THE DEVIL’S RADIO /// Beth Escott Newcomer

THE DEVIL’S RADIO

///Beth Escott Newcomer

Carol Kaczmarek was a screamer. Back when we all played War in the connected backyards behind the houses that lined School Street and Willow Street, we made forts in the lilac bushes and used sticks like swords and flung mud balls and dog turds at our enemies from the basket of Dad’s old lacrosse stick; we took our prisoners to the shed behind the Larsons’ horse trailer, and we’d threaten to torture them with the snaffle bits and the other riding gear that hung on hooks on the walls, “Carol Kaczmarek was though mostly we never followed a screamer.” through—the worst we ever did was make them take their pants down. But nevertheless, whenever things got the least bit interesting or dangerous, it was Carol’s piercing scream that summoned the authorities—a parental dictatorship that would shut down the whole business. So naturally, it was Carol who screamed the loudest and was the first to run to the nearest adult to tell on Big David and Annie when they tossed Tim Lenfers too hard and too far playing Statues. That was in the Lenfers’ backyard after supper on the last day of school. Tim’s collarbone got broken, and it looked like he’d have to skip swimming at Miller Park Pool that whole summer. His mother, Cheri, made Big David and Annie’s mother, Joan, pay the emergency room bill. Joan didn’t really have the money, being the only single mother on the block so far. That was why there wasn’t money for the pool for Big David and Annie either. They’d have to miss out on swimming just like Tim, and it looked like they, too, would be stuck, staying home, bored to death, while their mother went off to work. It was a raw deal, but no one could say it wasn’t fair. It was broiling hot the first week of summer vacation, and every day all the other kids rode off on their bikes to the Miller Park Pool, leaving behind Tim—who sat around feeling sorry for

himself, his shoulder in a giant cast with his arm out “akimbo” (that was the summer we learned that word), watching Gunsmoke and Bonanza reruns on the giant color console TV in the Lenfers’ living room, with all the curtains closed to shut out the sun, and the air conditioner in the window practically drowning out the sound of the TV—and Big David and Annie—who sat around feeling sorry for themselves, watching General Hospital, The Edge of Night, and The Secret Storm on the portable black-and-white TV down in the basement family room. Big David made Annie get up and change the channels all the time, and she’d have to set down her chocolate milk and walk all the way over to the other side of the room to click around the dial just to see what else was on. That couldn’t last very long. One day Big David said to Annie, “Let’s go see what’s happening over at Tim’s,” and so Annie locked up the house with the key she kept on a string around her neck, and they took off down the sidewalk toward Willow Street. By this time, they weren’t mad at Tim anymore for being such a fragile shrimp; instead they were mad at Carol for ratting them out. As they walked the two blocks over to the Lenfers’ house, they talked trash about Carol, saying how she was such a baby, ruining all the games, and blaming her for everything. And, come to think of it, what about her brothers? Wasn’t it partly the fault of Carol’s older brothers being so wild, amping up all the games? Big David and Annie wouldn’t have been showing off so much with the big swinging way they tossed Tim if it hadn’t been for those Kaczmarek boys. Why should they get to go to the pool? By the time they got to Tim’s house on Willow Street, and Tim had passed out the Popsicles and they were all hanging around on Tim’s front porch, Tim had joined in, adding some things that his mother had said about how the Kaczmarek house was always such a mess and smelled like basset hounds and cigarettes, about how Mr. Kaczmarek was so much older than Mrs. Kaczmarek, and how Mrs. Kaczmarek was so loud and full of

herself at the PTA meetings, wearing those low-cut blouses that showed everything. Tim threw in the word “slut” to sound like an authority. None of them were sure what the word meant, but it seemed like Carol’s mother must be one. “I heard she sunbathes naked in the backyard,” added Big David, not to be outdone by Tim, who was one year younger. “That’s why they have that high fence.” “Let’s go see if it’s true,” said Annie, which shocked the two boys, given that Annie was usually more the innocent bystander type and rarely one to initiate a caper. Tim said, “My mom said I’m not supposed to leave the house,” but no one—probably not even Tim’s mother—really thought mere words would keep him on that front porch. Big David ordered Tim to get his binoculars, and Tim said, “Good idea.” They went around to the back of the house, ran across the Lenfers’ flat green lawn, the scene of the Statues debacle. Then they made their way up the steep embankment, with Tim bringing up the rear. With his akimbo cast, he required a wider berth than the others as they ambled through the dense tangle of dogwood trees and redbud trees and ornamental maples Mrs. Lenfers had planted a few years ago and then promptly neglected. Tim’s great white cast dazzled in the dappled sunlight. At the top of the hill, a decorative split-rail fence separated the Willow Street backyards from the backyards of the newer, modern-style houses up on Rotunda Court. Other than at the Kaczmareks’, they hadn’t spent much time up in the new subdivision and really didn’t know their way around the cul-de-sac. But Big David was daring and led them on, sneaking around behind garages and through side yards, searching for a good place from which to spy. A few houses away from the Kaczmareks’ place, they paused to get their bearings beneath a large forsythia bush that had been recently trimmed—its bright yellow flowers providing a

kind of camouflage and plenty of room for the three of them along with Tim’s giant cast. They sat Indian style and Tim was able to rest his akimbo arm in the crook of the branches. Annie squirmed around, tugging at the legs of her seersucker shorts. “It feels like I’m sitting on an anthill and they’re biting me,” she whined. “Be quiet and quit moving around so much!” whispered Big

David.

Then he turned to Tim. “Give me those binoculars.” Tim, who was hot and sweaty and had become slightly worried about ants getting inside his cast, said, “Actually, we should probably be getting home now,” but handed his binoculars to Big

David anyway and showed no intention of abandoning his post. Big David scanned the Kaczmareks’ yard with Tim’s binoculars. Ordinarily, there would have been bicycles all over the lawn, left where they had been thrown, but with Carol and her brothers off at the pool, the front yard was uncharacteristically neat. The sun was at its hottest. The only sounds were the buzz of insects and the hum of the central air-conditioning units—everyone up there had central air. “Let’s go in for a closer look,” said Big David. In a crouched sprint, he led the posse across the street to a spot with a better view—a mulberry tree beside “Everyone was the garage of the Kaczmareks’ disappinted and yet next-door neighbor. Tim somehow a little relieved.” couldn’t climb with his arm in a cast, and Annie was afraid of heights, so Big David left them hiding behind the trunk of the tree while he went for a bird’s-eye view of the action. And that’s when they spotted the red, white, and blue United States Postal Service truck turning the corner and heading up the hill toward Rotunda Court. The driver, Mr. Lombardo, parked on the far side of the cul-de-sac, disappeared into the back of the truck for a moment, then emerged with his big leather mailbag. “Oh no!” whispered Tim. “He’ll see us spying!” Annie gasped.

“Shhh,” admonished Big David from halfway up the tree. “Stay calm.” They watched Mr. Lombardo walk along the sidewalk and up the front walk of the first house. He stood on the stoop, briefly checked through the envelopes, then deposited a bundle of mail into the box by the front door before retracing his steps back down the front walk, then making a left onto the sidewalk. Then they watched as he repeated the routine, making his way up the front walk of the second house, placing the mail into the box “In their not-so-good by the front door, and turning left onto the hiding place, they sidewalk toward the next house. froze in terror.” When Mr. Lombardo started up the front walk of the third house, Big David hoisted himself the rest of the way up and began to inch his way out onto an overhanging limb. He raised the binoculars to look into the Kaczmareks’ backyard. “Is she naked?” Tim asked in a loud whisper. Big David could see Mrs. Kaczmarek in a bright yellow twopiece swimsuit, gigantic sunglasses, and a wide-brimmed straw hat, stretched out on a chaise lounge-style lawn chair. A cold drink sat on a small table, next to a bottle of Coppertone suntan lotion, a pack of Pall Malls, and a transistor radio. He could hear the station identification, “Double-u Ell Ess! In Chi-caa-go!” followed by the opening bars of the top ten hit “Bend Me, Shape Me.” Mrs. Kaczmarek turned up the volume a little. “Nah,” said Big David. “She’s wearin’ a bathing suit. Nothing to see.” Everyone was disappointed and yet somehow a little relieved. But before they could abort the mission—get Big David down out of the tree and head back to Tim’s in time to catch Gilligan’s Island, which started at 3:30—they were startled to notice that Mr. Lombardo, after placing the bundle of mail in the box by the front door, instead of heading back down the front walk, turned and moved directly toward Annie and Tim. In their not-sogood hiding places, they froze in terror, their minds churning with

possible excuses about what they were doing there. But apparently Mr. Lombardo didn’t see them. He came to a stop at the gate in the side fence, took out a handkerchief, and wiped his face, then knocked:

Shave and a haircut, two bits.

A moment later, Mrs. Kaczmarek opened the gate, took Mr. Lombardo by the hand, and led him, mailbag and all, into the backyard, shutting the gate behind them. Annie and Tim looked at each other with eyebrows raised all the way to the top of their foreheads, and they both put their hands over their mouths. Still officially on duty, Big David continued to peer through the binoculars at the scene unfolding below. “They are kissing,” he began. “And it looks like they’re dancing to the radio.” “I love that song,” said Annie. “Now they are going over by the garden shed,” Big David continued in a hoarse whisper. Tim and Annie struggled to understand the strange details of what came next. Big David sounded out of breath as he described what he saw: Mrs. Kaczmarek had ordered Mr. Lombardo to take his pants down, and now he was just standing there by the shed with his mailman pants around his ankles, and Mrs. Kaczmarek was down on her knees, and it looked like she had his thing in her hand, rubbing it. And then she put it in her mouth. “She put it in her mouth?!” Annie repeated, incredulous, glaring at her brother up in the tree, remembering all the times he’d fooled her in the past with his nonsense. “I don’t believe it,” said Tim, but remained intrigued. “I’m not kidding!” said Big David. “And it looks like Mr. Lombardo is about to start crying or yelling or something.” “Oh my goodness,” said Annie. Just then, Carol Kaczmarek appeared out of nowhere, whizzing up the block on her pink Sting-Ray bike with the white banana seat, in her bathing suit, bare feet pumping the pedals, head down, mouth set in an expression of determination—no doubt preparing to tattle on her brothers.