In the town of Cabot, Maine, a man named Earl Kincaid lived in a musty army tent with a fold-up canvas cot under the Mill Stream Bridge. From the first shotgun blasts in October, until the stream receded in May, he erected his home in the boiler room of the town garage. Earl’s gullibility, coupled with an only-son desire to belong, positioned him at the center of countless pranks by Cabot children of all ages. His constant presence in front of Nelson’s Hardware further compounded his reverse-Boo Radley reputation. His I.Q., measured as a grown man, was less than one hundred points.

In 1947, when Earl was 14, his father, Big Jim, passed out in a loader during his shift at the mill. The incident might have gone unnoticed, but he nearly drove the butt of a log through the waiting truck driver. When they were kids, Big Jim called Rich McDermot, his foreman, Bitchy McSquirmot. Rich made a no-tolerance example of him on the spot.

Two days, and a final paycheck's worth of booze, after being fired; he went home. Big Jim staggered into the kitchen, flailing his arms around in the direction of his wife and son as he raged about ‘burning that goddamn mill to the ground’. Earl hopped from the kitchen chair and ran to his father, holding out a drawing. Big Jim looked at the crude assembly of lines on the paper.

"What's this suppose to be?" He bellowed.

"Dddd-aadd t-t-truckkk," Earl said. He was smiling.

"This me at work?" Big Jim said, rotating the paper while alternately holding it close and far.

"T-t-truckkk."

Big Jim scowled, then ripped the drawing to shreds, letting the pieces float to his feet. "Your dad don't have that truck no more. Goddamn mill took it away." Earl's mother dropped to the floor, sweeping the paper bits into her hands. Her back bobbed up and down as little squeaks came out of her mouth, but she didn't look up. Earl looked from his sobbing mother to his father's glare. He winced. His face flushed maroon. "That mill's what did this to us, boy." Big Jim pulled a beer out of the refrigerator door. He stood over his wife. "It's their goddamn fault, Sara. Get up for chrissakes." He bumped against the doorframe, half-falling into the living room.

Earl stared furrowed brows at the white refrigerator until his mother sat up. She pulled him down onto the floor with her and hugged him hard. "Now, now, baby, it's okay. We'll fix the picture it's okay. There now, don't cry." She rubbed her hand on his back and held his face hard against her shoulder.

Earl pushed himself off her gently. His eyes were dry. He smiled two big buckteeth and rubbed her arm. She braced the other against the pressure. He cocked his head at her like a robin. She moved hers back away from him. Her eyes searched into his. He laughed as he hopped up and shuffled toward his room.

That night Earl crawled out his bedroom window and burned the mill to the ground. He stood on the stream bank clapping his hands and watching for the flashing red lights and noisy sirens.

When the blaze started, the six-man maintenance crew responsible for dumping steam from the drying ovens stood in a dark corner of the log yard passing a bottle. By the time they finished arguing over the bottle, they were trapped.

Earl saw one of the men fall down. He picked his way through the flames three times, carrying one grown man over each shoulder down to the safety of the water. Earl's girth was as far ahead of his age as his mind was behind it.

The town fathers, made up of the board of directors from the mill and the fire chief, Gene O’Reilly, held a special closed session to determine his fate. Chief O’Reilly testified that when he arrived on the scene, Earl Kincaid walked up to him with a wide grin.

“He said to me, stutterin’ like he does, ‘Hello Mr. O’Reilly, I’m Big Jim’s boy.’ and stuck out his hand. I said to him, ‘You responsible for this Earl?’ and he just nodded his head, still grinning. Damndest thing I ever saw.”

The town also heard from Mr. Lucas, the mill's insurance agent. "Now I don't want to say what's right or wrong here, but honestly, an arson claim can get dragged out a long time, especially since Earl's a retard and all. Now you take a faulty valve on one of those ovens or something. Well, that mill could be back up and runnin' good as -- no, better than new -- by Christmas."
   
At the next open town meeting, the six men Earl saved each took the podium and testified with raised hands that, on their honor as recent veterans, they got out just as that number five valve blew.

The town fathers agreed unanimously on the cause of the accident, and then unveiled the plans for not only the new mill, but the new horseshoe park beside it as well.

Big Jim bribed the paperboy to have the Sunday paper accidentally delivered to their box each week so he could read the harness racing results. He stared at the statistics for over an hour every weekend, looking for some shred of information to influence his Friday bets.

Two months after Earl burned down the mill, Big Jim happened across an actual news item. The actress Frances Farmer had recently been cured of her mental illness with an ice pick. The same doctor that cured her, Dr. Freeman, was accepting patients in the Boston area during a one time only visit. Big Jim didn't need to stare at this information for an hour. His friends at the bar weren't so quick to loan him beer money since his son put them out of work. "Well now, if he's cured, they'll let bygones be bygones," he said.

That night, Earl lay in bed listening to his parent's argument through the plaster. He pulled the covers up under his chin and smiled at the sound of his father's syrup voice at first. Big Jim knew Sara saved a portion of the portion of pay that he actually brought home from his new job to put toward a new washing machine. He needed it to get the boy to Boston. She refused to tell him where the money was kept.

“Don’t you want the boy to be better?” The sweetness in his voice was gone. Earl sat up when he heard the tone change. He still had the covers pulled up, but he started rocking back and forth.

"Oh there's nothing wrong with him, dear." Earl heard a page turn.

The bed squeaked and groaned as Big Jim hopped out of it. Earl shook his head as he heard the book slam against the wall. "There most goddamn well is something wrong with him. He burned that mill down, Sara. He almost killed some men, some of my best friends." Earl rocked faster.

He saved those men. My baby is fine and I love him just how he is." Her voice was starting to break. She sniffled.

“Didn't you read where it said driving that pick up into his brain didn't hurt no more than getting a tooth pulled?” His voice was lowered again. The bed creaked.

“Mm-Hmm.”

"Then let's get our boy some help."

Sara sobbed heavier. "He doesn't need any help."

"Damn it Sara, if you don't tell me where you've got that money hid, I'll leave here tonight. I'll leave you two right now."

"Why don't you then?" The bed squeaked and Sara's pillow did nothing to muffle the crying.

Big Jim was quiet for a long time. Earl heard him sigh, then click the light. "You'd die here without me Sara. You'd never make it all alone with that boy," Big Jim whispered. Earl sat rocking until his father's snoring drowned out his mother's sleepy sobs.

Earl slipped out the window. He pulled the tent and cot, a good-bye gift from his one-legged maternal grandfather before leaving for the V.A., from the garage. From that night on, he lived either under the bridge or beside the town garage furnace, but never back home.

His parents heard about their son's new living arrangements at eleven the next morning. He generally woke before them, and could usually be found watching the conveyor belts at the potato houses, or picking his way along one of the brooks within walking distance of his house, hunting frogs and snapping turtles to bring home. Sara and Big Jim Kincaid bolted from the kitchen table when Gene O'Reilly pulled into their driveway.

"Jesus Gene, what’d he burn now?" Big Jim asked.

"Nope Jim, it's not that. I just wanted to drop by and tell you that I don't think you should let him camp out down under the bridge like that."

"What do you mean? Why is he down by the water, Jim?" Sara looked from Gene to her husband. Her bottom lip quivered.

Big Jim gulped the last of his coffee and handed her the cup. "I'll go see what's up." He stopped halfway to the empty driveway. "Uh, give me a ride will ya Gene? My car's down at the mill"

Gene squeezed Sara's hand. "Don't worry Sara," he whispered. He smiled and plopped his greasy cap back on his head.

Big Jim came home four hours later and announced that Earl was staying under the bridge. He assured Sara that it was safe enough, and that Earl would come by the house every day for lunch. If he didn't, Big Jim would drag him home. She cried until Earl walked through the door the next afternoon.

She whimpered at him as he tore through the French toast and spicy venison sausage, his favorite lunch. Her head bounced on the tabletop as he put his coat on. “I’m good Ma, go do some clothes,” he said, rubbing her shoulder and grinning.

Sara Kincaid died of a swollen heart on Mother's Day 1965. Big Jim drank himself to death four years later. Each June, as early as they bloomed, a huge bouquet of prized lilacs from Mrs. Johnson's yard showed up on Sara's headstone. Every Monday morning after Big Jim died, the men tipped their hats at a stack of assorted beer cans, some caked in mud from the Cabot ditches, on the boom arm of the infamous log loader. The Methodist church ensured Earl had food and clothing, but he never again had French toast and spicy venison sausage.

A quarter mile from Earl's tent, up a rutted woods road, water washed all the sand collected from anthills in the potato fields on Birch Hill down to a semi-beach on a shaded pool. Mothers took babies there to dunk them in the cool water during the hottest days of summer. Preteen boys caught their first speckled, wriggling brook trout there during early evenings after school and supper. Teenagers drank beer and smoked cigarettes there before picking up dates on Friday nights. Grown men approached the pool on silent feet from the hill upstream on Saturday fishing trips in the hopes of catching young girls sunbathing on the sand.

The name of the pool was Arnold's Crossing. Local legend had it that Benedict Arnold's men crossed that spot during their ill-fated march on Quebec. Local truth was that Arnold Piedmont nearly died there when he fell through the ice chasing a gut-shot buck. Earl bathed there on Wednesday evenings, like his mother taught him.

Earl stood in the dense streamside alders. He always approached the pool from the water below, rather than the muddy road, in order to wait unnoticed if there were people. Mr. Carlson, the school principal, stood in the grass at the edge of the sand, guzzling from a wine bottle. Kneeling in front of him was the Adams boy. The boy was red-faced, crying, and his hand shook as he unzipped Mr. Carlson's pants.

Earl's hands shook in sympathy. His eyes flooded and he whimpered. The boy turned his head away from the actions of his hands. Mr. Carlson wrenched the boy's head back. He gulped from the wine bottle as he moaned.

Earl burst through the branches grunting like a bear. Mr. Carlson screamed as his wine bottle smashed on a rock. The Adams boy broke free and scampered up the incline to the road.

Earl stood with clenched fists, hunched like a gorilla. Mr. Carlson stood with his pants at his knees and his hand out. "C'mon now Earl, easy there. Easy, easy." He lowered his hand to his belt and tugged his pants. "No need to get all upset Earl. You're probably too stupid to remember, but you used to be pretty good at this game too." Mr. Carlson buttoned his pants. He ran his hand through his thin hair. Earl stood huffing and crying, still bent over, fists still clenched. Mr. Carlson put calmed hands in his pockets and leaned forward. "You remember that Earl? You remember our game in the janitor's closet?" Earl wheezed. A vein stood out plump and purple on his forehead. "No, I guess you wouldn't remember would you, retard?"

Earl screamed. The sound bounced back and forth on the downstream ledges. Later, folks would claim they heard it all over town. Mr. Carlson backpedaled as Earl bull-charged, falling backwards against the washed out hill. Earl's dirty fingernails dug into the man's throat as he held the head under for the last time. When the legs stopped kicking, Earl dragged the body down over rocky rapids toward town. He wiped his eyes on his shirtsleeve.

Men were just crossing the bridge from Timberland Tavern, where the Adams boy had run to, as Earl came to shore by his tent. The first man down the bank was the fire chief. He shuffled to a stop on the shale rock and looked at the body of Mr. Carlson.

Earl didn't stutter for the first time in his life. "Hello, Mr. O'Reilly," Earl said, "I'm Big Jim's boy." He dropped Mr. Carlson into the shallow water, and stuck his hand out. The corners of his lips twitched up twice, then remained flat.

The fire chief looked at Mr. Carlson's head lolling back and forth under the water. He shook his head at the men nudging each other for a spot on the bridge rail. The Adams boy wormed in between them.

"Don't hurt him." He was crying. "He saved me. He saved me." His bony frame shook as he buried his face in the oily pants leg of the man next to him. "Don't hurt him."

There was a trial. Cabot boys of all ages testified about throwing ice balls at poor Earl Kincaid, and the terror inflicted by Mr. Carlson.

While he spent his final years drawing crude pictures at the state institution in Augusta, stolen lilacs appeared on Sara Kincaid's grave every June, and freshly-emptied beer cans were stacked on a particular log loader in the mill's junkyard on Sunday nights while the bosses were home.