The execution of Antoine Villeneuve, the butcher of Barringtown, takes place every Tuesday at half past noon on the tether ball courts behind East Haverford High.
My classroom windows, which face the tether ball courts, have been covered with plywood to keep students from distraction. To hide the recitation of his name and crimes, as well as the noise of gunfire, the school plays the national anthem at 12:28, except on days when the PA system is broken.
Today, the PA is broken.
I hear the ragged volley of shots. My hand pauses as I write First Barbary War on the chalkboard. When the echoes fade, I finish writing and turn back to the kids.
Jacob Pelletier’s hand is raised. His hand is often raised at 12:30 on a Tuesday when the PA fails to hide the sound of Villeneuve’s firing squad. I pretend I don’t see it.
“Who can tell me which nation the United States allied with during the war?”
Jacob quietly swears, but I ignore it the same way I ignore his attempts to discuss the ghostly firing squad. When Michelle raises her hand, I call on her. She confidently answers, “Canada,” which is wrong, but we’ve moved on.
Jacob waits for me when the rest of the class leaves for their next period. “Can I talk to you, Mr. Edwards?”
“You can if it’s about anything but 12:30 on a Tuesday.”
“You’re the history teacher.”
“Yes, you’re learning history here. Right now, we’re focused on the early nineteenth century and America’s growth into a nation. We’ll talk about the second civil war when it’s time.”
“What about the butcher of Barrington stuff? It’s not in any history book.”
“Jacob.” My voice is a warning now.
“Every Tuesday Villeneuve gets murdered.”
“Last warning, Jacob.”
“Christ!”
“Detention.” I fill out a detention slip, noting the reason as swearing. I rip it off and hand it to him. “Take this to Ms. Jean at the front office.”
“I thought you were different.”
“I am different. I’m not telling them what you asked. Now go down to the office and talk to Ms. Jean.”
•••
I’ve got a free hour during fifth to catch up on grading. Samantha slides through the door, closing it behind her.
“Jacob got detention?”
I nod. “Kid is going to fail out if he keeps pushing. Maybe worse. I don’t know why he keeps asking me.”
She sits in the chair next to my desk, smoothing her wool skirt down before extending a hand and covering mine. Her skin is soft, the way I remember from last weekend when we went out for drinks and woke up at her place. The culmination of months of flirting after years of friendship. She’s intelligent and single and attractive. I’m separated, so it’s not cheating.
Why do I feel like I’m cheating?
“He trusts you. Maybe you should sit him down and have a frank conversation about the ghosts of the second civil war.” She runs her thumb softly along the junction of my thumb and forefinger. Comforting, and distracting. I pull my hand away, trying to be nonchalant, but I can tell it upsets her. She hides behind a tight smile.
“I should tell him the truth of our greatest failure?”
“I know you well enough to know you won’t. Not that I blame you, given the laws. Maybe you could at least tell him why you can’t tell him?”
“They’d jail me for that, too.”
“Sometimes,” she begins, but lets it drop. There’s more there, her sense of justice wounded. She wants to push against those boundaries. But even when we’re alone, we talk around our truths as though worried they will wound us.
She pushes against another boundary. “What are you doing this weekend?”
“Grading. I’ve got thirty papers on the writing of the Constitution to muddle my way through and it’ll take a lot of whiskey.”
“Why don’t I pick up a bottle and provide some company?”
“I need to get my work done.”
“I’ll keep you motivated. I’ll remove an item of clothing each time you finish one.”
“Sam,” I begin.
She rises. She’s stiff and the smile is gone. “You’ve been avoiding me all week.”
“I didn’t intend to.”
“So, what was last weekend?”
“I haven’t had time to think about last weekend. I’ve had classes to give and papers to grade. Last weekend was nice, but I’d rather not define it and spoil it.”
“Defining it isn’t spoiling it. It’s considerate.”
“Then consider it a start.”
“To what?”
I hold back a sigh of frustration. “I don’t know what. But everyone knows I’m still married, even if it’s only until the divorce paperwork is finished.”
“She left you almost two years ago. You stopped wearing the ring over a year ago. No one could hold you at fault for moving on.”
“She did. I did. And they would if they could. I want us both to have this without having to go through hell for it.”
“Fuck anyone who would put us through hell. See you Saturday then? Six?”
She won’t take no for an answer. I stand and pull her into a hug by way of saying yes. I add a kiss to make it clear. “I’ll clean the house before you arrive. Please be discreet. Mrs. Samuelson next door is nosy.”
“We’re two consenting adults. It’s not a crime. Not in this state anyway.”
“No, but it’s frowned on. Let’s not give them opportunity.”
“I’ll take every opportunity,” she says.
Samantha is like Jacob. Both have an overdeveloped sense of justice. I should break things off with her before we get too deep. She won’t have to deal with the public outrage at a young, single teacher caught in a sexual relationship with a still-married man.
But I don’t want to hurt her that way. Or maybe I’ve had enough of feeling hurt myself. Maybe I deserve more.
Maybe ghosts aren’t real.
Villeneuve is hardly the only ghost haunting East Haverford.
They march in formation past the Shop ‘n Save, rifles slung on their shoulders. Translucent tanks roll down Main Street like phantom horsemen. There’s even a spectral fighter who strafes the parking lot of the Elk’s lodge.
A few hundred feet from my house, a battle plays out each night. Kids call it the battle of the forks because it happens at the location where two shallow rivers come together, the specters wading through knee deep water.
Thirty years ago, the federal government decided to rebuild. The old battlefields were transformed, including the ones around East Haverford. They razed the trees and bulldozed the area smooth, filled in the craters, and replanted. They built high schools on some of them. You couldn’t tell where battles had been waged.
But if you look carefully, you find evidence. Rusting casings from bullets. Pieces of metal fragments. Shrapnel left by an exploding shell. A combat boot, faded and mud filled, half-buried in a river bank.
Human bones.
The ghosts to whom the bones belonged.
The artillery at the forks wakes me at half past one. I’d spent Friday evening alone, grading papers to get ahead so I could give Samantha the attention she deserved. Now I lay in bed, thick-headed from the whiskey I’d drunk, listening to the faint strains of battle.
I pull on clothes and go out. It’s been a couple of years since I last visited the site during the battle. I’d wanted to convince the authorities to let me publish a book about it. Young and naïve. Before rules wore me down, and my wife left me for a man who offered her a bigger house than my salary afforded.
I take a shortcut across the field behind my house and down the wooded slope. The rising crescent of moon provides enough light that I can pick my way through the thick undergrowth. The strains of battle grow louder, though muted in the odd way sounds from the past arrive in the present. I reach the river bank near the road bridge crossing it.
Members of the fifty fifth have taken up positions on a rocky rise of land farther to my south. They’re firing through the trees into a ragged line of advancing men of the ninth, who crouch as they wade across the shallow water.
I see movement near the side of the road bridge in the brief flash of passing headlights. Not a ghost, but a person. I walk along the river bank, staying close to the dark of the trees until I can get a good look at them when the next car passes.
Jacob sits on a rock, a pad of paper on his knees, a pencil in hand. He’s engrossed in whatever he’s writing and doesn’t notice me until I speak.
“What are you doing, Jacob?”
He lurches up, dropping his notepad. There is a hint of terror in his eyes, then he recognizes me and some of the tension eases, though it looks like he’ll bolt at any moment.
“Nothing,” he says, mumbling.
I glance at the notepad as another car passes. He’s drawing the battle. I bend and pick it up, thumbing back through several more pages of drawings of ghosts as he fidgets. He’s drawn many of our towns famous specters. The twelve o’clock brigade. The phantom airplane.
Villeneuve’s execution.
I offer him the notebook. “Take it, hide it. If anyone catches you with that, you know what will happen, right? You’re supposed to pretend you don’t notice the ghosts. It’s what they teach us when we’re little.”
He takes it, his eyes staring down at his shoes. “We deserve to know.”
“Maybe, but that’s not what people decided. They want to forget. Look, they could kick you out of school and keep you from graduating. Of all the kids I’ve taught, you’ve got the best chance of getting the hell out of here and doing something with your life.”
“What does it matter if it’s all a lie?”
“It matters to me, okay? Christ, go home. Please? Before someone who doesn’t know you comes along and sees you.”
He shakes his head. “I need to keep drawing this.”
I scrub my hand over my eyes. I’m tired, but I can’t leave him hanging around, waiting to get picked up. “Move down to the place where the rocky outcroppings begin, okay? No one will see you there and you get a better view of the battle. Should be over in an hour anyway. After that, go home. Understood?”
He nods. He looks grateful.
“Promise me.”
He puts his right hand over his heart. “I promise, Mr. Edwards.”
I don’t know why I open my big mouth and speak. It’s foolish. Maybe it’s my innate desire to want to help people understand history. Or maybe I simply want to stand close to those who believe in finding the truth, in the hope a little rubs off.
“It’s called the Battle of the Ledges, not the forks.”
I feel the ache of exhaustion in my bones as I walk back. The flush of whiskey still muddles my head, though the cool night air helped clear some of the stuffiness. But I know I won’t fall back asleep.
I pick up the phone and call Samantha. It rings for a long while before she answers, her voice sleep muzzy. “Hello?”
“I’m sorry. I was being an ass the other day. I want us to be something. I don’t know what, but something. Are you free now?”
“It’s the middle of the night.”
“I know. I couldn’t sleep.”
I listen to her breathing for a while. When I begin to think she’s fallen back asleep with the phone pressed to her face, she answers. “Door is unlocked. Bed is warm.”
•••
Jacob waits for me after class again on Tuesday. They fixed the PA, so all we heard were the strains of the national anthem, not the banshees of history. He’s holding his text books, wrapped in brown covers made from paper bags, which he’s covered in drawings. I wonder if he keeps the sketchpad at home or in his locker.
“What’s up, Jacob?”
He speaks rapidly. “I want to talk more. About Friday night.”
His guilty glance at the door says plenty about the topic he wants to cover. I count to ten to calm my nerves. His persistence is going to be the death of me.
“You should get to your next class.”
He steps closer and lowers his voice. “Please, Mr. Edwards. You know more than the name of the battle.”
I gave up caring about what I taught, trading values for a paycheck, but I can’t let it happen to him. He doesn’t deserve the weight of our past destroying his future. One small choice to name a battle leads to another.
“Friday night, eleven, below the ledges. If it rains, don’t come—I’m not sitting out there in a storm. It’ll wait until the next clear night.”
His grin is infectious. “Thanks.”
“I’m not doing us any favors. Now get going, you’re late.”
He hurries out the door, almost bowling into Samantha as she enters.
“Slow down, kiddo,” she tells him. He waves and hurries off.
“He seems excited.”
I nod at the door and wait for her to close it. When she’s seated, I lean forward and lower my voice, despite all the noise in the hallway from passing students. “I’ve agreed to discuss some of these ghosts with him.”
Samantha’s smile is as delighted as Jacob’s had been. “Good. I’m glad someone is finally being honest.”
“We need to be careful.”
“Of course. But we also need to start standing up to this bullshit.”
“I ignored my better judgement.”
“It’s not better if it means we have to keep lying to our students.”
“That’s easy for you to say. You teach Shakespeare. No one bans Shakespeare.”
She laughs. “They’ve been banning Shakespeare since the Puritans. The only reason it’s kept on the curriculum is people view it as traditional in the same way they think Greek and Roman statues are traditional. They only see what they want to see, stark and barren. They can’t see past the white to recognize the beautiful, messy colors.”
“I don’t know what to tell him.”
“The truth.”
“Would you?”
The thing I love most about Samantha is she doesn’t need to reflect. Her response is immediate. “If I teach history, I’m teaching all of it. Fuck them.”
•••
We grow up with ghosts. They’re part of the scenery, like birds and trees. Something which exists, to be asked about when we are young. Why is the ocean blue? Because the ocean reflects the color of the sky. Why did grandma die? Because God wanted to spend time with her. Why are there ghosts in our town? Because this is their home.
They are not real answers. They are the lies we tell children so they will stop asking. Because when the ghosts appear, we’re forced to recognize our failures. It’s easier to tell lies than face the truth.
Jacob and I watch the battle unfold from a vantage point along the ledges. I run down the movements with him, pointing out which group is which. He’s got his sketchbook, but this time he’s watching and listening, not drawing.
Round about two, as the battle slides into the final act, where the ninth is nearly wiped out to the last man, I run out of things to say. The only things left are the reasons it happened, and why Villeneuve is executed every Tuesday behind the school.
“I’m heading to the house. When you’re done here, come up. We can talk more if you have questions.”
I put on a pot of coffee. More for me than him, but I make extra. I’m dozing, my cup growing cold in front of me on the veneered kitchen table when he knocks quietly. I let him in.
“You want some coffee?”
He shakes his head.
“More for me then.” I refresh my cup, add sugar and cream, then sit and nod at the seat across from me. “Show me your notepad.”
His sketches are good. Even more so because he did some of them at night, when fine details were hard to see. “This is excellent work.”
He’s quiet for a bit, watching me as I look through his sketch book. He waits until I slide it back before he speaks again. “Why won’t they tell us about the execution, Mr. Edwards?”
“Between you and me? Because it’s a national embarrassment. Maybe that’s all it should be for you going forward. Is that enough?”
“No.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think it would be. Everyone else your age is worried about who they’ll go to the prom with. But not you. Why?”
He turns to the incomplete image he’s working on, a sketch of the river where the twin forks merge. Pencil in hand, he fills in the details of one of the ghosts, floating face down along the current.
“My granddad passed away couple of years ago,” he says. I barely hear him over the scritch of his pencil on the paper.
“I’m sorry. Were you close?”
He shrugs. “Didn’t see him much. Mom and dad wouldn’t let me visit. Said he was a crackpot. When he passed, we were in the hospital. He’d been there a few weeks. Cancer. Mom and dad went down to the cafeteria to get some food. Maybe they were tired and forgot they didn’t want me left alone with him. When they were gone, he told me things about the war and the ghosts. I asked about Antoine Villeneuve and he said he served with him. He was about to tell me everything when they came back. He died the next day.”
The pencil keeps moving, but Jacob stops talking.
“What did he tell you, Jacob?”
He looks at me with a face betraying some great want. “He told me we lost the war.”
“We fought ourselves, Jacob. We’re still here.”
“But the good side lost.”
“What is the good side? American exceptionalism? Capitalism? The Constitution? All of these things still exist.”
“What about free speech?”
I shrug. “What about them? We’re enjoying them right now.”
“Are we if they won’t let us talk about ghosts? You can’t even tell us why you can’t tell us. That’s not free.”
“Only because you’re not ready to learn about them.”
“When did you learn about it?”
“College.”
“Here?”
“No. Canada.” I realize how hollow my arguments sound when I admit I learned our own history in another country.
“I already know the truth. I just want details.”
“The truth isn’t important.”
“Stop it!” The pencil cracks and snaps in half. “They spoon feed us lies every day. You told me to come here because you want to tell me the truth. Please.”
I shouldn’t be arguing with the kid. I’m tired and he’s right. “Why do you think I have enough spine to stand up to the law?”
“Because you don’t tell them why you give me detention. Any other teacher would.”
“Samantha wouldn’t.”
“Who?”
“Ms. Walters? English?”
“I don’t have her.”
“You’d like her.”
“So, will you tell me? About Villeneuve?”
Fuck it. I rationalize to myself it’s about honoring Jacob’s grandfather. Maybe he really did serve with Villeneuve. It’s as good a reason as the others I don’t have.
I take a book from the bookshelf in my living room and bring it back to him. The dust cover is dog eared and stained.
“A History of Accounting?” He glares at it.
“I disguised it when I realized I’d never get it published, and they’d probably arrest me for writing it. It’s about Villeneuve and the final days of the second civil war.”
He opens it and riffles a few pages. Finally, he nods. “All right.”
“Anything else?”
He shakes his head and stands, picking up his pad. He tucks it and the book under his worn jean jacket. “I have to get home before my dad wakes.”
“Leave the front door unlocked when you go out.”
He nods and leaves. I dump the remaining coffee in the sink and go upstairs to my cold, empty bed. I feel hollow. I don’t know if giving him my book was right or wrong, only that it solves nothing and I feel no better. So, why’d I do it? Maybe not wanting to disappoint Sam.
Or myself.
•••
Sam is napping upstairs when I answer a knock at the door. She’s been over more in the past seven days since I gave Jacob the book. We’ve even had some small talk about her moving in. The time on the cat clock with its swinging tail says it’s four thirty in the afternoon.
There are two men outside. “Can I help you?”
“You’re Mr. Edwards, right?” a familiar man in a checkered jacket asks. “My son has you for history this year. We met at the parent teacher thing.”
“Mr. Pelletier,” I say, recognizing him. My heart skips hard in my chest and blood pounds in my ears. “What’s this about?”
“I caught my son sneaking in this morning,” Pelletier says. “I found his drawings, and the book you gave him.”
Samantha walks up behind me. Wrong time, wrong place. “What’s going on?”
He glares at her. “Tell your wife to go back inside.”
“Yes,” I answer quickly, glad Pelletier doesn’t recognize her. I turn and hold my hands out, chivvying her back from the door. “Honey, why don’t you go wait for me in the dining room. I’ll only be a moment.”
“Get out here you son of a bitch,” Mr. Pelletier growls. “You gave it to him, don’t try and lie. I had to smack it out of him, but he told me.” His meaty hands are balled into fists and his face is flushed red.
“I don’t know anything about a book.”
“Liar,” Pelletier says. He grabs my arm, yanking me outside. I stumble and fall to my knees. Someone punches the back of my head. Then a boot hits me in the jaw, sending sparks through my brain. The pain roars in a second later.
“Stop!” Samantha screams.
I’m curled up on the grass, Mr. Pelletier beating the snot out of me. I catch glimpses of Samantha trying to push past the other man, but he stops her.
Pelletier screams at me as he punches me. “I’ll teach you to fill my kid full of that crap, you fucking bastard.”
I’m not sure how long it goes on. At some point Pelletier got hold of a bat and only his friend holding him back keeps him from beating me to death.
“Enough, Vince! I said you should rough him up a bit, not kill him.”
“Let me crack the bastard’s head open.”
“Then you’ll be the one doing hard time, not him. Delores will have a conniption and I don’t have the energy to deal with your wife. Let it go.”
A cop car pulls up in front of the house, and they both turn to look at it. Through swelling eyes, I see the bat hit the ground next to my face.
Pelletier and the other man walk over and begin arguing with the two officers who get out of the car. Sam kneels next to me, using her sleeve to wipe blood from my face. When a cop comes over, I sit up so I can answer questions.
“I want to press charges,” I say.
“You’re under arrest,” he says. “Let’s get you in the car.”
I think they’re confused—they must mean Pelletier. Instead, they cuff me and dump me in the back seat. I hear Samantha yelling. All the neighbors are outside watching the show. Mrs. Samuelson has plenty of gossip to share with the sewing circle.
Samantha bails me out late at night after borrowing enough cash. After several hours of questioning, during which I’m certain I was concussed and unable to make a cogent statement, they let a medic patch me up. Nothing broken except my pride, thankfully.
“You’ll need to be in court Wednesday morning bright and early at ten,” the front desk officer says.
“What are the charges?” Samantha asks.
“Violation of the youth corruption act and resisting arrest.”
“He was the one who got beaten, and he didn’t resist arrest!”
He shrugs and hands the paper work over. “Tell it to the judge.”
The cool evening air feels good on my skin. I limp to Samantha’s car. I haven’t thanked her for coming to get me—haven’t said anything. I’m afraid if I show her care and compassion, I won’t be able to do what I know I must to protect her.
When she closes her door, she reaches for my hand. “I’ll take you to the hospital.”
I yank my hand away. “No. Take me home. I’ll pay you back for the bail soon as I can.”
“Mathew,” she begins.
“Take me home!”
We drive there in silence. She gets out when I do and tries to put my arm over her shoulder. I want to let her. I want to go inside and cry and have her hold me and tell me it’s all going to be fine. We’re fine. Jacob is fine.
I push her away. “Leave me alone.”
“I’m trying to help, Mathew.”
I build a cage around my heart. “You’ve done enough. Just go home.”
“Mathew…”
“Go away! Stop fucking with my life.” I inhale deeply and I say the words I will hate myself for saying for the rest of my life. “This is all your damned fault.”
“But I—”
“—but you what? Wanted to encourage law breaking? Or you thought sex was love? Grow up, Samantha. It’s just sex. It didn’t mean anything.”
Lights on the neighbor’s porch blaze on. Mrs. Samuelson peaks through her lacy white curtains, watching the show. The display is loathsome and I despise myself.
Samantha’s eyes grow damp, but she sets her mouth in a firm line and says nothing. She spins and walks to her car, her spine rigid. It’s all I can do not to grab her and kiss her and beg forgiveness and tell her I love her.
I let her drive away because I love her. I will either face trial, or I’ll run. She has a life ahead of her. She can go back to work, put her head down, and get through this safely.
I flip off the old bitch next door, pick up the baseball bat lying on my lawn, and limp inside to find my whiskey.
•••
It’s Tuesday and the twelve o’clock brigade marches past my house. I sit on my sofa watching. I’m holding my termination letter in my hand, half crumpled.
The cat clock chimes noon. Its eyes swing back and forth, glancing at the utility drawer next to the sink in the kitchen. I open it and find the matches.
“Good call.” I light the termination notice. When it’s burning cheerily, I toss it into the fireplace.
I grab my keys and head for my car. I’ve decided to run. I’ve got a packed suitcase in the trunk, the baseball bat on the back seat. I’ll cross into Canada, take refuge in the country which taught me my nation’s history. Live with others who sought asylum decades ago. The ones not as brave as Villeneuve.
The twelve o’clock brigade marches on. One of them turns to look at me as though it can see me through the dark veil of a future not yet written it will never experience. One of Villeneuve’s men, whose end comes soon after this brief parade through a town of ghosts.
“Hey, you,” I say, but the brigade fades. “You can’t look at me like that. You’re history. No one believes in ghosts.”
I climb into my car. I think about the way Sam used to look at me, when she didn’t yet know what a coward I could be. I think about her alone in that school and what she will do.
I know where I should be going.
I reach the high school parking lot at twelve twenty-four. I take the baseball bat with me.
Jean sees me passing by. “You’re not supposed to be here, Mr. Edwards,” she calls, stepping out of the office, but I speed past and hurry to my classroom.
Samantha is standing by the chalk board. Her face somber, eyes shining.
“Who can tell me about the second civil war—” She stops when she sees me. “Mathew?”
I grab her and lead her to the door. She’s off balance and stumbling.
“I’m sorry I hurt you, Sam.” I turn her as I speak, putting her back to the open door. “But this isn’t your lesson to give.”
“Mathew, wait.”
I push her into the hall, her face confused outrage. I shut the door and lock it. I prop my chair under the door knob.
The PA blares the anthem of a nation of ghosts. I swing the bat, silencing the speaker with a squeal of static. We still hear it, but it’s muffled.
The kids sit in silence, eyes wide. What hits me hardest, though, is Jacob’s absence.
“Move away from the windows.” The kids are frozen for a moment, but hustle aside when I lift the bat and walk towards the back. I smash the glass and bash one of the plywood panels until it falls free.
The execution has begun.
“Come,” I wave at the open window.
The kids rush to watch, crowding around the opening, shushing each other so they hear the death sentence read. Antoine Villeneuve’s eulogy.
Someone pounds on the classroom door.
“Mr. Edwards, open this door. Mr. Edwards, do you hear me?”
“Hey!” I yell, getting their attention. “It’s time for you to learn the history of Colonel Antoine Villeneuve, the falsely accused Butcher of Barringtown.”
The pounding grows louder.
