Hearts Left Behind (9 page)

“And if you ever need any wood or lumber or anything,
you’d get that from Pease Lumber uptown.  Let me know, though, because Mr.
Pease’s granddaughter is in my class and she likes me so I could probably get
you a discount.”

Mr. Cooper shot me an impressed look and said “I’ll
keep that in mind.”

And then he said, “What’s the granddaughter’s
name? 
This girl who likes you.”

“Um, Sheri, but I didn’t mean that she
likes
me. 
We’re just friends, that’s
all.”

“Of course, you’re friends.  You like each other.”

“Yes,” I said.  Then looking at Katie, “Well,
no.  I mean, I don’t like her.”

From the stove, Mrs. Cooper said, “Howard, behave
yourself
.”

I chanced a look over at Katie who was staring
straight down into her lap and stifling a giggle.

“Tucker, your Grandparents live in town here, don’t
they?” asked Mrs. Cooper.

“Yep.
  Grandpa and
Grandma Mueller both died a few years ago, but Grandpa and Grandma Gaines live
three blocks away from us.  He’s a truck driver. 
Hauls
cattle and pigs and such for the farmers around here.
  Mr.
Patterson does, too, but Grandpa’s better.  He gets up real early in the
morning.  Also, he’s real safe.  His handle is “Snail” on account of
how slow he drives.  I don’t have a handle yet, but I’ll get one when I’m
older and can help drive some loads for him.”

“So, you’re going to be a truck driver when you grow
up?” asked Mr. Cooper.

“Oh, no sir,” I said.  “That’s just part
time. 
To get money for college and stuff.”

“Well, then, if you’re not going to be a truck driver,
what are you going to be?”

I could feel my forehead and eyebrows crinkle up as I
thought seriously about that question for a minute, which was about a
fifty-seven seconds longer than I had ever previously spent on that question.

“Well, sir.  I guess I’d like to be a baseball
player, but I suppose I can’t count on that.  Not too many people get to
do that and they don’t even have baseball at
the high school.  So, if I can’t do that, I guess maybe a writer.”

“A writer?
  You mean
like an author?”

“Yes, sir.
  I think I’d
like to write stories and stuff.  I won the Junior Writer’s award for 4
^th
grade.  Plus, I’ve written some poems my mom says are really good.”

After saying this, I snuck a look over at Katie who
I found smiling widely in my direction.

“Poetry, huh?” said Mr. Cooper.  “You mean like
love poems?  Stuff like that?”

“Howard, if you’re done eating will you clear the
table please,” interjected Mrs. Cooper.  “Katie, why don’t you and Tucker
go and play.  It looks beautiful outside.”

Mr. Cooper protested, “We’re in the middle of a
conversation here, Betty.  I was going to ask Tuck to recite some of his
poetry for us.  How ‘bout that, Tuck, would you read us one of your poems?”

“Another time,” Mrs. Cooper said. 
“Outside you two.”

Stepping
off the
porch together, Katie said, “Sorry about my dad.  He likes to tease is
all.
”

“That’s okay.  My dad does the same thing.”

“He likes you, I can tell,” she said.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.
 
Always calling him ‘sir’ like you did.
  That’s
good.  He likes that.”

After a few minutes of walking in silence and kicking
at rocks, Katie spoke up again.  “So you write poetry, huh?

“I don’t know.  Some, I guess.”

“Can I read it?”

“Read it?  Why?  It’s not very good.”

“That’s
okay,
I want to read
it anyway.  Besides, I’ll bet it’s a lot better than you say.”

“I don’t think so, Katie.”

“Well, can I just read it anyway?”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh, come on! Please!”

I squirmed, looked around, stomach turned, look at
her.  I couldn’t believe what this little girl could get me to do.

“Promise
you
won’t make fun?”

“Promise.”

“Promise not to tell anyone?”

“Promise.”

“Promise to like it?”

She squeezed my arm above the elbow.  “I already
do.”

It is hard to keep secrets in old houses, what with
all the moaning and groaning they do. 
What with all the
tattletale creaking of wooden floors and old doors swinging on cranky hinges.
 
Still, I managed to sneak out without waking Grandpa or Grandma Gaines. 

It was well past midnight and I was still buzzing on
vodka when I stepped off the back porch and looked out for that nosy old
moon.  It seemed low in the sky and I almost felt as if I was looking down
at it, which made me feel like God a little bit.  I quickly said a prayer
and apologized, then pointed out to God that He was the one who made me this
way.  And so I said another prayer of apology. 

Sin and redemption.

Buried inside me there was an eleven-year-old boy who
still loved Katie Cooper and he had something he wanted me to do, so I let him
be in charge for a while.  He took me to the garage and put a pair of
hedge clippers in my hand.  Then he walked me through the Cooper’s
backyard and into my Aunt Paula’s, where the hydrangeas still thrived against
all botanical logic.

I was much more careful than I had been the first time
I did this, those many years ago.  Back then, I had grabbed the flowers by
the stem and yanked.  This time, I gently bent them over and clipped,
almost surgically.  Back then, I had tossed them to the ground, piled on
top of each other.  This time, I gently laid them down in formation. 
Back then, I had run away, flowers clutched in fists.  This time, I
cradled them in my arms and walked.  Back then, I had given them to Katie
Cooper.  This time, I would do the same.  I hid them among the bushes
behind Grandpa and Grandma’s garage.  I would rise early the next morning
and take them to the cemetery.

With a fistful of flowers in one hand and a travel mug
of coffee in the other, I went out to the cemetery just after 6:30 the next
morning.  Rather than walk along the roadside, I trudged through Bruner’s
field to enter from the far side of the cemetery. 

Upon arriving, I quickly realized that Aunt Paula’s
rumor mill was operating at full capacity and that my letters to Beatrice Hart
and Phyllis Ross seemed to have started something of a trend, as there were a
handful of headstones adorned with letters.  Some stuck on with masking
tape, others placed gently in the plants and bushes surrounding the graves, one
clipped to the pipes of a wind chime, another placed in the open palms of a
weeping angel.  And those were just the ones I could see.  Perhaps
there were others more discretely hidden. 
Perhaps
others that had already been read and removed.
  What a weird little
phenomenon I had unwittingly instigated.  And what a weird little sense of
joy it brought me.

As I approached Katie’s grave, a bird took to flight
from a tree branch above.  Wings flapping mightily
and it took an arched path downward, spreading its
wings wide across and gliding parallel to both heaven and earth.  It
landed atop a headstone about thirty feet from where I stood, facing the
opposite direction.  On the ground in front of it, an envelope stuck out
from beneath a small heavy rock.

The bird looked to be a falcon or a hawk of some
sort.  I stood silent and marveled at its beauty, the sheer majesty. 
Wondered at the curious flight it had taken.

Then, after a moment, that bird did a remarkable
thing. It turned around and it
faced me
from atop its stony perch.  The eyes seemed
human, old and wise.  Its white and brown-speckled chest heaved slightly
but steadily.  Our eyes locked for a second, maybe two, and then it
suddenly expanded and flapped its wings heavily, flying off in an arched path
upward and away from me.  In its wake, a single brown feather floated back
down and landed on the ground on top of the envelope. 

Watch for feathers

I walked to the grave and picked up the feather. 
Then I looked at the headstone it had fallen in front of. 
A simple engraving on a small and simple stone.

James Johnson

1953-1982

James Jo
hnson? 
Did I know that name?  And then I realized…this was Slim Jim. 
Something about seeing his real name made me sad.  Whatever James Johnson
had been at the start of his life, he had wound up something else at the end of
it. 
From James Johnson to Slim Jim.
 
From love to hate.
 
From a hopeful
beginning to a tragic ending.
  Just like Katie and Ethan in that
way.

This didn’t make any sense.  Who would leave a
letter at Slim Jim’s grave?  He had no family or friends here to read
it.  Nobody cared about this child killer. 

Except maybe for whoever paid for his burial.

I bent down and pulled the letter out from under the
rock.  It was unaddressed and unsealed.  Feeling a little guilty for
what I was about to do, I looked around and saw that I was still alone in this
death field.  Somewhere along the way I had dropped Katie’s flowers,
forgetting the reason I had come here in the first place.

I pulled the letter out of the unsealed envelope and
unfolded it to see a single word on the sheet of paper.  A single word
that instantly spawned a million questions about the past. 

Innocent

Later that night, I sat alone in the kitchen staring
down at that one-word letter.  I flipped it over and turned it upside
down, but there was just that one word.  I gently pressed out the creases,
but found no answers in the folds and wrinkles.  I held it above me and
let light shine through, but nothing was revealed.  It was just that one
word, but it carried the heaviness of certainty.  Did
Charlie write this?  It seemed unlikely.  He
had been willing enough to discuss his theories with me at Mustang’s even
though we hadn’t seen each other in years. 
But if not
Charlie, then who?
  Who else believed that Slim Jim was innocent
and why would they wait until now to share this belief? 
And why in this manner?
  In addition to the weight of
certainty, that one word carried the burden of secrecy.  Inked by someone
who felt compelled to speak out, yet frightened to step forward.  And
understandably so, I suppose.  They would have a lot to explain. 
Probably more than they would be able to.  For starters, how could you
explain waiting twenty years?  This was a real Pontius Pilate move. 
I’ve told you he’s innocent, now it’s up to you.
  Then launching this letter into the world and
washing their hands of the matter.  All I knew for sure was that after all
of these years of thinking that some random hobo had murdered Katie Cooper
there were now two people declaring his innocence.  Moose and Charlie had
sworn each other to secrecy and assuming they kept that promise, the
letter-writing candidates seemed pretty limited.  It could have been some
random prankster, but that seemed pointless.  It could have been w someone
who - for whatever reason – believed that Slim Jim was innocent.  Yet still
the question remained – why now?  Perhaps the author of the letter had
been afraid to come forward back then.  Perhaps the real killer was still
alive.  Or perhaps the author himself was the real killer.

As perplexing as it was, it was a nice distraction,
this Slim Jim mystery. 
Same with the
grave letters.
  They gave my mind a place
to walk that didn’t lead to Ethan – at least not directly.  I could get
consumed by the intrigue and the unknown for a while.

Sometimes I wonder if maybe I made a deal with God
that I have forgotten. 
That I agreed to lose Ethan to
gain that thing which I can’t recall.
  Or perhaps it was because of
some fire of evil inside my heart and God knew that the giving and taking away
of Ethan was the only way for it to be extinguished.  A burning black rock
plucked out of my chest by the hand of an unsympathetic Holy Ghost.

I don’t go to church regularly, but I do have a
personal relationship with God.  As my personal advisor, He has shaped me
into a critical thinker who is equal parts faith and doubt, believer and
skeptic.  A believer whose faith has been strengthened as much by what is
found outside the church as what is found inside of it:  the expanse of
the universe, how the eyeball works, the migration patterns of the monarch
butterfly, the moon and the tide.  Everything has been so carefully
choreographed, has it not?  For this reason, I dismiss almost
nothing.  I would not be surprised to someday find that my personal
advisor leaves hints inside of, say, horoscopes for instance. 
Reincarnation?
 
Numerolgy
?
 
Tarot Cards?
  Weeping
statues of the Virgin Mary?  Why not?