It was Chautauqua time for the boys. Granddaddy greeted them as they got off the train.
Chautauqua Lake was right there, waiting for them, as Richard and Jerry rode with Granddaddy down from the green hills where they had said goodbye to Lake Erie for a few days. The train trip had been easy. Their mom had put them on the train and blew kisses to them through the windows as the train started up. They had the same conductor, but the boys were pros now. Granddaddy was right there waiting, like before, smiling and laughing, his face all brown and his hair pure white.
Richard and Jerry were in a dreamland of happiness.
Granddaddy began teaching them to paddle the canoe the way he did. He let them paddle around in the shallow water inside the boat dock.
“Boys, the rear paddler does everything. The one in front can paddle however he wants. But the one in the rear must use a J-stroke to steer the canoe.”
He showed them. His arms looked like small brown trees that could never be broken.
Richard and Jerry made some progress, but they were not good enough yet to take the canoe out alone.
“OK, boys, now I want you to turn the canoe over!”
“Turn it over?” Richard said. “Right here? But it will sink, Granddaddy!”
“No, it won’t, Richard. It has air compartments at each end and so it won’t go down. And we have it in shallow water, where we can all stand up. And we have bathing suits on.”
Granddaddy got out of the canoe on the dock and got in the water up to his waist. Richard looked at the gray hair on his chest. His chest was brown because he took off his shirt a lot when he was fishing. He looked strong but his muscles were not as big as some of the men back home and he did not have a big belly.
He moved the canoe with the boys in it away from the dock.
“OK, boys, turn it over!”
“Oh boy!” they shouted.
They started rocking the long, silver aluminum canoe. They rocked it from side to side, but it wouldn’t go over. They rocked it and rocked it, but it seemed like it was fighting back.
“Wo!” shouted Jerry and he fell into the water. The canoe rocked right back level before Jerry came right back up, his little blonde head bobbing right up like a little otter.
“Wo, Granddaddy!” he hollered again as he clambered right back into the canoe.
The boys tried and tried. Richard fell out, too, but the canoe would not surrender.
“Here, boys,” Granddaddy said, and he came next to the canoe and pressed down on the edge that he called a “gunnel” and along with the boys’ weight they managed to get the silver canoe to fill with water.
But sure enough, it didn’t sink, even though it was filled with water. It just sat there, sloshing with green Chautauqua Lake water.
“Wow, Granddaddy, I thought it would sink!” Richard said.
“I wanted you boys to learn what the old girl would do so you could use her safely. I wanted you to have confidence in her by feeling just how she would act. Now you know it is much easier to fall out of her than to tip her over. And she won’t sink. Your fishing rods and fishing tackle may go to the bottom but this old girl will not.
“Now let’s lift her and turn her over till we get the water out. See, my other plan was to get you boys to help wash the old girl.”
And between them, Granddaddy and the boys managed to wash and then lift and flip the canoe till she rode high again, all sparkling and clean.
The next day they were trolling up the South Shore from Pendergast Bay, heading in as the sun got high, when Jerry’s rod jerked hard and almost went overboard.
“Wo, Granddaddy! Wo! Wo!” he screamed and clutched it and tried to reel in. “I got a musky! I got a musky!” He couldn’t turn the reel handle. The fish was too strong.
“Yes, you certainly do! Richard, bring your line in! Jerry, don’t pull so hard! You’ll break your line. You have to play him till he gets tired! Take your time!”
“I got him! I got him!” Jerry shouted.
Richard brought his line in, disappointed that the only thing on the end was his wooden Pikie Minnow while Jerry was battling with a real fish.
“Now, Jerry, don’t expect to bring any line in until he gets tired. Just hold onto him and if he pulls too hard, let him take line. He will get tired.”
Suddenly Jerry’s rod sprang up.
“He’s gone, Granddaddy! Oh no!” he moaned.
“No, Jerry, he might be swimming toward the boat. Reel in fast, right now!”
Jerry did and his rod began bucking again.
“I still got him! I still got him!”
Jerry and the fish fought, until finally he was near the boat, and tired, as was Jerry.
The long, green-silver fish was right next to the canoe. This was a muskie! Richard was fascinated.
“Is that Minnie Methuselah, Granddaddy?” Richard asked.
“No, Minnie is much bigger, but this is a nice one nevertheless,” Granddaddy said. “Hold him there, Jerry.”
Granddaddy swung his net into the water and brought up the big silver-green fish.
“About 36 inches,” he said. “A nice keeper.” And he hit the fish on the head with a small gray club. It lay still in the bottom of the canoe. Just a few minutes before it had been free in the deep, dark water.
It had lovely green vertical bars on the sides of its long body and a mouth full of teeth.
“Do they bite people, Granddaddy?” Jerry said.
“Only when we stick our hands in their mouths,” Granddaddy said, smiling, his silver eyeglass rims flashing in the sun.
“You did a very good job, Jerry. You boys are going to be very good fisherman. Now all we have to do is get Richard one.”
They paddled back in without letting their lines out again. Richard felt a little empty. What was he here for? He had no fish. But he didn’t feel it long. They were at Chautauqua, the magic place, with their magic Granddaddy.
On the way up the hill Jerry managed to carry the musky by a rope with Granddaddy’s help, so it didn’t drag on the ground. Granddaddy had run one of his musky tags through its mouth and gill so it was legal. The little old ladies in the streets oohed and aahed. “These are my grandsons, the sons of my son Raymond in Cleveland…” Granddaddy repeated each time they stopped for admirers. At the house he got out a camera and had some pictures taken by a neighbor. Jerry strained to hold up his musky and Richard stood beside him wondering why he had not caught it. He was the oldest. He was supposed to do things first.
But Granddaddy interrupted that thought.
“Come on, boys, you have to clean him so we can make dinner!”
And the two of them labored over the big fish on the back porch. Once they had scaled him Granddaddy had them cut him into steaks.
And that was their dinner that evening, cooked by Granddaddy. The boys ate till their bellies could take no more.
“That was good, Granddaddy! My musky was good!” Jerry said.
The boys washed the dishes, then walked out in the green street and down to the lake to watch the last boats come in before dark.
This year they had a lot of bad weather at Chautauqua, so they couldn’t fish much. Granddaddy bought them some games to keep them busy. Jerry played them on the front porch floor, sheltered from the wind and rain. Richard sat in the wicker chair with the gray cushions and read Ray Bergman’s book about fishing. He learned about how to fish for muskies and bass and trout, and even pickerel. He felt that he was at every little creek, every little trout stream, every bass lake with its lily pads. He was fascinated with the bass lures. Ray Bergman had color photos of them. They were smaller than the musky lures but Ray Bergman showed all kinds of way to use them to catch bass. You didn’t troll like for muskies, you casted and tried to fool the bass into biting. Richard liked that idea. He decided to save his paper route money and get a casting rod and reel and some bass lures. There must be somewhere at home to fish for them.
One day on the street with Granddaddy they met another older man who had glasses and a hat with fishing flies on it and a vest with pockets.
“Boys, this is Dr, Benson. He is the best bass fisherman that I know. He doesn’t like muskies, he just fishes for bass. I don’t know what’s the matter with him. Somehow he strayed from the path of righteousness into a life of sin.”
Both men laughed hard.
“If you boys will show up at the University Club dock tonight at 7, I’ll show you how to catch bass. Or how to try to catch bass, I should say,” Dr. Benson said, smiling.
“Oh boy, is it OK, Granddaddy?” Richard said.
“Certainly, Richard,” Granddaddy said.
“I’m a musky fisherman,” Jerry said. “I caught a big one!”
“You certainly did, Jerry! And landed it well, too! Well, you boys do what you want.”
“I’ll be there, Dr. Benson!” said Richard, breathlessly.
That evening Richard showed up at the University Club dock at 7 with one of Granddaddy’s casting rods and a big red-and-white plug.
Dr. Benson soon appeared. He was wearing weird boots that came up to his waist. He saw Richard staring.
“These are waders,” he said. “They allow me to go where the smallmouth bass are, in shallow water in the evening. This whole Lakeland is rocky and they like to come in here before dark. Oh, you have a casting outfit! That’s kind of big for them, but you can stand on the dock and cast. There is a rock pile under water over there. Cast over it and bring your plug in high, near the surface, so you don’t lose it on the rocks. I’m going to work my way up the shore.”
Richard stood on the dock. The sun sank down n the west. He had casted with Boomer’s rod at home, so he managed to throw his red-and-white plug out over the rock pile, where it made a splash and then swam back to the dock. Nothing bit on it.
Dr. Benson waded into the water. He had a special green line that went out like a whip and lay on the water. He had a small hook on the end with feathers that he called a “fly.” Richard had seen them in Ray Bergman’s book.
He watched Dr. Benson cast as he moved further and further away, wading up the shoreline.
Nothing seemed interested in Richard’s plug. Dr. Benson disappeared around a bend in the shore. Richard realized that Dr. Benson had only planned to get him started, not to fish with him like Granddaddy did. But that was OK. Now he knew a little about bass fishing.
Richard returned to the cottage through the quiet, almost-dark streets. Granddaddy and Jerry were getting ready for bed.
“Did you catch any bass?” Granddaddy asked.
“No, Granddaddy,” Richard said.
“Well, they don’t like me, either,” Granddaddy said.
As he lay in the Chautauqua bed, Richard thought of Dr. Benson wading in the dark water by himself, fishing and exploring the lake. He was going to do that, too.
This time when the boys got back to Lakeland Boomer didn’t say anything about “sh*tty-awkwa.”
In fact, he ran around the neighborhood helping the boys show the picture of themselves with Jerry’s musky.
“Wow, you caught that?” people would say.
Jerry was a little hero for a while and Chautauqua was famous in the neighborhood.
“That’s your Granddaddy?” they would say. “He looks like an Indian! He paddles a canoe? He must be an Indian!” Even Granddaddy was a kind of hero.
Richard didn’t mind. He was happy that he didn’t have to fight Boomer again. And he had new plans for fishing at Chautauqua to think about. He went back to delivering the paper, with its headlines about Korea and the Bomb and stuff like that.
Richard had returned from lunch to swim with Boomer and the guys, but they were coming up the steps from the beach.
“A storm is coming,” said Boomer. “It's blowing in from the west. My mom said to come up. I gotta go in the house.”
Richard's mom did not know about the storm so Richard had not been told to come home. He could see dark clouds in the west. This was exciting! He decided to watch the storm come in. He loved storms.
Boomer had to go in his house, but Richard went over to the top of the cliff to the left of Boomer's house and lay down on the grass looking out at the lake. Way out toward the horizon he could see a wall of dark clouds. They were a very dark gray, almost black, like a gun barrel. They had very light gray tops that were ragged and looked like the hair of crazy old men and, behind that, more dark gray. The clouds almost looked like huge storm waves, rushing at him. Richard shivered for a moment. But he could tell that they were clouds, not water. He waited with fascination. The wind grew stronger and blew fitfully from the clouds right toward him, then it became steadier and got stronger and stronger. The clouds were getting closer. The mild, dark blue waves near shore turned gray-green, and feathery whitecaps started sparking off of them. In some places the wind blew grooves into the water surface, like corrugated cardboard, that appeared and then faded quickly. The sun was blocked with gray clouds and everything around Richard changed color ominously. The white siding of the houses got a bluish-grayish tint.
Now the waves were growing bigger and the stormline was marching toward him. He felt the blood pumping in his head. The birds had stopped singing. There was no one on the beach. He was facing the storm alone. He looked at the lines of clouds in the sky to his right and left, wondering of there were any tornadoes, but the few ragged legs that hung down were not swirling. But the stormline meant business as it marched closer. The wind pushed on his face and he felt tears in the corners of his eyes. The waves were beginning to get big, coming in ahead of the stormline and pounding the beach.
Richard heard the sound of a motor and then he saw a fishing boat coming from his right, running at full speed, obviously trying to get to the harbor at Chagrin River about a mile to his left. The boat was a Lyman Lapstrake, like the ones by the Cricket in Madison, but it had a much bigger motor and was fighting the storm real hard. The boat would rise up on a wave, cut it part-way, then crash down on the other side, sending white spray out in a big V. There were two guys in it, one driving. Richard saw the lovely brown-stained natural wood interior of the open boat for just a second as it mounted another wave and marched on toward the river. The stormline bore down on the boat and darkened it as it rushed inward. The boat changed from white to gray and bounded deeper and deeper into the storm, but Richard could not watch it because now the stormline hit him with force, slapping him in the face with a burst of rain and a rush of wind. Everything got darker. The white houses turned a darker gray. The rain blew in in gusts. The huge waves were pocked with rain drops, like they were shot by guns. Foam started to whip off the tops of the waves as they broke on the shallow water near shore. The rain whipped against Richard's face and shoulders in gusts. Somewhere back down his street a siren went off. He thought of his mom and Jerry, but he figured that their house was strong enough to take the wind.
But his mom would be worried about him! Well, he had seen the storm come in, so now he would head for home!
It was raining steadily and the wind was still boring in from the lake as he ran down his street. He was wet through but he didn't care. He loved the storm!
“I'm OK, Mom!” he hollered as he got to the back porch.
“OK, honey, this is a nice storm, isn't it?” she called from the kitchen.
He had thought she would be scared for him. I guess she saw this all the time on the farm when she was a kid, he thought.
Jerry was on the porch steps in his bathing suit.
“Richie, come on, let's dance in the rain!” he hollered. “Come on!”
Richard laid his wet towel on the steps and ran around the house after Jerry.
“Come on! Come on! Hahahahahaha!” Jerry screamed as he ran and slid with his bare feet on the bare spots in the lawn where they had worn it out playing badminton. “Come on!”
Richard skated onto the greasy mud. It came up between his toes and slimed around his bare feet like oil. He took a few steps and slid and screamed with excitement.
“Wo! Wo!” both boys were hollering. They scooted up and down the bare spots. Jerry pretended he was an ice skater and almost fell. Richard stood in one place and wiggled his whole body down to his toes, feeling like he was a slippery otter.
“Now, boys, come in if you hear thunder!” their mom called.
“Wo! Wo!” they screamed and shrieked with laughter as the rain smashed down on them from the sky.
They saw lightning. “BOOM!” thunder hit somewhere down by the river.
They ran inside.
It was a hot August day, a Saturday.
The crickets were creaking in the grass. The grass blades were grayish for lack of rain. Somewhere down the street a cicada cranked up its buzzing accordion solo to a higher and higher pitch and then let it slow down and fall slowly in clicking spirals. Jimmy Dudley's voice intoned the Indians' game, but none of the men were out mowing their lawns. It was too hot. Richard had trimmed all the hedges on the street. It was too hot to play baseball.
The storm had ended Monday. The big waves had died to short brown choppers on Tuesday and to a smaller and smaller chop each day afterwards. The water color had gone from brown to gray-green to a deeper green, until yesterday it was almost blue and clear.
Richard had been fishing with Boomer in the evenings and swimming a bit, but he did not enjoy it as much as he did when the water cleared. They had caught a few sheephead and perch. The boys had built fires in the evening and watched the sun sink into the horizon.
Richard was anticipating clear water on the weekend, and today was the day! He and Jerry hurried up the street, carrying towels. They had to wear sneakers because the oil on the dirt road had heated up under the sun.
They got to the top of the cliff.
Boomer and Tommy and some other boys were on the raft, lying in the sun.
The lake was as blue as the robin's egg Richard had found in the back yard. Out toward the horizon it turned whitish, like the thin shreds of some clouds above. Richard's heart soared. There was nothing he loved better than this lake! He could see the tiny wavelets curling on the shore and heard them in his mind go wash... wash... even though he was too far above to actually hear them.
Jerry ran down the steps, but Richard stayed at the top, looking. There was one ore boat on the horizon, heading west toward Cleveland, he thought. Closer to shore a few fishing boats headed in and out of Chagrin harbor. Two or three fishing boats were scattered widely on the vast plain of the lake. How did they know where to go, out there so far from anyone else? he wondered.
It was late afternoon and the sun was in the west, but still high. They could do a lot of swimming before supper and then come back and fish till dark.
Then something strange caught his eye. Way out beyond their raft, way beyond where they had ever swum, he saw something move in the water. It was a V-formation of something, some kind of fish, moving parallel to the shore, as if it had some kind of plan. Richard watched it as it moved steadily to the west. Then his eye caught another one, further out, moving east. He studied the water surface more carefully and he made out four or five more V-formations of fish patrolling about.
He dashed down the steps, threw his towel down and dove in, staying away from the rocks. He got to the raft.
“Boomer, Boomer, guess what I saw!”
“What?” said Boomer, waking up.
“Whole bunches of fish, whole schools of them! Swimming right up by the top, way out there and over there!”
Richard looked but from the low angle of the raft he could not see them.
“Those are white bass,” Boomer said.
“White bass? What's that?”
“They're small and silver, They're easy to catch if you can reach them. They don't come close to shore.”
Richard stood up. He could make out one of the schools of white bass. It was way out beyond where they could cast.
“They might come closer tonight,” Boomer said. “If they do I'll show you how to catch them.”
The boys went to swimming and wrestling for King of the Mountain. Richard dived down under the raft and swam above the little sand dunes of the bottom toward Canada, hoping to see a white bass, but he didn't see any and had to come up.
“Horse fly!” hollered Jerry and all the boys but Jerry hit the water.
“Made you look! Made you look! Made you kiss a colored cook!” Jerry cackled.
“Get him!” said one boy, and they all attacked the raft. Two big boys grabbed Jerry by the legs and arms and sailed him through the air.
“Bombs over Tokyo!” one boy hollered.
Jerry screamed with excitement and turned in the air so he landed almost ready to swim back. His little otter-head was soon at the raft and he climbed on board, quick as a monkey.
“Gotcha! Hahahaha! Gotcha! Haha!” he crowed, but the other boys were laughing now and left him alone.
“Made you look, made you look,” Jerry murmured as all the boys laid out on the raft to dry.
Mom and Billie Rieger had planned a big shindig, Mom called it, for the Fourth of July. The plan was a picnic at Mentor Township Park. Richard was excited.
“Does it have a beach, Mom?” he asked.
“Yes, honey, the biggest beach you ever saw,” she answered.
“Oh boy!” Richard and Jerry said.
In the afternoon of July third Mom took the boys shopping. At the market on Lost Nation they bought hamburger, steak, bacon, buns, onions and other vegetables, pop, butter, mustard and ketchup and potato chips. Then they drove further out Lake Shore till they came to a roadside farmer stand, where she bought four dozen ears of corn.
She showed them how to tell the corn was good just by picking it up in their hand.
“You want it medium-size,” she said. “If it is real thick it will be dark yellow and dry, but if it is real thin it won't have full-grown kernels.” She opened one medium-size to show them the light yellow, perfect kernels. “I grew up on the farm and my Daddy taught me,” she said.
Mom started boiling the corn the next morning. The boys were already in their swimsuits.
Boomer came by.
“You wanna go swimming?” he asked.
“No,” Richard said. “We're waiting till Mom and Daddy's friends come and then we're going to have a picnic at Mentor Township Park!”
“Wow!” said Boomer. “I never been there.”
“What you gonna do?” Richard said.
“I guess my mom and dad will be cooking something. When you coming back?”
“I don't know,” Richard said.
“OK, I'll see you later,” said Boomer and he walked slowly up the street.
The Riegers arrived at noon, all seven of them, in Jim's big station wagon.
Uncle Jim beamed and shook hands with Richard and Jerry.
“Hello, Bitsy,” he said to Mom. The older people seemed to have special names for each other. They knew each other long ago, before he was born.
Billie carried some groceries into the house to help Mom. Jim joined Daddy in the living room for a drink. The little Rieger girl began to play with Lisa.
Richard and Jerry looked at the Rieger boys. One was a year older than Richard, one was a year younger and the other was Jerry's age.
“You wanna play baseball?” Richard asked.
“No, not really,” Sam, the oldest, said.
“Well, let's throw the football,” said Richard.
“Naw,” said Sam.
“We brought some games,” said Jimmy, the second Rieger boy.
“I can beat you at badminton!” said Richard.
“I don't know how,” said Reginald, the youngest.
“I'll show you,” Richard said.
The two oldest went on the back porch to play their games. Jerry began throwing his tennis ball to field grounders.
Richard took Reginald to the side yard to play badminton. But Reginald couldn't do it. He couldn't coordinate the racket and the bird. They had to give up.
“I'm not very good in gym,” Reginald said. “I like English better.”
Richard didn't like his English class and he didn't want to talk about it.
Reginald joined his brothers playing games.
Richard felt it was strange. He liked Uncle Jim and Aunt Billie a lot, but why did they have kids like this? These kids wouldn't even be part of his neighborhood gang if they lived here!
Fortunately, the picnic materials were soon ready. Richard and Jerry helped load them in the two cars.
Daddy was going! He limped out to their car. Billie loaded her girls in the station wagon and got the boys from their games on the back porch and put them in it, too.
Jim was the last.
“I'll follow you, Theo,” he said to Daddy and backed his station wagon out of the driveway. Daddy pulled out onto the street and they were off!
It was a glorious Summer day, sunny and with a light breeze. They passed the farmers' stand on the way out Lake Shore. Before long they were at the park. It had a huge, gray bathhouse and beyond it was a beach that stretched way, way out to the water.
Daddy and Jim located a set of tables with a grill and they settled down there. Richard noticed that Daddy had brought his wine. The kids carried out all the food and utensils. There were four big pots of hot water with corn in them.
“Why don't you boys go swimming?” Mom said. The Rieger boys had changed into their swimsuits, so they were ready.
“Last one in is a rotten egg!” Richard shouted. He picked up his towel and ran toward the water.
Richard and Jerry plunged straight in. Richard was surprised to find it very shallow. At home you got into good swimming water right away.
The Rieger boys were slow to get into the water. They acted like it was cold but it wasn't.
Richard and Jerry kept wading and wading out further and further but they were still only up to their waists. The little, light waves washed against them. On and on they plodded, their feet sinking into the sand underneath, forgetting about the Riegers. They only wanted deep water, where they could really swim. There were some white floats in the water up ahead.
When Richard got to the white float the water was still only up to his armpits. It was up to Jerry's neck.
He heard something. He looked back toward the shore. It was far away. There was some big guy in a white bathing suit shouting with a megaphone.
“Hey! You! Do not go beyond the boo-ees! Stop! Do not go beyond the boo-ees!”
Who was he yelling at? Richard looked around. There was nobody else out there. The Riegers were way back in knee-deep water. The big guy was yelling at him and Jerry! What was he so mad about? What was a boo-ee? Oh, he means don't go beyond the white floats! Why? That's where the good swimming water is! This was no fun!
He didn't want to get his family in trouble, so he stopped walking outwards.
“That's sh*tty,” said Jerry.
“Yeah.”
They glided back and forth for a while, but they got bored with it.
They came back in and left the Riegers in the shallow water. Picking up their towels they went back to where Mom and Billie were working at a picnic table. Daddy and Jim Rieger sat nearby, talking warmly.
Richard felt a warm love for Uncle Jim and Aunt Billie wash over him. Everything got happier with Mom and Daddy when they showed up. Sometimes he wished that Jim Rieger was his daddy, but he didn't want to live with the Rieger kids, so that spoiled that idea!
“Richard! Jerry! Why don't you look around the beach for some dry wood for a fire? This grill is not going to be big enough,” Mom said.
The boys ranged down the vast beach. The beach was higher near to the lake; further back there were wide depressions that looked like shallow, dry lakes. Lots of wood was scattered there, some of it bare from the washing of the sand and water and some of it still covered with flaking bark. He and Jerry had built fires many times on the beach at home, so they quickly built up a supply of different sizes of wood, right down to tiny sticks for kindling.
Richard got a piece of newspaper from Mom. He and Jerry built a little tepee of kindling on top of it, crowned with some medium-sized sticks. Richard lit the newspaper and blew on it. As the flames worked upward and caught the kindling he and Jerry built a higher tepee on it of bigger sticks. They watched the flames dance as they heated up their faces and eyebrows. Once the bigger sticks were burning they laid some real big ones up against the fire.
The fire was roaring. Billie set up a grill next to it where they could heat the pots with the corn in them.
The Rieger boys, with Lisa and their sister, came back to the fire.
“Let's let the fire burn down a bit,” said Uncle Jim. “I got some games for you kids to play. Let's have some races!”
None of the kids looked very happy about this. The Rieger boys had come back from the water. Uncle Jim had some burlap sacks and he set up a sack race for all of them across the sand. Richard felt that he should win it easily, since the Rieger boys didn't seem to like sports.
“OK, go!” shouted Jim, and they started hopping.
Richard had never done this before, and it was harder than he had thought. He struggled, hopping with all his might, but Sam Rieger got out ahead of him. Try as he might, Richard couldn't catch him. He could not believe it! This kid who didn't even play baseball or football was beating him! He felt mortified, disgraced! He was glad Boomer wasn't here to see it. He had failed! He had never felt so defeated. He tried to tell himself it was only a bag race but something in him said, You are no good! You lost that race! You lost it to someone who is not even strong, not even good at anything! You lost! You lost! You lost!
He got up at the end of the race. He had to walk over beyond the picnic table to avoid crying, to not show anyone how disgraced he felt. The girls were having a bag race and they were all laughing. Nobody else was paying any attention to him. He felt alone in the world, like he was nothing.
“Come on, Richard, we're gonna have another race!” Uncle Jim called. Richard didn't want to go but he had to hide how he felt, so he went over there.
“This is a crawling race,” Uncle Jim said. “So you have to pretend you are two years old again!
On your mark, get set, GO!”
Richard plunged forward. Somehow he found a way to gallop, not just to crawl like all the others were doing. He shot out in front of them and beat them all by a large margin.
He didn't feel as mortified as before. He had won! But he still felt the hurt of losing the other race to the Rieger boy. He never felt this way at home, when he lost to Boomer or Alfie or sometimes even Big John, who he usually beat. No, that was OK. They were all his buddies. They all played sports. He didn't care if they beat him. He wanted to win but it was no disgrace to lose to them or them to lose to him. But to lose to the Riegers who couldn't even swim! That was terrible!
“OK,” Uncle Jim said, “that was some good racing! Are you hungry now?”
“Yeah!” hollered Richard and Jerry. Even the Rieger boys looked hungry.
Mom served them all ears of corn and they went over to the stick of butter and rolled them on it and Billie shook salt on everyone's corn.
Wow! This was good! Richard sat with Jerry at one of the picnic tables. Jerry was a long eater, meaning he liked to eat the kernels in a straight line along the corn. Richard like to eat around the cob in a circle. Mom said they always ate the long ways on the farm.
The breeze blew lightly on them and they stared at the dancing flames of the fire as they tasted the fresh farm corn. The Rieger boys and girls ate well, too. Only Daddy did not have an ear.
Everybody went back for a second.
Then Billie said, “OK, now let's cook some burgers!”
She had some burgers that had bacon wrapped around the edges. It was held in place by a toothpick.
Richard and Jerry and the Rieger kids stuck them on the ends of long metal forks and they sat cooking them, smelling the cooking meat. They couldn't wait till they were cooked through but all put them in buns and bit down on the soft, pink meat, tasting the juicy beef flavor mixed with the smoky taste of the bacon. They washed it down with grape soda.
Mom said, “Let me teach you people how to cook a kay-bob!”
She took some cubes of steak and stuck them one a long metal stick with onions and tomatoes and peppers in between and began roasting this over the fire.
It took a little while.
“Anyone want a bite?” she said, and she split it up among the kids.
All of them wanted to cook one, so Mom made little ones for the girls and one each for all the boys. Jim was cooking some for the grown-ups. Mom and Billie sat down and began to eat theirs.
The boys settled back to eat their kay-bobs. They were a little tired from their races.
After a while, Mom noticed the sun getting lower in the west. Jim and Daddy were drinking and talking animatedly. Daddy always talked better when he was with Uncle Jim.
“You boys go on and get in the water one more time before we go,” said Aunt Billie.
They all rushed across the beach again and just plunged into the shallows to get cool again.
They came back across the beach again.
“Time to roast some marshmallows,” said Mom, and she handed out the forks again.
They all poked them into marshmallows and stuck them over the fire. The fire had burned down a bit. It was a deep red with very few yellow flames but it still burned strongly. The Rieger boys' marshmallows caught fire and turned black on the outside. Richard and Jerry knew to hold the marshmallows farther from the flames. They cooked three just brown and gave them to the girls after letting them cool. Then they cooked two for themselves. The Rieger boys had to start again, but they all managed to make some good ones this time.
His marshmallow was just brown on the outside. Richard let it cook just enough to eat. It was slightly crisp where it was brown. He thought, this is a good end to the day, and he ate the sweet thing at one gulp.
Mom and Aunt Billie had things ready to go to the car. The boys carried it all. There were a few ears of corn left but all the meat and the buns were gone. Richard and Jerry put out the last of the fire with sand.
Mom said, “We ladies are driving us home because you men have been drinking all afternoon. No arguments now.”
Uncle Jim laughed and said, “OK, Bitsy, whatever you say.”
They all got in and drove in the early, green dusk back past the farm stand and to Richard's street and in the driveway and they all said goodbye and the Riegers drove off towards home.
The whole neighborhood was quiet.
August wore onward as the day of starting back to school approached. Richard dreaded it.
Once again he would lose the lake, the swimming and fishing, the things he loved above all else. He swam and fished and listened to the cicadas, knowing that it would end soon.
But one day his mom came home with a big box.
“I have a surprise that I think you will like,” she said. “I don't know if your father will take to it, or Jerry for that matter, but I think you and I will.”
Richard was amazed. It was the middle of the Summer! What was she buying big things for? They didn't have much money!
“I've been saving for this since last year. All my life I have been wanting to have this music, after I heard a concert in Auburn as a girl.”
So it was music! But what? Richard wondered.
He helped her bring it in the house and they unwrapped it – a record player!
“I know you like my piano-playing and the Christmas songs,” she said. “But I must introduce you to classical music! And to be honest, I must have it for myself, too – for my soul!”
They set up the record player beside Daddy's chair, right inside the window. It was a working day, so he would not be home till much later. Mom then unwrapped another package and it was records. They were all Beethoven.
“You say it, Bate-ohven,” she said. “I have to give it to you. I feel it is my duty. But if you don't like it I am sure you will find your own way.”
“For me?” Richard said.
“Ha-ha!” Mom said, “yes, but we will share it. I will tell everyone I bought them for myself. But I feel this is a legacy that I must pass on to you. My mother spoke with the greatest love of Beethoven and it was one of his symphonies that I heard as a girl.”
Richard didn't know what to think. He didn't even know what classical music was.
“Wow, Mom, thank you.”
He was holding the records in his hands and there was a picture of an old man with a hawk-like nose waving a stick on the front.
“That's Arturo Toscanini. He's directing the orchestra. I have to do some work outside and I want you to first hear it by yourself, so pick a record and put it on. Then turn on the little lever here and adjust the volume.”
Richard did so. He had no idea where to start but he happened to pick Symphony Number 6 and started it and sat on the floor on the rug in front of the speakers.
The music came out dancing gently and swaying back and forth. He was looking outside at the green trees where the cicadas buzzed, and at the blue sky and white clouds beyond. He felt the music dancing toward him, then away, then looking over that way, then stepping lightly back to him. He felt all the little beings in the music come forward in the forest. The stronger, bigger sounds were calling to them to come and join. At first they were all alone and lonely, but the bigger voices kept calling them, come, come, come dance with us! and we will grow, grow stronger, together, come, come dance, come dance! And the little beings heard the bigger and began dancing together and they called back and forth and bowed lightly to each other and took each others' hands. And the band of them grew stronger and their voices joined more and more, dance, come dance, come dance with us, be with us, together, come dance!
He had never heard anything as beautiful as this. He had heard of heaven but he didn't believe in it, but here there was one! It was a magic thing, like Chautauqua, to him. The music darted and danced, like minnows in the water, like the little waves at the lake, like the waves growing bigger as the wind built up and up, rolling forward, bringing all the water rushing forward, then suddenly stepping, skipping backward to gather itself again, then looming up, bigger and bigger, then crashing and turning back again. The little beings in the forest, the waves, pictures danced through Richard's mind as the Beethoven music danced onward. It was a new green world to him.
That night the same little beings danced in his mind, the bigger helping the little, joining together, getting stronger, the little waves rushed in, dropped back, got bigger, rushed in again, crashing on shore, only to rush back and call all the little bits of water together again and make another great big rush on the shore. Nothing could stop their goodness.
It was the Fall of 1952. Richard entered the fifth grade. He and Boomer began shooting again with the BB gun.
Richard was saving money from his paper route for a fishing rod for bass. But he was confused. He didn’t know if he wanted a fly rod like Dr. Benson used, or something else. The casting rods were too heavy and could not cast those small lures he needed for the smallmouth bass that he wanted to catch. He had read about spinning rods that could but he didn’t know much about them.
The fifth grade was more of the same as far as Richard was concerned. As before, he only paid enough attention to handle the tests. He got good grades because he already knew a lot of stuff from reading the books his mom and daddy had at home. He looked at all the maps in the Encyclopedia Britannica, so he knew all the countries and oceans and mountains. He knew all about the Civil War from looking at his father's collection of photographs by Matthew Brady. The classes were just boring. He knew Boomer was bored, too, They spent their time looking out the window. After school they went shooting with Richard's bb-gun. They got pretty good at it.
One day Boomer brought some chestnuts he found under a tree.
“Let's shoot these out of the air!” he said.
“Yeah!” said Richard. He knew he could shoot pretty good, so he was confident.
“I don't know if I can hit them,” Boomer said.
Boomer tried first. He shot and shot and finally hit one.
“That's hard!” he said. “Here, you try!”
He handed the gun to Richard.
Richard took a chestnut in his left hand and tossed it high and shot and the chestnut was hit by the bb and bounced high again. Quickly he co*cked the gun and shot again and, “Wap!” he hit it again!
He was amazed. He had done something way better than he ever dreamed!
“Wa-ow!” hollered Boomer, “you hit it twice! Un-believe-able!” Boomer celebrated like he had done it himself.
Richard felt a surge of happiness of a kind he had never felt before. He had done something impossible! He had done it!
“Go ahead! Do it again!” Boomer said, reaching out another chestnut to him.
But Richard would not do it again. He knew he had done something perfect. If he shot again and missed, it wouldn't be perfect any more.
He decided he would keep this perfect moment in his heart forever.
He walked home with Boomer, talking about football.
Richard always liked a girl in his class. It was a different one each year, and he never talked to them, but there was always one. There were no girls in his neighborhood, at least not close by, so he never got to play with one. A couple lived at the end of the next street, but they seemed in another world and he never talked to them.
But there was one girl in his 5th grade class that always spoke to him, so he couldn't help noticing her. Her name was Laura and she had blue eyes and big, deep dimples in her cheeks. She had brownish blonde hair the color of his mom's taffy and it was very tightly curled, almost like a bush. She was always smiling and she always said, “Hi, Richie!” to him every time he saw her.
He had read about love and all that and he thought all that stuff was for grown-ups, but now this girl's smiling face kept popping up in his mind when he least expected it. Somehow her smile was so bright that it seemed to tell him that he was a good person and that life was good and perfect things were possible. This felt very strange to him because all around him were his family with his drinking, mean father and his friends' unhappy families and, beyond them, wars and gooks and The Bomb that might fall at any moment.
Didn't Laura know about all this? Yet she must know. They all did, even the littlest kid. But somehow she wouldn't let it bother her. She just kept on smiling. She had to be either stupid or a hero. But he knew she wasn't stupid. When she spoke in class he felt some kind of kinship with this girl, he didn't know what, but he felt it. So she wasn't stupid, she was a hero.
School became a little more interesting. Not school really, but more and more knowing Laura. And he had his buddy Boomer there with him. He felt a little better about getting on the bus in the morning.
That Fall Richard changed paper routes and started doing the morning Plain Dealer instead of the afternoon Lake County News Herald.
He had to get up early and make several trips around the neighborhood to deliver his 45 papers before school. He liked starting early because he would be alone in the silent streets around dawn. The clean, quiet air made him feel strong and independent. The robins puffed out their breasts and sang from the trees and the telephone wires, silhouetted against the dawn. They looked so proud of their music and their red breasts! He pedaled his 26-incher easily down the street. He knew all the families on his route. They were all different, but they were all getting up to go to work, except for a few who worked nights. Late in his route they would be starting up their cars to leave, and the men would wave at him through their windshields. Their wives, the mothers, would be brewing coffee and getting their kids up for breakfast and school, but some of them would leave for work, too, and their kids would be getting ready alone. He got home in time to eat a bowl of buttered Shredded Ralstons and go to the bus stop. Once it snowed he would have to leave earlier to get done in time. He already knew how to work: you just started, and figured out how to do the job, and kept on till you finished. He knew that already.
On Saturdays the big Sunday morning papers would come in sections and there were more of them because some people only wanted the paper on Sunday. His mom would drive him to pick up the papers. They would come in sections and he would have to put them together before delivering. He didn't have to deliver them as early as during the week, and in bad weather his mom would drive him on the route. Sometimes it was hard, but he knew that everyone had to work. That was life.
Also on Saturday he would collect. He knew his math well enough now that he could make change and handle money easily. He sometimes helped his mom and sometimes kept his money so he could get fishing equipment or train cars and track for his layout. His dad was doing better on his new job, so Richard knew they wouldn't run out of oil to light the furnace, but his dad seemed even more bitter than before.
One Sunday in October the guy who brought the papers called early and said that he needed Richard after his own route was done. A man named Mr. Yerkes had a route in Willoughby Hills and the boy who normally helped him was sick. He needed Richard to take his place.
Richard said OK and Mr. Yerkes pulled into his driveway a little after 11 a.m.. Richard told his mom he would be back in a few hours and got in the passenger seat of the car.
Right away he knew something was wrong. Mr. Yerkes looked about 60 and he was slumped over to the steering wheel. He looked like he could barely move.
“The route is down in the hills,” Mr. Yerkes said as he backed out of the driveway. His voice came to Richard like the croak of a dying frog. Richard studied him out of the corner of his eyes. Something was badly wrong with Mr. Yerkes. Should he get out of the car right now, when they were still on his street? But Mr. Yerkes clearly needed his help. And if he was real sick but still working, he must need the money real bad. Richard couldn't leave him. But he couldn't stand to look at him either.
Mr. Yerkes hacked a greasy-sounding cough, holding his body in such a way that Richard knew it hurt him bad inside just to cough. His throat was red and floppy like a turkey wattle. He had a small Planters peanut can beside him on the seat, filled with a napkin, and he spit his horrible mucus into it each time he coughed. Richard shuddered and tried not to look at the can or stare at Mr. Yerkes either. He knew Mr. Yerkes must be watching him to see how he reacted to his sickness, so Richard decided to act as if he had his own thoughts and was not curious about it.
“The route is down in the hills. We will go to the plant first, to pick up the papers, then go out in the hills,” the man croaked. He spit again in the peanut can.
Richard said, “OK,” in a normal voice and looked out the window at the woods and fields and houses on the way to the plant in Willoughby. He didn't know the people in those houses because they were out of his neighborhood, but he still wondered if those people would care if they knew that a sick, sick man was driving past their doors.
Richard knew enough about sickness to know that if the man had a contagious disease he would be at home or in a hospital trying to get better. But Mr. Yerkes was out here, driving, working. He must know he is dying. He must need to work so badly that he works anyway. It must be cancer, he thought suddenly. A flash of fear ran through him. People always die of cancer, he had read. It eats up their bodies and they die in pain. That's what this man had: Cancer!
But he knew cancer was not contagious. People just came and watched you die. People who were fine. People who didn't have cancer. People like him, right now.
Richard looked at his own arm on the open windowsill. It was still tan from the Summer. It was fine, perfect, he wasn't sick. The man must see that, too. If I was that man, he thought, I might hate me for being healthy.
It was scary, like looking off a very high cliff or a building and knowing you were so close to death itself. You knew you weren't going to die, but being so close to death made you feel like it might suck you in, like a vacuum cleaner or a whirlpool. Was this what life is? Living on the edge of a deathpool?
Richard felt dizzy for a moment.
They came to the railroad tracks in Willoughby. The same railroad tracks where Richard and his family had waited for the train to pass a couple of years ago, and where Richard and Jerry had gotten onto the train twice to go to Chautauqua.
But now the railroad tracks were different. They were dangerous to Mr. Yerkes. Richard saw that the bumping of the tracks would give him great pain. Mr. Yerkes had even stopped the car before the tracks as if to gather his courage before crossing over. Other cars, their drivers impatient, were passing him on the left across the track.
Richard looked to the side and saw two colored men sitting on the porch of a house by the tracks. They live by the tracks? he thought for a split second. He wondered if they noticed Mr. Yerkes, but they seemed to be looking beyond the cars, their faces still and gray like granite.
Finally, holding his body rigid, Mr. Yerkes slowly eased the car over the tracks. When he finally got the car to the other side, he hacked deeply and spit twice.
“The route is down in the hills,” he croaked, as if he had not already told Richard.
At the plant Mr. Yerkes parked by the loading dock.
“Go in and tell Woodie that Yerkovich is out here,” he croaked to Richard.
Richard went in the door. He was blasted by noise.
He was amazed by what he saw. Right in front of him stood huge machines, as tall as a second floor. They had big rollers and paper was coming through them. Richard saw the pages of a newspaper flash by him with lightning speed. So this was how they made them!
A man with a folded newspaper on his head came up to him. The man was gray. His shirt and pants were gray, his hands were black and gray and he had gray smudges on his face.
“Yerkes out there?”
“Yes, sir,” Richard answered.
Richard followed the man as he jacked up a pallet of newspapers, pushed a button, waited for a big door to lift, and brought the papers out to their car.
“How you doin', Yerkes?” he said to Mr. Yerkes and didn't wait for a answer.
The papers were ready, for some reason. They didn't have to assemble them. Did the plant workers do it to help Mr. Yerkes or Yerkovich? He didn't know.
Richard got the papers loaded into the back seat and trunk. They set out driving. Mr. Yerkes guided the car slowly on the hilly, smooth roads and Richard put the papers into the people's boxes. They had to cross another two railroad tracks. Richard couldn't look at Mr. Yerkes as he made the car creep over the crossings.
Finally there were done. They slowly cruised back to Richard's house. Richard was afraid Mr. Yerkes would want to talk to him on the way back and he wouldn't know what to say.
But Mr. Yerkes said nothing until they got into Richard's driveway.
“Hea,” he croaked and handed Richard ten dollars. That was more than the seven Richard expected and he paused after taking it.
“Take it,” Mr. Yerkes said. He shifted the car into reverse.
“Thanks, son,” he said.
Richard got out. Mr. Yerkes slowly backed the car out of the driveway, then slowly drove up the street. Richard realized that Mr. Yerkes had never said, “See you,” or “See you later.”
Richard never saw him again.
That Summer he had trouble playing baseball.
He thought something was wrong with him. The harder he tried to hit the ball, the more he struck out or popped up or hit a soft grounder to someone. He had trouble judging fly balls in the outfield. It would take too long for him to figure out where they were going, so they would get by him. Playing the infield was no fun because of the roots on the ground that made the ball take weird hops. Jerry kept practicing at home, fielding grounders with tennis balls behind the back porch. But this was too boring for Richard, plus they didn't even have a good, smooth field to play on.
Every game Richard would try harder and harder to be good. But it seemed like the harder he tried the worse he got. He would come up to the plate with his teeth gritted and holding his bat as tight as he could. It must be his fault. He must try harder. He would swing real hard. But no good.
Boomer didn't mock him because they were friends, but Big John called him “The Strike-out King” and would predict that he would strike him out, and then do so. Baseball became mortifying.
He got some revenge in badminton. He was quicker than the other boys and sure of his swing so he beat them all, even Jerry, who was second-best in the neighborhood. But baseball was more important than badminton. The games were the real show-downs.
Big John didn't like to play badminton and Richard was disliking baseball more and more.
But they all still swam.
Late August brought some very windy, stormy days. The water was brown from stirred-up silt and the big, white breakers roared in to the beach every day.
At first Mom was worried about letting Richard and Jerry swim in the surf by themselves and she came over with them to the beach on the first rough day. But when she saw how all the boys handled the waves like tan little otters she stopped worrying and let them go by themselves.
They feared nothing. These were Lake Erie's biggest waves, but all the boys could walk up onto the beach against the undertow. And the huge combers held no threat, they felt. They just ducked under them and came up on the other side.
What they liked best was to ride the combers while sitting in inner tubes. That way they could ride to the top of the break, crash down with it and shoot up toward shore in the swishing and bubbling foot of the wave.
They rode and rode. The waves would toss them, swamp them. Sometimes their bathing suit liners would get stuffed with big, loose sand grains, but they didn't care. They were riding the storm.
Often, in the evening, they built a driftwood fire in the lee of a big log and huddled there, out of the wind, smelling the driftwood burn and staring into the fascinating dance of the flames, listening to the pop and bubble of the firewood.
One cool evening and they were huddled in their towels. They were roasting hot dogs on long green sticks.
“I got a story,” said Big John. “Shut up, I got a story.”
The boys shut up because they wanted a story bad. They were tired from battling the waves and they wanted a story and their hot dogs. Even Boomer kept quiet.
“My uncle Amos tol' me this story an it scared me pretty good so I wanna know what you guys tink....
“He tol' me this story about this GI soldier that got all messed up in the war, I dunno, maybe even got his co*ck shot off, I dunno, but he got so messed up that when he got back he coultn't even 'sociate wit nobody, not even his ma and his fambly.”
Richard felt cold. He got his co*ck shot off? He felt queasy.
“I dunno, he lived right aroun' here somewhere. I dunno where, cause we was jus' lil tykes at the time. But my uncle said he lived in one of these houses right on top of the cliff here somewheres.”
Big John pointed up toward Boomer's house and the one next to it. Big John moved and sat on the big log so now he was towering over them. The sun was setting. The waves were still roaring, and the red-clouded horizon looked angry and evil. The boys were now eating their hot dogs.
“Uncle Amos said this guy, he would sleep all day in the attic and come out at night and roam the cliff like a big mountain lion or a panter. He tol' everybody he was watching fer German U-boats, that Hitler and all them was hiding out there in the lake somewheres.”
Hitler? In my Lake Erie? thought Richard. He wouldn't believe it.
“They tol' him the war was over, but he ditn't b'lieve it. He would be roaming the cliff like RIGHT UP THERE!” All the boys jumped as Big John suddenly swung his arm and pointed to the cliff.
“An he would be moanin', my uncle said, moanin' in the dark like a dyin' rabbit or a banshee, goin' 'AH-WOO-AHH-WEEEEE!'” Big John shrieked a moan and flapped his arms.
Richard felt a little nervous. Boomer was silent. Tommy giggled uneasily. Jerry sat up straight.
“An he would moan in the dark like that, 'AH-WOO-OO-AH-WEE-EE-EE!' but the people mostly ignored it because he was on the cliff and not in their yards.
“An then the little girl disappeared.”
“Disappeared?!!” said Richard.
“Yeah, disappeared. Right down here. There used to be no beach right over there. The waves come right up to the cliff. They think she fell and got washed away. Her name was Wendy. Her body was never found.”
“Wendy?!!” said Richard.
“Yeah, Wendy. An they thought it was that guy at first that disappeared her but they never found no evidence against him, so they left him alone.
“An he kept on roamin' the cliff at night hollerin' 'AH-WOO-AH-WEE-EE-EEE!'” Big John moaned even longer and stood up on top of the log, looming over the boys, silhouetted against the dying sunset.
“An the people started to call him 'The Wendigo,' like he was a ghost or a cannibal or somethin'. An he kept on moanin' and moanin'.
“An then one night, in a real big storm jus' like this one they was some kids down on the beach like we is. I guess they ditn't know about The Wendigo. They was cookin' and relaxin' jus' like us. An The Wendigo he come to the top a the cliff, and the sun was gone an it was jus' 'bout dark so you could barely see jus' like now an he was right over those kids, and he let out a huge, awful moan, 'OH-AH-WOO-OO-OO-AH-WEE-EE-EE!'
“AN HE JUMPED!” Big John lunged onto the boys, “AH-WOO-OO-AH-WEE-EE-EE” as he landed in their midst, right on top of Boomer.
“YIKE!” screamed Jerry. “YOW!” hollered Tommy and Alfie. Richard felt his stomach turn over but he was rooted to the spot.
Boomer hollered, “YOU f*ckING LIAR!” and started rassling with Big John. But Big John had a couple of years and twenty pounds on Boomer, so he put Boomer in a headlock. He was laughing so hard he could barely hold on to Boomer's head.
“Is that true?” said Richard, still disturbed.
“Every last word,” Big John said. “I swear on my mother's grave.”
“Your ma ain't even dead!” hollered Boomer. Squirming in the headlock. “You big f*cking liar!”
Big John laughed and let him go. Boomer didn't really want to fight, so he sat back.
“Nobody ever b'lieves me,” Big John said, shaking his head and giggling. “Everybody always tinks I'm a big liar. But you ast some a the ol' people 'roun here. Dey'll tell yuh.
“AH-WOO-AH-WEE-EE!” he said once more, bent over laughing.
It was pitch dark. Most of them had to go.
They left Big John sitting on the log, feeding the fire and eating the last hot dog, still giggling a little.
