THE LADDER

Trigger warning! There are mentions of suicide, violence, and death.

The July heat ripples off the pavement. The river shrinks and bees hum drunkenly among wilted blooms of goldenrod, nectar sticky on their legs. It is a hot day, hanging long and humid. The honeysuckles are juicy, wishing weeds—summer’s snow—caught on stems, bow to the dirt, lolling under the fevered air. The people of the town listen to the broadcast from their porches, driveways, couches, family tables, and so forth. Every radio in town is tuned in to channel 65.7 at the same hour, four o' clock. It only ever takes five minutes to announce, the name. This way the old men have time to meet, collect, and be home in time for prayer and supper.

At first, the names on the paper make sense—jail birds, drug addicts, the terminally ill, the homeless. Then, names are called, the names of people the town collectively agrees were not logically picked. Like, Judge Donald Murphy—a pillar in the community, Mrs. Morris White—everybody's grandmother, and Cassie Gurk—a five-year-old little girl.

The calling is overseen by Don Ramsey—the old black man with sunken cheeks and a wiry gray beard. He never leaves the house without his chocolate brown pillbox hat and his cane made of oak; he owns the radio station, the only one the town has. He collects the letter every July 30th, and that works out just fine, as it was his father's job before he passed away at the ripe age of ninety—Mr. Sal Ramsey, an honest man he was. The townspeople always ask why he gets to do it, and why they don’t have a vote on it, the same way they had to vote for the old men responsible for collecting and making the important decisions when important decisions are to be made.

When he arrives at the radio station, carrying the letter, there are looks and whispers among the townspeople, and he keeps his head down, the letter tucked, as an older man calls. "Are either of my girls on the paper, Don?" The older man is Thomas Wright—a narrow-faced, glum man who works low-end jobs and takes care of his two daughters by himself, the rest of his family having passed away. Mr. Wright follows Don all the way up to the door, and when Don turns to him and says, "My name could be on there too," there is a look of understanding between the two men before Don slips inside the radio station and locks the door behind him.

The three old men are already inside—Joey Light, Callum Mabry, and Landon Waters. They stand together outside the broadcast booth; their words are whispers, and they smile at Don as he approaches them. The people of the town joke about how the four of them are crooked backs, fat but healthy-looking, and when they stand together, they look like old sagging baboons.

The calling is the same every year. Collected by Don, then the three old men check the list for tampering. People don’t think Don is a dishonest man, because he never gave them a reason to think so, but it still has to be checked for authenticity. When he gets to the men, carrying the list, there is conversation that is hushed, and when Don says, "Hadn’t been opened, take a look for yourself," the town clerk, Mr. Waters, reaches his hand out and grabs the letter from Don. The golden seal on the letter is untouched, so Mr. Waters nods and opens it.

There were ten or more rules for the calling that had been slowly dismissed over the years, and there are now only three rules that remain—the three old men are to ensure there is no tampering of the golden seal, Don is the only one who can collect the letter, and if someone refuses the calling, the appropriate amount of force is to be used. It happened once before, when someone refused, and the story is that the entire town dried up—the crop, the water, women’s wombs, even animals from local farms vanished. That was many years ago, when the old men were children, when the ladder showed up.

There was a time when the Calling was a great spectacle, before the old men stood in council and told the town that things would be changing. There used to be a community feasting ceremony—the Harvest of Honor. There was a proper calling, done by Sal, and by the three old men who were around then, too. It is said that Sal carried the letter with the golden seal in a cinder lock box—a box made for human ashes—out of char-blackened metal. It was a sealed box, welded shut, with a single slit in the top so only the letter could go in, and nothing could be taken out until the ceremony. At that time, the box would be passed to the old men. The old men took turns keeping the key safe that opened the cinder box. It is said that one of them lost the key, and because of that irresponsibility, they had to saw the box open—and that is why they really got rid of the box.

The name was announced in front of the entire town, after they had all eaten, after the meal had swollen them, weighty and sluggish. After dinner, and after the name was called, there was the memory preservation ceremony, where the townspeople rose one by one, approaching the chosen to offer a favorite recollection or a carefully chosen kindness. But this changes the year after Titus Lewis’s mother—Sandy—is called from the list. He cannot take it, so he blows his brains out over the turkey breast. It is now deemed only necessary for the name to be called out over the radio, to give people a moment of privacy with their families to work out their feelings and goodbyes.

Mr. Waters passes the paper around to the other men. Mr. Light and Mr. Mabry say nothing after reading it, and when Mr. Waters is passed the letter again, he puts it back into Don’s hands. Don nods and, without looking at the list, enters the radio booth and flips the On Air sign. He sits at his creaky wooden chair, checks his mic and all his other equipment, then goes live. The town is all ears.

"It’s July 30th, the flowers are in full bloom, the birds are singing, and I got the name from the sky. It’s Don—your radio man, with 65.7—and I’m here to deliver the calling of the year."

The roar of lawnmowers lower into a growl, a hiss—then silence. Women wrangle up their children, family members huddle in groups and lower their boiling stovetops. They all increase the volume of their radios as the elders shush the young’n's, and the townspeople listen closely.

"Remember, once ya' name is called, you have exactly five minutes. The elders have your name, and they are waiting. Don’t waste time—failure to comply… well-uh, we don’t want to find out what happens then, all clear?" Don lets a moment of silence sit before continuing. "This year, the ladder calls for, Elena Wright." After saying the name, Don, both relieved and sympathetic, removes his pillbox hat from his bald head and sits it in his lap in condolences.

By the time Don calls on Elena, the three old men have her. Thomas Wright follows close by, but not too close. "Why can't I take her place?" Mr. Wright asks, his voice passionate. "This ain’t right, Elena is only twelve years old, dammit!" The three old men don’t look him in the eye as they walk her to the ladder. She keeps her head down, her golden hair that matches her father's covering her face. The shiny black Mary-Janes she wore to school that day kick up dirt along the path as she walks—hesitantly. A doodle of a flower on her hand—plum color—smears under the hand of Mr. Light's tight grip.

They arrive at the ladder, and although the townspeople no longer have feasts and memory preservation rituals and no longer use a sealed box for the letter, some of the townspeople gather near the ladder to show respect upon hearing Elena's name over the radio. In town history, there was only one other child called on before. The crowd is quiet. A boy whispers, "I’m glad it wasn’t me," and the whisper reaches the front of the crowd. Mrs. Clara Beadle—a gentle old British lady who always carries what she calls boiled sweets for the young children, sells books at the local bookmobile, and keeps a seat at her dinner table for Mr. Beadle’s ashes—stands with her frail, pale, veiny right hand covering her mouth. She turns toward the boy who spoke and narrows her eyes in his direction. Women of the group crumple and cling to one another, surveying their own children. The men—stoic—nod at one another when they make eye contact, perhaps their way of comforting each other.

The three old men stand with authority behind Elena. She places the hand with the doodle of the smeared flower around the ladder and looks over at the crowd of onlookers, who turn away from her soulful eyes. "I can’t do it," she says. "I’m scared."

Mr. Wright whimpers like a child, instead of the calloused, weathered, grown man that he is.

"Hurry up! Before we all die!" Mr. Mabry—a graying man with wisps of white hair, the eldest of the old men—hisses through his dentures, showing disregard for the poor girl and her father. He knows the stakes: if someone does not climb the ladder.

He always tells the story the same. Birds fall from the sky first. The water dries up in only hours, and when Mr. Mabry and a few other men go to search for water, that is when they see the tragedy that occurred in the nearest town. It seemed as if the people tried to flee in a panic once everything began to shrivel and dissolve, but running did not help. Everything turned to ash—animals, plants, and so on—and the townspeople laid scattered among the animal carcasses, some not making it far from the “Thanks for visiting, please drive safely” sign at the edge of town. That is when they knew, especially Mr. Mabry, that if called, you must climb. You give the ladder who it asks for.

Mr. Wright lunges for his daughter—smacking the glasses off Mr. Mabry’s face while doing so—and Mrs. Clara Beadle lets out an agonizing moan before fainting. The boiled sweets she had in her pockets tumble out as she hits the ground, toes up.

A few women gather around her, fanning her with morning papers and wide-brimmed hats, and two men come forward from the crowd to grab Mr. Wright by both arms, compassionless. He kicks and screams in protest. "Take me!" Spit sprays from his lips as he yells at the crowd. "Y’all ain’t got no souls."

"Get him on, outta here," Mr. Waters says with great consideration for what is happening and for Mr. Wright’s feelings. It is best for Mr. Wright to leave rather than make things harder than they have to be.

The two men holding onto Mr. Wright force him away, and the crowd separates into a gully for them to walk through. He kicks and cusses his way past everyone’s watching eyes and yells at each one of them, "May all of your children be called on! Fuck ‘em all, let ‘em all burn!" His polished brown work boots are graying from the kicked-up dirt.

Someone from the crowd yells back. "You didn’t mind when it was my Tommy!" Everyone’s head turns toward the voice—Mrs. Rutherford, a round, red-cheeked woman with a frown. There are whispers floating through the crowd about her son Tommy—he was a bright boy and a handsome young man with a mind that chewed on the world. He was called on a few years back. Mrs. Rutherford wipes the sweat from the top of her lip, then turns toward the front of the crowd where Elena stands. "You better climb, girl!" Her voice carries pain that could be mistaken for hate—or perhaps it is both pain and hate.

Once the two men and Mr. Wright make it down the path, the crowd closes again, falling silent.

Elena stands in an open space in front of the ladder and the three old men. She whispers, "This isn’t fair." She steps her right shiny black Mary-Jane onto the first bar of the ladder and climbs up slowly, disappearing into the clouds. The townspeople scatter in separate ways, hoping to still make it home in time for prayer and supper. The three old men keep their eyes on the sky, waiting and watching by the ladder, for good measure.