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This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book “the 23 enigma” cc&d (v263) (the June 2016 issue, v263, the 23 year anniversary issue) You can also order this 6"x9" issue as a paperback book:

Order this writing in the book Clouds over the Moon the cc&d Jan. - June 2016 collection book		get the 318 page Jan. - June 2015 cc&d magazine issue collection 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

Friends: One Down, One Arrested

Charles Hayes

    Standing on a large rock and turning his face to the soft light filtering through the treetops, Ricky Teller prays, asking for forgiveness and that his body be found before it rots. Testing the tautness once more, he pulls the noose over his head and tightens the knot behind his left ear. Lowering his eyes to the space that he intends to fill, he sees a sign of life in the small creek below. Moving about on the bottom is a crawdad holding a small earth worm. Like a fan holds aloft a caught baseball, the crawdad seems to be showing the world that it can make it. Seeing this microcosm of life so clearly from his perch, as if somehow magically magnified especially for him, Ricky changes his mind. Sliding the knot loose with trembling hands, he lifts the rope from his neck, climbs down from the rock, and trudges out of the woods to his small home along the dirt road, his mind swirling with thoughts of his fleeing wife and stepkids.

    Barbara Stephens, known simply as Babs, shacked up with Ben Hoons, the father of her two kids, until he left them for his younger cousin and their kid. Ricky, not one to miss such a rare opportunity, caught Bab’s bounce perfectly and they were quickly married.
    Hearing that his old family had made a new home with Ricky, like a child that has thrown away his toys, Ben Hoons wanted them back and drove up the hollow to try to make that happen. However, at the little footbridge across the creek to Ricky’s shack stood Ricky, blocking his way.
    “Get out of my way,” Ben said, as he tried to push past Ricky. Stiff armed by Ricky, Ben swung. Dodging the round house and countering with two quick clean landing blows that knocked Ben down, Ricky gave Ben a choice.
    “Let it go. Just go on and get off my property or I’ll get the law up here.”
    With his eye starting to puff up, Ben struggled to his feet, got back into his pick-up and, while cursing and waving a tire iron out the window, spun up a cloud of dust going away.
    Eventually ironed out by a judge and a poor people’s lawyer, the ruling gave Ricky, after many years of being alone, a bona fide wife with some step kids to boot. But with family came responsibilities.
    Having been told by Babs that if he ever started drinking again she and the kids would leave him, Ricky picked up the bottle a few months on anyway. And it was like Babs had just been waiting for the opportunity. Looking out the window one day, Ricky saw his family, with their packed trash bags, walking across the footbridge, down the road, and out of his life.

    Jason Handley, Ricky’s squad leader in Vietnam, was a kind of easy going guy. But with a bit of an insensitive streak. Once, patrolling out of a firebase near Hue, they located the charred bodies of a local VC cadre that had been napalmed. Stinking terribly to everyone else, the blackened mounds of flesh didn’t bother Handley. Grabbing one of the dead, propping him up against a palm tree, and shoving a cigarette in his mouth, he started talking to the burnt mass as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The lieutenant really chewed him out but Handley just stood there smiling and leaning against that same palm tree, like he was hanging on the street corner. When the lieutenant walked away Handley booted the corpse back to the ground and, to Ricky’s amazement, just winked and giggled before suddenly getting very serious.
    “The lieutenant’s got no guts,” he said, “he’s not going to make it.”
    Two months later the lieutenant stepped on a booby trapped 155 shell. It blew him 50 feet into the air and when he came down it was in three big pieces with lots of little pieces missing. Handley hunted down the pieces for the chopper to lift out, the whole time saying over and over, “I knew it.”

    Sitting on the outhouse toilet with the door open, watching the sun edge closer to the far western ridges, Ricky cups his chin in his hands and wonders what day it is. Almost mesmerized by the incessant drone of the locusts, he startles when he hears an old familiar voice.
    “Still sitting on the can while the world passes you by, huh Seller?”
    As out of left field as it gets, the voice brings Ricky to focus on Jason Handley walking across the outer edge of his property.
    “I thought as much,” Jason continues. “I hope you’re doing better than you look.”
    Quickly wrapping up his outhouse session, Ricky comes out of the outhouse smiling and with his hand outstretched as Jason approaches.
    Grabbing Ricky’s wrist and inspecting his hand before shaking it, Jason lets out that booming laugh of old times in the other world.
    “What the hell are you doing in these parts,” Ricky says, “thought you were back in some factory up in Sandusky.”
    “Not me, can’t take some labor boss telling me what to do any better than you can Seller. While I had an old lady, maybe, but now, she’s gone, what’s the point?
    Laughing and feeling good for the first time in weeks, Ricky shakes his head.
    “You mean to tell me that you actually found some woman that would put up with you, I don’t believe it, you got to be lying.”
    Jason looks around at the shack, outhouse and little patch of land between the road and the woods.
    “Well it don’t appear to me that you’re doing much better. I don’t see any of the fairer sex pinning up your laundry.”
    Ricky’s smile fades.
    Neither says anything for a spell as they both look off, realizing that what they had shared long ago did not make them good domestic partners. What goes unsaid between them in those brief moments could fill volumes and the understanding that exist is almost palpable. Finally meeting each other’s eyes, they simply nod.
    Going inside the shack and firing up a couple of sticks of home grown, they settle down to some catching up.
    “Don’t you ever get the feeling that you’re trapped, up this hollow miles from the nearest town, no transportation?” Jason ask. “I don’t think I’d be able to take that for very long.”
    “I get into town some,” Ricky says, “stir things up a little bit then retire back here until things calm down. Besides there ain’t no liquor stores around here so I’m forced out every now and then.”
    Jason laughs. “Yeah I can see that, sure looks like some kind of solitary up here. Don’t expect people can get in your shit much out this way. I could use a couple of weeks of that about now. Might help me draw out where I’m heading......if anything can.”
    “Hell man, throw your gear in that extra room there—it’s where my stepkids used to stay—don’t expect that they’ll mind now.”

    Hunting the hills together, not bringing in much game, but, in a way, reliving a part of their past, they quietly roam the hardwood forest and carry the guns that Ricky keeps in top notch shape. Making one trip into town during this time, they use the last of Jason’s money for all the liquor they will need and some good food to cook up when they want. Even managing to complete a one day roofing job for a widow who lives nearby. They ask only that she provide the materials.

    Heavy rain pounding the tin roof, adding a small measure of security, brings them to in the wee hours of the morning. Finding the last two cans of beer in the fridge, Ricky gives one to Jason and, with unsteady hands, rolls up a joint and lights it.
    “Well, that’s the end of the booze. Think we should scratch up some money and get some more?”
    “No need to bother,” Jason replies, “time for me to hit the road again anyway. Catching and keeping rides is hard when the bottle goes along.”
    Speaking in a slow quiet way that reminds Ricky of some of their conversations on night watch back in the war, Jason floats an idea.
    “Say Rick, why don’t you come with me? There ain’t nothing holding you here. I figure on going West, heading up to Seattle, try to get on some fishing trawler for a spell, sock up a little money, then see what’s happening.”
    “You mean hitch hike,” Ricky says, “I guess you know rides are hard to come by these days, especially for two grown men.”
    “You got a better idea?”
    “Maybe. Did you see that old VW setting under that tarp in the old widow’s yard?”
    Jason nods.
    “Well, it’s been setting like that for two years that I know of. Parts are cheap, plus there’s an authorized dealer and parts store in town. The old widow liked our work. Maybe we could work some sort of deal with her, fix up that old house for the VW, and have some wheels to get around.”
    Jason studies the proposition for a moment then shakes his head.
    “Where are we going to get the money for gas? Food will cost plenty and you do want to let down every now and then, don’t you? Seems like it would just be another trapping to eat up resources, stifle what little freedom we got.”
    Nodding in silence for several moments, Ricky decides to let it out.
    “I got some money squirreled away that my mom left me—-not a lot but enough to get the VW going and get us out West. Don’t know why I was saving it, just felt like it wasn’t really my money. Might as well put it to some use.”
    Jason looks to the ceiling and rolls his eyes.
    “You old sandbagging ass hole you. Living up here hand to mouth and you got money in the bank. Hell yes, we can put that money to use.”

    Getting a deal with the widow woman, who is glad to give them a shove off, the two aging Namies paint her house, rebuild the old porch, and repair the falling down barn. Happy with their work, the old woman deeds the VW, and wishes them luck, telling them that they are too young to be idling away their time up a West Virginia holler.
    Making several trips hitchhiking to town and the local junk yards, they get the old car licensed and in good running shape. Time to hit the road.
    Loading the old bug up with their gear and locking the shack tight, they get ready to make their final trip out of the hollow when Ricky hesitates.
    “Hold tight a bit Jay, there’s something I need to do first, down the creek a little ways, back in the woods there. Come on, there’s something you’ve never seen.....and I can’t just leave it like that.”
    Coming upon the little clearing in the woods beside a small feeder stream to the main creek, they find the noose hanging from an old Elm limb, just as Ricky had left it. Staring up at it for what seems like a long time, both are lost. Finally Jay looks away, avoiding Ricky’s eyes, shakes his head, and says in a choked whisper, “Fuck it, it don’t mean nothing.”
    “No doubt about it,” Ricky replies, “it don’t mean nothing. Now lets get this rope to tie down some of our stuff.”
    Lashing on the top of the VW all that will not fit inside and under the hood, they celebrate the death of the gallows, cracking jokes and laughing about it all. New beginnings are ahead.
    Out of West Virginia, across Ohio, and almost all the way to Chicago that first day, they stop in a little roadside campground and spend the night before pushing on through the corn belt the next day.
    Passing through the broad expanses of the West and topping the continental divide, followed by crossing the Cascades, they come down into Western Washington and Seattle’s port by Puget Sound. Boats and ships are scattered about on Seattle’s many huge waterways. Locating the fishing fleet base and its myriad of ships is easy. After getting their applications in for the next Bering Sea run up around Alaska, they luckily find a place to stay at a boarding home for fisherman and Alaska cannery workers waiting for the season.
    Being quickly called back for interviews after killing time around the waterfront and tourist spots, they are hired on one of the first trawlers to head North.

    Having a record of good loads, a good galley, and adequate berthing, The Edson spends the first couple of months doing pretty standard fishing. Working the nets topside, Jay, who is the bigger of the two, ribs Ricky about his easier job below in the small processing unit. But they both know that topside is much more dangerous. And that is why it pays more and comes with life insurance.
    Rough seas turn to dangerous seas as the weather grows colder. One night, removing his safety line in order to work the nets faster, Jay is washed overboard by a rogue wave that almost capsizes the vessel. Taken down immediately by his heavy gear, Jay’s chances of being found are nil.
    Ricky is thrown across the relay belt and into the bulkhead, breaking his right arm, knocking him unconscious, and leaving him with some serious cuts and lacerations. After a cursory search for Jay The Edson makes for shore with many hands injured. Ricky is flown to Seattle where the fleet takes care of his medical and living expenses until he fully recovers. The beneficiary of Jay’s small life insurance policy, Ricky has enough money to get on with his life but one thing’s for sure. He is done with fishing.

    Having sold the VW before going to sea, Ricky flies to Sandusky Port to look up Jay’s family and give them the money from the life insurance. In good conscious, he can’t keep it.
    Jay’s family look like they can use the money and Ricky, also hurting from the loss of Jay, finds a little peace in getting it to them. Treating him warmly, they bring out some of the pictures that Jay had taken in the Nam and show him some of the ones that he is in. Studying and restudying those photographs for a whole afternoon, Ricky remembers the time and those who didn’t made it and tries to put some kind of order to it all. Jay’s family lets him be during that last afternoon. And Ricky seems to gain the purchase that he has been scrabbling for ever since that tragic night on the Bering Sea. And even before that.
    Saying goodbye to the Handleys the next morning and catching a bus down to the Southern Appalachians of West Virginia, Ricky returns to Fox Run, the hollow where his shack and little piece of earth await him. In a way he is glad to be back. Maybe he should never have left. Maybe he never will again.
    Sitting by the cold wood stove, still in his cold weather gear, Ricky bends over and unlatches the snaps on his suitcase. Lying atop his few clothes is that old rope that went the distance with him and Jay. And then with him alone. Hefting it, he lets it part way uncurl to the floor and begins slowly counting the loops of the noose as he makes them. Stopping before he gets to thirteen, he just sits there looking down at the rope in his hands, feeling its coarseness and remembering the burns he used to get from an old childhood rope swing. Sitting most of the night holding that rope, dropping it and picking it up, smiling sometimes, and almost crying others, Ricky looks back.
    Coming cold and grey, the February morning light slants through Ricky’s window and into his senses. A fresh blanket of snow has fallen. Suddenly a little black capped chickadee alights on the snow covered window sill. Fluffing and flapping around in the snow, as if bathing for an important event, it burst loose with a song that breaks the morning silence. Just as suddenly the bird fluffs again and is gone. Standing and dropping the rope back into the suitcase, Ricky snaps it shut and puts it aside. Moving to the window, he looks out over the meadow to the perch halfway up the hillside beyond where he and Jay sat after a still hunt and talked life. Covered by white powder, it seems cold and remote compared to his warm recall. Moments pass and its chill remains, so dissimilar to his memory. Grudgingly, he spins from the view, grabs an ax and heads to the wood pile, telling himself with every step, “Fuck it, it don’t mean nothing.”

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