by Jack Gantos
“Don’t listen to your mother,” he said. “Brooding is good. She misunderstands what brooding means. Let me tell you. When a man is brooding, he is taking big troubles and working them down into little troubles. You know how in the movies they always show prisoners using sledgehammers to pound boulders into gravel?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Well, that’s what I do in my mind.” He tapped the side of his head. “When I’m quiet, I’m just grinding big worries down into a pile of dust and at the end of the evening I just blow them away and go to bed and sleep like a baby.”
“So, why does Mom call that brooding?” I asked.
“Because your mom works her problems out differently,” he said. “She likes to talk about everything. Talk, talk, talk. But a man needs his silence, and because she doesn’t understand silence, she calls it brooding.”
“I see,” I said.
“Now, what’s your problem?” he asked.
I took a deep breath and looked up into the night sky. Between two oval clouds, the stars looked like they were trapped in an hourglass. “I’m just sad about Elliott dying,” I replied. “It’s not fair. He was just a kid like the rest of us and he never did anything bad and now he’s dead.”
“Well, you just sit here silently and let the gears in your mind grind down all your troubles about that Elliott boy. Death is a tough subject, but I guarantee you that before long you’ll feel a lot better.”
So while Dad fished and remained silent—brooding, I guessed, about his own Navy problems—I thought about Elliott. I was relieved at first that it was dark out because I thought if I began to cry, Dad wouldn’t see my face all screwed up. And with the wind blowing, maybe he wouldn’t hear me whimper. But I didn’t cry. Instead, the more I sat there the angrier I got. It seemed my head would explode. Life was unfair. The world was unfair. The universe was unfair. Why should Elliott die? It seemed so unjust when hundreds of people everywhere did awful things and got away with it and were never punished, but some poor kid in a wheelchair whose one joy in life was playing ticktacktoe was now dead. It really made me angry.
“Hey, Dad,” I said, after my thoughts got the best of me.
“Yeah?”
“Maybe I’m not very good at brooding yet,” I said. “I’m just getting madder and madder and I’m not grinding anything down to dust. What should I do next?”
“Hmm,” he said. “Well, sometimes instead of solving anything from brooding, you just smolder. It’s a bad form of brooding. You get stuck on a subject and you can’t seem to get it out of your system no matter what.”
“Then what do you do? Because I think I’m smoldering. I’m really mad about it. I thought I was going to be sad. But I’m more angry. And that’s confused me. Because I thought my problem was going to get smaller but it just seems the more I brood, the bigger and worse it gets.”
“Let me give you some advanced brooding lessons,” he said. “First, if I’m smoldering over some work problem I take a walk along the beach. You know, just listen to the ocean waves crashing on the shore. Wave to the boaters. Breathe in the good sea air. Maybe you can let your mind drift along and think about what you like and don’t like, who you are and who you are not, and what you want to become and what you don’t want to become. Stuff like that.”
“So, were you smoldering tonight?” I asked, standing up and getting ready to take a walk.
“No,” he said calmly. “I was beyond smoldering. I was just thinking about sweet nothing.”
“Nothing?” I asked, unconvinced.
“Nothing,” he said firmly.
“How can you think of nothing?” I asked. “I’m always thinking. My eyes keep seeing, and I hear stuff. I have to think.”
“It takes practice,” he said. “Knowing how to be quiet, how to be still, how to think about nothing is one of the secrets to life. Thinking of nothing and brooding are related. First you brood until you grind your troubles down to nothing. Then you are totally happy. You are like that Buddha. You just sit and meditate all day over nothing and it’s the best feeling in the world. If I had all the money I wanted, then I’d have no troubles. But I’m not rich in that way. So, when I’m thinking of nothing, it means nobody bothers me. Nobody can get into my head and bug me. Nobody. It’s the poor man’s way of being rich.”
“I’m confused,” I said.
“Well, why don’t you just start off simple and try walking down the beach?” he said. “Try it. You’ll catch on fast.”
I started walking down the beach but I hadn’t taken a few steps before I started getting angry all over again. Even thinking about Miss Noelle didn’t distract me. I tried to think of us sailing on a gold-and-white yacht across a blue sea. We were smiling. Laughing. Not a trouble in the world. But then the image of us fizzled in my mind. I was too angry. Elliott should never have died. I turned around and marched back toward Dad. Before I bugged him again, I stood in the dark and watched him. Car headlights swept the beach and flashed across his face. He just sat there, looking out at the water, slowly sipping a beer and plucking on the fishing line, feeling for a bite. For a long time I watched his face. He was totally relaxed. Content. There was nothing on his mind he needed to say.
“How’d it go?” he asked when he saw me creeping up on him. He reeled in his line all the way until the silver spoon was hanging off the tip of the rod like a tongue full of hooks.
“I still have my work cut out for me,” I said. “I can brood. I can smolder. But I can’t seem to get to nothing-ness.”
“Give it some time and practice,” he said. “You’ll get there.”
I picked up the blanket and waved it overhead. The sand blew away from us. I could only wish my sadness and anger would follow.
The next day I went over to Julian’s window and peeked in. He was sitting at a little side table with a plate of food. He was drinking a glass of milk. I guessed he was so grounded he had to eat in his room, like Max in Where the Wild Things Are.
“Hey,” I said, “did you hear? Elliott died.”
“I know,” he replied. “I already made up a new song for my dad’s band. What to hear it?”
“Sure,” I said.
“It’s not really a rock song and it’s not really a folk song. It’s just sort of a ballad. So picture me sitting onstage, on a tall black stool with my acoustic guitar and a single spotlight on me.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Elliott was nice,” he sang softly, strumming his fake guitar as if he were petting a cat. “Elliott was sweet. Life was mean to him, but he didn’t dig defeat … He’s circling the world, spinning like a ring, his soul set loose like a kite out of string.”
“That’s beautiful,” I sighed, tearing up.
He took a bow.
I was clapping when his mother entered the room. “You again!” she shouted.
As I tried to duck out of sight, I saw her hand snatch Julian’s glass of milk off his table and pitch it toward me.
The glass shattered against the wall.
“Get out of here!”
I turned and ran across the road, up and over the dunes, and began to walk along the shore. The sun was setting and the whitecaps looked pink, then purple, and as I circled home they were gray. The walking helped because when I thought about Julian’s mom throwing milk at me I began to laugh. It seemed so silly, like a cartoon playing over and over until it faded away. I took a deep breath of sea air and just when I thought I was doing better, I began to think of Elliott’s death again. I was hoping I could grind it down into nothing like I did with Julian’s mom, but I was still too upset, and even though I took an extra walk up and down the dunes I couldn’t get my anger and sadness to go away.
When I came through the front door I knew Mom had been waiting for me.
“Where’ve you been?” she asked, looking me right in the eyes before I could look away.
“Just walking on the beach,” I said, “thinking.”
“You were off broodin
g,” she guessed. “Tell me the truth.”
“Maybe a little,” I replied.
“Your dad broods,” Mom said. “You are too young to brood. When something bad happens I want you to have a healthy reaction to it. A strong young man’s reaction. I don’t want you stewing and getting yourself worked up into a black mood.”
“I’m not in a black mood,” I said. “I was just trying to feel nothing.”
“Feeling nothing is not going to solve anything. Now, let’s talk,” she said, and crossed her hands on her lap. “Tell me how you feel about what happened to Elliott.” I could tell that she wasn’t just going to let me go read Charlotte’s Web again and think about the life cycle of spiders, and death and rebirth and the natural order of things.
“I’d rather just go sit and think about my problems,” I replied. “I’m a man.”
“I knew it!” she cried out. “Your dad has already taught you how to brood! You need to talk about this stuff. Both of you need to learn how to talk about stuff that bothers you. Keeping it inside is only going to eat you alive.”
“I’ll figure it out,” I said.
“Not if you listen to him,” she said, warning me. “You both need something healthy to do with your time.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“I’m not sure yet,” she said, standing up and jamming her hands down onto her hips. “But I’ll think about it.”
Two weeks later Dad and Pete and I got dressed in our new Junior Naval Cadet outfits. Dad had the rank of chief petty officer and we were dressed as new recruits. I guessed Mom was going to set Pete in the right direction while he was still young enough to not fall into the bad habit of brooding. She knew Dad was a lost cause and probably had her fingers crossed that I might come around and see things her way.
Mom lined us up in a row and took our pictures. “My three handsome men,” she said, as if she were stamping the word men on our foreheads. Then we got in Dad’s car and quietly drove to Roanoke Island to a sleepover camp for the weekend. If we had any thoughts about what we were doing, we kept them to ourselves. The weekend orientation was supposed to be just for kids from five through eight years old, but Dad brought me along to help, and as Mom said, “Don’t worry, you’ll fit right in. You’re young for your age anyway.”
Even before we arrived at the camp I knew it wasn’t going to work out very well. First, I was exhausted. I hadn’t been sleeping well because I was still so upset about Elliott’s dying. I’d lie in bed all night, tossing and turning. At school I kept falling asleep with my head on my desk. When Miss Noelle asked what was wrong I told her I had too much on my mind. She suggested I drink a glass of warm milk before lights out. I looked at her sadly. She didn’t understand the private torments of a man. At home I was snappish with Pete and grumpy around Mom. Betsy and I were bickering with each other all day. So I figured that putting on a Naval Cadet uniform and hanging around with a bunch of happy little kids was just going to make me feel worse, and I was right.
On the first night at camp, after a long day of learning how to tie knots, read naval signal flags, and practice Morse code in a dark room with flashlights, we had a cookout. I sat by the bonfire and stuck marshmallows on a stick, set them on fire, then flicked them at the boys. It was like the Roman warship battle scene in Ben-Hur when they use catapults to hurl flaming balls of tar at each other’s ships. I said to myself, “This is really dangerous,” but then another part of me said, “Yeah, but it has something to do with being in the Navy.” One flaming sticky ball landed on a kid’s hat and set it on fire. Another kid poured a canteen of water on it while I laughed my head off. This should have been a warning that I was getting out of hand, but I was too far gone. All that brooding had made me weak.
The next day I was worse. I hadn’t slept a wink and was glaring at anyone who laughed. Dad thought it would be a good idea for me to keep busy, so he gave me a job. He lined up all the young boys and had me inspect their heads for lice. If I found any I was supposed to call him. He also gave me a set of electric hair clippers and asked me to trim the cadets around their ears and cut off any hair that touched their collars. But once he drifted off, I told the boys that if I found lice I would have to shave their heads.
The first kid who stepped up had a bowl-shaped haircut. I looked down at his blond hair. “Lice!” I declared. He looked up at me, horrified. “There is only one thing to do to stop this epidemic,” I declared. I took the clippers and in about a minute had buzzed all his hair off.
“That’s better,” I concluded. “Now beat it!”
He ran his hand over his bald head. “You cut my hair off,” he said angrily.
“What are you going to do about it?” I asked.
He raised his fist and looked like he was going to jump at me.
“I’ll clip your lips off,” I said, and waved the clippers around his face.
The kid backed away. “Don’t,” he said, suddenly frightened. He held his hands in front of his mouth.
Somehow, this only made me angrier. “Move it,” I shouted, “or I’ll clip your ears off, too.” He turned and ran.
“You better run,” I hollered. When I turned around, all the other kids were fleeing in the opposite direction. Only Pete was left.
“That wasn’t very nice,” he said.
I raised my fist at him. “You want your other tooth knocked out?” I asked. “Just keep mouthing off to me and you’ll be the youngest kid on the planet to wear dentures.”
“Bully,” he said right back. “You’ve become a bully but you don’t scare me.” I stood there with the clippers in my hand as he walked away. I had never been called a bully before, not even by Pete, and I didn’t like it. He was right. I had been a bully and now I was ashamed of myself, which just seemed to pile on to all the things I was brooding about and not grinding down into nothingness. I dropped the clippers in the dirt and shuffled over to the chicken-wire fence that surrounded the compound. I looked across at the ocean. The waves churned up the shore, grinding the small grains of sand into even smaller grains. I wondered if they ever got ground down into nothingness, or just got smaller and smaller but never really went away. I attempted to climb the fence, but I couldn’t get a toehold in the tight pattern. When I tried to pull myself up, the wire cut into my fingers. I slumped back down. I felt lousy and I didn’t know what to do about it.
That night I was tossing and turning in bed as usual. I couldn’t take it anymore. I remembered Dad’s advice about taking a walk on the beach. It had helped before when I was angry with Julian’s mom. Maybe it would help again.
But there was no way out of the camp. The compound fence was sealed with a locked gate. Little cadets with flashlights and whistles had guard duty, so it was difficult to sneak out. But I thought I had a way. The Dumpsters behind the kitchen were next to the fence. I figured I could climb up one and jump over.
I put on some jeans and a dark T-shirt and sneakers. I tiptoed out of the cabin and away from the security lights. I stood in the shadow of a tree. I looked left and right. The little cadets marched back and forth, patrolling the camp perimeter. I dashed over to another tree. Then another. I could see the mess hall across the square of grass we used for roll call. I checked for guards, then made a dash for a dark corner. But one of the cadets spotted me.
“Halt!” he shouted. “Who goes there?”
I ran around to the back of the building as he blew his emergency whistle. I could hear other whistles. Adult voices shouted out orders. I scampered up on top of the slippery Dumpster. I was a few steps from getting away, but suddenly froze. Directly between me and the fence was a giant raccoon. It had found some uneaten food and was now guarding it with its life. “Shoo!” I hissed. “Beat it!” I waved my arms back and forth. I stomped down on the top of the Dumpster. The raccoon stared at me and rose on its hind legs. It growled. In the light I could see its mouth full of sharp white teeth. In the background I could hear the cadets gathering with the officers.
&n
bsp; “He went thataway,” a kid hollered. “Behind the kitchen.”
The raccoon dropped down and began to inch forward. Behind me, the footsteps were getting closer. There was nothing left to do. I jumped into the Dumpster and quickly tried to cover myself with bags of garbage.
In a moment I was surrounded. Then I got a lucky break. “It’s only a raccoon,” Dad said. “See—on top of the Dumpster.”
“It was a big kid,” some cadet said. “I’m sure of it.”
But there was also another raccoon. Suddenly I felt something move against my leg and I yelped.
“That’s no raccoon,” Dad said. “Whoever you are, come on out,” he ordered.
I pushed a bag of garbage out of my way. About a dozen flashlights shone on my face. “Look,” shouted a kid. “It’s the bully.”
I scrambled up on top of the bags of garbage and when Dad saw me he hung his head for a moment. Not only was I a bully—something we both hated—but I had also embarrassed him. I was going to have a lot more to brood about.
“Okay,” Dad snapped, handing out orders. “The party’s over. Everyone back to your posts, or bunks.”
“What are you going to do with him?” some kid asked.
Dad didn’t answer. “I’ll take care of this,” he said to the other officers.
After everyone drifted away he turned off his flashlight. “What stupid nonsense were you up to?” he asked.
“I was going to the beach to practice being a man,” I said.
“You need some practice,” Dad said. “A real man wouldn’t end up cornered by a raccoon.”
“He was going to bite me,” I said.
“I’m ready to do worse to you,” he replied. “Now why were you going AWOL?”
“You know,” I said. “What you taught me. Brooding with a reason. I was thinking about Elliott and stuff and I was going to walk around the beach and grind it all down to nothingness.”
