Bicycled into town.
One Saturday morning when Daddy Love had taken the van to deliver macramé products to his “retailers” in the Delaware Valley.
For Daddy Love did not forbid Son bicycling a few miles provided Son did not
interact with strangers.
In Daddy Love’s vocabulary, all persons—including even Son’s sixth-grade classmates—were
strangers
.
Son had no plan. Gideon had (maybe) a plan.
Son lived in present-tense. Son was
is
.
Gideon lived in past-tense. Gideon was
was
.
Except, Gideon was smarter than Son. Gideon was older than Son and so could live in present-tense if he wished, and in future-tense.
Son had smothered in the
safety-box.
Son had not survived.
Son
had
survived. But as a worm survives making itself small, twisted, flat.
Son was not Gideon.
Son said to Daddy Love
Yes Daddy. I love you Daddy.
Gideon said to Daddy Love
Yes Daddy.
But thinking his own (mutinous) thoughts.
Son had wept seeing Missy beneath the storage shed floor, unmoving.
Called to her and saw her tail thumping—once, twice …
Son had cried helpessly. Gideon had wiped his eyes and the blood from his dirty face and crawled under the shed, to bring Missy back out.
Two bullets had entered Missy’s chest. The beautiful fur suffused with white but now stained with blood.
Furious Daddy Love gave the order: bury it.
It!
Gideon would never concede, even in death Missy was
it
.
In his (mutinous) thoughts Gideon loved Missy more than he loved Daddy Love though Missy was no longer breathing and no longer
alive
.
Oh but it was so hard to believe—hard to comprehend … That Missy was no longer
alive
.
She would never lie in the bed he’d made for her of old towels and blankets, at the foot of his bed. She would never lie in Gideon’s bed pressing her warm head against his thigh through the blanket on those nights when Daddy Love had no use for Son.
He’d thought that Missy might still be alive, when he reached her. But he’d been mistaken.
He’d been breathing strangely. Like running, you can’t catch your breath. He’d felt blood drain from his face. He’d tried to pick up Missy but her body was heavy, uncooperative.
“Fucking nigra. You will learn.”
Daddy Love was disgusted with Gideon. Daddy Love had struck Gideon on the side of the head and knocked him unconscious and later when he saw the weeping boy crawling from beneath the shed pulling the lifeless dog with him he’d strode to Gideon and gave him a good hard kick in the chest.
“Drag it! Drag it and fucking bury it and get it out of my sight.”
Son had obeyed. Son never failed to obey.
Gideon’s hands blistered digging Missy’s grave.
Out behind the garden he dug the grave. So that Missy could see the apple orchard which would soon be coming into blossom and was a beautiful hue of rosy-pink-red among the new green leaves.
Missy had loved to romp out of doors. Running with Gideon in the orchard, in the fields behind the barns. Chasing scuttling creatures—mice, rats?—in the old hay barn.
After Missy was buried and a small rock placed to commemorate her grave Daddy Love hauled Gideon into the house to further discipline him in the
safety-box
which was almost too cramped for Gideon now, he was eleven years old and tall for his age.
“I should dump this in the river. See how far it floats. Only Daddy Love’s mercy will save you.”
Gideon, covered in bruises and welts.
Gideon, whose hair required dyeing now in the spring of 2012 but Daddy Love was too disgusted to take the time and so chopped and struck at the boy’s hair with a scissors, then carelessly shaved his head with a razor, so the boy was stubble-headed, freaky.
At school, all would stare at him.
Freaky Gideon Cash!
His classmates were becoming wary of him, however. No longer was he shy Gideon Cash with downcast eyes but in recent weeks his eyes were uplifted, glaring.
It was late in the month, nearly three weeks after the PTA class day.
Gideon, who’d refused to change his clothes for gym class saying his daddy had told him
No nakedness.
They’d been astonished at West Lenape Elementary. What was this—
nakedness?
The boys were never naked but always clothed.
Public schools no longer required showers for students, following gym classes. No one was
naked
.
Gideon said his daddy had said if anyone looked upon his
nakedness
there would be a lawsuit—“Big time.”
So, Gideon hadn’t had to change his clothes for gym class. He’d been allowed to spend gym-class time in the library which was one of his favorite places.
No one had seen Gideon’s bruises and welts that were beneath his clothes. The bruise and cut on the side of his head he’d explained—carefully, as Daddy Love had instructed him—was the result of falling from his bicycle on the Saw Mill Road, bicycling into a pothole.
His homeroom teacher was concerned saying that the cut on his face should be looked-at by a doctor and might require stitches and to this Gideon had no reply for Gideon hadn’t seemed to hear.
Daddy Love had threatened to remove Son from school if his teachers were too inquisitive. He’d homeschooled him once and could homeschool him again.
For Chet Cash had taken courses at Wayne County Community College, in Detroit.
In the youth facility at Traverse City he’d taken several courses and his teachers had praised him.
Damned bad luck, I never had a scholarship to go to a hoity-toity college like Harvard, Yale. Fuckers never gave me a chance.
Saturday mornings Daddy Love took the van to deliver macramé products—brightly colored wall-hangings, belts, purses, tote bags, plant hangers, chair seats—to his
retailers
.
These were women who owned gift shops in Lambertville, New Jersey, and across the river in Pennsylvania in the tourist towns of New Hope, Washington Crossing, Center Bridge, and Raven Rock.
The labels on the macramé products stated
FROM THE STUDIO OF CHET CASH, KITTATINNY FALLS N.J.
The women praised Chet, warmly. Seems like women were Chet Cash’s closest friends.
Really good work, Chet! Very nice.
Our customers don’t want “original”—this is what they want.
Maybe more of the smaller purses? We can retail them for fifty dollars.
And plant hangers. This is the season!
Gideon had been making macramé things since—so long!—he couldn’t remember what he’d begun. Of course Daddy Love supplied the materials and directed him—each week Daddy Love had orders from his “retailers” to fill.
Doing macramé knots was easy for Gideon now. Like most of his household chores macramé was an opportunity for him to split his brain off from his hands and think his own thoughts.
Quick deft skilled hands, a child’s hands. But growing.
As Gideon was growing.
Liking the quiet-time when Daddy Love wasn’t hovering over him or talk-talk-talking to him about life, death, good, evil, God and Satan and Fate and he could direct his thoughts elsewhere.
Trying to remember, for instance, the beginning of the macramé—and what had come before the macramé.
He’d had another daddy then—had he? And a mommy who’d cuddled with him but not like Daddy Love cuddled with him …
She’d held his hand, tight. They’d been walking in a big space like a parking lot. She’d been scolding him—maybe. Daddy Love said that his parents had “sold” him to an adoption ring and that he, Daddy Love, had “rescued” him the way you might rescue a doomed animal from animal shelters.
And if you rescued the animal, the animal was no longer doomed.
Daddy Love had said
You owe your life to Daddy Love. Every breath you breathe.
Another thing Gideon remembered. Riding on his bicycle along the Saw Hill Road and to the River Road, suddenly he remembered.
Like a lump of something undigested, rising into your mouth. An ugly taste to make you choke.
Daddy Love and Son watching nighttime TV. Years ago when Son had been
little
.
Eating just half of a Big Mac, a few French fries and sugary coleslaw and Coke out of Daddy Love’s bottle. And Son was secured in the crook of Daddy Love’s arm the way on TV wrestling a wrestler was secured by another, stronger wrestler. Except this was
cuddle-time.
And there were two TV-people talking about a boy who’d been
abducted
four years before in the Midwest and the boy had just been found by police only sixty miles from his home and returned to his family at the age of fifteen and the abductor was arrested and the subject of the discussion was
Why hadn’t the boy left his abductor for he’d had plenty of opportunities it seemed: his abductor had taken him out in public and neighbors saw him often believing he was the abductor’s son for the two seemed to get along well, in public at least;
and the talk-show host who was a favorite of Daddy Love’s had said, in a disdainful voice,
Looks to me like the kid could’ve gotten away lots of times. Looks to me like he’d come to like his new life better than with his old family—no school, hanging out, skateboarding, eating pizzas … I’m suspicious of this kind of thing, kids running away from home and claiming to be “victims.”
Daddy Love laughed excitedly for Daddy Love revered the sarcastic talk-show host and had several times sent the man e-mails praising him. It was Daddy Love’s hope that he might someday be interviewed on the cable channel talk-show and his “true story” be aired to the American public.
Looks to me like the kid was getting along pretty well with his “abductor.” There’s more here than meets the eye and the “liberal media”—you can quote me.
Son had been very sleepy after his heavy greasy/sugary mealand soon fell asleep in the crook of Daddy Love’s arm.
Bicycling two and a half miles into town.
His backpack strapped to his back.
At the outskirts of Kittatinny Falls was the First Methodist Church where sometimes Chet Cash and his son attended Sunday morning or Wednesday evening services. And there was the Kittatinny Falls Volunteer Fire Co., where Chet Cash and his son visited when there were tables set up in the driveway at Memorial Day, Fourth of July and Labor Day and food was sold that had been prepared by the firefighters’ wives and you could mingle with the firemen and shake their hands and talk with them as Chet Cash did, and buy a casserole or two, loaves of bread, cookies and cakes. (Many young kids at the firemen’s open houses as they were called, many young parents like Daddy Love with whom he could talk in his open frank friendly way.) And there were the houses—large, wood-frame Victorians, attractive and relatively opulent homes built above the Delaware River
decades ago for owners of the mills downriver at Lambertville—where Chet Cash shoveled snow after a sudden snowfall, a volunteer snow-shoveler, with his young son at his side; for the houses were likely to be owned by elderly individuals, or women living alone. (So Chet had determined. A week in a new place, Chet knew an astonishing amount about his neighbors through what he called
firsthand observation.)
It was a curious thing to do, shoveling front walks and driveways for strangers. But Chet Cash wasn’t bound by conventional behavior—not Chet! He explained that he’d been brought up to “help” where “help” was needed, and not to wait to be asked. And if the homeowners had arranged for their driveways and walks to be professionally plowed—that didn’t matter.
Shoveling snow is great exercise, Chet Cash said. It’s like singing—God suffuses your body at such times. You feel
good
. Helping neighbors is always
good
.
Chet Cash and his little boy Gideon were invited into each of the houses. Indeed there were elderly residents in the old Victorian houses and among them two widows living alone in households built for large families. They were touched by Chet’s kindness and solicitude and insisted upon feeding him and the quiet little boy.
What’s your name, son?
“Gideon”—that’s a nice name.
And how old are you, Gideon?
Raising a son is a challenge, Chet Cash said. Especially alone.
There were women who could help him, Chet Cash was told.
He knew. He understood. But his memory of the boy’s mother was so powerful in his heart, he wasn’t yet ready to see other women except as friends.
The boy isn’t ready for a substitute mother, just yet. The boy is still in mourning.
In town, Gideon bicycled past West Lenape Elementary on Spruce Street. Bicycled to the intersection with Church Street, and turned right, ascending a hill behind the lumberyard. Ms. Swale’s house was on Church Street, he knew: the address was sixty-seven.
Behind Ms. Swale’s dull-brick house was an alley. Gideon turned into the alley but had difficulty riding his bicycle here for the ground was rutted and muddy.
He left his bicycle hidden behind a pile of debris.
It was late morning. There were children playing in fenced-off yards but no one was in the alley.
Most of the houses had garages, at the rear of their properties, abutting the alley. These were old garages, for the houses were old. There were broken windows, missing windows. There were rear doors that were unlocked or had never been locked and if you wished you could push one of these doors open and step inside quickly, and no one would have seen.
Kittatinny Falls was a small community, population 645 people at the last census in 2005. It was not a community where people locked their garage doors and often even their house doors went unlocked.
A beautiful blessed place to bring up a child. The cities are finished—God has departed from our cities.