Welcome to Newtonberg (4 page)

After lunch, Cap visits the library, where he
returns his mother’s books and talks with Mike Baldridge, the
librarian and town historian. Cap loves to hear the little
anecdotes about the characters in the town’s past, and never gets
tired of looking through the manuscript for the town history that
Mike has been working on for a couple of years (and may never
finish, because he keeps remembering things he left out, or keeps
discovering new things that he wants to add).

After checking out some new books for his
mother (and few for himself), he’ll say goodbye to Mike and make
his way over to Rick Murchison’s Texaco to see if there’s any tire
shipments coming in. Even if there are no tires to unload, Rick
usually has some kind of job to be done, whether it’s just moving
an old carburetor to the storage shed, or sweeping out one of the
empty bays. Cap will tackle the job in a hurry, and Rick will
usually give him a soda from the vending machine while they stand
around and shoot the breeze. Cap usually gives him a rundown on
what he’s done and heard about that day, and Rick will add in a
comment or two. Sometimes, Gene Young will join in if things are
slow and he’s not repairing a car. Sometimes, he’ll join in even if
he
is
repairing a car, although Rick doesn’t
like that too much. The way he looks at it, someone is waiting for
any car being repaired, and time spent talking just adds to their
time waiting. Rick’s a fair man, so he tries to mentally keep track
of how much time is wasted on stuff like that and deducts it from
the customer’s bill.

After he leaves Murchison’s Texaco, Cap calls
his mother to see if she needs anything, then heads home for
dinner. After that, unless there’s a game going on at the high
school, he and his mother watch television for a little while. Cap
attends every home game of every sport played at Newtonberg High
School. He even attends some of the out-of-town games; a few times,
the coach has even let him ride with the team on the bus.

This schedule is second nature to him by now.
He’s followed it for years; and if the library is closed or Rick
Murchison is on vacation, it throws him off-balance a little. He’ll
try to fill in the time – he might go see Matt Cooper at the
Forestry Service office over in Garrison’s Mill or stop in to see
Reverend Stanley at the church – but it never feels the same. And
if the truth is to be told, a day without Cap around makes everyone
else feel a little off-balance too.

* * * * * * * *

A few months ago, Cap’s mother talked him
into driving her over to Lewiston to visit his sister, Emily, who’d
just had her first baby, making Cap an uncle for the first time.
This made Cap pleased as Punch, and he told everyone in town they
were going to see the baby. He would show off the wallet-size
picture Emily had sent, telling everyone: “That’s him. That’s my
nephew, Philip. They named him after me.” Most people didn’t know
that: they’d called him Cap for so long, they’d forgotten his real
name.

So the big day arrived, and Cap and his
mother climbed into their 1987 Mercury (his mother’s car – “Better
for road trips”, she said) and headed out to Lewiston. The back
seat and trunk were packed full; his mother planned to stay about
two or three days. Cap wasn’t too happy about that (too much time
away from his schedule and his friends), but since he’d get to see
his nephew and brother-in-law, he decided he would do it.

Once they got to Lewiston (after a flat tire
that Cap changed himself, even marking the hole in the flat tire
with his mother’s nail polish like Rick had shown him), they left
everything in the car while they went in to see the baby. Cap would
unload it later before he took the tire into town to be fixed.

His sister greeted them at the door with the
baby in her arms. Mrs. Blakeney took it from her arms, making
cooing noises and faces at it as she went inside. Cap giggled.

“Hello, Philip.” She hugged him and kissed
his cheek.

“Hi, Emily.”

“I’ve missed you. What have you been up
to?”

“Just making my usual rounds.”

“Are you still working for Rick
Murchison?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s good. Tell him I said ‘hi’,
okay?”

“I will. How’s the baby?”

“He’s fine. We’re all doing good. Mark’s at
work, but he’ll be home later. How’s mom?”

Cap sighed. “She’s okay. Some days she’s real
tired. Doesn’t want to get out of bed.”

“Has she been to the doctor?”

He nodded. “Three of them.”

“
Three
of them?”

“Yeah. The doctor in Newtonberg sent us to
Koval. The doctor in Koval sent us to see this doctor here. That’s
why we came. Well, that and to see the baby.”

Emily sighed. “She didn’t say anything to me
about that.”

Cap nodded. “She doesn’t say much to anybody
when she’s sick. But I figured it out.”

Emily looked at him. “You always were good at
that. Figuring things out.”

“Yeah, I’ve always been good at that, haven’t
I?” He smiled.

She smiled back. “Do you know what the doctor
here is for?”

“Uh huh. Cancer.” He said it softly,
thoughtfully.

Her smile dropped. She tried to find
something to distract him, so she could talk to her mother. “Do you
want to hold your nephew?”

His face brightened. “Can I?”

“You most certainly can. And you should. It
wouldn’t be right for you not to. He does have your name, after
all.”

They went inside, where their mother was
sitting on the couch with little Philip in her arms. “Mom, I need
to talk to you for a few minutes, so will you give Big Philip the
baby?”

Cap brightened. He’d never been called “Big
Philip” before. Big Philip and Little Philip.
Like Big Tom at
the lumber mill and his son Little Tommy
, he thought.

Mrs. Blakeney gave the baby to Cap, showing
him how to support the baby’s head. “If he starts crying or
fussing, just call for us, okay?”

“Okay, mama.” He looked at the baby, just
staring back at the little face staring up at him.

Emily and her mother went into the next room
and sat down at the dining table.

Emily sighed. “Philip told me about the
doctors.”

Mrs. Blakeney looked down. “Oh.”

“Three doctors?”

“Yes. Well, two so far.”

“When do you see the one here?”

“We go tomorrow afternoon. They’ll run some
more tests, but it will probably come back the same.”

“Cancer?”

“Yes.”

“Is it treatable?”

Mrs. Blakeney swallowed. “No,” she
whispered.

Emily blinked back tears. “How long?”

Mrs. Blakeney shrugged, on the verge of tears
herself. “One year. Maybe two.”

Emily glanced toward the other room. “Does
Philip know?”

“Yes. He’s known since the first test. Says
he ‘figured it out.’ How, I’ll never know. The doctors didn’t even
know.”

Emily took a breath. “What do we do with
Philip?”

Mrs. Blakeney looked at her. “What do you
mean?”

“After you’re....gone. Do you want him to
move in with us here?”

Mrs. Blakeney stared at her. “You
mean...”

“Yes, after the one year or two years is
over, do you want him to live here?”

“Oh, honey.” The tears came now, fast and
uncontrollable. “It’s not me that has cancer. It’s
him
.”

Emily sat, dumbfounded. “Oh my. Then why did
he tell me...?”

“Probably because he didn’t want you to worry
about him. He’s so considerate that way. And so smart. Did he tell
you he changed the tire on the way over here today?” She broke
down, sobbing.

Emily got up and walked over to her. She
knelt on the floor in front of her mother’s chair and hugged her.
They stayed like that for a few minutes, just holding each
other.

When they broke the embrace, they wiped their
faces. Emily was the first to speak. “Well, if he doesn’t want me
to know, then I can’t act like I do.”

Mrs. Blakeney agreed. “That would probably be
best.” They heard the baby fussing from the other room. “We’d
better go back in there.”

They both took deep breaths. They stood in
the doorway together, watching him for a moment. He looked up and
saw them.

“Look at him,” he said. “Isn’t he just the
most beautiful thing you every saw?”

A tear slid down his mother’s cheek. Emily
put her arm around her. “Yes, he is, Philip. He’s just about the
most beautiful thing in the world.”

It was somewhere around the third round of
drinks that everyone started talking about old Coach Franklin and
the Homecoming game of 1977. It had been the regular crowd – Big
Tom Wallace, Rick Murchison, Gene Young, Mayor Al Thompson, and the
rest. Even Mike Baldridge, the librarian was there, although he had
sworn off alcohol after Founder’s Day and just sat nursing a soda.
They’d all come in about 8:00 or so. It was a usual Saturday night
ritual: once the kids were in bed, they’d all meet down at Cliff’s
Tavern for a few rounds of beer and a little town history.

Of course, the conversations never started
out to be about the town. But in Newtonberg, every conversation has
a way of working itself into being about the town, whether it
started off that way or not. You could be talking about the Great
Wall of China, or Pluto, or even the assassination of President
Abraham Lincoln, and before it was over, it would focus on
Newtonberg, or someone in Newtonberg, or someone
from
Newtonberg.

So, when the topic turned to football, the
subject inevitably got back around to Newtonberg High School and
the memorable games of the past. Everyone was debating which was
the greatest. All the people who were born and raised in Newtonberg
all had their personal stories of triumph on the gridiron. Al
Thompson, however, insisted that the Homecoming game of 1977 left
all the other games behind.

Rick Murchison, who had only moved to
Newtonberg about 1985, had never heard about it. Everyone seemed
genuinely shocked at this admission. There was only one thing to
do.

Al Thompson called out, “Cliff, why don’t you
tell us about the Homecoming game of 1977?”

Cliff pulled himself a mug of beer, took the
cloth from off his shoulder, set it down, walked around the bar and
sat down on a barstool facing the group. As a bartender, Cliff had
heard just about every story concerning the town and its
inhabitants; some of them four or five times. He was a font of
local knowledge. Michael Baldridge, the city librarian, had
interviewed him extensively while compiling the Newtonberg history
book.

“Let’s see... 1977... that would have been
when old Coach Franklin was here, right?” He thoughtfully stroked
his chin, over-exaggerating. He knew it was. And so did the
regulars.

“Right. 1977. September 1977 to be exact.
That was just five years after the school was opened. Allen
Franklin was the football coach.

“To tell the whole story, you have to
understand something about Newtonberg High School back then. The
school had just been founded in 1972...”

“...mainly due to my wife,” interrupted Mayor
Thompson.

“...Ahem....yes, mainly due to the efforts of
Gladys Thompson. Credit where credit is due. Anyway, the school was
new, and under-funded, so most of the teachers had to pull
double-duty. There were no free periods back then when the teachers
didn’t have a class. You were either teaching one subject or
another. The Math teacher also taught Science. The History teacher
taught English. And Coach Franklin, as well as being the Physical
Education teacher and football coach, was also the band
director.”

Cliff took a sip from his mug and allowed
this to soak in. Some people chuckled in anticipation.

“Gladys had insisted that the kids needed a
well-rounded education. Since most of them had attended school in
Garrison’s Mill until the local school was founded, they had
attended music class and some had even learned to play instruments.
Gladys wanted to continue that. So she set aside time for a music
class.

“In 1977, a local minister was able to lay
his hands on some second-hand instruments from a few various
sources, so these were brought in for the students to play. There
were a few dented trombones, and trumpets, drums, clarinets,
flutes...”

“...tuba, saxophone...” chimed in Al.

“...all kinds of instruments. So now that she
had the instruments and the class time set aside, Gladys set about
to find a music teacher.

“As it turned out, Coach Franklin had a
vacant hour after lunch, while all the other teachers had classes.
So one week before school began, Gladys volunteered him to be the
band director.

“Well, Coach Franklin threw a fit. He swore
he didn’t know anything about music. He couldn’t read it, he
couldn’t play it, he didn’t even
like
it much,
quite frankly. And there was no way in this world or the next that
he would be band director.

“Well, Gladys can be
very
persuasive
when she wants to be...”

“Understatement of the year,” muttered Al
under his breath. There was a ripple of appreciative laughter from
the regulars.

Cliff continued. “She assured the coach that
this was just temporary, and that as soon as the school board would
allow funds for a permanent band director, she would hire one and
he wouldn’t have to take the music classes anymore. Until then,
wouldn’t he just try to help out?

“So Coach Franklin agreed he’d do it, but
she’d better start working on the school board
and
quick
about hiring a full-time band director. Gladys agreed and
so the next week Coach Franklin took his new music class.”

“What does any of this have to do with the
Homecoming game?” asked Rick Murchison, who was beginning to lose
patience with the story.