"The Savings Account"

By R.M. Walters

They were a good looking couple in their early fifties. They wanted to convert our neighborhood to their religion. Each week, they would bring their pamphlets, knock on every door, and visit with whoever would take the time to listen. Some of their favorite topics were: Are You Saved?  Are you Preparing Yourself for Heaven?  Don't let your ways carry you to Damnation!  Come with us and be saved!  Most of us got to know them as Ed and Marge. We liked them.

One week a new neighbor moved in. The evening Ed and Marge visited him, he was stripped to the waist and sitting on his front steps. He was smoking a cigar and nipping at a bottle of beer. They lit in to him good. He laughed and told them to take their pamphlets elsewhere.

It must have been terribly upsetting for them. You could hardly tell whether they were angry, hurt, or worried about the sinner on the porch. Ed drove away with an unusual squeal of tires. He plowed straight into another car at the corner. Marge was thrown through the windshield. Ed was crushed behind the steering wheel. They died a hell of a death.

The Estranged One

By 

R. M. Walters 

Ewe, Aliena, Dad, Uncle George, Hank, and I may sound like a screwy combination to you, but that's about the way things are sticking right now ... all brown and mixed-up. I guess you can say I'm scared. My thoughts are jammed in confused patterns exactly like the time I was swimming in a lake and lightning struck. I've got a strong coppery taste in my mouth. I'm really worried. I lie here, hot and sticky, in a closed bedroom listening to the roars and bangs and squeals of my neighborhood -- familiar sounds that I never really paid attention to, until I came back from Uncle George's farm where the sounds were different. Now I spend hours making symphonies of the two extremes... liking both, disliking both, and worrying. My problem wouldn't have even started it it hadn't been for Dad, I keep thinking, remembering how he came home from work one evening last spring with the pregnant idea that I was getting too big for my breeches - that's the way he put it: too big for my breeches. He was mad about something, but I guess all dads get that way sometimes. "Boy!" I remember him yelling with a hurt look on his face. "Boy ... you're not going to loaf around this summer with that bunch of damn pack rats you've been running with and get me and you in a lot ot trouble. What's more, you've been spending too much time at night with that ... what's her name ... Sally Mason.
I saw the two of you hiding behind the fire escape last night, and I don't like what I saw, boy! I don't like it one little bit. The first thing you know, I'll be getting a shotgun poked down my throat, or a bastard grandchild to pay for. You're going down to my brother's farm for the summer, where there's no trouble to get into, and get some sense worked into that stubborn head of yours."
I've never been able to figure out why he gets so excited about nothing. I know he's always got a lot on his mind, and that he's hard to reason with. But I can't blame him for that, I suppose, because he's always trying to do the right thing. I just wish he was easier to talk to sometimes.
Anyway, after I've kicked this chain of thought around for a while, my bedroom gets hot and cold at the same time, and I get the shakes. I find myself right back to the day I left Uncle George's farm, right back to the day I really started worrying...

"Some going away celebration," I remember thinking, while sitting on the barnyard fence dangling my feet like the cowboys do, and catching myself looking across neat rows or stubble in a bean-field toward the hill that hid the "Witch's Hair" and getting a sudden chill. "Dad can't make it down to pick me up, so I have to take a bus back to the city; Uncle George had to take the tractor into town for repairs; Denise, that damn Ewe, just ups and disappears for no reason at all; I guess Aliena forgot that I was leaving today; and here I am alone on this fence like an idiot, staring off at the "Witch's Hair" and getting that sweaty feeling over and over again. Some celebration!"
It's not funny how things can suddenly get all turned around and involved. It was Uncle George who gave me Denise to worry about when she was just a newborn lamb, 'because he wanted me to learn about responsibility on the farm. It was Denise that made me meet Aliena, and, although I wish now that I had never seen the place, it was Aliena who introduced me to the "Witch's Hair."
The day that happened, I was chasing Denise across the pasture, screaming at the top or my lungs, "Hey, Ewe! Hey, Ewe!" and I was plenty mad, too. She had crawled through a mud hole somewhere and was just about as filthy and nasty as a lamb could get. I thought she needed a bath. She didn't. She took-off running with me right behind her.
I get pooped easily, but I was going to catch that damn Ewe if it was the last thing I did in the way of farming. She bobbed over a small knoll, and I could see a piece ot her tail sticking out. I guess I shouldn't have called, but I did. My voice must have sounded worse than a bullfrog sucking on a lily pad. I croaked, "Hey, Ewe! Hey -- ah!" and ran right into this girl from the next farm. Plowed would be a better word, I guess. You can't imagine how embarrassed a guy can get in the middle of the country.
Anyway, she gets up dusting her clothes, and says, "Just who were you calling, Hey You?" She wasn't mad about it - in fact, she was laughing at me. But I wasn't laughing. I had skinned my knee and it hurt. "My lamb," I hissed, limping around in small circles.
"Is that her name? Hey You, I mean?"
"It's not that kind of you I meant. It's Ewe like in sheep. That's what I call her when I get mad at her, and that's pretty often."
"Oh ... " she said, nodding her head and smiling. She didn't pay a bit of attention to the fact that I was injured. "I live over there on the next farm. My name is Aliena. What's yours?"
"Guy," I hissed like a baseball player who has just 'been SMacked with a fast ball. I wasn't kidding. My knee hurt. "Just Guy."
"For real?" she said in a real high tone.
"Yes... a real Guy."

We both chuckled about that, more nervous than amused, still looking each other over.
"Well, I'm very glad to meet you, Guy. You remind me a lot of Hank. Do you like sheep?"

The way her voice changed when she said "I'm very glad to meet you" bothered me. Her tone was soft and cunning, and it just didn't go with her looks. I'm eighteen and been around quite a bit, but I never met a girl quite like her -- I mean an ugly girl with a sweet voice. Her hair was a muddy shade of brown, her eyes were darker brown, her skin was perfectly tanned, she wore a brown skirt with a frilly brown blouse, brown shoes, and she was plump ... brown and plump.
I said, "I don't know. Sometimes I like them, sometimes I don't. Who's Hank?"

"Oh, just a boyfriend," she said with a funny expression. "I feel the same way about sheep, too. I like to see them grazing on the hillsides. They add a look of security to the countryside, don't you think?" Her voice was suddenly as mellow as far off church chimes. "But when it comes time to feed them, herd them around in cold weather, am work yourself to death getting them sheared in the springtime, I'd rather not be around them. I'd as soon take care of pigs or chickens or a house or practically anything else."
"I don't know about pigs or chickens, but I know lambs are pretty aggravating. I don't see how they ever came up with that expression: 'Leading the Lambs to Slaughter."
"Oh, I don't know," she said with a coy shake of her head. "It's not as hard as you think. The trick is to pull them, not chase them."
"Yeah?"
"Sure. You should try it sometime."
"I will," I said cockily, not knowing whether she was putting me on or not.
She turned her head and looked behind her. "Well, Guy, it's been pleasant chatting with you, but I'm going to have to go. I'm late and father keeps close tabs on me these days."
She started to walk away.
"Hey" I called, surprised at her abruptness. "Hey Will I see you again?" She was almost thirty feet away by the time I got it all out -- a brown thing against a background of dry brown weeds.
"Sure," She turned and waved. "Just as sure as there are sheep in the pasture. I'm down this way almost every day. I hope you don't hurt your leg the next time we meet." Her voice floated toward me like those far off church chimes again.
I stood watching her and rubbing my knee, until she was out of sight.
Maybe it was because I was excited about meeting someone my own age, and maybe it wasn't. Whatever it was gave me a real nervous feeling all night long. I rolled and tossed and had silly dreams of a plump brunette riding my' lamb across the pastures with some vague brown thing named Hank chasing her and calling, "Aliena ... Aliena ... Aliena," in a voice that sounded like mellow church chimes ringing from both sides ot the valley.
The next morning she was still on my mind. I wanted to mention it to Uncle George, but he started chewing me out right off for not doing my chores right. He was just like my dad in that respect ... pretty quick to fly off the handle, I mean.
By that afternoon I was getting real antsy thinking about Aliena. I didn't want to make things look too obvious, so I shoo'd Denise in the same general direction that we I d run the day before. But by the time Aliena got there, it turned out to be pretty obvious , anyway. I had gotten bored and was leaning against a birch tree picking at the bark with m,y pen knife like some school kid.
"Hi, real, Guy"
I jumped like I had been hit with my Dad's best belt and felt t as silly as an actor who has just goofed his lines. She laughed and made me kind of sore.
"Oh, hi, I said smoothly enough, not knowing whether to let her know how irked I really was.
"Hi, again, Guy." Her voice was tense and teasing and serious, but still church-chimy. "I was hoping you'd be here."
I shrugged like I didn't really care. "Well," I fibbed, "I was out looking for Denise again. She seems to like it over this direction."
"Oh?" She drawled in one of her high tones. "She must be a smart lamb. Want to walk around and look for her?"
"I guess so," I replied, looking back toward the house and seeing Uncle George out by the well getting a drink. I didn't know for sure whether it would be a good idea to bother him yet, so I pointed in an:>another direction. "Let's go that way."
"No, let's don't. There isn't much over there. Let's go towards the "Witch's Hair." Lot's of the livestock stray that way when it's hot."
"Where's that?"
"Don't you know?" she asked with honest surprise. "I thought everyone around this area knew where it was. Come on, I'll show you." And just as naturally as if she had been doing it for months, she took my hand and we started walking.
Then a funny thing happened. Denise came from right out of nowhere and stopped right in front of us. We'd take a step one direction, and she would too. We'd step back the other, and so would she. I finally had to slap her ears to get her out of the way, and, at that, she turned around and butted me.
After Aliena and I had started walking again, I asked,
"What the heck is the 'Witch's Hair?"
"Oh, it's just a place. You'll like it. At least,I think you will. I go there often when I want to be alone. It's terribly serene and soothing."
"But why do you call it the 'Witch' s Hair?"
"Because it looks like that. You'll see."
In a couple of minutes we topped a small hill, and I looked down on a grove of weeping willow trees that came to a point between two hills. I had seen them from the road many times, but they had a different appearance from this angle. They really did look like the uncombed rear side of an old hag's head.
"I see what you mean about calling it the 'Witch's Hair."
"Just wait till you see the inside. My Father says that it has a deplorable curse against it, because people have been getting in trouble there since the indians owned this land."
"Really? How could anyone get in trouble? It's only a bunch of trees. He must be superstitious."
"More old-fashioned than superstitious," she said in a tinkling church-chime tone.
It was a queer place, all right, almost eerie with a sudden change of sound and color. The branches on the trees, alive and dead, were whip-like things, crowding, over hanging each other like a tangled fish net laced with brown seaweed. They looked impenetrable and drooped low to the ground like drying snake skins that wiggled with rhythmic undulations and crackled at the slightest touch. Crackled whispery, weird incantations. I suddenly felt sure that a witch doctor would toss bones at my feet at any second.
The inside was just as eerie. Aliena dropped to all fours. So did I. We followed a worn animal's trail that had a used smell about it, a decaying odor that rose up like a powdery fog and left a dank itching film of dust in my nostrils and eyes, until yards later and deeper, we emerged into a natural dome, a hollowed-out prism of neurotic pastels. There was a tiny stream that gently and mysteriously welled-up from the bowl shaped center and formed a small dark pool, before it gurgled off into the willows somewhere on the other side like something content and happy and sad -- a musical something that sounded like a tired old trumpeter grunting a schematic of low notes, saying a tragedy with the blues when there was just nobody around to listen. There was a heavy mist of fragile leaves, curlicued and straight, fresh and decayed, yellows and rusts and greens maneuvering in the air, settling on the water, being arranged on the ground by soft wind-eddies, until they formed a downy, variegated mattress. The sun, magnanimosly half-bright, filtered through the sky-blue peepholes of the green overcast like small spotlights in a closed planetarium. And the smell, the ungodly, enigmatic pungence of the place, was as exhilarating and restful as an overdose of a twilight drug. Everything in that huming place of silence bespoke of the immensely awesome dignity of a huge cathedral, where one, puny by the twenty ton doors, is apt to see a couple in a distant center pew whispering prayers that echo and reverberate into every nook and cranny with amebic persistency.
And whisper we did, that afternoon, Aliena, the girl with the church chime voice who did not seem so plump and brown in the intoxicating heart-cavity of the "Witch's Hair," and I. She talked of Hank and how she was afraid to tell her father about him because of feeling terribly guilty about seeing him without permission. I mentioned Sally Mason and how Dad had flown off the handle and gotten the wrong idea about her and me. We whispered and unburdened our troubles to each other by the verbal ton, concluding that fathers are pretty suspicious about their children and get mad at the least provocation. We both agreed that it was nice to have met a friend whom we could each confide in.
I have to say that my summer was pretty pleasant from that day on ... at least, most of it was. Uncle George and I didn't get close enough to strike-up a real relationship; he was always too busy and too stern, but didn't bother me much as long as I did my chores. Although she had her frivolous moments, Denise seemed to settle down, and I rarely got mad enough to call her Ewe. I think now that I actually fell in love with that silly animal. I enjoyed my many meetings with Aliena at the "Witch's Hair." But one thing I was never able to do was rid myself of that nervous feeling I always got when I was near her. It wasn't much, but I just couldn't shake it. Maybe it was her church-chime voice, maybe it was her unconventional way of always wearing brown, maybe it was just the fact that she was a girl, and I a boy. Who knows? But, anyway, we became good buddies.
But, then, just a couple of weeks before I was to leave for the city, Aliena had a tough emotional crisis; and I, like any good buddy, tried to help her as much as I could. I think that's the day my problem really got launched, although it didn't dawn on me until much later.
Denise had been cranky and unpredictable all day long. Every time I turned around, she would be standing in front of me bawling worse than a cow at milking time. She made me pretty sore when I walked over to the "Witch's Hair" for my regular meeting with Aliena. Just as I was ready to get down and crawl along the animal's trail to go inside, Denise takes the silly notion to lie down and block the opening. Sometimes, I think sheep are the most stupid things alive. It must have taken me fifteen minutes to coax her away from there, and then I did more pushing than coaxing.
Anyway, I finally crawled inside and was running a stick back and forth through the water trying to sink some of the leaves (I guess you'd call it doodling) when Aliena came. She was crying so bad that her face was all twisted and swollen. She looked twice as ugly as she usually did. I got so excited that I forgot where I was and stepped into the water, and got one leg wet clear to the hip. I was pretty dumbfounded. I had never met this kind of problem before. I asked her three times what was wrong, and each time she just cried harder. It was so bad that I started getting a lump in my throat too.
Finally, she said, "Oh, Guy, I'm miserable." Her voice, for once, didn't have its church-chime quality. I don't know what made me do it, but right then I stepped forward and put my arm around her shoulder. It was a silly thing to be aware of at such an emotional time, but I think she had forgotten to use her deodorant. She smelled pretty strong. Then, too, I guess when someone's head is bobbing up and down against your shoulder, you're not apt to have a comfortable feeling about anything.
Pretty soon, she calmed down a little bit, and started talking. She repeated herself.
"Oh, God, I'm just miserable. Just plain miserable. "
I patted her on the back and put as much sympathy in my voiceas I could, remembering how my Dad had once handled me when I was on an emotional jag, and said, "Do you want to tell me about it?"

"Well, it started last Saturday night," she said. talking into my shirt. "Hank was drunk and we got into a terrible row. It was awful. He got very violent. He told me that he was tired of fooling around with an easy thing like me, and I could just go to... go to..." she stiffened, her voice broke, and she sobbed a couple of times. "Anyhow," she went on, "Iguess I got mad myself and told him a thing or two. I reminded him about how loyal I had been, and all the things I'd done for him that other girls wouldn't have done, but he just wouldn't listen. Then I told him that I was very glad to break-up with him, and he called me a dirty name. I just don't know how I ever got involved with him in the first place."
"Maybe you're just as well off," I suggested.
"Oh, don't you start on me, too" she said, suddenly perturbed, jerking away from me. "I'm not a child, Guy! Don't you start on me, too!"
"Well, if Hank treated you so bad, and you're so glad to be rid of him, I don't see the reason for all the tears."
"Oh, Guy, it's not that. There are a couple of problems about the whole affair that I'll have to resove, I'll do that soon enough, I guess. But what hurt me so much was the way my Father treated me. When I got home, he caught me coming in. I guess I was pretty late at that. He saw that I had been crying, but that didn't bother him a bit. My feelings weren't important. He hit the ceiling. I guess I'm hurt because he wouldn't understand. I told him about Hank, and he just about berserk. I've never seen him so angry. He just made me feel so little and ashamed of myself that I still haven't gotten over it."
I tried to be profound. I said, "Well, you will in a few days. Time heals all wounds." It sounded as corny to me as it did to her.
She looked startled at first, then frowned and looked at me disgustedly. I shrugged and tried to smile. She giggled. I chuckled, and we both started laughing real hard. All of a sudden everything seemed right again. We spent another hour or so talking about gereral thins, before we left the "Witch's Hair" that afternoon.
I also remember, as we were crawling out, that I was feeling very proud about the way I had handled the whole episode. I had been a real pal and dad done a lot to help her out. That's a pretty cocky feeling in anybody's vernaculare. But it was short lived.
Just after we had crawled out and were dusting ourselves off, we heard a rustling noise several feet beind and to one side uf us. I guess it scared us both. We whirled to meet it.
"So there you are!" a man said with a fierce hiss. It was Aliena's Father... no doubt about it. He grabbed her b the arm. He twirled her around and slapped her on the rear. "You git yourself on home. I'll git to you later."
I wasn't sure whether I should start running or not. I was scared all right, but I hadn't done anything wrong. I figured that is Minght as wll face up to the issue -- whatever it was.
He turned to me and began waving his arms in a violent manner. "So yer the guy that's been fooling around with my daughter, huh? Yer this here Hank fellow that's veen messing around where yer business don't belong --"
"But, Sir, I'm not --"
"Shut -up, you dern city punk. You ain't gonna give me any of yer sass. If ya was a little bigger, I'd bust yer ears good fer ya. Probably wouldn't do any dood, but I'd get me some satisfaction. Yer kind are all the same, anyway."
He was worse than my father. He must have kept me there fifteen minutes, while he ranted and raved and threatened to beat me in to small pieces. I hept trying to break-in and explain that I wasn't Hank, but he just wouldn't let me talk.
Finally, he said, "Now, you git! Do you hear me? Git! And if I ever catch ya aroun' again I'll bust yer face real good."
I only wish now that I had been bigger. He'd have seen just who was going to bust who. I'm still that hurt and embarrassed about the whole thing. I guess nobody likes to be accused of something without getting a chance to explain the truth.
A fellow can think a lot when he's alone on a fence rail on a quiet country evening. I know I did that day I was leaving. I still can't tell you why I stayed there so long waiting for Aliena. It seemed pretty pointless in the face of what had happened. I guess I just didn't want Aliena to think that I was a sorehead.
It was very late when she came strolling across the pasture like a brown shadow against the setting sun. I think I felt a kind of paralysis, as I whtched her come. She stopped right in front of me. Neither of us said anything for several minutes. We just kept glancing at each other and looking away...mostly toward the "Witches Hair."
Finally, I broke the ice. "Hi. Haven't seen Denise around, have you? I've been looking for her all day."
"No. But is that all you want to talk about? Almost every time I see you, the first thing you do is start talking about Denise."
I just looked down from the fence and shrugged. I said, "Ididn't mean to upset you. But I'll be leaving pretty soon, and I'd sure like to see her before I do."
"Well, it's always Denise this and Denise that. You'd think that pig was everything in the world when it comes to you."
"Pig?" I said. "You don't mean that --"
"Well, maybe not literally." she said, looking off toward the "Witch's hair." "But you'd think I was just a hunk of rock or something, when it comes to that lamb."
I didn't answer her.
"Well, am I a rock or not?" The chirch chimes sounded mre brittle than I had ever heard them.
Yes, a brown one, I wanted to say, but didn't. I glanced toward the "Witch's Hair." I was getting more nervous than I could ever remember. I said, "No, you're not a rock, but Denise doesn't have a father that blows his stack without reason."
"Are you still sore about that?"
"No, not really. I don't hold grudges." Frankly, I think deep down that I was.
"I'm glad that you don't, Guy." she said. hor voice mellowing into soft, accusing church chime. "You'll like him once you meet him properly and get to know him."
" Idon't think so. Besides, I'm leaving, or have you forgotten?"
"You're coming back aren't you?"
"Maybe. Idon't know."
"Don't you like it here in the country?"
I guess so."
"Why don't you stay then?"
"Aw, you know how it is. My Dad wants me to go to college and all. He's not the kind of man who changes his mind once it's made up."
"Neither is my father. I meant that you could stay here and go to school. There's a fine college not twenty miles away."
"No. That wouldn't work, either. Dad wants me to go to an eastern school."
"Well, you could come back soon on a visit, couldn't you?"
"Maybe, but I don't think so."
Aliena got a far away look in her eyes as she stared off toward the "Witch's Hair." She put her hand on my arm. It was so clammy that I got goose pimples all of a sudden. She said, "I'll bet you'll be back before next summer."
"Now, why say a thing like that? I just got done telling you that I wouldn't.".
Then Aliena did a funny thing. She just turned and started to walk away... no warning, no nothing.
"Hey!" I called, jumping off the fence. "Hey! Wait a minute!"
When I caght up with her, she turned and looked at me with the strangest expression. It was one of those half-sad. half-glad things a guy just can't figure out.
"Yes, Guy?" she said with the sweetest church chimes you ever heard.
"what makes you think I'll be coming back before next summer?"
"Nothing much. Just a feeling that's deep inside of me."
"That's not much of a reason. Come on! Tell me what you meant."
She looked at me, looked toward the "Witch's Hair." and whispered real funny like. "You'll find out." Then she walked away.
I watched her disappear across the pasture like a brown blotch that was gradually absorbed in the failing light. A rooster crowed once and scared me. As if that was a signal, the night was filled with the sound of bullfrogs and crickets and other country things. But even with all that sound, I felt as though I was standing in a vacuum, everything was gone around me. I felt terribly alone.
I walked to th etruck, wiped the evening dew from the windshield, crawled behind the wheel, and backed out of the driveway.
For a second or two I didn't feel anything. But just after I had swung into the road, my headlights shot toward the "Witch's Hair." and there was Denise standing near the animal's trail bedide a rugged looking ram. That sonavagun, I thought, that silly damn Ewe has been down in the "Witch's Hair" all day carving out a boudior. She sure grew up fast.
I lughted about that for quiet a while, as I drove along, laughed about Denise getting bewitched in that weird place near my Uncle George's farm.
But then I sobered rather quickly. I got to thinking about what Aliena had said about me coming back, and remembered the day her father had cught us crawling out. I think I know now why she was so sure I'd be coming back.
Dad thinks I've matured a lot this summer. But, then, I don't think he has ever seen me when I was this worried.

Introduction

Ron Walters circa 1961

In 1963 my mother, my older sister and I boarded a train that would take us away from my Dad and his five other children from a previous marriage.  Through the years I have come to accept that it was all for the best. My Dad was not a nice man.  

But I was not quite 2 years old and I'm told that I cried all the way to my Grandparent's house.  I don't believe a child of that age can know that his whole future has been changed in such a meaningful way.  Still, growing up without a father does make a difference at least that's what I've heard.

Ronald M. Walters was a working musician (Jazz Drummer) in St Louis in the late '50's and early 60's he worked classy night-clubs and in the daytime he worked at writing the Great American Novel.  His work was rejected by some notable names in the publishing world.  I have one rejection letter from McGraw Hill in 1965 rejecting his novel "Waiting for Wah Wah".  

His life is still mostly a mystery but I keep gathering fact's.  He joined the Navy when he was only 17.  He got a service connected disability and an Honorable Discharge.  I think the disability was diabetes he died from the complications when he was 42.

I went to the funeral, I wasn't even a teenager but I was beginning to think that I was grown up now.  It was one of the first times I can remember being existential.  It didn't seem like the man had anything to do with who I was.  But there was the trunk.

His current wife gave us a suitcase full of his writing which was stored and mostly forgotten these past 30 something years.  I've rediscovered it.  Clippings from the local newspapers where he worked, vignettes, short stories, and novels that he had written.  The fact that he did all this without computers speaks of a work ethic that I didn't imagine from him. 

As I go through it all I'm publishing it in this blog.  Your comments are welcome.  I hope you enjoy it.