Chapter 15 -- The Ladder

THE LADDER

         It was another ordinary school day. Joey walked from the bus stop to the front gate along with Davy Sterrit, Bret Frost and Matthew Neville, the way he always did.

         Matthew was telling the others, "My brother Eddie went to school here with Jess. He told me some of the stuff Jess did at school."

         Joey knew about 'some of the stuff' Jesse had done at school. Back then all Jesse had to know was that something was against the rules and that wes enough to get him to go do it. Maybe Joey's friends thought of Jess as a kind of hero because he broke the rules and got into trouble but Joey knew better. Joey had been very small when all this was going on but he remembered how Jesse got in fights and got himself suspended and just about made Grandma lose her mind. He wasn't comfortable hearing his friends talk about Jess this way. He had other reasons to be proud of his young governor and to him Jess was much more a hero now. Matthew said, "Jess wasn't afraid of anything or anybody back then."

         Joey knew that was almost true and also that Jess might have been a lot better off if he had been afraid sometimes. The things he had done were not fun and they had had serious consequences culminating in getting him arrested and spending a night in jail. Matthew said, "Eddie told me that Jess broke every rule in this school but one."

         "What one was that?" Davy asked.

         "He never climbed the ladder." There was an iron fire escape ladder attached to the brick wall of the building. It went up to a third floor window. It had always been there and there was a strict rule against getting on it.

         "Nobody ever climbed up there," Bret said.

         Joey was looking up, squinting against the light. "I could climb that," he said.

         "You could not!" Davy argued.

         "It's just a ladder. I climb into my tree house all the time, It's just another ladder, just longer and higher that's all." Joey had a good head for heights and he had no doubt that a ladder was a ladder and he could do it.

         Bret said, "Then if you can do it why don't you? Are you scared?"

         He said he wasn't and that was the truth. Joey wasn't afraid of ladders. Davy said, "Jess sure changed when he grew up."

         "You're supposed to change when you grow up," said Joey.

         "Yes but now he won't let you do anything."Bret pointed out. "Every time we want to do something fun Jess tells Joe he can't do it."

         It wasn't every time but when the boys had a bad idea Jess was quick to stomp on it. "He just wants to keep me out of trouble," Joey defended. It was true Jess was strict about some things but Joey was nine now and beginning to see the sense behind it. He might get awful mad at him sometimes and even yell at him but he didn't want other people talking about him.

         The bell rang and the boys hurried to their places in the classroom. Joey was still thinking about the ladder. He was sure he could do it. He knew he had a good boy reputation which pleased Jesse and his grandmother and his teachers no end. He had always obeyed the rules and got along with everybody and had never been in any trouble. He saw no reason to change that and yet he was thinking it would be no big deal to do this thing. He thought about it all during class.

         On the way to the school bus that afternoon Bret asked, "So when are you going to climb the ladder, Joe?"

         "I'm not, why should I?"

         "You said you could," Matt reminded him. "So prove it."

         Bret said, "He's scared. He doesn't dare."

         There are rules at school; there are the rules the teachers make. And then there are rules among children too. Joey had been dared to do this and that kind of obligated him to try it. From the pinnacle of nine year old wisdom it seemed as though he had no choice in the matter. Jess would be mad of course and he'd get punished but he wasn't thinking about that part.

         Matthew said, "Jess would do it," That was just it. Jess would not. Not because he had any respect for rules when he was a boy in this school but because he didn't like heights. Joey was not about to tell the other boys that!

         Joey got on the bus and went home. He hoped the guys would forget about it and say no more but they didn't. By recess the next day there were more kids who knew he had said he could do it and everybody eas talking about it even some of the girls. But now they were saying he was going to do it and he never said that. There were maybe fifteen or twenty guys watching to see whether he'd chicken out.

         Joey walked to the bottom of the ladder and looked up, It was pretty high but he still believed it was possible. Somebody said, "He's gonna do it!" and then it seemed like there was no turning back. Joey coached himself, "One rung at a time and hang on and don't look down." He reasoned that he was up and down the ladders to the loft and his tree house a dozen times a day at home. A ladder is a ladder, right? He grasped the iron stringers and set his foot on the bottom rung. One step at a time and don't look down, he repeated to himself.

         He climbed for a while, the sun hot on his back. He was getting a little tired. It was higher than it had looked from the ground. He looked up and saw that he still had a long way to go. And then he looked down. It was as if his whole body froze in that instant. He could see the faces of the boys watching him far below. He was a long way up and nowhere near the safety of the third floor window. And he literally could not move!

         There could hardly be that many boys in one place without attracting the attention of the teachers. Miss Davis saw them all looking up. She followed their gaze and saw Joey. She ran inside to get help.

         Joey was really in trouble by then. He was hanging on for dear life. He saw another ladder coming up beside the one he was on and then a man climbed up. It was Mr Peary the fire chief in Carthage. He began talking softly to him, "It's all right you're all right I'm going to get you down, stop crying and do what I tell you." Getting Joey to let go of the iron ladder took some persuading but he finally did and found himself being carried down. When he reached solid ground he collapsed in a heap. Mr Peary helped him up. "It's okay you're safe," he told him.

         Joey knew that depended on what you call safe. Now he had to go in the principal's office and face the consequences. And far worse than that. Jess was going to know about this! Maybe the other boys thought he had done something heroic but he knew he had done something stupid and he felt like a class A idiot for doing it. He was shamed for crying in front of all those other kids but still he had done something none of them would do. Not even Jess.

         Miss Ridgeway told him to sit down and gave him tissues to wipe his face. "Why would you do such a thing?" she asked.

         Children, when asked why they did something invariably come up with the same answer: "I don't know." And right then he didn't know. Miss Ridgeway had not been a principal all those years for nothing. She probably had a clearer understanding of it than he did. She began writing a note. "You will give this note to your grandmother," she said.

She had written a lot of notes to Lillian MacIver over the years. Up to now Joey had seemed to be a very different boy from his uncle Jess who had given her fits all through his tenure as a student here. She remembered Jesse as a tall rawboned child with hair the color of wheat and thick eyeglasses. She also knew that the restive student had since matured into a respectable citizen.

         She asked if she should call someone to come and get him or would be be okay to wait for the bus. Joey knew if she called someone that someone would be Jess and he would rather not encounter Jess right then, so he said "I'll wait for the bus."

         His hands still smelled of rust. He wished he could stop shivering.
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         Lillian was not home when Joey got there after school. He went up to his room and flopped on his bed.

         Jesse had seen the school bus arrive. He waited patiently at first and then not so patiently for Joey to get his clothes changed and come out to help him. Finally he went up to the house and called him. There was no answer so he had no choice but to take off his shoes and go upstairs after him.

         Joey was on his bed. Jesse asked, "What's wrong? Are you sick?"
         Joey could answer yes to that and be telling the truth but he decided there was nothing to be gained by delay. He took Miss Ridgeway's note out of his shirt pocket and held it out to him.

         "What's this?"

         "It's a note. From Miss Ridgeway."

         Jesse had brought home enough of those in his time to know what that meant. "What did you do?"

         Joey pointed and said, "It's in the note."

         Jesse unfolded it and read. He read it twice as if he couldn't believe it. Then he started to say something and stopped. He walked to the window and stood there a moment. Then he asked in that ominously quiet voice Joey knew so well, "Joey what the hell were you thinking?"

         Joey didn't know how to answer that so he said "I'm sorry" in his smallest voice.

         "Yeah I know you are, when it's too late. Did you know there was a rule against climbing up there?"

         Joey nodded. Jesse said, "I didn't hear you! Speak up."

         "Yes, sir."

         "And did you know why there's a rule about it?"

         "Yes. People could get hurt. I'm sorry."

         "So you knew it was a rule and you knew the reason for the rule but you broke it anyway. Why?"

         "They dared me."

{indent]"Who? Who dared you?"

         "Davy, Bret, Matt ~~ everybody!"
`
         "So you let guys your own age tell you to break a rule? Was that smart?"

         "No, but they ~~ "
`
"We aren't talking about them we're talking about you."

         Joey started to say someting and Jesse warned, "And stop telling me you're sorry." That kind of eliminated everything he had to say right them so he just sat there.

         "Now your grandmother or I have to go to the principal's office about this tomorrow."

         Joey almost repeated that he was sorry and thought better of it. Searching for a defense he said, "If they don't want people climbing up the ladder maybe there shouldn't be a ladder there in the first place!"

         "When you were a baby just starting to walk and get around in the house, your grandmother and I went all over the whole house and took away anything we thought you could get hurt on. We did that because you were a baby and you didn't know any better. Are you a baby now?"

         Joey decided that defense wasn't going to work for him so he said, "I made a mistake."

         "Oh no you don't! None of that! This wasn't a mistake. You want to know what's a mistake? Locking the keys in the car, that's a mistake. What you did was you knew something was wrong and you decided to go ahead and do it anyway, on purpose. That is not a mistake."

         Joey said, "But you ~~ "

         "I what? I broke the rules and got in trouble at school? Yes I did, and what did it get me? Do you want to copy that? I'm still trying to live it down all this time later!"

         Joey found nothing more to say. Jess got to his feet. "There are going to be consequences for this. I don't know what they will be because I haven't talked to your grandmother about it yet but I can tell you one thing you are not going to like it."

         "Davy would get a licking."

         "Well I'll find something you will like even less than that."

         Joey could believe him. Jesse was creative when it came to thinking up punishments. He knew how to make a punishment into an exquisitely memorable teaching strategy.

         "All right Joey change your clothes you have chores to do." He went out of the room closing the door smartly enough to make Joey wince.
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         Jesse showed the note to Lillian. She read it and then said, "Joey did this?"

         "Yes he did. Mom this is the worst thing he ever did! He could have got killed! They had to call the fire department to get him down!"

         "Did he say why he did it?"

         "Something about they dared him." Jess would have had to admit he had been dared to do things which ended in disaster. He was not so many years out of the school yard that he could forget about being dared.

         Lillian was rereading the note. "Even you never did this."

         "I couldn't. I'm afraid of heights."

         "So which one of us is going to the principal's office tomorrow?"

         "I'll go, I've been there often enough myself. I don't know what to do about this and I need some advice. But this is worse than anything I ever did!"

         "Oh I wouldn't say that!"
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         Jess came home from his interview with Miss Ridgeway and found Joey waiting for him to pass sentence. Jess told him, "Well you've got two weeks detention. I think that's about right, don't you?"

         Joey said, "Yes I guess so."

         "But what do I do about this?" He thought of a thing to do. He held out his arms and Joey came to him. He held him a moment then he said, "Now! Go and put on your work shoes! I have chores for you to do and you are going to work like never before!"

         Joey said, "Yes, sir!"