Wilce’s Dream

At the persistence of his father, Cliff Skinner, his mother attempted a breathing technique to slow her labor enough to push her soon-to-be-born baby out at midnight. Clifford had heard that the first child of the new year would get all sorts of prizes, including a front-page photo in The Banner. Wilce was born on December 31st at 11:56 PM.Cliff also contrived that the local Chevrolet dealer, the largest in this part of Vermont, would give the family a new pickup, something he wanted more than a newborn when he couldn’t afford the three kids he had, or the alimony to their different mothers, two of them ex-wives, and one of whom the court said he couldn’t see even if he wanted to. Which he didn’t.There were no awards for the last baby of the year. The mother screamed bloody murder, gave a long and piercing moan, and out came Wilce, 8 lbs. 4 ounces, blue and wet, until the midwife swaddled him in a cotton blanket so white it seemed to shimmer off the overhead light, and he let out a wail to rival his mother’s.In the unknowable way of a newborn, his eyes were unfocused, unaccustomed to this world. For a brief moment, however, the bright lights of the room comforted him, his crying suspended as he squeezed his mother’s finger with a surprisingly firm grip, only to rise again as he shut his eyes tight and let the world know he’d arrived.Cliff made vain attempts to change the time on the birth certificate, going as far to wind his Timex ahead three minutes, only to be advised by the formidable head nurse that the attending had a “plenty accurate” watch that was synchronized every day to hers. His disappointment came as a gruff “Ah, crap,” which he swallowed as he spoke it. Anyway, another baby, a girl, was born precisely as the ball on the black and white set the nurse had been watching fell in Times Square, coinciding with cheers of “Happy New Year” elsewhere in the maternity ward.Wilce never got to know his father. In what later years struck him as a cliché, Cliff had taken what remained of a cold case of Genesee Cream Ale on a hunting trip on a too warm October morning, tied a rope around it, and fell out of the tree stand as he tried to haul it up. The fall didn’t kill him; he had landed on an arrow he’d left leaning on the beer. His mother told him the story, again and again, trying to assure her son the father was not one worth missing, but Wilce, in the way of fatherless boys, would make up fantasies that he was on a secret government mission somewhere, still alive, or wandering the woods with a deep secret, living off the land, waiting for his chance to see his son.Too often, Wilce would look out his bedroom window to the forested hills beyond, half imagining he saw a wisp of smoke from a campfire that could be a sign his father was out there hiding out from the ‘bad’ guys—spies, robbers, aliens, Indians, Krauts, Redcoats—who were after him.At eight, Wilce was himself wandering the woods behind his home, really more of an overgrown lot that had once been part of a dairy farm, when he saw a figure, an old man, sitting on one of those old stone walls, the type that you don’t even notice there are so many of them, but when you think on it seem out of place in the middle of New England woods. The man was sitting on one that bordered the property, looking up. Wilce followed his gaze to a bright set of high silvery blue clouds, nothing more than that, and realized that a stranger was nearby.The man turned his gaze to Wilce, smiled with a nod, and turned back to the clouds. It was a kind smile, the sort Wilce imagined his father would have, the smile that the pharmacist, Mr. Bates, had when Wilce and his mother would go to get advice and medication. Cheaper than a doctor, she’d say. Bates would always come around the counter, bend down, and give him a box of Cracker Jacks. “Don’t eat it all at once. And don’t eat the prize inside.”Wilce said he would never do that; he kept those prizes in the old cigar box Bates once gave him for what he called “treasure.” Inside the box, Bates had taped a Ben Franklin half-dollar.The old man waved again and called out, “Yahoo!” Wilce knew enough not to speak to strangers, but the man was on the edge of his woods, where no one ever was, just sitting, and seemed unthreatening enough. Wilce answered back, “I’m not supposed to speak with strangers, and I won’t, and if I yell our dog will come, and he’s really mean and bites.”“Well, then I’ll stay put. I don’t mind dogs that don’t bite. But, oh my, if they do, then no-sir-ree, buster, no-sir-ree, indeed.”Wilce tightened his lips, trying to look serious, and nodded with a sense of confidence, as if he actually had a dog. “Who are you?” asked Wilce.The old man looked back to the sky, then to Wilce’s home. “Well, I can tell you who I’m not. I’m not the painter your house wants. Nor am I a roofer for that matter.”“You’re staring at clouds.”“I am and plan to stay that way a bit longer if your dog doesn’t come after me.” Wilce blushed at that remark.“There’s a lot of stories in clouds. A lot of stories. Like when the sun shines through them. See those rays of light? Makes you think there’s a pathway to heaven or some such place. Me anyway. It’s like reading a book. Do you like to read, Wilce?”Wilce was surprised. If the man knew his name he must know Wilce loved to read. Reading was better than a lot of things, better than friends even. The late school bus would drop him at the library, where he stayed until his mother picked him up. He spent those hours in a nook under a rear staircase, a stack of adventure books beside him. To dream.Miss Delucia, the librarian, was a stern looking woman, but Wilce knew better. I will tolerate little boys here only if they are quiet as church mice and don’t draw in the books. Understood?”“Yes, Mrs. Delucia.”“It’s Miss Delucia, young Mister and I plan to keep it that way. Now come along.” She took him by the hand to the stacks of the picture books, which he dove into, never noticing when she poked her head around to see how he was doing. If she caught his eye, he just smiled and went back to reading. And she’d smile, too.It was Miss Delucia who in very her few spare moments taught him to use the children’s dictionary. It was Miss Delucia who would sneak a cookie, wrapped in a napkin, into his hand. “Now, shhh about that, and don’t leave crumbs. And it was Miss Delucia who recognized that Wilce could read far beyond his years.That’s what he wanted to tell the old man, to let him in on this secret. Wilce put his thumb under his chin, his fingers curled in front of his mouth, a look he made when he was thinking, trying his best to look serious. “Yeah, I like to read a lot. I’m not supposed to boast or anything, but I’m the best reader in class. Maybe the best in the school. Teachers tell me that, but I’m not supposed to say anything. Older kids don’t like when a younger kid is better than them at something.”“Well, that makes perfect sense. Perfect sense. Some things are best kept secret. Or to just a few, like your teachers or family, and sometimes not even them.”“What are you doing here?”“Me? Oh, just looking at the stories, just looking. I’d like to be the wind, blowing clouds here and there, helping them make stories. Some days I feel like I am, too.” He picked up a dandelion and blew onto the seed head and followed with a raspberry, making Wilce laugh.He took a deep breath. “Now think about that. By my blowing, those seeds will end someplace they might not have if left to their own devices. Maybe a squirrel would eat them. But they’ll get a new story to tell just because I blew on them. Could end up miles from here. Who knows? I bet you’ve got stories.”“I like stories, too! I used to like picture books but now read chapter books, long ones too, so I can think about the pictures and change them if I want.”“Like blowing on clouds?”“Maybe like that.”“Keep on blowing them. Me, I should be moseying along. Glad I ran into you. Just wanted to check up and see how you were doing.”“You know me?”“Suppose I do, a bit. Or it could be just a story I dreamed up. Hard to know. And when I’m off, you might think you know me a bit. Or it might be a story. Oh, I nearly forgot. When you get a chance, take a look at ‘the secret hideout,’ you might enjoy it.”“Where’s the secret hideout?”“Anywhere. It could be in a corner of some library. Under your bed. It could be right here.” With that, the man tapped his finger to the side of his head. “I gotta be on my way, son. See ya.”He took some time getting up. Wilce cringed at the creaks and cracks he made, but the man simply gave a smile that said “getting on in years.” He looked to the sky once more, meandered towards the far side of the lot, pushed through brush, and disappeared into the trees.“See ya,” shouted Wilce. He considered following, to see where he went. Instead, he watched the quivering leaves that had closed behind the man. They seemed to wave goodbye.Wilce bent down for a dandelion, held it just over his lips, and blew the seeds away. They caught a breeze that carried them, perhaps miles away, where they would settle. Wilce imagined another boy picking up those dandelions and blowing them on. It could go like that forever. A seed, a great-grandson of one he just blew away, might come back to this very spot.He did it again, following the seeds over the wall. Sitting there was a brown paper package. Had the man left it by mistake? Or maybe it was a trap, and if Wilce grabbed it, the man would sneak up and kidnap him. But there was no one, no one at all. Wilce went to the package. He stood up on top of the wall looking about and yelled, “Hey, mister, you forgot this.” No one appeared. He tried again, “HEY, MISTER!” Still, he was alone.He weighed the package in his hands, feeling the edges, knowing that what was inside was a book. Turning the package over he read in broad cursive script, “For Wilce.” That was all. He ripped off the wrapping, inspecting for some words of insight. There were none.The book’s title was “The Secret Hideout.”It was a dog-eared paperback. The only thing holding the binding together was some black cloth tape. There was the childish scrawl on the front that maybe once read Clifford, but it was unreadable and the last name was smudged away.And inside the cover page were two $100 bills, more money than Wilce had ever seen, enough for a bike. For a rifle! Wilce counted it three times and looked around four times. The man really was gone; this wasn’t some trick like they warned about in school, like if someone offered you candy or asked if you wanted to see a puppy. This man was gone for sure and left this for Wilce. He was the only Wilce he knew, and his name was right there on the wrapping. He double-checked that, too.The story was about a boy who, too, found a book, a secret book about a secret club. And it was about the very town where Wilce lived. Though it had been written years before, there were drawings of places he knew well, like Bate’s Hardware, his school, this very forest. There was a story, an adventure sort of mystery. It wasn’t a great story, not even a very good one. But the story was beside the point. The point was the club.The book was full of club rules, initiation rites, instructions on building shelters, and how to hunt and fish like Indians. The secret stuff included how to write in code, even how to follow people without being seen, and how to disguise yourself. Wilce read how you could put a pebble in your shoe to walk differently and throw trackers off your trail.At the end, when the boy and some friends had created the club, The Sachem Club it was called, the truth was revealed, that the book had been written by his father about a club he had started when he was a child. And now they were in the club together. Wilce thought it was just an okay ending, but didn’t care. He cared about the pebble in his shoe and the odd tracks he was leaving in the mud.And the money. With that money, he would start a club. He could get everything; wood for tree forts, tents and camping stuff, knives and axes, bows and arrows. Maybe he could buy a BB gun and not some cheap Red Ryder thing that couldn’t shoot straight. A good one. No, he’d get a Henry. A .22, a Henry Pump Action. The one with the octagon barrel. And he’d hide it under his bed where no one ever went. It had to be a Henry. A Henry was a Scout’s gun. He’d been in the hardware store next to Bate’s staring at the knives on display when a teenager in a Boy Scout uniform got one from his father. The boy had just made Eagle.He smiled at Wilce. “Hey kid, you want to hold it?”After checking to see if it was unloaded, he held it out for Wilce. The Henry was heavy for Wilce, but he didn’t want to let it go. “Cheese, you’re the luckiest kid in the entire world,” was all he could say handing it back. The clerk, the father, and a few others standing by laughed. The Eagle Scout just smiled.“Join the Scouts. When you become an Eagle, maybe your dad will get you one.”Wilce didn’t know why that made him sad. But, anyway, now he could buy that Henry. He wouldn’t need the Scouts. He’d have his own scouts. He wrote down the names of nine people who could join him, then crossed out seven. Ten was too many, too many to keep a secret and, maybe, they wouldn’t vote for Wilce to be the club’s leader, the Sachem, who, was like an Algonquin chief, and that wouldn’t be fair because it was his club and he started it and it was his idea. No, four people would be perfect. They would be his best friends. He went over the list, adding names, erasing some, trying to decide who would be worthy of being in his club, the club where he was Sachem.“What’s a sachem?”Wilce struggled to open his eyes. He recognized the voice, but it was out of place. It didn’t belong in his head, at least, not at that moment. It came again, louder and unwelcome, as startling as the sun pouring through the roll-up shade that wouldn’t stay closed. As startling as the creaky fan blowing into his opening eyes.It was his mother calling for him from the kitchen.“What’s a sachem? You were talking some nonsense about a sachem.”Something wasn’t right. Wilce felt around for the book, knowing that the book wouldn’t be there or anywhere. The panic rose as he tore at the sheets searching, hoping, he was wrong, that it would be there, fallen under his bed, the place he’d use as a hidey-hole, the place he’d read by flashlight, the place where he’d hidden his Henry .22.“Go get your own breakfast. I’m on shift, and they pay time and a half on Saturday. Yeah, and TV is broke, so go play outside.”Wilce just said, “Yeah,” giving the bed and under the bed and his whole room another look. But he knew, he knew all along; there’d never been a book or the cash or an old man looking at clouds.He didn’t eat the cereal. He wasn’t hungry and there was a hurt in his stomach like he’d been punched. He knew that because he had been punched once by Billy Egan, who was just goofing around. Billy was going to be in the club.A couple of squirrels were chasing each other along the stone wall out in the back until one took off up a tree. Wilce followed it up until it was lost in the branches. He looked past those to see clouds sweep by. In those clouds he saw things. There were animals. A lion roared, a horse bucked. Was that a buffalo turning to look at him? People, too. George Washington for a moment, then he was a dog. An angel was following, but it wasn’t an angel after a moment but a ship, a huge sailing ship, and then a wave, a tidal wave swooshing over. The wind picked up and he saw a dinosaur, jaws gaped open about to devour a huge fish. They changed and changed yet again. In those clouds he found stories.Wilce picked up a dandelion and blew hard, following the seeds catch the wind.