Honorable Mention Short Story

In the Nickname of Fear
by
Barbara Dockery

"Jump down Anthony", Deanie Weenie yells up the ladder.

"Hold your horses wiener" Anthony yells back, pressing his nose close to the bark of the tree. Clinging to the thirteenth rung of the ladder with sweaty palms, Anthony clears his throat of the anxiety rising up. Hopeful that he didn't give away the fear he felt from being up so high, Anthony decides to remove any doubt from Dean's mind by shooting him a mildly irritated look down the ladder. Beads of sweat pop out on Anthony's forehead as soon as he catches the first glimpse of distance between himself and the ground. Yep, it was definitely as bad as he imagined. Today was, without doubt, the very day he would die, falling from the ladder in a horrible freak accident.

"C'mon" Deanie yells up again, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "You're holding up the line." Anthony ignores the comment, as the line consists only of Dean and his impatience to get in an hour of swimming before lunch. Dean Winkerman, also known as Deanie Weenie, loves lunch and his food of choice as one might guess, are beanie weenies in the single serve can with the pop top lid. He likes 'em hot, he likes 'em cold, it makes no difference to Dean, he just loves 'em. He loves them so much he doesn't even mind the ridiculous nickname he derived from his noontime meal obsession. The guys started out calling him Mean Dean cause he socked little Tim Houseright, or Slim Tim as he is called, a coupla years ago for hiding his lunch bag under the collectibles stuffed in the lost and found box. Dean took it like a man for a while, not wanting to be a spoil sport, and went along with the joke. Our gang's motto had always been "Do unto others something better than they will be able to do unto you" and so there has always been an endless meandering of practical jokes between the members of the group. In this particular instance, Slim would've been famous for the gut busting reaction on Dean's face during his 11 a.m. lunch check, just to be sure the valuable can hadn't turned over in the bag. It was truly hilarious but much to everyone's surprise, Mrs. Wilson, also known as Witch Wilson of Wilmington Middle School, had donated the box to the local church and when the class returned from recess, the box was gone, along with Dean's lunch. Slim Tim had unintentionally donated Deanie's beanie weenies to some poor soul with no winter coat. Of course, Tim got two days detention for touching' other people's stuff and Dean finally achieved nickname status. It changed rather quickly when it was discovered that there were more laughs about the beanie weenies in the retold version than Dean's temper. He is at present the only one of the entourage with two nicknames to his credit.

Anthony wondered why he was thinking about beanie weenies during what were so obviously the last minutes of his fourteen year old life when he suddenly pondered the thought of dying without a nickname. The thought was short lived. Anthony's knees were locked but that did little more than hold his feet firmly in place, and nothing to control the shaking he felt reverberating through his whole body. Mentally attempting to talk his body out of quivering, he prayed it wasn't visible to Dean on the ground, who stood with one foot propped casually on the first rung of the ladder. Anthony thought it wasn't much one could call a ladder anyway. He saw it more as very unnatural appendages to nature. Twenty times the tree had been violated with four feet sections of two by four wood, once every twelve inches straight up. The towering oak positioned right on the bank of Checker Creek has long been the greatest measure of bravery for middle school men. The girls around Wilmington never even consider traveling the winding trail that leads to the best swimming hole in Checker County. They say "God never made a tree worth killing yourself over", but that never stopped them from looking twice at the boys who had jumped from the massive, gnarled oak into the slow moving water below. There's not one male sole in these parts that has himself a girl if he hasn't made the jump.

Anthony's thoughts traveled to what could possibly come of his predicament, aside from death of course. Climbing further up the tree was nearly out of the question, and even if he did make it, he doubted ever successfully making the leap into the water. His eyes followed the ladder-like stubs of wood to the limb that grows out over the creek. It didn't seem as far to that limb as it did to the ground so he finally accepts his fate of climbing till he falls. "Dying is dying, better to be moving instead of just standing still," he thinks. He remembers the talk when old man Tucker's strap from his overalls got caught in the cross tracks at the train depot. Old man Tucker was the town drunk, but harmless as most men who had drunk their life away, concerned only with what he had lost, not with what he could gain. He was constantly refastening the strap that was loosened from years of wear, and every time he sat down it fell open. Sometimes he would do a whole days walking with it dangling behind him, so shamelessly soused he never even noticed. But that was old man Tucker and when he got tired of walking he just sat down wherever he was, for as long as he wanted. That day he happened to be at the depot, a regular resting spot, when he tired out, apparently careless about the time. An old drunk he might have been but he knew those trains like the back of his hand and any stranger in town wondering about the departure or arrival of any of them could ask old man Tucker. At the time of his demise, he had passed out cold on the cross track and somehow the dangling strap had lodged in between the tracks at the switch. When the engine came around the bend with its whistle roaring, old man Tucker started and jumped up too quickly for his intoxicated state and the fact his trousers were caught up in the track. Poor old sap couldn't shimmy out of his britches quite fast enough and the rest became history. He could've just sat there, Anthony thought, a pathetic soul the locals called him, but he had made an attempt to save himself and so Anthony decided he would do just the same.

Swallowing hard to calm his trembling, Anthony reached upward to the next stub of wood, pulled his weight up and shifted his foot to the spot where his hands had just been. "Not too bad", Anthony thought as he tentatively reached out for the next rung. Just then, a gang of boys came through the clearing at the end of the twisting trail and gathered around Dean at the foot of the tree. Anthony could hear Slim Tim, Paul "Two-Tone" Pierson, Luke Williams and Bill "Nosebleed" Henderson. His worst fears confirmed, one of the four of them had noticed his slow ascent up the tree on their way down the trail and immediately began taunting him from the ground.

"What's the matter Taylor?" he hears Two-Tone bellow in his direction "You look a little green around the gills". Waves of laughter from the ground floated up to Anthony's ears, causing his face to burn with embarrassment.

"You afraid of heights Taylor?" Slim Tim asks surprised as he watches Anthony continue to climb slowly, unwilling to let them know the truth. "Is he afraid of heights?" he repeats the question to Nosebleed.

"Hey Anthony" Nosebleed yells with his hands cupped around his mouth and crooked nose. "If you fall we'll call you Tony "Tim-ber" Taylor okay?" "If you die that'll be your nickname okay?" Anthony's ears catch more roars of laughter as he makes his way to the last stub of wood on the tree. He can see down to the water now and his head begins to spin from the vertigo he feels. Resting his head on the tree once again, he listens to the taunts from the gang below and imagines old man Tucker sitting on a limb close by, overall strap dangling in mid air and oddly enough, laughing. Anthony pushes the thought aside and lets the vision fade as he steps out onto the limb.

"Hey, and if you live we'll call you TipToe" calls Weenie, bringing another wave of laughter that makes Nosebleed choke for air.

"Serves him right" Anthony thinks. He takes one last deep breath, feeling much better now about being over water, as opposed to the hard bone-breaking ground beneath the ladder. Slinking out the length of the tree, Anthony positions himself in the middle of the limb, at best two feet wide, and steps out into open air. He looks back up as his body travels toward the water the color of bright green moss and sees old man Tucker again on the limb. The town drunk reaches back for the dangling strap and fastens it, appearing not to see Anthony's brave jump and he feels a bit disappointed at the apparition's failure to notice. Cold, green water closes around Anthony as he is baptized into nickname status. He went up the tree Anthony Taylor, and came back down TipToe Taylor. But at least they could no longer taunt him for being afraid of heights, and TipToe wasn't near as bad as weenie or nosebleed anyway. Anthony pulls himself to the bank near the bottom of the tree and gives Nosebleed, still choking for air, a whack on the back as he sets off to retrieve his lunch bag from a nearby stump on the outset of the trail. Sitting in the warm, mid-morning breeze of a summer day, he reaches into the bag and pulls out the can of beanie weenies his mother had packed for him and the corners of his mouth turn up into a satisfied smile. Yep, it could definitely have been worse than he thought.