Barbara Swander Miller

No, I don’t believe he did it. Why would you even ask me that question? I won’t believe he did it. Not without more proof than what today’s paper said.

Yeah, I ought to know. I’m the kid they mentioned in the papers. The kid who came into the shop yesterday afternoon…you know, the one who shoveled the sidewalk.

Well, I guess I believe him because Gavin’s my friend. We went to high school together, after he moved here from Albany. His dad works… or worked, I guess… in the butcher shop across the street. You know, west on Smith Street from my dad’s grocery. Yeah, we were friends, being the same age and all. And with our dads being in almost the same line of work.

His uncle bought the building in ‘27. Then he let Gavin’s dad run it. That was the summer before I was a freshman. I don’t know for sure why they moved out here from Muncie. Later on, Gavin told me something about a hard-boiled egg from Chicago, and how they had to get out of town. But with Gavin, you can never tell. He’s got that deadpan look most of the time. Even when he’s kidding.

The first time I saw Gavin? That same summer, back in ’27. He was walking down the street toward his dad’s place. I was out front on the curb, taking a breather from sweeping and watching a little girl learn to roller skate. There was this skinny kid with big ears, just sort of strolling along in front of the stores. He was whistling, looking up at the top of each building, kind of like he was inspecting them. He tripped on a tree root. I laughed real hard, and then I yelled, “Hey, pal! Watch out for dose roots. De’ll moiduh youse, if you’re not careful.” The little girl‘s feet flew right out from under her ‘cause she was laughing so hard.

But Gavin didn’t get it. He just raised his hand at me, real serious-like, with no expression. Then he kept walking down the street to his dad’s place. Yeah, he’s still like that. Dead serious. He’s always wanting to know why or how, but never asking, just watching and reading. It drives, er…I guess, it drove his dad nuts.

No, we weren’t best friends. We never really ran around together. He’d help me with algebra and science sometimes. He’s real smart. But he stayed home mostly. He liked to read Dick Tracy and tinker with his radio. Science stuff, you know, ether, tubes, crystals. I played basketball with my brothers. A couple of times in the summer after we closed up shop, we’d go down to Buck Creek, just east of the factory. I’d take my cane pole, and he’d catch crawdads. He liked to study them. Then he’d let ‘em go. We didn’t do it much, though, ‘cause we both had to work.

No, I didn’t mind. My dad’s the best merchant in town.

Gavin’s dad? Yeah, he’s something else. Between you and me? He’s a…a real chiseler. Never could figure out how they made so much money in a butcher shop. I mean, look at the house they live in. That big, and for just one kid? We do more business, and we can’t afford something that nice. But then even during the toughest days, when the mill and the factory cut back hours and some of the families didn’t have money to pay their tab, my dad gave everyone credit. At least ‘til they found work. And Dad’s customers never forgot it. My dad’s a great guy. Someday I’ll have a store like his.

No, I wouldn’t go that far. I wouldn’t say Gavin’s dad deserved to die, even in that horrible way, like the paper said. No, like I was saying, I don’t believe Gavin is the one who did it, even if he did go to the sanitarium for so long. That was all a setup anyway.

See, his mother’s a nut, a crackpot, just plain wacky. Everybody knows it. She’s the nervous type, always fussing around Gavin, like he’s a girl or something, and running to defend him. Not that Gavin didn’t need it sometimes. He did, especially when his dad would go on a bender, which was pretty much once a week. Saturday nights for sure, at least here lately. He’s been on the hooch this whole week. I saw him staggering down the street the day of the…well, the day he died. Yeah, yesterday.

I guess Gavin’s mom just didn’t know how to handle him anymore when he started getting antsy after graduation. I got that way after high school, ready to be on my own with my girl. Then my dad told me what it’s like supporting a family of your own these days.

But with Gavin, it was more about being mad than being independent. See, he got that Rector scholarship to Depauw to study radio engineering. But his dad said he couldn’t go. He said they were broke and couldn’t pay for his room and board.

Photo by Alexander Krivitskiy on Unsplash

Well, I guess Gavin went a little nuts when his dad told him. No, not really nuts. I didn’t mean that. He didn’t kill anyone. But anybody like him would’ve been a little crazy, especially because he didn’t even have to work hard in school, see? He was a real pip. All us kids knew he’d end up a professor or inventor or something, not working at a butcher store with his old man.

And they could’ve sent him anyway. I know it! His old man always had money whenever he took up with some new broad. And Gavin knew about that, too. The whole town knew it.

Yeah, I’d say Gavin felt bad for his mom, but he felt worse about not going to college. He had a big fight with his dad and then just ran away. He stopped by my dad’s place to tell me where he’d be, in case somebody needed him.

Well, I saw his black eye. It was a real doozy. He tried to turn his head so I wouldn’t see it, but I could tell it was black and purple. He spent a whole week in the woods. That scared his mom to death. His dad didn’t even know he was gone until the second day. That was when Gavin didn’t show up to clerk when his dad wanted to take a booze break. Then it hit the fan for the whole street to hear.

His mom was even worse. She wandered downtown in the afternoon, calling his name. Then she went to the shop and screamed at the old man. It was real rough. I had to go inside our place and close the door, so I didn’t run right down the street and tell her that he was fine, just in the woods, out east of Cornbread Road, sleeping under a Hoover blanket.

When he finally showed up at their house, his mom decided he was nutso and sent him to that clinic in Detroit, probably to punish him. She told him it was to visit his aunt and uncle, just to get away. Yeah, the ones that own the shop. They lived in Michigan then. But it was a setup. He told me about it later.

When he was locked up, a nurse gave him shots every couple of months. But he was still plenty mad about being tricked. They kept him there six months before they let him come back. Said he had some mental disease. He did finally put on a little weight. That was the only good thing that came from it. I felt real bad for him. I even tried to take him fishing once afterward, but he didn’t want to go. I guess he was quieter than before.

Yesterday? I went to the store to collect, like the paper said. Old Man Martin owed me for shoveling snow this month, only he wasn’t there. No, that was normal. It was lunchtime. He always left the shop right after Gavin brought him lunch and started doing his shift. Yep, every day. We followed him once, but that’s another story, and I’d just as soon not tell it.

Anyway, Old Man Martin was on a real bender. I saw him walking, or more like staggering, toward the tavern, probably after Gavin brought him the lunch basket. Once he stepped inside, I went on in to get my cash. The sign in the big glass window said “Be Back Soon,” but I figured Gavin’d be there and I could get my money if his Old Man was gone.

Yeah, sure. I just walked in. They have a bell on the door. Nothing was really different. The bread shelves were empty, but the meat case was full. That reminded me I had to make it quick. Our bread delivery is right after theirs. It took him a minute or two to come out front. He came out of the back room, you know, the one where they cut the meat.

Yeah, he had blood on his apron. Well, it’s a butcher shop, ain’t it? He told me he was practicing with his new .22 revolver out back. He was shooting a chicken from the barn, he said, ‘cause he didn’t want to try it with his old man around. I don’t blame him. His dad was on him like a maggot on a gut wagon.

Strange? Naw, Gavin was always doing some kind of experiment, like testing out some theory from a detective magazine. I just asked him for my money.

He wiped off his hands and opened the till and counted it out. Sixty cents: four bits, and a dime. I charge a dime each time it snows. I collect once a month, early in the week. No, I just stood there in front of the case. Like I said, it was full. No, I didn’t shoot the bull much. I had to get back to my dad’s place for the bread delivery. Big run on bread lately. Gavin must’ve left pretty soon, too. That’s what the paper said. He went to his aunt’s, across the street. He probably just left the sign hanging up.

No, I didn’t think any more about it. Why would I? I already had the lowdown. I was there! Like I said, Gavin was steady. Shooting somebody… especially your dad…now, that would have to shake up a kid. Gavin was steady as a rock. He looked me right in the eye when I told him I’d just seen his dad headed down the street. There’s no way he killed him; no way he shoved him into the furnace like the morning paper said. His dad’s a big guy, and Gavin’s not that strong.

No, I’m telling you, somebody else must’ve done it after Gavin left. Maybe when he was at his Aunt Ruby’s. She’s the only one who ever cared about him anyway.

This afternoon’s Press? No, I haven’t seen it. I just got off work and came over here. What do you mean? The coroner said there were three bullets in Old Man, er, Mr. Martin? I didn’t know that. I thought he was beat up real bad and then pushed into the furnace. That’s what the paper said…

Wait a minute. Hold on! Do you mean he sheriff took him to jail? Today? Gavin confessed? But that can’t be true! He couldn’t have done it. I‘m telling you, I saw his dad walking into the tavern right before I walked into the shop…didn’t I?