A Hero's Lie

    “I’m not a hero,” I mumbled into my pillow. Everyone has been calling me that for a week now. I can’t take it anymore. I wasn’t a hero, I was just trying to fix what I messed up. No one was suppose to be there. It was dumb and stupid. My mom is going to be so mad at me. I don’t even what to know what my dad will do.

    “Cal,” my mom called up from downstairs. “Come for dinner.” I slowly sat up and looked at my feet. My life will be over if I tell what really happened. It’s only been a week. They will stop talking about this soon. Right? I just have to wait it out and they will forget. Then I can forget and everything will be normal again.

    I stood and shrugged off my hoodie and went down in my tee shirt and jeans that I still had on from school. As I got to the bottom of the stairs I could already smell part of the meal that was waiting for me in the dining room. My dad and my uncle were already there and seated.

    “Hi dad. Uncle Harry,” I said with all the joy I was feeling at the moment before I sat down. As I did, I realized that they were going to pick up on it if even I realized I sounded down.

    “What’s wrong Calvin?” dad asked as Uncle Harry looked into the kitchen as he picked at one of the dishes already on the table. I think it was a tomato from the salad.

    “Nothing,” I said with a bit more upbeat tone this time. I hoped. I wasn’t sure I pulled it off that well. “Just thinking about a pop quiz Ms. Welsh gave us today,” I didn’t lie.

    “What subject is that?” Uncle Harry asked me.

    “American History,” I stated.

    “What period was the test about?” dad asked me now as mom walked into the room holding another dish.

    “Wounded Knee mostly,” I told them without correcting him. It was a quiz and not a test.

    “Who wounded their knee?” Mom asked as she set what she was holding down in its spot.

    “Don’t know,” Uncle Harry said. “Calvin was just about to tell us,” he ended.

    “It was a massacre that happened at Wounded Knee Creek back in 1890,” I started as she motioned for me to pass her my plate. “It happened on a Lakota Indian Reservation,” I continued. I looked around the table and they seemed to be actually paying attention to me, so I tried to remember some of the questions and their answers to continue the story for them. “A Major Whitside and his cavalry regiment, the 7th, surrounded and killed a band of Lakota. They killed just about everyone. Men, women, children, and some of the soldiers that got caught in the crossfire. All because they tried to disarm the Indians and one of them didn’t understand what was going on,” I mumbled near the end.

    I reached for my fork for the first time and looked up after I took at stab at my meatloaf. Mom was just putting down her plate, dad looked shocked, and for some reason, Uncle Harry almost looked like he had to apologize for something.

    “It’s what happened,” I said in my defense. They were the ones that wanted to know.

    “Yeah, well,” my mom started as she reached for my own fork. “Let’s try and talk about something a bit more pleasant ok?” She asked. I just reached for the jug of Koolaid and poured myself glass.

    “Then what I had to say isn’t something you want to hear then,” dad said as he too started to eat. I kept my head down to eat, but I saw as Uncle Harry picked up the jug after I had put it back.

    “Did anyone die?” Mom asked him.

    “No,” he said before starting to chew something green.

    “Then talk away,” she told him. He took a moment to cut into his meatloaf and take a bite before he said anything again.

    “Mr. Drum saw me on his way home from the hospital today,” he said before pausing and I heard knife and fork working against his plate. I already knew where this was going, but I couldn't get up and leave. “I was coming out of the hardware store and he was just walking by when we saw each other. I asked him how Taylor was doing, and he said that they were just about ready to discharge her. Her lungs were much better now.” He stopped to take a sip and eat a bit more.

    “That's great,” mom said. “Why wouldn't I want to hear that?” she asked him.

    “He said,” he continued. “He was on his way to talk to Father Wilson about doing some fundraising to help with the hospital bills. I gave him the fifty I had on me and said that we’ll make sure to come with some hundreds on Sunday,” he seemed to finish as he reached for his cup and take a bit more than a sip before getting some snap peas on his fork.

    “I still don’t hear anything bad,” mom said and she wasn't the only one who expected to hear him say something different. I kept on eating, hoping that I could finish and leave the table before someone, never mind dad, started on a subject I didn't want to hear.

    “Granted, it's nothing as major as Wounded Knee, in fact, it's downright nothing compared to that. Thank you son,” he said before eating some more. I looked up and he winked at me in gratitude.

    “Sure thing,” I answered somewhat baffled. I reached for my cup to help wash the lettuce down.

    “I said church Lilly,” dad said to mom.

    “You said I was coming to church?” she asked as I saw her lay her utensils on the plate’s rim.

    “Where do you think we would be going on Sunday?” He asked before he continued to eat.

    “You said fundraiser,” mom reminded him. “Bake sale. Extra donation box outside the Father’s office. I don’t know,” mom said exasperatedly before just looking at him more upset at things than mad at him before she shook her head and started to eat again.

    The table was quiet for a while. Knives and forks continued to scrape against plates, cups clinked now and again, people shifted in chairs and the muted sounds of chewing filled our occupied space.

    “At least you are only helping to pay for hospital bills and not funeral costs,” Uncle Harry chimed in with. There it was. Mom reached over and patted my hand in pride that I saved the girl or that I myself was alright. She didn’t say anything either way, so I didn’t feel like pulling my hand out of hers.

===

The Next Day

===

    The day was better than I expected considering what happened yesterday. No one was calling out to me like the hero they thought I was. Most of the girls still looked at me, but they didn’t approach me today.

    I was right to wait. Things were starting to get closer to being normal again. They may never forget who I am now, but soon what I did won’t be that big of a deal anymore. I gladly enjoyed my lunch alone and even cracked open a book I was suppose to be reading for English Lit. I hadn’t opened it since last week. I had the class twice a week. Wednesdays and Thursdays. The incident happened Wednesday afternoon, and we got the book the Thursday. I kept forgetting I had it, so I was skimming through it today, so I had a clue of what was going to be talked about this afternoon.

    When I was about 20 pages in something fell out. It was the torn off corner of a page from someone's notebook. My blood ran cold as I read the short message.

    I know you started the fire.

    I started to feel sick and the good meal I just ate suddenly tasted like I had swallowed bile. Who could have known?

    It almost goes without saying that the rest of my week didn’t go that well for me mentally. I tried to act normal and I think I fooled just about everyone, but I was looking. Really looking, at everyone’s face as if that would let me know that they knew. That they were the one that left me the note.

    Maybe no one knew. Maybe they were just guessing because I wasn’t popular before. Maybe they thought I was tired of not being seen, or wanted to impress a girl or something, but that wasn't the truth. There was no reason because the fire shouldn't have happened to begin with. All my maybes came to an end on Friday when I found another note in my Math textbook.

    Are you going to tell them on Sunday?

    Well almost stopped the maybes. They could still be guessing. They didn’t say they would tell anyone. They weren’t threatening me. I decided that there was nothing I could do and tried to forget about. But the harder you try to forget something, the more you think about it. I started to wonder if I could keep myself from saying anything on Sunday.

===

Sunday Morning

===

    “I’m in the car!” I heard my dad yell from downstairs. I wasn’t sure if he was saying it to someone in particular, or just to everyone in general. I continued to look at myself in the mirror. I had broken out my only suit that still fitted me and combed my hair back. I almost didn’t look like me at all. It would be fitting not to look like my normal self since it wouldn’t really be me they would be seeing.

    I turned and walked out of my room and down the stairs to wait in the car with my dad. When I got closer, I saw that Uncle Harry was already sitting in the back seat. I just walked around to the other side and waited with them for mom to finish and leave the house. As the minutes ticked by, I was starting to hope that she would walk out and say that dad could just go by Mr. Drum’s home and give him the check instead.

    But she didn’t. She didn’t even show up until thirty minutes after I did. Uncle Harry started to whistle but stopped as dad hit him in the back of the head. Mom just smiled as she walked to the front passenger seat.

    “If we have to be all dressed up, I was going to do it right and we are going out afterwards.” I’m sure she meant the last part for dad. Whether or not, Uncle Harry and I were included, I didn’t know yet.

    The drive to the church wasn’t very long. We only had one and it was in the middle of town. So after passing Walmart, who paid it’s way through local red tape to be built, the soccer field, where I mostly watched everyone else play, my school, that seemed to have closed in on me lately, the old barn, that was now mostly a black stain on the town with a few burnt pieces of wood still left standing, the drive-in, that the town hasn’t used since my parents were kids and for just as long said that they were going to reopen, the two-hundred-year-old library, that looked a lot like the two hundred and five year old police station, and the community hall, that was across the street from the church, we arrived.

    There were so many cars already there, that dad let us out in front of the church and went to find somewhere to park the car. I was starting to brace myself for all the pats on the back and smiles people were going to send my way today. And they came. Slowly at first. My uncle walked away for some reason, but mom played the part of the proud mother that she truly was.

    Some shook my hand but told mom that she had a fine boy. The word hero was tossed at us far more than I was comfortable with. A few mothers introduced me to their daughters and they were lucky I could present them with a smile knowing they wouldn't give me the time of day if they really knew. I had seen enough movies to know this and I also knew the longer I let this go on, it would just make them hate me even more if they found out, when they found out. But I was still willing to try and avoid breaking my mom’s heart and being a disappointment to my dad. I didn't really care about the other people as much. They didn't care about me before.

    All of this swirled around in my head as I kinda understood what was going on around me without really taking any of it in. I stood when I was supposed to stand. I sat when I was suppose to sit. I bowed my head with everyone else and passed the collection basket along when it reached me. I saw as dad placed the check in and I watched as Uncle Harry dropped in a fifty before he pulled out two ten’s. The priest had stepped away from the pulpit, but he was back again as the collection was still making its way around.

    “The lord has blessed us,” he started. “Two of our young people have faced a harrowing ordeal and have been guided through it with our lord's help. I’m sure it was the lord who gave young Calvin Baker the courage to face those flames to save Taylor. I’m also sure that his parents had a hand in that also. They taught him right from wrong. They showed him by example, if not with words, that you helped who was in need.” Claps broke into his speech and he paused until it died down.

    “Whatever circumstances there were that brought him to that place, at that time, knew that he wouldn’t shrug the duty that he knew he had to carry out in shaving that young lady,” he paused again for another round of applause. I even got a pat on my back from someone sitting behind of mind. My skin crawled and I pulled away from their hand.

    “Calvin!” my mom hissed in surprise next to me. I couldn’t look at her. I didn’t look up as the priest started to speak again either.

    “I would like to personally and publicly thank him for doing what he did,” then I heard him clapping over the speakers before people around me started to clap. This was the first time that they had been able to do something like this. A few people shouted and howled but the clapping just grew and it pounded in my head.

    They had it all wrong. There was no courage, it was fear. Fear of my mistake costing someone their life. I didn’t just happen to be passing by. I was the there the entire time. It was the faith that my parents had in me and not me in God that caused me not to think twice about getting her out. They did raise me. They knew that I was good a person. They knew I was honest.

    I stood, the clapping went up a notch.

    “I started the fire.” no one heard me. I barely heard me. “I STARTED THE FIRE!”

    Tears ran down my face as the building fell quiet.