The Sledding Hill (6 page)

T
he word
surprise
in any credible English dictionary might well have a picture of the Reverend Tarter's face on the evening Eddie shows up again for baptism classes. It's subtle, but he can't wipe it off. “Mr. Proffit, I thought we'd lost you.”

Eddie flashes a quick smile and a raise of the eyebrows. He wants to be valuable to his cause. If the church is infiltrating the school, then the school should infiltrate the church. My man Eddie Proffit is gonna be a steely-eyed spy dude.

“I guess you came to see all you had to lose,” Tarter says.

Eddie nods and looks at the ground.

“Edward,” Tarter says, “I want you to get used to the idea of speech. No matter how well you do in these classes, I am not going to allow your baptism if you don't testify. I know there is nothing organically wrong with you, and if there is, in fact, something mentally wrong with you, it's nothing God can't cast out. So you may as well give in and begin talking.”

Eddie smiles again, holds Tarter's hard stare.

“Suit yourself,” Tarter says. “You know the rules. I won't bend them. I would however, if you'd like to ease back into it, be open to anything you'd like to give me in writing.”

Eddie keeps right on smiling.

“Very well. Back to our lessons. Edward, I'm aware you missed the second half of class last time. Am I to assume that you took issue with our explanation of the mark of Cain?”

Eddie shakes his head no.

“That was the point at which you left; was that a coincidence?”

He nods. Eddie won't normally play twenty questions; rather, he looks away to avoid it. But he needs to make the reverend a believer.

“What you didn't stay for was the explanation,” Tarter says. “Our belief doesn't make us bigots; the mark of Cain is simply a fact of life. We don't look down on African Americans, and we know those who live good lives will also go to their reward.”

Yeah, Eddie thinks, but I'll bet it's not the same as our reward. And I'll bet their heaven isn't in the same place as our heaven. And if the only people who get into ANY heaven are those who follow the
true
word of God, and the Red Brickers have it, then how many black people are going to believe the “truth”? You'd have to be out of your mind to believe a truth that makes second place the best prize you can win.

At twenty-one grams, there's no room for color, nor a need, but the essences of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X and Joe Louis are all out here, and they have full universal privileges. Jack the Ripper is here also, and Lizzie Borden, so even though Tarter isn't correct, he has nothing to worry about.

“Well, I guess we've said all that needs to be said about the mark of Cain. It doesn't apply to any of us anyway, right?”

Eddie looks around the room. Why doesn't anyone else question him? he wonders. There are seven other kids in this baptism class. Youth for Christ has to number close to seventy junior high and high school kids. They must've all heard the same garbage I just heard about the mark of Cain. Did not one of them question it? Or walk out?

What Eddie doesn't know is that's more a tribute to Tarter's powerful presence than to the YFC's bigotry. Most of them will mature and realize the foolishness
of such a notion, and frankly, it doesn't affect them directly in the moment. Such is the nature of many humans. It is not the nature of Eddie Proffit.

The rest of the lessons go down easily, mostly because Eddie doesn't take them seriously. He doesn't openly question their veracity, only makes sure he remembers the “facts” for his written work. At the end of the session, which includes obligations toward the church in terms of tithing and work hours, Tarter says, “Edward, I'd like you to stay a few minutes after class tonight, if that's possible.”

When the others are gone, Tarter motions for Eddie to take a seat, which he does. “Edward, I want to push your testimony and baptism forward, if we can. I think, because of all you've been through, that you can be a major force in a project we're taking on at the high school. I'd like you to be a full member of Youth for Christ within the next two weeks. To make that happen, I'll need to tutor you and you'll need to start talking again.”

Eddie looks directly at Tarter. His expression says he'll consider it. My man is getting
so
good at lying through his eyes. Tarter is unaware that Eddie is ahead of him on the
Warren Peece
issue, and even though Eddie's name and “trouble” usually appear back-to-back in Tarter's brain, he believes Eddie's fear is still driving him. Even in death, I'm an unknown quantity.

“Very well then,” Tarter says. “You'll know more when you need to. I've asked a couple of members of Youth for Christ to contact you. I'll be doing more work with your mother, and I'll coordinate that with your accelerated mentoring.” His expression softens. “I know things have been tough for you, Eddie. We'll get through all this. I won't abandon you.”

 

I catch up with Eddie on an after-school run. Mr. Pederson, the cross-country coach, hands out workout sheets and mileage charts on the first day of
practice and lets the runners choose routes from those posted. Each runner has the choice of three or four different routes per day. Eddie runs alone two days a week, and with the majority of his teammates on others. Today is a solitary run. On these days, depending on how he's feeling, he may run a given course two or three times. The farther he goes, the deeper he gets into himself and the calmer he feels. He will definitely be one of the three top runners as a freshman. The two of us would have been hard to beat.

“Hey,” he says to me before I make any spiritual noise
.

“Hey,” I say back
.

“Is this really you?”

“What does it matter?”

“That's right,” he says. “I remember you from my dream. You think you're Alex Trebek. All your answers come in the form of questions. You can be as annoying dead as you were alive.

“Your dad was right,” he says. “It was smart to stay in Tarter's baptism class. Bet you anything I'm gonna get an earful of this book thing when he comes over tonight. It has to be him behind this. Maxwell West is a big-time guy in the church. No way he does anything without Tarter knowing. He passes the collection plate and hands out the grape juice and that funny bread for Communion. This is Tarter's skullduggery for sure. I like that word. Skullduggery.”

As Eddie starts into a long hill, he picks up his pace. I could never figure out how he did that when we ran together. Eddie kills guys on hills. It's easy for me now, though. I just float.
“Montana's the cool one. She's
so
hacked off. I'd love to be at their house when this all gets out in the open. There's gonna be parent-child conflict.”

No argument there.

“Bet she's giving her dad a load right this minute,” he says. “She's not exactly a chip off the old block.”

His mind jumps to his own dad. “Man, my dad would crap his drawers over all this,” he says, and his pace increases even more. Eddie Proffit is eating this hill up. “He would put the school board on
notice.
Speaking of crap, you know what's really crap? Of course you do, you're dead. I'll tell you anyway
.”

He's right, I do know, but I let him tell me
.

“What's really crap is that book was making me feel less lonely and they want to take it away. Now that I have you, and your dad, I feel better anyway, but think of all the people who don't have you or your dad. The guys who want this book out of here thinks it's a sin if somebody thinks a ‘bad' word, or considers a ‘bad' idea. They don't care if the characters seem like friends to people who don't have any. I bet God's not really like that. And I'll bet it ticks Him off big-time when he sees them using him to get their way. I wouldn't be surprised if we have a hurricane.”

He's right and he's wrong. The universe isn't like that. But it doesn't tick the universe off one bit. The
universe is loving enough to let what happens happen. The universe has no interest in the outcome
.

 

When Eddie starts into the second circuit of his workout today, he looks over and sees Chad Nash. Chad's so invisible at Youth for Christ he resembles me. He's at church every Sunday and he hangs around the edges of the after-school meetings, but you don't hear a word from him. He says, “Hey, Eddie.”

Eddie looks over.

“Okay if I run with you?” Chad says.

Eddie nods.

Eddie seems easy to talk to, and since
he's
not talking, he's no danger as a rat. I know from one look, that's what Chad's looking for. Course Chad doesn't know that when he runs with Eddie, he runs with me, who is also no danger as a rat.

Chad's dad was a NCAA decathlon champion fifteen years ago. He's a big, buff, outgoing guy with
Red Brick Christian family values that don't sweep wide enough to include his son, though his dad doesn't know that. I didn't know it until just this second. Chad Nash is gay, which has him scared spitless because of his membership in YFC. It's like if you were in the KKK and discovered your biological father is Jewish. I'm catching up on Chad's history while we run, which includes terror at disappointing a father who is loud and clear in his devotion to Leviticus, the go-to Old Testament book that says gayness and badness are the same thing.

Chad knows Eddie is on the fast track toward baptism and membership in Youth for Christ, but Eddie seems different. He's praying Eddie will be an ally because he is
way
tired of hiding out.

“My parents won't let me have friends outside the church,” Chad says, “and I hear you're gettin' baptized.”

Eddie slows his pace to match Chad.

“YFC is coming out strong against
Warren Peece.
I can't tell if you like the book or not, but I do and
I'm going to have a tough time going along.” He runs in silence a minute or so, breathing way harder than their pace requires. I
feel
it. He wants to just say it. His secret has been exploding inside him. Truth is, Eddie already knows, or assumes, and couldn't care less. Mr. Proffit raised Eddie to worship math and science. Random chance assigns somewhere between eight and twelve percent of the population gay, about the same as left-handers.

Eddie looks over at Chad to let him know he hears.

“
Warren Peece
is the first book I've ever read with…with characters who seem like they could be my friends,” he says. “That Mitch guy, he's so cool, like, one of the coolest characters in the book.” Mitch is a gay character in the story who, after many attempts, finally stands up loud and strong, like Chad wishes he could. “I just kept going back and reading the parts about him. When Ms. Lloyd told us to pass the book in, I almost couldn't breathe. It
felt like I lost a friend I can't get back. Hey, could we slow down a little?”

Eddie slows more, smiles, trying to tell Chad without words that everything's cool, but Chad is way too wrapped up in getting it all out to read him. “Man, my family.” He stops. “I'm gay, Eddie.”

Eddie stops with him, shrugs.

“My dad's a decathlon champion, my brother's got a scholarship to play football at Michigan, and I'm a frigging homo.”

Eddie lays his hand on Chad's shoulder.

“Anyway,” Chad says, “I know they want you to start talking again, but don't tell anybody, okay? I mean, I know you're getting baptized and joining YFC and everything, but you always seemed like somebody a guy can tell stuff. I always wanted to be friends with you and Billy, but you guys were always off on your own. Don't tell anybody, okay? Please?”

Eddie zips his lips.

“Thanks, man,” Chad says. “I was so scared to say
anything, except I was more scared not to, like I was going to blow up. We're supposed to come out all together for getting rid of that book, YFC, I mean, only I can't. I just can't. It would be like turning my back on a friend or something.”

Eddie nods.

I whip over into Chad and experience the massive relief. They start jogging, slow. “I'm scared all the time,” Chad says after a couple hundred yards cooling down. “I'm scared people will find out, scared they already know. I'm scared somebody might do something like they did with that kid in Laramie, Wyoming.”

Eddie makes a fist and shakes his head no. Eddie Proffit doesn't weigh 125 pounds. The only kid in our class he could whip with his fists checked out under a hail of Sheetrock. But if you saw him make the fist, you'd believe no harm will come to Chad Nash on Eddie Proffit's watch.

“D
ang, it feels good to
talk
,” Eddie says. He and my dad are having lunch in the janitor's room with me, only I'm not eating and they don't know I'm here, and Eddie is catching up full speed.

“This is the place to do it,” Dad says, nodding toward the door. “Door's three inches thick and locked. The band could be playing the “1812” Overture in here and not a soul could hear it. What did you bring me?”

Eddie reaches into his lunch sack and brings out two
extra turkey sandwiches and a thermos of clam chowder.

“This is such a great trade-off. All I have to do is let you talk and I get lunch.”

“And you don't even have to listen,” Eddie says.

“True, but I do, because I am an educator who believes in showing respect to my customers, unlike some I know.”

Eddie chuckles.

My dad says, “Oh, I don't get to call myself an educator?”

“Well, you're the…yeah, I guess.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Dad says. “I may come face-to-face with more students in a day than any teacher in this building. And I almost always deliver.”

“And you're pretty smart,” Eddie says.

“And I'm
way
smart, as you guys like to say,” Dad says back.

“What do you think about Mr. West challenging
Warren Peece?
”

Dad says, “Tell me this doesn't have the reverend's fingerprints all over it.”

“I'm glad you said that,” Eddie says. “He put me on the fast track to salvation, so I have a feeling he has plans for me.”

“Fast track?”

Eddie explains how, for the next few weeks, his life will have about three hours a day without Tarter in it. It's an exaggeration, but not by much.

“Hooo,” Dad says. “You must have ticked someone off in another life.”

“No lie…you were right, though,” Eddie says. “It was smart for me to stay in those classes because I'm, like, the perfect spy. I don't even have to lie 'cause I don't talk. I mean, they got the book pulled for now, but they haven't won yet. It goes through at least one hearing, maybe two. A whole bunch of kids in that class were really liking it; it's got all kinds of bad language and stuff. But that's not the only reason they like it.”

“Doesn't hurt, though, does it?” Dad says.

“Nope.”

“Eddie, you better get used to the idea of that book being gone. The in-school meeting is a formality. The principal of this school is a hard-line Red Bricker. If she deems the book unworthy, it's done. And the school board is loaded with more Red Brickers. You've got three members who are active members of Tarter's congregation.”

They're both quiet a minute, which is like a record for Eddie when his “mute” button's off. Then my dad says, “Eddie, when you start talking again for real, don't you think you should look at making some new friends?”

“I've got friends.”

“You've got people you know. But you and Billy were together almost all the time. You ran together, you biked, you hung out. You got turned down by girls. You're going to need to fill up some time.”

“I didn't need Billy to get turned down by girls. I was good at that all by myself.” Eddie wants to tell him about me, that he's nearly convinced I'm not all the
way gone, that we're talking, and that once he let the possibility exist that it might really be
me
, all the really scary stuff in his life went away. He thinks that might help my dad, too. After our run yesterday, Eddie slept like a baby. But he doesn't know how Dad would react. I could tell him: he would think someone had loosened all Eddie's screws. Another reason I don't bump my dad is, there is
no
way. If he
had
any windows and I went in, he'd be running down the street in his bare feet, just like Eddie, only he'd never regain his sanity.

“Yeah,” Eddie says, “I should probably find some friends, but there's just nobody like Billy. I mean he was a goof and everything, but he sure was a guy you could talk to. I wish he was here now to do some plotting with me. He didn't like to get in trouble, but he didn't mind if I did.”

Dad says, “I suppose the two of you would have gotten yourselves into so much trouble the school janitor would have had to bail you out.” Dad shakes his head. “When I went to school, it was all you
could do to get most of us to read a book. They don't want to be banning one most of the kids like. Most of them do, right?”

“Yeah,” Eddie says. “It's a cool book. When Ms. Lloyd told us to pass them in today, I pretended the one that was passed to me was mine and just stuck mine back in my backpack. I'm gonna finish it.”

Dad reaches into his desk drawer and pulls out a copy of his own. “Thought I ought to take a look at it myself,” he says. “I figure anything Tarter doesn't want you guys reading must be pretty good literchur.” He says it like that. Literchur. He turns the book over in his hands. “Tell you what, Eddie Proffit, if this book is going to get read in your class, you better get some kids together. Ms. Lloyd doesn't have a chance by herself. Tarter's got the principal and three school board members in his pocket. It's going to take a pack of teachers and a whole bunch of kids to keep this baby on the shelf. In my day it was
Slaughterhouse Five
. That book doesn't even
have a bad guy. A book about nothing but being decent, and Tarter got it removed. And back then the school board and the church board had no overlap. He couldn't have been more than five years older than us that first year teaching. We thought he was gonna be cool. But he got rid of that book with his charming personality alone.”

“I'd want to read it even if it's a rotten book, now that he doesn't want me to,” Eddie says. “Man, I wish Billy were here.”

Dad says, “Well, remember one thing, Eddie. You have rights. Just because you're not twenty-one doesn't mean you're not an American. You just need to know what rights you have and how to access them. And as far as Billy is concerned, remember this: We keep those we love alive with the acts we commit in their names.”

 

Eddie and I are intercepted by Dan Moeltke as he walks through the front entrance the next morning, although you don't really intercept
me
unless I want
to be intercepted. Dan puts his big ol' quarterback's hand in the middle of Eddie's back and leads him to an empty classroom. Within a few minutes nine other upperclassfolks join them. Eddie recognizes them as student officers of YFC.

“Hey, Eddie,” Monica Bechtel says.

“Hey, Eddies” bounce around the room.

Eddie nods.

Dan gets to it. “Did Reverend Tarter talk with you last night? He said he would.”

Did he ever, Eddie thinks, and nods. I thought I'd never get to bed. According to Tarter, this Crutcher is promoting a
lot
of evil. He's got gay characters, he's got blasphemers, he's got Lord's-name-in-vainers. Tarter stayed past midnight giving Eddie the lowdown on what he expected from him at the school hearing once he got baptized.

“Good. Look, we know you've had a really tough year, especially this last summer.”

Eddie's expression doesn't change.

“And none of us can tell you how happy we are that you've decided to take Jesus as your personal savior.”

Eddie grimaces in the affirmative. It's easy to see he's nervous. Dan Moeltke is a big deal, in YFC and in the school. He's a two-sport athlete with a near-perfect grade point average, and unless you were raised by wolves, you pretty much have to think he's cool.

“We know you're almost ready to testify at church,” Dan says. “Baptism comes right after that, and Reverend Tarter says you'll be talking soon.”

Eddie nods.

“You'll be a full-fledged church member then, which makes you automatically a member of YFC. We're thinking of making you an honorary officer. At school, we're a service group. You know about the food drives we've sponsored and the group trip to Mexico to build houses for unfortunates. Those things will all be available to you.” Dan pauses, lowers his voice. “We're also going to spearhead a student-led drive to bring decency back into the school curriculum.”

Eddie smiles, opens his eyes as if hungry to join. He's hot to be a spy guy.

“I'm glad you see the need,” Dan says.

Here comes the book-banning strategy.

“Everybody discounts teenagers,” Dan says. “Adults believe we don't think for ourselves, that we're morally immature. This group—” and he sweeps his hand to indicate those around him—“knows this is the perfect time to prove them wrong. We all know the best way to keep your mind pure is to keep evil thoughts out.
Warren Peece
is evil, plain and simple. The language is disrespectful and obscene; the Christians in the book are portrayed as mean-spirited and controlling. There's a gay character at the center of everything. The book, in its entirety, is simply a lie. We're going to come out swinging against it.”

It's hard for Eddie to keep a neutral face. He loves the book, and he loves it more as he hears Tarter's words come out of Dan Moeltke's mouth. It's hard not to like Dan, and if you're in with these guys you'll
never hurt for people to hang out with, but Eddie kind of likes the champion-of-the-underdog role, too, especially when the underdog is him. He nods. I'm lyin' scum, he thinks, but I'm righteous lyin' scum.

“We think you can be a big factor in the outcome of this challenge,” Dan says, and the others agree. “Because you've been through all you have, people will listen to you. When you start talking, we want you to think about what you'll say. I could see you holding my position in YFC before you're out of high school. If you're an honorary officer this year, that will give you a two-year head start on most.”

“I'll be the head after Dan graduates,” Monica purrs. “I'm looking forward to working very closely with you.” I feel my man Eddie begin to weaken, so I give him a bump. He doesn't feel a thing. Monica touches Eddie's forearm, and even
I
feel his goose bumps.

The first period bell rings, and they break to head for class. Dan puts a hand on Eddie's shoulder. “We're counting on you, man.”