Once Beyond a Time Read Free

of pimples since we were last together. He smiles and shrugs like I asked him a question or something. “Hey,” he says.
    “Is that how you say hi around here?”
    He shrugs again. “I guess so.”
    He’s not a bad-looking kid, except for the acne, but he’s two years younger than me, and he’s still a year away from getting his driver’s license, and he’d better not get any ideas that we’re going to be friends or anything. I’m in a place where there’s not going to be any friends. But just one year, I tell myself. Just one year and I’m outta here.
    “So what do you do for fun around here?” I ask, not bothering to get up from the chair.
    For a minute, he just stands there looking stupid, like he has no idea what fun is. I was afraid of that. “Well,” he finally says, “lots of stuff.”
    “What? Like, go to hoedowns and have coon-dog howling contests? Shoot varmints to make stew? Attend public hangings?”
    He looks confused, the poor dweeb. Then he laughs a little. Like he’s not sure he should, but he’s afraid not to. Then he says, “Well, I don’tthink we do that anymore.”
    “Do what?” I ask, egging him on.
    “Hang people. Anyhow, I haven’t heard of any hangings around here lately.”
    “That’s too bad,” I say.
    His eyebrows try hard to meet his hairline. “You do that in Pennsylvania? Hang people?”
    “Only during leap years.”
    He doesn’t know whether to believe me or not. He fidgets and sticks his hands in the pockets of his overalls.
    “So,” I go on. “Back to good times in Black Mountain. You folks smoke weed?”
    He finally looks alive. “Oh sure!” he cries. “Yeah, we do that.”
    My head springs up. Maybe we’re getting somewhere. “Really?” I ask.
    “Sure! Corn silk. Grapevines. Rabbit tobacco.”
    I feel my eyes turning into slits. Jeff looks scared.
    “I mean,” I say through clenched teeth, “marijuana. You got any marijuana down here?”
    His eyes widen even as mine grow narrower. “You mean, that illegal drug they do out in California?”
    I don’t bother to answer. Far as I’m concerned, this conversation’s over.
    How am I going to make it through this year? I want to kill myself. No, better yet, I want to kill somebody else. And I can hear him downstairs right now, talking to Uncle Steve about the Chevy dealership. So let’s welcome Sheldon Crane, Birchfield Chevrolet’s newest used car salesman.
    Dad, the big liar, should fit his new role just fine.

3
Sheldon
    Friday, July 12, 1968
    F ATHER, FORGIVE ME , for I have sinned.
    Father.
    Forgive me.
    For I have sinned.
    No matter how many times I say it, I know I have to say it one more time, because the forgiveness is always just beyond my reach.
    Meg, I know, has not forgiven me. Can I blame her? If the tables were turned, would I forgive her? I’d like to think I would. I’d like to think she
will
—someday. That’s my prayer, anyway.
    Linda is as angry with me as her mother is. Won’t talk to me, barely looks at me. Is it because she’s seventeen? Would she have hated me anyway, just because she’s seventeen, and I’m a pastor? Was a pastor. Was. Past tense now.
    Carl writes to me from Vietnam, telling me to forget it. “These things happen,” he says. “Just forget it and move on.” It is hard to move on when the one you’re supposed to be traveling with refuses to budge.
    The Birchfields came this afternoon, bringing greetings and food. Casseroles, canned goods, fresh fruits and vegetables, cookies, and other baked goods—all pulled out of the back of their Chevy like it was somesort of welcome wagon. They’ve been good to us. Heaven knows, Steve was good to me, offering me the job. Not that it’s the kind of job I ever imagined myself doing.
    “You look worried,” he said to me after supper.
    “I really have no idea how to sell cars.”
    “Nothing to it!” he said cheerfully. “I can tell you in an afternoon everything you need to know.”
    His smile was full of