The Dead Bell

PROLOGUE

PROLOGUE

SUMMER 1972

Springfield, Illinois

That year, the ghosts arrived.

As far back as I can remember, the hot months of summer were spent in large rubber rings suspended in the cool clear water of Springfield Lake. Stuffed into tubes, I and my best friends, Bobby Dolan and Gerry Obersheimer, drifted through lazy days which seemed to last forever, a time marked only by sun and water.

As we floated, Bobby droned on about the new video game called Space Invaders. Now just thirteen, Bobby spent every waking hour and most of his money at the video arcade. When he was picked up at the arcade for truancy, his mother sent him to the lake, believing the fresh air would be good for him.

Obersheimer, the only son of industrious first- generation Germans, carried the weight of his complicated, unwieldy surname with stoicism. He had not complained when his name had inevitably devolved into the handy nickname, Kraut. Kraut’s parents worked during the day and left him in the care of his significantly older sister, Greta Obersheimer. Greta, the purported summer chaperone, also bore the weighty soubriquet Great A, given in homage to her greatest natural asset.

Hoping to free herself of the odious responsibility of looking after her brother, Great A instead offered Kraut money—in her words, to dig a hole and bury himself in it. When these instructions failed, Great A—typically an indifferent sibling at the best of times and with a false bonhomie bordering on the grotesque—would urgently press an additional ten dollars into Kraut’s sweaty hand. Inherently distrustful by nature, and blessed with a wholesome entrepreneurial spirit, Kraut immediately suspected his sister’s motives and investigated. He was not disappointed. He recounted his exploits to our delight. He told us he’d crawled (I had no trouble imagining him as a latter-day commando) through the underbrush, over vines and brambles, to the back window on the first floor of his house. Once in place, he lifted his head in time to hear the throes of Great A’s carnal awakening, courtesy of Ricky, her boyfriend. In keeping with his genuine free-market spirit, Kraut leveraged his silence into a steady flow of cash from Ricky and Greta.

That summer, we’d all turned thirteen, and only Ben Edison, my older brother at fifteen, had access to illicit contraband: cigarettes, beer, and girlie mags. Although two years older, Ben’s talent at procuring the “good stuff” meant he was included in our group without question. What he got from hanging out with a group of thirteen- year-olds I could never figure out. That summer in Eden, the Serpent hadn’t appeared yet. Life was good. It got even better when, for reasons never entirely clear, the local Jaycees, with the blessings of the city, placed a raft in the lake. Rudimentary and purpose-built, the raft was comprised of fifteen 2x6s fastened with bolts to four large fifty-gallon drums. The float was barely wide enough for the four of us, even when stacked like cordwood. Secured to the lake floor, a chain fell away into the green darkness. The raft was our refuge, the slow tak tak tak of the water beating the rhythm of the summer as damselflies danced over the shimmering surface of the lake.

The western end of Springfield Lake consisted of a large lagoon, formed by two spits of land on opposite sides, which extended like jaws, north and south. Inside the lagoon, the lake opened up again for a half a mile until it met a narrow dam at the end that spilled into a small creek below the lake. A railroad bridge stood guard over the dam.

In early July, our group grew with the addition of Jimmy Newsome. Jimmy simply appeared at the lake one day and, with the effortless tenacity of a burr, affixed himself to our group’s fabric. Despite our age differences, Jimmy seemed to fit naturally. Even at eleven, he was an adept mimic, and could imitate teachers, girls, and movie characters with equal ease. In turn, he seemed unfazed by our gushing, vulgar, inane, and misinformed drivel, always remaining silent.

The middle of August arrived during the Summer of the Raft, as we called it later. Throughout the dog days, the sun shone bright and clear, and I could imagine myself flying straight up and reaching Mars.

After almost a full day on the raft, Kraut and Bobby drifted fitfully between sleep and snacking, while Ben and Jimmy pitched potato chips in the water, luring the sunfish to rise. Deep in thought, I peered into the dark shadows, straining to follow the chain as it descended to the lake floor.

Six weeks earlier, we’d invented a game, the rules and goals of which were amorphous and flexible. The simple challenge was to see who could follow the chain to the bottom, where the lake was probably over fifty feet deep. Now, well into August, none of us had succeeded in coming anywhere near touching the muddy lake bottom. In 1931, the lake was formed when Spaulding Dam was strung across Sugar Creek. Eyes fixed on the green deep, I often wondered whether there were trees, houses, and rocks that covered the bottom . . . a silent world preserved in dark water.

At first no louder than the singing buzz of the dragonfly hovering next to our raft, the sound grew a few seconds later into a distant whine—a vacuum cleaner maybe, muffled, insistent, and mechanical. The whine droned for several seconds until it was cut by a trenchant thunk, which we all saw came from a speedboat passing the entrance to the lagoon as it hit a wave, its bow pointing dangerously into the air.

Alerted and nettled by the sudden intrusion into the afternoon, we watched the boat as it quickly neared. Sitting upright, in a moment he would later tell me he regretted, Ben flashed the boat the finger.

The twin Mercs screamed at full throttle as the boat veered towards us. Now a football field away, the boat tore towards us, and I could make out three grinning males. Looking half man, half boy, the trio was clearly drunk with the joy of terrifying pissant kids who’d had the balls to flip them off. Standing at the wheel, the largest one, his greasy long hair flying behind him in the wind, screamed a war whoop, his mouth a knotted rictus. The other two man- boys, faces red and angry, howled in a chorus as—closing in on forty feet—a collision was impending.

The boat lurched suddenly to the right, engines snarling as the props popped out of the lake and threw a wall of six- feet-high water onto the raft. The wake peeled our platform off the surface like a chisel shaving, pitching one end high into the air. As the fifty-gallon drums jutted several feet out of the water, the anchor chain squealed as the raft reached the full extent of its swing. Pulled to its limit, the line finally gave, snapping the raft over like a mousetrap on its back, hurling us into the water.

Beneath the water, all I could see was turbid green, and the vegetation ripped from the bottom of the raft. I could vaguely make out the flashing white of arms and feet flailing around me. Peering into the darkness below, I heard the roar of a boat motor above, beating thunderously, then quickly receding to a high whisper like the rasping of cricket wings.

Lungs aching and heart pounding I began to surface, the boat engine sounding an angry hiss as it retreated. Rising toward the surface, I heard echoing calls like seagulls, which I soon understood were voices screaming through the water.

Breaking the surface, I took a deep breath and, looking around, saw Ben and Bobby clinging to the slimy overturned drums that jutted into the air. The broken chain was wrapped around the raft. Several yards away I could see Kraut swimming towards shore. Ben gestured for me to swim over. Recalling Ben’s futile gesture of defiance, after reaching the rocking drums, I turned to my brother.

“Nice going, asshole,” I said, taking hold of the slick raft.

Ben stared at the receding boat, stunned bewilderment plastered to his face. After a few seconds he looked over at me, finally processing what I’d said. “Shut the f**k up, Tom. Help me get this thing turned over.”

In less than a minute, the platform splashed with a deep thud, settling upright. I noticed a small piece of orange T-shirt caught on the edge of the raft. I could feel my pulse quicken as I looked for Jimmy. Not seeing him, I yelled at the others to look for him. The other three were already searching, clearly panicked. Several seconds later, Bobby screamed for help, pointing at the spotted orange- red of Jimmy’s shirt that floated thirty feet away. Bobby swam the distance in seconds. I could see Jimmy wasn’t moving. Swimming as fast as I could, I reached Bobby and took Jimmy from him. I got my arms around Jimmy’s little chest. Holding the boy, I was struck by how white the skin on his back was and how his arms drooped like kelp in the water. With Bobby’s help, I turned Jimmy over. A deep red gash in Jimmy’s forehead rose to an ominous dark blue welt. Jimmy wasn’t breathing. Together, Bobby and I towed Jimmy towards the raft. Ben and Bobby pulled him onto the slippery surface.

“Jesus, you’re cut!” Ben said, pointing to my face. I touched the area above my right eye and was mildly surprised, in a disoriented way, to see my fingers red with slick blood. Although I felt light-headed, the wound itself didn’t seem to hurt much.

Kraut, having swum like crazy, finally reached the beach and dashed for the area of the beach where the woods lined the lake. He returned a minute later, accompanied by two teenagers. Soon, a small crowd gathered at the edge of the lake. Finally, a man in his early twenties, dressed in a telltale lifeguard-red T-shirt, ran into the lake with a life preserver and swam to the raft.

The lifeguard flipped Jimmy over and pumped his small chest. Finally, giving a halfhearted wretch and vomiting a thick ball of mucus and water, Jimmy moved. Seconds later, two other men dragged a neon-colored dinghy to the water. They fired up the small attached outboard and reached the raft in seconds, pulling Jimmy, who still lay unconscious, into the dinghy. They transferred Jimmy to a waiting pickup which—with a shower of sand and leaves—disappeared, leaving stunned beachgoers behind.

Shortly after, we made it back to the beach, where, as an afterthought, one of the lifeguards bandaged my forehead, telling me to get it looked at. When I finally got home, I resisted my mother’s interrogation, telling her I’d fallen. It was only the next morning, when the pain woke me, that I allowed my mom to take me to the emergency room, where I received ten stitches. The wound was slow to heal and left a raised ridge of white scar tissue above my right eye.

Not that I needed a physical reminder of that day.

The police questioned us for hours about the particulars. Each of us recalled only the boat and a general description of the boys. All of us omitted disclosing Ben’s universal gesture of defiance. A few days later, a speedboat was found abandoned in a cove at the other end of the lake at Sanctuary Park Road, the ignition jammed with a screwdriver. Several wet cigarette butts littered the vinyl seat covers.

In the investigation that followed, the city tacitly admitted the raft may have been poorly secured to the bottom and later quietly removed it.

None of us saw Jimmy Newsome again. We learned he was in the hospital and, later, learned he was getting therapy . . . although none of us knew what that meant. Jimmy didn’t return to school and his family moved. All that remained of Jimmy Newsome was a torn swath of orange-red fabric, which I folded neatly and stuck in the top drawer of my dresser.

It wasn’t until I was in advanced CPR at the police academy many years later that I learned about near- drowning. After several minutes without oxygen, the brain sustains damage beyond repair. In frigid water, the time is longer before hypoxia, as it’s called, kills brains cells by the millions and, like rain on a watercolor, washes the canvas into blurred and muddy splotches. The ability of different persons to tolerate hypoxia depends on a variety of factors, including age, previous health, water temperature, and the promptness and effectiveness of the resuscitation efforts. Irreversible damage from hypoxia can begin in as little as five minutes. In a warm summer lake, six minutes without oxygen might mean reviving a person who’d then live in a persistent vegetative state. More time than that, and there is no point.

Time stood still that afternoon; for thirteen-year- olds, seconds, minutes, and hours morph and stretch like figures in a funhouse mirror. I could never be sure how long Jimmy was under. For years, I tried to bracket, to put a framework on what happened to Jimmy and what the outcome was likely to have been. I’d played the rescue like a film loop, reviewing the data until, like worn fabric, it shredded in my head. I calculated in water temperature and the arrival of the first responders, but I couldn’t be sure how long Jimmy was under. Accessing the peculiar timetable of my childhood, the nearest I came to figuring Jimmy’s time down was that it lasted the duration of a Roadrunner episode.

SPRING,

SUMMER,

AND

FALL

DECADES LATER