Last Summer Boys(55)

“Dad, it ain’t fair. It’s summer.”

My father is quiet for a moment. His clear blue eyes meet mine and he sighs.

“Life’s not fair, Jack. You ought to know that by now.”





For three days I battle that Lyme disease and the worst fever I have ever known. It pounces on me all of a sudden. It leaves me shivering in scorching afternoons and burning up in the dead of night. In all that time, I don’t do a thing except lie in my bed and watch the sun come up through the open window and wait for it to go down again. Then, on the morning of the third day, I beg Ma to let me sit outside on the front porch. She agrees on condition that I not set one foot off it. So I sit on our porch, wrapped in the quilt Grandma Elliot made for me just before she passed, and sip watered-down lemonade through a straw.

I’ve got aches in my arms and legs and all down my back. Just walking from the screen door to the chair takes almost all of the energy I’ve got. I am feeling pretty sorry for myself when Pete, Will, and Frankie come onto the porch. In Frankie’s arms is every board game we have.

“You feel up for playing a few?” he asks.

We burn through every last one of those board games.

Then, Pete comes up with the idea to hold contests to entertain me. The three of them start in on sit-up contests, push-up contests, chin-up contests, and then, when they really start running out of ideas, talking contests. Each one of them memorizes a speech and recites it for me, and I get to be the judge and decide who gives it best. Pete does Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven,” and Will does something out of Shakespeare that has a lot of old-fashioned words I don’t understand. Frankie recites a poem about baseball. I like them all, but I go with Frankie because he’s the only one who’s able to get the whole way through without having to look down at the page.

But after all that, I can tell they’re getting bored as I am, and I tell them so.

“Look,” I say. “It’s awful nice of you fellas to spend all this time with me. But just because I’m sitting here missing summer doesn’t mean you have to. I wish you’d go down to Apple Creek and swim yourselves silly.”

Pete and Will narrow their eyes at me.

“Nothing doing, Jack,” Pete says. “We like being right here with you.”

“You trying to get rid of us?” Will asks.

“God’s honest truth, you three are getting crazier than I am. I’ll be fine on my own for an afternoon.”

I can tell they really want to go and I’m glad when they finally do trot off toward Apple Creek and leave me on the porch by myself.

It’s not ten minutes later the screen door wheezes and Ma comes out onto the porch. She’s wearing her apron and there’s flour on her hands.

“Where’d those boys run off to? Did they up and leave you?”

“I told them to go swimming. I didn’t want them cooped up here all afternoon.”

“Don’t you lie for your brothers’ sake,” Ma says sharply. “They know we have company this afternoon.”

I blink. “We have company?”

“Land sakes, John Thomas, you’re not that sick. I told you this morning, I’m having the ladies from church over for bridge tonight.”

I swallow.

“Well,” Ma sighs, “at least you’ll be here. I’ll get your nice shirt for you to wear. You don’t have to say anything; just wear it and be polite and smile.”

The egg timer above the stove goes off and Ma goes back inside.

She don’t usually get to entertain on account of us living so far outside of town. When she does, she goes all out. For her friends in the bridge club, she bakes a loaf of fresh bread and then puts a pot roast in the oven to cook while she mixes a salad with those cucumbers and lettuce from her garden out back. Then she sets the picnic table and gets the duplicate bridge boards out from the cupboard under the stairs.

I’m bored being sick, but not so bored that I want to sit through a bridge party. I’d rather be in bed. I’m about to ask Ma if I can go up and lie down, but then the first car comes up our lane.

I’m too late.

And now I’m wishing like mad I hadn’t told Pete, Will, and Frankie they could go to the creek. And I got no idea when they’ll be back.





It’s dusk and the bridge ladies are long gone by the time they get back. But it’s only two boys coming slow through purple shadows: Pete and Frankie. Will ain’t nowhere in sight.

“Where’s Will?” I ask Pete as he comes onto the porch. Pete just shakes his head and goes through the screen door without a word.

That gets me spooked, so I turn quickly to Frankie and ask him the same question.

I can tell he’s been swimming. He’s got sand on his arms and he smells like the creek.

“Hard to say,” Frankie answers me, sitting down.

“Is he all right?” I ask quickly.

“Yeah, sure,” Frankie assures me. “Nothing bad happened.”

I relax some at that, but now I’m itching to know.

Frankie pours himself a glass from my pitcher of lemonade. After a long, slow sip, he sits back in his chair and cocks one eye at me.

“We went swimming at the Sucker Hole,” he says. “We jumped off the pilings for a while. Then we raced. Pete won every time, but Will came close once—”