Boys Life

he’d just yelled into Mr. Moultry’s ear. “Beggin’ your pardon, suh,” he said. “Jus’ couldn’t pass it up.”
    Mr. Moultry seemed to deflate, as if he’d been punctured. With a slow hissing sound, he fainted dead away.

XXIX – Sixteen Drops of Blood
    I’M BACK.
    The time bomb box full of dynamite-with an extra stick thrown in from the gracious hand of Biggun Blaylock-had indeed been found, not long after I had informed the Lady who my dream visitors were. I must’ve remembered that picture and kept it in the back of my head, and then after the cross-burning and my witnessing Mr. Hargison and Mr. Moultry buy the box from Biggun Blaylock, I must’ve known subconsciously what the box was. That’s why I’d taken to knocking my alarm clock off my bedside table. The only hitch in this theory is that I’d never seen pictures of the girls who’d died at the 16th Street Baptist Church until at the museum. I don’t think. Maybe they were in the Life magazine. Mom had thrown it out, though, so I can’t say for sure.
    The Lady put it together as soon as I’d told her. She organized everyone at the reception to start looking for a wooden box either in the recreation center, the civil rights museum, or in the vicinity outside. Nobody could find it, and we tore that place up searching. Then the Lady recalled that Mr. Hargison was a postman. Right outside the center, on the corner of Buckhart Street, was a mailbox. Charles Damaronde held Gavin by his heels as he slid into the mailbox, and we heard his muffled voice say, “Here it is!” He couldn’t bring it up, though, because it was too heavy. Sheriff Marchette was called, and he came with Zephyr’s postmaster, Mr. Conrad Oatman, who brought the mailbox key. In that box was enough dynamite to blow up the recreation center, the civil rights museum, and two or three houses across the street. Evidently, four hundred dollars was enough to buy a mighty big bang.
    Mr. Hargison, knowing what times the mail was picked up and that the mailbox would not be opened again until sometime on the afternoon of December 26th, had set the alarm clock timer for ten on the dot. Sheriff Marchette said the bomb had been constructed by a professional, because you could adjust the timer to either twelve, twenty-four, or forty-eight hours. He told the Lady that he didn’t want Mr. Hargison or Mr. Moultry to know the bomb had been found yet, not until the innards were dusted for fingerprints. Mom and I had told Dad when we’d gotten home from the recreation center, and I have to say that both he and Sheriff Marchette did a good job of not spilling the beans when they were at Dick Moultry’s house and Mr. Hargison walked in. Mr. Moultry’s confession turned out to be the icing on the cake, since the time bomb yielded five prints that perfectly matched Mr. Hargison’s. So those two were taken off pretty soon to visit the Federal Bureau of Investigation office in Birmingham, and needless to say their names were ticked off the roster of the residents of my hometown.
    The civil rights museum had its grand opening. I had no more dreams of the four black girls. But if I ever wanted to see them again, I knew where to go.
    The falling of the bomb from a jet plane and the finding of a Ku Klux Klan bomb in a mailbox outside the civil rights museum kept Zephyr buzzing in the days following Christmas. Ben, Johnny, and I debated whether Mr. Lightfoot had ever been really afraid of the bomb or not. Ben said he had been, while Johnny and I took the position that Mr. Lightfoot was like Nemo Curliss; instead of baseball, though, Mr. Lightfoot’s natural affinity was to anything mechanical, even a bomb, so when he stared those wires down he knew exactly what he was doing every second. Ben, incidentally, had had an interesting experience in Birmingham. He and his mom and dad had stayed with Ben’s uncle Miles, who worked at a downtown bank. Miles had given Ben a tour of the vault, and all Ben could talk about was the smell of money, how green it was and how pretty. He said Miles had actually let him hold a pack of fifty one-hundred-dollar bills, and Ben’s fingers were still tingling. Ben announced that he didn’t know what he was going to do in this life, but as far as possible it was going to involve lots and lots of money. Johnny and I just laughed at him. We missed Davy Ray, because we knew what his comment would’ve been.
    Johnny had asked for and received two Christmas presents.