Dr. Frank Einstein (4 page)

   
  “You should've of thought about that before you said it.”

       Danny, the friend that w
as on the receiving end of his proclamation, grabbed Tommy. For he was a comrade in malice with Tommy.  He pulled Tommy away from the teacher.

    
“Let go of him!”

     
She stumbled over her high heel shoes.  The third graders escaped the teacher’s grasp. They ran into a crowd waiting for the school buses. Her attention went to a fight between other children.  She sought to intervene in the ruckus.  She went in direction of the ruckus.

   
  “Thanks for getting me away from that bitch.” Tommy laughed at the situation.

   
  “Hey, ain't that his friend.” Danny declared; glancing over to another child close by.

   
  They approached the stocky first grader.

   
  “Hey, Mark, where's your retarded friend?”

   
  “He's not retarded." responded mark to them,” He’s just got a speech problem. He already went home on the bus.”

   
  The two third graders nodded at each other.

   
  “Hey, you want to go on a hike with us.  It's to the coolest place.” Tommy suggested to him.

  
  “I have to go home, “replied Mark to his suggestion.

    
  “Okay, we'll go over to your house.  Then ask your Mom if you can go hiking with us.  Hey, first I got somethin' to show you on the other side of the school.  Someone stashed like fifty bucks, and buried it.”

     
“I don't know. I'll miss my bus.”

       “We take the same bus. We won't miss it. C'mon, you won’t regret it.”

      They went to the back of the horseshoe shaped school. Tommy led them to spot in a corner. He started digging with a broken piece of wood.  The topsoil felt harden with bits of grass.   Then the under soil lay soft and darker.   He scrapped and scrapped with a hint of insincerity.  After ten minutes he stopped digging.

     
“Man, it ain't here,” exclaimed Tommy, “Somebody must’ve gotten it before us.”  He stood up and tossed the wood.

       “I really need to get my bus;” said Mark in a panic.

      The boys raced back to the front of the school to a vacant parking lot.  All of the buses had left school.

     
“I missed my bus," Mark moaned in distress," I gotta call my mom.  She's gonna be mad.”

     
“Don't bother the office.  Everybody there’s gone home now.  My uncle's house is very close.  You can call her from there.”  Recommended Tommy to him.

       “But I think I better call now!”

     “If you keep calling your mom, Soon, everyone's gonna think you are a pain in the ass.  Then they'll blame you for all the things that go wrong around you.   C'mon, it's better to call from my uncle's."

    
They started walking on a two lane highway.  Almost immediately the highway was surrounded by woods.  There were no sidewalks, no buildings.  A steep hill left no room for boys to walk so they walked on the highway.

     
Soon a light blue station wagon stopped next to them.  The lady, who was driving, leaned over to the passenger door and rolled down the window, “Hey boys.  This is a very dangerous road.  You need to go back to school and call your parents.”

     
“Okay” Said Tommy.  The car pulled away.  “Fuckin' bitch.”  Tommy and Danny laughed as they looked at a confused Mark.

     
“Hey, “Tommy changed the subject, “I got something to show ya at the cemetery.  It's just over here.”  They already had gone a mile and half on the dangerous highway.  Cars constantly came whizzing by them.

     They ran in the small country cemetery with Mark trying to keep up with them.

     They fell to their knees at a tombstone.  “Hey, Mark look at this gravestone Silas Hawkins 1698-1771.   That's my great, great; I don't know how many fuckin' great, grandfathers.  My family's been in Wayland for centuries; when it was all farms and shit.  Now all these rich newbies are crowding up everything and shit.   You're rich, ain't ya, Mark?”

    
“No.”

    
“Your dad wears suits for one of those big corporations in Boston.”

    
“I don't know.”

    
“All the newbies do, my grandfather sold his farm to make new houses for ll of you. But don't worry.  Danny and I will make you one of us; so you won't be a rich stuck up newbie, alright?”

    
“I guess.”

    
“Fuckin’ A” He laughed and shook Mark's hand.

    
They continued their hike.  A mile later they left the highway. They came upon and walked on a path through the woods.

    
“I thought we're going to your uncle's house to call my mom.” Mark complained to them.

   
“This is how to go to my uncle's house. We're almost there.”

     
“It’s so far.  I should've called from school.”

     
“Hey Mark, do you watch Batman?" ignored Tommy of his concerns," It’s so cool.  Na Na Na Batman boom bam Na Na Batman! Do you watch on Wednesday night and Thursday night?  Same Bat time: Same Bat station.”

     
“Yeah, I've watched it.”

     
“Did you see when Riddler's girlfriend snuck in to the bat cave and she climbed and fell in the Nuclear reactor.  And Batman tried to rescue her.  She fell and Batman's all crying and shit. And Batman is like; I really want to fuck her.”

     
“You certainly say a lot of bad words,” Commented Mark on Tommy’s vulgarity.

     
“I do it because it's cool.”

     
“I think it's dumb.”

     
Tommy smirked then stopped at the clearing.  We're gonna play a game.  It's called mumbly peg.  Have you heard of it?”                                  

     
“Naw.”

     
“It's so fun.  First we draw a big circle for a target.  Then we throw this switchblade to hit the target.”  Tommy whipped out a switchblade “You first.  Just throw the knife in the circle.”

     
Mark grabbed the knife and threw it in the circle.

     
“Good Job!” complimented Tommy on his performance, “Now let me try.”  Tommy took the knife, turned to the circle, then whipped back with a raised arm and stabbed Mark in the head.

          
                                     Chapter Seven

      Four children hiked a weekend hike in the local woods.   Spring had freed them from the four black and white television stations' winter grip.  Seven year old Sally was looking for a four leaf clover in an opening when she came across a pile of clothes. Only it was not a pile of clothes.

      She yelled and waved to the other three children, who came over to
look at what Sally had found in the opening.  Then all four of them ran back separately to their houses.

      She wore a Jackie Kennedy hairdo. Almost all the house wives in the neighborhood did. She was talking on a green phone that was tied to the wall.

      It was always at the back
of her mind that she should cling to her life routine, her lifestyle. How could anything change? Camelot? Even though the president was dead and dead for three years, nothing else evil could happened, could it?

    
“Mom! Mom!” said her eleven year old son to her, “You gotta call the police.  There's a bloody dead boy in the woods.”

     
“Honey, “she suggested to him," it could be a dead dear, they are bears, sometimes, not anymore.”

     
“No, it's a little boy.”

     
“O Holy Mother of God, I gotta go,” She said into the phone,” I gotta call the police.”  She pushed down the lever on the phone and spinned dial O, “Hello! Get me the police.  Police? My children found a dead boy.  I'm at twenty one Meadow Lane.  Okay, Okay.”

     
Within fifteen minutes, two police officers were at the door.

     
“Hi! My son will take you to the boy," She said.  The boy left his house and led the police to the body.   The body had bleed out.  The police officers could not count the stab wounds to the head.  Both officers had to take a few minutes to compose themselves.  One went back to the squad car to call the coroner and the State police detectives.

      The next Monday, two State police detectives appeared at Happy Hollow.

     
“We need to look at the class pictures of the first or second grade.”  One of detectives asked a clerk from across the front office counter.  They looked through class pictures.  “Who is Miss Shinn, We need to talk to her.”

      “She's at lunch, I’ll go get her,” answered the clerk.  Within five minutes, a very young first year teacher appeared behind the co
untered.  One officer introduced themselves to her.

     
“Can you please identify this boy in the picture?”

     
Miss Shinn looked at the picture, “It's Mark Dupree.  It's the boy on the radio.  Oh God they killed my student.” Two clerks came over to comfort the teacher as the detectives left the school.

               
                                   Chapter Eight

      She had scars of the beat generation.  Her father always said to her, “you was the first non nigger to smoke pot!   First it was poetry and pot then it was just pot and booze.”

     
They lived what was not sold of the family farm.

     
She sorted the laundry.  The sorting revealed blood on her son's pants.

     
“Oh my God! Oh my God” She cried and then moaned at the sight.

     
“What the hell are you whining about,” yelled her boyfriend at her bawling.

     
“Tommy killed that little boy,”

     
“I'm gonna killed that little prick!"

     
“No! No!” She sobbed hysterically at him.

 
    The boyfriend kicked out the kitchen door, jumped in the backyard. It was almost a field that had an unpainted barn in the background. He ran toward Tommy with rage in his eyes.

     
“Tommy, Come here so I can beat you shitless.”  Tommy ran but the man grabbed and whammed him to the ground.

     
“You’re a fuckin’ Bully.  I'm gonna show you what's like to die!”  He punched him several times in the head.

    
The mother intervened, but he pushed her away from the beating.

  
   “Please, Please,” she pleaded. “Let me take him to the fuzz.  I promise you. We'll never see him again.  Then I stay with you forever.  Even if they ever let him come back; I won't take him back. I promise.”

      
“You promise.”

      
“I don't want him anymore, I want you.”

     
“Okay.”

      
The mother carried her son to the car. 

      
“Mamma, mamma, please don’t put me away, please” Tommy bawled fierce tears.  Blood in encircled his head.

      
As she drove away, she said, “I promise.” to her boyfriend.

     “We ided the body from dental records to be your son,” the state police said to the parents.  They sat across each other from a faded wooden table.  They sat on plastic chairs.

     
“Can we see him?” asked the father of the detective.