Meet Me at the Gate

FICTION Meet Me at the Gate Marshall Myers THE STUCCO SCHOOLHOUSE NESTLED BETWEEN a sharp bluff and the Ohio River. A ribbon of smoke curled skyward from the chimney, drifting finally into the cold October air. Children ran here and there in games of tag and softball. Screams of delight—and even some of pain—broke into the air. Behind the building itself, the younger boys played a game of dodge ball, one person after another leaping out of the way of a sizzling volleyball thrown with both malicious intent and innocent fun. The boy in the center was especially small, looking almost too young to be among the other youngsters who towered above him. He knew it was his turn, and he had to endure the ball's sting for a time until he was agile enough to step out of the path of the ball. To him, it was a test of patience. That's all. He felt the way he did when his father spanked him. He knew the rage in his father's eyes for something he had done or not done, and he knew he must endure the shame or hurt of yet another whipping. He had learned that if he cried immediately, his father would sometimes quit the thrashing. The boy wasn't sure whether his father ceased because he had made him cry, or if his father felt mercy. But it really didn't make any difference. It was, like this game of dodge ball, something he must accept. "Look at how little Monte keeps getting hit. He ain't fast enough to git out of the way of the ball! You klutz, you! Look at him. He's going to stay in there all day." Terry, a boy Monte's age, taunted him. Terry was half a head taller than Monte, with tufts of blonde hair that straggled over his eyes. When he threw the volleyball, his hair bounced up from his face. Terry seldom talked in class. Indeed, he was in the main quite shy. When he was called upon, his answers were usually correct, and the teacher of this one-room school seldom had to call him down for talking out of turn. With only five people in the third grade, Terry was a leader. He was always the captain who picked players for softball games, and all the boys wanted to be on his team because he could hit a ball so far that the other players scrambled to find it in the weeds 85 while Terry rounded third base on his way to home. Before he stepped up to the plate, he always rolled up his sleeves to show what seemed to be the sprouts of heavy biceps. He had seen Ted Kluzewski of the Cincinnati Reds do this just before he stepped into the batter's box. When the bell signaling the end of recess finally rang, the students seemed relieved, for the cold October air chilled those who had come to school with short sleeves and cotton dresses. They crowded their way up the steep steps, some pulling on the banisters to give them added leverage. Monte felt someone tug at his shirt collar and muscleby him. It was Terry, who turned with a malevolent grin. "Beatcha again, slowpoke," he said, his voice rising in celebration. Soon all were at their desks, twenty-three children, ages five to fourteen, all the children of employees who worked the hills to quarry limestone. Most of them lived within easy walking distance, in company-owned houses that centered on a company store where all gathered on Friday nights to wile away the evening around a community television set. It flashed black and white images of wrestlers who grunted and groaned while the announcer described the agony that was all too clear, even to this audience who watched the picture fade in and out. "That Gorgeous George has got that fella in a headlock he'll never get out of," one observed, spitting a stream of tobacco into a blue paper cup. It took him several tries before he cleared his mouth of brown spittle. He wiped his lips with...