Day of the Bomb (22 page)

At last the bullets stopped whizzing by him.

“Sally Crenshaw?”

“Here.”

“Stanley Dalrumple?”

Silence.

“Stanley Dalrumple?”

“Huh?”

“Say
here,
Stan.” Dan Rhinehardt whispered
across the aisle.

“Uh, here.”

Miss Lewis glared at the one she considered the worst
student of her ten-year career as a teacher. She wrote a note to
the principal and ordered Dan to deliver it. Principal Gossrite
moaned as he read it. Then he dialed the Dalrumples’ phone number
and scheduled an appointment with Stanley’s parents.

***

“It appears that there is a slight problem.”
Principal Gossrite’s eyes danced between teacher and parents. “Miss
Lewis feels that your son needs to transfer to a class better
suited for him.”

“What kind of class?” Jason stared at his watch.
Every minute wasted here was money lost from the remodeling job
where he would rather be.

“One for those who are mentally deficient,” Miss
Lewis said.

“You saying our boy is a retard? A throwback?”

“Here, look for yourself.” She tossed a paper onto
his lap. “I had the district psychologist test Stanley. His I.Q. is
only 77.”

“What does that mean?” Thelma studied the
document.

“That he is minimally educable. Of the hundreds of
students I have instructed, he is the worst one of all.”

Jason shrugged. “Now I’ll be the first to admit that
he’s a mite slow. But all he needs is to learn to read and write
and his numbers. I can train him to make a decent living.”

“I’m not certain he can learn.”

Talking to her is like beating a
dead horse.
Jason turned to the principal.
“What’s your opinion?”

“I have to concur with Miss Lewis. State law requires
children to attend school until age sixteen. You can either put
Stanley in our class for mentally retarded children or the school
at St. Anthony’s or the one at Redeemer Lutheran.”

“How soon do we have to decide?” Thelma asked.

“You have until Monday.”

Jason stood. “We’ll let you know by then. Meantime
we’ll keep Stanley home. Wouldn’t want to inconvenience Miss Lewis
with him anymore.”

Her sniff complemented her smirk.

***

Thelma said that the “special class” was the best
option so Jason visited the parochial schools by himself the next
day. He liked the habits worn by the nuns at St. Anthony’s School.
“They’re like their uniforms for the army of the Lord,” he had told
Thelma during breakfast.

***

Mother Superior Sister Teresa welcomed him. “The
secretary said you are considering placing a child with us?”

“That’s right. Stanley’s in first grade.”

“I don’t recall seeing you at Mass. Do you belong to
St. Anthony’s parish?”

“No ma’am. We go to church at Full Gospel Evangelical
but I was told you let people of other persuasions send their kids
here.” He stared at the linoleum tiles. “Uh, do you take kids that
are slow?”

She stood and grasped the beads of the large rosary
wrapped around the middle of her habit. “Yes. We have a few such
students. But at times they feel left out. Especially as our
children make their first Confession and Holy Communion and later
on are confirmed. Do you think not being able to join the others in
the sacraments would bother your son?”

Jason contorted his lips. “I really don’t know.”

“Please consider that before you decide.” She handed
him a folder. “Everything you need to register him is in here,
including details of tuition. Now if you’ll excuse me, we are
having an assembly at nine.”

“Okay.” He stood and shook her hand. “Thank you.” He
opened the folder and read it as he walked to his truck. When he
saw that tuition for non-parishioners was $10 more a month than for
parishioners, he tossed the folder into the trash can in his
truck’s bed. He prayed before meeting Redeemer Lutheran School’s
principal but when tuition for it proved even higher than at St.
Anthony’s, Jason abandoned his hope of his son being educated
“around normal kids.”

The following Monday Stanley joined twelve other boys
and girls from the school district who had also been labeled as
mentally retarded. For Thelma the saving grace of the painful
transition was Stanley’s new teacher.

“She’s as nice as Miss Lewis was nasty. You called
Miss Lewis the Wicked Witch of the West. That means that Stanley’s
new teacher is Glenda, the Good Witch.”

Jason grunted as he pulled the handle on his
recliner. “I hope you’re right. You and me can only do so
much.”

Thanksgiving of 1955 was three weeks away but
eight-year-old Stanley already gave thanks daily for his life,
limited as it was at times. Most important of all, he had a dad.
Best friend Dan Rhinehardt did not. Curious, Stanley had visited
Fred’s resting place at the cemetery on the east end of town. The
headstone was ornate, complete with naval symbols such as anchors.
Afterwards Stanley had walked the entire graveyard, stopping to
pray at each grave that contained a father of those he knew. Those
headstones mostly had the years from 1942 to 1945 etched into
them.

Second on his list of things to give
thanks for was the television set that Jason had bought last
summer. Madisin now had a television station and the seventy-foot
antenna that Jason had rigged next to a pine tree pulled in two
other stations from two distant cities as well. He considered the
antenna worth his investment as new programs went on the air that
autumn:
Gunsmoke, The Phil Silvers Show,
Cheyenne, The Honeymooners with Jackie Gleason, The Mickey Mouse
Club,
and
Captain
Kangaroo
, something for
everyone.

With the set at his house only pulling in Madisin’s
lone station, Dan spent much time at Stanley’s house, especially
after school.

“What time is it boys and girls?” His favorite host
asked.

“It’s Howdy Doody time!” Dan and Stanley shouted at
the flickering images of Buffalo Bob and his sidekick.

On his way home for supper after the show, Dan paused
at the edge of the Dalrumple’s property. “Guess I’ll see you at
school tomorrow.”

Stanley fidgeted, a tic signaling his fear of
rejection. “I need to ask you.”

“What?”

“How come you’re my friend? All the other kids just
laugh at me and call me a retard or spaz.”

Dan scratched his head. “I never got to know my dad
much before he got killed in that war. But Mom says he always
helped people out. Since I want to be like my dad I try to help
people out too.”

“Oh.” Stanley rubbed his feet in the dirt until a
small cloud of dust covered his shoes. “But do you really like
me?”

“Sure. You know we’re best friends. Remember how we
made us into blood brothers last summer?”

“Yeah. But we didn’t cut our arms like that cowboy
and Indian did in the movie.”

Dan pulled Stanley closer and whispered. “Pricking
our fingers with a needle made enough of our blood come out seeing
how we’re just kids. Besides, if we cut our arms with a knife like
they did in the movie we’d have ourselves a fearsome scar. Then
everyone would know about us being blood brothers. This way we can
keep it real secret, okay? Just you and me know about it.”

Stanley smiled. “Okay. You think maybe I should help
folks out like you do?”

Dan heard the distant call of big brother Karl, sent
to find him. “Sure. Mom says the Bible says we need to treat other
folks like we want to be treated. I hear Karl. I gotta go. See you
later, alligator.”

“In a while, crocodile.”

***

After supper, Stanley stared at the ceiling from his
bed and pondered his father’s oft-repeated saying to “either fish
or cut bait.” After an hour, Stanley decided it was time to fish.
As soon as he heard his father’s snores, he dressed and crawled
through his bedroom window. Because Pastor Trueblood often preached
on “saving souls from the clutches of the devil” maybe his parents
would understand his stealth after he rescued the most bound soul
he knew.

It took ten minutes to walk to the last house along
the two-lane highway where fields and woods replaced civilization.
The small home was 200 feet from the road, its long dirt driveway
overgrown with weeds. Stanley wondered why the owner had extended
the highway’s drainage ditch through the driveway.

Must be to make it harder for people in cars to turn
off and help the devil’s prisoner.

Stanley had met the chained-up boy only once. About
his age, the boy had screamed whenever he saw someone walking by
along the road’s shoulder. Out scavenging for soda bottles with his
wagon a week before, Stanley had heard the faint screams and
investigated. He had promised to return with help.

That help was a file borrowed from Jason’s toolbox.
Stanley thought it would be of little use if the devil appeared. He
had caught a glimpse of the huge cursing figure as he had crept
from the property after his first visit. The devil had carried a
pitchfork in one hand and blood red eyes in his head. When one of
his hell hounds started yapping, the devil had hurled the pitchfork
toward the direction the dog pointed. It had landed two feet from
Stanley, who wet his pants. If not for the ten-gallon hat on the
devil’s head, Stanley was certain he would have spied his two
horns. But those blood red eyes and pitchfork were proof enough; he
was the devil and the boy was his captive waiting to be set free by
the servant of the Lord, Stanley Dalrumple, who had returned per
the boy’s pleas.

He waited until he was under the windowsill before
calling the prisoner’s name. “Hey Leroy. It’s me.”

“I knew you all would come on back and fetch me.
Hurry on up before my pappy comes back.”

His pappy? Wow! The devil must’ve
put a spell on him.
Stanley climbed through
the window and landed on the wooden floor with his hands and
head.

“Oh, thank the Lord you came on back. How you gonna
get me free like you promised you would?” He rattled his chain.

“With this.” Stanley pulled the twelve-inch file from
his pocket and started to etch a groove on a link of chain fastened
to the leg of a rusty woodstove. He filed nonstop until a blister
formed on each hand. “I got to go before the devil comes back and
chains me up too. You’re going to have to finish cutting through
where I started. Once you get free go out to the road and go left.
Run on over to my house. It’s the green one. My mom will figure out
what to do next. She’s real smart.” He covered up the partially cut
link with a log. “Just don’t let him see where you’re cutting. I
figure it’s gonna take you a while to finish cutting it all the way
through.”

“Okay. You be the onliest friend I gots in this whole
big world. I be obliged to you forever and ever. I been praying you
all would come along for years.”

“I’m going to skedaddle before the devil gets back
and puts his pitchfork in me. He almost did the last time I was
here. Don’t forget. The green house.”

“Good bye.” He went to work on the partially cut
link.

A day later, Stanley walked the road again in search
of soda bottles. In front of the devil’s house, he parked his wagon
and jumped down into the drainage ditch. He tarried as he retrieved
three bottles. Distracted by the playing of his role of passerby,
he did not notice an approaching figure until it was thirty feet
from him.

“What you doing on my property?” Gone was the
pitchfork, replaced by a shotgun filled with rock salt.

“Just picking up pop bottles.” Stanley held two of
them above his head.

The devil jabbed his gun at the intruder. “You better
git right now. And don’t come back no more.”

Stanley scrambled out of the ditch and grabbed his
red wagon’s handle. Several bottles bounced out of it but he did
not stop running until he was home.

***

Five nights later, Jason heard someone pounding on
the front door. He switched on the porch light and peered through a
window at the small boy who kept glancing over his shoulder. Jason
lowered his head to the brass mail slot. “What do you want this
time of night?”

“Help me, mister. Stanley said to come over
here.”

Jason opened the unlocked the door and stepped back
from the ten-foot length of rusty chain that dragged after the boy
into his living room. “What the heck?”

It took a police officer fifteen minutes to arrive
and almost that long to piece together the story told by Leroy and
Stanley.

“What happens now?” Jason handed the cop another cup
of coffee.

“I’m calling for backup. Then we’ll go pay his father
a visit. You think you can watch Leroy until we get the social
worker over here first thing in the morning?”

“Sure.”

***

The devil, alias Monroe O. Lithington, was certain
that the police had arrived to shut down the still that he operated
in the woods on the backside of his property. He sighed when the
two lawmen explained their visit at 2:34 a.m.

Leastways they ain’t here after my
moonshine.
He spent the night in jail and
said little until he appeared before a judge the next afternoon.
The Dalrumples and a reporter from the Madisin News were the only
spectators. Leroy sat at a table with a social worker fifteen feet
from his father. Judge Bellow read from the court
docket.

“This is a preliminary hearing of Monroe O.
Lithington on the charge of child neglect. In the interest of time,
I would like the defendant to give his side of the story. Then
we’ll listen to his son. Any objections?”

The public defender turned to the social worker, who
shook her head.