Meeting Joey Ripley (standard:fantasy, 2450 words)
Author: Cyrano	Added: Aug 12 2007	Views/Reads: 3421/2225	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
This started out a true story...I'm not sure where the fantasy set in...if it did.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story


The boy leads off.  Such a boy, I think to myself, living in his own
private fantasy. Perhaps his friends are behind the trees, watching as 
he makes a fool of me. Yet I can't deny the look on his face, the way 
his arm points; for there's a sad way to point; the limp, heavy arm, 
the kind of pointing that doesn't really point to anything. I follow 
on. 

We don't speak, but I keep looking round to see if I can catch a glimpse
of another boy's face, or several faces poking out from behind a tree. 
Suddenly he stops at the foot of a grave. This grave is overgrown, 
ruined, its headstone shattered. He points again, direct, straight, 
index finger sharp out. I stand with him, not speaking. After a moment 
he kicks dirt over the grave and turns away. 

“Bye, mister,” he says. 

I want him to stay, but he won't, not here. 

I begin to assemble the shattered headstone, roughly fashioning its
completeness. There's no denying the inscription. 

‘Jake Springer. Shot to death. February 15. 1856. Lie in hell.' 

I stare at it, wondering why Jake Springer wasn't hanged for the murder
of the boy's father, and, God forgive me, I kick the stones back into a 
heap. 

Walking back to town, my mind in a daze, I know this boy cannot be the
son of Jack Ripley, his father was shot to death in 1856. This is 2005. 


My God, I'm daydreaming again. I say this because my friends always
remark about my ‘head in the clouds appearance' or my sudden question 
to them at the corner of every street.  ‘...what if?' 

Passing the old school I pause and read the notice board. The building
has been restored to its original condition and is now a museum. It was 
built in 1850, using sun-dried bricks and was the first of its kind in 
Columbia, just one year after the start of the gold rush. I enter the 
grounds and climb the steps to the classroom door, recalling my own 
school days back in England. The desks lined in rows, with the 
teacher's desk at the head of the class, next to an easel that has a 
blackboard sitting on two wooden pegs. 

From these windows the children must have looked out over the rolling
hills, hearing the creek running, the pots and pans banging against the 
sides of the mules as the miners left to stake their claims. I can 
imagine the bell ringing out, signaling the end of day. I can see the 
children blasting out from school like flowers burst from the ground in 
Spring. 

Leaving the schoolyard, I see the boy from the cemetery. He's twirling a
lasso above his head, launching it with great accuracy over a stick 
jutting out of the ground. I smile to myself. How many tourists has he 
told his story to?  What school story will he have for me, I wonder. 
Perhaps I should give him a couple of dollars for his entertainment, 
but what about those eyes? Those were not the eyes of a boy having fun. 


I walk toward him, and, in time honored tradition say, “Howdy again”. 

“Howdy, mister, you been lookin' in the old school?” He asks, not
stopping the twirling of the rope. 

“Sure have, reminds me of when I went to school.” 

“Wher'd that be, mister?” 

“That'd be in England, lad. A long time ago.” 

“I heard about England in school, that's a long ways off right?” 

“That's right.” 

“Sin Leng, he came from England on a boat, he's Chinese.” 

“Sin Leng?” I ask, wondering what tale I'm about to be treated to next. 

“He went to school here. His parents, they did a laundry. They'd get
your shirts real nice, but we never did that. My ma, she did our 
washin'. I'd help sometimes, when I wasn't in school. Some days it was 
so hard I wished I'd gone to school anyhow.” 

He continues to throw the rope, reel it in, and throw it again. Never
once missing the stick. 

“Did you skip school much?” I ask. “You know...you saying you didn't
like it and all.” 

“Whenever I could, mister, whenever I could...you?” 

“Yeh, me, too.” 

I feel totally at ease with him now. 

“Do you mind if I sit a spell?” 

“Won't bother me none, mister. Folks don't normally stay around me, but
you're welcome.” 

“You're pretty good with that rope.” I remark. 

“Sure thing, Pa taught me to rope, I'm best in class, and no mistake.” 

“That's right, your Pa had the livery yard, I remember. What do they
call you?” 

“Joey.” 

He stops twirling the rope and shoves out his hand. It feels unreal; a
small, but firm grip touches my heart. 

“Kelly Shaw, pleased to meet you, Joey.” 

There's a hint of a smile, just the warmth of something that once was.
Such sad blue eyes, I try not to look. 

“Folks don't normally sit next to me, Kelly. They shy's away when I
tell'em my pa's in the grave.” 

“Do you tell everyone, Joey?” 

“Only them that stops close. I died in 1858. Ma, she did everythin' she
could. The doc, he said I got some pneumonia thing, I'd been coughin' a 
long time.” 

Is this it for me, is this how I started out? Telling lies and making
them so believable they were irresistible. Didn't I want to be loved 
and telling stories would make people love me. In the end those lies 
have become more and more adventurous, more complicated, until today 
such lies are packed away on bookshelves, carried in suitcases, or 
passed along for my children to read. Books and books of lies, all told 
with love, all told to show something of another way. Now here is Joey 
Ripley treating me to some of my own medicine. 

“Then you'll be dead! Right, Joey?” 

“Yep!' Saturday morning at twelve noon. Ma cried real bad.” 

It doesn't even disturb him; he just lets the lie fall from his mouth.
What a great talent. It could be me. 

“So you'll have a place up in the cemetery, right?” 

“They never put me in the cemetery. I never knew why that was.” He said,
emotionless. 

“Heck, you thought they would lay you next to your pa, right?” 

“Don't matter none, cos I gets to see him every Saturday anyways.” 

“Course you do, Joey. Here, look, I got some gum.” 

I hold it out. 

“That's mighty kinda you, mister.” He takes it eagerly. “I got to go
now, it's time. Thanks for spending time with me.” 

He collects his rope and makes one last twirl, looping the stick dead
center. 

“Bye, Kelly.” He says, raising an arm. 

In my heart I say, “Bye, son.” 

So this is it? No end to the joke? I watch him walk away, remembering
our meeting in the cemetery, his walk, the listlessness of his life. 
I'm intruding into the boy's fantasy, but I won't let on. I'll just 
smile; pleased he'd shared with me. 

Walking through the school gate, I hear laughter. I run headlong to
where the sound is coming from.  It's coming down from the trees, 
running around the graves in the cemetery, picking up twigs with its 
joy. I try to find its source but it's above and below me, and at every 
turn I'm no closer. I feel a heart panic, as though I'm about to miss 
the greatest joke ever told. I stop still, but the laughter comes round 
the corner and knocks me down. Such fun, such joy I've never heard 
since I was a kid. I start to run. I run like the wind itself and I, 
too, am laughing. I just have to run. I'm living the lie, this is the 
greatest joke ever told. Joey Ripley I love you, all the fun you are, 
and I run and run and run, until, quite suddenly, I find myself in open 
space. 

I can see the laughter, finally, where its always been, captured in a
boys heart.  I move forward, legs trembling, inching my way forward. I 
see a man holding a boy on his shoulders, and the laughter is coming 
from the boy... and that boy is Joey. All the laughter floating among 
the trees, hanging down from branches, sweeping up leaves, has scurried 
to find its rightful place inside this boy. 

I can see the light in the Joey's eyes, a life-light that sparkles,
shines, and brightens his face. I stand, frozen by the beauty of the 
moment. 

I instinctively know the man is Jack Ripley, that the boy on his
shoulders is his son, and the woman carrying the basket, fronted in a 
blue and white gingham apron, is the mother that wept so hard for her 
son. 

The man, somehow feeling my presence; looks in my direction. I hear Joey
whisper. 

“It's okay, Dad.” 

I watch until the shadows grow long. Jack picks his son up onto his
shoulders and all three walk toward the stick that juts from the 
ground. Carefully, Jack lays Joey in the grass, Ma and Pa kneeling at 
his side, stroking his head before walking away, hand in hand. Joey 
doesn't move again. He is motionless, with the rope by his side. I feel 
a darkness descend. 

Between elation and the forlornness of a dream I stroll back to town, my
coat collar raised. 

There's one more place to visit before I make the long journey back to
Mendocino. The old Fire Station, now the museum, displaying much of the 
town's history. Mining lamps flicker in the entrance. I wander in, 
unaware that a man is sitting in a rocker in the corner of the room. 
He's wearing a gray waistcoat, on which is pinned a sheriff's star. I'm 
still trying to make sense of my daydream when I come upon an old 
picture, almost hidden under the dust covering old horse harnesses and 
an array of mining tools. 

The electric shock of seeing the boys face in the photograph jolts me
like a punch to the stomach. I look round for someone, now seeing the 
man in his rocking chair. 

“Sir...sir...do you recognize this boy?” 

“Yep, surely do. That lad is Joey Ripley,” he says with great respect,
“his father ran the livery stable right across the street.” He points 
out the door.  “Joey's father was murdered by Jake Springer. Joey, 
that's him there, took a gun from home and went looking for Jake, found 
him in the bar, and shot him dead. Joey never spoke much to anyone 
after that.” He told me. 

“Is that why the arrow points to him in the picture?” I ask, still
trembling at the thought of this young boy shooting his father's 
murderer. 

“No, no, Joey was the school champion with the lasso. The year he died,
he died of pneumonia, he hit the target one hundred times without a 
miss, never been done since, not by anyone. The lad is buried in the 
schoolyard, exactly where he became the champion. You can find it 
still; it's hard now, grown over with grass. They never put a headstone 
in that place, his mother didn't want it, she said it would confine 
him.  It's a tragic story.” 

I run from the museum like a man crazed, scampering up the hill to the
school to look for the place where Joey is buried. Sure enough, beneath 
the grass, just visible, here's a flat stone. 

On this stone the inscription reads: 

‘Here lies Joey Ripley, proud son of Jack Ripley and loving son of
Katherine. Let Laughter Live In Your Soul, Son.' 


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