The Sledding Hill (9 page)

A response comes back almost immediately—Crutcher is sitting at his computer trying to write a coherent opening sentence for his next book, already overdue, when Eddie's e-mail comes in—with a message for Eddie to read at the school board meeting, “when you think the time is appropriate,” along with condolences for his hard year. He includes some other ideas to make the school board meeting rock. Eddie pumps a fist into the air, prints the e-mail, folds it neatly, and slips it into his back pocket.

W
hat I told Eddie about the Reverend Tarter is true. I would have shown him this, but it wouldn't be fair to give Eddie a look inside the place where the fear comes from in Tarter's life. A human being is not born as rigid and afraid as Sanford Tarter. Life teaches those things. I bounce into seven-year-old Sandy Tarter's life moments after his mother has caught him playing with matches. She grips his left hand by the wrist, holds a lighter close to his fingers, threatening to show him what fire can do to flesh.

“Please, Momma!” he screams. “Please don't burn me! I'm sorry! I won't do it again!”

His mother brings the lighter closer. “You better pray to Jesus, little boy. You better pray to Jesus. He is the only one who can stop these little fingers from being burned black.”

“Please, Momma!”

“Quit your whining!”

“Momma—”

“PRAY TO JESUS!”

“Please, Jesus, please don't let me get burned. I'll never do it again, Jesus. I promise! I'll never play with matches again!”

“Get on your knees!”

Sandy Tarter drops to his knees and closes his eyes, convulsing, begging Jesus to spare him.

His mother drops his hand, falls to her knees beside him, and begins to pray. “Dear Jesus, me and my little boy…”

I can pop into little Sandy's life just about any
time I please to watch his mouth washed out with soap, vinegar, Tabasco sauce, or water from an unflushed toilet, though I don't necessarily care to. The only thing I want my friend Eddie Proffit to know is what I already said—that Sanford Tarter has never, in his years of teaching or his years of preaching, even approached leveling the fear on a student or a parishioner that was leveled on him.

If humans are ever to understand one another, they will have to come to terms with the concept, and the reality, of relativity. In essence, that's what the Earthgame is about. They will have to see how things look compared to other things. Once you understand that nothing exists without its opposite, you understand nothing is good and nothing is evil, that opposites actually hold each other up. For instance, if Ms. Lloyd and Mr. Tarter could see what I see, they might have a lot more to say to each other and might come to an easy agreement about this censorship issue and the nature of
kids in general. Authors aren't good or evil. Most tell their stories the best way they can. Stories aren't good or evil either; they're just reflections of one person's perception of the world. One kid might read that story and feel recognized, might find a connection. Another kid might read the same story and be offended or angered or bored. If those two students got together and talked about their reactions to the story, they'd know each other a little better.

But that's the game. The game would be too easy if we understood, and maybe no one would want to play.

 

Eddie walks into Mr. Tarter's classroom after school on the Friday before the Tuesday school board meeting. Tarter is nearly incapable of appearing eager to talk with anyone. Eddie waits.

“Could I speak to you for a moment, sir?” Eddie says.

Tarter registers exactly zero surprise at the sound of Eddie's voice. “Of course, Edward. What can I do for you?”

“I'd like to do my testimony this Sunday if possible. I've finished the workbooks and written the essay. I think the only requirement I have left is the testimony itself.”

“It's a little short notice—”

“I know, but if I'm going to talk at the school board meeting, it's probably best that I talk somewhere else first; you know, get used to it. Besides, that will make me a member of YFC, which should add to the weight of what I say.”

“What I've been saying all along, Edward. I guess you've been listening. You had me worried.” Tarter smiles. “I can set it up right before the offering. Actually, they might give more right after they hear you talk for the first time. I'm kidding, of course.”

“I know,” Eddie says. “Thanks. I need to get going if I'm gonna get both my presentation for church and for the school board done.”

“Godspeed,” Tarter says, and as Eddie reaches the door, “Edward, I'd like to see a copy of your testimony
before you actually give it, if possible. Can you get that to me?”

“I think so,” Eddie says back. “If I don't get it done tomorrow, I'll bring it on Sunday morning.”

“I suppose I can follow along,” Tarter says. “I've seen your class work, so I'm sure your testimony will be on the mark.”

Right on the mark of Cain, Eddie thinks, but he says, “Yes, sir.”

 

“Aren't you supposed to be in class?”

I'm watching my dad take his tools off the hooks on the wall and place them carefully into his toolbox when Eddie shows up. “Yup,” he says. “I'm supposed to be in Ms. Lloyd's class. She let me out to go to the can. You got a can down here?”

“No, but I
got
canned.”

“Ms. Lloyd told us. That really sucks. For the readings, huh?”

“For the readings,” Dad says.

“Ms. Lloyd's really upset,” Eddie says. “She's up there ranting like a crazy woman.”

“You go back up there and tell her not to let a soul know she was present for any of it. They're looking for any reason they can find to get rid of disloyal opposition. Her head could already be on the chopping block. I only read the last few chapters;
she
brought the book into the school in the first place. She's the dangerous one.”

“What are you going to do? Most of the kids in class want to boycott school.”

“Don't you guys be doing that. I'll lay low for a while and see if I can get my job back. I'll let that codger they brought in to replace me try to figure out this antiquated, jury-rigged heating system, and the bell system and the snow removal equipment and what-all. A few weeks of that ought to soften them up a little.”

“You should sabotage some stuff on your way out.”

“Don't think I didn't consider it; the Eddie Proffit
in me is popping out all over. But I don't think it will be necessary. That guy was staring at the
fuse box
like it came from NASA.”

“You got enough money and everything? Food?”

Dad smiles. “Hey, Eddie, don't you worry about me. I have savings and I have Billy's entire college fund to squander. I'm fine.”

“Man, this sucks. They're firing a guy from a school for reading to kids.”

“If they don't stop me, the terrorists win,” Dad says. My dad's pretty funny.

“Hey, listen,” Eddie says. “What are you doing this Sunday?”

Dad's eyes narrow. “I don't know,” he says. “What am I doing this Sunday?”

“You're coming to the Red Brick Church to hear me testify,” Eddie says.

Dad laughs and shakes his head. “Now that,” he says, “I'm going to enjoy.”

“I just hope I can keep my mind on track,” Eddie
says. “I've been practicing in my room, and every time I give it, it turns out different.”

“How different?” Dad says.

“Way different,” Eddie says back, “if I start thinking too much while I'm talking. You know me, Mr. Bartholomew.”

 

“After the formal challenge,” Dan Moeltke says to the full assembly of the Youth for Christ, “Mr. West will get to talk, and then Ms. Lloyd will rebut. Then the floor is open to the public. As a group, we want to hit the same points again and again, like politicians do. You all have speaking points; memorize them. Use these words as much as you can: ‘obscene,' ‘disrespectful,' ‘immoral,' ‘irrelevant.' The more often they hear them the better they'll stick. Make up your own testimony, and work the words in as naturally as you can, but in the end we want them to know it is offensive for us to have to read this kind of language in a
school assignment, that we believe the issues portrayed are un-Christian and that we shouldn't have to be exposed to homosexuality, abortion, masturbation, and all that. Those are issues that need to be taken up with people of our own faith, and those people are our families.”

I think I'll stand up and say I have faith in masturbation, Eddie thinks. I could bump him right now and say he
must
have faith in it, as often as he turns to it, but I don't want him to start giggling for no reason. It will take a Herculean effort on his part to keep his mouth shut long enough to accomplish all he has in mind. He thinks about his dad. He believes John Proffit would be proud if he pulls this off. He thinks about his mom. He goes back to thinking about his dad.

“I'll go first to set the agenda, then the rest of you get in among the townspeople. Don't line up together, because we want to break up those against banning
Warren Peece
and not let them get a run of five or
six.” He points to Eddie. “Then our rising star will bring it to a close.”

Eddie smiles and takes a bow.

“Nobody has heard Eddie talk for almost four months. He'll be testifying for his baptism on Sunday, but only church members will hear him. People may know he talked, but the school board meeting will be the first time they actually hear him.”

 

“Honey?” Eddie's mother says. She's standing in the doorway to his room.

Eddie looks up from his desk.

“I'm really glad you've decided to open up. And I'm so relieved you're coming into the church. It's been a source of great solace to me. I can truly say that the church saved my life. I loved your father, I truly did, but it was such a struggle fighting his beliefs. He was a good man, but he was misguided. I sometimes wonder if—”

He knows he's in danger of blowing his cover, but Eddie can't help himself. “He didn't die because of his beliefs, Mom. He died because he forgot to let the air out of a truck tire before breaking it down.”

“But if…the Reverend Tarter has said—”

“Could we let it go, Mom?”

“I'm really glad you came into the church,” she says.

“Can't you haunt her or something?” Eddie asks me when his bedroom door closes behind his mother.

“I don't know,” I say. “I've never tried anything like that.”

“You haunted
me.”

“You
haunted you,” I say back. “That ghoul you saw was never me.”

That's the one thing Eddie's still not sure of. He thinks I haunted him to get him to notice me. I have to admit it's what I would have done when I was alive, which is Catch-22 all over the place, because if I were alive, I
couldn't
have haunted him. “Man,” he says, “what am I going to do with her?”

“Want me to tell you?”

“I asked, didn't I?”

“You're gonna go right on ahead and outgrow her. She'll either catch up or not. Might help you to remember that out here, sometimes the old look young and the young look old.”

“Tell you one thing,” he says.

“What?”

“I liked it a lot better when you were alive and I ran things.”

I laugh. “You still run things, Eddie. Don't ever sweat that.”

I
accompany Eddie and his mom and my dad through the church parking lot the Sunday before the school board hearing on
Warren Peece
. We pass bumper stickers reading
BEAR CREEK CITIZENS FOR RESPONSIBLE CURRICULUM
and
PABBIS
(which stands for Parents Against Bad Books In Schools—a national organization). Eddie's mom seems uneasy about having Dad with them, particularly because he's carrying a large cloth book bag, but Eddie told her he wanted Dad there, and she wasn't up for an argument.

At the door, a church elder tells Dad he can attend the regular service, but when Eddie begins to testify, only members are allowed; church policy. Dad protests, but it is written in stone. Eddie is their secret weapon, and they're not about to unveil him until the board hearing.

It is a fiery sermon by Earth standards. The Reverend Tarter is never better than when he has an immediate cause, and saving Bear Creek's youngsters falls right into that category.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he says after the first hymn, “our town is at a crossroads. We are in a fight for the hearts, minds, and souls of our children. Make no mistake about it: We are in a battle, nay; might I say we are at war. It is a righteous war, however, and if we win no one will lose.

“I am instituting a draft to fight this war; a draft for Christian soldiers. There won't be a lottery for this draft, because you all draw number one. We need each and every one of you.

“Basic philosophies are at odds, friends. No clearer lines have been drawn between good and evil. The books of Chris Crutcher and authors like him are written to influence our children, particularly our teens, in a way that is completely unacceptable. It is time for grown-ups with Christian values, whether they have children or not, to stand against words and ideas that poison young minds. Tomorrow night we will meet
en masse
at the high-school gym for the school board meeting to rid the school of
Warren Peece,
but that is just the beginning. Before this war is over, the entire curriculum of our school, K to 12 will be reviewed, and the administrators and teachers will justify their decisions or make different ones. We are a powerful force in this community, with true watchdog power.

“The issues dealt with in
Warren Peece
are to be dealt with in the home, under the watchful eye of concerned and informed parents. They are not to be left to teachers who may or may not have the
sensibilities to deal with them, and who certainly do not share your and my concerns about our children.”

You could say he's preaching to the choir (and you'd be right in a literal sense), but the entire congregation hangs on his every word. You can
feel
them rising to the occasion. At least I can. Tarter outlines his objections, focusing on the homosexual character and the “disrespectful” language. He calls the book blasphemous. He calls Chris Crutcher blasphemous. He calls “the person who brought the book into our school, decent as she may be,” blasphemous.

“My friends, I hold the author of this book no ill will. He will have to make his peace with the Lord in due time, and while I'd certainly like to be there for his explanation, in the end that is between him and God. He doesn't even know the children to whom he does this spiritual damage. But our business is here and now, and it is up to us to stop this country, school by school, town by town, from this dark spiral toward evil.”

If he weren't there to support Eddie as far as he can, my dad would get up and leave, maybe holler a few choice words of his own truth on the way out. I can
feel
him seething. Eddie's mom is sitting in the choir, so Dad and Eddie are alone together. Eddie leans over and whispers, “If you're gonna throw up or something, it would be okay if you leave now.”

Dad chuckles and whispers back. “In World War Two, when bombers had to go deep into Germany, they had fighter escorts for as far as the fighters could go and still get back safely. Then they'd come back and meet them on the way back. I can't go all the way with you, but I'll be here when you're done.” He nods to the book bag on the floor. “Wish I could go all the way.”

The book bag is full of cue cards. Dad was going to stand at the back of the congregation and hold them up to keep Eddie's bouncing brain in the groove.

“I'm trying to picture them in order,” Eddie says,
“but it isn't working. Every time Tarter says something, I think of something I should say back. I'm not really very good at this.”

“I know,” Dad says. “What do you want to do?”

“Guess I'll have to wing it,” Eddie whispers. He smiles. “Pray for me.”

“…what Jesus would do,” the reverend continues. “I know it's a cliché. They laugh at us for asking the question, but it is a Christian's job to shrug off the barbs of the unfaithful and answer the tough questions. What Jesus would do is go to that meeting and stand up for our children. Jesus would say to the school board what we all know, that evil lurks in every corner, disguises itself in any possible way, even in the cloak of a children's writer. Evil has no conscience, none.

“Jesus would do what
our
young people are doing,” and he points to the section roped off for Youth for Christ. “Jesus would bring like-minded people, his followers and his flock, and face this evil
down.” Tarter mops his brow lightly with a handkerchief. “This is our chance not only to talk like Christians but to walk like Christians. We must keep our eye on our goal and march toward it as Jesus marched toward Calvary. I'm asking each of you to attend that school board meeting tomorrow night. It will be held in the school gymnasium at seven o'clock. Do not stay home if you don't have children in school. You have a responsibility not only to yourselves but to all other community members.”

I hear some serious “amens.”

The reverend pauses and backs off a little. “After the final hymn, we will welcome a special young man into our church; a boy who has suffered much over the past year, but who is now finding the solid ground of his faith. I hope you all will stay to welcome Edward Proffit.”

Eddie looks over at the choir box and sees pride spread across his mother's face. He feels a twinge of regret because he's pretty sure that pride will be fol
lowed by tears when she hears what he has to say, but he figures as mad or as hurt or as disappointed as she'll be, things would be a lot worse in the long run if he went ahead and did what she wants him to do. Because he would always resent her. He knows I'm right. She needs to take care of herself.

When the final chord of “The Old Rugged Cross” fades, Tarter motions Eddie to the front of the room, as he respectfully asks anyone who is not a church member to leave; this ceremony is for only the faithful. Dad rises and discreetly walks up a side aisle. Eddie's running his testimony over in his head, but he can already feel it slipping away with the book bag.

As Tarter introduces him, recounting specifically all he's been through over the past year, including his being “struck dumb,” Eddie concentrates harder on his message and his heart begins to pound and I see the window, opening exactly as it does when he is starting a run. And I know this about the universe.
If the window is there, it is there to go through, which I do.

Now the only time Eddie has actually
seen
me is in a dream. That's no big trick, because he remembers what I look like. The rest of the time he just sort of
feels
me beside him. But I gotta get seriously visible now, and I need to get it
right
.

 

Eddie looks above the congregation at the huge triple doors leading to the outer foyer, and what he sees is his old friend yours truly, standing atop Summer's Hill in my snowsuit and my stupid Russian hat with the earmuffs, holding my daddy's cue cards. Eddie actually smiles and waves, which causes the entire congregation to turn 180 degrees to stare at the door. He steps to the pulpit, the same pulpit from which the Reverend Tarter just delivered his lode. Eddie is intimidated, more than he thought he'd be. He gazes into the faces of the congregation, and his throat clogs. He sees me waving above them
and focuses on the first card, which just says
TALK
. “I'm nervous,” he says. “It's been a long time since I've said anything. But the testimonial classes I've been taking have prepared me, I think.” He takes a breath, looks at the next card, which reads
LIFE, JESUS
.

“It's a scary step to give your life to the Lord, because it means you have to just give up and have faith that he'll know what to do with it when he gets it.”

Many in the congregation nod and smile slightly.

“When you think of all the people in the world who are doing that, he must be pretty busy. You get worried he won't handle yours right. But then you ask Reverend Tarter, and he reminds you who Jesus is, and you relax.”

Eddie leans forward on the pulpit, gripping it at the sides. He looks up and sees the word
DAD
on my next card. “Everybody here knows my dad died last year,” he says. “I don't know whether you
know this part or not, but my dad and Reverend Tarter didn't see things the same way. I used to listen to them argue down at the service station, and when they were done I'd ask Dad how anybody was supposed to figure out which one of them was right.”

There is a silence, like the congregation is waiting for Eddie Proffit to say Tarter was right and his dad was wrong. My next cue card wasn't in Dad's book bag. I make it on the spot, because dead guys can do that, and I hold it up high. It says
DO IT
!

“My dad said, ‘Do the numbers, Eddie. Do science and the numbers.'”

He looks up at the next card and sees
LEVITICUS
and takes a deep breath. If he goes here, he passes the point of no return. His mind bounces now, but it bounces the way he wishes it would always bounce: from cause to effect, though those probably aren't the words he'd use.

He sees Leviticus the way he pictures it from
reading the Bible: vastly unpleasant. He sees Matthew Shepard hanging on a fence in Laramie, Wyoming, because, and only because, he was gay. His mind jumps to fire hoses pointed at black people in the sixties, a bomb explosion in a small church in Birmingham, Alabama, and he remembers what Reverend Tarter said about the mark of Cain. He does the math. About ten percent of Americans are African American. About ten percent of Americans are homosexual. Nobody chose it. It's the math. God created the math.

“One thing you do when you're getting ready to testify is read as much of the Bible as you can understand, because you know the stuff that's in there is supposed to tell you how to live your life, and that's also why you take the class, so you'll have somebody to ask about the parts you don't get. Like if you believe in statistics, approximately one person out of every ten is gay. The baptism classes tell you that's a sin. Like, a big one. There's this
book in the Old Testament, Leviticus, that says if you do what gay people do, you are an abomination. There aren't many things worse than an abomination.”

The congregation is beginning to wonder if they're about to experience something very different from your run-of-the-mill testimony.

“Only what if you
are
gay?”

Tarter registers his first signs of discontent. Eddie waited until the last minute to give him the text outline, and now Tarter starts to thumb ahead. From his chair to the side, he whispers, “Get on task, Eddie.”

Eddie hears him. Tarter doesn't realize the last thing he wants is for Eddie to get on task.

“If you are, it means you can't ever have sex your whole life. Because if you're gay, you aren't going to
want
to have sex with the opposite sex and you can't have it with the same sex, because Leviticus goes for the maximum punishment. It says, ‘the land will
spue you out,' which…I'm not sure exactly what that means, but it sounds radical. See, and this is where my dad comes in. Science and math, remember? Ten percent. It's always been ten percent, even when Leviticus was written. Now you know it can't be hereditary, because that would mean gay people would beget other gay people and most gay people don't beget, so there would be this serious drop in gay people. It's just ten percent at
random
. If being gay was really a sin, that would mean that God went and created one out of every ten people and made it a sin for them to have sex,
for their whole lives
. I hear over and over and over how God is a loving God. Now I could see where that could be a little bit funny if it were only for a few weeks or something, but not for your
whole life
. So I figure whoever wrote Leviticus was just a bigoted guy, just like whoever the guy was that decided the mark of Cain was being black. And I'm thinking I like girls, see, but there wasn't this day when I woke up and said,
‘I think I'll like girls.' I just did. So I figure it has to be the same way with being gay. You wake up one morning and you say, ‘I like boys,' only you
are
a boy. If you had a choice, why would you choose that? So you could get called names and beat up more in school? Just because information is church information doesn't mean it shouldn't include common sense, should it?”

I'm still there if he needs me, but Eddie's not checking me out above the door anymore, so I'm checking out the crowd to see if there's going to be, like, a
backlash
or something, because some really big loggers and ranchers are getting restless. I hold up the card that says CHURCH BUSINESS/SCHOOL BUSINESS, hoping maybe he'll glance up.

“Speaking of school,” Eddie says, nodding at me so I know he felt the bump, “I know the people in this church all want to ban the book
Warren Peece
, and you're going to the school board meeting to say so. I think it's pretty clear from what I've said so far
that my baptism is postponed indefinitely, so this is probably my last Sunday here, but I'll be at school every day for the next four years. I'd like to make a deal with you. I won't come here and bring my school business, and you don't come there and bring your church business.”