Authors: Barry James Hickey
Bill Hogan asked.
“If I can,” said Battle.
“Why?” Hogan sipped whisky from a glass.
“It’s my hope chest.”
“You want to leave something behind!” Hogan realized.
“Okay… I made some calls and I think I have a whopper of a moneymaking opportunity for you. I’m thinking accidental death - after all, you’re gonna die soon anyway - but it would have to be a real good accident.” He said it like it was no big deal. “Shall I continue?”
John leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes and concentrated. “I’m listening.”
“Take your time,” Hogan said. “I’m not telling you to kill yourself, but maybe there’s a way to cash in at the end if the timing is right. It’s a big decision.”
Battle opened his eyes. “I can manage that.”
Big Bill smiled and rubbed his chin, thinking aloud. “I'd have to backdate a policy sixteen, seventeen years. Make it look like a lost premium before you were incarcerated.”
“Whatever works.”
Hogan returned to his desk and sat. He pulled out an amortization schedule and a calculator. “Let’s see. Your old occupation before you went to the pen? Lawyer, right?”
“Yes.”
Hogan grinned. “Made pretty good dough, I’ll bet.”
“Yes.”
“Incorporated?”
“Yes.”
“Perfect… I’m thinking either an executive or dead janitor life insurance policy.”
“They’re still around?”
“Yep. Still a big money game.”
“I tried a couple of those cases,” Battle said. “Let me see if I remember how they worked…” His eyes narrowed as he tried to remember once familiar legalese. “An executive policy is when a company loses a top manager’s expertise, knowledge and contacts. Sometimes, it causes ruin.”
“Correctomundo.”
“A dead janitor policy, also known as a dead peasant policy, is when a company takes out life insurance on an employee, usually unbeknownst to the family of the deceased and cashes in when he dies.”
“It could be worth a stack of moola.”
“Tax free?” Battle added.
“Every penny.”
Hogan crunched numbers. “Let’s see… Okay… How does this fairy tale sound? You or your company bought a twentyyear policy back in the day. Okay?”
“Okay.”
He winked at him. “I had to dig a little dirt up on you when I was faking those ID’s. Didn’t your grandmother die and will her estate to you?”
“Yes. But I spent all of it in my defense trial.”
“That’s not true. Not anymore.” Hogan winked. “You didn’t spend all of it.” He talked into a coffee mug on his desk. “Hello? Hello? FBI? Can you hear me now?” He smiled at John. “Just kidding. Okay. Back to the fabrication. First you paid down your life insurance policy in full to save on the interest. That was a month before your world as you knew it ended. Are we on the same page, John?”
“I’m slowly getting your drift.”
Hogan pulled out a thick folder from his desk and thumbed through a variety of old insurance policies.
“How's this? National Family, now defunct, sold your policy to American Stability, now bankrupt, which gave the paper to Warsaw Family which sold...”
“Whatever works, Big Bill. But my company was dissolved.”
“Then I’ll get your name on the board of trustees with another company. It’s no big deal.”
Battle dropped a wad of hundred dollar bills in front of the unscrupulous insurance man. “How much life insurance are we buying?”
Hogan smiled at the pile of money, then punched the keys on his calculator. “Pay out is about three hundred thousand
if
you have an accident in the next six months. Live past that, the policy expires and you lose it all.”
“I won't,” Battle reminded him
Hogan found an old insurance form and kissed it. “Bingo. I got one!” He snagged a pen from his shirt pocket and slid it across the table with the policy. “Never, never ever, throw away old policies! You'll want to use your real name this time. List your beneficiaries on the bottom left and sign on the bottom right. I'll fake the date and all the rest later.”
“How does this work after I’m gone?”
Hogan smiled. “I have a law firm arranged to handle the estate. They have a black bag guy. Takes a flat ten- percent. Fair?”
“Fair,” Battle agreed, pen poised. “This insurance fraud. It’s a bit of a stretch. Don’t you think?”
“Maybe,” Big Bill dismissed, “But, it’s worth a shot.”
“What assurance do I have that you won’t reassign the policy to someone else or just keep my money for yourself?”
Hogan’s eyes dimmed. “You think I’m a liar and a crook, John?”
Battle set the pen down. “I know you’re not the most honest man in town.”
Big Bill Hogan laughed defensively. “I’m not going to mess with a dying man’s wishes. It’s bad medicine.”
He gave Battle the name of a dishonest banker downtown. Someone named Petrie.
“Open an account under your real name. When you pass on, I’ll make sure the insurance money gets paid in. Petrie will see that your beneficiaries are paid off.”
“You trust this Petrie guy?”
“No. He’s my brother-in-law.”
Battle smiled and laughed as he picked up the pen.
“I know this deal sounds shaky.” Bill swallowed his drink. “All you got is blind faith going in and coming out.”
“Ever since the cancer, faith is all I have anymore.”
“Now all you have left to do is to figure out how to kill yourself.”
“I’m not going to kill myself. I’m going to have an accident, remember?”
“Don’t wait too long,” Big Bill cautioned. “Your time here isn’t on a calendar, it’s on a stopwatch!”
Battle signed the policy and slid it across the desk to the big man. “This is for a good cause,” he reasoned.
“Sure, John. Whatever you say.”
White chalk smudged on the right sleeve of his frayed camouflage jacket, Matt was busy at the blackboard. He was early for class.
“So, you say that integers consist of the positive natural numbers one, two, three, etceteras and their negatives minus one, minus two, minus three etceteras, and of course zero is in there?” Matt circled the zero.
Mr. Battle was dead tired. With the combination of shriveling away and the heavy amount of medicine he had taken right before school, he was in a constant mental fog and physically numb. Maybe that’s what was supposed to happen. The more he ingested, the less he felt, until one day he wouldn’t feel anything at all and then he’d just be… just be dead, he guessed. Matt’s question finally registered with him.
“Yes, Mr. Battle. You did.” There was annoyance in Matt’s tone.
“Sorry,” the teacher said. “I, I guess I was distracted.” Julio stomped into the classroom. He was in a sour mood.
He plopped down on a chair, his back to them. He bent over, dropping his head on his arms at the table.
“You okay, Julio?” Mr. Battle asked.
Julio lifted his head and turned around. He was sporting a black eye.
Battle pointed for Matt to return to his math problem and sat next to Julio.
“Want to talk about it?”
“My old man can't let go of my mom.”
“It doesn't give him the right to hit you.”
“I can't hit him back. I don’t want to hit him back. He's my old man, you know?”
“Violence is a lousy solution between family, Julio.”
“Maybe I should just move on. Quit this school thing and get a job. Move out.”
“Maybe your dad hits you because it’s the only way he knows how to communicate.”
“Some coping skills.”
“And if my memory serves me, don’t you have a slight reputation as a bully?”
“Like father like son?” Julio said.
“Doesn’t have to be,” Battle said.
“Dang, Mr. Battle. Nothing's simple is it?”
“No.”
Julio slammed an angry fist on the table. “I just don’t know what to do about it. I got no place else to go but jail if I screw up.”
“Want me to talk to him?”
“No. He’ll rip your head off. My old man’s a mean SOB, teach. And he’s got fifty pounds on you.”
“There are better ways to resolve this,” Battle decided. “It begins and ends in conversation.”
Toby arrived for class with the girls dangling from either arm.
“I found these two speaking in baby talk down the block so I snagged them and dragged them to school!” Toby smiled.
Mr. Battle nodded towards Julio and left the room for a minute so they could discuss the fight with his dad. It was frustrating for him that the boy’s father hit him. Would he be crossing the line going to see Julio’s dad? Should he avoid the man altogether and call the police for domestic violence? What would that accomplish? The dad might go to jail, lose his job, and fall behind in the house payments. Then when he got out of jail with new problems, he'd resent his son even more. And then what? A gun or a knife for conflict resolution? He returned to the classroom and circled the students together.
“Listen,” Mr. Battle told them all. “I have a great idea! Anybody up for a class during the day tomorrow? We can skip the evening. What do you say?”
“I’ll have to check my busy schedule,” Amber said.
“I was thinking of maybe looking for a job,” Toby said.
“Come on, guys! One time only! It’s supposed to be a record-breaking warm December day, too. I’ll tell you what – so it isn’t too much trouble… We can all go hang out at that old tree you talk about. What do you say? I’ll even bring food and sodas.”
“We practically live under that tree,” Matt said. “It will be boring.”
“Not for me. I’ll make it a history or science class or we can talk about religion or politics. What do you say?”
The kids reluctantly agreed to meet him at their hangout the next afternoon.
When he arrived at Shooks Run Park the next day, Mr. Battle stopped in the small gravel parking lot next to the baseball diamond as the Tadpoles had instructed. Just like his students had assumed, the parking lot was empty. No children playing on the swing sets, no owners tossing sticks to their dogs, no retirees feeding pigeons.
“Kids all got video games and the mall on Saturdays,” Matt Golden had said.
Battle realized a vast change in the American landscape since his incarceration. He read it in the papers, saw it on the morning news with Mrs. Powell. America was slowly pulling itself apart. Neighbors moved every few years, children didn’t play on the streets anymore, and the faraway super mall had obliterated the local hangout. Trust was lost and nobody felt safe. But the Tadpoles were an exception to the new rule. They were a throwback to the old ways. They stayed in the neighborhood and looked out for things in their own small way. Of course, as soon as some of them found jobs, things would change for them, too.
Mr. Battle saw a thick line of trees two hundred yards in the distance. Cottonwoods and elms mostly, with a few tall pine trees interspersed. There was a break in the line where a path began. A bike trail. He grabbed his cane from the back seat and headed across the baseball field towards it. The trees seemed short at first, but as he approached them he realized they were all growing out of the gully down below along the creek bed.
Matt and Toby appeared from the break in the trees. They had been on the lookout for his SUV. They hurried across the open space to him.
“Need some help with anything, Mr. B?”
Mr. Battle tossed them his keys. “I have a cooler and folding chairs in the back, if you’d be so kind.”
“Right on,” said Matt, snagging the car keys from the teacher.
‘Don’t take it for a joyride, Matthew!”
“Just once around the state?” his student joked.
“Just follow the bike trail ahead, Mr. B,” Toby instructed. “It takes you to the bridge.”
“And then?”
“Hike down to the stream. We’re all here.”
The boys ran off towards the Toyota.
Mr. Battle hobbled towards the bridge, grateful for the flat ground. Even with his cane, long walks were becoming difficult. His breathing was irregular, strained. As he neared the bridge, the kid named Speed Racer darted out from the woods on his bike towards him.
“Careful Mister,” warned the eager boy. “They got punks up ahead.”
“Punks?”
“A whole gang of ‘em. They throw rocks at people, too!”
Battle passed the kid and tapped him on the helmet. “Thanks for the notice.”
Speed Racer became unfrayed as Battle kept walking. “I’m serious, Mister! They could even kill you!”
“I’ll take my chances,” Mr. Battle smiled.
Speed Racer felt sick to his stomach. A man with a cane was a sucker for trouble with that bunch! He saw Toby and Matt coming his way, using the folding chairs as a stretcher to carry the cooler. The boy sped away on his bike before they could get close enough to catch him.
By the time Battle reached the bridge, Toby and Matt had caught up to him with their bundle still intact.
“Follow us,” Toby called to the teacher as they passed him.
The boys practically slid down the hill with their cargo without missing a step. Mr. Battle found the gradual downhill climb easy enough. He could see Amber and Marie by the stream, picking up trash and stuffing it into plastic grocery bags. The girls dumped the collected trash onto a pile of other bags. They had spent over an hour policing the area.
“Incoming,” Toby yelled out.
Julio sat on the community log nearby. He had a long stick in his hands with a string attached to it. He pretended he was fishing.
“Any luck yet?” Battle asked.
“Not today,” Julio said. Yesterday’s black eye was now a dark purplish blue.
Mr. Battle sat on the log next to Julio, took a deep breath and looked around. “An excellent place for a powwow,” he said.
“We mostly just sit around and chill here,” said Julio.
“Then I’ll chill, too,” Mr. Battle said. “Did you have a chance to talk to your dad about why he hit you?”
“Hell no,” Julio said. “I’m avoiding him like the plague!”
The teacher laid his cane on the log. “So this is Shooks Run? Your spot for now!”
“I guess.”
Matt unfolded a chair and offered it to Mr. Battle. “You might want a chair, teach. After a few minutes on the log, it gets to your back.”
Mr. Battle rose from the log and sat on the chair. “Imagine,” he said with a bright smile, “a hundred and thirty years ago, there might have been Indians here!”
“I’ll bet they couldn’t find any fish, either,” said Julio.
“Back then there weren’t any signs of modern civilization around here,” said Battle. “No houses, no streets, no lights, no people, no town - just the foothills that divided the mountains and plains. Then one day, a small wagon arrived from back east and in that wagon – a man, a woman, their children. They had nothing but each other to rely on back when this was a true wilderness…. And these trees? Hardly a one was here then.”
“What about this big one?” Amber said. “It’s got to be two hundred years old.”
Mr. Battle examined the tree. “Ah. That old black Cottonwood?”
“How do you know it’s a Cottonwood?” asked Marie.
“Shape of the leaves, the bark. Funny thing is, this black Cottonwood shouldn’t even be here. It’s indigenous to the Northwest part of the country. Around here are mostly Plains Cottonwoods.”
He pointed at a gray squirrel climbing up the tree’s trunk. “That’s an Albert’s squirrel,” he told the students. “Cottonwoods make nice homes for squirrels and birds.”
A blue bird whistled into the woods above them and landed on the old tree.
“That is a Stellers Jay.” He glanced around the forest. “Plenty of magpies here, too. Trees like birds in their hair.”
He tilted his head back, studying the branches of trees all around for other signs of wildlife.
“You like trees, don’t you?” Amber said.
“Yes, I do. The history and life of trees coexists with humans.”
“How so?” Matt asked, pulling a folding chair up next to the teacher.
“They need water and earth to survive. Like us they crave companionship. Some tree types such as the firs…”
“Christmas trees are firs,” Marie said.
“Very good, Marie! Some fir trees need to be grouped close together to survive.”
“Like people in cities,” Matt suggested.
“Others naturally space themselves from each other to receive enough rainfall. Look up at that pine tree across the creek. Notice that it’s shaped like a giant triangle. That makes it more efficient for the tree to collect sunlight since it grows close to other trees. And by its shape, with other trees, enough light is let in through the group canopy to allow the young seeds and sapling pines to grow beneath. Even though the fir trees compete for sunlight, they also share it to continue the species.”
“So for the small trees, it’s like living in the shade of a parent,” said Amber.
“Just like people. Maybe some trees live better lives than others,” Julio said. “Look at those sad little trees across the creek. They’re just hanging on, rubbing and poking at each other like crazy.”
Mr. Battle studied the stand of runts. “Now other species of trees, they want a little space. The ones in that stand, for instance. A competition between cottonwoods and elms crammed together, their taproots burrowing in the soil, trying to figure out who will live and who will die among the species. Those varieties of trees can develop root systems longer than the tree is tall.”
“Why are there so many types of trees around here?” Matt asked.
“To reduce the possibility of extinction. Too many of one variety grouped together can’t withstand the spread of insects and disease from root to root. Mix them up with other kinds of trees and it increases their chances of survival.”
“I see what you mean about trees being like people,” Amber said. “Look at us here. Not one alike in any way, shape, or form.”
“And just like the fir trees,
you think
you need each other to survive. But I don’t see it that way. I think you’re each a Cottonwood, waiting to set your own taproot and make a stand as an individual. But you hold yourselves and each other back from your true potential.”
“What are you saying, Mr. B? That we’re no good for each other?” Matt asked.
“Sometimes, a peer can be your worst enemy. Maybe you share the same dilemma as these trees. Who of you will survive and who will perish?” Mr. Battle asked. “Who wants to be the big proud Cottonwood hovering over the rest? That one enormous tree? The one that grows through the sidewalk and breaks up concrete? Who prefers to be the small ponderosa or the stubborn scrub oak clutched to a bare gravel hill? What kind of tree do you want to be? The good tree preserving the species and planting seeds? Or the bad tree with shallow roots spreading fungus and hoarding water?”
None of the Tadpoles spoke. They just sat there, looking between each other and the teacher. What was Mr. Battle getting at? That the little group, their
gang
wasn’t working out for any of them? That they weren’t good for each other? That they were lousy friends? What?
“Break time,” announced Mr. Battle. “Matthew, want to pass out the food and sodas?”
Matt popped open the cooler. Inside were cold sodas and foot long sandwiches. He dished them out. After everyone started eating, the conversation started again
“How can you tell how old a tree is?” Matt asked.
“Trees are like people. While we’re babies, adolescents, teenagers and adults, trees are three-foot seedlings, then tenfoot saplings, before maturity. You can estimate the age of seedling and sapling trees by counting the spaces in between the whorls of branches they produce each summer. With adult trees, they’re considered pole size - between six and ten inches - then standard size up to two feet. After that, we get the veterans with trunks over two feet in diameter. Once again, trees are like people. This veteran Cottonwood tree that protects us typically lives to age seventy, but with a little nurturing, some luck, a few less hail storms, a few extra sunny days and no bad neighbors eating away at his roots, who is to say the tree can’t live two hundred years?”
The students munched on their food, hungry for knowledge.
“Why do you like trees, Amber?”
“They make me feel good. Something about their constant movement from the wind.”
“I dig the shadows they create.” Toby stood up and used his hands to speak. “And I dig the way they sound when lightning hits them and they crash to the ground.”
“Because of their stature, strength and longevity, some people plant trees as living memorials to those they love,” Battle said.
“So the memory of the dead person lives on every time you sit under the tree?” Amber liked the notion. She looked at all the trees around her, then pointed at the Cottonwood. “Mr. Battle, if we ever graduate from high school, I officially nominate this Cottonwood tree as a living memorial in your honor. Those opposed raise your hands.”
All hands stayed down.
“Those who approve say ‘aye’.”
“Aye,” said the other teenagers.
“It’s official then, teacher. You help us get through school…”
“And the tree is yours,” finished Toby.
Everyone attacked his or her sandwich again. Afterwards, they took turns rinsing their hands in the cold, clear, creek water.
“Is it true that Jesus didn’t write the Bible?” Marie asked as she wiped her hands on her skirt.
Mr. Battle answered, “Jesus never wrote anything. Like Socrates, it was left to oral historians and later writers to interpret his life.”
“So how do we know the Bible’s even true?”
“You have to have faith.”
“I’m curious, Mr. Battle. Do you believe in God?”
“Yes. How else can you explain all this magic around us?”
“Evolution,” said Matt.
“Prove to me that you can create something from nothing, then we’ll talk,” Toby spoke.
“Does your belief in God come from faith or fear?” Amber asked Mr. Battle.
“Hmmm. What is faith?”
“Blind optimism,” Amber said.
“What is fear?
“Blind ignorance.”
“I suppose I can safely say that my god comes from the great wonder.” He picked up a rock for demonstration. “You and I, we live our lives in the human day to day. This rock, it has its own life, a different sense of time. If left alone, it will still be here for thousands of years. These trees, that sky above... Everything lives on its own calendar. This body of mine, this vessel that carries my thoughts and spirit around, soon it will shrivel and die and poof! I will have been just a wrinkle in your time.”
Amber shook her head, disagreeing. “That’s not true Mr. Battle! You will have this tree as a memorial. You’ll have us to remember you.”
“For a time, perhaps. But you can’t hide in these woods forever. Some day, sooner than later, you have to move on.”
“You mean, grow up?”
“Yes.”
The conversation drifted into silence as the wind blew quiet serenity through the woods.
Suddenly, a spasm grabbed Mr. Battle. It sent a shock from his brain to his arms and legs like a bolt of lightning. It quickly disappeared. He closed his eyes with a tight squint and tried to concentrate on his breathing.
“You okay, Mr. B?” Matt knelt at his feet.
“Too much talking.”
Battle reached into his pocket, pulled out a pair of pills and ate them, chasing them down with water.
“What’s with the pills?” Julio said.
“I get migraines sometimes.”
“Is that why you walk with a cane?”
“Sure.” Mr. Battle took a deep breath, trying to savor the moment with the kids. “This place. You chose it well. Like a secret garden. This tree - this great learning tree. That bridge
- a threshold to other worlds that await you all someday!”
The Tadpoles studied their surroundings like they’d never seen them before. There was magic and power here.
“This isn’t a hideout, it’s a retreat,” Mr. Battle announced.
The students nodded.
“So…” Battle changed the subject. “Christmas is coming. Shall we attend the dance?”
“Our school’s too cheap to have a dance.”
“Then we'll find another. Suits for the boys and gowns for the girls. Maybe even a limousine! I'm rich enough. Right, Matt?”
“Whatever you say, Mr. B.”
The teacher stood without his cane and danced in place, swaying at the hips. “I was quite the two-stepper in my day!”
The five Tadpoles looked on.
“Dude’s whacked,” Julio said.
“I wish I could dance like that,” Matt said.
“Then we'd have two crazies on our hands,” Julio slapped Matt on the back.
Now the mad teacher wrapped his right arm around an imaginary partner and held up an invisible arm with his left. He slowly swooned with his ghost partner along the edge of the creek, twirling round and round, in and out of shadows and light.
Amber’s imagination allowed her to see a beautiful woman in his arms. All was good in the world that afternoon.