The Promise of Living

By J Lee Graham

The Promise of Living is a heartrending coming of age novel of sixteen-year-old Ryan Colton and his quest for his own authenticity. Ryan's mother died when he was young, and he and his father carve out a tenuous but trusting relationship. Ryan works on Lee Hemmer’s farm with his best friend Dave in Wilson's Ferry, New Hampshire, a stifling, small town where, in 1975, everyone, it seems, has something to hide. Ryan has a mysterious series of premonitions and visions that reveal the darker secrets of the townspeople. His gift becomes overwhelming when he visions a murky murder at the high school and cannot prevent its occurrence.

Ryan seeks the help of a Boston transfer student and a famous psychic to not only focus his gifts to solve the murder but to finally accept his own personal feelings for Dave. Ryan struggles with his own power of being different in the world and knows that the true resolution lies within him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J Lee Graham
• Release date: Sep 10, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301751846

Book preview

The Promise of Living

c. 2012 J. Lee Graham

Smashwords Edition

I wish to thank the following people for their excellent feedback, research, patience, and wisdom in the writing and creating of this novel: Emmy, AK, JPG, Cheryl G, Joe R, and the incomparable Ken Hornbeck. Mahalo Nui Loa to all of you.

Cover photograph used with permission by James Graham

Cover Design by Dina Shadwell

This is a work of fiction; any resemblance to actual persons, places, or events is strictly coincidental.

For Maureen

Chapter 1

Tuesday, June 17, 1975

Ryan Colton was cleaning the milking machines at Lee Hemmer’s farm while an emerging sense of dread lurked in the barn. The feeling was disquieting and it unnerved him, like watching a mass of thunderclouds full of destructive power move across the sky. Despite the grounded daily activity of milking the herd, a job he and his best friend Dave have been doing for two years now, despite the routine he could do blindfolded, Ryan knew something terrible was about to happen.

Ryan and Dave were in the adjacent bulk room rinsing out the four machines with warm water and mild bleach. The barn doors were closed, the cows let out, the late June sun setting slightly over the New Hampshire hills, its red light filtered by the tiny, dirty windows in the barn. Mr. Hemmer had gone up to the house an hour before. Ever since they turned sixteen, the farmer trusted Ryan and Dave to do a thorough job with the milking. The boys worked in tandem.

Ryan reached up to hang one of the machines on its rail when a bizarre dizziness engulfed him. He misjudged the distance between his hand and the wall and struggled to regain his balance. The room felt close, the air, tight, constricting, and he couldn’t take a deep breath. He fought down the urge to panic, and he put the machine down on the floor as if he had casually changed his mind. Be right back, he said and rushed out of the bulk room through the plain, whitewashed archway that connected it to the barn. He had to go to the bathroom suddenly.

He was straddling the manure gutter, taking a leak when the first vision slammed into him like an unexpected football tackle.

A woman scrawls a shortly worded note at the table in her shabby sunlit living room. She rips the paper out a school notebook and attaches the message to her unwashed housedress with a pin. She stands up, walks into the dismal kitchen and opens the connecting door to the garage. She crosses the empty space that once held a car, reaches under a dirty workbench and pulls out a rope tied into a hangman’s noose.

Jesus! Ryan said, the vision snapped like the break of a bone and the vertigo increased. He bolted right, slopped his foot into the feces incrusted gutter and smacked his shoulder hard against the wooden barn door.

Ryan? hollered Dave from inside the bulk room. Ryan zipped his pants and wiped his face. The front of his thin t-shirt had a large sweat stain on it.

Dave appeared in the doorway, holding a pile of used teat rags, and Ryan floundered, a drunk in a back alley. He saw the surprised look on Dave’s face as he slid down the side of the barn door feeling a splinter jab the back of his left arm. He closed his eyes. It came again.

The woman throws the rope over a bar and ties it. She pulls over a cheap kitchen chair, stands on it and puts the noose around her middle-aged neck, sliding the tension down so it forms a strong hold. She kicks the chair so hard it breaks in half when it hits the concrete wall.

Something’s wrong, Ryan groaned.

Dave chucked the dirty rags into a corner, hopped the gutter and grabbed Ryan under the arms. You okay? You want me to get Mr. Hemmer? Dave pulled him up as he swayed. You look like you’ve seen-

I think I did. Something happened in town. His head was foggy, the barn blurred. He turned and banged into the wall, reached over and slid the barn door open. It rolled heavily on its tracks just wide enough to pass through, and he squeezed out of the stifling barn into the twilight.

Ryan took off his John Deere cap, bent over and let his arms hang free. He shook his head, his blond hair hanging down. He breathed in and out, strong inhales in his lungs, the smell of manure an ironically refreshing element in the night air. His head cleared.

He stood up slowly, his face red and he saw Dave’s worried look.

It’s gone, whatever the hell that was. C’mon, I want to see what happened. He headed up the hill.

Ryan’s ’65 Dodge green pickup truck was half way up the dirt driveway from the base of Hemmer’s barn. Ryan tried to walk as if nothing was wrong, but in fact, he wanted to sit down, the pain gnawing as if he had been punched in the stomach.

Dave pulled the barn door closed and followed behind. Ryan, what are you talking about? Nothing happened.

The Hemmers were inside their two-story farmhouse across the road, their soft dinner conversation wafted from the open windows, a peaceful scrape of a chair, the tranquil pouring of milk from a pitcher.

Ryan stopped in his tracks.

Listen, he said. The hairs on his neck stood on end.

An ambulance siren traveled up the valley from Wilson’s Ferry and the jarring wail rose and fell breaking the crystal flow of natural sounds. The vision flew at him again, like a menacing winged angel, it swooped into his forehead, and he ducked out of reflex.

The woman swings in mid air. Her feet grasp for a foothold as she battles between dying and living. Her breathing and choking intermingle and the walls of her intestines relax and she releases a large quantity of fecal matter that soaks into her dress, drips down her legs, and splatters on the floor.

Damn, what is that? Ryan buckled into the dirt breathing hard, not moving. His face was unnaturally pale and his eyes roamed in panic.

Dave squatted next to him. Ryan, you gonna chuck? What’s wrong?

The ambulance wail continued for a half a minute more and then stopped. The farm was silent, as if even the Hemmer family had paused in mid sentence to wonder where the ambulance was heading.

Get in, Dave said. I’ll drive.

Ryan used Dave’s shoulder to stand upright. He pulled out the keys from his pants and tossed them over. He staggered to the passenger side of the pickup, his right hand sliding down the edge of the truck. He felt for the mud-splattered door handle, turned it, and tumbled in. It felt good to sit, and he propped his head against the truck rear window, closed his eyes and felt the sweat drip down the front of his face, down his back and along his inner thighs. His tanned forearms were slick and clammy. His breathing was irregular and deep as if he had been underwater too long. Gasping.

Dave hoisted himself into the cab and without looking away from his friend, stepped on the clutch, put the truck in neutral and turned the key. You having a blood sugar attack?

No, it’s not that. I’m okay, I feel better now. Let’s go into town and find that ambulance. Something weird is going on. At the end of Hemmer’s driveway, Dave swung a left. Ryan leaned his head against the open window and let the air dry his sweat.

The truck banged over the country roads, most of them unpaved, dirt flying up behind, turned red by the insistent sunset. These were hilly back-roads, bumps and potholes, and Dave swerved twice to avoid a deer that flew across the road, a jumble of legs and wide eyes.

Ryan’s color returned to his face. His blond straight hair was matted under his cap and he lifted his shirt to wipe his face again.

The pickup crested the top of the last hill, and Dave floored it on the way down the winding road into Wilson’s Ferry. More houses started to appear and the curvy road straightened out into one final steep incline that zoomed past the Wilson’s Ferry Central School.

At the bottom of the hill, the truck entered the east end of the Commons and Dave kept straight. At the west end stop sign, Dave banged a left more like a yield while Ryan kept his head up looking for that ambulance. Here were the shabby storefront businesses of tiny Wilson’s Ferry, the one sided main street that faced the opposite green. He peered down the town’s two small alleys to where, behind the stores, the Pennacook River flowed.

Nothing.

His gut was telling him something else.

I don’t see any ambulance, Dave said. It must have stopped somewhere.

It did. It’s on the island, Ryan said. He nodded his head forward, rubbing his hands back and forth on his jeans. His head was clearer, his curiosity taking over.

They were out of town now, and a quarter of a mile later, Dave took a right and crossed the single rickety bridge to an island on the Pennacook River. The poorer people of Wilson’s Ferry lived here, an enclave originally developed in the 1950’s for a now defunct soda factory. Ryan scanned the neighborhood, the broken screen doors, garages with cracked and missing windows, junked cars on cement blocks.

Just beyond the crumbling factory was a tawdry yellow house, with its garage door pushed open and a cop standing outside. Large patterns of red swirling lights splashed the homes, the windows, the curious bystanders.

It’s Jeff Hinton’s house! Ryan said, thinking about the odd, lonely boy in their class at school.

Dave pulled over and parked the truck. They jumped out and headed to the garage.

Jesus, what happened? Dave muttered when he saw a stretcher coming out of Hinton’s house, a white sheet pulled up tight around a small body.

Ryan flagged down one of the Volunteer Ambulance Corp, a man he knew. Pete, what’s going on? Jeff Hinton’s in my class!

His mother. Jean. Suicide. Hanged herself in the garage. A man of few words. He told them to get going, the nosy neighbors were starting to bug him, had to get the ambulance out of there.

Chapter 2

At Wilson’s Ferry Central School the next day, most of the Juniors in Ryan’s class were theatrically shocked at the suicide in their back-wood town, yet no one seemed to have much empathy for Jeffrey himself. Jeffrey Hinton, to the Class of 1976, was a nobody.

Ryan looked at the floor when he and Dave walked into Mr. Morgan’s second period health class for he felt the new young teacher watching him and it made him nervous. Sweat stains lined his armpits on his blue t-shirt and he didn’t know how to stop it. They were like a sign of guilt, for Ryan rarely sweated in school, not in a classroom anyway. He slid into his chair, pulled his John Deere cap a little over his eyes and stared at the desk. Someone had written in ink, over and over so that the words were scraped into the wood: Donna gives great head.

Mr. Morgan scanned the room at everyone equally with a sad, serious, expression and Ryan exhaled with a strange relief. The teacher rolled up his sleeves and sat on the edge of Jeffrey’s empty desk, rocking his leg back and forth and in his hip, ‘it’s cool to rap’ way tried to open up a discussion about what happened.

Ryan liked Mr. Morgan. His teaching skills were uneven yet the students often had heated, modern, discussions that were a fresh breeze in a place like Wilson’s Ferry. Morgan was unabashedly frank about sex and STDs and drugs and the entire cluttered curriculum he was mandated to teach.

Today’s class, however, wasn’t producing much result. Students were silent, even hostile in their inability to deal with the discomfort of death.

Any thoughts? Anyone want to talk about how they feel? the teacher offered.

About what? grunted Bobby Torello, a short, uptight tight end who tried to be cool but ended up obnoxious. Hinton? He’s a fat pig jerk.

Mr. Torello, I demand respect in my class, and your easy one liners to deflect how you really feel are shamefully apparent.

Most of us don’t really know Jeffrey, Donna Brenester, the soccer star of the class offered. I don’t think he has any friends.

So what do you think we should do or say when he comes back to class? Mr. Morgan said. How do we deal with the uncomfortable feelings we all have around death?

If you want us to start hugging Hinton when he comes back, I ain’t doin’ it, Bobby Torello bragged. He’s creepy.

Ryan watched as Mr. Morgan gave up. The teacher didn’t say anything to that effect, but Ryan knew the man was pissed off and defeated.

He sat and glared at the class. The class glared right back.

After an extremely awkward five minutes, Ryan broke the tension and asked, How do you prevent someone from killing himself?

What do you mean, ‘prevent’? answered the teacher clearly relieved his lesson plan wasn’t going to be a complete flop.

Suppose, Ryan continued as more heads turned toward him, you know someone is planning to kill himself. You don’t really know ‘when’ or ‘how’ or, well, maybe you do know ‘how’, but you’re just not sure of ‘why’. Ryan felt eyes boring at him, and he smacked himself mentally for not being clear and collegiate like older students in a dorm or a library.

The kids in the back snickered. Christ, what a jerk, Bobby Torello said under his breath. Dave turned around and gave Ryan a ‘what’s this about?’ look.

The morning sun on the second floor classroom covered the wall behind the teacher, and the heat was already making the room stuffy and sticky. All four of the multi-plated windows were thrown wide open and the classroom had to compete with the sound of a rider mower going around and around on the football field. Ryan smelled the cut grass.

If you knew about someone who wanted to die, what would you do? Ryan asked.

Tell somebody.

Mr. Morgan hopped off Jeffrey’s desk, took a more mature stance, peered around the room, his voice growing louder as the mower passed by, more serious in his convictions. You got that? No matter how unsure you are of the particulars. Even if you promised not to. Tell someone. Tell me. Tell a coach. Talk. He took a breath. His eyebrows arched half in anger, half in determination.

Is there anything else, Ryan? Anything else you want to ask?

No. Ryan shifted his pants, shifted in his seat, trying to look nonchalant while seeing the repeated looped vision of Mrs. Hinton swinging on that rope.

We found out this morning, Mr. Morgan continued, that Jeffrey’s mother’s wake, due to the nature of her death, will not be until this Saturday, at Ferguson’s. Now I’m not forcing anyone to go to a funeral at a church, that’s up to you. I just think it would be a good show of class support for Jeffrey if we went to the wake.

Are you making us? growled Bobby Torello.

I’m not making you do anything. You go or not go. I’m letting you know, I’ll be there and if you want to come, look for me. I can show you where to sign your name in the guest book and where to sit if you’ve never done this before. Guys: wear a tie and dress pants. No sneakers. Ladies: you know what to do. The wake starts at ten. Mr. Morgan sauntered over to his desk, and Ryan heard him mutter disgustedly under his breath, are you making us? as he pulled out a folder with a stack of quizzes.

When the last bell of the day rang, every door in the Wilson’s Ferry Central School Grades K-12 opened simultaneously. The walkers left via the small main door near the principal’s office, the bus kids moved as a cattle horde out the giant double doors in the elementary wing to the six waiting buses lined up like elephants. The tenured teachers, despite contract regulations, snuck out a side door toward the faculty parking lot.

Ryan and Dave used another door reserved for Student Drivers, but once outside, hung back. They sat on the grass, Dave stretched out leaning on his elbows, Ryan sitting up, his tanned arms hanging over his bent knees. The Junior and Senior drivers drifted past them, down the stairs toward the student parking lot, casually straining their necks to see who was watching them. The baseball jocks tossed the keys in their hands like they’ve seen their fathers do, the girls, with important looking faces, dug through their purses as if they had just left a baby shower or a shopping mall and pulled out a metal ring with two keys on it.

The student parking lot was the most unkempt of all the lots, with large cracks and pools of sap dripping from the old pine trees that grew along the perimeter. Tree roots forced the blacktop to buckle and break and it was spotted with large holes. The trees were never trimmed and the blacktop was never re-paved. The lot was crammed with old, used, gas guzzling Buicks and Chevys and two Mustangs that looked like they wouldn’t last the winter. Bobby Torello was there, the only student who owned a motorcycle; he strapped on his helmet like he was Evel Knievel and straddled the bike as if he was going to hump it before he turned the key and started the engine.

Wilson’s Ferry Central School had only one driveway. As a result, every day at 3:15,