Beetlecreek

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER • SEVEN OHNNY sat on the railing of the swinging bridge looking down toward the creek. He leaned over and spit, watching the curved path the white blob took before hitting the water. The cold wind pushed the bridge back and forth, back and forth very gently and the greased cables strained against the big holes in the planks. He rattled the buckeyes he had in his pocket and decided he would make a buckeye pipe. He looked for a nail with which to clean out the pulp. If he waited until the gang came by from school, he could borrow the Leader's scout knife, but it would be a good half hour before they came and he was nervous and excited. While he was bent over, looking for the nail, he saw a familiar figure walking slowly toward him. At first he wasn't certain and remained stooped over to make sure. He squinted his eyes; yes, there was no doubt, it was Bill Trapp. Johnny had tried hard to shut out any memory of Bill Trapp ever since that first morning when his Aunt Mary told him about what had happened and had forbidden him ever going to the May Farm again. But even before that, he'd had 157 sll a feeling that Bill Trapp belonged to that part of his dreams where things happen in a flash without reason, changing color and shape to fit whatever was going on. Yet he hadn't been successful in trying to forget Bill Trapp, because, while he never talked about him to anyone,not even to his Uncle David, and while he shut his ears to what people around him were saying, the ragged edges of terror remained inside him to torment his sleep and render unreal his day. But what should he do? It was Bill Trapp and before long he would see Johnny. What should he do? He couldn't face the old man, couldn't face those eyes. He must think of something to say. He thought of ducking under the bridge, but decided he had already been seen. There was nothing he could do but wait. Now the terror that before had been at the bottom began to rise. He was afraid of what he might say to the old man, was afraid of the way he might act in front of him. Surely the old man knows already what people are saying about himl Johnny had heard the man called monster and fiend, and, though he knew the old man was neither of these, the very fact that people were saying these things changed already the feeling he had about him. Most of all, Johnny was afraid to stand before the old man's eyes. He was afraid to have the man look at him, inside him, to see what he was thinking, he was afraid to have the man read his thoughts and spell out the words, monster, fiend. At first, Johnnyhad laughed to himself at what they were saying about Bill Trapp. He knew of the picnic from the very 158 beginning and so did his Uncle David. He knew that the old man would never do any of the things people were saying he did. But that was it! No one was making any specific accusations . No one knew exactly what had happened, except that it was something awful and "dirty." Johnny had heard them talking about molesting and had heard them say something about sex-fiend, and while molesting didn't mean very much to him, sex-fiend did, and right away he had thought about the old man's deep-set lavender eyes. All the fiends that Johnny had ever seen were only movie fiends. There were vampires like Dracula, and monsters like Frankenstein. Bill Trapp, except for his eyes, didn't look anything at all like either of these. Really, the old man looked more like a Sunday school picture of a saint. "But you can never tell in what kind of form the devil appears in our midst," his Aunt Mary had said, and he thought about this. What about the uneasiness he had felt with the old man at first, what about the time the old man looked at him in the eyes for almost fifteen minutes straight without saying anything that first day? How come the old man decided to be nice...