This is the silent ground where taps is played. A character appears there and then is gone. Died in a Palm Beach Hotel Looking over at the choir loft I saw someone from my grade sitting in a pew. I was envious. He got to wear the black formal robe. This was not one of my friends or a friend of one of my friends. No one ever stepped on his shoes or kicked him in the crotch to start a fight. He never went home with clothes torn or a skinned knee or black and blue. He did not see stars from having his head slammed against the concrete over and over. He did not wear glasses. As I watched him moving out in the procession after the service I tried to notice who he had to go home with. The squareness of the loft had made him seem all too human. Years passed. In catechism I found two other students had much better memories for the passages. As we read our Revised Standard Versions with the new texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls we knew we would be part of a controversy. Each week we pasted another book face into the big sheet that had a bookshelf printed on it in construction paper quality. The kid in the choir was now added to the girl with the blonde hair I played with boosting her into the apple tree as a superior. They just were smarter than I. The piano in the living room that the lawyers daughter could practice on now had a partner, the choir. I was still a kid in flannel-lined dungarees that was a little too heavy and clumsy to be a good sport. Now I saw who this kids parents were. His mother and father were in the choir too. His father often soloed in a deep baritone voice, mouthing the words of the anthems and hymns in a very clear form. His mother was a bit mousy but still would substitute on the organ to the magnificent bleating of the pipes. How wonderful of a family they had. His sister was younger and a playful slender girl always with a purse on a long patent leather plastic handle. The family lived only a few blocks from out house but my parents never went to their house and I never knew anyone who played there. Even my friend who had come from Detroit and lived two houses away never played with that family. In some ways they were like my uncles family. My uncle laid floors for my grandfathers general store. My aunt was beautiful and played the piano and organ at the Reformed Church. My cousins had an idyllic life with a carriage barn to use as a playhouse and the Firefighters park right next door. Real conflict early boiled over. There was a kid who lived on the long gravel road that ran along the South side of our property. He had stolen my tricycle and boldly left it sitting on his front porch. I got into a fight with him but because he was Catholic and we were Protestant that clash was quickly snuffed out by the authorities. When his family moved to a house on an open piece of ground his father began to garden the plot and sell the produce. He built a Ford truck with dual wheels and a one-ton Dodge pickup box to carry his produce. It was a fairly well constructed modification with culverts for fenders covering the wheels that stuck out. The whole assembly was painted a kind of gray brown Doge color. The father became an officer of the court in the county seat where we lived. Something happened to him physically and he had to sell the truck. My rivals father stepped in to buy the truck and start a new soft water business hauling the 100 pound salt tanks around on the back of this truck. This man was very strong and proud. There was to be a glimpse of my rival at physical education when spring came and track season began. Volleyball and Basketball did not fit this kid. Now in his new white shorts and matching logoed tee shirt the coaches for JV track were rolling him out. The initiative fizzled. In hurdles and sprints this kid had no aggression so they tried the 440 or relay. I was laughing as this kid ran along beside me and then faded back as the first quarter mile of the run walk mile passed. Then one day high school was over and this boy I had viewed from close up was being touted as the salutatorian. The blonde lawyers daughter was valedictorian. Both would be making speeches at graduation. I was voted most likely to succeed with the farmers daughter with the big boobs that had harangued me in Latin club and in speech contests. Yeah! We were sort of equal. My father had helped her build a cloud chamber for science fair. My silly experiment of molds that came when the agar-agar got contaminated went on to the Regional Fair where it won a prize. I received a Handbook of chemistry and Physics. It was to be a tool in my career for years. She did not go to regional and saw the judging as rigged. My father was the chemistry and physics teacher. Now I had her eye. When summer was over my father said, well I guess even though you got accepted to university youll probably want to stay with your chums at home and build your career as a gas station attendant? He was hoping I would drop out and not cost any money but instead bring some in. My rival had elected Engineering at the same school I was accepted at. My mother was surprised when I said I wanted to go to college since she had sort of set a rule that I had to pay my whole way and I had only about $500.00 in the bank and U.S. Savings Bonds. At college in the fall my rival now became a friend. Perhaps he was just lonely without his close family. We lived in different houses in the same nine-story dormitory. He smoked cigarettes and threw the still burning butts out into the hall on the linoleum. I got to meet his roommates who shared his room. There was a bunk bed and a single in their room. One of the guys was from a mining town where Norwegians and other Scandinavians predominated. The other was from an old fishing town that was nearly abandoned closer to where we were from. As I watched them working with their tee squares and lap boards I was reminded of the meeting in the Dean of Admissions office where I had been interviewed as a candidate for admission to the school. Naturally with your ability in science and your grades youll want to be in Engineering School, he had said. Youll probably be placed in an honors section with your SATs. I struggled with that. I had not taken Mechanical Drawing in high school, as it was a vocational course for incorrigibles and animals that got sent out of other classes. The ex-truck driver teacher threw erasers at the students who were talking. I had heard about the course from the older sons of the grade school principal. The names of the evildoers in the woods nearby were prominent in the makeup of that class for years before I was a freshman even in high school. My Sat scores were better than my rivals. He had boasted to me and we had compared. There was only one other boy who even came close and that was someone I had known in Boy Scouts. He was a natural leader and became drum major after playing the trombone in the band. My writing skills had taken me into the heights. I elected Literature, Science and the Arts. You will still have the option of honors, the registrar said. That would put me up against the kids from the big technical high schools and the arts campuses in the big city nearby. I would face them anyway in the third year when electives were all that was left. I decided to go with a more conservative approach. The groans from my parents and the registrar were audible. First no engineering and now no honors were accepted. I really was a dull kid. In the deep of winter this kid came to my room. He did not want to hitch hike to Grand Rapids alone. Would I go with him? He had a girlfriend in nursing school all the way across the state. He was going to see her. There was no real incentive for me. No introductions to nurses were being offered. I agreed to go. I loved the open road. We walked to the north edge of campus and father past the train station to a perch on the main four-lane road out of town. It was late afternoon. We were next to a big concrete bridge rail and there was not much space for a car to stop. As it grew dark and old Buick approached. The old man stopped and threw open the rear passenger door. We got in. The car accelerated away. Up the road as the car began to cruise the man became voluble. He had been at the university hospital all day for treatment. Now he was headed home to the state capital. Thoughts of how my current friend had moved with his parents out by the cemetery into a new house came to mind as the man said he was a veteran and loathed the VA. Each memorial day when the drum and bugle corps had marched through town out the outskirts to the cemetery to fire a volley and sound taps for the deceased of two wars I could see this new house through the trees. It was a privilege for a kid to go to the ceremony after dropping out at the state police post when he was young to have his decorated trike or bike from the parade judged. Now we had found a strange veteran. It began to snow. A major storm was brewing. In the car it was warm and cozy. The veteran asked us to hand him a beer from the six-pack on the floor by my friends feet. Open it he asked. Take one and share it My friend opened two beers and began to guzzle one. He handed it to me. I handed it back. Even at the graduation party on the beach I had not drunk from the opened bottle placed in my hands. On the dunes where the ant lions created the conical depressions to trap unwary ants in the sand I set the bottle down. Now the two of them insisted and I was trapped in the car. I accepted the bottle back and we spent the next few hours driving through deepening snow and accumulating sleet. It was about 10:00 PM when we were dropped off at a major intersection in the capital. We had heavy coats but no boots or gloves. The night grew boring with the beer buzz. We took turns standing by the roadway. Cars went by but their windshield wipers were going and they had an occluded view. We considered giving up and trying the opposite side of the road to go back. It might take several rides to cover the one we had taken. Then about 2:00 AM a new Buick convertible with the top down came up and opened the front door. There was lumber leaning over the rear seat and trunk. Our new benefactor drove on silently. When we were about half way across the state from the state capitol he mentioned the boards and that he soon had to turnoff and head toward his cottage where he was going to do some building in about a mile. Did we want to continue with him or just be dropped off? We looked at the bleak landscape of clearing by a major highway and then a fence and just pine trees on sandy hills. We shrugged our shoulders. My friend said, Let us out at this turnoff. It was now about 4:00AM. He looked at his watch and there was pain in his eyes. I smiled. It was not too long before another car came along. This car was going all the way to our destination. The snow was a bit less now. W snoozed a bit in this car and when we awoke there was a train across the road. The train just sat. After about an hour the train began to back. We were elated. After moving about 20 cars it stopped and sat again. Another half hour passed. Then it began to move. As cars passed we could see it was slowly accelerating. It seemed an eternity but was probably ten minutes when the caboose came into view and passed over the road crossing. The barriers and lights flashing began to change. We crossed the very bumpy tracks bottoming out in the springs. Now the streets we rode on were brick and very swoopy crowned and bumpy. This was the far side of the state and a very conservative image was kept. My friend asked for a street intersection he knew and the driver protested a bit it was out of his way but my friend prevailed. Getting out we moved about the silent streets in the cold in what was obviously skid row. We were chilled by now. There was a big ventilating grate on the sidewalk and we tried lying on it as it had some heat coming out. It was just too hard and my friend asked me if I had any money. I did a small amount. He had a tiny amount to and we walked to a decrepit building with a Hotel sign. Inside we signed up for a single room. One of us (me) would sleep on the floor. We walked to the stairs and climbed flight after flight to our floor. Turning the key and pushing open the door he flopped on the bed and I lay on the floor rug. Night passed unheralded. We got up about 7:30 and my friend carefully washed his face and his armpits and combed his hair. I washed my face. Out in the hall we saw the elevator was running and pushed the call. The whiz and clatter announced that it was arriving swiftly. Soon the doors flew open with a bang and the old brass cage clattered open and we saw a shriveled old man on a stool. We got in he asked for a floor and we said, lobby. Down we went with the feeling of the floor dropping out from under us. The walk to a somewhat residential part of the city was brisk and we soon stood on the wide veranda next to the porch of an old three-story house. My friend knocked on the door and after a while someone peered through the curtains. Some waving ensued. It was about 8:30. A little more waving and the latch turned and the door opened. Whispering and then the door closed. After a long while a single figure appeared framed in windows of the door and seemed to be making a decision. My friend moved up to the doors. He rattled the knob. His contact inside opened the door and he entered closing the door quickly. I waited for several hours on the porch and he reappeared. Out movement home was uneventful. That first semester was his last. Like my roommate he flunked out. His grades and attitude were so bad he could not get reinstated. The burnt tiles in the hall from the cigarette butts had been one fault too many. I did not hear form him nor did any one at home mention him until later when I was settled in California. Some one had told my parents that he was in California and they wrote to tell me. Some other boys from my town worked on the production line at the aerospace factory where I was now an Associate Engineer/Scientist. He was not among them or in contact with them. Ten years later I got another letter that said my rival and friend had died in a hotel in the big city close to my old home. I was not invited to the funeral. A few years later I saw that David Kennedy had dies in a Palm Beach Hotel of a heroin overdose. Evidence was being accumulated and the family was scandalized. I thought of the circumstances of my friends death. The passing of this second man moved me. It was not evidence of foul play only a closure of the book.