by Linda Benson
“I could come at four,” she offers. “I used to watch Oprah then, but since she’s off the air, well…Anyway, the news doesn’t start until five.”
“That’d be great,” pipes up Sherman. “Pick us up at the highway bridge, okay?”
“All right.” My mom even smiles a little bit. I don’t think she’s smiled for months, not since Lincoln went back after his last leave.
“Take a long-sleeved shirt, just in case it gets colder,” she says. “I’ll read your essay while you’re gone.” She waves at us and wanders back into the living room.
I grab an old blue sweatshirt off the coat rack by the back door, just to make her happy. We walk around the corner of the house, get the raft from behind the bushes, and stash the food, pop, two oars, and the BB gun inside. Then we each grab a side and hobble fast across the lawn and down to the river.
The raft slides into the water easily, but as we settle onto the bottom, a little water slaps over the sides and seeps up onto our bare legs. I shiver. The river is colder than I expected.
The current is not particularly strong here in the shallows, and we have to push off the rocks to get it going. The water swirls to a standstill near the house under construction next door.
“Wow,” says Sherman. “That one’s going to be humongous. Who’s going to live there?”
“Doctor Wyatt,” I say. “But his wife keeps changing her mind about things and the contractors have to start all over. I’ll probably be done with high school before it’s ever finished.”
The fringe of willows along the edges of the river shiver with a strong gust of wind, and a cloud floats across the face of the sun. I watch a long-haired calico cat meander toward the foundation of the doctor’s half-built house.
James lifts the BB gun to his shoulder and squints one eye. It’s hard to imagine that one of my brothers might be lifting an M-16, a real gun, to his shoulder in some foreign country. James pulls the trigger and the BB zings off a stud.
The cat bolts under the house, out of sight.
I shudder.
“That was just a practice one,” James grins. “Hey, where’d the sun go? I thought we were going swimming?”
“Well, we’re rafting, anyway,” I say.
The current picks up, and the raft bounces easily over a few ripples of the river, cresting and falling as we whoop and holler. Grass and debris hang high on the branches of the willows at the water’s edge – leftovers from winter floods. The river slows a bit, and we pass a farmer’s field with sheep standing close in a circle.
James picks up the BB gun again. This time he only blasts an imaginary round. “Pow. Pow.”
“Yeah, I don’t think you want to be shooting any sheep, dude,” Sherman warns.
“Why not?” says James. “He’s got lots. I’m sure he wouldn’t miss a few.”
I shake my head at his stupidity. Seems like James is just looking for trouble.
We swirl downriver another turn or two, and the river wanders behind some suburban neighborhoods. No one is out sunbathing, though, because the clouds have now thickened, and the air has turned colder. I shiver and pull my sweatshirt on. Grant’s ring twirls around on my icy finger. I probably should have put it on my dresser for safekeeping.
“Where’s your topless school teacher friend?” says Sherman. “Isn’t that her house?”
“Yeah, but she doesn’t lie out there anymore since last summer,” says James. “That’s what I heard. Besides, she’d be freezing her titties off if she was out here today.”
We all laugh uproariously at this.
For some reason, looking into everyone’s backyards, I wonder if my mom’s friend Denise lives down here along the river. I wonder if she went up there to pick up her dog yet, and how Olive felt giving it back to her. How would I feel if we drifted by a yard and I saw the yellow Lab chained up? It makes me kind of sick, wondering if I did the right thing.
Around the next bend, an ancient German shepherd hobbles across the short-mown lawn of a big house sitting well back from the river. James has the gun leveled on his shoulder, aiming it.
“What are you doing, man?” I ask.
“Hey, it’s an old dog. Did you see the way it was walking? I was just going to put it out of its misery.”
I shake my head.
Instead, James directs the gun up at the tree tops. He shoots at a few blackbirds and crows, but misses every one of them.
“Yeah, you’re a real good shot with that thing,” laughs Sherman.
James gets an ugly expression on his face and points the gun right at Sherman.
“Kidding. Kidding,” says Sherman, with his hands protecting his face.
“Dude,” I say. “Knock it off. You don’t point guns at people.”
“Shut up, Tellington. If you know what’s good for you.”
I clench my teeth. I’ve been looking forward to this rafting trip all summer, but now I have a rotten taste in my mouth. “Anybody got a watch?” I say.
“Not me,” says Sherman.
“I just wondered what time it is. My mom said she’d be there at four o’clock.” I hope she remembers to show up.
“We’ll be there in plenty of time. Don’t worry,” says James. “What are you, a mama’s boy?”
“No!”
“Then don’t worry about what time it is. Hey, we’re having fun, aren’t we?”
I guess. I don’t say anything. I feel a sprinkle of rain on my face.
“Great,” says Sherman. “Now it’s freaking raining.”
A clap of thunder sounds in the distance. “Man,” I say. “It’s gonna pour.”
“Let’s get under there.” Sherman points to a small barn in a field just around the next bend.
We pull the raft up the bank and out of the river, James holding tight to the BB gun. Dodging pelting raindrops, we run like rabbits for the shelter of the barn.
13-Olive
In the afternoon, after we send the yellow Lab back home with Denise, Aunt Trudy announces, “I have to fill in today, down at the shelter. One of the volunteers is sick. Do you want to come along?”
“Sure,” I say. The wind is picking up something fierce and black clouds darken the sky. I guess Aunt Trudy and Swede were right about the weather report. It even smells like rain.
We climb into the truck and Aunt Trudy cranks the engine a few times before it starts. We rumble down the driveway, turn toward town on Upper Ridge Road, and then take a shortcut to the shelter, following a different route through the hills. Aunt Trudy holds the truck steady on the winding two-lane roads.
“Did you ever have any kids?” I ask. I never heard about any cousins, but maybe they are grown up and I don’t know about them.
“I always wanted some,” she says. She pushes a piece of gray-brown hair behind her ear. “I always thought I’d be married by age twenty-five, have two kids by age thirty, and two more by age thirty-five. Life doesn’t always give you what you expect.”
“Oh.” Life certainly hasn’t been turning out the way I expected lately, either. “Well, you might not have any kids,” I say, “but you do have a lot of animals to take care of.”
“That I do,” she laughs. “Maybe that’s my destiny in life.” She winks.
“But are you sad? That you never had any kids?”
“I think I was disappointed for a long time, when I was younger,” she says. “I would have been a good mother. Then I finally realized there’s no sense in fighting life, because you can’t change what has or has not happened. You just have to make some peace with it.” She sighs. “With life.”
I consider this. It’s hard to make peace with my life. I mean, how many kids like me have a mother in jail? And I don’t even know where my father is, or how to get a hold of him. Besides which, I have no choice, none whatsoever, in where I live. I’m just here in Washington—with Aunt Trudy—because there was nowhere else to stick me. How am I supposed to be happy about all that?
I watch out the window on t
he way to the shelter. We pass hay fields, lots of tall timber, and black and white cows as the road climbs another ridge and then drops down along the river. The weather has changed abruptly and there are even a few raindrops on the windshield. I thought the county animal shelter would be a big place, but it’s only a small brown building. You can hear the dogs barking as soon as we turn into the driveway.
We enter the office and a woman rises from the seat behind the counter. “Oh, thank goodness you could come, Trudy,” she says. “I have an emergency with my mother and need to get off right now. I thought I might have to close the place up early.”
“Hasn’t anybody else showed up today?” asks my aunt. She puts her arms through a vest that says “Animal Shelter” and steps behind the desk.
“Not since the volunteers came this morning to clean cages and feed. And we’ve had three more dogs turned in this morning. I had to double them up in the runs to make everybody fit.”
“Any adoptions?” Aunt Trudy inquires.
“Only one. A lady came by and took one of the adult cats. That black and white one that had been here quite a long time.”
“Well, that’s something. You go ahead and leave, Dorothy. My niece and I will take over, and we’ll feed and lock up when we’re done.”
Dorothy grabs her purse and hustles out the front door. It’s quiet for a moment until one of the dogs starts barking again and the rest take up the chorus from behind the set of double doors at the end of a corridor.
“Where’s all the workers?” I ask. “The regular workers for this place?” The noise coming from the dog runs sounds like there are an awful lot of animals in there.
“You’re looking at them, darling,” says Aunt Trudy. “This place is run almost entirely by volunteers. The county ran out of money about three years ago to pay all the employees. They were going to close it down, but some of us volunteered to keep it open.”
“Wow,” I say.
“We’re only open from twelve to four in the afternoon,” she says. “We could keep it open longer hours if we could find more people. But most people don’t want that kind of commitment. They just want to come in and help occasionally. We have a lot of those kind of volunteers, and we’re happy to have them, too. Some of them walk the dogs and handle the cats.”
“I could do that,” I offer.
“I figured you’d like that. I’ll show you how.” The phone rings and she runs to grab it. “In just a little bit,” she says, taking the call.
I stare out the windows at the cloudy skies. The drizzle turns into a steady shower. I walk toward the dog kennels at the back of the shelter, and the sound gets louder as I draw closer. I pry open the door for a peek. The sound of everyone barking at once bounces off the walls. I close the door and cover my ears. I glance back to the office and Aunt Trudy is still on the telephone.
I take a deep breath and open the door again, trying to block out the noise as the dogs keep up a steady racket. I poke my fingers through the chain-link panels of each kennel, and some of the dogs lick my fingers. They’re locked up—in jail—just like my mom. I shiver.
I think about the yellow Lab I was throwing the stick for this morning—Calypso. If he hadn’t been running in the road yesterday morning, and that car hadn’t screeched its brakes to stop, I never would have found him. He might have ended up in here, too, behind bars. And if Mom hadn’t made the run to Rite-Aid to get kitty litter for Rags, she never would have found that lady’s purse, and…
I stop playing that game in my head and wander back out front, toward the door marked “Cat Adoption Area,” where it’s much quieter.
Some of the cats are loose in a big open cage, dozing or hiding in the caves and tunnels of a large carpet-covered maze. Some of them are waiting in small cages, either asleep or mewing sadly from behind the bars.
“Do you want to help with the dogs or cats?” Aunt Trudy asks, coming in behind me.
“Cats?” They’re actually my favorite animal in the whole world.
“Okay,” she says. “Most of them are friendly, and a lot of them never get any attention. If they’ll let you pick them up, you can hold them. But if they act at all shy, it’s better to just pet them gently wherever they are.”
“I can do that.” I love cats. I think about Rags, and how lucky she is to have my fluffy blanket to sleep on. And a bed.
The phone rings several more times, and finally we begin filling the dishes with enough dry food to last the animals for the evening. Just when it’s almost time to close up, someone opens the front door. It’s a big, burly guy wearing a long-sleeved flannel shirt and carrying a large box. Curious, I wander into the office to see what’s happening.
“You can’t just leave them here,” my aunt is saying. “They are too young, and we have no facilities or staff to care for them.”
I peek inside the box and see four tiny puppies, with eyes barely open. Their heads bob up and down in confusion.
“Well, I found them on the side of the road. Somebody must’ve dumped them off. I’m on my way to work. What the heck am I supposed to do with them?”
“Like I said,” my aunt says, more firmly this time. “We have no room for them here, and not enough staff—”
“Well, lady, I’ll tell you what. The only thing I’m going to do with the darn things is dump them right back out on the road. ’Cause I’ve got no way to take care of ’em either. Geez, I was trying to do the right thing.”
He stomps out of the office, into the pouring rain, and slams the door behind him. The box of puppies swings precariously in his hand.
14-David
We are totally wet by the time we race across the hay field, reach the three-sided barn, and dart toward the front.
“Holy cow,” says Sherman, stopping short.
The barn is filled all the way to the edges with bales of grass hay, strung up tight with orange twine. We stand there for just a second wondering what to do.
“Up,” we holler in unison and begin a mad scramble to the top of the stack, trying to find hand-holds and toe-holds between the bales. There is only about three feet of headroom on top of the stack, which fills the small barn all the way to the sides, and we crouch and pull our feet up under us to fit. But at least we are out of the rain, which drills against the roof and sides of the tin barn in a loud clamor.
James lays the BB gun down next to him. He points at me and laughs. “Man, you look like a scarecrow.”
I swipe at the front of my sweatshirt, where pieces of hay cling like fur. “Yeah, it’s itchy, too.” I pull the sweatshirt over my head and fling it aside. A brisk breeze whips across me, but at least we’re dry in this small area on top of the bales.
“Did anybody get the snacks?” asks Sherman.
“No,” says James.
We all shake our heads. In our mad dash for the shelter of the barn, none of us thought to grab the backpack with food.
“Maybe it’ll quit raining soon,” I say, hopefully. But the downpour has turned into a steady staccato of raindrops, and it feels like it’s going to keep on for the rest of the afternoon.
“Hey, I’ve got this,” says Sherman, holding up an energy bar he digs out of his pocket, “if anybody wants some.” It’s smashed and slightly soggy.
“Go ahead, man,” says James. “Knock yourself out. Besides, I’ve got these.” He pulls a red and white packet of Marlboros out of his shorts and offers one to me and Sherman. “Smoke?”
I shake my head. I’ve only tried a cigarette once, locked in the bathroom when my parents were gone. It made me so sick to my stomach I couldn’t eat dinner that night.
“Yeah, I’ll have one,” says Sherman, shoving the rest of the gooey energy bar into his mouth. He takes the cigarette and places it hesitantly between his lips. “How am I supposed to light it?”
“Tada!” says James, producing a blue flick-open lighter from his other pocket. James lights his cigarette and takes a long drag, blowing large smoke rings out in front of him. He
hands the lighter to Sherman.
Sherman attempts once, twice to make the lighter work, but it won’t even spark. “Stupid thing,” he says.
“Here you go, big boy,” smirks James. “Let me help you.” He leans over and grabs the lighter, and produces a flame on the first try. He holds it to the cigarette in Sherman’s mouth for just a moment, until it lights.
Startled, Sherman pulls back and a spark or two falls between them. “Hey, hey.” Sherman swats at the flames and puts them out easily. He laughs nervously. “Don’t want to catch the whole place on fire.”
“No,” I croak. “That would not be a good idea.” A little shiver passes through my body. Didn’t we learn somewhere that you’re not supposed to smoke around hay?
“Too bad you freshman won’t be over at McAdams with me this fall,” says Sherman. “In the real high school.”
“Yeah, it totally sucks,” I say. The year I get to start high school, they decide to make it a three-year school, and make ninth grade be in the same building with the stupid seventh and eighth graders.
“Tell me about it,” says James. “So much for our freshman year. It’s just ninth grade. No big deal.”
“Yeah,” says Sherman, “except that it will actually be your fourth year at the junior high. You must have liked it pretty well to do eighth grade over. You gonna try to do ninth grade over, too? Get twice the education that way?”
“Shut up, Shermie,” says James. “Or you can take that Marlboro and shove it where the sun doesn’t shine.”
“Geez, James,” says Sherman. “Are we a little touchy today, or what?”
James ignores him. He finishes his cigarette and tosses it over the side of the haystack. He digs around in his pockets intently and puts the contents down in front of him.
“What are those?” I ask.
“What do they look like?”
“Firecrackers,” I say. “But it’s not even July yet.”
“So,” says James. “It’s close enough, as far as I’m concerned.”