SNOWY EASTER MORNING

            Fluffy, mushy snowflakes drift from the predawn Easter sky. Winter refuses to release its grip and allow spring’s first sighs to coax the crocuses from beneath the frozen earth. Eleanor Castle slides a ham, dotted with cloves and brushed with brown sugar glaze, into the oven. She rolls up the last of the newspapers and tosses them into the basket beside the kitchen door. Eleanor catches the front page headline below the fold, DR. TIMOTHY LEARY PLANS LOVE-INS IN FRISCO AND NYC.  She’d rather not think about what goes on at a love-in and anticipates with joy the day that the hippies get off acid and Timothy Leary retires. Her hairdresser, Stella, told her last week that some hippies and war protestors opened a coffee house at the end of town and that they are publishing a blasphemous newspaper opposing the government.

Sam, Eleanor’s husband, and her son, Troy, convinced Eleanor last spring, after days of resistance, that Troy should take Brad Easton’s paper route when Brad’s father was transferred From Fort Knox to Fort Bliss, Texas. Troy wheedled that he needed to save up money for a car, in anticipation of getting his driver’s license on his sixteenth birthday. Sam argued the importance of Troy’s learning to earn a dollar. Eleanor acquiesced, despite the nagging prescience that she would, in the end, deliver the papers. Her plate was full to overflowing without the extra task with teaching Sunday School, managing Sam’s remodeling business, singing in the church choir, and, she had recently agreed to serve a two-year term as president of the Women’s Club. Troy surprised her with his dedication to the job during the spring and early summer. He worked faithfully until football practice interfered in late August. Now, basketball practice and games devour his time and energy, and Eleanor delivers the papers before dawn every morning, including weekends, as she has for months.

            Eleanor sets the oven timer to bake the ham and slips into her heavy wool coat. She crunches across the icy, snowy sidewalk to the driveway, where her red and white Impala idles, heater blasting and promising warmth. She saves her favorite Sunday morning delivery, the Minute Stop, for last. Clara Higgs will have just opened the store and brewed fresh coffee, which she and Eleanor will share along with the blueberry muffins that Eleanor baked before dawn. Afterward, Eleanor will head back home and roust Sam and Troy from bed in time for muffins before heading out for the Easter morning church service.

Lots of girls will leave their new linen and lace frocks languishing in closets this morning, Eleanor thinks, opting for warm winter wool and knit. She remembers her grandmother’s belief in the presage of Easter snow: Snow on Easter morning brings grief by Easter night. Grandma Sanderson often told the story of the Whalen boys, who’d sneaked out in their father’s bass boat one snowy Easter morning before anyone else in the family was awake. The brothers were never seen again. Rescue workers found the boat and fishing gear later the following evening on the banks of their favorite fishing hole. Their mother died before Christmas, of a broken heart, the old women said. People said she never gave up hoping that her sons would walk through the front door one day. In her last days, Mrs. Whelan carried on conversations with her sons as though they were sitting on the side of her bed.

            Eleanor eases her car up the slope into the Minute Stop parking lot. She lifts a bundle of papers from the basket in the trunk of her car and walks to the glass door, the rubber soles of her boots crushing salt and ice with every step. The bell tinkles as she opens the door and drops the papers onto the floor. The aromas of coffee and cocoa soothe her, and she can almost feel the warm blueberries melting on her tongue.

            Though she doesn’t see her, Eleanor calls out over her shoulder, “I’ll be right back, Clara. I brought muffins.”

            Lonnie Raines wakes before dawn and slips into his jeans and tee-shirt in the dark. He spends Sunday mornings at the Minute Stop, six blocks from his house, where Mrs. Higgs gives him hot chocolate in the winter and cherry Icees in the summer. Most adults ignore Lonnie or grow impatient with his stuttering and unclear speech, but Mrs. Higgs listens to all his stories about school or his job at his father’s auto body shop. She treats him he’s   her best friend, and that makes Lonnie feel like the most important person in the world. Lonnie is taking a special gift to Mrs. Higgs for Easter.

Lonnie found an ad buried in the back of one of his sister, Peggy’s, movie magazines – the issue featuring Elvis and his pretty, raven-haired bride feeding each other wedding cake on the cover. Lonnie thought that the ad said to send in ten dollars and get eight chinchillas, raise them until they’re grown, send them back and get money for them. He believed that the ad said he could earn up to hundreds of dollars. With all of that money, maybe his mother would stop yelling at his father about not having enough for groceries, and his father would come home on Saturday nights instead of spending the weekend playing cards and drinking whiskey. Lonnie thought the plan sounded too easy to be true. He stuffed the magazine ad into his back pocket. The next time he saw her, he would ask Mrs. Higgs to read it to him. He could hammer out a dented fender and paint it so that it looked as if it just rolled off the assembly line. But, his teachers grew impatient with the pace of his progress in school, and, even in eleventh grade, his reading skills had not developed past the “Jack and Jill” books of Mrs. Story’s first-grade class. He could make out a few words on a page, but he never felt certain that he had them right. Mrs. Higgs was patient, and she seemed to enjoy reading to him. She read the ad to him the next Sunday morning, and he had been right. All he had to do was send in ten dollars. He could be rich. Mrs. Higgs had helped him complete the order form. She sold him the money order and addressed the envelope for him.

Lonnie ran home after school every day for the next week, looking for the box of chinchillas. He had never actually seen one;  he didn’t know how big they would be or if they would bite. The day the package arrived, he carried it into the back yard and pried off the lid. Inside were eight wiggling fur balls, bumping into each other and bouncing off the sides of the box. They grew quickly on the lettuce and carrots that Mrs. Higgs saved for him from the store.

He’s taking one of the chinchillas along to give to Mrs. Higgs this Easter morning.  They are tiny and cute, furry and soft. One of them bites him every time he lifts it from the cage, and he has made sure not to bring that one to Mrs. Higgs. He named the mean one Nipper. He hopes that the little chinchilla will keep her company. He knows that she must be lonely since her husband ran away with the bartender from Fort Knox named Barbie that Mrs. Higgs says is young enough to be his daughter. Even after he gives the one of the chinchillas to Mrs. Higgs, Lonnie will still have five left to send back for the money.

Peggy’s, boyfriend, Carl Hooker, found Lonnie building a cage for the chinchillas the day they arrived. Carl told Lonnie that the company would kill the chinchillas to make coats and hats with their fur and sell them to rich ladies. The thought of someone’s slaughtering the little furballs made his stomach churn. Lonnie wishes that Peggy would break up with Carl.  He thinks Carl is mean, and he wouldn’t be surprised if he hurt Peggy, maybe even hit her.

 On the day before Easter, when Carl and his cousin Bobby, on probation for armed robbery charges, came to pick up Peggy for a drive, Carl teased him about the chinchillas.

“Are you queer, or what, Lonnie?” Carl had said. “What does a boy want with a bunch of little fuzzy critters? I think you’re brother’s queer, Peg.”

Peggy had tugged on Carl’s sleeve and urged him off the porch. Lonnie fought to hold back hot tears that stung as they threatened to leak from the corners of his eyes after Carl’s hateful words.

“Baby brother’s gonna cry,” Carl said.  Carl pulled  a Swiss Army knife from the black leather sheath hooked to his belt and flicked open a four-inch-long blade. He lifted one of the chinchillas from the crate by the skin of its neck. The chinchilla squirmed in Carl’s hands and Lonnie grabbed for it.

“Come on, Carl,” Peggy said. “Let’s go”.

“Big sister’s protecting queer little baby brother,” Carl mocked in his sing-song. Lonnie caught the squirming animal when Carl dropped it and smoothed its fur as he lowered it into the back corner of the crate.

On Easter morning, Lonnie walks out into the dark, snowy morning to feed his chinchillas, and his feet hit a pool of slick liquid and slip out from under him on the covered porch. He reaches to catch his fall, and his hands skid into the same pool of sticky liquid. Lonnie holds his hands near his face and sees they are covered in blood. Two of his chinchillas lay lifeless, their throats slit, heads all but severed beside the crate. Carl, Lonnie mutters.

He gently lays the tiny animals on a clean bath towel from his mother’s linen closet and buries them beneath the concrete bird bath in the back yard, weeping as he does so. He hates Carl in that moment as strongly as he fears him.

 After he buries the animals and washes his face, Lonnie lifts one of the fur balls from the huddle where they are sleeping. He begins the six-block walk toward the store.  A couple of blocks from home, Lonnie’s ears are numb, and he wishes that he had worn the hooded green jacket that Mrs. Castle, Troy’s mother, gave him. From the corner of his eye, he sees the front of a candy apple red Camaro peeking out from the far side of the Minute Stop.

Carl Hooker’s cousin, Bobby, was driving a red Camaro when they picked up Peggy last night, Lonnie thinks, but why would Bobby Hooker be here so early? Maybe he left it parked here after they brought Peggy home last night and rode home with someone else. The Hooker boys pride themselves on their reputation as the local brutes, and, if they aren’t fighting the Benham boys or the Macklin boys, they pummel each other. Lonnie cradles the chinchilla close to his chin, protecting it from the wind and snow. He opens the door and welcomes the warmth and the familiar scent of hot chocolate from across the room.

            “Mrs. Higgs,” Lonnie says, “you won’t believe what I brung to you today.”

            Clara Higgs taps the snooze alarm on her clock radio twice before she drags herself out from under her electric blanket to face the cold predawn. She can’t recall a winter that has held so tenacious a grip, refusing to acknowledge the advent of spring. Clara enjoys her job managing the Minute Stop, especially since her divorce two years ago, after thirty years as an Army wife. She dislikes getting out of bed before daylight, but she enjoys Sunday mornings at the store. She counts upon Lonnie Raines to come in and tell her about his week. She knows that most people think of him as slow, but Clara finds him charming. She’s never met a more innocent or funny fifteen-year-old boy. After Lonnie comes in for his hot chocolate and stories about school and his job at his father’s auto body shop, Eleanor Castle will deliver the newspapers for her son, Troy. Eleanor will share a cup of coffee and chat for a little while. With any luck at all, Eleanor will bring freshly baked blueberry muffins. Clara has never enjoyed cooking, and Eleanor generously shares her gourmet treats.  

            Clara discourages him, but Lonnie brings her a gift nearly every Sunday morning when he comes to the store. She tells him to save his money, but he brings her candy, chewing gum, earrings or knick-knacks from the five-and-dime. Clara’s sons, Scott and Harry, are married with children of their own. Scott and his family live in Seattle, and Harry lives with Julie and their three boys in Boston. She sees them on alternating Christmases and Thanksgivings. Sometimes Clara wonders if she would even recognize her five grandchildren.

Clara hasn’t assembled an Easter basket in many years. She gently lays dyed boiled eggs on top of plastic grass. Foil-wrapped milk chocolate eggs, a chocolate rabbit in a box and malted milk balls fill in the spaces around the eggs with an alarm clock in the center. She wraps the basket in cellophane and ties a large green satin ribbon to the top of the handle. Lonnie told her last Sunday that he’d never gotten an Easter basket. He has spent time on suspension for tardiness because he has no alarm clock. Clara has offered to tutor him after school, but his regular attendance is a requirement for him to graduate. Realistically, she knows that Lonnie will never attend college. It is l967, and a person cannot get a decent job in this country without a high school education, and she wants to help him earn his diploma.

            Clara dresses for work and heads out into the blowing snow. Clara’s parents never missed church on Sunday mornings. They wouldn’t have dreamed of missing Easter mass. After thirty years of traipsing around the world following her husband’s Army orders, she lost the habit of attending church. She sometimes misses the rituals. Jack retired with no job or hobbies. After a few months of playing poker and drinking at the Noncommissioned Officers’ Club on the base, he announced that he and Barbie, the bartender, were leaving town together.

            Eleanor Castle visited Clara often after Jack left, listening to her talk and cry. Eleanor told Clara about the job vacancy at the Minute Stop. She asked Clara to help her with the Women’s Club “Good and Used” clothing drive last fall. They collected used winter coats and jackets and delivered them to kids around town in need of them.

            “I can’t bring myself to call those kids ‘needy”, Eleanor had said. “It makes them sound like the beggars of Bangladesh”.

            Eleanor’s son, Troy, donated his barely-worn Kelly green down-filled jacket (“Leather is this year’s fashion”, Eleanor had explained). Clara accompanied Eleanor to deliver Troy’s jacket. Lonnie answered the door, puzzled to see them.

            “Lonnie,” Eleanor said, “my son, Troy, outgrew this jacket. He only wore it a few times, and it still looks new. Would you like to have it?”

            “No, ma’am,” Lonnie said. “I ain’t got no money.”

            “I’m not here to sell it you, Lonnie. It’s a gift.”

            “You mean you don’t want nothing for it?”

            “No. Try it on and see if it fits.”

            Lonnie slipped his arms through the sleeves and pranced around in the jacket as if it were a prince’s robe. He turned in circles, grinning like Christmas morning. Clara wished that one time she could see that look of happiness and gratitude on her own son’s face.

            “Thank you, Mrs. Castle,” Lonnie said. “Bring me your car. I’ll change your oil, for free. I’ll detail it too. Anytime at all. You too, Mrs. Higgs.”

            Eleanor hugged Lonnie, and then Lonnie held his arms out to Clara. Soon after, Lonnie began his Sunday morning visits to the Minute Stop. Clara enjoys his easy smiles and his unshakeable optimism.

            Clara parks her car, unlocks the store, flips on the light and switches and adjusts the thermostat. Then, she sets up the coffeemaker and the hot chocolate machine and unlocks the cash register drawer. She towels the snow from her hair in the restroom in the back of the store. The bell tinkles above the front door.

            “Lonnie, is that you?” Clara says. “I’ll be right out.”

            Clara walks toward the checkout counter, but, instead of Lonnie, she sees a vaguely familiar-looking boy removing money from the cash register drawer. She has seen the boy around town before, perhaps in the store, but she doesn’t know his name.

            “What do you think you’re doing, young man?” Clara says. “Put that money back where you found it.”

            “Step back, lady,” a different young man, one whose face also looks vaguely familiar to Clara, says, waving a pistol haphazardly in her direction. She can’t remember where she’s seen the boy’s face. Then, she catches a glimpse of the front page of the Meade County Messenger, a stack of which sets beside the cash register – Bobby Hooker’s picture occupies the space beneath the fold on the front page, a black-and-white photograph snapped as state police escorted him from the penitentiary in LaGrange two weeks ago. Bobby Hooker is holding a gun on her after serving four years in prison for armed robbery. She heard that he held a knife to a boy’s throat after a high school dance and stole his car – with the boy’s girlfriend still in it. Though the girl’s body was never found, the district attorney’s office failed to produce sufficient evidence to charge him with murder.

            “Oh, my God,” Clara mutters.

            “That’s right, lady,” Bobby says. “We’re taking the money and anything else we want. You lean against the counter there and don’t give me a reason to shoot you.”

            Clara hasn’t prayed in many years, but she closes her eyes and silently stumbles through an “Our Father” and, after three failed attempts, a “Hail Mary”. She starts another “Our Father”, and then she again hears the tinkle of the bell above the front door.

            “Lonnie,” Clara yells, “get out of here. Run.” She sees confusion and fear in Lonnie’s eyes. He freezes, staring at her.

            “Mrs. Higgs,” he begins. Then he looks toward the cash register. “Bobby? Carl? What are you doing?”

            “Run, Lonnie,” Clara says again. “He has a gun.” Lonnie turns and runs out the door.

            “That was stupid, lady,” Bobby Hooker said. She feels the bullet pierce her chest before she hears the gun’s echo. Most frightening is the cold glimmer she sees in Bobby Hooker’s eyes as he pulls the trigger, just before the room goes blurry. She feels her knees slam against the cold, hard tiles, and she sees Bobby turn the gun toward Lonnie. Then, her head hits the concrete floor. She says, “Don’t”, just as the room goes black.

            Eleanor drops the papers onto the floor inside the double glass doors of the Minute Stop and walks back to her car for the muffins. Clara must be in the storeroom, or maybe in the restroom, she thinks. It’s unusual for her not to be at the cash register. Daylight begins to lighten the sky, but the sun won’t break through the heavy snow clouds today. Across the parking lot, from behind the air pump, a flash of white catches Eleanor’s eye. She stops long enough to recognize that it is a sneaker at the end of a foot.

            She sits on the cold, rough pavement and cradles Lonnie’s head in her lap. She brushes away the salt and pebbles that were ground into his skin when his face hit the pavement after the gunshot between his shoulder blades slammed him to the ground. Eleanor cannot find his pulse, and his nostrils expel no breath. His face is a frozen mask of wide-eyed fear. The back of Lonnie’s tee-shirt is red and wet with blood. Eleanor strokes the tiny, furry creature nuzzling Lonnie’s lifeless hand. When she is old, Eleanor will caution her grandchildren that snow on Easter morning foretells grief by Easter night. She will relay to them the story of Clara, of Lonnie and the chinchilla. She will tell them of the snow that covered the ground on that Easter Sunday when the sun didn’t show its face.

The End