The Good Reverend's Gift

“Come on, chicken!” Frankie goaded, as he and the other boys, in their Halloween costumes, filed through the rusty gate. Hide-n-Seek in a cemetery on Halloween night didn’t seem like a good idea. I liked the apples and cookies given out by bemused neighbors in our little town. The other boys couldn’t be dissuaded, so I quietly followed them through the dark, overgrown graveyard, its fractured, moonlit headstones jutting from the ground like broken teeth.

“I’m it!” Thomas called out, leaning against a gnarled oak tree, counting backward from twenty.

Everyone scattered and I panicked, not sure where to hide. Stumbling over sticks and slippery fallen leaves, I found refuge behind a tall stone monument and crouched beneath its shadow. My heart beat out of my chest as I heard the other players getting caught one by one.

Owls flapped overhead like demonic angels, stirring the cold night air around the monument where I shivered in apprehension and glee. Had I finally won a game against these boys? Was I the last to be found? How long should I stay hidden to be certain? I’d never made it this far in Hide-n-Seek, so I didn’t know. My ears were trained on the spot where Thomas had chosen for allee-allee-in-free but heard nothing. No teasing banter from the group. No laughter or sounds of footsteps stalking me.

I waited a bit longer, but it seemed I was alone, and my hollow victory only reminded me I wasn’t one of them. Frustrated at my failure to fit in, I ripped off the ghostly bed sheet borrowed from my mother’s linen closet and crumpled it under me. We had moved to town from the country after my dad passed, and I still hadn’t been accepted by the kids who had lived here their entire lives. Hot tears burned my cheeks as I pushed myself up off the ground, humiliated and ready to walk home alone.

My foot fell into a ragged hole next to the monument, as if someone or something had pulled it down. I heard a crack in my ankle and fell to the ground screaming. The grave marker began to rumble and sway, threatening to crash down on top of me.

I pulled my ankle out of the hole and rolled away from the stone, watching it settle calmly back into the soil. White lettering slowly appeared on the base, “You’re welcome. July 28, 1914”

“What the heck? What is July 28, 1914?” I spat, holding my aching leg in one hand and rolling on the ground in pain.

Another phrase replaced the first, “You’ll see.”

I couldn’t imagine thanking anyone for a broken ankle after being left alone, blocks from my home in a spooky graveyard. I found a small, sturdy stick and laid it against my calf, then ripped strips from the thread-bare sheet to wrap around my leg, just like my Boy Scout leader had instructed in a long-forgotten lesson on first aid. When it was secure, I grabbed a longer stick from the ground and got myself as far away from that grave marker as I could before something reached out and broke another body part.

Hobbling home past brightly smiling jack-0-lanterns on tidy porches, I rolled that date around in my brain, July 28th, 1914, July 28th, 1914. It meant nothing to me. Tonight was October 31st, 1913. I’d be fifteen in July, but I still couldn’t make a connection.

Ma was waiting for me in the living room. The radio was blaring a tinny-sounding concert from far-away Radio City Music Hall, while she slipped yarn over and under her knitting needles in the light of the gas sconce on the wall. “Well, there you are! What have you done to yourself? Is that one of my good sheets?”

“Sorry, Ma, went trick-n-treating with the boys and I fell. My ankle's hurt I think.”

“Dear God, you’re going to give me heart failure. Unwrap it and let me take a look-see.”

“Ow, oh, yeah, I think it’s broken. I’m sorry, Ma.”

“Now, you’ve been hurt.” She said, examining my purplish and swollen ankle with a frown on her brow. “Ain’t no reason to be sorry. We’ll have to see Doc Anderson. Glory be, hope he’s still in fine feddle,” she announced, pinning on her town hat and pulling a thick cardigan over her house dress.

I half leaned on her and my walking stick as we trudged the three blocks to Doc Anderson’s mansion on Main Street. We could see Doc in his study, face down on the desk, all the gas lights in the house burning.

Not to be deterred by his unconscious state, she banged hard on the front door and yelled, “Doc, my boy’s got a broke leg. Wake up!”

His quiet wife opened the door and began making excuses for her husband. Ma pushed past her, storming into the living room. “Doc! Doc! It’s Mrs. Kissinger from down the street. Bobby broke his leg. Wake up!”

“Wh? Who? What? Come back tomorrow,” he slurred.

“We ain’t doing no such thing. You drink some coffee and get right. The whole town depends on you. How dare you take to drink and leave us with nobody!” Ma demanded.

When Ma got riled, there was no arguing with her. Doc’s wife returned with a cup of black coffee, which he swiped rudely from her shaking hands. “Mamie, get the surgery ready.”

Great. A drunk was going to perform surgery on me. I may never walk again, I thought. A few of Doc’s kids had sneaked down the stairs to see what was happening. They were peering through the slats of the railing at us. Tommy waved shyly to me. He was in my grade and seemed nice. Quiet and nervous, but kind. Maybe he and I could become friends.

Ma guided me through their cavernous home to the surgery, which was connected to the kitchen in the back of the house. Doc’s wife was scurrying about, tidying equipment and washing down the cold, metal examining table. Doc Anderson shooed her away and ordered me onto the still-wet table.

After a cursory examination with shaking hands, he declared that my ankle was broken in half and needed a cast. As if by magic, Mamie appeared at his side with a white enamel basin of water and a roll of plaster gauze that she dunked into it.

“Hang tight to your Ma while I get this bone set in place. It’s gonna hurt like a son-of-a-bitch,” he said, gripping a pencil between his teeth with a grimace.

Both Ma and Mrs. Anderson squealed, “Please, language!”

He swayed for a moment, then steadied himself by gripping the table as he bore down on my ankle bone until it crunched. What happened from then until Ma woke me to drag me home was a mystery because I passed out.

“No baths until it’s healed. You get that plaster wet and I’ll charge you double next time,” Doc warned me as Ma and Mrs. Anderson helped me down from the table.

“How much I owe you?” Ma asked.

“You knit Mamie a nice sweater and get it to me before Christmas and we’ll be fine.”

“What color, Doc?” Ma asked.

“Red. Mamie loves red,” he said before dismissing us with a wave of his newly refreshed liquor glass.

When we got home, Ma made me some hot milk with bread and looked into her knitting bag, searching for red yarn.

“Well, I suppose it could have been worse. A sweater I can knit,” she said with finality.

“Hey, Ma, I’m real sorry I caused you more work,” I said. “Hey, something is bothering me,” I continued.

“What is it?”

“Is there something special about the date July 28th, 1914?”

“July 28th? That’s when your Granddad, Reverend Tom, passed.”

“I mean next Summer, July 28th?”

“What makes you think about that date?” she asked, squinting at me.

“Just something I read about. That’s all.”

“Nothing comes to mind. Now, get on to bed. You gonna be okay on your own? I might as well get started on our new debt tonight.”

Filled with shame for causing her more problems, I hobbled to the bedroom reliving the entire, mysterious evening.

My dreams were filled with faceless soldiers screaming into the ground while bullets hurtled through the air around them and thick, yellow smoke suffocated the survivors.

I woke up crying, covered in sweat, with Ma, a cool wash rag in her hand, swabbing my forehead, “Bobby, Bobby, wake up. You’re having a nightmare!”

“It was terrible, Ma. I dreamt about a war with soldiers dying on a battlefield. There were bullets and poison in the air.”

“Poison in the air? Ain’t no such thing. What an imagination you have! It’s the pain from Doc setting your leg, that’s all.”

“I don’t think I can go to school tomorrow,” I mumbled, dragging my leg to the bathroom to vomit up the bread and milk.

Ma followed me, wringing her hands, and said, “I think you should stay home the rest of the week. Get some rest, let that plaster set by keeping your leg up.”

She didn’t have to twist my arm. I was fine staying home, reading books, and sleeping for the rest of the week.

The next afternoon I was surprised by a visit from Tommy Anderson. He had a packet of work from Mrs. Benson. “Hi, I told Mrs. Benson you’d be out for a few days because of your broken leg. She sent these,” he said, indicating the bulging folder under his arm.

Instead of leaving after handing it to me, he sat down and said, “I’m sorry my dad was drunk last night. He does that a lot now. Please don’t tell the kids at school. It’s supposed to be a secret.”

“Don’t worry. My dad used to drink after he got sick. He said it cleared his throat. I think it just made him feel better, you know?”

“Yeah. I guess. Hey, um. I’m having a birthday party in December. You don’t suppose you could come to it?” he asked.

“I’d like that. Even though I been in school with everybody since kindergarten, the other kids treat me like an outsider just cause I wasn’t living in town all that time. It gripes me.”

“Sorry. That isn’t fair. I’ve lived in town all my life, and everyone treats me like that too,” he laughed with a shrug.

He stayed to listen to The Madman Chronicles, and Ma brought us apple fritters and milk. The rest of the school year was better with a friend. By the time summer vacation began we were fishing in the creek together and hanging out almost every day. My ankle bone never healed properly, leaving me with one leg shorter than the other, and a noticeable limp.

The Great War began with a battle between Austria-Hungary and Serbia in July 1914. We didn’t think much of it here until December 17th, 1917, when our country declared war on Austria-Hungary.

By September 12th, 1918, boys my age had to register for the military. Tommy was exempt due to his asthma, the illness that kept him isolated until we became friends. My luck at the registration office was no better, as my uneven gait counted me out before I filled in the forms.

News reports on the radio recounted horrific battle scenes and deadly new weapons that were decimating our troops. Gatlin guns killed many, with mustard gas finishing off the survivors.

One sunny afternoon, I visited the monument where my ankle had been broken many Halloweens ago. The obelisk stood tall among the other gravestones and was easy to find. Its inscription read, “Reverend Thomas Alvin Kissinger, 1845- 1905. Methodist Circuit Rider, Civil War Union Veteran, surviving the battles of Bull Run, Gettysburg, Antietam, Chancellorsville, and Vicksburg.”

Underneath was a quote, “God had more plans for me.” Reverend Tom.”

Understanding finally flooding me, I whispered, “Thank you.”