My mind was racing as I walked back to the house, what did Walter mean when he said he was going to end it all, God did he kill himself? How was I going to find out what really happened? I walked in the house just as mom was finishing getting supper ready, I helped her set the table without saying a word. I just picked at my food until mom said, “Mike what is wrong, you aren’t eating anything.”
I said, “sorry mom, I’m just not very hungry.”
Dad said, “eat your supper, Mike.”
“Yes sir, dad is there a way to check with your boss to see if he has any records of his employees from the 20’s?”
He said, “well I guess they do somewhere, but my boss wouldn’t know where they were. You should ask your friend Kyle, his dad is the head of the personnel department, he might know where the records are. Why?”
“Well, I just heard a story about someone who worked at the mill in the 20’s and I was just curious.”
He went back to reading his paper as he said, “just finish your supper.”
I felt a little bit better, and I finished eating and helped mom do the dishes. I went to my room and got ready for bed, at least I had a place to start in solving the Walter and Ellis mystery. I couldn’t wait until morning to talk to Kyle to see if his dad would help us.
I woke early and did the chores that my folks had for me to do, I ran to the shed and grabbed the journal. I couldn’t wait for Kyle to show up, so I walked to his house, he was coming out the front door as I walked up the driveway. I ran up to greet him and asked if he thought his dad would help us find Walter’s dad.
He said, “that’s good idea, I never thought of that.”
I said, “well it was actually my dad’s idea.”
I told him all about it as we walked the two miles to the mill. We walked into the office and Kyle asked the receptionist if he could go see his dad, with a smile she said, “sure Kyle, you know where his office is.” We told Kyle’s dad what we were looking for.
He said, “well all the old personnel records are in the basement, and we really aren’t supposed to show them to anyone outside the company.”
Kyle said, “we just want to look at the dates that he worked here dad, we won’t take any records out of the building.”
Kyle’s dad said, “well I guess it won’t hurt, I am not sure you will find anything anyway.”
He led us to the basement, turned on a light to large room with rows of shelves filled with boxes. Each box had a number with a description of the contents and a year in bold letters.
We walked to the row that he thought held the year we were looking for. We searched down the aisle until we got to 1922, we found the personnel records section and the box that contained all the “H” employees. We sat on the floor and started to pull all the files out, being careful to stack them in order, finally there it was.
Hankins, Elmer R.
Kyle’s dad gave me the file, “was Walter’s dad named Elmer?”
“I don’t know, he never said in the journal.” I opened the folder and started to scan the pages, I found the address, 608 Mulberry Road, well I said, “that is the place.” The next page had a space for family, it listed a wife, Lois A. Then one child, a son, Walter E.
I said, “this is it Kyle, this is his dad’s file.”
Kyle said, “ok, so what does that solve, we already knew he worked here.”
I looked at a few more pages and found his employment dates, March 1914 start date and July 1922 termination date.
I looked to Kyle, “what does that mean, termination date?”
Kyle shrugged, “I don’t know, dad what does it mean when it lists a termination date in the file?”
“Well, it just means that was the date that he left the job, weather he quit or was let go by the company.”
I asked; “so we don’t know if he quit or was fired by looking at his file?”
“Sorry guys, that’s true, he could have been fired, quit and moved away, or he may have even died.”
Damn, I hadn’t even thought of that, could he have died? We thanked him for all his help and started to walk back home, we passed the drug store and decided to get a Coke, as we walked out the sign across the street caught my eye. “The Westburg Reporter”
I said, “look the newspaper.”
Kyle looked at me, “yeah, so?”
“They probably keep old issues of the paper, let’s go see if Mr. Johnson will let look at the papers from 1922.”
We ran across the street, The Reporter was a typical small town weekly newspaper. Russell Johnson was the owner, editor, writer, and sole employee. The paper covered only things going on in Westburg, if you wanted state or national news you should find a different paper. The Reporter mostly had the current high school sport season’s high lights, plus local weddings, births, and deaths. The bell jingled as we walked in the door.
Mr. Johnson looked up from his typewriter, “Hi boys, what can I do for you?”
I smiled back, “Hi Mr. Johnson, do you keep old copies of all the paper’s you print?”
“Sure Mike, I have all the ones printed since I took over in ’59 on those shelves over there. The ones from the previous owner are bound in books in the back room. What are you guys looking for?”
I said, “It might be kind of a long shot, but we are looking for papers from about 50 years ago. We are trying to see if there were any articles about a guy we heard about.”
“That’s easy, I have the book with July 1922 right here, I was working on this week’s “looking back” section. I reprint the bigger stories from 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 years ago. I am finished with 50 years, so help yourself you can look at over at the other desk.”
Kyle said, “thanks Mr. Johnson.”
The whole year was bound in one large volume, starting with week one, we turned to the middle and found July. Each issue was 8 pages and we started to scan the stories, the were a couple weddings, one birth and four funeral notices. None included Walter or Ellis or any others that may have been related. There were no other stories that fit anything in Walter’s journal, we looked at all the editions after and before the current week. There just was nothing that we could find that would answer any of our questions.
We thanked Mr. Johnson again and headed back to my house, mom made Kyle and I a sandwich. Murph and Bug were due back today and I was hoping they would come over the shed so that I could introduce them to Kyle.
After we ate lunch, Kyle and I headed to the pond to go for a swim. We swam for about an hour and headed up to the shed, we opened the journal and reread several entries, trying to see if the was anything that we missed. We talked about the last entry, the information that we found at the mill and the newspaper, nothing helped us clear anything up. I pulled out a new notebook and started to write down everything that we thought might be of help, names, dates, just anything that we felt was important.
I heard someone yelling outside, “hey Mike are you out here?”
I opened the door, “Hey Murph, I am in the shed come on up.”
We greeted each other at the door, damn he had only been gone two weeks, but it looked like he gained 20 pound of muscle and his skin was a golden tan. He looked great, “hey Murph, this is Kyle Turner, his family moved into the old Henderson place, he has been keeping me company while you have been gone.
“Nice to meet you, Kyle.”
Kyle shook Murph’s hand, “nice to meet you too, I have heard a lot about you.”
I asked, “do you know if Bug is back yet?”
Murph said, “Yeah, I saw him unloading the car when I came up here, he said he was coming over as soon as he was done unpacking. So, what have you guys been doing since I have been gone?”
Kyle just grinned, “oh, just getting to know each other… really well.” He winked at me.
Murph just looked at us suspiciously, “ok, I guess you know each other enough to already have an inside joke.”
I shook my head, “it’s nothing, he is just trying to be funny.”
Just then Bug came in the door, “What’s up shitheads?”
“Hey Bug, how was camp?”
“Oh, you know, it was boring, what’s going on around here?”
I said, “Bug this is Kyle a new friend of mine.”
Bug said, “Hey Kyle.”
"Nice to meet you, I have heard a lot about you too.”
We sat down and listened to Bug and Murph tell all about their two weeks away. After they had finished, Murph asked, “so, what have you guys been doing besides “getting to know each other”?”
Kyle looked at me, “should we tell them about Walter and Ellis?”
I rolled my eyes, “I guess we have to, now.”
Bug said, “who are Walter and Ellis?”
I started from when I found the journal, I told them about Walter and Ellis meeting and developing a friendship and up to the end when the journal ended abruptly. I left out the sex parts and that they were in love, I wasn’t sure how they would take that part.
Murph asked, “so what happened to them, do you know?”
Kyle told them about the research that we had done so far and that we didn’t know what we were going to do next.
We sat in silence for a few seconds, then Bug’s eyes opened wide, “hey are the Playboys still here?”
“Yep” as I reached into the floorboards to retrieve them and handed them out.
We each opened a magazine and started to flip threw the pages, Murph as always, was the first to drop his pants. I watched Kyle grin as he was checking him out and he quickly stood and removed his clothes too. I was undoing my pants as Bug stood and dropped his, Kyle’s eyes grew as big as plates, “holy shit Mike, you weren’t lying, that thing is obscene.”
Bug looked at him, then he realized that Kyle had never seen him before, and he put his hands on his hips and grinned like a first-time father showing off his newborn baby. Kyle moved a little closer and started to reach for Bug’s cock, “is it ok if I touch it?”
Bug just waved his dick back and forth and gave Kyle a nod. He reached up and took the monster into his hand, and it instantly swelled. Kyle started to stoke up and down a little, Bug closed his eyes and let out a slight moan. Kyle started to pick up speed and squeezed a little tighter as precum began to leak from the head. I turned to see Murph’s reaction, concerned he would be upset. His eyes were locked on the action in front of him and he was stroking his own dick to match Kyle’s rhythm, his mouth half open in awe. I shifted my eyes between Bug and Murph’s hard cocks while jerking my own. I moved next to Kyle and reached to Bug’s cock and began stroking with Kyle, his dick was big enough both our hands fit with room to spare. I had wanted to touch Bug’s dick since the first time I had seen it, I wish I would have been as brave as Kyle was. I moved my hand to fondle Bug’s swinging nuts, as Murph was moving closer to the action. We were all a little bit surprised when Murph reached out and wrapped his hand around Bug. Kyle removed his hand and smiled at me, I decided I was going to be the brave one and let go of Bug’s balls and moved to Murph’s dick. He flinched a little, but he let my hand replace his as he closed his eyes and titled his head back.
There we were, Kyle and I on our knees as Bug and Murph were standing facing each other. Bug’s dick in Murph’s hand while I was stroking him. Kyle had reached up and was squeezing both guys balls and grinning from ear to ear at me. He gave me a wink, then stuck his tongue out and nodded his head toward Bug and Murph. I knew what he meant, I thought what the hell they hadn’t told us to stop yet, so we both leaned in and licked the precum off both heads. Their eyes flew open and looked down to see what was going on. We each gave them a second lick, me on Murph and Kyle on Bug.
Kyle took Bug’s cock from Murph and wrapped his mouth around the head, Bug stood on his tip toes, “holy shit.”
I aimed Murph’s dick at my mouth and took him as deep as I could, his knees buckled, and he steadied himself by grabbing my shoulders. He started to fuck my face, I looked toward Kyle out of the corner of my eyes, he was barely making it halfway down Bug’s dick. Murph started to pant and try to pull out of my mouth, I grabbed his ass and pulled him tight. He croaked, “Mike, I am going to shoot,” I went as deep as I could as he flooded my throat with his seed. He spasmed as I swallowed deep and licked his cock clean.
We turned to watch Kyle stuff his mouth full of Bug’s dick, saliva running down his chin. Bug was really moaning, and he grabbed Kyle’s head and pushed into his mouth and yelled, “here it goes.” Kyle coughed as cum leaked out the corner of his mouth. He took a big gulp and sucked the remaining cum from Bug’s cock.
Murph and Bug both sat back down and were looking at each other, Kyle asked, “how was that guys?”
Bug smiled, “that was great.” Murph just nodded, not really replying.
Kyle moved to me, now it’s our turn, we maneuvered ourselves into a sixty-nine position and went to work on each other. We had been together enough to know what we liked and a few minutes later we dumped our loads into each other’s mouths. Once we were done, we moved to each other and started kissing, we swapped cum with each other as I realized that Murph and Bug were still watching us.
Bug said, “I think you guys have done this before.”
