The Hayloft: a 1950s Mystery Read online

  I arrived just before the game started, by design. The Carter stands were pretty much filled. The Carter band played the school fight song in the middle of the field with more enthusiasm than skill. The band members stood in the shape of a large C. I walked along in front of the bleachers, looking for a friendly face. The first one I saw was Sylvia’s. I turned away, feeling like a traitor. The band stopped playing, and I heard my name called. It was Sylvia.

  I climbed up several steps to where she was sitting in the middle of a group of girls and boys. She was wearing a red skirt. Most of the girls wore red skirts. The Carter school colors were red and black. She motioned for me to sit beside her. I put on a fake smile and sat down.

  “Do you see anybody you know from Atherton?” she asked.

  “A few hundred people.” That was an exaggeration since there weren’t that many spectators from Atherton, but I recognized many of them, even from across the field. After all, I had been there since seventh grade. “I know all the football players…”

  “And all the cheerleaders,” Sylvia cut in with a smile.

  Yeah, I knew all the cheerleaders at Atherton, but none of them could hold a candle to Natalie, who was leading her girls in a cheer in front of us. Maybe life here at Carter wouldn’t be so bad, after all. I was having a clandestine relationship with Natalie that her big-man-on-campus, quarterback boyfriend didn’t know about. True, it was a nonphysical relationship, but in my fantasies it achieved a much greater level of intensity.

  At that moment the Carter football team ran onto the field, led by quarterback Joe Hawkins, and Natalie gave an especially enthusiastic cheer. I wondered what it would take to get Mr. Hawkins out of her life.

  A few minutes after the game started, Barney Weiss came strolling up the steps of the bleachers, looking nonchalant, worked his way among the fans along the row below us, and sat down right in front of Sylvia. He was wearing a Carter sweatshirt and his dark hair, which was always the first thing I noticed about him, was as usual immaculately combed.

  Between plays, Sylvia tapped him on the shoulder and said, “I see you’ve come out of hibernation.”

  Referring to the fact that he had been very quiet, at least in the lunchroom, since Natalie had beaten him at nim.

  Barney turned around and said, “Can’t miss the game. Root root root for the home team and all that. I’m even wearing my Carter sweatshirt.”

  “Admirable school spirit,” Sylvia said. Then, indicating me, “Have you met Gary?”

  “He’s in my math class.” Barney gave me the eye. “He’s already shown up us dumb ones by answering a couple of tough questions.”

  When Barney turned back to watch a play, Sylvia spoke in my ear, covered by the noise of the crowd. “I thought you were keeping a low profile.”

  I shrugged. “I’ll get a note from my aunt saying that I get ear infections when I have to answer questions in class.”

  We watched as Joe Hawkins threw a touchdown pass, making the score 6-0. The cheerleaders, led by Natalie, went wild, as did many of the fans. Barney gave a halfhearted cheer, but Sylvia jumped up and yelled. I clapped politely. A successful extra point attempt made it 7-0.

  During the break in the action, Sylvia got Barney’s attention and said, “Gary is interested in what happened to Ralph Harrison.” And to me, “Barney and Ralph were good friends.”

  Barney looked pensive, a look I hadn’t seen on him. After a pause, he said, “Ralph was a smart boy. He would have gone far. It’s a damn shame.”

  “Do you think anybody was with him when he…fell?” I asked.

  Barney looked at me closely, as if trying to figure out why I had asked the question. He spoke carefully. “The official police report states that he was alone.”

  “But…” I said and stopped. My reporting experience had taught me that sometimes remaining silent was the best way to get people to say more than they wanted to.

  Barney was still choosing each word carefully. “Given the circumstances, I think it is highly unlikely that the accident would have happened if he had been alone. It was the middle of the school day. He hadn’t been drinking. Although he had a wild streak, he always calculated the odds and knew what he was doing.”

  “So, who was with him?’

  Barney smiled a thin smile and said, “That’s the 64-dollar question, isn’t it?”

  “You referred to it as an accident. If somebody was with him, do you still think it was an accident?”

  “Ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies.” Barney turned around as Carter kicked off to Atherton.

  CHAPTER 10

  The smooth voice of Perry Como wafted from the jukebox in the corner of the cafeteria, crooning the words to “Prisoner of Love,” as I attempted to glide around the dance floor with Sylvia. Fred Astaire I wasn’t. The tables had been retracted into the walls, and the chairs had been arranged along said walls, leaving the tile floor open for a herd of couples engaged in slow dancing.

  Most of the dancers shuffled their sock feet roughly in time to the music without executing recognizable steps, so I didn’t feel out of place. The beat was too slow for a foxtrot, anyway. Bodies swayed in unison, close together, often touching at key points. A few of the girls’ heads rested on their boyfriends’ shoulders. A handful of couples eschewed the classic dance frame and had their arms wrapped around each other, clinging together with teenage intensity, as if afraid that their partners would disappear forever if they loosened their grips.

  Slow dancing was about as close as most of us came to actual sex, and sometimes I wondered how many of us had teeth marks on our bedposts. In the case of Sylvia and me, the dance position was a little awkward because she was so much shorter than I was, at an inch over five feet. I held her loosely so that she wouldn’t get smothered by my sweater.

  I had danced with her several times because, of the available girls, she was the one I knew best. Most of the students had come stag to the sock hop, as I had. It was the evening after the football game. Several teachers, acting as chaperones, sat at the raised end of the cafeteria. Two were even dancing with each other, more skillfully than most of the students.

  Carter had beaten Atherton for the first time in almost forever. Joe Hawkins had played a large part in the victory. Maybe Carter was becoming an athletic power. I had talked to some of my friends from Atherton at halftime. It was good to see them again, but it brought back memories that depressed me. My state of exile became more real to me.

  I was feeling better now, but I wanted to branch out. When Barney came over and asked Sylvia to dance, that gave me an opportunity. Barney and my cousin, Ed, among others, were moving freely from girl to girl. For somebody whose clothes were worn and somewhat tattered, Ed had a lot of nerve. Since changing partners was acceptable practice, I was going to practice it. Of course, the girl I really wanted to dance with was Natalie, but she had her arms wrapped around Joe. Although I couldn’t help thinking that his aloof manner looked out of place, considering his fortunate situation.

  Who else was available? I saw Ruth Allen, Ralph’s former girlfriend, sitting with some other girls along the wall. A stirring in my loins told me that I wanted to dance with her, if only because of her magnificent body. I went over, caught her eye, and extended my hand. She stood up and put her hand in mine without either of us saying a word. That was easy. We made our way onto the floor and danced to Nat King Cole’s mellifluous voice singing “Mona Lisa.” The touch of her breasts felt good against my chest.

  She wasn’t a talker like Sylvia, and to get by the awkwardness of silence, I was trying to think of something halfway intelligent to comment on when she said, “Not so close, Gary.”

  That shattered my euphoria. I mumbled an apology and loosened the hold of my right hand on her back. Caught enjoying myself too much. We danced to the rest of the song in silence while Nat tried to figure out whether Mona was warm and real or just a cold work of art. I began to wonder the same thing about Ruth. Or maybe she just didn’t
like me. Because I reminded her of Ralph?

  I was getting used to rejection. I had dated an Atherton girl during the summer. I took her to nice places, like Melody Fair, which featured Broadway musicals in a tent. On our third or fourth date, we went to a drive-in theater. Drive-ins were billed as hotbeds of iniquity. Not for me. Near the end of the first movie of a double feature, I casually slid across the bench seat of the car toward her and placed my arm behind her shoulders.

  During the break between movies, we ate hamburgers, drank sodas, and went to the restrooms. She beat me back to the car. When I returned, her purse, which was the size of an overnight bag, sat squarely on the seat between us. As dense as I was, I got the message. Looking back, what I couldn’t understand was why I dated her again after that episode. I guess I was desperate.

  One time, after I had achieved some measure of success with a girl, my mother pulled me into the basement where she washed the clothes and showed me the sweater I had worn on that occasion. It had lipstick all over the collar area, and she wasn’t happy about it. It’s not easy being a teenager.

  I thanked Ruth when the music stopped and was about to look for something to drink when I noticed Natalie sitting by herself. Opportunity was knocking. I raced over to her and asked her to dance.

  She looked up at me, startled, and said, “Joe just went to the restroom. He’ll be back soon.”

  “Then we’ll dance until he gets back.” By this time I had hold of her hand. I pulled her to her feet, and we started dancing to “Earth Angel,” sung by The Penguins.

  She felt good in my arms, but she appeared tentative and kept looking over my shoulder toward the entrance to the cafeteria. She said, “We aren’t supposed to know each other, are we?”

  “I met you at cheerleader practice, remember? And Joe is in my gym class. We played on the same touch football team. He even threw me a touchdown pass.”

  Natalie still looked nervous. She clearly wasn’t enjoying herself, which greatly tempered my enjoyment. Earth angels were supposed to act differently. I looked around the room, but I didn’t see Joe. I did see Ed dancing with Ruth, and they were dancing closer than I had been allowed to. How could he get away with that? After all, I was taller and better looking.

  Joe still hadn’t shown up when the song ended, but I let Natalie go and went in search of refreshments. After two bad dances, I needed them. And a Charleston was playing on the jukebox. No boys and only a few girls knew how to dance to the bouncy tune, including Sylvia and Natalie, and they obviously enjoyed doing it. They crossed their hands on their knees and kicked their legs in unusual directions, in time to the music. They looked like flappers from another age. Where did they learn this sort of thing?

  I found the refreshment table—one of the cafeteria tables that hadn’t been stored in the wall. While I picked up a cookie and a paper cup full of pink punch, I watched two boys arm wrestling at the end of the table. The smaller of the two put down the arm of the larger one quite easily.

  He said, slurring his words, “Who else wants to take me on? I can beat anybody here, right-handed or left-handed.”

  “You’re drunk, Willie,” a woman said. I guessed that she was a mother recruited to be in charge of refreshments.

  Willie denied he was drunk, and they bantered back and forth for a minute. He was clearly younger than I was, which placed him well below the legal drinking age of eighteen. He wore a T-shirt with the already short sleeves rolled even higher, revealing significant biceps and triceps for so small a body. The fold of one T-shirt sleeve outlined the shape of a pack of cigarettes sitting on his shoulder. His hair was combed behind his head in a DA, which was the nice way of saying a duck’s ass. He must use Brylcreme to hold it in place.

  Willie spotted me watching the action and said, “What about you? Do you want to arm wrestle?”

  “Not me.” There was no glory to be had if I won over a smaller opponent and much humiliation if I lost, especially because of his inebriated state. And his muscles were impressive.

  “What’s your name? I ain’t seen you before.”

  “Gary.”

  “I’m Willie.”

  He reached his hand across the table toward me. I crammed the remains of my cookie into my mouth and shifted my drink cup to my left hand. When I took his hand he gripped mine hard and jerked me toward him. I fell across the table. My drink flew out of my hand and splashed all over him when I slapped the table to catch myself. I also grunted loudly and spit out the cookie onto Willie’s shirt.

  While I tried to pick myself up and determine whether I had suffered any damage, other than to my ego, Willie laughed. A few people who had observed the action, including the mother, apparently were too shocked to laugh at first, but when they saw that I wasn’t hurt, they did laugh—at Willie. Because he had pink punch streaming down his face and half-chewed chocolate chip cookie on his shirt.

  As I continued to collect myself, someone started to admonish Willie. He held up his hands and said, still slurring his words, “Hey, it was a joke.” He didn’t seem to be bothered by the fact that he looked a mess.

  I had to do something. One option was to attack him, but aside from the fact that he had a good defensive position on the other side of the table, it wouldn’t look good for a senior to fight an underclassman. In addition, I would get into trouble, which I couldn’t afford to do, and it would raise my profile, which I didn’t want.

  I smiled and said, “You look good enough to eat.” Too late, I realized the double entendre, but the resulting laughter cleared the air.

  “I like you,” Willie said. “Sit down and talk to me.”

  Why not? He looked harmless now. I sat down across the table from him, being careful to keep my hands and arms where he couldn’t grab them.

  He wiped his face with a napkin given to him by the mother and said, “What grade are you?”

  “Senior.”

  “I’m a southmore.”

  I didn’t know whether the mispronunciation was the result of his drinking. I said, “You play any sports?”

  “Baseball and cross-country.”

  I wondered how much longer he would be running cross-country if he continued to smoke. And drink to excess. I was about to excuse myself and try my luck on the dance floor again when he said, “You look something like the guy who died—Ralph Harrison.”

  Natalie had said that, but only after I told her we were related. Nobody else had mentioned it. Maybe the alcohol gave him special insight, although it’s not surprising that one might look like one’s first cousin. However, I played dumb and said, “He died?”

  “Yeah, he fell off the balcony in the auditorium. That’s what they say, anyway.”

  “Did you know him?”

  “He taught me how to walk on my hands. Good guy. But there was something funny about how he died.”

  I was about to ask him what was funny when Sylvia came sliding up to me on her sock feet, grabbed my hand, and said, “Here you are, hiding out. Come and dance with me. I’m tired of having my toes stepped on by the clods I’ve been dancing with. At least you know one foot from the other.”

  I went with her. You don’t argue with an irresistible force.

  CHAPTER 11

  My parents arrived at the farm about noon, along with my two younger brothers. Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Jeff had invited them over for Sunday dinner, thinking that we probably missed each other. I was glad to see them, in spite of the fact that I had never been homesick in my life. My mother gave me a kiss; my father shook my hand. My brothers asked me how things were going as if they really cared.

  Having been an only child all week, I was ready to toss a football around with them, but my father immediately steered me away from the group toward the outdoor brick fireplace, built by Uncle Jeff for holding summer barbeques, and the baseball diamond beyond the fireplace, which featured a large green backstop made of wood, also built by Uncle Jeff. The diamond had grown up to waist-high timothy grass and weeds since Ralph hadn�
�t been there to mow it during the summer.

  My father was dressed in his Sunday best, which included a conservative three-piece suit and a tie. It was also his Monday best, etc., because he wore the same clothes to work. He was several inches shorter than I was now, which I was glad of because it appeared to give me a physical advantage, even though I probably didn’t weigh any more than he did.

  “Dorothy told us what classes you’re taking,” my father said, without preliminary. “It sounds as if you have a good, meaty schedule. I hope you’re keeping your nose to the grindstone and studying hard. I don’t want to see a repeat of what happened at Atherton.”

  “Yes, Dad.” In fact, I had been studying more than I would have if I had been home. Other than the single chess game with Uncle Jeff, I hadn’t had any distractions in the evenings. My aunt and uncle hadn’t succumbed to buying a television set yet, and, although I was a voracious reader, I had done my homework each night before opening a non-academic book. It helped that Uncle Jeff was available to assist me with any math questions and Aunt Dorothy was equally adept at English and history.

  “I’m concerned about the academic quality at Carter as opposed to Atherton. Dorothy assures me that the teaching staff is sound, but I have my doubts.”

  I had my doubts, too, especially after what Sylvia had told me about Mr. Plover, although my teachers at least seemed to have mastered the basics of their subjects. I didn’t think it was a good idea to express any misgivings to my father, because I didn’t want to transfer to yet another school. I told him that I thought my teachers were all right.