Buckeye The Elder

University of Iowa

A Traveling Salesman Came into our Lives and The Entire Family Fell in Love. But nothing is as simple as it seems

Things I Learned about Buckeye a few minutes before he broke my collarbone: He is 25 years old, a native of Wisconsin and therefore a Badger. "Not really a Buckeye at all," he explained, sitting in my father's recliner and paging through a book about UFOs and other unsolved mysteries. "But I keep the name for respect of the man who gave it to me, my father and the most loyal alumnus Ohio State ever produced."

Buckeye had stopped by to visit my sister, Simone, whom he has been seeing over the past week or so. Though Simone has been yammering about him at the dinner table, it was the first time I'd actually met him. When he arrived, Simone wasn't back from her class at the beauty college, and I was the only one in the house. Buckeye came inside for a few minutes and talked to me like I was someone he'd known since childhood. He showed me old black-and-white photos of his parents, a gold tooth he'd found on the floor of a bar in Detroit, a ticket stub autographed by Marty Robbins. Among other things, we talked about his passion for rugby and he invited me out to the front yard for a few lessons on rules and technique. He positioned himself in front of me and instructed me to try to get around him while he demonstrated the proper way to wrap up a player and drag him down. I did what I was told and ended up with 200-plus pounds worth of Buckeye driving my shoulder into the hard dirt. We both heard the snap, clear as you please.

"Was that you?" Buckeye said, already picking me up and setting me on my feet. My left shoulder sagged and I couldn't move my arm, but there wasn't an alarming amount of pain. Buckeye helped me to the porch and brought out the phone so I could call my mother to pick me up and take me to the hospital.

•

I'm sitting in one of the porch rocking chairs and Buckeye is standing next to me, nervously shifting his feet. He is the picture of guilt and worry. He puts his face in his hands, paces up and down the steps, comes back over to inspect my shoulder for the dozenth time. The fractured bone pushes up against the skin, making a considerable lump.

"Snapped in two, not a doubt in this world," says a grim-faced Buckeye.

He puts his face right into mine as if he's trying to see something behind my eyes. "You aren't in shock, are you?" he asks. "You don't want an ambulance?"

"I'm OK," I say. Other than being a little light-headed, I feel pretty good. There is something gratifying about having a serious injury and no serious pain to go with it. More than my shoulder, I'm worried about Buckeye, who acts like he's just committed murder. He asks me if I wouldn't just let him swing me over his own shoulders and run me over to the hospital himself.

"Where is my self-control?" he questions the rain gutter. "Why can't I get a hold of my situations?" He turns to me and says, "There's no excuses, none, but I'm used to tackling guys three times your size, God forgive me. I didn't think you'd go down that easy."

Buckeye has a point. I am almost as tall as he is, though at least 60 pounds lighter. I'm embarrassed for going down so easy. I tell him it was nobody's fault, that my parents are generally reasonable people and that my sister will probably like him all that much more for it.

Buckeye doesn't look at all comforted. He keeps up his pacing. He berates himself with his chin in his chest, mumbling into the collar of his shirt as if there is someone down there listening. He rubs his head with his big knobby hands and gives himself a good tongue-lashing. There is an ungainly energy in the way he moves. He is thick in some places, thin in others, with joints like those on a backhoe. He's barrel-chested, has elongated, piano player's fingers and is missing a good portion of his right ear, which, he told me earlier, had been ground off by the cleat of a stampeding Polynesian at the Midwest Rugby Invitationals.

I can't explain this, but I'm feeling quite pleased that Buckeye has broken my shoulder.

When my mother pulls up in her new Lincoln, Buckeye picks up me and the chair I'm in. With long, smooth strides he delivers me to the car, all the time saying some sort of prayer, asking the Lord to bless me, heal me and help me forgive him.

•

One of the more important things that Buckeye didn't tell me about himself that first day was that he is a newly baptized Mormon. I've found out this is the only reason my parents ever let him within rock-throwing distance of my sister. As far as my parents are concerned, solid Baptists that they are, either you're with Jesus or you're against him. I guess they figure Buckeye, close as he might be to the dividing line, is on the right side.

In the week that has passed since the accident, Buckeye has turned our house into a carnival. The night we came home from the hospital, me straight-backed and awkward in my brace and Buckeye still asking forgiveness, we had a celebration--in honor of who or what I still can't be sure. We ordered pizza, and my folks, who almost never drink, made banana daiquiris while Simone (continued on page 90) Buckeye (continued from page 82) held hands with Buckeye and sipped ginger ale. Later, my daiquiri-inspired father, once a 163-pound district champion in high school, coaxed Buckeye into a wrestling match in the front room. While my sister squealed and my mother screeched about hospital bills and further injury, Buckeye wore a big easy grin and let my father pin him solidly on our mint-green carpet.

I suppose there were two things going on: We were officially sanctioning Buckeye's relationship with Simone and at the same time commemorating my fractured clavicle, my first manly injury. Despite and possibly because of the aspirations of my sports-mad father, I am the type of son who gets straight A's and likes to sit in his room and make models of spaceships. My father dreams that I will play point guard for the Celtics one day. My own chief aspiration is to write a best-selling fantasy novel.

My sister goes to beauty school, a huge disappointment to my pediatrician mother. Simone can't bear to tell people that my father distills sewer water for a living. Though I love them, I sincerely believe my parents to be narrow-minded religious fanatics, and as for Simone, I think beauty school might be an intellectual stretch. Our family seems to be no more than a bunch of people living in the same house who are disappointed in one another.

But we all love Buckeye. He's the only thing we agree on. The fact that Simone and my parents would go for someone like him is surprising when you consider the coarse look he has about him, the kind of look you see on people in bus stations and in the backs of fruit trucks. Maybe it's his fine set of teeth that keeps him from looking like an out-and-out redneck.

•

Tonight Buckeye is taking me on a drive. Since we met, Buckeye has spent more time with me than he has with Simone. My parents think this is a good idea; I don't have many friends and they think he will have a positive effect on their agnostic, asocial son. We are in his rust-cratered vehicle, which might have been an Oldsmobile at one time. Buckeye has just finished a day's work as a pantyhose salesman and smells like the perfume of the women he talks to on porches and doorsteps. He sells revolutionary no-run stockings that carry a lifetime guarantee. He has stacks of them on the backseat. At $18 a pair, he assures these women, they are certainly a bargain. He is happy and loose and driving all over the road. He has just brought me up to date on his teenage years, his father's death, the 13 states he's lived in and the 22 jobs he's held.

"Got it all up here," he says, tapping his forehead. "Don't let a day slide by without detailed documentation." Over the past few days I've noticed Buckeye has a way of speaking that makes people pause. One minute he sounds like a west Texas oil grunt, the next like a semi-educated Midwesterner. Buckeye is a constant surprise.

"Why move around so much?" I wonder. "And why come to Texas?"

He says, "I just move, no reason that I can think of. For one thing, I'm here looking for my older brother, Bud. He loves the Cowboys and fine women. He could very well be in the vicinity."

"How'd your father die?" I say

"His heart attacked him. Then his liver committed suicide and the rest of his organs just gave up after that. Too much drinking. That's when I left Wisconsin for good."

We pass smelters and gas stations and trailers that sit back off the road. This is a part of Tyler I've never seen before. Buckeye pulls the old car into the parking lot of a huge wooden structure with a sign that says The Ranch in big matchstick letters. The sun is just going down, but the place is lit up like Las Vegas. A fleet of dirty pickups overruns the parking lot.

We find a space in the back and Buckeye leads me through a loading dock and into the kitchen, where a trio of Hispanic ladies is doing dishes. He stops and chatters at them in a mixture of bad Spanish and hand gestures. "Come on," he says to me. "I'm going to show you the man I once was."

We go out to the main part, which is as big as a ballroom. There are two round bars in the middle of it and a few raised platforms where half-dressed women are dancing. Chairs and tables are scattered all along the edges. The music is so loud I can feel it bouncing off my chest. Buckeye nods and wags his finger and smiles at everybody we pass, and they respond like old friends. Buckeye, who's been in Tyler less than a month, does this everywhere we go.

If you didn't know better you'd think he was acquainted with every citizen in town.

We find an empty table against the wall right next to one of the dancers. She has on lacy black panties and a cutoff T-shirt that is barely sufficient to hold in her equipment. Buckeye politely says hello, but she doesn't even look our way.

This is the first bar I've ever been in and I like the feel of it. Buckeye orders Cokes and buffalo wings for us both and surveys the place, occasionally raising a hand to acknowledge someone he sees. Even though I've lived in Texas since I was born, I've never seen so many oversize belt buckles in one place.

"This is the first time I've been back here since my baptism," Buckeye says. "I used to spend most of my nonworking hours in bars like this."

While he has told me about a lot of things, he's never said anything about his conversion. The only reason I know about it is that I overheard my parents discussing Buckeye's worthiness to date my sister.

"Why did you get baptized?" I ask.

Buckeye squints through the smoke and his voice takes on an unusual amount of gravity. "This used to be me, sitting right here and drinking till my teeth fell out. I was one of these people, not good, not bad, sincerely trying to make things as easy as possible. A place like this draws you in, pulls at you."

Watching the girl in the panties gyrating above us, I think I can see what he's getting at.

He continues: "But this ain't all there is. Simply is not. There's more to it than this. You've got to figure out what's right and what's wrong and then you've got to take a stand. Most people don't want to put out the effort. I'm telling you, I know it's not easy. Goodness has a call that's hard to hear."

I nod, not to indicate that I understand what he's saying but as a signal for him to keep going. Even though I've had my fair share of experience with them, I've never understood religious people.

"Do you know what life's about? The why of the whole thing?" Buckeye says.

"No more than anybody else," I say.

"Do you think you'll ever know?"

"Maybe someday."

Buckeye holds up a half-eaten chicken wing for emphasis. "Exactly," he says through a full mouth. "I could scratch my balls forever if I had the time." He finishes off the rest of his chicken and shrugs. "To know, you have to do. You get out there and take action, put your beliefs to the test. (continued on page 163) Buckeye (continued from page 90) Sitting around on your duff won't get you anything better than a case of hemorrhoids."

"If you're such a believer, why don't you go around like my parents do, spouting Scripture and all that?" I reason that if I just keep asking questions I will eventually get Buckeye figured out.

"For one thing," Buckeye says flatly, "and you don't need to go telling this to anybody else, I'm not much of a reader."

I raise my eyebrows.

"Look here," he says, taking the menu from between the ketchup bottle and the sugar bowl. He points at something on it and says, "This is an A, this is a T and here's a G. This says 'hamburger'--I know that one. Oh, and this is 'beer.' I learned that early on." He looks up at me. "Nope, I can't read, not really. I never stayed put long enough to get an education. But I'm smart enough to fool anybody."

If this were a movie and not real life I would feel terrible for Buckeye--maybe I would vow to teach him to read, give him self-worth, help him become a complete human being. For the climax, he would win the national spelling bee or something. But this is reality and as I look across the table at Buckeye, I can see that his illiteracy doesn't bother him a bit. In fact, he looks rather pleased with himself.

"Like I've been telling you, it's not the reading, it's not the saying. It's only the doing I'm interested in. Do it, do it, do it," Buckeye says, hammering each "do it" into the table with his Coke bottle. He leans into his chair, a wide grin overtaking his face. "But sometimes it certainly is nice to kick back and listen to the music."

We sit there quietly, me doing my best not to stare at the dancer and Buckeye with his head back and eyes closed, sniffing the air with the deep concentration of a wine taster. A pretty woman in jeans and a flannel shirt comes up behind Buckeye and asks him to dance. There are only a few couples out on the floor. Most everybody else is sitting at their tables, drinking and yelling at one another over the music.

"Thanks, but no thanks," Buckeye says.

The woman looks over at me. "What about you?" she says.

My face gets hot and I begin to fidget. "No, no," I say. "No, thank you."

The woman seems amused by us and our Cokes. She takes a long look at both of us, with her hands on the back of an empty chair.

"Go ahead," Buckeye says. "I'll hold down the fort."

I shake my head and look down into my lap. "That's quite all right," I say. I don't know how to dance and the brace I'm wearing makes me walk like I have an advanced case of arthritis.

Buckeye sighs, smiles, gets up and leads the woman out onto the floor. She puts her head on his chest and I watch them drift away, swaying to the beat of a song about good love gone bad, until they are obscured by the smoke.

When the song is over Buckeye comes back with a flushed face and a look of exasperation. He says, "You see what I mean? That girl wanted things and for me to do them to her. She wanted these things done as soon as possible. She asked me if I didn't want to load her bases." He plops down in his chair and drains his Coke with one huge swallow. It doesn't even make him blink.

•

On our way home he pulls into the deserted front lot of a drive-in movie theater and floors the accelerator, yanking the steering wheel all the way to the left and holding it there. He yells, "Carnival ride!" and the car goes round and round, pinning me to the passenger door, spitting up geysers of dust and creaking and groaning as if it might fly into pieces at any second. When he finally throws on the brakes, we sit there, a great cloud of dust settling on the car, making ticking noises on the roof. The world continues to hurtle around me and I can feel my stomach throbbing like a heart.

Buckeye looks over at me, his head swaying back and forth a little, and says, "Now doesn't that make you feel like you've just had too much to drink?"

•

Simone and I are on the roof. It's somewhere around midnight and there are bats zooming over our heads. We can hear the swish as they pass. I have on only a pair of shorts, and Simone is wearing an oversize T-shirt. The warm, grainy tar paper holds us against the steep incline of the roof. Old pipes have forced us out here. Right now those pipes, the ones that run through the north walls of our turn-of-the-century house, are engaged in their semiannual vibrational moaning. According to the plumber, this condition has to do with drastic changes in temperature. We could either pay thousands of dollars to have the pipes replaced or we could put up with a little annoying moaning once in a while.

With my sister's windows closed it sounds like someone is crying in the hallway at the top of the stairs. My parents, with extra years of practice under their belts, have learned to sleep through it.

Simone and I are actually engaged in something that resembles conversation. Naturally, we are talking about Buckeye. If Buckeye has done nothing else, he has given us something to talk about.

For the first time in her life, Simone seems to be seriously in love. She's had boyfriends before, but Simone is the type of girl who'll break up with a guy because she doesn't like the way his clothes match. She's known Buckeye for all of three weeks and is already talking about names for their children. All this without anything close to sexual contact. "Do you really think he likes me?"

This is a question I've been asked before. "Difficult to say," I tell her. In my young life I've learned the advantages of ambivalence.

Actually, I've asked Buckeye directly how he feels for my sister, and this is the response I got: "I have feelings for her, feelings that could make an Eskimo sweat, but as far as feelings go, these simply aren't the right kind. There's a control problem I'm worried about."

"He truly loves the Lord," Simone says into the night. My sister, who wouldn't know a Bible from the menu at Denny's, thinks this is beautiful.

Over the past couple of weeks I've begun to see the struggle going on within Buckeye, a struggle in which the Lord is surely involved. Buckeye never says anything about it, never lets on, but it's there. It's a battle that pits Buckeye the Badger against Buckeye the Mormon. Buckeye told me that in his old life as the Badger he never stole anything, never lied without first making sure he didn't have a choice, got drunk once in a while, fought some, cussed quite a bit and had only the women who wanted him. Now, as a Mormon, there is a whole list of things he has to avoid, including coffee, tea, sex, tobacco, swearing and, as Buckeye puts it, "anything else unbecoming that smacks of the natural man."

To increase his strength and defenses, Buckeye has taken to denying himself, testing his willpower in various ways. He goes without food for two full days. While he watches TV he holds his breath for as long as he can, doesn't use the bathroom until he's within seconds of making a mess. As part of his rugby training, he has filled an old tractor tire with rocks and made a rope harness for it. Every morning he drags it through the streets from his boarding house to our house, which is at least three miles. When he comes inside he is covered with sweat but will not accept liquid of any kind. Before taking a shower he goes out to the driveway and does a hundred pushups on his knuckles.

Since they've met, Buckeye has not so much as touched my sister, she tells me, except for some innocent hand-holding. Considering that he practically lives at our house and already seems like a brother-in-law, I find this a little weird. Buckeye's non-contact love is making Simone deranged, and I must say I'm enjoying that.

I sit back and listen to the pipes moaning like mating animals behind the walls. Hummingbird Lane, the street I've lived on my entire life, stretches off both ways into darkness. The clouds are low and the lights of the city reflect off them, giving everything a green, murky glow. Next to me my sister chats with herself, talking about the intrigues of beauty school, some inane deeds of my parents, her feelings and plans for Buckeye.

"Should I get baptized?" she says. "Do you think he would want me to?"

I snort.

"What?" she says. "Just because you're an atheist or something."

"I'm not an atheist," I tell her. "I'm just not looking for any more burdens than I already have."

•

In the morning, on Sunday, Buckeye comes to our house a newly ordained elder. I come upstairs just in time to hear him explain to Simone and my parents that he has been endowed with the power to baptize, to preach the Gospel, to administer the laying on of hands, to heal. It's the first time I've seen him in his Sunday clothes: stiped shirt, blaring polyester tie and shoes that glitter so brightly youwould think they'd been shined by a Marine. He's wearing some kind of potent cologne that makes my eyes tear if I get too close. Damn me if the phrase doesn't apply: Buckeye looks born again. As if he had just been pulled from the womb and scrubbed a glowing pink.

"Gosh dang," Buckeye says, "do I feel nice."

I can handle Buckeye the Badger and Buckeye the Mormon, but Buckeye the Elder? When I think of elders I imagine bent, bearded men who are old enough to have the right to speak mysterious nonsense.

I have to admit, however, that he looks almost holy. He's on a high, he's ready to raise the dead. He puts up his dukes and performs some intricate Muhammad Ali footwork--something he does when he's feeling particularly successful. We all watch him in wonder. My parents, just back from prayer meeting themselves, look particularly awed.

After lunch, once Buckeye has left, we settle down for our "Sabbath family conversation." Usually it's not so much a conversation as it is an excuse for us to yell at one another in a constructive format. As always, my father calls the meeting to order. Then, my mother, who is a diabetic, begins by sighing and apologizing for the mess the house has been in for the past few weeks; her insulin intake has been adjusted and she hasn't been feeling well. This is just her way of blaming us for not helping out more. Simone breaks in and tries to defend herself by reminding everyone she's done the dishes twice this week. My father snaps at her for not letting my mother finish, and things take their natural course from there. Simone whines, my mother rubs her temples, my father asks the Lord why we can't be a happy Christian family and I smirk and finish off my pistachio ice cream. Whenever Buckeye is not around, it seems, we go right back to normal.

Not only does Buckeye keep our household happy and lighthearted with his presence, but he has also avoided any religious confrontation with my folks. Buckeye is not naturally religious like my parents, and he doesn't say much at all, just goes about his business, quietly believing what the folks at the Mormon church teach him. This doesn't keep Mom and Dad from loving him more than anybody. Buckeye goes fishing with my father and is currently educating my mother on how to grow a successful vegetable garden. My parents are biding their time until Buckeye comes to his spiritual senses. Then they will dazzle him with the special brand of truth found only in the Holton Hills Reformed Baptist Church, the church where they were not only saved but also met and eventually got married. Until now, though, I would have to say that Buckeye has done most of the dazzling.

•

One of the big attractions of the Mormon church for Buckeye is that it doesn't have any outright prohibitions against shooting things. Buckeye owns two rifles and a handgun he keeps under the front seat of his Oldsmobile. Today, I've got a .22 (something larger might aggravate my shoulder) while Buckeye is toting some kind of high-caliber hunting rifle that he says could take the head off a rhino. My parents have taken Simone to a fashion show in Dallas, so it's just me and Buckeye out for a little manly fun in a swamp, looking for something to shoot. The afternoon is sticky and full of bugs, and the chirping of birds tumbles down out of old moss-laden trees. A few squirrels whiz by and a thick black snake crosses our path, but Buckeye doesn't even notice. I guess if something worth-while comes along, we'll shoot it.

Buckeye and I share secrets. I suppose this is something women do all the time, but I've never tried it with any of the few friends I have. I tell Buckeye that even though I've never been with a girl and have no business fretting about such a thing, one of my biggest worries is that I will be sterile. I started worrying about it after reading an article on the tragedy sterility can cause in people's lives. When I get through the entire explanation, Buckeye looks at me twice and laughs.

"You've never popped your cork with a girl?" he says. The expression on his face would lead me to believe that he finds this idea pretty incredible. I am really embarrassed now. I walk faster, tripping through the underbrush so Buckeye can't see the blood rushing to my face. Buckeye picks up his pace and stays right with me. He says, "Being sterile would have been a blessing for me at your age. I used to lay pipe all over the place, and while nobody can be sure, there's a good chance I'm somebody's papa."

I stop and look at him. With Buckeye, it's more and more secrets all the time. A couple of days ago he told me that on a few nights of the year he can see the ghost of his mother.

"What do you mean, 'nobody can be sure'?" I say.

"With the kinds of girls I used to do things with, nothing was certain. The only way you could get even a vague idea was to wait and see what color the kid came out to be."

There's a good chance Buckeye's the father of children he doesn't even know, and I've got baseless worries about being sterile. Buckeye points his gun at a crow passing overhead. He follows it across the sky and says, "Don't get upset about that, anyway. This is the modern world. You could have the most worthless sperm on record and there'd be a way to get around it. They've got drugs and lasers that can do just about anything. Like I say, a guy your age should only have worries about getting his cork popped. Your problem is you read too much."

I must have a confused look on my face because Buckeye stops to explain himself. With a blunt finger he diagrams the path of his argument on my chest. "Now, there's having fun when you're young and aren't supposed to know better, and then there's the time when you have to come to terms with things, line your ducks up in a row. You have to have sin before there's repentance. I should know about that. Get it all out of you now. You're holding back for no good reason I can see. Some people hold it in until they're middle-aged and then explode. And frankly, I believe there's nothing quite as ugly as that."

We clamber through the brush, me trying to reason through what I've just heard and Buckeye whistling bluegrass tunes and aiming at trees. I haven't seen him this relaxed in a long time. We come into a clearing where an old car sits on its axles in a patch of undergrowth. Remarkably, all its windows are still intact and we simply can't resist the temptation to fill the thing full of holes. We're blazing away at that sorry car, filled with the macho euphoria that comes with making loud noises and destroying things, when a Ford pickup barrels into the clearing on a dirt road just to the south of us. A skinny old geezer with a grease-caked hat pulled over his eyes jumps out.

To get where we are, we've crawled through a number of barbed-wire fences, and there is not a lot of doubt we're on somebody's land. The way the old man is walking toward us, holding his rifle out in front of him, would suggest that he is that somebody, and he's not happy that we're on his property. "You sons of bitches," he growls once he's within earshot.

"How do you do?" Buckeye says back.

The man stops about 20 feet away from us, puts the gun up to his shoulder and points it first at Buckeye, then at me. I have never been on the business end of a firearm before and the experience is definitely edifying. You get weak in the knees and take account of all the deeds in your life.

"This is it," the man says. He's so mad he's shaking. My attention never wavers from the end of that gun.

"Is there some problem we don't know about?" Buckeye says, still holding his gun in the crook of his arm. I have dropped my weapon and am debating whether or not to put my hands up.

"You damn shits!" the man nearly screeches. It's obvious he doesn't like the tone of Buckeye's voice. I wish Buckeye would notice this also.

"You come in here and wreck my property and shoot up my things and then give me this polite talk. I'm either going to take you to jail right now or shoot you where you stand and throw you in the river. I'm trying to decide."

This man appears absolutely serious. He is weathered and bent and has a face full of scars; he looks capable of a list of things worse than murder.

Buckeye sighs and points his rifle at the old man. "This is a perfect example of what my uncle, Lester Lewis, retired lieutenant colonel, likes to call 'mutually assured destruction.'" Buckeye loves the idea. "We can both stay or we can both go. As for myself, this is as good a time as any. I'm in the process of putting things right with my maker. What about you?"

I watch the fire go out of the old man's eyes and his face get slack and pasty. He keeps his gun up but doesn't answer.

"Shall we put down our guns or stand here all day?" Buckeye says happily.

The man slowly backs up, keeping his gun trained on Buckeye. By the time he makes it back to his pickup, Buckeye has already lowered his gun. "I'm calling the police right now!" the man yells, his voice cracking into a range of octaves. "They're going to put you shits away for good!"

Buckeye swings his gun up and shoots once over the man's head. As the pickup scrambles away over the gravel and clumps of weeds, Buckeye shoots three times into the dirt behind it, sending up small puffs of dust. We watch the truck disappear into the trees and I work on getting my lungs functional again. Buckeye retrieves my gun and hands it to me.

"We better get," he says.

We thrash through the trees and underbrush until we find the car. Buckeye drives the thing like he's playing a video game, flipping the gearshift and spinning the steering wheel. He works the gas and brake pedals with both feet and shouts at the narrow dirt road when it doesn't curve the way he expects. We skid off the road once in a while, ending the life of a young tree, maybe, or putting a wheel into a ditch. But Buckeye never lets up. By the time we make it back to the highway we hear sirens.

"I guess that old cooter wasn't pulling our short and curlies," Buckeye says. He is clearly enjoying all this--his eyes are bright and a little frenzied. I hang my head out the window in case I vomit.

•

Once we get back to civilization Buckeye slows down and we meander along like we're out to buy a carton of milk at the grocery store. The sirens have faded and I don't even have a theory as to where we might be until Buckeye takes a shortcut between two warehouses and we end up in the parking lot of the Ranch. The place is deserted except for a rusty VW Beetle.

"Never been here this early in the day, but it's got to be open," Buckeye says, still panting. I shrug, not yet feeling capable of forming words. It's three in the afternoon.

"When's the last time you had a nice cold beer?" Buckeye says a little wistfully.

"Never, really," I admit after a few seconds. What I don't admit to is that I've never tasted any form of liquor in all my life. My parents have banned Simone and me from drinking alcohol until we reach the legal drinking age. Then, they say, we can decide for ourselves. Unlike Simone, I have never felt the need to defy my parents on this account. When I get together with my few friends we eat pizza and play Dungeons and Dragons. No one has ever even suggested beer. Since I've known Buckeye, I've discovered what a sorry excuse for a teenager I am.

Buckeye shakes his head and whistles in disbelief. I guess we surprise each other. "Then let's go get you a beer," he says. "You're thirsty, aren't you? I'll settle for a Coke."

The front doors, big wooden affairs that swing both ways, are locked with a padlock and chain. Buckeye smiles at me and knocks on one of the doors. "There's got to be somebody in there. I know some of the people who work here. They'll get us set up."

Buckeye knocks again but doesn't get any results. He peers through a window, goes back to the doors and pounds on them with both fists, producing a hollow booming noise the sounds like cannons in the distance. He kicks at the door and punches it a few times, leaving bright red circle-shaped scrapes on the tops of his knuckles.

"What is this?" he yells. "What is this?

Hey!"

He throws his shoulder into the place where the doors meet. The doors buckle inward, making a metallic crunching noise, but the chain doesn't give. I try to tell Buckeye that I'm really not that thirsty, but he doesn't hear me. He hurls his body into the doors again, then stalks around and picks up a three-foot-high wooden cowboy next to the cement path that leads to the entrance. This squat, goofy-looking guy has been carved out of a single block of wood and holds up a sign that says Come on in! Buckeye emits a tearing groan and pitches it underhand against the door, succeeding only in breaking the cowboy's handlebar mustache.

Buckeye has a kind of possessed look on his face, his eyes vacant, the cords in his neck taut like ropes. He picks up the cowboy again, readies himself for another throw, then drops it at his feet. He stares at me for a few seconds, his features falling into a vaguely pained expression, and sits down on the top step. He sets the cowboy upright and his hands tremble as he fiddles with the mustache, trying to make the broken part stay. He is red all over and sweating.

"I guess I'll have to owe you that beer," he says.

•

Simone, my father and I are sitting around the dinner table and staring at the food on our plates. We're all distraught. We poke at our enchiladas and don't look at one another. The past 48 hours have been rough on us: My mother has had a diabetic episode and Buckeye has disappeared.

My mother is upstairs, resting. The doctors have told her not to get out of bed for a week. Since yesterday morning, old ladies from the church have been bringing food, flowers and get-well cards in waves. In the kitchen, casseroles are stacked into pyramids.

And nobody has seen Buckeye in two days. He hasn't called or answered his phone. My father has just returned from the boarding house where Buckeye rents a room. The owner told him that she hadn't seen Buckeye either, but it was against her policy to let strangers look in the rooms.

"One more day and we'll have to call the police," my father says. He's made this exact statement at least three times now. Simone, distressed as she is, cannot get any food in her mouth. She looks down at the food on her plate as if it's something she can't fully comprehend. She gets a good forkful of enchilada halfway to her mouth before she loses incentive and drops the fork back onto her plate. I think it's the first time in her 21 years that she's had to deal with real-life problems more serious than the loss of a contact lens.

•

Three days ago, one day after the incident with the guns, I spent the entire morning nursing an irrational fear that somehow the police were tracking us down and a patrol car would be pulling up outside the house any minute. I was the only one home except for my mother, who had taken the day off sick from work and was sleeping upstairs.

I holed up in my basement bedroom to watch TV and read. About four o'clock I heard a knock at the front door and nearly passed out from fright. I had read about what happens in prisons to young, clean people like me. Trespassing and destruction of property, not to mention shooting in the general direction of the property's owner, might get Buckeye and me some serious time in the pen.

The knocking came again and then the front door creaked open. I pictured a police officer coming into our house with his pistol drawn. I turned off the light in my room, hid myself in the closet and listened to the footsteps upstairs. It took me only a few seconds to recognize the heavy shuffling gait of Buckeye.

Feeling relieved and a little ridiculous, I ran upstairs to find Buckeye going down the hall toward my parents' room.

"Hey, Bubba," he said when he saw me. "Nobody answered the door so I let myself in. Simone told me your mother's sick. I have something for her." He held up a mason jar that was filled with a dark green substance.

"She's just tired," I said. "What is that?"

"It's got vitamins and minerals," he said. "Best thing in the world for sick and tired people. My grandpop taught me how to make it. All natural, no artificial flavors or colors, though it could probably use some. It smells like what you might find in a baby's diaper and doesn't taste much better."

"Mom's asleep," I said. "She told me not to wake her unless there was an emergency."

"How long's she been asleep?" Buckeye asked.

"Pretty much the whole day," I told him.

Buckeye looked at his watch. "That's not good. She needs to have something to eat. Nutrients and things."

I shrugged and Buckeye shrugged back. He looked a little run-down himself. His hair flopped aimlessly around on his head. He rubbed the jar in his hands like it was a magic lamp.

"You can leave it and I'll give it to her. Or you can wait until she wakes up. Simone will be home pretty soon."

Buckeye looked at me and weighed his options. Then he turned on his heels, walked right up to my parents' bedroom door and rapped on it firmly. I deserted the hallway for the kitchen, not wanting to be implicated in this in any way. I was there only a few seconds when Buckeye appeared, short of breath.

"Something's wrong," he said. "Your mother."

My mother was lying still on the bed, her eyes open, unblinking, staring at nothing. Her skin was pale and glossy and her swollen tongue was hanging out of her mouth and covered with white splotches. I stood in the doorway while Buckeye telephoned an ambulance. "Mama?" I called from where I was standing. For some reason I couldn't make myself go any closer.

I walked out to the front yard and nearly fell on my face. Everything went black for a moment. I thought I'd gone blind. When my sight came back the world looked so sharp and real it hurt. I picked up a rock from the flower planter and chucked it at the Conleys' big bay window across the street. I missed, and the rock made a hollow thump on the siding. If I had played Little League like my father had wanted me to, that window would have been history.

I reeled around in the front yard until the ambulance and my father showed up. I hung out in the corner of the yard and swung dangerously back and forth in the lilac bushes. I watched the ambulance pull up and the paramedics run into my house, followed a few minutes later by my father. Neighbors began to appear, bald and liver-spotted heads poking out of windows and from behind screen doors.

When my father came out, he found me sitting in the gardenias. He told me that my mother was not dead but that she'd had a severe diabetic reaction. "Too much insulin, not enough food," he said, wiping his eyes. "Why doesn't she take care of herself?"

I'd seen my mother have minor reactions, when she would get numb all over and forget what her name was and we'd have to make her eat candy or drink soda until she became better. But nothing like this. My father put his hand on my back and guided me inside, where the paramedics were strapping her onto a stretcher and trying to pour orange juice down her throat. She didn't look any better than before.

"She's not dead," I said. I was honestly having trouble believing my father. I thought he might be trying to pull a fast one on me, saving me from immediate grief and shock. To me, my mother looked as dead as anything I'd ever seen, as dead as my aunt Sally in her coffin a few years ago, dense and filmy, like a figure carved from wax.

My father looked at me, his eyes moist and drawn, and shook his head. "She's serious, Lord help her, but she'll make it," he said. "I'm going to the hospital with her. I'll call you when I get there. Go and pray for her. That's what she needs from you."

I watched them load the stretcher into the ambulance and then went upstairs to pray. I had never truly prayed in all my life, though I'd mouthed the words in Sunday school. But my father had said that was what my mother needed, and as helpless and lost as I felt, I couldn't come up with anything better to do.

I found Buckeye in my sister's room kneeling at the side of the bed. My first irrational thought was that he might be doing something questionable in there, but then he started speaking and there was no doubt that I was listening to a prayer. He had his face pushed into his hands, but his voice came at me as if he were talking through a pipe. I can't remember a word he said, only that he pleaded for my mother's life and health in a way that made it impossible for me to move away from the door and leave him to his privacy. I forgot myself completely and stood dumbly above the stairs, my hand resting on the doorknob.

Buckeye rocked on his knees and talked to the Lord. If it is possible to be humble and demanding at the same time, Buckeye was pulling it off: He dug the heels of his hands into his forehead and called on the Almighty in a near shout. He asked questions and seemed to get answers. He pleaded for mercy. He chattered on for minutes, lost in something that seemed to range from elation to despair. I had never heard anything like it before. Light shot up and down my spine and hit the backs of my eyes. I don't think it's stretching it to say that for a few moments I was genuinely certain that God, who or whatever he may be, was in that room. Despite myself, I peeked around the door to make sure there was really nobody in there except Buckeye. He finished and I went down the hall to my parents' room. I sat down on their bed and mumbled to no one in particular that I backed up everything Buckeye was saying, 100 percent.

We went to the hospital, and after an eternity of reading women's magazines and listening to Simone's sobbing, a doctor came out and told us that it looked like my mother would be fine, though we were lucky we found her when we did because if we had let her sleep another half hour she certainly wouldn't have made it. Simone began to sob even louder and I looked at Buckeye, but he didn't react to what the doctor said. He slumped in his chair and looked terribly tired. Relief sucked everything out of me and left me so weak that I couldn't help but let loose a few stray tears myself.

While my father filled out insurance forms, Buckeye muttered something about needing to get some sleep. He gave Simone a kiss on the forehead and patted my father and me on the back and wandered away into the dark halls of the hospital. That was the last we saw of him.

•

My mother's nearly buying the farm and the disappearance of Buckeye, the family hero, has thrown us all into a state. I poke at a mound of Jell-O with my fork and say, "I bet he's just had a good run of luck selling pantyhose. By now he's probably selling them to squaws in Oklahoma." I don't know why I say things like this. I guess it's because I'm the baby of the family.

My father shakes his head in resigned paternal disappointment and Simone bares her teeth and throws me a look of such hate that I'm unable to make another comment. My father asks me why I don't go to my room and do something worthwhile. I decide to take his advice. Simone looks like she's meditating violence. I thump down the stairs, turn up my stereo as loud as it will go, lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling. Before I go to sleep I imagine sending words to heaven, clouds opening up before me to reveal a light so brilliant I can't make out what's inside.

I'm awakened by a loud grating sound like a manhole cover being slid from its place. It's dark in my room, the music is off and someone has put a blanket over me. There is a scrape and a thud and I twist around to see Buckeye stuffed into the small window well on the other side of the room, looking at me through the glass.

He has pushed away the wrought-iron grate that covers the well and is squatting in the dead leaves and spiderwebs that cover the bottom of it. Buckeye is just a big jumble of shadow and moonlight, but I can still make out his smile. I get up and slide open the window.

"Good evening," Buckeye whispers, polite as ever. He presses his palms against the screen. "I didn't want to wake you, but I brought you something. Do you want to come out here?"

I run upstairs, go out the front door and find Buckeye trying to lift himself out of the window well onto the grass. I help him up and say, "Where have you been?"

When Buckeye straightens up and faces me, I get a strong whiff of alcohol and old sweat. He acts like he didn't hear my question. He holds up a finger, indicating for me to wait a moment, and goes to his car, leaning to the right just a little. He comes back with a case of beer and bestows it on me as if it were a red pillow with the crown jewels on top. "This is that beer I owe you," he says, his voice gritty and raw with drink. "I wanted to get you a keg of the good-tasting stuff, but I couldn't find one this late."

We stand in the wet grass and look at each other. His lower lip is split and swollen, his half-ear is a mottled purple and he's got what looks like lipstick smudged on his chin. His boots are muddy and he's wearing the same clothes he had on three days ago.

"Your mother OK?" he says.

"She's fine. They want her to stay in bed a week or so."

"Simone?"

"She's been crying a lot."

For a long time he just stands there, his face gone slack, and looks past me to the dark house. "Everybody asleep in there?"

I look at my watch. It's almost 3:30 in the morning. "I guess so," I say.

Buckeye says, "Hey, let's take a load off. Looks like you're about to drop that beer." We walk over to the porch and sit down on the steps. I keep the case in my lap, not really knowing what to do with it. Buckeye pulls out two cans, pops them open, hands one to me.

I have the first beer of my life sitting on our front porch with Buckeye. It's warm and sour but not too bad. I feel strange, like I haven't completely come out of sleep. I have so many questions looping through my brain that I can't concentrate on one long enough to ask it. Buckeye takes a big breath and looks down into his hands. "What can I say?" he whispers. "I thought I was getting along fine and the next thing I know I'm facedown in the dirt. I lost my strength for just a minute and that's all it takes." He gets up, walks out to the willow tree, touches its leaves with his fingers and comes back to sit down. "I think I got ahead of myself. This time I have to take things slower."

"Are you going somewhere?" I ask. It seems to be the only question that means anything right now.

"I don't know. I'll keep looking for Bud. He's the only brother I've got. I've just got to get away, start things over again."

Not having anything to say, I nod. We quietly drink a couple more beers together and stare into the distance. I want to tell Buckeye about hearing him pray for my mother, thinking it might change something, but I can't coax out the words. Finally, Buckeye stands up and whacks some imaginary dust out of his pants. "I'd leave a note for Simone and your folks...." he says.

"I'll tell them," I say.

"Lord," Buckeye says. "Damn."

He sticks his big hand out for a shake, a habit he picked up from the Mormons, and gives me a knuckle-popping squeeze. As he walks away on the cement path toward his car, the inside of my chest feels as big as a room and I have an overpowering desire to tackle him, take his legs out, pay him back for my collarbone, hold him down and tell him what a goddamn bastard I think he is. This feeling stays with me for all of five seconds, then bottoms out and leaves me as I was before, the owner of a long list of emotions: sorry that it had to turn out this way for everybody, relieved that Buckeye is back to his natural self, pleased that he came to see me before he left, afraid of what life will be like without him around.

Buckeye starts up his battle wagon and instead of just driving slowly away into the distance, which would probably be the appropriate thing to do, he gets the car going in a tight circle, four, five times around in the middle of the quiet street, muffler rattling, tires squealing and bumping the curb; horn blowing, a hubcap flying into somebody's yard--all for my benefit.

I go into the house before I hear the last rumbles of Buckeye's car die away. I pick up the case of beer to hide under my bed, already planning a hell-raising beer party for my friends. I figure it's about time we did something like that. On the way down the stairs, I wobble a little and bump into things, feeling like the whole house is pitching beneath my feet. All at once it hits me that I'm officially roasted. Gratified, I go back upstairs and into my father's den, where he keeps the typewriter I've never seen him use.

I feed some paper into the dusty old machine and begin typing. I've decided not to tell anyone about Buckeye's last visit; it will be the final secret between us. Instead, I go to work composing the letter Buckeye would have left had he only learned to write. I address it to Simone and just let things flow. I don't really try to imitate Buckeye's voice, but somehow I can feel it coming out in a crusty kind of eloquence. Even though I've always been someone who's been highly aware of grammar and punctuation, I let sentence after sentence go by without employing so much as a comma. I tell Simone everything Buckeye could have felt and then some. I tell her how much she means to me and always will. I tell her what a peach she is. I'm shameless, really. I include my parents and thank them for everything, inform them that as far as I'm concerned, no two more Christian people ever walked the earth. I philosophize about goodness and badness and the sweet sorrow of parting. As I type, I imagine my family reading this at the breakfast table and the heartache compressing their faces, emotion rising in them so fully that they are choked into speechlessness. This image spurs me on and I clack away on the keys like a single-minded idiot. When I'm finished, I have two and a half pages and nothing left to say.

I take the letter out on the front porch and tack it to our front door, feeling ridiculously like Martin Luther, charged with conviction and fear. I go back inside and try to go to sleep, but I'm restless--the blood inside me is hammering against my ribs and the ends of my fingers, the house is too dark and cramped. Instead of going up the stairs, I push out my window screen, climb out through the well and begin to run around the house, the sun a little higher in the sky every time I come around into the front yard. I feel light-headed and weightless and I run until my lungs are raw, trying to get the alcohol out of my veins before my parents wake up.

The second-place winner of this year's College Fiction Contest is Catherine L. Day, of the University of Alabama. Third prizes were awarded to Scott Garson of George Mason University, Timalyne Lindquist-Frazier of Marlboro College and Alex Smith of the University of Texas.

"She has on lacy black panties and a cutoff T-shirt that is barely sufficient to hold in her equipment."