Three Day Summer(7)
“Wes!” I squeal. “You’re going to need a tetanus shot.”
His eyes flash a second of fear and then narrow. “Small price to pay to try and save the millions who are, I don’t know, being killed over there,” he says with an attempt at valiance.
I sigh. “You’re preaching to the choir, you know,” I say as I take his noninjured hand in mine and help him up.
I turn around without another word, and he follows me into the tent, grumbling a low apology.
Walking over to the table we’ve set up, I take out some bandages, cotton balls, alcohol, and a dark bottle of Mercurochrome. I take his hand and examine it.
“There’s a little piece of wood still in there. I’m going to have to take it out.”
Grabbing tweezers, I wipe some alcohol on it, and start digging around in Wes’s hand as gently as I can. He winces.
Wes isn’t so good with physical pain. My father, the two-war veteran, rides him about it all the time, constantly comparing him to the derring-do of Mark, especially when Wes starts talking about dodging selective service.
Threshold of pain aside, I can’t say I exactly blame him. Being a girl, I don’t have to put my name down for a draft when I turn eighteen, so I’m not faced with the high probability of being sent into a battlefield. Though I am faced with the heart-wrenching possibility of coming out an only child at the end of everything. I’m not sure which is worse.
“Ow!” he yells when I finally pull the piece of wood out. To be fair to him, it is a rather long piece.
He hisses when I rub Mercurochrome on his wound, staining his skin orange before I wrap it up in a bandage.
“Thanks,” he mumbles as he steps back toward the entrance of the tent.
“Not so fast.” I grab the sleeve of his green tie-dyed shirt. “Tetanus shot.”
“Oh, come on! It was just a tiny splinter,” he whines.
“Not based on the noises you were making,” I say. Turning around, I spot the middle-aged brunette I’m looking for. “Anna,” I yell over to her, not daring to leave my brother’s side in case he attempts escape. It wouldn’t be the first time. “Can you give this fool a tetanus shot?” I point a thumb at Wes.
Without any hesitation, Anna looks into one of the dozens of bins neatly stacked up on the side of the tent and emerges with a syringe wrapped in plastic. She rummages around in another bin and comes up with a vial of liquid.
I turn to Wes, noticing his wide-eyed look of fear. Time for a distraction. “So where are Adam, Laurie, and Peter?”
“Protesting.”
“Obviously,” I say with an eye-roll. “But where are they? And really, you and Dad are opposite sides of the same coin. What do you think is going to happen by protesting here?”
Wes turns to me with a glare. “Millions of people are going to be watching this weekend, Cora. We’re protesting for them to see. To hear just what this generation wants. And it ain’t war! OW!!” he howls. Anna has stuck him with the needle.
“All done,” I say with a grin as Anna places another bandage on his arm.
“Were you trying to get me riled up just so I wouldn’t feel that?” he spits.
“Well . . . yeah,” I say.
“Oh. Well, thanks. I guess.”
I shake my head. “You’re welcome. Try not to get into any more trouble out there, okay?”
Wes grins and, for a moment, his face sheds its conscientious-citizen mask and shows the unbridled excitement of a seventeen-year-old boy. “I can’t believe this is happening in our own backyard. Can you?”
He practically skips out of the tent, carrying his sign in his unbandaged hand.
If nothing else, he’ll definitely be getting another splinter.
chapter 8
Michael
Once the sun starts to set, I realize how wrong I’ve been about Bethel being a plain sort of girl. All her hidden beauties just come out later in the day. As we leave the lunch counter, the sky starts to streak pink and violet and orange. The colors are as unbelievable as a psychedelic concert poster and the entire scene is made kaleidoscopic by the reflection in the town’s great big lake. Far out.
By the time we’re back by the festival site, the stars have come out. More stars than I’d have ever known existed back in Boston. It’s like someone is poking holes in a piece of sapphire paper and they have no sense of moderation. I wonder if this hypothetical person has any relation to Evan.
Speaking of which, our resident comedian has been amusing us by narrating the thoughts of the other kids we see heading toward what we’ve already come to feel is “our” field. “Your cantaloupes are as supple as your tits,” Evan says as one guy in a fringed vest stares freely at a braless girl in a thin shirt walking with a shopping bag of food, the rough green skin of a cantaloupe peeking out from the top. The girls scream in laughter.
“Evan, man, you get away with murder,” Rob says with a chuckle.
“Tell me about it,” I respond.
Soon, we’ve staked a claim to a corner of the field. There are two sleeping bags and six of us but, somehow, it seems to work out fine. Either Catherine or Suzie (or both) is in Evan’s sleeping bag, while Rob is lying on a blanket. Things keep shifting over there, though, and there are plenty of giggles, so I have no idea how they end up.