Last Summer Boys(54)

Pete doesn’t want to just abandon ship, though. He wants to sink our little craft—“scuttle the ship and give her an honorable death at sea.” And he wants to name our little raft first.

“What about the USS Swiss Cheese?” says Frankie, as water splashes through onto his pants again.

I don’t care what fool name we settle on. I’m feeling awful and resenting how cheerful they all are. Even Butch looks happier now that the sun is out, and we’re so close to home. But I’m nursing my own guilt deep down. It’s a fire worse than the fever.

“Jack, you’re good with names,” says Pete. “What’ll it be?”

“I don’t care,” I mutter.

“Sure you do. Tomorrow you’ll wish you said something.”

I keep my mouth shut but Pete stands up then, and the whole raft tips under us.

“I will not leave this deck until we get a name. I swear I’ll go down with the ship if you don’t say something.”

That does it, and I think for a minute. Most boats are normally named for girls, and so I say the first name comes to mind.

“The Anna May.”

Will turns bright red. Pete beams. “That works. Now, somebody be brave and give old Butch a scoot overboard. Make sure he’s pointing the right way. We’re aiming for that bank. Just holler if you start drowning.”

Pete yanks at a few of the ropes. The USS Anna May sinks in six seconds, spilling us into chocolate-colored water. We climb out upon a familiar creek bank. I can just about see Stairways up the path. We’re home.

There’s no joy in it for me. None at all. Our expedition is a failure, all our equipment is lost, and Pete’s days are numbered.

And there’s one other thing too: my fever’s burning me alive.





Old Doc Mayfield has been our family doctor long as anybody can remember. He towers above my bed, and the top of his head almost brushes the ceiling of our bedroom. Doc Mayfield is the tallest man I know, and when he listens to my heart he has to bend almost into a U shape to hear through his shiny metal stethoscope.

He listens to my chest through cold metal and runs his fingers under my jaw before asking me to quit my shirt. Ma stands next to him, watching with arms folded. There’s just the barest trace of a frown on her pretty face. She’s worried.

When we first came up from the creek after getting back, Ma was fit to be tied. She’d been worried sick about us being out in the storm and the flood. Once she got over that, she was fixing on being mad at how dirty we all were. And then she saw me and all that anger went right out of her.

Funny how being sick can get you out of a lot of trouble.

“Jack, I’ll bet you spend a lot of time outside,” the doctor says to me. “That so?”

I nod.

“In the summer these boys only come inside to sleep,” Ma tells him.

“Don’t blame ’em,” Doc Mayfield replies. “A place like this at their feet. Almost paradise. I’d be out in these woods all day and all night if Marjorie would let me.”

He hands my shirt to Ma. When nothing looks out of the ordinary on my front, he asks me to roll over. Ma lets out a sharp gasp then.

“It’s how I figured,” Doc Mayfield says.

Ma sighs. “Oh Lord.”

“What is it?” I ask, suddenly fearful.

He puts a hand on my back, right between my shoulder blades. “Son, you’ve been bit by a deer tick. You have a bull’s eye wide as a dinner plate across your spine. That’s telltale Lyme disease. Judging from this, you’ve had it about two weeks.”

“Am I gonna die?”

He laughs. “Sure, in about seventy years. But not from this. Though Lyme disease is nothing to fool with.”

He looks to Ma. “It’ll be fevers off and on for the next week. And he’s going to be mighty weak. Bed rest. No running around, inside or out, for two weeks.”

“Two weeks?”

“Sorry, son. But unless you want to get real sick, you’ll do like I say.” He looks at Ma. “Adelene, if I can trouble you for a cup of coffee, I’ll take a look at those other three. If one of them has got it, there’s a chance the others do too.”

Doc Mayfield leaves a bottle of pills for me, then goes downstairs to check over Pete, Will, and Frankie. An hour later I hear his tires crunching gravel down the lane.

Left alone in my room, I stare out the open window at a sky that’s perfectly clear and blue and think how horribly unfair it is that I have to be in bed for two weeks. It’s too much to take. Our failed expedition. That awful night in the cave. Pete’s soon-to-be drafting. I begin bawling real quiet to myself.

I hear footsteps on that spiral staircase outside my room. I’ve just about stopped my crying when my father comes in, a cup of chicken soup steaming in his hands. His blue work shirt is stained with sweat and dirt. Dried mud is caked along the sides of his boots. He’s just come back from working at Mr. Halleck’s.

Dad sits next to me while I take a few spoonfuls of the soup, just sits and is quiet. His face is tight with worry. His oldest boy about to be drafted. The county trying to take his land. And me with my fever. I figure Dad has a lot to be worried about. But he ain’t crying. So I won’t neither. But when he lays a heavy hand on my knee, that’s too much and I start my blubbering all over again.