Last Summer Boys(11)
“You’re slower than molasses in January,” I tell him as we push through the screen door so hard it slaps the back of the porch and wheezes back, nearly catching Frankie’s elbow. Heavy perfume of summer washes over us: lilac and honeysuckle. Grass is still wet from the last of the dew, and the hems of our pants are damp by the time we pass the barn.
Butch finds us then, lumbering over to say good morning and sniff at the biscuits in my pocket. I watch Frankie make the decision to drop a hand on my dog’s head and give him a quick scratch behind the ear. Butch plops down at once on his behind and points his nose at the sky, which is his way of telling Frankie to keep on with the ear scratching.
Any other day, I’d stop and accommodate Butch, but this morning I’m impatient.
“I think he likes me,” Frankie says, yawning. “Does he live in the barn?”
“He only sleeps there,” I tell him. “Come on, I’ll show you. But real quick.”
Cooler inside the barn. Dark. Motes swirl in a pair of light beams that slant through cobwebby windows and splash on Dad’s gray Ferguson tractor, still asleep under its blue tarp. Enormous wheels make creases like mountain ridges beneath waterproofed plastic. The trailer hangs out the back of the tarp, filled with the tools Dad uses on old Mr. Halleck’s estate: axes, shovels, chainsaws, hedge clippers, work gloves, a posthole digger, a jug of gasoline, and a paint-splattered pail.
Frankie spots our toboggan, tucked across the rafters.
“That’s the best place for hide-and-seek,” I tell him. “One time I stretched out on it to hide, and it was so comfy I fell asleep. I was up there hours and Pete and Will couldn’t find me, and Ma was fixing to call the sheriff when I finally woke up. Good thing I never rolled nowhere. Only bad thing about it was the spiders.”
I lead him back outside, where Butch is nipping at gnats in the yard, and down the worn flagstones to the lane. When he sees we mean business about leaving the yard, Butch gets up and trots along after us.
Above us, the sun is a soft ball of yellow egg yolk. Not one cloud in sight, which means it will be hot, and I’m glad when we cross the road and slip beneath the gray sycamores and pass into Pennsylvania’s endless forests. Will told me once that you can walk from one end of Pennsylvania to the other and never once come out from under trees, if you don’t want to. I believe him. There’s a musty smell on the air of rotting leaves and fresh mud. Roots, like old fingers, reach across the deer trail we’re following, which begins to dip down.
“Is it safe to be here?” Frankie asks, eyeing the timber.
“You bet.”
“But no one knows we’re out here, do they?”
“Me and Butch know exactly where we are!”
Ahead, Butch finds a hole. He puts his face in and digs.
Our path bends between a pair of giant white oaks, and that scent on the air grows stronger. I go faster now, wanting to put distance between us and the house. Last thing I want is Pete or even worse, Will, deciding to catch us up. I don’t want to be found out. Not yet.
We follow the scent through a patch of rubbery jewelweed until at last we break onto a sandy bank and find Apple Creek rolling easy and bright, glittering like a green diamond in morning sun. Smooth river stones of pink and orange and pale blue lie scattered along the edge. Above the far bank, the meadow grasses blaze buttery gold in morning sun.
Inside every boy’s head is a magnet that will lead him straight to water. Ours pull us right up to the water’s edge, and we begin following the creek downstream.
“Don’t get too close,” I warn. “You can’t see it, but the bank curves away underneath. If you’re not careful, it’ll crumble and take you with it.”
“Has that ever happened to you?” Frankie asks.
I wonder how he guessed.
“Once,” I say. But I don’t tell him any more.
It was a few years back, after a heavy rain. Creek was high, and I pestered Will into taking me down to see it because I wasn’t allowed to go alone. When the bank collapsed under me, I went in—and under. Will jumped in after me, got hold of me, and kept us both above water, letting the force carry us downstream until he could grab a mesh of tree roots and pull us out. We lay on the bank gasping for air a good long while until he had strength enough to walk again. When we got home, I was sent to bed without any supper, but poor Will got the belt from Dad for taking me to the creek in the first place.
I still feel guilty about that.
Hopkins Bridge slides into view, a rusty skeleton stretching over slow water and banks that sparkle with brown and green beer bottles people have pitched out of their cars as they drove past.
Butch ambles to the shade under the bridge. We follow him. Apple Creek is glassy smooth here and the sand is coarse, like brown sugar. We drop down to eat our biscuits and trade sips of warm orange juice from the jar as the day steams hotter around us. I find it hard to eat mine on account of the butterflies in my stomach, so I give the whole thing to Butch, take a breath, and say the thing I been waiting all morning to say: “Tell me about them stories you write.”
He looks at me.
“What stories?”
“The ones you got published in the paper. The one Ma taped to our fridge.”
Frankie frowns and takes a bite of biscuit. “What do you want to know?”
“How long’s it take you to write them?”