《The Wheels on Deadman's Hill》 A commemoration Oh listen, won''t you, reader, to a tale of two good friends - Began the first adventure that seemed t''would never end. With little but their hearts of iron and steel for a will, That started on a summer day, to ride down Deadman''s Hill. So bravely did they first descend - So badly did they spill! So gallantly they got back up, To conquer Deadman''s Hill. Through prickle-bushes'' vines that seemed to have an evil will, Through gravel-beds that ground the tires like wheat upon a mill. No wind or rain would stop them, and not would they until, Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. They''d gone down every single trail, that lead down Deadman''s Hill. Two brave explorers bold and true, unshakeable good friends, How long they stuck together for a goal without an end. They mended squabbles, braved the unknown, monsters did they kill - With every rumble of those wheels that went down Deadman''s Hill. If they did crash, they patched back up their sturdy red machine, Or got it out from something that it was stuck fast between. An injury was just a badge of courage, if you will, For nothing could defeat them, came what may on Deadman''s Hill. The months turned into seasons, And the seasons turned to years. Courageous both explorers, ever venturing out still, To find their next adventure, somewhere out on Deadman''s Hill. Sometimes they both struck out on ventures fearless and so bold, Sometimes they walked familiar places, telling tales of old. Or just to sit together for to hear a songbird''s trill, Each day brought something wonderful, way out on Deadman''s Hill. How many maps they drew of places wild and untamed, How many times they limped home, undefeated all the same, Their partnership held strong and true, so very long until - One day they made their last adventure, down that Deadman''s Hill. That fateful time they made their trip as often they had planned, But neither could imagine, they''d no more walk hand in hand. Yet when they''d done exploring and then gone where''er they willed, No longer would they thunder, oh those wheels down Deadman''s Hill. No chatter of camaraderie, no cheer of victory, Not one more ''this way'' arrow carven on a sturdy tree. Their boots will not again leave prints, no voice will break the still, The wheels now rest in silence at the crest of Deadman''s Hill. And so the curtain falls Every student in the entire room sat as silent as tombstones, with several jaws dropped and eyes popped. Not exactly for the prose itself - almost anything was manna from heaven compared to the stuffy Victorian-era literature they''d been tortured with for most of the semester. Even if it was obviously an original work of poetry, it wasn''t exactly worthy of Elizabeth Bishop. Their amazement came from the speaker: a classmate with dark blonde hair as spiked as much as one could get past dress code and wearing his signature striped shirt. His recitation had been so heartfelt that a couple of the girls were discreetly batting at the corners of their eyes, while others couldn''t help but feel a sense of empathetic loss. His unfocused gaze seemed to reach to the far wall of the classroom and off into somewhere else that only he could see. It was an amount of feeling that couldn''t be faked anymore than the poetry it had accompanied. And to make the understatement of the century, he was the absolute LAST person that would have ever been suspected to put on such an epic performance. Their teacher cleared her throat to finally break the silence. "Well, Calvin, I must say that was a remarkably unprecedented effort. Could you explain the symbolism of your piece?" He couldn''t. Not even close. The true meaning of it all was hopelessly lost on the clowns he had for classmates or his shrewish teacher who considered the English language to have peaked in the 1800''s. Even if he had the hours it would take to begin to pour out his very soul to the class - would they understand? Could they possibly care enough to truly grasp the pain at having to leave his adventuring and his best friend behind forever?
Another week later, seniors were becoming an endangered species at Calvin''s school. As part of their desperate attempts to keep up graduation rates the school board had ceased withholding diplomas from chronic ''skippers'' long ago. Those who remained were mostly happy to have a place to sit and chat and goof off for half the day. But a handful looked around constantly with thoughtful faces, trying to capture every last feeling. The way the halls smelled lemon-scented after the janitor had made a pass, the sounds of bustling crowds in passing period. Students whose names had made it onto the school''s trophy cabinet often lingered around it. Teammates embraced and shook hands in a final solidarity, pointed and reminisced until a passing staff gently shooed them away. One of them stood for a time with a single hand placed on the window, gazing past the reflection in the glass at the hand-painted playbill where he''d shone in a leading role exactly four times. It should have been five times - but the drama teacher had come down with a case of the flu so bad it put her in the hospital. He recalled her dry amusement at coming through the doors the next monday to every actor ''dead'' in their chairs in full costume. Most of all he remembered the thrill of the final curtain call after each performance. Arm-in-arm with all the others, making bows before a cheering audience. For just a minute it was a glimpse of the full glory of Broadway to many young minds. A fleeting moment where the house lights blazed like stars in the sky as a crowded auditorium celebrated the talent laid out before them. It was something neither the best video recording nor the carefully folded pamphlet in a box labeled ''Keep'' would ever be able to truly recall.
The day came. Hands were shook, tears were shed, a few phone numbers and emails exchanged. Many students whooped and ran out the doors. But some shuffled slowly from empty lockers to familiar places, then finally toward the exits with heavy hearts. The ones who appreciated what their peers were so hastily leaving behind. By some odd chance Calvin found himself making a final exit with one of the lunch ladies of all people. "You last day, ha?" said the heavyset Latino. "Mine too. Shouldas goin bad." She patted her meaty biceps. "Doctor says no more heavy things. The district, they give me retirement early. This summah I work some other place. But I dunno what I gonna do next fall. School gonna start an'' I gonna try comin'' back just from habit after all these years." "I wish I could get away with that," lamented Calvin. "Maybe I''ll win the lottery and come back under another name for one more year." "Ayyyy, don'' I wish I was young and pretty I could get away wit'' that." she half-laughed in resentment of her bygone youth. "You goin to college right away? Or work for a bit?" If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Calvin''s head jerked a bit, as if something invisible had slapped him. "First I gotta move out. My dad said the day I ended high school I moved out and he really meant it. When I get off the bus at home he''ll be waiting for me to load up all the boxes and go straight to my new apartment. Do not pass go and do not collect two hundred dollars." The older woman stopped in her tracks, pudgy jaw dropped to the middle of her neck. "Saints an'' angels, he makin'' you go today?!" "We had...well...we had a big fight. Actually a bunch of fights since I was a junior. Some of them were my fault or his but some...just happened. He almost threw me out the day I turned 18 even though I had three months of school left. Mom had to threaten him to let me stay this long. I don''t know if I''ll ever be back. We - I had everything packed up that I''m not wearing weeks ago." Sincere condolences were given; not from staff to student but from one human being to another. Then the two parted ways with a surprisingly rib-crackingly tight hug.
To say that Calvin''s parents had different reactions to his final trip on the schoolbus was a massive understatement. His mother was wringing the life out of the dish towel she''d been using a minute ago, but working at a legal firm for thirty years had taught his father the art of the stone face. The man''s countenance was as stoic as Mount Rushmore while he watched his only son go inside without a word from where he stood on the front step, like some military sentry. Only a few quiet tears were shed in the stillness of the place that had been his refuge. A place to read a favorite comic unhindered and hide after a personal failure or stern discipline or an unpleasant encounter with the world. But as if it wasn''t enough that he was too big for the swingsets, too tall for his bike or too heavy for the sled, everything familiar was being coldly ushered out the door like a bad actor dragged off by the hook. Of all the old furnishings that had once made a room into his room, only a barren mattress and a paper-thin curtain over one bedroom window remained. When the latter fluttered in the afternoon breeze for an instant he quietly mused that it might be his spirit flying away. The small pile of brown boxes took only a couple trips to load up, after which Calvin deliberately left every window and door wide open on the way out in a final small act of defiance toward authority. Teetering on an emotional breakdown his mother could only whisper apologies in his ear as she held her baby. For the first time in her life it now would be her last hug for an unknown and presumably long period of time. "It''s not your fault. You can only threaten the D-word so many times." At that she held him once more before her son got in the rented U-Haul pickup to vanish down the street in a trail of slightly blue smoke along with all his worldly possessions. Some hours later her husband would receive a surprisingly violent reaction for insensitively asking her why she was ''sitting around staring at that ugly old drawing''. For the art in question had been done back when Calvin was still in grade school; a crudely done but heartfelt attempt at depicting a pouncing tiger mid-leap. Memory jolted into sudden remembrance, she scoured the house high and low for his favorite old stuffed animal. But Hobbes was nowhere to be found.
Lying about his new address had been only slightly harder than getting a PO box set up. To his credit the grumpy gentleman whose basement he was actually renting promised to put the paid-in-cash rent to good use. "I gots to get the medications and doctor visits the damn VA won''t pay for. But after I patch up my ass I''ll start patching up the place. Lord knows it needs some. Only thing I ask is you keep your mouth shut so some vulture from the government doesn''t double my property tax for putting in a new countertop." A silent thumbs-up was Calvin''s reply as he descended down a somewhat questionable set of wooden stairs to the dim and slightly damp place that he now called ''home''. The principal''s office would have been a more welcome destination. For two days he barely ate and couldn''t sleep on his first weekend alone as his budget and his spirit competed for first place in being lower. Going outside was made into a misery thanks to a surprise turn of the weather that sent the thermometer plunging into the single digits with wind gusts strong enough to prompt public safety alerts from the weatherman. Then on Monday at 8:30 sharp, the old drudgery of schoolwork was replaced by something much worse, with no staff holidays or snow days to ever break the spell.
At the top of a place once given a name by two friends, a small plywood sign finally fell over as the ground underneath it became too saturated with melting sleet to hold the pole that had been buried too shallowly. A single pair of eyes watched from beneath the plastic tarp tent tucked all around the wagon as "DEADMANS HILL" slumped over, its letters crudely written in black marker almost faded away entirely. Taking it as a final cue, he waved briefly at it.... Then closed his eyes. But perhaps, onward A sound. So soft and strained. It drifted to him like a wisp upon the breeze, vanishing into the air. Another sound. He didn''t want to move; moving didn''t feel good. There wasn''t any point. He hadn''t moved in so long anyhow. The sound wavered; plaintive and frail. A word that he recognized, but, from where... He''d been sunk into darkness so long that it had become like a cloak blotting out the horrible world. Again came the sound, twice, thrice again. More insistent and desperate this time. It couldn''t be from him. No. He was gone. But then again who else would know...that name... Very reluctantly, Hobbes opened his eyes.
The blurry mishmash of colors that assaulted his vision tangled together, shifted, slowly coming together into something vaguely recognizable. A face looking longingly at him; stretching one hand out to rub behind his left ear. That striped shirt...no, it couldn''t be. "Cullllvnnnhhhhgh?" By now even the edges of his mouth were as stiff as the rest of him, twisting his speech into mush. But despite the half-growled gibberish the figure seemed to react, hand moving to stroke the crusted fur on his cheek. "...hey buddy." Memories tried to come back through a consciousness that felt like a morass of cold mud. Buddy? There had been such a person, once. So long ago it was the faintest echo ringing through the darkened halls of a dormant mind from a time which had withered away to nothing. A finger gently wiped some debris from his face enough to see just a little clearer through one eye. "Come on, pal. It''s...it''s been a bit. I know you''re in there. You - gotta still be in there. You remember your old pal, right?" With an arm that seemed to creak like a wooden plank, Hobbes managed to roughly swipe his right paw across the other half of his face. His hazy vision simply wouldn''t work quite right - it used to be better, hadn''t it? Out of a dozen half-formed questions slumping together in Hobbes'' dim thoughts, all he managed to croak out was "...I ''member. A bit. How long....pal?" The words cut Calvin''s soul. "Too long. But...but let''s...c''mon, buddy, let''s go home. " Clearer memories burst through the sludge of a weary mind; with a drawn-out moan he shook his head slowly. It hurt as much to move as to suddenly recall why he''d been sleeping there. "Oh......but....don''t you ''member...there''s no......" His shaky voice trailed off, but the figure in front of him closed his eyes suddenly. They both remembered. "No h-h-home," Calvin managed to stammer out. It was a blasphemous thing to say. A denial of everything held dear. And yet it had come true. As if reading his mind once again, his old friend managed to move his paw enough to barely clasp the hand that was still picking twigs out of his muzzle. "...you can go....buddy. Thanks...but I''ll...be...oh-kay. It''s okay." "No!" "Buddy...look at me. It''s like you...said...everything''s..." "Gone." came the faint confirmation. "I know. It''s all gone. The house''s gone. The sled''s gone too. And the wagon you''re sitting in ain''t going anywhere now. But you''re not gone. I''m sorry we just - quit. C''mon, you need a bath. You need like ten baths." "But...what would we...do?" Hobbes rasped, managing a pitiful half-smile. A trickle of memories, clearer and more precious than pure diamonds, were flitting past his mind''s eye. Adventures. Places. Peril and daring faced together. So many wonderful memories with his buddy from a lifetime ago. "We''ll find something," pled Calvin, "we''ll make something. We''ll get a puzzle from the thrift store so we have something to do if that''s what it takes. I''m all alone every night wandering around my apartment like a zombie and you...you''re gonna turn moldy and have birds crap on you every day until you''re a pile of trash that used to be my friend. Look; I know things suck rotten eggs now and there''s no summer vacation and bosses are ten million times worse than teachers. But this is stupid. We didn''t spend all that time together and do all that stuff even if we beat up each other some times like we were brothers just to end up like...this." The last word was both an exclamation as well as a desperate plea. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Seeing little reaction to his words, Calvin babbled on desperately. "C''mon, it''s not like a lady tiger is gonna wander in front of a rusted old wagon, peek under the tarp and bat her eyes at you. I sure can''t afford dating. So what are we gonna do, huh? Just melt into a couple piles of sad and lonely? C''mon, pal, let me carry you home. I know we promised ''no more'' because all the best times came to an end - but this just can''t be where it all ends. Forget what I said last time...just...even if all we can do is read comics and play checkers...please...I promise I''ll get you fixed up..." Hobbes tilted his head slowly and regarded him with a mixture of wisdom and grief. There was much to consider. When they had parted ways at the end of a golden era, it had been with the truest conviction that there was nothing left to be done. The most heartfelt of oaths, once given between comrades, were not easily broken. To try and continue on now seemed to be almost an insult; as if attempting to pick up a pen and write another chapter to a classic work after the original author''s final benediction. With all the old paths torn up by forces far beyond their control, so much less time, so many more cares and worries... ...was it really worth the effort?
In the end, he had his way. Being the wiser of the two (if no longer the larger) had certain advantages, among them being the ability to stand one''s ground in an argument for as long as necessary. It was inevitable. So Calvin carried him out facing forwards, as awkward a task it might be at the moment. It kept Hobbes from looking back at the filthy blue tarp crumpled up around the rusted old wagon while they made their slow escape from that sad place together. Under one arm he even managed to wedge the weatherbeaten sign that the two of them had proudly labeled with a Sharpie to commemorate their ''discovery'', so many seasons past. "What do you say we come back in a month and turn the wagon into a planter?" A feeble chuffing sound issued from Hobbes'' muzzle. "Sure. Maybe....some....roses?" "Yeah. Roses. Those were mom''s favorite."
Their trip home was silent and uneventful, besides a stop at a drug store that Calvin hoped sold laundry detergent. They did - an insanely overpriced and tiny tub of it. Calvin rebelled against the corporate robbery by surreptitiously scanning only one of the two tubs at the self-checkout, although stealth hardly mattered as the front counter was completely devoid of staff. Nobody had seen him come in; nobody saw him leave. Sometimes his innate tendency to go entirely unnoticed seemed to have its advantages. It took two full cycles of being washed in the tiny old Whirlpool on the "Delicate" setting in warm water to completely cleanse his stuffed friend of all the grime that months of harsh weather had exposed him to. Hobbes gratefully compared it to a sauna at a 5-star hotel after being stranded in the Amazon. Drying off was an even longer process with a cheap hairdryer waved slowly from head to tail for an entire hour. But his buddy didn''t complain; merely switching hands when one became too tired from holding the clunky thing. Hobbes constantly flexed himself under the slow waves of warmth; becoming ever more animated and lively as the minutes dragged on. "Grrrrrr! Man, it''s good to feel all soft and fluffy again after my fur turned into stale bread crust for so long! I feel like I could race you down the street for a 6 pack of Mountain Fizz! Whaddya say?!" He suddenly whirled about to ruffle Calvin''s hair into worse disarray than usual. His old buddy merely smiled and aimed the hairdryer at a damp spot on his side. "Maybe on the weekend, if the rain cuts out. Freezing rain is the worst. Can''t build a rain-man, right?" "How about build a bookcase?" Hobbes observed the sparseness of the open basement room. "Can''t have all those Nuke-man comics sitting on the floor!" "Heck, you know I''m no Harry Handyman. But...I guess what''s a bookcase, anyway? Four cheap boards, a sheet on the back and a couple shelves in the middle with paint optional? Yeah. That wouldn''t take Einstein to make one." "Then it''s settled," affirmed his friend with a hearty pawshake. "Today we plan - tomorrow - we build!"
An old carpenter''s adage is to "measure twice and cut once". In the hands of a mildly-scatterbrained pair of old friends, the adage became "measure three times, argue about the results each time, almost cut your finger off the first time, Google how to use a circular saw properly, then measure a fourth time and cut with the care of a heart surgeon while debating about who was right the first three times. Also be sure to hit each other''s thumbs with every other swing of a hammer." Cursewords were used in abundance, reinvented, interleaved with such original terms as "frizzletop" and "catnip-breath". The net effect somewhat resembled the efforts of a dyslexic octopus attempting to recreate a Bob Ross masterpiece by watching ''painting for amateurs'' from videos on Youtube, with ongoing commentary from Statler and Waldorf. Even a task as simple as painting a simple coat of eggshell white turned to violence when a freshly-painted sideboard suddenly sported a doodle of Nuke-Man about to be stomped by a giant foot. That conflict ended amicably with a suggestion to doodle both sideboards with whimsical amateur art, turning a simple task into a frenzy of concentrated activity lasting half the afternoon. After over twelve hours in total the result was a six foot high monstrosity whose shelf-pegs were less than perfectly aligned and spaced, festooned on the sideboards and fronts of the shelves with a wide variety of artwork and random phrases befitting a pair whose enthusiasm exceeded their sanity. A half-inch wide knot in the woodwork had its ''plug'' gouged out and labelled "girls bathroom! ---->" in a fit of gleeful immaturity. Altogether it was the absolute pride of a pair of reunited friends who sat together on a small throw rug, drinking hot cocoa warmed on a hot plate.