The Haunting of Autumn Lake (26 page)

It kind of reminds me of this guy I knew in college. (If you’ve heard this one, just skip it.) Several million years ago when I was younger, and even more Vaden-ish than I am now, I whipped up a little snippet about this boy I knew so long ago. I put a title on it,
The Beloved Book—The One with the Tattered Cover
(yes, I’ve always been this sappy), and tucked it away somewhere, intending to put it in my journal or life history that I planned to write someday for my children (har, har, har).

Well, believe it or not, this little snippet of sappy corn syrup (that I still weep through every time I read it because it was such a valuable life lesson to me about people) had quite a bit to do with inspiring Ransom Lake’s character.

So at the risk of opening up my heart to being pricked and prodded and misunderstood, I think I’ll include it here. As I said, it was an incredible life lesson to me. This instance taught me the importance of seeing beyond someone’s exterior. It taught me to look into the eyes of another and truly see them—their hidden pain and challenges—their needs.

I think you might see some threads of inspiration for other books in this little vignette as well. And I have changed the names to protect the innocent! And so we begin:

The Beloved Book—The One with the Tattered Cover

I can’t even tell you when I first “noticed” him, but I think it was during a dance our band played in the Manwaring Center at Ricks College sometime in early 1984. He was in charge of the sound mixing boards for the band and worked at the back of the room in the dark, which might account for my not seeing him much before that. But one night, for some reason, the lights were on in the back of the room, and from where I stood on the stage, I could see the sound and tech guys standing at their stations.

I was the lead female singer with several pop/rock bands, and this night I was singing one of my signature songs, which included high notes that I needed to hit hard and loud. A confident, poised lead singer will pull the microphone back a ways from her mouth when she hits those loud notes, thus preserving the hearing of the sound guys wearing headphones to monitor the sound mix. However, I wasn’t confident or poised, and I was terrible at remembering to pull the microphone away from my mouth when I hit those really loud notes. So that night, as I took a deep breath and hit the first big belt-singer note, I watched the lead sound tech, Ryan, rip the headphones from his head and fling them to the floor.

I could tell he was miffed (to say the least). Ryan proceeded to quietly, but furiously, rant and rave at the other sound guys, and I knew that his ears would be ringing for hours because of my stupid mistake. I had seen this guy helping to roll up cords after dances, but his reaction to having his eardrums destroyed by my voice really caught my attention. And there you have it—my first vivid memory of Ryan Clems.

After the dance that night, I watched Ryan rolling up cords and putting away equipment. He was obviously very grouchy. And no wonder! I’m sure all he could hear was that high, loud D. I continued to watch him—sort of afraid to go apologize because he looked so cranky—frowning, scowling, and probably suffering from some extreme hearing loss.

So I just stood back and studied him for a moment. He was tall and kind of sloppily dressed, his hair was thinning a bit, and I guessed he must be in his midtwenties. However, as I stood there watching him work, grouching around and muttering under his breath, something inside myself told me there was a lot more to this guy than just what I could see with my naked eye. Someone very unique and special was hiding under that rough exterior—someone treading in low self-esteem.

And so, you see, this is the story of a person who taught me one of life’s greatest lessons. The person who showed me that befriending a soul—who you might think is unpleasant and even frightening, mean, and scary—can be a hero through and through. One who gifts your heart and soul lasting love and tender memories, making
you
a better person because you knew
them
.

Ryan was actually only nineteen. As I watched him for a few days, trying to find the nerve to talk to him and apologize for the permanent damage I may have caused his now scabbed-over eardrums, I noticed he never smiled. He wore what I like to call a perpetual frown and was pretty antisocial. Nevertheless, somehow I found the courage to smile at him a few times. Eventually I found the guts to talk to him, and even flirt with him just a little. Sure, he was grumpy and unresponsive to me at first. But it wasn’t long before I began to notice a change in him. Ryan started smiling back at me—even talking to me and sort of blushing when I’d offer sincere compliments to him. He began to pamper me too. Often he would step up onto the stage before a dance and give special attention to my microphone. He’d check to make sure the foam cover on my mike was fresh and didn’t smell like someone else’s bad breath. If it did, he’d just take the foam off and let me sing without it.

It was during one of these intimate mike checks that I clearly remember the first long sentence Ryan ever spoke to me.

He said, “Don’t worry about blowing my ears out. I know your songs enough that I can turn you down at the mixing board…for my own safety.” He smiled at me, and I noted that he actually had a very charming grin to complement his rather boyish face once the frown was gone.

Ryan was not overly verbose like I am. However, he began to talk to me considerably more than he did to anyone else, and we began to form a comfortable, happy friendship. I loved him for that—for the fact that he was kind, charming, and ever a gentleman. So many guys at college were—you know—slimes. But not Ryan. He was polite, had a great sense of humor, and literally treated me like I was a lady.

A man named Wilson Brown was in charge of the Dance Band and all of its affiliates. He noticed the friendship Ryan and I were forming and once mentioned to me how glad he was to see it. He saw through Ryan’s thick skin too, I think. I’d often catch Wilson smiling at me after he’d seen Ryan and me talking.

As is very typical of
moi
, I’m often a comedian when I’m not trying to be. And I was the same way ten (now twenty-seven) years ago. As the singer in the band, I was very nervous and had several undesirable habits that would show their ugly faces when I was singing in front of people. I’d chew on my necklace if I wore one, so I stopped wearing them. I’d blow bubbles with the gum that I chewed to keep my mouth moist when it was bone-dry because of nerves. And I was always getting the thin heels of my cool ’80s spiked heels stuck in the cracks of the portable risers we used on stage. These habits gave Wilson Brown fits. I really don’t know how he ever put up with me!

However, the worst issue I had was Ryan’s to deal with. It became a regular occurrence for me to get my foot caught in the microphone cords (mikes had cords back in the old days) as I turned to walk away after singing, thus causing all of the microphones to fall over just like a line of standing dominoes. Ryan would have to come up from the back and help to straighten it all out. But he never once complained. He’d just fix the mess and favor me with a grin.

Once, after a particularly bad night of my knocking everything around (I can still picture Ryan standing on the floor in front of the risers sorting cords), he looked up at me as I was putting music away and said, “If you can go a whole dance next time without knocking over a mike…I’ll give you four big packs of gum.” He grinned mischievously, and I agreed to give it the ol’ college try. (After all, I was in college.) Ryan knew that gum was a great motivator for me. It was scarce considering my college student pocketbook, and I was a gum fanatic! So, with great concentration, I did finally achieve a “no-knock-down” dance the next weekend. Sweet Ryan said he’d bring my gum over as soon as he could.

I wasn’t home the next day when Ryan brought the gum. I just came home to find a shoebox sitting on our lovely orange college couch and my roommates explaining that Ryan had left it for me. I smiled, salivated at the thought of four big packs of gum, and opened the box. What I found was four chewing gum units containing thirty packs each of gum! Ryan had bought one box each of the four Wrigley flavors—Spearmint, Doublemint, Juicy Fruit, and Big Red! (Yes, there were only four Wrigley flavors back then.) I couldn’t believe it! A very creative mind also hid behind that grouchy façade of Ryan’s. (The gum wrapper chain I made from that gum is over 26 feet long, never ceases to amaze my children, and is one of the treasures cached away in my cedar chest to this very day.)

I couldn’t believe Ryan had done such a thoughtful, clever, and no doubt expensive thing for me. (Seriously, we didn’t have bulk things then, and I can’t imagine how hard that gum was to come by and how much it must have cost!)

As a gesture of my deep, sincere gratitude and friendship, in return I baked some peanut butter cookies and took them to Ryan in a basket I had found lying around. When I dropped the basket of cookies off at Ryan’s apartment, I told him that if he’d return the basket to me, I’d fill it up with cookies for him again. Oh, Ryan returned the basket all right! He brought it to our front door a few days later overflowing with a lovely flower arrangement. He’d taken the basket to the florist and had them load it up for me. I couldn’t believe it! He was quite the romantic guy.

Ryan Clems remained a cherished and favorite friend to me in so many ways that semester. He took my friend and me home from a performance of
The Pirates of Penzance
one night when it was about 190 degrees below zero and had begun to snow. I don’t know how he managed it because I’m sure he was supposed to have helped pack equipment after the performance. But he dropped everything to make sure we got home safe and warm. He continued to completely baby me during dances and practices and bestowed those rare grins upon me almost constantly.

As our friendship grew (even through the second grossest haircut I’ve ever had in my life), Ryan lightened, freshened up, smiled, laughed, and even began to shave regularly. As for me, I understood that he was a unique, rare, very special, very heroic man who just needed a friend. He just needed someone to look beyond the exterior to what he truly was inside.

That wonderful, heroic, manly Ryan Clems unknowingly taught me to be careful in judging a book by its cover—that some of those books we see with the tattered, faded covers and dog-eared, yellowed pages turn out to be the best books we ever read—the ones we want to hold onto forever, the ones we never forget or quit loving, the ones that literally change our lives and help shape the person we become.

The semester ended, and I was sorry to leave Ryan to go home for summer—because I knew things would change. Somehow, that same voice that had whispered to me to “see” Ryan—that told me he needed me and I needed him even more—that same voice prepared me by intimating that, once I went home for the summer, Ryan Clems would be lost to me for the rest of my life.

Ryan was still the head sound tech guy for the college, and this meant that he would spend the summer traveling around with the Ricks College Showtime entertainment group. I knew that I would probably never see him again because, when summer was over, he was planning to take time out from his education to serve a full-time church mission. Furthermore, I was falling deeper and deeper in true, true, true love with a handsome, gorgeous young man from New Orleans named Kevin, who was far, far away at the time.

And so Ryan and I said our goodbyes and went our separate ways once spring came and the semester ended. I went home and started my summer job at a local clothing store. I did hear from Ryan though. He would send me postcards from the various places that the entertainment group was performing.

And then, early on the morning of August 16, 1984 (my nineteenth birthday), my mom got me out of bed to take a phone call. It was Ryan! The group was traveling through Albuquerque, and the tour bus had stopped for breakfast. Ryan asked me if he could come by and take me to breakfast for my birthday. Of course he could! I was elated at the thought of seeing him one last time.

I ran around like a crazy woman and was ready to walk out the door when I heard a rumble growing louder and louder moving down our suburban street. I heard the exhaust and brakes of an 18-wheeler and looked out my front window to see a huge semitruck and trailer with
Ricks College
printed in blue letters as tall as me across the side. Ryan stepped out of the cab and came up to the front door. I truly don’t think I’d been more joyous over a reunion in my life! He was like a breath of beloved memory drifting into the day, and we hopped in the Ricks College sound equipment truck and headed out for breakfast at JB’s restaurant.

By this time, Kevin and I were planning on getting married, even though we weren’t officially engaged yet. But, somehow, I couldn’t tell Ryan that day. I simply wanted to enjoy our last friendly moments together. And I did.

After breakfast, Ryan tucked a twenty-dollar bill (“For your birthday,” he said) into my shirt pocket, blessed me with one final roguish grin, and drove off into the sunrise, leaving me feeling melancholy and knowing I would miss this friend forever.

In the autumn, I returned to school, and Kevin and I became engaged. I started rehearsing with the Dance Band, really missing that special soundboard guy with the hearing loss that was no longer there.

Then, one crisp September morning as I entered the rehearsal room ready for band practice, I turned to see Ryan standing there, smiling that roguish smile of his—at me. He’d come to see me one last time before he left on his church mission. We talked and laughed, and I still couldn’t bring myself to tell him about Kevin. It just didn’t seem the right time for some reason. Maybe it was because I knew that even though Ryan had never said anything aloud, and never would, he’d always wanted us to be more than just friends. I hugged him good-bye and felt that sharp, painful heart-pang we feel when we know we’re giving up something we love. I knew that this really was the last time I’d ever see my dear friend and, in many ways, my mentor. With one final grin, Ryan left—and I cried.