Do Unto Others

He came pedaling down the road, carefully perched on his little shiny blue bicycle. He stopped about three feet dead from me, the tires pealing pleasantly as he halted. “Josh. Hi, how are you?” Even as I asked, I glanced back at the Schneiders’. We were in front of my house, so I didn’t think Hally or Janice could see. I’m sure if they could have, Josh would’ve been snapped up quick. “Got a second to talk?” “Sure,” he sniffed. Where Hally was a younger version of his father (my cousin Harold), Josh was a petite Janice. He resembled her, with his fine looks and brownish hair, but more than that, he acted like her. I’d never smiled so much as a child. I don’t think I’d seen Josh without a grin before, cheering up the other kids. He wasn’t smiling now, looking a sad figure in dusty jeans, a cartooned T-shirt, and neon-lined tennis shoes. “Hey, buddy, you doing okay?” I squatted down next to him. He shrugged. “I guess so.” “You sad about something?” Josh nodded. “I miss Miz Harcher. I loved her.” My throat tightened. Someone did actually care about the old battle-ax. I chastened myself for thinking that. Beta’s parents must have loved her, surely. Perhaps some young man once considered her pretty and smart and fascinating. But that was all long ago. Maybe Josh’s love was the only love Beta knew. My jaw felt tight as I looked into Josh’s dark, unhappy eyes. “I know you did, buddy. She loved you, too.” I said it with no knowledge of its truth, but it sounded fair. If she could have loved anyone, maybe it was this little boy who was so unsullied by the sin she saw in everyone else. “Then why’d she have to die, Jordy?” Josh asked, his face frowning into tears he was repressing. God, how do you explain death to a five-year-old? I couldn’t do it. I didn’t have a clue. I took one of Josh’s hands in mine. “Someone took her away, Josh.” I fumbled for an explanation to help, but Josh didn’t need my words. He had his own. “One of the bad people did it,” he said, folding thin arms over his stomach. The little Martian man from the Looney Tunes cartoons peered at me from Josh’s T-shirt, his head peeking above Josh’s crossed arms and daring me to contradict the boy. I didn’t know what defined a bad person, but Josh was correct to a degree. “Yes, a bad person killed her.” “She said they were here,” Josh added mournfully, and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “Bad people were here?” I asked, trying not to sound too stupid in front of this bright little boy. This was no news to me, though. I was stupid much of the time, it seemed, and Beta thought just about everyone was pretty bad. “Yeah, she said they were.” Josh blinked at me, then glanced around, as though bad people might creep up right behind us. I tented my cheek with my tongue, thinking. “What did she say about the bad people, Josh? Who were they?

You can tell me.” I just hoped I wasn’t on the dishonor roll. Josh shrugged with the same I-don’t-know attitude I’d experienced far too much lately. He must be learning it from all the adults around him.

“She just said all the bad people were going to pay.” “Pay? For what?”

“They were going to pay her. So she could build this place to talk to God,” he said, glancing toward his house. My eyes followed his, relieved to see his front yard empty. The church. They were going to pay her for the church. I took Josh’s shoulders and made him look into my eyes. “Josh, listen to me. What you just said to me is very important. Could you tell someone else about it? Would you tell Chief Moncrief?” Josh considered his civic duty. “Would he give me a ride in the patrol car and lemme run the siren?” he asked seriously. “Yes, he will. And I’ll call you every time we get a new children’s book at the library,” I offered. This literary bribe didn’t have the glamour of the patrol car, but it was enough. Josh took my hand and followed me into the house. A glass of milk, two slightly stale cookies, and a phone conversation with Junebug later, I dispatched Josh home. Junebug was still on the line when I came back in. “So now do you believe my blackmail theory?” I demanded. “It gives us something to work on, which is only a shade better than nothing. We need some solid proof, Jordy,” Junebug opined. “So let’s go over to Beta’s and get it,” I insisted. “Look, it’s coming up on three. I told Shannon we’d meet her there around then and she’d help us look around.” “Shannon, eh?”

Junebug asked. “She’s still Miz Harcher to me. I must not have your charm.” “We all have our small burdens to bear. You going to be there or not?” “I’ll be there,” he huffed. “See you shortly.” I replaced the phone in the hook. The bad people indeed, Josh, I thought. From the mouths of babes.

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