Talking about Rob led to talking about others from his group. Pete was the next victim but she seemed to hedge around saying anything definite about him. While it was true all the boys had been part of each other’s families when they were little there was an exception. Pete’s family was just that. There was nothing wrong with them, they were just somewhat snobbish. None of the boys even thought about calling Pete’s mother “Mom” they hardly ever even heard Pete say it. It was always “Yes, ma am’” and “No, ma’ am” around her. Because of that they hadn’t hung out around there much. Jim’s mother had always liked all of Jim’s friends and hated saying anything mean about them so Jim knew it really bothered her to talk bad about Pete. If she could’ve said anything good she surely would’ve talked about that instead, but unfortunately there wasn’t much good to talk about concerning Pete. In Jim’s opinion he kinda brought it on himself by living out on the edge of the woods all by himself. She felt sorry for Pete and the unfortunate things he was going through. Jim’d heard he hadn’t had an easy time of it since he’d left. He’d also heard, from his mother, that Pete was hardly ever seen in town anymore except on the rare occasion he needed something. On those occasions he always showed up shabbily dressed, looking like some type of homeless person. If that wasn’t bad enough he made things worse by mumbling and talking to himself. He said things most people couldn’t understand but some of them did and they spread rumors. If anyone tried talking to him he just started rocking back and forth and mumbled something back at them. Luckily not too many people tried talking to him, his body odor kept them away pretty much. Rumor had it he didn’t bathe much. Recently, and this was what really upset his mother, some of the kids had taken to teasing him. They’d also started going out to his house at night and throwing rocks at it. The sheriff never caught anyone but his mother had heard them talking about it on more than one occasion. She’d gone and told Rob about it and he said he’d drive by every now and then and make sure Pete was ok but that was all he could do unless something worse happened. Mom didn’t think that was enough but knew there was nothing really Rob could do unless he caught the kids in the act.
Other than that Pete just came, got his food, got teased and picked on and left. Jim could tell his mother wished there was something more she could do, but knew there was nothing. It didn’t make her very happy that one of her boys was considered the town weirdo but unfortunately that was life.
After that bit of bad news was over with she surprised him and gave him a bit of good news. She happily told him that Grandma was still alive and kicking. About a year ago she’d finally quit working at the store and semi retired. Semi retired because instead of sitting at home taking it easy like a retired person was supposed to do, she could still be found making her way around town gossiping just like she used to do. The only difference now was that instead of the gossip coming to her she was going to it.
After a while the conversation drifted off into a slightly tense silence. Everything the two of them had wanted to talk about had been said. All that was left was the thing neither wanted to mention. Finally after a couple of minutes Jim broke the silence.
“So how did it happen?” he asked quietly.
“I was wondering when you were going to get around to asking,” she replied.
“Well, I didn’t really want to, but it’s not going to go away just because I want it to, so, I figured better now than later,” he snapped. “But,” he said a little more pleasantly after calming down, “I want to know so that I can have some sort of chance of getting over this whole thing. If I just keep thinking about it not knowing what really happened all I’ll do is make myself go crazy.” He watched her while waiting for her to speak. When she didn’t say anything after a few seconds he tried again. “Look Mom, I know I haven’t seen him in a while but he was one of my best friends, hell if you think about it I’ve known him for pretty much my whole life.”
“Well,” his mother began slowly, “I really don’t know all the details so I’m a little reluctant to say too much. I don’t want to get it wrong. If you want to know everything you’d have to talk to Rob. I heard he was there when they found him so he’d be your best bet. All I have really is gossip.” She paused and took a sip of her coffee. Jim wanted to hurry up and get this part over with. He really didn’t want to talk about how his friend had died but knowing would make it easier for him to accept so he had to do it. “Now then,” his mother began again, “from what I understand, Tommy went hunting by himself early that morning. Apparently he got out to his tree stand and was sitting there fine and dandy when for some unknown reason he fell out.”
“That doesn’t sound like something that would’ve killed him,” Jim said slightly confused. “His stand could only be about what, ten feet up? It might have hurt him a little bit, but it’s not something he should’ve died from. Even then it that thing was so hard I don’t think it would’ve done more than knock him out.” He didn’t know what it was but from the little he’d just heard something about this whole accident wasn’t making any sense. Falling from ten feet up wasn’t something a person should die from. Sure, it would hurt but Jim had heard of people falling from greater heights than that and coming out no worse for wear so why hadn’t Tommy?
“Jim, that’s not the only thing,” his mother said interrupting his thoughts. What else could there be, he thought.
She paused to collect her thoughts. He didn’t think he was going to like what she had to say. If her demeanor was any indication it wasn’t good, although not much recently had been. “I don’t like thinking of Tommy like this,” she said after a few seconds. “You’ll have to excuse me if it takes me a minute to get going,” she paused again. Jim didn’t want to hurry her but he was beginning to wonder what she was holding back that could be so bad that his mother was having this hard of a time speaking about it. She’d been around when other people had died but Tommy’s death must’ve been worse than anything else she’d experienced. It obviously wasn’t just another unfortunate accident that happened in most small towns.
“Jim,” his mother finally said, “once they found Tommy he wasn’t exactly just laying on the ground.”
“How couldn’t he be on the ground? If he fell he had to land somewhere. He wasn’t just floating was he?” Jim answered.
“No he wasn’t floating and I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t be a smartass. This is hard for me too,” she answered smartly. Instead of saying anything else he picked up his coffee cup and took a sip. “He was stuck to a tree,” she said quietly just as he was about to swallow.
“A tree?” he squawked spitting out everything in his mouth. “How was he stuck to a tree? What are you talking about Mom?”
“Well, like I said, he fell,” she said as she started wiping up the mess he’d made, “but when he fell he didn’t exactly land on the ground. Now remember this is just a rumor. It could be nothing but gossip from them that do that sort of thing but from what I hear he supposedly landed on a broken tree of some sort.” He was about to ask just what the hell she was talking about when he looked up and saw that his mothers eyes were about to overflow. What she was saying didn’t make much sense but it also wasn’t her fault. She was just answering his question. He knew he shouldn’t be yelling at her and felt bad that he was, but unfortunately she was the only one there. How could somebody fall on a tree? He wondered. It just wasn’t something that happened, at least not around a place like this. He was trying to figure it out when it finally dawned on him.
“Wait a minute, you mean he was impaled?” he choked out hoping she would say no.
“Yes that’s exactly what I mean,” she said as tears began trickling over the edges of her eyelids. “I just didn’t want to say it like that. I really don’t like that word and I really don’t like thinking of Tommy in that way. It’s bad enough he’s gone I don’t have to think about how he went.” Jim watched the tears run down her face as he tried to comprehend how something like this could have happened.