A Brilliant Death (4 page)

In the days before regulated landfills, Turk “mined” the township dump, which filled the bottom of an old strip mine gully a mile west of town along New Alexandria Road. He had a beater of an old flatbed truck that he drove daily to the dump, where he walked knee-deep in the garbage, hunting for scrap steel, small electric motors, copper, brass, automobile parts, used appliances, and anything that might bring a couple of bucks from the scrap dealers in Steubenville. You could smell Turk long before you saw him, his jeans sagging so that he walked on his pants legs, a railroader’s cap pulled close to the brow. The rumor in Brilliant was that over the years Turk had found a small fortune in gold jewelry, which he had melted down into ingots that were hidden somewhere on his property. Some said he had buried them on the hillside behind his house, where he lived alone. In the mid-fifties, someone looking for the gold, or so it was assumed, nearly beat Turk to death. Turk was found on the basement floor of his home in a coma, his skull fractured in several places. He was in the hospital for weeks and could never identify his assailant. When he regained consciousness he would only mutter nonsense, and no one was ever arrested. The beating had permanently damaged his ability to speak. Around Brilliant, they called his jabbering “Turkey Talk,” a nearly unintelligible dialect that was interspersed with facial contortions and growls and laughing. Oddly, Travis and I understood Turk. It took years of talking and listening to him, but eventually we could figure him out.

On a hot, muggy June afternoon in 1967, Travis and I walked down the railroad tracks toward the prime fishing spot. I sensed that something was on Travis’s mind. He was much quieter than usual, and, since Travis rarely shut up, silence was a good indicator that something was bothering him. “What’s got you stewin’?” I finally asked.

“Nothin’.”

“Really, you haven’t said ten words since we left the house.”

He shrugged as we headed down over the embankment and through a thicket of milkweed and scrub to the river bank. Tiny waves lapped at the shore and a dead catfish bobbled along in the muddy shoals. The air smelled of oil and sulfur, and the acrid exhaust of the power plant stung our eyes. The rocks along the river were covered with the rainbow sheen of petroleum residue.

Travis took the first shot, drawing a bead on a three-footer who made the fatal mistake of lifting his head out of the water. Travis shot him through the head, a rare kill shot, and started pulling him to shore. As he unscrewed the tip of the hunting arrow, which was sticking out of the back of the carp, he looked up and asked, “What do you know about my mother?”

It was a gut punch, and I was totally unprepared. In all the years I had known Travis, never once had he even mentioned his mother. Of course, I had heard all the stories, but his mother’s death due to infidelity was not the kind of topic you discuss with your best friend. And, the truth was, I didn’t know all that much. I had picked up dribs and drabs of information, a fact here, an overheard comment there, but nothing substantial. I had asked my parents about her, but got very little in return. As a kid, you learn that adults know everything but pretend to know nothing. I cannot speak for other homes in Brilliant, but in the Malone household such matters were answered with as much ambiguity as possible. I was just six years old and sitting down to eat lunch one day when I told my mother, “Sometimes, Travis smells like pee.”

“We don’t say ‘pee,’” she said. “And perhaps you should consider yourself lucky to have a mother who washes your clothes and makes sure you take a bath.”

Finding money was lucky; taking a bath was agony, especially if Dad was washing my ears. “Doesn’t Travis have a mom?” I asked.

“No, he doesn’t,” she said.

“What happened to her?”

“Eat your sandwich,” she said, pushing the olive loaf and mustard on white bread toward me. She snatched the wicker laundry basket of clothes from the corner of the table and headed for the living room with the unrealistic expectation that the conversation was over.

I slipped off my chair and followed her into the living room. “Why?” I asked.

“Why, what?” she countered.

“Why doesn’t Travis have a mom?”

“She died.”

“How?”

“She drowned.”

My eyes widened. “In the river?”

“Yes. She drowned in the river a long time ago.”

“But, how did she?”

“I don’t know, Mitchell, she just did. She drowned. And it was a long time ago.”

It might have been a long time ago to her, but it was still new information to me, and I wanted more details. “Okay, but . . .”

“No buts, young man,” she said. “She drowned, and it was very sad. Don’t ever say anything to Travis about it or you’ll make him sad, too. Understand?” I said nothing. She looked at me, her brows creeping down on her eyes. “Promise me that you’ll never say anything to Travis about it. He might not even know how his mom died. Then wouldn’t you feel just terrible?”

She was good at the whole guilt thing. “Okay, I promise.”

“Good. Go eat your sandwich.”

I was good to my word. I never brought it up. Not once. Now that Travis had started the conversation, I found my stomach clenching. I pretended to be scouting for our next carp, turning away from him and feigning ignorance. “What do you mean?”

“It’s not a real difficult question, Mitch,” he said, slipping the stringer through the carp’s gill. “What have your parents told you about my mom? What have you heard around town?”

I swallowed. “Nothing.”

Travis looked up and smiled. “You’re lying.”

“Well, I heard she drowned.”

“Oh, thank you, Sherlock Holmes. What else?”

“Nothing.”

Travis exhaled a breath of exasperation. “Mitch, you’re still lying.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are. I can tell when you’re lying because your Adam’s apple rolls up and down like a yo-yo. You’re the worst liar ever. Now, what did they tell you? Come on, you’re my best friend. I want to know what you know.” I took the bow, said nothing, and edged toward the water, taking quick aim at the nearest carp. “Did they tell you that she was out screwin’ her boyfriend on the river when she drowned?”

I missed my quarry by ten feet but ran my arrow through two unfortunate onlookers who slapped and churned the water.

“A deuce,” Travis said. “Nice shot.”

“God Almighty, Travis! Why would you ask me something like that?”

“Because you’re supposed to be my best friend, and I figure maybe you’ll tell me the truth. Do you think I don’t know people around Brilliant still talk about it? I’m just curious.” He took the line from my hands. “I’ll do this. You just tell me what your parents said.”

“My parents never told me anything, and that’s the truth. They told me she drowned and I should never bring it up in front of you.”

“Okay, so what have you heard other people say?”

I shrugged. “Nothin’ much. She was out on Big Frank’s boat in the river and they got hit by a barge. Your mom and the guy she was with drowned, but they never found the bodies.”

“So how do you know that she drowned for sure?”

“Educated guess? They saw her jump in the river, and no one ever saw her on the streets of Brilliant after that.”

Travis grinned as he dragged the fish over the rocks. “Did you hear that the guy she was with was Clark Gable?”

“Yeah, but I heard it was Dean Martin, too.”

“What else did you hear?”

“Why don’t you ask Big Frank about this?”

Travis rolled his eyes. “Oh, that would be smart—ask the raging Italian about his wife cheating on him. Hell, I didn’t even know that she had drowned until I was ten. Ten! Whenever I asked why I didn’t have a mom, all Frank or my grandparents would tell me was that she had died. In my mind, I always saw her lying in a hospital bed with some mysterious illness. I was shoveling snow for old Mrs. McClatchey one day and she said something about how bad she felt the day she heard my mother had drowned, so I went along like I knew it all the time. That’s how I found out. I picked up things here and there, but I still don’t know many details.” Travis shot a midsized carp through the tail and dragged him flipping and flopping over the rocks. “Once I asked Big Frank if it was true that Mom had drowned, and he got all wigged out.” Travis looked at me and squinted with his left eye. “I mean, he
really
got upset. He grabbed my hair and pulled me a foot off the ground, screaming about wanting to know who told me that.”

“What’d you tell him?”

“I just said I heard it around. If I’d have ratted out Mrs. McClatchey, Big Frank might have thrown
her
in the river.”

He put the carp on the stringer and dropped it on the bank. “Do you remember when we were in the first grade and had grandparents’ day? Most of the kids had all four grandparents come in. It was the first time I realized that I should have
two
sets of grandparents. I felt like an idiot because I didn’t know that.”

“Do you ever see your mom’s parents?”

“No, they died when I was little. I asked my dad about it once and he said they died of broken hearts after my mother died. I asked where they had lived, and all he would say was ‘far away.’”

A half-hour later, I took one end of the stringer and Travis hoisted the other, and we started walking toward Community Park, fourteen carp dangling between us, a few still squirming with their last breaths.

“I want you to help me,” Travis said.

“Help you what?”

“Find out about my mom, goddammit,” he said, annoyed that I was playing stupid when I knew full well what he was talking about.

“What do you want to know?”

“Everything. I was only five months old when she died, so I don’t remember anything. Who was she? Where’d she come from? What was she like? Hell, I’m almost fifteen years old and I’ve never even seen a picture of my mother. I don’t have any idea what she looked like. Big Frank got rid of all the pictures.” His eyes were starting to rim with tears, so I looked away. “He acts like she never existed. I’m here, her son, but he won’t even show me a picture, if he even has one. I understand that she committed adultery, which to an Italian like Big Frank is a mortal sin, but Christ Almighty, if I was married to Big Frank I’d probably be looking for someone else, too. She probably rolled over in bed one day, got a good look at him, and thought, ‘What the hell did I do?’”

I laughed.

He asked, “So, what do you say? You going to help me out?”

I didn’t have Travis’s stomach for breaking rules and defying authority. I knew I was going to end up helping him in his search, because that’s what best friends do. Still, it made my stomach do the churn and burn. “So, what’s your plan?” I asked.

“I haven’t figured that out, yet.”

“There’s a first.”

Travis laughed, and I knew he was glad I was in. “I’ll keep you posted.”

I nodded and got a better grip on the stringer. “I don’t doubt that for one minute.”

CHAPTER FIVE

The Vietnam War had been slow to reach Brilliant. The adults were more aware of the conflict and read the “Military Notes” column that appeared each Monday in the Steubenville
Herald-Star
to keep up with the local boys who were fighting. For my part, I knew the basics. We were fighting a war against the North Vietnamese. The North Vietnamese were communist. The communists were inherently evil. It all seemed simple enough to me.

The bloodshed inextricably linked to all wars made its grand entrance into Brilliant on Saturday, January 14, 1967. That was the day the news about Alex Harmon finally reached home. I was only in the eighth grade, but after that day I knew all I had to know about the war. It had nothing to do with stopping the spread of communism. Simply, it had to do with Alex Harmon and why he could no longer walk.

Alex Harmon was the son that every parent in Brilliant wanted—tall, chiseled good looks, athletic, smart. He lived across the alley from me when I was growing up. He was seven years older than me and my idol. In all the world, there was no one quite like Alex Harmon. All I wanted was to be like him. He had broad shoulders, rippling abdominal muscles, and biceps so big that he would let me swing on them like a chin-up bar. In the summer I would walk across the alley and watch him lift weights in his garage. His dad worked at the foundry and had weights special made for Alex. He lifted so much weight that when he worked out on the bench press the bar sagged on the ends. Whenever he took a break, he would strip the bar down to a few weights and push it across the garage floor with his foot. “Come on, champ, let’s see you press it.” I would struggle and grunt and groan until he finally helped me get it over my head.

I never left for school in the mornings until I saw him come out his back door; then I would sprint out under our grape arbor so I could walk with him as far as the elementary school. I would walk alongside him, proud, trying to emulate his walk, his looks, the way he carried his books. I pestered my mom until she bought me a school jacket that looked similar to his letterman’s jacket. It was royal blue, and in white letters across the back was
Brilliant
arching across the top and
Blue Devils
straight across the bottom, with the evil-eyed devil mascot between the lettering. On days of home football games, I would stand near the tunnel where the team came out. His senior year, Alex was the captain and always the first one out of the locker room. He looked like a warrior, with black grease paint under each eye, his white helmet with the blue stripe pulled snug to his brow, and wearing the home whites. And every week, just before he led the team onto the field—and he never forgot—he would wink and point a finger at me like he was shooting a pistol and say, “Whatta ya say, champ?” His senior year in baseball, he hit a home run that went through the woodshop window. I waited for him after the game, and he gave me the ball, which immediately became my most prized possession.

Alex had dozens of scholarship offers, but his dad insisted that he join the military instead. Many of the old mill hands in Brilliant, Alex’s dad included, could not see the benefits of an education beyond high school. “Be a Green Beret,” his dad had said. “Now that would be something to be proud of. That will take you further than any old piece of paper from some fancy college.”