Snapper (12 page)

Chapter 19

TURTLEBACK LAKE 1958

“The moon was full that night,” began Owen Andersen.

He was starting to tell a story to his grandson, August.

August was five and he had just asked a question that had been on his mind since before he could even speak.

“What happened to your leg, Grandpa?”

Owen Andersen’s right leg ended just below the knee. From there on down he wore a wooden peg leg just like a pirate’s. Owen was also missing his right hand. August wondered about that, too, but that’s not what he’d asked about. He had asked, “What happened to your leg, Grandpa.”

And Owen had begun to tell him.

“The moon was full that night. I’d like to tell you it was an August moon, August, but it wasn’t. It was a September moon, and it was the biggest, fullest moon I’d ever seen. The moon looked like it had come down close to earth just to get a better look at two people – your father and me. We were out in the middle of the lake on the strangest looking vessel you ever did see. It was a craft that your father and I had built and it really wasn’t a boat at all. It was a kind of wooden raft set on top of a cage we had built out of wire and wood. And we were out there that night to have our revenge on a horrible monster.”

August interrupted his Grandfather.

“Monsters aren’t real, Grandpa,” he said. “They’re only in books and movies.”

“There you’re wrong, my boy,” said Owen. “I don’t mean to scare you, Augie boy, but monsters are real, very real. And some of them are out to get us. That’s just the way it is, August, so you might as well get used to the idea. It’s good versus evil out there, us versus them. And in this case, your father and I were up against a giant snapping turtle.”

“How did you know he was out there?” asked August.

“I’d seen him, Augie,” said Owen. “I’d even fed him once.”

Grandpa raised his right arm, the one that ended before his wrist. “He’d already eaten my right hand.”

Augie eyed the stump at the end of his grandpa’s right arm.

“People talk about phantom limbs, August. They talk about getting itches or pain in hands or legs they no longer have.”

Augie imagined trying to scratch an itch on a hand that was no longer there. It was a strange thing to think.

“For me, Augie, it was different. My missing hand didn’t hurt or itch. In my case, I felt the bones of my missing hand trying to claw their way out of the turtle’s belly. Part of me – my hand – was a prisoner inside that beast. But no matter how much my hand clawed and scratched, it wasn’t getting out. It was trapped. There was only one way for my hand to escape. The beast had to be killed – and I had to do it. And that is what your Daddy and I were doing out on the lake that moonlit night.”

Grandpa Owen shifted his grandson from one thigh to the other. When the boy was comfortably settled, he continued.

“We paddled out to the middle of the lake. Then we lifted the trap door of the cage and we waited.”

“Waited for what, Grandpa?”

“We waited for the beast to come and take the bait.”

“What did you use for bait, Grandpa?”

The boy’s brain was teeming with possibilities.

“I used what I knew it liked. I used one of my limbs. I greased my right leg with animal fat so that I could slip it in and out quickly without getting snagged. Then I slid it into the hole we had made in the top of the trap, and we waited.”

“How did you know he would come, Grandpa?”

“I didn’t know. But I had a
feeling
. The moon had been full the first time he attacked. I thought maybe the full moon might draw him out again. I did mention there was a full moon that night, didn’t I, Augie?”

“Yes, Grandpa, you did, several times. A September moon.”

“Yes, well, so as I was saying, we sat there and waited. And as we waited, I began to feel certain the turtle was coming. ‘He’s coming,’ I said to your Daddy. And your Daddy said, ‘How do you know?’ And I said, ‘I can feel my hand drawing near.’

“The lake shimmered in the moonlight. The surface was still, calm, flat and shiny. Then suddenly your Daddy cried out, ‘Look!’ Your Daddy pointed. And I saw what he was pointing at. Cutting through the water like the fin of a shark was a wooden handle – the handle of the ax I had planted in the beast’s back the night it had attacked us.

“‘Get ready!’ I told your Daddy.”

“Get ready for what?” asked August. “What was my Daddy supposed to do?”

“After the turtle went for my leg and the trap door dropped, your Daddy’s job was to cut the rope that secured the cage to our raft and then shove the boulders in the steel mesh sacks over the side.”

“What would that do?” asked Augie.

“Remember, the steel mesh bags full of boulders were connected by cables to the bottom of the trap. The plan was for those heavy rocks to drag the cage and the turtle in it to the bottom of the lake. We were going to bury him in the deep dark depths from which he came.”

“So what happened. Grandpa?”

“At first, only a few inches of the ax handle protruded above the surface. But as the monster approached, it stuck out higher and higher. It was closing fast. I wiggled the toes of my right foot to make our bait seem lively. Then, like a car crashing into a wall, the turtle struck. As it entered the cage, the handle of the ax was knocked backwards from its upright position. The trap door dropped down and the turtle began thrashing furiously. Through the hole in the top of the trap, it eyed us with unspeakable hatred. You’ve heard the saying, ‘If looks could kill?’ Well, if they could, none of us would be here today. Your Daddy and I would be dead, and you, my boy, would never have been born. But the monster’s eyes, yellow and horrible as they were, had no power to harm us. The beast’s weapons were its claws, its jaw, and its razor sharp beak. Its eyes? I spat in them! Then I told your Daddy, ‘Cut the rope!’ Your Daddy sawed through the rope. ‘Now shove the boulders overboard!” I told him. ‘It’s time to bury this bad boy!’”

“But what about your leg, Grandpa? Did he bite it off when it was inside the trap?”

“No, August. I pulled my leg out of the trap in the nick of time. That’s what frustrated the turtle so much. If he was going to die, he at least wanted to take one of us with him.”

“But then what happened to your leg, Grandpa?”

“Your Daddy had pushed the boulders to the edge of the platform. Ten seconds more and that turtle would be gone forever. But then, I did myself in. You remember how I told you I’d covered my leg with grease so I could pull it out quickly when the turtle struck? Well, I slipped on that damn grease. It was like slipping on a bar of soap in the tub. My luck was bad. My foot slipped right back into the hole I’d just pulled it out of. It all happened at once. Your father pushed the boulders off, I slipped, the turtle snapped. We sent him to his grave, but he had one last supper on his way.”

“How come you didn’t bleed to death, Grandpa?”

“I would have, August, if it wasn’t for your father. I went into shock. It was days before I was aware of anything. I was in a hospital bed, still dopey from morphine. I only know what happened from what your Daddy told me later.”

Owen Andersen nodded toward his son.

“Go ahead, Isaac,” he said. “Tell Augie what happened next.”

“I pulled Grandpa up onto the platform. Then I ripped off my shirt and tore it into long strips, which I used to make a tourniquet. I tried to row the platform back to shore, but the oarlocks were too far apart for one boy. I couldn’t do it. So I climbed into the water and dragged Grandpa with me. I put an arm across his chest and side-stroked all the way back to shore. I don’t know how I made it, but I did. Then I dragged Grandpa to the car and laid him across the backseat. I sped off in search of the nearest hospital I could find. I was driving so fast, a policeman pulled me over. Before he could even start in about me driving, he saw Grandpa in the backseat. ‘What’s happened to him?’ he asked. ‘Lost his leg,’ I said. Then the two of us lifted Grandpa into the backseat of the police car. He put on his siren and flashers and we sped off even faster than I’d been driving.”

“So you and Grandpa killed the turtle?” August asked his father.

Isaac Andersen nodded.

“We sent him to his grave.”

But for the rest of Grandpa Owen’s life, from the night he lost his foot till the day he finally died, he was plagued by doubt. He and Isaac had sent the beast to the bottom of the lake, of that he was sure. Yet he never felt that his own lost limbs were fully at rest. He had a troubling sense that they were in motion – sometimes far away, sometimes near, sometimes down deep, sometimes rising toward the surface.

Chapter 20

TURTLEBACK LAKE OCTOBER 2006

Those who paint on private or public property may think their graffiti is art – a form of creative expression to which they are somehow entitled. Yet I’d like to see these same “artists” should they someday become property owners themselves. Then let us hear how they feel when their property has served as the canvas for someone else’s creative expression. Let’s hear then what they have to say about ‘creative freedom.’ I think the song they would sing then would be very much in harmony with the one being sung in this column today.

So began the editorial Marc Bozian was working on for Thursday’s Turtleback Gazette. Marc already had written an account of the incident for the paper’s front page. This editorial, Marc’s first op-ed piece, was a chance to spread his journalistic wings and fly beyond the constraints of who, what, when, where, and why.

Marc was articulating a rage he felt sure every resident of Turtleback Lake shared. As Marc wrote, he felt that he was speaking for the people.

For time immemorial, long before even the first braves of the noble Lenape Indians hunted in these woods and fished these waters – our lake has been distinguished by a single distinctive landmark: The white isle of rock that gives our lake and community their names. The Lenape, legend tells us, considered this rock to be sacred – the shell of a great white turtle that carried the lake and all its riches on its back into these mountains. The boldest Lenape brave would not have dared to paddle his canoe within a hundred feet of this sacred stone. To stain its sacred surface with dyes of colored berries would have been an unthinkable sacrilege.

And throughout the centuries since the red man has departed, this rock had remained a hallowed symbol of our community. No one has ever dared to deface its pure white surface. No one, that is, until this Monday night, when someone – or some ones – wrapped in the black cloak of night, defaced our town’s most precious landmark with a galling cartoon of our high school football team’s Snapper emblem.

We have always been proud of our young people’s athletic achievements. This defacement, this defilement, this disgusting display of degradation, however, is a harsh wakeup call – especially in light of the horrible occurrences that have taken place in recent weeks.

It is the duty of all of us who hold true to the values of this community to help root out not only the monster that lives in the depths of our lake, but also any monsters that lurk within us.

Marc read over what he had written in long hand. A few words would have to be edited, maybe a few more alliterations added, but otherwise, Marc was pleased – perfectly pleased.

Marc set his notepad alongside his keyboard and began typing. When he was done, he gazed out of his cluttered cubicle at the claustrophobic chaos of The Turtleback Gazette’s office. Though his eyes were open, Marc saw nothing. He was looking inward for the perfect title. Then it came to him.

He typed it – in capitals. Then he tried highlighting and boldfacing the letters. Then he increased the point size. There. Maybe it wasn’t perfect. But it was good:

SHELL SHOCKED!

Who in Turtleback Lake wouldn’t read that?

* * * *

Deena Goode stood on the stage in front of a packed auditorium. She had stood waiting patiently as students filed in and found their seats. Dozens of conversations were still going on, but she would extinguish them like little fires, simply by beginning to speak.

“As a student body,” she began, “we have suffered a great loss.”

Nobody in the audience stopped talking.

Deena looked irritably at the microphone. She turned it from side to side in her hand. She loathed audio-visual equipment. Something always malfunctioned. But this time, at least, the fix was easy. The microphone was simply off. All she had to do was turn it on. She found the switch, gave it a flick, and started again.

“As a student body,” she repeated, “we have suffered a great loss.”

Deena paused to allow any lingering conversations to end.

“What happened to Ian Copeland is something he will have to live with for the rest of his life. And the rest of us – his friends, classmates, teammates, and teachers – will never forget. When Ian returns, I expect all of us to show him the same kind of understanding and compassion we would hope for if we were in his shoes.”

Looking into the crowd, Deena noticed that a number of students in the first few rows were wincing.

She thought for a moment and then it hit her.
Shoes! Plural. Dammit!