by Chad Leito
I had five white baseballs resting at my feet and one in my hand ready to pitch. The sun was beginning to go down and Saul and I had already decided that after I had pitched those balls to him we would go inside. Saul struck his batter’s stance out in front of me and I went into a clumsy wind up; trying to mimic what I had seen on the screen. I released the ball with all of the speed I could muster and it flew towards Saul. The ball hit the dirt and bounced out over the plate.
“C’mon, Walt, give me one that I can hit!”
Saul looked determined. I took a step back and eyed him. The bat swung gently back and forth behind his head. I balanced myself on the mound, then cocked my left knee above my hip, stepped forward, and threw the ball. It was a perfect pitch. The laces spun around the baseball as it sped right down the middle of the plate. Saul’s weight shifted, he twisted his bat forward and caught the ball perfectly with a crack that echoed through the still evening.
“Home run!” Burl called. It was the best hit ball all day. The ball sailed at an amazing length out over the trees.
Saul put his hands high over his head and began to trot the bases.
“Yankees win! Yankees win! Dimaggio has done it! Yankees win!”
14
Phlegm
The days following were filled with hard work and laughter. We would wake up early every morning to eat our breakfasts and go help Burl with odd jobs around the farm. We helped him mend fences, milk cows, gather eggs, and many other things. Most days, though, after a few hours of work Saul and I would get distracted and play catch or pirates or some other game with each other. Burl never stopped working and even though he valued our work when we volunteered, he never scolded us or whipped us when we got distracted and went off to play.
We all grew healthier in that time. Saul and I grew strong; we ate and drank full meals, and had a good amount of physical activity each day. Our spirits were lifted and the life that was drained from the blistering sun and the fear of the whips at the farm was returned. We became children again. Burl grew better in a different way. His eyes didn’t move around as much when he talked. His body language became more natural and he smiled more. He was happy to have us.
Burl always woke up before the sun, and so whenever I awoke in bed one morning and saw that it was nearly noon and Burl hadn’t woke us up, I was confused. I sat up in my bed, slowly, careful to not disturb Saul snoring beside me. I pushed the blankets down to my feet and slipped out off and onto the floor.
When I entered the kitchen there was still no sign of life. The room was warm and sunlight gathered on the floor under the windows. The clock ticked sleepily against the wall and dust swirled in the morning air. I stood in the kitchen looking around for any clues as to what was going on. Burl’s bedroom door was shut. I had never been in there and was a bit uneasy about the idea of just opening up and walking in to see if he was okay, but I was worried about him. In the end, thinking of him sick in there, or thinking of him falling down without a way to get back up made me more uneasy than the thought of invading his privacy.
The wooden floor creaked with my steps as I walked over to his door. I turned the knob and pushed the door open. Burl was wide awake and sitting up. Something was wrong with him. He was propped up on his pillows against the head board of his bed. He was shirtless and his blankets came up to his belly button. His body was gleaming with sweat and his face was a bright red. Burl was humming a tune and moving his hands through the air, pinching his fingers together and then pulling back as if he were picking invisible cotton.
“Burl?” I said.
The man’s eyes looked at me. They were wild. His beard was a mess of tangles under his mouth. His lip raised revealing his top teeth and he let out a feral growl.
“Burl?” I asked again.
The man continued to growl and lean forward threatening me from his bed.
I walked backwards on my heels and then shut his door. I ran and woke Saul to tell him what was happening.
“He’s growling?” asked Saul.
“Yes! He was sitting up in his bed and when I entered he seemed to not even notice me. He was doing something with the air; he was miming something. And then I said his name and he began to growl like a dog.”
“Are you sure?” Saul asked.
“Yes, I’m sure. How could I be wrong about something like that? Come with me, we’ll go look at him.”
A few moments later Saul and I were standing beside Burl’s bed. The man’s demeanor had changed greatly. His face was pale and his eyes drooped in a tired expression. His voice was coarse and his throat was filled with phlegm. His nose ran a green color that he kept on wiping off on his bare arm. Besides that though, he was acting normal, just sick. I asked him if he were okay and told him what had happened.
“And I was growling?”
“Yes. You looked mean.”
“Do I look sick? No, don’t answer that. Of course I do. My skin is clammy, there’s mucus in my beard, and my bed is wet from sweat. I am sick.”
The ceiling in the bedroom was low and slanted with the roof above. Saul’s head was just a few inches from the top. “What do you have?” he asked.
“Mungus fever. Have you boys heard of it?”
Saul shook his head.
“A little,” I said.
“Okay, I don’t have much time them. Soon, I’ll have another episode and you never know when those will stop. Listen to me. Walt, I need medicine soon. If I don’t get it, I will die. I don’t want to die, Walt.”
I nodded and he looked at me with honest eyes.
“I need for you to go to town, go to the pharmacy and say that you need some medicine for Mungus fever. And you will ha…”
I gave a nervous laugh and interrupted him, “I can’t go to town! Don’t you remember, I’m wanted. They’ll..”
“Shut up,” Burl yelled. I froze at his anger. “Listen to me. I know. I don’t have much time. I know that you’re wanted. Under my bed there is a suitcase. Inside of it is a set of clothes that a little Salyer boy would wear. Put them on. In that dresser across from me is a shaving kit. I haven’t used it in a while, but the razor is probably still sharp. Walt, shave your head, put on the clothes, and go into town.”
“Bud I don’t know how to get…”
“Shhhh, I know, I know. Time frame, remember. The gray horse out in the pasture, the only one with a saddle on, get one him. I’ve been takin’ him to town for years. He knows the way there and back. Just get on him and he’ll take ye’.”
“What do I do?” Saul asked.
“Just stay here with me.”
I stood looking at Burl for some time. His face was getting red again and his fever was returning. He shooed me away. “Don’t stare at me, go! Hurry!”
Saul and I found the shaving kit under some clothes in the dresser and under the bed was the suitcase that Burl had talked about. Burl fell asleep soon after he had talked to us and we left the room. We went outside and got the razor out of the kit. It was a straight razor with orange rust gathering around it. An old canister of shaving cream was packed in and when we shook it we found that it still had something in it.
“Do you know how to shave?” I asked Saul.
He shook his head. “I can try.”
I took off my shirt and Saul poured some water over my head to make my hair wet. Then he used a pair of scissors and cut as close to my head as possible to make it easier to shave. My turtle necklace hung off of my neck and I never took it off. When most of my hair was cut off he doused my head in old shaving cream and began to run the razor over my scalp. He was careful and worked slow. He was much taller than me, so when we both stood up my head was at a height that was easy for him to work with.
“Do you think that this will work? Do you think that they won’t notice me in town?”
“We won’t know until we’re done,” Saul said back.
I was already nervous, even so far away from town. People had said that I looked like a Salyer, but enough t
o go in and buy medicine unnoticed with my picture all over the place? I did not know.
When my head was shaved clean Saul took off my eyebrows. The clothes that were under Burl’s bed did look like ones that I had seen Salyer children wear. They resembled what the guards at the Theatre wore, except they were obviously smaller. The shirt was red with golden buttons going down the center. The sleeves were slightly too small for me, coming just above my wrists when I held my hands down to my side, but I thought that it looked natural. The pants were a deep red and made out of a heavy material. Black swirls and designs ran down the side. Inside were also black leather shoes. They fit and I even found them to be comfortable.
When I was dressed and the hair on my head was all gone I stood outside of Burl’s house looking at my reflection in the window. I couldn’t believe it; they were right. If I saw a boy who looked exactly like me in town I would not give him a second glance. My cheekbones were high, my face was lean, and my lips were thin like a Salyers.
“You look convincing to me,” Saul said.
Saul hugged me and said goodbye to me at the house. He didn’t want to leave Burl alone for too long and I had to get moving.
The old gray horse in the pasture’s name was Rusty, or at least that’s the name that was carved into his saddle. His name seemed to be derived from his slow movements. The animal had a calm nature and let me get onto his saddle with ease.
I walked him out of the pin, locked the other animals in, and then, without any instruction, he began to walk me into the woods in the direction that I hoped town was. The horse trotted along through the forest, in between trees, making decisive turns onto trails in the woods. I rode for over an hour in dense vegitation. I began to get scared that the horse was old and didn’t remember where it was supposed to go or that Burl had just been delirious and thought that the horse could get me to town when it couldn’t. If that was the case, and the horse had taken me so far out into the woods, I would probably never see Burl’s or my brother again.
Then, the horse stepped out of the forest and onto a wide trail that I recognized from my trip with the chain gang and my walk to town with Saul. I didn’t know where I was exactly, but I knew that I was close. My heart began to pound and a whole new concern came to me. At that time it became a reality to me that I was actually going to enter the town. I concentrated on my breathing and that made me feel better.
Up around a bend I heard laughter and then I saw three Salyer men come into view. All of them were on horses and trotting along. They formed a triangle as they walked and in between all of them was a group of Grecos. They probably just came from the ship. I grew nervous that I would be found out, but the Salyer guards just nodded hello at me and I nodded back at them.
I looked over the Grecos walking in the group. They weren’t chained up, but the Salyer’s all had whips and one of them had a gun. Their slaves weren’t going anywhere. I recognized about half the faces and saw that among the crowd was Miss Mary. She looked up from the crowd and into my eyes. I detected no recognition in her glance and moved on.
Soon, the town came up around me. Rusty continued to trot and all of the moisture left my mouth dry and went straight to my palms. I wiped my hands off on my pants as I went deeper into town and continued to act as natural as possible. Rusty stopped walking on his own and I had to lead him. I didn’t know where the pharmacy was, so we walked blindly through the streets.
Bald women were outside digging on their gardens. I saw a child painting a picket fence white. Men sat outside playing cards and smoking on the lawns. The town was lively with people all too busy to recognize that a wanted person with a bounty on his head was trotting on a horse before them.
I passed by the Theatre, seeing that the Wanted!!! posters for Saul and I were scattered among the side of the great structure. The pharmacy wasn’t far passed that. It was a wooden building with a big painted sign above indicating that medicines were sold there. I tied Rusty to a railing outside and went in.
The building was full of all different scents mixed together to smell like a hospital. An old man was sitting behind the counter with his feet up reading a newspaper. I walked all the way up to the counter and he just continued to read and didn’t acknowledge me. “Hello,” I said.
The man didn’t remove the newspaper from his face, but began to rant. “Have you heard about this? Can you believe this?” he slammed the newspaper down on the counter making me jump. He was an old man and his crinkled Salyer head was festered with brown sun spots. “The rest of the Grecos have sent down a letter saying that they don’t want anything to do with Ramus! Can you believe that? The nerve! You know, we built this whole country for them and if they don’t want to be a part of it, then they can go die out in the woods!”
I nodded.
His face was mean and mad. He looked me over and then smiled. “How can I help you?” he asked.
“My dad’s sick. He says that it’s Mungus fever and that I should come here and talk to you.”
The man put up a long slender finger to me and then disappeared into the back room. ‘What if he alerts the authorities?’ I thought. I ran a hand over my head. For the most part it was entirely smooth, but a few places had prickly patches.
When the man came back he had a corked vile of pink liquid. He held it out before me and said, “Have you pap drink half of this vile tonight, half in the morning. He’ll feel better then.”
I reached for the vile and the man pulled it out of my reach. “It’s going to cost you, though. This stuff is expensive. Did your pap give you the money for it?”
The money! My mind reeled. I had none. I didn’t even know what Ramus currency looked like. Burl must have forgotten about that in his sick state. The man saw the look on my face and said, “You can always come back tomorrow and buy it. Although, grown people with Mungus fever don’t usually last long.”
“I can’t take the medicine today and return with the money tomorrow?”
The man shook his head. A thin smile spread across his lips. “Although,” he rubbed his hands together. “If you had something of equal value I could be persuaded. You have a necklace tucked into your shirt. Let me see it.”
I took out my necklace so that my turtle was dangling before my chest.
The man bent nearly all the way over the counter examining it. “What a work of art! What a piece of craftsmanship! You know, I could take that for the medicine, my nephew would love it.”
“I can’t,” I said. “My dad made this and it isn’t for sale.”
“I guess the question is,” the man said, “whether you would rather have something that your father made or your father himself.”
Saul’s baseball was gone and my turtle was the last thing that we owned that my parents had made. I remembered those times when my mother used to pull me close to her at night and give me ‘turtle bites’ on my nose. Tears came to my eyes and I wiped them away. Burl wasn’t going to die because I was emotional. I took the thing off of my neck and handed it over. The man snatched it up like a pack rat and looked it over.
I took the vile of medicine and went out to get onto my horse. I was on the verge of tears, but I wouldn’t let them lose until I was out of town. I didn’t want to draw any more attention to myself than there needed to be. I tucked the vile away in my pocket and rode. I was lost in thought, thinking about memories with my parents as I passed through the streets. I was thinking so hard that I didn’t notice him until he was only a few feet away from me, staring into my face.
Hank stood outside the Theatre. He was wearing a new uniform now and holding a gun in his hands. He looked up at me and smiled, almost laughed. I half expected him to turn the gun on me and shoot me off of the horse. The bounty on my head was a sizable amount, from what I had been told, and I didn’t think that he was above it. But he just nodded and I trotted on. My heart was pounding and I felt sick. Rusty walked me back to Burl’s and I couldn’t stop wondering if Hank hadn’t known it was me or if he had spared h
is life. Whatever the case, I felt lucky.
By the time that Rusty trotted back onto Burl’s land the sun had gone down. I locked the horse away in the pin and then jogged over to Burl’s house. I had been gone for hours and all sorts of scenarios ran through my mind. What if Burl had stopped breathing? What if in a fit of rage he had killed Saul? What if Saul caught Mungus fever too?
I turned the doorknob and entered the front of the house. The kitchen and living room area were vacant so I went into Burl’s bedroom. Burl was naked and lying with his head where his feet normally do on his bed. He was on his stomach and his back was hairy in the light of a burning candle on his nightstand.
“Walt!” Saul said. He got up and hugged me.
“Way-ult-t-t-t!” said Burl. He looked drunk, belligerent.
“How has he been?” I asked
“Not good,” said Saul. “He’s acting so strange.”
“Get me some beer,” said Burl. He was pointing fingers and cursing.
There was a cup half full of water on the night stand. I went over, chugged it dry and poured half of the vile of medicine into the glass. “We’re supposed to give him half of this tonight and half of it in the morning.”
“And you think that he will get better?” Saul asked.
“He’s supposed to.”
“Give me some beer,” Burl cried. He threw his fist into the wall shaking the entire room.
“Here’s some beer,” I said, handing him the glass. “Drink this.”
I was scared that he would throw it up against the wall or onto the floor. Then we would really be in trouble. He didn’t though, he just smelled inside and then chugged the cup. He screamed for more and in a few minutes he was asleep.
Saul and I were sitting in wooden chairs watching Burl rest. He was sweating in his sleep and often twitching and mumbling or whispering unconnected words. We were quiet for a while.