I’m Bud, and I live in End
icott Village, which is this no-account little town up in northern Vermont where not one goddamn thing ever happens. Years ago they’d have called it a one-horse town, except we ain’t got no horses I ever saw. Truth is, I been meaning to get my skinny ass (ma’s words) out of this place for ages. Only it ain’t that simple, on account of Mirabelle.
She’s this girl who used to live a little ways down the road from us when we were growing up. I guess you could say we really spent a lot of time hanging out together back in them days. Now we only manage to get together once in a while, but I really like talking to her whenever I can. I still drop in on her mom once in a while too, seeing as how she pretty near helped raise me and all. Hell, I used to go visit their house practically every day when I was a kid. It’s not much of a walk down there at all. In fact, I can still see their old house from my bedroom window if it’s winter and the leaves are off the trees.
But I’m getting ahead of myself here. You can’t hardly understand about Mirabelle unless I tell you some more about our little piss-ant town first. So, like I said, Endicott Village is in Vermont, except that it’s practically all the way to Canada, which may as well be Antarctica or something, because it’s always colder than a well-digger’s ass here. Except in summer – then it gets hotter than all hell, and we get these mosquitoes the size of cows. Jesus, why people even live in a place like this beats the crap out of me.
So anyway, Endicott’s out in the sticks, and there’s only like twelve people who still live here. The main reason I’m here, aside from the whole Mirabelle thing, which I’m getting to, is because my ma lives here, and that’s how that goes. I mean, she’s like forty-five or something, which is pretty damned old. So she needs help cleaning up, running errands, that sort of stuff. But if it wasn’t for her (and Mirabelle), I’d’ve been gone from this hellhole the minute I turned eighteen. Don’t get me wrong, we got TV and a movie theater and everything here. But Christ, we have to get in the car and drive thirty-five miles down to Rutland just to get a Big Mac for God’s sake.
According to ma, the village was built by some Indians or Frenchmen or something that lived here like a thousand years ago. I guess they liked it on account of there’s a lake and huge trees and stuff. Maybe they made their canoes out of the branches or something – who knows? All I know is one minute there’s Frenchmen running around making canoes, and the next minute I’m stuck here in bum-fuck Antarctica freezing my ass off, with no Big Macs for miles around.
Oh, and the road we live on is right next to this huge lake – Endicott Lake, you know, like Endicott Village. Anyway, the water is nice to look at I guess, except that you can’t go out on a summer night without getting eaten alive by the mosquitoes and black flies. Plus, if you want to go out on the ice in winter, you have to wear like three hundred pounds of clothes, and make sure the ice is good and solid so you don’t fall through like Bobby Hamilton did a couple years ago. They didn’t find Bobby until springtime – washed up on the shore right in front of his house – ain’t that a bitch – right in front of his own goddamn house. Of course, by then he’d been in the lake for five months, so it didn’t look much like Bobby, if you know what I mean. Man, you should’ve seen his mother’s face that day.
Anyway, I live at the house with ma, and there ain’t nothing wrong with that, so spare me your “what in hell is up with that?” opinions. It’s cheap, and plus I got to live somewhere, right? So what – I should go and build my own lakefront cabin or something? I mean it’s not like I don’t pay my way. I been down at Stilson’s gas station for almost a year and a half, and I got a quarter an hour raise coming this spring. On top of that, minimum wage is supposed to go up next month, and the cheap old bastard has to give me that, whether he wants to or not.
So I do chores and stuff, and try to help out around the house, which I guess is fair, since I’m living upstairs and all. But when I come home from working at the gas station, and she’s all “Bud do this” and “Bud do that,” it just pisses me off sometimes, you know. I mean, Christ, it’s not like I’m living in the whole house – it’s just a bedroom, for God’s sake. And so I guess that’s kind of it really – I live with ma, and I work for old man Stilson, and I freeze my ass off nine months out of the year. That’s pretty much life in old “Bud-ville”.
But Mirabelle, now that’s a whole different story. First thing I’m sure you’re thinking is what’s a person with a name like Mirabelle doing living in a place like Vermont. I mean it’s not like we have a lot of those weird yuppy type names up here – no Ashleys, or Brittanys, or Chandlers. Up here you pretty much got Mary, Sue, and Bob. Anyway, the short answer is I got no idea how that happened. She’s Mirabelle, this is Endicott, and there you go.
So anyway, I met Mirabelle in maybe third grade or something, and we’ve known each other pretty much ever since. All through grade school we were sort of best friends – not like girlfriend and boyfriend or nothing like that. I mean, you know, when you’re little that stuff’s just kind of gross, right? Only then we got to junior high and it started being a little less gross, and I just liked being around her I guess. It wasn’t like I had a lot of other friends, and she and I used to talk real good. Plus, she used to help me with studying and stuff, on account of how I’m not that good with schoolwork. And she was always real nice about showing me how to do math or social studies or whatever, but not making me feel stupid or anything like the teachers always did. And she lived with her ma just a few houses down from us, like I said already. So it was real easy to just walk down on a Saturday or Sunday to do homework and have lunch.
Her mom is maybe the best cook ever – way better than my mom, that’s for sure. With ma it’s always Hamburger Helper or Chef Boyardee or some everyday crap like that. But not Mirabelle’s mom, no sir. She would spend like the whole day making pies or cakes or whatever, and whenever I’d come for lunch, or to study with Mirabelle, her mom would bring us grilled cheese sandwiches, or fried chicken, or who knows what. I bet I spent way more weekends eating at Mirabelle’s house than I did at my own. And Mirabelle – God, I never saw a girl eat so much and stay so skinny. I mean, she must have weighed like a sparrow or something, but she could jam down three grilled cheeses without even hardly taking a breath. It was impressive to watch, let me tell you.
Well then we got to high school – Endicott High School Fighting Beavers, honest to Christ, fighting beavers. Who in hell dreamed that one up? I never saw a single beaver the whole three years I was there. As a matter of fact, I’ve never seen a beaver in my entire life, now that I think about it. So anyway, we got to high school, and now I’m thinking she’s pretty much my steady girlfriend or something, even though we never really talked about it that way or anything. It was just that we were always having lunch together in the cafeteria, and doing homework, and hanging out after school and stuff. And you know how there’s only three groups in high school, right? There’s jocks, there’s the smart kids, and then there’s everybody else. Well I’m not smart or athletic, so having Mirabelle to hang out with sort of separated me from the rest of the losers – besides which, she was pretty good looking to boot. She had this wavy long brown hair and the shortest nose I ever saw. And she had this cool, sort of mysterious way of half closing her eyes when she smiled. I think that got to me more than anything else about her – more than the cute little nose, or the three grilled cheeses, or anything.
So then we got to junior year, I guess it was. By that time I was kind of wondering about finishing school, and was it worth all the pain in the ass and what not. I mean, it wasn’t like I was going to be some kind of rocket scientist, you know. I was thinking I could get a job easy someplace in town, seeing as how I was seventeen at the time. I’ve got this cousin Benny, and he was like twenty-two or something then, and he had a great job at Skillings Lumberyard over in Winslow. So he told me he could get me in there no sweat, and why should I screw around with social studies, and sentence structure, and all this useless book crap. But of course that went to hell when the mill closed, and that’s how I ended up at Stilson’s, only I’m getting ahead of myself again.
So it’s maybe fall of junior year and suddenly one day I saw Mirabelle having lunch with this guy, Bobby Hamilton, and it kind of surprised me and all. Well, turns out he was starting to be this big football player for the school, not that I would know that, since, like I said before, I’m not really the athletic type. I felt kind of funny asking her about it – I mean it’s not like we were official or anything. I just sort of assumed we were together. But the fall went on, and I saw them together more and more, only now sometimes they were holding hands and stuff. Only here’s the weird part – she was still getting together with me and having lunch and helping me with homework and everything, just like always.
So then one day – I think it was a Saturday when we were at lunch – she said to me that Bobby’d asked her to go out with him, official and everything, but she just wanted to make sure I understood, and that I’d still always be her best friend no matter what, and stuff like that. So I tried to be all understanding, only I was thinking, well shit, how did this happen, and I was kind of pissed, only I couldn’t say that to her, you know. I guess I just smiled, and said yeah everything was cool, and best of luck, or something dorky like that.
But now I’m thinking this really sucks, and I should do something about it. Only there isn’t much I can do, seeing as how I’m not a jock or smart or anything. And I guess a couple of months went by and it’s getting colder and I’m seeing Mirabelle around less and less on account of how she’s hanging out with Bobby. Plus the football team’s doing pretty good, and I think she even might have gone to an overnight game with him or something. Besides that, I’ve pretty much had it with school, and that’s just as well, because I’m failing a bunch of classes.
So I’m sitting in English class one day, not listening to idiot Mr. Berring going on about adverbs or pronouns or some goddamn thing, and this brilliant plan comes to me – just pops into my head. It was so clear in my brain, it was pretty freaky actually. And all I could think about the whole rest of the day was how this was going to solve everything. Because, you see, there were two problems here – I needed Mirabelle to start paying attention to me again, only that wasn’t going to happen with Bobby around. Except he’s tons bigger than me, so he can just kick my ass if I try anything with him.
It was maybe December by this time and pretty much dead into winter. I saw Mirabelle one day after school and I said to her why don’t you and Bobby come down to the lake this weekend and try some ice-skating with me. See, I know she’s never tried it, and I’m pretty sure Bobby hasn’t either, which makes them maybe the only two people in the whole state of Vermont who haven’t. And besides, even though Bobby’s this big jock who’s done nearly everything, this might be the one sports thing where I’m actually better than him. She said she didn’t know how, but I said no sweat, I’ll show you, on account of how I’ve been skating out there since I was a little kid. Also, I know all the good spots where it’s nice and smooth, so it’ll be easier for you guys. Who knows, I said, Bobby might like skating and then he could join the hockey team too, which is probably the only sports thing he doesn’t do.
Anyway, she says sure, what the hell, and she’ll ask him. Then she calls me that night and says, yeah, let’s go skating, and won’t that be fun, and she can’t wait. Yeah, me too, I said to her.
And then, just like that, it’s Saturday morning, and there we all are, sitting on this big dead log at the edge of the lake, tying on our skates. I’m explaining to Mirabelle how to cinch the laces up tight so her ankles don’t get cramped or blistered. And I can tell they both got their skates over at Taylor’s rental place, way down in town. Both their pairs look the same – kind of old black leather you know, with big size numbers printed on each heel. Anyway, who cares? They’re here, and they got skates, and I’m showing them both how to put them on right.
So off we go, and honest to Christ if this big damn jock ain’t the clumsiest thing on two legs – shit, what a spaz. But then he kind of gets the hang of it, after falling on his ass maybe fifty times or so. Mirabelle actually turns out to be more natural at it, but that ain’t so surprising, since she’s always been pretty graceful. I think her mom might’ve even sent her to dancing classes or something when she was a kid.
Now the thing that I know, but they don’t, is that it’s still kind of early in the winter, and the lake ain’t quite as froze over as it will be in January and February. Which means that there’s some thin spots in certain areas because of how the sun hits the ice or something. Anyway, you can tell from how blue the ice is where you shouldn’t go. Only they don’t know this, and they’re just skating all over the place like they’re goddamn Peggy Fleming or something. And now that they kind of know what they’re doing, they’re running around the lake on their own – figures, right? Problem is, I need to get them in closer to the shore, on account of I got this rope laying right next to the maple tree, all set to go as part of my plan. But it turns out that them being way out in the middle of the lake works out OK too, since there’s this big thin section between where they are and where I am.
So now I’m yelling for them to come over this way, because there’s a nice smooth section, and look how clear the ice is, and some such bullshit. Anyway, it works, and they’re skating toward me, looking like they’re damn near ready for the Olympics or something, except she’s kind of holding him up since she’s better at it than him, even though he’s twice her size. And while they’re coming toward where I’m yelling, I’m slowly working my way back closer to the shore, just to make sure my rope’s long enough, even though I’m pretty sure there’s a couple hundred feet there. Then they finally get to maybe fifty feet away from me, when there’s this gigantic snapping sound like a thunderstorm or something. It’s really quiet out on the lake in the morning, so you hear noises like that real clear, you know. I don’t know quite how to describe it –just really loud and clear.
Anyway, Bobby and Mirabelle hear this big old cracking sound, and they do maybe the worst possible thing, which is to stop dead, right in the middle of the ice. I mean, even the biggest retard in the world knows that when the ice cracks, you keep going as fast as you can. And then this weird sort of half-scared half-curious look comes across Mirabelle’s face and she turns to look at Bobby – almost more like a question than anything else. Only he doesn’t know what in hell’s going on either, except maybe they shouldn’t be where they are right at that moment. So he grabs hold of her hand and starts trying to skate again toward where I’m standing, and that turns out to be a not-so-swift strategy either, because it turns out Bobby hasn’t quite got the hang of skating yet, at least not the part where you take off quick. He tries to move his feet in this jerky sort of way, and ends up getting them tangled in with Mirabelle’s, and sure as shit down they go onto the ice. Only now the ice is already cracked, so down they keep going, right into freeze-your-ass-off Endicott Lake with a splash and more loud ice cracking sounds.
It happened too quick for either of them to yell or anything right away, only then they’re bobbing back up to the surface again, and trying to grab the edge of the ice, but it just keeps breaking off when they do. Meanwhile I’m acting like holy shit and everything (which is part of my brilliant plan), and I’m skating back to get the rope that I’ve already got waiting on the shore. One end of it’s already tied around the tree trunk and the other end’s got this big loop that I made in it last night. So the plan here, which I’m sure you’ve totally figured out by now, is that I throw this rope out and fish Mirabelle out of the lake, only poor Bobby doesn’t quite make it, you see. Only the thing I never quite figured out is how to get them separated enough in the water so that they don’t both get out together, which would totally screw up the whole thing.
So anyway, now I’m skating like a son-of-a-bitch back out to where they’re floundering around in the water, and I’m holding one end of the rope in my hand, and yelling I’m coming and hang on and don’t worry and what not, only of course they’re still yelling and bobbing around like apples in a tub at Halloween. And then, goddamn it, just like I was afraid, turns out the rope’s maybe ten feet too short to reach them. So I tie the end of it around my feet and lay out real flat on the ice on my stomach so that my hands can reach where the two of them are still flailing around. Mirabelle c’mon, I’m yelling, because she’s the girl, and so I should help her first and then come back for Bobby, which was kind of the idea all along.
But here’s where it started to get all weird and messed up. I told you already how Mirabelle’s kind of small and thin. Well, I guess that means you get cold faster or something, because she was just sort of floating around with her face in the water, on top of which there was no sign of Bobby by the time I got to where I could almost reach them. So now I’m kind of freaking a little bit, and I’m reaching my hand out as far as I can, with my feet still tied to the rope, only Mirabelle’s just a little ways out of reach. I had to jump back up and skate like hell back to shore, break off a branch from the tree and get back out there, and now it’s maybe like two minutes later, and everything’s going to hell, and this wasn’t the plan at all.
But at least the branch is long enough to reach her, except that she can’t grab at it since she’s still just floating around and not moving. So it takes me another minute to hook her coat with the end of the stick and pull her toward me to where I can grab her and drag her out of the water and onto the ice. I drag her a few steps toward the shore, so she’s not on the thin part anymore, cause otherwise we might both fall back in and then we’d really be screwed. And then I’m just sitting next to where she’s laying on the ice, and she’s all blue and wet and icy looking and not moving at all. But then, before I can think of what to do next, the weirdest goddamn thing happens.
You see, the thing about Endicott Lake is the water’s pretty still most of the time, so when it freezes, it’s just about as clear as glass. So here I am, sitting cross-legged on the ice in my coat and scarf, which is pretty wet and all, and I’m looking down at Mirabelle and wondering what the hell to do next, when here the hell comes Bobby, and he’s under there bobbing around (ain’t that a hoot – Bobby bobbing around), and he’s beating and clawing at the ice, only it don’t matter because now he’s like ten or twenty feet away from the hole where they fell in. Plus, there are these kind of weird currents in the lake that just sort of push the water all around, and I’m thinking there ain’t much chance of him finding that hole again.
Anyway, the thing with Bobby is he’s in real good shape on account of being on the football team and all. And I’m guessing that with all that running and lifting weights and stuff that they do, he can probably hold his breath pretty good. So I’m just sitting on top of the ice, staring down at him from like two feet away, wondering how long he can swim around down there. Well, turns out it was like five minutes or something, which is pretty good, considering how cold it is. But eventually he stops all the beating and clawing, and just sort of floats around under the ice, and I can see his eyes real wide, you know, staring up at me and Mirabelle. And here’s the funny part – he floats right there next to us for maybe five more minutes or so, and then just kind of slowly sinks down out of sight. What do you suppose would make someone just suddenly sink like that? Damndest thing I ever saw, that’s for sure.
Anyway, Mirabelle hadn’t moved during any of this, so I finally stood up and dragged her across the ice, back to shore, because I didn’t want to chance picking her up and trying to walk. Otherwise we’d have both maybe ended up back in the water. Once we got back to the dead log, I leaned her against it best I could, took off her skates and put her boots back on, which was tough, what with her being so soaked and frozen and all. After that, I just sat and sat on the old log next to Mirabelle for the longest time. I talked to her about what we should do about all this, but of course she didn’t say anything back to me. Then I said, you know what, Mirabelle, it’s pretty goddamn cold out here. Let’s talk about this someplace warmer. I tied both our skate laces together and slung them over my shoulder. Then I picked her up and carried her best I could up toward the house, you know, without jostling her or anything like that. But God, she was so cold and stiff.
Lucky for me the lake’s only a couple hundred yards from our house. Lucky also that ma was off at a craft fair or some other stupid thing for the whole day. I knew better than to drip water and stuff all through the house, so I set Mirabelle down on the ground for a second and opened the bulkhead door that leads down into our cellar. I nearly busted my ass getting her down those old wood steps, being as how they don’t hardly ever get used any more. Plus, the entrance is low, and I knocked my head going down the last step.
Well, our house is pretty old, and the cellar’s one of them kind with the dirt floor and a low ceiling with floor beams over your head and stuff. There’s just this one dinky thirty-five watt bulb hanging from the ceiling – one of them old clear ones that make real harsh shadows on everything. I must’ve sat there half the afternoon thinking about how the plan went all to hell, and what was I going to do now. I mean the Bobby part of things went just fine, perfect in fact. It was just that now was supposed to be the part where Mirabelle was all grateful to me for saving her from the lake, and we were supposed to be crying on each other’s shoulders, and talking about wasn’t it a tragedy about Bobby and all. Only it sure didn’t come out that way.
Anyway, after sitting there for a couple hours, I figured that one part of the plan, the most important part, had been for Mirabelle and me to get back to spending more time together, and I guess that turned out to be pretty easy after all. Being as how our cellar had a dirt floor anyway, I just figured she might as well be buried here as any other place in town. So I spent the rest of the afternoon digging a nice deep hole in our cellar floor and putting Mirabelle down there. I was real careful and all, and I even gave her a little kiss on the forehead before I covered her up. You know, I thought, that was the first and only time I’d kissed Mirabelle, and it felt kind of weird too, what with her still being real cold and her skin all blue and everything. Anyway, it seemed to me she would have liked it, so it wasn’t like I was taking advantage of the situation or anything. By the time I finally got back upstairs and cleaned up, it was near dark and it had started snowing pretty heavy. Ma said it took her nearly an hour to get home from the craft fair. She couldn’t drive no more than twenty miles an hour the whole way. And by the time we got up next morning there must have been about eight inches on the ground.
Well, the town looked for Bobby and Mirabelle for a long damn time, let me tell you. But nobody even asked me what I thought might have happened, I guess cause no one really knew they’d gone skating with me. Of course they found the hole in the ice, only there ain’t no dragging Endicott Lake, seeing as how it’s maybe a hundred and fifty feet deep in parts. So yeah, everyone was pretty shook up when Bobby came floating up that following April, looking like he’d been the fishes’ only source of food that winter. They never did find Mirabelle, and her ma’s still pretty shook up about that. Still, like I said, the lake’s pretty deep, and nobody was too surprised that she didn’t turn up. Of course I can’t tell her mom what really happened. But I still visit her quite a bit, and I just say that I’m sure her daughter’s in a better place, and she’s being took real good care of, and reassuring stuff like that. And sometimes her mom still makes me cakes and things, which is nice because it helps take her mind off not having Mirabelle around.
And that’s pretty much why I have to keep living up here in Endicott – that, and the whole thing with ma and helping out around the house. I’ve got to stay here and take care of Mirabelle on account of her saying we’d always be best friends and all. Besides, if anyone found her downstairs, it’d just upset people more, and there’s no point in that, seeing as how folks are mostly over it now. I mean, it’s not like I’m taking a big chance or anything. Ma never goes down into the cellar anyway – she’s not too good with stairs, and the inside door sticks pretty bad. And there’s no reason why someone would try to come in through the outside bulkhead door. But just to be sure, I put a padlock on it, cause you never know what kind of weirdos might be walking around out there.
So yeah, it’s colder than hell, and there’s nothing much to do, and we ain’t likely to get a McDonald’s here until the second coming of Christ. But at least I’ll always have good steady work at Stilson’s, and ma to look after, and Mirabelle will always be there when I need someone to talk to.