The Serpent King(26)

“Here.” Dill gripped the ladder, raised a foot, and scraped his boot on the column before stepping on the bottom rung. He did the same with his other boot. “Best of both worlds. Now you won’t get your muddy hands all over what’s left of my body when Shalimar or whatever kills me.”

They climbed up the ladder and squeezed through the tight hole at the top to a catwalk. Travis had to hold his breath.

“We need to remember to bring some butter next time so we can grease up Travis,” Dill said.

Travis laughed, trying to suck in his gut. “Come on guys, give me a yank.”

“Not before you buy a gal dinner,” Lydia said in her best 1940s sexpot voice, flicking ash from an imaginary cigarette.

“If only you walked through holes as easily as you walked into that,” Dill said.

They finally dislodged Travis and continued on the narrow catwalk out to the Column. Travis had to walk hunched over to keep from hitting his head. They got to another hole with a ladder and slipped down it.

“I have an easier time going down the holes than up them,” Travis said.

“Not even touching that one,” Lydia said in the 1940s voice.

“We are thoroughly violating this poor bridge,” Dill said.

“I didn’t mean it that way. God dang, you guys.”

They finally reached the Column, where there was space to spread out. Dill discreetly kicked a condom wrapper into the water below.

“Every time we come here, I try to figure out why this ladder exists,” Dill said.

Lydia rummaged through her bag for her book and their markers. “Right? It’s like ‘Hey, Butch, whyncha climb down and see if the Column is still there.’ ‘Okay, boss. Thumbs-up! The Column is still here!’?”

“No, but you have to come down to clean and paint the metal parts and make sure the rivets and welds and stuff are sound,” Travis said, slapping the Column. It made a hollow, metallic ring.

Lydia examined a wide, flat spot and brushed the dirt away. “How is it every time we’re talking about the real world, you manage to bring up fantasy, and every time we’re talking about fantasy, you manage to bring up the real world?”

Travis shrugged. “My fantasies are more interesting than the real world and machines and tools are more interesting than you guys’ fantasies.”

Lydia took a picture of a blank spot. “Sure. We’ll go with that. Hand me a marker.”

Lydia went to work on her spot, using her cell phone light. Dill and Travis went around to the other side with the flashlight and took turns.

Travis’s marker squeaked. “Be really, really careful not to fall, guys. Safety first.”

“There are probably worse ways to die than falling into a river, having a great time with your friends right up until the end,” Dill said.

“What would be you guys’ ideal way to die? If you could choose?” Travis asked.

“Jeez, Trav, way to go dark on us,” Lydia said. “But hey, I smell more blog post fodder. Dill? You seem like you’ve thought about it. Kick us off. The conversation, I mean. Don’t literally kick us off the Column.”

Dill thought for a second. He looked out at the river, at its eddies and swirls, the patterns forming on its surface and disappearing. He listened to the ordered chaos of its sounds. The moon ascended, Venus beside it. On the horizon below, a radio tower rose into the indigo sky, its red lights blinking lazily. A warm evening wind carried a breath of honeysuckle and linden from the banks. A train whistled in the distance; it would soon rumble over them with a sound like waking up to a thunderstorm. He was a tuning fork, made to resonate at the frequency of this place, at this time.

“Here,” Dill said. “This would be fine. Lydia?”

“Surrounded by servants tearing their clothing and wailing, begging to join me in the afterlife so that they can continue to serve me.”

“I don’t even know if you’re joking right now,” Dill said.

“Okay, fine.” She thought for a few moments. “I’m fascinated with Martha Gellhorn’s life and death. She was a journalist and hero of mine. She did all sorts of amazing stuff. She said she wanted to die when she got too old to think well or be interesting. So she popped a cyanide capsule when she was ninety or something. If there was a way I could explode with beautiful heat and light, like a firecracker, that’s what I’d want. I want people to talk about me and remember me when I’m gone. I want to carve my name into the world.”

They heard the train approaching. “I’ll go after the train,” Travis yelled as it thundered overhead.

When it passed, he spoke quietly, looking at the river. “I’d want to die with glory. On a green battlefield as an old warrior, with my friends around me.” He paused, gathering his thoughts. “I could join the Marine Corps like Matt if I just wanted to die in war like he did. But that’s not what I want. I don’t want to die in Afghanistan or some foreign country. I want to die fighting for my home. For a cause that means something to me. That’s why I wrote the thing I did.”

Dill handed him the flashlight. “Let’s see it.”

Travis shined the flashlight on what he wrote.

Rest, O Knight, proud in victory, proud in death. Let your name evermore be a light to those who loved you. Let white flowers grow upon this place that you rest. Yours was a life well lived, and now you dine in the halls of the Elders at their eternal feast.