Below the Surface

Everyone thinks I don’t go into the lake because I fear water. In a sense that’s true. I do fear water. In particular, this water: Seneca Lake—the longest and deepest of the Finger Lakes. But not because I’m afraid I’ll drown, I’m actually a very good swimmer. I don’t go into the lake because I know what’s down there and they do not. So here on the south shore, closest to my home, I sit and watch small white waves roll in while other people swim. The clear and deep, chilly blue waters of the ominous lake—dug from glaciers left over from the Ice Age—are not for me. Nor, I suppose, not for Gordy either.

It’s been fifty years, but I can still hear the Fourth of July celebration in town. It was our bicentennial, 1976, when practically every man, woman and child of Watkins Glen came out to celebrate. There were firecrackers going off in neighbors’ lawns, bottle rockets in back alleyways and sparklers in the hands of every wild child racing up and down Franklin Street.

Downtown, NASCAR drivers stood by their shiny new race cars signing autographs while talks of fireworks over the lake at dusk quickly spread from neighbor to neighbor on sidewalks, playgrounds, and backyard patios. It was small-town America at its finest. Everything draped in red, white, and blue and Gordy—my best friend—and I weren’t going to miss out.

I first met Gordy Miller in 1970, on the playground near the lake, when we were both six. He and his mom had just moved to Watkins Glen, and lived three blocks down from me on Decatur Street. Gordy was a chubby kid with honeysuckle-blond hair, fierce blue eyes, and a considerable limp because one of his legs was slightly longer than the other; a result of a nasty viral infection when he was four. He explained how it caused his left leg to stop growing for a little while. “By the time it started growing again it was too late. My right leg was already two inches longer.”

“Does it hurt?” I asked as we climbed the monkey bars.

“Nah, not really.”

I smiled and watched as he jumped, clumsily landing in the sand pit below. Despite having just met (and his bum leg) we played together for hours that day. He told me about his dad who died in a car accident the night before his sixth birthday, just two months earlier. “That’s why we moved here. To get away from where it happened.”

“That’s terrible, Gordy. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I still have Mama.”

It’s accurate to say I liked Gordy, or felt sorry for him, from the very start. Most other kids in our neighborhood, mainly the boys, teased him about his plus-size body and nerdy limp, but not me. Somehow, as I soon learned, he would perpetually draw the proverbial short straw.

Pete Slater was one of Gordy’s short straws. He once was a prison guard on “the Hill” in Elmira until he fell off the wagon, hard. In those days being a guard paid well, but Pete spent all he earned as soon as it hit his pockets.

By the time he showed up here in 1974, he was broke with only his two feet to get around. You’d hear him cursing over beers and ballgames at Curley’s Chicken House, watching NASCAR up at the Glen, and stumbling down to the lake for a dip when it got “too fucking hot.”

It was about this time he met Shirley, Gordy’s mom, at Dusti’s Bar & Grill where she tended bar. The kind of place people still gather day or night to shoot pool, slam double shots and get shitfaced. Oddly enough, Pete Slater was a good-looking man. Six feet tall, 210 pounds, mostly muscle especially between his ears. So of course he caught the eye of pretty widow Shirley Miller. But what I remember most about Pete were his hideous tattoos, the ugliest I’d ever seen. Especially the one of a devil’s head wrapped in serpents that adorned his thick, sun-leathered neck. With threatening shades of red, green and deathly black, I hated it and I hated Pete.

I wasn’t alone, just about everyone in town hated Pete. “Brute.” “Swine.” “A thug,” they called him. So when he disappeared a couple years after marrying Shirley, not many lost sleep worrying whatever became of him. “Adios muchacha,” was the most common sentiment.

But on the day of our country's bicentennial, in an unusual display of generosity, Pete somehow got hold of illegal fireworks just for Gordy and me. Which we were planning on lighting. All of them. Most girls were afraid of such things, but not me. At twelve—as always—I was twice as brave as Gordy and everyone knew it. Including Gordy. Like in Spring, when we’d go searching for night crawlers to sell down at the docks—two for a penny—it was me who scooped up those slimy fat bastards while Gordy held the flashlight. He wouldn’t touch them. Said they’d make him puke.

Yeah, Gordy was odd that way; all sentimental and not very brave. That was until the early evening of July 4, 1976. A night I’ll never forget.

***

After finishing dinner at home and washing the dishes, I was finally allowed to go over to Gordy’s. It was about six o’clock when I arrived and saw all the firecrackers lining his driveway. Naturally, Gordy was waiting for me inside; he needed someone brave enough to light them.

I knocked on their back door. No one answered so I knocked again. When still no one answered, I pressed my face against the window to peek inside. That’s when I saw Pete hit Shirley hard across the face with his closed fist.

Just about everyone in town knew Pete Slater hit his wife on a regular basis, but it was the first time I witnessed it. Poor Gordy had probably seen it dozens of times which must have been heavy on his mind when he came screaming from the living room, lunging at the giant before him. Before I knew what was happening, my hand turned the doorknob and I was inside, part of the mayhem. Pete easily swatted Gordy away and seemed to enjoy the sport of it. But Gordy was mad as a cat left out in the rain, which I’d never seen before or since. “I’m going to kill you!” Gordy screamed, frantically punching and slapping. Shirley lay a crumpled mass on the tiled floor, crying, bleeding into a kitchen towel. I stood still like a stone statue.

Then I’ll never forget… Pete threw back his head, cackling, mocking, a laugh so evil his vile neck tattoo laughed with him… or so it seemed. “Ha, Gordy!” he sneered. “That’ll be the day a pansy-ass cripple like you gets the best of me!” Then his grin got even more menacing.

Everything froze. I thought I may pee in my culottes but screamed instead. “Gordy, stop! Let’s go outside and light the firecrackers.”

“And don’t forget where them firecrackers came from!” Pete seethed. Then, like nothing had happened and this was just another night, he stuck his hand out to Shirley, ordering her to “Get up!” With terror and blood smeared across her face, Shirley scrambled backwards away from his reach. Which is when Gordy vanished to the back room for what felt like hours but was really only a few seconds.

Suddenly, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Most likely, neither could Pete, when almost instantly, there before us without a shred of fear, feet shoulder-width apart, bottom lip curled, face hardened with hate, stood less-than-brave, 12-year-old Gordy Miller with a loaded .38 Special pointed straight at Pete Slater’s head.

“Ok-k-kay, let’s all calm down now,” Pete sputtered, the veins in his neck throbbing. “Everything’s cool. Gordy, put down the gun before you shoot someone.” Gordy never flinched. Even Shirley, still cowering on the floor behind Pete, remained deadly quiet. “SHIRLEY!” Pete barked. “Stop crawling around like a fucking maggot and talk some sense into your idiot son!”

Shirley struggled to grab the kitchen table, pulled herself up, tried standing, but was rocky. “Gordy don’t do this,” she pleaded, steadying herself. “Put down the gun, honey. Everything’s going to be alright…”

Gordy wasn’t listening. Both of his eyes were fixed on Pete, his chin up, shoulders back, fingers planted firmly on the trigger. Pete returned Gordy's gaze while reaching behind, dragging Shirley by her long, red hair, shouting again. “Tell him, Shirley! Tell him…”

CLICK! The deafening sound of the pistol being cocked. “Let. Go. Of. My. Mother.” Gordy demanded. Then he fired a live round above Pete’s head. BANG!

With a sudden and dramatic tip of the scale, Pete finally surrendered to Gordy (or, to his gun) by letting Shirley loose. Quickly, she scrambled backwards again, away from Pete, looking up at her son. I don’t know how she knew what was about to happen, but suddenly she screamed, “Gordy, don’t!”

Too late.

Just as the words parted her lips, and neighborhood firecrackers began to crackle and pop loudly outside, the gun went off again. This time hitting Pete squarely between his eyes. Immediately, he collapsed to the floor where bright, red blood quickly pooled around his head. Gordy’s mouth flew wide open as if he, too, couldn’t believe what just happened. Shirley, still in disbelief, let out a high-pitched, primeval sound, like a wolf’s howl, and crawled to Gordy’s side. Me? I threw up on my bright yellow Converse and covered my face with shaking hands. I can still taste the gunfire that seeped into my mouth and nostrils.

We all scrambled to the far end of their kitchen, our backs against the wall—as far from Pete, and all that blood, as we could. We must have stayed there 20 minutes, maybe longer, suspended in time and our shared state of shock. Then Shirley—the first to regain composure—suddenly spoke.

“Gordy, look at me, son,” she said, gently running her hand over his head. Gordy looked up with silent tears streaming his cheeks. “We need to get rid of Pete’s body. Do you understand?”

Events now unfolded slowly, especially for Gordy and me, wide-eyed, depending upon Shirley, the only adult. Gordy nodded, he had indeed heard his mother’s words. After more agonizing seconds, while I thought about running home, Gordy finally opened his mouth. “Yes, Mama,” he whispered. “I understand.”

Then Shirley turned to me, her voice hushed. “Olivia, honey, you need to stay and help us take care of things. Do you think you can do that, sweetheart?”

My mouth opened but no sound came out. Help them? It was all so wickedly weird I couldn’t speak. Shirley took the gun, still in Gordy's hand, and wrapped it in a brown paper sack. “Gordy, do you think you can go into the bathroom and pull down the shower curtain for me?”

A few minutes later, he returned with the plastic shower curtain, handing it to Shirley who spread it next to Pete’s body. Then she had us help her roll Pete onto it and wrap him up. “Like a burrito,” she said. After, we washed the kitchen floor with bleach on our hands and knees, scrubbing until the flesh on our hands split and our eyes burned. When Shirley said all was clean, she gathered the blood-soaked rags into an old bucket and took them outside to burn in the firepit.

Many neighbors were outside too. Most toting lawn chairs and coolers as they walked toward the lake to watch the fireworks. But Shirley, now cool as morning dew, calmly smiled in their direction as she threw bloody rags into the pit, doused them with lighter fluid and lit a match. Poof! Gone.

Gordy and I went through the motions of helping her collect firecrackers from the driveway, burying them deep inside an old, wooden chest in a corner of their garage. Back inside, we sat huddled together in a circle on the living room floor.

“We’ll just wait for it to get dark outside,” Shirley said. “I’ll pull the truck out and we’ll move him.”

“But won’t people still be outside then, Mom? Just coming home from watching the fireworks?”

“You’re right,” Shirley reassured. “We’ll have to wait ‘til after midnight.”

“My parents will wonder where I am,” I said. Hoping the simple truth would excuse me.

But Shirley was prepared. “Let me call and tell them you’re going to spend the night, okay honey?” (Yes, she called me ‘honey’ for the second time that night, as if I were still an innocent child.) “You’ve spent the night here before so I don’t think they’ll mind. I’ll tell them you two and are having such a good time, you’d like to stay longer.”

I still wanted to run but could only say, “Okay.” How had I suddenly become a coward?

At Shirley’s insistence, we played several games of Yahtzee, or tried to, on the shag-carpeted floor. A game I now refuse to play, ever. When “after midnight” finally arrived, we looked outside cautiously. Lawn chairs, coolers and neighbors were all tucked in for the night. Everything was normal, yet nothing was.

As planned, Shirley pulled up her pickup then we each grabbed a section of Pete’s body, struggling against the weight. We knocked over house plants and a lava lamp as we made our way outdoors, depositing his heavy corpse onto the truck bed. Then, without headlights, Shirley drove down Decatur Street to the lake with Gordy next to her, me next to him.

Once at the shoreline, Shirley turned off her engine, got out of the truck and pulled two cinderblocks resting beside Pete, while Gordy wrapped rope around Pete’s body. Shirley tucked the gun inside the shower curtain, next to his body, and told us to wait while she borrowed a boat. Back then, folks in Watkins Glen were trusting; they’d leave keys in their outboards where anyone could find them. Shirley quietly pirated one — with me, Gordy, and a very dead Pete beside her. The drone of the small engine propelling us further into the lake—and madness.

After three or four hundred yards out, Shirley cut the motor. We all pushed the stiff corpse, laden with heavy blocks, off the starboard side. Then stared together as a large ripple spread across the still waters and the body of Pete Slater sank some six hundred feet into the black abyss. None of us said a word. Shirley turned the boat around and we made our way back in silence.

***

Later that morning, as I lay tossing on their couch, the unforgettable sound of Gordy’s gun echoed in my mind as I tried making sense of what happened. Why he fired that second fatal shot, I couldn’t understand. Maybe he finally had enough of his stepfather’s cruelty. Or maybe it was the image of his mother, bloodied and bruised again by her husband’s hand. Had Gordy intended to kill Pete all along? Or did his finger slip? Did he even think what might happen to him if he DID kill Pete?

Questions ran through my mind all night, as they still do today. But I’ll never have any answers, especially not now. What I did know for sure, as I lay staring at the ceiling still in shock, was this: Whatever my best friend may or may not have been thinking, Gordy killed Pete. With one perfectly aimed shot, magically muffled by the timely rowdy sounds of the Fourth of July.

When the glorious sun, my savior, finally flooded through open windows—and after I promised both Shirley and Gordy “I would never tell”—I ran home barefoot. (Never could bring myself to wear those yellow Converse again, so I convinced Mom I’d lost them.) Running past neighbors’ houses, past the steel blue water of our lake, past docks, boats and playground, I quickly went about the business of trying to forget. To not remember how my best friend murdered his stepfather right in front of my eyes.

As days slowly passed, Gordy and I saw less of one another. It became clear nothing could, or would, ever be the same. Our innocent days of childhood had tragically slipped away, and soon were nothing more than a memory. The Millers moved the following fall, far away along the northern end of Seneca Lake in a town called Geneva. I never heard from them again.

I’m an adult now, a spinster, really, still living in the same house I grew up in with my now-elderly parents. “Such a shame Olivia Spencer never married,” I’ve overheard our same neighbors from 1976 say as they pass me in town. “She was such a lovely child. Never pegged her to turn out like this.”

Now, decades later, on windy days like today, I sit alone on the gritty beach listening to waves lap the shore. Now and again, swooping in from the direction of Decatur Street, a little wisp of a wind forms riding on some mysterious breeze, swirling around my head. It’s then I worry old, tattooed Pete may float up.

I pound my fists into the sand, forcing myself to pray the currents of the underground springs will be kind to me and take Pete up north, about thirty-six miles, to Geneva, and let my old friend Gordy and his mother deal with him all alone this time.

But then, that’s only fair. Don’t you think?