Farewell Summer Part 3

"What Pete is trying to say is that we gotta know with precision, we gotta know what's accurate," said Bo.

"I'll say it again," said Doug. "You listen close. Tom, you taking this down?"

"Yup," said Tom, his pencil poised over his note-pad. "Shoot."

They stood in the darkening shadows, in the smell of gra.s.s and leaves and old roses and cold stone and raised their heads, sniffling, and wiped their cheeks on their s.h.i.+rtsleeves.

"Okay, then," said Doug. "Let's go over it again. It's not enough just seeing these graves. We've got to sneak under open windows, listen, discover what those old geezers are sick with. Tom, go get the pumpkins out of Grandma's pantry. We're gonna have a contest, see which of us can carve the scariest pumpkin. One to look like old man Quartermain, one like Bleak, one like Gray. Light them up and put them out. Later tonight we start our first attack with the carved pumpkins. Okay?"

"Okay!" everyone shouted.

They leapt over WHYTE, WILLIAMS, and NEBB, jumped and vaulted SAMUELS and KELLER, screamed the iron gate wide, leaving the cold land behind them, lost sunlight, and the creek running forever below the hill. A host of gray moths followed them as far as the gate where Tom braked and stared at his brother accusingly.

"Doug, about those pumpkins. Gosh almighty, you're nuts!"

"What?" Doug stopped and turned back as the other boys ran on.

"It ain't enough. I mean, look what you've done. You've pushed the fellas too far, got 'em scared. Keep on with this sort of talk you're going to lose your army. You've got to do something that will put everything back together again. Find something for us to do or else everyone will go home and stay there, or go lie down with the dogs and sleep it off. Think of something, Doug. It's important."

Doug put his hands on his hips and stared at Tom. "Why do I got this feeling you're the general and I'm just a buck private?"

"What do you mean, Doug?"

"I mean here I am, almost fourteen, and you're twelve going on a hundred and ordering me around and telling me what to do. Are things so bad?"

"Bad, Doug? They're terrible. Look at all those guys running away. You better catch up and think of something between here and the middle of town. Reorganize the army. Give us something to do besides carving jack-o'-lanterns. Think, Doug, think."

"I'm thinking," said Doug, eyes shut.

"Well then, get going! Run, Doug, I'll catch up."

And Doug ran on.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

On the way into town, on a street near the school stood the nickel emporium where all the sweet poisons hid in luscious traps.

Doug stopped, stared, and waited for Tom to catch up and then yelled, "Okay, gang, this way. In!"

Around him all the boys came to a halt because he said the name of the shop, which was pure magic.

Doug beckoned and they all gathered and followed, orderly, like a good army, into the shop.

Tom came last, smiling at Doug as if he knew something that n.o.body else knew.

Inside, honey lay sheathed in warm African chocolate. Plunged and captured in the amber treasure lay fresh Brazil nuts, almonds, and glazed cl.u.s.ters of snowy coconut. June b.u.t.ter and August wheat were clothed in dark sugars. All were crinkled in folded tin foil, then wrapped in red and blue papers that told the weight, ingredients, and manufacturer. In bright bouquets the candies lay, caramels to glue the teeth, licorice to blacken the heart, chewy wax bottles fi lled with sickening mint and strawberry sap, Tootsie Rolls to hold like cigars, red-tipped chalk-mint cigarettes for chill mornings when your breath smoked on the air.

The boys, in the middle of the shop, saw diamonds to crunch, fabulous liquors to swig. Persimmon-colored pop bottles swam, clinking softly, in the Nile waters of the refrigerated box, its water cold enough to cut your skin. Above, on gla.s.s shelves, lay cordwood piles of gingersnaps, macaroons, chocolate bits, vanilla wafers shaped like moons, and marshmallow dips, white surprises under black masquerades. All of this to coat the tongue, plaster the palate.

Doug pulled some nickels from his pocket and nodded at the boys.

One by one they chose from the sweet treasure , noses pressed against gla.s.s, breath misting the crystal vault.

Moments later, down the middle of the street they ran and soon stood on the edge of the ravine with the pop and candy.

Once they were all a.s.sembled, Doug nodded again and they started the trek down into the ravine. Above them, on the other side, stood the looming homes of the old men, casting dark shadows into the bright day. And above those, Doug saw, as he s.h.i.+elded his eyes, was the hulking carapace of the haunted house.

"I brought you here on purpose," said Doug.

Tom winked at him as he flipped the lid off his pop.

"You must learn to resist, so you can fight the good fight. Now," he cried, holding his bottle out. "Don't look so surprised. Pour!"

"My gos.h.!.+" Charlie Woodman slapped his brow. "That's good root beer, Doug. Mine's good Orange Crush !"

Doug turned his bottle upside down. The root beer froth hissed out to join the clear stream rus.h.i.+ng away to the lake. The others stared, the spectacle mir rored in each pair of eyes.

"You want to sweat Orange Crush?" Douglas grabbed Charlie's drink. "You want root beer spit, to be poisoned forever, to never get well? Once you're tall, you can't un- grow back, can't stab yourself with a pin and let the air out."

Solemnly, the martyrs tilted their bottles.

"Lucky crawfish." Charlie Woodman slung his bottle at a rock. They all threw their bottles, like Germans after a toast, the gla.s.s cras.h.i.+ng in bright splinters.

They unwrapped the melting chocolate and b.u.t.ter chip and almond frivolities. Their teeth parted, their mouths watered. But their eyes looked to their general.

"I solemnly pledge from now on: no candy, no pop, no poison."

Douglas let his chocolate chunk drop like a corpse into the water, like a burial at sea.

Douglas wouldn't even let them lick their fi ngers.

Walking out of the ravine, they met a girl eating a vanilla ice cream cone. The boys stared, their tongues lolling. She took a cold dollop with her tongue. The boys blinked. She licked the cone and smiled. Perspiration broke out on a half dozen faces. One more lick, one more jut of that rare pink tongue, one more hint of cool vanilla ice cream and his army would revolt. Sucking in a deep breath, Douglas cried: "Git!"

The girl spun around and ran.

Douglas waited for the memory of the ice cream to fade, then said, quietly, "There's ice water at Grandma's. March!"

II: s.h.i.+LOH AND BEYOND.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

Calvin C. Quartermain was an edifice as tall, long, and as arrogant as his name.

He did not move, he stalked.

He did not see, he glared.

He spoke not, but fired his tongue, point-blank, at any target come to hand.

He orated, he p.r.o.nounced, he praised not, but heaped scorn.

Right now he was busy shoving bacteria under the microscope of his gold-rimmed spectacles. The bac teria were the boys, who deserved destruction. One boy, especially. "A bike, sweet Christ, a d.a.m.n blue bike! That's all it was!" Quartermain bellowed, kicking his good leg. "b.a.s.t.a.r.ds! Killed Braling! Now they're after me !" A stout nurse trussed him like a cigar store Indian while Dr. Lieber set the leg. "Christ! d.a.m.ned fool. What was it Braling said about a metronome? Jesus!" "Leg's broke, easy!" "He needs more than a bike! A d.a.m.ned h.e.l.l-fi re device won't kill me, no!" The nurse shoved a pill in his mouth. "Peace, Mr. C., peace."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

Night, in Calvin C. Quartermain's lemon- sour house, and him in bed, discarded long ago, when his youth breeched the carapace, slid between his ribs, and left his sh.e.l.l to flake in the wind.

Quartermain twisted his head and the sounds of the summer night breathed through the air. Listening, he chewed on his hatred.

"G.o.d, strike down those b.a.s.t.a.r.d fiends with fi re!" Sweating cold, he thought: Braling lost his brave fight to make them human, but I will prevail. Christ, what's happening? He stared at the ceiling where gunpowder blew in a spontaneous combustion, all their lives exploded in one day at the end of an unbelievably late summer, a thing of weather and blind sky and the surprise miracle that he still lived, still breathed, amidst lunatic events. Christ! Who ran this parade and where was it going? G.o.d, stand alert! The drummer-boys are killing the captains.

"There must be others," he whispered to the open window. "Some who tonight feel as I do about these infi dels!"

He could sense the shadows trembling out there, the other old rusted iron men hidden in their high towers, sipping thin gruels and snapping dog- biscuits. He would summon them with cries, his fever like heat-lightning across the sky.

"Telephone," gasped Quartermain. "Now, Calvin, line them up!"

There was a rustling in the dark yard. " What?" he whispered.

The boys cl.u.s.tered in the lightless ocean of gra.s.s below. Doug and Charlie, Will and Tom, Bo, Henry, Sam, Ralph, and Pete all squinted up at the window of Quartermain's high bedroom.

In their hands they had three beautifully carved and terrible pumpkins. They carried them along the sidewalk below while their voices rose among the starlit trees, louder and louder: "The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out."

Quartermain turned each of his spotted papyrus hands into fists and clenched the telephone.

"Bleak!"

"Quartermain? My G.o.d, it's late!"

"Shut up! Did you hear about Braling?"

"I knew one day he'd get caught without his hourgla.s.s."

"This is no time for levity!"

"Oh, him and his d.a.m.n clocks; I could hear him ticking across town. When you hold that tight to the edge of the grave, you should just jump in. Some boy with a cap-pistol means nothing. What can you do? Ban cap-pistols?"

"Bleak, I need you!"

"We all need each other."

"Braling was school board secretary. I'm chairman ! The d.a.m.n town's teeming with killers in embryo."

"My dear Quartermain," said Bleak dryly, "you re mind me of the perceptive asylum keeper who claimed that his inmates were mad. You've only just discovered that boys are animals?"

"Something must be done!"

"Life will do it."

"The d.a.m.ned fools are outside my house singing a funeral dirge!"

"'The Worms Crawl In'? My favorite tune when I was a boy. Don't you remember being ten? Call their folks."

"Those fools? They'd just say, 'Leave the nasty old man alone.'"

"Why not pa.s.s a law to make everyone seventy-nine years old?" Bleak's grin ran along the telephone wires. "I've two dozen nephews who sweat icicles when I threaten to live forever. Wake up, Cal. We are a minority, like the dark African and the lost Hitt.i.te. We live in a country of the young. All we can do is wait until some of these s.a.d.i.s.ts. .h.i.t nineteen, then truck them off to war. Their crime? Being full up with orange juice and spring rain. Patience. Someday soon you'll see them wander by with winter in their hair. Sip your revenge quietly."

"d.a.m.n! Will you help?"

"If you mean can you count on my vote on th e school board? Will I command Quartermain's Grand Army of Old Crocks? I'll leer from the sidelines, with an occasional vote thrown to you mad dogs. Shorten summer vacations, trim Christmas holidays, cancel the Spring Kite Festival-that's what you plan, yes?"

"I'm a lunatic, then?!"

"No, a student-come-lately. I learned at fifty I had joined the army of unwanted men. We are not quite Africans, Quartermain, or heathen Chinese, but our racial stigmata are gray, and our wrists are rusted where once they ran clear. I hate that fellow whose face I see, lost and lonely in my dawn mirror! When I see a fine lady, G.o.d! I know outrage. Such spring cartwheel thoughts are not for dead pharaohs. So, with limits, Cal, you can count me in. Good night."

The two phones clicked.

Quartermain leaned out his window. Below, in the moonlight, he could see the pumpkins, s.h.i.+ning with a terrible October light.