The Hayloft: a 1950s Mystery (9 page)

At that moment the Carter football team ran
onto the field, led by quarterback Joe Hawkins, and Natalie gave an
especially enthusiastic cheer. I wondered what it would take to get
Mr. Hawkins out of her life.

A few minutes after the game started, Barney Weiss
came strolling up the steps of the bleachers, looking nonchalant,
worked his way among the fans along the row below us, and sat down
right in front of Sylvia. He was wearing a Carter sweatshirt and
his dark hair, which was always the first thing I noticed about
him, was as usual immaculately combed.

Between plays, Sylvia tapped him on the
shoulder and said, “I see you’ve come out of hibernation.”

Referring to the fact that he had been very
quiet, at least in the lunchroom, since Natalie had beaten him at
nim.

Barney turned around and said, “Can’t miss
the game. Root root root for the home team and all that. I’m even
wearing my Carter sweatshirt.”

“Admirable school spirit,” Sylvia said. Then,
indicating me, “Have you met Gary?”

“He’s in my math class.” Barney gave me the
eye. “He’s already shown up us dumb ones by answering a couple of
tough questions.”

When Barney turned back to watch a play,
Sylvia spoke in my ear, covered by the noise of the crowd. “I
thought you were keeping a low profile.”

I shrugged. “I’ll get a note from my aunt
saying that I get ear infections when I have to answer questions in
class.”

We watched as Joe Hawkins threw a touchdown
pass, making the score 6-0. The cheerleaders, led by Natalie, went
wild, as did many of the fans. Barney gave a halfhearted cheer, but
Sylvia jumped up and yelled. I clapped politely. A successful extra
point attempt made it 7-0.

During the break in the action, Sylvia got
Barney’s attention and said, “Gary is interested in what happened
to Ralph Harrison.” And to me, “Barney and Ralph were good
friends.”

Barney looked pensive, a look I hadn’t seen
on him. After a pause, he said, “Ralph was a smart boy. He would
have gone far. It’s a damn shame.”

“Do you think anybody was with him when
he…fell?” I asked.

Barney looked at me closely, as if trying to
figure out why I had asked the question. He spoke carefully. “The
official police report states that he was alone.”

“But…” I said and stopped. My reporting
experience had taught me that sometimes remaining silent was the
best way to get people to say more than they wanted to.

Barney was still choosing each word
carefully. “Given the circumstances, I think it is highly unlikely
that the accident would have happened if he had been alone. It was
the middle of the school day. He hadn’t been drinking. Although he
had a wild streak, he always calculated the odds and knew what he
was doing.”

“So, who was with him?’

Barney smiled a thin smile and said, “That’s
the 64-dollar question, isn’t it?”

“You referred to it as an accident. If
somebody was with him, do you still think it was an accident?”

“Ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies.”
Barney turned around as Carter kicked off to Atherton.

CHAPTER 10

The smooth voice of Perry Como wafted from
the jukebox in the corner of the cafeteria, crooning the words to
“Prisoner of Love,” as I attempted to glide around the dance floor
with Sylvia. Fred Astaire I wasn’t. The tables had been retracted
into the walls, and the chairs had been arranged along said walls,
leaving the tile floor open for a herd of couples engaged in slow
dancing.

Most of the dancers shuffled their sock feet
roughly in time to the music without executing recognizable steps,
so I didn’t feel out of place. The beat was too slow for a foxtrot,
anyway. Bodies swayed in unison, close together, often touching at
key points. A few of the girls’ heads rested on their boyfriends’
shoulders. A handful of couples eschewed the classic dance frame
and had their arms wrapped around each other, clinging together
with teenage intensity, as if afraid that their partners would
disappear forever if they loosened their grips.

Slow dancing was about as close as most of us
came to actual sex, and sometimes I wondered how many of us had
teeth marks on our bedposts. In the case of Sylvia and me, the
dance position was a little awkward because she was so much shorter
than I was, at an inch over five feet. I held her loosely so that
she wouldn’t get smothered by my sweater.

I had danced with her several times because,
of the available girls, she was the one I knew best. Most of the
students had come stag to the sock hop, as I had. It was the
evening after the football game. Several teachers, acting as
chaperones, sat at the raised end of the cafeteria. Two were even
dancing with each other, more skillfully than most of the
students.

Carter had beaten Atherton for the first time
in almost forever. Joe Hawkins had played a large part in the
victory. Maybe Carter was becoming an athletic power. I had talked
to some of my friends from Atherton at halftime. It was good to see
them again, but it brought back memories that depressed me. My
state of exile became more real to me.

I was feeling better now, but I wanted to
branch out. When Barney came over and asked Sylvia to dance, that
gave me an opportunity. Barney and my cousin, Ed, among others,
were moving freely from girl to girl. For somebody whose clothes
were worn and somewhat tattered, Ed had a lot of nerve. Since
changing partners was acceptable practice, I was going to practice
it. Of course, the girl I really wanted to dance with was Natalie,
but she had her arms wrapped around Joe. Although I couldn’t help
thinking that his aloof manner looked out of place, considering his
fortunate situation.

Who else was available? I saw Ruth Allen,
Ralph’s former girlfriend, sitting with some other girls along the
wall. A stirring in my loins told me that I wanted to dance with
her, if only because of her magnificent body. I went over, caught
her eye, and extended my hand. She stood up and put her hand in
mine without either of us saying a word. That was easy. We made our
way onto the floor and danced to Nat King Cole’s mellifluous voice
singing “Mona Lisa.” The touch of her breasts felt good against my
chest.

She wasn’t a talker like Sylvia, and to get
by the awkwardness of silence, I was trying to think of something
halfway intelligent to comment on when she said, “Not so close,
Gary.”

That shattered my euphoria. I mumbled an
apology and loosened the hold of my right hand on her back. Caught
enjoying myself too much. We danced to the rest of the song in
silence while Nat tried to figure out whether Mona was warm and
real or just a cold work of art. I began to wonder the same thing
about Ruth. Or maybe she just didn’t like me. Because I reminded
her of Ralph?

I was getting used to rejection. I had dated
an Atherton girl during the summer. I took her to nice places, like
Melody Fair, which featured Broadway musicals in a tent. On our
third or fourth date, we went to a drive-in theater. Drive-ins were
billed as hotbeds of iniquity. Not for me. Near the end of the
first movie of a double feature, I casually slid across the bench
seat of the car toward her and placed my arm behind her
shoulders.

During the break between movies, we ate
hamburgers, drank sodas, and went to the restrooms. She beat me
back to the car. When I returned, her purse, which was the size of
an overnight bag, sat squarely on the seat between us. As dense as
I was, I got the message. Looking back, what I couldn’t understand
was why I dated her again after that episode. I guess I was
desperate.

One time, after I had achieved some measure
of success with a girl, my mother pulled me into the basement where
she washed the clothes and showed me the sweater I had worn on that
occasion. It had lipstick all over the collar area, and she wasn’t
happy about it. It’s not easy being a teenager.

I thanked Ruth when the music stopped and was
about to look for something to drink when I noticed Natalie sitting
by herself. Opportunity was knocking. I raced over to her and asked
her to dance.

She looked up at me, startled, and said, “Joe
just went to the restroom. He’ll be back soon.”

“Then we’ll dance until he gets back.” By
this time I had hold of her hand. I pulled her to her feet, and we
started dancing to “Earth Angel,” sung by The Penguins.

She felt good in my arms, but she appeared
tentative and kept looking over my shoulder toward the entrance to
the cafeteria. She said, “We aren’t supposed to know each other,
are we?”

“I met you at cheerleader practice, remember?
And Joe is in my gym class. We played on the same touch football
team. He even threw me a touchdown pass.”

Natalie still looked nervous. She clearly
wasn’t enjoying herself, which greatly tempered my enjoyment. Earth
angels were supposed to act differently. I looked around the room,
but I didn’t see Joe. I did see Ed dancing with Ruth, and they were
dancing closer than I had been allowed to. How could he get away
with that? After all, I was taller and better looking.

Joe still hadn’t shown up when the song
ended, but I let Natalie go and went in search of refreshments.
After two bad dances, I needed them. And a Charleston was playing
on the jukebox. No boys and only a few girls knew how to dance to
the bouncy tune, including Sylvia and Natalie, and they obviously
enjoyed doing it. They crossed their hands on their knees and
kicked their legs in unusual directions, in time to the music. They
looked like flappers from another age. Where did they learn this
sort of thing?

I found the refreshment table—one of the
cafeteria tables that hadn’t been stored in the wall. While I
picked up a cookie and a paper cup full of pink punch, I watched
two boys arm wrestling at the end of the table. The smaller of the
two put down the arm of the larger one quite easily.

He said, slurring his words, “Who else wants
to take me on? I can beat anybody here, right-handed or
left-handed.”

“You’re drunk, Willie,” a woman said. I
guessed that she was a mother recruited to be in charge of
refreshments.

Willie denied he was drunk, and they bantered
back and forth for a minute. He was clearly younger than I was,
which placed him well below the legal drinking age of eighteen. He
wore a T-shirt with the already short sleeves rolled even higher,
revealing significant biceps and triceps for so small a body. The
fold of one T-shirt sleeve outlined the shape of a pack of
cigarettes sitting on his shoulder. His hair was combed behind his
head in a DA, which was the nice way of saying a duck’s ass. He
must use Brylcreme to hold it in place.

Willie spotted me watching the action and
said, “What about you? Do you want to arm wrestle?”

“Not me.” There was no glory to be had if I
won over a smaller opponent and much humiliation if I lost,
especially because of his inebriated state. And his muscles were
impressive.

“What’s your name? I ain’t seen you
before.”

“Gary.”

“I’m Willie.”

He reached his hand across the table toward
me. I crammed the remains of my cookie into my mouth and shifted my
drink cup to my left hand. When I took his hand he gripped mine
hard and jerked me toward him. I fell across the table. My drink
flew out of my hand and splashed all over him when I slapped the
table to catch myself. I also grunted loudly and spit out the
cookie onto Willie’s shirt.

While I tried to pick myself up and determine
whether I had suffered any damage, other than to my ego, Willie
laughed. A few people who had observed the action, including the
mother, apparently were too shocked to laugh at first, but when
they saw that I wasn’t hurt, they did laugh—at Willie. Because he
had pink punch streaming down his face and half-chewed chocolate
chip cookie on his shirt.

As I continued to collect myself, someone
started to admonish Willie. He held up his hands and said, still
slurring his words, “Hey, it was a joke.” He didn’t seem to be
bothered by the fact that he looked a mess.

I had to do something. One option was to
attack him, but aside from the fact that he had a good defensive
position on the other side of the table, it wouldn’t look good for
a senior to fight an underclassman. In addition, I would get into
trouble, which I couldn’t afford to do, and it would raise my
profile, which I didn’t want.

I smiled and said, “You look good enough to
eat.” Too late, I realized the double entendre, but the resulting
laughter cleared the air.

“I like you,” Willie said. “Sit down and talk
to me.”

Why not? He looked harmless now. I sat down
across the table from him, being careful to keep my hands and arms
where he couldn’t grab them.

He wiped his face with a napkin given to him
by the mother and said, “What grade are you?”

“Senior.”

“I’m a southmore.”

I didn’t know whether the mispronunciation
was the result of his drinking. I said, “You play any sports?”

“Baseball and cross-country.”

I wondered how much longer he would be
running cross-country if he continued to smoke. And drink to
excess. I was about to excuse myself and try my luck on the dance
floor again when he said, “You look something like the guy who
died—Ralph Harrison.”

Natalie had said that, but only after I told
her we were related. Nobody else had mentioned it. Maybe the
alcohol gave him special insight, although it’s not surprising that
one might look like one’s first cousin. However, I played dumb and
said, “He died?”

“Yeah, he fell off the balcony in the
auditorium. That’s what they say, anyway.”

“Did you know him?”

“He taught me how to walk on my hands. Good
guy. But there was something funny about how he died.”

I was about to ask him what was funny when
Sylvia came sliding up to me on her sock feet, grabbed my hand, and
said, “Here you are, hiding out. Come and dance with me. I’m tired
of having my toes stepped on by the clods I’ve been dancing with.
At least you know one foot from the other.”