the Second Coming.
The first-place poem, by a little wrinkled old lady named Helen Trotter,
was in essence a love letter, the first rhyme of which was: “He’s always there
to show he cares,/ whatever’s right, that’s what he dares,” and the last
rhyme: “Oh, how I love to see the smiling face/ Of our great state governor,
George C. Wal-lace.”
“Groan,” Dad whispered. The Lady, Charles Damaronde, and the Moon Man
were gracious enough to make no public comment.
“And now,” Mrs. Prathmore announced, “we move into the short-story
division.”
I needed that cork. I needed it bad.
“This year we have the youngest winner ever on record since we began this
contest in 1955. We had a little difficulty deciding if his entry was a short
story or essay, since it’s based on an actual event, but in the end we decided
he showed enough flair and descriptive imagination to consider it a short
story. Now, welcome if you will, our third-place winner, reading his story
entitled ‘Before the Sun’: Cory Mackenson.” Mrs. Prathmore led the applause.
Dad said, “Go get ’em,” to me, and somehow I stood up.
As I walked to the podium in a trance of terror, I heard Davy Ray
giggling and then a soft pop as his dad cuffed him on the back of the neck.
Mr. Dean gave me my story, and Mrs. Prathmore bent the microphone down so it
could gather my voice. I looked out at that sea of faces; they all seemed to
blur together, into a collective mass of eyes, noses, and mouths. I had a
sudden fright: was my zipper up? Did I dare to look and see? I caught sight of
the Journal photographer, his bulky camera poised. My heart was beating like
the wings of a caged bird. Queasiness roiled in my belly, but I knew that if I
threw up, I could never again face the light of day. Somebody coughed and
somebody else cleared his throat. All eyes were on me, and in my hands the
paper was shaking.
“Go ahead, Cory,” Mrs. Prathmore urged.
I looked at the title, and I started to read it, but what felt like a
spiny egg seemed to be lodged in my throat where the words were formed.
Darkness lapped around the edges of my vision; was I about to pass out in
front of all these people? Wouldn’t that make a dandy front-page picture for
the Journal? My eyes rolled back in my head, my body tumbling for the floor,
my underpants white in the maw of my open zipper?
“Just take your time,” Mrs. Prathmore said, and in her voice I heard her
nerves starting to shred.
My eyes, which felt as if they were about to burst from my head, danced
over the audience. I saw Davy Ray, Ben, and Johnny. None of them were grinning
anymore; this was a bad sign. I saw Mr. George Eagers look at his wristwatch;
another bad sign. I heard some malicious monster whisper, “He’s scared, poor
little boy!”
I saw the Lady rise to her feet at the back of the room. Behind her veil
her gaze was cool and placid, like still green waters. She lifted her chin,
and that movement spoke a single word: Courage.
I pulled in a breath. My lungs rattled like a freight train crossing a
rickety bridge. I was here; this was my moment. I had to go on, for better or
worse.
I said, “‘Before the—’” My voice, thunderous through the microphone,
shocked me silent again. Mrs. Prathmore placed her hand against my back, as if
to steady me. “‘—Sun,’” I went on. “By C-C-Cory Mackenson.”
I started reading. I knew the words; I knew the story. My voice seemed to
belong to someone else, but the story was part of me. As I continued on, from
sentence to sentence, I was aware that the coughing and throat clearing had
ceased. No one was whispering. I read the story as if traveling a trail
through a familiar woods; I knew the way to go, and this was a comfort. I
dared to glance up again at the audience, and when I did I felt it.
This was to be my first experience with it, and like any first
experience, the feeling stays with you forever. What this was exactly I can’t
say, but it drove into my soul and made a home there. Everyone was watching
me; everyone was listening to me. The words coming out of my mouth—the words
I’d conceived and given birth to—were making time null and void; they were
bringing together a roomful of people into a journey of common sights, sounds,
and thoughts; they were leaving me and traveling into the minds and memories
of people who had never been at Saxon’s Lake that chill, early morning in
March. I could tell when I looked at them that those people were following me.
And the greatest thing—the very greatest thing—is that they wanted to go where
I led them.
All this, of course, I reasoned out much later. What struck me at the
moment, beside getting to the end, was how quiet and still everybody had
become. I had found the key to a time machine. I had discovered a current of
power I’d never dreamed I possessed. I had found a magic box, and it was
called a typewriter.
That voice coming out of me seemed to get stronger. It seemed to speak
with expression and clarity rather than being a mumbled drone, which is how it
had begun. I was amazed and elated. I actually—wonder of wonders—was enjoying
reading aloud.
I reached the final sentence, and ran out of story.
For now.
My mother started applauding first. Then my dad, and the others in the
room. I saw the Lady’s violet-gloved hands clapping. The applause felt good;
but it wasn’t nearly as good as that feeling of leading people on a journey
and them trusting you to know the way. Tomorrow I might want to be a milkman
like Dad, or a jet pilot or a detective, but at that instant I wanted to be a
writer more than anything on earth.
I accepted my plaque from Mayor Swope. When I sat down, people around me
clapped me on the back, and I could tell by the way my mom and dad smiled that
they were proud of me. I didn’t mind that my name was misspelled on the
plaque. I knew who I was.
The second-place winner, by Mr. Terrence Hosmer, was about a farmer
trying to outsmart a flock of ravens after his corn crop. The first-place
winner, by Mrs. Ada Yearby, concerned the midnight kneeling down of the
animals at the birth of Jesus Christ. Then Mayor Swope thanked everyone for
coming and said that we could all go home. On the way out, Davy Ray, Johnny,
and Ben swarmed around me, and I believe I got more attention than even Mrs.
Yearby. The Demon’s mother waddled up to congratulate me, and she looked at my
mother with her broad, mustached face and said, “You know, Brenda’s birthday
party is next Saturday and Brenda sure would like your boy to be there. You
know, I wrote that poem for Brenda, ’cause she’s a real sensitive child. Would
your boy come to Brenda’s birthday party? He don’t have to bring no present or
nothin’.”
Mom looked at me for a cue. I saw the Demon, standing with her father
across the room. The Demon waved at me and sniggered. Davy Ray elbowed me in
the ribs; he didn’t know how close he was to getting killed. I said, “Gee,
Mrs. Sutley, I think I might have some chores to do at home on Saturday. Don’t
I, Mom?”
Mom, God love her, was quick. “Yes, you sure do! You’ve got to cut the
grass and help your father paint the porch.”
“Huh?” Dad said.
“It’s got to be done,” Mom told him. “Saturday’s the only day we can all
work on it together.”
“And maybe I can get some guys to help,” I offered, which made my buddies
find wings on their feet.
“Well, if you wanna come to Brenda’s party, she sure would like it. She’s
havin’ her relatives over and all.” Mrs. Sutley gave me a defeated smile. She
knew. Then she returned to the Demon and said something to her and the Demon
gave me that exact same smile. I felt like a heel on a dung-stained boot. But
I couldn’t encourage the Demon, I just couldn’t! It was inhuman to ask me to.
And oh brother, I could just imagine what the Demon’s relatives must be like!
That group would make the Munsters appear lovely.
We were almost out the door when a quiet voice spoke: “Tom? Tom
Mackenson?”
My dad stopped and turned around.
He was in the presence of the Lady.
She was smaller than I remembered. She barely stood to my father’s
shoulders. But there was a strength in her that ten men couldn’t have matched;
you could see the force of life in her as you can see it in a weathered tree
that has bent before the winds of countless storms. She had approached us
without Mr. Damaronde or the Moon Man, who stood waiting at a distance.
“Hello again,” Mom said. The Lady nodded at her. My dad wore the
expression of a man trapped in a dark closet with a tarantula. His eyes were
skittering around, searching for a way out, but he was too much of a gentleman
to be rude to her.
“Tom Mackenson,” she repeated. “You and your wife sure have raised a
talented boy.”
“I… we… we’ve done our best, thank you.”
“And such a good speaker,” the Lady went on. She smiled at me. “You’ve
done well,” she said.
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“How’s that bicycle doin’?”
“Fine. I named it ‘Rocket.’”
“That’s a nice name.”
“Yes ma’am. And…” Tell her, I decided. “And it’s got an eyeball in the
headlight.”
Her brows lifted, ever so slightly. “Is that a fact?”
“Cory!” Dad scolded. “Don’t make up such things!”
“Seems to me,” the Lady said, “a boy’s bicycle needs to see where it’s
goin’. Needs to see whether there’s a clear road or trouble ahead. Seems to me
a boy’s bicycle needs some horse in it, and some deer, and maybe even a touch
of rep-tile. For cleverness, don’t you know?”
“Yes ma’am,” I agreed. She knew Rocket, all right.
“That was kind of you to give Cory a bike,” Dad said to her. “I’m not one
to accept charity, but—”
“Oh, it wasn’t charity, Mr. Mackenson. It was repayment for a good deed.
Mrs. Mackenson, is there anythin’ at your house that Mr. Lightfoot needs to
fix?”
“No, I think everythin’s workin’ just fine.”
“Well,” she said, and she stared at my father. “You never know when
things are likely to suffer a breakdown.”
“It was good to see you, Mrs… uh… Lady.” Dad took my mother’s elbow.
“We’d better be gettin’ on home now.”
“Mr. Mackenson, we have some matters to discuss,” the Lady said as we all
started moving away. “I believe you understand when I say they’re matters of
life and death?”
Dad stopped. I saw a muscle in his jaw work. He didn’t want to turn back
to her, but she was pulling at him. Maybe he felt her life force—her raw,
primal power—heat up a notch, just as I did. He seemed to want to take another
step away from her, but he just couldn’t do it.
“Do you believe in Jesus Christ, Mr. Mackenson?” the Lady asked.
This question broke through his final barricade. He turned around to face
her. “Yes, I do,” he said solemnly.
“As do I. Jesus Christ was as perfect as a human bein’ can be, yet he got
mad and fought and wept and had days of feelin’ like he couldn’t go on another
step. Like when the lepers and the sick folks almost trampled him down, all of
’em beggin’ for miracles and doggin’ him till he was about miracled out. What
I’m sayin’, Mr. Mackenson, is that even Jesus Christ needed help sometimes,
and he wasn’t too proud to ask for it.”
“I don’t need…” He let it go.
“You see,” the Lady said, “I believe everybody has visions, now and
again. I believe it’s part of the human animal. We have these visions—these
little snippets of the big quilt—but we can’t figure out where they fit, or
why. Most times they come in dreams, when you’re sleepin’. Sometimes you can
dream awake. Just about everybody has ’em, only they can’t fathom the meanin’.
See?”
“No,” Dad said.
“Oh yes, you do.” She raised a reedy finger. “Folks get all wrapped up in
the sticky tape of this world, makes ’em blind, deaf, and dumb to what’s goin’
on in the other one.”
“The other one? Other what?”
“The other world across the river,” she answered. “Where that man at the
bottom of Saxon’s Lake is callin’ to you from.”
“I don’t want to hear any more of this.” But he didn’t move.
“Callin’ you,” she repeated. “I’m hearin’ him, too, and he’s wreckin’ my
damn sleep, and I’m an old woman who needs some peace.” She took a step closer
to my father, and her eyes had him. “That man needs to tell who killed him
before he can pass on. Oh, he’s tryin’, he’s tryin’ mighty hard, but he can’t
give us a name or a face. All he can give us are those little snippets of the
big quilt. If you were to come see me, and let’s us put our thinkin’ caps on,
maybe we could start sewin’ those snippets together. Then you could get a good
night’s sleep again, so could I, and he could go on where he belongs. Better
still: we could catch us a killer, if there’s a killer here to be caught.”
“I don’t… believe in… that kind of non—”
“Believe it or don’t believe it, that’s your choice,” the Lady
interrupted. “But when that dead man comes callin’ on you tonight—and he
will—you won’t have any choice but to hear him. And my advice to you, Mr.
Mackenson, is that you ought to start listenin’.”
Dad started to say something; his mouth opened, but his tongue couldn’t
jimmy the words out.
“Excuse me,” I said to the Lady. “I wanted to ask you… if you’ve been…
like… havin’ any other dreams.”
“Oh, most all the time,” she said. “Trouble is, at my age, most all my
dreams are reruns.”
“Well… I was wonderin’ if… you’ve been havin’ any dreams about four
girls.”
“Four girls?” she asked.
“Yes ma’am. Four girls. You know. Dark, like you. And they’re all dressed
up, like it’s a Sunday.”
“No,” she said. “I can’t say that I have.”
“I dream about ’em a lot. Not every night, but a lot. What do you suppose
it means?”
“Snippet of a quilt,” she said. “Could be somethin’ you already know, but
you don’t know you know.”
“Ma’am?”
“Might not be spirits talkin’,” she explained. “Might just be your
ownself, tryin’ to figure somethin’ out.”
“Oh,” I said. This must be why the Lady was picking up Dad’s dreams but
