Blue Star Rapture (10 page)

When he started the engine again, Tyron asked him, “Was Coach Lindsey in there?”

“You saw his car, Tyron; you know he was.”

“What did Coach Lindsey say?”

T.J. lit a cigarette before he answered. “He said you played well.”

“What about the scholarship, though?”

“He said we'll see.”

“You mean he's going to call you?”

“No, Tyron. I mean he's going to call you.”

NINE

As soon as he got home, T.J. took all his dirty laundry and dumped it in a pile next to the washing machine. He was so tired he thought briefly about asking his mother to do the laundry for him, but even quicker did he realize what her answer would likely be:
Why would I do that? Is your arm broken?

Upstairs, it was hot. He opened the windows in his room and lay in front of the twenty-inch fan, which he turned up to high. The air-conditioned dorm at Full Court had spoiled him. Nevertheless, his exhaustion was complete; he fell into a deep sleep that lasted most of the afternoon.

He watched the evening news while eating two bowls of Cocoa Krispies. Using the remote like a joystick, he surfed fretfully from one Peoria channel to another. They all reported the same event in essentially the same terms: a teenage girl from the Peoria area had fallen to her death at the Camp Shaddai Bible camp sometime just before dawn. Shelbyville County sheriff's deputies were joined in the investigation by state police. Foul play was not suspected, but circumstances of the death were unclear. The young woman's name was being withheld by authorities until such time as all family members had been notified. Film crews filed footage of the footbridge and the concrete steps approaching it while police personnel milled around, some of them in conversation while others walked around with their heads down as if searching for clues.

The beads of sweat that formed on T.J.'s forehead and upper lip were not merely from the heat. His stomach churned noisily. He was in the act of lighting up when his mother returned home from work. “You can't smoke in the house,” was the first thing she said to him. “You should know that by now. Take it outside.”

T.J. took it out on the porch. He finished the cigarette while the words of the anchorman replayed across his brain dramatically like one of those electronic message boards:
The young woman's name is being withheld until such time
…
the young woman's name is being withheld until such time
…

So distracted was he that when his mother joined him on the porch, it took a few moments before he realized he had company. She asked him how the basketball camp went. She had to ask a second time: “How did the camp go?”

“Oh, it was okay.”

“That's all?”

T.J. was leaning against one post, his mother against the other. Their feet shared the same wooden step. “If you want the truth, it was a trip,” he told her. “A real trip.”

“I know it was a trip, but what was it like?”

“Not like that. I wouldn't know how to explain it.”

“I hope you took care of Tyron.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“He was a long way from home.”

“So was I. So was everybody.”

“You know what I mean. Some people are ready to take care of themselves and some people need someone watching over them.”

“Tell me about it. Don't worry, I took care of him.”

His mother sighed. She was rubbing lotion into her rough, red hands. Her veins were prominent. She was 110 pounds if she was lucky, T.J. thought to himself.
The young woman's name is being withheld until such time
…

“I'm still a little worried about how we're going to pay for it.”

“I told you not to worry. We're not going to have to pay for it.”

“I heard you before,” she replied, “but I still look for the bill to show up in the mail. There's nothing free that I know of, so why should basketball camps be any different?”

“There won't be any bill in the mail,” T.J. answered quickly. “It ain't gonna happen.”

“Then who's paying your way? Who
paid
your way?”

“Coach took care of it. I'm not exactly sure how, but I don't think I want to know.” If he told his mother that the money was probably routed through Coach DeFreese by way of Coach Lindsey's office at North State, it would only prolong a conversation he didn't want to pursue in the first place.

“I don't mean to hurt your feelings or anything, T.J., but the times I went to your games you didn't seem to be one of the main players. You were on the bench more than you were in the game.”

“You're not hurting my feelings, Ma; don't worry about it.” He really wanted to change the subject, but his mother beat him to it. She said, “I have to tell you that one of the houses on your route didn't get their paper this week.”

“What house?”

“That adobe one over on Bradley Street. That huge dog was always in the front yard; I didn't want to get too close.”

The huge dog she was talking about was a black Great Dane. He was ferocious in appearance, but not in fact. “They always keep him tied to a stake. He couldn't hurt you.”

“And how was I supposed to know that? All I could see was this huge beast on his feet and moving toward me. How do you deliver the paper there?”

“I just throw it over the yard and onto the stoop.”

“I'm not a thrower, T.J. Anyway, the people who live there are probably good and pissed. I wouldn't be surprised if they've been calling the newspaper office.”

In his mind's eye, T.J. tried to picture his mother lobbing a folded-up newspaper thirty or forty feet over Mr. Levin's front yard, clear to the stoop. The thought made him giggle. He said, “I'll take care of it tomorrow, Ma. It won't be a problem.”

“As long as you're taking care of things,” she went on quickly, “you can also help me understand the last lesson they gave us on Quicken.”

“What did they give you?”

“It was a lesson in shortcuts,” she told him. “I get confused because they teach you a system using all the signs and words in the dialogue box, then they want you to ignore it all and use shortcuts.”

“You'll get it okay; it's just a matter of practice.”

“That's easy for you to say—you're young.”

“You're young too,” he reminded his mother.

“I'm old enough to be out of touch when it comes to computers, you can take my word.”

“You're only thirty-five. You're young enough. Why not show me the lesson tomorrow? Maybe I can give you some help on it.”

“I was hoping you'd say that,” admitted his mother.

T.J. was staring up at the sky, which was turning dark, at the earliest stars making their appearance. The locusts were buzzing away loudly in their mindless mating chorus. It was different here at home than it was in the timber, yet it was the same. It might have been the same sky—
was
the same sky, in fact—and the same stars he'd pondered from the footbridge in the forest. He was relieved to be home, but not at peace.
The young woman's name is being withheld until such time
…

His mother stood up slowly and began brushing the seat of her blue jeans. She was going inside. Before she entered the house, T.J. said to her, “I'm really exhausted, Ma. How'd you like to do my laundry for me?”

“Why would I do that? D'you have a broken arm or something?”

It wasn't until the following morning that T.J. was able to confirm what he'd feared, that the dead girl was indeed LuAnn. He read the story twice over on his knees while hunkered over the bundle of sixty-eight plastic-wrapped newspapers dropped for him on the corner. It was a prominent story on page three, a boxed article with a large headline. It was only five in the morning, so the light was pale, but there was enough to read by if he squinted.

The story said LuAnn Flessner fell to her death from the footbridge. Had there been more water in the gorge, suggested the sheriff's office, the fall most likely would not have been fatal. Preliminary reports fixed the time of LuAnn's death between two and four
A
.
M
. on the previous day. Investigators would try to discover the circumstances of the fall. Was it an accident? Was it suicide? Was she pushed?

An autopsy would be performed and a coroner's jury would be convened to conduct an inquest. There wasn't much more information. T.J. knew, without thinking, that there would be subsequent articles and more thorough ones in other papers, the
Peoria Journal-Star
for instance.

He read the article one last time before loading the papers into his canvas shoulder bag and numbly folding the two or three nearest the top. He walked and folded by rote, nearly sleepwalking his way en route the long-familiar pattern of sidewalks and front porches and stoops and hallways. Full Court and Camp Shaddai and LuAnn Flessner seemed so far away and so long ago. And wasn't there even a sleazy guy, a street agent by the name of Bee Edwards?
Well, wasn't there?

He tried not to, but he couldn't help but wonder if he had said any of the wrong things to LuAnn. Had he made too much fun of those religious beliefs that he found so naive? If she committed suicide, was his sarcasm something that added to her problems? He tried to replay in detail the conversations he'd had with her in his memory. Should he feel any guilt? Was there something wrong with him if he didn't?

The sun was up and there was early morning heat by the time he reached Levin's house. He was watering his front lawn. Hose in one hand and the leashed Great Dane in the other.

When T.J. approached to hand him the folded newspaper, the man said, “I didn't get my newspaper last week.” He didn't say so in strident tones; he was very matter-of-fact about it.

“I know. My mother told me.”

“I tried calling the office, but they weren't any help. It was five days I didn't get my paper at all. What's the story?”

“I was out of town. My mother took the route for me. She was afraid of your dog.”

“The dog is always tied up. You know that.”

“I know it, but my mother didn't,” T.J. replied.

“Then you should have told her. That's what you have to do if you have someone substitute for you.” Levin's dog was lying on his stomach and chewing aggressively on a huge rubber bone. Levin, himself, a wiry, hairy guy, was wearing shorts and a sleeveless Key Largo shirt. T.J. had conversed with him before a time or two, in this same flat monotone.

“Did you hear what I said?” Levin asked him.

“I heard you.” Under other circumstances, T.J. might have found the man's displeasure a source of concern. But now he could only think of LuAnn and her long, swift free fall to the bottom of the gorge. The terror of the fatal impact and the instants before. He felt like telling Levin his missing newspapers weren't important. Instead, he said, “What would you like me to do about it now? Do you want me to get you the back issues, the ones you missed?”

“Why would I want to read old news?”

“I don't know. I'm askin' what you want me to do.”

“You should get me a refund on my bill. That's what you should do.”

“Okay, then,” T.J. replied in a flat voice to match that of his dissatisfied customer, “I'll get you a refund.” Then, without another word, he walked on. He needed to finish the route.

TEN

T.J. took a part-time job at Hardee's, working from three to seven, Sundays through Thursdays. He was a lobby person. He washed tables, took out trash, mopped floors, and cleaned bathrooms. He didn't like the job, but he wanted the cash, and it was a no-brainer; after two or three days, the job itself was as rote as his paper route.

Having the job meant spending less time with Tyron, which was another benefit, as far as he was concerned. There would be more than enough time with the big guy once school started.

Although his mother couldn't know it, he planned to use some of the extra money to rent computer time for her at Kinko's. One evening when he returned home from work, she asked him how long he expected to keep the job.

“I don't know,” T.J. replied.

“Are you going to work there after school starts?”

“Probably. I'll have to start later, though; school doesn't get out until 3:30.”

“You have to have enough time for homework, T.J. You've got college in your future.”

“I know, Ma.”

“With your brains, you have to go to college. You can't ever forget that.”

“I'm not forgetting.”

“And what about basketball? What will you do when basketball practice starts?”

“I may keep the job, anyway,” T.J. informed her. “I haven't made up my mind yet.”

“You mean you might not go out for the team?”

“I haven't made up my mind yet,” he repeated. “There won't be any practice till November, so I don't have to decide now.”

By the middle of August, T.J. had a different mission for his diary. Instead of using it to record Bumpy's activities and inclinations where college recruiters might be concerned, he employed it now as a resting place for his own reflections and self-examination. At the top of one page in particular were the words
the unexamined life is not worth living
. He wasn't sure where he had heard this declaration—it probably came from Shakespeare or something—but he was convinced of its appropriateness.

He stapled together those pages that formed the first part, the section he had kept for the benefit of Coach Lindsey. They were sealed off then, but he decided against tearing them out and throwing them away. Someday, they might serve as a reminder of a lesson too important to forget.

Using the back cover of the diary because it was rigid, he paper clipped his saved newspaper articles dealing with LuAnn's death and the subsequent investigations into it. T.J. had not attended her funeral because it was a private one for family only. One of the articles was a profile of Brother Jackson, which characterized him as a “charismatic will-o-the-wisp evangelist.” It revealed he was conducting revival meetings in Oklahoma at the time of her death.