Snapper (6 page)

“Just keep moving,” said Ted, “Keep your hands on the railing. When you reach the bottom, move aside and make room for the others.”

Groping in the dark, JJ bumped into a teammate. He startled to tumble. He put out his foot to stop his fall. But his foot didn’t come down onto the flat concrete floor that he expected. It landed on something hard, curved, and slippery – like a wet rock.

Ted Tanner didn’t have to see the string dangling from the overhead light bulb to find it. He reached up into the blackness, grabbed the string, and pulled.

The sudden glare blinded the boys. They reached up to cover their eyes. They squeezed their eyelids shut, trying to squint away the pear-shaped image branded onto their retinas. It took almost a minute before they were able to look around and see where they were.

Now JJ understood why Ken Lubowsky had told him to wear work boots – “with steel toes if you’ve got ’em.”

The basement floor of Ted Tanner’s Pet and Turtle Shop was crawling with hundreds of snapping turtles.

“It’s just like when you go to Max’s Sea Shanty,” said Ted, looking around at the boys who stood frozen as the turtles climbed over their boots and rubbed against their ankles.

“You know how they got that big tank up front – the one where you get to pick out your own lobster?”

The boys all nodded, even those who’d never been to Max’s.

“It’s the same deal here,” said Ted. “You get to pick out the turtle you want. Only difference is, here you gotta grab it and kill it yourself. Makes him yours, if you know what I mean.”

This was more than JJ had bargained for when Ken Lubowsky, the Snapper’s starting halfback, had told him that afternoon that there was going to be a secret team meeting for freshmen players at eight-thirty.

“My dad’s gonna wanna know where I’m going,” said JJ.

“Make up some excuse,” Ken had told him. “Tell him you’re going to the library to study.”

“But the library closes at six,” JJ had said.

“Then make something else up,” said Ken. “Tell him anything. Just be there.”

JJ wasn’t used to lying to his dad. It was something he’d never done. Every alibi he came up with seemed false and phony. As evening drew near, JJ began feeling almost sick. Then his dad called up from the bottom of the stairs.

“Hey, JJ! I was thinking about catching a movie at the Rialto tonight. Wanna come?”

JJ thanked God.

“I can’t, Dad,” he called. “Too much homework.”

“Mind if I go?” asked Judd. “You’d be alone for a couple of hours.”

It was perfect. The Rialto was on the other side of the mountain, at least thirty minutes away. There and back would take an hour, plus the length of the movie. JJ would have three hours plus. How long could a team meeting last?

“I’ll be fine,” said JJ. “Have a good time.”

*

“So,” said Savarese, glowering at the boys in Tanner’s basement. “Who’s going to be first?”

No one answered.

“No problem,” said Savarese. “I’ll get the ball rolling.
Mars man
– you’re up first.”

“
Mars man
” was Ricky Marsten, a gawky, six-foot kid who had hoped his height would make him a good target as a pass receiver.

“How am I supposed to grab one,” he asked, “without getting bit?”

“From behind,” said Ted Tanner. “Like this.”

Tanner bent down and plucked a turtle from the writhing mass on the basement floor.

The turtle craned its head and neck. It thrashed with its front paws and snapped violently at the air, but neither its blade-like jaw nor its razor-sharp claws could reach Ted Tanner’s fingers.

“It’s easy,” he said.

As the angry snapper hissed in the glare of the naked bulb, JJ observed something he’d never noticed before: The ring finger of Mr. Tanner’s left hand was missing.

“C’mon, son, show some spunk!” said Mr. Tanner. “We haven’t got all night!”

JJ wasn’t the only player who had noticed Ted Tanner’s missing digit. Ricky Marsten had seen it, too. Mr. Tanner had grabbed the turtle as though there was nothing to it, but the stump on his left hand made Marsten think there definitely had been a learning curve involved.

Marsten thought about his parents. If he lost a finger, eight years of piano lessons would go right down the drain. They wouldn’t be happy.

“I can’t do it,” he said.

“Either you do it,” said Savarese, “or you turn in your uniform tomorrow.”

Marsten knew he was already less than nothing in Savarese’s eyes. He couldn’t redeem himself now. His moment of hesitation had marked him as a coward forever. He knew his football playing days were over. At least he’d still be able to play the piano. And face his parents.

“I’ll drop my stuff off in Lupo’s office tomorrow,” he said.

No one said a word as Marsten clomped back up the basement steps and disappeared through the backdoor.

“All right,” snarled Savarese. “Who’s next?”

During the next hour, two boys followed in Ricky Marsten’s footsteps, three boys received nasty bites that Tanner stitched up without anesthesia, and two dozen snapping turtles were caught and killed.

When JJ’s turn came, he did as the boys before him had done. After grabbing a turtle, he drove tacks through its limbs to pin it on its back. Then he placed the tip of a six-inch nail against the turtle’s hard undercarriage. Then, he lifted a hammer above his head and with one ferocious blow drove the nail through the turtle’s plastron and heart.

When the turtle finally stopped twitching, Tanner gave JJ a long, pointed knife and instructed him on the art of cleaning a turtle. Using the knife’s serrated edge, JJ sawed through the wrinkly, leathery hide and tough, sinewy ligaments that connected the turtle to its carapace and plastron.

Then, using something that looked like an oversized grapefruit spoon, JJ scooped out the turtle’s guts. The slop of bloody innards was sloughed off the edge of the table into a large metal pot.

When the turtles all had been butchered, and each shell tagged with a player’s number, Savarese addressed his teammates.

“Tonight, each of you has made a major step toward becoming a true Snapper. The shell of the turtle you caught, killed, and cleaned, will be baked dry and enameled. It will become your shell, the armor protecting your manhood, in our battles on the gridiron.”

Savarese glowered at the remaining boys. Then, at a nod from Mr. Tanner, Savarese thrust his right hand deep into the crotch of his pants and withdrew a cup.

It wasn’t a store-bought plastic cup like the one he had pulverized in front of JJ’s locker.

It was the kiln-fired shell of a snapper that he had killed in the same ceremony three years earlier. Over the decades, who knew how many snappers had met the same fate?

Ted Tanner. Ted Tanner knew. He was the keeper of the book – a deathlog in which Ted kept a running count of every snapper ever killed.

“Oh, and one last thing,” said Savarese. “We’ll be having our Freshman Team Dinner on Friday. You’re going to love it. Especially if you like homemade turtle soup.”

* * * *

A week passed without a word from the Woods.

Jack and Janet Jensen were getting nervous. Judd had told them he was sure that the Woods were “this close” to making an offer. So what was the problem?

For three straight days the Jensens called Judd. On the third day they demanded he call the Woods. “Look,” said Judd. “It’s best not to appear too needy.”

“We don’t care how it appears,” said Jack. “Just call them and see what’s happening.”

“All right,” said Judd. “I’ll call.”

Rebecca Woods was tying up newspapers when the phone rang. She answered without checking to see who it was.

“Hi, Rebecca. It’s me – Judd Clayton. I just thought I’d touch base.”

Rebecca said nothing for two or three seconds. Judd knew it was a bad sign. Rebecca was clearly couching her reply.

“We liked everything you showed us, Judd,” said Rebecca, “especially the Jensen house. But we’ve decided it’s just not the right fit for us.”

Judd knew it was a lost cause. Still he couldn’t help himself. He kept on selling.

“I know the house is pretty pricey,” he said. “But I think the Jensens’ might be willing to bend a bit.”

“That’s nice, Judd,” said Rebecca, “but it’s not really a matter of price.”

“If it’s not price,” said Judd, “could you tell me what it is? You and Dan both seemed so excited.”

Rebecca kicked herself for taking the call. She should have let it go through to voice mail. This was a conversation she definitely did not want to be having.

“Judd, I don’t know quite how to put it,” said Rebecca. “It’s hard to put a finger on. It’s really more of a feeling than anything else.”

Good salesmen know when to stop selling. Judd knew he’d already gone too far. He stopped himself now.

“Well, I certainly respect your decision, Rebecca,” said Judd. “And if you change your mind, or if I can help you in any way in the future, please don’t hesitate to call.”

Six percent of a million
–
sixty thousand dollars
–
had just slipped through his fingers.

It was bad, but it was far worse for the Jensens’. And he was the messenger.
Oh, well
, thought Judd,
it goes with the territory
.

As Judd dialed the Jensens’, Rebecca Woods finished tying up her newspapers. They were all New York Times and Wall Street Journals – except for the one on top. It was a Turtleback Gazette.

Rebecca glanced down at the headline one last time as she carried the papers out to the recycling bin. Once again Michael Schneiderman had used a Titanic-size font for the headline. Sales surged whenever he did.

MISSING TOE FOUND IN TROUT

In the upper right hand corner of the front page, Michael Schneiderman also had added the paper’s newly-coined slogan:
Stories That Change Lives.

* * * *

Every September, it was the same. Students at Turtleback High added, dropped, or switched classes like crazy. The person next to you one day could be gone forever by the next; you might never get to know them.

The girl sitting next to JJ in Biology disappeared before the teacher even knew her name. For a few days, her desk remained empty.

Then one morning as Mr. Martinetti was diagramming cells on the blackboard, the classroom door swung open and a girl walked in.

Mr. Martinetti turned from the blackboard and waited as she walked toward him. All eyes were on her. She seemed used to it; anyone that pretty would have to be.

Mr. Martinetti was young
–
just a few years out of college. He couldn’t help eyeballing the girl as she handed him her transfer form.

“Welcome to the class,” he said, looking over the form. “Take any desk that’s available.”

JJ’s heart started to race. There were plenty of desks available. JJ’s desk – and the empty desk next to him – was in the front row. His father had told him, “If you really want to learn something, sit in the front.” Most kids headed straight for the back.

A roomful of eyes watched to see where the pretty blonde girl would sit. She looked around the room then walked straight toward the empty desk in the first row.

As she seated herself, JJ smelled the shampoo she had used that morning. He knew it because he used it himself. It was Herbal Essence.

Mr. Martinetti turned back to his cell diagram. His chalk clicked against the blackboard as he drew in tiny specks that represented something he said was “mitochondria.”

The new girl leaned toward JJ and chanted in the softest whisper,
“Hey, ho, twenty-four, haven’t I seen you before?”

Chapter 6

TURTLEBACK LAKE 1928

Turtles can live a long time.

Their sense of time is different from ours. They feel no compulsion to act rashly. They can wait. They’ve got staying power.

Grundel was already in his thirties when Isaac Andersen pissed on his back. Grundel didn’t like it. He had pursued the boy through tangles of branches and underbrush, plowing through them like a tank.

It was dark in the woods but that didn’t matter. Grundel spent huge parts of his life in blackness that was wet and cold. At least here there was the spectral glow of the moon filtering through the crosshatch of leaves and branches above. As he plowed forward, Grundel saw another light: the hot flickering flames of a campfire. That was where Grundel would have his revenge. He would teach the boy a lesson. He was not a child’s urinal. He would take a toe, a finger, a foot or a hand – whatever presented itself. He would have his revenge and that would be that. He simply would snap and sever, then take his booty back to the lake. No one would piss on him again.

In the clearing by the fire, Owen Andersen couldn’t make out why Isaac was so frantic. He had only been gone for two minutes and now he was back, blubbering incoherently.

“Calm down, Isaac,” said Owen. “Just tell me what happened.”