Going Home

Going Home

When they showed up at the house, mother would announce their arrival with undisguised disdain, “Your gang is here.” 

In my mind, they simply became, My Gang.  I knew from conversations we had through the years that each of us thought of the five of us that way, and it was clear that my mother’s distain extended to the four other mothers represented by my gang.  We didn’t care what they thought of us.  That wasn’t our problem.

We were about as unlikely a group of friends as you would ever find.  We had nothing in common beyond our friendship, which, in fact, way more than friendship.  Hell, let me be clear here, we loved each other long before the term “unconditional love” came into vogue.

The five of us were Pat, Jack Jack, Edward, Tim and me.  The Gang was formed September 8, 1956, the first day of school at Elksville High School, in Elksville, Florida.  I was fourteen years old, a freshman and a new kid.

If you’ve never heard of Elksville, I understand.  A month earlier, I had never heard of it either, and on September 8, 1956, I fervently wished I’d never heard of it at all.  My family moved there in late July because Elksville was the location of my father’s “great job opportunity.”  No one asked me if I wanted to move.  They just told me the time that the movers would arrive and instructed me to have all my things ready.

And so we moved from a small town in central Alabama to a smaller one in north Florida.  In spite of that, ten minutes after the first bell rang; I’d twice been accused of being a Yankee.  Then when I answered roll call in home room with a familiar, “Yes Ma’am,” instead of the acceptable, “Here” or “Present,” Jerry Simpson, who would be the captain of the football team, turned toward me and said, “What are you?  Some kind of Redneck?”

That’s when I met Pat and Jack Jack.  Before I could say anything, Pat said, “Jerry, why don’t you shut your mouth?”

To which Miss Pridmore said, “Pat, go stand in the hall.”

At that, Jack Jack called out, “Miss Pridmore that’s just not right.  Jerry started it.”

“That’s enough Jack Jack.  You go stand in the hall with Pat.”

After homeroom, Pat and Jack Jack fell into step on each side of me like guardian angels, and we headed for Biology, another class we shared.  That’s where I met Edward and Tim, who had already grabbed two of the five desks on the last row in the room.  Pat, Jack Jack, and I took the other three.  A couple of minutes later the bell rang and the teacher, Mr. Hall, finally turned from the blackboard where he had been writing a welcome and the first week’s assignments.

As soon as he was facing the class everyone hushed.  Slowly his eyes swept the room.  When they got to the back row he made eye contact with each of us starting with Tim and ending with Pat.  Then he said, “Mr. Shaw, it appears you’ve added a new member to the gang.”

“Yes Sir, Mr. Hall.  This is Lee.  He’s from Alabama.  He’s new to Elksville, and he needed someone to show him around.” 

Mr. Hall considered that for a second then said, “Are you sure the four of you are the best choice for the job?”

Jack Jack replied, “There’s no one better than us, Mr. Hall.”

That broke the tension in the room, and someone even had the courage to laugh before quickly stifling it.  Mr. Hall’s gaze shifted to Jack Jack.  “Jack Jack, you four would not have been my choice for guides, but be that as it may, no disturbances from the back of the room.  Is that understood?”

The four original members of the gang replied as one, “Yes, Mr. Hall.”

Pat elbowed me in the ribs, and a half a beat later I added, “Yes, Mr. Hall.”

Though I didn’t realize it then, that was the moment I officially became the fifth member of The Gang.

****************

You never forget the people and the events that make you what you are, and more than anyone or anything else in my life, my gang influenced and shaped my life.  We went through high school together.  And to many people’s surprise, we graduated together.  On graduation night, we even agreed to go in business together.  At the graduation party, while everyone was drinking and hitting on each other, we sat in the corner and went through about a hundred paper napkins, sketching out our business plan. 

The next day, we pooled every penny we had and then counted the pile of crumpled bills and loose change we’d put in the middle of Pat’s dining room table.  The total was $363.78; enough for everything we needed to open My Gang’s Fresh Catfish.  Elksville is located on the Apalachicola River between Gerald and Apalachicola Bay.  Next to our love for each other, our second love was the river.  We each had a small boat, each a third or fourth-hand outboard motor, and like Huck Finn, we practically lived on the river.  A commercial catfish venture was a natural for us.  To the surprise of our parents, former teachers, and classmates, we were a success from the beginning.  I can only imagine where the company would have gone if John Kennedy hadn’t discovered Vietnam.

Six months after we started the business, we realized that we were going to be drafted.  Before that could happen we visited our friendly U.S. Army Recruiter and made a deal.  We didn’t want much, just to stay together.  That was so easy the old sergeant had trouble keeping the grin off his face.  Five months later we followed each other off the chartered Northwest Orient 707 at Binh Hoa, South Vietnam.

We were as successful in Vietnam as we had been in our catfish business and surprisingly we found we rather enjoyed the place and the work.  For the first time, we felt appreciated for our work.  Pat was promoted to Staff Sergeant with waivers for time in service and time in grade; Tim, Jack Jack, Edward, and I were each Specialist Four, one pay grade below Pat. 

We reenlisted for three more years and stayed in Vietnam.   Two months into our third tour, I came down with a major ear infection.  It was so bad the flight surgeon wanted to ship me to Japan, but I talked him out of it by agreeing to stay in the dispensary until I was well.  I didn’t have a problem with that, because the infection made me so dizzy I couldn’t walk. 

The gang came to visit every night after flying their missions.  Then one night they didn’t show.

************

That happened almost fifty years ago.  In those fifty years I’ve been married twice, divorced once and widowed once.  I made a lot of money with my company, Online Performance Auto Parts.  When Margie, my wife, died, three years ago, I sold the company and cleared over five million dollars from the transaction.  That’s not a bad return from a one thousand dollar initial investment, not to mention the fact that it supported me and Margie in fine fashion for over ten years before I sold it. 

Margie and I didn’t have children.  I don’t belong to a church or social organization.  There is no one left in my life that I care about.  Since I sold the company my gang is never far out of my thoughts… thoughts that usually end up with me wondering what would have happened if I’d gone on that last mission with them.  Would we be together now, wherever they are?  And as weird as it sounds I knew that we would be, just like I know that Pat, Tim, Edward, and Jack Jack have been together every moment since that day.

Without conscious thought I began building the car for no clear reason that I could find, though I didn’t think about it too much as I worked.  About half way through the construction a thought began running through my mind like the words of a song you hear and can’t shake.  The thought was this car will take you home.   I couldn’t shake the idea and I didn’t have a clue what it meant.  I just kept working.

That thought was running through my mind like a mantra when I pushed the car out of the garage for its maiden run.  Long before I fired it up, I began thinking of the car as the beast.  The night I turned the key and heard the two electric fuel pumps begin moving high octane fuel to the two monster Carter carburetors on top of the high-rise manifold bolted on top of the 650 horsepower Chrysler Marine Hemi engine, I knew I had christened it correctly.

I live just off Highway 431, half way between Guntersville and Huntsville, Alabama.  I drove slowly down my long driveway, monitoring the gauges and listening to the engine.  All the readings were normal, better than normal actually.  As the car moved forward, it rocked back and forth, an effect of 650 horsepower ready to be unleashed.

At the highway, I waited for a north bound tractor trailer to pass, and then I pulled onto the asphalt and turned south.  There was no traffic ahead.  I looked in the review mirror and noted there was no traffic behind.  I overcame the urge to slam the accelerator to the floor and compromised.  I fed it fuel at a fast but controlled rate.  At fifty, I shifted into second gear, engaged the clutch and increased the fuel flow.  At ninety, I shifted to third, and though I didn’t intend it to happen the rear tires broke loose for a moment, and left rubber on the cooling pavement.  I smiled to myself, as the thought that the machine was the vehicle that would take me home transformed from a faint idea to a knowing; a knowing that I was going home – I was about to rejoin the gang.  At 125 miles per hour, I shifted into fourth.  For the first time, the engine smoothed out and began to show just what it could do.  I’d installed a 160 MPH digital speedometer in the center of the dash.  At 140 I shifted into fourth and a few seconds later the sending unit that fed the speedometer fried.  I felt the front end getting light and out of the corners of my eyes I realized that the landscape on both sides of the highway was an indistinct blur.  The silly grin on my face grew until…..

****************

Jimmy Griggs, an Alabama Highway Patrolman for eleven months and twenty-one days was parked in the entrance of an abandoned dirt road about a hundred feet from Highway 431.  He heard the car coming even before he saw its headlights through the bushes that hid him from the view of south bound traffic.  He had never heard an engine that sounded like that.  He cranked the cruiser and waited.  Three seconds later a set of highlights flashed by his hideout.  In spite of his knowledge of automobiles, he didn’t have a clue what make or model of automobile had just blown by him.

In one motion, he turned on his head lights, blue lights, and siren as he smashed the accelerator to the floorboard.  The cruiser fishtailed onto the road.  It took all of Jimmy’s attention to bring the vehicle under control.  With that accomplished, he raised his eyes and looked ahead.  The road was straight for three miles and it was empty, totally empty.  He braked, pulled off the highway, turned off all the lights and shut down the engine.  He got out of the car and moved to the middle of the south bound lane.  Standing there patrolman Griggs listened for any hint of a mechanical sound; an engine, squealing tires, even an accident.  He listened like he never listened in his life.  All he heard were normal night sounds; crickets, a few tree frogs, and the occasional pop from the cooling engine of his cruiser.  Then he heard and seconds later felt the soft sound of a fresh breeze coming from the south.  It rustled the grass and the scrub bushes on the side of the road and finally it caressed his face.