We Are All Crew (2 page)

The big kid swung Arthur around by his bullhorn. Arthur’s arms and legs flailed. His eyes filled with tears, and his mouth trembled. Counselors shooed the big boys away.

Arthur sat down on a bench and trembled for a while. Then he wiped his eyes, jammed his hand into his pocket, and pulled out a pocketknife and a piece of wood. He started whittling.

By then, I’d already decided I needed a partner to escape from camp, a conspirator to help me ditch the canoe once the flotilla started down the Allwyn the next day, a lookout, a bag carrier, and a friend.

This kid needed lessons in how to be cool.

This kid needed me more than I needed him.

“That’s quite a piece of artwork you’ve got there,” I said, sitting next to him.

Arthur stiffened. He peered at me out of the corner of his eye and stuck his teeth out in what I took for a smile.

Click
. “THANK YOU.”

“From the looks of things, I’d say that’s a dinosaur?”

Click. Whistle
. “AN ALLOSAURAUS, ACTUALLY.”

“What’s that?”

Click.
“BIPEDAL CARNIVOROUS THEROPOD FROM THE LATE JURASSIC PERIOD. VIRTUALLY DISAPPEARED WHEN THE (
whistle
) TYRANNOSAUR APPEARED IN THE CRETACEOUS PERIOD.”

“Interesting.”

We sat there quietly for a minute. Arthur looked at his whittling and sliced off a thick band of wood around what might have been a leg.

“Interesting,” I repeated. “Listen, does that thing have a volume control?”

Click.
“IT’S ON LOW NOW, I’M AFRAID.”

“Why, may I ask, do you have to use that?

Click.
“IT IS A BIRTH DEFECT THAT HAS PARTIALLY PARALYZED MY VOCAL CHORDS. I CAN SPEAK, BUT ONLY SOFTLY.”

“Interesting.”

Arthur stuck his teeth out again. “IT MAKES POLITE CONVERSATION SOMEWHAT, WELL . . .
bzzz crrck bzzz
. . . PROBLEMATIC.”

“Well, if it’s any consolation, I can hear you just fine with it.”

Click.
“THANK YOU.”

We slipped back into silence once again.

“Are you, by chance, a fan of The Greatest Band on Earth?” I blurted.

Click.
“I LOVE THE GRIZZLIES!” He was wicked excited. I could tell I had him. Arthur was probably in my grade, but he looked like a gangly version of a little kid. Dinky blue eyes darted at the breeze. Washes of freckles speckled his cheeks and forearms. Not even
my
friends would have sat with him at lunch.

“Did you catch any of their shows this season?”

Click.
“THEY’RE ALL OVERSEAS, I’M AFRAID. EXCEPT THAT ONE SHOW IN SAN FRAN.”

“I was so tempted to cross the pond.”

For two days the counselors taught us how to row and steer, how to make flotation devices out of our pants should we capsize. The other seven boys hit on the four chicks. Arthur and I schemed.

He was a member of my caste. At the end of the previous school year, we’d studied India’s caste system, and if I’m realistic I’m most likely a
harijan
, one of the untouchables who live outside the city walls. Within the
harijan
, however, there are hierarchies. I am the Kung Fu Master, the A No. 1 King of the
harijan
at Primrose School, and Arthur is definitely a bottom-runger. He has no style. His gravestone of hair is more like an epidermis problem than a style. He wears a dorky skintight T-shirt tucked into jorts. Moving up within one’s caste isn’t impossible, and I’m sure with the right moves, the right coaching, and Fang’s never-fail method of pain and fear stockpiling, Arthur can be totally cool. I need a friend, and I want my friend to be at least a little cool—but certainly not cooler than me.

The only real strike against him in my book is his height. Truth be told, people, he’s probably a foot taller than me. I assured myself it would serve a purpose and hoped that whatever ladies we encountered would understand who was the teacher and who was the student.

He agreed to my plan without hesitation. I think he would have just as soon taken on the evil Sith in
Star Wars
than stick around the jockstraps in that camp for a whole week of torment on a backwoods Pennsylvania creek bed.

But now that we’re alone, walking along the river without an adult in sight, he’s wigging. I’m honestly not far from it either, even with Fang’s methodology.

If only we could get clear of these monster trees. Why would anybody ever want to save the forest? There’s this handful of Birkenstock-wearing glue sniffers back at school—the kinds of people my father, His Eminence, refers to as
tree huggers
or, when he’s really mad,
spotted owl fuckers
—who used to hand out fliers and give book reports about saving tree-covered places like this from logging companies. Why? Plow the monsters under and pave it all, I say. At least that way I’d be able to see a house or a road or a way to California.

the car

The young ones stopped to rest at a pile of charred metal that sat at the edge of the river. Had they thought about it, they would have realized it had been a car.

The car had belonged to a man who had once lived in a house about three miles away. The man did not like the car because it had cost him more money than he could afford to keep it filled with gasoline, but he could not afford a new car. So one day he drove the car through the woods. He ran over a family of rabbits, killing most of them, and knocked over saplings until he reached the Allwyn. He set the car on fire and watched it burn. Then he went back to his house, called his insurance company, and reported the car stolen. The insurance company bought him a replacement that used less gasoline. By then, however, the price of gasoline had risen so high that his employer could no longer afford to pay him and the man could no longer afford to live in his house. He never told anyone about the car, and nobody ever found out about it—except for the rabbits, the trees, and the river, and they were not telling.

arthur climbs a tree

Click.
“THE BATTERIES ON THIS THING ARE ONLY GOOD FOR TWENTY-FOUR HOURS,” Arthur says through his speaker system. “I NEED TO RECHARGE. I HOPE WE FIND SOMETHING SOON.”

His Eminence would call Arthur a weak choice. I disagree. He’s a Grizzlies fan. He has a great sense of humor—I can tell because he laughs at all my jokes. He’ll make up for what he lacks in the confidence department once he starts his own pain and fear reservoir. I’m certain I can turn Arthur into a badass friend.

We’re looking at these trees all wrong. We need to get up on top of them, way up there, and then we’ll be able to check out the scene for miles.

People climb trees all the time—in old movies, dads built kids little playrooms up in the treetops in the backyards. (Not my father. The most His Eminence ever did for me was commission his IT staff to assemble a security camera in my room.) But how do they climb them? Out here in the sticks, there are probably millions of feral monkey-kids who can scale a tree in seconds, but I’m wicked stumped. I try, but most of the branches I can reach are so freaking brittle they break off in my palms. This one big branch hangs low enough for me to reach, but the most I can do is strain against it until it scrapes my forearms and I tumble back, flushed and sweaty.

I coax Arthur into giving it a go. He loops a long arm over the same branch, lassoing it. Then he plants a Nike on the trunk and walks up it, throws a leg across the limb, and swings himself around it until he’s riding it like a horse. He works his way up the tree, stretching out his long, skinny frame until it looks like it might snap, then grabbing a limb, wrestling up to his chin, and pulling himself up.

I order him along. “That’s it. No, that branch is too skinny, Arthur. Cool. Now . . .”

Soon I lose him in the white Xs of limbs. The tree shivers. I can hear his bullhorn scraping the branches.

I give him a few minutes and then ask what he sees. I’m hoping the PA system will announce that he’s spotted Route 81 or whatever highway I limoed in on, or at least that he sees a hint of macadam a couple clicks away that we can walk toward.

the old oak

The old oak had seen when the French trappers had been killed along the river, had watched the houses being built three miles from the trees and the man who burned his car. When the tree had been a sapling, it, too, would have clawed at boys the way the other trees clawed at them, but now it was too old and had grown too large and no longer shivered when breezes swept past it like the wild younger trees. Its branches were too large and too high to be of much use for clawing.

Now it groaned and shook as an animal grabbed its branches and scraped against it.
What’s happening to me?
it wondered.

It was the first time a mammal of this size had ever dared come this close. Fish and birds and lizards made sense to it, but mammals perplexed the wise old tree. It did not understand why they feared death, why they clung to life the way the oak clung to the soil.

But the tree understood the message: boys were enemies.

So when the boy reached a branch that was too small to support his weight, the tree allowed that branch to snap.

arthur takes a tumble

I hear a cracking sound. The tree sways, and the air is still for a second. Then something thuds against the growth on the opposite side.

It’s Arthur. I guess he landed on his right Nike because when he tries to stand, his leg buckles, and he lies on his back clutching his ankle. All that extra height and tree-climbing ability can’t help him stand upright any more. His face looks funny, but he must not have his PA system turned on because I can’t hear him. I guess he’s crying, even though it’s getting hard to see him now.

After he strips off the Nike and sock, his ankle swells up like a throw pillow. He rolls around and holds onto it for maybe five minutes, his face all contorted. Then he lies flat, and his little blue eyes look up into the branches like he just smoked a blunt.

I ask him if he thinks he can climb up there again, but that seems to annoy him. I coax him to try standing, but when he tries out his swollen ankle, his face screws up and he falls over and rolls around.

I sit and try to remember what they taught us in health class. Mr. Volmer said you’re supposed to apply pressure to a wound. That makes sense; maybe the goo blistering Arthur’s ankle might go back where it came from if I squeeze it like a tube of toothpaste.

But squeezing it only makes his eyes widen and his face tighten into a scream that can’t be heard, and he thrashes around and shoves me until I quit. His ankle looks bigger now.

Volmer also taught us about tourniquets, which involve tying bandages really tightly around the wound. So I sling his discarded sock around his ankle, but when he sees what I’m doing he pushes me away.

I ask if he remembers passing any plants or berries that could be used as an herbal remedy. He clicks on his PA system and says,
Click.
“PLEASE, WINTHROP, DON’T HELP. JUST LET ME LIE HERE A MINUTE, OKAY?”

Well, that chafes me. I’m just trying to help. After all, Arthur wouldn’t even
be
here if it wasn’t for me. He’d still be fending off the abuse of the jocks at camp. But the kid is probably in pain and forgetting who his real friends are.

So I sit next to him.

“Okay,” I say. “I think I’m safe in saying that this blows big time. But chill. It’s 2,711.26 miles to San Francisco. If we hitch, and with a little bit of luck, we can make it in two or three days. I know this sounds FUBAR, Arthur, but we’ll be perfectly safe. You rest that ankle, and we’ll be on our way. The highways of the United States are well-equipped for safety. There are police call boxes at nearly every mile marker. There are rest areas and sources of food. As long as we remain vigilant, we needn’t worry about traveling with someone unscrupulous. You see, Arthur, it’s not so risky. Granted, there are risks, but remember what Fang said:
It’s a bold adventure you’re going on
.”

Arthur still has the mute button pressed. I continue: “We need to get clear of these woods. We’ll pass a road by tomorrow and hitch our way out to the main highway. This is Pennsylvania, for crying out loud, not the Serengeti. It’s their only American stop on the tour. It’ll all be worth it, Arthur, you’ll see.”

Arthur continues with the silent treatment. It occurs to me that I haven’t seen a TV set in three days. No phone, no Netflix, no HBO Go.

“It’s Tuesday, Arthur. Did you know that?”

Click.
“
SNIPER DUDE X
!”

“That’s right!
Sniper Dude X
!” It’s my favorite show. It’s about this badass who’s a surfer by day and a government assassin by night who actually offs baddies with the blade of his board. “They’re starting the whole series over again from the first one, when he gets the samurai board from Tibet. You know, maybe you should turn that thing off, Arthur. I don’t want to alarm you, but who knows who or what is out in these woods at this hour.”

I peer at the stars through the trees. A bank of clouds has crept into view, so only half the sky looks back at me. “I love that show. God, I’d miss that show terribly if anything ever happened. Wouldn’t you? Of course, we’d also miss
Sargent Storm
. . .”

I tire of doing all the talking, so I stretch out on the rocks and go over all the episodes of
Sniper Dude X
I’ve memorized until I fall asleep.

I have this screwed-up dream I only sort of remember when I wake up. Arthur and I were in my chemistry classroom. Steel bars covered the door. The cool kid from camp was in there with us, mussing my hair and swinging Arthur around by his bullhorn. Outside this guard kept walking past and looking in at us. I couldn’t see his face, but whenever he yelled in through the bars, the voice sounded an awful lot like His Eminence’s.

There was this TV set on a heavy metal cart in the front of the room. Most of the kids in the classroom with us just stared at it and didn’t move. Suddenly Arthur jumped up and ran at the TV set and tried to push it out of the way. The cool kid was yelling at him, and outside the guard was fumbling with the door. I helped Arthur push the cart out of the way, and underneath it, bored into the floor, was a deep pit. Arthur jumped into it. I followed him. The walls were rushing past my head as the ground below was getting closer and closer and closer . . .