GOING OUTSIDE a NOVEL by GREGORY J. BEAVERSON A

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GOING OUTSIDE

A NOVEL

GREGORY J. BEAVERSON

A Thesis Submitted to the

Faculty of the Graduate Studies Division of

Ohio Dominican University

Columbus, Ohio

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of

MASTER OF ARTS IN LIBERAL STUDIES

JULY 2011

To Wendy, for whom I do all good things.

And for Dad.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks go to both sides of my family, the Beaversons and the Sullivans, for parts of the stories here. A special thanks to my parents, Roger and Brenda, who chose to raise Sheri, Derin, and me in Rural Ohio, where I’ve always been proud to say I’m from.

I want to express my appreciation to Dr. Ann Hall, a great editor and advisor, whose patience for my writing knew no bounds. Thanks also to Dr. Ron Carstens and Dr. Martin Brick for their careful review and suggestions.

And thanks to my wife, Wendy, and our two wonderful children, Emily and Henry, for just being them.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 – Like Father, Like Sven ...... 1

2 – The Athlete ...... 13

3 – Mrs. Gleason’s Underwear ...... 23

4 – Bill Fuller, USMC ...... 27

5 – Pork Chops and Homemade Noodles ...... 31

6 – Uncle Theodore ...... 39

7 – Teaching Eddie ...... 47

8 – Funnels and Glove Drawers ...... 61

9 – Pass The Ball ...... 73

10 – Old Barns and Cemeteries ...... 87

11 – The Hospital ...... 91

12 – A Woman’s Touch ...... 97

13 – Paths ...... 101

14 – The Closer ...... 109

15 – Going Outside ...... 117

GOING OUTSIDE

Gregory J. Beaverson

Beaverson

1 Like Father, Like Sven

Phillip had the speed but not the passion. His first track season ever had come down to this: he was the fourth man in the mile relay on the combined seventh-and-eighth-grade team. The event included four of the fastest, most determined guys on the whole track team. It mixed speed and stamina in an all-out sprint once around the track for each runner. He was sure about jumping. He could do the long jump and hurdles with ease, his coach encouraging him to do more and jump farther—higher. But running, the running that didn’t require jet-fast speed like the 110 meters, he wanted to do that. That kind of running was more challenging and more girls seemed to be watching during those races. He wanted that midpoint where he wasn’t just a dumb fast guy but wasn’t a distance nerd, either. His ego and his ability had both landed him on the half-mile relay—if that wasn’t challenging enough—and the mile relay. That race could make or break a guy. Phillip had closed his eyes as he waited for the baton, the shiny aluminum cylinder that was passed among teammates between laps. That’s what made the race a relay. If the baton was in a guy’s hand, he was running. Phillip was on deck and he pictured the handoff in his mind like so many times before. George, Kenny, Smith, and Phillip always walked around the track before meets, practicing in slow motion. They passed the baton to each other methodically as they walked, getting the rhythm, feeling the metal. Phillip was pretty sure they just did it for attention. They must have looked good out there in warm-ups doing their thing, Phillip thought. They were the best-looking middle school mile-relay team around. The track meet was a small invitational at Riverside High School, a rival of Phillip’s school, Grovemont, in the West-Central Ohio Athletic Conference. The outcome determined seeding for the first round of the conference meet, and Phillip’s team knew it all too well. The coach hammered it into their young heads all the time: “You guys are good, but you’re better than this.” He told them all season that if they stuck together, they could be the best in the state when they got to high school. That seemed like an eternity from then. High school is far away to a pack of middle-schoolers.

Going Outside

Phillip stood there beside the Riverside guy in the second lane. Behind them, Smith was keeping up with his counterpart as they came around the third turn. Smith had a habit of pumping his arm and jerking the baton as he ran to catch an opponent. He was the team’s comeback guy and Phillip was the one who had to maintain the lead and win. Phillip was the finisher. He was the closer. The crowd was loud. Parents and girlfriends and a few teachers from both schools lit up the small track with their excitement. Phillip had noticed the crowd’s movement toward the track during the second lap. The people gathered at strategic points from inside and outside the track and cheered on the boys as they raced. It fueled them to run faster and dig harder. The old dirt track was well worn and the boys tore around it quicker with every juvenile feminine voice they heard. He wasn’t even running yet, but Phillip started feeling it in his chest. He calmed his breathing to control it, but the anxiety wouldn’t go away. The officials were reminding the boys about the handoffs and that there were ten yards within the assigned lane to complete them. It may have been the boys’ first year, but there was a collective rolling-of-the-eyes by all eight of them. They were sports guys, and thirteen years old or not, the rules had been explained at the start of the season and they knew how to run a mile relay by then. One guy commented with arrogance: “What is this, amateur hour?” Phillip watched Smith overtake his opponent on the final straightaway. He couldn’t tell how far ahead Smith was, but the crowd became even louder as he and the Riverside boy stretched it out down the line. With the crowd’s loud reaction, Phillip thought it could have been the end of the race. An official yanked his arm and pulled him into the first lane. Another pushed the Riverside guy he was about to race into Phillip’s old spot in Lane 2. The boys took their ready positions with the left leg forward and bent and the right leg back and straighter. Both held the right arm back and looked over the right shoulder. Phillip didn’t look in his opponent’s face. He had only glanced and saw the number on his track jersey. He was racing Number 11, and he wondered if it was that guy’s number all year like in football or if they just threw on whatever clean jersey fit them from a pile in the locker room before the meet started. Either way, Phillip didn’t want to see the number on the Riverside guy’s jersey after that. If he saw the number, that meant he was behind.

2 Beaverson

Smith was moving. He pumped his arm so fast that the flash from the shiny baton was almost distracting. Phillip couldn’t remember Smith moving so fast. He drew closer. “Go!” Smith yelled at Phillip thirteen yards away. Phillip took off at the same time he heard the Riverside guys with their command. They practiced it a thousand times that season, maybe more. Take off with the right hand open and behind, palm facing up, awaiting the feel of the metal to wrap the fingers and thumb around. “Concentrate on running,” the coach would say. “Your takeoff is more important than the baton. The feel of the metal should be an instant reaction for your hand like shutting your eyes when a bug flies in your face.” And it worked. Phillip felt the baton in his hand and brought it forward as he chugged his arms. The thumb and fingers had wrapped around it instinctively and he really hadn’t even thought about it. He burned around the first turn and resisted looking or feeling for the presence of his adversary. He knew he was back there somewhere, assuming the handoff went well. It seemed like such a simple action, but some teams just didn’t know how to do it, or they folded when they were under pressure like that. Passing the baton is what made it a real team event, and Phillip loved that about it. The second turn came into view and he heard him, Number 11, coming up behind. Phillip had spent his speed early in races before, only to get tuckered out and lose his energy at the end. He kept on, just fast enough, but conserving what he thought he’d need. The turn passed and Phillip could hear 11 getting closer. The crowd noise diminished on the back side of the track and he began to hear the footsteps. They were heavy, tapping footsteps. Size elevens on Number 11, maybe. The back straightaway looked long. The two ran toward the lengthy concession stand on the visitors’ side of the football field, inside the track. Phillip could see the giant head of a pirate with a three-cornered hat probably painted by some art class ten years ago. He and Number 11 were having it out on their way to the pirate. In red and blue, Phillip could see “Riverside Pirates” painted below. Why wouldn’t they paint it above the head so people could read it? Focus! More heavy footsteps and serious panting approached. Though farther away, Phillip heard the crowd get louder. The Riverside crowd. Number 11 must have been on top of him as they came to the pirate building. They disappeared behind it and it was as if they were the

Going Outside only guys there for the moment, just having a one-on-one race for bragging rights. Phillip heard their breathing echo off the pirate. The footstep-tapping in the packed dirt was quick and loud in the solitude. Then Phillip saw the freckled left shoulder of Number 11. The boy pumped his arms and breathed heavier, trying to outdo Phillip in every way. Then there was a left leg. Then the breathing went before him and the pitch changed like the Doppler Effect. The redshift of Number 11 went by Phillip just as they emerged from the cover of the building. The crowd roared. Phillip turned on whatever he was saving for the end of the race. He would not be modest in the face of this embarrassment. But as he stoked his own fire, the sounds from Riverside fans drove Number 11 faster and he shot around the third turn as easily as someone would run a cool-down lap. Phillip was almost at the point where he was leaping—bounding instead of running. The just-learned technique’s effectiveness surprised him as he began to catch Number 11 on the final turn. He began pumping his right arm and jerking the baton with every movement inexplicably. He wasn’t sure if he was remembering Smith as he came around the same turn or if he had found a new method to help him defeat Number 11. The two sprinted down the straightaway in a final stretch for victory, for glory, for a little fame in their small part of Ohio. Who knew how long it would be talked about in the future? It would either be the story of Number 11 challenging one of the best closers in Grovemont Middle School history only to go down to defeat in the last five yards, or it would be of Phillip and how he couldn’t keep the lead his teammates had built and maintained throughout an important race. Phillip looked up as Number 11 crossed the line a few steps ahead of him. Afterward, he remembered the guys coming over to him and patting him on the back and saying, “It’s all right.” “Good try, Man.” He remembered meeting 11 in the midst of teammates to shake hands. “Good race,” he said, and the comment was returned immediately. Phillip couldn’t remember anything from the bus ride back to the school. His father’s face throughout the car ride home was neither encouraging nor disappointing, but still not what Phillip needed. They arrived at the side door to the kitchen where Phillip embraced his mother and found wordless comfort in her. She smelled good.

4 Beaverson

If it was a dream, how could it be that real? How was there so much detail? And then Phillip knew it wasn’t a dream, it was a memory. It all had really happened last spring at the end of seventh grade. The fourteen-year-old lay in his bed and inhaled lightly, searching for his mother. She seemed there for a moment, and then she was gone. He smelled smoke. * The track meet and the pirate and the disappointment from his memory still fresh in his head, Phillip awoke to his father standing beside his bed and staring at him. The boy opened his eyes to the brooding silhouette of an underweight man with a sunken chest. He wore a robe that was older than Phillip. The uncombed black hair was surrounded by ribbons of smoke and his lips and nose refracted an orange glow. His dad never smoked before and Phillip was still wondering why he had started. The boy sat up on his elbows and the man turned and left the room. The crack of the door he came through let in light from the hallway. The smoke still lingered in the air. The clock said 6:15, so Phillip knew it was 6:00. He didn’t like being late, and he was becoming perturbed with people who always were. Even at fourteen, he was already becoming judgmental about people who were late. He would think about Mr. Guffman and how he never arrived on time to pick up Phillip for baseball practice the last two summers. Phillip realized the man was passing that trait on to his son and Phillip’s friend, Tommy Guffman. The father was teaching his son that it was all right to be habitually late if there always seemed like a good reason for it. “The car wouldn’t start.” “There was an accident we couldn’t get around.” “The house was on fire.” Phillip got to where he was looking forward to hearing the next new excuse. It was like the latest installment in a series of movies. But while he enjoyed that part, he wasn’t fond of the looks and creased-eye stares that accompanied his arrival with the Guffmans. They would arrive at practice late and the coach would roll his eyes again. He wanted Phillip at second base fielding grounders and Tommy over with the pitchers warming up. Tommy and his dad looked past it all. They had become accustomed to the unsaid comments from people years ago. But Phillip began to feel uncomfortable when the caravan of cars leaving for away games was left idling with air conditioners on awaiting the Guffman vehicle. He didn’t like being associated with being

Going Outside late or being disorganized, and Phillip appreciated that his own father had taught him better. All the clocks in the house were set fast. Time was important. Phillip came out of the bathroom and got a glimpse of himself in the mirror. Maybe some of the guys at school were right: he was getting fat. He wondered if that really happened to fourteen-year-olds. To fourteen year-old boys? There was John J. and Ernie and Slim, the really fat kid at school who looked like the German exchange student in early episodes of The Simpsons. Or as the guys called him: Schlim. Phillip couldn’t stand a comparison with the fat kids. But he couldn’t deny it. Since the end of seventh grade and the disappointing finish to the track season, he was growing up, but he was also growing out. Perhaps it was because his mother was gone. He would think that to himself on long walks across shorn wheat fields. Perhaps he wasn’t running enough. Perhaps the positive changes he had been expecting—hoping for—were changes for the worse. The appearance of hair on his chin and elsewhere were supposed to be signaling something new and exciting. Instead, he felt he was just getting fat and shortchanged. Hearing the squeaky floor board, Phillip knew his father was on his way toward the bathroom. The pair’s morning routine consisted of few words, but a lot of communication. The man was on his way to get Phillip moving again and Phillip knew it. He scurried to his room and heard his dad turn around on the floor board to return to the living room or the kitchen. Time was important in the Vinson Household. Mr. Vinson’s mandate was that Phillip had to perform some type of physical activity every day before going to school. Some days it was splitting wood, other days it was running for a while, others it was doing pushups and sit-ups. Phillip had chosen to run. His father was “a track star, or baseball, or basketball, or something like that,” Phillip explained to others. That was what he was always told, but lately he had been wondering just how much of it was true. Phillip ate some cereal and took off on the run. Even though his dad made him do it, he liked running. He could think while staring out across the landscape. The Ohio countryside was normal to Phillip: no oceans, no mountains, no deserts. It was beautiful, but not breathtaking, and that was all right for him. The family had relatives who came in sometimes from Nebraska and told Phillip he had it made in Ohio. Other relatives came

6 Beaverson from California and Maryland who wondered why anyone would stay. Phillip thought he and Ohio were somewhere between both opinions. It was all he’d ever known so he thought it was great. It was normal. He hated it when the Californians and Marylanders came in and criticized everything. Of course there aren’t any mountains. Of course there aren’t any oceans. This is Ohio! There were meadows and pastures, and winding roads that pass through groves of maple trees. There were wheat and corn and bean fields, flat as can be, and sometimes rolling like the Great Plains. Phillip ran. He looked out over a corn field below the plane of the road and he let the gravel under his feet guide him. That was his Ohio: tiny one-lane township roads draped with blankets of oak, interrupted by covered bridges and rock-filled, leaf-laden streams. He traveled among sprawling soybean fields that in September turned from green to yellow to brown like a miniature forest in the fall. Over on Hammer Road, he could see horses and buggies silhouetted against the rising sun, and outlines of men in wide-brimmed hats who had beards and missing mustaches. Any day of the week, there were gaggles of suspender- clad boys playing baseball at the Amish school, and girls in bonnets riding bicycles on narrow pasture-lined roads. Phillip ran on his own narrow pasture-lined road. He approached the house and hadn’t even realized he had gone the full distance. There were no pirates, and Number 11 was missing in action. He stepped in the driveway and the gravel crackled under his foot. A woodpecker tapped at the dead elm in the corner of the woods. Two brown squirrels shot across the yard and toward the barn. His father was already gone for work. Phillip unpacked his growing belly from the sweaty t-shirt and took off his shorts for a shower. He passed by the mirror and ignored the figure he caught from the corner of one eye. He had been ignoring the figure for a while. For his age, Phillip was very self-sufficient. Most kids have their mother or father to do things like make breakfast, clean the house, mow the lawn, and cut wood for the wood- burner or fireplace. Phillip had all of that once, but he always knew he liked doing things for himself. Some people in his family called it independent; others called it stubborn. Phillip’s cousin Tammy, who once lived with his family for five months, was completely helpless. There was a time when the family was carrying groceries in from the house one night and Tammy’s hands were full. She was the first one to the door and so she

Going Outside waited, calling Phillip’s name over and over again to hurry and open the door for her. She yelled and yelled his name until he was finally there. He couldn’t understand why she just didn’t open it for herself. She certainly wasn’t making him be chivalric, and he knew girls weren’t as strong, “but man,” he would say. He knew he would have handled the situation by putting down one of the bags, or putting all of them in one hand so he could open the door himself. There was no way he would just stand there and wait for somebody to do it for him. Nor would Phillip ever stand and call—and yell—to someone when it would take much less energy to just do it for himself. It was second nature. The first question he would ask himself is what if he were alone? He wouldn’t have taken as many grocery bags out of the car if he knew he couldn’t open the door with them. Phillip had pointed out the hook with the bell hanging on it to Tammy. It was right beside the door. His mother had his dad put it there years ago as a door bell that no one ever used. The hook was long enough that it stuck out beyond the bell and Tammy could have just hung the bags there to open the door. And Phillip let her know it. After he was dressed, Phillip gathered up his homework from the night before and put it in his bag. He knew he would hear the bus downshifting as it came down the hill before Daisy’s house. It was quiet where he lived, and Phillip could just about hear anything before it actually happened. He liked sitting down and watching the news before he left for school. It made him feel grown up, as if he was going off to work in the morning or something like that. He liked the news, anyway. He liked reading Newsweek and Time in the library at school and he liked knowing about politics and learning about government. His teachers said he should be a politician, but he didn’t know if they were complimenting or insulting him when they said it. The engine of the bus came close, and Phillip realized that Daisy’s mother must have waived it by. He took his bag and shot out the front door. He knew it was hard for Bob to see him if he wasn’t already by the road. There were so many trees in the front yard. It was a dark house in a dark woods, and Phillip liked it. “Hi, Bob.” “Morning, Phil.” The bus was quiet when he got on because the kids like to slouch in their seats and sleep. Sets of girls always sat together and talked and whispered and sometimes giggled.

8 Beaverson

Phillip had no idea what they were always talking about, but he thought most girls never seemed to run out of words to say. Man, they just keep talking sometimes. His friend Sim developed a way of keeping warm in the wintertime. He was the first guy on the bus when it was still pretty cold. He’d say good morning to Bob then head for his seat where he would slouch down on his back, prop his knees up on the seat in front of him, and pull his coat up over his head. The only visible body parts were his eyes and nose. He would breathe through his nose and exhale with his mouth. Phillip stayed overnight with him once on a school night and he taught him how to do it the next morning. He was surprised at all the heat breathing created, but Sim was right. By the time the bus heated up, Sim was already asleep in his cocoon for the fifty-minute ride to school. Phillip’s mom called it “consolidation.” That’s why it took him fifty minutes to get to school every day. Saving money, or something like that. A long time ago, all the little towns couldn’t afford to run their own schools anymore so they all got together and made one big school, Grovemont Local School District, but the old buildings remained in use. The bus made one stop at the elementary school in Dryer to pick up kids who lived in town and walked there. The old schools in Dryer, Main, and Pleasant Point were elementary schools. The old school in Midtown was the high school. The old school in Brickton was the middle school. That was where Phillip was headed. By the time they got to Dryer, Sim had been sleeping for half an hour. He only woke up long enough to move over for someone to sit down. At the end of the route, the bus was packed to its limit with kids. Bob always watched to make sure Sim got off the bus. He drove off with him once and neither one of them noticed until Bob pulled into his own driveway and shut off the engine. Phillip and the guys kidded Sim about it for a while afterwards. He still kept sleeping. At school finally, Phillip got off the bus and walked straight to homeroom. He was there early, so the only other guy in the room was Sven. He was a big guy with blond, almost white hair. Phillip didn’t even remember what his real first name is, but people just started calling him Sven a couple of years ago. He didn’t seem to care. Phillip thought he liked it. A lot of people go by nicknames, even girls. Phillip assumed that no one liked the names they were given, but he liked his own real name. The problem was that people called

Going Outside him Phil, but his name was Phillip. He wrote his name as Phillip. When he met someone new he told them his name was Phillip. When thoughts were running through his head and he was thinking about himself, he called himself Phillip. People even called him Phillip in his dreams. But instead of Phillip, he got Phil. He got Phil-Man. He got Felipe. He got Philster, or, The Philster. Recently someone caught him off guard with, “Yo, Philippians!” as in the book of the Bible. He didn’t even know anyone knew what Philippians was. It got to him. It was like the old geezers in town who called him Son or worse yet, Boy. They called him Kid. They called him Sport and Champ. I’m not a stupid dog. He wasn’t Phil, he wasn’t Philly, he wasn’t Kid, Tiger, or Buddy. He called himself Phillip. He introduced himself as Phillip. My mother named me Phillip. He sat down in his normal chair in class. Phillip looked at Sven and said, “Hey.” “Phil.” Sven was a smart guy, usually buried in his homework for the day because he put it off so much. He got almost all As all the time, and didn’t really have to study. Phillip always thought Sven planned on putting off his homework so he could go down his list of people to harass. He really thought he kept a list. Maybe he was just a smart bully. Sven’s problem was that whenever he met somebody, he thought to himself, “Can I beat him up?” Sometimes he would get to test his question, and he always won. He was the undefeated champion of middle-school harassment. He tried his test on Phillip once at the beginning of last year. One day they got into a fight on the basketball court at school. Phillip disagreed with Sven on who was tougher, of course, and they decided on a test. Sven would slug Phillip in the stomach as hard as he could and Phillip would reciprocate. Later, Phillip read about Harry Houdini and how he probably died after a similar stunt. Glad I didn’t know about it then. He started punching the air in an uppercut motion to practice, and Phillip began tightening his abs while some other guys cheered him on. Everyone else just muttered that Phillip was stupid. Nobody goes up against Sven and wins. Then he slugged Phillip after asking if he was ready about ten times. It was hard and unpleasant, but Phillip never felt like he would throw up. He wondered right then if it was his self-proclaimed famous abdominals or instead the fat he was starting to pack on that saved him. Man, I was mad. I wanted to give that guy the hardest punch ever. He was

10 Beaverson rearing up to hit Sven like a dangling piece of meat at a slaughterhouse. He was Rocky Balboa. After everybody cheered and more guys started gathering around, Phillip started thinking about two things. Would I get in trouble? If the principal or the study hall monitor Mr. Graham saw him, he would. Sven wouldn’t get it because he already did his punching. Phillip was the one attracting all the attention. He was rolling his shoulders around and curving his neck, attempting to stall while he thought. Sven was still in disbelief because he knew that his famous uppercut had made plenty of former opponents keel over and go down. Sven wasn’t afraid of Phillip’s retaliation. He just stood there. The second thing to think about was what his dad had told him about situations like these. This wasn’t about who was the strongest, who had the most guts, who was the best. It was about showing off. It was about establishing dominance. It was like blocking a guy’s jumpshot back in his face or out into the crowd. It was spiking the ball in the end zone. “Take the higher road from Sven.” Phillip heard it in his head. I let that big albino have his glory. “Now take it from him by refusing to punch him back.” “That was a good one, Sven,” said Phillip as he was jumping all around, still warming up. He must have looked like he was stalling. “You ready?” “Yeah, I’m ready. Quit stalling.” Phillip shoved his fist immediately at Sven’s gut but stopped about three inches short. He looked down at the hand as he opened it to take Sven’s and shake it. Sven just looked at it. Like usual when nobody catches on, Phillip took his right hand and connected it with Sven’s. Nobody ever catches on to that stuff. Idiots. The pair looked at each other and Phillip finally said, “That was a really good one, Sven.” He walked away and the crowd erupted. There were guys hanging off Phillip saying that he was missing a golden opportunity. They yelled at him, they pushed him to get back in there and hit Sven. Some of the boys offered to take Phillip’s place. “I’ll do it!” “Let me do it!” No one would ever have such an opportunity again. Then the bell rang and Mr. Graham stared in their direction.

Going Outside

As everyone dispersed, Phillip got a glimpse of Sven. At first the overgrown ogre looked at him with narrowed eyelids as if to say, “Whatever.” But there was something more there, underneath the swagger; respect, or maybe it was resignation. Since then, Sven and I don’t sing in the church choir and we haven’t joined the Boy Scouts together, but he doesn’t bother me and I don’t bother him. He always says hello to me in the hall and I to him. Sven’s a pretty good guy.

12 Beaverson

2 The Athlete

The eighth-graders were playing their first and only scrimmage after school so they wore their football jerseys to class. Phillip didn’t know the coach was letting them do that. It wasn’t that way in seventh grade last year and it made him feel out of place. I don’t know why I’m not playing. Must be lazy. He remembered his father telling him that if he wasn’t going to play football, he would be busy at home keeping himself in shape for basketball. Letting track go down the tubes after the Riverside meet last year and not going out for football: it just wasn’t Phillip. He had played baseball since he was old enough to put a glove on his hand and look the ball in. He had been shooting baskets and making them since he was strong enough to launch the ball ten feet up. Football came as naturally to him as anything else, but even he didn’t know why he wasn’t playing. Phillip’s father had told him many times before that he had played football every year. Basketball every year. Ran track every year. Baseball every year. His mother had said that his dad played sports. The two were high-school sweethearts. The urging was always there. Phillip wasn’t sure if it was his dad wanting his son to be so much like him. Was I carrying on some family tradition I didn’t know about? Middle school sports were the culmination of all the drills, all the knowledge, all the discussion and talk of rules, all the equipment and time and energy Phillip and his dad had put in. School was the “organization” in “organized sports” they both had been preparing for. And Phillip had a hole somewhere in his drive or in his confidence in himself that he couldn’t plug. Maybe there’s something wrong with me. Maybe there’s something wrong with my dad. The school day had gone by and Phillip stepped off the bus at the house. He knew the guys were in their pads and warming up on the field right then. He had watched the visiting team’s bus pull in the parking lot as he left school. He walked down the short lane and stopped abruptly. The bus had pulled away, but he could hear its gears shifting through the rows and the diesel engine gaining momentum as it pulled itself up the road. When the sound disappeared, there was nothing. The breeze showed up and left again.

Going Outside

He commenced his walk and reminded himself as he looked around that the house and the land around it was falling apart. His mother would never have accepted a trash bag setting out by the side door for more than a few hours. The grass was too long. The cap was falling off the chimney. Barn doors were open and the shed was a mess. Branches from wind storms lay in the yard and an ash tree in front of the house rested where it was felled the week before. The cap was falling off the chimney. That was as unacceptable to Phillip as he knew it would be to his mother. He raced inside the house and put his books away. He walked upstairs, opened the hall window, and stepped out onto the roof just like it was another room. The TV antenna pole stood right beside the chimney. Stimulated by a greater sense of responsibility (If I don’t do it, it’ll never get done), Phillip used the chimney to brace his legs as he shimmied up the pole. When he got up there, he found the problem right away. Two of the four screws that held the cap on the chimney were rusted out. It was dangling by two screws off the side. He went higher. He needed to get off the pole and completely onto the chimney to get the other two screws out. The cap was damaged, but it could be fixed by rebending the metal back into place. It was already running through his mind: how many dead birds and chipmunks are in that chimney? It was the very thing the cap was supposed to prevent, and Phillip remembered the short conversation with his father about it. “Dad, we have to fix the chimney cap.” “Mhh.” And that was it. Before he knew it, Phillip was perched like a flightless bird on its stomach thirty feet up. He concentrated more on the task at hand than on his own safety. The first screw came out all right, the second one really needed a nut driver or pliers or some other tool he didn’t have. He had no tools with him, not even a pocket knife. His father’s words were there: “This is why you should always have a tool belt ready.” The words bounced around in his head because they had been uttered so often. “I don’t ever want to see you without a jack knife.” Fathers called them “jack knives,” sons called them “pocket knives.” He wasn’t sure why. “You never know when you’re gonna need that jack knife, Son.”

14 Beaverson

He rocked the screw back and forth, but that didn’t help. He tried hammering it with the heel of his hand. That never works. Phillip balanced himself on top of the chimney and tried to move the whole cap around beneath him. Finally, after jerking and pulling—he didn’t care what happened to the last screw—it came off. And so did Phillip. The cap was heavier than he thought, and as it headed down to the ground, Phillip fell after it. His shirt and the top of his jeans caught on the chipped corner of the chimney and he found himself looking straight down as the chimney cap crashed to the ground. Phillip was vertical, but not the way that he was used to. There was a lot to think about up there. He thought it was like running in a way, because there was so much thinking he could do. Somehow the chimney provided more perspective. He remembered when he was younger and he helped his dad put in the brick walk below that led to the side door. Phillip hovered over it and picked out the weeds with his eyes that were growing up through the cracks. It really was a nice house. It really was a nice Ohio farm house that was missing a woman. A mother, a wife—somebody. I screwed up something else. It was a big balancing act for Phillip. His family was important to him. His schoolwork was important to him. His performance in sports was important to him. And it looked like he had to add his growing belly to the mix. Why is it that when I get two or three of those on track, the others start to fall off? Then when I think I have everything going again, I spend my time thinking about how long it’s been since I screwed something up. People liked Phillip. They appreciated him and imagined him with a strong future. But he was dangling on the side of the chimney pointing straight at the ground. If they could just see him now. Have I done that many dumb things that when I feel things are going well that it’s time for someone to have a stern talk with me? I can’t figure out what I did wrong, but I know someone will always be there to tell me what it was and why it was wrong. I could be the best, most-liked kid in school, but some teacher, some old guy in town, or somebody is always watching and waiting on my mistakes to show up and point them out to me. It was quiet at the top of the chimney. Phillip heard leaves falling from trees. He thought it was funny, or interesting, how just one falling leaf can’t be heard on its own, but it was loud when hundreds were falling. How is it that one is silent and many are loud? He

Going Outside hoped the brick held on the chimney until he could figure out what to do. The chimney wasn’t built through the roof; it was on the side of the house, and there was nothing between Phillip and the ground except a damaged chimney cap and noisy, falling leaves. A giant sycamore grew near the house and right on the edge of the thick woods nearby. Phillip thought he was crazy or just too scared when he saw something move near it. It looked like a stick floating in the air. He crooked his neck and steadied himself so he could watch it closer. There was another curved stick beside it, moving in sync. Then another appeared. The collection of sticks stayed still for a moment then moved in unison once more to reveal a massive pair of antlers. Phillip had seen plenty of deer of all sizes in the woods, in the yard, and even in the barn, but the buck the antlers were attached to was huge. It was looking off in the other direction as it stepped quietly from behind the sycamore. The animal was focused on something in the woods, but Phillip knew it was aware of everything around it. He might have even known that Phillip was up there, dangling off a brick. Phillip was not like the hunting guys at school. When hunting season started, school would be cancelled sometimes because no one showed up. The hunting culture never appealed to Phillip. It always seemed base and lower-class to him. The same guys who were into hunting were the same ones who would talk about blowing things up with M80 firecrackers and shooting everything in sight with BB and pellet guns. He liked to do that stuff as much as any fourteen-year-old, but the hunting guys never stopped with it. It’s all they think about. I think half my class’ll end up in the Army. The hunting guys talked about six points and eight points and so on with bucks. “I bagged a six-point buck yesterday.” It was hard for Phillip to count, but he thought there were eight on just one side of the beast beneath him. It was a beautiful, natural sight to the boy. The buck stood there, surveying the land as gracefully as anything Phillip had ever seen. The buck was paternal; he was noble, an enormous specimen of power and stability. He was self-confidence without arrogance. Phillip watched the eyelids open and close unhurriedly with poise and assurance. He slipped. The buck heard him, but didn’t whip his head. He casually looked up and acknowledged Phillip’s presence with a slow wink. Phillip knew he was losing it. He didn’t

16 Beaverson know if the brick was giving way or his clothes were, but he had to stretch for the top of the chimney right then. His plan was to move his body around as he fell and try to grab onto the chimney. If he could do that, he’d have a chance to hold on long enough and jump back on the roof or grab the TV pole. In the middle of his planning, Phillip heard fabric tearing. It was definitely his shirt that had caught somewhere on the jagged brick for which he was now extremely grateful. As it tore slowly, dropping Phillip closer to the ground, he knew his plan wouldn’t work. His only hope was to try to reach the edge of the roof on the way down. The tearing sound kept the buck’s attention. As Phillip and the animal watched each other, they focused. There was no fear, no conflict; they focused and they studied each other. Phillip recognized a kinship in the juxtaposed setting: the house in the woods, the buck in the yard. They watched. The animal jumped back into reality as if seeing something Phillip could not. The reaction jarred Phillip just as the last piece of fabric gave way and the boy fell bare-chested toward the ground. He shrieked. The sound was stifled abruptly by two powerful grips that Phillip could feel past his muscles to the bones: one on his upper arm, one on his lower leg. He recovered his senses and looked up and over himself to see his father standing over him, holding Phillip’s body with ease and pulling him back onto the roof. “Dad!” “Boy…” His father was not profane, but Phillip could see the words he would have liked to say forming in his head. Lying prostrate on the roof and at the feet of his father, it was one of the times when Phillip would accept and expect names like Boy and Son from any grown man’s mouth. He knew he was in trouble, but was grateful to his dad. “Boy…” The man did not have to speak again. Phillip rose quickly but glanced at the buck before hopping through the window. Beast and boy had another moment. If he hadn’t known better, Phillip thought he saw the same puzzled and angry look in the eyes of the buck as he saw in the eyes of his father. The two were passing judgment on Phillip and at the same time reserving some understanding. They too were Phillip’s age once.

Going Outside

Inside the house, Phillip heard, “living room.” “Yes, Sir.” Mr. Vinson walked into the room shortly after his son. “Sit.” Phillip sat on the very end of the couch still without a shirt. “Well?” “It was the chimney cap. I got home from school and wanted to get up there and fix it.” Phillip’s father looked around the room slowly. The boy knew he was thinking. The man was contemplating a punishment which could have resulted in a loud, one-sided conversation and a lot of agreeing and “Yes, Sirs,” or an act of physical punishment that would have been as abrupt as Phillip’s fall from the top of the chimney. After more thinking, Mr. Vinson’s response to the event surprised Phillip. It was a single sentence that could have been two because the pause was so long between the words. “Never. Again.” Phillip waited the right amount of time. A response too quickly would have made it look like he didn’t hear or didn’t care. “Yes, Sir.” He looked away in respect. “Now get up.” Phillip arose and took a few steps. “Wait.” His father’s tone was different already. “We need to talk about football.” Phillip stopped and dropped his shoulders. If he hadn’t just been let off the hook from nearly killing himself, he would have blown air out his mouth to accompany the shoulder gesture. He might have even said, “Oh, Dad.” The two sat down on the couch and faced each other. Mr. Vinson’s assuaging tone was brief. “Phillip, why aren’t you playing?” “I don’t know,” responded Phillip, knowing how much his father hated the phrase. “What do you mean, ‘I don’t know?’” after a pause and the turned-up corner of his mouth announced the man’s new mood. “I’m just not going to, Dad.” “You will if I say so.”

18 Beaverson

He never used to talk like that. And he never said so. Conditioning had come and gone, and the guys had probably just finished the third quarter of the scrimmage. Phillip had thought the coach even called the house one Saturday afternoon a few weeks before. He thought about asking about it, but his father never said anything. I can’t decide if he’s more disappointed that I’m not playing, or that he has a son who doesn’t play. Phillip genuinely liked his dad, but he was so different since his mother had gone away. Adults—teachers and counselors, the preacher, people who came to the house—they all told him that things would be a little different. “Stay strong,” they said. Phillip was okay, but perhaps they told him that to help deal with his father. Phillip thought his dad was great, but he couldn’t find the real guy in there when he talked to him any more. They were strangers floating on a sea of unswept rugs, sinkfulls of dirty dishes, and a chimney without a cap. Phillip wasn’t sure if he was getting too old, his dad was getting too old, or they were just growing apart. His dad never smoked before. He always preached that smokers had no self control and that nobody forced a cigarette in their mouths. His father’s hair was unkempt and he didn’t shave every day. He never smoked. He always made fun of people who smoked. I don’t know who my dad is now. “Do you know that I played football every year since the seventh grade?” “Yeah, I know that, Dad.” “Before the season was over—” “Basketball practice started,” they both said in unison. “That’s right. Then track, then baseball, then two-a-days for football.” “But why did you do it?” asked Phillip. The man paused and glanced at Phillip like he was briefly looking at someone else. He answered with another question. Phillip hated that. “Are you an athlete?” “I don’t know.” He looked down and turned away again. “Are you an athlete?” he repeated.

Going Outside

“I don’t know. I like sports. You know that.” Phillip felt his father’s eyes on him. He knew that if he were to look up, his dad would be sitting there on the couch as engaged as if he were speaking to another adult. “Yes.” Phillip turned back and watched him shortly, then the time got to him. “Yes, what?” “Yes, you’re an athlete, Phillip.” He turned away again. “Listen to me. You’re an athlete because you don’t just play—you learn as you play. It’s not just a game to you. You strive for improvement. You train on your own without prodding from me or your coaches. You take the lessons you learn in sports and apply them to your life. You play competitively, but you’re a good sport about it. You’re the dream of every good coach around.” “But I—” “You’re the dream of every father around.” Phillip looked up and found he was right. His dad was looking right at him. “Phillip, you’re an athlete. You’re a good student. You’re a good leader. You’re a good young man. Don’t deny those talents for so long that you just go through the motions. Don’t put yourself on autopilot and fly through the major events of your life. Don’t do things just to put a checkmark in a box and say you did them. Do them because that’s who you are.” Phillip didn’t know where the speech, the hidden emotion was all coming from. It left him confused and befuddled. He wasn’t sure what to do. “Don’t just guess at what you want, Phillip. There’s a time when you have to decide. You may think that time’s far off from now, but I’m telling you that it’s not. You may think you’re too young to start making decisions like that, and maybe you are, and maybe that’s lousy, but that’s the way it is.” Phillip knew the conversation had passed by football and sports. “I kept going with my decisions, thought I had enough time to work everything out and pick a path. I got a lot of things I wanted, but I’m still wanting the things I know I can attain. And I’m not talking about things you can touch and look at or buy.”

20 Beaverson

Mr. Vinson stood and looked right at Phillip. “Don’t stand in front of your own son and give him this speech in twenty-five years, Phillip.” “Dad...” Phillip couldn’t speak. He got up and thought quickly, moving away from him. He was confused. It was as if his father thought Phillip was someone else, talking to him like that. He doesn’t know me. But he was afraid he did. Phillip went to sit down again but didn’t. He walked out of the room and then left the house. He waited for his father to call him back in: “Get back in here!” Just getting up and walking out was simply not done in the Vinson home. But Phillip heard nothing. And he walked away. He went outside to split some wood, more resolved than ever not to play football.

Going Outside

22 Beaverson

3 Mrs. Gleason’s Underwear

Mrs. Gleason passed by in her Audi soon after Phillip went out. She wasn’t like other farmers’ wives with a car like that. She had two college degrees and ran some kind of business out of the house. Phillip and his mother were passing by the farm one day when she was out supervising Mr. Gleason and about four other guys on the placement and exact location of the sign for her new business. It dwarfed the Gleason Farms sign they had put out three years before. Mrs. G. insisted her sign be lit, and a few days later, it was. Everyone expected Mrs. Gleason to run for county commissioner or something like that. The other ladies accepted her as different, but still one of them. Phillip’s mom always liked her. Phillip had just sat down on the stump in the front yard where he and his dad had taken down an ash the week before. The white flesh on the inside still bled water from the roots and Phillip got his rear wet. Trees still fight for life after they’ve been cut down. It’s as if they aren’t aware of what’s happened and they try in vain to send the water above to leaves that are no longer there. Mrs. Gleason slowed down when she saw Phillip and stopped. The car sat on the road for a while and then the white lights came on as she slowly backed up. “Phillip!” she called past a figure in the passenger seat. “Could you come here?” Phillip ran over and noticed a guy about his size sitting there. His name was Andy and Phillip had seen him once or twice at school. He rode a different bus. Phillip had heard there was a guy in school who was from the city, but he didn’t know why. “Hi, Phillip. How are you?” she asked. “I’m okay, Mrs. Gleason.” “Do you know Andy? He’s fourteen. Aren’t you about that age?” “Yep. Hi.” “Andy, this is Phillip.” Andy gestured. “Phillip, would you mind if Andy spent a few hours here with you? I need to run to town to do a little shopping.”

Going Outside

“Yeah, that’s all right—” “Would your dad care?” “It’s okay.” She urged Andy out of the car by unlocking the power locks. “OK, then, I’ll be back in a few hours. Thanks, Phillip” Andy got out and closed the door and the car was already moving. “Thank your dad for me!” as the window closed off her voice. The boys stood in the road. “What’s her story?” asked Phillip. “I’m staying with the Gleasons until my dad gets back from his job in a few months. She doesn’t want me to be at home by myself because she’s crazy about something happening like the house burnin’ down or something.” “Got it.” “You saved me, Dude. We were going to town because she needed to shop for underwear or women’s stuff or something. I don’t wanna do that.” Andy said he didn’t want to go, but Mrs. G. was pretty good-looking. They looked down the road where the car had just disappeared. Phillip and Andy daydreamed for a few seconds, guessing what kinds of things she was going to buy. They kept looking down the road in silence and thought about Mrs. Gleason in her underwear. “What happened?” Andy gestured to the tree and growing pile of brush. “Ash borer. We took it down on Saturday.” “Ash borer? You cut it down?” “Yeah; Dad and me. You don’t know about the little bug? It’s eating all the ash trees?” “Nope. Trees are trees.” Astonished, Phillip knew who he was then. “Are you the city guy at school?” “I guess. I live in Dayton.” “So you’ve never cut down a tree or split firewood?” Andy laughed a little out his nose. “Nope.” Phillip quickly wondered if Andy’s parents would call a tree service. Maybe they would call a plumber for a stopped-up sink, or an excavator just to dig a hole. He had always

24 Beaverson wondered about people like that; city people without tool boxes who never saw an electric drill. “Wow,” Phillip said. “Take this,” and he gave him the axe leaning on an oak. Phillip picked up his father’s axe and kicked a log on its end. He stood before it and swung the axe, splitting the log in two. “Whoa. Let me try this.” Andy studied the angles and copied Phillip’s movements. The log split in two. He wanted more. As Phillip showed him how to line up the swing with his eyes and how to hit the same mark from the last chop, he was thinking how it was the same way his father had taught him. Easy, calm, specific instruction. Show me, then let me. Phillip continued the lesson by showing Andy how to keep his finger—usually the pinky—away from the back of the blade when it’s rocked back and forth to get it out of the wood. If not for a good pair of gloves, the end of Phillip’s finger would have been mangled or snipped off long ago. Andy was really getting into it. Phillip walked over to the oak and urinated. He was thinking about his father and football and teaching Andy The City Boy how to split wood when he was interrupted. “What’re you doing?” “What?” Phillip turned his head back to him in mid-stream. “Are you pissing?” “What do you think?” “You guys go outside here? You’re going outside?” He was astounded at Phillip’s lack of modesty, but intrigued enough to ask. Fresh from splitting his first logs, Andy was getting his first real exposure to country life. Phillip zipped up his jeans and walked back to Andy. Talking with him helped with football and Phillip’s dad. Andy looked past Phillip at the oak tree. “I’ve never gone outside before,” he said. “Never?” “Nope.”

Going Outside

“Pee tree.” Phillip pointed at the oak without looking. The tree was just wide enough to obscure a guy relieving himself so passers-by wouldn’t notice. “My dad says that my grandpa always told him that going outside was a man’s way of a contribution. A man gives back to nature by putting some of himself back there. Sometimes Dad just walks outside at night when we’re sitting in the living room or something.” Andy laughed. “I did it once too. There’s nobody around to hide from then. I can come out on the porch and pee over the edge and look up at the stars. Dad says we’re not separate from the land or the sky, we’re part of them. It’s like we don’t need to hide from what comes naturally, like the Indians who used to live here, ya know?” “So you actually like going outside?” “Yeah, I s’pose I do. Going outside’s more than not peeing in a toilet. It’s going out to get away from the stuff we’ve created for ourselves that take us away from the outside, ya know? This’ll sound funny, but it’s religious.” Andy walked over and timidly unzipped, his eyes watching out for cars. Phillip picked up his father’s axe and started splitting. It would be dark soon.

26 Beaverson

4 Bill Fuller, USMC

Every few years, farmers like Bill Fuller, the old Marine who lived three miles from the Vinsons, got frustrated with low crop yields on the perimeters of their fields. They would storm the beaches of the farmland with battalions of sons and grandsons wielding chain saws and kerosene for starting brush fires. They took to the fencerows like Bill Fuller had taken to Iwo Jima. The fencerows consisted of the junk trees: mostly mulberries and various species of Hawthornes growing in and around the old rusted barbed wire. Some call the thorny, knotty, knarled Osage-orange trees hedge apples. The green, inedible fruits they produce, those are the hedge-apples. The hard, round balls drop from the trees in late fall and the rinds look like the twisted and curvy rows on a brain. Some call them horse-apples. They stand in great strength among the fencerows and produce thorns that Bill Fuller always preferred to call spikes. Hand-hewn posts hold fast to the rusty wire near Osage-orange trees. It’s always easy to tell the last time anyone had touched a section of fencerow. The junk trees were the enemy of the farmer. They served few purposes beyond dividing fields and making homes for wildlife. The Osage-oranges stand in defense and fight back the legions of chain saws. Men and boys arrive bloodied to wives and mothers who shake their heads and make that clicking sound come from the corners of their mouths while applying iodine and bandages. But there was a particular time when Bill Fuller, the patriarch farmer, looking upon the largest hedge-apple his eighty-one years could recall, sat on the tailgate of his truck and rubbed his grey-whiskered chin as he thought. The tree was old and he had farmed the field for at least four decades under its massive limbs. He had thought about cutting it down the last few times he passed it alone on the tractor. It was a good quarter-mile from the road and it stood in silence as a little-known marker far enough away from passing minivans and speeding jalopies. Sons and sons-in-law with their boys running around in the background stood with their saws and awaited the decision. There were two empty pickups and Carl Fuller would be back soon from dumping his load of freshly cut-and-split firewood from the other

Going Outside fencerow casualties of the day. Bill Fuller steadily dropped himself off the edge of the truck bed and put his hands on his hips. There was a reluctant resignation to him. Staring one last time at the twisted mass of thorny life that was then the sole tree between property lines, he inhaled so much that he felt the brass buttons pull upward on his bib overalls. “Take it down,” he said. Like a commander ordering his troops to take a hill, the men and their sons charged their weapons and swarmed about the scene. The tree cast such an overwhelming shadow that corn, wheat, or beans simply couldn’t get the sun or rain they needed to produce a decent crop, and the men all knew it. Ol’ Walt Johnson (no one ever called him Walt or Walter—it was Ol’ Walt to everyone who knew him), who had the field next to Bill Fuller’s would be pleased. Two of the sons and one grandson could use the wood to heat their houses in the winter. The men got to work planning where it would drop, detailing their ideas for the best way to work on reducing the tree’s might to truckloads of split wood and a smoldering pile of ash for its small branches. The ash would lay and be rained upon, then blow about when dry. Then the remainder would be turned into the field at the next passing of the plow or disk. There was really nothing around to get in the way, so the group decided that two of them would work on cutting the wedge from the trunk. As usual with giant trees, they knocked out the wedge with a sledge hammer, then Ronnie Fuller came in with his 36-incher and cut the hinge just above the wedge on the other side to make it come down at last. It was decades of growth and power and endurance reduced to fifteen minutes under the noisy knife of a bar and chain. The men shot their serious voices at their boys when the wedge came out: “Get over there!” “Stop playin’ around!” “We got a tree comin’ down!” Some boys gathered in groups while others took their places beside their fathers. Man and boy alike had seen hundreds of trees come down; that was part of farm and rural life. The knarled Osage-orange, though, that was a different story. They had a respect for things like that. They were things that had endured lightning strikes, droughts, and ruthless winters, and gave the sons and grandsons there assurances that new and better days were always coming. Each of them had been in the field countless times and not one of them had forgotten when they had stooped to take refuge under the tree on the hottest day of an Indian

28 Beaverson summer harvest. They remembered seeing ovals crushed into the tall grass on the tree’s perimeter where deer had spent the night or a few nights. William Fuller, Jr. once found a hollow filled with honey and a few bees. The bees had beckoned him to take a few samples and he thought they seemed pleased with the compliments his joyous face paid them. Some of the men remembered carefully climbing its branches as boys and falling asleep in its crooks while watching their fathers and uncles cut the same fencerow or harvest the crop.

They said nothing as they watched it fall. Maybe there was a soft damn, or wow, drawn out quietly on the lips. Perhaps the most sentimental of the men eulogized it by saying, “There she goes.” No one wanted to see it happen; the clear and empty space it had occupied seconds, years before was ready for something else to take its place. Maybe it would just be sunlight or swarms of gnats on humid days. They all looked at the new gap for longer than they should have. The sons who had cut it stood in the spots they had run to when the tree began to fall. Ronnie had turned off his saw and dropped it in the grass beside him. A couple of them took off their hats, feigning wiping the sweat from their brows. Someone walked toward it to survey their actions. Since the days of the Greek warriors, troops have been charged with BDA: Battle- Damage Assessment. It was a way to get up close and understand the toll of war. The old Marine Bill Fuller claimed BDA was a way to see how much trouble men at war could cause. Some general had told him once that it was the last chance a man had to search his conscience for a last regret before he went off and did it again to someone else. Soon, the chain saws were fired up and winding through the good-burning wood. The men trimmed the brush and the boys dragged it to giant piles they constructed with it. The tree was bucked, cutting long logs from its ancient limbs. They used log jacks to prop the logs up while they were cut into 20-inch sections. Some of the men split for a while with axes and then switched off with those who were saw-cutting for a rest. The boys came along after they got the brush fires going and tossed the split wood into the pickup trucks. They played games like who could toss the chunks the farthest. They were great shots because the wood could never hit the sides of the pickups. They heard about it from their fathers if it ever did.

Going Outside

30 Beaverson

5 Pork Chops and Homemade Noodles

Phillip and his dad got in the car for the five-mile trip to the Malone farmhouse. The two quietly assumed that the dinner they had been invited to there—the get-together—would probably be the last in a long series of kind-hearted gestures by their neighbors. When men are left alone for any period of time, the women around them start to thinking out loud and worrying. They pester their own husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons with lectures about eating habits, culinary know-how, and housecleaning abilities. And when one of the men finally responds with, “Why don’t you just go over there and check on them?” they’re at the ready with, “Let’s have them over and feed them a proper meal.” The Vinsons had been fed every version of every family recipe for every type of meat and every type of side dish available in Logan County. Ladies had come in sometimes four at a time, offering home-cooked food and cleaning services better than none. They had set a schedule for each night of the week and sometimes even for lunch, and a different wife or sister or someone’s mother would appear timidly at the side door with something steaming inside Crock-Pots or casserole dishes with homemade quilted covers to keep the heat in. “You boys enjoy and let me know if I can get you anything.” Reheating instructions usually came on the way back to the car, accompanied by short waves which Phillip and his father interpreted rightly as concern and care, but there was also pity. They were the types of ladies who devoted more hours of the day to caring for the ones they loved than thinking about themselves. They were the same ladies who stood at large family gatherings, watching over the people for whom they had just prepared an abundance of food. They were the same ladies who waited to see that everyone was fed, ignoring their own hunger and calls for them to sit and eat: “Mom, fix yourself a plate,” a daughter would say. They were the same ladies who stood, one hand resting on the back of a chair, smiling softly at the joy their food was bringing to the table. To Phillip and his father, the ladies were like their own mothers, kind and wanting nothing but the best for both. And Phillip and his father were grateful for every one of them. On Saturday night, Phillip and his dad left their darkened house in the woods on Township Road 17, crushing corn cobs and husks strewn from the week’s harvest under the

Going Outside tires. The fields surrounding the woods had been transformed, like every year, from swaying rows of dried and crunchy stalks to an open landscape that revealed forgotten fencerows behind. Phillip recalled riding his bike down the slow slope past Daisy’s house when he was ten or eleven, watching the road for corn cobs to avoid. It was then when he realized from afar that the woods, the house in which he and his father and mother lived, was an island. His young imagination set upon the grand picture of the land springing upward through the green seas of waving wheat. Or he knew it could have been an oasis among the dried stems of a soybean desert. Phillip realized early on that his home was more than a house, and that his parents saw it that way too. The forgotten fencerows disappeared and reappeared to the family’s delight annually. * In the spring the fields on either side of Seventeen were blank when the disk and planter came through, and when rain settled upon them, tiny green two-leaved corn plants poked through the rough ground. The young crop would turn the grey-brown field to green within weeks. It signaled the start of baseball season when the fields turned. Phillip and his dad were always excited then. It was a great and deserved transition from the dark and grey they endured all winter. Tractor-tire tracks and muddy low spots were filled with snow-melt and rain water then. Even snowless days filled with sunshine seemed to be absorbed by dark and empty fields in winter. The two always counted the days until baseball season and spring and the green fields. Opening Day fell on the first week of April every year. Major League Baseball players had been training for the last two months, and they, like nature, signaled spring just as strongly to Phillip. Baseball was his sport above all others. He loved the chess match between pitchers and hitters, and pitchers and base runners. He loved taking batting practice as Kipp—the school’s custodian, maintenance man, boiler operator, and groundskeeper— mowed the outfield for the first time of the season on the John Deere. Phillip could see the whole year from batting practice. Most guys thought of spring and baseball like the end of the year—the school year. But Phillip never tricked himself into following a schedule imposed by any school. To him, it was as if his year was just beginning in March and April. He could see it all from the batter’s box at home plate. Tommy

32 Beaverson

Guffman was pitching to him behind the half-cage and Phillip watched every ball he hit fly into his future. If Kipp was mowing in left field, then Phillip could hit it to right. While other guys thought about fixing up their brothers’ old Camaros over the summer and how they could get the likes of Cynthia Watson in the back seat, Phillip instead thought about his dad. And he knew that when next spring and baseball season rolled around, he would think about his mother. Baseball was a lens for Phillip. In the spring, he saw everything from home plate. * But it was autumn. The Vinsons sat in the car as it traveled slowly down the road away from their house. It had been two months since the football discussion in which Phillip had perceived real glimpses of a Mr. Gary Vinson, previously known to him only as Dad. As the eighth-grade football season wore away, there was basketball, and Phillip was playing and playing it well. But his heart wasn’t in it, and his head certainly was elsewhere. Ridiculously long three-point shots that he never took before and never practiced for went in anyway. After a few of the early games, the coach and his assistant stopped shaking their heads and accepted Phillip’s long ball. In a year, he had gone from a playmaker to a shooting guard. The coaches had plenty of shooting guards on the roster. What they really wanted was a leader at the top of the key. They wanted a passer and a guy who was willing to set up plays, make assists, and know when to shoot it or drive. In Phillip’s haste and indifference in shooting the basketball, the coaches had discovered another talent in him, but they would have given it all up to get the leader back. Phillip and his dad proceeded slowly on Seventeen at first as they always did, each peering out separate windows with the same thoughts about autumn, winter, and the inevitable spring. They thought about the cycle. In the spring the green leaves, poking through clods of soil, grow higher as spring progresses to summer. Tender green that is new and innocent turns a dark, heavy, well-fed green—a pasture of rigid and deep emerald. Later, fields are overtaken and the seemingly barren land only months before becomes row after row of giant corn stalks for boys to get purposely lost among. Phillip daydreamed about it and his father remembered kissing girls among the cornstalks. On calm summer days meant for secret embraces, baby sitters, mothers, and aunts with furled brows can’t sneak up on a boy and his best girl in a corn field.

Going Outside

It was sad to see the fields go every year. Phillip knew the grey-brown days of winter weren’t far away and that frozen dirt and ponds of muddy water would soon inhibit his outdoor activities. But as he grew older, he began to leave some of those thoughts behind. He explored the woods and fields less and was beginning to think he had more important, more pressing concerns to focus on. He concentrated on sports and school and his father. He concerned himself with his growing belly that would not go away. He deliberated on his mother and how much he missed her. The darkened harvest scene through which Phillip and his father drove meant survival. They had both been brought up with that concept pounded into their heads by farmers who scorned them when they weren’t respectful enough of the season. But harvest also meant death. There is no return from the scythe. There is no rebirth from severed stalks or disease-ridden ash trees. Most of nature and humanity doesn’t hibernate. Most of it dies. It can only try its best to leave responsible buds, pods, seeds, and boys to sprout and to grow and to represent the time it spent here. As they drove on Seventeen, father and son looked out among the carnage wrought by the combine, the tractor, the wagon, and the pickup. The field to Phillip’s right and the one on his father’s left revealed the flatness and a few hills that remained obscured all summer. Mr. Vinson’s foot pressed the accelerator; they couldn’t be late. He always assumed they would be late when they went anywhere, though they always left early and were always the first to arrive. They had moved beyond the house and trees and the time for reflection was gone. The Malones had invited them to supper and it would be rude to be late. With as much attention as his father paid to time, Phillip associated him with near- military precision. No matter how dirty the house got, how far the mail box leaned, how much the paint on the house peeled, how many fence boards lay on the ground, his dad remained bound by time. Phillip had read a book with black-and-white cartoon panels when he was in the fifth grade. It was the first long book he had ever read from cover to cover. He never forgot it: Around The World In Eighty Days. Phillip’s dad was his own Phileas Fogg, and it seemed like he was always checking his watch. Time was important. Mrs. Malone made the best pork chops in the world. A person could say anything he wants about farmers’ wives and how the gossip sticks to them like molasses. How they’re

34 Beaverson stubborn, opinionated, and set in their ways. But no one could say anything against their kindness and the gentle words they utter to calm the tears of a boy. Their stern, resolute tones somehow made it certain that everything would be all right again some day. And to them, their food made it all the better. It comforted and consoled the hardest of men who had been brought to their knees by distraught tears that seemed to never end. Soft, warm, comforting embraces upon the flowered broadcloth breast of an aunt or a grandmother made things okay for a while. And as if by divine order, they knew when to help boys move on, though it was so comforting and safe, and the wives knew they felt that way. They brush grieving boys’ hair with their hands and dry exposed cheeks with a placid wipe of their palms, so as to maintain the dignity that all aspiring men desire. They prop them up and calmly announce with a whispered voice , “You should eat something.” And ladies like Mrs. Malone appear from nowhere and just at the right time with their pork chops and homemade noodles. Men don’t know how their enjoyment of the food that women cook for them makes the women so happy, but they know it’s a beautiful, reciprocal arrangement. Phillip thought it might be like watching his mother sit in front of the fireplace, warming herself on snowy Christmas Eves with the wood he had cut, split, stacked, carried, and placed. He had done it all for moments like those, and perhaps she knew it too. Phillip longed to see Mrs. Malone, but not because of pork chops and noodles. It was night and the moon reflected the sun’s light from its grey surface and turned the yellow beams to white. Phillip often thought of bright moon-nights like the fluorescent shop light over his father’s workbench, minus the requisite hum. To him, the workshop was almost sacred, and he considered such a comparison a compliment to the moon. His mother shook her head lovingly and made comments like, “You boys and your shop,” with the time they spent out there. Mothers know how to make vocal observations about fathers and sons that let them recognize the good times they share together. Under the shop light, they talk about Cincinnati Reds pitching and they stand elbow-to-shoulder at the workbench, putting some contraption back together while sharing the same five-eighths-inch wrench, all the while knowing that three more of the same tool lay unused in the drawer. Phillip and his father tried to enjoy the autumn. Watching the corn disappear that they had both tended with their eyes all summer wasn’t that bad. They liked those cool days

Going Outside and rediscovering the lay of the land when it was once again empty and open with absent Osage-orange trees and fencerows that seemed smaller. It was just the two of them and it was new and old at the same time. The arcing curve in Township Road 17 went to the left away from their house. It was a long, curving straightaway like a giant racetrack. The Vinsons had both remarked aloud that it must be similar to the Brickyard in Indianapolis: one turn was invisible from another. The road seemed to take almost a mile before it finally straightened out. In the middle of it, accelerator pushing them faster to the Malones, the fluorescent moon lighted the flat, cornhusked field on Mr. Vinson’s side and revealed an odd moving object. He strained a little to see it; there was something off in the distance but moving fast. He drew Phillip’s attention to it by tapping him without looking. “Son…” They stared for a while and thought of it like a cornerback adjusting his route to intercept a pass; Phillip and his dad, inside the car, were the football. Phillip looked past his father, stretching his seatbelt to its limit. Their eyes didn’t blink and their mouths were open enough that they began to dry out. The thing about Township Road 17 is that it’s empty. There were so few cars on it that neighbors miles away knew who was home because they heard and saw every car that went by. That curve, though, that gentle arcing curve gave the appearance at night that it was straight ahead, but it really hid danger around its bend. And as the inhabitants of the car watched the object that now appeared to be galloping, striding, sprinting to somewhere, it occurred to Phillip at the same time to look ahead for his father now and then. As great a driver as Phillip knew he was, this was an unusual circumstance and Phillip’s dad had his attention elsewhere. Phillip turned his head back to his left and peered past his father, pointing. “It’s a deer!” “…it’s huge—” It wasn’t just a deer, it was a colossal buck. It was a giant, beautiful beast that shot at them with a speed and a grace they both admired even in those few seconds. The buck seemed to match the speed of the car. The closer the animal came, the easier it was to speed up or slow down. Phillip’s father could have stopped but he knew it

36 Beaverson would have charged right through the side door at them. The animal was a father, or it was like a father, not enraged but protective. There was something it did not want the Vinsons to see. “Dad!” Or to strike. Township Road 17, flat as it is, had a few bumps in it. One might call them short hills, just high enough to obscure, in combination with the sloping curve to the left, a doe and her baby in the middle of the lane. Before it happened, Mr. Vinson saw what was going on there. Phillip had kept his eyes on the buck. There was blood. There was that smell, that feeling to Phillip that permeated his head like in wintertime when his nose was dry. It was something that was not supposed to be there. That feeling signaled that something was wrong—dried-out nose lining or mangled flesh inside a Ford Taurus. Maybe it was like stories he had heard of people who were cut and bleeding and they said later that it felt like they were melting, the life and the heat leaving their body and pouring out over its exterior where it should not be. There were lights and more smells and Township Road 17 was stretched out beneath the moon in November. Snow fell silently and an Osage-orange in a crowded fencerow nearby dropped its last hedge-apple of the year.

Going Outside

38 Beaverson

6 Uncle Theodore

Just two years before, Phillip had woken up in the hospital to his mother’s smiling face. She was the last person he saw before he went in to have his tonsils removed and she was there for him when he opened his eyes. If Phillip were ever asked to describe his mother, he would start with her smile. There was usually a little lipstick—sometimes none—but it was never so much that it got on her teeth like the ladies at church. They used to smile upon him in his younger days past old- fashioned glasses with chains and tall blouse collars with white ruffles. It was never a bright or gaudy shade of red; his mother was understated and had class if nothing else. Where other women might have been pretty in the way boys think about mothers, Phillip’s mom was pretty and elegant. She was graceful and reserved. She never shouted at Phillip like he had seen from friends’ mothers. And Phillip was proud of the two of them when they arrived somewhere. It was as if he were taking her there to show off for the other boys. This is my mom. I’m her son, pointing proudly. Her teeth were polished and straight, and just white enough to be attractive and not overpowering like they had been bleached by an overanxious hygienist. And her teeth weren’t long like Mrs. Cavanaugh’s in Phillip’s fourth-grade class. Mrs. C. was a nice enough lady, but there was something about those long teeth of hers that made Phillip cringe when she laughed. She could be telling Phillip ten inches from his face that he was the best little boy she had taught in all her years, but Phillip, although appreciative, couldn’t help shriveling his tiny fourth-grade face in disgust. Phillip’s mother could smile wide and long, and laugh melodiously for minutes on end, but it never seemed painted on. Of anyone in his life, Phillip’s mother was the most genuine and real, and it all showed through her smile. This time when he awoke in the hospital after the crash, after the deer, there was no mother there. Not even close. Instead, Phillip opened his eyes to his mom’s brother-in-law, Dutch. Phillip thought his real name was something like Theodore or George. He couldn’t even remember Dutch’s last name. He opened his eyes all the way and rolled them immediately as he saw Dutch snoozing in the green vinyl hospital chair with his feet propped

Going Outside on the bed and some judge or court show on TV. Maybe his name’s Rushmore and his first name’s Abraham or Thomas. Dutch lived about five miles away and did some kind of farming. It was probably livestock and maybe a field or two of hay as far as Phillip could remember. They lived nearby but they never really saw each other except for passing in town now and then. Uncle Dutch—Phillip never called him that—was a little mean. Phillip never thought it was all that intentional, but just that Dutch had a lot on his mind all the time. The only time Phillip could remember Dutch smiling or with some kind of happy expression on his face was when he was trying to embarrass him. As Phillip looked around and thought about Mount Rushmore and what Dutch’s real name was, he remembered right away to the time when they were all sitting at the dinner table at the lake cottage, and everybody—the whole family was there—was eating the freshly caught perch and bluegill that his grandmother had fried up. The conversation turned to working schedules and Phillip responded innocently to a comment about factory shifts. It was never that big of a deal to Phillip, but for some reason he never forgot that conversation. Nearly every time he saw Dutch or even heard his name mentioned, he went back briefly to that ten minutes at the lake cottage in front of everyone where Dutch thought he would be funny with an inquisition. When Phillip woke up in the hospital and saw Dutch and thought about his name, right away he remembered that conversation when he mentioned that he thought a cousin or some relative or some friend of a relative worked third trick at a factory: “Third trick?” Dutch broke in and asked. “Yeah, I think he told me he worked third trick last week,” said Phillip. Dutch put a stupid, artificial look of confusion on his face. “What’s third trick?” “What do you mean?” Phillip covered his fork in mashed potatoes and sunk his head a little. “Well, you said, ‘trick,’ right? Does that mean he does some kind of act or something?” Dutch was talking loud enough that the rest of the family tuned in to the burgeoning discussion. “No, I mean he said he worked third trick. That’s what he told me.” “Right, and I said—“ “—Oh, Dutch…” one of the aunts interrupted.

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“Right,” Dutch continued, “And I said does that mean he has something like a magic act that he does or something?” Dutch looked at Phillip with a straight smile across his face. The corners of his mouth weren’t turned up, they just protruded from the middle of his closed, pursed lips and lingered under his dirty-blond, untrimmed mustache. “I don’t know,” said Phillip. He got louder: “He just told me that he worked third trick. That’s all.” “But third trick is two more than first trick, or one trick. Was it two tricks? Was it three tricks? How many tricks can he do?” Phillip had seen it before. This was how Dutch trapped all the kids in the family in a dumb discussion that made him look like a smart guy. He never did it with adults. To Phillip, Dutch was just a dumb adult sitting around waiting for some kid—his own relatives, no less—to say something awkward and then capitalize on it for who-knows-what reason. It was interesting to Phillip because he noticed that Dutch just ignored all the kids when they were alone. When another adult was around, he would try to engineer a silly conversation about inane events or other oddities. The same thing had happened with Phillip’s younger cousin Bobby and the guy at the bait shop whose name Phillip couldn’t remember just then. Thinking about Bobby, Phillip had had enough. He dropped his fork so it clanked on the plate. He looked straight over and down the length of the table at Dutch to challenge him. “I don’t get it,” he said. The same aunt responded: “He means, ‘shift,’ Dutch. Third shift. You know that’s what he means.” “Oh, I get it now,” broke in Phillip. “Shift, trick, magic, how many tricks. That’s funny, Dutch—really, really funny.” He tried to duplicate Dutch’s fake grin. Dutch did not relent, even with a broader, flat smile on his face. “Well, I don’t see you laughing, Phil.” “Guess not. It’s funny. It’s funny like that time with Bobby.” “Bobby? Why, is Bobby a magician or some—“ “—Nope.” Phillip was like an attorney proving his case to a jury. “Remember last summer at the bait shop when me and Bobby were there buying red worms and we didn’t know you were there? It was just us and the bait-shop guy. What was his name? We were

Going Outside talking about sirens and lights on cop cars and tow trucks, fire trucks, ambulances. Remember? What was that bait-shop guy’s name?” “Yeah, I think I remember—” “—Yeah, I think you do. And Bobby was saying how when he grew up he would have a siren on his car and I think I said that would be cool. And he said he wanted to have a blue siren—not a light—but a blue siren. Remember? I said I wanted a red one or maybe both colors. And then Bobby said no, no, he wanted a yellow siren because those were the loudest. Remember, Dutch?” “Yeah.” The smile fell off his face. “Yeah, and then the bait-shop guy—what was his name? Rich! That was it! Rich was his name. I wonder if he still works there. Rich was coming around the corner right when you laid into Bobby and me about lights and sirens.” “I didn’t lay into you,” said Dutch, louder and defensive. “No, I think you did, Dutch. Kinda like now with the trick thing. Dad and everybody back home calls it a trick. Maybe I could have said shift, but I said trick. What’s wrong with that? Anyway—remember?—you laid into us about lights and sirens and how sirens are the sounds and the lights are the flashing bright, colored things. They aren’t the same thing, you said.” “I didn’t lay into you.” “They’re different, you said. Remember? You laid in and said that you can’t pick what color of light you would want and that the color of the lights had nothing to do with the sound of the siren. And then you told Bobby that yellow lights were for wreckers and tow trucks and stuff like that and that they didn’t even have sirens! How could they be the loudest if they didn’t even have sirens attached! you asked. Then you said they wouldn’t even let you get lights or sirens! You had to be a cop or on the squad or something like that! I thought Bobby was gonna cry. Then when I went to put the worms back so we could just leave, Rich came around the corner. I remember now.” The whole table was swallowed up in the conversation and if they weren’t watching Phillip tell the story, they were looking at Dutch and his degenerating reactions as Phillip recalled more and more and then more. “Yep, I remember it, Phillip.”

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“Yeah, me too. Remember when Rich said to you, ‘What’re you doin’?’ Or was it, ‘What the heck’re you doin’?’ I don’t know. Then there was something about yelling at kids and asking why it mattered anyway. And that how he saw a thousand kids in the bait shop every summer talking about more ridiculous—or was it far-fetched?—things than sirens and lights but he never said a word. He knows kids are gonna be kids, or something like that. And then what was it? Why did it matter, anyway? Why was some guy (he didn’t know we were all related) even interested in what two boys were talking about in the first place? he said. Then he asked you if you thought that was supposed to be funny. What did you say?” Phillip looked right down Dutch’s throat, awaiting an answer. The heads at the table turned to him as if watching the ball at a tennis match. “I don’t know.” “I think you remember.” The aunt came in again, picking up trace amounts of disrespect from Phillip. “Now, Phillip…” she drew out. “What?” Phillip turned his head to acknowledge her with an innocent shrug, then returned to Dutch for further questioning. “I don’t really know, and it’s not even important,” said Dutch. “I think it’s important like trick and shift. I think you looked down a little bit when he asked you that because he was sort of a tough guy. Remember? Remember that one tattoo? Anyway, what was it again? He said, ‘Do you think that’s supposed to be funny?’ or something like that. And I’m pretty sure you said, when you were looking down, ‘No, Sir.’” There was a collective chuckle at the table. “Yeah, that’s right. I think it was, ‘No, Sir.’ Then Rich came over to us and gave us the worms and almost shoved us out the door. Do you know he gave us two bags of Cheetos? Then he said, ‘It’s on me, boys.’” Dutch looked down at his plate and moved his shoulders and head back to nestle himself between his neighbors at the table. “I think you were the only guys in the bait shop then. What did you guys talk about after we left, Dutch? Can you tell us? What was it?”

Going Outside

* In his hospital bed, Phillip was thinking that Dutch’s real name was indeed Theodore. Even in his state, he began looking for an opportunity to test his memory and gauge Dutch’s response. In the few years that had gone by since the lake cottage, Dutch had grown older. Then, he was a middle-aged man with signs of youth. Now, Phillip saw a middle-aged man with signs of old age. The long hand on Dutch’s clock was swinging upward and Phillip could tell. Phillip opened his eyes fully and moved his leg to bother Dutch’s foot. He moved it again after nothing happened and finally had to jerk his leg into the heal of the dirty work boots on the hospital bed. The action jarred Dutch from his nap and he dropped his legs instinctively to the floor with a flat crash. Dried mud flew three feet in all directions on the floor. “Hey there, Philly.” How ya feelin’?” “Hi, Dutch.” “Do you want me to get a nurse?” He stood up and leaned over at the same time to bring his face close to Phillip’s. “What for?” He looked stupid. “I don’t know.” After a pause, “I think it’s just something people say when someone’s in the hospital.” “Why would I need a nurse?” “I don’t know, Phil. Tell me how you’re feelin’.” He dropped away into the green vinyl chair, annoyed. “I’m—tired.” “Well—” “—Dad,” Phillip whispered. “Where’s Dad?” “He’s down the hall. He’s doin’ okay.” “Why isn’t he here?” “They’ve got him in a special part of the hospital.” “Intensive care? Dad’s in intensive care?”

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“He’ll be fine, Phil. They say he’s doin’ real well and that you can come back to visit him whenever you want. We’ll just hop in the truck and come see him whenever you want to, okay?” “He has to stay here?” Phillip stopped, squinted his eyes, and looked straight at Dutch. “What do you mean, ‘We’ll get in the truck and come and see him?’” “We’re gonna be roommates.” His smile was genuine this time. “They want me to take care of you while your dad gets better.” “I have to move in with you?” “No, we figured it would be best if I came to live at the house and I’ll just go back to the farm during the day when you’re at school. How’d that be, Phil?” “Um, okay. Can I see Dad?” “You’re in bed—” The door opened to reveal a pretty nurse who stopped them both in thought and conversation. Dutch stood to watch her come into the room. “Well, hello there. I’m glad to see you finally awake, Phillip.” She set about her chores with the intensity of a mother fixing Christmas dinner. “Is it Phillip or Phil? I’m just glad to see you awake, but you still need your rest. Here’s some medicine. It tastes really good—I’ve had it, so you can believe me. But it’ll put you right back out again.” She continued on. “Can I see my dad?” She was comforting as she slowed her tasks to answer him. “Sure, Honey, you can see him soon. Very soon. But right now I have to give you this medicine. I have to do it now because the doctor said it’s very important you get your rest. You don’t want to get me in trouble, do you?” “No.” Phillip smiled. “I’m Nurse Kelly, by the way.” She leaned over the bed as she said it and fluffed the pillows on either side of Phillip’s head. Her cleavage was perfectly centered in Phillip’s line of sight. Then she leaned forward more and gave him a full picture of everything down her loose V-neck hospital scrubs. Phillip was surprised she didn’t have another shirt or something else on underneath. But he also didn’t care.

Going Outside

Nurse Kelly slowed down as she fluffed the pillows and fiddled with a tube near his head. She didn’t look right at Phillip as she did it. He knew he had some time—as if he had a choice, short of closing his eyes—to look at the beautiful picture she was showing him. Phillip decided in an instant to take it all in. The shadows cast inside the light-purple hospital garb weren’t enough to conceal the tops of Nurse Kelly’s full breasts held in place by a white-lace bra. Phillip had only seen the likes of that scene for thirty seconds before when a Playboy had been dropped on the floor of the pool hall one day last year and the owner kicked him out before he could get a better look. Nurse Kelly put her lips near Phillip’s ear and continued softly, “But you can call me Kelly if you want to. My name’s right up there on the board.” She pointed without looking. Phillip’s head turned as she whispered because it tickled. He saw Dutch standing by the chair with his mouth open. He had been checking out Kelly’s rear-end when he noticed what was going on. Phillip smiled at Nurse Kelly as she finished and it looked to Dutch as if he was smiling at him, knowing what he knew he was missing. As Nurse Kelly poured the medicine into an odd-looking plastic dispenser and rested it on Phillip’s lower lip, he realized that he had just been given the Nurse Kelly prescription to healing. He thought to himself how she didn’t even need to write her name down; Phillip would remember it forever. He had known her for five minutes but would do anything for her. Nurse Kelly knew what she was doing. Part of Phillip’s getting better was her, and she knew it. And Phillip knew, for a fourteen-year-old, a dose of Nurse Kelly like that gave him more health than any strange, plastic spoonful of medicine could ever provide. The beautiful woman leaned over Phillip’s bed once more, checking a tube or some kind of instrument. He knew that Dutch knew what he was being treated to yet again, and he knew that Nurse Kelly did too. As her scent—perfume, soap, hospital smell: it wasn’t important—lingered in Phillip’s air, he looked past Kelly at Dutch with a smile on his groggy face. As he closed his eyes and fell back asleep with Nurse Kelly over him, healing him, Phillip managed a soft, ineffectual sign-off to Dutch. “See you at home, Theodore.”

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7 Teaching Eddie

Phillip was no Holden Caulfield. And that was okay as far as he was concerned. He was growing up to be what he was supposed to be: a good and honest young man. He certainly did not have things mapped out yet, but it was expected by his father and his family, and to a degree by himself, that he would participate in activities, including sports, and be friendly and kind to everyone. He was told not long ago that he was really making a big list for a college-entrance application; that was what adolescence was to be—cynically, pragmatically, poignantly speaking. He was to participate in sports, and excel, but other activities were also in his catalog. He was in 4-H (he tried the Boy Scouts but thought they were just a bunch of twerps), went to religious services religiously, farmed regularly, and helped the helpless, the hapless, and the hopeless. Activities to avoid at any and all costs included smoking, drinking, swearing, and philandering. There was never a real list. Phillip knew by facial expressions, slaps on the back of the head, and careful observation what was expected of him. There were never speeches, and there were never Brady Bunch-like talks with Mom and Dad about lessons learned. The entire family was a see-it-once-and-learn governing body. There was no drama. There were no fights. Phillip was the nice young man whom all elderly wives sought out to mow lawns and do odd chores around the house like resetting clocks twice a year or carrying canned beans up from the cellar. At twelve years old, Phillip had seen this role of universal likeable guy begin to materialize. He parlayed it into a half-acceptance among some adults. He would stay and talk with the men after church instead of darting outside to shoot hoops with the guys in the lot across the street. He enjoyed listening and being in their company. He saw leadership in them and felt guidance in their words. Besides, the basketball the guys used was always flat. They kept it under a thick bush against the church. No one ever thought to bring a needle and a pump or even another ball. As the other boys ran around in their Sunday clothes, Phillip stayed with his father and leaned upon the oak pews, arms crossed with looks of interest thrown upon an at-times confused face. He never got all of what they were talking about, but as twelve turned to

Going Outside thirteen, as thirteen turned to fourteen, and events like Christmas morning became a calmer affair, Phillip started putting his opinions out there among the pews. Sometimes the men laughed at something he said when a joke wasn’t his intention. And true to that good-guy image, the good nature and character he had cultivated as expected, he would analyze his error and try to determine exactly what he had said to cause them to laugh. Perhaps a word or an idea had gone astray. Perhaps he had insulted someone unintentionally. Nevertheless it wasn’t him, and he resolved to figure it out so he would never do it again. The men were accepting him into their group and he enjoyed it and was proud of it. Once he heard one of them remark to his father after he had walked away: That’s a fine boy you got there, Gary. In Ohio, in rural Ohio, there are few better compliments that one man can pay to another. The conversations and the many analyses paid off over time. Phillip took those church discussions and used them to give himself power at school. He was a verbal warrior and he knew it. He also knew that not speaking—deliberate ignorance—was a weapon. Bullies, a word that sounded to Phillip like a made-up word that only adults threw around at the PTA and school-board meetings, was never used at school. It was replaced with the colloquial and the profane, or with the uncomplicated actual names that all the kids, even those who were never picked on, associated with bullies. They just had to say it: Sven, Ricky, and for the girls, Susan. No last names were ever required. To Phillip, a lot of kids who got picked on almost asked for it. He always wondered: if you’re getting picked on for being a nerd, stop acting like a nerd. Don’t laugh at stupid things or say stupid things that make you sound like a nerd. You’re just hurting yourself. He asked his cousin Freddy once that if he had a scab on his knee from falling off his bike, would he go and do the exact same thing again? Would he fall off his bike exactly the same way and get another scab on the same knee? Would he rub it or pick it or take a piece of sandpaper to it? Would he gouge it with his fingernails or scrape it with a screwdriver? Of course not! So why would Freddy keep doing things like that stupid snort laugh of his? And why would he walk down the hall at school carrying his books like a girl, clutched to his chest? Phillip would say, “Stop doing that!” You’re only asking for it, is what Phillip would say. Phillip was cool and he knew that too. But it didn’t mean he could take a rest from defending himself from the so-called bullies. It didn’t matter if they were older or his own

48 Beaverson age, he’d treat them like dirt. He learned long ago that what they really thrived on was reaction. He knew he couldn’t just ignore them sometimes, though. When you do that, they come back looking for a response. It becomes a challenge to them. When they tried doing it, Phillip realized the best defense was a convincing manner of arrogance and snide, sarcastic looks. With a simple glance, Phillip, the nice young man in battle conditions, could project the most malicious, hurtful tenor that sunk bullies into chasms of inferiority. Phillip projected supremacy, earned or not, and quietly proclaimed himself better than all the bullies, all the teachers, all the school combined, and that the sum of their lives together was the smallest fraction of his own. When grade-school teachers ask little kids if they think they’re better than another little kid and the inevitable answer is no, Phillip’s answer, in his mind, was to be always yes. Yes, yes, yes, I’m better than them. These idiots think they can go off on me? And that was his defense. If only the old ladies in town whose lawns he mowed could see inside his head when he thought about bullies. The bullies were nothing to him. He didn’t give them a second thought. Phillip recognized his attitude as arrogance, but to him it was a question of confidence too, and it protected him. All kids respected Phillip Vinson. * In a rural school system full of the children of farmers, factory workers, and the occasional small-town business man, black kids were rare. Eddie Faber was the only one around, but he graduated last year. His family had moved in at the start of Eddie’s senior year and Phillip’s seventh-grade year. Phillip and Eddie rode the same bus. Eddie got on at the end of the route one day and asked if he could sit next to Phillip. Eddie was easily six feet compared to Phillip’s five-five. At seventeen or eighteen, he looked like a West Point graduate or an adult chaperone watching kids on a field trip. Eddie looked like he had grown up years ago, and he dressed the part. Phillip never saw him wear jeans, although he was certain he must have had some at home. Eddie’s wardrobe was full of sweaters, khaki pants, and crisp cotton shirts sometimes accompanied by neckties. He was casual without being a slob; he was dressed up without looking like a teacher.

Going Outside

There was no hesitation on the first day Eddie asked to sit beside Phillip. He moved over even though there was enough room and said, “Sure, go ahead.” Phillip had just had his first experience with a black kid that summer. There were two boys to a dorm room at the basketball camp his dad sent him to at Ohio Wesleyan. Phillip’s roommate for the weeklong camp was Gerald, an older black boy from Cleveland. It wasn’t like Phillip didn’t know about black people. There just weren’t a lot around. There had been discussions about them before. They were discussed in town at the Post Office or at school when a big-city team was coming to play a basketball game or they were going to a track invitational. There were comments out in the factory parking lot and jokes made by people who knew better, but knew no different. There were more blacks in Madison, the county seat, than anywhere else in Logan County. Phillip always noted that they were referred to as the blacks, or, those are your blacks doing that or living there or just living. There were words he heard when he was much younger that, as a fourteen-year-old, would never cross his lips, or so he vowed. But it was his first experience. At camp, he thought Gerald might try to steal his stuff when he was gone, or do who-knows-what to him while he was asleep. He thought Gerald would be tough with him and try to kick his butt just to prove that he could, or to show that no white guy was better than he was. Gerald’s lips were bigger than Phillip’s. His hair looked rough and tightly curled. Phillip thought about all the things he had heard, and just a few minutes into his conversation with Gerald, he dismissed all he knew about your blacks. It made him question even more the Confederate flags he saw among the American ones in Butler and in other towns. Phillip wondered if the people who bought them and hoisted them knew what they really meant, what they really stood for. He didn’t know himself, and he knew he was no expert on the Confederate flag and its symbolism, but he knew how powerful the image could be and how differently it could be interpreted. Gerald quickly made him question all the information about black people he had received from authority figures. Perhaps they were just making stuff up. Perhaps they were misinformed. Maybe they had been wronged by a black person and took it out on the whole race. Phillip wasn’t sure, but he thought Gerald was all right. Gerald, he found, was a really nice guy, a great teammate, and there was nothing about him that matched the things Phillip

50 Beaverson had heard in the pool hall in Butler or at the Dairy Queen in West Milford after winning a baseball game. Two weeks after basketball camp, Phillip was back home shooting baskets on the side of the barn, trying to put into practice at least a little of what his parents had paid good money for. He started thinking about Gerald, and that first meeting when Phillip walked into the dorm room and saw the black kid putting away his things. What was Gerald thinking? Maybe Phillip was his first white guy. That’s your whites. Maybe Gerald didn’t know what to do with Phillip walking into that room; what kinds of things had been said about Phillip, as a representative of the White World, before he arrived. All the Phillips, that is—all of your whites. For all Phillip knew, Gerald could have been thinking the same things or worse about him. Perhaps Gerald had heard that your whites were all hostile and mean-spirited. Perhaps he was told to expect the first word out of Phillip’s mouth to be something derogatory or that all the old movies he watched as he was growing up would have been accurate. They were movies about the South, and how small-town sheriffs could get away with anything and the Ku Klux Klan was out every night in force. Maybe Gerald thought that Phillip was allowed to call him Boy or something like that. Maybe Gerald expected Phillip, when he first saw the white guy walk in the dorm room, to get pissed off and walk out and yell down the hallway that there was no way he was going to room with some black guy. Perhaps Phillip would break the glass frame on the picture of Gerald’s girlfriend she gave him before he left for camp. But after a few minutes of talking with Phillip, Gerald knew he was a good guy. He found out he was two years younger and he really liked pizza and the space program. The two boys were glad they had gotten to know each other and said they would stay in touch after camp, but did not. * Phillip thought about Eddie and went back to Gerald, then to Eddie again and he remembered their first conversation. He gave him room on the bus seat and Eddie said, “No, you’re good.” In Midwest fashion, there was a lot of good-guy, polite conversation about the leaves and the weather. Eddie mentioned how quiet it was. All Phillip heard was the bus shifting its gears and all the loud kids and it annoyed him.

Going Outside

“That’s not what I mean,” said Eddie. Someone threw a half-empty gym bag down the crowded aisle. “It’s quiet here, in the country.” “Oh—where you from?” “Cleveland.” “I know someone from there,” Phillip acknowledged quickly. “There’s cars everywhere and you can’t turn the corner without running into somebody. Here, I can see everything. Fields, houses, trees—even forests.” “Forests?” Phillip knew there were no true forests around; just stands of trees that farmers kept among their fields for hunting. Sometimes people would find out who owned them and tried to convince the farmer to sell. Phillip always thought that a house in a secluded woods off the road would be a great place to live on his own and maybe later with a wife. “Well, I know they’re not forests, but it’s a lot more trees in one place than I ever saw,” returned Eddie. “Do you like the Indians?” “Yeah, my brother tried out for the team a few years ago and made it all the way to the final cut.” Phillip thought about the statement for a little while. He was sitting beside someone whose brother could be playing major league baseball—or could have been. He wasn’t a big Indians fan, but at that moment, they were all he could think of. It was exciting to be that close to pro baseball. It was exciting to be that close to Eddie, a senior in high school who thought Phillip was worthy enough to chat with. “So he was trying out with all the starters and talking with ‘em and everything?” “Yeah, I guess so.” “That’s really cool. What position?” “Pitcher.” “Oh, man. Lefty?” “Yeah—” They had already proven to each other that they knew baseball. Someone trying out for a team as a pitcher has a better chance to get picked up as a left-hander and they both knew it.

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Phillip didn’t even know Eddie’s brother’s name, what he looked like, how old he was, or even if he was a good pitcher, but in the span of a few seconds he found himself rooting for him and suddenly he was more interested in the Indians than he had ever been. “Where is he now?” “He’s trying to get on at a winter league in D.R. He was playing Double-A ball last season.” “That’s pretty cool. Dominican Republic. I’ve never been out of Ohio.” Eddie looked over and down at Phillip. They hadn’t really looked much at each other. Eddie’s lips weren’t big like Gerald’s. And Eddie noticed quickly that Phillip had a few freckles on his nose. He gave Phillip a smile that showed a perfectly polished set of teeth. Phillip felt like he was sitting beside a pro baseball player. “What’s that smell?” “What smell?” Phillip whiffed for a little bit. “It’s that hog farm or Bobby.” He pointed outside at the farm the bus had just passed and then thumbed Bobby Whitfield, the most flatulent kid in middle school. Eddie laughed a little. “What’s that?” asked Eddie. “That combine?” “Combine?” “Yeah, it cuts down the corn.” “Oh.” Phillip looked at Eddie for a bit but did not stare. “Have you ever been out of Cleveland?” “Not really. Not to the country.” “I don’t think I’ve ever been to Cleveland. Maybe when I was little or somethin’.” “What’s that combeen thing do?” returned Eddie. “Com-bine. Farmers use it. It’s like a big tractor, but it doesn’t pull things usually. They stick different heads on the front and drive over the crop. If you’ve got corn, there’s one with pointed pickers that the corn stalks go into then they go through the machine and out the back.” “The corn too?”

Going Outside

“No, the corn gets put in a big bin at the top. I think it’s called a hopper—right there!” Phillip pointed out the window to a combine that was offloading its corn into a wagon as he spoke. The bus slowed down as if to give Eddie more time to view the site. “Oh, that’s how they do it. Is it just used for that?” “No, they use it for wheat and beans, but the head that goes on the front looks different. It’s like a big turning wheel with forks. No, not a wheel—a cylinder.” Phillip was trying to remember his geometry on the spot. He was thrilled to be teaching Eddie. Farming and everything that went with it were common knowledge where he was from but something completely new to Eddie. He switched the situation around in his mind and imagined himself in Cleveland learning about taxis and riding the bus. When photographs of big cities appeared in books, Phillip stared at them like he was trying to find a hidden picture within. He imagined himself on the street looking up and seeing the shadows cast by skyscrapers. The stadium in Cincinnati where the Reds play is on the river, away from the buildings, so Phillip never stood on a sidewalk and looked up with buildings on both sides. Phillip enjoyed teaching Eddie. “What does your dad farm? I mean, does he have farm animals or fields, or what?” “He’s not really a farmer,” replied Phillip. “How do you know all this stuff about farming?” “I don’t know. Everybody around here’s a farmer.” He pointed to the kids on the bus. “There’s a farm two miles from our house and another one just right down the road. We can smell the cows when the wind’s blowin’ just right.” Eddie wrinkled his face. “My grandpa was a farmer. I used to spend a few weeks there in the summertime and go out in the fields and help drive the tractor. One time I drove the combine, but my uncle was sitting there too. They get pretty serious about stuff when it comes time to harvest.” “Why?” “I guess it’s because that’s when they make money.” “Right.” “Grandpa always got a little religious about it.” “Religious?”

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“Yeah, you know, like he got stricter around that time. He was the only one who prayed before a meal—to himself—but everyone knew to quiet down when he was doing it, you know?” “Your family doesn’t pray out loud?” “No, we don’t do it at all.” Eddie wrinkled his face again. “We always pray before a meal.” “Well, at Grandpa’s house, everyone knew to be quiet when he did it. Anyway, he prayed longer at harvest time. When kids started messin’ around, everyone was in for the lecture after he was done. You know, about how the harvest was the end of the year, and that everyone should be the most thankful then. How kids should be dead-silent and how everyone should really be praying, not just him. How everyone should pray more, and if they already prayed a lot, they should pray harder at harvest. Harvest could be a rough two or three weeks if it was bad, depending on what they planted that year. I mean how much they brought in.” “What if it was good?” “They’re really happy. My uncles and older cousins—they’ll buy you just about anything you want. I went fishing with my Uncle Burt for a couple days after one harvest and we stopped to get some bait on the way to the lake cottage. I ended up with a brand-new rod, tackle box, and about a thousand different spinner baits. It’s like they just won the lottery or something at harvest.” Eddie shook his head in approval. “There’s nothin’ fake around farmers. They’re real.” “I like that,” said Eddie. “Being a fake—I really hate that. “Yeah, me too,” agreed Phillip. “I don’t know why people can’t just be who they are, you know?” “Yeah.” Phillip thought about being at church with the other men. Eddie continued. “A lot of times I think that if they’re impressing one group of people, they’re really putting off another group of people. You know what I mean? They go around with this mask so they can be something else. It’s like a big cover—or undercover. Like they’re an FBI or CIA agent doing some act to find out information, but the only

Going Outside information they really want is what you do when you react to the cover. You know? If you buy it and think it’s real or not, is what I mean.” “Yeah, I get it. I think I know.” Phillip looked at Eddie as he spoke. “It’s really dumb. People put on a cover, you know what I mean? Like I’ve got this teacher who always says dumb things like, ‘Right you are,’ and ‘Indeed,’ every sentence. He really likes that word, indeed. He says it when it’s not really necessary; when it’s wrong to say it. You take about a week of classes with this guy—it really doesn’t take that long— before you find out how fake he is. It’s like he’s actually trying to cover up his lack of intelligence by making you think he has an ounce of it.” Phillip listened intently. Eddie drew him in by treating him like they were the same age. He talked to him like they were good friends, like he had confidence in Phillip to take in and hold and understand his ruminations. It put Phillip in mind of the conversation he had with his father about playing football. He was being let into an adult world that he had only seen from afar; his ability to comprehend, reflect, and discern was being recognized and trusted by men years beyond him. He felt like he needed to fold his arms and lean against a church pew. Like Phillip, Eddie Faber recognized his own maturity. At his age, he had already begun to identify it as a sort of arrogance, where Phillip by comparison only had an unrealized feeling. Eddie was the good boy too, on his way to realize big dreams and to meet the high expectations that had been placed upon him. And he watched Phillip as he listened. He wasn’t a regular seventh-grader who would have just nodded along or interrupted by rudely starting another conversation with a buddy in the seat in front of him. He was genuinely interested, and he could see something developing. Eddie knew that Phillip wasn’t just a good kid. He was thoughtful and mature and he had something more than his peers. Friends and mentors can see traces of themselves in the people they choose. Eddie continued on. “Willingham—do you know who he is?” “No.” “This guy Willingham isn’t even an English teacher but he acts like he should be a college professor or something. So get this: he doesn’t say news like everyone else. You know, news? You know how he says it? Nyoos. Just like that: nyoos.” He waited for a response from Phillip but continued with his point anyway.

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“Is he serious? The day after Monday isn’t Tuesday. Do you know that? It’s Tyoosday. Tyoosday?” He extended the O sound for effect. “What?” asked Phillip. “Really, he says Tyoosday.” Phillip laughed. Eddie was starting in like a comedian doing a bit. “And how about W-H? You know what I mean? Like where and when and why. Only it’s hwhere, hwhen, and hwhy. You know? Is he kidding? Where’d this guy come from and who’s he trying to impress? Do you know what ‘pretentious’ means, Phillip?” He called him Phillip. “Willingham?” “You catch on quickly. No one respects a guy who isn’t himself. I think that’s for your age, my age, Willingham’s age. If you don’t see it at first, being phony is something that shows up sometime later.” “What do you mean, ‘phony?’” “He’s fake! He’s a good actor at first and makes everyone believe he’s the smartest guy in the world. He always has an answer for everything, even if he knows he’s wrong. But that’s not enough for him, because if he knows he’s wrong but thinks he can get away with it, he’ll try and convince you that he’s right. False information, you know? But he does it just so people will think he’s smart. If he’s so smart, why’s he teaching at a little high school? Shouldn’t he be at Harvard or something?” Phillip agreed by exhaling quickly through his nose like a short laugh. “Guys like that have to be just arrogant enough, you know? Sometimes they think they have to be the controller—the guy everyone in the room looks to when there’s a lull or they need to be told what to do. There was a fire drill last week. Did you guys have a fire drill at the middle school?” “Nope.” “Anyway, we had this fire drill, and Willingham must have been in the lounge feeding his face or something. He didn’t have any kids under his control at the time; must not have been teaching a class then, you know? So we’re outside, and everyone’s just standing there after the other teachers had taken their counts. So he just started organizing and pointing to people and telling them what to do, like he was running the show. He was

Going Outside doing it for a while then some teachers came back and looked really confused because their kids weren’t like they left them. They started putting everybody back where they were after Willingham had moved on to the next group. Then a few of us saw Mr. Dunlap—do you know Dunlap?” “Is he the principal?” “Yeah. Then Dunlap went over with his bullhorn and clipboard and talked to Willingham. You couldn’t hear what they were saying, but you could tell Dunlap was givin’ it to him. I guess there was some kind of exercise the school was doing at the same time as the fire drill. Maybe Willingham didn’t even know about it—that would be funny. It’s like he had tried a long time ago to convince the teachers that he was smart and they all saw past it. Maybe a few of them held out for a while, maybe a couple are left but just because they’re actually dumber than Willingham is. Anyway, he looked like crap out there, and just about everybody saw it happen.” Eddie paused and looked down the aisle at the bus driver or a couple of kids a few rows up. “I just think being fake is about the worst thing.” “Yeah, I never thought of it. I know this guy in town like that. He thinks it’s up to him to start talking when it’s quiet. Sometimes people want it quiet, right? I hope I never get that Willingham guy. What class does he teach?” Eddie laughed through his nose too. “Study Hall.” They laughed together and looked at each other like buddies who had been apart for years. * As Phillip’s seventh-grade year wore on and Eddie’s senior year progressed, the two kept in touch as much as they could. Eddie followed up football and basketball practices with questions about the team and if Phillip was having any trouble. When spring came, they saw each other more on the late bus that took the students home after sports practices and other after-school activities. Eddie was a track star, and he did the hurdles like no one else around. People who normally weren’t interested in track meets came sometimes just to see Eddie run the hurdles. It was clearly important to him, but more important was his lifelong desire to go to college.

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For Eddie, the college wasn’t just an average one. He wanted to go to the Air Force Academy and be a military officer. He had told Phillip about his dream many times, and it got more real for both of them as the selection time approached. Phillip knew that successful candidates had the best grades and were involved in their communities and in extracurricular activities. Eddie and his family had even met with his member of Congress for an appointment to the Academy. One day after track practice, Eddie got on the bus and Phillip knew what had happened. He saw the disappointment on Eddie as if they had just talked for an hour. He remembered their conversation like it was written down in a novel. “Did you hear?” “Yeah, I didn’t make it,” he said without hesitation. Eddie sat down in the seat across the aisle. The activity bus wasn’t crowded. “I’m really sorry, Eddie.” “It’s OK. I can apply again.” “For this year?” “No, I’d apply for next year or maybe go to something they call the Prep School out there. I don’t know.” Eddie spoke like a different person. For all they had talked about, for all the depths of each other’s thoughts they had probed throughout the year, Eddie never appeared like this to Phillip. He was to Phillip like his own father was to him now. It was a strange door that had been opened into a building Phillip thought he had already explored. The looks on both their faces—Eddie’s and his father’s—changed and gave them a new personality almost and a new way for Phillip to perceive them. He just wasn’t sure what to think about it, or if he liked it at all. “I really thought you were in, Man. Do you have a backup?” “Well, I was thinking I would go to Ohio State and get into ROTC there. Do you remember that?” “Yeah, it’s like the Academy but not full-time? “Yeah, sort of like that. I still become an officer at the end of the four years.” “Then what’s the difference?” “It’s not the Academy.”

Going Outside

“Right.” Phillip put his chin up in the air and turned his head away slightly. He knew he saw Eddie’s dream being denied right there in front of him. The way Eddie was, he knew he was straining just to talk about it. If it were up to Eddie, he would have just thrown the letter away—shredded it—and simply not spoken to anyone about it again. “That would still be pretty cool, though,” said Phillip. “They give you a uniform, right?” “Yeah.” “Do they let you shoot stuff with guns and go on flights in Air Force jets and other stuff like that?” “Yeah.” “Sign me up!” Eddie knew what his friend was doing, and he laughed because it was working. He wondered again how a fourteen-year-old could be like that. He was better friends with Phillip than with most guys his own age. Phillip was older without being old.

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8 Funnels And Glove Drawers

The sun rose from across the woods and its light still managed to make it through to the Vinson farm. Saturday mornings were busy, but it was a good type of busy to Phillip. He could say a lot of things about Dutch, but being lazy wasn’t one of them. In some ways, Dutch took the place of Phillip’s father for a while, performing tasks and completing chores that had been put off or ignored or forgotten or just not cared about. The chimney cap was reinstalled and ready for winter two days after Dutch’s arrival. He wasn’t Phillip’s first choice, but after two weeks Dutch had begun to grow on him. After the first meeting in the hospital, Phillip felt repulsed by Dutch. He had already decided to treat him like he did that day at the lake. That’ll get him back. But after a while, Phillip knew that that just wasn’t him. Whatever act he tried to put on, whatever toughness or arrogance at school he displayed, he knew he couldn’t fool himself. He wasn’t a jerk and he knew it. And he knew that Dutch wasn’t all that bad. After all, he was there for him. Dutch was at his best in silence. Now and then there were comments or personal deliberations that reminded Phillip of his own grandfather, but only for the briefest moments. Dutch would straighten his back slowly after bending over an engine or some tool that needed fixed. He stood up so unhurriedly and let the air out of his lungs through nearly closed lips. He put his hands on his hips as he thought about his problem. “Now what should we do here?” or, “How can we get this done?” he would ask himself. And it was those brief times that Phillip saw his grandfather, stooping, because he could no longer stand up straight. It was a permanent stoop that made him look up to anyone so he could see their face. There were those short moments when Dutch stood in for his grandfather, stooping, but Phillip convinced himself that it was only because Dutch was the same height and wore bib overalls everyday and worked on too many projects that required bending over. He was a farmer like Phillip’s grandfather and Mr. Fuller, the old Marine down the road, and he used the phrases that farmers use, but the similarities ended there. Phillip imagined his grandfather and thought of greatness. He imagined Dutch and thought of a punchline. Phillip always reassured himself of that.

Going Outside

But it was nice, he thought, to be reminded of his grandfather as though he stood before him again, not so young, able to ask more questions and to understand him better. Phillip always knew that his father’s father would have been close to him. The things he remembered from years ago ensured in his mind that his grandfather could have related, could have sympathized, could have understood what Phillip was feeling. He wondered why it hadn’t passed down a generation. Phillip wanted the traits he knew his grandfather had to be in his own father. He wanted to know that as he got older he could relate even better with his father. Phillip knew that as a man, he would have been friends with his grandfather. He wasn’t so sure about his own dad. But Dutch, standing there in the bib overalls, hands on hips on a Saturday morning, gave the closest representation of his grandfather he had had in a while. “What are we gonna do with this one, Phil?” Dutch didn’t look at him. It was a sightless, rhetorical question that he would have asked even if he were alone. “Not sure,” said Phillip, only half-interested. Dutch’s hands were already covered in petroleum products: the right representing grease, and the left representing motor oil. He broke from thought for a moment to remove his sweat-stained Case Tractors hat. He looked through the woods then turned toward the house. “Shep!” The stringy hairs in the excuse for a mustache above his lip blew like hanging branches on a willow tree when he said the “SH” sound. “Shep! Where are ya, Boy!” The mustache put Phillip in mind of Civil War photographs taken of unkempt Confederate soldiers leaning on timber fences. While his father recovered, Phillip had the pleasure of not only living with Dutch, but of hosting his collie, Shep. He was the strangest, dirtiest, mangiest dog Phillip had ever known. There’s at least one dog on every farm and it usually has some kind of purpose. Phillip could never figure out Shep’s purpose. He never saw Dutch pet him or pay him any mind at all. Phillip never knew a dog to be so unconcerned with human companionship as Shep was. The dog seemed to understand its role and accepted it in exchange for everything else a dog expects from its master: food, water, and shelter. Beyond that, Shep was a loner. Dutch would arrive in his pickup and Shep would hop out and disappear into the woods or the barn. Phillip was sure he was just sleeping all the time. He never saw him chasing

62 Beaverson chipmunks or harassing the farm’s cat population. And he was never excited. Even when it came time to feed the dog, Shep would saunter up out of nowhere and approach the dish as if remarking, “It’s about time,” eat a few bites, lap up some water, then disappear again. Shep somehow seemed to know his purpose, not inborn, not instinctual, but learned. “Where are ya, Boy!” could get him to come from the farthest explorations of fields and woods or to jar him from sleepy, curled-up naps in the dusty straw of the old horse stalls. “Shep!” Dutch replaced his hat and went back to pondering his problem. There were two main outbuildings at the farm. There was the barn, built at the same time as the house—if not before—in the late 1800s. Then there was a shed, made of thick planks and as sturdy a building as any on comparable farms. Phillip’s father used it for storing lumber, a couple of lawn mowers and other equipment, various tools and scrap metal, and all the other things that get pushed into sheds and barns. On the east side, someone had attached a well-built lean-to structure seventy-five years ago or more. It was tall enough so a man wouldn’t bump his head, but short enough and close enough to the building so that it hadn’t become an imposing addition. It kept most of the rain and snow off the tools that hung on the building’s exterior. There was a massive, thick-planked, oil-soaked work bench that stood chest high. When repairing things, Phillip’s father always taught him: bring the work up to you. It wasn’t until last year that Phillip finally understood how useful the high workbench was when he found himself in front of it repacking a bearing from the wood trailer. He had also realized that he was finally tall enough to see what his dad was talking about. Bring the work to your eyes, to your hands, Phillip. “Shep! Where are ya, Boy!” Beneath the rusted, corrugated steel roof of the lean-to, or “the overhang,” as it was referred to more often, a number of ancient hand tools were stored neatly on nails pounded into the shed decades ago. Arranged in order of importance and frequency of use, hammers of all sorts, saws, chisels, rulers, squares, and a hundred other items filled the space. Small, carefully planned shelves with raised edges held Mason jars and metal Planters Peanuts cans containing nails, screws, parts, pieces, and tiny components of small engines or plumbing fittings. Phillip’s father did not hoard, but he kept the things he knew he might have use for in the future, and he taught his son the same way. You never know when you’ll need something like that, Phillip. He always seemed to remember he had it. As a child, Phillip

Going Outside had pictured a literal filing cabinet in his father’s head after a friend remarked that he must have had one up there. He was so good at remembering where the tiniest things were on his farm. Phillip’s father even remembered time periods and chronologies like how long a spark plug had sat in a drawer or when he had bought a box of sheet-metal screws for a complicated ductwork project in the house. Dutch took down a heavy, antique hammer that was older than both Phillip and him put together. He bent over again and began beating hard, cruel, methodical blows on a bent chunk of metal attached to a tractor part laying on the ground. He struck it harder and faster as his impatience grew. “Don’t baby it, now,” joked Phillip. Dutch stopped long enough to wipe his greasy hand on his bibs. “Shep!” “Here’s a rag.” Dutch didn’t take it. He seemed out of breath. As he halted his work a second time, Dutch rested his forearms on his bent knees and addressed Phillip without looking up at him. “Do you want to go see your dad tonight?” Phillip looked down at the Case Tractors hat seriously. He rested his elbow on the bench and stalled. “Um—yeah. I was wondering when we’d go. Now’s as good—” “—Yeah, I think we should. That phone call this morning was Dr. Epstein. He said your dad’s doin’ great but could probably use some company. You know, if someone’s sleeping or not, they think they can still sense you’re there and all. You know?” “Yeah, I’ve heard that. Dad should know I’m there.” “Shep! Where are ya, Boy!” “Dutch, do you think he’ll be all right?” The man stood slowly like Phillip’s grandfather and stayed hunched over because his back was sore. He raised his head and looked at Phillip with a face that Phillip immediately recognized as the concerned and unsure expression that adults had given him ever since his dog had been hit on the road when he was six. It was a look they couldn’t hide. Under it Phillip would always see the truth and it made him ask himself why they just wouldn’t start with that. He had guessed they always meant well, but lately it had been bothering him more like the fake teacher Eddie talked about in high school.

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Dutch paused and began bobbing his head up and down. Perhaps he saw what Phillip was detecting, so he switched over and made believe that Phillip was another farmer and they were talking about livestock or when they should plant a crop. He bobbed his head up and down, “I think he’ll be okay, Phil—there you are!” Shep The Collie finally ambled to the side of his master. The dog stood a foot away, nearly perfectly still; no wagging tail, no panting or excitement. His head faced the shed and was partially under the work bench. He stood motionless as if obeying a silent command. “You gotta have confidence, Philly.” Dutch bent over and began wiping his hands clean in Shep’s long hair. Globs of grease spread across the dog’s back as Dutch wiped in the same direction the hair grew at first, then against it with the backs of his hands. He looked up at Phillip again as if he were using a tool or completing an everyday task that was far from extraordinary. “Here’s the thing, Phil.” Dutch became more familiar. “It’s hard to say how your dad’s gonna be.” Phillip took his arm off the bench and turned to face his uncle and the dog directly. He crumpled his face the more he watched. “Dutch—” “—They told you what a coma was, right?” “Yeah, I know what a coma is. Um—” “—Well, I think he’s gonna pull out of it. I think the doctors and the nurses think he’ll pull out of it.” “You know there’s a clean rag right over there.” Dutch had moved on to a brisker cleaning, straddling the dog and wiping the motor oil and dirt from his forearms on the sides of the animal. Shep licked his own nose. “But,” continued Dutch, “I’ll be honest with you. I think people aren’t so sure how he’ll be when he wakes up.” “You don’t think he’ll be normal?” “I’m not sure, Phil. That’s why we gotta get you there so he knows that you’re still around and everything. You know, people say that they know when their families are right there beside them when they’re sleeping.”

Going Outside

“Yeah.” Phillip shook himself from his unfocused gaze upon the sight of Dutch clapping his hands together to remove the dog hair that now stuck to them. “I see another rag over there.” “This works better.” “That can’t be good for his skin.” “He’s fine.” “What if he licks it? How do you know he doesn’t eat those balls o’ grease?” “I don’t think he does that. He probably just rubs himself against the side of a tree or somethin’.” Shep hadn’t moved the whole time. Phillip finally knew what the dog’s purpose was. Strangely enough, the dog had always known it. The tangles and oil-laden mats of hair were like marks of distinction to him. As he sensed his master was done, Shep started his tail wagging slowly, the only part of him that had moved the entire time. “Okay, Boy. Good boy.” He strung out the Os in “good.” That was the dog’s dismissal, and as soon as Dutch uttered the words, Shep began panting and wagging his tail, trotting around the side of the shed. It was the most excited Phillip had ever seen him. He returned to Phillip and smelled and licked his hand as dogs do, but did not stay around long enough to be patted on the head. He trotted off into the woods. A few minutes later, Phillip heard him rolling around in the leaves. Dutch returned to the tractor part on the ground. He was more determined, but he had to approach it in a different way. Phillip pointed to the woods. “Is that why that dog’s always so dirty?” “He gets into other things.” “Right.” Dutch bent down and rested on his knee. He fiddled with the carburetor and took a screwdriver from the chest pocket of his overalls. “Phil, how well did you know your grandpa? Your dad’s dad.” “Pretty well, I guess. He died when I was about ten or eleven. I kind of forgot when that was.” “Oh.” “Why?”

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“Well, I’ve been living here for what, two weeks now? This is the most we’ve ever talked or been around each other.” “Yeah.” Phillip tidied up the work bench, putting funnels away and using the horsehair brush to wipe off metal filings and wood shavings. “You know, you’re a ringer for your grandfather.” “I am?” “Yeah; or maybe I should say you take after him.” “Like how?” “How? What did you just do?” “What?” “I just watched you put away those funnels. Why did you do it like that?” “You mean stack ‘em inside each other? Because that makes it so you save space on the bench and the smaller ones don’t get dirty. The big one keeps all the crud off the other small ones.” “And why would you want clean funnels?” “Is this a test? Because you don’t want a bunch of gunk down inside a funnel when you’re putting clean oil in an engine or somethin’. Grandpa used to say that you might as well put the old, dirty oil back in.” “There you go.” Dutch was putting a delicate spring back in place. “I bet you learned that from your grandpa. You’re just like him.” “Really?” “Him and your dad.” Phillip thought about where he had learned about the funnels. Maybe Dutch was right. His father had probably taught him, but that information had also migrated down from his own father. Phillip folded his arms and looked away, out into the woods. Shep had long gone, licking grease or sleeping in the leaves. “The big funnel protects the smaller ones, doesn’t it?” He didn’t expect an answer, nor did he receive one. “Yep,” Dutch’s voice lessened as he concentrated harder on the spring. “You and your dad and your grandpa could all be the same person at different times in the same life. The whole family thinks that about you, you know.”

Going Outside

“So dad’s like grandpa?” “The same. You know, they’re men that other men respect.” “Funnels.” “What?” “Nothin’.” Dutch stood with the now-removed carburetor and placed it on the work bench. He continued the conversation while concentrating on his task. “Hey, Phil. Do you know what happened when you and your dad had the crash?” “Do I know what happened?” “Yeah. Did anyone tell you about your dad? I mean what he did and all?” “I don’t remember anything.” “There was a deer, right?” “Yeah. Well, there were two: a doe and its baby.” “And there was a buck?” “Yeah, but it was running at the car and missed us. That’s what we were looking at when dad saw—when we saw the other two.” “Well, I guess that explains it.” “What?” Dutch stopped his work and studied Phillip. “Phil, do you know the deer came through the window?” “Came through the window? The windshield?” “Yeah, the whole thing. It was mostly on your side. I don’t know how he did it. Does your dad wear his seatbelt all the time?” “Half and half. It depends on where we’re going. Why?” “I don’t think he was when you two hit them deer. Nobody can react that quick. Not that quick.” “What’re you talkin’ about, Dutch? Why didn’t anybody tell me this stuff before? What happened?” “You were laid up for a while, Phil. The neighbors who came to see you at the hospital didn’t know what happened, but I was there. They called me not long after Joe Schmidt found you.”

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“What happened?” Phillip stepped closer to Dutch, and he was serious. “Phil, he was right there. Your dad was on top of you. I saw ‘im. He knew what was gonna happen so he let go of the wheel and dove across the seat on you. The deer came in and…” Phillip waited. “It came in and what?” “It mighta been its head, coulda been its hoof. Whatever it was—it hit your dad square in his head, on the back. Phil, he had you completely covered like a blanket. No one there knew you were in the car until they moved your dad.” “What?” “Everybody there, they said he saved you.” Phillip turned and looked out through the woods again. The sun was high enough that its rays filtered down through the limbs and twigs and the few dead leaves that still clung on for the wind to blow through. “Dutch. Which one was it? Did you see?” “Which what?” “Which deer?” “It was the mama.” “And did you find the baby?” “It wasn’t around.” “The buck?” “There was blood outside on the road. They found a dent in your dad’s side of the car toward the back. Maybe he did hit it.” “Did anyone see the buck?” “Joe and his boy tried to track it. We heard one shot just before the ambulances left for the hospital.” “Did they get it?” “I don’t know, Phil. I went to the hospital with the two of you. Haven’t seen Joe since that night.” Phillip picked up the stack of funnels again. The largest one was caked with a layer of greasy dirt on the outside just for having been exposed to the elements and resting on the oily bench. He set the two large ones aside and looked closely at the smallest. He must have

Going Outside used it a thousand times. Always wipe it out like this, Son. Phillip rubbed at the base near the small end and noticed some red paint. He spat on it, rubbed it more, and found a trademark under the well-worn years of grime. He didn’t scratch it with his fingernail, but kept rubbing it gently until he revealed the full label applied decades ago by the manufacturer. He read it aloud, but softly. He wasn’t hiding the discovery from Dutch, it just came out that way. “Phillips Petroleum Company.” He replaced the stack neatly and stared away blindly at nothing. “See, there you go again—cleanin’ funnels.” said Dutch. “How about the glove drawer?” Phillip was still dazed. “Glove drawer? What?” “Yeah. Your grandpa showed me that one at his place. Ever since I saw it and he explained it to me, I’ve been doin’ it ever since.” He paused. “You know.” “Oh, you mean the old gloves thing?” “Yeah, the old work gloves, when one gets a hole in the fingertip or the palm gets thin but the other’s still good. Your grand dad, he’d put the one good one in a drawer and throw out the other one. ‘No use in throwin’ away both,’ he’d say. Then when the same thing would happen with the next pair, he’d put the one good one in the same drawer. After a while of worn-out left gloves and worn-out right gloves, you’d have yourself a collection of almost-new pairs of gloves. ‘Who cares if they don’t match,’ he’d say. They’re all the same size. I started doing that and I stopped going through pairs of gloves every other month. Smart man, your grand dad.” “That was Grandpa’s idea?” “Maybe. Could’ve been his dad’s. Or yours. So where is it?” Phillip walked over to Dutch and pulled out the heavy drawer under the work bench. In their own box sat a grouping of mismatched work gloves with a divider down the middle. “Look at that,” said Dutch, pointing. Your dad doesn’t just have a drawer filled with ‘em, he’s got a box inside a drawer filled with ‘em. And they’re separated.” Dutch pointed out the “R” on the right side and “L” on the left. “That’s mighty smart!” “I put the letters on there.” “Was that your idea?” “Yeah, I guess so.”

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“See what I mean, Phillip? You’re all three alike.” “Yeah.” Phillip smiled and tried to hide it as he bent his head down while closing up the big drawer. Dutch was at his best in silence. But that Saturday morning, he helped Phillip to hear what he had been missing for a while. “What time are we going tonight?” “Uh, how about six? We can bring your dad some of that spaghetti Mrs. What’s-Her- Name makes that he likes so much. Is there any left?” “Do you think he’ll be awake? Yeah, there’s some left.” “It can’t hurt, Phil. You know, just in case. How happy would he be if we showed up with that spaghetti after being out for this long?” “Yeah, he would like that. Just being there with the spaghetti. Just in case.”

Going Outside

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9 Pass The Ball

He was playing basketball, but Phillip’s belly still got in his way. He was running or splitting wood in the cold, but it was there anyway. He was doing the old-school calisthenics his father had taught him and he was using the dumbbells that Dutch brought over, but there was still a protrusion. It wasn’t like he thought about it a lot. When he was shooting the ball from a mile away, some of the fabric on his jersey wouldn’t fall past the top of his stomach. He would do sit-ups and Dutch would pass by and say, “You’re fourteen. What’re you worried about?” But there was plenty of worry. People’s problems are proportional to the scope of their lives. Phillip knew that if everyone would just stop and think and realize that, he wouldn’t get the comments about just having “kid troubles,” or the questions like, “Did your favorite toy break or something?” Adults who all-too-casually dismissed kids by saying they didn’t have mortgages to worry about were missing the point. Kids don’t even know what a mortgage is. Their worries are limited to the concepts that affect them. As easily as Phillip realized these ideas about life, he just as easily re-dismissed the adults who delivered the condescending comments. He stopped arguing, stopped trying to debate, stopped conversing altogether. It made him angry when after an excellent set of points argued respectfully to an adult, he received the patronizing smile that telegraphed an acknowledgement of his issue, but still a marginalization of his existence. They often just walked away. Phillip stood behind the splitting stump with an axe buried an inch into it. His hands rested slightly on the axe handle as he stared blankly at the water oozing from the wood. He thought about adults and what they thought about kids, and he thought about what kids thought about adults. There was no satisfaction in remembering that they were all his age once; that never seemed to make any difference. In fact, the very argument they made sometimes, “You don’t know because you’re not a grown-up yet,” in Phillip’s mind was the best reason to cut kids some slack. They know they’re not grown-ups yet, but everyone knows the grown-ups were once kids. In discussions, arguments, misunderstandings, and

Going Outside varying points of view, shouldn’t the adults be able to get that? You’ve been a kid before; I’ve never been an adult. And behind the splitting stump, or as Dutch called it, the chopping log, Phillip stood and thought. Chopping log. What does that even mean? That irritated Phillip, too. Adults thought they knew everything, but they didn’t. The cold January air started to cool him off, and he felt the sweat under the yoke of his shirt evaporate in the dry air. He bent over and picked up the half log he had just split and set it on the stump. His mismatched work gloves clamped onto the axe handle and he raised the tool above his head with skill. His eyes stared down the target as his father had taught him, and a second later there were two pieces of wood. A horn honked twice from the driveway. Phillip looked up to see Eddie stepping out of a red Honda. He looked taller from a distance. “Hey, Eddie!” “Stay there! I’ll come to you!” he shouted. Phillip was energized. As he waited for Eddie to cross the side yard and start across a small portion of the woods to get to him, he picked up and split two more logs into quarters, showing off a bit for his friend. “How’ve you been?” Eddie shoved his hand out after removing his glove. Phillip struggled to get his glove off and remembered he had another pair of jersey gloves on underneath. “That’s okay,” and Eddie took Phillip’s gloved hand in his own. “It’s great to see ya, Phillip.” “Thanks.” He pointed vaguely. “What’re you up to here?” “Just splittin’ some wood.” “How do you do it?” “Just put the log up there and swing the axe.” Phillip demonstrated the procedure. “I think there’s more to it than that. How long have you been doing that?” “I don’t know. As long as I can remember.” “You’re pretty good at it. You make it look easy.” “Thanks. Wanna try?” Phillip gestured with the axe.

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Eddie hesitated but took it. “Stand here?” “Yep, right there where my tracks are.” Phillip pointed to the thin snow he had been standing in. “Swing away.” “If you say so.” Eddie eyed the log Phillip had set on the stump. He raised the axe above his head and in one motion came back down again on the edge of the log. It flew off the stump to the ground. “Whoops.” “That’s okay.” Phillip was already chasing the log so he could put it back on the stump for a second try. Eddie swung again and hit it in the same spot. “Strike two,” Phillip smiled. “You’ve got the bat,” he took the axe from Eddie and held it just under the head. He jammed the blade into the center of the log and created a three-inch-long mark for Eddie to use as a target. He pointed to the cut and then looked at Eddie. “That’s the ball.” He handed the axe back. “This is your bat. Swing away.” Eddie shook his head and held the axe in his hand as he looked at his target. He stood back, lifted the axe above his head, paused for a moment, then swung downward and split the log in two. “Look at you! Home run.” Eddie watched Phillip pick up one of the pieces and set it back on the stump. “Where’d you learn that?” “The baseball thing?” “Yeah, did you make that up?” “No, my dad taught me that when I was a little kid.” “You’re a good teacher.” “Thanks.” “How’s basketball goin’?” “It’s good.” Phillip relaxed. “You know your stats?” “I think it’s about fourteen points a game.” “Cool. Assists?” “Not very many.” “I thought you were the assist king? What happened?”

Going Outside

“I don’t know. I just started shooting during the first game.” “Wow, that’s a surprise. Doesn’t your coach—what’s his name?—want the playmaker back?” “Anderson. No, I guess not.” “He probably does. Most coaches would sacrifice a few points for team leadership, you know.” “Maybe.” Phillip looked at his feet. “What’d he say? “He said he wanted to make me captain.” “But you didn’t get it just because you’re making shots instead? That doesn’t make any sense.” “Well, I guess I turned him down.” Eddie paused. He knew that wasn’t Phillip. He watched him for a moment and changed the subject. “Hey—I’m goin’ for a ride in a jet.” “No way—what kind?” “It’s in an F-16 fighter.” “The Falcon?” “Fighting Falcon.” “Oh, yeah,” Phillip recalled. “Wow, that’s awesome. When do you do it?” “Some time before the end of the year. They call it an incentive ride. They do it to keep people interested so they don’t drop out of the program—ROTC.” “What’s that mean again?” “Reserve Officer Training Corps. They teach you leadership and management and how to command large groups of people and lead projects.” Phillip looked at Eddie with a toothy grin. “Listen to you: Air Force Guy. What else are you doin’?” “They have us playing sports all the time. They call it camaraderie, team-building, leadership. You live that kind of stuff. Everything’s a team thing.” Eddie looked off into the woods. “They even make you remember a quote—there’s a lot of memorization of stuff—from General MacArthur.”

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“Who’s that?” “He was a general in the World Wars and the Korean War. Douglas MacArthur— Army guy.” “Oh. What’s the quote? It’s about sports?” “Uh-huh. Ready?” “Swing away.” “‘On the fields of friendly strife are sown the seeds that on other days, on other fields will bear the fruits of victory.’” Phillip thought momentarily and returned with, “That’s about sports?” “Yeah.” He repeated it and taught. “What are ‘fields of friendly strife?’” “Sports fields? Strife is fighting?” Phillip guessed. “Yeah, strife is conflict or fighting. The fields are friendly: the conflict of sports. Right?” “Okay. What’s the seeds part?” “‘Are sown the seeds…’ The seeds are planted when you’re playing sports that help you ‘…bear the fruits of victory,’ or win—or succeed—in other things later. Get it?” Phillip pondered the words. “Playing sports helps in winning.” “Here’s what they tell us in ROTC: you’re building character in sports. You’re building leadership. Everyone has the same set of rules they have to adhere to. You break the rules, you’re penalized—the team is penalized. And leaders always emerge. Even on a team of leaders, most people still have to resign to being followers. But the leader who emerges, he’s the leader of leaders. See?” “You sound like a recruiter, not a recruit.” Eddie declared proudly, “I’m an officer candidate, not a recruit.” “Oh, sor-ry.” They laughed. Phillip broke from his relaxed state. He put his hands in his coat pockets and turned to look through the woods. He kicked the ground casually and the clean snow in front of him was disturbed. A bright male cardinal chirped from the limb of a snowy maple. “Should I be a leader, Eddie?” “Not a question of should, Phillip.” He had anticipated Phillip’s response.

Going Outside

“What?” “You are a leader.” “Oh.” Eddie’s voice was strong and vigorous, not in a nasty way, but in a way that would nudge without prodding. “Why didn’t you want to be team captain?” “I did, but—” “—Why didn’t you want to play football?” “Eddie—” “—Why, Phillip?” Phillip hadn’t felt like breaking down—like weeping (I don’t cry—men don’t cry) in a long time. He had maintained what he felt was expected of him, and again, what he expected of himself. He gripped the insides of his coat pockets with gloved hands and squeezed, squeezed as hard as he could. He felt whatever it was that he needed to get out—a shout, a yell, a scream; it built from the core of his body and passed through him to his neck and it felt like he was blown up, expanded beyond the trivialness of his belly, but that he was inflated with sadness, with rage, with resentment, with an all-out grief that simply would not go away. He felt the burning in his head and Phillip knew his face must have been just as red as he actually felt. He gazed at the cardinal in the maple, and the cold breeze came by again to tell him that his cheeks and nose and mouth were wet with his tears. Phillip’s side was to Eddie, but he had turned his head away, hiding what was to him an unacceptable response to a series of simple questions. The questions Eddie asked were simple indeed; they were questions that people had been asking him for months which essentially were meant to inquire about Phillip, the boy with initiative, the boy with ability, the boy with everything that any boy could want. Where had he gone? Where was that boy who was first in line for every ball practice and every drill? Where was the home-run hitter, the playmaker, the scorer, the mile-relay finisher? But he was getting it—he was realizing abruptly in that one short moment that lingered between Eddie’s questions and his response, that he was the way he was because he didn’t have everything any more. What he had once was a full life with a full family. He knew now that what he had was a family unfulfilled. There were memories that would not

78 Beaverson leave. There was a missing leg from the tripod that was his family: its members leaned upon each other for balance and stability. And now the family had lost its equilibrium. It was teetering on collapse all because of that leg that was now gone. That leg. The rank wound where the leg had been separated was not healed; a seeping scab that continued to decay what remained behind. And it was spreading. Phillip struggled to keep the sound of sadness as quiet as possible. His hat and coat collar kept most of the movement of his head to a minimum as he fought the tears and the tiny convulsions that came with them. He mustered a soft response for his friend whom he knew was not pushing him, but was trying simply to help him. “Mom.” Eddie paused. “Have you gone to see her lately?” Phillip shook his head and allowed some of the involuntary movement to be released as he did it. “No.” “How do you think she’s doing?” “I don’t know. I don’t wanna think about that now.” “Okay, Phillip.” Eddie was good at changing the subject just at the right time. He waited but kept the conversation about the family. “How’s your father?” After a pause for composure, Phillip replied, “He’s all right, I guess. My uncle and I went to see him again but he was still out.” “Do they think he’ll be okay?” “Yeah, they’re just waiting for him to wake up, and I guess I am too.” Phillip turned back around to Eddie who had sat down on the splitting stump. Phillip stopped in mid-sentence when he saw him.” “What else are you doing in—isn’t your butt wet?” “What?” Eddie asked. “Get up and turn around.” Phillip gestured the movements. Eddie’s long coat had protected him from wet bark, melted snow, dirt, and the sappy residue from thousands of axe-chops into the stump that used to be a large blue spruce.

Going Outside

“Man, your coat is soaked and dirty.” Phillip was recovering from his malaise, half laughing at Eddie’s inexperience. “Oh, crap.” He turned and tried to look at it. “Don’t let that sap get warm until you clean it off.” “Why?” “Because when it’s cold you can clean it off better. If you take it in the house and it warms up, it’ll be worse than molasses.” “Crap.” “So what else are you doin’ at Ohio State?” He was still brushing wet bark and wood chips from his back side. “I’m in the Honor Guard.” “The what?” “Honor Guard. It’s like the guys at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier or the ones you see on TV at funerals for military people.” “Oh, the 21-gun salute?” “Yeah.” “Okay, I know what you mean. You’re in that?” “Yeah. We do some pretty cool stuff.” “Like what?” “Precision movements, rifles, all that stuff.” “What’s precision movements?” “Oh, you know, like doing things slowly or quickly at the same time as someone else. Or maybe like doing something on your own like the salute. It’s a slow salute that conveys respect for the dead. It’s like it’s more serious than a regular salute.” “Let’s see.” “All right.” Eddie stopped messing with his coat and turned to face Phillip. “Watch me. First you stand at attention with the thousand-yard stare.” “Huh?” “You just stare straight ahead like you’re watching something a thousand yards away. Then you don’t get distracted by anything.” “Okay.” Eddie held Phillip’s intrigue.

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“So I’ll stand at attention and do the salute.” Eddie took his position and stood straight as a board. He gazed up and beyond Phillip into the woods. His face was chiseled into a sculpture-like picture of resoluteness. Phillip watched as the dark skin from his hand rose slowly in front of his chest, beyond his face, and landed perfectly—gently—on the edge of his forehead. Eddie stood, unmoving, for a few moments and held the salute. His arm looked to Phillip like two straight lines connected at the elbow. Eddie’s hand was a part of his arm—straight, flat, and steadfast. Phillip thought that he could have been a statue standing there by the splitting stump. Dutch’s grimy dog Shep came trotting by, stirring up fluffy leaves under the snow. “Shep, get outta here,” said Phillip. When he turned back to Eddie, he noticed that he hadn’t moved a single inch. Eddie was into his thousand-yard stare. Eddie’s hand slowly began to move down past his face and chest until it rested again beside his leg. Phillip saw a symmetry in how Eddie stood. His thumbs were at the same place on both hands, both hands did the same thing and looked alike. Eddie’s toes were pointed outward at the same angle with his heals together. Both shoulders were at the same height and square. Eddie stood before Phillip the model of what Phillip had thought of him since the day they met. Eddie was different, he was special. He was the leader that Phillip wanted to become. He was control, he was order. He was everything that Phillip no longer appeared to be to himself. Suddenly Eddie’s body relaxed. “There.” “Whoa.” Phillip was amazed at how Eddie turned it on and off. “Will you show me?” “Sure. Come over here and stand on the stump.” Phillip hopped up and stood beside Eddie, shoulder-to-shoulder. “Okay, first thing is to stand at attention. You don’t salute like this unless you’re at attention. Straighten up.” Eddie began giving commands. “We’ll start at the bottom, Cadet. Heals together. Toes out. Toes out, I said. I should be able to get my own foot in between. Better.” He stooped and tapped Phillip’s knees. “Your knees should give the appearance of being locked straight but actually have a little bend in them. If you’re standing at attention for too long, you’ll pass out. I saw that happen to a guy once last semester. Knees look good.” His eyes traveled up Phillip’s body. “Good, good. Look at my hand. Make a loose

Going Outside fist and rest your thumb on the bend of your index finger, like this. Good. Now lower your hand until the edge of your thumb is on the seam of your pants.” “Seam?” “Yeah, this line that goes down the side of your pants. Put the edge of your thumb there.” “Okay.” “Do the same with the other. Good. Your arms are perfect: not straight, but not bent noticeably. Square the shoulders. Level… Good. Look straight ahead at nothing. No expression. No, you’re not pissed off.” “I can’t help it.” Phillip broke his posture and laughed. “Straighten up, Cadet!” Phillip returned to his position and tried to be serious. “Now hold your face expressionless.” Eddie’s tone became calm and relaxing but maintained its teaching quality. He began walking around the stump, looking at Phillip’s stance trying to take the attention off Phillip’s facial expression. Eddie started paraphrasing his ROTC instructors. “You’re not angry. You’re not happy. You’re not sad. You are proud. You’re a representative of a team that accomplishes nothing alone, yet it focuses on the individual. You stand for centuries of pride, of honor, of excellence. This movement you will perform is derived from Medieval Europe where knights, the most respected and feared of warriors, stopped to raise the visor of their helmet to address their king. It is a symbol of respect and it pays homage to the rank of the warrior to whom it is delivered. It is not given in haste, but is carried out in reverence to the experience, skill, and knowledge it has taken to obtain that rank. It is for something better than we are, something that was here before us, and something that will outlast us all. “Now raise your hand slowly, Cadet. Straighten it flat and tuck the thumb downward toward the wrist. Begin counting slowly to ten, keeping the palm facing the body. Raise the hand as you count. Anticipate reaching ten when your hand reaches the forehead.” Phillip’s hand stopped at the middle of his forehead. “Like this?” “Almost.” Eddie reached up and moved his hand down and outward. He gripped it in his own hand and showed Phillip how his forefinger was shorter than the middle finger.

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“See this? Put the end of your eyebrow in this gap, where one finger’s longer than the other.” On the road in front of the house, the old Marine Bill Fuller strode by, slowing his usual brisk pace for any 81-year-old, to see what was happening outside the Vinson home. Nothing could get him to stop or at least slow down. As recent as five years ago he was still jogging—running—nearly every day, and his journey always took him past the farm. He could still remember seeing Mr. and Mrs. Vinson bringing home the new boy Phillip, and, less grizzled in those days, waving with a quick hand and yelling congratulations to them as he ran past. Later on that same day, Mr. Vinson discovered a five-hundred-dollar savings bond in the mailbox with Phillip’s name on it. There was no card, no message, no indication of its source. The older he got, the grumpier Bill Fuller became. It was hard to get any reaction from him even after yelling good morning again because he probably couldn’t hear that well, or gesturing with a wave while mowing the grass. There was usually just a quick nod in a jerking, upward motion as if he were showing the bottom of his chin to the onlooker. Bill watched the boys and strained to confirm what he thought he was seeing. He had read about Eddie in the newspaper. He was attending Ohio State, he had made the Dean’s List, and he was in Air Force ROTC. He wasn’t going to be a Marine, but Bill Fuller knew that it wasn’t for everyone. “Who’s that?” Eddie broke from his lesson and looked past Phillip to the road. “That’s Mr. Fuller. He’s a farmer down the road and fast-walks everywhere he goes. He was in the Marines a hundred years ago. Kinda grouchy.” Eddie put up his other hand and mouthed, “Hi,” as he held onto Phillip with the other. Bill jerked his head upward quickly and faced forward with his stride as he disappeared behind the trees. “All right,” continued Eddie. “See how you’re just barely touching your eyebrow? That’s good. Don’t bury your finger in your head. Your arm’s really good too. Good job, Cadet. Now slowly return your hand to the side and count to ten.” Phillip finished the maneuver and remained at attention. Eddie waited and then realized what Phillip was doing. “At ease.”

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Phillip relaxed his shoulders and hopped from the stump. “You guys do that all the time?” “The Honor Guard salute? No, just during ceremonies and funerals. Think of it like this: a salute is meant to show respect, and the Honor Guard salute is meant to show solemn respect.” “Oh, okay.” Eddie began walking to his car and beckoned Phillip to go along. “Phillip, how’s your dad really doing? Is he gonna be okay?” “Yeah, Eddie. The doctors told us last week he’s gonna be fine.” “That’s good. Will you be seeing him again soon?” “Yeah, we were there a lot for a while but the doctors and nurses kept telling us to go home and ‘get rest.’ I could’ve stayed there with him, but they said they couldn’t allow it. He’s my dad,” Phillip commented in a low, sarcastic voice. Eddie stopped and looked down at him. “What?” Phillip looked up, surprised. He paused and repeated it. “He’s my dad.” Eddie smiled a grown-up smile and continued on to his car. “When do you go back?” “Gotta be in class tomorrow morning.” “Call me after you get back from that ride on the jet. Take some pictures.” “I’ll do better—I’ll bring somethin’ back for ya. You know, a patch or somethin’ like that.” “Cool…” Eddie opened the red car door and sat inside. He pulled his college notebook from a bag and wrote a number on the paper. “Here,” he ripped it out. This is the number at my dorm room. Just call me, Phillip.” “When? About what?” Eddie looked up at Phillip from the car seat. “Call me when you need to, Cadet.” The car started. “Yes, Sir.” Eddie began backing out. “Pass the ball, Phillip. You’re the leader.” “Yes, Sir.” “Don’t forget that—”

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“—Hey, I forgot to remind you about the sap on your butt! Clean the car seat when you get home!” yelled Phillip. Eddie remembered and he mumbled to himself, “Crap.” He was in the road and began driving forward. He looked back to Phillip who saluted him promptly and casually. Eddie put his thumb up as if in the cockpit of a plane before it took off, then returned the salute. They were both on the same page—jets and baseball. Eddie drove away and Phillip heard something that sounded like it was trying to escape through one of the house windows. He looked back at the side of the house to see curtains moving and hands flailing to get the window opened. The dirty, frozen glass revealed Dutch, struggling to open the window only to find that it was locked. He knocked on the glass and Phillip approached. Dutch had the telephone in his hand. He mouthed the words, though Phillip could hear Dutch’s voice through the glass. “Your dad’s awake. Your dad’s awake.” Phillip stood for a moment in the snow, comprehending what Dutch had reported, but not wanting to hear the words or believe their meaning. The cardinal flew from the woods and landed in the clean snow near Phillip. The boy and the bird watched each other, one wondering why the other was there. There was no purpose to the cardinal’s action; it wasn’t foraging for a walnut scrap or looking for spent sunflower seeds. It stood, perched on the flat, cold ground in an inch of bright snow and watched Phillip like an adult would do, irritated with his behavior of late. Phillip nodded his head at Dutch and walked to the front door. The cardinal remained.

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86 Beaverson

10 Old Barns and Cemeteries

Old barns still stood around the county. Some had paintless, abandoned houses on the lots, but most stood alone. They were still used sometimes by farmers who stored equipment or bales of hay or straw. Most of the old barns housed bats and barn swallows, or they were photograph backdrops for out-of-towners exploring the “quaint” countryside. They always misused that term. I love the country but it’s not quaint. It’s hard work and beauty and disappointment. Nothing quaint about it. But the barns came to stand for something, even in their absence. When they would get too old, too decrepit to maintain or care about, their owners would knock them down. The old farmer would be long gone and the grown-up children of the family would come in from out of state to settle estates or reduce property-tax payments. They were the grandchildren; cousins upon cousins of a large Midwest family. They would drive out to the old place or the South Place, they vaguely remembered the family call it, and look at the old structure that had bustled with activity in their youth. They remembered Grandpa butchering chickens over there, and parking the ‘44 Ford to unload rocks they had picked up in the field over there. They walked through thickets of tall weeds and did more remembering than deciding. But they had already made up their minds. They pointed to the brown, glazed-block silo where corn was stored and they remembered how they used to open a small hatch to watch it pour out onto the ground for fun until Grandpa would shout, “Hey, you kids!” and they would take off running while the chickens flocked in to clean up their mess. They pointed to the old dinner bell mounted atop the pole beside the garage. They could all still picture Grandma as she shuffled out unhurriedly to pull the wire a few times to tell the men in the barns and fields and the daughters in the orchard that it was time for lunch. They remembered the line of sweaty men as they waited to wash up at the giant porcelain basin with bars of homemade soap lathered up and applied to dirty faces, hands, and arms. They remembered the size of that cast-iron sink, big enough to wash twenty quarts of strawberries at a time, or to scrub down Cousin Ralph after his encounter with not one, but two skunks out by the windmill.

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Good, fond, rich memories or not, they had to think pragmatically. And the decision the family made was like the decisions more families were making: knock it down. The house had collapsed years ago, and who in this age of litigation could sit by and wait for lawsuits from parents of teenage lovers who fell through hay lofts, trespassing or not? More and more families made the same decision—knock it down—getting into cars and driving away from the old barn one last time. They think about it only once more when the statement comes from the demolition company. They think about that last time at the farm and how it must be a barren lot by now, ripe for acorns to be planted by the one white oak that remained there. But they don’t bother asking, they don’t bother thinking. They don’t wonder what the removal of a simple barn does to the area or to the landscape. They don’t even place a few inquiries at the family restaurant or at the Amish store just outside town. “Would anyone be interested in this barn?” “We can’t maintain it, but we want to offer it to anyone who wants it.” Did they even know the young Amish carpenter Daniel Schlesinger could have re- used the oak timbers and the grayed vertical siding for his own barn? They didn’t bother to ask anyone before Daniel discovered it for himself, stopping his horse and buggy on the road just to witness the bulldozer push the last remains of the barn into the fire. The barns stood for something. They stood for lives that had come and gone, lives that had lived and then were dulled away into obscurity. There were funerals, and the people would come and say how wonderful the life was and how much living—great, joyous, fantastic living had been done. But a funeral ends on the same day it begins. Even the saddest of those in attendance some day heal their hearts and move on to other hopes, to other concerns, and to other funerals. The families who come in carloads to old barns bring with them memories but no sense of preservation. And that attitude, that disease—it spreads. It spreads throughout the countryside until the virtues of that countryside are corrupted and eventually shattered. By the time they finish, covered bridges are taken apart in favor of wide, tarred strips with impersonal steel guard rails. Brick buildings that witnessed the rise of a small town over two hundred years are razed in favor of a grassy area or a new Morton steel shed. Century- old churches lose their slate-covered steeples and have them replaced with unmatched

88 Beaverson fiberglass towers and electronic bells. The wood clapboard on American Four Squares is covered and concealed. Window pediments and cornices are hacked at and sawn off to make room for metal wrapping and vinyl siding. And it is changed. The appeal of small towns is their buildings. The appeal of the country is its buildings. When the buildings are altered or disappear altogether, the very quality that made them small-town structures and country homes fizzles away. It dies slowly over time until its residents realize one day that they live among new or distorted old buildings, warped and ruined by poorly executed renovations or add-ons. They realize the reason they enjoyed living there was now represented by a single historic home on the edge of town that no one lives in any more. A bronze marker near the sidewalk is placed hastily by the state to mark its significance. Barns serve as backdrops. They shade and protect the objects and areas around them. They bear the brunt of wind and snow, and conceal old farm implements and small cemeteries that stand among sycamores and poplars that no one had planted. When the barns come down, they take their “quaintness” with them. Part of the countryside leaves when they leave, and after that, what compels the out-of-towner to come and to wonder and to take pictures and to dream about having such a life? Little by little, as the barns come down, the country disappears. When the barns come down, what’s left is the washed-out memory of a barn, a house, a farm, a family; a collective life lived upon the land. There was a worn path through the woods behind the Vinson farm, past the depression in Bill Fuller’s field (which was full of water nine months out of the year), and up to the top of McCragg’s Hill. The old barn had stood longer than anyone around could remember. It had been there so long that no one knew the last inhabitants of the farm so it could be referred to as the Anderson barn, the O’Neill barn, the Black barn, or even the McCragg barn. There was nothing to distinguish it any longer. Its roof fell in years ago and the summer storm that resulted in multiple insurance claims in the county had finally pushed one of its massive corner beams inward. Much of the barn’s corner leaned unsteadily toward the little cemetery. It was as close as the barn was tall, and the caretaker, the township trustees, and the farmer Bill Fuller were all concerned. The two-track path that connected the cemetery with the road was well-worn. Of the thirty graves or so, five were military veterans who represented times of conflict from the

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Civil War to the Korean War. The Legion still came by every Memorial Day and every Veterans Day to clean, decorate, and commemorate. The caretaker took his mower back there every few weeks or so in the spring and summer. Bill Fuller gave it a visual inspection from the seat of his tractor three times a year. But the township trustees were concerned, and the barn had no clear owner any longer. So it came down. The sun bleached the cemetery in summer and snow drifted the head stones in winter. The rock wall that surrounded it came out with the barn and the sycamores and the poplars. Township-employed bulldozer operators are indiscriminate and unforgiving. The caretaker had a few loud words after the wall was removed because it should not have been. A week later and under the best of intentions, the township installed a chain link fence and a contrived gate with the words McCragg Cemetery routed into a plank that hung from above. Country cemeteries, like barns, stand for something. They change and diminish like their surroundings. They exist for as long as a boy can remember until they abruptly transform, decaying rapidly before his eyes and leaving no time to recall fondly quick memories or appreciate their time there. They get buried and are forgotten.

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11 The Hospital

Dutch and Phillip drove to the hospital and spoke sparingly. Dutch was thinking about Phillip and his reaction to seeing his father, finally, awake and alert in bed. Phillip was thinking about his own reaction too, but also about the first words he would speak to his father. What am I gonna say? What’ll Dad say? With the exceptions of waking up to his mother’s gentle smile, and more recently Nurse Kelly, Phillip had bad memories of hospitals. They made people cranky or sad. They made them fearful. Hospitals brought out the phoniest qualities in people whether they meant well or not and he hated that. If there’s something wrong, just tell me. He had memories of shiny round faces bending in his direction to plant lipstick on his cheek or to leave makeup on his shoulder and neck after tight, pity-laden hugs that lasted too long. He remembered the perfume—always the same perfume—that mixed with the smell of gauze bandages or medicine or maybe it was the stuff they used to clean the floors with, and how it was all a signal to Phillip that bad news was on its way. He remembered the men there, and how they stood when he walked into the waiting room. They didn’t try to shake his hand like at church or in town on the corner. Phillip just remembered that they would stand and recognize him with a slow nod and pinched, rolled lips. Their eyes would narrow. A few of them would place a large hand upon his shoulder and rest it there for a second, and some of them said his name as they did it. He remembered the Amish men as they held their hats by the brim in front of their legs. Hospitals were places that people hid the truth for as long as they could. People mask bad news by being overly nice or by lying outright all in the spirit of good intentions, he supposed. But Phillip was smart. He knew the other things that went on there. He knew that it was a place where, despite their best efforts, some people, some patients, couldn’t hide what they felt. They couldn’t hide themselves, as many had grown accustomed to. The people who walked around town with permanent façades were helpless as patients. A hospital gown hides very little and they knew it. The hospital gown exposes the frauds whom Phillip could not stand. He always wished that he could see some people in the hospital, but not because

Going Outside he wished injury upon them. Instead, it would be so he could uncover the fascia they hid behind. Why can’t people just be themselves? Phillip also knew that some patients didn’t want the truth, they wanted the phony behavior and the lies. They wanted just the part of the story that would give them the small speck of hope they could open their eyes to every day. They wanted the bright light shining into their faces with all the reassuring words that things would turn around any day now, that it was all going to be okay, that a road to recovery was in sight and reachable. Phillip’s experiences had taught him differently. He wanted to know exactly what was wrong and if it could be fixed. If it was irreparable, he wanted to know how long, how soon, and when. But no fourteen-year-old should ever be that wise to the world. It creates hardness and indifference. Dutch tried to lighten the mood as they walked in the hospital. “Dang! We forgot to bring some of Mrs. What’s-Her-Name’s spaghetti.” Phillip looked back at him as he pushed the button on the elevator. “Yeah.” The pair toddled down the corridor of the third floor. Phillip was stalling, Dutch was stalling; they both looked around and down intersecting hallways for Nurse Kelly. They approached Mr. Vinson’s room which was near a small alcove of a waiting room. Phillip expected the worst. He looked for people from church, for the Amish holding their hats, for the mothers holding back tears and throwing make-believe smiles upon their faces. But the waiting room was empty. They passed the alcove and came to the room, Dutch pushing upon the almost-closed door with his finger tips. Phillip stood under the outstretched arm and cocked his head to the side, waiting to see into the room. He felt cold, his face and head light without enough blood. His breathing proceeded with long, open-mouthed inhalations that Phillip recognized as anxious movements designed by his subconscious to prolong the moment when he would look upon his father and see him as he was. Phillip knew that he would see the man who was not just his father, but Gary R. Vinson, son of Carl S. Vinson, and father to Phillip M. Vinson, who was heir to the unsure stories of sporting days past and crashed glory. Phillip knew that on the other side of the door lay the weakened body of the man whom he had once overheard describe Phillip’s own birth to his mother. He remembered the typically overused words like proud, beaming, happy, glowing, joyful, or joyous. But he

92 Beaverson remembered better the short story his father had told his mother as they lay on the couch that night together, the room lighted only by a muted television that neither of them watched. The colored light was interrupted by shadows from the boughs of a pine tree outside the picture window. As he crouched in his little-boy underwear outside the room—he had just come down for some milk—he heard his father, less dour and reticent then, describe for her, evidently for the first time, what it was like to hold his new son. “The doctor said I should go down the hall after the nurse—‘take your camera,’ he said. And I held onto your hand and waited for you to give me the okay to leave for a moment. And you just looked at me and smiled, somehow, after all that, and let go of my hand. I only saw the doctor’s eyes above his mask, but I knew he was smiling for us under it. “I chased her down the hall and followed her in the room. I wasn’t going to lose sight of that boy. My own dad never told me anything about being in the room when I was born, or what he did or told people. But I was there, and I was glad I was there to see him so new, so unspoiled. You know, he didn’t cry all that much. It was like he was just as calm about things then as he is now. I had to ask the nurse if that was normal, and she said he was just fine. Anyway, I followed her around the room like I was making sure she wouldn’t lose him. I wanted to keep both eyes on that baby. She weighed him, measured him. I followed her to the sink and she washed him and washed his blond hair. It looked like silk. He looked at me like he was asking for help: ‘Dad, I don’t wanna take a bath.’ She dried him off and put him on a table under an infrared light—it was so warm when I put my arms under there I asked her if it was too hot. Then she went to wrap him in a blanket and started to teach me how, but she said she forgot something and she asked me to hold onto him while she went to get it. I think it was a comb or a brush. It was just him and me. I stopped wondering if he looked like either of us and I just watched him look around at everything. He was so little. I took my left hand and put it over his stomach and his chest. My thumb and fingers touched the table beside him as I did it. I inspected his feet and all the fingers on his hands. He moved his arms and legs like he was trying to go somewhere. Then he turned his head and looked right at me—not just my face, not just my eyes—he looked right at me, almost through me. The red light from the lamp bounced off the blue in his eyes and made them dark. They were wide open and it was like I could see inside him and I know people say that they make

Going Outside connections with people, but there was really something there. It was like Phillip knew exactly who I was, and he knew how long I had waited for him—how long we had waited for him and that he was finally there. It was like our boy already knew that he was bringing something good to us, that he was making us complete, unoriginal as that sounds. I remember putting my head down to him closer—it was like he said, ‘Dad, come here; I’ve got a secret to tell ya.’ He watched my eyes watching him and he put his hand on my chin and left it there. And before I knew it—I didn’t even know it was coming—I was tearing up, and the tear dropped down onto his arm, and it was like he knew what I was doing, like I couldn’t control it. He just held my chin as I stooped over him, me probably crying more than I remember. He was just so beautiful. I just couldn’t do anything to control myself. He was so beautiful. “Then the nurse came back but she didn’t bring anything with her. I think she left on purpose. She put a diaper on him and she showed me how to wrap him up to keep him warm and put the little hat on his head. She held our son in her arms and moved close to me. And when she gave Phillip to me for the first time, she stepped back and she looked at us and said, ‘Father and son.’ And that was too much for me and so I looked down at Phillip in my arms and his stare calmed me down. All I can remember about the walk back to you is saying, ‘My son, my boy,’ quite a few times. He was my son—our son, and I don’t think I’ve ever been happier.” It was one of the few times Phillip remembered seeing his father in a sentimental light. In his head as he peered into the hospital room, Phillip kept the sounds of the story and the reminiscent image of his father curled up beside his mother unleashing one of his proudest and most private moments to his wife. What would Phillip say? Hi, Dad. Dad, it’s me. How ya doin’, Dad? It came involuntarily. “Dad?” as Dutch’s arm pushed open the door. Nurse Kelly’s chest was nearly in his face again. She was walking from the room as Phillip stepped in. “Phillip!” she whispered. “He’s waking up again. Go sit beside your father and be there for him when he wakes up, Sweetie.” She directed him by the shoulders and sat him down in what seemed to be a metal kitchen chair from forty years ago. The chair sat so near the bed that Phillip was only inches from his father and the hospital gown, behind which

94 Beaverson nothing is concealed. The groggy, whiskered man’s eyelids fluttered, and for what seemed like forever to Phillip, he finally opened his eyes, staring straight up at the ceiling. And it came again. “Dad?” Mr. Vinson turned his head and blinked. There before him sat his son Phillip with a couple of tears in his eyes and the nicest, happiest smile he had seen in a long time. “My boy.” “Dad—” Phillip lay his hand upon his father’s chest, feeling the life, the air, the gratitude, the forgiveness, the pride, the returning power. He stammered and squinted his eyes, looking through the glossy spectrum of saline as he was finally able to utter: “I missed you.” Nurse Kelly had booted Dutch out and poked her head in to check on the pair and then whispered just loud enough for them to hear. “Father and son.” She closed the door. Phillip and his father looked back at the closed door. Phillip turned and notched his head in that direction. “Nurse Kelly,” he said with a devilish smile. His father chuckled, and he put his hand on his son’s.

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12 A Woman’s Touch

Neither Vinson could remember so much smiling and laughing in the recent past. It almost drove Dutch from the house, especially when he became the target of some of the jokes. They were like fraternity brothers, Phillip and his father. “You guys can get somebody else to take care of ya.” “Baby,” muttered Phillip. He and his dad had another laugh at Dutch’s expense. But they were appreciative, even Phillip. Basketball season wound down and the team was glad to see it. Phillip still had the shot, but there was no real captain on the floor still. Phillip received the usual volley of questions from his father, propped up on a hundred pillows in his bed at home following a game. “So what happened in the second quarter? What did the coach say at halftime? How did the game end?” And on it went. Phillip was learning that questions were more than just information-gathering. From the time his father left the hospital, the realization had dropped on him like an unexpected ball to the head at practice. The questions, neverending, were about a father communicating with his son. Phillip’s dad already knew everything about the game based on Phillip’s responses and Dutch’s commentary. The questions then became a motive, almost an excuse to talk to his son about something of mutual interest. Even when the topic had exhausted itself, he still reached. He wanted as much as he could get from his son before the boy would resign into an attitude like, “Oh, Dad.” Mr. Vinson used every discussion to show or teach. He used them all to get closer to his son; to listen, to touch, to be there, to respond. “Dad, you’re supposed to be in bed.” “I’m tired of being in bed.” Phillip was tidying up in his father’s room. The “woman’s touch” lingered there, with flowered curtains and lace doilies under painted-glass lamps. Decorative fringe hung around the perimeter of the bed, lightly touching the wood floor beneath it. Phillip picked up a dirty shirt from a rocking chair and walked to one of two small closets. The door was in a dark corner of the room where the curtains remained closed. He opened the door and the squeak stopped his father where he stood. He watched the floor as

Going Outside he sat down hard on the edge of the bed. The closet light came on automatically and dimly lit the corner of the room. “Phillip, what’re you doing?” Phillip’s father did not look at him. “I opened it by mistake.” “Wha’?” “I was just putting the shirt in the laundry. I went to the wrong closet. Sorry.” Phillip started to close the door. The hinges had not been used in so long, it was hard to get it shut again. The dull bulb illuminated a closet full of women’s blouses, dresses, skirts, a set of small jewelry drawers, and three rows of neatly placed shoes of every sort on the floor. Handbags hung from several hooks, and two Easter hats sat on a shelf at the top. Phillip had to slam the door to get it latched again. The action jarred a picture frame on the antique dresser beside the closet. Phillip looked down and over at his father, “Sorry, Dad.” He reached up to re-prop the picture when his father interrupted him. “Let’s see.” The man motioned to Phillip, pointing at the frame. Phillip took it to him and put it in his hands. “Now that’s a good-lookin’ family.” He turned it so Phillip could see. “What’d she always say about this picture? Remember?” Phillip mumbled. “C’mon, Son. What’d she always say?” “Best day ever.” “Yep, best day ever.” They both looked at the floor, struggling to keep their eyes off the picture. “She loved spring, didn’t she, Phillip? That was her time of year. She got so excited.” “Yeah.” “Wonder where she is now.” Phillip took the frame from his father and returned it to the dresser. He put the side of his body against the closet door and pushed hard, ensuring it was closed. He searched his mind. He looked for a topic, anything would do. It reminded him of his father stretching every last bit out of a game summary. It came to him.

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“Hey, Dad, do you remember Eddie Faber?” Phillip moved across the room into the light of the window. “Uh, yeah, the black kid on the bus, right? How’s he doin’?” Mr. Vinson climbed back into bed and put himself under the blankets. He needed the rest and he knew it. “He’s okay. He’s in ROTC at Ohio State.” “That’s great. Which service?” “Air Force.” “Oh. That’s okay, just don’t tell that to Bill Fuller.” “Right. Anyway, he said he was goin’ up in an F-16 and he’d bring me back a patch or somethin’.” “That sounds great, Phillip. Come over here, Son.” “Dad—” “—Listen.” “Dad, did I tell you track practice starts on Monday?” “Phillip, you had a lot of time when I was in the hospital—” “—Dad…” “Did you try and go see her?” He hesitated. “Huh-uh.” His father looked disappointed. “I think it’ll help.” “Okay.” “Don’t dismiss it. I want you to go this week.” “Okay.” He broke in, “Okay, this week. You said it.” Phillip’s father held his right arm out above the bed in his son’s direction. Phillip walked to it and shook the hand. He knew he had to go now. A handshake, his father had taught him, was an unwritten contract. “This week.” “This week,” repeated Phillip. He walked to the door so his father could get some rest. “Did you say track practice?” Mr. Vinson asked with a stern voice. Phillip turned back. “Yes, Sir.”

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“We don’t start things we can’t finish.” “Yes, Sir.” “Track runs over into baseball, you know.” “I’ll make sure I handle ‘em both, Dad.” “I’ll hold you to it.” And Phillip knew he would.

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13 Paths

Phillip knew there was nothing like a good trail. He had been taught to keep a good trail in the woods, through the pasture, and always to find the animal trail along creeks and rivers when needed. His father would say, “You can’t replace a good path.” His grandfather taught him to drive the tractor back over the tracks he had already made in the field. “No use in cutting down more than you need to.” Within the week, as promised, Phillip started on the journey he had begun many times before. He walked on the well-worn path through the woods behind his house. He saw the green coming up around it. Scraggly trees and countless varieties of plants were poking their heads out of the decayed leaves left over from fall. The boy emerged from the woods and into Bill Fuller’s winter wheat field. The tiniest sprouts were beginning to pop up, but Phillip knew it was safe to walk through it still. He would never walk through a field and destroy an emerging crop. Phillip passed the low spot Bill Fuller had commented on hundreds of times about draining it, tiling it, or filling it in. It was wasted acreage to him. When Phillip was younger, he’d go back to the low spot and make believe it was a pond. He would jump in and swim around in the muddy muck, assuming God was in the process of building a pond for him there. He used to take his fishing pole and tackle box and fish for something that never bit a single piece of his bait. He’d invite other boys there to go swimming and fishing and they would arrive back at the house with streaks of mud dried all over their bodies. Phillip’s mother would ask where they had been and if they’d taken a bath in a mud hole, and the boys would just look at each other and laugh as she nudged them into the bathtub. Phillip could still hear it in his head like she was there and had just said it. You boys… The low spot stayed wet some winters and Phillip was able to do some modified ice skating, which he had completely skipped this year. He walked through the barren hole where there were no sprouts and only a few pieces of corn stalks littered the grey, dry ground.

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He walked to the base of a wide hill that seemed to grow out of part of the fencerow. There were no leaves on the trees yet but Phillip recalled briefly how refreshing the shade of the fencerow was in the hot summer. There were two black cherry trees that had grown from a single base and the smaller of them had been struck by lightning or was torn away in a wind storm. Phillip remembered dragging a bow saw there when he was much smaller and spending a half-hour longer than he ever thought it would take to cut through the broken side of the tree. When the teeth of the saw finally passed through to the other side, he had a flat spot like a stool he could sit on under the shade of the big cherry that remained. He went to his stool and carefully scraped off with his shoe the droppings of a few birds and a pile left by a raccoon bent on claiming his territory. He sat down and looked back through hanging, leafless branches at the dry low spot. He remembered it being a good watering hole for animals and he wanted it to be a pond whose waters stayed permanently and would clean him as he swam in it, not make him dirty. Phillip heard a tractor in the distance as it drove down the road. He glanced in that direction and made out the very top of its slow-moving form. Another faint movement caught his eye and he twitched his head and strained to see a set of antlers approaching. He sat still in the camouflage of the fencerow and watched as the brown buck came to the low spot. A few broken points at the top of the rack interrupted the majesty of its form. The animal turned its head toward the fencerow and Phillip noticed two points hanging from the loose, fuzzy skin that covered the boney projections. They clanked together like two dry logs thrown atop the wood pile. And as if the sound were a beckoning signal, the dead grass just fifty feet from Phillip crackled and out from the fencerow sprang a young buck. The deer bounced to the side of his father and turned back for Phillip. The boy saw the buds of antlers sprouting from its head. Its glossy black eyes surveyed the fencerow. The deer licked its nose and carried on, rubbing his father’s side with his head. Off in the distance the tractor’s engine coughed and both animals casually pointed their noses that way. The big buck began a confident gait away from it and the small one followed, imitating his father as much as possible. Phillip watched them disappear through the woods toward his house. The boy rose from his tree-stool and walked to the top of the hill. It was the farthest he had ever gotten. He looked out over the other short hills. He saw the tinge of green

102 Beaverson beginning to brighten the landscape from that height. She loved spring. Phillip looked down upon the cracked and broken concrete floor where a barn had once stood. The wood had been piled in the center and set ablaze. Giant root balls from trees lay nearby with charred trunks. That told Phillip that the trees were burned with the rest of the barn. Didn’t they even ask if the wood could be used? The barn used to hide the cemetery; it protected it. Phillip stomped down the side of the hill and saw the chain link fence. Where’s the wall? He walked to the entrance and looked up at the contrived sign with “McCragg Cemetery” scrawled into a piece of pine with a router. They hadn’t even taken the time to round over the edges. Damn it. He walked inside and looked about and read the head stone of Corporal William McCragg, United States Army, 17th Ohio Infantry, Co. D, Died 1864. There were others there, presumably relatives with the McCragg name. He remembered going to Mrs. Flanagan’s funeral when he passed her grave. He recalled how she always gave him candy from her purse when she saw him. He looked for the newest one. It would be the glossiest granite and perhaps the biggest and tallest headstone in the cemetery. Instead he found a modest brown-red block with unfinished sides. He dropped to his knees when he read it and bent to wipe it clean with his hand. A voice read it aloud without looking: “Molly Vinson, Wife, Mother.” Phillip turned his head to see his father a few feet back. Behind him, Dutch’s truck quietly backed away from the cemetery and out of sight. Phillip returned to the stone. “Why’s the stone so small, Dad?” “That’s the way she liked things: unassuming. Modest.” “Did she pick it out?” “No, but I know she would like it.” Phillip’s father bent to rest his hand on Phillip’s shoulder. The boy dipped and pulled away. “Why’s she gone?” The man hovered his hand where Phillip’s shoulder had been. He was perplexed at the behavior, especially since their joking-around sessions with Dutch had been so casual and amiable, without the tension of the earlier days before the accident. “It was her time, I suppose.”

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“What’s that mean? ‘Her time.’ People say that all the time but it still doesn’t mean anything. ‘Her time.’” The man gave in. “I know. You’re right—what’s it mean.” He stepped away but looked down at his son beside the head stone. “You don’t like the way people treated you,” he inquired without inflection. “—No. Why does everybody have to be so fake?” “I don’t think they were being fake, Phillip. They were being kind.” “Kind?” “Yes, but they were scared, too.” “They were being kind and scared? What were they afraid of?” Phillip turned on his knee and rested his body on one leg, looking up at his father. “Well I think people don’t know what to say sometimes. They don’t know what to do sometimes. Do you remember Derrick Rosland at the funeral?” “I don’t remember the funeral, Dad,” “I know what you mean. You don’t remember Derrick in particular, though?” He shook his head at the head stone. “No.” “Well, I don’t remember seeing it, but Derrick—is he in your class?” “Yeah.” “Yeah, well I guess he shook your hand in the receiving line and he said something about how sorry he was, but he was smiling.” “He was smiling? I think I remember that now.” “Yeah, he was smiling—not laughing—but maybe trying to make you feel better or hide how bad he really felt about it. Ya know?” “I think I remember that now. But you said you didn’t remember seeing him do it.” “I didn’t.” “Then how do you know?” “He came to see me about it.” “He did?” “Well, I saw ‘im in town. He stopped me and asked if he could speak with me.” “What’d he say?”

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“He said he was sorry. He explained what happened at the funeral and that he was ashamed of his behavior—of smiling. He said he didn’t mean any disrespect by it and wanted us both to know that he was sorry.” “Really?” “Yes. So I told ‘im he shouldn’t be upset and there was no need to apologize. He said that was just the way he dealt with it and I said it was okay. He was upset about it, Phillip.” “I haven’t seen ‘im much at school.” “He might think you’re upset and he’s staying away from you.” Phillip thought about it. “Wow, I didn’t know that.” “And Derrick is just the one who stands out, Phillip. There were probably others we don’t even remember at the house, at the hospital, at the funeral, here. Imagine yourself in the same situation. What would you say to you?” He breathed outward hard. “I don’t know.” Phillip’s father continued. “That’s what I mean. I think people were so sad for you, for me, that they acted in ways that made you think about fake behavior. That was your interpretation, but that’s okay. A boy—a man—has a right to grieve the way he wants to. And needs to. But I think they were just scared, and I think they were sad and maybe put themselves in our place for a minute in their minds, and thought about how tragic it all was and it made them scared for us and for themselves. Ya see? But I think they were mostly nice.” “Yeah, I guess so.” “Do you remember Mrs. Gleason coming over those first few days when Mom was sick?” “Yeah.” Phillip’s father turned and looked at the empty space where the barn had once been. “Do you know the whole church prayed for your mom and both of us for most of the service that Sunday?” “They did?” Mr. Vinson looked over the wreckage of the barn, the trees, and a few of the rocks from the old wall. “Do you know church services were once held in barns, Phillip? Barns

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Going Outside like the one that used to be there. They’d hold the services in a barn while the church was being built and they were settling a town. Barns and churches should never be torn down. They’re sacred, like cemeteries.” “Dad?” “—Yeah, the whole church prayed for us. But sometimes it’s just time. That’s what people mean by ‘it was her time.’” He walked back over to Phillip beside the head stone and knelt. “Let’s clean this up a little.” He got to work and urged Phillip on. “I haven’t wanted to come back here either, Son. But we should. Both of us, ya know?” Phillip pulled weeds and raked the leaves away from the stone with his hands. They both cleaned the stone with their palms and blew the dirt and a few seeds from the recesses of the chiseled letters. Phillip watched his father as he worked and noticed a cleaner fellow; shaven, hair combed, respectable clothing, and no bulge in his shirt pocket where a pack of cigarettes had lived for the last year. In fact, he did not notice the filthy smell this time being in such close proximity. He remembered also that he did not smell it when he was in his father’s bedroom before. “Yep, this is her favorite time of year. She liked the newness, the green, the spring rains. She loved the smell of the rain. The rain’ll come and clean this head stone, Phillip. And we should be here, both of us, and it’ll clean us, too. We get a new start in spring. It doesn’t matter how lousy the Reds were last year; on Opening Day, all teams are tied.” “O-and-O,” they said in unison, well practiced. “You wanna see if Dutch is still out by the road or should we walk back?” asked Phillip’s father. “Wait, I have somethin’ to show you.” “What is it?” Phillip took his place a few feet in front of his mother’s head stone and centered himself on it. “Eddie taught me this.” The boy stood erect and bowed his head slightly to see the head stone. He straightened his legs and angled his feet. His arms were at his sides and his thumbs touched the seams of his pants. He flattened his right hand, tucked the thumb, and began moving it slowly upward, past his abdomen, in front of his chest, clearing his face, and landing smartly on the corner of his eyebrow, notched in the crook between the end of his index and middle

106 Beaverson fingers. He counted to himself all the way: one…two…three…, anticipating arriving at the number ten when he reached his forehead. And he did. He felt like Eddie standing there. Phillip’s father stood back and watched his son with a little confusion but with more satisfaction. He clasped his hands together in front of him, not quite knowing what to do. The wind blew the board hanging over the gate and it clanged against the new metal pole beside it. Phillip broke from his salute and his arm descended slowly, his mind counting backwards from ten. He remained at attention and stood still, watching over his mother’s grave. The five-inch by eight-inch flag at Corporal McCragg’s grave flapped in the same breeze. He waited. “That was nice, Phillip.” Mr. Vinson waited for his son to break from his stance. “Eddie taught you that?” “Yeah.” Phillip relaxed and walked to his father, keeping his eyes on the grave. “Impressive. But your mom wasn’t in the military.” The two walked to the gate. “Eddie said it’s for respect.” He looked up. “He said it’s for solemn respect. Reverence.” They walked down the two-track path toward the road. The sun descended on the other side of the woods and Phillip’s father looked at him. “I like it. I think she would too.” “Thanks.” “I think someone oughtta rebuild that rock wall and give the chain link fence to the Humane Society.” “There were sycamores and poplars there too,” said Phillip with an agreeing tone. “Yeah. No one plants trees better than us.”

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14 The Closer

Phillip wasn’t a great track star and that seemed all right with him. It wasn’t like football or basketball, and certainly not baseball, where practices were dutiful, and games almost religious. But he took track seriously after considering that organized running, jumping, and throwing were new to him and his teammates who had all played the other three sports in one form or another since their first pairs of Underoos. So it was difficult to get into the spirit in seventh grade last year of running around the football field without a single football in sight and jumping into a long pit filled with sand. What’s a hurdle? You want me to run at it really fast and then jump over it? This year was different, Phillip told himself, and he would avenge the poor performance of his first year in track and field, if by nothing more than finishing out the season. Everything about eighth grade was different anyway. Eddie’s counsel was gone and he was in college. Phillip had become known as the guy in middle school who was friends with the cool black guy in college, and he thought that was okay. Eighth grade was full of high-school preparation talk at the end of the year. They had already told the boys when to report for the first conditioning practices for football. Summer basketball camps had been scheduled before last year’s season was over with. The girls were different in eighth grade. They went away at the end of last year and half of them transformed their bodies, willingly or not, over the summer. They seemed taller, maybe a bit skinnier and with wider hips for some reason. Their faces were more mature. They grew up and out in all the right places as far as Phillip and the other boys were concerned. In plain sight on the bus to a track meet, they would put up their hair in a pony tail or shake it out as it hung in front of them, bending forward. They would run their fingers through it as they spoke to friends, and lace it gently over their fingernails to pin errant strands behind their ears while tilting their heads to the side. They would extend an entire uncovered leg across the aisle of the bus and rest bare feet on the seat while they put on the short white socks they wore under their track shoes. They would hop up abruptly and dart forward to other seats to visit another friend, pulling the tails of tee shirts down over their

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Going Outside hips and flattening budding chests while exposing their extensiveness and detail at the same time. Track was great, but Phillip couldn’t get his mind off the other things—the distractions. He thought about baseball while he ran the 300 hurdles. He thought about the girls watching him as he did the long jump. The only time he was completely focused was when he was running the mile relay. The picture of Number 11 at Riverside last year had been a permanent portrait hanging in the museum of his mind. He wanted the other guys to know that if they lost races, it wouldn’t be because of him. He was still the closer, and he knew he could hold a race every time. But a closer may have to come back. It was like baseball. The manager brings in the closer but sometimes the guy lets the team down by letting a run score. The skipper yanks him, or he thinks about it briefly and leaves him in. See if he can pitch his way out of his mistake. But as Phillip’s father always told him: “There’s eight other guys on the field in a ball game.” Sometimes a person had to pitch his way out of someone else’s mistake. In the last track meet of the season, Phillip found himself there. He was waiting in the first lane during the mile relay, the day’s last event, when a race official shoved him into Lane 2. The number three man on Phillip’s team, Smith, had lost his momentum and let a skinny-legged tall guy pass him on the second turn. He was flicking the baton all over the place, but Smith just couldn’t catch him. So it was up to Phillip. Smith approached a good ten yards behind the tall guy. He was red and winded. Phillip had never seen him like that before. Before Phillip took his place—left foot in front, right foot behind, turning the shoulders back and to the right—he looked over at the guy next to him. He checked his jersey for the number eleven. There was a medium-sized seventeen in the middle of his shoulder blades. That’s my road. Then the boy turned to Phillip to get ready. He saw Phillip and in a nervous, passing glance as he turned to look for his teammate, he said, “Good luck.” “You too,” responded Phillip. Both runners approached with a third one close behind Smith. “Go!” commanded the tall runner, and Number 17 took off. The crowd exploded at his departure and in anticipation of Smith’s and Phillip’s hand-off. Phillip moved into the first lane in time for Smith to shout, “Go!” Phillip took off and left the out-of-breath Smith straining to keep up. It was Phillip’s

110 Beaverson fault. The coach had taught them—and they all had agreed—that if a teammate was having a tough time at the end of their lap, the guy receiving the baton should adjust the normal takeoff routine to help him out. But Phillip was inspired. It was spring. It wasn’t baseball, but he was seeing everything at the start of his own year from the line on the track at his feet. That was his home plate for the day and he was shooting off to first base after blasting one to left-center field. Right before he rocketed away from Smith, Phillip had caught the unmistakable reddish-brown, paint-primer tone of Dutch’s truck parked just on the other side of the fence after Turn 3. He knew Dutch wasn’t there to pick him up; he would never do that. And he also knew that Dutch wasn’t a track guy or a fan in any way. Dutch would have as hard a time at a track meet as Phillip would have at a soccer game. The quick deduction gave Phillip the reason to jump off the line and nearly spurt past the exchange zone. His father was there. It was like Phillip had flown for a short distance. Smith even had to shout at him to slow down, and when he did, the well-practiced hand-off of the baton, so presumably easy, so simple, so mindless, was botched beyond anything Phillip, Smith, or the rest of the team could have imagined. It could have been Smith’s sweaty hand. It could have been Phillip’s short fingers. Whatever was to blame, the short, hollow cylinder failed to slap into Phillip’s palm from Smith’s fingers as they had practiced together a thousand times before. It slipped, hit someone’s thumbnail, and was flipped end over end until the metallic clinkety-clink upon the track reverberated somehow over all the cheering and screaming. Smith belched out an expletive and Phillip forgot about everything in the world except for picking up that baton. He planted his foot and brought himself to an abrupt stop that even surprised him. His motion backward to reach it was almost as smooth and quick as his start-up. He lurched and caught the end of the baton between the top of his palm and the ends of his fingers. He felt Smith’s sweat on the object and reached over with the other hand and positioned it in his palm as he turned to run. Middle school track meets aren’t packed with people. Even at the largest invitationals, parents, friends, classmates, teammates, girlfriends, and boyfriends just aren’t enough people to make the crowd very big. So most fans congregate on the home side of the

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Going Outside track. There are a few people on the ends, especially the end where the entrance is, and usually just teammates who have already run their events, or are waiting to run them, on the opposite straightaway. They go over there to cheer on and encourage. Phillip always thought it was a little annoying. The crowd is quiet but he couldn’t just turn his head and say, “No, thanks,” to them. But on that first turn, a runner experiences the change quickly. Only seconds before, there was the roaring of an anticipatory crowd. After a few quick bursts with well-trained legs, a runner is yards away, and hears the quiet of the first corner. It’s as if everyone packed up and left and there’s only the track, the baton, and the guy in the lead. Phillip felt it once again. He moved the baton slightly downward in his other hand so he felt it centered. It was an even weight distribution above and below his fingers. He gripped it loosely and concentrated on the run. The first few steps after turning around to start the lap seemed like they didn’t even happen. Phillip found himself in the quiet zone of the first corner before he had even confirmed the baton was in its correct position. He shot a look at Number 17 already at least twenty-five yards ahead. He got the chills. It had only happened a few times before, but there was something that made Phillip do things that were extraordinary, even if he was the only one who knew it. There was the time in the woods when he thought he saw a badger on the other side of a tree. He hadn’t seen a badger before or since, but he knew they weren’t to be messed with. It was then and two years later when he discovered a giant wasp nest in the same tree, that he ran faster than he had ever imagined—as if skipping across water or flying in a low-altitude fighter—and ended up in the house behind a slammed door with a puzzled mother running around after him as he closed all the downstairs windows. It was a chilly feeling for Phillip. There were tingles that started in his chest and floated quickly to his head like the bubbles in a glass of 7-Up. He was all-of-a-sudden lighter than he had ever been. He knew his belly was starting to disappear, but in that moment, he couldn’t even feel it any more. He felt like something had scooped him up and set him down just a few yards behind Number 17. There was no sense of being tired. There was no out-of- breath feeling or sweaty hands. Phillip was full of confidence and he composed himself so that it wasn’t a question of passing 17; it was a matter of how soon he would do it.

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The back straightaway was silent for him. He knew the crowd was probably cheering more and harder than usual, but he could hear nothing. He was gliding quickly to his opponent whose breathing he began to hear. He came upon him just before the third turn and wished he hadn’t. He knew that passing on the turn made it a longer race. Phillip was making himself run farther and faster by trying to pass on the outside of someone who was on the inside of the oval. The coach would say that it was simple physics, and not to do it. But Phillip knew at the end of the curve was Turn 4, and Dutch’s truck registered in the very tip of the corner of Phillip’s eye. He pumped the baton and his legs seemed to respond to it. He picked out a couple of comments from the crowd like, “Look at that kid go,” and “Pass ‘im, Phillip!” The shouting, cheering, yelling, and screaming returned as abruptly as it had gone away at Turn 1. Number 17 had found another burst of energy somewhere and began increasing his stride. Phillip countered with a wider arm swing which his legs wanted to match, propelling him next to 17 as they entered the last straightaway together. Phillip felt his opponent’s stomping through the ground. He knew he was getting tired. The conditioned sprinter taps the ball of his foot on the ground just long enough to impel the body for the other foot to repeat the action. When stomping occurs, it’s a sign of fatigue or exhaustion. Phillip always thought about the foot-tapping like an engine: into the cylinder with fuel and air, compress, ignite, and out of the cylinder with exhaust. To Phillip, his legs and feet were the pistons and valves of his engine. They took him anywhere he needed to go. They took him outside. They took him outside and up the street when the doctor appeared in the waiting room of that hopeless hospital one day last year. And they delivered him outside to the broken ash in the front yard when he argued with his father for the first time ever. But he was outside now and he was passing Number 17 with the full, uncompromising power of his own engine. He gave a final burst forty yards from the finish line and pulled ahead of 17 for good. The noise of the crowd began to drown out his thoughts and all he could think about was finishing. Phillip was still in Lane 2 and looking straight ahead like all runners who concentrate on their task do, according to the coach. To his right, in Lane 3, Phillip heard a faint breath and a quick series of foot-tapping that at least by sound, outpaced his own. It

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Going Outside couldn’t have been 17, he was still back there and Phillip knew it. Then he saw the pumping of a left arm next to him. A metallic flash followed sequentially in the right. Phillip couldn’t help himself but to turn his head and see a runner from another team right beside him as they approached the line. Twenty yards away, it seemed the potential spoiler of Phillip’s moment, his victory over the last year, was pulling ahead. They don’t use finish-line tape in middle school, and Phillip wanted no questions about a successful triumph over 17, whoever this guy was, and over his own melancholy. One last time, the crowd went away. Just like the first turn, something grabbed onto Phillip and threw him forward. His feet weren’t tapping; he felt like he was hovering a half- inch above the track, shooting to the finish line. His body tingled. There was a last-ditch effort by the surprise candidate for mile-relay champion. The boy dipped his head forward a yard away from the line. Phillip quickly viewed the wavy dark-brown, almost black hair of his opponent. He had brand-new white track shoes, probably because his mother got them for a good price since it was the end of track season. Phillip saw some acne on the boy’s cheek and left temple. But Phillip knew the head-dip only worked at a closer proximity to the line. The guy in Lane 3 was too early and the action interrupted his own momentum. Phillip won. There was excitement. There was cheering and screaming from girls he did not know, and hugs from girls he had wanted to know better anyway. Smith and the other guys came up and slapped him on the upper arms and everyone thumped his back with open hands. The coach arrived and rubbed his head, leaving him with hair that pointed in all directions. More people gathered and they couldn’t go anywhere, so the whole group around Phillip fell to the grass of the football field. The audience laughed collectively as they watched the celebration. People cleared off and away from Phillip as they rubbed and playfully slapped him again, smiling. Phillip remained seated on the grass and a set of feet wearing brand-new white track shoes appeared before him. He looked up into the dwindling sun to see a hand extended to him. Phillip took it and was pulled up. He stood in front of the brown-haired boy who smiled back at him, not out of breath, but as casually as if he’d just walked over from the stands.

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“Good race.” “You too,” returned Phillip. “Congratulations.” The boy nodded his head once and let go of Phillip’s hand after shaking it. As Phillip formed the words of his response, the boy turned and began walking away. Phillip looked and saw the number on the back of the jersey and read it to himself. Eleven. “Thanks,” he said. Number 17 appeared from the other side and congratulated Phillip. “Good race. You’ve got some wheels.” “Thanks, Man. You too.” They walked together for a moment and parted when Phillip saw his father on the other side of the fence with a smile he was trying to control the size of. Phillip sprinted to him and Dutch. “Great job, Son. Those morning runs are gettin’ the job done.” Phillip smiled. “Thanks, Dad.” “Way to go, Phil,” added Dutch who leaned on the front of his truck. “Thanks, Dutch.” He turned to his father. “How you feelin’, Dad? Maybe you should be resting.” “I’m fine,” defensively. “Can’t I come see my boy be the hero of the meet?” Phillip smiled slightly and looked away in modesty. “Thanks, Dad.” The bus honked to call Phillip’s team. “See ya at home,” said Mr. Vinson. “Oh, team meeting.” Phillip hurriedly walked away from the fence looking back. “See ya.” Phillip jogged for a little bit until he stopped and thought to himself. “Phillip!” yelled someone from the bus. “I’m coming!” he shouted with cupped hands. He walked back down the track on the line between Lanes 7 and 8, weaving through people on his way. He looked forward and down a bit, staring at nothing in particular. He thought for another moment and then said to himself as he walked, unsure if he was getting it all right: “On the fields of friendly strife are sown the seeds that on other days, on other fields will bear the fruits of victory.”

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Phillip arrived at the bus to a round of applause from his teammates and a few more of those girls. He looked back to see Dutch’s truck drive away. The sun was low, and a cool breeze arrived that smelled just like rain.

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15 Going Outside

Green wheat shafts grew in the fields surrounding the Vinson farm. Springtime sunlight found it harder to penetrate the growing, flapping, fluttering canopy of the woods. The low spot in Bill Fuller’s field was half-full with water, and light-green corn plants grew nearly a foot tall around it. The entire place looked different. As his father grew stronger, Phillip took more initiative around the house. It had started before the crash, but Phillip had begun recognizing the need to do things, to acquire tools and parts, and to fix broken items so they could be utilized again soon. With Dutch’s help, the trio of men made the Vinson home look and function as well as it ever had. There was new paint on the bulkhead doors to the basement. Phillip cleaned the leaves and debris from winter winds off the workbench on the east side of the shed. Dutch had been mowing the grass. Phillip’s father walked around with a tool belt and tightened screws here and there and put hooks up where things needed to be hung. They all worked together to rake, sweep, brush, shovel, and scrape the land into shape. Dutch was in the barn at the anvil trying to persuade a chunk of iron to bend the way he wanted it. Phillip and his dad stood at the side door of the house near the chimney and surveyed the various upheavals of bricks that they had laid there a few years before at Mrs. Vinson’s insistence. Phillip studied his father while the man rubbed his chin and looked the job over. “We should have used less sand and more stone dust,” he declared. “I think we should have set it in concrete.” “Yep, that woulda worked better,” Phillip’s father admitted. “Your mom, though, she wanted this walk done in the worst way. Remember? I think we were having that July Fourth party.” Phillip looked down at his feet past his flat stomach. “Is that when Dutch set off that whole box of fireworks by accident?” “Yep.” “I think he did it on purpose.”

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They laughed. “Why was it so important for Mom? We could have done it right if we had a few more days.” “Well, she liked things done right, just like we do, but that party was really important because her family was in town. Remember that? They were in town for the holiday and your mom wanted everything to be perfect. It wasn’t for her; it was for them.” “Oh.” “She was a considerate person.” “Yeah.” “She always had other people in mind—” “—I didn’t know how much it affected you, Dad,” Phillip admitted. “What?” “I think Dutch helped me understand. And I thought a lot about it.” “Oh. Phillip—” “—It hurt me a lot but I didn’t know what it was doin’ to you. Smoking. Messy house. Sports. I didn’t know, Dad.” He waited. Phillip’s father looked out into the green woods and paused. It was the same distance between statement and response that in the past had preceded, “I love you, Son.” Mr. Vinson continued, “I was too far away to see you, and put together the reasons why. I shouldn’t have done that to you, Phillip.” The phone rang through the open screen door to the kitchen. Phillip’s mother had his dad put an extra-long cord on it years ago. Phillip walked in and picked it up. “Hello?” The voice on the other end was hesitant. “I’m sorry. Is this Phillip Vinson?” “Yes it is.” “Phillip, this is Mr. Faber. Albert Faber. Eddie Faber’s father. I’m sorry. Eddie’s father.” The confused voice giving all the names registered with him. Phillip had never met Eddie’s parents before. “Oh, hi, Mr. Faber. How’s Eddie?” “Phillip, I’m sorry.” “Sorry for what?”

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Phillip’s father listened carefully from outside. “There was an accident, Phillip.” “An accident?” “It’s Eddie, Son.” “Eddie?” “He died.” “Eddie?” “We’re sorry, Son. Everything’s happened so fast and well, the funeral, it just happened, you see.” “Eddie died? How did Eddie die? How’s he dead?” “He was in a plane, Son. It was a military plane. He was going for a ride.” “The jet? The F-16?” “I’m sorry, Phillip. It crashed, Son. I’m sorry. The whole family knew about you because Eddie, he was so fond of you. He talked about you and we all said he should have you over for dinner some night.” “What? When did it happen?” “I’m sorry, Son. We’re all real sorry. It was yesterday morning. It happened just yesterday and we had the funeral today but see, no one knew to call you and we know it was short notice for the paper. Most of his classmates from ROTC couldn’t even make it, Son.” “Yesterday morning?” Phillip quickly tried to remember what he was doing yesterday morning. “Yes, Phillip. And we’re sorry. We would have asked you to be at the funeral because Eddie would’ve wanted it that way, you know. But with everything going on, well, we didn’t. And well, we’re sorry. Mrs. Faber thought of you just now and asked me to call you.” Phillip waited. “Thank you.” “The funeral’s over, Son. We’re at the funeral home now and pulling out for the cemetery. The burial’s at McCragg Cemetery near Township Road 17. Do you know where that is? Maybe I should speak with your father, too.” He waited again. “Yes, Sir.” “We’re awfully sorry, Son. But we thought you might like to say goodbye to Eddie.”

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“Yes, Sir.” Phillip’s father opened the screen door slowly so the hinges wouldn’t creak. In the barn, Dutch’s methodic pounding on the anvil and iron sounded like a church bell to Phillip. “Phillip, we know you meant a lot to him. We’re awfully sorry, Son.” Phillip handed the phone to his father, who now stood beside him in the kitchen. The boy walked abruptly outside and felt like running. He felt like turning on his engine and taking off as fast as he could down the road, through the field, or disappearing into the woods. But he stood still, and kicked a few bricks on the walk below him out of their positions. Snippets of his father’s conversation with Mr. Faber leaked out the screen door. He said it was okay a few times, and that he understood, and that he and Phillip were sorry for their loss. The screen door squeaked open and Phillip began walking slowly to the front yard. His father followed. Phillip kept looking at the road, past the oak tree he had shown Andy in the fall. He looked right at the spot in the road where he had last seen Eddie, driving away in his red car, looking at his future from his own home plate. Phillip’s father didn’t say a word. He waited and was there for his son. “What’d he say, Dad? Mr. Faber.” “They weren’t sure what happened, Phillip. The plane just didn’t have the power it needed when they were doing a turn. And well, it went down. The pilot and Eddie both. I’m sorry, Son.” Phillip heard the faint, slow progress of the funeral procession. He looked up the road past Daisy’s house and saw the line of cars behind the hearse. He saw the silent yellow light on top of the vehicle and just couldn’t control it. And he cried. He walked to the edge of the road and noticed nothing else but the smell of rain. His head looked to the left at the approaching motorcade. He turned back and looked for his father who stood beside him, nearly elbow to shoulder like at the workbench in the shop. The old Marine Bill Fuller was on his daily jog approaching the Vinson home. His white-whiskered face lost its weathered definition for a moment as he looked through narrowed eyes at the scene with Phillip and his father standing by the road with the funeral procession advancing. Then he realized what was happening and he stopped abruptly, almost

120 Beaverson directly across the road from where the Vinsons stood. Dutch’s church-bell anvil rang out louder and more somber, and it filled the air like a dirge. Bill Fuller could see through the windshield of the hearse and saw the flag over Eddie’s casket. He turned and stood straight up, facing the Vinson home from the other side of the road like a sentinel guarding a fortress. Phillip watched him and noticed how much taller he seemed without the ever-present stoop. The man stood, hands at his sides, feet at an angle, staring ahead a thousand yards at nothing. The hearse was close. Phillip moved slightly away from his father and stood up straight, copying Mr. Fuller as much as possible and remembering what Eddie had taught him. He saw the hand move from across the road and he took the cue to move his own. Flattened hand, thumb tucked in; slow movement up to the forehead. The thousand-yard stare. Phillip counted to himself slowly. One…two…three…four… The old Marine Bill Fuller and Phillip Vinson stood at attention and saluted the casket of Eddie Faber as it passed in front of them. They both slowly lowered their hands only after the entire procession had passed. Wordless, Mr. Fuller resumed his jog at a slower pace as Phillip relaxed his body. The old, serious man looked Phillip in the face and nodded his head once, quickly pointing his chin to his chest. Phillip returned the gesture. At the corner of the woods by the road, the old, dead elm obscured a buck with a broken point on its antlers. It looked over the scene with quiet intent. A younger buck with smaller antlers stood beside its father. He rubbed the side of his head on his father’s massive shoulder. Phillip and his father watched the tail of the funeral procession as it made the long, arcing curve of Township Road 17 toward the cemetery. Mr. Vinson placed his hand on his son’s shoulder and Phillip rested his cheek there. A spring rain fell. Mom loved the smell of the rain.

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