If Jack's in Love (2 page)

We heard about it on the TV that night, me and Pop. We knew Gaylord Joyner was missing and we knew my brother was a suspect, and now we cast a furtive glance at each other. Mom wasn't in the room and Pop was glad of it, because she'd have put it together right away. She was perfectly aware of where he took us to scout for UFOs and she knew exactly how familiar with the area my brother would be. Anyway, we figured she'd find out soon enough.

The headlines were gravely sensationalistic. Don't forget, the victim was a boy who had won a scholarship to Duke University. What an unlucky waste of scholarship. That's all you saw on the front page: “Gaylord Joyner, who was awarded a scholarship to Duke University in the fall...” How many times do you have to mention such a mighty accomplishment before the full force of the tragedy sinks in? A young Duke scholar bludgeoned and strangled and buried in a shallow grave! They even made it the caption to his photograph:

“Gaylord Joyner, Awarded Scholarship to Duke U.”

Shortly after that, the police issued a warrant for the arrest of my brother, Stanley Kirby Witcher.

I THINK I BELONGED TO the last generation of kids that could play outside. There were woods near our house with a livid creek, and at the end of Livingstone was a dry drainage pipe where kids would light cigarettes and use them to lure in girls. My father was unemployed and my mother was known for being ugly. Kids in the neighborhood spat my name rather than said it. They didn't even grant me the compliment of a rude nickname.

One of the first things newcomers learned when they moved in was, “It's a nice neighborhood, too bad the Witchers live here.” We didn't live in the neighborhood proper. Our house stood on a piece of macadam that connected one homey drive to another. Ours was the only house on the road.

My father was irregular in his unemployment, although there were times when he made genuine efforts to thwart the luckless demons that attended him. I remember one period when he was employed for a long while, maybe two years: my happiest stretch of childhood. My parents didn't argue as much. My father was at peace with himself. Then one night, just as school was ending, he came home in a rage. He had argued with a man who lived on the tidy street to our right, after nearly driving his battered Ford over the man's dog. The man's name was Kellner.

“I'm gonna fight the son of a bitch,” my father said, coming in the kitchen. He had groceries in a bag: six cans of Schlitz and some lettuce and mayonnaise for the burgers hardening in the pan.

“Who?” my mother asked.

“Kellner. Son of a bitch thinks I tried to kill his dog on purpose. I challenged him to a fight and he backed down.”

“You're too old to be fighting.”

That made me uneasy, hearing my pop talk about fighting. My mother had ushered Pop beyond the rowdiness of his early years, and here he was forty-five and still prepared to defend what I'd already spent my born years defending (I was twelve). I had to slug it out with kids all the time, because of my name, because of my house, because my mother looked like a trout. How I longed for adulthood, when I would be surrounded by civilized people who would inquire, “How are you today, Mr. Witcher?” And now my father had picked a fight with pipe-smoking Mr. Kellner.

He grabbed the phone on the wall and dialed Kellner's number.

“Kellner, you son of a bitch, fight like a man!”

During the pause that followed we could imagine Kellner's reasoned response. “I am not going to fight you, Witcher, and if you keep threatening me I'll report you to the police.”

“No one accuses me of trying to kill a dog,” Pop said. His tone was indignant, affronted, worn-out.

For me the enmity between Kellner and Pop was of a part with nature and history. Pop had a habit of bringing home stuff he found in garbage cans and abandoned lots—car parts, broken bicycles, tossed-out toilets—and dumping it all at the side of the house. He said he had the intention of “getting to it” someday, but he never did. The junk in our yard drove Kellner crazy. He would cruise past the house in his car just to enjoy the loathing it filled him with. He'd circle the block over and over, nursing his disbelief and outrage. One day he composed a petition demanding that we clean our yard and took it to the neighbors to sign. Pop never forgave him for that (nor did he clean the yard). Kellner wore an ascot and listened to Dave Brubeck records, and in our neighborhood this was enough to give him the reputation for being an intellectual.

“I'm gonna be at the drainage pipe at the end of Livingstone tonight at seven. Be there.”

My father slammed down the phone.

“Are you really going to fight Mr. Kellner?” I asked.

“If he shows up.”

“You are not going to fight Paul Kellner,” my mother said. “Good Lord, how old are you?”

“Old enough to kick Kellner's ass.”

“Great. In front of Jack. Some example you're setting.”

Pop slumped on the sofa with his arms embracing his shoulders. He was watching footage on the TV of a lugubrious Lyndon Johnson explaining why American boys were being jetted off to the jungles of Asia. My mother pulled my head against her dress, sparing me that male darkness. But I didn't want to be spared. I knew damn well Kellner wasn't going to show up at the drainage pipe, which in itself was a source of shame. Mr. Kellner was a fully developed grown-up and Pop was a schoolyard bully.

In Pop's defense, he'd have veered his car into a tree rather than run over a dog. He loved dogs, always fed them scraps when they came a-begging. Dogs sunned in our yard, fought in our yard, frolicked in our yard, rutted in our yard. Dogs were always hanging around our house. Rusty, Kellner's dog, enjoyed the distinction of being the neighborhood mascot. He and Pop were very good friends.

I went to Pop and said, “How come Kellner thinks you tried to kill his dog?”

“Damn thing ran in front of my car. He says I steered the car towards it.”

“Rusty,” I said. “Good dog.”

“Hell, I ain't got a problem with his dog.”

I stared at the worn carmine fabric on the sofa. The antennas on our TV set had been mended with masking tape. One of our front windows was missing a screen.

Mom came to the room and sent me to the back yard. I went outside and perched on the swing and listened to their voices rising and falling. My brother came home about that time, and when he heard them shouting he elected not to go inside.

“What is it this time?”

“Pop wants to fight Mr. Kellner. He just called him up and challenged him to a fight.”

“What for?”

“He almost hit Rusty. Mr. Kellner thinks he did it on purpose.”

“Rusty the dog? What's Mom shouting about?”

“She doesn't want'em to fight. Pop told Mr. Kellner to meet him at the drainage pipe.”

“No kidding? Is he gonna show?”

My brother grinned. He liked it.

We ate our burgers as a family, in silence. I was sad for the Witchers. Only recently I had visited the Pendleton house and one of the Pendleton boys, Johnny, had afterwards made a point of cleaning the front porch with a hose because I'd been sitting there. Tanya Browning, Susie Kellner, the three Coghill daughters—the very belles of our neighborhood—had all been present (so my informant, Dickie Pudding, later related), and they were giggling and laughing and shrieking encouragingly, “God, Johnny, you're so cruel!”

What was so bad about the Witchers? We didn't listen to country music. We didn't eat chitterlings; we didn't wear overalls. My mother read books by Charles Dickens, Jane Austen. She could play show tunes on piano.

It was Pop, he was the one who made the trouble.

After supper he headed to the bedroom and put on his T-shirt and jeans. When he finally left to go beat up Mr. Kellner, my mother called out that my brother and I should stay behind. But we ignored her, and Pop didn't send us back. He wanted us to see that Kellner would be a no-show.

We went to the end of the street, turned left and circled around to Stanley Street, which ran between the end of Livingstone and the field with the drainage pipe. (There was a worn path that debouched on Livingstone about a hundred yards from our destination, but we didn't take it. Shortcuts, for some reason, were taboo to grown-ups.) As we approached the field we saw Kellner standing next to well-dressed Mr. Joyner, his next-door neighbor and father to Myra, who had learned by now, or would learn shortly, that Mr. Witcher had picked a fight with one of the community's more esteemed dwellers, a man who smoked a pipe and listened to Dave Brubeck. I was confused by shame and pride, feelings intensified by my secret passion for Myra, who was kind when no one else was around.

My brother and I, flanking Pop, stood on the side of the street where it verged on the field. Mr. Joyner strode briskly forward. I was worried Pop wouldn't recognize his role as emissary and would punch him instead of Kellner.

“Look here, Witcher,” Joyner said.

Look here! What a civilized sound it had to my ears. It's what decent men in movies said when forced to reason with desperadoes and thugs.

“There are other ways to iron out your differences.”

This was no longer a world of Kellners and Witchers. Mr. Joyner might have been Gregory Peck or Gary Cooper. (I guess Pop was Richard Widmark.)

“Stand aside, Joyner,” Pop said.

I almost burst out laughing. Mr. Joyner noticed.

“What did you bring your kids for?”

“To show'em Witchers look out for themselves.
Kellner, you ready?
” he called.

“I'm ready,” Kellner feebly responded. You had to feel a little sorry for the man. He was making a stand, he was going to take my pop's pounding. Pop was from the mountains, a hillbilly.

I tugged on Pop's sleeve and jerked my eyes in the direction of home. But Kellner was distracting him. He had removed his navy blazer and folded it neatly across his arm. Now he was placing it on the ground and carefully setting his pipe beside it. He rolled up his sleeves.

My father brushed past Mr. Joyner.

“Witcher!” Joyner called.

“
Mister
Witcher,” my brother said. “Kick his ass, Pop.”

Kellner positioned one leg slightly in front of the other, raised his arms and began to revolve his fists in the air like a turn-of-the-century pugilist demonstrating fisticuffs.

Pop's eyes bugged out. He gave me a wink and said, “Sheeit,” playing the rube, a mortifying tendency whenever he got around civilized types like Kellner and Joyner.

Joyner came between the two men. “I'm warning you, Witcher,” he said, like a sheriff.

“Am I gonna have to fight both of you?”

“I'll back you up,” my brother said.

“You go home, boy,” Joyner said. My brother was eighteen and soon to begin classes at the cracker college downtown so he wouldn't have to go to Vietnam. He'd long harbored murderous feelings for Mr. Joyner's son, Gaylord, because Gaylord had stolen his girl, Courtney Blankenship. Possibly this made the tone of Mr. Joyner's voice sound more imperious and disdainful than it was. To me his tone was moralistic; he was saying, “Go home, this is no place for a young man.” To my brother it was more like “Go, villain. Leave.”

Suddenly Joyner said in amazement, “This young man is threatening me.”

Sure enough, my brother was pounding his fist against his palm and staring aggressively into Joyner's eyes. Which didn't surprise me. My brother had inherited Pop's feeling for the clan.

“Keep him covered,” Pop said, moving towards Mr. Kellner.

“You're encouraging him!”

Joyner blustered in the direction of the crowd gathering on the side of the field, mainly kids who lived on local streets. He was playing to them, gleaning support in a propaganda campaign he'd already won.

“Beat him up, Mr. Kellner!” a pipsqueak hollered from the sidelines.

Kellner desperately charged. He flung himself in the air, putting all his weight into a fist that he sent sailing into Pop's jaw. It staggered Pop for a second. He wasn't expecting it. No one expected it, a sucker punch from Kellner. A shout of “Oh!” came from the sidelines.

Pop rubbed his jaw and grinned. Then he came in swinging. Pow pow pow!

Mr. Kellner flopped to the ground like a tumble of clothes.

The kids on the side couldn't believe their eyes. A grown-up from the neighborhood had just pummeled another grown-up. The entire world had just observed the barbaric effects of a mountain upbringing.

Mr. Joyner seemed appalled, but not exactly eager to press the matter.

“You okay, Paul?” he asked Kellner.

A mumble came from within the sack of clothing.

Pop was staring at a cut on his knuckle.

“Do you need an ambulance?” Joyner asked.

A monosyllable came from Kellner, without the close front rounded sound that might have signified a yes.

Joyner turned sternly to my pop.

“Are you happy now?”

Pop stomped his foot, Joyner leapt back.

We followed him off the field. My brother swiveled his head, grinning in the faces of the stunned onlookers. We marched back to our house, victorious but unpopular, like Wehrmacht infantrymen goose-stepping into Prague.

POP BEATING UP KELLNER WAS, I think, the beginning of it all. We bear primal anxieties about our fathers, and it's tough to witness your pop beat up a pipe-smoking gentleman from the next street over. I had visions of the police raiding our house, of my mother, hair wrapped in a scarf, taking us to visit Pop in jail where we'd have to pass snacks and tobacco through cold iron bars. Truthfully, at the time I was more worried about how the news would affect Myra. Myra was everything to me, probably because there wasn't much else.