Within Acceptable Tolerances (iv)

Since he had to be machine-side at seven o’clock, Thom had to be out of bed at five. He saw a lot of sunrises, and the fruition of the summer season of central Carolina. The shop sat on a service road along Interstate 40 between Greensboro and Winston-Salem, but Thom’s access was from the back, through the countryside, over rolling farmed Piedmont hills. The forty-five minute commute, door-to-door, passed through a state forest bordered on both sides by land that had been farmed for hundreds of years. The Stokesville Road followed a series of long gentle turns that took the two lanes quietly over low hills and through wide valley floors blanketed with a patchwork of small farms. Across the summer days, pastures became more lush, corn grew thicker and higher, tobacco leaves reached their width and breadth and waved in slow breezes.

Thom’s parents lived just outside Mayodan. The house was always unfamiliar when he returned for holidays because it was not the house in which Thom had grown up but rather where his parents relocated after his father’s retirement, wanting to get out of town, into the country. The furniture and the dishes and the photographs on the wall were all very familiar, but not the house. His room was very familiar, arranged in the same way he had always known it, except now the view from the window by the desk was not of the Holt’s backyard but of a small apple orchard on the side of the hill on the other side of a small pasture, its border thick with blackberry bushes. There was such a mixture of the familiar and the new.

Deposition (viii)

Deposition of Howard Franklin Temple
taken at the Sheriff’s office in
St. Augustine, January 28, 1892.


I walked back to the bay and sat for a long time. I remember holding that stick in my hand, I almost threw it away, threw it in the bay. I remember hearing the clock at the cathedral chime eleven o’clock and that’s when I got up and walked back to town and past McDaniel’s. I wanted to see if Conners was still there. He was. He was sitting near the window with that rich lady, drinking wine and laughing, like he probably did with Julie Ann. Now I could get at him.

I walked back to the bay, straight out Capo’s dock, up to his big boat, lit the stick and threw it on board. I remember hearing it roll a little and then down the steps of an open hatch. Then I ran. I really ran and was all the way past St. George Street before I heard the blast.

Then I stopped running and started walking. I was so out of breath. I walked most of the rest of the night, mostly over around Lincolnville.

Honest, I had no idea there was anybody on that boat.

I didn’t know Julie Ann was there.

Honest.

Deposition (vii)

Deposition of Howard Franklin Temple
taken at the Sheriff’s office in
St. Augustine, January 28, 1892.


And that’s when I thought I had to get at Connors, not hurt him, but get at him. Not that I might not like to hurt him, but I didn’t want to get into trouble, maybe lose my job. They are strict over at the Ponce and there is always someone wanting your job. That man was taking something from me and I wanted to do the same. I was kind of burning inside.

I knew that sometimes the railroad uses the maintenance shed, the one was out away from the rail yard and the old depot to store dynamite. I knew that from Sims who works on the grounds crew and used to work for the railroad down south. He said they never kept it there long and not much. They use it on the coral beds down near Miami and he’d seen it and it scared him knowing it was there.

He was right about the dynamite and about the shed door not having a lock. Even though it was night and dark, there was enough light from the moon and I knew my way around so it wasn’t hard to get there and back, I just walked in, picked up a stick, and walked out. It was easy.

Deposition (vi)

Deposition of Howard Franklin Temple
taken at the Sheriff’s office in
St. Augustine, January 28, 1892.

That night I was sitting at the fort, after seeing the Reverend shouting at dinner, after seeing Julie Ann run up to her room that night, I just sat there in the dark and listened to the waves break against the seawall. Julie Ann and I had sat there nearly every Sunday afternoon last summer. Once we sat until dark and watched the full moon rise.

While I was sitting there alone I saw a shooting star, a real shooting star and followed it with my eyes and my eyes fell on Connors’ boat, tied up at the end of Capo’s dock. At that moment all I could think of was that boat, that it had brought the man that was confusing my Julie Ann. In my mind I could see them on board, maybe by candlelight, looking at books and maybe laughing. It made me kind of dizzy.

On my way home I went down Charlotte Street thinking I’d stop at Kinney’s for a whisky. As I was going in, I saw Connors getting out of a carriage across the street at McDaniel’s with a rich looking lady. I felt dizzy, but I hadn’t been drinking. Really, I even decided then I didn’t want to.

Deposition (v)

Deposition of Howard Franklin Temple
taken at the Sheriff’s office in
St. Augustine, January 28, 1892.


After that I didn’t see Julie Ann for a week maybe, except when she was coming to or leaving work. She came over to my house n Sunday afternoon, made some stew and we had a pretty nice dinner, but then she started talking about Spain, about how important getting there was for her and how that was really all she wanted to do, but her father thought a young women going by herself was ridiculous, almost as if it was a sin or something she said. I didn’t outright agree, but I told her I though it was a little foolish to talk about it so seriously because she had no money of her own, no way to get there. I could tell my words hurt her so I said I thought it was ok to dream though. Is said dreams were good.

Then she started crying. I told her it was those books that were upsetting her, that they were not good for her. Then I said talking to Connors was just as bad. She stopped crying and sort of started defending him like she really knew him or something and told me I didn’t know him and shouldn’t talk about him. Why would I know him? Why would she think she knew him?

That’s when she said something about his boat. She said he had given her a book and she described where he kept his books on his boat, in a “fine teak cabinet” she said. I asked her how she knew. She blushed. She blushed and said he had described it to her. I knew different though. I knew she’d been on his boat. I could tell. I asked her about it and she just kept saying he’d described it to her and then said she wanted to go home so I walked her, but we didn’t talk very much.

Deposition (iv)

Deposition of Howard Franklin Temple
taken at the Sheriff’s office in
St. Augustine, January 28, 1892.


I was starting to get used to it, a little, accepting it as a phase she was in, just something she was going through. But then she up and said all she really wanted to do was go to Spain and that she intended to do so at the first opportunity. That’s when she started going to the library and reading books about Spain, read everything the library had abut Spain. It got to where she and I had a hard time talking. Was almost like she had already left for Spain.

The first time she said it out loud in front of someone else was at dinner, at her parents’ a week ago. The Reverend asked me if I ever thought much about getting married. Asked me that right there in front of Julie Ann. She and me been spending a lot of time together for nearly a year. I didn’t answer him directly, but said I had asked for a raise, maybe was even in line for a promotion to groundskeeper. That’s when Julie Ann broke in saying she would never get married until she had been to Europe and that she though people shouldn’t go to Europe unless they planned on spending at least a year traveling all over. And she said it looking right at me. Made me feel small.

Deposition (iii)

Deposition of Howard Franklin Temple
taken at the Sheriff’s office in
St. Augustine, January 28, 1892.

I never did see a light from Julie Ann’s room after she left the dinner table when the Reverend was shouting, so I figured she was sitting in her room, in the dark, crying or something. Made me really mad. I started to go up to the door and speak to the Reverend, but I felt kind of funny, angry like. Not at the Reverend mind you because he and me get along real good, but because Julie Ann was hurting and I knew who did it to her, that Connors and his books about Europe and poetry.

I started to go on home, but when I got almost to St. Francis Street, I turned and walked down to the bay. I just felt like walking. I walked all the way to the fort along the seawall, along Bay Street, thinking. I was thinking about how Julie Ann was crying about something that she did not even know about a month ago. And how this guy had just sailed into St. Augustine one day and dropped anchor and got a room at the Ponce. Lots of rich folks do stuff like that. I mean the Ponce is filled with rich folks. Most come by train. I see them. But this guy came by boat. Him and his big boat.

But this fellow started talking to Julie Ann. That made him different from all the other rich people. And lent her a book about Spain. Then that’s all she could talk about, Connors and Spain. She even mentioned that he had given, given mind you, a book of poetry. Now you tell me, was that proper? A strange man giving a young girl a book of poetry? He didn’t even know her.

Deposition (ii)

Deposition of Howard Franklin Temple
taken at the Sheriff’s office in
St. Augustine, January 28, 1892.


When I got home I ate a little stew that Julie Ann had made the day before, and I just kept thinking about her and those books. I washed, dressed, and walked over to her house a little after seven.

From the street I could see Julie Ann and the Reverend and Mrs. Mays sitting at dinner. Actually I think they were finished eating. They seemed to be sitting around the table talking, but the table had not been cleared. At one point while they were talking it looked like the Reverend was the only one talking, maybe shouting. Julie Ann stood up and walked out of the room really fast. I really wanted to know what they were saying to each other, but I couldn’t hear but I thought I could guess.

It had to be that guy and his boat. Him, his books, his stories and his money. I’d seen him at the hotel that same day talking to a couple of men, all of them smoking cigars. I was working not more than ten feet from where they stood and talked and they never so much as looked at me.

I had not seen Julie Ann that day at work. Usually I only see her when she arrives and leaves, because of that rule about yard-help not going in the lobby. Julie Ann is in the lobby all day at the front desk, I just know that’s where Connors first saw her and started talking to her. And I can’t even go in the building.

Deposition (i)

Deposition of Howard Franklin Temple
taken at the Sheriff’s office in
St. Augustine, January 28, 1892.

I was almost home when I realized I had no tobacco. I knew there was none at home, so I turned around and headed for Timm’s. It was not yet five o’clock and I knew I could catch him before he closed. I remember the day has been gray. I had not even cast a shadow even though I was outside all day. Mr. Peterson, the hotel manager, wanted some bushes moved from the courtyard to near the drive. The sky was low and gray and seemed to hold all the dampness from the rain the night before, but there was no wind so the dampness didn’t hurt too much.

I cut through Hay Street to St. George Street to save a minute or two and that’s when I saw Julie Ann. She was coming out of the library. She didn’t see me. The minute I saw her I ducked behind the edge of the corner of Blakeslee’s Store. That surprised me. I felt funny that I didn’t want her to see me. I felt like I had caught her at something. I don’t know how she would have responded if she’d seen me. I don’t know if she would have hidden, or made some excuse.

She turned down Hospital Street as if she was going home. I stepped out from the corner, leaned on the building, and watched her walk up the street. I remember looking at her back and thinking her shoulders were so straight. I remember looking at her shoes. I don’t know why but I remember thinking the hem of her dress danced around her ankles. I liked the shade of blue of her dress. She worn that dress often. It was a pale light blue.

When she turned down Bridge Street and was out of sight, I ran the other way so as to catch Timm before he closed.