by Dean Ing
Bridger was not in the habit of taking blame for things and saw no reason to tell Pinero he might have been seen by some neighborhood kid. The boys went off down the street, so Bridger went back to sleep off his hangover. In the weeks since then, everyone concerned had made great progress toward the calamity that would follow.
CHAPTER 8:
THE DOGAPULT
One of the few German words that wartime brought to Austin was “ersatz,” meaning imitation. Materials needed to fight a war were suddenly hard to find at home, and familiar things were replaced by new ones, often of poor quality. With good natural rubber going into tires of fighter planes, the new synthetic rubber for civilians was like that: ersatz.
A small box of prewar natural rubber bands, found after years of storage in a cool dark place, could still be used to spin a model propeller. Aaron had linked a dozen bands together to power his model until the rubber looked dangerously weathered and likely to break during the windup. This would be certain death for the model. At that point Mr. Fischer had discovered Aaron’s discovery and claimed the entire box, and bought his son a box of synthetic rubber bands in a spasm of fairness.
Aaron’s first attempt to use his ersatz rubber ended in the worst possible way. While Charlie held the model Aaron had built from balsa strips and lovingly covered with tissue, Aaron began to wind its propeller expecting the rubber to twist the usual three hundred times. He had counted to a hundred and forty when, with a report no louder than the clapping of a toddler’s hands, the rubber snapped.
When a twisted loop of rubber snaps, it does not simply fall limp; nothing that genteel. Both halves instantly become demon knots, destructive furies that leap away from each other becoming shorter, thicker knots, coiling like snakes as they retreat. Faster than an eyeblink they become little rotating flails tearing furiously at the balsa and tissue from the inside. In a split-second the model’s fuselage becomes an unrecognizable, utterly unrepairable mess crushed as if by some tiny invisible fiend. After the necessary yelling argument with each boy blaming the other, Aaron experimented and found the rubber to blame. For a time afterward, they set aside hopes of using rubber for their projects.
It was Jackie Rhett who put them back in business. Jackie had a special knack for “finding” things—often before other people lost them. Democratic about the property of others, Jackie did not discriminate against adults or, for that matter, any creature that might be said to own property. A dog with the slimiest tennis ball for a chew-toy soon learned that if that ball landed in the hands of the pudgy kid, it might not be seen again.
Jackie never said where he found his excellent prewar inner tube of natural rubber, but it was the genuine good old stretchy stuff. Some of that rubber soon became strips for his slingshot; some he used as ammunition for an evil device called a rubbergun that was forbidden to other boys and shot a big rubber loop faster than the eye could follow. More important, it would sting like the devil from many yards away.
Such was Jackie’s view of the world that he would then demand the loop back because it was clearly his; he had inked his name on it. Some of the remaining tube he sold to Aaron, who now carefully scissored it into thin strips for models.
“You’re making a slingshot,” Jackie accused, squinting as Aaron wielded scissors borrowed from home.
“Not either,” said Charlie, sitting on the workbench of the Hardin garage as he watched Aaron’s progress. Because Aaron’s tongue was caught between his teeth as he worked, Charlie unconsciously did the same until he unlimbered his tongue to add, “Couldn’t even shoot an acorn with strips this thin.”
“He could bunch ’em up,” Jackie growled, fearful that Aaron might develop such a weapon after promising not to, because it was exactly what Jackie himself would have done. “And he promised not to, or I wouldn’ta gave him the stuff.”
“Sold it to me, you mean.” Aaron did not pause in his task but now proved he was listening. His glance caught Charlie’s, then flickered away.
Jackie did not miss the look. “Yeah, and I got more,” he teased. “I bet I got nearly as much money tied up in rubber as you guys got in quarters.”
No reply from either boy.
“How about it, Charlie? You can buy some, maybe a little more, for only two bits. Same as Aaron bought. Maybe more.”
It would have been a simple thing for Charlie and Aaron to utter flat denials but somewhere in their unwritten personal contracts was a casual policy against outright lies, so long as a question could be deflected. Charlie said, “So who’s got two bits?”
“He does. Did. And he’s got a lot more,” said Jackie, nodding toward the scissors-user. Nor did Jackie miss the faint headshake Aaron sent to Charlie, but that might have meant several things. A year before, these two had been as transparent as window glass to Jackie’s cleverness. Eventually though, they had learned that what you told Jackie was likely to be used against you. For Jackie, discoveries like this by the boys were like the problem of slaves learning to read and Jackie, as a member of a noble class, felt this was No Fair. Jackie knew in his bones that Aaron Fischer had paid a whole quarter for that rubber with much too brief a trade debate for a kid who earned only a quarter a week, when a movie cost twelve cents. A burning desire to know more about this was Jackie’s only reason to be on Hardin property, a place where he knew he was not welcome.
“You got a lot more money, Aaron? Maybe you could loan me a buncha quarters,” said Charlie, making it sound highly unlikely.
“Soon as Jackie leaves,” was the reply, with equal sarcasm. “Too bad you don’t have rich friends like mine.”
“I know you got money too,” Jackie said to Charlie, and followed this with a knowing wink. “I seen you after school.”
“Well, that settles it,” said Aaron. “Anybody you see after school must be made of solid gold.” He crossed his eyes and let his tongue loll from the side of his mouth: Aaron Fischer, village idiot.
“He was eatin’ a Baby Ruth,” Jackie persisted. For a moment no one responded. This was different; serious evidence of wealth that, in the past, Charlie had lacked.
This time, the silent look between Charlie and Aaron was longer, and not entirely friendly. Both boys had fiercely sworn to avoid any evidence of their mining venture on the Capitol grounds. Of course each had wasted no time cashing small bits of it, sinning a penny or a nickel at a time, in the hope that no one would notice.
Aaron, who had committed the same sin a day earlier but having the good sense to eat his Butterfinger in secret, realized he could get two revenges for the price of one, on different boys and for different reasons. “Well, he got it the same way you do,” said Aaron, just to stir the others up.
Jackie had boasted about his light-fingered ways at candy counters too freely to bother denying it. But Charlie, whose own dad was a juvenile officer? “I bet he didn’t,” Jackie said darkly.
“You weren’t gonna tell, Aaron,” said Charlie, unbothered by such a whopper and able to modify his policy about lies where Jackie was concerned. He was fully engaged in this swindle on a moment’s notice. “Besides, the owners said it was okay because I always tell them when I know”—and here he deliberately glanced in Jackie’s direction—“who else is doin’ it.”
“You better not, you B-Word,” Jackie snarled, but suddenly pale with the fear of the amateur shoplifter.
“How do you know he means you?” said Aaron.
Before Jackie could reply, Charlie made his head snap around with, “Did the police come to your house yet?”
Fearing his voice might crack, Jackie could only shake his head.
“Then I didn’t mean you, did I?” Charlie said. “Not yet, anyhow.”
Jackie trembled with relief. “B-Word,” he said again.
Charlie did not take the insult with helpless anger. “Maybe you’ll just flat give me the rest of that rubber, Jackie,” he said. “If I can’t buy it, maybe you’ll purely have to give it to me. Or else.”
“Els
e what?” Even though Jackie knew exactly what.
But Charlie told him anyway. “I tell.”
A three-way silence enveloped the shed. Then Jackie said, in a voice tinged with awe, “Blackmail.”
Charlie cocked his head as if to consider this charge until, “Yeah, Charlie, it is,” Aaron said softly. “If he gives you the rubber and you don’t tell, you’re a blackmailer. If he doesn’t and you do tell, you’re a snitch. If he gives it to you and you tell anyhow, he can tell the police on you, so you go to jail with him.”
Fascinated by all the possibilities, Charlie said, “But what if he doesn’t give me the rubber and I stay mum anyhow?”
After a dramatic moment, Aaron shrugged and began to use the scissors again. “Then I think you’re a dummy.”
Charlie nodded. But, “Blackmailer is worse,” Jackie muttered.
“Dummy’s worse,” said Charlie.
“Blackmail.”
“Dummy.”
Louder now: “Blackmail. You calling me a liar?” This was a fighting word, and against a younger boy Jackie was always ready.
Aaron managed to cloud the issue nicely with, “Nobody knows which one he is yet, Jackie. We’ll have to wait and see. You can make him either one you want to; depends on what you do.”
This kind of debate put Jackie into a state of confusion that he dealt with by stalking stiff-legged to the door. “I don’t have to put up with this,” he said with wounded dignity.
“Put up with what?” Aaron said, pretending innocence. But Jackie had already sped away. After a moment’s silence, Aaron smiled. “Get him mixed up enough and I bet he’d bust himself square in the mouth.”
“Why’d you let that scutter know you had so much money?”
“’Cause I need the rubber. Why’d you let him see you with a candy bar?”
Charlie shrugged. “Aw, I just didn’t think. This isn’t over, guy, he knows we’re rich. We’ll have to be extra careful.”
They hooked pinkie fingers together for a moment in the gesture that sealed agreements, and presently Aaron finished his task. As Charlie stopped in the yard to snap the lock on the garage side door, Aaron began to laugh.
Charlie looked around. “What?”
“Maybe I better not come over here anymore, Charlie. My dad won’t let me play with blackmailers,” said Aaron, and pointed to the walkway near their feet.
Coiled in a tight cylinder and bound with wire, with no explanation needed, lay a roll of gray rubber the size of a coffee cup. Charlie claimed it immediately. “At least now we know what Jackie wants me to be,” he said, with a headshake. “I wasn’t gonna snitch on him.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
Both boys snickered. Charlie said, “I didn’t hear him sneak back here. You?”
“Nope. Loud as he is, that’s how quiet he can be,” Aaron replied, stretching experimentally at the rubber. “This is the real stuff all right, five times as much as he sold me. I reckon you’re about the biggest, worst blackmailer on the planet. Sell me a quarter’s worth?”
“Naw. I’ll keep it ’til you need it bad and charge you double,” Charlie replied with a grin.
In Charlie the urge to compete was plain enough that it might have been painted on his forehead. Days later in the Fischer home, as his ally was cementing tiny sticks to the fuselage of a new model, Charlie rummaged into Aaron’s plans from older models. “If I can buy whole sheets of balsa I bet I could build this pretty quick,” he said, holding up a plan that showed a graceful sketch. “If you’d help.”
“Don’t you know there’s a war on?” Aaron spoke America’s commonest phrase, and applied a razor blade to a tiny stick. “Balsa makes life rafts. So bust up an apple box; the wood’s free.”
“Way too heavy though, right?”
Aaron paused to consider. “Not much, if you sanded the heck out of it. You have enough rubber to catapult it to Mars, but the only way it’d fly is fast.”
“Fast is good,” Charlie ruled. “And you’ll help?”
“For some of that rubber, sure. Hey, where’re you going?”
“There’s always old wood crates in the Ice House trash,” said Charlie, and promptly disappeared. Since Aaron lived near the Ice House, the seeker was back within minutes with pieces of three thin pine slats, only one of them badly splintered. Soon the boys had used a pencil to draw outlines of wings, a single graceful long oval for tail surfaces, and a fuselage whose rear end swooped up in a rudder like a shark’s tailfin. Now, the only way Aaron could resume his own task was to send Charlie home to work. Aaron filled him to the brim with instructions, some of which Charlie might even follow.
By dinnertime, Charlie had used his dad’s coping saw to cut all the pieces out following those pencil lines. He might have advanced to the whittling stage by then but for his habit of testing the pieces of pine after he cut them from the slats. His test method with each piece was the same: squint hard, imagine that this piece was finished and connected to all the others, then throw it across the shed, startling Lint with his special “Neeerrrowr” sound effect that in his mind represented a powerful engine. It was always necessary to pretend that the piece did not flutter to the dirt floor like a dying sparrow.
“Looks like your durn dog chewed it out,” was Aaron’s judgment when he saw Charlie’s handiwork the next day. So saying, he found enough tools in the Hardin shed to neaten Charlie’s work, and used sandpaper to begin forming the wing surfaces. Presently he put the piece down. “I did one side,” he said, shaking sawdust from his hair. “Gotta go; I’ve got homework and so do you. I showed you how to sand a wing, and you can do the rest.”
Plainly hoping his pal would relent and do the whole thing for him, Charlie said, “But it won’t be as good.”
“It would if you’d watched what I’ve been doing instead of playing with that pooch,” was the retort, with an apologetic glance downward and, “Sorry, Lint,” to soften the criticism. A moment later Aaron hurried off.
Anger lent force to Charlie’s hands as he copied his friend’s work, or thought he did. Any fly on the wall might have noticed in Aaron a careful eye for detail, but a gift for action in Charlie. It followed that if Charlie sanded a pine slat twice as briskly as Aaron, his finished product would be somewhat thinner. He put his experimental sound effects to work, adding the kakakakakak of a machine gun for good measure, before smearing furniture glue on all surfaces that seemed to need it. The result would not have satisfied a pessimist, but Charlie’s eye was the eye of an optimist. He left his pine missile to dry and went to his room to do homework for an endless ten minutes.
When Aaron next saw Charlie’s model, he kept disappointment from his face. “Keen job,” he said, noting several ways the left side of the model differed from the right side. What’s done was done, he felt, and careful adjustments sometimes resulted in a glide that might satisfy a first-time builder.
“Time to test it. There’s probably room in the park,” Charlie said, collecting necessary odds and ends.
Privately, Aaron thought there would be plenty of room inside the garage, but did not share his opinion. The little neighborhood park was a block nearer the center of town than the Hardin place, with a steep slope on one side and enough open meadow between live oaks to test-glide a small model. They stopped at the top of the slope and the builder exercised his right to be first to test his creation.
At Charlie’s toss, the glider darted downslope instantly, rolling over and over as if spinning around an imaginary tree trunk, then stuck like a dart in the grass but, being stout pine, without damage. “Wait, I can fix that,” Charlie cried, and raced to recover the thing. He had seen Aaron adjust models a dozen times.
Aaron watched until he saw that Charlie, with scant knowledge of flight adjustments, was bending a wing’s edge exactly the wrong way. “You’ll make it worse, guy,” he said, and received a disgusted who’s the expert here glance. “Okay, then,” he shrugged, “but you will.”
“I re
ckon I know how to fly my own airplane,” said Charlie hotly, and prepared to make another toss.
And in that moment, Aaron Fischer made a grand discovery. It is this: To Avoid Ever Repeating A Cheap Mistake, Make That Mistake More Expensive. “A nickel says it’s gonna do a worse barrel roll than before. A nickel, Charlie. Five cents cash. Or . . .” And Aaron sounded the cluck of a hen.
Charlie’s eyes narrowed at the hint that he might be, in the slang of that era, “chicken.” Without forethought, his teeth gritted, he said, “Make it a dime.”
“A quarter,” Aaron said calmly.
“A dollar,” Charlie said in a hoarse whisper, and followed that with what was, for Charlie, a mighty oath. “A D-Word dollar, and we’ll see who’s chicken!”
Aaron spat in his open palm and stuck his hand out to be shaken, and Charlie shook it, and only when Aaron stood away and folded his arms did Charlie pause to consider the size of the bet his mouth had made for his pocket to risk. But he had enlarged the bet himself—twice, in fact. He tossed the glider again, and this time saw it flutter down in exactly the kind of tight spiral Aaron had predicted.
No words were exchanged until Charlie returned with the nonflying toy and, on his face, a look of abject disgust. Instead of the “told you so” that a lesser failure deserved, Aaron sighed. “Happened to me a few times too,” he said. “Maybe we can fix it.”
“It’s no good,” said Charlie.
“It might be. Tell you what: I’ll buy it from you.”
Charlie’s sharp glance searched for sarcasm. Finding none, he said, “What for?”
“For one dollar,” said Aaron, and saw understanding flood his pal’s face. “Then I get to try and fly it myself.”
Silently, sheepishly, Charlie handed over the toy and watched as Aaron began to make changes. A wingtip was shortened by grinding it against the cement sidewalk. A wooden edge was smoothed, then bent correctly. The little glider’s balance was changed with half a piece of chewing gum that Charlie, on Aaron’s instructions, pried from the underside of a park bench and squeezed to regummify it. After two more tests a piece of gravel the size of a pea was added to the gum and this time the model flew an almost straight lazy glide down the hill.