Charlie

2014

WE COULDN’T WAIT TO TELL Grandpa Joshua everything we’d found out, so I called him from the library and blurted, “We know what the talisman is and we’ll tell you when we get home.”

And I guess he was as impatient as we were, so he said, “How about if I meet you halfway. At The Octagon?”

As Margaret and I rode, I realized that even though it felt like The Octagon had been mine and hers forever, it must mean something special to Grandpa Joshua, too. Back when it was a whole gazebo, it had brought Margaret to him, and it had taken her away. Before long, we were all three kneeling on the smooth old boards staring at Aristotle’s talisman in the stark, water-clear afternoon sunlight.

And maybe because I knew now that the star stood for so much, and I looked at it with new eyes and deeper expectations, I saw something I’d missed: marks in three of the pink points.

“A number?” I whispered. “In the bottom point. A number ten. And a dash.”

“And a two,” added Margaret right away. “And a seven. Twenty-seven.”

“Ten twenty-seven nineteen thirty-eight,” said Grandpa Joshua. He was sitting up, not even looking at the square.

“The date of the meeting in the hunting lodge!” Margaret said.

“Aristotle always did like to be precise about things,” replied Grandpa Joshua.

“About what, though?” I wondered.

“AA,” Margaret said, her eyes on the square. “And the writing on this other point is really hard to read, but I bet it says—”

“TR,” said Grandpa Joshua, finally looking at the square again. “Theodore Ratliff. Aristotle brought his old pen to that meeting. It would write on anything. Aristotle and Mr. Ratliff used it to sign Aristotle’s talisman.”

“And date it,” I said, feeling all the pieces of history fall together with a clunk like a drawbridge dropping into place. “Aristotle brought the talisman to commemorate the moment!”

“The moment when his ideals, the Quaker star ideals, worked,” said Margaret, “when words and respect beat out armored cars and guns.”

“And don’t forget the ‘For Luke’ on the back,” I said.

“He was going to give the star to Luke,” said Grandpa Joshua, “to show him how powerful peace can be. Because that’s what he’d been trying to show Luke all along. And this would’ve been the proof. His memento.”

“His ideals did work!” I shouted, surprised at how angry I felt. “Theodore Ratliff was going to do the right thing! He signed the agreement and initialed the star. But then . . .” I pointed to the remaining points, all blank.

“There’s no EB. Elijah Biggs never signed the star,” Margaret said, bitterly.

“Because of this,” said Grandpa Joshua sadly, pointing to the big, brown stain.

“This is Aristotle speaking to Luke, even from beyond the grave,” I said, picking up the square. “Telling him that his father wasn’t weak or a liar or a murderer. Telling him that peace can be as strong and brave as anything.”

“If only he could’ve gotten his message to Luke,” lamented Margaret.

“Arisotle couldn’t. But we will!” I cried. “We’ll save Lucas Biggs, and we’ll save your dad!”

Grandpa Joshua smiled. “We just might,” he said.

I guess Margaret and I should’ve seen what was coming next, since Judge Biggs had such a long and distinguished history of ignoring evidence. But we didn’t. We foolishly thought he’d be as anxious to get Aristotle’s message as we were to deliver it. So we ran home and dialed the courthouse.

Of course, a guy like the Honorable Judge Lucas Biggs doesn’t answer his own telephone.

We asked the voice on the other end if we could make an appointment to see the judge.

Were we a colleague in the judiciary? wondered the voice.

No, Margaret and I had to admit. We weren’t. But we had something really important to tell Judge Biggs.

Were we a municipal, county, state, or federal official?

No. But this was information he’d definitely want to hear.

Were we an attorney?

No. But this had to do with one of his cases.

Were we with the newspaper?

Not exactly. But in addition to affecting one of his cases, the case of John O’Malley, no less, what we had to say was going to change the judge’s entire life.

Not exactly with the newspaper? Then exactly who were we with?

Uh. Actually one of us was John O’Malley’s daughter and the other one was her friend Charlie. Oh. And we also had Charlie’s grandfather on standby—he used to be the judge’s best friend back when they were thirteen; he was sitting on the bed folding his laundry and listening. And he said—

Click. BZZZZZZZZZ . . .

Grandpa Joshua said we’d have a better chance of cornering the judge if he didn’t come with us. So Margaret and I took the Quaker star, hiked downtown, and parked ourselves by the courthouse door.

It wasn’t until three hours later, after the sun had set, that the judge came out. Margaret hollered his name.

At first, I thought he was playing a game, which seemed odd, since the guy was nearly ninety and not exactly known for his sense of humor. “Who said that?” demanded Judge Biggs, staring through Margaret and me like we were ghosts.

“Judge Biggs,” panted Margaret excitedly. “Look!” She fumbled in her pockets for the star, but she was nervous.

“I have no time to waste,” roared Judge Biggs, focusing his eyes on her at last, “on the children of criminals.”

Carefully removing his gaze from Margaret and her trembling hands, he strode toward a colossal black car waiting at the curb. I took a deep breath and jumped in his way. And to my horror, the judge looked at me. His eyes searched my face curiously as if I’d just stepped out of a forest to bring him news from a faraway civilization. But abruptly, he changed his mind about hearing my news and turned away.

“If they come near the courthouse again,” snarled Judge Biggs to a bailiff hurrying up, “arrest them.” And he folded himself up behind the wheel of his black Cadillac and drove off.

“Lucas Biggs,” explained Grandpa Joshua when we told him what’d happened, “has been dealing in lies so long that he’s lost faith in the power of truth, lost it so long ago that he’s forgotten how to see the truth even when it’s right in front of him.”

“But we’ll restore his faith,” said Margaret matter-of-factly, smoothing the Quaker star on her knee, “when we show him this.”

I reached out, and she handed it to me. “But,” I mused, “if Grandpa’s right, he won’t look until he gets his faith back, and if Margaret’s right, he won’t get his faith back until he looks!”

“And unfortunately,” said Grandpa Joshua ruefully, “I think we’re both right.”

Margaret had told me how, back in 1938, Grandpa Joshua set off a blasting cap behind the old infirmary to distract everybody while she ran down the hall to spring Aristotle Agrippa. And it sounded like the plan had worked fine, right up to the part where Aristotle refused to have any part of it.

So I devised a plot of my own, along similar lines, to get into the courthouse to see the judge. I convinced myself I’d better not tell Margaret about it, because the last thing she needed was to get in even deeper trouble with Judge Biggs. Plus, in the back of my mind, I knew if I let her in on the plan, there was a good chance she’d say it was a terrible idea and tell me not to do it.

And I wanted to do it.

I hid behind the Victory courthouse in the rain holding a Green Giant smoke bomb left over from the Fourth of July. The bomb was my version of blasting caps. The commotion it caused would allow me to slip in, corner Judge Biggs, and jam that Quaker star in front of his nose for him to see, really see. If I had to tie him to his chair and prop his eyes open with toothpicks, well, I would run right over to Safeway and buy a box.

I went through my soggy matches in about forty seconds without raising so much as a spark, and the rain fell harder every second, and as I eyed the electrical outlet by the back door, I wondered if it would be possible to light the fuse of my smoke bomb by yanking a coat hanger out of the nearest trash can, jamming it into the socket, and using the resulting sparks to light the sopping fuse. I paused briefly to reflect that I’d come to the point in the story where some guy with a square jaw usually mutters, “That’s so crazy it just might work,” and then, since there wasn’t a guy like that in sight, I went ahead and stuck the coat hanger into the socket. Of course, the sparks that spewed out didn’t light the sopping fuse any better than my matches had, but I personally got a pretty good jolt, and I blew every fuse in the old-fashioned courthouse, plus I saw a few stars, and maybe a couple of planets.

While pandemonium reigned inside, I shook the constellations out of my brain and staggered upstairs to the judge’s office. I found him hunched over in the dim rainy-day light filtering through his window, oblivious to all the noise, scratching away at something on his desk. Hearing me come in, he furtively stuffed whatever it was beneath a law book at his elbow.

When he saw who I was, a smile spread across his face. I understood what Grandpa Joshua meant about that smile. It was yellow, foul, and weary, with a whiff of boredom, a dash of distaste, and a hint of anger, but no trace of humor, and in the middle of it all lurked a colossal empty blank. I felt like a January wind had poured off the side of Mount Hosta and swirled down the back of my shirt.

“Don’t fool yourself into thinking that it makes one iota of difference,” he warned me, “that I was once friends with your grandfather.”

“Could you just look—” I pleaded, spreading the Quaker star in front of him on his desk.

“I’ve seen all I need to see,” hissed the judge.

“But you don’t even know what it is!” I insisted. “It’s from your—”

“I’ve seen all I ever need to see!” bellowed Judge Biggs. “Now leave before I have you locked up!”

“Please—”

“Bailiff!” he roared.

I turned to go. I picked up the Quaker star.

But that wasn’t all I picked up.

What in the world could possibly embarrass a man like Judge Biggs? I wondered. What would he need to stash under his books when somebody walked into the room like he was a fifth grader hiding a love note?

Why not pilfer it and see?