“Chicken! Chicken! Chicken!” Eddy Burkes
screamed at me.
“You’re a Chicken, you always was a
Chicken! You always will be a Chicken! When something big happens around here
you’ll never be in on it!
Eddy continued his barrage of insults at
me as he and Billy Martin and Timmy Allison picked up speed riding toward the
park. Elroy smith just rode around in circles listening and looking at Eddy,
then at me.
As I watched them, Elroy stopped; he
looked over at me, then turned his head towards Eddy as if waiting for me to
come. I didn’t move; Elroy seemed frozen waiting for me to do anything. I stood
still just eyeing Eddy.
“Well! Well! Well! We have us another
Chicken! No, two yellow Chickens. Boy the Chickens are showing themselves now.
Chickens! Chickens! Chickens!” Eddy screamed at us enjoying every second of it,
for he laughed and laughed.
Finally,
I couldn’t stand Eddy’s insults anymore, and Eddy could easily take me in a
fight, but I screamed back at him with, “Eddy you’re stupid! That’s why you
flunked the fourth-grade!”
But Eddy kept pedaling even harder.
Elroy pedaled closer to me and asked,
“D-Do you think they will really go down there?”
As I watched Eddy and the others turn onto
Maple Avenue, I answered more to myself than to Elroy, “Oh, he’ll go down
there, he has to now. If he doesn’t, well you know, everybody will find out
that he chickened out too.”
“The policeman said to stay out of there.
They say a crazy man lives down there,” Elroy stated.
“My dad said a ghost lives there. He was
just trying to scare me so I'd stay out,” I added. “They don’t even know what
happens down there.”
As I looked towards Eddy and heard him
still screaming, a cool breeze signaling that fall was already here blew back
my hair. A cool breeze that mixed with fresh cut lawns and the sound of
lawn-mowers in the distance, and one that chilled me even in bright sunlight on
a warm day and pushed my hair back over my forehead, already some leaves had
started falling to the ground.
“You’re right. That Eddy’s stupid. Real
stupid; he’ll get Billy and Timmy in big trouble or they’ll vanish like the
rest of them,” Elroy said with more confidence.
“I wonder what happened to all the people
that vanished, you know? Remember when the policeman came to our school? Well
he said to stay out of there. He said that ever since the bridge was built
during that depression people have been missing who go down under it,” Elroy
said as he watched some leaves dance along near the curb.
We could still hear Eddy yelling his
insults calling Elroy and me the biggest chickens in the world. But his voice
started to wane, blending in with the rustle of leaves that the cool breeze
made when catching them. Soon we couldn’t hear him.
“Wanta ride over to the park and watch
what happens?”
“Yeah---but I’m not going near that path
that goes under that bridge,” Elroy said.
Once at the park, we made it to the north
end and parked.
The entire area, more than two acres,
around the bottom of the bridge had a high fence surrounding it in order to
keep kids outs, mainly. And “No Trespassing” signs large and easy to see were
plastered all over the fence.
At the beginning of a path that led down
under the bridge from the park, a service gate very tall with swirled iron bars
locked and secured and heavily shaded by old oak trees, stood still like a
centurion ready to stop all who approached easily. And a “City Works” sign on
one of the swing gates, and a “No trespassing” sign on the other, studied us if
we got too close.
However, some said the fence was to keep
something in. I heard some older boys say that once when mom took me to the
park about six years earlier.
“Do you see them?” Elroy asked.
“Nope.”
“I wonder where they are?”
“They must be headed near the fence.”
“I bet they locked their bikes to that
iron post by the gate, I bet they are,” Elroy uttered.
We slowly rode between two teams playing
baseball, and we looked around to see if any sight of Eddy or the two others
might appear. Nothing, no Eddy, no Billy, and no Timmy. The pitcher on one team
screamed something; we stopped. But he was hollering at an out-fielder.
Just as Elroy had expected, their bikes
were locked to the iron post but no sight of them.
The service gate beyond the post was
closed, but we knew that Eddy, Billy and Timmy could climb over or craw under
the fence unseen behind some trees or shrubs at certain points. The only
problem, a policeman or city-worker might see them, and it was known that if
one of us kids got caught, he would be taken in and arrested. That had been
said over and over again by our parents, teachers, and the policemen who
visited our school. Do not go down under the Sixth Avenue Bridge!
We parked near a pavilion and sat on a
picnic-table inside shaded from the sun and near a family enjoying themselves.
However, the older daughter glared at her younger brother who must have
irritated her somehow without his parents seeing. He stood proudly looking back
at her with an accomplished look about him.
“They got in!” Elroy said louder than
usual.
“I bet they did,” I answered.
“Man, they-are-in-big-trouble. Really big
trouble. You know the police watch. Hell, they are the ones that you have to
look out for!”
“They’ll wind up in juvenal court for
this one,” I added.
“I bet they’ll have to go to one of those
parole officers and stuff like that,” Elroy excitably said.
Although we were at least half a football
field away from the iron gate, I felt the cool dampness radiate out from the
thick woodland behind it, and the scent of spruce, oak and evergreen mixing
with the dampness danced towards us uninhibited by bright sunlight.
“Let’s get outa here. I don’t want nobody
thinking we were with them,” Elroy finally said.
Elroy was right: If the cops got them and
saw us they might just as well take us along; the traffic cops have seen all of
us riding around together at times.
We left the park the same way we entered.
One baseball team must have lost, for some players were flinging their bats and
kicking at the earth. We avoided them for they were a few years older and might
think we were laughing at them just because they lost.
“Want to wait for them at my house and
have supper,” I asked.
“No, I-I better be getin’ home. Dad gets
mad if I’m late for supper, you know. He’ll be getting home soon, and you know
mom made supper for me, I’m sure, but I‘ll be over later,” Elroy said.
Elroy rode off slowly and glanced at the
park once or twice.
I stayed near the park for another ten to
fifteen-minutes watching every kid riding a bike, walking, playing or just
hanging around, but not one was Eddy, Billy or Timmy.
Finally, after not seeing them and not
wanting to go near the iron post to look further, I started for home, but
couldn’t stop looking back at the park until it disappeared after I turned down
an alley.
The smell of fried chicken came from our
kitchen; Mom had supper ready, and for once I was on time.
“Is everything Ok Honey?” she asked after
studying me for a moment.
I hesitated briefly trying to think of
how to tell her about Eddy and also how to keep out of trouble, for she didn’t
like Eddy and didn’t want me playing with him.
“George, what’s wrong?” again she asked
but more sterner.
“Nothing much. I had a fight with Eddy.
He rode up to me and Elroy and said that he was going to sneak down under the
bridge to see what’s down there. And if I didn’t go, he would tell everybody
that I chickened out. I told him he was stupid. Elroy didn’t go either.”
“That’s good that you didn’t go. Eddy
knows to stay out of there. He’s been told at school, I’m sure about that.
“I’m glad that you used good sense, and
I’m glad that Elroy also used good judgment. I always liked Elroy. See I told
you about Eddy. He’ll get you in trouble,” mom said.
Mom turned and walked over to the sink.
She paused thinking for a second then said, “Eddy said that he was going down
under the Sixth Avenue Bridge next to the park?”
“Yeah,” I answered as I grabbed a piece
of chicken.
“I’m going to call Eddy’s mother!”
Alarmed at my mom going to call, I
started to say, “They probably...” but stopped after I remembered their bikes
locked to the iron post.
Sweat formed at once on my forehead for
the heat from mom’s cooking still lingered with the smell of batter made from
eggs and flour. I sweated more and had to wipe off my forehead with my shirt as
mom walked into the living room to call.
She called. And I heard her on the phone
with Eddy’s mom who must have gotten very angry for I heard my mom say, “Yes, I
know how it is. Yes, it’s like talking to a wall sometimes.”
After hanging up the phone, she came back
into the kitchen and asked, “Who else went with Eddy?”
I told her. And again she went to the
phone and called Billy and Timmy’s mothers.
Just then, dad came home and kissed mom
while she was still on the phone.
After hanging up the phone, mom quickly
told dad about the episode, but said that I did the right thing and wasn’t in
any trouble. I hoped dad saw it that way!
“Good boy!” dad said as he patted me on the shoulder then began
eating his supper. Dad’s right guard sliced through the aroma of chicken, and
seemed to cool off the kitchen somewhat, for I stopped sweating and felt much
cooler now.
He started telling mom about a truck that
ran over a curb and crashed into another truck, but mom’s eyes told us that she
was very worried about Eddy and the two other boys.
“Don’t worry Honey, “dad said. “They’ll
just taunt each other and when the first kid runs outa there, the others will
follow. Believe me I know these things.
“I’ll bet this Eddy was bragging about
how tough he is,” dad said as he looked at me.
“Y-Yes he al-always tries to showoff.”
“See, that’s all it is. He knows one of
the other kids’ll get scared first,” dad added.
A real fear settled over me. Dad was
wrong. I knew it. And I couldn’t keep quiet about following Eddy, Billy and
Timmy to the park and looking at their bikes locked to the iron post.
“I rode over to the park with Elroy-a-and
their bikes were locked to that iron post by the gate. I d-didn’t go near the
gate; I looked over at it from the ball-field. W-We stayed away from it,” I
said very nervously.
“Why didn’t you tell me
this!” mom asked swiftly.
“I
don’t know---you called Eddy’s mom so fast---I g-guess I forgot!”
Dad still eating his supper said, “That’s
Ok, you didn’t go with them. But you should have told mom about following them
sooner.”
But dad wasn’t angry for he started on
another piece of chicken and devoured it in no time.
“George, I want you to stay in the yard
until I hear from Eddy’s mother,” mom said.
“That’s a good idea. We don’t want you
involved. They’ll probably get caught. Cops patrol down there along the city
service road and they arrest all trespassers,” dad said while devouring a
chicken leg.
But mom had a real worried look in her
eye; she finally gave me a hug and said, “George, believe me, I’m very proud of
you for listening to me and your dad.”
Pete came over and we played basketball
in the driveway.
I told him about Eddy going down under
the bridge but didn’t say much more, especially that my mom called Eddy’s.
“Good, when he gets caught he’ll have to
say in forever,” is all that Pete said about Eddy.
Elroy never came over and I decided not
to call him.
We played basketball for a while then
oiled and polished our bikes, and when Star Trek came on we raced
to the television.
After Pete left, I fell asleep on the
couch, but mom got me up, told me to take a bath then go to bed.
Much later that night, I’m still not sure what time it was, mom
frantically shook my arm as I slept.
I woke up. She whispered at first but her
voice rose as she said, “There’re two policeman downstairs. Eddy, Billy, and
Timmy are missing and their parents are frantic! They want to talk to you!”
With the mention of policeman, sleep vanished and I stood up wide awake
and scared.
“Wash your face off and comb your hair
then come downstairs,” mom ordered.
I heard her tell someone that I’ll be
right down, and a strange voice answered, “Thank you Mrs. Williams.”
The bathroom window was open and the cool
night air entered waking me up even more now as I did what mom told me.
After I started downstairs, I slowed as
soon as I saw the two policemen, one in uniform and the other in a suit,
waiting for me inside the front door.
I stopped in front of them and felt the
fresh night air again that entered with the two officers and an odor of leather
faint but present struck me as one of the officer said, “George, we’d like to
ask you some questions about Eddy and Billy and Timmy. You know them don’t
you?”
“Y-Yes”, I answered.
“Where did you last see them?”
“By Elm and Maple---Sir,” I answered.
“Where were you and the three boys just
before that time?”
“They were riding around behind Gianto’s
Market,” I answered.
“Me a-and my friend Elroy w-were in
f-front. We weren’t with them, Sir,” I quickly added.
“How did you all meet on Elm street,” the
detective asked.
“Me and Elroy then rode down Elm and then
Eddy, Billy and Timmy passed us and waited for us near that large house on the
corner,” I said.
“Did you see anybody following you?”
“No.”
“Were there any strangers just standing
or sitting in a car that you noticed anywhere?”
“No, just the regular people,” I said.
“What do you mean by the regular people?”
“You know, the people that live in the
houses there and the ones that wash their cars all the time,” I answered.
“What happened next?”
“Eddy said that he was going to go down under
the bridge and if I didn’t go he would say we were chickens. I said he was
stupid. He is you know. He fluked the fourth grade. Right, mom?” I said looking
at my mother.
“Have any men stared at you or looked at
you in a funny sort of way or just smiled as you passed by?”
“Sometimes Mr. Gianto stares at us when
we ride in his parking lot and a bus driver stared at us for a long time once
when we rode next to his bus....”
“George,” mom exploded, “I told
you to stay out of traffic!”
“S-Sorry mom
but we didn’t see the bus at first.” I returned quickly.
“Who else?” the detective further asked.
“T-The policeman directing traffic
a-always w-watches us r-really c-close all the time and sometimes w-when we
ride on the sidewalk---h-he stares at us.” I answered.
The uniformed officer smiled somewhat at
my remark and the detective just raised his eyebrow glancing at my mom and dad
for a moment.
I answered many more questions, and for
the next fifteen to twenty minutes the detective asked me so many questions
that I started forgetting the ones he asked me at first.
“George,” the detective finally said,
“you did the right thing by telling your mother, and also the right thing by
not going with them. Rest easy son, you ’re in no trouble.”
Mom told me to go back to bed, but I listened at the top of the
stairs and heard the detective say: “We talked to Elroy Smith, I know his dad
Tony, and Elroy says pretty much the same thing George just said.”
The officers thanked my mom and dad and said
something that I couldn‘t clearly hear because the officers were now out on the
front porch.
After the two officers left, mom came
upstairs and talked with me.
“You told the detective everything,
didn’t you Honey?” mom asked.
“Yes----everything that I know--honest
mom, I did!” I answered.
“Honey, I believe you, I do. Your dad and
me are proud that you obeyed us by not going near that place, and proud that
you told the detective everything like a young man should.”
As she held me, a tear started running
down her cheek, and as she held me tighter the longer it ran, until she finally
said, “Thank God you didn’t go.”
She stayed with me a little longer but
didn’t say much, then, after kissing me goodnight on the forehead and tucking
me in and making sure the window was locked, she slowly walked over to the
door.
She left the door open, turned on the
hall light and must have did something else, for she didn’t go downstairs for
about three minutes.
I fell asleep again, but Eddy’s image now
implanted itself into my memory as if Leonardo De Vinci and Michelangelo had
grabbed my soul and used their combined talents insuring that Eddy’s face would
be with me forever, indisputably a perfect
sculpture of him---as he looked the last moment that I ever saw him!
Mom woke me up early. She wanted me to go
with her to the park because she volunteered her services the best she could
with the search taking place.
At the park, diesel fumes from a
fire-truck engulfed me as it passed, and I coughed until the air cleared. But
before long the truck started to back up, unsure where to park probably, but
this time I ran over to Mom who was standing near a police car parked at the
curb talking to the same uniformed officer that came last night. The fumes
missed me this time.
Fireman, city workers and an entourage of
volunteers, included dad for it was Saturday, oozed through-out the entire area
under the bridge and the surrounding areas.
Furthermore, the surrounding sections
were wooded and had expensive homes with large lawns, but the homes were spaced
apart following some guideline set down in a building code. Tickets and small
forests islands often separated these homes.
Search parties working all night were so
close to one another that they looked more like a crowd that leaves after a NFL
football game has ended.
Elroy’s dad directed some fireman, for he
was a lieutenant in the fire department.
He came over to my mom who was hugging
Eddy’s mom, and with Billy and Timmy’s parents present, he said very kindly
with a deep voice that transmitted confidence and authority: “We have almost
five hundred people down there. That’s around one person per five hundred
square feet! We’ll miss nothing! Everything possible will be done to find you
boys!”
Eddy’s mom thanked him and she seemed to
feel better after Elroy’s dad reassured her about the city’s commitment to find
the boys.
I was standing about fifty-feet away
watching a city fire and ambulance crew take something out of the ambulance,
when the aroma of strong coffee made me turn around.
Elroy’s dad stood next to me holding a
coffee in his hand. After looking at me for a few seconds, he finally
said, “Thank you George for keeping my
Elroy out of trouble. My Elroy is a good boy, but he’s no leader. I know that
and his mom knows that. But you George are a leader. Thank God that you and my
Elroy are friends.”
For three days search parties combed, but
nothing turned up. Eddy, Billy and Timmy’s bikes locked to the iron post was
the only evidence the police found relating to the boys.
I knew that mom didn’t like Eddy, but she
cried with Eddy’s mother that day in the park.
After three days the search was called
off, but volunteers continued to look.
Eddy, Billy and Timmy vanished. Nothing!
As fall settled in leaves fell off the
trees and made the area under the bridge more barren, as seen from the sidewalk
above on the Sixth Avenue Bridge.
A few volunteers continued to look but
after three weeks, the city once again locked the gate and reposted and posted
new “No Trespassing” signs, more now than ever before. And the city placed
wire-mesh over the fence making it look more like a wall now than a fence now.
During the first day of school, all my
friends hung around me at recess asking questions like, “Hey, did you see the space
ship?” or “What did the monster look like?” or, and I hated this question, “Why
didn’t you go with them?”
Finally after a week I refused to talk
about that day with Eddy and that caused a fight or two.
Elroy, bigger than me, didn’t say much about
what happened but he wasn’t hassled.
Finally, interest in Eddy at school
diminished just before Thanksgiving.
When I returned after the Christmas
holidays, only one girl that I knew since the first grade, Susan Kapp, wanted
to talk about what happened. She waited for me outside the school entrance
alone, and, making sure that nobody was in hearing range, she asked, “ George,
you feel Ok don’t you? I mean, you and Elroy have been a little quieter or
something. Do you know what I mean?
“I want you to know that I think you did
the right thing, really you guys did. You guys didn’t do anything wrong, you
know.”
A light covering of snow caused salt to
be put down on sidewalks, I noticed as the winter air hit my forehead cooling
off the sweat that formed quickly as Susan talked to me about last summer.
The air chilled me a little but also
sharpened my senses, and a moment or two after she finishing I said, “Yeah, but
I didn’t chicken out! I wasn’t afraid of that place! You see it was more
like...” I started to say.
“George I know that you didn’t chicken
out! That’s nothing to do with it! Why do all you guys including my brother
always try to act so tough! Really, it’s so stupid you know!
“I can do this--or I dare you to do that-or you’re afraid of
this---all the time showing off to prove how tough you guys are!” Susan
blasted at me.
“No! No! No! You see it wasn’t like that.
I don’t know, it was different. Some strange thing like being lost yet knowing
where you are, or like standing at the movie counter and feeling eyes on you
and you turn around and there’s one of those creepy kids looking at you with a
smile, but nobody is really there. I can’t explain it and Elroy can‘t either.
You’d have had to been there when Eddy rode
away to understand. Just ask Elroy; he’ll tell you the same thing.
Susan moved a little towards the sidewalk
as she listened to me.
She paused a second after I finished,
then said with a much calmer voice, “Walk me home.”
My thoughts were still mixed together
trying to understand how I really felt about Eddy’s disappearance and what led
up to it, and without thinking over what she said I answered, “Ok.”
Her house wasn’t far from school. We
talked on the way home, and I felt much better afterwards.
The remainder of my last grade school
year flew by quickly and the following summer just as fast.
In junior high, I played football with
Elroy, and we both made the team during our first year. Elroy also succeeded in
wrestling winning all-city his first year. I tried out, got on the wrestling
team but didn’t accomplish much more than letter. Elroy became a talented
athlete.
High School finally came and once again I
walked to and from school, for Washington Franklin High was only three blocks
from my house across the Sixth Avenue Bridge and one block down Parkview Way.
Often Susan, Elroy, and Tina, a girl that
Elroy liked, and me would walk home together; we all lived on the other side of
the bridge.
Elroy lived down from the park behind the
transit garage, I lived east of it, Susan lived across the street at the bridge
end one block in on shady lane. And Tina always went home with Elroy, and then
her mom would pick her up after work. I walked Susan to her front door ever day
after Elroy and Tina cut through the park taking a short-cut.
One day as just Elroy and me walked home
together, the girls had to stay for French club, he stopped in the middle of
the bridge and looked down into the hollow that both of us never had ventured
into as kids.
The air was clear and cold and our breath
was frosty as we stared down into the hollow.
The bridge vibrated a little as cars
crossed, and a transit bus laboring to pick up speed after a stop on the other
side of the bridge, belched out black fumes, an odor that I hated now. The
bridge vibrated more with each stroke of its engine, it seemed, until it
crossed over and headed downtown.
Maybe because we were alone, Elroy in a
very unusual display of anger screamed down into the hollow with, “You sick
bastard! If you can hear me hear this! You’re a sick-O! A sick-O! A real sick
son-of-a-bitch------you hear this!”
I stopped. I never heard Elroy bluntly
scream like that before.
He turned to me and said, “Yes! Some
really sick son-of-a-bitch. And you know what’s funny? They could still be
somewhere today and the sick-O is keeping them locked up!”
I never thought much about them still
being alive; then the picture of Eddy formed so vividly in my mind that I
couldn’t see anything else for a moment until I regained my senses in a second
or two.
“Maybe,” I answered. “Maybe they are. I
seen stories about kids abducted by sick-Os and when they get older they
finally run away. Some didn’t even know their last names right.”
“Yeah,” Elroy said. “I seen that movie
too. Man I though that I would never say this--but I hope some sick-O does have
them, alive that is.”
As we looked and talked, a cool breeze
blew slightly pushing my hair back, a breeze that my memory recalled and one
that I haven’t felt in years.
Elroy stepped back from the handrail; he
looked around very carefully and watched an elderly man drive an old car across
the bridge.
The elderly man looked over, but the car
continued towards the intersection where it stopped for a red light. Another
man looked our way, but didn’t appear too interested.
“I
have to get home for supper. You know dad gets mad if I’m late. Hey, catch you
tomorrow,” Elroy said with his usual good spirits.
A few days later as I drove Susan home
from McDonalds, I told her what Elroy did. She looked at me, or studied me then finally said, “George, that happened a
long time ago. Whatever happened to them is really no concern to you or Elroy.
Elroy and you and me have known each other since---what? Kindergarten? But
George you guys have to forget about it. I know you never talk about it, but
George I know sometimes it is on you mind. George, forget it---let it pass. And
tell Elroy the same. He’s almost like a brother to me, you know that. George
we’re graduating soon and it’s time we started thinking like adults.”
I took Susan’s advice the best I could
and did forget sometimes. But I never completely forgot, especially Eddy’s face
chiseled on my memory.
High school passed and before long Susan
and me were in college together, a local university not far from home.
Elroy got a scholarship in wrestling to a
state school, but we kept in touch and hung-out together during breaks.
Summer break after my second year in
college, and before I had time to eat breakfast, Elroy called and said, “My
good ole boy George! How ya doing man! Guess what I got us? Dad got me and you
a union-scale job with the city for twelve weeks. You believe that? We will be
making three times the minimum wage. You hear George---three times!”
I answered with “Elroy are you sure about
that?”
“Hey--you know me! Would I make this up?
Ole buddy if you want it be down at the city garage today at ten.”
We talked some more. I really didn’t want
to work yet, just hang around with Susan, swim, shoot pool, and enjoy myself
for a week or two, but three times the minimum wage!
After Elroy hanged up, the aroma of eggs
and fresh coffee took my attention away for a moment until the thought of
“three times” sunk into my head.
I stopped before lowering my fork as the
“three times” finally won over any plans that I had made for summer.
The city just received a huge grant from
the Federal Government designated for parks and beautification projects.
And the mayor
being interviewed on television pushed his own pet project with, “All trees,
shrubs, and tickets under the Sixth Avenue Bridge will be cleared out. Once
that is completed, landscaping by a local company will insure that that area
remains open and clear. And new and brighter street lights will be placed in
the park and integrated with the landscaping down under the bridge to insure an
open, well lit addition to the park but more importantly: That area then will
be easily watched,” the mayor said on television. His first priority and a good
public relation ploy in which city council would have a tough time now going
against him on that issue.
Part of his speech quoted in the paper
referred to Eddy, Billy and Timmy with, “...and never again will a pervert or
pedophile or person twisted in mind be able to stock from a vantage point of
stealth near a park and....”
Mom got me up the next morning, and as
the cool morning air entered my window waking me up, I could tell that mom
wasn’t too comfortable about me working.
I heard about the federal grant money but
not the mayor’s first priority concerning the bridge yet.
As I sat down waiting for my eggs and
bacon, I sipped some coffee. Mom very quiet at first, finally said, “Maybe
they’ll send you to a different park. We have lots of parks. And there are
other sites that need cleaned up. Yes, I just noticed the garbage in that
vacant lot down by the shopping center.”
I didn’t know what she was talking about
and was still thrilled with three times the minimum wage when I mimicked Arnold
Swartzenager’s voice by saying, “Me and Elroy will fight the devil with his own
pitch fork and steal his golden fiddle for three times the minimum wage.”
“George---that’s not funny! ------You
know what happened there!”
I froze not understanding her apparent
concern, but I finally figured out that the hollow under the bridge must also
be in the beautification budget.
I answered in another way that really
didn’t calm her down with “Well, it’s about time the city did something with
that place.”
I could tell she was nervous and finally
said, “You’re right. There are plenty of other places they can send me.”
“George, Eddy’s mother has been sick all
these years since Eddy disappeared. Please George, try to get somewhere safe!”
mom pleaded.
Elroy and I would be working together
because all the college age boys and some of the girls hired for the summer
were assigned to the hollow which runs under the Sixth Avenue Bridge.
The city instructed us on how to pick up
garbage, glass, tin cans, old tires and used appliance that were tossed aside,
and lectured us on drug paraphernalia and what to do if we found any. Then they
gave us rubber gloves, safety goggles, trash bags, and inspected us to see if
we had the correct steel toed-shoes, pants and shirts on. Before we could
start, we had to purchase our own work-shoes, pants and shirts.
The city started clearing next to the
parkway which ran north and south, and we worked east down the hollow that was
starting to form when approaching the Sixth Avenue Bridge from our
direction.
A logging company had already started
cutting down trees ahead of us, for we could hear chainsaws winding themselves
up before making a cut.
Three bulldozer each with its diesel
engine sending out blue-black smoke as its blade began biting into earth or
rock or muck mixed with litter that seemed to align each side of the small
creek running into the hollow, filled the air with engine roar.
Already much of the area was cleared of
shrubs and small trees, and that’s where we began by picking up litter and junk
on the hillsides, or pushing what we could down to the flat where the
bulldozers could get it.
The smell of fresh cut timber carried by
a constant summer breeze often turned to an burnt oily smell from the
bulldozers work up ahead.
The work wasn’t too hard and we had fun
throwing old rags or plastic bottles at one another sometimes.
“Look at that thing!” Elroy said.
“I think it’s used to drag out logs.
Yeah, see the wrench on the front?” I answered.
“Man, they are serious about this. Did
you ever see so many men working like this before?”
“Nope, it looks like a movie in a way.
Almost like we’re building the panama canal,” I answered jokingly.
We worked our way closer to the bridge,
and two weeks later we were at the fence that surrounded the area under the
bridge, and the hollow became deeper with its sides now inclined up rather
steeply. And as we worked into the hollow, deeper with each hour, dampness
permeated mixing with the smell of cut wood and uprooted shrubs that were left
for the clean-up crews still behind us.
The fence had been torn down last week,
and we now worked ourselves into the forbidden zone---as we always called the
area under the bridge---and trees became much thicker with the sounds of
chainsaws all around us echoing and reverberating up and down the hollow.
On the level flat in the hollow’s basin,
about half the shrubs and trees already had been cut, but the steep hillsides
thick with trees and growth were yet untouched.
“It’s stale down here,” Elroy said when
we were directly under the Sixth Avenue Bridge which hid the sun.
“And damp.” I added.
“Damp and stale and dirty with bugs
and-----Hey-- look at the size of that rat!” Elroy screamed.
“That’s not a rat, that’s a possum,” I
said after looking at the rodent for a moment.
“Man--are you sure!”
“Yeah, look how stupid it walks. And
slow. No rat moves like that,” I answered.
We watched the possum hobble up the
hillside and disappear under some undergrowth.
“I bet all the noise woke him up,” Elroy
laughed.
“Probably did,” I answered. “I don’t know
if they just come out a night or not.”
We worked all day under the bridge
picking up junk or discarded tires; I found a coin in an old tobacco pouch
dated more than fifty-years ago.
“I never knew so much stuff’s been tossed
from the bridge down here,” I said.
“Man---this place is a garbage pit!
Really---a garbage pit!” Elroy answered, and he was right. Odors similar to a
garbage site now added their rankness to the smell of fresh cut timber and
diesel fumes.
The next morning after the safety
meeting, our foreman gave Elroy and me a new job assignment: “See that service
road that goes up to the park? Well, I want you guys to pound in these
marker-flags every ten to fifteen feet on both sides. Make sure they are across
from each other. Make sure they can be seen. Space them like those over there.
And roll any rotten logs off the road if you can and tell me if anything is
blocking the road. We’ll be using that it soon.”
We started up the service road and
realized that it was what we always called the path leading down under the
bridge.
Elroy took the left side and I pounded the
markers in on the right.
Pounding in the marker-flags went fast.
And before long, we were almost up to the iron gate that separated us from the
park.
“Hey---let’s take a break here,” Elroy
suggested.
“Sounds good to me,” I answered.
We both sat down on a log that was about
ten feet off the road and relaxed and rested since the road became steeper near
the top.
Chainsaws buzzing below us and diesels
powering up filled the air, and an occasional shout from a logger told us that
they were working up this side of the hollow now.
The breeze blew from the park side and
kept the odor of diesel fuel and the rankness from below the bridge from us.
The sweet smells of wild flowers and sap, and maple trees settled over us as we
sat enjoying our break.
“Just think man,” Elroy said. “Pete, Joe
and Mike are making minimum wage bagging groceries over at the shopping center.
And you know they are busy all the time.
Boy would I like
to see their faces if they could see us doing nothing now and making three
times the money they are!”
“Yeah,” I said, and could imagine them
bagging groceries.
“Susan’s working for Giantos. You know
he’s not so mean, really,” I said,
“He must have changed then. He came out pointing his finger at me once
for just riding my bicycle around his parking lot,” Elroy said.
“He probably was worried about
insurance,” I answered.
“Yeah, come to think of it that probably
was the case,” Elroy answered back.
“Tell your dad thanks again for getting
me hired with the city.”
“Hell man, you know dad thinks of you
like one of his! His passed over a lot of others just to get you! He said he
knew that you wouldn’t make him look bad!”
We sat and talked for a while laughing at
another college kid who worked with us the other day and fell into the creek
while trying to pick up an old tire.
The kid had no coordination. He couldn’t
ever pick up litter right with his poker. And when a black snake looked up a
him, he fell over backwards and got muck all over himself.
As we continued to talk, I felt a cool
breeze touch my face pushing my hair back over my forehead. Although the breeze
was cool, sweat started forming on my face and especially my forehead.
Elroy stopped talking; he must have felt
the same breeze, a breeze that bubbled up memories.
The forest seemed darker yet the sun
still burned brightly. Each tree grew, it seemed, but no movement could be detected,
and yet their branches reached out for us and turned in our direction as we
sat, but nothing had really changed. And the air turned stale, eliminating all
sweet smells that helped us relax.
Elroy tightened up, bent forward a
little, and assumed a defensive posture as if he were about to be challenged in
a wrestling match.
Now the sounds of chainsaws and diesels sang together. They seemed
farther and lower in pitch than just a second ago, and carried themselves with
the cool breeze that surrounded us.
I looked around, but the cool breeze kept
striking my forehead from every direction with equal force!
Finally, Elroy jumped up and said, “Let’s
get up to the park.”
He started up the path but stopped about
ten feet ahead of me.
I got up slowly for it seemed that I was
heavier than before, then started up the path, but Elroy didn’t move until I
was ahead of him.
The cool breeze continued to strike my
forehead, but now as we climbed, laughter or the combination of sounds from the
chainsaws and diesels and echoes mixing together to produce a sound similar to
laughter, was pushed towards us by the cool breeze as we lumbered up the steep
path.
We rounded the last bend and the path
became level and straight and the iron gate stood ahead of us only thirty-yards
or so.
Beyond the gate, which was unlocked and
wide open, the park was bright with kids chasing one another and mothers
holding their babies talking or strolling or playing
patty-cake with
their three or four-year olds.
Eddy’s face came to me again. Every
detail about him during the last day I saw him became even more clearer now as
the cool breeze continued its message, a message, I’m sure, but one that I
didn’t understand!
We both stopped. Aligning each side of
the path starting at the iron gate were twenty-one stones, about ten-inches
high resembling three-sided pyramids and spaced evenly apart. Not fieldstones,
but some volcano type formed by extreme heat. Yet, each stone was similar to
the others as if it had been chiseled by a stone mason or molded artificially
by an industrial process.
When the image of Eddy finally ebbed back
into the caverns of my mind, I realized that my eyes had been focused on the
last stone that aligned the path.
Elroy was looking at it too. We both
heard laughter ring in the trees and surroundings and knew that we were the
center of it!
“Man----don’t touch it!” Elroy
screamed as if he already knew what lurked under the last stone.
“I have to,” I answered more to myself
than to him.
Again, with more confidence than before, and
with will power forcing me, showing me, coaching me or directing me, I said
with much determination: “We-have-to-look-under-those-stones!”
I didn’t know if Elroy was still there
or not. All colors gyrated into black and white as if I just flipped the
channel to an old television movie; void of color yet filled with images,
images that were distance but close, strange but familiar, unfocused, but now
focusing as if a hand were adjusting the screen by turning the brightness knob,
then the contrast knob, then the brightness knob again until the picture became
clearer and sharper!
I walked over to the last stone. Elroy,
I’m sure, stayed on the path and sweated more with each step I took
until I stood
next to it.
I stooped down, grabbed the stone with
both hands and looked at it, but paused momentarily as I saw a picture of
myself of years ago!
I was riding bicycles with Elroy, and
playing in the park, and walking with my mom, and laughing with my dad, and
wrestling with one of Elroy’s older brothers, and waving to Elroy’s dad as he
passed by in his fire-truck, and watching Susan play hopscotch, and yelling at
Billy, “You’re it!” as he chased Timmy trying to tag him, and watching Eddy
practice throwing a pocket knife into the ground, again and again, and hearing
Elroy tell a teacher that he wanted to an astronaut, then added “Maybe” a few
seconds later, and seeing Eddy’s face for the last time, then I pushed the
stone over and it went thud landing on its side resting motionlessly as its underside
stared up a me!
Elroy screamed. I stepped back almost
tripping over another stone, but caught myself before I fell.
Elroy’s face froze; his eyes fixed to the
bottom of the stone, and my eyes also glued to a sight that I knew for years!
Eddy’s face was engraved or molded or honed or inlaid on the bottom of
that stone! A perfect image of him as I remembered him on the last day that I
ever saw him!
In horror Elroy said, “I’m getting
outa here! No--that can’t be so---l-l-look at it! It’s-it’s Eddy!”
Elroy ran out to the park, but I stayed.
The cool breeze vanished and the forest became silent again with the sounds of
chainsaws and diesel engines down in the hollow. And the smells of wild flowers
and oak trees and maple pushed out any staleness that lingered.
I turned over another stone, the next one
up, and Timmy’s face appeared. The next stone had Billy’s face.
I turned over another stone, and a
strange face that I didn’t know showed itself on the underside!
After looking at the stranger’s face that
stared back at me for a moment, I then walked up to the park breathing deeply
and unsure about my footing.
Elroy was waiting for me outside the iron
gate in the sunlight and sweating, but he seemed a little calmer now.
“Was that really a face?” Elroy asked.
“Eddy’s face?”
“Yes,” I answered in a pensive mood.
“And the others?”
“-----Billy and Timmy’s.”
“We have to tell somebody!” Elroy said
quickly.
I looked past the iron gate at the
stones still sitting upright and knew that we must report this. Yet, I didn’t
want to be the person. No, it was too coincidental that the both or us would
find something relating to Eddy, Billy and Timmy after all these years, but we
had no choice.
“Man--we gotta do something---call the foreman!” Elroy said again but
more frantic.
“He---wasn’t here then,” I said fumbling
over my thoughts but starting to think clearly again.
I tossed Elroy my cellphone and said,
“Elroy, you better call your dad!”
Ó 2004 by George T.
Philibin. My name is George T.
Philibin, and I’m employed with a local public utility. I served in Viet-Nam,
attended the University of Pittsburgh, Johnstown campus, worked in coal mines,
steelmills and a dairy once.
I started learning proper
grammar about ten years ago in order to effectively write grievances for our
union members. And I started writing articles in a newsletter, and started
sending letters to senators concerning working people, political issues, and my
opinions on important national matters.
I’m no longer involved with
the union, but to my surprise, I fell in love with writing! It’s fun! Composing words that strike a chord in
someone is really fascinating, and the more I write, the more I’m learning how
to strike better chords!
“Under the Bridge” is my
second attempt at writing a short story.
E-mail Underseeboot@aol.com