A short story by Jim Idema, titled Beaville.

The night they left was the night we stopped trying to keep them.  We had done everything physically and mentally short of killin’ them but now I’m not so sure that would have stopped them, either.

We tried to tell them they were wrong for each other but they wouldn’t listen.  He with the ‘I-don’t-give-a-shit-about-anythin’ attitude and she with a vein of violence and deceit larger than life itself.  Somehow these two connected; most times like paper and fire but they connected.

No one is sure how it happened but all of us saw the fallout that autumn day when the magnificent colors sprouted in abundance and Wild Bill and Crazy Suzy became an item.  Within months of their unholy tryst (so the story goes according to Viv Kenyon, the largest mouth this side of Lake Michigan), the tiny town of Beaville, Michigan; southwestern home of the AppleFest, was converted from Smalltown, USA to Hell.  By the time it was over, we just let them leave, no questions asked.

It wa’n’t always this way.  There was a time when Bill and Suzy were just a coupla’ kids being kids, hard to believe now, I know.  You had the occasional broken window or stolen car or somethin’ but we all just took it in stride.  Let’s see, he was ‘bout ten at the time if I recall and she was ‘bout nine.  ‘Course back then, the only thing they knew about each other was that he was from ‘out by the lake,’ and she was from ‘inland,’ even though the dividin’ line was a small stretch of cornfield ‘bout four acres long and ‘bout half’n acre wide.

Back before all that stuff happened, I used to tell my grand kids that Beaville was the most glorious place a man could raise his family.  I guess that’s what brought James McCain (‘Mac’ as he was called) and his family to Michigan and Bill Porter Senior and his.  You have your regular seasons (which the Porter’s didn’t have in San Diego) and your small town ambiance (which the McCain’s didn’t have in Chicago).  Furthermore, the AppleFest, held every October the fourteenth since nineteen hundred and eight, brought tourists from as far south as South Haven and as far north as Cadillac.  Tell me, who wouldn’t want to live here?

Did I forget my manners?  Mercy me.  I’m Pete March.  Been livin’ here in Beaville since near ‘bout the time of dirt.  I’m not one for gossipin’ but if you’re lookin’ to settle here, there are a few things ‘bout ole peaceful Beaville that you should get acquainted with. Yes, my hair has always been this shade of white but back in the days of Wild Bill and Crazy Suzy, it had only started to turn.  Here, pull up a porch and have a seat and let me tell you all about it.  Want to whittle, too?  Here you are, then.  Careful, that blade is sharp.  Now, where was I?

The McCain’s were the first to come.  The Missus was ‘bout ready to pop like a helium balloon in the summer sunlight with their first (and ultimately only) child.  Mac and Maggie moved up here because according to Mac, they was just sick of all the hustle and bustle of Chicago and needed some space (can’t say as I blame them none).  Maggie, Mac had told us over to Jon’s Barbershop on the corner, had fought it some but eventually she gave in.  Once they got moved in though, she made friends quickly and even started to like it here.  ‘Course Mac was in heaven straightaway.  He used to tell us he was gonna buy that four-by-half lot that bordered the back of his land and plant corn there, just as he did on his own three acres.  In fact, you can just see the edge of his land over there beyond the Greer house across the road.  See it?  No matter, just trust it’s there.

Anyway, when Maggie broke her water she was gabbin’ with Linda VerStrat at VerStrat’s Feed and Fertilizer store.  Maggie had dropped her bag of ‘scented’ fertilizer (what she was doin’ carrying a bag like that in the first place was beyond us) and screamed she was gonna have her baby right there in the middle of all the farmers and apple growers and she didn’t want all those old men seein’ her with her legs spread like a wishbone. So Linda VerStrat picked up the phone (we only had rotary phones then, not like those fancy push-button things fancy ‘xecutives use now from their cars, clogging up traffic like a stopped up bathtub) and called Canne Memorial and in a second call, got a hold of Mac and tol’ him he’d better get his ass over here right now ‘cause he was gonna be a daddy. 

Mac beat the ambulance, e’en from six mile away (the hospital was only four) and promptly loaded his hysterical wife into his lime-green Dodge pickup (he had just bought the thing from me a week before, doncha know).  By the time the ambulance arrived, Mac was already wheeling Maggie through the front door of the hospital.  Go figure!

Little Suzy took all of eighteen hours to make her appearance into the world, tearin’ Maggie’s insides to shreds (unfortunately the doctors had to finish the job, making Suzy an only child.  We shoulda seen this as an omen).

We were all excited about our newest Beaville citizen and in no time, Maggie and Mac were showered with cards, flowers, even banana bread from Grace Hellema, proud baker of the favorite treat of the First Christian Reformed Church’s Senior Citizen Committee’s which I and Reverend Timm co-chaired.  Once the McCain’s brought their bundle of (trouble) sweetness home, the town, all two-hundred and fifty of us, was updated daily on Suzy’s progress thanks to Viv (by way of Linda VerStrat, Maggie’s new best friend.  Let me remind you that in a small town like this, everyone knows everyone else’s business.  No secrets here).  Some of us men tried to get over to help Mac with his plantin.’ Some of us made it, like the Reverend and I, Mike VerStrat (Linda’s husband) and Marty Vanderweide, the owner and foreman over to Vanderweide Orchards, and a few others, but the lot of the men from the barbershop couldn’t stomach the cooing so they sent their best and offered help some other time.    

‘Round ‘bout the time Suzy hit the terrible two’s, the Porter’s and their boy, I think he was ‘bout three at the time, bought the ol’ Samuel place down by the lake just north of here yet bordered by the McCain’s empty strip of land.  Now mind you, they had to put a lot of muscle into that place because Nan Samuel had let the place go to pot after losing her husband Elliott a year before in a nasty electrical accident (seems he was diggin’ ‘round his property to put in a privacy fence – they were private people – and dug a bit too deep, striking the buried electrical lines.  Back then, they were only experimentin’ with buried lines and poor Elliott, well, he was Beaville’s first casualty.  We were all told later that he must’ve struck those lines hard enough to send thousands of volts of electricity through his body like that ol’ colored fella Willie Horton used to send baseballs over the roof of Tiger Stadium.  Needless to say, the fence never got built).  Anyway, the weeds had taken full command of the yard and adjoining field, even though Nan tried to hire the Foster kid from next door to the Eberhard’s to clear them out, he couldn’t keep up.  What’s more, the yellow paint on that large, four bedroom house had begun to peel and some of the forty year-old boards that held the ol’ house together had just gotten old and wilted away, drooping the porch and the roof to unmanageable repair.  Instead of trying to fix the mess, Nan just dropped a For Sale sign in the yard and moved in with her sister and brother-in-law in Grand Rapids.

Bill Porter Senior seemed to be a hard-workin’ man.  He took a job at the hardware store on ‘D’ Avenue and fixed his place up in the evenin’s while Amy Porter stayed home with their hellion boy, Bill Junior.  Senior never took an interest in that field that separated him from the McCain’s but couldn’t sell it to Mac since keepin’ it was part of the purchase agreement when he bought the house.  Though he couldn’t sell it, he let Mac plant on it as much as he wanted and they split the profits which seemed to work out just fine.  Aside from field talk, the families rarely spoke to each other and as such, barely knew each other.  I guess Porter liked his privacy as much as Samuel did. 

Anyway, Bill Junior started showing his real colors ‘bout the time he hit five or six.  Oddly enough, Suzy started her shenanigans right around the same time (mind you, they had rarely seen each other up until now, so it seems funny how they had both gone nuts at the same time without being in cahoots).  One time in particular, Billy was in the hardware store watchin’ his pa work and somehow he got his grubby paws on one of those had rakes used for gardenin’ and stuck it straight into a large bag of grass seed Senior had set out to sell, spillin’ the Kentucky Bluegrass seed and Ryegrass seed all over the floor. ‘Course Viv Kenyon and her big, blue hair didn’t see the mess when she strutted her over-accessorized, two-hundred and forty pound frame through the door and lost her footing in the mess, crashing to the floor and smashing her right hip.  As she had lain there like a beached whale with Senior fussing all over her, she saw Junior over by the nuts and bolts laughing his fool head off.  She eventually recovered with a slight limp and a cane, but she never forgave either of the Porter boys.  Ever.  She kept reminding everyone over and over that all she wanted to do is to replace the sprinkler that little Suzy had stolen.  That’s all.  Nothing more, nothing less. 

That’s quite a point you’ve got there.  It reminds me of a point in the story I have to make:  with all the havoc those two had generated (starting with Viv and the hardware store); we wanted the families to stay here in town.  Not that they were planning to leave, heaven’s no, not at that age.  But it’s important to know that we not only wanted them to stay, we needed them to.  Why, you ask?  Well, Beaville, like most towns, lives on the vitality of its youth.  The difference between us and other towns is that for us it’s literal.  That’s right, literal.  When the last child leaves us, for whatever reason, the town and its citizens leave with them.  No, don’t think of a trail of cars pulling out.  Instead, think of it more like a poof of smoke. The town literally disappears!  I can see the skepticism on your face but believe me when I say that if Beaville has no youth, it has no life. 

It happened once before, back in 1865, I think when the War Between the States had roared its final roar (no, I wa’n’t around then!).  Emily Drake, so the story goes, left with her eight year-old son Gannon after losing her husband in the war and within minutes of their departure -- yes minutes – all the buildings and residents (most were senior citizens) actually vanished into thin air!  That’s right, nothin’ left here but a field overrun with weeds and the dust from which they grew.  What’s more, there was no one to go lookin’ and even the most dedicated mapmaker would have a hard time finding any trace of actual life here.  The only reason Beaville is here now is because Gannon brought his wife and newborn back years later.  ‘Course he had to rebuild things all over again – once it’s gone, it’s gone – but what you see now are the fruits of his labor and Beaville hasn’t been without youth since.  Back in the day of Wild Bill and Crazy Suzy though, they were the youngest and apparently that’s how this thing works.  We didn’t think we had anything to worry about since we had plenty of couples of child birthin’ age.

I can see you still don’t believe me.  When you have some time, take a trip to the county library and look up the records for Beaville.  You’ll find records up ‘til 1865 and then you won’t see any again until 1908, the year I was born (I was third youngest at the time).  See, my pa, Leonard March, had been passin’ through on their way to Traverse City with my pregnant ma and my nine year-old sister Danielle (who has been dead ten years now).  Apparently there was a party of sorts goin’ on and we jus’ joined in and have been here ever since (as it turned out, the party was one of the first AppleFest’s).
Anyway, a few years after Junior (intentionally?) broke Viv Kenyon’s hip, my wife Sally (also dead now) woke me up from a deep sleep one night.

“Pete!” she had cried. “Pete!  Wake up!  The church is on fire!”  I remember jumping from bed in my long underwear and running outside, only to see the flames lick the steeple (the church wasn’t far from us).  I ran inside, pulled on some pants and shoes, and rushed to the door before Sally stopped me dead in my tracks. 

“You aren’t going there!” Her voice was stern but I wasn’t givin’ in.

“Move woman!” I shouted, pushing her out of the way with no regard at all.  I had never treated her badly; not before or since, but that night, I had to be there.

When I got there, Reverend Timm was coordinatin’ and everyone, even ol’ Mayor Jackson, was listenin’ to him (and the Mayor never listened to anyone).  I asked the Reverend if there was anythin’ I could help with and though he said no, I knew he needed the muscle.  Looking around to see where I was needed the most, I saw a lot of horrible things but the one thing that bothered me the most was that little shit Suzy McCain sittin’ on the edge of the road, engrossed the fire like I’ve never seen before, her knees clutched tightly to her chin.

“Did you see who did this?” I asked her.

“No,” she replied, her eyes never wavering from the chaotic scene.

“What’re you doin’ here, then?”

“Watching.”  Her calmness and lack of emotion was startin’ to scare me.

“But you live down by the lake, nearly six mile away!” 

“So.”

“So????”  I knew right then and there that she either did it or had a hand in it.  I couldn’t prove it, ‘course, but I knew it just the same.  I remember wonderin’ where this little snot’s parents were and what kind of discipline they were handing out when Sheriff Curtis tapped me on the shoulder and directed me to the south side of the church where several men were strugglin’ with the fire hose. 

We finally got the fire put out, and though no one said it outright, the pack of matches near where Suzy was sittin’ left us all thinkin’ that Suzy did it, and may do it again.  ‘Course the Sheriff spoke with the little she-devil’s parents and even threatened to jail the lot of them if it happened again, proof or no proof.  But no one was jailed (despite the Reverend’s mild protests) and life finally fell back into its familiar routine.

A few weeks after the fire, us men got to talkin’ in the barbershop; just like we did every Saturday mornin’.

“I hear the Riley’s lost their baby,” uttered Jon as his scissors snipped the hair off my ear.

“Is that so?” I answered, the wheels grindin’ in my head.

“When was this?” Piped Mike VerStrat behind the paper he was scourin’ at one of the waiting chairs.

“I heard it yesterday at Meg’s Coffee Shop from Deke Riley.”  Jon slapped my head for noddin’.

“How’d it happen?” asked Sheriff Curtis through the smoke of the cigar he was nursin’. 

“Seems she fell down the stairs.”  We all nodded and I got another smack.

“Will you stop doin’ that?” Jon scolded.  “I’ll give you a haircut you’ll never forget if you don’t!”  Laughter bounced off the plaster walls and over Jon’s complete collection of presidential portraits, eventually seeming to stop on Lincoln’s stern gaze. 

“Who’s left?” asked Marty Vanderweide.  Marty never needed a haircut; his head was as shiny as a new nickel.  He just liked bein’ with us fellas. 

“Jus’ the Wilcox’s,” Jon replied, unsnapping the bib from my neck and brushing the hair off my shoulders.

“How far along is she?” I asked, resuming my previous seat in the waiting area.

“Six months.”  You could hear the sighs of relief wash over us like a spring shower.  Even Washington was smilin’.  “’Course, if she loses it, it’s Junior and Suzy.”  Leave it to Jon, the perpetual pessimist, to find the dark lining in a silver cloud.   He was right, though, and we all felt a shiver at the thought.  John Adams seemed to feel it, too.  True, those two were still only in their late single digits, but still…

“She’s careful, ain’t she?”  Mike had put his paper down on his lap.

“I’m sure she is, but anyone can fall down a set of stairs,” said the Sheriff, stubbing out his cigar and taking my seat under Jon’s experienced scissors.

A week later, word came down from the neighboring town of Ashley that not only had the Wilcox’s baby been killed by a drunk driver, but poor Heidi had died on the way to the hospital, too. You didn’t have to listen very hard to hear the town suck in its collective breath.

Once Heidi and the baby were properly laid to rest, the town adopted a new attitude towards Junior and Suzy.  The parents didn’t quite understand how (we hadn’t told them a thing) they suddenly had two hundred and fifty babysitters and play-pals for their kids, but they couldn’t have been happier nonetheless. Sure they were a bit suspicious but why look a gift horse in the mouth?

This went on for nearly five years, until Junior and Suzy hit their teens.  ‘Course that’s then the real trouble started.

Junior and Suzy had learned how to war with their teachers and fellow students at the Ashley Middle School (Beaville was too small to have a middle or high school).  According to Viv (who was the seventh grade ‘rithmatec teacher), letters went home to the parents darned near every day complainin’ about one thing or another with these two and threatenin’ all sorts of things to keep them from defacing school property, burnin’ books and beatin’ up kids; some for extended stays at Canne Memorial.   It was then that these two devils noticed each other.

Their reign of terror wa’n‘t limited to school.  Reverend Timm regularly reported incidents to the Sheriff that involved graffiti on the church walls, and I had to replace a couple of windows due to ‘stray’ rocks.  Lawn tractors were stolen, only to be found a day or two later in someone’s demolished garden and trash from Phil’s Burger Joint, their favorite hangout, littered the streets like leaves in autumn.  There was no stoppin’ them.  Sheriff Curtis was overwhelmed with phone calls and personal visits from concerned citizens but his reaction was always the same.  He’d just shrug his heavy shoulders, promise to see what he can do, and then call the little monster’s parents who, of course were oblivious to the deeds of their children (even if they weren’t oblivious to the complaints.  We often wondered what, if anything, they ever said to their kids).  The pair dominated discussions all through town as we continued to repair our homes, our businesses and our lives in the meantime.

During all of this, Mayor Jackson had continued with his business of attractin’ people to the town.  The few he was able to convince were either of retirement age or unable to have children so his efforts were largely looked upon as failures.  In frustration, he sent out a decree throughout Beaville that we all stop repairin’ until he was able to get the National Guard in to jail the monsters (yes, it was THAT serious).  The same day he sent out the decree, he received a knock on his office door.

“Come in,” he had said not looking up from his paperwork.  The smell of perfume wafted through the office and under his nose, momentarily sending him back to the days when he had sat in a corner booth in Meg’s Coffee Shop with his girlfriend (now his wife).  Anyway, he looked up from his paperwork and saw Suzy in the skimpiest blue skirt and halter outfit he had ever seen.  He marveled at how this monster had grown into quite a looker, though he had this nagging feeling there was somethin’ different about her.  ‘Course he couldn’t put his finger on it, but he felt it just the same.  He watched her carefully as she sauntered ‘round his desk.

“What can I do for you, Miss McCain?”  He remembered his suit pants tightenin’ just a bit.

“You can call off the guard, for one thing,” she said softly, rubbing his thigh.

“Now you know I can’t do that.  You kids…”  Her kiss interrupted him in mid sentence as she straddled his lap.  His protests, as faint as they were, quickly dropped altogether and the two coupled (we still tell him how wrong this was) only to be sharply interrupted by a flash from the corner of his eye.  He turned toward the flash as it repeated two more times before Suzy jumped up and pushed open a panel behind the fichus plant he had in his office.  There it was; the camera’s lens pointed right at him and just kept on flashin’.

“How bad do you want to stay mayor?” Suzy asked, grabbing the camera from the wall with one hand and straightening her skirt with the other.  He liked being mayor and even planned to run for the state senate the following year (which of course he couldn’t now).

“What do you want?” He asked, but it only took him a second to remember her initial request and in shame and defeat, he hung his head as if on the end of a noose.

“I’ll call them off,” he said, humiliated.  He raised his head to watch her strut from the office.  He closed his eyes for a second, then popped out of his chair, madder than a wet cat, and ran to the door screaming “YOU BITCH!!!  I’LL GET YOU FOR THIS!!!”  She didn’t even acknowledge him as she waltzed her way out of his office and out of the building.  All he could do was head back to his office and try to figure out what to do next.

Unbeknownst to Mayor Jackson, Junior (he had insisted he be called Bill but we all knew him as Junior or Wild Bill) was waiting outside.  “Well?” he had asked, the two walking to the Impala his pa drove into town fourteen years ago. 

“Like taking candy from a baby,” she had said (the mayor’s secretary, Gert Miser, had secretly followed Suzy out and heard everything).  “You?”

“Even easier,” he said as the Disastrous Duo climbed in and pulled out into the street.

Apparently these monsters had accidentally run into each other months before doing the same nasty deed – attacking some poor, unsuspecting neighbor in his sleep.  Lucky for the neighbor (we never found out who it was), the two created love in the bushes instead of havoc and the next day, the pair was spotted in Phil’s Joint hanging all over each other. 

No one approved, of course, and we weren’t shy about telling them so.  ‘Course they just ignored us and kept sucking face wherever they were.  As unholy as this union was to us, the one thing we noticed was that the violence and destruction died down considerably.  It’s amazin’ how much love can change things.

The explosions woke the town round midnight a few months later.  After hearin’ the third one, I, of course, headed out through the door (in my long underwear, again) but by the time I got outside, I noticed the destruction had reached others before it reached me.

I could see the mayor’s office from the street as I ran down it (I couldn’t jus’ stand on the porch!) and what I saw looked like an earthquake had hit it.  Bricks, mortar and shards of glass were everywhere and papers floated in the air with the smoke and fire like some sort of snowstorm from Hell.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw that the Sheriff’s office and the church had received the same treatment.  People were runnin’ and hollerin’ all over the street, crying and screaming partly for the destruction and partly for the jailing of Wild Bill and Crazy Suzy (who else could have done this?).  Men suddenly raced up to douse the fires and women ran to each other for comfort.  The confusion and anger this town felt was at an all time high.  Screams were raised to the heavens hoping God would wake up and realize that Beaville was in a state of emergency.  Sadly, by the time we got things organized enough to get some water on the fires, the church was a total loss.

As I passed buckets (we set up a bucket brigade since the fire department hadn’t even been notified yet) between Mike VerStrat and the Sheriff, I noticed the two little snakes slitherin’ towards us, grinnin’ from ear to ear.  I stepped out of the line towards them and when everyone noticed where I was going’ they followed behind me, creating a circle around the two troublemakers.

“Why?” I asked.  It was all I could get past my lips.  We were all tired of the violence and wanted it to stop.

His smile growing larger, Wild Bill answered with a smirk, “for fun, of course.  Why else?”

“We want you to leave Beaville…for good,” the Sheriff exclaimed, bringing large cheers from the growing throng, the fires still burning hotly behind them.  “We have all lived with you and your violent behavior for way too long.”

The confidence that poured from Suzy’s answer was almost as shocking as it was satisfying. 
“You got it.  Have a nice life!!!”  The Dirty Duo spun on their heels and headed back to Fourth where his car was parked.  We watched as they climbed in and headed out of town, waving happily as they went.  Some stones and bricks were thrown (as well as a ton of obscenities) but they all missed their mark.  We all stood there watching this pair of slithering slime drive, finally, out of our lives for good.

As the car became a speck in the distance, our glee instantly turned into fear.  Everyone in the town knew of its ‘fate’ with the youngest children now gone, but no one really accepted it until now.  I was about to ask the Sheriff how ‘this’ was supposed to work when through the cracklin’ of fire and smashin’ of lumber I heard somethin’ from behind me.  I turned and followed the sound as fast as my old feet would carry me.  Under a pile of charred wood and dust I heard the sound again and started diggin’ like my life depended on it (which, in all reality, it did).  The rest of the crowd joined me and in minutes we found somethin’ that surprised us all.

Tucked under a leather jacket was a baby, its cries getting’ louder by the second.  Pinned to a sleeve of the jacket was a note which simply said:

      William Dean Porter III

      Born:  October 8, 1962

      Died:  October 12, 1962

Now we all knew what was different ‘bout Crazy Suzy!  She had a baby!  Among the gasps came some cheerin’ and then some clappin, the whole town celebratin’ our new addition.  The Destructive Duo figured the baby was gonna die but it was as awake as any I’ve ever seen.  I couldn’t stop the tears from streamin’ from my eyes.  I saw that the Reverend was cryin’ too. 

“Isn’t life wonderful?” He said, picking up the baby and holding it in his arms.  It was all I could do to nod in agreement.

Quite a story, huh?  That was nearly thirty years ago and obviously we’re still here.  I see that your stick looks like a toothpick now but that’s OK.  I know I tend to go on when I’m yarnin’ but I felt you needed to know the truth.  Since then we’ve had twenty-seven babies and of those, nineteen had kids of their own and two of those are expectin’ their first grand child.  Isn’t life wonderful?