by Andrew Smith
Although I could not articulate it at the time, this was the beginning of what would become an overwhelming urge on my part to run away from the hole, which, my father explained, was something all boys eventually were driven to do.
One thing I had going for me was endurance.
In the end, Wendy recognized that the only way she was going to get me to go to church with her before Monday came around was to take me in my underwear. So I sat beside her on that pew while she stared at the Danish Contemporary cross and rested her hands on a worn black Gideon’s Bible in her lap. And I had absolutely nothing on save for some red-and-white boxer briefs with images of a muscular superhero on them. I was very thin at twelve years because during that year I grew about three inches taller, and all my contents stretched out like bread dough.
The muscular superhero on my boxer briefs wore a skintight blue suit with red briefs on the outside and a red cape. He could fly. He also had a big red S inside a yellow diamond in the center of his chest.
While Wendy stared at the cross and the Bible, I looked at the guy on my underwear. I decided that his S stood for “shoreless.”
Shoreless Man was doomed to fly forever, without ever contacting the ground. As a consequence of this curse, Shoreless Man could always observe the truth but could never touch it—kind of like spending your entire life in a hole. Shoreless Man only needed to find the key that would allow him to be free of the curse of landlessness, so that he might peel himself right off my boxer briefs, fly up to the maple Danish Contemporary cross, and turn himself into Sacrificial Man.
I folded my arms over my chest. “Well? What does God’s voice sound like, Grandma?”
“It’s not a sound; it’s more of a message that I can feel inside my brain, like a vibration, that only I can understand,” Wendy said.
“A message about what?”
“Among other things, he tells me you’re a heathen for coming to church in your underwear.”
I felt bad about God telling Wendy I was a heathen for coming to church in my Shoreless Man boxer briefs and was afraid Wendy was going to bring up the among other things she’d hinted at, which, of course, she did.
Wendy, my grandmother, asked me if I knew what masturbation was.
I told her yes.
“Do you masturbate, Arek?” Wendy asked me.
I thought about all the possible ways I might answer her question. Lying was not something I ever did. In fact, I believe I didn’t even know how to tell a lie. And I had talked to my fathers about masturbation too, so it wasn’t something that, at that point in my life, caused me to feel the kind of inhibition that perhaps a before-the-hole boy might have felt. But I also didn’t want to tell Wendy how often I masturbated, because I didn’t want to make her madder than she already seemed to be.
So I said, “Sometimes,” which could have meant any level of frequency.
“Do you know what God does to boys who masturbate?” Wendy said.
He probably makes them go to church in their underwear, I thought.
“No.”
“This is what happens. There was a man in the Bible who did not do what God told him to do. His name was Onan. Onan did something he was not supposed to do with his penis, and, as a result, Onan’s semen went on the ground. You know how that happens, right?”
I nodded. I was terrified, because knowing Wendy’s Bible stories told me this was not going to end well for the guy whose semen ended up on the ground.
Wendy paused and swallowed; then she bent forward and looked directly into my eyes. “So, do you know what God did to Onan? God killed him.”
For just a moment I was relieved that apparently “underground” did not count for God as far as applying the on-the-ground rule about killing a boy for masturbating was concerned.
I said, “Oh.”
“That’s a true story. It’s right here in the Bible.”
All stories are true.
“Oh.”
“Even Jesus told his followers that if they masturbated with their right hand, they should cut it off, so their right hand wouldn’t make them masturbate anymore.”
All these amputated body parts, without end.
Wendy patted my knee with her icy hand. “And God also tells me that we need to stay here in Eden, and pray, and wait to be delivered by him, and that you should be baptized in the big sink, as a symbol of our covenant with him, for sparing us.” She added, “That’s what God says to me.”
“Through vibrations,” I said.
“Yes,” Wendy confirmed.
Then she told me, again, the story of a boy named Ishmael, and about how God had directed the boy’s father to circumcise Ishmael on his thirteenth birthday; and after that all boys had to be circumcised so God would be able to sort out good guys from bad guys, like all the boys in her family, who were good, so this was something we all needed to prepare for, since my thirteenth birthday was approaching, and Wendy’s brain had been vibrating again, and she wanted me to be brave and show God I was good and thank him for saving us and looking out for us the way he did, and wait to be delivered. Unfortunately, now my brain was vibrating too, but it was not vibrating with what my grandmother’s brain had said.
My brain vibrated this to me: Wendy is fucking crazy.
But there was never a moment when she had not been crazy for my entire life, so I didn’t really have a before-the-hole Wendy to compare this bloodthirsty penis-mutilating one to.
Also, as I sat there, I mathematically calculated the number of days to my thirteenth birthday, because I knew Wendy, our Ahab of the hole, had this serious attachment to ideas and would not easily let them go.
I pointed out, “There’s no need to sort out the good guys from the bad guys down here, Grandma, because nobody here is bad.”
“I’ll tell you what—and it happens time and time again in the Bible, Arek—terrible things happen to people who ignore the vibration in their brain.”
I was definitely not ignoring the vibration in my brain.
I kept my eyes on Shoreless Man. I traced an index finger around a picture of him flying with one arm outstretched, his red cape billowing behind him.
I said, “But what if the vibration is wrong?”
Toward Little Grace
In a deep, clear pool where the river eddied in a slow, counterclockwise churn at a place in the bank that looked like it had been scooped out in a near-perfect circle, Breakfast caught five bluegills with his wild bare hands. He’d tossed them up onto the shore while Olive jumped up and down in excitement.
Olive was happy.
Olive didn’t need anyone else other than Breakfast, and Breakfast was happiest just being with Olive.
Breakfast said, “Days like this are what we live for, girl.”
Olive stroked Breakfast’s chest. They had finished eating a dinner of grilled bluegill with a chicory and dandelion salad, and were stretched out on the ground, sleepy and full, in the sunlight beside their fire.
Breakfast yawned and scratched his balls, then bent his legs and crossed one foot over his knee as he stared up into the cloudless sky, a twig of chicory pinched between his lips.
“Me and Joe, we stayed on the farm with Sergeant Stuart and his army for a while, I guess, until I was ten years old. In that time, Joe had gone from being a rail-thin boy into a full-grown man with hair on his face and everything. Man! I sure hope I never get hair on my face, Olive. It looks like a curse.
“I was the only one there who wasn’t all grown-up, so the others looked after me like I was some kind of special creature, like I was their own child, but of course I wasn’t. And that’s because I’m wild, Olive. Wild. And I don’t belong to nobody, and didn’t come from nobody, neither—just like you, girl. The others was four men, counting Joe and Sergeant Stuart, and two women, who were not like the sister ladies from the church since they didn’t whisper and sneak. And they all dressed in the same outfits with badges and flags on their chests and arms. Even Joe dressed like an army m
an and followed orders from the sergeant, always saying ‘yes, sir’ or ‘no, sir’ as we moved from place to place, representing what Sergeant Stuart said was the governmental authority of the United States of America, whatever that meant, and how it was us who was in charge of everything.
“Ha! How could anyone claim to be in charge of a place with ten-foot-tall bugs that eat you whole? ‘I’m in charge now.’ Ha-ha! Have you ever heard such a thing, Olive?”
Of course, Olive had heard such a thing, because Breakfast had told her about it at least a hundred times before.
“Sergeant Stuart even tried to get me to put on some army clothes and be a soldier with them all, but I wasn’t having it. Only in winters when the snow was deep on the ground would I choose to put on anything, and even then it was never army gear, but you already know that about me, don’t you?
“The last place on the farm we stayed in was a cellar under an old dairy barn. The dumb motherfuckers already burned down the house and a second building with sleeping quarters too. We kept cows and chickens and always had plenty to eat, but in the following summer, after Joe and I came to the farm, when the weather got warm, well, you know what happened is those bugs would come back, and the army would try to fight them and represent the governmental authority of the United States of America on ’em. Usually they’d set fires to whatever house or building we happened to be hiding in. The bugmen don’t like water, but they like fire even less, but I still thought it was dumb to set fire to our own homes, although it wasn’t ever my call since I wouldn’t put on no clothes with flags on my arms. I don’t know what happened to all those monsters by now, though. Maybe they’re all starved to death on account of there not being any more people to eat. Who knows? What do you think, girl? Why do you think we ain’t seen but a handful of ’em all year long?”
Olive didn’t know why they hadn’t seen many of the creatures.
Breakfast picked his nose and farted.
Olive tracked her fingers through the wild boy’s dreadlocks, looking for ticks and fleas.
“Well, the worst day came during summer that year I was with Joe and the army on the farm. That was the day the place was just covered with those bugs—maybe two hundred of ’em—and everyone tried to hide or escape, but as far as I know, nobody did except for me, and that was only because I jumped into the creek and made a swim for it. Wild!
“I was terribly lonely, and so sorry for Joe and the others, but mostly for Joe, because he had been my only family that I ever knew, and I liked him, despite his attraction to drinking vodka and his always sneaking off alone and playing with himself whenever he found his books with naked people in them. For someone who wore clothes as much as Joe did, he sure did have an attraction to naked people. Joe was wild. Wild and good.
“I miss Joe. I miss ham, too.” Then Breakfast scratched his balls and said, “You know what I don’t miss?”
Olive shook her head and smiled. She knew Breakfast was about to say something really, really good.
“Rebel Land, getting shit on, and Edsel and Mimi. That’s what I don’t miss. Ha-ha!”
Olive, who had nearly been lulled to sleep by Breakfast’s lovely voice, suddenly shot her head up from the boy’s chest, nostrils flared. Olive sniffed the air. Her eyes widened.
She saw something out on the river.
Northwest of their little beach—upstream, where the wide river’s banks were swallowed beneath an umbrella of overhanging trees—a long blue canal boat drifted lazily into view. Breakfast and Olive had seen boats before, but they were usually small and half-sunk, or massive and completely sunk, like the triple-decker boat with the wheel on its tail end that sat on the bottom mud in the river next to its moorings in St. Louis.
This was different.
The canal boat, narrow and flat topped, appeared to have been well maintained, as though someone may have been living on it. Breakfast’s first thought was that there could be people on board, and he did not want to run into anyone like Edsel and Mimi ever again. But the way the stern of the boat swung out in the current also made him think that the thing had simply gotten loose—run away from home, wherever that may have been.
“Hoo-wee, Olive! What do you think about that, girl?”
Olive bounced and waved at the boat, which was spinning in the current, its bow caught up in the low overhang of a hemlock tree.
The boat was called Little Grace and was more than thirty feet long. In the front was an open deck area backed by a cabin with double glass doors and unbroken windows all down each side. Unbroken windows were not that common in Breakfast’s experience, especially on something so obviously fragile as a canal boat. Little Grace had an open deck on top of the cabin with a rail surrounding it and another open area at the back of the boat, where Breakfast saw the ship’s wheel and a tiller post. Along the side facing Breakfast and Olive hung two yellow plastic boat fenders.
He didn’t know much at all about boats—he’d never even been on one—but Breakfast figured a boat couldn’t be more difficult to operate than a shit-pumper truck.
Breakfast scratched his knotted dreadlocks and shaded his eyes with his right hand.
“I’m half-tempted to see what’s on that boat,” he said.
Olive jumped and clapped, granting her approval.
Breakfast took a few tentative steps toward the river.
He said, “I’m thinking as hard as I can, but I can’t come up with no reason a person might fill up a boat with shit.”
Olive waved her hands and nodded. She could not think of a reason to fill up a boat with someone else’s shit either.
The wild boy waded out to where the water was past his knees.
Breakfast said, “It better not be filled with shit, Olive.”
Olive clapped and grinned.
Breakfast scratched his balls and farted. Then he dove into the river, swimming wildly across the current, upstream toward Little Grace.
This Is Even Better Than I Thought
Sergeant Stuart looked over my shoulder into our empty bathroom. He stood so close to me his chest pressed against my naked back.
He put a hand on my shoulder. Sergeant Stuart breathed on my neck. I wanted him to go away.
“You have a shitter in here? And a shower, too?” Sergeant Stuart said.
“We. Um. We don’t use the toilet part. Only the shower.”
“Damn. Is the water hot? Do you think I could take a shower here tonight?” Sergeant Stuart said.
Disgusted, and worried for Mel, I pushed the door shut and tried to squirm around Sergeant Stuart, who was blocking me against the bathroom. He smelled like he had pissed himself.
“So then, where’s this buddy of yours?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
“There’s no reason for him to be hiding. We’re in this together. We’re all friends here. Maybe we should look for him,” Sergeant Stuart said.
I did not want to explain to the sergeant that Mel was neither my “buddy” nor was she a “little boy.” And I definitely did not want to go searching for her with Sergeant Stuart. All I could think was that Mel must have slipped out the front driver’s door while I was talking to Sergeant Stuart outside the van. She had to know what she was doing; Mel was brave like that. And I wanted Sergeant Stuart to decide on his own to leave, but I had the feeling he had already planned to move in to our hole and share our lifeboat with us, no matter what anyone else thought about the idea.
“I don’t think we need to look for him,” I said.
Stuart moved out of the way and turned toward the front of the van.
He said, “Let’s start this thing up and see how she runs. I could help with the driving.”
“No! Wait!”
But I couldn’t stop him. Sergeant Stuart peered down into the little washer-dryer below the sink where the clothes Mel and I had worn that day were tumbling around.
“Heh. Is it you boys’ laundry day?”
Sergeant Stuart slid into the dr
iver’s seat and felt around on the dashboard for the starter.
After a few moments, Stuart sighed, pivoted the seat around, and came back to where I was standing.
“Looks like your little buddy took off with the key, too,” he said.
Of course my little buddy would do something like that, I thought. My little buddy was smarter than Sergeant Stuart and I were.
Sergeant Stuart said, “I guess you wouldn’t have made it so long by not being smart like that. Yeah. You boys are good soldier material. We—the United States of America—could use boys like you.”
Sergeant Stuart was a delusional idiot.
I pictured myself in the library of the hole, staring at the painting of the sinking ship, the sea, the lifeboats and bodies tossed in the roiling, icy water; imagined rescuing a survivor who proceeded to claim my lifeboat as his own and then ordered me to jump out and swim.
Sergeant Stuart swung one of the dining chairs around. He told me to sit down, that we’d wait for the other boy to get tired of hiding outside, alone in the dark. I was defeated. Then Sergeant Stuart put his hand under my chin and squeezed my jaw. He lifted my face so that he could look directly into my eyes.
“Don’t fuck with me.” He repeated, “Don’t fuck with me, boy. Do the right thing by your fellow man. Right? We’re in this together now. And it’s time for you to suck it up and be a man. We are all going to be friends. Together. It’s up to us. If you haven’t figured that out by now, it’s up to us, and this is our only chance for survival. We need to band together.”
Then he let go of my face, and I said nothing, but I did not look away from him either. I could feel where the calloused tips of his dirty fingers had burned into my skin.
One way or another, he was going to have to get out and swim—or drown—on his own.
Sergeant Stuart picked up the pot of macaroni and cheese from the stove and ate out of it with the fork I’d given him. When he was finished, he even took Mel’s half-eaten plate from the sink and ate that, too. He burped loudly and said, “I’d really like to take a shower. The problem is what to do with you. You and the other boy wouldn’t do anything dangerous if I took a shower, would you?”
