Ben Sherwood - The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience;
we are spiritual beings having a human experience.

PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN

There is a land of the living and a land of the dead
and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.

THORNTON WILDER

INTRODUCTION

I BELIEVE IN MIRACLES.

Not just the simple wonders of creation, like my new son at home nursing in my wifes arms, or the majesties of nature, like the sun setting in the sky. Im talking about real miracles, like turning water into wine or bringing the living back from the dead.

My name is Florio Ferrente. My father, a fireman, christened me after St. Florian, the patron saint of our profession. Like my pop, I worked my whole life for Engine Company 5 on Freeman Street in Revere, Massachusetts. I served as Gods humble servant, going where the Lord dispatched me, saving the lives that He wanted rescued. You could say I was a man on a mission, and Im proud of what I did every day.

Sometimes we arrived at a fire too late to make a difference. We threw water on the roof but the house still burned down. Other times we got the job done, protecting lives, whole neighborhoods, and plenty of pets. Those cats and dogs sure chewed me up, but Im glad I hauled every single one down the ladder.

Most folks have a picture of us loaded with gear rushing into flaming buildings. Thats right. This is serious business. But in the quieter moments we also have our share of laughs. We can send a pal flying up into the air with a blast from the pressure hose, and we make our wives crazy planting rusty old hydrants next to the geraniums in our backyards. We have more toy fire trucks than our kids and we get into shouting matches over the best color for emergency vehicles. For the record, I prefer old-fashioned red to that ugly neon yellow.

Above all, we tell stories, the kind where we turn down the TV, kick back in the La-Z-Boy, and relax for a while.

What follows is my favorite. Its about what happened thirteen years ago on the General Edwards drawbridge not far from the redbrick station I call home. It wasnt the first time we had raced there to pry people out of wrecks or scoop up folks who had been hit in the crosswalk.

My first trip to the bridge was back in the Blizzard of 78, when an old man missed the warning light that the ramp was going up. He crashed through the barrier, flew right off the edge, and was submerged in his Pontiac for twenty-nine minutes. We knew because that was how long his Timex had stopped when the divers cut him out from under the ice. He was frozen blue with no pulse, and I went to work breathing life back into him. In a few ticks, his skin turned pink and his eyes blinked open. I was about twenty-four years old, and it was the most amazing thing Id ever seen.

The Revere Independent called it a miracle. I like to think it was Gods will. In this line of work, the truth is you try to forget most of your runs, especially the sad ones where people die. If youre lucky they dissolve into a great big blur in your brain. But there are some cases you can never get out of your mind. They stay with you for your whole life. Counting the old man in the ice, Ive had three.

When I was just a rookie, I carried a lifeless five-year-old girl from a hellish three-alarm on Squire Road. Her name was Eugenia Louise Cushing, and she was covered in soot. Her pupils were pinpoint, she wasnt breathing, and her blood pressure was undetectable, but I kept trying to revive her. Even when the medical examiner pronounced her dead on the scene and began to fill out the paperwork, I kept going. Then all of a sudden, little Eugenia sat up on the stretcher, coughed, rubbed her eyes, and asked for a glass of milk. That was my first miracle.

I picked up Eugenias crumpled death certificate and put it away in my wallet. Its all tattered now, but I keep it as reminder that anything is possible in this world.

That brings me to the case of Charlie St. Cloud. Like I said, it starts with a calamity on the drawbridge over the Saugus River, but theres a lot more to it than that. Its about devotion and the unbreakable bond between brothers. Its about finding your soul mate where you least expect. Its about life cut short and love lost. Some folks would call it a tragedy, and I see their point. But Ive always tried to find the good in the most desperate situations, and thats why the story of these boys stays with me.

You may think some of this seems far-fetched, even impossible. Believe me, I know we all cling to life and its certainties. Its not easy in these cynical times to cast off the hardness and edge that get us through our days. But try just a little. Open your eyes and you will see what I can see. And if youve ever wondered what happens when a person close to you is taken too soonand its always too soonyou may find other truths here, truths that may break the grip of sadness in your life, that may set you free from guilt, that may even bring you back to this world from wherever you are hiding. And then you will never feel alone.

The bulk of this tale takes place here in the snug little village of Marblehead, Massachusetts, a wedge of rock jutting into the Atlantic. It is almost twilight now. I stand in the ancient town cemetery on a sloping hill where two weeping willows and a small mausoleum overlook the harbor. Sailboats tug at moorings, seagulls fly in force, and little boys cast their lines from the dock. Someday they will grow up to hit home runs and kiss girls. Life goes on, infinite, irrepressible.

Nearby, I see a fuzzy old man put a fistful of hollyhocks on his wifes grave. A history buff makes a rubbing from a weathered stone. The tidy rows of monuments drop down to a cove on the water. When I was a school kid, I learned that once upon a time Americas first patriots spied from this hilltop on British warships below.

Well start by going back thirteen years to September 1991. In the rec room at the firehouse, we were polishing off bowls of my wifes famous spumoni, arguing about Clarence Thomas, and screaming about the Red Sox, who were chasing the Blue Jays for the pennant. Then we heard the tones on the box, rushed to the rig, and took off.

Now turn the page, come along on the ride, and let me tell you about the death and life of Charlie St. Cloud.

ONE

CHARLIE ST. CLOUD WASNT THE BEST OR BRIGHTEST BOY