Billy Goat Hill Read online

  Lieutenant Shunkman’s face flashes a gangrenous purple, and he lunges at Scar. Miss Cherry screams, and several of the bikers dismount in blurs of motion, all of them instantly ready to take action. With the speed of a mongoose anticipating the serpent’s strike, Scar shifts his weight and effortlessly pins Shunkman’s left arm behind his back. A look of shock quickly turns into a grimace as Scar forcefully restrains him.

  I bite down on my lip, squelching a cheer that nearly bursts from my mouth. I taste blood, and I am transformed into one of the old west townsmen delirious with the thrill of violence.

  A heartbeat passes.

  O God, please stop this!

  The young rookie panics and reaches for his gun, then instantly checks himself when he sees two sawed-off shotguns already set to blast him in half.

  “That’s the funny thing about fear!” Scar yells to the rookie. “It seizes you like some kind of two-part poison! A frigid-hot fever makes you shiver and sweat and makes your brain skip between conflicting impulses to hide or jettison all cargo and flee!”

  The rookie, whose jaw has dropped to the ground, is stunned beyond belief. So am I. Now I’m squeezing Luke’s leg, making him whimper. Realizing I am hurting him, I relax my quivering hand and fight back the urge to jettison the contents of my stomach. I want to run from this place. I do not want to witness the cataclysmic conclusion of the big-league conflict rising only a few yards from where I hide shivering in the dark.

  But the tears welling up in Luke’s little frightened eyes and my keen awareness of the ominous hazards of the only escape route possible force me to hunker down, close my eyes, and wish that we were back home safe and sound in our cozy little beds.

  Please, God, stop this madness before it’s too late!

  Then miraculously, the entire temper changes. It’s as if we’ve been watching a Boris Karloff horror classic and in the blink of an eye Bugs Bunny appears and sticks carrots into both barrels of Elmer Fudd’s shotgun. Some creative film splicing has reversed the action and thrown us into another dimension where absolutely nothing makes any sense whatsoever.

  Suddenly, Scar is smiling, Lieutenant Shunkman is grinning, and Miss Cherry is doubled over with laughter. In fact, everyone is in stitches except the rookie cop, Luke, and me. The next thing I know, Luke and I are standing at the top of the Crippler, and from the look of incredulity on Lieutenant Shunkman’s face, we must appear to him like matching pint-sized apparitions materializing out of thin air.

  “What in the heck are they doing here?”

  I am dumbstruck, though amazingly Luke seems to warm to the festivities.

  “Meet the Parker brothers,” Miss Cherry says. “That’s Luke there with the Dodgers cap, and next to him is Wade, aka the champion of Billy Goat Hill.”

  “Hellfire, Cavendish! These boys are gonna have to forget all about what they saw up here tonight. Our unit is under enough scrutiny these days. The last thing I need is a couple of nosey street urchins gettin’ an eyeful of things not meant to be seen.” Shunkman grumbles, shaking his head.

  Scar steps over by me. “Don’t worry, Ted. The Parker brothers are stand-up guys. Ain’t that right, boys?”

  “Yes, sir,” I reply, completely bewildered but certain that yes is the only viable response.

  Lieutenant Shunkman gives me a long skeptical dead-in-the-eye stare and then plods back to the patrol car, slapping a few high-fives with the leather-clad heathens in his path. He gets in behind the wheel and then stares back at me again until I have to look away.

  He kills the flashing light overhead and testily addresses the nerve-wracked rookie now slumped in the passenger seat. “In case you’re missing them, here’s your bullets, rook. Now, if you think you can handle it, let’s go find some coffee and talk about what we learned tonight.”

  Glancing out the window at me one last time, Lieutenant Shunkman turns the patrol car around. The bikers slap its hood and fenders to further taunt the chagrined young cop, who has slipped even farther down in his seat.

  Slowly, the cruiser jostles back down the same rutted slope it ascended earlier. I watch it slither off into the darkness and struggle to restart my heart and make sense of the nonsensical. One thing I’m sure of…something about that Lieutenant Shunkman doesn’t sit right with me. He’s left me shivering inside.

  Miss Cherry sidles over and scoops Luke up in her arms. I rarely feel jealous of Luke, but at this moment I do. I want her to pick me up, too.

  Scar puts his arm around my shoulders. “You okay, kid?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I do my best to keep a stiff upper lip, but he can tell I am upset. Miss Cherry carries Luke over by the other bikers. One of them gives him a fistful of licorice, and they all include him in the celebration that ensues.

  A few minutes pass, allowing my feelings to settle and my thoughts to kindle. I gaze listlessly at the distant twinkles of downtown Los Angeles, thinking, wondering, still utterly confused by what has happened.

  As we stand there together, not talking, sharing the closeness of the dark, I begin to feel a worrisome affinity for Scar. Something ricochets inside my head, and I get an eerie feeling, as though I might have met him somewhere before this night. Not as a biker though, or a cop. The sense of familiarity makes me feel both safe and unsettled. We are obviously from different worlds, maybe even different galaxies. Yet, something about him, something strange and mysterious, speaks to me in a way that defies explanation.

  As I look up into his face and into his dark unfathomable eyes, he reveals no hint of the past or the future, nor can I discern the slightest clue about what he might do from one minute to the next. He is a man of many surprises, the next of which he is about to spring. Boris Karloff couldn’t have done it better.

  “Hey, Wade, watch this.” With the marvelous ease of a professional magician, he deftly peels the scar off of his face.

  “Whoa!” I choke and back away in astonishment.

  He laughs at himself as stringy strips of ductile latex stretch and then snap free of his forehead, nose, and cheeks. A large part of the scar peels away in one piece, and he hands it to me. Stunned, I accept it reluctantly.

  The initial shock passes quickly and I begin to laugh too, which pleases him and makes him laugh even more. He picks the remaining pieces of theatrical adhesive from his nose and forehead and then pulls off the fake beard and wig. A good-looking face emerges as he transforms from a wild and woolly caterpillar to a handsome butterfly in a matter of seconds.

  I put the piece of rubber scar in my pocket. “Who are you, really?”

  He throws a suspicious glance to his left and to his right. “Can you be trusted to keep something top secret?”

  “Scout’s honor, sir.” I place my hand over my heart.

  He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a black leather wallet, which he opens to reveal a badge. “I’m Sergeant Lyle Cavendish, Organized Crime Investigation Unit, Los Angeles Police Department.”

  “Cool,” is all I can think to say.

  At first I don’t know what to believe.

  Is that a real badge?

  Is any of this night real?

  Then it strikes me…Scar, or rather Lyle, is a policeman and so is everyone else on Billy Goat Hill, except Luke and me.

  Cops dressed up as bikers?

  But what they did to that poor young officer was out-and-out cruel.

  He seems to read my mind. “What you and Luke saw tonight is called a hazing. It’s something we often do to rookie police officers. We consider it part of their training. The police department doesn’t officially approve of hazing, and technically we could get in hot water for doing it. Hazing is an old tradition that has been in practice for many, many years. I was hazed when I was a rookie. Do you understand, Wade?”

  There is no doubt about what he wants to hear. “Yes, sir. Luke and I won’t tell anybody.” I know I can keep the secret, but whether Luke can keep his trap shut is something else. I have my concerns.r />
  Dawn lies shimmering on the dewy grass as Luke and I climb back through our bedroom window. Mac is stretched out on the floor between our beds. He ignores us as we strip down and slip back under the sheets. I pull up my blanket and listen to the crickets fade in inverse proportion to the sunlight slowly peeking into the room.

  My mind is still tingling, still numb, quarreling over whether or not any of it had been real. One thing I know for sure, I have never before returned from a dream with a piece of latex scar in my pocket.

  Luke’s Dodgers cap hangs from the bedpost above his head. He is already snoring softly, a smile on his face. I imagine he is dreaming about Miss Cherry.

  “You should have come with us, Mac,” I whisper. “This time it was great.” Mac thumps his tail once on the floor and opens a tolerant eye.

  I pat the bed. “Come here.”

  He obediently jumps up on my bed and drops his head next to mine on the pillow. We lie there nose to nose. “I’m gonna be a motorcycle cop when I grow up, Mac.” He sighs and licks my chin.

  I hold out the piece of latex scar, and he gives it a series of thorough sniffs, his wagging tail rocking the bed with somnolent motion. I close my eyes and concentrate my thoughts. What an adventure.

  I lay my arm over Mac and begin to replay the night. I leave the house knowing there is a chance I may not survive the night. But I have to go. I can’t back down. In the dark, I wait, ready to face my destiny. The call comes not, and the world spins backwards. A horrendous roar, smothering dust, a horde of imposters, a beauty, a beast…and then out of the refining fire comes something far more than a champion’s vindication. I have slain a dragon and I savor the victory, for I fear it will not last.

  Sleep pours over me and I do not resist…

  Guarded by a trustworthy and powerful friend, I am safe. I am a great champion sailing up and down the Crippler on a cardboard magic carpet, the beautiful Miss Cherry riding behind me with her arms wrapped tightly about my waist. Its the best I have felt since Matthew died and Earl deserted us.

  have been listening to Luke grumble all morning.

  “Ah pooh! They should have done better. I expected them to at least win the pennant.”

  We are sitting cross-legged on top of a towering weather-beaten promontory known as Eagle Rock. Luke and I often climb up here to chew the cud on issues of family, school, neighborhood, and of course our beloved Dodgers. Unfortunately for me, the serenity of this high-up place is often interrupted by my concern for Luke’s safety. More than once he has forgotten where we are and nearly slipped over the ledge.

  “Yeah, me too.”

  Mac stays a cautious ten feet or so behind us. Once when he was a pup, he followed us up the rock and nearly fell. It was quite a scare, but he learned. Since then, he has not gone near the edge. He sits on his haunches, content to watch us from his position of safety, his moist black nose pointing and sniffing incessantly toward the cloudless sky.

  “Darn dog…he doesn’t care one diddly about the Dodgers.”

  The October wind swirls, stirring up dust and leaves on the valley floor below us. A newspaper lying in the gutter down on Figueroa Street flaps in the wind. I watch it come apart, the pages streaming across the pavement like darting little phantoms playing tag with the traffic zooming by in both directions. The vision is pleasant, hypnotic, and lulls me toward the fringe of drowsiness.

  A notable landmark, Eagle Rock juts dramatically from the side of a steep hill above the northeast corner of Colorado Boulevard and Figueroa Street. It is said to have been a sacred place of Indian worship. Its name derives from a curious eagle-shaped shadow that appears at midday on the western face of the rock and gradually disappears as the sun arcs overhead. Like the Indians before us, we are fascinated with Eagle Rock and hike to its top as often as we can get away with it. It is a dangerous trek, and kids have been known to take a plunge now and then. Fly like eagles they do not.

  This ever-present potential for danger adds to the mystical allure of Eagle Rock. No doubt, if the rock had been a man-made object, it would have been declared an “attractive nuisance” and ordered torn down long ago.

  “Don’t worry, Luke. Mr. Alston will see to it they do better next year.”

  I’ve been infected with Brooklyn optimism since the day my team, the Los Angeles Dodgers, arrived. Luke does not share my positive outlook. He continues grumbling as I lay myself back on the hard surface and delight in the glorious Dodger blue sky. My legs in a pretzel, I clasp my fingers behind my head and stretch out my spine to get comfortable, just like Mac often does. Mac looks at me looking up, licks his nose with a long pink slosh, and hooks his snout skyward again. He doesn’t mind sharing the Dodger welkin with me.

  Luke responds begrudgingly. “Yeah, Walter Alston is a good manager.” His attention is drawn to the same stream of newspapers I was watching. “But don’t you wish he’d get mad at those darn umpires sometimes?”

  “Nah.” I grab the opportunity to get in a dig. “I’m glad he’s not a hothead like you.”

  Luke makes a gremlin face at me, acknowledging he has a temper.

  We do not talk for a while, pretending we are Indians paying respect to the sacred rock of the great and wise eagle. Luke gets bored before I do and starts prying off pieces of weathered granite with his peewee pocketknife and tossing odd-size nuggets over the edge.

  As happens often since our encounter with Sergeant Cavendish and Miss Cherry, I begin to think about that crazy unbelievable night on Billy Goat Hill. Many times I have thought about trying to contact them, but I don’t have the confidence to do such a thing. I let myself off the hook by reasoning that they probably wouldn’t remember me anyway.

  Still, I think of them nearly every day…especially when I feel sad about Matthew, or think about Earl, or worry about Lucinda. I want more of the Sergeant’s strength and camaraderie. And Miss Cherry’s sympathy and tenderness have seasoned my dreams ever since we met. Thinking of them now somehow makes me feel better. I felt everything except sadness that night.

  Mac watches with great interest as Luke sits with his legs crossed and picks and pries at the rock. He timidly inches closer to Luke, clicking and scraping his nails on the brittle rock, but coming only so close to the edge and then promptly back-pedaling to his original position. Forward and back he goes, over and over again.

  “Dumb dog,” Luke mutters.

  The picking and prying of the knife both fascinates and annoys Mac. He wants what he doesn’t have the courage to obtain. This is not lost on me.

  Luke tosses another piece of stone and counts. “One thousand, two thousand…”

  He listens for the rock to hit the ground. Sometimes the rocks make a thud and sometimes the impact sounds more like a ping. We try to guess which noise each piece of rock will make, inevitably arguing over whether it was a thud or a ping. I shut my eyes and listen to the soothing repetitive cadence of Luke’s voice as he times each stone s descent.

  “One thousand, two thousand…”

  The newspaper phantoms and my brothers verbal metronome soon conspire against me. Just before the moment of surrender my inner voice dispatches a final warning: This is not a good place to take a nap, Wade. I ignore the warning, the house lights dim, and a larger-than-life image of the lovely Miss Cherry lights up the theater of my unconscious mind…

  Luke is pinging and thudding, pinging and thudding, when all of the sudden his brilliant red crown comes under attack. He has carelessly forgotten to put on his Dodgers cap, and like bloodthirsty Zeros diving on Pearl Harbor, a pair of mockingbirds make a daring high-speed pass at his delectable bright-red hair. They come from behind to avoid detection, swinging low at a cowardly ignoble angle, thus preventing poor Luke from initiating evasive action. The sinister whoosh of slicked-back wings comes a fraction of a second before the birds screech and peck.

  Luke yowls like a scalded dog and leaps to his feet, slapping and flailing his arms at the attacking birds. Caught in a whirlwind of flappi
ng feathers, squawking beaks, and clutching claws, Luke wildly hops from one foot to the other. He looks like an Indian medicine man gone mad. It’s as if the great, winged spirit of Eagle Rock has been conjured forth to rid the ancient sanctuary of the impious palefaces whose vulgar presence is a blasphemous desecration of this hallowed place.

  The birds squawk furiously as they swoop and dive, clawing and pecking at Luke’s vulnerable head. They are not dissuaded by the flailing arms and terrified yelps coming from the boy below the enticing red hair. Nor are they concerned with the half-breed Doberman that barks and growls but comes no closer.

  “Help! Ahgh! Help me!”

  I am aghast. I don’t know whether to laugh or scream myself. Then I see blood trickling down from the hairline on the left side of Luke’s forehead. The birds might hurt him badly if they hit his eyes.

  Luke is in a panic and rapidly becoming hysterical. Tears stream down his cheeks, mixing with the bright red blood that now runs down to his chin. Mac is all snarls and fangs, but doesn’t dare come any closer to the edge. The birds aren’t letting up at all.

  I scan the barren rock for something to use as a weapon, knowing there isn’t a twig to be found. Luke is completely out of control, spinning, ducking, screaming, and slipping dangerously close to the point of no return. The birds are no longer the most immediate threat. Luke is about to go over the ledge.

  I dive on my belly and grab Luke’s pant leg just as his feet slip out from under him. He’s so frightened by the birds I don’t think he even realizes he’s falling. I get both of my hands around his left ankle and hold on with all of my strength, my heart a locomotive chugging against the impossible load. Gorged with adrenaline, I fight not to let go or be pulled to certain death. I frantically search from side to side, desperate to sight something, anything to grab on to, knowing all the while that there is no hope for a lifeline. Nausea, vicious as a crosscut saw, slashes at my gut.

  At most, I weigh ten pounds more than Luke…not enough to keep gravity and friction in equilibrium. Anchoring the toes of my sneakers against the gritty slope, I try to calm myself and think.