The Death of Tommy Grimes
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R.J. Meaddough, III, The Death of Tommy Grimes (1962)
Tommy slowly, ever so slowly, rubbed his forehead along his sleeve and watched the gloom in front of him. Somewhere out there Pa had circled around and was trampling through the woods, scaring everything away, away toward the clearing where he lay waiting.
He laughed in his mind when he thought of the last time when Pa had gone down to the hut for a drink with the “boys”, as he called them. And when he came out his eyes were gleaming like the mischief and he wobbled in to the yard like he didn’t know how to walk. He had gone downstairs in his pajamas and they sat on the back porch and listened to the crickets and looked at the stars. Maybe afterwards Pa would let him go into the Hut and talk with the men and drink liquor. But right then he had to be satisfied with listening to Pa tell stories that he had heard at the Hut and then squeeze his arm at the end and laugh, oh my, how he would laugh. Then he filled his pipe and stared out across the backyard toward the north pasture.
“Dawn in the forest is a beautiful thing, boy, beautiful. All the colors and wild flowers, fresh streams, cool breeze, you feel like, boy, feel it! Even though there ain’t a sound you feel it. You see a flash of white and you know some rabbit’s going home. Or you might see a chuck burrowing in. And the trees,” he whispered, “they just stand there watching you. Been there before you came, be there after you gone.”
“Gee, Pa,” he murmured, “you make it sound so nice I don’t know’s I want to hunt tomorrow.”
Pa smiled, “It is nice, boy, real nice, but things got to be done to keep it that way. Fox eats rabbit, he keeps the rabbit population down, else they’d overrun the land. Same here. You hunt ‘cause you hungry and got to eat, that’s one reason. Then you might hunt for the sport - pit your mind against animal cunning - ‘course I don’t hold much with that, but some do. Some do. But there’s some varmints that do damage and just plain got to be killed. Understand?”
“I . . . think so. But what about what you said about a man dying when he kills something?”
“Man kills once and he starts to get callous. Next time it ain’t so hard. Then you get so’s you make a decision that something’s got to die and you to kill it, just like that. Then you dead, boy. You got no feeling no more so you just as good as dead. You just ain’t had time to lay down.”
Tommy wiggled his toes and got no response. They felt like sticks of wood, stilts that somebody had glued on his legs. An ant left the ground and started climbing his arm until he blew, softly, blew the ant into some brave new world. The mist was thinning and the sun began to shine dully through the trees. Pa was right, he thought. Seems as if everything had a place in the scheme of things. Birds are worms they found in the ground. Then they got eaten by bigger birds. Rabbits got eaten by foxes and foxes by bobcats , and bobcats by bears or something all the way up to elephants. And elephants were killed by man. Pa said that man preyed on himself, whatever that meant, but everything had a place, and when they got out of place they upset the balance. Like too many rabbits or squirrels or anything.
A twig snapped like dynamite and he froze on the ground and swiveled the gun to the left and waited. Slowly, clumsily, with three blades of grass waving like pennants ahead of him, a porcupine strolled into view, made his way through the sunlight, and vanished into the grass. Tommy laughed, out loud almost, he could hardly keep from blowing up he was so relieved, so happy. Instead he settled down again to wait.
But things had changed somehow. The sunlight was duller, almost disappearing and he felt a chill again as he had before the sun came up. And the silence somehow nettled him . . . the silence! Not a sound! No crickets, no chirping , no rustling , nothing. There was something out there! The happy-scared feeling ran up and down Tommy’s back and his breath came in painful gasps. His chest hammered, almost pushing his lungs into his mouth with its rhythm which seemed to be saying: Soon! Soon! Soon they would be calling him Tom Grimes like his father. Soon he would be able to go into the Hut and drink liquor with the rest of the men. Soon the waiting would be over. Soon he would be grown. Soon. Soon. Soon. Soon! Soon! Soon!
There! In the bushes! A little pinch of color behind the bramble bush moving light and easy, so very easy, behind the bushes. He slid down still further behind the gun and spread his feet wide, toes digging into the soft earth. “Put the whole side of your body behind the gun to take the recoil ,” Pa had said. “Spread your legs wide to brace yourself. Make the gun, your arm, your hip, your leg into one long line.” Tommy drew his breath in and nearly gagged trying to hold it, sighting along the clean black ridges of the rifle. The outline was clear behind the bush, creeping, sniffing, gliding along.
”You won’t see it, or hear it, or smell it, or anything,” Pa had told him. “You’ll just feel it, and it’ll be there.”
Tommy breathed out and in, let some of the air out and chokingly began to squeeze the trigger. Would it never go off, his mind asked, reeling and stumbling and clinging desperately to reality, and the earth stuttered. The light blinked. His ears rang. His nose reacted to the smell of smoke and the taste of ink crept into his mouth. There was a terrible thrashing and rattling , but it stopped. Suddenly it stopped. Tommy blinked. It was over; just like that, it was over.
He got to his feet and the stiffness forced him to lean against a tree trunk. Before there had been nothing, then suddenly there was something, a small patch of color the same as Pa’s jacket. Tommy blinked and listened for the crashing sound of someone coming through the forest - but there was nothing. Nothing. He strained his ears and heard the new-sprung crickets and birdcalls, but no crashing, no rustling, no voice, and he started for the bush and stopped, trembling.
“Pa?” he whispered, “Pa-a-a?” There was no sound except his own voice, twisted and shapeless and mocking, twirling through the trees like vapors in the dull, chilly air.
“Pa! Pa! Pa!”
Then came the rushing and the crashing to the left and the tall husky figure coming out of the gloom saying, “Boy? What’s wrong, boy?”
And Tommy ran over and slammed his head against his father’s chest. “Pa! I thought I killed you, Pa, I thought I killed a man!”
“Now, Tommy, it’s all right, everything’s all right,” Pa said, walking behind the bush and kneeling and then rising and coming back.
“See?” he said. “What did I tell you? Right through the heart. Now that’s good shooting. Come on over here and look; come on now.”
So he looked, and then it wasn’t so bad.
Later, much later, they walked the mile from town to the Hut and walked inside together. There were some men sitting at tables and they looked up as Pa hoisted him onto the bar, running his fingers through his dark, blond hair.
“Boys, I wanna tell you my boy became a man today. Yes, killed his first nigger.”
“No!” a man said. “Who?
“Swamp-buck got away from the chain gang yes-tidy .”
“Git out !” the man said.
“Yes, got him right through the heart.”
The man grabbed Tommy and hugged him around the knees. “You a man now, boy!” he yelled, “you a real live honest-to-goodness ‘fore God man!”
And Pa, his blue eyes agleam, yelled out, “Bartender! Don’t just stand there! Give this man a drink!”
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