontations, first between the men and the lady, then between the men and the merchant, one of the first questions her mother asked was, “And what was Andy’s reaction to the emotional bloodbath?”

“He didn’t like it one bit more than I did!” she replied proudly. Even though she hadn’t actually seen Andy respond one way or the other, she was certain that someone as special as Andrew Anthony Harris would find it every bit as terrible as she had. And, thank goodness, he had, because—well, he was just that kind of a person!

“Boy, do I ever know what you mean, Andy,” she told him. “I can’t understand ... I mean I guess I just don’t understand why people who call themselves grown up would behave that way!” Carla wondered if maybe she wasn’t speaking a little too frankly, since one of the people being criticized was, after all, his very own father.

“Know what I think should be done?” he asked her, managing to sound both masculine and decisive. “I can tell you how to put an end to that kind of stuff real quick!”

“You can?” Carla thought he must be really smart, ’cause for as long as people have been on this earth, they’d wondered how and why and when some people just seem to come into this world hating. She was pleased that he had not only thought long and hard about this problem, but was now about to describe his actual workable solutions. “Really?”

“The answer is already there in the Bible! In Romans, where it as plain as day says: ‘The wages of sin are death.’ If I were president, first thing I’d do is to make death for homosexuality the law. But I wouldn’t do it just like that!” he said, snapping his fingers. “I’d give everybody maybe ten days of fair notice, you know, like a grace period. But after that, well, all fags who won’t stop being fags, well, I’d give them the mandatory death sentence. Treat queers the same way we treat murderers, let
them all fry to a frizzle in the electric chair.”

“You’d fry them in the electric chair?” she repeated, making certain through her shock and disappointment that she had heard correctly. She thought of her friend with the red scarf who had whispered words of kindness to her. Wasn’t it time—way past time—to defend him? “You can’t do that! You can’t electrocute someone for
being
something. You can only electrocute people for
doing
something.”

Andy exploded. “But they do
do
something! Don’t you
know
anything, girl? They commit the sin of sodomy, and that’s as bad as you can get. You know, you don’t have to believe me, you can read all about it in the Bible. The Bible calls it an abomination—an
a-bom-in-a-tion
.” He emphatically separated and then sounded out each syllable, just in case she didn’t understand the word the first time around.

It was all very confusing. Carla wondered if maybe she was a bad person because she didn’t hate homosexuals the way good and pious Christians were supposed to. Loving someone of the same sex seemed to be okay if it wasn’t sexual, like the way she felt about her mother. And, of course, she loved her best friend Debby Packard since they were toddlers.

“Hey, you know you don’t have to believe me!” Andy’s words came crashing through her thoughts, scattering them to the distant recesses of her brain. And yet this much she did know: She was not concerned about being drawn to someone of her own sex because she was far more sexually drawn to someone of the opposite sex.

Andy socked his fist into his open palm. “It says in Leviticus that if a man lies with a man that’s an abomination and both men will be put to death!”

Carla tried without success to picture God torturing the man with the red scarf to death, but her imagination didn’t seem to want to stretch that far. “That just doesn’t sound right. I don’t think a compassionate God (and the Bible does speak of him
as being compassionate) would punish anyone for what they can’t help. I don’t believe that God is like that!”

“Can’t help it?!” Andy’s voice was shrill with righteous indignation. “That’s about the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard—are you kidding me or what? To stop being queers all they have to do is stop doing what they do or don’t you know that?”

The girl felt torn between being agreeably likable or being disagreeable—more true to her convictions—and not so likable. She decided to race for the middle ground, for the more intellectual and less emotional middle ground. “I read somewhere how scientists are finding chemical differences in the bodies of homosexuals. So if they prove that—that God with his own hands made these people the way they are—then why on earth would he punish them for being different?”

Andy was shaking his head so vigorously that for a moment Carla worried that it might possibly come flying off his neck. After finally gaining Andy’s interest, was she being stupid to toss it all away over a simple matter of opinion? “You can’t believe anything you read in the media,” he interjected at her first pause. “Satan, led by non-Christians and other atheists, run that show. The Bible says, ‘The bread of deceit is sweet to a man; but afterwards, his mouth is filled with gravel.’ You know ...” He paused before concluding, “It’s just as simple as that!”

“Sounds like you really know an awful lot about the Bible. Did you learn all of that at church?” she asked. Carla decided that there seemed to be plenty of holes in his logic but she wasn’t eager to comment on that just yet.

Andy smiled and Carla breathed easier. She hadn’t wanted to lose him even before she’d gotten him to be hers. “Well, we’ve got cable so I watch a lot of the preachers, especially Jerry Falwell and Jimmy Swaggart. They’re my favorites. And we’ve got a real good preacher now at the Rachetville Baptist, Reverend Roland Wheelwright. So I pretty much stay awake
and listen. Say, speaking of staying awake, you oughta see my old man.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yeah. It might be all in his mind or else something psychological, but as soon as he walks in the door of our church he begins to yawn, and when he sits down in one of those pews—
watch out
!”

“You don’t mean it—he falls asleep?”

“Worse than that! He snores like a chain saw—or he would if my mother would let him. Only he doesn’t ’cause she’d put a hole in his ribs with her sharp little ol’ elbow, honest to God she would!”

Carla laughed delightedly. She always thought that anyone with the pert, wide-eyed look of Andy Harris would almost have to have a sense of humor, but she never really knew for sure, at least not until this moment. That pleased her almost as much as the fact that he didn’t do the expected thing and say good-bye as soon as they reached the corner of Main and Union.

Instead, he turned down Union with her and started walking her home, while talking about how important his mother was to his finding Christ. “I guess she saw that no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t for the life of her get Dad saved, so she sort of doubled up her efforts on getting me born again.”

“Just the same, it must do your father’s heart good to see that you’re such a good Christian,” suggested Carla.

“You don’t know my dad!” the boy shot back. “That man has practically no respect for little ‘limp-wristed, tea-sipping parasites.’ That’s what he calls ministers and all
truly
committed Christian men: ‘limp-wristed, tea-sipping parasites.’ Now can you imagine that?”

“That’s surprising. I’ve seen your entire family on Sunday morning hurrying across Grove Street on their way to the Rachetville Baptist.”

“Oh, more often than not,” Andy agreed pleasantly. “He gets pulled along on a Sunday morning. But according to him, it’s okay, even respectable for a man to go, only it’s not okay to treat church really seriously. Know what he tells me? He says, ‘Peabrain’—I love that little joke of his, calling me ‘Peabrain.’ He says, ‘Peabrain, marry yourself a good woman and forget all this religious stuff, ’cause she’ll do praying enough for you both!’ ”

“He calls you ‘Peabrain’?” Carla protested. “That’s so cruel, and not one bit fair because anyone can tell that you’re ... I mean ... you’re really intelligent. I hope you don’t let him get away with that!”

“He thinks
he’s
so smart!” Andy paused to silently savor her compliment. “Because, you see, nobody gave him anything, but just the same he’s single-handedly built up a really big business. What with the store and his mail-order business, he’s doing a whole lot better than okay. I can guarantee you that!”

Carla couldn’t remember ever having heard anybody complain and brag about a person in practically the same sentence. “That doesn’t for a minute give him the right to put you down!” Her voice rang with conviction.

“Well,” he said slowly, as though waiting to be convinced, “one of these days ... one of these days I’m going to strike back. And won’t he be surprised?”

Without much success, she searched his face for the “I’ve got it!” she cried. “Look him straight in the eye and tell him that anyone who wins the rat race is still a rat!”

Andy grinned broadly, clapping his hands together. “
Wow!
That’s good! That’s real good!”

Carla returned his smile happily. She had just figured out the first thing she would write in her diary tonight: “Today is a day that I’ll never forget because I waited so long for it to happen. Today is the day that Andy Harris walked me home.”

Chapter 5

O
N
C
HRISTMAS MORNING
something happened in Parson Springs, the next town over, that had not happened there on Christmas day for twenty-seven years. It snowed. And this time it wasn’t so sparse that defiant blades of grass kept poking on through the thin, white covering all over the place. This was an inch or more of the real stuff, enough and plenty to wrap the town up like a magical Christmas present in a sparkling cover of dazzling white.

In the predawn hours, as the young and not-so-young woke to check under the Christmas tree, living-room lights were switched on all over this Ozark Mountain community. The village of Parson Springs was built up and down and around the side of Magic Mountain like a corkscrew. If viewed from high and far enough away, it looked like a giant Christmas tree floating in space, each gaily lit house dangling from a branch like a carefully chosen ornament.

A festive Christmas tree stood in the corner of Frank and Stephan’s frame house. Pieces of wrapping paper and broken ribbons were strewn everywhere as impatient Stephan walked briskly into the room. Ignoring the big cuckoo clock that bonged and the round clock that noiselessly told the time, he glanced nervously at his wristwatch before yelling up the stairs, “All right, Frank, this is it! If you can’t get yourself together in time for church, you can jolly well stay home. I’m leaving now because enough is enough is enough! You hear me? I’m not kidding! I mean it!”