through the dense, hovering gloom that shrouded Breakheart Hill, Miss Carver would be the first to glimpse the truth.
T HE REST OF THAT FIRST SCHOOL DAY WENT BY IN A STIFLING , muggy haze. It was the first week of September, and as usual in the Deep South, the weather had remained quite hot. The school had high windows, and the teachers kept them open to give us what relief we could get from the limp breezes that sometimes wafted through them. But there were no fans in the school, and certainly no air-conditioning, so that by the end of the day, when the final bell rang and we staggered out into the open air again, wefelt as if some long, dull torture had at last come to an end.
Luke was standing beside his truck when I reached the parking lot. He pulled off his cap and wiped his forehead with his bare arm. “Can you believe this heat?” he asked.
I shook my head at the hellishness of it.
“I thought they might let us out early, but hell no, we had to go through the whole day.”
I nodded. “I saw that girl,” I told him. “The one in the park when we were playing tennis.”
“Yeah, me, too,” Luke said. “In the hall a couple of times.”
“She’s in my English class.”
Luke grabbed the collar of his shirt and tugged it from the skin around his throat. “I can’t believe they didn’t let us out early,” he said again. “Anyway, let’s go down to Cuffy’s and get something cold.”
We got into Luke’s truck and seconds later pulled out of the parking lot. I glanced toward the school as we went by it, already hoping, I suppose, for a glimpse of Kelli Troy, but letting my gaze settle on the school as well. It seemed unbearable that I still had two years to go, and I know that when I drew my eyes away, it was with the disquieting sense that my imprisonment within its high brick walls and gabled rooms would never end.
I see it differently now, from the viewpoint of a different kind of prison. It has been closed for nearly twenty years, replaced by the much larger and more modern building my daughter attends, one with sleek, unblemished halls, state-of-the-art lighting and winking computer screens. No plans exist either to reopen it, or to tear it down, so it continues to stand where it always has, an abandoned ruin at the foot of the mountain, though now adorned by the flower garden that Luke, in his continuing effort to beautify Choctaw, has planted on its broad front lawn.
Sometimes in the evening, when I’ve come down the mountain from the small, rural clinic I visit twice a month, I’ve let my eyes drift over toward the old building’s unlighted face, its silent bell tower robed in vines, its redbrick walls slowly crumbling into dust. At those moments, I’ve tried to imagine what it must look like inside the building now, with the wind slithering through cracked windowpanes, prowling the empty rooms and corridors, and finally lifting a ghostly dust up the broad staircase that rises to the second floor. I see no one, not even shadows. I hear none of the voices that once echoed down its hallways, nor even so much as the familiar sound of padding feet, groaning stairs or the clang of metal lockers. All I sense is its profound emptiness. It’s then that I’ve felt the urge to make the decision our town’s administrators have yet to make, to call in the wreckers with their heavy balls and pounding hammers, and let them do their work, administer, at last, the long-awaited coup de grâce.
Then I’ve glimpsed the flowers Luke has planted along the deserted walkway, small blooms in a great darkness, and thought,
Not yet
.
CHAPTER 5
I T IS ODD HOW MANY THINGS CAN BRING IT ALL BACK TO ME , sometimes even the most inconsequential things, perhaps no more than a chance remark. Only a few hours before I joined Luke at Miss Troy’s funeral, I examined a man in his early seventies who was complaining of shortness of breath, something he called a “summer cold,” but which could have been anything
T HE REST OF THAT FIRST SCHOOL DAY WENT BY IN A STIFLING , muggy haze. It was the first week of September, and as usual in the Deep South, the weather had remained quite hot. The school had high windows, and the teachers kept them open to give us what relief we could get from the limp breezes that sometimes wafted through them. But there were no fans in the school, and certainly no air-conditioning, so that by the end of the day, when the final bell rang and we staggered out into the open air again, wefelt as if some long, dull torture had at last come to an end.
Luke was standing beside his truck when I reached the parking lot. He pulled off his cap and wiped his forehead with his bare arm. “Can you believe this heat?” he asked.
I shook my head at the hellishness of it.
“I thought they might let us out early, but hell no, we had to go through the whole day.”
I nodded. “I saw that girl,” I told him. “The one in the park when we were playing tennis.”
“Yeah, me, too,” Luke said. “In the hall a couple of times.”
“She’s in my English class.”
Luke grabbed the collar of his shirt and tugged it from the skin around his throat. “I can’t believe they didn’t let us out early,” he said again. “Anyway, let’s go down to Cuffy’s and get something cold.”
We got into Luke’s truck and seconds later pulled out of the parking lot. I glanced toward the school as we went by it, already hoping, I suppose, for a glimpse of Kelli Troy, but letting my gaze settle on the school as well. It seemed unbearable that I still had two years to go, and I know that when I drew my eyes away, it was with the disquieting sense that my imprisonment within its high brick walls and gabled rooms would never end.
I see it differently now, from the viewpoint of a different kind of prison. It has been closed for nearly twenty years, replaced by the much larger and more modern building my daughter attends, one with sleek, unblemished halls, state-of-the-art lighting and winking computer screens. No plans exist either to reopen it, or to tear it down, so it continues to stand where it always has, an abandoned ruin at the foot of the mountain, though now adorned by the flower garden that Luke, in his continuing effort to beautify Choctaw, has planted on its broad front lawn.
Sometimes in the evening, when I’ve come down the mountain from the small, rural clinic I visit twice a month, I’ve let my eyes drift over toward the old building’s unlighted face, its silent bell tower robed in vines, its redbrick walls slowly crumbling into dust. At those moments, I’ve tried to imagine what it must look like inside the building now, with the wind slithering through cracked windowpanes, prowling the empty rooms and corridors, and finally lifting a ghostly dust up the broad staircase that rises to the second floor. I see no one, not even shadows. I hear none of the voices that once echoed down its hallways, nor even so much as the familiar sound of padding feet, groaning stairs or the clang of metal lockers. All I sense is its profound emptiness. It’s then that I’ve felt the urge to make the decision our town’s administrators have yet to make, to call in the wreckers with their heavy balls and pounding hammers, and let them do their work, administer, at last, the long-awaited coup de grâce.
Then I’ve glimpsed the flowers Luke has planted along the deserted walkway, small blooms in a great darkness, and thought,
Not yet
.
CHAPTER 5
I T IS ODD HOW MANY THINGS CAN BRING IT ALL BACK TO ME , sometimes even the most inconsequential things, perhaps no more than a chance remark. Only a few hours before I joined Luke at Miss Troy’s funeral, I examined a man in his early seventies who was complaining of shortness of breath, something he called a “summer cold,” but which could have been anything
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