 |
| Dix Hill |
Lunacy was such a source of pride in Visitation County that satisfaction practically oozed as people lamented Aunt Betty's reality fugues and Cousin Bo's various personalities. Nervous breakdowns, schitzophrenia, and all the available manias were such sure-fire chitchat starters, that adults at cocktail parties spoke of little else.
Mannerly lunatics remained at home, looked after like pedigreed pets, regardless of any mortal danger they might have posed to themselves or others, mainly for bragging rights. Stints up at "the Hill" were only the last resort when some nut became such a nuisance that the complaints of envious neighbors grated the family's last nerve. In those cases, the inmate puffed with smug joy for the conversational mileage this was going to provide later on.
Even though wild squirrels in the family tree were as common as the Cherokee ancestry they all bragged having, no matter how blond or how black, the folks who came up short regularly lied while those blessed with a gracious plenty were coyly modest. The McCrarys, for instance, could afford modesty.
Before they started letting "Batboy" bivouac on the Hill, neighbors had to admit that Lester McCrary was a good contender for the asylum if not 1313 Mockingbird Lane. If he wasn't lurking in the window wearing a vampire cape and plastic fangs, shining a flashlight up under his chin, he was skulking in the shrubbery out front, waiting for anyone to stroll by so he could jump out at them, jabbering some jibberish in their faces that only he could understand, or tending to his "pretend" graveyard behind the kitchen. This was all cute and endearing when he was a little kid, but when several neighbors' kitties went missing, and there seemed to be a matching number of fresh dirt mounds by the McCrary's place, a delegation was formed to have a word with Batboy's parents. Nothing definitive was discovered in the play-graves, but there was a small bag of lime on the porch that Mr. McCrary insisted he had been using around the hydrangeas to achieve their spectacular blue. The delegation had to admit they were the deepest azure on the block, and they left with no more than the promise that Batboy would be examined in Raleigh by Dr. Pediaditakis, and they'd follow whatever the doctor ordered.
Martin was just as eager for Dr. P. to put Batboy up in Ashby Hall for a week as the neighbors were, and get him out of his hair, but the good doctor just put him on some stelazine, and opined that his maladjustment was due to something in his home-life that Mr. and Mrs. McCrary were never willing to discuss with others. In an effort to avoid further confrontation, they rewarded his crazy behavior with a decommissioned Jeep mail truck and weekly bags of quarters from the bank which Batboy could carry down to Jupiter's Den, out of sight, out of mind, and out of trouble.
At Jupiter's Den, Batboy sprouted roots to the Bally Wizard pinball machine and met the already infamous Randy the Rabbitnapper. The two of them came up with a plan the Daily Times captioned the "Cottondale Kitty Caper," where they catnapped Blackie, a pitiful, decrepit black panther that Cottondale High had bought cheap from the Ringling Brothers as their team mascot. According to the article, what originally appeared to authorities to be a typical schoolboy prank between rival schools, turned out to have started as Rabbitnapper's newest scheme to score ransom money after enjoying "Old Puss's musky charms" for a few days. It was further reported that "when Lester McC., 14, showed up for the heist in his decommissioned mail-truck carrying a bag of lime and two shovels in the back, Randy R., 15, knew he'd been out-classed," and evidently ran home to tattle to his daddy.
It took days for the police to be bothered with having to investigate, since Randy's dad didn't exactly rush right out to alert the press. In fact, the discovery of the near-dead panther in a stairwell of the abandoned Galilee Orphanage was made by a group of men who claimed to be itinerant stage performers, preferred to remain anonymous, and offered no explanation as to why they were in town at all, much less what they were doing at the orphanage. They were happy to split the fifty dollar reward offered by Cottondale High without further ado about it, though, and were on their merry way.
The Cottondale Kitty Caper was a clear violation of Randy Rabbitnapper's juvie probation for prior rabbit-napping. Supposedly, he was to take the class bunny home one weekend, but the following Monday he didn't come to school and, taped to the front door, there was a note made of letters cut from the Visitation Times headlines, demanding $15.83 in cold currency to be sent across the Five Points Municipal Gardens pond. The bunny would then be sent back in the same boat. Maybe he thought they'd use a radio controlled boat, but how the rescuers would know where to direct the boat, or how Mr. Flop-Ears would be prevented from tipping over or leaping to his death is an eternal mystery. Principal Hawkins and two Parks and Recreation employees closed in on Rabbitnapper in the nick of time. What he got instead of $15.83 was an afternoon in juvenile hall, followed by a belt-whipping from his mama, a ten-day suspension from school, and probation.
This being Batboy's first real brush with the law, and him being a minor, all charges were dismissed in lieu of him spending the rest of that summer break at Dix Hill. He loved it so much he determined to make it a regular thing. Martin had to ride along with his parents on visitation day, which he disliked after the novelty wore off. He and his friends had visited other people there plenty of times before, and the friends were glad to ride along with Martin's family. They'd "ditch the fam," as they called it, and sneak down to the basement looking for the dusty torture equipment that was rumored to be stored there, Motsie's idea, or skip like Dorothy and friends on the Yellow Brick Road down to Potters Field and count dead crazy people's graves, over 900 of them, speculating over what had killed them, Vincent's favorite, or sit on the west slope over the railroad tracks smoking pot and playing Truth or Dare, as Martin always loved.
