Gemini Summer

by Iain Lawrence

  “But Dad, they’ll be launching six Titans next year; four Gemini flights. There’s one in June and one in August,” said Beau. “It’ll be like Gemini summer down there. Can’t we go, Dad?”

  “To Florida?” The Old Man blew air through his mouth, and his lips made a puttering sound. “Well, I suppose if we did, then your mother would get to see Georgia. I suppose we could swing through Atlanta, and wherever that damned Tara place is.” He pressed the brake pedal as the traffic slowed, and all the stuff in the tank seemed to shove at their backs. “Yes, it would make your mother happy, all right.”

  “She deserves it,” said Beau.

  The Old Man laughed, and that made Danny feel the truck shrink to a cozy tightness. He grinned at Beau, who was sitting up now, all windblown and red.

  “When are the launches?” asked the Old Man. “Those Gemini flights.”

  “There’s one in March,” said Beau. “Gus Grissom’s going to be the first guy to go twice into space. Then—”

  “Grissom?” said the Old Man, starting up through the gears again. The cars were passing them. “After what he did the last time, I wouldn’t let that guy fly a paper dart.”

  “It wasn’t his fault, Dad,” said Beau.

  “Come on, he abandoned ship. Blew the hatch; lost the capsule.” The Old Man put his arm out the window. His coveralls rippled in the draft. “Now, I’m not saying I blame him. I know from my navy days what it’s like to bob around in the ocean. And him all alone in a tin can, well…” He shrugged. “No wonder he was scared. Who wouldn’t have wanted to get out?”

  “He wasn’t scared,” said Beau. “He didn’t want to get out. He had to get out ’cause the hatch blew off.”

  “What do you think, Danny?” asked the Old Man. “Do you remember that?”

  Of course he remembered. They’d all watched the launch on TV, and the films that had come in later. They’d seen the capsule—Liberty Bell 7—swinging down under its parachutes. They’d seen it rocking in the ocean, as though they’d actually been riding in the helicopter that had taken the pictures. They’d seen the hatch fly open with a puff of smoke, and Gus Grissom come tumbling out. Then the helicopters had hooked on to Liberty Bell, even as it was sinking, and it had seemed that the capsule would pull the chopper right into the sea. And there was Gus Grissom, floating around as his spacesuit filled with water, the poor man waving for all he was worth, but no one going to help him.

  “I don’t think he was scared,” said Danny. “There’s nothing in the world that would scare that guy, is there, Beau?”

  “’Cept maybe looking at you,” said Beau.

  That made Danny laugh, and the Old Man, too. The truck was filled with a happy feeling again as they drove out of the city, past the shopping malls, into a world of factories and vacant lots. They found the dump, and emptied the truck, then stopped at the A&W.

  A waitress came out in her brown uniform and little paper hat. She had to stare so high up at the cab that she shouted, as though hollering to people on a mountaintop. The Old Man called down his order, then drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as they all sat back to wait. With a sigh, he slapped hard on the rim of the wheel. “Oh, what the heck,” he said. “We’ll go.”

  “To the Cape?” asked Danny.

  “Sure. Next summer.”

  “I can hardly wait,” said Beau.

  fifteen

  They took their food in a paper bag that Danny held in his lap, feeling the heat on his legs and stomach, smelling the burgers and french fries. He knew it was not to be opened; they had a routine.

  They drove to the river, to their favorite spot, where there were a park and a waterfall. Danny carried the bag to the same place they’d gone the last time, and maybe fifty times before that, to a jumble of flat rocks made hot by the sun. They even had their own rocks—three in a circle, and a fourth like a table—overlooking the pool where people went swimming, where kids floated around on air mattresses.

  On the grass at the riverside, there were families having picnics. A harried-looking man with a great potbelly was trying to fish at the foot of the rapids. The Old Man and the boys ate their burgers and fries, then crunched all the garbage into the paper bag. They lay for a while like lizards on the stones, watching big cumulus clouds tumble along.

  They were just climbing into the truck when the dogs appeared. One came from the east, and one from the west, and they raced to the river together. They stood and barked across it, then each twirled once around and plunged into the stream. In the middle they collided and the water frothed, then both came bursting onto the grass. They stood nose to nose, their tails wagging, then each of them pressed its chin to the ground, like gentlemen bowing, and suddenly they sprang up and started running. Soon everyone in the park—even the potbellied man—was watching them run. The black dog led the brown dog on a crazy chase between the benches and the tables, through the trees and down the river. It snatched up sticks; it ducked and weaved.

  The Old Man had his door open, one foot up on the running board, a hand reaching for the wheel. He stopped there, like a statue, staring through the frame of the rolled-down window. His head turned to and fro as he followed the dogs with his eyes, down the park and back again. “They’re a couple of kids,” he said.

  Danny was already in the truck, in his place in the middle, watching through the windshield. “You mean puppies, Dad,” he said.

  “No, Danny, they’re kids,” said the Old Man, as though there were no other word for it. “They’re little boys. No worries or cares; look at them. Little boys forever. I bet they meet here every afternoon and play some sort of game.”

  All over the park, people were standing up now. They were grinning at each other, laughing, as the dogs whirled in and out from the tables. The brown one chased the black one, then the black one chased the brown one, weaving between the garbage cans. Two little toddlers went trundling after them, and their mothers after them, and the Old Man laughed more loudly than Danny could ever remember him laughing. He had to wipe tears of laughter from his eyes.

  Beau had watched quietly until then, standing up on the running board at his side of the truck. Now he sighed and said, “It would sure be neat to be a dog.”

  “I know just what you mean,” said the Old Man.

  The mothers caught the toddlers before the toddlers could catch the dogs. They swept them up, and people cheered. Then the black dog and the brown dog suddenly turned and dashed toward the river, bounding over the grass. They hurled themselves into the water—they cannon-balled into the water—and the potbellied man was drenched with the spray. He threw up his arms and laughed with everyone else as the dogs vanished into the trees on the far side of the river.

  Old Man River pulled himself up behind the wheel. “That was something, huh, Danny?” he said.

  Danny nodded. “It was neato, Dad.”

  “If you were a dog, you’d be like that black one, playing and laughing all the day.”

  Beau moved onto the seat. “No, he’d be a wiener dog, the wiener.” He closed his door. “How would I be, Dad?”

  “Well, you’d talk a mile a minute,” said the Old Man with a chuckle. He gave the gas pedal a pump. “You’d go on big adventures and you’d sit and think on things.” He turned the key, and the engine started. “You’d be a thoughtful kind of dog.”

  Beau seemed pleased by that. He put his head out the window and watched behind them as the Old Man backed up.

  “Now, if I was a dog,” said the Old Man, “I guess I’d want to be a collie.” He shoved the lever into first gear and pulled out onto the street. “I always liked collies.”

  Danny looked at Beau, who suddenly seemed embarrassed.

  “I used to have one. Did you know that?”

  “No, I didn’t know that,” said Danny. “We never would have guessed, would we, Beau?”

  Beau said nothing. The Old Man leaned forward and jangled his ring of keys from under his hip. “Yup. He was called Nelson. Looke
d like him, too. Missing one eye and one leg.”

  Danny frowned. He was sure that the dog he’d seen in the picture had all four of its legs. He wondered—how could it have moved with only three? Could it shake hands?

  The Old Man grinned. “Oh, I’m just pulling your leg,” he said. “There was nothing wrong with poor old Nelson. I called him that ’cause he was admirable.”

  “What happened to him, Dad?” asked Danny. “Did he drown at sea?”

  The Old Man was working the gearshift, coaxing the truck up a hill. Without all its weight, it moved more quickly, and it didn’t sway so much from side to side. “Now why would you ask that?” he said.

  Danny had to swallow. “Just wondering, Dad. ’Cause you were in the navy.”

  “Huh. Well, yes, Danny, that’s pretty much what happened. Except he wasn’t at sea. He drowned in a puddle of water, no deeper than Highland Creek.” The Old Man sighed. “He fell through the ice on Christmas Day, poor old Nelson.”

  “Gosh, that’s sad,” said Danny.

  “Yup,” said the Old Man with another sigh. “I’ve got a picture of him somewhere. Tell you what—I’ll look it up when we get home. You might like to have it, Danny.”

  “Oh, that’s okay,” said Danny.

  “Yeah, that’s okay,” said Beau. “It’s not like he’s going to call a dog Nelson, are you, Danny?”

  “No,” said Danny. “When I get a dog I’m going to call it Billy Bear.” He reached up to the name tag, but his hand didn’t find the string. He yanked the front of his T-shirt down and peered inside it. “Oh, no. Dad!”

  The Old Man slammed his foot on the brake pedal. The tires squealed, and Danny nearly flew up against the windshield. Behind them, a car honked.

  “What’s the matter?” said Old Man River.

  “I lost my name tag,” Danny said.

  “Oh, Danny boy, for crying out loud. You nearly caused an accident.” With a shake of his head and a terrible sigh, the Old Man clenched his teeth. He pulled so hard on his cap that it covered his eyes for a moment.

  Danny was searching frantically through the cab, down on the floor, and the Old Man kept ramming the gearshift into his leg. “Ow!” Danny cried.

  “Get up!” said the Old Man. More cars were honking now. One crept past the side of the truck, and the driver scowled up at them. He had a cigar in his mouth, and a long mustache, and he looked like a smoking walrus. He tapped his finger on his temple, as though he thought the Old Man was crazy.

  “We have to go back,” Danny was saying. “I musta left it at the park.”

  The Old Man didn’t even know that Danny had kept Billy Bear’s little tag. Beau had to explain, because Danny was too upset to talk slowly. Then Old Man River said it was a stupid thing to want to keep, the name tag of a dead dog, and he wouldn’t go back if his life depended on it.

  Beau prodded Danny in the ribs. “See?” he said. “Dad, I told him it was a creepy thing to do.”

  sixteen

  Mrs. River almost screamed when she heard the plan about Florida. Danny had never seen her so excited.

  “Going through Georgia!” she said. “Seeing the South in the summer? Oh, great balls of fire!”

  Danny liked it when she used her Southern voice. He watched her run to the calendar, and in a moment—on the page for the next year—she had ten days marked in for August. And that seemed to make it official.

  “Oh, Charlie,” she said, “I’m going home.”

  “Home?” The Old Man chuckled. “It’s hardly home to you, Flo.”

  Nothing could take away her happiness. “My grandfather was born in Virginia. Y’all can’t get more Southern than that.”

  seventeen

  On the first day of school, Danny and Beau sat eating their breakfast, wearing clothes that were fresh and new. Their jeans were so tightly creased that it looked as though the Old Man had run over their legs with his truck.

  “You look so smart, the two of you,” said Mrs. River. She was eager to get down to the basement, to get back to her novel, and she hurried the boys along. “Now, Beau, are you sure you don’t want to wear a tie?”

  “Mom!” he said. “Only browners wear ties.”

  “Oh, fiddle-dee-dee. Smart young men wear ties.” She wiped the milk from Danny’s lips, then tried to flatten his hair with spit on her fingers. But he tilted away each time she came near.

  Danny felt doomed. He could hardly believe that summer was over, that the very last moments of it were passing away as the kitchen clock went tick…tock…tick. It was shaped like a black cat, with the cat’s tail for a pendulum, and its big eyes looked side to side with every tick and tock. Danny watched the minute hand jump forward. When Beau got up, so did he. They went to the door; they put on their new shoes. As Danny tied his laces he knew how Doc Holliday had felt as he’d dressed for the walk to the OK Corral.

  Danny was laden down that morning. His pockets were filled with the best of the things he had found through the summer, the shiniest stones and the oldest pennies, the most interesting bottle caps—the things he would show off to his friends. He had to hurry along to keep up with Beau, and his pockets sort of sloshed, like the stuff in the tank on the Old Man’s truck.

  They were crossing the bridge when Dopey Colvig leapt out from the bushes, holding a stick as stout as a rolling pin. Feet apart, hands at his side, he stood right at the fork in the trail. He was half again as wide as Beau.

  He made those sounds, those hoots and groans that only Creepy could understand. His great hollow head with its pudding of a face watched them like an owl’s.

  Danny pressed up against his brother. “Let’s go back,” he said. “Let’s go over the big bridge instead.”

  “That’s too far that way. You want to be late?” asked Beau.

  Dopey came forward. He grunted and mumbled. The way he walked, he looked like a giant to Danny, though he wasn’t really big enough for that. He looked like the world’s smallest giant, ready to grind their bones into bread.

  Beau didn’t move. “Get lost, Dopey,” he said.

  Danny reached into his pocket of stones. He pulled out a round one that was red and fiery, like a blazing eyeball. He threw it at Dopey and hit him smack on his dopey forehead. The sound of it hitting was like a walnut bursting in a nutcracker.

  Dopey’s eyes blinked, but that was all. His eyes blinked, and he came forward again. He raised the stick and made a sound like a squealing pig.

  “Oh, geez,” said Danny. “I made him mad.”

  Dopey started running. It was more like a boulder crashing along, but he came down the trail in heavy, thudding steps, and he mumbled and shrieked again. Danny wanted to run, but Beau stayed where he was. “I think I can take him,” said Beau.

  Then a voice shouted out from beyond the trees, from the clearing down below. “What’s going on up there?” it asked.

  Danny said, “That’s Creepy Colvig.”

  Dopey looked up at the sound of the voice, like a dog looking up to a whistle. And Beau hunched down and raised his shoulder, and caught the giant boy off guard. Dopey staggered backward. His left foot landed on the bridge, and his right went over the edge. Then he stumbled down the slope and crashed against a tree. The branches shivered. Leaves came drifting down.

  Beau hit him again. “You leave my brother alone!” he cried.

  Now Creepy was coming up the trail. Through the twigs and leaves, Danny could see his yellow hard hat bobbing along like a big, fat chicken, and knew that Creepy had been on his way to work. A minute later, and they would have missed him.

  “Here, you!” shouted Creepy Colvig. “Come down here and pick on someone who can fight back!”

  Beau grabbed Danny and hauled him along, and up they went on the twisting path. Pebbles and pennies spilled from Danny’s pockets. The sharp edges of his bottle caps prickled on his leg. He couldn’t run fast enough, and Beau had to drag him up the steep part.

  Dopey was howling behind them, while Creepy shouted, “
I see you there. I know who you are!”

  Danny heard a crackling in the trees, then a thud in the bushes. “Beau, he’s throwing rocks!” he cried.

  “Then come on, Danny.”

  They scrambled up the hill with their new shoes squeaking, their new jeans rubbing like sandpaper. The cries of Creepy Colvig seemed to chase them up the slope: “You’re the River boys. You’ll pay for this, you hear?”

  eighteen

  Danny took the long way home in the afternoon, and his mother was furious when she saw him come into the house.

  “Look at your new clothes!” she said. “Your pocket’s torn, your jeans are filthy. Tarnation, Danny, why do I bother with you? It would save both time and money if I dressed you in rags from the rag shop.”

  “It wasn’t my fault,” said Danny. “It was Dopey Colvig. Then Creepy threw a rock at us, and—”

  “He what?”

  So again Old Man River went round to “have a talk” with Creepy. Again, neither Danny nor Beau knew what was said, but suddenly the Rivers and the Colvigs were like the Hatfields and the McCoys, feuding away in Hog’s Hollow. A bag of trash—nibbled corncobs and coffee grounds and chicken bones—appeared one night in the Old Man’s pit. The next night it was all spread across the Colvigs’ lawn. Then Old Man River found the windshield of his pumper truck smeared with the yolks of many broken eggs.

  There were people who found it all very funny. “The hillbillies are feuding now,” they’d say, and laugh behind their hands.

  The Old Man didn’t worry. “I want you boys to keep going to school the way you always have,” he said. “If there’s any trouble, you just tell me. Not that I think there will be. Colvig’s a bag of wind, and he’ll be moving on again pretty soon, I think. He’s worn out his welcome here, like he did at the last place, and the place before.”

  Danny knew all that. There was a sort of children’s telegraph that had spread the story of the Colvigs and how they kept moving every time Dopey got in trouble. For Danny, the next move couldn’t come fast enough. He stuck more closely than ever to Beau in the mornings, and took the long way home nearly every day. Beau stayed for football on Mondays and Thursdays and for Rocket Club on Tuesdays. On Wednesdays he had NASA Club, and that was his favorite. There were only three kids in the club, but Beau was the president because he had started it. “What do you do at NASA Club?” Danny had asked him once.