Chapter 6

Well, somewhere in there I must have fallen asleep. I was trying to stay awake, like I said, but every now and then I’d close my eyes for a couple of minutes, but just to rest them a little, not because I wanted to go to sleep or anything. I must have rested them one time too many, because they never came back open until the next morning, Friday morning.

     I don’t know how long I’d been asleep, but it was long enough for me to pee in the bed. I woke up laying in piss. Pissing is what woke me up, I think. I looked at my watch and it was only about five minutes before I had to get up anyway, so I went ahead and got up. If I was lucky I might be able to get my sheets downstairs and into the washer before anybody else got up and saw what I was up to.

     I jumped up and pulled the sheets off my bed and went running with them to the basement, quiet as I could. Dad and Grandpa were still passed out down there, over on Dad’s side of the basement, over where his pool table and couch and lounge chair and refrigerator are. The washing machine and clothes dryer are on Mom’s side of the basement. I threw my pissy sheets into the washer and started it up and hoped it wouldn’t make too much noise, so nobody would notice it was running. Once it fills itself up with water and gets to churning, it really isn’t all that noisy.

     Well, while I was down there, I figured I’d better try and stir Grandpa up a little bit, to see if he was gonna be in any shape to get up and go down to the school, to talk to my English class. So I went over to Dad’s side of the basement. Grandpa was still spread out there on the couch, snoring away. I touched him on the shoulder and kinda halfway whispered, “Grandpa? Grandpa?” a couple of times, but nothing happened, he went right on sleeping. I didn’t want to be too loud, because I didn’t want to wake Dad up or anything.

     I waited a minute or so and tried it again, “Grandpa? Grandpa!” and shook his arm a little bit.

     He stirred some that time.

     “Grandpa!” I said again.

     He grunted, “Huh,” but he didn’t open his eyes.

     I leaned over next to his ear and said, “Grandpa, are you gonna make it down to my school this morning?  To talk to my English class?  About Dresden?  Remember?  Grandpa?”  I was still kinda whispering.

     He went, “Huh,” again, but he still didn’t open his eyes or anything.

     Then I shook him pretty hard, one real quick shake, and said a little bit louder, “Grandpa!  It’s Friday morning, you gotta get up, remember?  Grandpa, please. Jesus!”

     I don’t know, but I musta been getting too loud, because then Dad started stirring a little bit, over in his lounge chair. Then all of a sudden he raised his head up and looked all around, like he was trying to figure out what all the fuss was about. When he saw it was me standing there, he said, “Warren!  What the hell are you doing?  Get outta here and leave your grandpa alone. Get!”

     Well, I figured it won’t no use in getting Dad all riled up at me, so I did what he said and gave up on waking Grandpa. I turned around and went on back up the steps. It looked like Freddie was gonna be right after all.

     I got dressed and ready for school, and went down to the end of the driveway and got the newspaper out of the paper box, and came back in and fixed my cinnamon toast and chocolate milk, and was sitting down at the kitchen table to read the ball scores, just like I always do. And just like she always does half the time, Mom came bopping in there, just in time to mess up my plans. She picked up the 1975 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses off the counter and set it down in front of me, right on top of my newspaper there.

     She said, “I’m waiting.”

     So I picked it up and turned to the daily text for Friday, June 6 and started reading out loud:

A man of faithful acts will get many blessings.—Prov. 28:20.

You may think that nothing of really great consequence has happened in your life. Judging by the world’s standards of success, probably you have not accomplished anything really great. But to whose standards have you been trying to attain?  If you have been building a record to please Jehovah, it will not be quickly forgotten by Him. Stop and think. How do others view you?  What is your reputation among your associates?  Do they observe that you are one who strictly keeps his word?  Do you have the reputation of one who pays his debts and who follows the policy of being prompt about everything?  Perhaps it is a matter of being regular in Kingdom service and at meetings of worship. These may seem to be little things, but they could lead others to view you as someone faithful. Now, if others have noticed the way you have been conducting your life, has not your heavenly Father also seen it and will he not give you many blessings therefor?

     Well, one good thing, the swelling in my mouth had gone down right much and my tongue felt a lot better than it did the night before, so when I was reading that text, at least I sounded more like the normal me, instead of that stupid kid from Fat Albert. My mouth was still busted up a little, but it wasn’t swollen up as bad as it had been. I was sure glad of that.

     When I finished reading the daily text, all Mom could say was, “Sounds like the message to you from today’s text is, you better start giving Jehovah something a little better to notice you by than what you’ve been giving him lately. Especially after that stunt you pulled last night. Wouldn’t you agree?”

     I didn’t say anything, and she must not have been expecting an answer or anything, because then she said, “Now, hurry up and finish your breakfast and go on outside and wait for your bus. It’ll be here in a few minutes.” 

     Then she grabbed the newspaper up from in front of me and took it back with her into the living room, with a cup of coffee. Her saying all that I guess was her way of reminding me she hadn’t forgotten what all she’d said on the way home from the Kingdom Hall the night before, after I’d made her look bad her in front of the congregation with my talk, about how I was gonna have to start making a lot of changes in my attitude and all that stuff. I guess I was supposed to be thinking about all that all day, at school, like I didn’t have anything else to think about.

     Well, when the school bus came, I got on and sat down up front beside Danny, same as always. Soon as I sat down, he handed me a brown paper bag.

     I said, “What’s this?”  I opened it up and peeked inside, and there was a present in there, wrapped up with a little bow on it and everything. Then I suddenly remembered about the James Taylor tape, for Ginny’s birthday, and all that.

     “Oh,” I said, “thanks, Danny.”

     “Yeah. Got my mom to wrap it for you.”

     “Great. Thanks.”

     “Sure thing. I put it in the bag so nobody’d tell what it was.”

     “Thanks.”

     “Yep, old Dan-O really comes through for you again, huh?  Not like your man Mister 0-for-six-washed-up-and-over-the-hill-Peter-Edward-Rose, last night.”

     “0 for six?  You’re kidding!”

     “Nope. And neither was Bob Gibson.” 

     “Damn. This’ll kill his average. 0 for six. Shit.”

     Then Danny started busting out laughing, and I could tell he was shitting me about the whole thing.

     “Alright, you bastard, what did he really do?  Tell me.”

      “Relax. They didn’t even play last night. Jesus.”

     “Wheew. Thank God. You really had me going. I didn’t get to see the paper this morning.”

     When I got to school and was getting off the bus, I took that brown bag with Ginny’s present in it and stuck it between a couple of books, and carried it that way, mainly so Freddie wouldn’t see it and ask me what it was or anything. Of course, he was all the way on the back of the bus and I was up front with Danny, and I always go running in the other direction when we get to school, so he’d probably never notice it, anyway. But I didn’t want to take any chances.

     Soon as I got inside the building, I went and put Ginny’s present in my locker, then I went up to where me and Wallace and Wendall always hang out in the hall, and waited around with them for the homeroom bell to ring. Of course they gave me a hard time about my mouth being busted and all, but I ignored them. To tell you the truth, I had a bunch of other things on my mind, like what was I gonna say to Ginny if she came and hung around a little while and waited with me for homeroom bell, and what was I gonna say to Miss Hiller in first period, with Grandpa being a no show and all. And there was the usual other stuff I had to worry about all the time every morning, mainly whether or not Lamar Jackson was gonna come down the hall looking for trouble. Jesus, I couldn’t let my guard down for one second.

     Well, Ginny never came around, and Lamar never came around, and Wallace and Wendall were occupied in one of their usual shoving matches, so that left me worrying about the Grandpa and Miss Hiller thing. I thought about it all through homeroom, and I figured I’d just tell her that he had to leave for Florida last night, unexpectedly, earlier than he’d planned to. Then I’d say something like, “He told me to tell you he was really sorry, too, that he was really looking forward to it, but then some kind of emergency or something came up.”  I was sure Miss Hiller would buy that, because she’s so nice and all.

     After homeroom was over, I went on to first period English and sat down and waited for class to start. All the other kids came in and sat down and were waiting too, and then Miss Hiller came in and said good morning and smiled at everybody, and looked over at me sitting there in front of her desk and gave me an extra special smile, and it really made me sorry that I was gonna have to go up there and lie my ass off to her about Grandpa leaving early and all. But I guess that was gonna be better than telling her the truth, that he was actually still halfway drunk, sleeping it off in my basement, on my Dad’s couch.

     Miss Hiller sat down on the front edge of her desk like she always does and called the roll, and after she finished with that, she got up and went around to the other side of her desk and started getting some papers ready for class to begin and all. That’s when I stood up and stepped over to where she was, so I could lean in real close and tell her my lie, before she actually got around to announcing to the class that Grandpa was gonna be there.

     She looked up at me and smiled real big again and said, “Good morning, Warren. I’m so excited about your grandfather coming in today, I’m sure we’ll all enjoy it, and I’m so looking forward to—“

     “Uh, Miss Hiller,” I said, “my grandpa is, uh, well, he’s, uh...he’s—“

     Then all of a sudden there was a couple of knocks at the door and it opened up and Grandpa stuck his head through it and said in his real loud grandpa voice, “Excuse me, I’m sorry. Is this Warren Grubber’s English class?  The lady at the front office told me this might be the room—Oh, hey Warren, I found it!”

     Miss Hiller jumped up and said, “Yes, yes it is, Mr. Grubber, please come in, we’re so happy to have you join us. I’m Miss Hiller, Warren’s teacher.”

     Grandpa shook her hand and said, “Very nice to meet you, Miss Hiller, but the name is Hollins, Frederick Hollins. I’m Warren’s maternal grandfather.”

     “Oh, I’m sorry, I—“

     “Quite all right, ma’am, quite all right.”  I could tell by the way Grandpa was looking at her, he was already as in love with her as I was. I noticed he kinda did a double take when she first stood up and went over to greet him at the door. You couldn’t blame him any though, because she looked pretty hot that morning, as usual. She had her hair pulled back and she was wearing a kinda plain black skirt and a white blouse, but for some reason they looked really good on her. Of course, everything looked good on Miss Hiller, always. And she smelled really really nice, like always.

     Grandpa came in and sat down in a chair beside Miss Hiller’s desk, and she announced to the class that he was my grandfather, and he was gonna be telling us about Dresden and World War II, and all that. Then she talked a little bit about Slaughterhouse-Five, I think mainly to fill him in on what all we already knew about the bombing of Dresden and all, and then she said, “Okay, Mr. Hollins, I’ll turn it over to you now.”

     Then Grandpa stood up in front of the class and started talking, and the cool thing is, he sounded like he was used to doing that kind of thing, like he stood up in front of a bunch of people and talked about Dresden or something all the time. I mean, he didn’t seem nervous or anything, not like I am when I’m giving a Bible reading at the Kingdom Hall. I tell you, I was pretty impressed and proud, especially since I knew he’d been up half the night shooting pool and getting drunk. But you’d have never known it by looking at him up there in front of the class. He looked like he’d slept like a baby all night. And for some reason he seemed a lot taller to me than usual. I sat there wondering why I was so short, when I have such a tall grandpa.

     Anyway, like I was saying, Grandpa got to talking about World War II and all, about how he joined the Air Force, and how they trained him to be a tail-gunner in a bomber plane, and what that was all about, being a tail-gunner, I mean, and about the other guys in the plane, and what their jobs were. And he talked about being stationed in England, and some of the scary missions they flew on, where they had to fly across the English Channel over into France or Germany and drop their bombs, then high-tail it on back to England, the whole time being shot at by guns on the ground, and sometimes being chased by German fighter planes.

     The whole time he was talking, most everybody seemed to be paying attention and were pretty interested in what he was saying and all. Everybody except Lamar Jackson. He was sitting way in the back where he usually sits, and every so often he’d start coughing real loud or clear his throat or something. And you could tell he was doing it on purpose, too, the way he was doing it. A couple of times, Miss Hiller turned and give him one of her serious looks, and when she did that he’d stop for a while. But he’d just do it again a few minutes later.

     Grandpa went on talking about war stuff for a while, and then he said something like, “Well I guess what you really wanted to hear about was the Dresden thing, that’s why I’m here this morning in the first place, because you’ve been reading that Slaughterman-Nine book, or whatever it’s called.”

     Everybody laughed because Grandpa got the name of the book wrong. Grandpa shrugged and kept going.

     “But, actually, there’s really not a whole lot to tell you about that particular mission, the one to Dresden. As I remember it, it was one of the easiest ones we flew, really. And that was due primarily to the fact that my crew went out last. We were supposed to be the first to go, early that morning. But the weather was bad or something, so we were cancelled. That meant the first strike was left up to the Royal Air Force. So them guys went over first, late that night, after the weather cleared, and dropped their loads, which served mainly to start a bunch of fires and mark the targets. And then another wave went through behind them and dropped their loads a few hours later, which is about when the people in Dresden there would have been coming out of hiding and trying to put out all the fires from the first wave. And then my wave came along, the next afternoon, and we dropped our loads on top of the first two.”

     Lamar started coughing again, and Grandpa stopped and waited for him to finish.

     “Of course, being a tail-gunner, I was in the tail-gunner’s nest, facing backwards, so I didn’t see much of anything until we were finished dropping our load, and had swung around and were heading back home. I think we dropped something close to a thousand tons of bombs in our wave. Something like that.

     “And about all I could actually see when we passed over the city was some fires blazing away down there, and a heck of a lot of smoke. Lots and lots of smoke. I remember thinking, there couldn’t be many people left down there, not alive anyway. That Mr. Funnygut guy who wrote that book you’re reading, and anybody else that survived, well, they were just lucky as heck, if you ask me, to live through something like that. Not much comes out of a firestorm, especially one that big. Even when we were about a hundred miles away, heading back to England, I could still see the smoke rising up from Dresden. It wouldn’t surprise me none if somebody said the smoke is still rising up from Dresden, to this very day. I’d believe it.”

     Lamar had another coughing fit.

     “To summarize, the best thing about the Dresden mission, as far as I was concerned, was that we were in and out and nobody got hurt, so to speak, as far as our guys were concerned, anyway. We didn’t attract any enemy fire to speak of, is what I mean, so that made my job pretty easy, not having to fight off enemy aircraft the whole time. I was still pretty glad when we got back to England, though. No matter what, you were always glad when you got home safe, and you just hoped and prayed you’d be that lucky again the next time.

     “So—that’s about all I can tell you about Dresden, not much I’m afraid.”

     Everybody just sat there and didn’t move or anything for a couple of seconds, and then Miss Hiller started clapping, and then everybody else clapped along with her. Grandpa kinda smiled and said thank you.

     Then Miss Hiller asked Grandpa if he’d mind answering any questions we might have, and he said sure, so she asked us if we had any, and at first nobody did, and Grandpa just kinda stood up there in front of the room looking at everybody, waiting. But then one of the guys asked him a question about airplanes, and Grandpa answered it pretty easily, and then one of the girls asked him if he’d read the Slaughterhouse-Five book, and he said no, which was pretty obvious if you ask me, because he’d called it Slaughterman-Nine before, and then the same stupid girl asked him if he’d ever met Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., and he said no again, which was also pretty obvious, because he’d called him Mr. Funnygut before. Sometimes people don’t pay attention the way they should.

     Then nobody asked another question for a minute or so, and it was getting to be close to the end of the period, so it looked like Grandpa’s talk was about over.

     Miss Hiller stood up and smiled at Grandpa and said, “Well, Mr. Hollins, we’d all certainly like to thank you for your time this morning, and—“

     But then all of a sudden Lamar Jackson jumped right into the middle of what she was trying to say, with something like, “Hey, man, what I wanna know is, what would you say to the man, if you ever did meet him?  Tell me that.”

     At first, Grandpa looked like he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to answer Lamar’s question or not. He turned towards Miss Hiller, and she kinda nodded at him, as if to say go ahead. So he turned back towards the class and said, “Well, I don’t know, I’ve never really thought about anything like that before. I don’t guess there’s really much I could say. Maybe just something like, sorry, but I was just doing my job. What you gotta remember is, he was a soldier, too, just like me. He had his job to do, and I had mine. I’m pretty sure he’d understand.”

     Nobody said anything for another few seconds, then Miss Hiller said, “Very well, then. Again, Mr. Hollins, thank you so much for—“

     Lamar piped up again, “Well, tell me something else, man, how’d it make you feel, flying around up there all safe and sound in that airplane, dropping them bombs on people, then flying away and watching ‘em burn?  That make you feel like you was bad or something.”

     “Lamar,” said Miss Hiller, “I think that’s quite enough.”

     “I’m just asking the man a question, that’s all. Ain’t that what he’s here for?”

     “Lamar,” Miss Hiller said, “I really don’t think—“

     “That’s okay, Miss Hiller,” Grandpa said, “I’ll be glad to answer the question.”  Then he turned towards the class again and said, “Did I feel bad about it?  Is that the question?  Well, as a soldier, you’re trained not to feel much of anything. You’re trained to take orders, and to take orders, and to take some more orders, and then to do your best to carry out those orders. They don’t give you much time to stop and think about how you feel about it. Thinking ain’t your job, doing is your job. If I felt anything about the Dresden mission, it was how glad I was we weren’t drawing enemy fire, and how glad I was to get back alive. That’s how I felt after every mission. Lucky to be alive.”

     Grandpa must have figured that was the end of the questions, because he turned around and sat back down in the chair he’d been sitting in when he first got there. Miss Hiller stood up again, and started to open her mouth like she was about to thank Grandpa all over again for everything. But Lamar wasn’t finished yet.

     “Well, tell me this, man,” Lamar said real loud, “what did it take to fly around and drop them bombs from way up there in the air, dropping ‘em down on people you couldn’t even see, like that?  Don’t seem to me like it’d take much to do something like that. Don’t sound too brave to me.”

     Grandpa jumped to his feet. “What did it take?”  You could tell by the way he’d raised his voice that he’d had about enough of Lamar’s questions. “I’ll tell you what it took. It took guts, that’s what. A lot of guts. To do what had to be done. Yeah, some missions like Dresden turned out to be a piece of cake, but you never knew that going in. You never knew what to expect on a mission until you got there and faced it. Some missions we were sent on, we were told before hand they’d be like a Sunday stroll in the park, and come to find out we’d have to turn around and high-tail it back home, we were taking on so much enemy fire. That happened all the time, more often than not. I was on one mission where we practically had the whole plane shot out from under us. It almost disintegrated with us still in it. It was a goddam miracle the pilot got it back across the Channel, it was so shot up. We lost so much altitude, we were only about 100 feet off the water the whole way. We had to crash land on the first airfield we got to. God, that was a terrible day. We lost our radio man, our co-pilot, our navigator, and two of the other gunners. They were guys I’d flown with since training, my best buddies. But all us lucky enough to make it back alive, we knew there was still a war to fight. We all went back up the next day, in another plane, on another mission, just like we were ordered to. We didn’t have any other choice. That’s all we could do.”

     Grandpa paused for a few seconds. “I’m not saying we were courageous or brave or heroes, or anything like that, but we did what we knew we had to do, when we knew we had to do it. And I think that took real guts, more than anything, if I do say so myself.”

     Lamar said, “Yeah, right on, brother. Sho’nuff lotta guuuts.”  But you could tell he meant it in a real smart ass way, the way he said it.

     Well, when Lamar said that, I could see it coming a mile away. Grandpa stood there with his fists clenched at his sides and he got all red in the face and he pressed his lips together real tight and squinched up his eyes, just like Mom does when she’s about to go off at something. He came back at Lamar in an even louder voice, “And I’ll tell you something else, BOY, something you should stop and think about sometime. If it hadn’ta been for all us guys willing to go over there and do our part, whether that meant flying airplanes or dropping bombs or manning guns or landing on beaches and fighting hand to hand, or whatever—what we knew we had to do, the best way we knew how—just maybe your little fat ass might not be sitting in this room right now, asking me all these damn-fool disrespectful questions like this. I never thought I’d see the day—“

     “Who you calling BOY?” Lamar shouted, “I ain’t your BOY, old man!”

     Grandpa opened his mouth to say something else and I could tell he was getting ready to tell Lamar just exactly who he was calling boy, but then the bell rang to signal that first period was over.

     Lamar jumped up and stormed out of the room, glaring at Grandpa the whole way. Everybody else got up and left, too, without saying anything.

     Grandpa stood there a minute, watching everybody leave, and then he shook his head and turned to Miss Hiller and said, “It was a pleasure to meet you, Ma’am, and I apologize if I let my temper get the best of me.”

     Poor Miss Hiller looked kinda speechless, like she didn’t know what to say. All she could manage was, “Oh, my.”

     I walked out into the hall with Grandpa. He shook my hand and said, “Well, Warren, I’m off to Florida now. Got some fish to catch. I’ll stop by again to see you on my way back through. I’ll try to bring you back something. Okay?”

     I was still kinda stunned by what all had just happened. About all I could say was, “Yeah, sure, goodbye, Grandpa.” 

     He turned and went walking off down the hall, and I took off running in the other direction. I didn’t want to be late for second period Typing class.

     Well, to be honest with you, I don’t remember all that much what went on in second period Typing class that day, or in third period Algebra, either. All I could think about was what had happened between Grandpa and Lamar Jackson back there in first period. I couldn’t get it out of my head. Part of it was, I felt kinda bad for Miss Hiller, that it had happened in front of her, and in her class and all. And the other part was, I was pretty damn sure Lamar Jackson was gonna do his best to take it out on me, that Grandpa had called him a boy in front of the whole English class like that. I had no doubts about it, I’d probably be a dead man come sixth period gym class. I figured I’d be lucky if I made it back home alive at the end of the day.

     Anyway, second and third period was a blur, like I said, and when I got to the lunch room after third period, Wallace and Wendall were sitting there arguing about something stupid and I just didn’t feel like listening to it, so I got up and left. I didn’t even buy a strawberry ice cream sandwich from Kathy Lendover. My appetite was shot. For some reason, I felt like I had to talk to Miss Hiller. So I headed up to where her classroom is, up on the second floor.

     I walked back and forth past her doorway a few times, peeking in, and I could see her in there all by herself, sitting at her desk. So after about the fourth time, I kinda knocked on the door and went on in.

     She looked up and saw it was me, and she smiled and said, “Oh, hi Warren, come on in.”  I could tell she was eating her lunch and grading papers or doing some other kinda paperwork or something.

     I went over and stood beside her desk. I didn’t say anything at first. She must have thought I was an idiot or something. She kept looking up at me, like she was waiting for me to tell her what I wanted or what I was doing there. I didn’t really know what it was I wanted to say, or why I was even there, but I knew I had to say something, so I just came out with something like, “Uh, Miss Hiller, I just wanted to say, uh, I’m sorry about this morning. About how Grandpa and Lamar Jackson got into it and all, I mean. I don’t think Grandpa meant anything bad by what all he said, honest, he just kinda lost his temper some, that’s all. He’s got a little bit of a temper. My Mom does, too. She gets it from him, I guess. My Dad’s pretty easy going, though.”  Jesus, I guess I was gonna tell her my whole family history.

     Miss Hiller said, “No, I’m sure he didn’t mean any harm. Lamar was just goading him on, for some reason. Lamar brought it upon himself. I don’t know what gets into him, sometimes. He can really be difficult when he wants to be.”

     I said, “Yeah, that’s for sure.”

     Miss Hiller smiled and said, “Well, anyway. I appreciate your coming by and saying those things.”  She reached out and touched me on the arm. “It was very sweet of you, but there’s no apology necessary. I understand completely.” 

     She was so gorgeous sitting there smiling at me.

     “I’m just sorry the period ended the way it did,” she said, “because I didn’t really get the chance to properly thank your grandfather again for coming in. Oh, well. I think most everybody enjoyed listening to his experiences, I know I did. He certainly had a bird’s eye view of Dresden. That was all so fascinating, don’t you think?”

     “Yes, Ma’am,” I said.

     She kept going on about how nice it was for Grandpa to come in like he did, and how interesting it all was, and told me to be sure to thank him again especially for her the next time I saw him, and I promised her I would, soon as he got back from Florida.

     Then she just sat there and smiled up at me for the longest kinda time. I couldn’t think of anything else to say, but I didn’t want to leave, either. You see, I hate to admit it, but from where I was standing, and from the way she was sitting, I could see right down into her blouse, because it was gapped open just a little bit between the second and third buttons. It wasn’t a low-cut blouse she was wearing or anything like that, it was just the way she was sitting there with her body kinda turned to the side, a little towards me. I could tell she was wearing a white silky looking bra. The whole time I was talking to her I was trying to peek down there between her buttons, as much as I could, without her knowing that’s what I was doing.

     I’d run out of things to say, and I knew I had to either think up something else to say or go on and leave, because she’d probably start thinking I was stupid or something if I just stood there looking at her like that, without saying anything. Then I realized I was carrying my annual, and that I’d never gotten around to asking her to sign it for me, so I held it up towards her and said, “Um, Miss Hiller, would you mind signing my annual, please?”

     “Why, I’d love to,” she said. She reached out and took it from me and opened it up on top of her desk and flipped through the pages a little bit, like she was looking for just the right spot to sign it I guess. And then she leaned forward and started writing away.

     Well, I hate to admit this part too, but when she got to leaning forward like that, writing in my annual, well, then I could really see down into her blouse, through that opening between the second and third buttons, and I mean I could see big-time. Jesus, I could practically see her whole left breast. It was laying there all snuggled up in that silky bra cup, and it was moving up and down, up and down, real slow, every time she breathed in and out. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it, it looked so soft and warm. In a way, I felt kinda bad and guilty for looking, but I just couldn’t not look.

     I’ll tell you something, I realized right then and there, I’m tee-totally in love with Miss Hiller and I always will be. I’m goo-goo about Ginny Milner and maybe I’m kinda in love with her, too, in a way, but not in the same way I’m in love with Miss Hiller. I don’t know how to tell you what the difference is, other than to say my heart belongs to Miss Hiller, but that probably doesn’t make much sense. It’s just hard to explain, that’s all. All I know is, if I ever fell into a time warp or got unstuck in time like that Billy Pilgrim guy did in Slaughterhouse-Five, all I’d want to do is come back and re-live again all the time I’ve spent in Miss Hiller’s classroom this year, just so I could sit and smell her perfume, and stare at her legs when she’s perched up on the front of her desk, and listen to her sexy voice say my name during roll call every morning, and stand there like I did that last day, peeking between her buttons, drooling over her heaving breasts while she signed my annual. I wouldn’t mind doing that, over and over, forever and ever, until the end of time.

     Well, when it looked to me like she was about finished writing in my annual, as much as I hated to, I took my eyes away from the opening in her blouse, so she wouldn’t look up all of a sudden and catch me staring at her like that. She finished writing and handed it back to me and said, “I just found out something this morning, I’ll be teaching a couple of tenth grade English classes next year, so hopefully I’ll have you back again as a student. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

     I said, “Yes, Ma’am.”  But it didn’t come out sounding like I was all excited or anything, even though I truly was glad about it. I probably didn’t sound excited because soon as she said it, all I could think about was the fact that there really ain’t gonna be much of a next year, next year. Not after October anyway, because of Armageddon coming and all that.

     Then she got that real concerned look on her face that she sometimes gets with me, and she said, “Warren, I know we’ve talked about this before, but that was a while back, and I’d like to ask you again, is everything alright with you?  Are you doing okay?”  Her voice had gotten all serious. “Every now and then I notice you still seem a little withdrawn, a little distraught—like before. Are you doing okay?”  She touched my arm again.

     “Yes, Ma’am, I’m fine. Honest.”

     “Well, I hope so.”  She smiled at me some more.

     “Um, I gotta go,” I said. I didn’t want to give her the chance to start asking me a bunch of those is everything alright is there anything I can do maybe we should call your parents type of questions like she did that time once before, which I told you about a good ways back. “Thanks for signing my book.”

     “You’re quite welcome. And don’t forget to study for your exam on Monday. But I’m sure you’ll do okay.”

     “Yes, Ma’am,” I said, backing towards the door, “I will. Good-bye.”

     “Bye-bye.”  She waved at me. “See ya Monday morning!”

     That’s the last time I saw Miss Hiller.

     Just about as soon as I walked out of Miss Hiller’s room, the bell for fourth period rang, so I had to hurry off to the other side of the school, to my Earth Science class. I don’t remember much of anything that happened in there that day either, because I still had Lamar Jackson and sixth period gym to worry about, so my mind was busy thinking about all that. And what time I didn’t spend trying to figure out how in the world I was gonna survive sixth period, I spent reading what Miss Hiller had written to me, on her picture in my annual. I read it over and over:

Warren,  it certainly has been a pleasure having you in my class this year. I’d love to have a whole class of students with your qualities!  Keep up the good work. Have a nice summer. See you next year.—Pam Hiller

     I don’t know how many times I read it during fourth period, but it must have been about two million, because the next thing I knew, everybody in Earth Science had jumped up and was heading for the door because the bell had just rung again, which meant I only had one more period to go before I had to face Lamar Jackson.

     But at least I’d get to spend the next to last period of my life with Ginny Milner, in fifth period Art class, which I was about a minute late for, because I’d gone by my locker to pick up my Mark Twain drawing and had gotten about halfway up to the Art room before I’d remembered about Ginny’s birthday present, so I had to turn around real quick and haul ass back to my locker to get it. Mr. Michaels didn’t say anything when I walked in late, because he didn’t even notice. He was busy putting a tape in his tape player. Mr. Michaels is cool, though. He’s the kind of teacher that wouldn’t say anything even if he did notice you were a little bit late.

     I sat down beside Ginny at our little table where we always sit together, and said hi to her, and she smiled at me and said, “Hi, Footboy!  I was beginning to think you weren’t even here today. What’s up?”

     “Nothing. I had to go back to my locker for something,” I said. Then I pulled out the little brown paper bag I was carrying underneath my Mark Twain drawing. I set it in front of her and said, “This!”

     She looked at the bag and said, “What’s that?”

     “Something I got for you. For your birthday. Happy birthday!”  That was the first time in my whole life I’d ever said happy birthday to somebody.

     She opened the bag and pulled out the little present. “But why’re you giving me this now?  You’re supposed to bring it tomorrow, to the party. I mean, thanks!”  She had that great big beautiful Ginny Milner smile on her face, the one where her little pug nose squinches up and all you can see is freckles and braces.

     “I know, I know, but since today is your birthday, I thought I should give it to you today.”  Of course I knew good and well I was lying my ass off. I knew good and well the real reason was because there was no way in hell I was gonna get to go to her birthday party and swim with her in her pool, even though I’d been promising her all week I was.

     “Oh, okay,” she said. She held the present up and shook it a little, gently. “I think I know what it is. Not what it is is, but what it is is.”  She started laughing. “Do you want me to open it now, or should I wait until tomorrow, at the party?”

     “It’s up to you.”  I was hoping she’d open it right then, so I could see her face when she did.

     At first she pretended like she was gonna put it back in the bag, but then she grabbed it back out real quick. “No way I could wait that long!” she said, and started tearing the bow and wrapping paper away.

      When she got it unwrapped her eyes popped out and she just held it up and stared at it. “J A M E S  T A Y L O R. Wow!  I can’t believe it!  This is wonderful!  Thank you!  Gorilla?  I’ve never heard of this one. I wonder why it’s called Gorilla?  Wow!”

     “It’s brand new. It just came out. I figured you like it.”

     “I’m sure of it!  It’s James Taylor!  He’s the greatest!”  She looked at me and started laughing again, “Now don’t start with me about them scummy old Doobie Brothers, okay?  You know how much I love my Sweet Baby James. Hey, let’s get Mr. Michaels to play it, right now.”

     She got up and took it over to Mr. Michaels and told him about it, and he looked back at me and kinda winked and gave me the Fonzie thumbs-up sign, and then he stopped the tape player and pulled out the tape that was already in there playing, and he stuck in Ginny’s new one. So we all listened to the new James Taylor while we worked away on our art projects. Ginny loved it, of course, which she kept saying to me over and over, and I thought it was okay, too, but it wasn’t the Doobie Brothers. And she kept telling me over and over how sweet I was and how sweet my phone call had been the night before, even though she barely understood anything I was trying to say, except for that one really sweet part, she said. And she reached over and lightly touched where my mouth was busted and said something like, “Oh, poor little baby, just let Ginny kiss it and make it all better!”  She kept saying that a bunch of times and making little kissy noises.

     Jesus, Ginny is so great. It really made me glad I’d gotten her that birthday present, just to see how happy it made her and all, even though buying somebody a birthday present is like the last thing in the world a real Jehovah’s Witness would ever do. Or getting a blood transfusion.

     Somewhere in there we got to talking about the birthday party again, and she asked me if I knew where she lived, and I said no, so she got out a piece of paper and started drawing me a map to her house, so I’d know how to get there and all.

     She said, “You ever been to Concord?”

     “Not really. I don’t think so.”

     “Well, all you gotta do is, when you get to the stop light there as you’re coming into Rustburg, instead of turning right like you’re coming up to the school, you turn left and take Route 24 about five miles, and that takes you right into Concord. And our house is right near the little village you come to. You go here, see, then you turn here, then you turn here, on the left. It’s Rector Road. Can’t miss it. Big yard. Brick house. Pool in the back. But no skinny dipping. Not tomorrow, anyway. Got it?”

     She gave me the map and I put it in my pocket. By then the period was about over and everybody was cleaning up and putting away their art stuff. Mr. Michaels was hanging around the front of the supply closet the whole time, so unfortunately me and Ginny weren’t able to go back there and get in a quick kiss, like we’d done the day before. We kept waiting and waiting for him to move away from back there, but he never did.

     When the bell finally rang, she grabbed her new James Taylor tape out of Mr. Michael’s tape player and we went on outside into the hallway, and stood there just kinda looking at each other for a few seconds. Then she said, “I really wished we coulda made it back to the closet, so I coulda thanked you for the birthday present. And given you a little something to make your lips heal quicker.”  She kissed me on the check and whispered in my ear, “But don’t you worry none, Footboy. I’ll be sure to thank you tomorrow at my party. Real good.”

     Then we said good-bye to each other and she took off down the hall. That’s the last time I saw her, too.

     Well, I figured Lamar Jackson would be waiting for me in the locker room, first thing sixth period, to kill me soon as I walked in. I really didn’t want to, but there wasn’t much else I could do, so I went on into the locker room. He wasn’t in there, which surprised the hell out of me. I wasn’t interested in standing around like a sitting duck, so I pulled my gym suit out of my locker real quick and snuck back into a shower stall, and changed into them behind a shower curtain. That was so Lamar would think I wasn’t around, if he happened to show up while I was in there.

     But for some strange reason, he never showed. I hid back there in the showers for a few more minutes, until it got real quiet out in the locker room and I could tell all the other guys had finished changing into their gym suits and had headed on out to the field. When I thought the coast was clear, I high-tailed it out of the shower room and ran on outside as fast as I could, down to the softball field, which is down behind the school. You have to go down this pretty step bank to get to it. The bank runs all the way around the outfield, past where the fence would be, if we had a fence. But we don’t have a fence, so the rule is, if you hit a ball up onto the bank there, it’s a homerun. Of course, I could never in a million years hit one that far. But some of the guys in my class can. Lamar can.

     I made it down to the field in time to get into the game that was starting up. I looked all over the place, but I still didn’t see Lamar Jackson anywhere, so that was the second lucky thing so far, the first being that he hadn’t been in the locker room either. And believe it or not, there was actually a third lucky thing, which was that for some reason Coach Lankford had come out there that day, and was sitting on the bleachers behind the backstop, to watch us play softball, which was really unusual, because he usually just sends us outside to play while he sits around his little office back behind the gym and reads magazines or something all period. So I figured if Lamar did show up down there on the field before the end of class, at least he wouldn’t be able to kill me right there in the open, not with Coach Lankford looking on. So I was starting to feel a lot better about things, like maybe this might turn out to be my lucky day somehow.

     Well, we’d been down there playing softball all period long, and everything was going along just fine. I’d made a couple of okay catches in left field, nothing spectacular, and I’d hit a double, too. There was only about five minutes left before we’d have to leave the field and go back up to the locker room and change back into our regular clothes. There’s a warning bell that rings, to let you know it’s time to go back in, but you really have to listen out for it, because it’s way up on the outside wall of the gym. I was standing out in left field, listening out for the warning bell as best I could, and all of a sudden I started hearing something hit the ground back behind me, and then over to my left, and then over to my right, about every fifteen or twenty seconds or so. Then something landed right in front of me, and I looked down and saw it was a rock. And right then I figured out real quick what was going on. I turned around just in time to see Lamar Jackson and a couple of his big soul brother buddies come walking down the side of the bank. They went walking down the left field line, towards the backstop. Lamar wasn’t wearing gym clothes. And the whole time he was walking past me, doing his little stupid up and down strut, he was giving me this real mean look, probably the meanest look he’d ever given me before. You could tell he was all pissed off that he’d come down there looking to get me, but couldn’t when he saw that Coach Lankford was down there, too. And this is what he yelled over to me when he walked by, “Your ass is gonna be mine, white boy. We’ll just see if you got your grandpa’s guts.”  His buddies busted out laughing when he said that. We were all out there in left field, so I don’t think anybody else heard anything.  

     Lamar and his buddies went and stood around the backstop, and the whole time he was standing there, he was still looking out at me in left field. I was out there hoping the warning bell would hurry up and ring, because then I’d have a pretty good head start up the bank and back up to the locker room. Fast as I am, I figured I could get up there and grab my stuff out of my locker and high-tail it before Lamar could catch up with me, slow as he is.

     But it didn’t seem like that damn bell was ever gonna ring.  We had two outs on the team that was batting, and as soon as they made another out, I knew I’d have to go back in to the backstop area, right where Lamar was waiting, and then I wouldn’t be able to get as good a jump on him when the bell finally did get around to ringing.

    The other team had two outs, like I said, and this stupid little white guy named Lenny was batting, whose a pretty lousy ballplayer, all and all, and he already had a couple of strikes on him and everything, and then all of a sudden, right in the middle of his at-bat, Lamar went up to the plate and said something to him.  Then Lamar took the bat away from Lenny, and Lamar stood there like he was a new pinch-hitter or something. Coach Lankford didn’t say nothing. Our stupid pitcher tossed it up there and Lamar took a gigantic swing and smacked a huge towering pop-up, and it looked like it was gonna go about a mile over my head in left field. But I took off instantly and ran and ran like hell back towards the bank and caught up with it and made like the greatest catch of my life. It felt like that Willie Mays catch, when I made it, the one you see pictures of all the time in old baseball books, the one where old Willie’s running with his back to the plate and all you can see is the number 24 on the back of his jersey. Then you see him reaching up and pulling the ball right out of the air, just as it’s coming down over his left shoulder. And then you see him twirling around real fast and heaving the ball back into the infield. That’s exactly how my catch felt.

     I could hear a bunch of the guys hooping and hollering after I made the catch. Of course I acted like it was no big deal, and I started trotting back in, even though I really didn’t want to. But I had to, because I was supposed to be the first up to bat for our team that inning. I saw Lamar standing between first and second base with his pissed off look on his face, like he couldn’t believe I’d caught that ball. I threw the ball in towards the infield and kept running on in. After I’d gone about ten yards or so, all of a sudden I heard the warning bell up on the side of the school building go off, so I made a quick u-turn and started running as fast as I could in the opposite direction, towards the bank behind left field.

     Well, when I’d thrown the ball back into the infield, Lamar must have picked it up, because when I’d just about made it to the top of the bank, I saw something coming at me out of the corner of my eye, and out of instinct I tried to duck down, but I wasn’t quick enough, and that softball came down out of the air and smacked me right up side the head, right on the corner of my right eye. It hit me so hard I fell face forward into the bank. I was kinda dazed for a second or two. I could hear Lamar and a bunch of the other guys laughing and carrying on back down on the field behind me. I tried to get back up to my feet, but I only made it up to my hands and knees. My head was spinning. I saw little white spots floating all over the place. I turned and looked back down at the field, and I saw a blurry Lamar Jackson standing right around second base, jumping up and down and laughing and holding both of his arms straight up in the air, like he was signaling a touch down or something. I’ll tell you, that was one hell of a throw. Lamar is about the only guy in our class that coulda made a throw like that.

     I could feel some blood coming down the side of my face, a little bit. I didn’t know what to do. I had a good mind to go back down that bank and go ahead and have it out right then and there with Lamar and get it over with, but I knew he’d just kill me if I did, and I didn’t have the guts to do something like that anyway. So I did the only thing a little chicken shit like me could do. I kept on climbing up the bank on my hands and knees until I got to the very top, and then I stood up and turned around, and I stuck both of my middle fingers up in the air and yelled out as loud as I could, “HEY LAMAR JACKSON YOU GODDAM SON OF A BITCHING FAT ASSED BLACK MOTHER FUCKING STICK UP YOUR ASS BASTARD BOY!!! GO TO HELL AND FUUUUUUUUCK YOOOOOOOOOOU!!!”

     Man, I didn’t even wait around to see the expression on his face when he heard me yell all that. And I didn’t even bother going back to the locker room to get my regular clothes. I didn’t stop off at my other locker, either, not to get my annual or anything else. What I did was run my little ass as fast as I could back up to the school, straight through the gym, all the way down the main hall, out the front door, across the front lawn, and up to the school bus, which was just sitting there waiting for the final bell to ring and everybody to come on out and load up. Mr. Dobbs the bus driver wasn’t even on it yet. I pushed the door open and got on the bus and sunk down as low as possible in one of the seats near the front, and pulled my gym shirt up over my face to wipe away some of the blood there. It seemed like it took forever before all the other kids got on and we finally pulled off. Somewhere in there Danny got on and sat down beside me, but I didn’t sit up and uncover my face until we had pulled out of the school yard and gotten the hell out of Rustburg and were a couple of miles down 501.

     Danny took one look at the blood crusted up on the side of my face, and at my right eye, which had turned black and was just about swollen shut, and he said, “Jesus, Warren, what the hell happened to you this time?”

     I just sunk back down in the seat as far as I could go and closed my eyes and covered them over with my left arm and said, “Don’t ask.” 

     Danny could tell I was hurting pretty bad, I guess, because he didn’t bother going into his usual thing of making fun of Pete Rose, or try to get me to talk any about screwing Mrs. Harrelson, or anything. He left me alone.

     I was still feeling pretty lousy when I got home, too. For one thing, my head was splitting wide open with a headache, from having been clobbered with that softball, and from having to listen to all the stupid kids on the school bus screaming and carrying on, the whole way home. I’d kept my eyes shut and tried to fall asleep, but I couldn’t, not for all the screaming and all.

     And another thing was, my stomach had started hurting again, just like the day before, like there was still a big knot inside it or something. What I’d wanted to do when I got home was take a bunch of aspirins and then go straight to my room and go to bed and go to sleep and not wake up again until Saturday. But of course as soon as I came in the side door of the house, I heard Mom yell in at me from the living room, to get myself downstairs right away and get my sheets out of the washer and into the dryer and then put them back on my bed.

     So I went on downstairs to get started on that. Dad was down there on his side of the basement shooting pool all by himself. He had his radio on the country music station. I stayed over on Mom’s side, moving my sheets from the washer to the dryer, trying to be as quiet as I could. I didn’t feel like going over there to his side of the basement. I could see there were lots of beer cans sitting all over the place on Dad’s side, so I knew he’d been down there drinking all day.

     When I went back upstairs, that’s when Mom saw the side of my face for the first time, my black eye and all. She asked me what happened, and why I was still wearing my gym clothes and all. I told her I didn’t have time to change, because I’d gotten hit with a softball, which was the truth, kinda. I didn’t tell her the whole truth, about who threw it, or any of that.

     She said, “Didn’t I just tell you yesterday to be more careful and look out where you’re going?”

     “Yes, Ma’am.”

     “Well, why didn’tcha?”

     “I don’t know. It wasn’t my fault. I couldn’t help it. It’s just something that happened, that’s all.”

     “Well, it’s just awfully strange how things are always happening to you. Things like that never seem to happen to Freddie, now do they?”

     “No, Ma’am.”

     Then she said, “Well, go put some ice on your eye. Try to take some of the swelling down. Go.”

     I turned around to go back into the kitchen for the ice, and before I’d even gone two steps, Mom blurted out behind me, “And don’t even ask me if you can stay home from the Kingdom Hall tonight, because you can’t. You hear?”

     I got some ice for my eye and then I went and layed down on my bed. I didn’t think I was gonna be able to fall asleep, the way my head was still hurting, and we didn’t have any aspirins in the house. Mom said Dad had gotten up and taken all of them we had, because he had a hangover.

     But I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew, Mom was waking me up and telling me to come and fix myself a sandwich, that it was almost time to start getting ready for the Meeting. So I got up and went into the kitchen, but I didn’t eat anything. I just didn’t feel like it. My stomach was still all knotted up. All I did was drink a glass of tea. Then I went and changed into my Meeting clothes and sat on the sofa in the living room with my eyes closed until it was time to go.

     Well, we got to the Kingdom Hall that night a little bit early, which was good, because I’d finally remembered to bring back that The Time Is At Hand book, and I needed to sneak it back down to the Kingdom Hall library. So when I walked into the Kingdom Hall, I went straight down the steps to the basement, to the little library room down there. I opened the library door and went walking right in with that book in my hand, expecting to just toss it into that big box of books where I’d found it in the first place.

     But as soon as I opened the door, I got caught off guard, because Brother Gottwald and Brother Harris were in there. They must have been having some kinda top secret elder conversation or something, because Brother Harris stopped whatever it was he was saying and looked at me like he was pretty pissed that I’d just barged in like that.

     Brother Gottwald must not have recognized me at first, because of my big black eye and all I guess, because the first thing he said was, “Goodness!”  Then he said, “Well, now, if it isn’t little Brother Grubber. And how are you tonight?  I must say, your fat lip looks a little better, but that’s quite a shiner you’re sporting there!”

     About that time Brother Harris must have realized that I was holding that book. Before I could say anything back to Brother Gottwald, Brother Harris said to me, “And what do we have here?”  He reached out like he was gonna jerk the book out of my hand, but I pulled away, so he wasn’t able to grab it, which seemed to piss him off even more, for some reason. He turned all red in the face and said, “I thought I told you last Sunday to put that book right back where you found it. Why didn’t you obey me?”

     “I was just looking at it,” I said.

     Brother Harris said, “And I distinctly remember telling you there was nothing in there for you to see, now didn’t I tell you that?” 

     Brother Gottwald didn’t know what the hell we were talking about. He said, “What is it?  What book have you got there, Warren?”

     “The Time Is At Hand,” I said, holding it up.

     Brother Harris turned to Brother Gottwald and said, “Oh, it’s just one of Pastor Russell’s old books, from his ‘Studies in the Scriptures’ series, that’s all. It’s way out of date. There’s certainly no need for anybody to be reading it, not in this day and time.”  Then he turned back to me and said, “And that’s exactly what I told you Sunday, when I caught you with it in the first place, now didn’t I?”

     Well, I don’t know why, but for some reason all of a sudden I remembered that one page in the first part of the book that Sister Flowers or somebody had underlined in there, the paragraph where Charles T. Russell bragged that this book was gonna prove that the end of the world would be in 1914. So I opened it up to that page and held it open and pointed to it and said, “How come it says here that Armageddon was gonna be in 1914?”  I honestly don’t know why I was asking them a stupid question like that. I mean, it wasn’t a big secret or anything that Charles Russell had screwed up big-time on his dates and stuff. It wasn’t like I was Sherlock Holmes all of a sudden and had just uncovered some big secret the Society was trying to keep hidden from everybody or something.

     Soon as I said it, Brother Harris reached out and snatched it out of my hand real quick, before I could pull it back like I had before. He snapped it shut and held it behind his back and said, “Didn’t I tell you it was out of date?  Didn’t I tell you it was a waste of your time to be reading any of it?”

     I said, “Yeah, but how come we used to say Armageddon was gonna be in 1914, but now we say it’s gonna be in 1975?  How come we changed it?  That’s what I’ve always wanted to know. So how come?”  I must have been sick in the head or something, because I’d never wanted to know that before. I’d never even thought about it before, until just that minute.

     Brother Harris said, “That’s just something—“

     But then Brother Gottwald broke in, “Well, Brother Warren, what you have to keep in mind is, Pastor Russell was indeed a very, very smart man, of course, and certainly he was used by Jehovah to bring forth many, many truths and ever-increasing spiritual light for the people of his own day, for which I’m sure you will agree we can all be very, very grateful. But, what you also have to keep in mind is, as time has progressed, Jehovah has lovingly shed new spiritual light on things, and through His Faithful and Discreet Slave the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, He continually brings forth new truths, so that we are all able to come to a more fuller understanding and a better appreciation for the way Jehovah has orchestrated His grand plan for our end time. New truths, new light. So you see, that’s why we don’t read the older publications anymore, because it’s more important that we keep up with Jehovah’s new light.”

     “Okay, but why didn’t Jehovah just shed some 1975 light on Russell, instead of the 1914 light, in the first place?”

     “Well, that’s just something that’s beyond our understanding, Warren, something we are in no position to question. Jehovah reveals His truths in the manner that He chooses. Never can we be presumptuous of Jehovah.”

     I said, “But didn’t Jesus say that nobody would know the day and hour, and didn’t he say—“  but I stopped right there. My head felt like it was splitting wide open, it was hurting so bad. I just stood there a minute with my eyes closed, rubbing my forehead, trying to make the hurting go away. Brother Gottwald kept going on about our new light from Jehovah and Russell’s old light from Jehovah, but I didn’t really hear much of what he was saying. Finally I just turned around and walked out of the library. I guess it was rude in a way, to do that without saying anything else, but I felt like I was gonna throw up, because of the knot in my stomach. I went into the bathroom, but I didn’t throw up. I put some cold water on my face, which made me feel a little bit better. Not much, but a little bit. By that time, I could hear the music starting upstairs, so I went on up there because the meeting was about to begin.

     After the opening song, Brother Gottwald got up on the platform and started giving his special talk for the night. The name of it was “Proving Ourselves Worthy To Enter God’s New Order.”  The first thing he said was, “Brothers and Sisters, are we not all delighted,  for we are now almost halfway through the year of our Lord 1975, and the New Heavens and the New Earth are almost upon us!” 

     Everybody clapped.

     Then he said, “Yes, yes. Indeed we are. Well, tonight we will be considering how we can go about proving ourselves worthy to enter that New Heaven and that New Earth.”

     He went on from there, reading a bunch of scriptures and talking about pretty much what you’d expect him to talk about, how before a new order can be brought to earth, the old one must first be destroyed, which has already happened once before, back in the days of Noah, so nobody should be surprised that it was about to happen again, and all that, and on and on. It was supposed to be a special talk, but none of it sounded all that special to me, or all that new, either. I’d heard it all a million times before, and so had everybody else sitting there listening to it. It was old.

     Well, I’d been sitting there about forty-five minutes or so, I guess, but I really hadn’t been paying all that much attention or anything. About all I could think about the whole time was how much my head was hurting, which only made me think about why it was hurting so bad, which was what had happened that day in gym class with Lamar Jackson, which then made me think about what was probably gonna happen the next time Lamar Jackson caught up with me, which was gonna be Monday morning at school, in the hallway before homeroom, probably. The more I thought about that, the bigger the knot in my stomach seemed to grow, too.

     I didn’t have anything else to do, so I started thinking up this plan, where I’d just pretend I was sick every day next week, since there was only three days left before the end of the school year anyway. That way Lamar wouldn’t get the chance to kill me, if I never showed up for school again. But then I realized I couldn’t do that, because I’d miss the exams I had to take, and end up failing some of my classes for the year. Mom would never fall for that trick anyway, and besides, if I played sick and didn’t go to school, I wouldn’t get to see Miss Hiller anymore. Or Ginny.

     That got me to thinking about Ginny, and what a good time we’d had in Art class that day, especially the part where she said she was gonna thank me real good for the James Taylor tape, at her party on Saturday. I just started feeling crummier, though, because I still hadn’t told her I wasn’t gonna be there. I guess I’d been planning not to tell her, and then just not show up, and then try to come up with some lame excuse on the spur of the moment when I saw her on Monday, some big lie like my uncle had died, or my whole family was in a car wreck or something. But that would be a pretty chicken shit thing to do, to make up a lie that somebody died.

     I kept thinking about it and thinking about it, and finally I decided I just needed to tell her the whole truth, once and for all, about me being a Witness and all that. That I really wanted with all my heart to be at her birthday party, but my Mom wouldn’t let me go, because of the Witness thing. I figured Ginny’d probably decide not to like me anymore, for not telling her the truth to begin with. But what difference did it make when you got right down to it, because Lamar Jackson was gonna kill my ass dead first thing Monday morning, anyway.

     Even so, I decided I needed to tell Ginny the truth. So I got up in the middle of Brother Gottwald’s talk and made my way through the swinging doors at the back of the Hall, like I was gonna go downstairs to the bathroom or something. But instead of going down the steps, I opened the front door and walked on out of the Kingdom Hall. I went up the street to the phone booth in front of Ray’s barber shop and dialed Ginny’s number. It rang and rang about a million times. I was just getting ready to hang up when Ginny answered it.

     I said, “Ginny, hi, it’s Warren.”

     “Oh, hi Warren!”  She sounded out of breath. “I thought I heard the phone ringing. Me and Momma and Daddy were all outside, decorating around the pool, for the party tomorrow. And I wasn’t sure, but it sounded like the phone, so I came running in, and sure enough, it’s you!  Hi!”

     “Hi,” I said again.

     “What’s the matter, Warren, you don’t sound so good. What’s wrong?”

     “Uh, nothing really. I got a black eye in gym today. I got hit up side the head with a softball. So I got this huge headache, and I ain’t got no aspirin, so I don’t feel so hot. And my stomach hurts.”

     “Oh, poor baby. I wish you were here so I could kiss it and make it all better.”  She was talking to me in her kissy-kissy baby-talk voice again.

     I said, “So do I.”

     “Well, tomorrow, I’ll—“

     “Uh, that’s what I was calling about, Ginny. You see, about tomorrow...there’s something I gotta tell ya...well, the truth is...uh...well I got this uncle that lives in Pittsburgh, you see, and we just found out about two minutes ago he was in a real bad car wreck, so my Mom and Dad are gonna have to leave tomorrow sometime to go up there, to Pittsburgh, to see him in the hospital, and take care of him for a while, and all that. I’m not going with them, of course, because of school and all next week, but what it all means is, I don’t have a ride down to your party tomorrow. Mom and Dad will be gone, so they can’t take me, you see. So it looks like I’m gonna miss it. Sorry.”

     “Ooooh, Warrrren, that’s too bad. I’m sorry, too, especially about your poor uncle. I hope he’s gonna be alright.”

     “Yeah, well, the doctors think he’ll live and all, but he’s gonna be racked up for a pretty good while. He broke his back in three places. And his collar bone, I think. And they’re putting a metal plate in his head.”

     “Oh, that’s just so terrible.”

     “Yeah. Well. I just called to tell you. I’m sorry.”

     “That’s okay, I understand.”  She was quiet for a while. Then she said, “But hey, thanks again for the James Taylor tape!  I’ve been listening to it over and over ever since I got home today. It’s so great!”

     “You’re welcome. Happy birthday, again.”

     “Thanks. You know something?  I just realized it, now we’ll both be the same age, for almost a month, until your birthday next month, that is. We’re both fourteen!  Until July fourth, when you turn fifteen. Wow, that must be a great day to have a birthday, on the Fourth of July. I bet ya’ll have a big party every year, with fireworks and everything!  It really sounds like fun!”

     “Yeah, it’s lots of fun. Well, I gotta go, Ginny.”

     “Okay, Mr. Footboy, I hope you get to feeling better, and I’m sure sorry to hear about your poor uncle, I really am. And I can’t wait to see you at school Monday.”

     “Thanks. I can’t wait either. Well...uh...goodbye.”

     “Bye-bye.”

     Neither one of us hung up.

     “Ginny?”

     “Yes?”

     “Goodbye.”

     “Bye.”

     Then we did hang up. For some reason I felt real sad all of a sudden, like I was gonna cry or something. But I didn’t.

     I went on down the street and back into the Kingdom Hall and sat back down in my seat. Brother Gottwald was still up there talking away. I sat there and kinda halfway listened for a while. He way saying that the first step you’d need to make if you wanted to get into the New World and live forever in a paradise earth, is repentance, and then you’d want to get yourself baptized. Then you’d need to go out in Field Service and preach the good news of the coming of God’s kingdom, because that’s what Jesus meant when he said to go therefore and make disciples. But there’s not a lot of time left, of course, because the conclusion of this wicked system of things is only a few months away.

     I could tell by the way he was talking, it was getting close to the end of his talk. It was almost nine o’clock, so I figured it wouldn’t be much longer.

   Brother Gottwald went on, “Of course, Brothers and Sisters, I think I can safely say that most of us here tonight are running the good race, we’re fighting the good fight, and with Jehovah’s blessing and undeserved kindness, we’re doing our utmost each and every day to prove ourselves worthy to enter God’s New Order. But no matter how much we are presently doing, I’m sure we all realize, too, there’s probably just a little bit more we can still do.

     “Why, just last week, I was talking to a Brother in the Charlottesville Congregation. And it seems this particular Brother had owned a very successful little business there in Charlottesville. And just last month he had decided to sell his little business, and use the profit he received from it to support himself and his family for the few remaining months left in this old system of things, while he and his wife apply themselves to the full-time door-to-door work. And I must tell you, this Brother has three small children, too. He could have taken the attitude that he should play it safe, and hold on to his little business, just in case, to provide support for his little family there. That’s what a lot of Brothers might have done, no doubt. But not this Brother. His tremendous faith in Jehovah allowed him to do just a little bit more.

     “And let me tell you, this Brother’s example was certainly a fine witness within his congregation there. The very next week, another young Brother in the congregation decided he could do just a little bit more, too. So this second Brother actually sold his big fine home, and quit his job, and moved his wife and four young children into the basement of the first Brother, and now he’s using the little bit of profit from the sale of his home to tide his family over in these last few remaining months, while he and his wife also engage in the full-time door-to-door work. What a blessing! 

     “Now, don’t you agree with me, Brothers and Sisters, that these two fine Brothers are proving themselves worthy to enter God’s New Order?  Don’t you agree with me, they deserve our whole-hearted commendation?”

     Everybody clapped like hell.

     “So now, let us all examine our own lives, and let us all search our own hearts, so that we may ask ourselves this question, ‘What little bit more can I do, to prove myself worthy to enter God’s New Order?’

     “Well, Brothers and Sisters, this is where I usually conclude this particular special talk. But I feel compelled tonight to share with you all a few additional points. Some very important points.”

     Brother Gottwald paused for a little bit and cleared his throat a couple of times, like he wasn’t exactly sure what he was gonna say next. The whole room got quiet as hell. When he started talking again, his voice was a little deeper, and sterner sounding.

     “Now is not the time to be playing it safe, Brothers and Sisters. Now is not the time to be second-guessing the light revealed to us through Jehovah’s Faithful and Discreet Slave, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. Now is not the time to allow any second-guessers that may pop up in the congregation to sway us from our firm conviction of faith. Now is not the time to suddenly start saying, ‘What about this date,’ or, ‘What about that date.’

     “Certainly, that is what our Great Adversary Satan the Devil and his Demons want us to do, to follow them into eternal destruction. But we must resist Satan the Devil, Brothers and Sisters. Because we have the Truth. And the Truth will what?  The Truth will set us free.

     “That being said, I’d like to ask for a volunteer to read one final scripture tonight. It’s Second Peter 3:3-18.”

     A bunch of people raised their hands, hoping he’d call on them to read the scripture. I could see Freddie up front waving his hand back and forth, practically jumping up and down in his seat to get Brother Gottwald’s attention.

     I didn’t raise my hand. I hadn’t been following along with the scriptures during most of the talk, but for some reason since this was gonna be the last one, I went ahead and turned to it. Which was a good thing I did, because Brother Gottwald was looking around from side to side like he was trying to choose just the right person to read the scripture, and then all of a sudden he pointed back at me, as if I’d been holding my hand up or something, and said, “Yes, Warren Grubber, would you do us the honor, please?  Second Peter 3:3-18. And let us all pay more than the usual attention as Warren Grubber reads it for us. Warren?”

     Well, he caught me off guard a little with all that. Everybody turned around and stared at me. I guess they thought my mouth was still swollen up like it had been the night before, so they figured they’d all get another good laugh, hearing me stumble through another long scripture again. I was a little bit nervous, but I went ahead and read it as best I could:

     3 For you know this first, that in the last days there will come ridiculers with their ridicule, proceeding according to their own desires 4 and saying: “Where is this promised presence of his?  Why, from the day our forefathers fell asleep in death, all things are continuing exactly as from creation’s beginning.”

     5 For, according to their wish, this fact escapes their notice, that there were heavens from of old and an earth standing compactly out of water and in the midst of water by the word of God; 6 and by those means the world of that time suffered destruction when it was deluged with water. 7 But by the same word the heavens and the earth that are now are stored up for fire and are being reserved to the day of judgment and of destruction of the ungodly men.

     8 However, let this one fact not be escaping your notice, beloved ones, that one day is with Jehovah as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9 Jehovah is not slow respecting his promise, as some people consider slowness, but he is patient with you because he does not desire any to be destroyed but desires all to attain to repentance. 10 Yet Jehovah’s day will come as a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a hissing noise, but the elements being intensely hot will be dissolved, and earth and the works in it will be discovered.

     11 Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of persons ought you to be in holy acts of conduct and deeds of godly devotion, 12 awaiting and keeping close in mind the presence of the day of Jehovah, through which the heavens being on fire will be dissolved and the elements being intensely hot will melt!  13 But there are new heavens and a new earth that we are awaiting according to his promise, and in these righteousness is to dwell.

     14 Hence, beloved ones, since you are awaiting these things, do your utmost to be found finally by him spotless and unblemished and in peace. 15 Furthermore, consider the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul according to the wisdom given him also wrote you, 16 speaking about these things as he does also in all his letters. In them, however, are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unsteady are twisting, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.

     17 You, therefore, beloved ones, having this advance knowledge, be on your guard that you may not be led away with them by the error of the law-defying people and fall from you own steadfastness. 18 No, but go on growing in the undeserved kindness and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity.

     That was it. Brother Gottwald said, “Thank you, Brother Warren. I hope we can all, young and old alike, understand and appreciate the message contained in that scripture. We have the Truth, Brothers and Sisters, don’t ever forget that. We have the Truth.”

    He cleared his throat real hard with a big aheeem again, and his voice went back to how it was before, back to normal.

    “Now, a few announcements before we go, don’t forget about our special meeting here tomorrow night, same time, when the topic will be, ‘Events That Still Lie Ahead.’  And don’t forget, we’ll all be meeting right here at the Kingdom Hall tomorrow morning, at nine o’clock, for Field Service. And don’t forget, if you haven’t as yet symbolized with water baptism your dedication to Jehovah and His Theocratic Kingdom, and have decided to do so at the upcoming Roanoke assembly, it’s still not too late to sign up for the first Eighty Questions meeting, which I’ll be conducting Sunday afternoon. I think that’s everything. So now let’s all stand and lift our voices to Jehovah, in song number 66, ‘Now Is The Time!’”

     I felt like I had to throw up again. While everybody else was getting up to sing the last song, I ran downstairs to the bathroom as quick as I could go, and I got down on my hands and knees in front of the toilet in there, and heaved and heaved and heaved, but nothing came up. The knot in my stomach just got tighter, that’s all. I didn’t feel like going all the way back upstairs, so I left through the basement door, and went and waited in the back seat of the car, for Mom and Freddie and Sister Straiter to come out.

     I waited and waited, and they finally came out and got in the car and we left. We dropped Sister Straiter off at her house, like always. And soon as we pulled off from Sister Straiter’s, Mom started right in on me, for some reason, so we got into this really big argument, the rest of the way home.

     “Warren,” she said, “I have to tell you, I’m really disappointed in you.”

     I just thought to myself, oh man, here we go again, what’s it gonna be this time?

     She went on, “I been waiting around all week for you to bring up your getting baptized at the Roanoke assembly. I seem to remember you were supposed to be giving that some serious thought this whole past week, am I right?  You remember us talking about it last Sunday on the way home from the Hall?”

     I kinda grunted there in the back seat. It wasn’t a yes grunt or a no grunt, but more of a please leave me alone grunt, really.

     “Well, I seem to recall that conversation, anyway. And I guess it’s pretty obvious to me that you’ve been thinking about practically everything else but that, more important things, I’m sure. But as far as I’m concerned, nothing is more important than getting you baptized. You listening to me back there?”

     I grunted again.

     “Well, since you haven’t taken it upon yourself to come forward and announce that you’ve decided to get baptized, I just went ahead and made the decision for you. So after the meeting was over tonight, I went up and talked to Brother Gottwald and we got you signed you up for the Eighty Questions meetings. And the first one is this Sunday afternoon, you know. And you’re gonna be there with bells on.”

     Soon as I heard her say that last part, I said, “But I can’t do that, I play baseball with Danny on Sundays, at the park.”

     “Well, I’m just as sorry as I can be, Mister Baseball Player,” Mom said, “but I think going to the Eighty Questions meeting and getting yourself ready for baptism and dedicating your life to Jehovah is just a little bit more important than playing baseball with Danny. Now don’t you think?”

     I didn’t answer her. I just sat there in the back seat by myself, trying not to think about how bad my stomach was starting to hurt again.

     She said, “Besides, Jehovah God can give you eternal life on a paradise earth. Can Danny Riley give you that?  Huh?”

     I still didn’t answer.

     “Well,” she said, “you might not think so now, but I’m sure you’ll be thanking me for it later. After Armageddon. You’ll appreciate all I’ve done for you then.”

     We drove on for a little while and nobody said anything.  Freddie hadn’t said anything the whole time. I was hoping that was the end of it all, but then Mom started it back up again.

     “And I’ll tell you something else,” she said, “I’ve just right this minute decided something, after hearing what Brother Gottwald had to say in his special talk tonight, especially the part about those two Brothers up in the Charlottesville congregation, and how he kept asking all of us over and over to examine our selves to see if there might be just a little bit more we can do for Jehovah’s kingdom in these remaining last days. You boys remember that part of his talk, towards the end, where he kept stressing that point over and over, and asking us to be thinking about it?”

     “I do,” Freddie said, “and I’ve been thinking it about it, too.”

     I didn’t say anything about remembering it, or that I’d been thinking about it, either. I didn’t say anything.

     Mom said, “Yes, well, like I said, I’ve been thinking about it and I’ve just now decided something. It just dawned on me, there is just a little bit more we can do, and we can do it as a family, too. Y’all listen up. After school lets out for the summer next week, what we’re all gonna do, as a family, me and you two boys, is, we’re gonna start going out in Field Service every day, not just on Wednesday mornings like we did last summer, but every day. The three of us will use these last days to become full-time preachers, going door-to-door!  That’s what we’ll do for Jehovah’s kingdom!  What do y’all think about that?”

     “Yeah, that’s a great idea!” Freddie said, “That’s kinda what I was thinking when Brother Gottwald was giving his talk. I think it’ll be just great!”

     “So do I,” Mom said. “What about you, Warren?”

     I didn’t say anything.

     “Warren,” Mom said, “I’m talking to you, young man. What do you think about my idea?”

     “Great,” I said, real low, “it’s just great.”

     Of course, the way I said it really made Mom mad. She busted right out at me, “Warren, I don’t appreciate that snide little tone in your voice, young man, you hear me?  I’m trying my best to do what’s right and what Jehovah wants us all to do, and all you do is resist me. I don’t know what gets into you sometimes. I’ve wracked and wracked my brain trying to figure out what your problem is, but I sure as the world can’t come up with anything. And to tell you the truth, I’ve gotten to the point where I ain’t worrying myself about it anymore, either. Because the bottom line is this, young man, I’m still your mother and you’re still just a juvenile, in Jehovah’s eyes and in the eyes of the law, and that means you’re still my responsibility, and you’re gonna answer to me. So whether you like it or not, you’d just better get used to it, because you’re gonna do exactly what I tell you to do, and that means you’re gonna be going out in Field Service with me and Freddie every single day this summer. You hear me?”

     I didn’t answer. I was looking out the window at the telephone poles whizzing by. I wanted to open my door and jump out, but I didn’t.

     “YOU HEAR ME?” she screamed.

     Jesus, I thought she was gonna wreck the car or something.

     “Ihearyou!Ihearyou!Ihearyou!”

     “There you go again, with that snide little tone of yours. And don’t you go raising your voice at me, young man. I’m warning you, you better cut it out, because you’re really starting to pluck my nerves. I’ve about had it with you. I’ve a good mind to stop this car right now and whapp you a good one right up side your scraggly head. You hear me?”

      I knew I was starting to get on pretty thin ice with her, so I figured I’d better answer her back real nice and polite, this time. So I said, “Yes, ma’am.”

      “That’s better.”  Her voice calmed back down a little. “Now, I don’t know what your problem is, but if I were you, what I’d do is, I’d get down on my hands and knees and pray and pray and pray to Jehovah about it. And you better ask him to help you get your stubborn heart right, and help you get over your little attitude problems, before it’s too late and you lose out on eternal life and get destroyed at Armageddon. And I mean tonight would be a good time to start your praying.”

     Well, about that time is when we finally got home. I was hoping that would be the end of Mom’s lecture, that I could go on to bed and forget about everything for a while. But no, as soon as we walked in the kitchen door, she had to go and say a bunch more stuff.

     “Now you boys go on to bed pretty soon,” she said, “I don’t want y’all staying up half the night just because you don’t have school tomorrow. Because we’re getting up bright and early tomorrow morning and going out in Field Service.”  Then she turned to me and added, “Warren, when I talked to Brother Gottwald tonight, he said he’d be glad to work with you tomorrow out in Field Service, so that’ll really give you a fine opportunity to pick up some pointers on your door-to-door presentation, which’ll sure come in handy for you this summer, don’t you think?”

     I said, “What?  I can’t go out in Field Service tomorrow, I’m supposed to cut Uncle Virgil’s grass, like I always do on Saturday morning.”

     “Well, that’s just too bad,” Mom said, “I think Field Service is more important than your Uncle Virgil’s grass. He’ll just have to find somebody else to cut it for him tomorrow, and for the rest of the summer, too, because you’re gonna be going out in Field Service every Saturday morning until Armageddon gets here, starting tomorrow.”

     “But I can’t. I gotta cut grass, that’s the only way I make any money, is cutting grass. And Uncle Virgil depends on me. And all them other old people on his street do, too.”

     “Well, they’ll just have to find somebody else, that’s all.”

     “But they ain’t got nobody else.”

     “Well, all I got to say to that—“

     That’s when Dad started yelling from downstairs.

    “WARREN. WARREN, YOU UP THERE?  GET DOWN HERE, BOY.”

     “—is that’s just too bad. What little bit of money you make cutting grass ain’t worth losing your life over. Can your Uncle Virgil or any of those other people give you eternal life in a paradise earth, the way Jehovah God can?  Can they?”

     “WAAAARRREEEEN!”  Dad yelled again.

     “No, they can’t,” Mom said. “So, case closed. Now go downstairs and see what your drunken father wants, and make it snappy. You gotta hurry up and get in bed because you gotta get up early in the morning for Field Service, like I said. And I don’t want to hear anything else from you tonight, either, young man, not another word. You hear me?  Now go.”

     I wanted to keep on arguing about it, but I knew it wasn’t any use to, there was no way in hell I was gonna win this one, either. So I went on downstairs to see what the hell Dad was yelling about.

     He was down there on his side of the basement, of course, stretched out in his recliner chair, with all the lights turned out, except for this one little lamp on the table beside his chair. It was real dark and all, but I could still tell right away he was about as drunk as a fart. There were empty beer cans laying around all over the place, where he’d been drinking and shooting pool by himself all day. He had a bottle of whiskey or something sitting on the table there beside him. The bottle was pretty near empty. And there was something else sitting there on that table, besides the little lamp and the bottle of whiskey and a cigarette lighter and pack of cigarettes and a big ashtray full of cigarette butts. There was a pistol laying there, too.

     I walked over to his chair and said, “Yeah, Dad?”

     He looked up at me like he was surprised to see me standing there or something. “Huh?” he said.

     “Did you want something?  You yelled for me.”

     “Damn right, I was yelling for you,” he said. “Now, what did I want...what did I want. Oh, yeah, I wanna hear you sing that song of yours, boy, that’s what I want.”

     “What?”

     “Don’t say ‘what’ to me, boy.”

     “I’m sorry,” I said, “I mean, sir?”

     “That’s better. I said, I wanna hear you sing your goddam Clayton song, whatever the hell it’s called. Sit down and sing it for me, one more time, right now.”

     “You mean Clayton Dulaney?  Why?”

     “Because I wanna hear it, that’s why. Don’t get smart with me, just sing me the goddam song, like I just told you to.”

     “But Dad, my guitar is all the way upstairs, and Mom says I gotta go to bed already, and—“

     “I don’t give a goddam what your mother says, goddammit,  I make the goddam rules around here. I can make your ass stay up singing all night long if I want you to. What she says don’t mean nothing to me. And she knows it, too.”

     “But my guitar’s upstairs, and—“

     “Well, goddammit, boy, get mine, it’s laying right over there somewhere. Shut up and go find it and sing me that song, boy. I wanna hear it.”

     Well, I knew something was definitely wrong with Dad, because he’d never let me play his guitar before. He won’t let nobody touch his guitar, and I mean nobody. Ever. It’s a Gibson.

     “Get it!” he yelled at me again.        

     “Okay, okay, I mean, yes sir,” I said. I looked over and saw his guitar leaning up against the side of the couch. So I picked it up and sat down on the edge of the couch, across from where Dad was sitting in his recliner, and I started strumming the guitar and singing “I Remember the Year that Clayton Dulaney Died.”  I was trying not to sing it too loud or anything, because I didn’t want Mom to hear me from upstairs. The whole time I was singing it, Dad was layed back in that recliner chair, with his eyes closed tight, like he was in some kinda bad pain or something. Every now and then he’d squeeze them shut even tighter and swallow real hard and make a real bad face, like his insides were hurting him or something.

     When I was finished singing Clayton Dulaney, I just sat there a minute, waiting to see if Dad was gonna make me sing it all over again or something. He was still layed back with his eyes closed. I could tell he wasn’t asleep, though, because of the way he was breathing and all.

     Finally, he started talking again. He didn’t open his eyes, and his voice was so low I could barely hear him. He said, “Warren, you wanna know something?  I’ll let you in on a little secret, if you ain’t already figured it out for your own self. Your old man ain’t shit, you know that?  He ain’t goddam shit.”

     I didn’t know if he was expecting me to say anything back to him or anything, so I just sat there and kept my mouth shut. He didn’t say anything, either, for a long time, but then he started humming the Clayton Dulaney song to himself, real low. He still hadn’t opened his eyes. He hummed it for a while, then he stopped and said, “Warren?  Let me ask you something. You gonna remember the year that old Clayton DuGrubber died?  Huh, you gonna remember that?  Ever wonder what goddam year that’ll be?”  He went back to humming again. Then he reached over and picked up the bottle from the side table and took a big swig from it and sat it back down and made another awful face, like the whiskey was burning his throat on the way down, and then he swallowed hard again and went, “Aaahhh.”  Then he started whispering to himself over and over again, “I just ain’t shit, Warren, that’s all...just ain’t shit...ain’t shit...”

     I’ve seen Dad drunk lots of times and all, but I’d never seen him acting like this before. He was starting to scare me, to tell you the truth, especially with that pistol laying there on the table beside him. I got to thinking all kinds of wild things, like maybe Dad was getting ready to blow his brains out, the way he’d told Grandpa Hollins he’d felt like doing a bunch of times before, which I’d overheard him saying that to Grandpa Hollins that time, like I mentioned a long way back.

     Well, if I had to admit it, Dad ain’t all that much of a father to me, really, and he ain’t all that nice to me that much or anything, and he ain’t even around much, but still, he ain’t all that mean to me, either, when he is around, and I’d never want to let him kill himself or anything, if I could help it. So I figured I had to do something to stop it from happening, if I could, if in fact that’s what he was thinking about doing, sitting there in the dark with that pistol by his side, putting himself down and saying he ain’t shit over and over.

     I didn’t know what else to do, so I figured I’d try to pick that pistol up off the table somehow, and take the bullets out of it, without Dad hearing me do it. But when I got up from the couch there, and was trying to lay the guitar back down behind me as quiet as I could, I must have bumped the back of it on the arm of the couch, because the strings made a big jangly thwang noise, which kinda jarred Dad out of his little trance, or whatever it was he was in. His eyes popped open. I sat back down real quick.

     He reached over and picked up his cigarettes from the table and stuck one in his mouth and flipped open his lighter and started flicking it over and over, but it must have been out of fluid or something, because it wouldn’t put out a flame for him. He kept trying and trying, and then finally he flung it back down on the table and said, “Warren, go upstairs and bring me back a book of matches.”

     I didn’t want to leave him alone down there, with that pistol laying there and everything, but I didn’t really have much choice. I hesitated a minute, trying to think of something, but Dad waved his arm at me and said, “Go! Go!”

     So I did what he said and went running up the steps to the kitchen, trying to go as fast as I could, so I’d get back downstairs as quick as I could. I knew there was always some matches in the one of the kitchen drawers, so it’d only take me about two seconds to find him some.

     Well, Mom and Freddie were upstairs sitting at the kitchen table, going over their Watchtower magazines for the next day or looking over the day’s text in the 1975 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses or something.

     Soon as I came busting through the door from downstairs, Mom looked up at me and said, “Well, what did your father want?”

     “He needs some matches,” I said. “His lighter won’t work.”

     “You were down there all that time just to find out he needed some matches?”

     “Yeah, well, he was talking to me, too, and then he—“

     Right then is when the phone rang. I was kinda glad it did, because I didn’t want to stand there and get the third degree from Mom about what me and Dad had been talking about. I needed to find those matches for Dad and get downstairs as fast as I could.

     Mom got up and answered the phone. I went to opening and closing a bunch of kitchen drawers, frantically looking for Dad’s matches. I could hear everything she was saying into the phone.

     “Hello?” she said. “Yes, this is Mrs. Grubber...Yes, I’m Warren’s mother. And who is this, please?...Mister Milner?...Ginny’s father?...No, I’m sorry, I’m afraid I’ve never heard Warren speak of a Ginny before...Uh huh...Uh huh...A wreck!  What wreck?...Oooohhh...Uh huh...Is that so?..I see, I see...A ride?  To what party?...Her birthday party?  I see. No, Mister Milner, I assure you, Warren has not mentioned any such party to me, and I’ll tell you why, Mister Milner. You see, we’re Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mister Milner, and in case you didn’t know it, Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t celebrate birthdays, Mister Milner. And I’ll tell you something else, we don’t celebrate Christmas, and we don’t celebrate Easter, and we don’t celebrate Halloween, and we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, and we don’t celebrate the Fourth of July, and we don’t celebrate any of your other worldly pagan holidays, either. So I’m afraid this has all been a big mistake...That’s right...Well, I don’t care what Warren has told her...That’s right, Warren will not be needing any rides tomorrow, because Warren will not be attending anybody’s birthday party tomorrow...Uh huh...That’s right, he won’t be needing a ride...Uh huh...that’s right... Goodnight to you, too, Mister Milner.”

     Mom hung up the phone and right away shot me with the meanest look she’d ever shot me with before. She said, “Would you mind telling me what that was all about?  Some strange man I’ve never even met before calls and offers to give you a ride tomorrow?  To his daughter’s birthday party?  Because your uncle has been in a car wreck?  Can you just explain all that for me, Warren? 

     Freddie said, “Yeah, I’d really like to hear this one.”

     “Shut up, Freddie,” Mom said. Then she turned back to me, “And just who is this Ginny Milner girl?  Is she the same one that called you the other night, the one you swore up and down you weren’t goo-goo with?  Well?”

     “Yes.”

     “And?”

     “And nothing. I kinda like her, that’s all.”

     “You kinda like her. You kinda LIKE her. Warren, you beat everything I’ve ever seen, you know that?  What are you trying to do to me?  Here I am, trying and trying and trying to do the best I can to bring you up in the Truth, and with no help from your no-count father I might add, and then come to find out you’ve promised some little goo-goo girl that you’ll come to her birthday party. Because you kinda like her. And a worldly girl, to boot. What have you got to say for yourself on this one?”

     “Nothing.”

     “Nothing?  Is that all?  Nothing?  Well answer me this, does this little goo-goo girl of yours know you’re a Jehovah’s Witness?  Huh?  I bet you didn’t tell her any of that, did you?  Now did you?”

     “No.”

     “Of course not. I didn’t think so. And that’s why you had to go and make up some crazy lie about your uncle being in a car wreck, just to have an excuse when you couldn’t go to her birthday party, because you knew good and well I’d never let you go, if I’d found out anything about it. Ain’t I right?”

     “Yes, Ma’am.”

     “Do you think I’m stupid or something?”

     “No, Ma’am.”

     “Well, you must, to go and pull a bone-headed stunt like this. You just never cease to amaze me, you know that?  Not just a girlfriend, but a worldly girlfriend!  And you know good and well what the Society thinks about such things. Don’t you see what kinda trouble you’re getting yourself into?  Don’t you have any idea?  Do you think this girl can give you eternal life in a paradise earth, the way Jehovah God can?  Can she?”

     “No, Ma’am.”

     “Don’t you want eternal life?  Or are you just bound and determined to be destroyed at the Battle of Armageddon with this Ginny Milner girl and all the rest of the wicked world?  Is that what you want?  Huh?  ‘Cause it sure seems like it.”

     I didn’t say anything. My bottom lip was starting to quiver, like I was gonna start crying or something, but I didn’t start crying.

     “Well?  What do you want?  Huh?”  Mom’s voice was starting to get louder and louder. “Please, just come right out and tell me. What do you want?  I’m anxious to hear it. What?”

     I stood there at the door to the basement steps, with Dad’s matches in my hand, just staring down at the floor. The knot in my stomach felt like it was starting to come up my throat or something. I just knew any second now I was gonna hear Dad’s pistol go off downstairs. I just wanted to get back down there.

     “Answer me, Warren,” Mom shouted, “I’m standing here waiting to hear it. What do you want?  Answer me right now!”    

     “I WANT TO BE NORMAL!” I screamed. “THAT’S WHAT!” 

     I felt like I was gonna throw up right then and there, the way my insides were churning around. I knew I should have left it at that, and gotten out of there as quick as I could, but for some reason I just couldn’t stop myself, stuff started coming out of my mouth almost as if it was somebody else standing there saying it, instead of me. “I want a NORMAL Mom and a NORMAL Dad and a NORMAL brother and NORMAL friends!  And I want to grow my hair out long like every other NORMAL kid I know does!   And I want to celebrate my birthday, and salute the flag, and stand at attention when they play the National Anthem, and go to church once a week, like NORMAL people do, instead of forty damn times a week!  And I want a girl friend I can talk to on the phone and go to football games with and hold hands with at school, like NORMAL kids do!”

     Freddie was sitting there with his mouth hanging wide open.

     “But what I really, really, REALLY want is a chance to grow up!  I’m sick and tired of being worried all the time about being destroyed at Armageddon!  I don’t want anybody to be destroyed at Armageddon!  In fact, I DON’T WANT ARMAGEDDON TO EVEN COME AT ALL, EVER!  That’s what I want. CAN’T I JUST BE NORMAL?”

     I was expecting Mom to start crying and get all worked up and everything and yell a bunch of stuff back at me, and maybe smack me a couple of times up side my stupid head for yelling at her like that, but she didn’t. She just sat back down at the kitchen table, nice and calm, and opened her Watchtower back up and said, “Well, that’s a fine little speech you made there. I hope you’re very proud of yourself. I’m just as sorry as I can be that your little world ain’t normal enough for you, that everybody is keeping you from enjoying a normal life. But I’ll tell you how normal you’re gonna be when Armageddon rolls around and you’re not dedicated to Jehovah and baptized. Dead normal, that’s how normal you’re gonna be. I hope that’s what you want, because mark my words, young man—“

     That’s when Dad started yelling again from downstairs. “WARREN!  WARREN!  WHERE’S MY GODDAM MATCHES?”

     I didn’t even bother to stay and hear Mom finish what she was saying. I still had the book of matches in my hand that I’d gotten out of the kitchen drawer. I turned and took off down the steps to take them to Dad. I could hear Mom yelling out behind me, “I’m not finished with you, young man—“

     By the time I got back downstairs, Dad was passed out cold in his chair, with his unlit cigarette still dangling from his mouth. I shook him a couple of times and said, “Dad! Dad!” trying to wake him up, but he was really out of it. I put the matches into my pants pocket, and took the cigarette out of his mouth and pulled his shoes off for him. I figured he’d just have to sleep it off right there for the rest of the night. Like always.

     I started going back up the steps, but when I got about halfway, for some reason, I turned around and went back down to where Dad was. I picked his pistol up from off the side table there and opened it up and shook the bullets out into my hand. Something told me it’d be a good idea to take them bullets outside and throw them into the woods behind the house, to keep Dad from ever using them. So I opened the basement door as quiet as I could and slipped out into the backyard. I had them bullets balled up in my fist, and I drew back my arm and was getting ready to heave them across the yard, but then for some reason, right at that exact moment, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed my bicycle leaning up against the back of the house there. All of a sudden I decided it’d be an even better idea to jump on it and ride down the road a little ways and throw the bullets away one by one along the side of the road. Dad would never be able to find them then.

     The next thing I knew, that’s what I was doing, pedaling down the road as fast as I could go, and every so often throwing a bullet over the ditch and into the woods alongside the road. It was pretty dark out there, but I could still make out where the road was. It was like this long black river stretched out in front of me. My bike tires hummed on it.     

     After I’d gotten rid of all the bullets, I stopped my bike in the middle of the road and was getting ready to turn it around and pedal on back up the hill towards the house, because I knew I had to go to bed, like Mom had told me, because she was expecting me to get up real early and go out in Field Service the next morning with Brother Gottwald. I stood there leaning against my bike, resting and trying to catch my breath, and then all of a sudden, it came back to me, the big fight me and Mom were just having, right before I took Dad’s matches down to him and found him passed out, and all that yelling I’d just done at Mom came back to me, too, all that stuff I’d yelled at her about being normal, so she was probably still waiting for me to come back upstairs, to set me straight on just how normal my life was gonna be from now on. And she’d had a few minutes to think about it all, too, so I knew she’d probably have quite an earful waiting for me.

     All the things that happened after that, I really can’t explain why they happened. They just happened, that’s all. You see, instead of turning my bike around and pedaling on back up the hill to the house, I just kept on going in the opposite direction, towards Lynchburg. I didn’t know where I was going to or anything.  Somewhere in there I remember thinking about that dirty trick Brother Gottwald’d played on me at the end of the meeting that night, how he’d gotten me to read that scripture out loud and all, which was pretty much the same thing as telling me in front of everybody there that I wasn’t nothing but a ridiculer in the congregation, sent by Satan to mislead the Brothers and Sisters into destruction. The more I thought about Brother Gottwald making me read that scripture like that, the madder I got. And I got even madder when I remembered that Mom was making me go out in Field Service with him the next morning.  I got to pedaling faster and faster, and yelling out over and over at the top of my lungs, “Kiss my ass, Gottwald, kiss my goddam ass!” 

     I yelled it until I couldn’t yell it no more, until my voice was completely shot. But then I got to thinking, what if Brother Gottwald was right about it all?  What if maybe I was the ridiculer that that scripture was warning everybody about. After all, I had jumped on him and Brother Harris in the library that night, about Charles T. Russell getting the 1914 and the 1975 light all screwed up, and all that. I had kinda done them things the scripture had warned to be on the lookout for.

     That got me real scared all of a sudden, thinking about it like that, how pretty obvious it was that little by little I’d been allowing myself to become a tool of Satan, doing all the bad things I’d been doing, all the bad stuff I’ve been writing about. So it did make a little sense, that maybe Jehovah had sent Brother Gottwald to straighten me out before it was too late, if you thought about it in a certain way.

     Well, before I knew it, I’d ridden my bike all the way into town, and was most of the way down Fort Avenue, almost back at the Kingdom Hall. I could see it up ahead, all locked up and dark and empty looking. It kinda shocked me that I’d ridden that far, without really realizing it or anything, until just then. And then, believe it or not, I actually got a glad feeling all over, when I realized I was back at the Kingdom Hall, because all of a sudden I remembered what Mom had said to me that night, on the way home in the car, that it’d be a good thing for me to get down on my hands and knees and repent before Jehovah, and beg Him to change my heart condition before it was too late, and make me into a person acceptable to Him, and make me glad that Armageddon was coming to rid the world of wickedness, and make me be happy doing what I knew was right and what I knew was the only thing that was gonna allow me to escape destruction at Armageddon and win me eternal life in a paradise earth. After everything that had happened so far that night, I figured I’d better give it a shot, and maybe Jehovah would answer my prayer this time, if I prayed it in the right way, and then maybe I could even forget about wanting to be a normal kid.

     Don’t ask me why, but for some reason I figured the best place for me to pray my prayer was on the front porch of the Kingdom Hall, because that way I’d be as close to Jehovah as I could possibly get, while I was actually praying, and maybe that would help somehow. So I went to pedalling as fast as I could, towards the Kingdom Hall. But when I got up to it and threw my bike down on the front lawn and ran up the front steps, I suddenly realized maybe there was a way I could get even closer to Jehovah during my prayer, maybe I could actually pray from inside the Kingdom Hall, because I remembered that I’d left the Hall earlier that night by going out the basement door, and I was probably the only one that went out that way, so it was probably still unlocked. I was so excited, I ran back down the front steps and around to the side of the building, and grabbed the handle of the basement door and turned it, and it wasn’t locked!  It was still open!  I was gonna get to go inside and go upstairs and get down on my hands and knees on the front platform and pray to Jehovah and beg for forgiveness and a new heart condition, from right there, inside the Kingdom Hall! 

     When I pushed open the basement door, it was really dark in there, and I should have been more careful and taken my time and all, but instead like an idiot I just barged right in, and first thing you know I tripped right over something that was sitting a couple of feet inside the doorway there, and I heard a big clang from whatever it was I ran into, and then I heard a lot of big gulunka, gulunka, gulunkas, which is the sound of something pouring out of a container that’s been knocked over on its side.  I picked myself up off the floor and turned around to see what I’d just knocked over. The door had swung open behind me and just enough light was coming in from the street for me to make out a lawnmower sitting there just inside the door, and also a big five-gallon gas can laying over on its side, with a silvery stream of gas pouring out of it, over into a big puddle that was starting to snake across the middle of the basement floor, slowly making its way to a floor drain over there. I thought to myself, Jesus, I’ve gone and done it now!

      Man, my heart was beating about a hundred miles a minute. I knew I’d better come up with some kinda plan of what to do next, and it better be good and it better be quick. All I could think about was how I needed to clean up this mess somehow and get back on my bike and get the hell back home and into my bed and go to sleep and hope I’d never have to wake up again.

     I stood there in the darkness watching the big shiny puddle of gas moving across the floor. I felt scareder than I’ve ever felt in my whole life. My hands started shaking, I was so scared. So I shoved them down into my pants pockets. My right hand felt something in my pocket there, something it didn’t recognize, and it pulled it out and held it up to my face and showed it to me. It was Dad’s book of matches. I looked at the matches, and then for like one split second, I swear, it seemed like everything that I’ve being telling you about all of a sudden rushed right through my stupid head like a lightning bolt or something—all the stuff about the Witnesses and the Kingdom Hall and Dad and Mom and Freddie and Grandpa Hollins and Brother Harris and Sister Flowers and Brother Gottwald and Miss Hiller and Mrs. Harrelson and Kathy Lendover and Wallace and Wendall and the Doobie Brothers and Danny Riley and Pete Rose and Ginny and Lamar Jackson and Armageddon—everything, all at once, my whole crummy life, like it was all one big flashback in a stupid movie or something. And for that one split second it felt like the knot in my stomach had moved up into my heart and was getting ready to explode and blow me all to kingdom come.

     But then, like a split second later, it all passed, just like that. It was all gone. I quit feeling scared, and the knot went away. All I felt was complete calm, like my whole head was empty for once, empty of everything except the movie’s final scene.

     I saw myself open the book of matches and take one out and strike it and drop it on the floor and turn around and walk out and close the door behind me.

     And that’s how I got to be where I am now, which is right here at the Lynchburg Juvenile Detention Center, writing all this crap down, like Mr. Franks asked me to, for him to read when he comes back from his honeymoon, whenever that’ll be.

     Mom comes by to see me every other day or so. Of course the first thing she did after I got here was bring me my New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures and a 1975 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and told me I could at least be keeping up with the daily text, while I’m sitting around not doing anything else. But I haven’t, though. I just don’t feel like it. And every time she comes in, I halfway expect her to start yelling at me because she’s found my dirty calendar under the backseat of her car, but so far I guess she hasn’t found it yet. I’m sure she will, though, it’s just a matter of time, that’s all.

     Actually, we don’t get to talk much when she comes by, because she usually gets to crying and carrying on, right off the bat. Sometimes she manages to ask me why I did what I did, before she gets to crying and all, and I usually just shake my head and stare down at the floor and say I don’t know why, which is pretty much the truth. She asked me again today, and I said, “I don’t know, Mom. I can’t explain it. It was just a feeling I had. In my gut.”

     “A feeling in your gut?” she said, and she started crying again. “What in the world is that supposed to mean?”

     “I don’t know,” I said.

     She cried for a few more minutes and I just kept staring at the floor. Finally she stopped crying and just sat there for the longest time without saying anything. Then she stood up like she was getting ready to leave. She said, “Well, how does your gut feel now, young man?”

     It feels sad, Mom, it feels sad.