The Essay A Novel (25 page)

The next morning, Edgel and I drove Mom to the truck stop. There was an idling white Peterbilt behind the diner. When we pulled up, a thick-set man with dark glasses and a red ball cap with a creased bill jumped down from the cab and had both of Mom's suitcases stowed in his sleeper compartment before we all could get out of the pickup.

“Johnny, these here are my boys, Edgel and Jimmy Lee.”

“Howdy,” he said, shaking my hand without conviction.

Before we could try to strike up a conversation, Mom kissed us each on the cheek and walked to the passenger side door, her purse swinging on her arm. John Phillips climbed into the cab without uttering another word. The brakes hissed, the diesel roared, and black soot belched into the air. Tiny pieces of gravel shot out from under the tires as the rig eased onto the asphalt and headed toward Columbus.

“Did all this just happen?” Edgel asked. “Did our mom just leave home to become a truck driver?”

We watched until the truck had cleared the tree line and the last of the diesel exhaust dissipated in the brisk morning air. “Now what?” I asked.

Edgel climbed into the driver's side of the pickup. “You need to get to school and I need to get to work.”

Chapter Twenty-One

T

he Alpha & Omega Literary Society luncheon was held the first Saturday of December at the Elks Lodge in McArthur. Edgel went as my guest. His interest in my welfare continued to surprise me. When I had first casually mentioned the luncheon, his eyes lit up and he asked, “Can I go?”

“Absolutely. They gave me three tickets.”

So on the day of the luncheon, I sat at a circular table with Edgel, Miss Singletary, Coach Battershell, who had to pay for his own ticket, and a pimply faced kid from Adena Heights High School and his parents. Mrs. Johanessen and Catherine sat at a table with Mrs. Wadell and several overly made-up ladies from the Alpha & Omega Literary Society. Edgel was excited to be there with me and had bought a new white shirt and black slacks for the event.

“Nervous?” Miss Singletary asked as we were eating our entrées of roasted chicken breasts and asparagus.

“Not at all,” I said. “There's nothing to be nervous about now. The votes are in. Are you nervous?”

“Extremely. I just want you to place—anywhere top three and I'll be happy. I'll take that plaque in to Mr. Speer and nail it to his forehead and make him wear it for a week.” I choked back a smile.

Mrs. Wadell walked to the lectern while we were still eating our dessert and began a ten-minute dissertation on the history of the Alpha & Omega Literary Society. Edgel asked the waitress for a second piece of cake. In reality, I was nervous. I wanted badly to win, not for myself, but to validate Miss Singletary's efforts. That, and I figured that if I beat Catherine Johanessen a second time, her mother would carry that agony to her grave.

Mrs. Wadell introduced all the high school winners and told the audience a little bit about them. When she got to me, she said that I was, “an accomplished football person.”

“Our third-place winner is Beatrice Montgomery of Northwestern High School,” Mrs. Wadell said. “Beatrice's hero is John F. Kennedy and she wrote a beautiful essay about our slain president.” Beatrice read her essay, which I thought was very thin, as though she had been struggling to come up with a legitimate subject.

“Our second-place winner lists Ohio's own, John Glenn, as her hero. She is from East Vinton High School and was our at-large entrant, Catherine Johanessen.”

Mrs. Johanessen jumped out of her seat, clapping wildly with flat hands in front of her face. I saw her look our way to see if we were clapping.

“That's shameless pandering,” Miss Singletary whispered.

Catherine read her essay with great passion. It was a good essay, but I thought it lacked heart. Of course, that might be a biased view since I was also secretly hoping that she would trip on her way to the lectern.

“Our first-place winner wrote a fine essay. In fact, he stretched the rules a little in that he didn't write about his hero, but rather, his heroine.” I could hear the air rush from Miss Singletary's lungs. I looked to her and she forced a smile, as though fighting back tears, and patted my hand. She put a hand in front of her mouth and whispered in the ear of Coach Battershell. She was, I imagine, telling the coach that I had written about him and that's how she knew I had been eliminated. It made me smile.

“You out of the runnin'?” Edgel asked.

“It is a marvelous essay and I must say that I am very impressed with this young man's abilities,” Mrs. Wadell continued. “It gives me great pleasure to announce the winner of the 1973 Alpha & Omega Literary Society's county essay competition and a one thousand dollar scholarship is James Lee Hickam of East Vinton High School.”

Miss Singletary sucked air and covered her mouth with both hands. Edgel was beating on my shoulder. Coach Battershell just nodded and winked. As I stood, I looked over at the Johanessens to see if they were clapping. They weren't; it made the victory even sweeter.

Mrs. Wadell handed me another gold medal, a plaque, and my blue notebook. I set the plaque on a table near the lectern and opened the notebook to the first page. Unlike reading the first essay, which had caught me off guard, I was prepared for this one. I read in a clear, confident voice.

My hero is a heroine.

Imagine living a life of constant derision. Imagine that your surname carried such negative connotations that you were constantly looked at with suspicion, your environment so fraught with despair that self-pity and anger consumed your being, and your actions, no matter how stalwart, could never override the reputation created by those who bore your name before you.

Now, imagine that after seventeen years, at a time when the two accomplishments in your life are perilously close to being taken away, that someone steps up to defend you.

My heroine is Miss Amanda Singletary, an English teacher at East Vinton High School. Twice in the past year, Miss Singletary came to my rescue. When I was in danger of failing junior English, she believed in my commitment to improve. When others found reason to call me a cheat, she believed that I was honest. She placed her reputation on the line and stood by me when others dismissed me as unworthy.

Sometimes, we perceive heroes and heroines to be those who are bigger than life—Washington, Lincoln, and Joan of Arc. Other times, we confuse them with those who are simply icons of popular culture—Elvis, Mickey Mantle, or Marilyn Monroe. We forget that fame or popularity should not be a determining factor. Miss Singletary is a heroine because her deeds are performed without the expectation of reward or recognition. She acts with an acute sense of right and wrong, and does so without fear of criticism or repercussion.

I do not think her a heroine simply for what she has done for me this year, but for what she has done for my future. It is said that if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for life. Miss Singletary has taught me how to fish.

She has taught me about such intangible qualities as character, honor, and determination. She has taught me that not only is it important to stand up for yourself, but that it is equally important to stand up for others, even when the cause is unpopular, and especially when sentiment weighs heavily against a just person.

When I was filled with self-doubt, she encouraged me. When I wanted to run, she closed the door. And when I complained about the unfairness of life, she jerked me up by the collar and refused me pity.

A year ago, my goals were simple. I hoped to graduate from high school and find a factory job. But Miss Singletary has taught me to never underestimate myself. She has taught me that there is no shame in failure and that the only disgrace is to never try. Miss Singletary has made my future more impossibly promising than I was capable of imagining just a few months ago. No single person has had a greater impact on my life, and I can think of no more essential criterion for a heroine.

The ladies of the Alpha & Omega Literary Society and my fellow competitors, save one, gave me a warm applause. Miss Singletary stood and met me in front of our table, a moist tissue in one hand and a tear rolling down one cheek, and hugged me hard, slipping her hand behind my head and pulling it close so she could whisper in my ear, “I am so proud of you,” she said.

I handed her the plaque. “Try not to mess it up when you nail it to his forehead.”

When I turned, Mrs. Johanessen was standing near the door, staring at me in that familiar look of a woman who hated her life. Or, it may have been the look of a woman who simply hated me.

The morning after the luncheon, a photograph of the top three finishers ran on the front page of the Sunday morning
Vinton County Messenger
. The third-place finisher and I were smiling and proudly showing our plaques. Catherine stood stoop-shouldered and looking like someone was holding a turd under her nose. Apparently, she had been thrilled to win second place until the moment they announced my name as the first-place winner.

Edgel ran out early that morning and bought five copies of the paper and woke me up by waving the front page in my face. Edgel just kept looking at the photo, shaking his head and saying, “This is so great.”

I had believed that winning the Alpha & Omega Literary Society's county essay competition would bring me redemption. I believed that every student at the high school had for months been debating the veracity of my first essay and whether or not I was truly the author. But, in fact, I learned that my perception of everyone else's interest in the drama that had unfolded after I won the East Vinton competition was mostly imaginary. It was important to Miss Singletary and me, and apparently the Johanessens, but beyond that, no one had given it much thought after a week or so. Being accused of cheating had been so personally embarrassing that I assumed everyone in the school was equally intrigued with my redemption. But, like the fire at the sawmill, kids are too wrapped up in their own lives to be concerned with anything else.

When I walked into school Monday morning, no one said a word about the contest or my photo appearing in the newspapers. At lunch, Kip Fillinger saw me in the gymnasium and said, “Hey, I saw your picture in the paper for winning that contest. So, you really did write that other essay, huh?”

“Yeah, of course I wrote it.”

“That's awesome, man, way to go.”

Miss Singletary had the editor of the school paper—the
East Vinton Herd
—write a story about the county competition and how two East Vinton students had taken the top two places. While the drama of proving that I wasn't a cheater was mostly conceived in my mind, I did notice one dramatic change in my life. When the story appeared in the high school paper, I didn't receive looks of astonishment because of my last name. For that, I was most grateful.

Chapter Twenty-Two

T

he storm blew in from the west before daylight on Friday, December 14, 1973, pelting the side of our house with sleet the size of grapes. It arrived in waves, like swarms of angry bees attacking the house as it hit the corrugated steel roof over our porch. The wind continued to whip up our hill and rattle our windows as Edgel stood at the stove fixing French toast and bacon. He slid my plate across the table and said, “This is going to be a hell of a day to be shoveling ash.”

Edgel had taken just two bites of his breakfast when the phone rang. He pushed his chair back and groaned as he lifted himself out of his seat and answered the phone before the third ring. “Hello.” He looked at me and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I'll accept the charges.” He waited another moment and said, “How are you doing? . . . Uh-huh. . . . Rapid City, South Dakota, huh? What are you doing there? . . . That's great. . . . Uh-huh, glad you're enjoying yourself. Glad you could finally call and let us know that you're still alive. That's considerate. Oh, and in case you're interested, we're doing just fine, too. . . . I'm not being a smart-mouth, I just thought you'd like to know, that's all.” While he spoke, I stuffed a half piece of French toast in my mouth, gnawing away and keeping my eyes focused on Edgel, as though I needed to watch him to hear. “We're doing great. Just fine. You have fun. . . . Uh-huh, you know, this phone call is costing me money that I really don't have. No, I'm not being a smart-mouth. . . . Fine. . . . Okay, I'm hanging up now. You take care of yourself.” He hung up and looked at me, shaking his head.

“Dad's in South Dakota?”

“I don't know about him, but your mother is. She and Cyclops just got into Rapid City with a tanker full of liquid fertilizer.”

“Mom? Are you kidding? I thought you were talking to Dad. Why did you hang up on her like that?”

“I know you were tight with Mom, Jimmy Lee, but she's no gem, either.”

“Cut her a little slack, Edgel. It wasn't an easy life with Dad.”