black youth.” The police had found no one to blame for the shooting, and one officer’s quote implied the force had little interest in pursuing the case, given that no one was killed or permanently maimed and there’d been “minimal material damage.” With all these reports, our parents warned us vaguely about “disturbances” down in the city and forbade us to visit, no matter the time of day, until things settled down.
So that summer, whole blocks of the city burned in the night and bricks found their way through plate-glass windows downtown.
I watched Bobby Welpler for signs of involvement or at least knowledge beforehand of the shooting spree, but his eyes had always looked shifty to me, and his slumped posture, always guilty. So that was no proof at all.
We waited to see what—or who—would ignite up on our Ridge.
And meanwhile, we returned to the Blue Hole: my brother and me and my brother’s best friend, one cousin, one Welp, one remarkably chubby golden retriever, and the new girl on Pisgah. And sometimes her dog, which Jimbo named Stray, tagged along too. He was as sweet as he was homely, and Bo made it his new role in life, when not working or swimming or flying from the rope swing, to keep one of Stray’s long, silky ears flopped across his thigh.
Unlike in past summers when Emerson’s pickup played trolley, collecting random friends and kin as we went, we no longer stopped along the way except at each other’s houses, and at the Feed and Seed. Emerson made sure we always parked right under L. J.’s daddy’s new sign. And while L. J. climbed in, we always made sure to read it aloud, all three lines of it.
“Fresh Bait!” I would begin.
“Cold Beer!” Emerson and Welp and even the new girl would call out, and laugh.
The punch line we saved for Jimbo, who rendered it with gusto and hands over head: “Jesus saves!”
And every time, L. J. would sink against the side of the truck bed, push his brown plastic horn rims up his nose, and moan. It was our own little litany, that sign was, and it lifted us up and sometimes around through the fear that some days snagged at our hearts.
Late one afternoon, Farsanna and I lay side by side sunning ourselves after a swim. I disliked that, though not so much because I disliked her straight-out. She was smart, I had discovered—we all had. That didn’t take long. But unlike our L. J., she had a way of not pointing it out. She liked to ask questions—or maybe liked to make you think that she liked it. And off you’d go, spinning out dreams of your own, stitching together—out loud, even—a future you’d never heard yourself think. And only way out into your tangle of answer would you realize she’d never said much of herself, just coaxed the silk out of the spider.
“And how is it about you, Emerson?” she asked, for example, just out of the blue as we all sat one day on the bank, all of us sun-seared and still warming back up from a swim in the Hole. “When you have more years, what will you be?”
“Books,” he told her—before he thought not to. “I’ll find a way somehow for someone to pay me to read. Read all day every day.”
Bobby Welpler snorted. “I tell you what, you wanna spend your life with your nose in dusty old books when you could be making time with the ladies? I tell you what.” He held up the stick he’d been whittling, now in the form of a voluptuous woman.
“Stand up, Bobby.” Em rose to his feet.
“I was just kidding you, man. I don’t want to fight …”
“Not gonna punch you, Turd Face. Just stand up. Okay, now kneel.”
Welp did as he was told, still clutching his pocketknife and his stick. Em knelt beside him, then motioned Farsanna to rise and join them.
“Observe,” Emerson instructed. He took Farsanna’s hand in his and gazed up into her eyes and spoke softly:
“ Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew …”
Gently, he brought her hand to his
So that summer, whole blocks of the city burned in the night and bricks found their way through plate-glass windows downtown.
I watched Bobby Welpler for signs of involvement or at least knowledge beforehand of the shooting spree, but his eyes had always looked shifty to me, and his slumped posture, always guilty. So that was no proof at all.
We waited to see what—or who—would ignite up on our Ridge.
And meanwhile, we returned to the Blue Hole: my brother and me and my brother’s best friend, one cousin, one Welp, one remarkably chubby golden retriever, and the new girl on Pisgah. And sometimes her dog, which Jimbo named Stray, tagged along too. He was as sweet as he was homely, and Bo made it his new role in life, when not working or swimming or flying from the rope swing, to keep one of Stray’s long, silky ears flopped across his thigh.
Unlike in past summers when Emerson’s pickup played trolley, collecting random friends and kin as we went, we no longer stopped along the way except at each other’s houses, and at the Feed and Seed. Emerson made sure we always parked right under L. J.’s daddy’s new sign. And while L. J. climbed in, we always made sure to read it aloud, all three lines of it.
“Fresh Bait!” I would begin.
“Cold Beer!” Emerson and Welp and even the new girl would call out, and laugh.
The punch line we saved for Jimbo, who rendered it with gusto and hands over head: “Jesus saves!”
And every time, L. J. would sink against the side of the truck bed, push his brown plastic horn rims up his nose, and moan. It was our own little litany, that sign was, and it lifted us up and sometimes around through the fear that some days snagged at our hearts.
Late one afternoon, Farsanna and I lay side by side sunning ourselves after a swim. I disliked that, though not so much because I disliked her straight-out. She was smart, I had discovered—we all had. That didn’t take long. But unlike our L. J., she had a way of not pointing it out. She liked to ask questions—or maybe liked to make you think that she liked it. And off you’d go, spinning out dreams of your own, stitching together—out loud, even—a future you’d never heard yourself think. And only way out into your tangle of answer would you realize she’d never said much of herself, just coaxed the silk out of the spider.
“And how is it about you, Emerson?” she asked, for example, just out of the blue as we all sat one day on the bank, all of us sun-seared and still warming back up from a swim in the Hole. “When you have more years, what will you be?”
“Books,” he told her—before he thought not to. “I’ll find a way somehow for someone to pay me to read. Read all day every day.”
Bobby Welpler snorted. “I tell you what, you wanna spend your life with your nose in dusty old books when you could be making time with the ladies? I tell you what.” He held up the stick he’d been whittling, now in the form of a voluptuous woman.
“Stand up, Bobby.” Em rose to his feet.
“I was just kidding you, man. I don’t want to fight …”
“Not gonna punch you, Turd Face. Just stand up. Okay, now kneel.”
Welp did as he was told, still clutching his pocketknife and his stick. Em knelt beside him, then motioned Farsanna to rise and join them.
“Observe,” Emerson instructed. He took Farsanna’s hand in his and gazed up into her eyes and spoke softly:
“ Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew …”
Gently, he brought her hand to his
Similar Books
