The Mantelpiece

Summer was coming to an end, the days growing stagnant and weary in the August heat. Time almost seemed to stand still by mid afternoon, burnt and motionless save for the cicadas buzzing and spinning in the yellowing field behind my house.

This particular summer was so hot in fact, that it was too impossible to sleep in past midmorning, and I was already out of bed reading a Boy’s Life magazine at my desk long before my father called up to me from the first floor of our house.

“Come on, son!” I could picture him at the bottom of the stairs, hands cupped around his mouth, hollering up at me. I could see my mother in the kitchen, smiling and shaking her head at his boyishness. “Get those lazy bones out of bed, it’s Sunday!”

I didn’t bother to tell him I was out of bed already. It was Sunday morning, and today was our day. Not every Sunday, but as many Sundays as we could manage, my father and I would climb into his pickup truck and drive to town for haircuts. Truth be told, we went so often that we rarely needed haircuts all that badly, it was just something we liked to do. Sometimes if I was lucky, I could cajole him into buying me a comic book from Caldwell’s Pharmacy to boot.

“Coming!” I hollered as I bounded down the stairs two at a time.

My mother, sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and the newspaper, caught this infraction and shot a look at me that could have stopped traffic.  “For Gods sakes Alex, be careful, you’ll break your neck!” She shouted.

Like most boys’ mothers, my mother could smell potential danger behind every corner.

I sat down by the front door to pull on my worn old sneakers. “I’m sorry Mom, I just got excited, that’s all.”

“Mhmm.” She raised her eyebrows, looking at me over the mouth of the coffee cup.

My father watched all this unfold, arms crossed across his chest as he leaned against the counter. We both waited in breathless anticipation for her verdict until finally she turned her attention back towards the Sunday coupons.

Mom was in a good mood today; after all, this Sunday was hers too. We would be out of the house all afternoon.

My father stood and clapped his hands together. “Alright then champ, let’s get goin.” He said, motioning me towards the door. He leaned down to kiss my mother on the cheek. “See you soon sweet pea.”

“You boys be good.” She replied as my father steered my shoulders out the door. “And don’t forget to pick up some hamburger for supper on your way home!” She called as the screen door slammed behind us.

Climbing into my father’s pickup truck, I took a moment before buckling my seatbelt to run my hand over the course old blanket he kept on the front seat, and to breathe the truck’s smell. One of my favorite things about my father’s truck was it’s smell. My father ran a little hardware store on Main Street called McKenna’s Hardware, and the inside of his truck smelled just like his little hardware store, which of course had the same indefinable but distinctive scent that every little hardware store has.

Until I turned ten and decided I was too old to do it anymore, I would wait every night in the living room for my father to return home from work. I would drive myself mad with anticipation, fidgeting and peering out the window over and over until his big red truck would finally rumble into the driveway. I would scream with glee and run to meet him at the door, throwing my arms around him and burying my face in his shirt, inhaling deeply and cherishing the hardware store smell that followed him wherever he went.

The big red truck had been a part of the family since before I was born. I loved the truck because it was his. In many ways, my father’s truck was as much a part of him as his hands or his face. What I loved most about riding in the truck is how close to him it made me feel.

I gazed out the window at the dried empty fields and the forest beyond. This summer had been a hot one, and left almost nothing alive in it’s wake. The countryside actually looked exhausted, scorched and sagging as if it had given up trying to live and was just waiting for autumn to come around at last.

“Circus is comin this week.” My father glanced over at me quickly, then turned his attention back towards the road, furrowing his brow as he slowed to navigate one of the worse potholes. “You know what that means.”

Every summer in Ashford was marked by two important events; the first being the Ashford County Fair, which signified the beginning of the summer season. Every year Chucky Vanoni, Truman Davis and I would ride our bikes down to the fairgrounds to ring in the season of freedom, wasting quarters on fried food and rigged carnival games.

The Circus, however, was a double edged blade as far as the local children were concerned. Though the circus show itself was widely anticipated, it also marked the end of summer and the coming of the new school year. The Circus would open to the community every year at the end of August on a Friday night and close Sunday evening with a fireworks display, effectively ending the summer in a blinding shower of color and smoke.

I smiled at my father. “Yes sir, school’s starting again.”

“Think you’re ready for it?”

“Yes sir, I think so.”

I never would have admitted it, but I was beginning to feel anxious for the new school year. Every year I counted the hours, minutes, seconds until school finally let out, and by the end of summer I couldn’t wait to get back.

“Well,” My father said, narrowing his eyes a bit as if he were trying to see what he was thinking before he said it, “you’ll be fine. Seems to me that a young man needs at least a little structure.” He turned his head to look me in the eye, and smiled. “But not too much.” He winked.

The truck slowed noticeably as it rolled down the hill into the center of town. The center of Ashford was divided into two main roads, the first being Main Street which was one-way only, and High Street, which lay parallel to Main Street and also ran one-way, but in the other direction. Both roads were lined with all the local stores and parallel parking spaces. Traffic slowed to an agonizing crawl here, as the speed limit was set just a little too low and Sheriff Bowen enforced it with all the calculated efficiency and severity of a man who had seen many years in the military, thus earning himself a reputation as the most hated and feared man in Ashford.

“Looks like there’s not much of a wait today.” Dad said pulling into one of the many empty spaces along the sidewalk. I craned my head around to see in the window of Pruitt’s Barbershop. True enough, the only faces inside belonged Mr. Pruitt, who was sitting in the barber’s chair reading the paper, and Pruitt’s perpetual regulars, Mr. Aldridge and Mr. Lamport, playing cards as always. They weren’t regulars in that they frequently got their hair cut; in fact, I had never seen either of them actually in the barber’s chair. Mr. Aldridge and Mr. Lamport just spent nearly every day sitting around Pruitt’s shop playing cards and eavesdropping on all the local gossip. After all, nothing in a small town like Ashford is privy to all the secrets and goings-on of it’s people like the local barbershop.

As dad pushed the door open for me, the bells hanging on the door jingled, happily announcing our presence to everyone inside. Mr. Pruitt looked up from his newspaper, folding it and uncrossing his legs to stand.

“Well if it isn’t Andrew McKenna and his boy.” He greeted us quietly. Mr. Pruitt was a slight man, thin and well dressed. His hair had been white as snow as long as I could remember, but despite his age and frail stature, Mr. Pruitt was well known for being a very boisterous man. He always shook your hand a little too hard and spoke in a great booming voice that occasionally frightened some of the younger children in town. I could still recall the first time I had met him when I was five, and how his shouting had frightened me, even made me cry. Mr. Pruitt was a good man, albeit a loud one, and he always had a joke to tell and a quarter to find behind your ear. At every community event I could remember, Mr. Pruitt’s voice could be heard over everyone else’s, breaking into thunderous laughter at all his own punch lines and making everyone crane their heads around trying to see what all the commotion was about.

Today however, he seemed oddly quiet and disaffected. “How are you two doing this morning?” Mr. Pruitt rubbed his chin, staring vacantly towards the wall.

“Fine, Tom, just fine.” My father raised an eyebrow, taking a second to ponder what could be wrong with Mr. Pruitt. He shook his head slightly, shrugging, and turned to Mr. Aldridge and Mr. Lamport, who were both clutching a hand of cards and hunched over either side of a coffee table, next to which lay a pile of outdated magazines. Apparently the magazines had been cleared off the table to make room for whatever game it was they were playing. I couldn’t for the life of me guess which card game it could be, but they appeared to be thoroughly wrapped up in whatever game it was. “How’s it goin there guys?” My father asked.

“Oh, you know…” Mr. Aldridge replied, without breaking his gaze on the cards in his hand. “Just stayin out of the sun. Can you believe that heat? I believe if it gets much hotter you could fry bacon on the sidewalk.”

Mr. Lamport, who was chewing a toothpick at the time, chimed in, saying “Hot as blazes yesterday, even hotter today. I believe if it gets much hotter the devil himself will make Ashford his home.” He paused to take the toothpick from his mouth and pointed it at us. “Mark my words.”

I left them to speculate over the weather and turned my gaze towards the rest of the shop. Every wall was adorned with a multitude of old baseball memorabilia. Everything from pennants to baseball cards, jerseys, caps, signed photographs, even the floor had been painted to resemble a baseball diamond. The walls of Pruitt’s Barbershop contained what any twelve year old boy would consider to be an immense fortune, and was subject to the quiet wonder and secret jealousy of every kid in town. I realized as I looked around the room that one of Mr. Pruitt’s treasures was missing.

It was a widely known fact that Mr. Pruitt had spent years trying to play ball professionally. Although he never made it past the minor league, rumor had it that he had gotten to play with some of the biggest names in baseball, even Babe Ruth. Mr. Pruitt even had a ball signed by the Babe himself. It was his most prized and coveted possession, and Mr. Pruitt displayed it proudly for all to see on his table next to the talcum powder and the jar of combs filled with mysterious blue liquid.

This morning though, it was gone.

“Mr. Pruitt, what happened to your ball?”

The shop went suddenly quiet and everyone turned to look at me, then at the strangely empty space where the famous ball had always been.

Mr. Lamport’s mouth dropped open, letting the toothpick fall to the floor.

“Well I’ll be damned…” He stared in dumbfounded amazement. “Tom, what happened to your ball?”

“Oh that…” Mr. Pruitt shifted uncomfortably in his chair, still staring absently into the nothing behind the wall. He cracked his knuckles nervously, crossing his arms, then laying them in his lap, then crossing them again. “That, I don’t know… Could have sworn it had been here last night. Yes. Could have sworn… Could have sworn it was there…” He trailed off, mumbling to himself, squeezing his eyes shut as he rubbed his temples.

We all exchanged shocked expressions, thunderstruck by the ball’s absence. That ball had been the source of local legend and even a strange sense of pride among the townsfolk for decades. It belonged to us as much as it did to Mr. Pruitt. Who could do such a thing, we wondered?

“Well,” My father broke the silence, “Tom, you’re absolutely certain you saw it here last night?”

“Yes, yes…” Mr. Pruitt leaned his head in his hand, still staring distractedly at nothing. “It’s the last thing I look at every night. Every night when I lock the door, I make sure the ball is there as I turn the key. Every night, I know it was there.”

Mr. Aldridge and Mr. Lamport looked at my father, as if he might have an answer. My Father shrugged at them, just as confounded as they were.

“I suppose” he said, “Someone will have to call Sheriff Bowen. If anyone can get to the bottom of this, he can… Tom,” he said, turning to Mr. Pruitt, “Alex and I will just have to take a rain check on the haircuts.”

My Father nodded at Mr. Aldridge and Mr. Lamport, then turned to leave. As I followed him out the door I stopped and turned around.

“Mr. Pruitt?” I stammered, meekly “I really hope you find your ball.”

He turned his gaze to meet mine and a shiver went up my spine.

“Thank you Alex, I hope I do too.”

He spoke vacantly, without any hint of emotion or expression, like a dead man come back to life. I turned and left in a hurry.

Something in Mr. Pruitt’s stare had made my blood run cold; There was nothing there behind his eyes. It was as if someone had opened Mr. Pruitt and emptied him out, leaving his body there like a cast-off cicada shell and absconding with the rest.