Ringer

It's a small, flat, soft package and as I feel it I know what is inside. I have been dreading this day I knew was coming. Once you turn eighteen in the small town of Ringer you got the blue shirt. No one knows who sends them, only that you get one on your eighteen birthday and today I turn eighteen.

Mom says it's a privilege to get the blue shirt. I don't know why. Ted Garson got one and he never did anything to earn it. He was little more than a bully who picked on anyone who got near him. At least he did until he was sent to work in the south field. That's also a privilege, according to my mom although she's neither gotten the blue shirt nor been sent to work in the south field. My father had never got one either. None of the parents had, only their offspring.

Dad told me the south field was only an expression used to say they went to live outside of Ringer. I never had any thought of leaving and could not imagine going anywhere. Ringer was my home. I planned on finding a girl to marry and running the farm after my parents died.

I look at the package and I don't want to open it. I don't want to wear the blue shirt because I know what it means. The blue shirt means the end of childhood. It means growing up and it means never coming back. None of them come back from the south field.

I can smell breakfast cooking downstairs. The traditional Ringer eighteenth birthday breakfast. Every day for as long as I remember, Mom has kissed my forehead. Today she does not touch me. She only sets the plate of food in front of me and leaves me alone to eat.

A Ringer birthday breakfast is odd as it consist of one of everything. One egg, one piece of toast, one slice of meat. It is a sparse meal and no one can say when the tradition started.

Dad is gone out to the fields, I imagine. I listen for the sound of the tractor, but it is quiet except for the sound of the wind.

Mom comes back in the kitchen and drapes the blue shirt, freshly pressed on the back of Dad's chair. There is a piece of paper in the pocket. When I reach for it she shakes her head slightly and mouths “No” at me. She's nervous about something. I can tell it in her eyes.



The great feast with all my friends and any who have not yet turned eighteen starts promptly at four. Even the ones who had nothing to do with me before come. Melanie Brewer kisses my cheek and cries. I want to tell her how I feel about her but the words won't come out.

Finally, the feast begins and it has every food Mom knows that I like. Today it all tastes bland. There is no birthday cake. No singing of Happy Birthday. The girls cry and the boys give me a solemn handshake followed by a sympathetic pat on the back.

Last there is Mom who presses her lips tight and gives me the lightest of hugs. She puts her hand against the pocket with the paper in it and whispers.

“When you get to the south field.”

I know I'm going to the south field whether I want to or not. Every one I've ever known has gone who has turned eighteen. I won't be the exception.

At seven the feast ends abruptly with the arrival of John Tucson who is to take me to the south field. We go through the neighborhood I have grown up in, past the school I spent twelve years in learning what now seems pointless and past Yardley's Grocery where I had a job stocking the shelves.

Tucson never spoke or at least no one had ever heard him. It was mostly grunts and pointing so when he spoke I practically jumped out of my skin.

“When you get to the south field you stand and wait.” He said. “Someone will come to get you.”

“I didn't think you could talk.” I said, in surprise.

“Man only needs to talk when he's got something important to say.”

I couldn't imagine never having more than one important thing to say and wondered how many had heard that exact sentence or was it different for each one of us.

“Do you understand boy?” He asks.

“Yes.”


He turns on a dirt road and I think I know it. It seems so familiar as if I have been on it before, going to the same way and I know where I will end up at when we arrive. I close my eyes and the vision of stones standing in rows appear in my head. I know I have been here but I'm sure I never have seen it.

Tucson stops the car and he tells me to get out. He drives away without a word. I am left standing in an old cemetery. I can hear footsteps coming and I pull the note my Mom left in the pocket. The steps come closer as I unfold the paper and read what it says.

RUN

I can see him under the moonlight. The man who taught me to ride a bike, held my hand as we walked the farm's wheat field. My Father and he was pointing his rifle at me.

RUN

I had trusted him my entire life. I knew I was safe when he was near.

RUN

He was my protector. He would never hurt me.

RUN

I run and I feel the bullet fly close past my ear.

As I run I see the headstones with the names of those I have known. I had gone to their eighteenth birthday feast and had wished them well as they were taken to the south field. There was always a parent missing but I had never noticed, not until it was my own that wasn't there. Not there for what was supposed to be such an important date.

RUN

That one word echos in my head over and over. I cannot think of anything else. How big is this cemetery? It seems to go on forever and I expect to find the end but it is not there.

Did the others get a note in the pocket of their blue shirt? Did their mother or father give them the same warning? Was it just part of how things were done?

I have to believe it was a warning. Mom loves me, doesn't she? I thought Dad did too.

RUN

I keep running and I hear the shots from the rifle. How many now? Can I keep running until he runs out of ammunition? My legs are beginning to hurt and I'm struggling.

RUN

I can't. I'm done. Let what happens happen. What purpose is served by killing one's own child I do not know, yet I know it is going to be done. I will stand here and wait for my father.

Then I see it. The open grave and the headstone bearing my name with the date of my birth and my death. Exactly eighteen years apart. I crawl into the dark hoe and wait for him to find me. If I am to die I will die as I want. I close my eyes so I will not have to see my death.

I hear the footsteps go past and then return to my grave. A light shines on my face and I hear my father reload the gun. I am going to die.

“Why?” I ask.

“For us, son, for us.”

“Us?”

“Your Mom and I.” He says. “You die so we can live.”

“Why?” I ask again. “You owe me at least that much!”

“The blood that spills from your body will let us live on as did the blood of the many brothers who came before you.” He explains. “We have lived in Ringer over two hundred years and we've had many sons. Each one reaching eighteen years and being brought to the south field. After you are gone there will be many more. She already prepares her body to accept another.”

“You aren't supposed to live forever!” I cry. “It is not how life is meant to be.”

“It is how it is in Ringer. Do not worry son, your blood will return with me and you will become part of the new child to be born.”

I am not ready to die. I don't know how long I can keep him talking but I have to try while I think of a way out.

“And what will you do with my blood?” I ask.

“It will become the bed the new child is conceived in.”

“Then I wish to see the grave of the brother in whose blood I was conceived.”



I do not know to laugh or cry as I read the headstone. Eighteen years and nine months older this brother after who I am named. I look further and see more of them with my name. They kept the name and killed the child. Did he cry and beg for his life?

All the hugs and kisses from my parents meant nothing. The “I love yous” only empty words. I would be replaced as all the others had been just so they could keep on living. So Ringer would remain the same with the same people who will have children that when they turn eighteen John Tucson will drive them to find their end at the south field.

That one word flashes in my head again.

RUN

I do, leaving my father standing there.

RUN

The end of the south field must be somewhere. It has to be close. All I can do is run.