Ben – 2010. The evening of Jacob’s funeral
Ben is sitting at the top of the stone steps that lead up to the front porch, half-listening to the low murmur of voices all around him. It’s hard to distinguish individual words from the indistinct hum and it’s making him sleepy. Ben has had a very long and grueling day and he is thinking about going upstairs to his old room to hide out for awhile. Joel is on the other end of the step, and they both have to keep squeezing over against the railings every time anyone wants to come up or go down. Joel looks like he’s asleep. He’s leaning against his railing with his eyes shut. Ben considers tossing something at him, but there’s nothing within reach and he’s too tired to make an effort.
All of the family plus neighbors and church people are still at the house after the funeral, scattered around the big porch in whatever seating they could find. Colorful old metal chairs that have been on the porch as long as he can remember, a scuffed black wrought iron couch with worn green plastic cushions, kitchen and dining room chairs that have been appropriated to accommodate the crowd, a collection of folding webbed lawn chairs provided by helpful neighbors. Still there’s overflow on the steps and the blue-grey porch floorboards.
Jessie is sitting on the edge of the porch, propped against the huge ornate planter full of bright red geraniums with her shoes kicked off and her bare feet dangling down. She’s tossing tiny bits of dirt from the planter into the yard, watching as they make almost invisible arcs through the still air. Eddy and Quentin are at the far end of the porch. They’ve snagged a couple of the old colorful metal chairs, a blue one and a red one, and they are leaning towards each other as they talk. Ben eyes them, wondering what’s so engrossing, but can’t work up the energy to go over and find out.
Albert and Opal are sitting together on the wooden porch swing. Opal’s spine is so straight it doesn’t touch the back of the swing. Her black crepe funeral dress still looks like it’s just been pressed and her low heeled shiny black pumps are planted firmly on the floor. She is speaking quietly to Aunt Annie, who keeps shifting around uncomfortably on her uncushioned dining room chair. Albert stares off across the yard where long shadows are starting to creep towards the house as the sun moves closer to Snake Mountain. He pushes his foot just the tiniest bit to set the swing in motion. Opal stops it with her shiny pumps, puts a hand on Albert’s arm. Then they do it again. And again. And again. Ben watches them, wondering at his grandmother’s endless patience and feeling in serious need of a nap.
There is a sudden lull in the conversation on the porch.
“I read once that whenever you’re in a group of people there will be a conversation lull every 20 minutes,” says Joel, suddenly perking up.
Aunt Annie looks over at him, her brow furrowing.
“That doesn’t make any sense, Joel,” she says. “Where did you read a thing like that?”
“I don’t remember now,” Joel says. “It was a long time ago.”
“OH”, Ben says. A little chill has just dashed down his spine. “I remember that! Samuel told us. He read it somewhere. It works, too. We used to try it out when we were in a group of people. It works every time. Although we’ve been out here a lot longer than twenty minutes, and I hadn’t noticed it before now, so maybe…”
Ben realizes he has just said Samuel’s name without even thinking about it first. Everyone on the porch is looking at him. He keeps his face blank. His grandmother is watching him with an expression he can’t quite read. Albert looks puzzled.
“Samuel is gone,” he tells Ben.
Opal pats Albert’s arm again. “Samuel is gone, honey. Ben knows that.” She’s still watching him, like she’s about to say something else but has thought better of it. Ben looks over at Joel, who is staring at Opal. Ben can practically see the gears in Joel’s brain whirling around.
“You know your grandmother doesn’t like to talk about that,” Aunt Annie says to Ben.
“I think I’m going to take a walk,” says Eddy, saving him from a reply. REPLY? Eddy stands up and stretches a bit. “Anybody want to come?”
“I will,” says Jessie. Ben can’t think of the last time she’s said anything.
“We’ll go,” says Joel. Ben wants to tell Joel not to speak for him, but wants to get away from everyone on the porch even more.
“Me too!” says Albert, leaping up so fast from the porch swing that it spins Opal around before she can stop it with her pumps. She holds onto the chain and watches them all head down the steps into the darkening yard.
“You children be careful,” she warns. Joel elbows Ben before he can say anything sarcastic, and Ben gives him a little shove back for suggesting he’d be sarcastic to their grandmother at a time like this. ALMOST TELEPATHIC He waves as they start down the driveway towards the road. It’s gotten darker and the driveway is just a faint gray ribbon ahead.
The house quickly vanishes behind them.
“Let’s go up to the church,” Ben says when they reach the main road, just to see what the reaction will be. “We can go up the old abandoned road- it’s just around the corner.”
“Let’s not,” says Jessie.
“I don’t think we ought to go up there at night,” says Eddy. “I would like to, though. Maybe tomorrow.”
“Yeah, I kind of want to see that place again,” says Quentin. HOW HIGH IS SNAKE MTN. IS CHURCH RIGHT AT THE TOP?
That surprises Ben. He didn’t think anyone would take him seriously about it. Joel stares at him.
“What?” Ben says, kicking at the gravel.
“You’re being weird,” Joel says. “Why did you mention Samuel?” They keep their voices low, using the special twin frequency that they have utilized all their lives for private conversations. They have dropped back a little behind everyone else.
“You brought up the lulls,” Ben reminds him. “You knew it was Samuel who told us that.”
“I wasn’t thinking,” Joel says quietly. “I wanted him to be here. He should be here. He should know about Grandpa. But I wasn’t going to say his name.”
“Maybe we should say his name. Maybe since Grandpa isn’t around to hear us, it’s time to say his name again.” Ben’s voice has risen, and he knows he sounds angry. Which is fine, he thinks. He is angry. Maybe they should all be angry.
“We are all angry, Ben,” Joel says, in that creepy COMMA?mind-reading way he has. “Why else would we never talk about him?”
Ben feels the darkness is starting to close in on him. He doesn’t like the way it envelopes them, smothering and hiding everything on all sides. Eddie, Quentin, Jessie and Albert have gotten farther ahead, and he watches their backs. Albert is saying something, and Eddy is bent over towards him to hear. Jessie is walking apart from them, kicking at rocks.
The road makes a sharp curve and meets the river before they get as far as town. There’s a little dirt pulloff for vehicles and several rickety picnic tables scattered along the riverbank. The tables have been there as long as Ben can remember but he’s never seen anyone having a picnic. It is a pretty spot though, at least in daylight. Now darkness is falling it seems more sinister. Ben can just barely see the opposite bank, and the river vanishes in both directions. He and Joel follow the rest over to the picnic tables. They all stare at what they can see of the dark water whispering by.
Quentin sits down on one of the benches. He pulls out a cigarette and lights it. Ben and Joel sit on opposite sides of the next table. Albert is throwing rocks into the river, and Eddy watches him.
“I knew about the snakes,” Jessie says suddenly. “About Grandpa and the snakes. I knew what he was doing.”
Her lip is quivering like it always has when she’s about to cry. She sits down beside Quentin, hard.
“What do you mean, you knew?” Eddy asks her.
“Grandpa made me get his old snake box out of the barn for him. He couldn’t climb into the loft himself. He told me not to tell.”
Everyone is staring at her.
“I didn’t think he’d do anything,” says Jessie, her eyes full of tears.
“You couldn’t have known,” Eddy tells her.
“You couldn’t,” Quentin says. “You can’t stop what’s bound to happen, Jessie.”
“I should have told you, Eddy! Or Grandma. Or…anybody. But Grandpa said not to tell and I just did what he said. Even though I knew what he said wasn’t what I should do.” She rubs her eyes with an angry swipe of the back of her sleeve.
“Well we’ve all been there,” Ben says darkly. “At least you didn’t disappear forever after doing what he said. This time he paid for it himself.”
Everyone is staring at him in astonishment. He wants to backtrack, but can’t figure out how, so he plows ahead.
“You know Samuel would still be here if he hadn’t done what Grandpa told him to. If he’d stood up to him. Instead of running away and never coming back.”
“Well, that is definitely a way of not doing what Grandpa told him to,” says Joel. Always the diplomat. EXPLAIN SENTENCE “He didn’t do what he was told, he just left.”
“But that’s the point,” says Ben. He is alarmed at how close he feels to just giving up and wailing. Then maybe running into the river. They are all looking at him, but with surprisingly sympathetic faces.
“I know,” Eddy tells him, and puts an arm around his shoulder. “We all want him back.”
“Both of them,” says Jessie, with the tears finally running unchecked down her face. Quentin pats her shoulder.
“We’ll find him,” Joel says. “Someday. I mean, it’s not impossible. It would be better if he comes back to us instead but if he doesn’t we’ll find him.”
“Have you got a plan?” Ben asks.
Joel says, “No, of course not. I wouldn’t know where to start.”
Quentin takes a deep drag on his cigarette, pats Jessie again, looks at them all. Blows out smoke. “You know, I was with Samuel that night,” he says.
“What??” They are almost in unison. Ben is stunned. Eddy is the first one to recover. “In the car?” he says. “The night he disappeared?”
Quentin nods. Stares off at the dark river.
“Well, what happened?” Ben asks. “How come you didn’t say you were with him before now?”
“Didn’t think I needed to.“ Quentin blows more smoke, watches it drift away. “Nothing happened. We’d drove all the way up to the Virginia line. Listening to the radio and drinking beer.”
“Did he say anything?” asks Eddy.
Ben realizes he’s holding his breath before Quentin finally answers.
“Well, something did kind of happen. We saw something,” he says. “Something really…weird.”
“Weird how?” Ben asks. There are so many types of weird that could be associated with Samuel, but he can’t think of any that would result in him vanishing. Other than maybe the time machine.
“Wait,” he says suddenly. “Did he get picked up by a UFO?”
Quentin doesn’t laugh.
“Not picked up, exactly,” he says. “We did see one, though.”
“Oh my God,” breathes Joel. “You saw a UFO? Where? What happened??”
“And why are we just hearing about this now?” Ben says.
Quentin takes his time answering. He smokes and looks off at the river. They all wait. Ben feels like the damp murky air is buzzing around his head.
“We thought we hit a deer,” he says. “Something just appeared in LEAVE OUT: IN right in front of us, out of nowhere, in the dark. All we saw was its eyes, staring in through the windshield. Samuel slammed on the brakes and we spun all around. Finally stopped in the middle of the road. It rattled us and we just sat a minute before Samuel started to back the car so we could get out of there. Then we both looked up. And we could see it. Right above our heads. Right where the roof should have been.”
He pauses, grinds out the end of his cigarette on the picnic table, puts the butt in his pocket. Ben is transfixed. They are all transfixed. Quentin’s hands are shaking just enough to be noticeable as he lights another cigarette.
“It was just like a movie,” he finally continues. “Huge and all lit up. No sound. And then it shot a light down, a great big beam, and we saw the thing we must have nearly hit get lit up and vanish. A kind of…figure. Tall and thin. And then the UFO vanished too.”
Nobody speaks for a second, then Eddy says, “…and that was it?”
Quentin laughs his snorty laugh. “Not exciting enough? Were you hoping for an abduction story? We didn’t get abducted. They left us behind.”
“Well, as far as you know you didn’t get abducted,” Joel says.
“I think they would know,” Ben tells him. “They would probably notice winding up inside a spaceship and getting probed by little green men. Or tall gray men, or whatever they are.”
“Pretty sure that didn’t happen,” Quentin says. “But Samuel did say it was the sign he had asked for. And he wouldn’t tell me what he meant. Then he was gone for good.”
Out of nowhere, Albert says, “Joel got picked up by aliens.” He’s stacking some little rocks into a small makeshift tower on the picnic table.
“Albert, that isn’t true,” Jessie says. “You dreamed that.”
“Nope,” says Albert. He doesn’t look at any of them, just concentrates on his rock stack. “I remember. Pa was mad. Pa said it was the devil’s work.”
“Wait,” says Eddy. “Are you talking about when Joel was little? Three or four maybe? When he talked about meeting those people up in the pasture behind the house? He said they were tall as trees and glowed, and they told him stories.”
“Yep”, says Albert.
“The angels,” Joel says slowly. “I thought they were angels.”
“That had to be a dream,” Ben says. He has no memory at all of this. They’ve always remembered the same things. “How could you have been up in the pasture by yourself at that age? And that could not have happened.”
“Samuel saw them,” Albert says. He finally looks up from his rock stack. “Samuel said they were aliens. He talked to them.”
“Samuel made that up,” says Eddy. “He made a lot of stuff up. I do remember Grandpa saying it was demons. He got the preacher to do a laying on of hands to drive the demons out.”
“I bet that was fun,” says Ben. “Why do I remember exactly nothing about this?”
“I think Joel dreamed about angels after Samuel told him alien stories,” Jessie says. “That’s the only explanation. He probably got it from Doctor Who.” ITALICISE/QUOTE?
Joel doesn’t look convinced. He looks like his brain is whirling around again. Ben watches him, trying to see what he’s figuring out.
“So what happened then?” Eddy asks Quentin. “I mean, after the… incident. What did you do?”
“We drove on back home. A lot slower. Samuel dropped me off at my house. Said he was going to work on the time machine.” Quentin pauses. “He hadn’t messed around with that thing in years. But he said he wanted to check something out. Last thing he said to me was, ‘I’ll send you a postcard from the Dark Ages.’ Laughed, and drove off. That was it.”
“I remember the time machine,” says Jessie.
Joel starts to laugh. “Maybe it worked after all,” he says.
“Don’t be an idiot,” Ben tells him.
“Maybe it did work,” Quentin says to Joel.
“We better head back home before Grandma calls the police,” Eddy says.
It’s nearly full dark now. Ben sees the flashing in the pasture across the road from the river first, but it takes a second to process what he’s seeing. An immense cloud of flashing fireflies.
“Whoa,” he says, stopping dead in his tracks. They all stand still, watching. Ben doesn’t remember ever seeing so many fireflies at once. The flashing is mesmerizing. It looks like they are trying to send some mysterious coded message.
“Cool,” says Jessie, standing at his shoulder.
“Must be firefly weather,” he says. “Whatever that is.”
Everyone else has moved on slowly down the road towards home, but they stand there side by side and watch the fireflies.
“Ben,” she says. “Tell me something. And tell me the truth, okay?”
“Why would I not tell you the truth?” he asks her, then says, “Okay, I’ll tell you the truth.”
“Do you think it’s my fault?”
“Do I think what’s your fault?” he asks, then realizes what she means. “Grandpa? Of course that’s not your fault, Jessie. How could you have known?”
“I knew, Ben,” she says. “And you would have known. I wish you’d been here, or that I’d called you. You would have stopped him.”
“I would have? What do you mean?”
“You always know what to do, Ben,” she says. “And you always do it.”
Ben tries to figure out where she gets the idea that he has everything under such firm control. He can’t come up with a single reason, but he likes finding she has this illusion about him.
“I think you’re confusing me with Eddie. CHG: EDDY And I don’t think anybody could have stopped him,” he tells her. “His mind was going. Nobody would have thought he was serious about the snakes, or realized that he would be capable of doing what he did. I wouldn’t have dreamed he’d ever do that again. Neither would Eddy, or Grandma. You thought you were doing a good thing for him, reminding him of…better days.” Ben laughs a little, thinking that only his grandfather would have yearned for the better days of handling snakes.
“Really?” she asks, her small triangular face turned up to him, hopeful. Ben has no idea what anyone else would have done, least of all himself, but he nods vigorously.
“Absolutely,” he tells her. She smiles, finally.
“Thank you, Ben,” she says, putting her arm around his waist. He is so touched that he puts his arm around her shoulders, and they walk along quietly behind their family, watching the fireflies.
Should come after Samuel going to church with Jessie. Be sure this works & it’s not repetitive. Is the same timeframe.
This should be first time we know what actually happened to Sarah although there have been hints