

# The Rascals of Stafford Street:

# Laughing and Losing during the

# Remarkable Summer of '62

# John J. Quick

Copyright©2017 by John J. Quick

All Rights Reserved

(Distributed by Smashwords)

# Table of Contents

Cover

Dedication

Introduction

A Prelude To Summer

Our Territory

Summer Begins

The Club Convenes

Gathering Clouds

And Then It Poured

Out Of The Darkness

A Halloween Like No Other

The Closing Hours

Epilogue

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Other books in The Rascals of Stafford Street Series

Disclaimer

# Cover

The front cover photo was taken on the 4th of July, 1961, the summer before we became "The Rascals of Stafford Street." Clockwise, following Billy leading the parade are Martha, Linda, the author, and Nancy.

# Dedication

This novel is dedicated to Linda, Nancy, Martha, Billy, and Jim. I could not imagine growing up without being surrounded by the five of you. I will always be grateful for the abundance of your laughter and love. As a child, I could not have asked for more.

# Introduction

Beginning in the autumn of 2015, I began writing a series of novels loosely based upon my childhood while growing up in a small southern town during the early to mid 60s.

The cover photo, showing the rascals assembled for their annual Fourth of July parade, was taken in 1961. Forty-four years later, I was standing on the same sidewalk in front of my Aunt Mai's home, celebrating her 90th birthday. I began reminiscing about growing up next door and the mysteries and mischief the rascals were involved in. My nephew, John Paul, made a request, "You need to write down those stories someday." Well, someday finally arrived, tens years later.

Light and darkness circulate around us throughout our lives, but I was only remembering the seemingly endless laughter and fun of my childhood. Ten years is a long time to wait, but I knew something was missing. Then one day, in conversation with one of my sisters, I recalled a very brief but ugly moment I had never told anyone about. This became the spark of inspiration I needed to begin writing about the rascals.

Laughing and Losing during the Remarkable Summer of '62 is the original short novel in the Rascals of Stafford Street series. Laughing and Losing is an apt description of the narrative─humor wrapped around a thread of darkness, the threatening episode from my actual childhood referenced above when I was attacked by an older boy. An act of extreme violence soon follows, ensnaring the rascals in a life and death mystery.

I feel very blessed having had the opportunity to live, and then relive again thru my writing, those extraordinary summer days.

# A Prelude To Summer

"Johnny, I've been looking for you."

"I was out back, then I noticed a bunch of grownups standing in the driveway between the old Hodges' house and Miss Sotheby's."

"Somebody killed Samantha."

"What?! When?"

"I heard them folks saying somebody killed Samantha last night . . . stabbed her . . . more than once." Jim's mind was racing faster than he could speak.

"Did somebody see it? How'd they know?"

"Miss Sotheby found her lying dead in the driveway early this morning. Said she almost passed out."

"I thought you said Samantha was already dead."

"She was. Miss Sotheby almost passed out."

"Oh."

It was only a few weeks before when Jim and I had our one and only encounter with Samantha, very brief, but in a child's mind it was a real encounter, an encounter worth telling everyone about. We had told the story so often there was no way we would ever forget.

You could recognize Samantha a block away. She was a "colored" woman, probably in her late forties and five feet by four feet. Yes, five feet tall and forty-eight inches around, at the least. Samantha came to work for my grandmother when my grandfather became bedridden, the last year of his life. She came once a week to help clean while Mama nursed Papa.

Samantha always carried, and I mean always, a very large handbag, larger than any woman's purse I had ever seen. You could have carried four footballs or five catcher's mitts inside that bag along with a billfold and all the other female accessories every southern woman would have when she left home. But Samantha carried something altogether different in her handbag─a full-size butcher knife.

Mama accidentally spotted it one day while Samantha was off in another room cleaning. Perhaps she had set the handbag down without closing the two halves together, or perhaps Mama was doing a little snooping; perhaps she felt she was entitled to do some detective work regarding a woman she knew very little about. Mama told Papa about the butcher knife; Papa told Samantha she was no longer needed. Looking back, I don't blame Miss Samantha for carrying around a knife. I did the same thing as soon as I was old enough, like every other boy I knew. But that wasn't quite the end of the story.

A few weeks later, around the middle of May, Jim and I saw Samantha one last time. My backyard joined the back of Papa's yard where he had his garden, a garden which included strawberries. As Jim and I knelt to grab a few of the largest ones we could find, I spotted someone out of the corner of my eye. Now there was a well worn foot path between my grandparents' house and Aunt Mai's house, about sixty steps away, and, lo and behold, there came ol' Samantha, satchel in hand, of course, taking her sweet time walking thru somebody else's backyard as if she owned the place. Samantha spotted Jim and me now standing up and frozen in place and hollered, "You boys got something to say?" Before we could answer, even if we dared to answer, we heard a familiar voice, "Johnny, you and Jim come over here."

It was Papa standing alone on his back porch. Jim and I raced each other to see who could get there first. He didn't say anything at first, extending one arm around me and the other around Jim. All three of us watched Samantha disappear around the side of Aunt Mai's house.

"Did you boys leave the mockingbirds any strawberries or did you get them all?" That was Papa's way of saying it was all over, so go back to what you were doing.

We kids didn't really know anything about Samantha. She was a big, scary looking woman who carried a butcher knife, enough said. Rumors about her, from grownups and kids alike, circulated for weeks. We, the rascals of Stafford Street, craved a little mystery and danger, adding a dash of excitement to an otherwise quiet neighborhood. Give us only the opening line and our imaginations gladly wrote the rest of the story, especially my cousin, Billy, master of mixing fiction with fact, but that's another story, for sure.

That was my last memory of Papa, out of bed and fully dressed. I later learned that Samantha had come by that morning to ask Papa if he would reconsider and allow her to return to help with the house work. He said, "No." None of us ever saw Samantha again . . . and now she was dead, at least that's what Jim was saying.

"Are the folks still looking at her? Can we go over there and see the dead body?"

"Nope. After Miss Sotheby called the police, she told Reb to get the shovel and bury her in the backyard, beneath that big mulberry tree."

"I didn't see or hear any police car."

"They didn't come out. Just said go ahead and bury her wherever you want. Miss Sotheby said she was going to keep the tail."

"Keep the tail?"

"You know Miss Sotheby's always been a mite strange."

"I know, but I remember Samantha and she didn't have a tail, at least not that you could see."

"Johnny, that cat had a tail just like every other cat around here."

"Oh, now you tell me. Miss Sotheby's old white cat, Samantha. Jim, I know Miss Sotheby's a bit weird, but cutting off that cat's tail. Wow, that's really weird."

"She didn't cut off its tail. Mr. Taylor says whoever stabbed that cat, then cut off its tail for "meanness."

"For meanness. Can't get any meaner than killing a cat. Don't know why anyone would cut off its tail."

"Just meanness, that's what Mr. Taylor says."

"What was Mr. Taylor doing at Miss Sotheby's house, this time of day with the store open?"

"He says people on our street been coming in the store the past hour all talkin' about what happened to Samantha."

"I hope whoever did it got scratched real good."

"Scratched and bit."

"Yeah, and catch that cat scratch fever."

"Heard old man Gallaher from across the street say that's why he and Miss Gallaher don't keep a cat about the house. Afraid the cat might go mad during the night and scratch the both of 'em. Die inside a week from the cat fever."

"Jim, that sounds like one of them old wives' tales."

"Well, Miss Gallaher is an old wife, oldest one around here. She must have learned something being that old."

"Jim, you're being funny."

"Johnny, ain't none of this funny."

"Yeah, you're right. Do you think Johnny Reb could have done it? Miss Sotheby always showed that cat more attention than her own son."

"Yeah, that's true but Samantha hated Reb and if he'd even gotten close to her, she'd have scratched him real good."

"And he's got to be the laziest kid around here. He would know he'd have to bury her if she was killed. Miss Sotheby would make him do it."

"You're right, Reb's in the clear, but who killed Samantha?"

Thus, the summer of '62 began like no other.

# Our Territory

Now, before I get too involved with the story at hand, it would only be proper to introduce my family, friends and neighbors.

I was only seven and a half at the time; I wouldn't be eight until December, back then a long way off. I began to sign my name as John early that school year in the second grade; dropping the n and y would save paper, pencil lead and a lot of extra writing, at least to the mind of a seven year old. Family and friends would pay no attention to my new abbreviated signature, still the same ol' Johnny to one and all. I gave them some slack on the matter, not that I really had any other choice.

Having two older sisters, I would suffer immensely, not that I had any choice in that matter either. I slowly and reluctantly learned such things must be endured. In the end, I did survive the situation, just barely, of course.

Nancy was only a year older, blessed with dark red hair which always made her stand out in a crowd of kids. Looking back, she would remind me of Harper Lee's character, Scout, in To Kill A Mockingbird; a little sassy mixed with a lot of tomboy. Nancy was about as much a buddy a boy could expect to have in an older sister.

Linda was two years older than Nancy, reminding us daily that this meant she was in charge whenever our mother was absent and she was absent much of those summer days, out of necessity. She couldn't afford to be a stay-at-home mom, something that was quite common in those days. When I was only two, our father left his family behind and moved out of state. I never saw him again and have no memories when he was around. I do remember the summer he sent me a baseball bat and a nice glove. To a six year old boy who loved the game, that counted for something. I just couldn't remember the man who sent it to me.

During our earliest years, we spent our summers with an elderly woman, Miss McWhorter, who lived a few houses down the street. Actually, Nancy and I stayed there thru the entire year as Mother went off to work and Linda to elementary school. We finally wore Mother down by our constant pleading to allow us to stay home during the summers, with Linda in charge, of course.

Nowadays, three young children taking care of themselves for nearly ten hours a day, five days a week, would probably be headline news or, at the least, bring a visit from social services. But all the neighbors knew our situation and would extend a helping hand if needed. Things really were different then, and, for once, Nancy and I were glad we had an older sister. Everything worked out well enough as long as we pretended Linda was in charge.

Next door, no more than twenty feet to the west, towards Greenwood Avenue, lived my other sister and my brother, well, almost. Martha and Billy were our first cousins, their mom, Aunt Mai, my mother's sister. We called their father Uncle E.E. My mother said we couldn't pronounce Elbert when we were younger, so he became E.E. Strange as that may sound, Billy and Martha called my mother, Virginia, Aunt Gi for much the same reason. Back then most southern kids spoke with a lazy tongue. The familiar you all became "ya'll," am not or is not became "ain't," and, of course, we dropped the final g in practically every word: "comin', talkin', walkin'," and on and on. All of the older ladies we knew were called "Miss" instead of "Mrs.," married or not. We didn't trouble ourselves with two or three syllables when only one would work as well.

Martha and Billy were twins, but no one would ever believe it. They were born before the DNA molecule was discovered so there wasn't any way to prove there hadn't been some sort of mix up at the hospital the day they were born. No one would guess they were even 4th cousins. They were completely opposite in every way: hair color, temperament, what they liked or disliked; they couldn't have been more different. Martha didn't care as much for studying but was always very friendly and likable. To outsiders, Billy was more of an acquired taste, but it was a taste all the rascals acquired at an early age. He was an excellent student and gifted athlete, but with a restless mind that craved science fiction with the emphasis on fiction, for sure. He, of course, was the unofficial leader of our little gang.

At the next house lived Jim and his mom and dad and older sister, Ann. Ann was two years older than Martha and Billy, who likewise, were two years older than Linda. Being the oldest child around, Ann was big sister to all of us, but a little too grownup to be involved in most of our scheming and misadventures.

Jim was a year younger than me and was a friend better than I deserved. He and I, along with Billy, were almost inseparable for many years before and after the summer of '62.

If you walked another eighty feet to the corner of Greenwood and Stafford there was Taylor's market, or what all the kids simply called "the store," since it was the only place of business within sight of where we lived. Although our neighborhood was barely a mile from the courthouse in the center of town, Taylor's market was truly a small country store from any point of view. The market had a bare wooden floor, no carpet or concrete, rugs or linoleum. There were always two or three old-timers occupying the small ladder-back chairs, well worn to the point of being worn-out, both the chairs and the men. None of us knew who these elderly men were or where they lived, but they were always hanging around the store without ever saying much to anyone. I once told Jim I thought, "The whole lot of them had stayed there so long they couldn't remember their way back home."

Located in the back corner of the market was a genuine meat counter where the butcher/store clerk would slice whatever they had in the refrigerated glass display case. They would make you any type of sandwich you desired as long as it was on "light" bread with nothing more than Miracle Whip and/or mustard.

My mother was always sending one of us down to Taylor's to bring home a loaf of bread or a half-gallon of milk sold in wax coated paper cartons. I just told the cashier we wanted to charge it and then scribbled my name on the bottom of the receipt. I took the yellow copy home, they kept the white copy and Mother had to settle the account at the end of the month.

Like most boys, I was interested in the rack of comic books, only 12¢ at the time, packs of baseball cards at 5¢ each including a stick of brittle, almost tasteless bubblegum, and banana flips, a sandwich-shaped snack cake filled with thick banana flavored whipped cream, selling for a king's ransom of 15¢. Why a kid could buy two seven oz. cokes and two Hershey's kisses for that amount and even get a few cents back returning the empty coke bottles. My ambition at the time was when I grew up, and presumably richer, I would stop by Taylor's every afternoon and buy a banana flip, to enjoy all by myself without pesky sisters wanting me to share.

A couple of summers before, when I was but five and Jim only four, we picked up the delightful habit of smoking cigarette butts. We would stand outside the front door of the store and wait for an old-timer to toss his cigarette on the sidewalk before going inside. I quickly picked up the butt, took a short puff, and passed it to Jim who did the same before the tobacco was gone for good. I had just finished kindergarten a couple of weeks before and might have picked up the idea on the playground amongst a rowdy bunch of five-year-olds. It wasn't long before one of the neighbors spotted what we were doing and told me, knowing I'd be starting first grade in a few weeks, that I was getting a little too old for doing such things. I told Jim the man was probably right, I should go ahead and quit before school started, but I added he could go on and smoke for another year before he started grade school. Jim mulled over the matter for half a minute, then concluded he might as well quit, too, as it wouldn't be much fun puffing on cigarette butts by himself. A loyal friend if there ever was one.

I would never have the chance to live out my ambition of enjoying a daily banana flip. Old age and illness came calling and Taylor's closed a few years later. It would reopen under a different owner but it was never the same. I'm certain that corner of Greenwood and Stafford is still haunted by countless untold memories. It was a cherished hangout for old worn-out men and young restless rascals alike. Only grass grows there today, but it remains hallowed ground for a few of us.

If you turned the corner at Taylor's market and headed south on Greenwood, the first house you passed was the Wheeler's, where Jed lived. Jed was several years ahead of me in school despite having been held back for a year or two. He was always hatching a new scheme, none of which ever worked; he was regrettably a born loser. Though the Wheelers lived there for many years, no one ever witnessed his mother being outside the house, not even on the front porch. Afraid of sunlight, germs, the human touch, we would never know. There were actually several other older couples or widows on Stafford St. who were much the same way, shunning contact with the rest of the world. I cannot remember their names or even their faces.

When Jed was fourteen he tried to become the first successful one man rock band, but it quickly failed. Rumor was the drummer couldn't get along with the lead guitarist. Rarely did Jed attempt to belong to our tightly knit group, but occasionally would bring over his basketball to shoot around at the backboard and rim Billy mounted on the front of Mama's garage, a garage which sheltered her brand new '61 Chevy Corvair.

Jed wasn't disciplined enough to play on the school's team though he said he once tried out, and predictably failed. He greatly admired Oscar Robertson and his ball handling skills. I wasn't old enough to know about the "Big O" or care much about basketball. My game was baseball, and it was Billy's and Jim's as well. I idolized Willie Mays and Jim admired Henry Aaron. The year before, in '61, Mickey Mantle hit fifty-four home runs and teammate Roger Maris set a new record with sixty-one and every boy knew this. Still, Jim and I didn't revere Mantle and Maris but Aaron and Mays and couldn't have cared less that they were both black men, just as Jed always pretending to be Oscar Robertson on the basketball court. We didn't know any black children due to the then segregated schools and, in many ways, segregated neighborhoods. But we weren't allowed to be disrespectful to "colored" folks, and the great athletes of the day taught us there was no reason for intolerance towards someone who only looked a little different.

A couple of years later when a family with three older boys moved into the house next door, I would soon realize that discrimination was still alive. I wondered had they not heard of Willie and Hank and Oscar? They had, but only wanted to live in their own whitewashed world. It made me realize some boys were too hardheaded for their own good.

The next house down Greenwood belonged to the Elliotts. They lived in one end of the house, their daughter and her husband along with their four children in the opposite end. It was always a lively place, for sure. One tragic moment occurred the summer before that unsettled the entire neighborhood and especially the Elliotts.

Mr. Elliott pulled out of his driveway onto Greenwood and headed north towards Taylor's market at the same time he did every morning on his way to work. At the same moment, a young girl, no older than me, walked out of the front door of Taylor's store and spotted her sister who had left a minute before and impatiently waited on the sidewalk on the other side of the street. But "Susie" made a fatal mistake. She didn't see Mr. Elliott's car approaching and Mr. Elliott couldn't see her as she ran out from behind the corner of the store. She never looked his way and he couldn't stop in time . . . she died instantly. Some of us were outside at the time and heard an ambulance arrive. In those days most of the houses were without air conditioners and would have had the windows open. Even with a large window fan blowing or the TV set on, the sound of an approaching siren wouldn't pass unheard.

Young and old alike assembled around the store and we quickly found out what happened. The two sisters lived a couple of blocks away, and none of our crew knew either one of the girls. Most of my memories of this tragedy have irretrievably disappeared in the past. But a comment made by one of the older ladies haunted my thoughts at the time, "This was just God's plan. We don't know why." Not for a second did I believe what she said. Even as a young child, I knew she was wrong. I never forgot what she said and never likely will. I may have known practically nothing about everything, but even I knew this little girl's death was nobody's plan. Folks talked about what happened for the rest of that summer. Some things are hard not to remember.

The next house down from the Elliott's will always hold a special place in my collection of fondest memories. 615 Greenwood Avenue was the home of Mama and Papa, my grandparents. You had to love them both; some folks deserve as much. I believe we grandkids saw Papa as a John Wayne kind of man: tall, strong but gentle, and incorruptible. Mama was short, soft-spoken, and filled with kindness. She taught me about the barking of a squirrel and the songs of the robin, wren, cardinal, jay and mockingbird. And she taught me about tenderness.

Jim and I were playing ball in her side yard, when Nancy and Jan, the Elliott's granddaughter, wanted to join in. We started playing too roughly and the girls soon left, disgusted and dejected. After the game was over, Mama called out to me to come and sit next to her. She usually sat out on her small back porch early in the evening on those endless summer days, often reading her Bible, and always with an eye on those amusing little creatures who played in or around her backyard. She thought it was alright to butt heads with the other boys, but when the girls were invited to join in, some things had to change. Then she spoke of that unfamiliar word, tenderness. As I sat beside her in church every Sunday, she knew I had heard of the golden rule and "love thy neighbor," but for her there was something perhaps even more special than love—beyond love, there was tenderness.

Tenderness wasn't for the boys, they didn't want it or expect it and wouldn't recognize it if they tripped over it. You were to show tenderness to the girls, yes, even a sister. I believe we all learned from her way. She lived with tenderness everyday, giving it quietly and freely to all around her. Even the roughest boys on our street were courteous and respectful in her presence. Tenderness touches all; the unloved and ignored love it most of all.

As our conversation ended, Mama asked, "Do you think you understand what I'm trying to say?" I replied, "I guess it means the boys can't hit the girls anymore." She said it really meant a little more than that. I thought for a few seconds, then added, "It means I have to ask permission before I break off one of your roses." She smiled, then said, "It's almost supper time. You better run along home." She realized, and perhaps I did, too, my life was not yet large enough for baseball, bicycles, tenderness and roses.

Behind Mama's house was a small backyard completely shaded by one ancient sugar maple, then a vegetable garden, a garage with an attached tool shed which was a converted chicken coop and a one acre field which was, until the late 50s, a pasture for Papa's one milk cow. This abandoned pasture was known to all the neighborhood kids as simply "the field," an acre of grass, all to ourselves, and that was special.

Now returning to my home on Stafford Street and heading in the opposite direction from where I first started, the house next door was vacant for the next two years. The last owners were an older couple, the Hodges, who decided to move out to the country, presumably worn out from living next door to three rambunctious kids. I couldn't really blame them for I was more than a little tired of Linda and Nancy too.

Well, no sooner had the Hodges left when a series of small mysteries began. All of us kids had an active imagination, but none more so than Billy. Billy's mind went places the rest of us could not even imagine, so we listened in awe to his countless speculations about the Hodges' place. The front screen door was closed yesterday evening but open this morning. One of the grownups heard a car stop out in front of the house after midnight, then heard a door slam, but when they looked out from behind the closed window blinds there was no car in sight. An unknown car driving by, over and over, always slowing down as it approached the empty house; at least it was supposed to be empty.

Billy and I once found a large kitchen knife on one of the outside window sills on the side porch; it wasn't there the day before, and someone had left that side window open a fraction of an inch. Had somebody come by in the middle of the night, when all decent folks were sound asleep, jimmied the window open with a knife they left behind, sneaking into the house like a cat burglar? That was our theory, and we were sticking to it until someone could prove we were wrong.

Jim came around and found Billy and me investigating the crime scene and we told him about our cat burglar theory. Jim said it couldn't be. "Hodges never had a cat, only that tiny chihuahua named Ray. Maybe old man Hodges had forgotten about Ray when they moved out, but then lost his house key and was too embarrassed to be seen coming back in broad daylight looking for his one and only dog. Had to sneak around after dark and crawl thru the back window and was in a hurry to leave and left behind one of Miss Hodges' kitchen knives."

I replied, "Jim, you know my bedroom window ain't but twenty feet from the Hodges' place, and I never heard little Ray barking inside that house, not even once. And the Hodges been gone for more than a week."

"Yeah, you're probably right. Ray never was one to keep quiet about anything. But what's going on around here?"

"Billy will figure it out, won't you Billy?"

"I'm working on it. You guys just be quiet for two seconds."

"You heard him, Jim."

Billy set his mind to work on the matter and a minute later had it all solved. "I think some older guys, maybe twenty years old, even twenty-two, are sneaking in there and gambling, playing poker and with real money."

"Real money, wow!" I replied.

Jim agreed, "Yeah, wow!"

A couple of years later, we would sneak off after dark on the weekends and hide away in the old tool shed, the one that was once Papa's chicken coop. Billy, a student of chemistry, was especially fond of flammable liquids. A kerosene lantern was always nearby, wick trimmed, tank filled. It seems like our card table was only a few boards propped up by a couple of saw horses. Billy had a worn-out kitchen chair to sit on, Jim and I, a couple of nail kegs. Billy even rigged a way of locking the shed door from the inside; there was no way Martha, Linda and Nancy were going to play poker with the guys.

Our folks, of course, frowned on such card playing by young boys, preferring us to play rook instead of poker. It was widely believed there was a natural progression that boys would take that started with playing poker and was quickly followed with smoking Marlboros and drinking Falstaff beer. But Billy was already heavily invested in our late night poker games for he had purchased a genuine set of poker chips: blue, red and white. We could have played all night, if that meant no later than 9:30. But those guys playing next door with real money─wow!

I mentioned to Billy, "No one around here has ever seen a light on inside the Hodges' house."

"Well, remember they don't ever sneak in until all of us are in bed. Probably drive by every half-hour to see when all the lights are off in everybody's house around here. I don't think we'll ever see them unless we stay up all night staring out the window. And you're the only one who has a window facing the Hodges' place. You going to stay awake all night?"

"I could, I mean I would, but you know my mother won't let me. She doesn't care for us prowling around this ol' place. Says we're just wasting our time. But I'd kind of like to know what's goin' on over here."

Jim agreed, "I want to know, too."

"You two keep quiet about all this so our folks don't get suspicious and tell us to stay away from this place. I mean it's not like it's one of those haunted houses you hear about."

"I told Jim that yesterday. You remember?"

"Yeah, I remember."

Continuing down Stafford, on the other side of the Hodges' house, was Miss Sotheby's home. The older folks said she had changed her last name to Sotheby right before she moved onto our street. Rumor was she had recently divorced her deadbeat husband. Some of the ladies said she changed her name to keep that good-for-nothing from finding her after she moved, while others said she changed it to Sotheby so she could pretend to be kin to British royalty; it made no difference to me, either way. She only had one son that we knew of, Jerry. He always, and I mean always, wore a gray Confederate soldier's cap. We, of course, named him "Johnny Reb," or just "Reb" for short. Miss Sotheby never allowed him to associate with "them rascals," and we were thankful for it.

Mickey and his parents and grandfather lived on the other side of Miss Sotheby. Mickey was a little older than Martha and Billy and often wore the local high school's football jersey. They said he was never actually on the football team and guessed he probably sneaked into the locker room while the team was on the practice field and found a jersey that fit, end of story. Mickey was a portly guy, and the girls said he wore the loose fitting jersey so no one could actually see how portly he really was.

Billy begged to differ. He asked if we had noticed that Mickey often stopped on his way to the store and talked for a few minutes, never in much of a hurry. "Why does he walk so fast, almost runs, on his way back home coming from Taylor's? I think he's hiding one of those ice cream pies under that jersey. No way he's going to stop and talk with that pie already starting to melt, tucked up under his shirt, as hot as it is today. I bet his folks don't even know what he's up to. Sneaks upstairs to his bedroom and eats the whole thing by himself."

Mickey never became a part of our gang but he was a neighbor we all enjoyed talking with, if only on his way to the market and never on his way back home.

Miss Maggie's house was next to Mickey's and was the last house in the block on our side of the street. A sidewalk ran from Taylor's grocery down to the corner of Stafford and Gracey where Miss Maggie lived. Several years ago at the funeral for Jim's dad, his sister, Ann, remembered she had to constantly remind the youngest rascals of the stated boundaries of our home territory, a territory which grew as we did: east to Miss Maggie's corner, west to Taylor's market and south to the big maple and the field behind my grandparents home. The old sugar maple grew at the front corner of the duplex, next to Papa's house; when he was a carpenter he built his house and the duplex, along with several other houses along Greenwood and Stafford.

I reckon trees, especially large shade trees, meant more to folks back then than today. All of the houses were built before air conditioning was available and we placed great value on shade around our homes. Shade trees and window fans and that was all, except the paper hand fans ladies often used inside the house, and outside on the porch, and even in church.

The nicer homes were built along Greenwood and their yards were often shaded by silver maples and especially the stately sugar maples which stood for a century or more. The smaller, less expensive houses along Stafford were built closer together and had smaller front yards. We had a few silver maples as well, but the sugar maples were missing, replaced by box elders, the poor man's maple. These trees were smaller, unattractive and short-lived, but grew quickly and provided some needed shade. Nancy and I, along with Billy, often climbed the old box elder in our backyard due to its easy to reach lower branches. Do children today climb trees anymore, for the challenge and pure enjoyment of doing something a little daring?

In the Elliott's front yard grew only one tree, an enormous sugar maple with plenty of branches from top to bottom. Nancy and I would climb up twenty feet or so and then stop. The Elliott's granddaughter, Jan, would climb past us another ten or fifteen feet higher. Never to be out done, Billy would go as far as the branches would support his weight, fifty feet or more above the ground. He proudly exclaimed, "If you climb this high you can see all the way to the river."

Well, the Cumberland River was two miles away, due west, with more trees and houses between us and the river than a seven year old boy could count. Some of us, actually all of us, had doubts about what Billy was describing but he simply stated, "Just climb up here and see for yourself." No one stepped up to the challenge, though Jan thought she could, "except my foot's starting to cramp." Mine was starting to cramp, too, and so was Nancy's. The summer heat can do that to a kid, especially a kid looking straight up to the top of a seventy foot maple.

We loved some of those old trees, perhaps none more than the two mulberry trees that grew at opposite ends of the field. Come June, you would often find some of us searching the ground for fallen mulberries. Returning home with purple hands, Mother wouldn't have to ask where we had been. Later when the three older boys were living next door, they collected mulberries and proceeded to make mulberry "wine," wine aged all of thirty-six hours.

There was a large box elder in front of Aunt Mai's house, its branches reaching out over the sidewalk and street. Somehow Billy got his hands on a four foot long rubber snake and waited almost till dark and climbed up into the tree and as far over the sidewalk as he could go, holding onto a branch with one hand and the snake with the other. Like clockwork, Mickey walked by heading to Taylor's store for his evening snack. The girls were sitting in the front porch swing while Jim and I perched upon the top of the railing that enclosed much of the porch. We were all waiting for Billy to drop the snake on Mickey but nothing happened. Billy waited until Mickey passed and said, "It'll be a little darker when he walks back from the store and I don't want him to see me moving around up here."

I don't know why it took Mickey so long to make up his mind because he would only drink R.C. colas, and being Wednesday night, his choice was always "snowballs," those coconut covered snack cakes, two in a package, made with chocolate cake and whipped cream in the center; oh, they were good, really good. Well, Mickey finally appeared, with half of the R.C. gone and only a bite of the second snowball remaining. When he walked directly under the box elder tree, Billy dropped the rubber serpent, but his timing was off, probably from underestimating Mickey's accelerated pace due to the sugar high he was then experiencing. Mickey, licking his sticky fingers, never heard the dull thud when the snake hit the sidewalk only two feet behind him. Pointing to the sidewalk, I quickly yelled, "Mickey, what's that!" Mickey turned around, and seeing the motionless reptile only a few feet away, jumped back and took off as if he was running home with an ice box pie under his jersey, at high noon, in the middle of July. He disappeared in the dark of night, and as far as we could see, never spilled a single drop of that R.C. cola.

Billy couldn't have pulled it off without hiding amongst the branches of that old poor-man's maple. I don't think I stopped laughing until I was eleven years old. We simply had to entertain ourselves, and, now and then, those old trees we knew so well made that a whole lot easier.

# Summer Begins

Papa, bedridden for most of the spring, died as summer was beginning. Mother didn't believe Linda, Nancy and I were old enough to handle the funeral service and procession, so we stayed at home. I can't remember how we knew when the procession was to pass by Mama's house, but we did, and we patiently waited in the side yard of her home on Greenwood. The hearse would be passing by on its way to Greenwood Cemetery where Papa would be buried. We waited, then waited some more, and would have waited all day if we had to. The long line of cars passed us by, with the one we loved. We, too young to attend, but not too old to cry, or longingly wave at a long black car, never slowing, while we whispered good-bye. Papa had left us, without our permission, leaving lasting memories of love and loss. We now had to learn how not to drown in the same old dreams, of what might have been, to wake up tomorrow and begin again, without him.

Three days after Papa's funeral, Miss Sotheby's cat, Samantha, was stabbed; sometimes when it rains, it pours, and the curious rascals had to deal with it all. Now, looking back, it seems we willingly exposed every nerve we had to everything around us. We would see and feel much more during the summer of '62, perhaps more than we deserved or were ready for, but the rascals stayed together and together we survived and grew a little stronger everyday.

Soon all the neighbors forgot about Miss Sotheby's cat, but Miss Sotheby didn't. She was in mourning thru the end of June. At the grocery, church, hairdresser, even when she went out to pick up the morning paper, Miss Sotheby wore only her black dresses; at least that's what Mother and Aunt Mai were talking about over the phone. Truth to tell, I don't remember her ever wearing any color but black, or maybe navy blue when she was feeling particularly cheerful, which wasn't very often, at all. Reb kept wearing gray; never expected to see him wearing anything close to navy or "yankee" blue.

Life goes on, especially during summer vacation from school. I helped Billy set up the badminton net across their backyard. Uncle E.E. was an electrician by trade, and the year before, he mounted large spotlights on the back corner of their garage and the back side of Mama's garage as well. There was plenty of light to play all night, meaning we had to stop and come in by 9:30, 9:45 at the latest, if we begged enough. Mother, Mama, Aunt Mai and Uncle E.E. set up folding lawn chairs nearby, so we always had a small audience in attendance.

All the gang had a chance to play in turn, but the highlight of the evening always came down to Billy vs. Martha, twin against twin, no age advantage here. My first cousins were both athletic and highly competitive, no more so than when they were facing each other in combat, which is what the badminton match resembled within about twenty seconds of starting. One night Billy lowered the net several inches so when he played Martha he could smack her in the face and arms with the birdie. What a match to witness, with Martha getting in a few smacks of her own. They normally played until the winner scored twenty-one points, but Aunt Mai called the match early before an ambulance was needed. Martha had so many welts that Nancy said she looked like she had come down with the smallpox her third grade teacher had talked about. Mama wanted Martha to go home with her so she could rub coal oil all over her skin, but Martha ran off inside the house and wouldn't come out again until the next morning.

While the rest of us were still laughing, Ann and Jim appeared out of the darkness. Jim had his face pressed against the side of his big sister. Ann had to do all of the talking.

"I was walking back from Taylor's; it was already about dark. Something caught my eye in the weeds next to the back corner of the store. Just a patch of white, nothing more, but it looked out of place. I only took a couple of steps closer when I started shaking. It was Sammy." Sammy was their two year old beagle hound. "I walked a little closer and saw some blood, so I ran home and came back with Daddy."

Jim was now staring at Ann and listening as intently as the rest of us. "I turned the flashlight on and Daddy turned Sammy over from side to side. He said Sammy was still a little warm, probably had been dead for maybe half an hour. I looked all around with the flashlight just in case somebody was hiding nearby and watching us but we didn't see anyone." Ann couldn't talk fast enough.

"There was a lot of blood on the ground around Sammy. Daddy didn't find the cuts on him until we brought him back home and laid him out under the back porch light. That's when Mom and Jim came out the back door to see what we were looking at. We weren't going to tell anybody tonight, but Jim saw the spotlights on over here and wanted me to tell all of you about it."

Mother said, "Jim, I'm so sorry about Sammy. We all are."

Mama added, "He was my favorite dog around here and I'm surely going to miss seeing him." Mama said this even though Billy and Martha had their own dog, Chip. But outside their family, Chip wasn't anybody's favorite dog. All of the kids and most of the grownups were afraid of him.

Jim was about three seconds away from falling apart, and all I could say was, "Sorry, Jim." Ann told Jim it was time to go and they slowly disappeared back into the darkness. I would have much more to say tomorrow; all of us would.

The next morning, Jim and his dad, who everyone called Nick, buried Sammy in the small space behind their garage. Over the years, they had buried another dog and a cat in the same place; their own tiny pet cemetery. But it wasn't really hallowed ground as a year later Jim would grow his staked out tomatoes in that now fertile spot. Everyone remembered what made those blue ribbon tomatoes possible. And Sammy was Jim's last dog.

# The Club Convenes

As upset as Jim was the night before, Ann wouldn't admit it, but in the light of day we all knew─Sammy was murdered. And we were going to do everything we could to find out who did it. Why wasn't important; there was no good reason why. Billy said it was time to convene "The Club."

Now every club needs a clubhouse. It really can't be a legitimate club without one. We had one but not anymore. It was a small tool shed built onto the back of our old garage. Mother said she had it torn down before it blew down in a storm, but, as usual, the rascals had a different take on the matter.

One Friday afternoon, the gang was all together and ready to start our usual weekly meeting, but the last one in forgot to shut the shed door. Mickey was anxious to find Billy and came snooping around and noticed an open door. Without knocking even once, Mickey stepped in thru the doorway like he owned the place. Except he didn't know where to step like us genuine club members. He proceeded to step right thru a half-rotten floor board all the way down to the ground. Billy said we would need a crowbar to pry him loose, but Mickey managed to extricate himself after considerable effort. He never even apologized, like it was our fault for not latching the door and nailing up a No Trespassing sign.

Well, Mother found out about Mickey's misstep and soon we overheard her telling Aunt Mai she'd better have that old garage/shed torn down before she was sued, meaning before she was sued by Mickey's folks. She was probably right, as Mickey wasn't getting any slimmer, at least not that you could tell with him always wearing that ol' wildcats jersey, and, sooner rather than later, he would come around again after finishing three or four moon pies and a couple of Royal Crown colas, and step or lean somewhere he shouldn't and the whole world would come tumbling down on top of him. We would surely need more than a crowbar then, and Mother would be in need of a good attorney.

It's true we didn't have a need for a garage as we didn't have a car, not since our father left five years before. Mother had friends she rode with to and from work each day, and we rode with Mama to church on Sunday. We did a lot of walking in those days, and bicycling, too. There was a city bus that came down Stafford two or three times a day which helped folks in a similar situation.

I remember one day Jim and I were standing on the sidewalk in front of my house, when the bus suddenly stopped and the driver opened the door. We didn't say anything. We just stared back at the driver.

"You boys getting on or aren't you?"

"I'm already here."

"So you don't want to go anywhere else?"

"I don't. Jim, you going anywhere?"

"Nope."

"Well, why are you two boys standing out here?"

"I live right here. He lives over there," pointing to Jim's house two doors down.

"I never knew boys who didn't want to go somewhere," concluded the bus driver.

"I just wanna be right here," I replied.

Backing me up, Jim softly said, "Yeah." The driver quickly shut the door and pulled away.

"Can't believe he wasted all our time about that."

"Thought he'd get a dime from the both of us."

"That ol' guy didn't know we just spent six cents down at Taylor's. That's all we had."

We had found two thrown away coke bottles and returned them to the store for three cents a piece, buying a pack of ball cards and two Hershey's kisses. I kept three of the cards and gave Jim the other two and the stick of bubblegum. I really didn't want to be anywhere else but standing on the sidewalk with my best pal, in front of 832 Stafford Street.

Yes, it was a small world but it was certainly large enough for all of us during the summer of '62.

But the rascals still needed a new clubhouse. Billy mulled over the matter for three, maybe four seconds, and then said we had but two choices. We could probably use the old chicken house at the back of the abandoned Hodges' place but it had a dirt floor and was missing both of the front doors. The other choice we quickly agreed upon. Papa's old chicken coop had been converted into a halfway decent tool shed that Uncle E.E. now used. Three-quarters of the once bare ground was now covered with a floor and it had a new tin roof, but there wasn't a single window anywhere; if we needed light the front door was left open, or Billy brought out one of his coal oil lanterns. All things considered, not bad at all.

The next day being Saturday, we decided to meet in the new clubhouse around 9 o'clock, which actually meant 9:30 or maybe 10 o'clock since Billy always stayed up till midnight and slept later in the morning than the rest of us. He liked to watch the late night reruns of old "B" movies, notably science fiction classics such as Attack of the 50 ft. Woman and The Blob. Jim said he wanted to come to the club's meeting, though we told him he didn't have to if he didn't feel up to it. He didn't want to feel left out being that the meeting was all about who killed Sammy.

Everyone was there at the clubhouse as planned except Billy who came walking in past 10 o'clock. He said on Friday nights one of the TV stations always showed a double-feature which he never missed. Billy was ready to start the meeting when Jim unexpectedly spoke up. Jim being the youngest often didn't have much to say. "I forgot to tell ya'll something last night, something really important. Sammy's tail was cut off, just like Samantha's was. Only difference was Sammy's tail was missing. Ann went back this morning and looked for it again and couldn't find it anywhere."

Before Billy could say a word, Martha said, "I saw you and your dad digging a hole behind the garage this morning. I was going to walk over and say how sorry I was but Daddy told me I should give you all some privacy." Linda added, "If Mama doesn't mind, when we get finished with the meeting I'm going to cut a couple of her roses and lay them where Sammy's buried."

"Thanks."

I could see Jim was almost to the point of crying so I quickly spoke. "Now, Billy, what exactly do we need to talk about?"

"A lot of things, but mainly one thing. Who around here could have stabbed Sammy? Let's examine the facts. Both Sammy and Miss Sotheby's cat were killed with a knife and their tails were cut off. It was done late in the evening. Whoever did it stabbed them but just left them lying there. Didn't want to move 'em and get blood on their hands."

Martha butted in, "Billy, we already know all of that."

"You didn't let me finish, Martha. Now what does all this really mean? Here's what I think. It had to be someone old enough to be outside after dark. A kid, but one of the older kids."

Linda questioned, "How do you know it was a kid and not someone already grown?"

"Sounds like a kid to me, a kid who didn't want to have to explain to his folks if he came in after dark with blood all over his clothes and hands."

Nancy interrupted, "I've got to go. Jan and I are going swimming at Smith School and I think I'm already late."

"Well, go ahead." Then Billy added emphatically, "Don't you tell anyone what were talkin' about. You promise?"

"I promise."

"And don't tell Jan why you're late."

"Alright, bye."

After Nancy shut the door Martha spoke. "So who around here are we talking about?"

"Let's start at the corner of Greenwood and go down to the corner of Crossland. The Taylor's grandson, Little Mike, he's been staying with them the past few weeks since school's been out."

Jim joined in, "Yeah, but you know he's got a crippled leg. He couldn't catch a cat. I know he couldn't catch Sammy."

I followed up, "You're probably right, Jim, but he is a mean little devil."

Martha added, "He sure is. I remember last summer when he was here and—"

Billy interrupted, "Stop, Martha, we don't have time for all that. This is important. Alright, next to Taylor's is Jed Wheeler and his sister, Janine. Well, it couldn't be his sister."

Linda jumped in, "It couldn't be anybody's sister."

But Jed was, well, Jed was different. Nobody knew exactly how old he was because rumor had it he had been kept back in school some said one year, others said two years. All we really knew was he was old enough to get into trouble, not serious trouble but we had heard some things over the years, exaggerated or not. Jed mostly kept his distance from our clan and pretty much the rest of the world, and the world was grateful. I couldn't figure him out and never knew anyone else who even tried. He was a rebel with too many causes. He might come around for a couple of days in a row to play basketball, then we wouldn't see him for the next three months. It seemed like whenever he was just beginning to get a little closer to others, he would all of a sudden push away and disappear. He was unknowable, mischievous and, sadly, a failure in pretty much everything he took on. Mostly, he was left alone and neglected.

Billy stated, "Put Jed on our list." Linda, our official recorder, wrote Jed Wheeler's name at the top of a sheet of notebook paper.

"Next, there's the Elliott's grandsons, David and Chris, but they're both too young."

I replied, "And if they even tried doing something like that their daddy would wring their necks."

"Yeah, he would," agreed Jim.

That only left two other boys on that block of Greenwood. They had recently moved there during the past winter.

"Those two guys might be old enough and neither one has much of a reputation."

"And have you seen their sister? Yuck!" blurted Linda.

"Double yuck!" added Martha.

Jim again had the final say. "Those two fat boys couldn't catch a cold. I know they couldn't catch Sammy. He was fast . . . he used to be." No one could say anything for a long moment.

"Alright, enough talk on Greenwood. Let's move back to our street. You know the only boy on the street all the way down to Miss Maggie's is Mickey."

Martha questioned the comment. "You skipped over Jerry, between the Hodges' place and Mickey's."

"Martha, Johnny Reb didn't kill his own cat and leave it out in the driveway for his mom to find. We already cleared him of that the day after it happened."

"I bet it was that ol' Mickey. I never did like him."

I replied, "Jim, you don't like him because he used to stop by and talk with Ann and just ignore you, like you were the "Invisible Man" in that old movie."

Linda had a little more to say on the matter. "Jim, all of us have known Mickey for a long time. He wouldn't hurt a flea. He sure wouldn't have killed Sammy."

"Well . . . well, I still think he stole my Whitey Ford baseball card one day he came to see Ann and I had all my cards laid out on the front porch."

Billy replied, "Next time I see him I'll ask him if he has a Whitey Ford card, alright?"

"Okay, and ask him if he has a Hank Aaron card, too."

I reminded Jim, "You never had this year's Hank Aaron card."

"I know, but Mickey might have an extra one and nobody needs two of the same card."

There were only two other guys on our block of Stafford and they lived on the other side of the street from Mickey. The older son, George, was practically a grown man with a job and grownup things to do. He drove a sweet '56 Chevy that every kid in the neighborhood loved. It had a V-8, with dual exhausts and custom paint, a brick colored red like no other in town. His younger brother, Mike, was the nicest guy we knew. We couldn't consider either one of them as a suspect.

Around the corner on Gracey lived Remy Lind and his folks. Remy Lind─peculiar name for a peculiar boy. Martha and Billy knew him from school but didn't claim him as a friend. During the school year, he would walk along Stafford on his way to the junior high. He usually wore a large hat similar to what city bus drivers wore and carried his school books in a large leather satchel with a shoulder strap; we nicknamed him, "Mail Man," which sounded better than Remy Lind anyway. He was skinny and awkward looking and Martha said, "That weird guy couldn't catch a three-legged dog." And we knew about such dogs as two houses down from Remy lived a three-legged collie who often barked at us when we walked down to the far corner of the field to find a few ripe mulberries.

Billy didn't agree with Martha and told Linda, "Add Remy to the list." Nobody else disagreed.

We were left with one other nearby street, well, almost a street; Greenwood Court was a little side road off Greenwood Ave. Jim and I once asked his dad why it was called a court and he said because it ended in a turnaround and didn't connect to another street. Nick added somebody must have thought it was already long enough or just plain ran out of money before they could make it any longer. There were only four small houses along this little dead end lane.

Until recently, two older boys lived there. T.J. had disappeared a few months ago, before the end of the school year. Rumor was he had been caught just over the state line in "Hoptown" trying to steal a car. Some said he was sent to reform school, others said he was in jail in Kentucky. Nobody knew for sure as nobody knew whether T.J was seventeen or eighteen. That left the one and only Frankie Edwards, at least we hoped there wasn't another one like him.

Frankie lived alone with his mother. His dad survived WWII only to be killed a few years later fighting in Korea. In the battle at Inchon Frankie would always say whenever somebody asked about his Ka-Bar. According to Frankie, and no one else, his dad's Ka-Bar knife was returned to his mom, saved from the battlefield, and she kept it for him until he was old enough to handle a knife of that size. It was an impressive sheath knife with a blade about seven inches long and a unique leather handle that really made it stand out. Whenever we saw Frankie walking or riding about he always had that big knife hanging from his belt. Folks said he'd been carrying it since he was nine years old, so no one paid it much attention anymore.

Frankie was a big boy though he would be in his last year of junior high when summer vacation ended. He was almost six feet tall and about 200 pounds, maybe a bit more.

First thing out of Linda's mouth, "You know Frankie always carries that big army bayonet. He could have been the one."

Of course, I had to correct her. "Linda, that's no army bayonet Frankie carries, that's a Ka-Bar. Marines use it, not army soldiers."

"Well, I don't care who uses it, he shouldn't be walking around with that big knife."

Martha agreed with Linda. "I'm afraid of him, too, even if he didn't have a knife. And I know him better than the rest of you because I had two classes with him last year, science and social studies. I sat as far away from him as I could. Everybody said he brought that big knife to school everyday and hid it in his locker."

Folks on Stafford didn't care much for the folks who lived on Greenwood Court, and the folks on Greenwood Avenue felt the same way about us who lived on Stafford. It seemed like everybody had to be looking down on somebody else.

Billy told Linda to add Frankie to the list.

I added, "For sure."

Jim agreed, "Yeah."

"Alright, Linda, we're finished. Read the list."

But Jim wasn't satisfied, not yet. "You left out somebody. That old guy who always walks by, from the railroad station."

Jim meant the, "Whistlin' Codger," at least that's what our bunch called him for as long as I could remember. He was an older man, probably in his sixties, who walked down Stafford three days a week. No one knew where he lived. He kept walking down the length of our street until we couldn't see him anymore, like he just disappeared. We were pretty sure he worked at the railroad station which was about a mile to the north. He wore overalls with a pattern of very thin blue and white stripes and the same kind of hat railroad workers often wore, in the same blue and white pattern. And like a faraway train, you could hear him coming, a whistling away. He walked bent over at a forty-five degree angle, his head lowered as if he was looking for dimes or quarters someone might have dropped on the sidewalk; back then dimes and quarters were still real money, made of genuine silver. He might trip over a cat but he sure couldn't catch one, or even an old box turtle if his life depended on it.

Linda said, "I think we can leave him off the list for now."

Billy turned around and winked at Linda and rolled his eyes towards Jim without him seeing it. "Jim might be right. Go ahead and add him to the list. It won't hurt anything." Linda then read the list out loud. We had three suspects plus the Whistlin' Codger.

We were all worn out, especially Jim who had been thru so much in the past twenty-four hours. Though our new clubhouse was far from airtight, the coal oil fumes from the lantern could make a kid feel a little lightheaded during a hot day in late June.

Billy stated, "The meeting's over. We have our list of suspects. We'll talk again tomorrow afternoon, after we get back from church and have Sunday dinner." We didn't have lunch followed by dinner, we had dinner, then supper; it was a southern tradition and we held onto a lot of them for a long time.

Mother was always glad to let us run loose after Sunday dinner as it allowed her to take an afternoon nap, the only time during the entire week she could do so.

We found Billy already waiting for us on their front porch, along with Martha and Jim. Billy said it was up to us to keep an eye on the three main suspects. The grownups were always too busy and, anyway, they played by the rules which we thought got in our way most of the time. None of the girls wanted to watch any of "those creepy guys," but Billy gave out assignments anyway.

Martha, Linda and Nancy were assigned to Jed Wheeler, Billy would take Remy Lind since he lived the farthest away, and that left Jim and me with good ol' Frankie Edwards. Billy said all of us had seen enough spy movies, "So pretend you're a spy. If that doesn't work, just walk around their house and see if anything unusual is going on."

Of course, none of us knew what we were doing, including Billy. After exactly one hour and forty-five minutes, according to Billy who was keeping track of such things, Martha and the girls gave up and walked back to their porch and sat down in the swing. Precisely three minutes later, Jim and I returned looking tired and defeated. So how did Billy manage to know exactly when all of us had given up? Because he gave up fifteen minutes before the rest of us, had time to walk to and from Taylor's store, and was sitting down and sipping a cold Dr. Pepper when all the girls arrived. No one had seen anything to report on. Jim and I did find one empty coke bottle worth three cents so it wasn't a complete waste of our time.

Martha had figured out where we went wrong. "Weren't Samantha and Sammy both killed after dark? What are we doing spying around in the middle of the day? You all know we can't stay out all night, even in the summer, waiting around for something else to happen."

Jim followed up. "Well, what can we do about all of this murderin' going on? It's pretty scary."

Nancy agreed, "It's real scary. You two better keep Chip in at night."

Billy nodded yes, then added, "I guess there's nothing much more we can do."

I replied, "Maybe that's the end of it . . . could be."

Linda whispered, "I hope so."

Everything soon felt normal again as June gave way to July. Billy was back to his usual madness, planning to scare David, the Elliott's grandson. As expected, I was his accomplice. David was a couple of years younger than me but very big for his age. So big in fact that he thought he could fit into our group. He had to find out the hard way, with three boys and three girls included, our little pack of six rascals was already plenty big enough.

Working at the military reservation as an electrician, Uncle E.E. had access to a fair amount of military surplus gear. After he brought home an old used army flashlight, Billy soon thought of a way to put it to use in his scheme to scare David away from our club. The flashlight came with three separate lens covers: red, green and yellow, used when signaling someone. Billy believed the green lens cover created an eerie glow and I did, too. All he needed now was a dry cleaning bag and the dark of night.

That night, around a quarter past eight, I convinced David it might be fun to catch "lightning bugs" down at the edge of the field. I brought along an old pickle jar with a few nail holes in the lid and we set off in that direction. Billy was already hiding nearby behind the old chicken shed. He slid the flimsy dry cleaning bag over his head but it only went down to his knees. This worked out well enough because the field hadn't been mowed for the past couple of months, so the grass and weeds were more than knee high.

I watched as Billy slowly appeared at the edge of the field. "David, did you hear something down there?"

"Where?" I pointed in the direction of Billy who was now walking very slowly across the length of the field. Now, at least a mite suspicious, if not downright afraid, David reacted. "What's that?!"

"Don't ask me, David. I'm not sure I see anything. It's so dark." All of a sudden Billy flashed on the green light for a split second.

"You saw that light didn't you?"

"David, there's lightning bugs flyin' all around here, you know."

One more flash of green light, then Billy walked quickly to the far corner of the field. The muted green light was partly reflected back by the dry cleaning bag for a ghostly effect. I wished Billy could have seen what it looked like from where we were, for even I was a little afraid at the moment. David just froze there and couldn't say a word.

I guess Billy thought it was time to move in for the kill because he now left the flashlight on and reversed directions, heading back straight towards me and David. A mysterious green glow coming from beneath a dry cleaning bag fluttering in the wind and coming our way, well, that was enough—David was gone. I mean when I turned around he was nowhere in sight.

I suppose Billy and I knew what was coming and coming real soon. So here comes David, hand in hand with his dad, and nobody stood up to that man.

"Billy, what are you and Johnny doing trying to scare David like that?"

"I don't know, just having a little fun I guess."

"Billy, I knew it was you all along," David said, though every word was a lie. That boy had never run so fast in his entire life.

"Well, Billy I'm going to have to talk to your dad about this." And he did, and it accomplished what we set out to do all along. David was told to stay away from Billy and Billy was told he had to keep away from David. All in all, a smashing success.

It was the 4th of July and it was time for a parade. The rascals had held our own parade for as long as I could remember, but Martha and Billy would be thirteen in a few weeks and the rest of us knew they were losing interest in our annual celebration. But they agreed, one more time.

Billy, as always, was the lead unit, his 26 inch Schwinn all washed and decorated with red, white and blue streamers hanging from the handle bar grips. Martha reluctantly rode her old military green bicycle fitted with fat balloon tires; the army must have used them as an all-terrain vehicle. I think Uncle E.E. picked it up for next to nothing at the army surplus depot. Linda, Nancy and I didn't have a bicycle so we walked along following Martha on her WWII bike. Linda waved an American flag, Nancy carried a bouquet of flowers and I banged away on a small, all metal drum. It didn't have a strap so I had to get by holding it up with a string around my neck. It had the musical resonance of an empty paint can. Ann was away somewhere riding her 24 inch Schwinn, so Jim was stuck bringing up the rear pedaling his old tricycle.

We eventually had our own bicycle, if only one, by winning the Christmas raffle at Taylor's market a couple of years later. It was unfortunately, for my sake, a girl's model, but it was a full-size 26 inch Murray and that's what mattered most. I could put up with a little teasing from the guys about riding a "girl's bike" as long as I could keep air in the tires and keep pedaling. Having your own bicycle brought a boy a real sense of independence.

We had paraded up and down the sidewalk a couple of times when around the corner came Frankie Edwards traveling faster than we could only dream about. He slowed down and finally stopped when he saw us. Frankie wasn't riding on an ol' Murray or Schwinn, with wide tires and a coaster brake. No, he was sitting on a 3-speed English racer, with racing tires and hand brakes, and, boy, it was something special. For a kid, it was the next best thing to having an actual moped.

As always, Frankie's Ka-Bar was hanging from his belt. "Bet you wished you had one, don't you?"

None of us said a word. He drew the knife out of the sheath and started waving it around like he was bushwacking a path thru a jungle. "My dad used this fighting in France and Korea. He died fighting in Inchon. That's in Korea." By now we knew the story almost as well as Frankie. "He was a hero. That's why they saved his Ka-Bar and the general brought it back home and gave it to my mom and me." That was the first time we had ever heard about an actual general hand delivering the knife to someone who lived on Greenwood Court.

"Well, if you kids don't want me to lead your little parade, I've got better things to do. Hey, Billy, nice bike you got there. Ha! Who'd you steal it from, your own grandmama?"

It was just like Frankie Edwards trying to ruin our parade. We lined up again and made another trip or two down Stafford, this time with a little applause from some of the grownups sitting out on their porches. I didn't know if they were really clapping because they enjoyed our little humble procession, or they were simply celebrating the fact that Frankie was gone.

Around six o'clock we gathered for our annual 4th of July get together back of Aunt Mai's house. Card tables and lawn chairs were brought out for this summer banquet. Mama made fried chicken and brought a gallon of her ice tea, tea that could have been bottled and sold at the store. She made it strong but added plenty of extra sugar for all of us grandkids. Aunt Mai brought out a couple dozen of her stuffed deviled eggs and Uncle E.E. made the potato salad. Mother usually baked a chess pie and a pecan pie. And I had a hand, or arm, helping with my favorite part of the meal, home-made peach ice cream, another one of Mama's specialties.

Billy always seemed to disappear about the time the cranking started. Ice and rock salt were added around the canister containing the cream and the churning began when I started cranking the lever. Uncle E.E. might get the process started, but after all of twenty seconds, it was up to me. Someone would say, "better add some more ice," the next one walking by, "better add some more rock salt." "Keep at it, another half hour and it ought to be frozen." And if it wasn't frozen hard enough, I knew who would suffer all the blame. It would take the better part of an hour before Mama would lift the lid off the canister and give her approval. "Now pick up all of those towels and cover it best you can to keep it frozen." Mama's fried chicken, Aunt Mai's deviled eggs and my peach ice cream─a meal fit for a king.

After the ice cream was gone, Uncle E.E. would always bring out a cold watermelon and Billy and Nancy would compete to see who could eat the most slices. They would go hard and fast, spitting out seeds left and right, Nancy doing her best to keep pace with her older cousin. The juice from the pulp would be all over their faces and hands and pretty much everywhere else. Nobody wanted to get near them the rest of the night. If Aunt Mai hadn't stopped Uncle E.E., he would have sprayed them off with a hose pipe. "Elbert, don't you dare! Martha run over there and turn that spigot off before your daddy gets all of us soaking wet."

After the table was finally cleared off and the ladies turned to washing all of the dishes, it was time for the kids to play croquet, along with Uncle E.E. The wire wickets and wooden stakes had already been set in place. After we tired of playing badminton for a few weeks, it became croquet season, usually beginning on July 4th.

Once we started, everyone waited to see who Uncle E.E. would demolish first. To say he played aggressively was to be polite. No sooner did he select a wooden mallet when we would see Dr. Jekyll transform into our very own Mr. Hyde. If his ball ever struck yours, say goodnight, because it was all over. He would place his ball next to yours and strike it with such force that it would have alarmed all the neighbors within a two block radius, except being on the 4th, everyone was accustomed to hearing such a loud report after dark. One after another, our ball would be driven out of bounds beyond the reach of the spotlights. Ol' Mr. Hyde came along and struck Nancy's ball so hard she never could find it in the dark. Billy came upon it two days later when he started mowing the grass.

Luckily, croquet with Uncle E.E. wasn't the finale of the night, after all it was the 4th of July. Billy was old enough to mow yards and spent pretty much all his earnings up to that point on fireworks, especially Dixie Boy and Black Cat firecrackers, enough to last us until, at least, New Year's Eve. A pack of sixteen Dixie Boy firecrackers only cost a nickel and seemed like a real bargain, but at least one in every pack would be missing a fuse and a couple of others would be missing gunpowder. Some things in life never change; you usually get what you pay for.

The women folk, including the girls, didn't care much for firecrackers, so Billy had to soon bring out the bottle rockets, followed by roman candles. Uncle E.E. would usually spring for a couple of large fountains, shooting out a huge shower of multicolored sparks. All of us yelled and clapped in approval, and we never wanted it to end. For summer always seemed to be heading downhill after the 4th passed. I tried to ignore the feeling but I couldn't deny it was there. For our gang, the 4th was always like Christmas in July.

# Gathering Clouds

Not much happened over the next few days, though Billy did find a way to stop an entire funeral procession passing down Greenwood on its way to the cemetery about a mile away. Somehow he got his hands on an old brass siren like the type mounted on top of a police car or fire truck. Uncle E.E. once drove an ambulance back in Massachusetts where he was raised; perhaps that's where it came from. Well, a police siren needs a power source, so Billy removed the transformer from his old Lionel train set. He wired it to the siren, plugged the transformer into an outlet and we were ready for mischief.

Mama had a wonderful front porch for watching the world go by. The porch had sides and a partial front made of columns of brick, with large arborvitae shrubs along the front bordering the sidewalk that led to the street. We ducked down behind the wide brick posts near the shrubbery and patiently waited for something of interest to come along.

What's more interesting to a couple of rascals with a workable siren than a funeral procession? Billy set the siren on top of the brick post and pointed it towards the street.

"Switch on the transformer, all the way!"

"Okay," said his usual accomplice.

It took a second or two for the old siren to warm up, but it got really loud, and then even louder. The black hearse was almost past us when it pulled over to the curb and stopped. As if playing follow the leader, the whole line of cars began to pull over, one at a time. As was customary, the cars coming along from the opposite direction were pulling over as well out of respect for the dearly departed. We had stopped the entire flow of traffic along Greenwood by flipping a single switch.

"Turn it off! Turn it off! And keep your head down or someone might see us."

"Okay, I got it."

About this time, Mama opened the front door and looked out at two lines of stopped cars. "I thought I heard a siren out front."

Without thinking I replied, "You did, there was a siren out here."

"Was it a police car or an ambulance? Oh well, it's gone now."

Mama turned and closed the door, none the wiser. The hearse driver waited a few seconds more, then slowly pulled away, none the wiser as well.

"That was close, a little too close if you know what I mean."

"Well, it was all your idea," I replied, and Billy had plenty more, for sure.

Billy and I never really felt guilty for stopping the funeral procession. That fellow in the back of the hearse sure wasn't in any position to complain and the folks in the cars following behind weren't going to say they were in a hurry to get that poor guy in the ground and covered up, at least they couldn't say so in public, or as witnesses in a court of law if Billy and I had been arrested for impeding the forward progress of a funeral procession that was only moving at four miles per hour before we turned the siren on. No guilt at all, well, not enough to keep a boy awake at night.

Less than a week later, Remy Lind strolled by the house. I couldn't remember the last time he had passed since he seldom did during summer. He was wearing his usual bus driver's cap but he didn't have his leather satchel strapped over his shoulder as he always did during the school year. I was standing at the edge of the porch when I shouted, "Where's your mailbag, Remy? Can't deliver the mail without your mailbag."

Something seemed to snap inside Remy. He started to run towards me yelling, "I'm going to get you! I'm going to get you!"

I reacted as any other kid would─I took off running down the driveway between my house and Aunt Mai's. But Remy never stopped. He kept running after me and I kept running as fast as I could go. I didn't know what was happening. My philosophy was the same as for most rascals: when in doubt, run and keep running until the danger is out of sight.

I cut thru Aunt Mai's backyard, across their drive way, over into Jim's yard and around the tall privet hedge. But Remy was five or six years older than me and I couldn't get away. I was half way thru Jed Wheeler's backyard when Remy caught me and pushed me to the ground. He then jumped on top of me and pinned my shoulders down. I began to shout, "Stop it . . . get off me . . . Stop it!"

Remy stuck his hand inside my pants and grabbed my "private parts," the expression most used in those more innocent days. Now I really knew something was wrong. I started to scream and kick as if my life depended on it. Remy's face quickly turned a scarlet red. He stopped, then stood up and slowly walked away, never turning back to look my way or say a single word.

I stood up and looked around but there wasn't a soul in sight. I still didn't know what had happened, or why. All of us thought the boy was a mite peculiar, but no one could have seen that coming. During the early 60s, kids didn't know of, much less talk about, homosexual behavior. All I knew was what Remy did was wrong and I would never have anything to do with him again.

Perhaps it seems strange that I didn't tell anyone about this incident. Jim was a year younger than me and wouldn't have understood anymore than I did. Of course, Billy and Uncle E.E. were there if I needed help, but I was mostly just embarrassed by it all, too embarrassed to want to sit down and talk about it. This might be difficult to believe, but I just let it go. The actual molesting lasted four, maybe five, seconds, then it was over. I certainly wasn't physically harmed, in need of medical attention, and I wasn't psychologically crippled by what happened.

Often in life we need to take a single step forward and move on. Letting go may be the most neglected part of life. I unclenched my fists and refused to be hobbled by holding on to what happened. There was still half a summer ahead of me and I wanted to savor every moment, and I did.

This I have learned, perhaps you already know, dismiss the moments which offend your soul . . . let it go.

# And Then It Poured

As expected, Remy Lind was nowhere to be seen on Stafford St. for the next several days. Not that I missed seeing him, for sure. But Billy and Jim and I saw him again soon enough, well, sort of.

The following Friday, Billy found Jim and me sitting on the front porch trading baseball cards. As always, he woke up two hours later than the rest of us.

"I stepped out to the sidewalk last night, must have been around eleven o'clock, trying to get Chip back inside when I looked down the street and there was a car slowing down in front of the Hodges' place. Let's go check it out and see if everything looks alright."

Jim and I had reached an impasse in our morning negotiations of trading his Clete Boyer card for my Ken Boyer, so we agreed to come along.

Just when you least expect it, the world turns upside down and you can't do anything but watch and wait and see what happens next. We no sooner reached the sidewalk leading to the Hodges' porch, when I glanced down and saw what looked like blood.

"Jim, is your nose bleeding?"

"No. Why'd you ask that?"

"Look here. What does that look like?"

Billy looked down and answered, "You know that's blood, real blood. Follow those drops and see where they go."

Jim reached down and rubbed his finger over the drops and then held it to his nose. "Smells like real blood to me."

The trail of blood led to the corner of the front porch, then disappeared. Nothing more until I spotted some drops a half-dozen steps farther down along the edge of the driveway. The splatter of blood led to the side porch and up the steps.

Jim questioned, "Billy, do you think another dog's been killed?" Sammy was still on his mind and rightly so.

"Can't say yet, just keep looking around."

Well, I kept looking around and stopped to look into the side bedroom window. "Hey, someone's in there, lying on the floor!"

Billy replied, "Who is it, anybody from around here?"

"I can't tell from here. His face is turned the other way."

"Let me see."

"Me, too."

Billy and Jim slowly approached the window, looked at each other, then gazed inside. Something else had entered the picture that I hadn't seen a minute earlier. A large rat was now crawling over the body, a body, Billy said, "of a boy about my size."

This wasn't the first time we had known of such rats running around in the old Hodges' house. In fact Miss Hodges had told Miss Sotheby the winter before, she woke up during the night and while walking down the hallway to the bathroom almost tripped and broke her neck. She turned the hall light on thinking she had stepped on her little chihuahua and found out it wasn't Ray after all. It was a big rat the size of a young 'possum. Miss Sotheby said that most folks around there believed the Hodges moved because they wanted a place out in the country, but Miss Hodges hinted to her otherwise, that you couldn't find a trap big enough to catch the rats living under her floorboards.

"Is he moving?" I asked.

"Not that I can tell."

Jim agreed, "He ain't moving a bit."

Billy pulled out his G.I. stainless steel pocket knife and opened the main blade. "We've got to get in there and see if he's still alive." He slipped the blade under the bottom of the window to try and jimmy it open.

I motioned to Jim who was standing closest to the side door, "See if it's locked." Jim, hesitatingly, tried the knob and it turned—it was open.

"Billy, the door's open. Wait Jim. Let Billy go in first, just in case."

"What do you mean?"

"That rat might run out when he sees us and bite somebody."

"I better grab a stick before we go in."

"I'm going to get one, too, a big one, just in case."

Billy waited for Jim and me to break off a couple of small limbs from an old box elder growing near the back corner of the house. "We're ready now. You go ahead first."

Billy slowly entered the doorway and almost tripped going in. We had forgotten one had to step up almost ten inches above the threshold to go inside. Everything about the old Hodges' place felt wrong. Jim and I followed Billy thru the narrow hallway to the open door of the bedroom on the east side of the house.

I said to Jim, "Have your stick ready. That rat might run out any second now."

"Ready or not."

Billy, noticing how anxious we were, said, "You two stay here for a minute while I go inside."

But Jim and I weren't going to wait in that dark, spooky looking hallway by ourselves, even if we were heavily armed with tree limbs. We waited at the doorway while Billy bent down and touched the side of the boy's neck.

"He's still warm, warm enough to be alive."

There were large splatters of blood all over the floor. Billy stepped over the body and knelt down, turning the head slightly to the left. He quickly stood up, the color drained from his face, visibly shaken by what he saw.

"It's Remy Lind. We gotta get out of here, fast!"

And we did, a lot faster than when we walked in two minutes before.

We all ran to Billy's house and he and I went inside. Jim heard Chip barking from inside and decided it might be safer for him to wait out on the front porch. Aunt Mai had to keep Chip inside every morning until around 11 o'clock, after the mailman made his delivery, Chip having little respect for a man in a uniform. Aunt Mai and Mama had tuned into their favorite soap opera, but this morning watching such romantic betrayals would have to be postponed. Billy ran across the living room and turned the volume down.

"Mommy, something happened over at the Hodges' place." Of course all the grownups around there had heard such stories before from all of us. "Remy Lind, he's lying over there on the bedroom floor. If he ain't dead, he's not far from it. There's blood all over the place."

"Johnny, did you see it, too?"

"Yes, ma'am, and so did Jim."

Aunt Mai, now nervous as she could be, asked Mama, "Mom, do I call the police first or the ambulance?"

"I think you better call the police and let them take care of the rest."

Billy added, "And tell them to send a medic out with the ambulance. That ambulance driver won't know what to do when he gets here."

Billy said it took four minutes for the police car to show up. It was Chief Vaden and his deputy. We knew the chief and he remembered us. Once or twice a year, Chief Vaden would drive by whenever we got a little carried away shooting off too many firecrackers. We never needed a good reason to do so, but, legally speaking, a boy was only allowed to do so on New Year's Eve and the 4th of July. He'd pull up along the sidewalk and roll down the window and nod his head in the direction of Miss Sotheby's.

"One of your neighbors called in to report some boys shooting off firecrackers and disturbing the peace around here. If you see some boys doing that, I'd appreciate it if you would tell them to stop before they get into trouble. Could you do that for me?"

"Yes, sir, we'd be glad to do it. Thanks, Chief."

When the police showed up, Jim and I always let Billy do all of the talking.

"The dispatcher called me on the radio and said some boys found a body in a vacant house on Stafford. I guess this is the house and you boys found the body."

Billy spoke up. "Yes, sir, all three of us, about a quarter past ten. You better go inside fast. I think he might still be alive."

"Alive? I thought it was a dead body."

"It might be by now. We haven't been back inside since we left."

I had to say something. "Where's the ambulance and the medic?"

"That's a good question, son."

The ambulance arrived two minutes later, exactly two minutes according to Billy. Billy now led everyone back to the side porch. "Chief, you can go in thru that door. It's open. He's in the first bedroom on the left."

"Thanks. Now you boys wait out here."

Then Jim just had to say, "Watch out for the rat!"

"For the what?"

"There's big rats in there, Chief. We saw 'em."

Billy replied, "Don't pay him any attention. He's just kidding."

"No I'm not. You saw it, too!"

The chief shook his head and entered the house. Jim and I stared at each other, then both of us at Billy. The ambulance driver carried in a stretcher. Dead or alive, we would find out soon enough. Less than a minute later, the driver and the chief's deputy carried the stretcher outside with Remy on it, still motionless and not making a sound. He had been stabbed in the stomach, more than once, and his shirt and pants were drenched in blood.

"You men stop here for a second. Boys, do any of you know who this is?"

We looked again at Remy and Jim quickly stepped back a few feet. The right side of his face was turned towards us for the first time. Whoever had stabbed Remy had also taken the time to carve a large X on his right cheek. "Just for meanness," as Billy would say later; more meanness than we had ever seen in our young lives. Jim had good reason to want to step back away from it all.

I answered the chief, "Yes, sir, that's Remy, Remy Lind. Lives down around the corner on Gracey."

"When was the last time you boys saw him?"

We couldn't say for sure, and I personally wasn't going to say anything about the incident from a week and a half before. I may have despised Remy Lind but even I didn't want anything as gruesome as this to happen.

"Well, boys, thanks for helping out. They've got to get him to the hospital while he still has a pulse. In the meantime, keep that side door shut. We'll be back after awhile. You boys better head back home."

Not knowing anything else we could do at the moment, we went along with what the chief said and headed home. We then decided to split up. Jim would tell his mom and Ann what we knew, while Billy and I would tell Aunt Mai and Mama and the girls. Mother, Uncle E.E. and Nick were all at work and would have to find out later. Billy and I walked back into his living room for the second time that morning. We had stopped at my home, but Linda and Nancy were nowhere in sight.

"Where's Martha?"

Aunt Mai replied, "She and the girls are out back."

Billy and I walked thru the house and out the back door. Martha and Linda were trying to teach Nancy how to hula-hoop, and it wasn't going well at all. But that was to be expected, as Nancy was never much of a student until she was a sophomore in high school.

"Martha, ya'll come in. It's important."

Billy loved bossing Martha around and this time, at least, he had good reason to. The girls hadn't seen this expression of worry on our faces since the night Jim and Ann told us about Sammy being killed.

All of us walked back thru the house into the living room where Aunt Mai and Mama were anxiously waiting. We sat down, some of us on the floor.

"Alright, Billy, Mom and I have been waiting for you to say something."

Billy was sitting alone on the piano bench, but decided to stand up in the middle of the room. "I guess all of you heard the police siren go by and Chief Vaden's car stop in front of the Hodges' place."

Linda replied, "We heard a siren go by a little while ago but we didn't know they stopped out front."

"Well, they did, and so did an ambulance but it didn't have a siren on. Johnny and Jim and I walked inside the house with Chief Vaden and showed him where to find the body." Not exactly how it happened but close enough to the truth.

Martha shouted, "What body?! What are you talking about, Billy?"

Aunt Mai had decided not to tell the girls about it until the police came out and looked into the matter. "Girls, I didn't say anything earlier because I didn't want to scare you, but the boys found Remy Lind's body lying on the bedroom floor at the old Hodges' house."

Nancy replied, "You mean skinny Remy? What was he doing over there in the first place?"

I answered, "Nancy, nobody knows why he was there, except he was stabbed real good and bleeding all over the place and we found him about dead on the bedroom floor, must be an hour ago."

Aunt Mai followed up. "Johnny, do you know for sure that he's still living?"

"Chief said he had a pulse and they were taking him to the hospital. No mention of dropping him off at the funeral home, not yet anyway."

Mama looked up at the ceiling. "Heaven help us."

Billy and I had gotten over most of the shock by now, but the girls were dumbstruck by all of this madness. Linda started to visibly shake. Aunt Mai told Martha, "Take her back to your bedroom and let her lie down, and bring her a glass of water." Linda had always been the most tender hearted of the rascals. We all cared; she just cared a little more.

Billy and I said we were going to check on Jim, so we walked out the front door, across the driveway, up the front porch steps and knocked. Ann came to the door. "Mom wants Jim to stay indoors the rest of the day until Daddy comes home from work. So it's really true? I stood out on the porch and watched the ambulance drive away."

Billy replied, "Remy can't have much blood left 'cause most of it's on the sidewalk, the front porch, the driveway, the side porch and the steps up to the side porch, the hallway, the bedroom floor and all over his jeans and tee shirt. That boy's lucky to be alive."

Ann said what we were all thinking. "Who around here would want to kill that boy, and why?"

"I don't know, Ann, but the chief told Johnny and me they would be back later today and investigate some more. I guess that's all we know for now."

I told Ann, "Tell Jim we came by to see him."

"I think he already knows." Ann nodded toward the window where Jim was looking out.

I suppose Aunt Mai and Mama could have ordered Billy and me to stay inside the rest of the day but they knew all too well it would have been a losing battle. We sat out on the front porch and waited, though we didn't know exactly what we were waiting for, but that's all we could do.

It seemed like we waited all day for the chief to return, but it probably wasn't much more than an hour. We kept running out of things to say, suffering thru long moments of silence. I had just about decided to tell Billy about what happened that day with Remy Lind, but in the nick of time, two police cars pulled into the driveway next to the Hodges' place, red lights flashing but no siren this time. Billy and I jumped up and took off running in that direction. I think we were there before the chief stepped out of his patrol car.

"You boys must have decided to move in here while it's still vacant."

"No, sir, but I live next door and Billy lives in the house next door to me. We're first cousins."

"Where's your partner? Wasn't there three of you this morning?"

"Yes, sir, but Jim's got to stay close to home for awhile."

"Might be a good idea to take the afternoon off," Chief concluded. But Billy and I weren't taking a hint, not that day, nor the next one. After all, we were there first. I was hoping we wouldn't have to remind the chief about that.

"Now, boys, we have some official police work to do around here. I brought along one of our detectives who specializes in investigating crime scenes like this one. You can hang around here if you promise to stay quiet and out of the way."

Billy inquired, "Chief, what do you mean out of the way?"

"I mean you need to stay outside as long as we're here."

I had one more question. "How's Remy doing?"

"Who?"

"Remy, the boy your men carried away on a stretcher."

"Oh, the Lind boy. He's at the hospital undergoing surgery about now. He'll likely be there for awhile, maybe a long while."

The chief, his deputy, and the detective proceeded to examine the driveway from the street back to the steps leading up to the side porch. Then they studied the porch even more carefully. The detective spotted something of interest because he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a magnifying glass to get a closer look. Billy wasn't impressed with this detective at all and I was having my doubts, too.

"Did you see how small that magnifying glass was, probably six or eight power. Mine's bigger than that, a ten power, and I'm not even a detective."

The detective then reached into his small satchel and pulled out a pocket knife and a test tube with a cork stopper. He knelt down and scrapped off the floor what we assumed was dried blood and placed the sample in the test tube.

Billy still wasn't impressed. "I have larger test tubes than he does in my chemistry set. And I bet my G.I. pocket knife that Daddy gave me cost more than that knife he's using. Probably bought it downtown at Woolworth's, and I bet it was made in Japan."

I agreed, "I bet the real Sherlock Holmes would have this all figured out before dark."

"Yeah, Johnny, but he ain't Sherlock Holmes."

"For sure."

The three of them walked inside. Billy and I really wanted to look thru the bedroom window to see what was going on, especially to keep an eye on that detective, but we stayed outside along the edge of the driveway out of respect for the chief. It seemed as if Billy and I had spent most of the afternoon hanging around and waiting on someone. And we certainly weren't very good at it.

We could hear the men's footsteps going from room to room, something we never had the chance to do. It was now late in the afternoon and the shadow from the old silver maple in our yard next door completely covered the Hodges' place. The chief and his men came outside onto the side porch where it was lighter.

"It's good that we finished when we did because it's getting a little too dark in there to see much. There's no electricity on in this empty house and I never liked trying to do police work using a flashlight. You never know when you might run into a rat or two." The chief looked our way and winked. It was the first time Billy and I had smiled all day.

The chief and the other men were heading to their cars when Uncle E.E. walked up. "Chief, I've been hearing that you've had a busy day over here."

"Hello, Elbert. It's been a while since I bumped into you. You're right; we've had quite a day. We're just about ready to leave now. I thought I'd turn down Gracey and stop by and see how that poor boy's parents are holding up, but I assume they'll stay at the hospital all night. The doctor we talked with in the emergency room said it could be a long night for that family. If the Lind boy survived surgery, he would likely be in the intensive care unit for several days."

Uncle E.E. pulled the chief aside and spoke with him for a couple of minutes. The chief then headed back to his car but stopped and turned again towards Uncle E.E.

"Elbert, these two boys probably saved a life today. If they hadn't found him this morning, I doubt that boy would have survived another night. No telling how long it would have been until someone else bothered to look inside that back window. You never know, do you? Take care of these boys, Elbert."

"We'll do it, Chief."

We watched the two police cars drive off and slowly walked down the sidewalk towards home. Stopping in front of my house, Uncle E.E. said, "Johnny, it looks like your mom's home now. I'm sure she'll want to know you're okay."

"I'm sure she will."

I took a deep breath and then opened the front door knowing I would have to tell the whole story again to Mother, with Linda and Nancy listening to every word as well. It had already been a long day, the longest one I could remember, a day full of darkness, like no other. Billy and I assumed we could handle any sort of madness, all of the rascals did, as long as we lived there, surrounded by the laughter and love of our family and friends. I wasn't worrying much about it; after all, I was already seven and a half years old, not seven, seven and a half.

The next morning being a Saturday, Mother said Uncle E.E. had called and asked her to come to their house at ten o'clock, along with Jim's dad. When the grownups assembled for their meeting in Aunt Mai's kitchen, they didn't want any of us hanging around. Billy and Martha were told to go outside and they did as they were told, well, sort of.

Martha agreed to sneak back inside and listen from down the hallway less than ten feet away. If she were caught she planned on saying she had to come back in to use the bathroom. A girl could get away with such a tale, a boy not so easily, as he would be expected to step behind a tree or one of the privet hedges, if it was necessary. Martha listened to what everyone was saying, about ten minutes worth, and when she heard all of them starting to get up from the kitchen table, she quickly ducked into the bathroom and flushed the toilet. She then walked thru the living room and out the front door without saying a word, smiling as if she had just robbed the First National Bank in broad daylight without anyone knowing what happened.

After Mother walked back to our house and went inside, we agreed we should discuss what Martha found out but we needed to move our meeting back to the old tool shed so we wouldn't have to whisper as much. The grownups always became a little suspicious when they saw all of us standing around and whispering, and, though I'm reluctant to admit it, they usually had good reason for those suspicions.

When we reached the shed, Billy started to light one of the lanterns as was customary, but Martha begged, "Billy, it's too hot for that. Just leave the door open." I agreed to stand by the open door and watch for anyone approaching.

Billy started the meeting. "Alright, Martha, what did they have to say that was so important?"

"They're just worried about us, a little more than usual. I guess we can't blame them for that, with Remy all cut up and still in the hospital. Mommy said she called the hospital early this morning and was told he made it thru the surgery but needed quite a few transfusions because he was running low on blood."

Billy added, "I bet he needed two quarts, maybe even three."

Jim exclaimed, "They made Remy drink two quarts of blood! I bet that's almost as bad as castor oil. It might be worse."

Nancy, shaking her head, replied, "Jim, they don't make you drink any blood. They put it all in your veins. Haven't you watched any of those doctor shows on TV?"

Billy interrupted the medical discussion. "What else, Martha?"

"The hospital said Remy wouldn't be coming home for a long time."

"Anything else?"

"A couple of things. Chief Vaden told daddy before he left yesterday that he and his deputy would be back this afternoon to talk to everyone on our street. He said he was going to start at Taylor's store and go all the way down to the corner where Miss Maggie lives, then switch over to the other side of the street and talk to all of them. If they don't finish today, they'll come back tomorrow after church."

"Is that all?"

"Billy, I said there were two things. All of that only counts as one."

"Alright, Martha, go ahead if you think you can remember it all."

Martha rolled her eyes and continued. "Mommy and Daddy want us to be inside every night by seven o'clock. Aunt Gi and Jim's dad agreed. Mama said, "Do you really think that will work, knowing how hard it already is to get the children in by nine o'clock?" Daddy said they didn't really have any other choice, "with someone running around here stabbing cats and dogs and now people."

"Is that all Martha?"

"That's everything."

Linda questioned Martha, "Do you think we can still sit out on the front porch after dark and play Rook or Monopoly?"

"They didn't say anything about that. We might have to do some begging."

Billy then took over. "Well, Linda, we can cross Remy Lind off the list of suspects we came up with the last time we had a meeting. Now that only leaves Jed and Frankie Edwards."

Of course, Jim had to add, "Don't forget that ol' Whislin' Codger. I saw him two days ago. It might be him."

Linda replied, "You're right, Jim. We forgot all about him."

Listening from the doorway, I remarked, "I'd like to check that big Ka-Bar Frankie has to see if it has any blood on it."

Billy agreed, "Yeah, I would, too. There's one more thing we didn't tell the grownups yesterday but the chief knows about it. Whoever stabbed Remy took time to carve a large X on the right side of his face. Scarred him for life I imagine."

"Sounds like The Scarlet Letter to me," Martha replied. She was the only one who had read Hawthorne's novel, so no one else had any idea what she was talking about.

By the time we locked up the shed and made it back to Aunt Mai's house, the chief was standing on the front porch and speaking with Uncle E.E. and Nick. Chief Vaden motioned for us to come over to the porch.

"I know I spoke with you boys yesterday, but I want to ask all of you about anything you might have seen out of the ordinary late Thursday night or early Friday morning. I imagine little goes on around here without at least one of you knowing about it. So, did anyone see anything strange?"

Only Billy had something to say. "I was outside on the sidewalk around eleven o'clock Thursday night trying to get our dog, Chip, inside when I saw a car slow down in front of the Hodges' place, but I think they saw me because they never really stopped."

"Do you know what kind of car it was, maybe what color?"

"It was a black and white Chevy Impala but I can't say for sure if it was a '59 or '60."

I knew it was gnawing at Billy to admit that because the last car Papa owned was a '59 Impala and Billy pretty much knew every make and model made since he was born in 1949.

"Sorry, Chief, I guess I wasn't paying much attention since we've seen that sort of thing going on over there since the Hodges moved out a year ago."

"Is that right? Well, every bit of information could help. I might post a deputy over there for the next night or two. Let him stay hidden inside and see if anything happens."

Again, Jim just had to say, "Chief, remember to tell that deputy there's big rats over there, big as a young 'possum."

"I'll tell him to keep his revolver loaded, just in case."

Nick shook his head, then added, "Thanks Chief. We appreciate what you're doing."

"You folks have a good evening, and thanks for your help."

Sunday was quiet, as all Sundays were in those days. But a boy shouldn't expect Monday morning to be like Sunday morning and this one wasn't, for sure.

It was the last week of July, and it was still as hot as the first week. Hot and humid, and I was restless, too restless to sleep. I must have walked out onto the sidewalk no later than half past six. Most of the grownups were just beginning to stir about and wouldn't leave for work for another half hour or more. Nothing was moving about this early, except ol' Tom, our orange tomcat, but he'd been out all night and was just coming home. The katydids were buzzing about in the big silver maple and there was a robin and a couple of cardinals managing to get in a chorus or two before it became too sizzling to sing. I always enjoyed being out this early, by myself, watching and listening to the rest of the world. The stillness never lasted for long, certainly not long enough that morning.

Rounding the corner on his bike was Frankie Edwards, the last person I was expecting to see.

"Hey, Johnny. I guess we're the only guys out this early."

"Yeah, I couldn't sleep any longer."

"Almost too hot to sleep this time of year."

"Did you hear what happened to Remy Lind over there at the Hodges' place?"

"Yeah, one of the neighbors over here on Stafford called my mom Saturday and told her what happened and about the police coming around and asking everybody a bunch of questions. They didn't come by our street, though I stayed away most of the time anyway."

"Where did you go?"

"I hung around over at Jed's most of Saturday and down at the swimming pool yesterday. Can you guess why I try not to be around when the police show up?"

I really didn't want to say what I was thinking at that exact moment, so I simply said, "Why is that?"

"I'm afraid one of them cops someday will try to take my dad's Ka-Bar away from me. You know, Johnny, that's all I really have left of my father. He was killed in the war when I was only three and a half. How old were you when your dad left?"

"I was only two and a half, but I can't really remember back then."

"Do you have anything he left you, like this Ka-Bar I have?"

"Well, he sent me a baseball bat and glove back when the ball season was starting up last year."

"I'd say that's something. You got your bat and glove and I have my dad's Ka-Bar. Guess that's better than nothing. Remember, Johnny, there's some boys that got nothing."

I never asked him this before, but if I ever was, this was the time. "Frankie, how about letting me see your Ka-Bar."

He looked away for what seemed like half a minute. "I've never let anyone hold my dad's knife. That's the truth. But I guess there's got to be a first time for everything."

He unsheathed the knife and handed it to me, handle first. I liked the feel of the leather grip; it made it seem real special. I had to remind myself why I wanted to hold the knife in the first place. I held it up to the sky and slowly looked along each side of the long blade, twice over. There wasn't a speck of blood anywhere on that knife.

"Thanks, Frankie. That's really a great knife. If you ever need a bat or glove, you can borrow mine."

"I'll try to remember that. Well, I better take off. I'll see you later, Johnny."

"See you, Frankie.

Frankie pedaled no more than twice, stopped, then turned around and came back to where I was standing in the middle of the street. He hesitated for a few seconds before saying, "I saw what Remy tried to do to you a couple of weeks back. I was heading over to Jed's when I heard some yelling coming from his back yard. I ran and looked thru that old hedge and saw him on top of you, but he stopped and walked away before I could do anything. You stood up and seemed to be alright so I stayed behind the hedge and I guess you never saw me watching you."

"I didn't know what was happening. I looked around after Remy left but I didn't see anybody."

"I walked back to the front of Jed's house and he was in the garage with the front door open, but he said he didn't hear anything. He was the only one I ever told about what I saw happen to you. I should have chased that Remy down and given him a good beating. No older boy should ever do that to a kid your age. Sorry all that happened. Now, I want you to remember this."

"Remember what?"

"It's going to be a long time before Remy Lind does that to anyone else around here. If you ask me, he got what he deserved. Someday when I buy a motorcycle I might let you have this 3-speed racer. I guess you'd like that wouldn't you?"

"Thanks, Frankie."

Frankie looked at me for a second and then quickly disappeared; just what an English racer was made for. The silence and the stillness were quickly disappearing, too. I was still standing in the middle of the street and had to do something, but I didn't know what to do.

I was sitting on the curb when Nick pulled out of his driveway. Jim's dad worked in Nashville so he left earlier than most folks. About ten minutes later, Jim walked out and saw me looking his way. He sat down beside me and I told him about seeing Frankie. Jim wanted to know what we talked about, but I said, "Wait till Billy wakes up and I'll tell the both of you."

We knew Billy would be a late riser, so we got our ball and gloves and pitched around for what seemed like half the morning. Billy eventually walked out onto the front porch and before I could say a word, Jim ran over and yelled to him, "You won't believe who stopped over here and talked to Johnny!"

"Who are you talking about?"

"Frankie Edwards is who I'm talkin' about!"

"Johnny, is Jim making that up?"

"No, he came by on his racer and stopped when he saw me out front on the sidewalk, real early this morning."

"Well, that's the first we've seen of him since Remy was almost killed Thursday night. I wonder if he was riding by that night and happened to see Remy out late and that's when he pulled out that Ka-Bar and stabbed him."

"Billy, I know most of us thought Frankie did it, I did, too, but I'm not so sure now."

"What changed your mind?"

"I asked him if I could see his Ka-Bar and he let me hold it. I looked at it up close. There's not any blood on that knife."

"Remember Remy was stabbed on Thursday night. Frankie would have had three whole days to soak the knife in some paint thinner, or even gasoline."

"I don't think that leather handle had been soaking in anything."

"Yeah, but he could have just cleaned off the blade without soaking the handle. I wouldn't be surprised if he cleaned that Ka-Bar off real good, him knowing the police might want to see it if they found out he was always carrying around a big knife everywhere he went."

I replied, "But everyone around here knows Frankie always carries his daddy's Ka-Bar. Don't you think he would have hid it somewhere for a week or two?"

Jim agreed, "Yeah, everyone knows about Frankie and that big knife."

"That's true, but I don't remember seeing Frankie riding around here since Remy was stabbed. Maybe he was hiding out inside his house until the police left yesterday. Daddy said the chief and his deputy only talked to folks on our street. They didn't go over there on Greenwood Court."

Everything Billy said was true. I always had my doubts about Frankie, all of us did, but in the back of my mind, I was now less suspicious about him than I had been the day before.

"Jim, you won't believe this, but before Frankie rode off he said he might give me his English racer someday when he buys a motorcycle."

Billy replied, "You mean when he steals somebody's motorcycle. Where else is a boy like that going to get his hands on a real motorcycle?"

Jim exclaimed, "When I'm a little older I want to get one of them racing bikes, too. Then you and me can ride just about anywhere we wanna go."

Jim and I were getting just a little too excited and Billy knew it. "Johnny, you and Jim need to stay away from Frankie until we find out if he really did stab Remy."

"Alright, I'll stay away from him."

"You promise?"

"I promise."

"Jim, you have to promise, too."

"Yeah, I promise."

I avoided saying anything about Frankie having seen Remy attacking me. "Why don't you and Jim and me walk over to the Hodges' place and look around like we usually do."

Billy agreed, "Alright, you never know. We might see something new we haven't seen before."

By now, we could count on Jim bringing up the usual subject. "Yeah, we might look in there and see two big rats instead of just one like the last time."

"You're right. We might see two or three this time."

"I said two rats, Johnny. Nobody said anything about seeing three."

As usual, we started our investigation on the front porch, looking into all three windows. Nancy saw us snooping around next door and had to come over and do a little snooping of her own.

Billy stated, "Everything looks normal around here, so let's walk back to the side porch."

As the rest of us were walking off the porch, Nancy reached into the mailbox which was fastened on the trim next to the front door. Whether she did it out of habit, I don't know, but there hadn't been any mail delivered to that old house for more than a year. Her hand found a folded sheet of typing paper. "Hey, look here! This was in the mailbox."

"Let me see that, Nancy."

Billy unfolded the note and read it silently to himself. He turned around and took a couple of steps before I could say, "Billy, what's up? We could tell you were reading something."

"Whoever stabbed Remy Lind wrote this note for somebody to find."

Billy read it aloud—

Today Remy Lend was killed. He didn't

deserve to live no more. His body is

inside here so his folks can bury him.

signed X

July 20, 1962

"Come on, I have to tell Mommy about this. She'll need to call Chief and let him know what we found."

"You mean what I found, Billy."

"Yeah, Nancy, what you found."

"I'll remind you if you forget again."

All of us ran over to Billy's house and found, as expected this time of day, Aunt Mai and Mama watching one of their many favorite soap operas.

"Mommy, we were over at the Hodges' place and we, I mean Nancy, found this note in the mailbox. You better read it."

Aunt Mai read it and then passed it to Mama who responded, "Every time you young ones go over there you find something. At least this isn't as bad as the last time you came back all excited."

Aunt Mai called the police department and spoke directly to the chief. It was a brief conversation that ended with the chief saying he would send a deputy over as soon as possible to collect the note. Before the deputy arrived Nancy asked Aunt Mai for a sheet of paper and a pencil. She sat down and made us a copy of the note so we could show Linda and Martha who were at the Smith School swimming pool.

Within ten minutes the deputy arrived and before departing with the note stated, "Chief Vaden said to thank all of his young deputies for helping out." But the chief was wrong in his assumption. The young rascals of Stafford Street weren't beginning to feel like actual deputies, but more like real detectives.

After Martha and Linda returned from the pool and changed clothes we told them about the note. We convened the club, and it would be our final meeting of the summer. Nancy passed her copy of the note around and everyone read it slowly, trying to read between the lines for any hidden meaning or possible clues; if there were any, we failed. But the police failed, too. For the rest of the summer we never saw them again. A case gone cold, very cold.

I told the girls about talking with Frankie early in the morning and having a chance to handle his knife, a knife without any blood. Linda commented on two things of interest after reading the note. "I don't believe the person who stabbed Remy really knew him that well. Did anyone else notice how Lind was misspelled L-e-n-d? And what about the way he signed his name with an X? Billy, didn't you say there was an X carved on Remy's face?"

"There was a big X sliced into his cheek, probably two inches long."

"Is that just a coincidence that he signed his name on the note the same way he left a big scar on Remy's face? Martha, didn't you say something about Remy's scar reminding you of a scarlet letter?"

"The Scarlet Letter is the name of a book. Ann loaned it to me a few months ago. It's a story about people who lived in a small village, maybe three hundred years ago. If someone was found guilty in a trial after being accused of doing something wrong, the guilty person was forced to wear a scarlet letter sewn onto their shirt or their dress. It was like they were being branded for life."

Linda replied, "I suppose being scarred for life is the same as branded for life. It never goes away."

"So, Martha, that X on Remy's face is his scarlet letter?"

"We can't say for sure, Nancy. I don't know if we can really make much sense about any of this. It's all just awful."

Billy wasn't finished yet. "Martha, if you're right about this, and I'm not saying you are, what did Remy Lind do that was so bad someone thought he deserved to be stabbed and cut up like he was?"

"Like I said, Billy, if you were listening, we might never be able to find a good reason for any of this."

Linda agreed, "It's all a big mystery."

Billy summed up the meeting as well as possible. "You're right, there's no doubt it's a big mystery, but remember, it's our mystery."

And it would remain our mystery for a long time to come. A hundred times over I would recall our last meeting together and what we concluded—Remy Lind was forced to wear his scarlet letter.

# Out Of The Darkness

July came and went without any new questions or answers. The first Tuesday of August, Martha and Billy turned thirteen, teenagers at last. We decided the entire gang would celebrate with a movie at the Roxy Theater but had to wait one more day. Wednesday was kid's day at the theater downtown, a little more than a mile away. Normally a kid was charged 35¢ for the early afternoon matinee, but that summer the local bottling company staged a promotion. Printed on the underside of some of the bottle caps was "You're A Winner." If a kid presented one of those specially marked caps at the ticket window he could walk in for only a quarter.

The problem around our house was our mother could only afford to buy a no name brand of soft drink. The quart bottle was labeled "Orange Delight" and it was sweet and flavorful; it even said so on the label, "Sweet and Flavorful." But if we wanted the right bottle cap, we had to drink a soda pop bottled by Coca-Cola and that meant it was up to Jim and Billy and Martha to drink enough coke ahead of time so we would have the six bottle caps we needed. Not all of the caps were marked, so the three of them had to drink $1.80 worth of cokes to end up with 60¢ worth of discounts but they said it was well worth the trouble. So, off we went, each with our ten cent discount in hand.

None of the grownups worried about us going off as long as we stayed together, together we could tackle almost anything along the way, and what we couldn't tackle we could surely outrun.

About half way to the theater we had to cross the overpass above the railroad tracks. Four separate tracks ran nearly a hundred feet below the concrete bridge where we would always stop midway and take a minute or two to look around, hoping a train would appear before we went on our way. On that particular day, we saw a boy walking along the tracks, a boy all of us knew. Billy shouted, "Jed, up here." But Jed kept moving on, head down. "Jed Wheeler, up here!" No response at all.

Martha punched Billy in the shoulder. "Shut up, Billy! I don't want him coming to the movies with us." But there was no need to worry over that. Jed was lost in his own world; it was nothing new.

Sometimes I thought those long walks to the downtown theater were as much fun as watching many of those budget movies they often played on Wednesday afternoons, usually something starring Troy Donahue or Sandra Dee, which suited Linda and Martha just fine, but not the rest of us.

While walking back home, Nancy overheard Billy and me planning to camp out on Friday night. Camping out meant pitching a pup tent between our two houses at the back of our grass covered driveway. Nancy being the tomboy in those days convinced Mother that if I was allowed to sleep out in a tent, she should be allowed, too, after all she was a year older, something she reminded me of quite often. Sadly, Mother agreed with Nancy.

For some odd reason that old army pup tent only had flaps at one end. We told Nancy she would have to sleep at the open end due to the fact a pup tent was barely big enough for two boys, which was mostly true. Billy and I set the tent up soon after supper and Billy found part of an old ragged tarpaulin from his garage. Each of us had a pillow and a single blanket with Nancy's laid out partly under the tent and partly under the stars. We threw that scrap of a tarp over the open end of the pup tent and convinced Nancy she was set for the night.

Well, as often is the case on those hot, humid southern nights, some thunderheads blew in around midnight and it poured and poured, then poured some more. The rain was dripping on Nancy from head to toe and she pleaded to squeeze in between the two of us, but that wasn't going to happen. Yes, Nancy was stubborn, but Billy and I combined became twice as stubborn. She finally ducked out from under the tarp and made a beeline to the back door which, lucky for her, Mother had left unlocked. I couldn't resist shouting a familiar joke that all the rascals knew. "Don't go away mad . . . just go away!" But my timing was off. Nancy was already mad and would stay that way all the next day. That old pup tent was actually a pretty cozy place to be when listening to the wind and rain, at least that's the way Billy and I would remember it.

Linda had been cooking lunch for the three of us going on three months. By that time, she could prepare a meal practically blindfolded and Nancy and I often thought she did. We ate the same thing almost everyday: biscuits that popped out of a cardboard tube and macaroni and cheese from a small blue box.

Linda, having mastered the basics by now, sought to save a little time one day by baking enough biscuits for two days and saving half of them until the following day. Well, something remarkable happened overnight to those biscuits she had saved. Now they were hard, really hard, like petrified wood from when dinosaurs were walking about.

The next day at dinner Nancy and I picked up a biscuit at the same time and stared back at Linda. Linda admitted they had, "dried out a little," which was her way of saying the self-rising flour had set up like cement. Nancy said, "We'll eat one after you eat one first." Linda must have thought cutting one in half would make it easier to chew, so she proceeded to dull one of those serrated steak knives trying to do so. We all decided macaroni and cheese would be enough that day.

It then crossed my mind that those half-dozen biscuits were about as hard as a baseball. So I stuffed all six of the biscuits in my pockets and headed towards Jim's house. On the way, I noticed old Chip relaxing in the shade under the big apple tree back of Aunt Mai's house. I tossed him one of the biscuits knowing most every dog likes to chew on a bone now and then. But Chip wasn't having anything to do with Linda's day old cooking. Like me, he preferred his biscuits a mite softer, preferably with a little butter and strawberry jam.

When Jim came to the back door I told him to bring out his baseball bat. He asked me if we needed a ball, but I said, "No, I have five left." Jim looked a little puzzled but came back in a minute with bat in hand. I told him I would do all the pitching and he could bat. I then showed him what we were going to use for balls and he asked me if that's what Linda made for dinner that day. I replied, "No, that's what she made yesterday but no one would eat any, not even Chip."

I have to admit I had a pretty good arm but those lopsided biscuits were hard to control and Jim missed the first three or four I pitched. When he finally connected, he hit it out of the park, meaning over the short hedge between the back of his yard and the side of the Elliott's house. Jim's mom heard the crack of the bat and stuck her head out the back door and saw me holding something she knew was definitely not a baseball. "Jim, what are you and Johnny doing?"

"We're playing with these biscuits Linda made yesterday but nobody can eat one 'cause they're too hard."

Miss Margaret shook her head twice. "Don't you break out a window on the back of the Elliott's house. And don't you splinter that new bat your daddy bought you just a week ago." She went back inside still shaking her head, but before Jim could hit another biscuit she returned holding three oatmeal cookies. Jim was handed one and she gave me the other two, probably believing I needed them more than her own son. Along Stafford Street, pretty much every parent looked after pretty much every child, most of the time without the kids even noticing.

We didn't break any windows that day but Jim's genuine Henry Aaron model Louisville Slugger lost a little of its original luster. Of course, that was bound to happen anyway, hitting fastballs or Linda's petrified Pillsbury biscuits.

The final days of summer were closing fast. You could see it in the faces of every boy and girl. It was the last week of August. In two days we would be back in school, against our wishes, of course. It was a dreaded time of year, absolutely dreadful, for sure.

The school system, knowing how miserable we felt during the first week or two, made one concession. They dismissed classes at noon on the first Friday in September when the county fair was in town. This was known as "Kid's Day," as the fair offered half-price rides all day long. The following Monday was Labor Day, so it was a long weekend, and the last day to look forward to until Halloween which always seemed a long way off.

After the first few days back in school, Billy and Martha noticed they hadn't seen Remy Lind anywhere at the junior high. None of us had seen him walking along our street on his way to or from school as he had always done in the past. But we knew he was still alive, somewhere.

Aunt Mai decided to call Miss Maggie as she lived on the corner, only two houses from the Lind's home on Gracey. A lot of the older women, many now widows, never seemed to get out much, but they still always knew what was going on with their neighbors and Miss Maggie knew what happened to Remy Lind and his folks. They were gone.

Remy Lind had spent the better part of five weeks recovering in the hospital, nearly dying than once. His parents had decided that if their son survived the trauma they would leave Gracey Avenue as soon as he was released from the hospital. They certainly knew Remy's attacker was never arrested and they weren't willing to take any chances. Three days before school began, the Linds moved out and far enough away that Remy was assigned to a new school district. Remy Lind was gone, for good.

# A Halloween Like No Other

Ah, Halloween, when scaring the living breath out of each other was not only permitted but absolutely expected and, more than that, actually encouraged. Of course, the encouragement came from each other and not from the grownups, though they surely expected the mischief and we always chose not to disappoint on Halloween. Billy, especially, had to come up with something original every year, not to rest on previous laurels.

Over the past year, Billy had begun collecting some old WWII German military equipment: a bayonet, boots, a trench coat, and a helmet, more or less a full uniform from head to toe. By now, none of us even bothered to ask why. Being the first Halloween Billy had his uniform, it would have to be used to dramatic effect, not simply worn as a costume for trick or treat. This would be a veritable one man show and he was up for it.

Mama, living on Greenwood, always received more trick or treaters than we did on Stafford, usually a lot more. Of course, a grandmother is more lenient and forgiving than a mom or dad, so she allowed us to proceed with Billy's plan knowing that our mischief was, in the end, harmless fun. Boys could do a whole lot worse on Halloween night and some of them often did.

Billy dressed in his knee high boots and knee length trench coat, topped off with an authentic German helmet. We walked over to Mama's house and knocked on the back door. She looked thru the window and I didn't know if she was going to let us in or call the police, but she finally recognized our voices and realized she wasn't being raided by a German paratrooper.

I didn't really have a part in the plan other than handing out candy to the kids who rang Mama's doorbell. I enjoyed going to the door every minute or two as it gave me a front row seat to the action.

Billy stood midway along the forty foot sidewalk which led up to Mama's front porch steps. Motionless, with no expression on his face, he could have been a statue or a mannequin as far as most of the kids were concerned. But as soon as the trick or treaters rang the doorbell and I brought out the candy, he would quickly move, turning his head in the opposite direction from how he was looking when they first passed a minute before. Or he moved several feet closer or farther away from the porch, enough of a change they suddenly became suspicious, often frightened enough they took off running, but he never chased after anyone, always leaving them with some doubts about what they saw or believed they were seeing.

Billy didn't always succeed, but when he did, it was great fun. Once one of the youngest kids poked him twice on the arm but he never moved. Eventually he tired of being the iceman, frozen in place, so he began to slowly shift his eyes as they walked up the sidewalk to the porch steps. Some kids ignored him, others turned around and decided it might be safer to just move on to the house next door. Or he would very slowly turn his head and look away from the kids when they walked by, even moaning a little as they climbed up the steps. From 7 o'clock until 9 o'clock, it was definitely the place to be on Greenwood, or not to be, based on one's point of view. Ah, Halloween!

Billy and I left Mama's shortly after nine and decided to walk around the neighborhood to see if anything was going on. Billy kept his uniform on, of course, and twice other kids stopped us and I had to introduce them to my German friend who was visiting from the old country. By 10 o'clock we had circled the entire block four or five times when we noticed several folks gathering near the corner at Taylor's store, all huddled together and looking down at the street. The front porch light was on at the Burchett's house, where Mama's sister and her husband lived. We couldn't tell what anyone was looking at until we were standing next to the store.

There was someone lying next to the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street. Two cars were parked nearby on that same side, parked where no cars ever parked. We cautiously crossed the street and overheard folks discussing what had happened only five minutes before—a trick or treater was struck by a car, one of the two cars parked nearby. One of the older men said, "With so many kids crossing such a busy street on Halloween night, it was bound to happen sooner or later."

When we had a chance, my German friend and I moved closer and stooped down to look at the body. He was a big guy, probably too old to trick or treat but I guess that was his business, not mine. He didn't appear to be bleeding, not that we could see, so we took that to be a good sign. No one had touched the body and it surprised me he was still wearing a plastic mask over his face, no costume, just a creepy looking mask.

Two approaching sirens silenced the crowd, a crowd of a dozen grownups and two inquisitive boys. We glanced down Stafford and saw Nick and Uncle E.E. walking in our direction. I wondered how they would react to seeing Billy walking around in a German uniform at such a solemn time as this, but this wasn't an ordinary night and Billy wasn't an ordinary boy. On second thought, I knew they would be relieved knowing it wasn't me or Billy lying there unconscious on the pavement.

Folks backed away when the police car and ambulance arrived, allowing them to pull up as close as possible to the injured boy. I asked Billy if he had seen the boy move and he shook his head "no," but I could tell he was still breathing, though not easily. After the ambulance driver and deputy quickly placed him on the stretcher, the deputy reached down and slowly removed the Halloween mask. Billy and I both looked down for several seconds and then stared at each other for several seconds more.

On the exact same spot where a little girl died two summers before, Frankie Edwards was struck by a car, now unconscious and perhaps dying for all we knew. I looked around for Frankie's mom but didn't see her. The deputy asked if anyone knew where Frankie lived and Nick and Uncle E.E. stepped forward and volunteered to walk over to Greenwood Court and tell Miss Edwards the bad news. At that moment I thought they were the bravest men in the entire world. They found her alone, with no one she knew to call, so Uncle E.E. brought his car back and drove her to the hospital.

The doctors initially thought Frankie would survive but apparently there was internal bleeding which wasn't discovered and he died three hours after he arrived at the hospital. Nick later told Jim the driver who struck Frankie never saw him until it was too late. He rushed into the beam of light from behind a mask and the darkness. Straddling the line between the light and the darkness . . . a precarious place to be.

We were all feeling a little blue the next morning, sitting on our front porch, remembering Halloween was over, one of our neighbors had died hours before, and watching the last of the maple leaves blow away in the autumn breeze. It was the first day of November and it was Nancy's birthday. Mother must have looked out and sensing how low we were feeling, brought out some paper cups and a pitcher of grape kool-aid. She said she had just talked to Aunt Mai who had called Miss Edwards earlier that morning to check on how well she was holding up. Miss Edwards revealed, while she was at the hospital the night before, someone had stolen Frankie's bike off the back porch. But she still had his knife and was grateful for that.

She and Frankie had argued Halloween night about leaving the knife at home. Miss Edwards said he was too big a boy to be wearing a mask and carrying such a big knife on Halloween night. Someone would likely call the police and he would be arrested or, at the least, his knife taken away and never returned. Frankie always believed his dad's knife brought him good luck, but he left it at home on that fateful night.

Being it was Saturday, Mother had plenty to do and soon went back inside and closed the door. After an awkward moment of silence, Martha spoke. "Is this the end of the story? I mean both Frankie and Remy Lind are gone. We'll never see them again."

Billy responded, "But we never really solved our mystery."

Martha continued, "Well, everybody's here. Let's vote on it. If you believe it was Frankie who tried to kill Remy, raise your hand." Martha quickly raised her hand, followed by Billy, Linda and Nancy. Asking the obvious, Martha then said, "Who thinks someone else tried to kill Remy?"

I raised my hand but Jim just set there as if he were abstaining, acting like a politician trying to avoid going on the record. I looked straight at him. "Now, Jim, you have to vote one way or the other." Not left with any other choice, Jim slowly raised his hand. Looking back, I really can't say whether Jim was voting yes or no, but either way, we had a hung jury. No more deliberations would follow, no second round of voting; we all decided, right then and there, to let it go.

# The Closing Hours

It was almost Christmas and all the rascals were now hoping for snow, along with a nice gift or two under the tree on Christmas morning. On Christmas Eve, around 6 o'clock, we always gathered at Mama's home for our family celebration. Mama had the largest house with ten foot ceilings which allowed for an especially large Christmas tree. The weekend before, Uncle E.E. drove Billy and me out in the country to a friend's farm. We would end up spending half a day finding and cutting three perfect cedars, with the tallest one chosen for Mama's home.

We would have a grand meal, perhaps even exceeding our Thanksgiving dinner together, always finishing with boiled custard along with a German chocolate cake made especially for Uncle E.E. and an extraordinary coconut cake, Mama's specialty. For me, the exchange of laughter and love around the dinner table was the highlight of the evening, though the icing on the cake wasn't bad either. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Mid-afternoon I called Jim to see if he could come over for a little while and play inside, it being too cold to stay outside for long. A few minutes later Jim knocked on the front door. When I opened the door he was holding a shoe box. "What's in the box?"

"I don't know, I thought it was yours. It was out here by the door."

I opened the box lid just enough that I could peep inside. "Come on." I quickly led Jim thru the house and into my small bedroom and shut the door. We sat down on the edge of my bed with the box between us.

"Well, what's in there?"

I opened the lid and both of us instantly knew what it was─Frankie Edward's Ka-Bar. I picked up the knife in its sheath and handed it to Jim. While he was looking at the knife I noticed there was something else in the box. I unfolded the sheet of paper and read the hand-written letter out loud—

Dear Johnny,

Frankie told me before he went out on Halloween night he wanted you to have his dad's knife. He said he wanted you to have something special for Christmas, and you would know why. Frankie kept it extra sharp, so please be careful.

Merry Christmas,

Ruth Edwards

I stared at Jim and he stared at the Ka-Bar, then handed it back to me.

"Johnny, why do you think Frankie wanted to give you his dad's Ka-Bar?"

I briefly told Jim, for the first time, how Frankie had witnessed Remy attacking me back in the summer. "Frankie also said he regretted not hurting Remy that day while he had the chance."

"I guess he gave you his knife so it wouldn't happen again."

"You might be right. I really can't say. Well, let's get out of here. I saw a big rat run under my bed last night."

"Where?! Under this bed?"

"Gotcha Jim. I gotcha."

"Yeah."

Believe it or not, Jim laughed louder and longer than I did.

Dylan was right after all, the times were changing. Our lives on Stafford Street would never be quite the same. Yes, we were very young, but we never succumbed to the darkness which briefly enveloped our lives. In the end, love and laughter prevailed.

In our collective mind, the summer of '62 would always remain the most memorable one of our childhood. In many ways, it was the last summer.

# Epilogue

After another year passed, I seldom thought of the killing of Samantha and Sammy and the attack on Remy. But you never know who you might accidentally bump into from a distant past, briefly turning the world upside down. That's exactly what happened twelve years later.

While returning from a day of fishing, I pulled into a gas station more than forty miles from my old home on Stafford Street. A woman inside the station kept staring at me while I filled the tank, and though she looked vaguely familiar, I couldn't place who she was. When I went inside to pay, she introduced herself; she was Jed Wheeler's older sister, Janine. I barely ever knew Janine and had not seen her longer than I could remember, but she somehow recognized me. I remembered during the winter following the summer of '62, Jed was given a six month suspension for vandalism and forced to attend reform school. It was told at the time he ran away from the facility after only a week or two and then vanished. I asked Janine what Jed was up to these days.

"So you never heard what happened to Jed?"

"I haven't seen or heard of Jed in at least ten years."

Janine motioned for me to step back outside. This was the story she told—

On that ill-fated Halloween night twelve years before, Jed was out running around with Frankie. When they were almost opposite from Taylor's market on Greenwood, Jed looked back at the headlights of a distant car. As the car approached closer on their side of the street, Jed lunged towards Frankie, shoving him out into the middle of the lane where he was struck by the passing car. Jed quickly jumped over the short hedge at the front of the Burchett's house and disappeared into the night.

Janine said she was walking home from a Halloween party and as she approached her house, she looked down the street and saw Jed and Frankie walking together and witnessed everything that occurred. She quickly disappeared inside their home and kept quiet to protect her younger brother, and no one ever knew the truth.

I asked Janine if Jed ever said why he pushed Frankie out into the street and he told her they had been horsing around all night and it was just an accident, but he didn't think anyone would believe his story. I'm not sure anyone would, because I'm not sure Janine did.

Four years later, Jed was killed at the local Shell station in Fairview, the same station where I had stopped to fill up that day. Jed had jimmied open the station's back door around midnight, using the thick blade of his large stiletto, a knife he found along the railroad tracks and had carried in his back pocket since he was twelve. But he didn't notice the barely visible light from the bottom of the restroom door. The station's owner, startled at the sight of an intruder, picked up the nearest tool to defend himself, a two foot long torque wrench. Jed was literally beaten to death.

Janine was now the cashier at that same station, having married the very man who still owned the station and had killed her brother in self-defense. She had met her husband-to-be during the court proceedings regarding Jed's failed attempt at burglary and resulting death. On the first anniversary of Jed's death, Janine said she gave her new husband Jed's old worn stiletto knife, "as a little souvenir."

The next day I called Jim and spoke of my encounter with Janine. He replied, "There's no need to tell anyone else."

"Why not?"

"Who would believe it?"

"Yeah."

****

# Free Offer

If you enjoyed Laughing and Losing during the remarkable Summer of '62, I would like to invite you to read the first half, Part I, of my latest and favorite novel in the series, Only A Hummingbird Flies Backwards.

If you're interested in this free offer, for a limited time, you may download Part I to your device and begin reading my favorite novel in the series, my tribute to Harper Lee and To Kill A Mockingbird. Visit my web site and scroll down to the bottom of the page for instructions. You will not be added to an email list. Click on the link below:

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# Other books in The Rascals of Stafford Street Series

The Neighbor We Never Knew (2016)

The Importance Of Being Frank (2017)

Only A Hummingbird Flies Backwards (2017)

*Please leave a review for Laughing and Losing during the Remarkable Summer of '62 at your favorite book retailer.

*This book is also available in print from most online retailers.

# Disclaimer

This is a novel of fiction loosely based on the lives of six children and their families and where they lived. Many of the other characters, and some of the events, are completely fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events or individuals, living or dead, is coincidental.

