We're in Trouble (26 page)

The boys were first audible only as distant shrieks between the trees.

They were young enough that any time they raised their voices—and they were chasing each other, their only sounds loud calls, denials, laughter—they sounded as though they were in terror. When they appeared in the meadow—one charging out from a break in a dense thicket of thorny shrubs, the other close behind—they were almost indistinguishable from one another in their squeals, in their red jackets and caps. Late afternoon was shifting into dusky evening. Earlier they had hunted squirrels, unaware of how the sounds of their voices and the pops of their BB guns had traveled ahead of them, sending hundreds of beasts into their dens.

In the center of the meadow the trailing boy caught up with the fleeing first; he pounced and they wrestled. Caps came off. One boy was blond, the other—the smaller one—mousy brown. Stop it, he called, from the bottom of the pile. Larry! Stop it! I mean it!

Larry laughed, and said with a shudder, Wayne, you pussy.

Don't call me that!

Don't be one, pussy!

They flailed and punched until they lay squirming and helpless with laughter.

Later they pitched a tent in the center of the meadow. They had done this before. Near their tent was an old circle of charred stones, ringing a pile of damp ashes and cinders. Wayne wandered out of the meadow and gathered armfuls of deadwood while Larry secured the tent into the soft and unstable earth. They squatted down around the piled wood and worked at setting it alight. Darkness was coming; beneath the gray, overcast sky, light was diffuse anyway, and now it seemed that the shadows came not from above, but from below, pooling and deepening as though they welled up from underground springs. Larry was the first to look nervously into the shadowed trees, while Wayne threw matches into the wood. Wayne worked at the fire with his face twisted, mouth pursed. When the fire caught at last, the boys grinned at each other.

I wouldn't want to be out here when it's dark, Larry said, experimentally.

It's dark now.

No, I mean with no fire. Pitch dark.

I have, Wayne said.

No you haven't.

Sure I have. Sometimes I forget what time it is and get back to my bike late. Once it got totally dark. If I wasn't on the path I would have got lost.

Wayne poked at the fire with a long stick. His parents owned the woods, but their house was two miles away. Larry looked around him, impressed.

Were you scared?

Shit, yeah. Wayne giggled. It was dark. I'm not
dumb.

Larry looked at him for a while, then said, Sorry I called you a pussy.

Wayne shrugged, and said, I should have shot that squirrel.

They'd seen one in a tree, somehow oblivious to them. Wayne was the better shot, and they'd crouched together behind a nearby log, Wayne's BB gun steadied in the crotch of a dead branch. He'd looked at the squirrel for a long time, before finally lifting his cheek from the gun. I can't, he'd said.

What do you mean, you can't?

I can't. That's all.

He handed the gun to Larry, and Larry took aim, too fast, and missed.

It's all right, Larry said now, at the fire. Squirrel tastes like shit.

So does baloney, Wayne said, grim.

They pulled sandwiches from their packs. Both took the meat from between the bread, speared it with sticks, and held it over the fire until it charred and sizzled. Then they put it back into the sandwiches. Wayne took a bite first, then squealed and held a hand to his mouth. He spit a hot chunk of meat into his hand, then fumbled it into the fire.

It's
hot
, he said.

Larry looked at him for a long time. Pussy, he said, and couldn't hold in his laughter.

Wayne ducked his eyes and felt inside his mouth with his fingers.

Later, the fire dimmed. They sat sleepily beside it, talking in low voices. Wayne rubbed his stomach. Things unseen moved in the trees—mostly small animals, from the sound of it, but once or twice larger things.

Deer, probably, Wayne said.

What about wildcats?

No wildcats live around here. I've seen foxes, though.

Foxes aren't that big.

They spread out their sleeping bags inside the tent and opened the flap a bit so they could see the fire.

This is my favorite place, Wayne said, when they zipped into the bags.

The tent?

No. The meadow. I've been thinking about it. I want to have a house here someday.

A house?

Yeah.

What kind of house?

I don't know. Like mine, I guess, but out here. I could walk onto the porch at night and it would be just like this. But you wouldn't have to pitch a tent. You know what? We could both have it. We'd each get half of the house to do whatever we want in. We wouldn't have to go home before it gets dark, because we'd already be there.

Larry smiled, but said, That's dumb. We'll both be married by then. You won't want me in your house all the time.

That's not true.

You won't get married?

No—I mean, yeah, I will. Sure. But you can always come over.

It's not like that, Larry said, laughing.

How do you know?

Because it isn't. Jesus Christ, Wayne. Sometimes I wonder what planet you live on.

You always make my ideas sound dumb.

So don't have dumb ideas.

It isn't a dumb idea to have my friends in my house.

Larry sighed, and said, No, it isn't. But marriage is different. You get married and then the girl you marry is your best friend. That's what being in love is.

My dad has best friends.

Mine, too. But who does your dad spend more time with—them or your mom?

Wayne thought for a minute. Oh.

They looked out the tent flap at the fire.

Wayne said, You'll come over when you can, though, right?

Sure, Larry said. You bet.

They lay on their stomachs and Wayne talked about the house he wanted to build. It would have a tower. It would have a secret hallway built into the walls. It would have a pool table in the basement, better than the one at Vic's Pizza King in town. It would have a garage big enough for three cars.

Four, Larry said. We'll each have two. A sports car and a truck.

Four, Wayne said, a four-car garage. And a pinball machine. I'll have one in the living room, rigged so you don't have to put money in it.

After a while, Wayne heard Larry's breathing soften. He looked out the tent flap at the orange coals of the fire. He was sleepy, but he didn't want to sleep, not yet. He thought about his house and watched the fire fade.

He wished for the house to be here in the meadow now. Larry could have half, and he could have the other. He imagined empty rooms, then rooms packed with toys. But that wasn't the way it would be. They'd be grown-ups. He imagined a long mirror in the bedroom and tried to see himself in it: older, as a man. He'd have rifles, not BB guns. He tried to
imagine things that a man would have, that a boy wouldn't: bookshelves, closets full of suits and ties.

Then he saw a woman at the kitchen table, wearing a blue dress. Her face kept changing—he couldn't quite see it. But he knew she was pretty. He saw himself opening the kitchen door, swinging a briefcase which he put down at his feet, and he held out his arms, and the woman stood to welcome him, making a happy girlish sound, and held out her arms, too. Then she was close. He smelled her perfume, and she said—in a woman's voice, warm and honeyed—
Wayne
, and he a felt a leaping excitement, like he'd just been scared—but better, much better—and he laughed and squeezed her and said, into her soft neck and hair, his voice deep:
I'm home.