Boy's Life (45 page)

     By the time Mayor Swope and Mrs. Prathmore took a box full of plaques up to the table at the front, there were around seventy lovers of fine literature present. Mr. Grover Dean, a slender man of middle age who wore a neatly combed brown wig and round glasses with silver frames, went to the front, carrying a satchel, and he sat down at the table with the mayor and Mrs. Prathmore. He unzipped the satchel and slid out a stack of papers that I presumed were the winning entries in the three categories of short story, essay, and poetry.

      Mayor Swope got up and tapped the microphone at the podium. He was greeted with a squeal of feedback and a noise like an elephant breaking wind, which brought a chorus of guffaws and made Mayor Swope motion for the man who operated the sound system. Everybody quietened at last, the microphone was adjusted, and the mayor cleared his throat and was about to speak when a ripple of whispers crossed the audience. I looked back toward the door, and my pounding heart leaped like a catfish. The Lady had just walked in.

     She was dressed in violet, with a pillbox hat and gloves. There was a veil of fine netting over her face. She looked frail, her bluish-black arms and legs as thin as sticks. Supporting her with an ever-so-discreet hand to her elbow was Charles Damaronde, he of the massive shoulders and werewolf’s eyebrows. Walking three steps behind the Lady was the Moon Man, carrying his cane and wearing a shiny black suit and a red necktie. He was hatless, his dark-and-light-divided face and forehead there for all to see.

     I think you could’ve heard a pin drop. Or, more precisely, a booger fall from the Demon’s nose. “Oh my,” Mom whispered. Dad shifted nervously in his chair, and I believe he might’ve gotten up and walked out if he hadn’t had to stay for me.

     The Lady scanned the audience from behind her veil. All the chairs were taken. I got a quick glimpse of her green eyes—just a glint—but it was enough to make me think I smelled steamy earth and swamp flowers. Then, suddenly, Vernon Thaxter stood up and with a bow offered his chair to her. She said, “Thank you, sir,” in her quavery voice and sat down, and Vernon remained standing at the back of the room while Charles Damaronde and the Moon Man stood on either side of the elegant Lady. A few people—not many, only five or six—got up not to offer their chairs but to stalk out. They weren’t scared of her like Dad was; it was their indignation that black people had entered a room full of whites without asking permission. We all knew that, and the Lady did, too. It was the time we lived in.

     “I guess we can get started,” Mayor Swope began. He kept looking around at the crowd, then toward the Lady and the Moon Man, back to the crowd again. “I want to welcome you all to the awards ceremony of the 1964 Zephyr Arts Council Writing Contest. First off, I’d like to thank every one of the participants, without whom there could be no contest.”

     Well, it went on like that for a while. I might have drowsed off if I hadn’t been so full of ants. Mayor Swope introduced all the judges and the Arts Council members, and then he introduced Mr. Quentin Farraday, from the Adams Valley
Journal
, who was there to take pictures and interview the winners. Finally, Mayor Swope sat down and Mrs. Prathmore took his place at the podium to call up the third-place winner in the essay division. An elderly woman named Delores Hightower shuffled up, took her essay from Mr. Dean, and read to the audience for fifteen minutes about the joys of an herb garden, then she was given her plaque and she sat down again. The first-place essay, by a beefy, gap-toothed man named George Eagers, concerned the time he had a flat tire near Tuscaloosa and the one and only Bear Bryant had stopped to ask him if he needed some help, thus proving the Bear’s divinity.

     The poetry division was next. Imagine my surprise when the Demon’s mother stood up to read the second-place poem. This was part of it: “Rain, rain, go away,”/ said the sun, on a summer day./ “I have lots of shinin’ to do yet,/ and those dark clouds make me get/ To cryin’.” She read it with such emotion, I feared she was going to get to crying and rain on the whole room. The Demon and her father applauded so loud at the end of it, you’d have thought it was the Second Coming.

     The first-place poem, by a little wrinkled old lady named Helen Trotter, was in essence a love letter, the first rhyme of which was: “He’s always there to show he cares,/ whatever’s right, that’s what he dares,” and the last rhyme: “Oh, how I love to see the smiling face/ Of our great state governor, George C. Wal-
lace
.”

     “Groan,” Dad whispered. The Lady, Charles Damaronde, and the Moon Man were gracious enough to make no public comment.

     “And now,” Mrs. Prathmore announced, “we move into the short-story division.”

     I needed that cork. I needed it bad.

     “This year we have the youngest winner ever on record since we began this contest in 1955. We had a little difficulty deciding if his entry was a short story or essay, since it’s based on an actual event, but in the end we decided he showed enough flair and descriptive imagination to consider it a short story. Now, welcome if you will, our third-place winner, reading his story entitled ‘Before the Sun’: Cory Mackenson.” Mrs. Prathmore led the applause. Dad said, “Go get ’em,” to me, and somehow I stood up.

     As I walked to the podium in a trance of terror, I heard Davy Ray giggling and then a soft
pop
as his dad cuffed him on the back of the neck. Mr. Dean gave me my story, and Mrs. Prathmore bent the microphone down so it could gather my voice. I looked out at that sea of faces; they all seemed to blur together, into a collective mass of eyes, noses, and mouths. I had a sudden fright: was my zipper up? Did I dare to look and see? I caught sight of the
Journal
photographer, his bulky camera poised. My heart was beating like the wings of a caged bird. Queasiness roiled in my belly, but I knew that if I threw up, I could never again face the light of day. Somebody coughed and somebody else cleared his throat. All eyes were on me, and in my hands the paper was shaking.

     “Go ahead, Cory,” Mrs. Prathmore urged.

     I looked at the title, and I started to read it, but what felt like a spiny egg seemed to be lodged in my throat where the words were formed. Darkness lapped around the edges of my vision; was I about to pass out in front of all these people? Wouldn’t that make a dandy front-page picture for the
Journal?
My eyes rolled back in my head, my body tumbling for the floor, my underpants white in the maw of my open zipper?

     “Just take your time,” Mrs. Prathmore said, and in her voice I heard her nerves starting to shred.

     My eyes, which felt as if they were about to burst from my head, danced over the audience. I saw Davy Ray, Ben, and Johnny. None of them were grinning anymore; this was a bad sign. I saw Mr. George Eagers look at his wristwatch; another bad sign. I heard some malicious monster whisper, “He’s
scared
, poor little boy!”

     I saw the Lady rise to her feet at the back of the room. Behind her veil her gaze was cool and placid, like still green waters. She lifted her chin, and that movement spoke a single word:
Courage
.

     I pulled in a breath. My lungs rattled like a freight train crossing a rickety bridge. I was here; this was my moment. I had to go on, for better or worse.

     I said, “‘Before the—’” My voice, thunderous through the microphone, shocked me silent again. Mrs. Prathmore placed her hand against my back, as if to steady me. “‘—Sun,’” I went on. “By C-C-Cory Mackenson.”

      I started reading. I knew the words; I knew the story. My voice seemed to belong to someone else, but the story was part of me. As I continued on, from sentence to sentence, I was aware that the coughing and throat clearing had ceased. No one was whispering. I read the story as if traveling a trail through a familiar woods; I knew the way to go, and this was a comfort. I dared to glance up again at the audience, and when I did I felt it.

     This was to be my first experience with it, and like any first experience, the feeling stays with you forever. What this was exactly I can’t say, but it drove into my soul and made a home there. Everyone was watching me; everyone was
listening
to me. The words coming out of my mouth—the words I’d conceived and given birth to—were making time null and void; they were bringing together a roomful of people into a journey of common sights, sounds, and thoughts; they were leaving me and traveling into the minds and memories of people who had never been at Saxon’s Lake that chill, early morning in March. I could tell when I looked at them that those people were following me. And the greatest thing—the very greatest thing—is that they
wanted
to go where I led them.

     All this, of course, I reasoned out much later. What struck me at the moment, beside getting to the end, was how quiet and still everybody had become. I had found the key to a time machine. I had discovered a current of power I’d never dreamed I possessed. I had found a magic box, and it was called a typewriter.

     That voice coming out of me seemed to get stronger. It seemed to speak with expression and clarity rather than being a mumbled drone, which is how it had begun. I was amazed and elated. I actually—wonder of wonders—was enjoying reading aloud.

     I reached the final sentence, and ran out of story.

     For now.

     My mother started applauding first. Then my dad, and the others in the room. I saw the Lady’s violet-gloved hands clapping. The applause felt good; but it wasn’t nearly as good as that feeling of leading people on a journey and them trusting you to know the way. Tomorrow I might want to be a milkman like Dad, or a jet pilot or a detective, but at that instant I wanted to be a writer more than anything on earth.

     I accepted my plaque from Mayor Swope. When I sat down, people around me clapped me on the back, and I could tell by the way my mom and dad smiled that they were proud of me. I didn’t mind that my name was misspelled on the plaque. I knew who I was.

     The second-place winner, by Mr. Terrence Hosmer, was about a farmer trying to outsmart a flock of ravens after his corn crop. The first-place winner, by Mrs. Ada Yearby, concerned the midnight kneeling down of the animals at the birth of Jesus Christ. Then Mayor Swope thanked everyone for coming and said that we could all go home. On the way out, Davy Ray, Johnny, and Ben swarmed around me, and I believe I got more attention than even Mrs. Yearby. The Demon’s mother waddled up to congratulate me, and she looked at my mother with her broad, mustached face and said, “You know, Brenda’s birthday party is next Saturday and Brenda sure would like your boy to be there. You know, I wrote that poem for Brenda, ’cause she’s a real sensitive child. Would your boy come to Brenda’s birthday party? He don’t have to bring no present or nothin’.”

     Mom looked at me for a cue. I saw the Demon, standing with her father across the room. The Demon waved at me and sniggered. Davy Ray elbowed me in the ribs; he didn’t know how close he was to getting killed. I said, “Gee, Mrs. Sutley, I think I might have some chores to do at home on Saturday. Don’t I, Mom?”

     Mom, God love her, was quick. “Yes, you sure do! You’ve got to cut the grass and help your father paint the porch.”

     “Huh?” Dad said.

      “It’s got to be done,” Mom told him. “Saturday’s the only day we can all work on it together.”

     “And maybe I can get some guys to help,” I offered, which made my buddies find wings on their feet.

     “Well, if you wanna come to Brenda’s party, she sure would like it. She’s havin’ her relatives over and all.” Mrs. Sutley gave me a defeated smile. She knew. Then she returned to the Demon and said something to her and the Demon gave me that exact same smile. I felt like a heel on a dung-stained boot. But I couldn’t encourage the Demon, I just couldn’t! It was inhuman to ask me to. And oh brother, I could just imagine what the Demon’s relatives must be like! That group would make the Munsters appear lovely.

     We were almost out the door when a quiet voice spoke: “Tom? Tom Mackenson?”

     My dad stopped and turned around.

     He was in the presence of the Lady.

     She was smaller than I remembered. She barely stood to my father’s shoulders. But there was a strength in her that ten men couldn’t have matched; you could see the force of life in her as you can see it in a weathered tree that has bent before the winds of countless storms. She had approached us without Mr. Damaronde or the Moon Man, who stood waiting at a distance.

     “Hello again,” Mom said. The Lady nodded at her. My dad wore the expression of a man trapped in a dark closet with a tarantula. His eyes were skittering around, searching for a way out, but he was too much of a gentleman to be rude to her.

     “Tom Mackenson,” she repeated. “You and your wife sure have raised a talented boy.”

     “I… we… we’ve done our best, thank you.”

     “And such a good
speaker
,” the Lady went on. She smiled at me. “You’ve done well,” she said.

     “Thank you, ma’am.”

     “How’s that bicycle doin’?”

      “Fine. I named it ‘Rocket.’”

     “That’s a nice name.”

     “Yes ma’am. And…” Tell her, I decided. “And it’s got an eyeball in the headlight.”