He looked at himself in the mirror, but he didn’t meet his gaze. Instead, he scanned down, down to his yellowing once white high tops and his loose fitting overalls. The overalls were a hand me down in the strictest sense, though he had no brothers to have handed them to him: the dye around the seams darker and the fabric thicker than that at the knees or crotch. The knees had those ironed on patches of denim that do not quite match the pinstripe denim of the original. But he liked the overalls. In the big pockets he could keep an orange plastic dart gun that fired those neon suction cup darts, a couple of baseball cards, the pocket knife he found in his grandfather’s fishing tackle box, and thirty five cents.
His fading gray t-shirt read “All Star Triple Track”, whatever that meant, but the round disc shaped logo with the green and red contrails drifting off to the right, was mostly obscured by the straps and the front flap of the overalls.
“Jesse, where are you?”
His aunt called after him and he could hear her coming up the stairs. He imagined that each footstep made dust shake off of the rafters. He hated spiders and dust, but hiding up here in the attic meant he was less bothered by his aunt or his grandmother, who wouldn’t admit they were afraid of the mildewy attic and instead claimed it was “too hot for a sane person”.
The door creaked open.
“Jesse, you’ve got to go. You need to play with some other boys, I’m worried about you.”
He looked up at his face and smiled, he had a few more baby teeth to lose and had been in the process of losing one not too long ago, which is why there were gaps in his grin now.
“Aunt Mary Lee, I like Halloween. I like the stories of monsters.”
“That is nonsense, Jesse. If your father was here he would straighten you out. It is an evil day that bodes no man well. The Lord Jesus did not come to save your skin from the devil just to have you taunt him. Besides, all you’d do otherwise is eat candy which would rot the few teeth you have in your head.”
Jesse said nothing and slumped his shoulders.
“Now, brush your teeth and I will take you to the church.”
“But… I read that it’s all-hallow’s eve and that isn’t…”
“Hushup, Jesse. Brush your teeth.”
He quickly squeezed out a bit of sparkly blue toothpaste onto his toothbrush and generated copious amounts of sickly sweet foam. It dripped down his chin and he began humming a song he had heard in an old cartoon. It was called “Minnie the Moocher”, he thought and something about it stuck with him. It was on a video cassette he had found at the ARC thrift store and he watched it whenever he could. They didn’t get good television reception so this and the library were his sole sources of media.
Well, that and his grandmother, who listened to talk radio at full volume throughout the day. He would sneak out of the house during nap time and could always tell when she awoke. It made her punishments less severe. Like the time he was grounded for falling asleep during the evening devotion or when his cousin, Joey and he had thrown the little brown pillows on the chairs in the sitting room at each other, while his grandmother continued one of her hour long prayers and his aunt had caught them.
He would sneak out to the shed and read old copies of Consumer Reports from the seventies, with their brown and lack and white illustrations, and imagine his grandfather, shooting down Japanese fighters in the Pacific. As soon as the blare from the radio would echo over the yard, he would scramble to climb back through his window and onto his bed.
His grandmother had forgotten that people under the age of seventy don’t really need a nap in the middle of the day, but there was no reminding her.
“Don’t you sass, me Jesse. ‘Of all the children that I find, the happiest ones are those that mind’.”
She would wake him, every morning without fail, playing and singing a song she had devised on the piano in his room, “Good morning, good morning, good morning to you. Good morning, good morning, we have lots to do. Good morning, good morning, the day is anew. Good morning, good morning, good morning to you.” Her voice warbled like an old record as she did this.
He climbed into his aunt’s car, a tan little Volkswagen Beetle that smelled like old vinyl and dust. It was always dirty, somehow, despite his aunt’s insistence on cleanliness. He leaned his head against the window and saw, for a moment, his own reflection. Then he focused on the rows of pine trees and the fields of wheat and cotton. He imagined being chased by German soldiers after stealing a kiss from a beautiful French girl and in his hand, instead of the rifle he left at her family’s farmhouse, he carried a bottle of wine and a wheel of cheese.
“… so I told the reverend that you would be perfectly willing to help with the collection plate next Sunday… Jesse, have you heard a word I’ve said.”
“Yes mam.”
“Jesse, if you are lying to me, I won’t take you to the library tomorrow.”
“Okay, I’m sorry. I wasn’t listening.”
“Jesse, I swear, I don’t know why you are always day dreaming. Every time I try to have a conversation with you, you seem to drift off into nowhere and I can’t get into that little head of yours.”
They pulled into the white gravel parking lot of the red brick church. Kids had already begun to show up.
“Okay, Jesse, I will be back in two hours to pick you up. Don’t sass Mr Green tonight, and don’t eat too much candy.”
She paused for a second as he got out of the car. Then, just before he shut the door, she spoke:
“Don’t tell your grandma I gave you this.”
She pressed into his hand, a tiny wad.
She smiled as she did this and gave him a tiny hug, as much as she could before she shut the door and drove away, the white dust rising behind the car.
In his hands, she had pressed a twenty dollar bill.
He clambered up the steps and began his usual ritual, as he waited for the session to start. He would wander the hallways and climb up over the door that led to the lost and found where he would look through the boxes of “lost” detritus. He could barely make the climb, having to brace himself against the wall and the aging oak frame of the door, but he always made it up and through the little window above the door, scraping his ribs and leaving read marks all over his sides as he did so.
He didn’t want to go and talk to the other boys. It would be the same thing as it always was. All the girls like Sarah and Michelle would be interested in what Jon Marshall’s week had been like and if he had scored any goals for his soccer team and what movies he had seen. He and his friend, Mark, would talk about the latest music videos or a new video game they had just acquired and the girls would fawn over him and talk about his cute haircut and how cool his dad was for letting them order pizza.
It would make Jesse feel red in the face and he could imagine them all looking at him. He didn’t want to be jealous, but he wished that they would pay attention to him.
None of the other kids cared about what new books Jesse had just read or what Jesse dreamed about or how Jesse was modifying his jeans to have a secret pocket on the inside. They laughed at him when he showed them the cool red watch he got at the thrift store, with it’s checkered background and the big sweeping red hands.
“Jesse, you little baby, that’s a girls watch.”
“Yeah, Jesse, I’d want that watch if I wanted to put a stupid girls watch on and go to a tea party.”
It wasn’t worth it and it made Jesse feel sad. Sad that he didn’t have nice things and that he didn’t have many friends.
Tonight was “Hallelujah Night” or the night they pretended Halloween didn’t exist and instead shouted out bible verses for crappy candy or cheap plastic toys. The parachute men that didn’t survive more than a few falls. The plastic tops with the cardboard discs on top that had swirly patterns that were supposed to hypnotize you or something. Tiny wax bottles filled with sugary water in yellow and orange colors that were more fun to chew on than drink. You had to listen to them go on about Jesus and god and all of this other stuff that Jesse thought was silly and boring.
He found a red pen and a single, black and white batter’s glove in the lost and found box that just fit his hand. He put it on and flexed his fist. He didn’t like baseball, or he thought he didn’t. Every time he tried to play, he was the last boy picked and then just ended up in the outfield. But he didn’t terribly mind. It seemed sort of silly. Beating someone at something. What did it prove? Was it fun? It didn’t seem fun. He had more fun looking at the bats and the gloves and seeing how the leather was stitched and woven together. But the game itself… he’d rather be building a fort in the woods.
He left the glove on and climbed out of the room where the lost and found box was and made his way to the basement.
The basement was yellowish orange pine paneling and an overhead projector, dented brown metal folding chairs in rows. Mr Green had a white and brown plaid shirt on and his large cowboy belt buckle. His flattop and that silly looking little mustache and his red face and over energetic demeanor made it seem to Jesse like he was always trying to hard. Like he was forcing himself to be excited about everything.
“Hey hey, kids, who’s excited about Jesus!”
The kids left their alcoves in the back of the room or turned around and the chit chat died down.
Jesse noticed that Jon’s older brother, Rick was hanging out in the back and remained there. While Jon seemed cool to Jesse, Rick was at least nice to him, even offering him cigarettes that he hid in his army surplus jacket. He rode a dirt bike and rumor had it that he had been expelled from his school for shooting the principal with a pellet gun.
Rick noticed Jesse looking at him and smiled slightly, before pushing his hands further into the pockets of his jacket.
“Let’s sing some songs, how bout it?”
They opened their hymnals and sang the same songs they always did. The Old Rugged Cross. Amazing Grace. Jesse only pretended to sing along, standing near the back of the room.
When it was done, Jesse sat down and noticed Jon looking at him, with a puzzled look on his face. Jon tapped another boy on the shoulder and they both laughed at Jesse quietly from the front rows.
“All right, kids, I know it’s Hallelujah Night and we’ve got bags of candy for everyone, but tonight we are going to do something a little different.”
Mr Green smiled enough to show all of his bright white teeth.
“Put the lights down, Judy.”
Mr Green cleared his throat and spooky music began to play from the old sound system. It crackled and popped from the speakers that stood on the edge of the low stage, their once dark gray foam covers now tinged with brown.
The music was spooky and dismal, like something from an old silent film, all organ… it made Jesse think of his tape.
“The devil would have you believe that tonight is a night for foolishness. It’s a clever game, because the world wants you to take delight in the candy and the movies that it flaunts. We are here tonight to celebrate something else, we are here to celebrate Jesus. Jesus wants to save all of those boys and girls, all of your friends at school, all of the people you just see at the store. He wants all of them and you, to go to heaven. But, the devil is strong and he will taunt you. He will tempt you to disobey your parents, to fight with kids in your school, to be mean and worldly… he wants you to go to hell, so he can win his war against Jesus! But tonight… tonight we are going to see that you are well prepared.”
Jesse had begun to tune out Mr Green, instead thinking of how he would spend his Saturday. If his aunt would drive him to the library, he could get a new stack of books, and maybe he could even start building his fort. He knew there were good boards behind the old shed, he had always been afraid of spiders and snakes living under the boards. It hadn’t helped that the last church lock-in that his aunt made him attend, involved watching all of the Indiana Jones films and that scene in “Temple of Doom” where Indy had to put his hands through that narrow brick tunnel, filled with millipedes and tarantulas and all sorts of disgusting insects, always stuck in his mind as he thought of pulling the boards he wanted out.
“Fifty dollars!”
Jesse was startled and looked up.
“That’s right, boys and girls, if you have listened to anything I’ve said to you, you will remember the apostle Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus. He says ‘put on the armor of God’ and the armor of God is his word. So tonight, as a special Hallelujah Night treat, we are going to have a bible verse contest. Raise your hand if you want to compete. Then I come up with bible verses and whoever raises their hand first and answers correctly, will get a point. I will ask you ten verses and when I’m done, the winner gets fifty whole dollars and, this is the best part, a half pound chocolate bar. Now… who wants to try their armor out?”
Jesse felt odd. He’d never bothered to memorize the verses, but he never had much pocket money. He didn’t know why his aunt had pressed the twenty dollar bill into his hand, but it sure would be nice to come home with more. The chocolate was less appealing. He didn’t really like chocolate, especially if it didn’t have nuts in it. But he and five other kids raised their hands.
“Alright, the first verse is… Romans 3:23, an easy one!”
Hands shot up.
The first two girls got it wrong, and Jesse vaguely remembered the verse.
His hand went up automatically.
“For all have sinned and come short of the glory of god.”
“By gum, Jesse, you are on the board!”
The kids shuffled and mumbled amongst themselves.
“Okay, Romans 6:23!”
Jesse didn’t know why, but his hand shot up again and the words just came to him.
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
“Jesse, you are right again!”
Jesse’s arm kept shooting up, and the black and white batter’s glove kept getting more points.
“Well, kids… I don’t know what to say, but Jesse here knew every verse I had and he has won the prize. Come up here Jesse!”
A few kids clapped as Jesse squeezed past knees and walked up the two steps to the top of the stage. He wasn’t sure if it was the foot steps or his heart that was so loud in his ears, but he shook Mr Green’s sweaty hand and accepted the fifty dollar bill and the large bar of chocolate. A few people clapped in the darkened room.
He felt light headed as he made his way back to the back of the room.
Mr Green continued.
“All right kids, now it’s time to break up into small groups and play some Hallelujah Night games! We’ve got bible twister, bobbing for verses, and all sorts of other games setup in the dinning hall.”
Jesse leaned back against the wall, in the relative darkness and felt the label on the giant Hershey bar.
Rick walked over to him.
“Hey, let’s get out of here. I want to show you something.”
Rick was the first person, aside from Mr Green to speak to Jesse face to face all night. Rick seemed to be the kind of guy who the adults didn’t like and only put up with because his father was a deacon in the church.
Jesse felt compelled though, by Rick… his long hair and his beat up sneakers. His weird army surplus jacket and the rumors surrounding him. Jesse also felt intimidated, as if he was not cool enough to hang out with Rick.
Rick walked out of the basement and up into the sanctuary, fiddling with the lock on the door to the balcony for a moment before it cracked and he swung the door open.
Jesse followed him up the stairs to the balcony where old pews sat covered with drop cloths and a fine layer of dust.
“Good job, beating all those little shits like that.”
“Umm… Thanks.”
“Seriously, those kids are all cunts, including my brother.”
Jesse didn’t know what “cunt” meant, but was afraid to ask.
“You know what ‘cunt’ means right?”
“Uhh… yeah. Yeah.”
“Yeah. Well, it’s a term for a girl’s pussy. But it’s like ‘dick’. When I say he’s a ‘cunt’, it means he’s a ‘dick’, but in a cooler, European way.”
“Oh.”
“Sorry, I forget how you live out on that old farm with your grandmother. You probably don’t know what ‘dick’ is either?”
But Jesse did know both of those words, when he thought about it. He had read it in a book, a few, in fact. In one book it was derogatory and in the other… it was part of a love scene that made Jesse’s ears burn and caused him to hide the book in his mattress for fear his grandmother would find it and he would never hear the end of how he was “going to hell”.
“How old are you Jesse?”
“Ten.”
“Wow, and you still don’t have all your adult teeth? Weird. You are small, sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“Well, I figured you would want to get out of there because those other kids would hound you for your prize money and the chocolate. God, what a bunch of fucks.”
“I guess so. I don’t want the chocolate.”
“Really? I mean, I’ll take it if you don’t want it. You don’t have to give it to me, I’m just saying.”
“No, you can have it. My grandmother wouldn’t let me eat it anyway.”
“No way, that’s sucky. You can’t have candy?”
“No, no candy. I sometimes get some from the vending machine in the library, when my aunt drops me off on Saturday morning. She even takes me to McDonalds, sometimes.”
“Wow, I didn’t realize you were so cut off from everyone. You don’t have any hobbies?”
Jesse shrugged his shoulders.
“Huh. Well, I have an idea. I want to give you something. Think you can stand a dirt bike ride?”
“I need to be back at the church when Hallelujah Night is over.”
“No sweat, little man.”
Jesse followed Rick down the steps and into the parking lot of the church. Rick walked behind the shed where the mowers and lawn maintenance equipment was stored and wheeled out his yellow and black Honda dirt bike. It wasn’t in the best shape, but it was a dirt bike and Jesse certainly didn’t have one.
“Hop on, Jess.”
Jesse held onto Rick’s waist and as the sun was setting, they sped off.
A dirt path led through the woods and to the Marshall’s house. They rolled down the hill, just in sight of the pool in their back yard.
“Hang on a minute.”
The Marshalls lived on a fairly large property, with woods all around. There was an old farmhouse on the front of the property that Jesse remembered seeing the first time he went there, when the Marshalls invited him to Jon’s ninth birthday party. That was the first and last time he had been here.
Rick cut through part of the yard and rode over a rise.
Just when it seemed darkest and the weak, often dimming light from the dirt bike seemed most inadequate, Jesse noticed a little shed.
Rick drove up to the shed and as they got off, leaned his bike against the wall.
He fished a key out of his pocket and unlocked the door.
“This is my hideout. My dad thinks we are storing old tools out here, but I decided to add a little something to it.”
As the shut the door behind them, Rick light a match and turned on an old Coleman lantern. There were old tools in the shed, but there was another door, which looked like it led to a large closet. The handle looked old and rusted and it didn’t seem like it would turn. It didn’t. Instead, Rick pushed against the door and picked it up, with the palms of his hands.
There, in the back room, was something else.
There was a tiny gas generator and a few battery powered lights, a guitar amplifier and a stack of magazines with scantily clad women on the covers. There was also two bikes.
“Don’t tell anyone I showed you this.”
Rick handed Jesse a slightly warm can of root beer and began to wrestle with the bikes, which were tangled up in each other and looked like they hadn’t been ridden in some time.
“I don’t use these anymore and I think one of them would fit you.”
Jesse looked at the bikes. One was black and yellow, with yellow plastic wheels. The tires were low, but the brake levers and the chain were a gold color. The other, was mostly unremarkable, it was silver, with normal wheels and a white and red checkered saddle.
“I like the bike with the red seat.”
“Ah, you want to take the one with the red saddle? You sure?”
Something about the less flashy bike appealed to Jesse, who didn’t know much about bikes. It just looked like the lines were cleaner and though it seemed plainer, it seemed to be better built.
“Good choice, haha. That one is a Haro Master and it’s worth about five times what the Mongoose is. I don’t ride these things anymore, but if you promise to keep it locked up and take care of it, you can borrow it for as long as you want. I won’t even ask for it back. It’s just if I tell my dad I gave you my bike, he will get pissed at me, but if I say you’re borrowing it, he will not care. But it will be yours.”
“Why are you being so nice to me?”
“I don’t know. You seem like a really cool kid, and I know you don’t get along with the other kids in town. Maybe they don’t get along with you, but that sucks. I also know that your grandma is pretty weird and wouldn’t buy you a bike. It’ll help you get around. You’ll be able to go to the library by yourself. You only live a mile away from it, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, what do you say, Jess? You want to take care of this bike for me?”
He was almost less shocked over the offer of a permanent loan of the bicycle than he was over Rick’s friendliness. Rick was cool, for some reason, in a way the other kids weren’t. And here he was, being nice to Jesse. Even giving him a nickname he liked better. “Jess”.
“Yeah, but I don’t have a lock.”
Rick smiled and finished fishing out the bike. He turned around and opened a beat up metal ammo box that had probably held bullets for an M50 or something. He handed Jesse a length of chain, a key, and a padlock.
“There you go, Jess. It won’t keep it safe from everything, but it will be enough for this town.”
They had trouble figuring out how to carry the bike and eventually settled on just holding onto it. It was scary and several times Jesse thought he would lose the bike, it falling and being smashed and bent underneath Rick’s Honda.
But they made it back, before the meeting let out and just before Jesse’s aunt came rolling up in her little VW.
“Jesse, where did you get that bicycle?”
“Rick Marshall said I could borrow it.”
“Won’t his father be mad at you? Doesn’t his brother need it?”
“I don’t think so. He said it was okay, really.”
“I hope so, Jesse. I don’t want to be explaining to your grandmother how you’re a bike thief.”
Jesse’s face got all red.
“Aunt Mary Lee, I have never stolen anything, ever. Stealing is wrong.”
“Okay, okay. Well, how are we going to get it home?”
“We don’t live far away, I can ride it.”
“No you cannot. It is dark outside and it is at least two miles to home.”
“Really, I can.”
There seemed to be no other option, as the car was far too small to fit his bike as it was.
That’s when Rick appeared from out of nowhere, with a wrench in his hand.
“Oh I can help you, Jess. If we take off the wheels, it will fit in.”
Jesse’s aunt spoke up, “Is it true that he can borrow it? When do you need it back? You sure your father won’t be sore?”
“No mam, it’s fine. Jon has a newer bike and I don’t use this one anymore. I haven’t ridden it in two years. Jess will be fine. He can even go to the library on his own now.”
“Well, I don’t know about that.”
But that was that.
They drove home and Jesse’s aunt helped him hide the bike in the tool shed.
Grandmother always went to bed early and with Hallelujah Night, Jesse had (thankfully) missed another two hour devotional and prayer session. Instead, Jesse crawled into his bed, and with a smile on his face, went to sleep.
He dreamed that he was riding his new bike and the other kids just looked on at him in awe as he jumped over curbs and felt the rush of wind through his hair. He rode to the moon and collected moon rocks. He rode to Egypt and rode down the pyramids. Everywhere he went kids would sit down and listen to him tell his stories and he would build forts for them.
He wouldn’t have to listen to his grandmother praying to the air. He wouldn’t have to pretend to be interested in church and the kids who didn’t seem like him would no longer bother him. He’d be the famous cyclist, Jess. He’d use his powers for good, but he would be famous. More importantly, he could be free.
The next morning, he could barely contain himself as he ate breakfast. He even woke before his grandmother could sing that horrible song. He packed up his little knapsack with the lock Rick had given him, his books from last week, and a sweatshirt.
Soon, he was flying down the empty dirt roads and feeling the wind in his hair.
Freedom is a bicycle.
April 20th, 2010 | Category: WTF | Leave a comment
