The Resurrection of Joleigh-Anna Kelmann

Goodbye, Matt-1

Goodbye, Matt

MATT’S LIFE ENDED UNEXPECTEDLY—IN a moment of reckless insanity.

Wednesday evening, we were a close-knit, fun-loving fivesome—

Wednesday night . . .

Matt was gone.

It’d been one of the rare occasions we’d gone our separate ways. Generally, we were inseparable—my cousins, Matt and Lannette Kelmann, my twin brother, Jace-Anthony, my fiancé—Matt’s closest friend—Dr. Irvyn Woodworth, and I. Only, Matt had recently found a girl he cared about almost as much as racing and his cars, and that night they'd parted from us in the parking lot of Overlook Manor, our favorite restaurant for special occasions.

For me, every night out with Irvy is a special occasion. We were supposed to be getting married Sunday. I wanted to celebrate that every hour of every day. We had such a good time that evening. Even Krysta hadn't really wanted to break from our little group. But Matt said he had something to take care of.

So, they left.

If only Irvy and I had insisted we stay together, Matt would be alive now.

Dad says we can’t be sure of that—maybe we’d be dead too. But that’s not so. It would’ve all been different if he hadn’t gone off alone that night. I say alone, because Krysta hadn’t a clue how to handle Matt; how to keep him from doing what he did. She hadn’t been dating him long enough to have developed that skill. Although to be honest, few had it.

Yet, I don’t think it was for the thrill of it that’d made him go along with this brainless idea. It’d been a challenge—something Matt could never walk away from. Not even for the sake of his new love. He had a low opinion of guys that wimped out.

Irvy would’ve known how to make him give up a foolish challenge without hurting his pride. He’d been doing it for years. Like the time Sal Cristiano and his i***t friends challenged Matt to tie a ribbon on the tail of Mr. Henning’s bull, Fritz.

Dashing through the narrow end of the field was one thing. Actually, playing in the field where the beast grazed was another. The only humans he tolerated were the Hennings, and he did that grudgingly.

That never stopped us from crossing the field to get to where we wanted to go, but we always crossed it at that narrow part, so we could be fairly certain of rolling under the fence before we got gored. Then one day we saw Fritz tear apart dogs with his vicious horns and his well-aimed kicks. These two probably deserved their fate—they’d been up to no good in that field, worrying the cattle and attacking a couple of Mr. Henning’s best cows. Fritz wasn’t satisfied until neither dog moved.

So, when Matt showed every determination to display the color of his courage, even the one who emulated his every move was alarmed. That’d be me. And for every reason I had for why he shouldn’t do it, Matt had two for why he would do it. Not saying they were great reasons but to the kids we were at the time, they sounded like good ones.

Except to Irvy. After we other three had made our attempts to talk sense into Matt, he took over.

“Matt, this oughta be a two-way street here! Challenge one of them back! Make ‘em prove their own courage!” Irvy urged him. “Because, I think that when Fritz impales you on those horns leaving you bloody in the field, so will they! They’ll deny they ever dared you to do it! Why give them the satisfaction of laughing at you like that?”

Matt could take a joke on himself and be the first to laugh. But to be laughed at in a scornful way, that was different. Then he became something close to Fritz’s brother, and you better be booking it to the next county if you were the one mocking him. He’d looked Irvy in the eye, questioned softly, “Laughing at me?”

“Sure! That’s the only reason they dared you! For a laugh! They probably said, “Hey, we got nothing else to do today! Let’s get the brave i***t, Matt Kelmann to tease Henning’s bull and watch him bleed!” So where do they get off challenging you when they’re as yellow as bananas themselves!”

“Yeah! Yeah, they talk big, don’t they? Let’s see if their bravery is as big as their mouths or as puny as their brains!”

At the appointed time, we all met at the upper end of the Henning’s field. Matt challenged Sal. “I’ll tie the ribbon on Fritz’s tail, but you have to go with me and catch the tail so’s I can do it!”

Sal protested, and his buddies started in on Matt; but Matt cut them off, saying, “You said I had to tie the ribbon on the tail, you didn’t say anything about me having to catch it myself. Now—I’m willing! Got the ribbon right here in my hand. Show me your guts!”

Well, they all decided to keep their guts, and we taunted and jeered them so bad they skulked away and left us alone for a long while after. Matt came off looking like Hercules without having to do anything. But if Irvy hadn’t said anything to him, he’d’ve jumped right into that field and either have wound that ribbon on Fritz’s tail or been killed trying.

Since he couldn’t stand to have anyone think his courage was less than True Blue American, his funeral might have taken place long before now. So I know if we’d been with him Wednesday night, only four days ago . . . only four days . . . was like four years . . . I know Irvy would’ve shown him that this new situation was just like the one with the bull.

Very much like it—for it'd been those same guys who’d challenged him this time as well. Or at least, a couple of the same ones. They’d given themselves up to police the next day. We wanted to run right over and demand their blood then and there—but Mom and Aunt Lynore wouldn’t let us. Their hearing was set for the beginning of next month. We’d have our say then. So, we have to curb our impatience and vengeful feelings—and wait. But it’s hard.

Truth is, though, Matt had always been a little hyper-crazy. If he didn’t have something constructive to do, he’d find something else to do. Not necessarily always destructive, but often not within house rules either. Always interesting though! Maybe that’s what I’d admired about him as a tot. Man, he could egg me on to anything, and I’d do it to win his approval, his admiring, “Whoa, you got guts, Little Jo! More than anyone else—even Irvy!”

By the time I’d turned nine, he’d settled into his role in a more companionable way, and we would plan things together instead of him simply daring me to follow.

Irvy and Jace always attempted to put a lid on some of our wilder notions. But other times they’d buckled under our taunts of “Chic-ken!” and “Scaredy cat!” to prove they had the same color guts we had. Lannette copied us with never a whimper. She’d eat worms first before she let anyone challenge her courage! Except for when it had to do with anything concerning Fritz.

We got our share of bumps and bruises, plus the occasional broken arm or leg, punctuated by disciplines of every sort. None of which pierced our armor. We’d be back at it soon’s the dust settled, the redness was out of our seat, limbs were healed, and/or the grounding period lifted.

Amazingly, our parents had not only kept full heads of naturally hued hair plus their youthful looks, but also their sense of humor. Probably was what got them through it all.

Luckily for us, they never demanded we pack our bags and leave! Really, no one could’ve asked for more understanding, loving parents!

The rest of our relatives bet against us ever reaching our eighteenth birthdays. Except maybe in a wheelchair. Or more likely as a complete vegetable on life support.

They all lost their bets for we all made it to our twenty-fourth in great shape, Matt and Irvy achieving their twenty-eighth in fact. But Matt had missed the big 3-0, (the magic year we were all supposed to grow real brains and settle down for good), by a year and two months. Now the bet was we’d all perish before we knew better.

Well, so we didn’t all have the same sort of brains! Who does? Matt and Irvy’d gone to school together from kindergarten on—his father favoring sending him to public schools rather than private as his mother’d wanted.

While Irvy excelled in everything he did, Matt hadn’t taken school too seriously. Since he couldn’t sit still for long, he’d considered studying a waste of time and was the class cut-up for all his school years. Pretty much graduated by the skin of his teeth.

Right along he’d hung around Dad and Uncle Mitch’s repair shop, learning all he could about cars. Soon as he graduated, he began working as a member of a pit crew, going often to the races and betting on them too.

Then he discovered rally racing.

Entered the annual dash to the top of Mt. Washington in New Hampshire and was hooked after that. He took a course at one of the rally schools and then became a co-driver for a few races. However, Matt being Matt, co-driving was far too tame to him. He wanted to be behind the wheel tooling along the mountainous passes, dirt roads, tracks and trails of the grueling courses. But he wanted a navigator he could depend on; someone who could read the route book and the terrain.

Didn’t need too much encouragement from him for me to go and get my license. Nine times a year, we were a team on those rally courses that only a mad man would consider navigating. We acquired a Super Beetle and a Subaru for our meets and were climbing steadily up our levels. If I have to say it myself, we were a great team!

To do him credit, anything to do with cars and racing, Matt was great at. Once I became his co-driver, he and Dad initiated me under the hood and body of the cars, too. When we ran into problems, was a great feeling to know I’d been able to help get it going again.

Lately, we’d begun to take my little brother Jarrett-Andrew with us. He loved chatting with the drivers and their co-drivers, enjoyed mingling with the racing crowd, watching the action from the safety of Dad’s arms or Irvy’s shoulder. Just a couple weeks ago, Jarrett announced his intention of becoming Matt’s co-driver and assistant mechanic when he grew up.

“Hey, buddy, that’s great! I’m waiting for you, okay? You grow up quick, all right! Be four today but tomorrow I need you to be twenty-eight!”

“Okay!” Jarrett had answered all excited and determined to make it so. “Cuz when Irby marries Joleigh, you need a new nav’gater, huh, Matt? Okay! I eat some more Cheerios and I be bigger tomorrow! You gonna let me drive too, huh!”

“You bet! When you’re big enough, you’ll be driving these babies with me, buddy!” And Matt’d shaken hands with Jarrett just as if he’d been an adult. He hadn’t just been pacifying a toddler either. Matt passed his enthusiasm onto anyone who’d stand still long enough to listen, whatever their age.

Some said rally racing was pretty much like camping with a race car—but I don’t know . . . it was more than that to us. No other camping trip I ever went on featured the thrills of racing against time and terrain at high speed!

Road, rally, drag . . . I love it all. Matt even backed me to win the Powderpuff demolition derby at the fairgrounds a few times. Wearing my own colors, I recently astonished everyone by winning a couple drag racing competitions in his dragster.

Mom took pictures of my big event and had them enlarged and framed for the living room to spite The Club—the exclusive clutch of aunts and older cousins who predicted the worst doom for us. I swear they met weekly to discuss the issue. Or, no, probably daily!

Their meddling and their strictures never dulled the twinkle in Matt’s eyes and his good-humored grin had rarely faded. Moreover, anyone could count on him to listen to a sackful of troubles as well as celebrate good times. No matter how busy he was, he’d take time to let us spill our guts or cry our hearts out.

He might tell us what he thought about the situation but more often he’d get us to figure out the solution ourselves. He’d drape an arm about our shoulders, give us a quick hug, and he’d say, “Look, you gotta do what you gotta do! But, what is it you want to do? Maybe that’s what you gotta do! Y’ see? You figure that out and you’ll be as happy as me!”