That Man's Voice

THAT MAN’S VOICE

A lot of people have never heard of Batesville these days, but there was a Batesville. Now it's part of Cherry Hill Twp. Batesville started as soon as you went over the little bridge at the bottom of Ellis Street, coming out of Haddonfield, heading south. As soon as you go over the bridge, you have to decide if you take the left or right fork, or, instead, you can run through the front door of that liquor store that's been sitting there since I can remember, as far back as ’62, when we moved to Haddonfield from the Heights. Anyway, that's where Batesville is, just across that little bridge that goes over what turns into the Cooper River. Yep. That little stream under that bridge is the Cooper River, believe it or not.

A long, long time ago, there was a path that went into the woods right before you went over that bridge into Batesville. It was on this side of the stream. It followed the stream way, way back, and ended up... who knows where. I don't. Because I never got past that man's voice.

Me and Donny Johnson, my best, best friend, found that man's voice on Christmas Day one year. It was that weird year it got up to like sixty degrees and stayed warm all week. I got walkie-talkies that year, and a Combat, Vic Morrow-style M-14 that worked on 4 D-size batteries. Donny got one too. I slung the M-14 on my shoulder and headed over Donny's. I didn't call first. And there was no texting back in 1965. You and your friends just knew that you and your friends would be over a couple hours after you opened the gifts and before your parents would haul you all over the county to visit relatives.

We headed down our street, Prospect Rd., and cut through the baseball fields to Ellis Street, towards the Batesville Bridge, each of us equipped with M-14 and walkie-talkies, in search of who-cared-what, but we were ready. We monkeyed with the walkie-talkies, testing them out, one of us dropping back to see how far they'd reach. They worked great. This was going to be cool.

A few steps before the bridge, we turned right and onto the path. We both unslung our rifles, pulled back on the "thing" on the side, and pulled the triggers. Man! Those things were LOUD!! It was great. We started "hittin' the deck!" and "takin' cover!", pretending I was Gage and he was Sgt. Saunders, cuttin "the Gerrys to pieces" with our unlimited ammo...until the batteries ran out. We were rolling around in gravel, leaves and branches, never worrying about what was going to happen when we got home and would have to change clothes to go visit after being yelled and screamed at for ruining our visiting clothes.

Then, from out of nowhere, that man’s voice came over both walkie-talkies. Which, by itself was enough to stop us in our tracks. And it did. We hit the deck at the same time and laid there. Listening. Who had a third walkie-talkie? My pair came as a boxed set of two. I opened the box on my living room floor in front of my parents and sister Christmas morning. How could there be another walkie-talkie that would work with my two. They were all tuned different, according to the box’s instructions and directions. These two would not work with any other two. But sure enough, that man’s voice was coming out of both of them at the same time. And what that man’s voice was saying was scaring me and Donny to the point that we couldn’t move. Not even to look at each other.

That man’s voice was like a sand papered whisper, but deeper than most whispers are. And when it said I’m watching you two, that’s what stunned me and Donny still and dropped us. We laid there for what seemed like forever, but was only like thirty seconds, each staring at the walkie-talkie we were holding. Finally, the lump of scared that was in my throat slid back down to my stomach, and I asked Donny in little more than my own whisper who the heck was that! But before Donny could answer me, and that’s if he could have answered me, ‘cause I don’t think he’d swallowed yet, that man’s voice told us don’t even think about it. In that same sand papered low whisper.

But how did he hear me? Or know Donny was about to tell me he didn’t know who it was either. I hadn’t pushed the talk button on the side of the walkie-talkie. We were laying on our stomachs, way down the path that ran along the stream, in the woods by the Batesville Bridge, far away from anything or anybody. But that man’s voice knew where we were. And what we were doing. On our stomachs.

As I lifted my head and turned to look at Donny, that man’s voice told me to put my head back down, but in a loud voice this time. I figured that by now he was probably crying, and I was right. I was close to it myself, scared out of my mind. I asked Donny if he saw anything, but only heard that man’s voice come out of our walkie-talkies again, saying that neither of us were ever going to see anything ever again. Donny really started crying with that message, and that man’s voice yelled at him to stop sobbing like a little girl.

How could that man’s voice see us, hear us, and talk to us through these walkie-talkies? It made no sense and had me so scared, it was hard for me to think. I knew my mother and father would probably be furious by now, waiting for me to get back home so we could go visiting. Then it hit me! They would come looking for us, knowing I was with Donny. But then my sudden hope sunk, because there was no way they’d ever figure out where we were, there to the right of the Batesville Bridge. On our bellies. In the woods. Captured by that man’s voice.

Suddenly, that man’s voice told us he was going to kill us the same way that he killed the little Hudson girl last year at Hopkins Pond. He told us how much it was going to hurt and that this time, nobody was ever going to find his handywork. He told us we were going to be tied up, killed, and jammed into a steel barrel, then put into one of the concrete support things that hold the new High Speed line they were building to run the train that went from South Jersey to Philly on. That man’s voice said that he was one of the men working on building it, and that he’d sneak the barrel into one of the concrete pouring forms they used to build the supports. That man’s voice started laughing with that sand papered gravel in his voice, and it got louder and louder until it was reaching into a nearly crazy, hysterical scream. Donny hand was shaking so bad that the bottom of his walkie-talkie hit the ground and, boink, the batteries popped out.

That man’s voice stopped.

We were both up like lightening and running towards Ellis Street as fast as our legs would go. We flew across the street to a chorus of car horns and tires screeching on Ellis Street, leaving long, black skid marks on the pavement, and a lot of curse words flying in the air all over the place. We ran the three blocks up Prospect Rd, past Wellington Ave., past Springfield Terrace, and up my steps at 121, two houses from Belmont Ave., and through my front door, where we were met by my parents who were screaming about where we were….

An hour later, my father and the two cops that had responded to my mother’s near-hysterical call to the police station about an unseen kidnapper lurking in the woods near the Batesville Bridge and holding her son and his friend hostage with a walkie-talkie came back to the house. They had the walkie-talkies and the M-14’s we’d left on the path. They heard nothing come back over the walkie-talkies on the several repeated occasions they tried raising someone, anyone on them. The cops even used their own walkie-talkies trying to raise anyone, but to no avail. They left the house with my parents and Donny’s parents, who had come over after seeing us run past their house and up to mine, heart-felt thanks and warmest holiday wishes. The three Johnsons left our house, mumbling how something like this was impossible to Donny, and disappeared down the street and into their house.

Dad made me put my hand on our family Bible that he was holding in one hand, his belt that was yanked from his britches in the other, and swear I was telling the truth. Which of course I did. None of this was to be told to Grandmom and Grandpop, I was told, as we headed out the door on our way to visit. And it was never brought up or talked about in our house since.

I still have the walkie-talkies. Once a year, every year, ever since that day with Donny, on Christmas Day, after all the presents are opened… geeze… by the grandkids now, I sneak into the strong box I keep locked on my bedroom closet shelf and pull out the walkie-talkies. I wipe them off and look at them. They look damn-near brand new. Then I look at the batteries I have with me each time I re-open the box and wonder if this will be the day that I slip the square little 9-volt batteries into place. But I never do. I never put them back in the walkie-talkies. Because never again do I want to hear that man’s voice. Because I know he’s there, waiting for me.