“Pants?!! PANTS!” I screamed, flailing my arms in the water, my heart growing sick with cold and fear. I was slipping, sinking again, feeling the chains of water wrapped around my legs and pulling me down. I gulped air, my head just staying above the water line, and my shoes feeling like lead. I cried out again. I couldn’t see the boat. Where was the boat? I screamed, and when I drew breath, I got a lungful of cold, clean pond water. I sputtered and reached for the surface, but it was gone. I didn’t dare open my eyes. It was dark, and I coughed, the water in my lungs bursting forth. I pulled in yet another breath and my lungs screamed. I sank, and my body fluttered.
From the deepest recesses of my brain I heard a dim sound, like an explosion, and instantly the warmth of a hand reached around my armpit, dragging me up. I broke surface, and I exhaled with a mighty spasm of pain as the water from my lungs retched out, and I took in stinging breaths. I slapped the water with my palms, aching for something to hold onto. There was nothing. I sank again, and from below a hand took my leg and I kicked, a violent reaction to what was surely there to pull me in. No. It held on, and held me aloft. I still flailed, and the water broke beside me. Pants dragged air into his lungs but I couldn’t see him, all I saw was something to hold, something to keep me aloft. I pulled at him and dragged him below me, my arms with the strength of a boa. He gurgled and fought back, and suddenly he was loose.
“No!! Peter! You’re–!” and he was below again. My fear was too great. I had to live, needed to live, and there was nothing but his arms to hold me up. I batted him down again and something cracked. A spurt of red appeared below his nose, and he yelled and fell back. I thrashed toward him but he receded. My arms were as glue, sticking to the water, my head was an anvil upon my shoulders. I had nothing to hold me against the gravity of the water. I sank, pulling in as much air as I could, but it wouldn’t be enough.
I fell, and suddenly ghostly hands scraped my face and legs. I could feel tiny pricks and jabs, and I had the sense not to scream. I was terrified, but I realized it was a branch or some root system that had entangled me. I tried to escape, but every move seemed to further entrap me. I felt my shoe, my heavy shoe catch against a fork and my mind screamed and my lungs burned and my body ached and cried out for oxygen, and every moment I felt heavier and heavier. I opened my eyes, but the pitch darkness outside was more frightening than the darkness of my own head. I closed my eyes and held my breath until I could strain no more.
****
1952, October Three. School had let out and Pants and I were on the way home, walking the five miles along Old Burn Road to my house. Leaves had shot out in colours like a circus, at first small and insignificant, like peanuts, and then in a week’s time, they erupted in splendour–like trained Bengal tigers and fire-eating showmen, trumpeting elephants and circling, circling, the balloons and festival colours of cotton candy on great white sticks–the trees seemed to be on fire, and the sky burnished bright but pale blue, the colour of girls’ summer dresses. The grass had begun a slow descent into gold, and the sun was still high in the sky. And we fell into a jaunt, because it was Friday, and we had big plans.
All summer long it was baseball and riding bikes to the Camp farm, where we would throw grass clumps at the burros and yell at the peacocks from the roadside fence. We never dared beyond it, for not only were there moccasins and cotton mouth snakes to contend with, but the ire of the old man, Franklin Stevens Sr., a terror to anyone who trespassed upon his land. I didn’t mind. I didn’t care for burros and angry horse keepers.
We were leaving that night, heading into the woods about ten miles into the hills. There, nestled between Gap Crest and the Bear, was a cabin built by some enterprising hunter next to a nameless pond. It had been long abandoned, or so I thought. Pants and I had found it in one of our treks abroad, and it proved to be a sanctuary of dubious worth, as the rear of the structure had collapsed, leaving spaces the size of boards in the roof. The metal roof had rusted in several places, and one of the corners had been home to a family of raccoons at some point. Still, we had brought supplies on return visits: an old lantern and several wicks and a box of waterproof matches; a cot that sagged in the middle and whose frayed edges threatened to snap at any wrong movement; a larder box of foodstuffs, jerky, raisins, and the exotic bag of hard candy I had purchased from a schoolmate for a dollar and a half–two weeks’ allowance for two years’ dentist’s work. I also had a blanket, Pants had brought an afghan half chewed through by moths, a hunting knife, and a box of cereal. We came up there on summer nights where the wind would whistle from the hills and ring like low bottles open to the sea. Summer fireflies and mosquitos were our constant guests, as the cabin afforded no protection. Pants and I would sleep there like we owned the place, waiting for the autumn and concerned with nothing but the bites we woke up with in the morning.
But that night, we had a purpose. I had a purpose. Pants went along with me, as he always did, and asked no questions. He wasn’t like the other boys, who would beg to come and then grow irritated through the night. I stopped taking my other friends, and they soon figured out they preferred to stay home and read comics and play baseball until it was too dark to see the ball, when bats would begin chasing their fly balls and shoot nearly into their gloves as they attempted the out. Pants, on the other hand, never complained. He was languid as the summer days themselves, preferring to float with any idea, never objecting or guilting others into going along with his plans. He never seemed to have plans, in fact, only smiling and saying “that’s fine” whenever someone thought of something new. That’s why I liked Pants. His no-nonsense, laidback approach to life. He never seemed to be upset.
Of course, there were limits to Pants’ participation. He never went along with the boys who proposed hitting rocks into the country store windows at midnight. He always opted out of practical jokes and pranks against other kids, and once, had gotten beat up when he stood up against three bullies who were picking on a fourth grader. It was right after school when it happened. I had come out of class late and missed seeing him when I walked down my usual route. I heard some laughter from behind one of the fences that separated the school from Plum Alley, the requisite runway for small gangs of upperclassmen who spent recess smoking and chewing tobacco and talking dirty. It sounded like Stephen Green, also known as the Virgin Beater. He was famous (and feared) for picking out the boys in classes below him that he thought were virgins, cornering them after school or during recess, and beating them with coins tucked away in his fist. Since just about all of us were virgins (though we’d never admit to it), he had a fair picking, and his virgin harvests, as he called them, were always well-sheaved after the first month and a half of every school year.
I stuck my head through the bristled spine of the hedge that loosely covered the east edge of the fence and found a hole. Standing in a half circle were Stephen, his best friend Scotty Hanson, and Joseph Bixby, a twice-failed senior with no aspirations outside of his Friday night boozing and the occasional arson practice (it was believed he burned down Mr. Fellows’ barn two summers ago, but was never proven). Facing them was a tiny dweeb in coveralls, sweating with his back up against one of the tin walls that lined the alley. His name was Allen–I don’t remember his last name–but a tinier shrub I don’t recall seeing. And he was pissing his pants.
I didn’t like seeing those guys about to mash his face into pulp, but I was no hero. I wasn’t popular or famous, but I was at least on a level playing field when it came to bullying. I didn’t stick my head into anyone’s business, and no one bothered me for it. It was an ideal existence.
Pants on the other hand…Tony Pantirino was an Italian who moved to the neighbourhood when he was eight and I was seven. He never knew I was younger than him. I felt a pitiable jealousy at being younger, so when he asked me what my birthday was, I told him it was a few days before his. He thought that was the best coincidence, and insisted we celebrate birthdays together. It became a lie I had to skirt around whenever his day came around, and always made sure he didn’t come over to my house, lest he tell my mother of the big birthday plans.
We became best friends pretty soon after he moved into the neighbourhood, and we grew up on movies and egg creams and hunting and fishing when there wasn’t much else to do. We were in the same grade because his birthday was late, so we always had the same homework. Lots of time he would spend the entire weekend at my house, or vice versa. It was a boy’s life like they tell in stories, and we grew up well, not getting into too much trouble, always staying within the line. One day Pants came in to class smiling like I’d never seen him smiling before. I couldn’t figure it out, and when I nudged him during math, he only shrugged and continued working. We met out at recess and I asked him what he was so happy about.
He was quiet for a minute and then said, “Well, it’s not so much that I’m happy. Though I am.”
“What is it then?” I asked him. He looked into the sky and then said, really quiet like, “I just got born again last night.”
I looked at him with what must have been a bizarre look on my face, a mixture of surprise and disdain. I shook it off and laughed. “What do you mean?”
“You know. I accepted Jesus.” He sounded content, sublimely content.
“What?! You gotta be joking.” He shook his head.
“Nope.”
I leaned back and studied him. He was serious. There was something uncanny about his demeanor. He said it like he didn’t care what people thought. If anyone could pull off that look, it was Tony Pants. He just stood there with a calm peace hanging about him like a shield. He really didn’t care. I shook my head.
“Yeah, well, that’s all right. Just don’t go try preachin’ to me. I get enough on Sunday to last me the whole week.” He didn’t say anything, and I let it go. We went back to class, and that was that. He never brought it up again, and I certainly wasn’t about to. After about a week I decided it was harmless; a little strange, but probably not going to affect whatever friendship we had built up.
But somehow, he developed a reputation after that. For a while, people called him Jesus Boy, and some of the meaner kids purposely tripped him or shoved him into the lockers. He took it all with a kind of resignation that seemed to go well with his new religion. I didn’t understand it, but at least I respected his ability to seemingly ignore it all. And we remained friends, despite his drop in social status. After a while it grew tiring to the other kids to make fun of him, especially when he didn’t make it a point to proselytize and to my knowledge he never showed that their verbal harassments bothered him. He just lived his life, and people got used to the new Pants, just like the old Pants, just churched up a little more.
So it didn’t surprise me to see him turn the corner and head down the alley toward the brewing massacre of young Allen. I whispered, “You fool!” but of course no one heard me but the hedge, and I suppose God. They saw him about the same time, and I heard Bixby mutter, “Here comes that Jesus freak.” Stephen, being a tad more politic, if less human, acknowledged him. “Hey Pants. What shakes? Save anyone today?”
Pants just stared at them as he advanced, and Allen looked like he might try making a run for it. It wouldn’t do him any good–they’d just snag him another day. He either had the sense to realize this, and stuck around hoping for a new development, or was simply too scared to move his little feet. Either way, he stood rooted to the ground, batting his eyes back and forth between the new upperclassman and the three sadists in front of him.
“Let him go,” Pants said with finality. “Give the kid a break.” He nodded toward Allen.
“Oh yeah? You gonna make us? Huh?” That was Scotty, little prick in a little man suit. Stephen silenced him with a look and turned to face Pants.
“You sticking up for this little pipshit?” he said. Pants stepped forward. Scotty and Bixby collapsed around Stephen, forming a new semi-circle. Allen was forgotten for the moment, their backs to him. He almost fell as he stepped away from the new arena, his escape blocked now by the four older boys. “Stickin’ your head in other people’s business is going to ruin your health,” said Stephen.
“Come on,” Pants said to Allen. “Get out of here. Go home.” He motioned for Allen, and Allen edged along the side past the three boys. He looked up at Pants with gratitude. Then he took off. Stephen yelled out, “We’ll see you later, gaylord!” as Allen ran around the corner. Back to Pants. Pants stood there a moment. Then he said, “Why don’t you guys get jobs?” and turned to walk away. The moment he took his eyes off them, like panthers with a death twitch, they pounced on him. Scotty pulled him back and Stephen slammed his back up against the wall. The tin crackled and the bang caromed down the alley. Bixby landed a punch in Pants’ solar plexus, doubling him over nearly to his knees. All the while they were cursing him and throwing their bodies against him. Stephen went for the face, hitting him twice in the eyes and grabbing his hair and pushing him back against the wall, while Scotty took shots against his kidneys, going for killing blows every time.
I’m ashamed to say it, but I stood there and watched every bit of it. I couldn’t move. It was as if all thought had left me, and I forgot that Pants was my friend. I watched in morbid fascination, shocked at the brutality, yet wondering at what new forms of physical abuse they would use against him before he fell. I knew deep inside me I should do something, that it was my duty as a human being to jump over the fence and fend off the subhumans, but part of me…part of me felt like it was what Pants deserved. He didn’t have to go around saying he had gotten born again. It wasn’t natural. It wasn’t normal. And I think I felt like it was a punishment for putting something in our friendship that didn’t belong, like a splinter. He had made a change, and I didn’t like how it made me feel. It was my way of getting back at him for that.
I snapped back to reality when one of the teachers came storming down the alley. The boys stopped their animal fury and ran past as she tried to grab them. They shoved her away and ran like dogs. She turned back to Pants and grabbed his hand and pulled him to a sitting position, his back against the wall, like Allen had been only moments before. Little Allen must have told her Pants was about to be decimated.
I moved back, parting the hedge as quietly as I could, and raced around to the other side, down the alley to where Pants sat bleeding and puffing out like a blowfish. His face was lit up like a Chinese lantern, and his collar was torn. He looked down when he saw me. I helped the teacher lift him up and I offered to walk him home. He didn’t look like he was in much condition to walk, so the teacher asked where he lived, opening her car door and helping him gingerly into the seat. He accepted that without saying much, but he looked at me with something that vaguely reminded me of the Sunday School lesson I heard about Jesus in the court of the Pharisees, when his apostle Peter denied him three times before the cock crowed. The lesson book said that Jesus stared at Peter and then Peter remembered that Jesus had predicted that very thing would happen, that he would deny him three times before the cock crowed. It was like a shot, like getting hit by your best friend. When the realization of what he’d done hit him, Peter was so ashamed he ran off.
Pants couldn’t have known I was watching him, though the look he gave me was so painful to look at, I couldn’t hold his gaze. So I waited for the car to leave before walking slowly back home, thinking all the while about how Pants had left blood on the ground back at the alley.
The whole school knew about the Great Fight, as it was deemed, by the next morning’s first bell, and Stephen, Scotty, and Joseph were all detained for a week. They laughed it off and skated through the week. Pants missed two days of school, and when he came back, his face was so swollen blue black that a few kids called him Black Jesus, though that stopped when they realized that might be going too far. He had a busted rib, an inflamed trachea (from where Joseph had grabbed his throat and squeezed like the devil), a patch of hair ripped out, and internal bleeding from the punch to his solar plexus. That’s why he stayed home for two days.
The bastards never bothered Allen again, and they never spoke to Pants. When they saw him in the hall he passed them by without comment, without fear. They always gave him a wide berth after that, and Pants gained a bit of fame and notoriety from the underclassmen who gave him unspoken deference in the halls, looks of respect and, from a few, daresay, love. The rest of the year passed by in relative peace.
Still, that was furthest from my mind as we walked home with our books under our arms, a cigarette in my mouth, a stick of licorice in his. Pants never smoked. I had picked up the habit in tenth grade from my mother, who kept a pack of Lucky’s in her dresser and she smoked them sometimes when I wasn’t around, though I could always smell them afterward. Once I started, I forgot that she could smell the smoke on me too. She never said anything, though, and we both continued in our mutual forbearance. This time, though, she wouldn’t be around to smell the smoke on me.
Mom and I never had much, and we didn’t have a close relationship, the way some mothers do with their sons. Maybe it was dad leaving when I was six. I don’t remember him well, but Mom sure did. She had her own special fiction for the event. She didn’t talk about him much, or anything else for that matter, and it was only occasionally that she’d ask me to do something around the house. Mostly she left me to my own devices, though she provided food and a bed, and I was grateful to her for that. I never disrespected her, but I stayed out of her way and she out of mine.
We did keep a few animals; two scrawny cows, a horse named Tobey, my dog Spittle, and a pack of hardscrabble chickens, which we let loose around the yard. Mom kept the animals fed, watered, and I took care of keeping their shelters stocked with hay and feed for nights and the cold season. They gave us with a bit of extra income, as Mom would sell the eggs at a market in town on Tuesdays, and we were able to get a dollar a bottle for the milk one of the cows provided.
I had let it slip that Pants and I were going up to the cabin several weeks before. My mother had nodded and given me a smile, which I took as a good sign. She didn’t smile much and when she did, it was always mixed with a gentle sadness. I suppose I should have wondered, but I couldn’t see past my own selfishness, and never inquired.
Two days later, she came up to me as I was studying for a trigonometry test. She was dressed in a flower print sundress, some kind of green and blue and yellow nameless posey that only exists in the Sears Roebuck catalogue. She knocked gently on the open door, and I mumbled “Come in.”
She sat at the foot of my bed, watching me. I could see her out of the corner of my eye. Cosines and coefficients. I finished the problem and turned to her. She held my eye.
“Peter, I’d like you to stay home next weekend.”
The weekend of the cabin? I protested in my mind. “What’s on your mind, ma?” I asked. I hoped she would say something easy, like she wanted me to do some chores. I could do them beforehand.
“I need you to stay home and watch the animals. Feed them and give them fresh water, like I usually do. Maybe clean up the yard a bit.” She looked troubled. For the first time I noticed how thin she was. Not gaunt, not deathly so, but thin and reedy, like a slender wand of human flesh wrapped inside a catalogue dress. Her hair was just beginning to turn gray at the tips, and I suddenly felt sorry for her. “I’m going out of town for a few days. I need you to be the man while I’m away.”
She noticed my consternation. “Honey, that’s not what I meant. You have had to be a man your whole life, since your father died” (This was the fiction she told herself and me to cope. It was a lie. He left, and we both knew it.). “It’s why I have never wanted to burden you with many things. But I need you to be here for me this time. Something a man has to do, not a boy, and you’re a man, a good man. You’re a man now.” The way she said it made me squirm inside. I wanted to be a man, but I didn’t want to have it spelled out that way, the way a grandparent might pinch your cheek and admire how much you’ve grown. It’s embarrassing. I stewed on my chair, the first autumn light coming through the window like a golden sheet. I suddenly wanted to leave.
“You can always take your trip another time. The week after, perhaps.” The way she said it, made it seem so reasonable. But Pants and I had pledged to it. It was the only time we could go. But I nodded. She smiled beatifically, like an angel to a prodigal son. “Thank you. You have made me so very proud.” She got up and kissed me without preamble on my forehead. I took it, like a man. “I love you,” she said.
“I love you too, Ma.” I replied, and smiled. When she left, I wiped off her kiss with a slow turning of my wrist.
But I laid my plans. I would set out extra stock for the animals. The chickens could fend for themselves, and if I put out a few extra containers for water, it wouldn’t hurt for me to be away for a day. What was the harm? I didn’t tell Pants, because I knew he wouldn’t go along with me if he knew I had been commanded to stay. Like a man, indeed.
Mom left Thursday afternoon, saying she would be back on Monday evening. A cab picked her up, and she waved goodbye as I watched, hands in my pockets, my back to the house. I waited for the trail of dust from Old Burn to die away before heading to the house. I wanted to plan the trip.
****
We got to my house and I grabbed our things. Pants had stored his stuff in my room. I didn’t think my mom ever went into my room to snoop, but I hid it anyway, to be sure. I turned on the gas in the kitchen to boil the water for the canteen, and we selected the poles we were to use for fishing on Saturday. I put out food for the horse and cows, filled their water troughs up with extra water for the night, and scattered some crushed corn for the chickens. We were set. I poured the water in the canteen, flipped the gas off, and we were on our way.
Pants and I arrived at the cabin at around seven o’clock. It was starting to grow dim, and a few fireflies, leftover from the warm summer, still plied their glow, blinking like tiny zephyrs. We set up our beds and broke open our bags of food that we’d brought: for him, a ham sandwich, for me, a piece of fried chicken and a slice of homemade sourdough, made with milk from our cow Reggie.
We settled into eating, while Spittle slept on the little palette bed I had made for him with an old pillow I found in our attic. Spittle was old, a red-boned spaniel and coon dog mix, a bizarre mutt with one ear partially bitten off and ragged fleas afflicting his hindquarters. He didn’t seem to mind them.
“Hey Pete,” Pants said. I swallowed the piece of chicken and looked at him.
“Yeah?” I said.
“What do you suppose happens to us when we die?” Uh oh. Where was this leading? Normally it would be an innocent question, but given his conversion, I was suddenly aware of the angles, the possible directions this conversation could take. I went the cautious route.
“I suppose you end up in heaven if you’ve been good. St. Peter tells you your new address, and you pass through some great white gates to your mansion. Why? What do you think?” I let him take the ball. Better let him talk it out of his system.
“I don’t know. I was just wondering, I guess. Been on my mind recently. You know how they say you see a white light and feel a warm glow just before you go?”
“No, I never heard that one.”
“It’s true, they say. They say it’s like walking through a tunnel to the other side. Like a portal to the afterlife.”
I didn’t say anything. He seemed satisfied. For a few minutes we didn’t talk, just chewed our food. I drank from a canteen of water. I handed him the canteen, and he took a swig, contemplating.
“I don’t think that’s what happens.” He seemed to be a bit edgier, more tense.
“Sounds like a load of baloney,” I said, agreeing with him. White lights and tunnels didn’t sound like any religion I could think of.
“You know what I think? I think there’s a limbo, a holding place for all the souls who have died. You know, like waiting in line for a ride on the ferris wheel.”
“Yeah,” I said, not sure what he meant. “Maybe you get to play cards while you’re there,” I laughed, joking. He flashed his eyes at me. I shut my mouth.
“Pete, have you ever thought about what it’s truly like to die? I mean, the physical sensation?” He looked at me intently, like a lion at his prey.
“No,” I shrugged his question off, feeling uncomfortable. “Look, why don’t we talk about something else, huh? I’m kind of getting creeped out here.”
He sat back and studied me. “Okay,” he said simply. I felt grateful. What was all this death talk anyway? Why should he worry about it? “Just…just one thing,” he said. “I just gotta get this off my chest.”
I nodded. “Fine,” I said. “Just what is it?”
“I’ve been having dreams lately. Weird dreams where I’m falling and I wake up just when I’m about to hit the ground. Ever have one of those?” I shake my head. “Yeah, me either, until recently. And another thing. You were in my dreams.” Me?
“I was in your dream? Come on.”
“Yeah, it’s true. And. And,” he began, but he hesitated.
“What?” I was curious, despite the bizarre conversation thus far.
“I was suffocating you,” he said. “With a pillow. You were struggling for air and I wouldn’t let you up. When I finally did pull the pillow off your face, you were blue. I tried giving you air, but you were dead. That’s when I started falling.”
I was quiet. It was weird, but strangely, I wasn’t creeped out by it. In fact, I thought it was neat, although he was clearly disturbed by it. I made light of it.
“Well, you’re finally doing something bad,” I said. “You’re so perfect in life, you gotta do something in your dreams to make up for it.”
“You don’t think that’s strange?” he asked me earnestly. I shook my head.
“Well, maybe a little bit. But what is it? Just a dream, nothing means nothing. A flower means your mother, a dog is your father, a bird is your little brother, it’s all nonsense. It’s supposed to be strange.” I said. He didn’t look convinced.
“Look, if it’s any consolation,” I began. “I’ve been having dreams where I show up to school naked.” He didn’t seem mollified by my jocularity, so I let it go. Whatever was bothering him, he wasn’t going to spill it through laughing.
“Hey, we got a great day ahead of us,” I offered. He nodded. “What do you say we start early?”
“Start what?” he asked.
“Fishing,” I replied. He nodded again. “Yeah,” I said out loud, but to myself. “Gonna catch some bass tomorrow, boy.”
“Play you in Twenty Questions,” he said, suddenly.
“Sure,” I said, thinking that maybe his dark mood was lifted. “You go first.”
“Question or answer?”
“Answer. I’ll guess,” I said.
He thought for a minute and then when he had it, he told me to go.
“Okay, one. Is it an animal, vegetable, or mineral?”
“Animal.”
“Is it a human being?”
“Yes, in a manner of speaking.”
“In a manner…? Is it someone I know?” I was counting on my fingers.
“Yes.”
“Is it someone you know?”
“Yes.”
“Is this person a female?” I wondered if this was his way of telling me he was dating someone.
“No.” I guess not.
“Is he a friend of yours?”
“Yes. Sometimes.”
“Is the person young?”
“Yes.”
“Is the person someone from school?”
“Yes.”
“Does this person play baseball?”
“Sometimes.”
Who could he be talking about?
“Is this person in our class?” I asked.
He hesitated a moment then shook his head no. I thought it might be me. I guess not.
“Someone not in our class, is a friend of yours, male, baseball player.”
“Let’s just let it go,” he said, and I dropped my fingers from their scorekeeping.
I was confused. “What do you mean? Let what go?” I asked him. He looked small, like he had shrunk. The glow from the lantern illuminated the left side of his face.
“Nothing. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up.” He yawned. I settled back onto the cot, hearing it groan as the frayed canvas threatened to yield. “Let’s get some shut eye,” he said. I blew out the lantern and the cabin instantly yielded to the blackness of nature.
There’s a solitude of darkness in the middle of the hills. Even when the moon glows bright, the light plays tricks, making you wonder if anything you see is real or something inside your head. The barest outline of trees and brambles seem to float in and out of existence, and when your sight adjusts to the dark, you see patches of pale illuminating grass, wood slats, the broken plane of mountain and sky, and far above, where they’re closest to the light source, clouds scudding or sitting like silent sentinels above a sleeping world. It’s a moment of peace to see such things, for the world is quiet. Even the insects are respectful, as if the blanket of quietude has covered even their tiny lairs. I loved falling asleep to this peace, feeling that all was well, even if only for a short time.
I thought about Pants’ enigmatic game and sudden resignation, but it didn’t seem too strange. He was just bored, I told myself. I was too, rather wanting to enjoy the night in silence. Spittle had settled into his regular habit of snoring through his long jowls, and the sound it made was like a sputtering engine on its last drop of oil. It also caused a profusion of dog saliva to leak steadily out onto the floor where his head drooped.
I lay my head back on the plundered pillow and closed my eyes and night came down on me.
****
I awoke and looked around. Pants and Spittle were gone. I heard barking outside, and I raised myself up on my elbow. Dreams fell from my eyes as I rubbed the sleep out, and I picked myself up to look outside.
The rosy dawn greeted me, a thin fog curling about the landscape, twisting around trees and hiding bushes. In the distance, it sat upon the water like a second skin, and I could hear birds, muffled through the haze calling their cheerful cries. Autumn birds sound prettier than spring birds, because they are the last of their kind before the winter. Winter is bleak and cold here, and those birds are sorely missed before November is out and the first snows have fallen.
Pants came to the sloped door of the cabin and gestured. “C’mon!” he said. “The fish are biting this morning.”
“When aren’t they biting here?” I asked. It was a rhetorical question, for he had already bounded outside again.
I pulled my coveralls on and hooked the buckle. Pants’ fishing gear was gone, so he had already begun. I joined him outside and we tramped down to the pond to the spot he had already set up.
The pond was another benefit of the cabin. We called it Firefly Pond, because there never seemed to be a lack of them. Indeed, some nights you could see millions of them hovering and gliding over the water, bursting in that phosphorescent green-yellow. To us they looked like shooting stars, and they were so thick the water would actually reflect their light, creating a glow that floated skyward and illuminating the trees that lined the pond edges. Coming upon it at dusk, you would swear a circus had arrived.
The fireflies also provide the pond’s inhabitants with a steady supply of food. Sunfish were the main denizens, though we suspected that carp could be found in the lower depths. Pants once caught a catfish, a one and a half-footer, a real grandfather fish. Pants threw him back, and we hadn’t seen or caught another since.
The final gift from the builder of the cabin was the flat-bottomed dinghy. It was upturned and hidden under a lean-to with a metal roof. I was skeptical of its water worthiness, but Pants had dragged it down to the water and it seemed to be sturdy. I had argued that the boat might belong to someone who still used it, but for once, Pants disagreed and said the boat clearly had been abandoned, like the cabin. I argued it was bound to be rotten and unable to float. Pants took one look at it and declared it a worthy vessel. I said the fish would be less likely to gather in the middle of the pond, that it would make more sense to fish from the shore, for the insects that the fish fed upon so generously were plentiful on the pond’s edges. Pants felt the smarter, bigger fish would all congregate away from shore.
Still, I didn’t like the idea of using the boat. But it was more than all the reasons I’ve mentioned. I had feared the water from when I was a little boy. It was nothing I could rationalize, but it loomed large in my mind anyway. Whenever the thought came that I should learn to like the water, or at least tolerate it, I shuddered. What boy doesn’t like the water? Yet whenever the boys would gather at a watering hole to swim, I would always feign some excuse for not going.
It took Pants’ faith in the craft’s sturdy build, and a test run out to the middle of the pond to convince me the boat was serviceable. Even so, I was petrified when I first stepped into the boat. Pants guided me, holding my hand as I slipped down to the stern. I sat on the slat facing him, my back to the water, and I watched as he bent low and pushed the boat into the water. It floated. He jumped in and I gestured wildly: “Don’t, you’re making it move!”
I was in fear the entire time, but I could feel myself relaxing as I conquered the mental block that held me captive. Gladder to return to solid ground, but happy to have made that first step onto the water.
It was a process to become completely comfortable in the boat. The next time out, I was just as frightened. Pants once again guided me and soon I was enjoying myself out on the water. We would fish for hours, resting our backs against the sitting slats when they began to ache from the fishing posture.
I set my tackle box down and began to thread my lure onto the line. I was surprised when I heard myself say to Pants, “Let’s take the boat out.” I had never initiated use of the boat before. I’m sure Pants was just as surprised, but he said, “We can take the boat out later. I like it here on the shore. Besides, I’m going to be hungry in a while anyway. Let’s catch something for breakfast and eat before going out.”
Something came over me. I don’t know what it was. Maybe I was still tired, and thus cranky. Whatever it was, I challenged him. “I bet I catch a fish before you,” I said. “And, I’ll do it in the boat. You can stay here on the shore. I’m going out.” I moved to the boat and turned it over. He looked at me with a bemused expression.
“Suit yourself, Pete. Just remember you’ve gotta row yourself out there and back.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I muttered to myself as I set the boat into the water and pushed off. I scrambled in as the boat left the land and I took the oar and swept the water clean. I sped out to deep water.
Despite Pants’ assertion earlier, the fish did not seem interested in anything I had to offer. An hour went by with only a few nibbles, and one tug before the line went limp again. Pants didn’t fare any better. He kept at it for another twenty minutes then declared that he was going to get some food. I was quiet, for fish are frightened by shouting.
Pants didn’t return. I continued to sit, pulling in my line every few minutes to recast elsewhere. No luck. I sighed. It appeared our fishing would come up short this time.
I was just about to head back to the shore when I felt my line move. I relaxed, like you’re supposed to do when you get a bite. I pulled the line in a bit, giving some motion to the end of the rod to tantalize whatever was interested on the other end. The line continued to jump. I could feel my heart pumping, and the biting continued. Whatever it was, it was being cautious to the point of paranoia. Justified paranoia, sure, but what fish is paranoid? I played the line, working it like a helpless insect beats the air in random motion.
And then it struck. I felt the line pull taut and the rod bent down, straining on the weight. Whatever it was, it was big. I pulled and gave, pulled and gave, fighting and letting the fish wear itself out. The thing was huge–had to be! It felt like it weighed a hundred pounds. My rod was bent almost to breaking, its tip dipping into the water and the line straining. I continued to play it and then, as if it was gone, the line stopped moving. I could feel the weight still there, but motion was gone. I tried to reel it in, but the line was stuck.
I cursed under my breath. I had been had.
And then the line shuddered. I wasn’t expecting it. I stood up, excited and once again in the fight. I shouted to Pants. I yanked on the line and reeled in, every inch fought for like ground at Antietam.
It was stupid of me to have stood up. I was unsteady on my feet, and the boat was rocking with every motion. I didn’t notice at first, so focused I was on the line. I leaned back and yanked on the line, and I felt something give. I tried to steady myself, but I overcompensated. The boat leaned sickeningly toward the water. I tried to lean back and I screamed as the boat lurched out from under my feet. I lost the rod as I grasped for anything to hold onto, but there was nothing.
I hit the water like a shock. I flailed and screamed. I saw the boat spinning away from me, the waves from my watery impact pushing it further into the middle of the pond. I shattered the surface with punctuated fear, my arms whipping like windmills as I struggled to stay afloat. But it was temporary purchase. Already my arms felt dead, the cold water dulling my strength and sapping the blood from my limbs. My shoes were heavy with water, and my clothes were soaked through, weighing me down even more. I felt the coldest chill over my body, and as my strength gave out, I screamed one last time.
****
Arms grabbed me and pushed me aloft. I broke the surface and my arm slapped against something hard. The boat! I grabbed, somehow sticking to it. I caught its edge, and with the last ounce of adrenaline and panic, I flopped over into its bowl, grateful to be alive, exhausted, and filled with fear. I vomited, my lungs expunging the water I had swallowed, and tried to sit up.
I leaned across the edge of the boat, looking for Pants. The water was growing still, the froth of my escape popping and subsiding into a few small bubbles. I breathed hard. I tried to speak, still coughing and hacking, the stink of bile still in my nose and on my breath.
“Pants? Pants! Come on, where are you?!” I looked into the water, but there was nothing but the ripples from the boat. I looked back to shore, thinking he had swum there in the chaos. He had saved me, I knew it. But where was he? My heart sank, grew cold with the ache of drowning. What had happened? Where was he? Where was he? Oh, words do not describe the fear I felt then, staring into the water and calling for his name. I tried to peer into the depths, but the surface was dark. I began to tremble with the cold and the deep dread I held now in my heart. My God. What had happened? Where was he? Where was Tony?
I paddled around the area, looking, my heart sinking. The fog lifted and the pond’s girth was revealed. Reeds surrounded the entirety of it, except for our fishing spot, where a willow wept over it and with its roots extending into the water, created a cove where the fish gathered. It was beautiful, the first of the fallen leaves resting upon the water, a quilt of nature’s finest design. But I did not care. I could not see. My eyes blurred as I searched, tears filling as I cried out for Pants. But he was gone. He did not answer me. The sick feeling in my gut resolved into an onrush of tears. I sat in the boat and wept, shaking with anguish and guilt.
An hour passed, and my tears had dried sufficiently, my mind had settled enough to think. I paddled back to the shore and pulled the boat over, just like Pants and I would do after each fishing session. I was dazed and tired now, feeling a dull ache, but otherwise exhausted. I felt I could sleep a thousand years. I looked around at the lake once more before turning and walking back to the cabin.
I gathered my things and called to Spittle. We left the cabin and the pond. I was to visit the pond only once more in my life, and that was to identify Pants’ body as the sheriff and some men from the town pulled him out.
I arrived home, dropping off my things and then hiking into town (we didn’t have a telephone). I walked to the sheriff’s, each step like a step further into hell. I told the deputy that Pants had drowned and I began crying again, feeling that onrush of guilt again. I couldn’t help it. The deputy called the sheriff and I led them through the hills back to the pond. There was a road that passed by about two miles from there, so they had to return to town to get the county coroner and a rescue rig, which consisted of a tow truck and a dredging net. They found him, tangled up in a huge mass of roots and underwater vines, his feet stuck and wrapped up in the plants. His eyes were closed and his skin was a pale blue white. He didn’t look like Pants.
The sheriff released me and told me that he would have to ask me questions later on, and told me to go home. I did, awaiting my mother’s return, dreading the inevitable.
I slept the rest of the day and into the night, awoke the next day feeling a little better. I did all my chores and fed the animals, taking care to give them extra water and food for the trouble.
My mother arrived that afternoon, a day early. I was lying on my bed when I heard her come in, and my heart stopped. She came to my door, and I knew that she knew what happened, somehow. She saw me and the guilt and pain of my betrayal rushed out. I couldn’t face her, but I couldn’t look away. I closed my eyes and all of my sins fell out in tears. She knew, and she was not angry, but sorrowed, and forgiving. She came to me and held me close to her breast, and cried with me.
I tried to say “I’m sorry,” but I was unable to speak, the pain too much to bear. She just held me and swayed. I rested in my mother’s arms and for the first time I prayed.