by Jen Bryant
of cheesecake and split it three ways.
We draw on napkins, discuss options:
flood the hole, burn the tree roots with
a torch, find a chemical that dissolves
rock but won’t harm the chest.
All of them seem possible at first, and then …
all of them, it’s clear, won’t work.
We decide to try again tomorrow night:
meeting site to be determined, cheesecake optional.
“My uncle’s invited us up to his cabin
in the Poconos—for three days.”
This is Carolann on the phone
the next morning. “I tried to get out of it, but Mom got
mad, so now I have to go. We leave after lunch.
You two won’t do anything about the … you know …
without me, right?”
I stretch the telephone cord across the kitchen
so I can flip our calendar to September
and the cold reality
of school.
“’Course not!” I hear myself answer. But there’s another,
louder voice in my head that says
we’ve been lucky so far. In a small town like this,
with the chest exposed in a hole that’s
not too far from a church—
how much longer can we leave it there before
someone else finds it?
I hang up with Carolann. I call Malcolm.
“Hey,” he whispers into the phone.
“I got some bad news—”
“Oh, swell,” I say, cutting Malcolm off.
“I was calling to tell you some …”
And suddenly I stop my stupid sentence
about Carolann’s family going to the Poconos and who knows
when or if we’ll get that wooden chest
free and out of that hole.
I stop saying anything about that because right then
I remember about Vietnam.
I remember about Dixon.
My heart pounding, I wait for Malcolm to say something—
anything—
back to me.
“My dad’s letting the Boy Scouts
use the A.M.E. Church for their troop meetings
for the rest of the year” is what I hear
Malcolm say on the other end.
My heartbeat goes back to normal.
“Oh!” I say, relieved it’s nothing serious. Nothing
that involves someone leaving
or someone dead.
“Yeah, but get this: Dad also said they could hold
their end-of-the-summer campout
in the woods behind the church.”
There goes my heart again—thump-thump-thump.
I wonder if you can have a heart attack
before you even start high school.
“When would that be, exactly?” I manage to whisper back.
Malcolm replies: “The weekend after Labor Day.”
On the calendar, I put my finger on Labor Day and slide it
over to the next weekend. We have less
than two weeks to get
that chest.
This afternoon, Malcolm shows up at the diner.
Mr. Archer is not around, so I let Malcolm in
the back, through the kitchen,
and we sit inside the stockroom
to read the letter he just received from Dixon.
Dear Malcolm,
Well, things sure have changed a lot since that first time I wrote. If this is hard to read, it’s because I’m writing it with my left hand on account of my right one being in a sling. It’s just sprained, though … from dragging one of our guys through the mud to his bunker after he got shot by a sniper (bullet caught him in the thigh, but Doc took it out, says he’ll be up and walking around again soon).
You could say I’ve been one of the lucky ones. Since we got sent out here to secure this hill (I figure we’re about a hundred miles northeast of Saigon), we’ve lost two of our guys to sniper fire and four more when they went out on night patrol and met up with an ambush. Then yesterday our gunny sergeant got hit in the gut. It looked pretty bad, too. I sat with him until the chopper came in and got him, took him back to the base. His name is Mike but we all call him Slim because he’s about six-foot-four, one hundred thirty pounds. Anyhow, Slim is one of our most experienced soldiers and one of our best shots, so I asked the captain who’d replace him. “Oh, Slim’ll be back in a few days…. They’ll slap some bandages on him, load him up with drugs, and fly him on back here.” So, little brother, since it looks like you have to be dead—or almost—to go home, and I plan on staying alive, I guess I’m going to be over here for a while.
The land and the weather in South Vietnam are weird. Nothing like South Jersey. It rains a lot and there’s always some fog around. The swamps are huge and the mosquitoes swarm over them in these big, noisy clouds. The jungle’s so thick, you wouldn’t think you could walk through it (but somehow we do).
When we’re not digging our bunkers, standing a watch, or slinking through the brush on patrol, we try to keep each other laughing as much as possible. We tell jokes, trade food from packages back home—tell Mom to send more peanut butter!—and talk about our families. And here, you find out real quick it doesn’t matter where you’re from, how old you are, how much money you’ve got, or what color your skin is (besides me, there’s three other blacks in our platoon and one Navajo Indian). Over here, if you don’t watch out for the guy next to you, just like he was your own brother, then he’s not gonna watch out for you. And since we all know how that ends up, we all treat each other right.
I gotta go now … my arm’s tired and I’m gonna try and get some shut-eye before my watch. Hug Mom and Dad for me … and stay out of trouble. And by the way, how are those Phillies doing? I miss watching the games with you. … I miss reading the box scores and tossing the baseball around in the backyard. I miss Fudgsicles and fishing in the Mullica. I miss you all so much. Be good, little brother.
Love,
Dixon
We read the letter together twice.
Then we each read it to ourselves while
the other one waits.
After that, Malcolm says: “You know, I can still
hear his voice
but I’m starting to be afraid I will
forget his face.”
“You won’t,” I tell him.
“How do you know?” he asks. I think of
the two of them—laughing on their porch, tossing
a ball in the yard, fishing side by side
on the bank of the river.
I think of my mom, who’s been gone much longer
than Dixon, and how I can still picture her
so clearly.
“I just do,” I say.
He’s quiet for a minute.
“I think I need to take a walk,” he says.
I let him out the back, watch him pass
through the alley and turn onto the street,
a leaner, lankier copy
of his brother.
My mathematical dad is at the end of his
summer semester,
which means he’s home tonight
correcting tests and typing up final exams
to give to his students. But every once in a while,
I’ll catch him watching me
out of the corner of his eye,
making sure I’m doing my chores or reading
something that’s on the Summer-Reading List
for freshmen entering Willowbank High.
I would be much more cool with school
if most of it were like this: choosing books
from four different categories (Historical Novels, Biography,
Adventure, Mystery), reading them through,
looking up new vocabulary words,
and writing up short reviews.
Of course for my adventur
e book,
I chose Treasure Island, written by Robert Louis Stevenson
and illustrated by N. C. Wyeth.
Aside from the fact that the story is relevant
(one of my vocabulary words—it means “related; having
a logical connection”) to my life right now
and is one of the best things I’ve ever read,
I end up spending half the time
staring at the amazing illustrations of Long John Silver,
Billy Bones, and Ben Gunn, trying to imagine
what it must have been like
to be a pirate—a man
(or a woman, I guess, according to Carolann)
who sailed to Africa, India, and the Caribbean,
risking his life for silver, gold, and precious jewels,
living only by his own pirate rules.
“Nice to see you enjoying your summer reading,” Dad says.
I twitch in surprise at his interruption.
I don’t want to seem too interested
or Dad might get suspicious.
“Yeah,” I say, as casually as possible.
“Who knew the classics were so fascinating?!”
I close the book, yawn, toss it onto the coffee table.
“A little far-fetched, though, ya know. All those
pirates and treasure and stuff….”
But I don’t need to bluff.
Dad has gone back to correcting tests
and he doesn’t even hear me.
I have nightmares
of Long John Silver,
the blind pirate Pew,
and a few of the others
from the Treasure Island
crew, stumbling through
the dark across the
churchyard and
back through the trees,
finding our
hand-dug hole,
our mermaid
engraved in iron
at the bottom, then
stealing our treasure
and running off
down the path
beside the river.
In my dream,
we never find them.
All day at work I keep having
a waking version of my nightmare:
someone finding the chest before we have a chance
to raise it up, see what’s inside.
I phone Malcolm at noon to tell him I’m worried,
but no one’s there.
Later, when I get home from the diner, there’s a note
from Dad: Giving exams tonight. Be home late.
Call my office if you need anything.
I leap onto my bike, pedal over to the church, and just keep
circling, circling, circling—
like a vulture over a rabbit carcass—
around and around the parking lot
so I can keep watch, at least from a distance,
on our digging spot.
It’s getting dark earlier now
and there’s a coolness to the breeze
that makes me think of marching bands and football.
I stop my bike for a minute under one of the big oak trees.
I look up at the steeple of the A.M.E. Church
and as I’m saying a little silent prayer
for Dixon, stuck in the jungles of Vietnam
(please, God, don’t let him get shot),
and for our chest (please, please, don’t let
anyone get to it before we do),
and for my mom (please watch over her,
wherever she is),
a stream of green-shirted Boy Scouts pours out of the front doors
and down the steps,
fanning out in twos and threes to the bicycle rack
or to the sidewalk leading back
to Main Street.
Johnny Fetterline is there.
I had a serious crush on him last year,
until I heard he’d been dating Darleen Hummel,
who has the largest chest of any girl in our class
and the IQ of a Tootsie Roll.
(So much for Johnny F.)
None of them sees me tucked back here
behind the big oak in the far corner
of the lot. A red Chevy with a blond-haired driver
who looks kind of familiar
cruises slowly by. It hesitates, then guns away.
I wait there until even the Scout leader
leaves in his dusty tan Rambler
and the whole place is still and quiet, empty.
I consider going back to our hole,
to be sure everything’s just how we left it.
But then I decide against it: too risky
with no one standing watch.
I circle the parking lot one last time
before heading home.
“You getting religious all of a sudden?”
That is Denise’s question
the next morning while I’m prying
the third burned English muffin
out of the toaster. I have no idea what English
muffins have to do with religion.
I hold the fork with the black disk on it
up to Denise’s face
so she can see how really bad we need
to talk to Dad about home improvements.
“You’d think with the three of us working all the time,
we could afford a new toaster,” I say,
still ignoring her question.
“Suzi saw you hangin’ out at the A.M.E. Church
last night,” she says. “And I know why.”
OK. Now Denise has my complete attention.
I force my own face to read
blank. I turn quick
back to the toaster and pretend to be fishing out
more pieces of muffin.
My palms get sweaty. I wonder
if I will electrocute myself right here in the kitchen.
I unplug the machine and turn it upside
down so a thousand toasted bread crumbs spill onto the counter.
My mind goes into overdrive.
That was Suzi in the red Chevy.
But she couldn’t know about the treasure, could she?
Think, Lyza, think.
I didn’t go back to the woods last night….
But could Suzi—or Denise—have seen us back there
some other time when we thought we were alone?
“Oh, really?” I ask her over my shoulder
easy and casual, like I don’t even care.
“Why is that?”
Denise saunters over to me, hands on her hips,
clearly enjoying whatever it is she’s
found out about me, which is something
I can’t prevent now. I suck in my breath.
She pokes my left shoulder with her index finger.
“Admit it, Lyza … you still have a crush
on Johnny Fetterline,” she announces triumphantly.
I take a few seconds
to let that misinformation sink in.
I look down at my feet so she
can’t see my relief.
It’s scary to think that at one time
Denise had plans to go to medical school.
As soon as Carolann gets
back from her uncle’s cabin in the Poconos,
she calls me: “I’ve got to watch the twins
all afternoon,
but we can meet tonight in our van….”
My dad is home again this evening, correcting exams
and paying down the mountain of bills
that have been piling up on his desk all summer.
I decide it’s better
to ask his permission to go across the street
than to sneak. “Hey, Dad …,” I say, peering over
his shoulder at the bills for ladies’ clothes and shoes,
others for framing supplies, and a few bold-print
I change my question. “Whose are those?” I ask.
Denise and I don’t buy clothes
and shoes at those stores. …
Dad puts down his pen. He takes off his reading glasses.
He runs his hand several times
through his hair. “They’re left over
from your mother, Lyza. You remember how we never
could agree about money?” I nod. (Yep, I sure do remember that.)
“Well, your mom was spending a lot more money
than we were making before she left—
and now that she’s gone, I’m trying to get rid of
all this debt.” He spreads his hands out wide
over the desk, covered in envelopes and bills and a few
random math tests.
“Oh,” I say, trying to let my brain take this in.
I look down at the dozen or so torn-open
envelopes, the collection notices spread across the desk,
which now seem like maps
to our family’s self-destruction.
I knew my parents fought a lot about money. But I didn’t know
we were still in debt because of it.
I guess that explains Dad’s teaching extra classes, our broken-down
house and kitchen gadgets.
I rest my hand on Dad’s shoulder. He reaches up
with his hand and puts it on top of mine.
“I’m sorry, Lyza.”
“For what?” I ask.
“For not being around very much these last couple of years.”
He means it, I can tell. And suddenly his saying it
means a lot to me, too.
“That’s OK,” I say, trying to keep things light. “We don’t
miss you that much. …” I laugh and he does, too,
and I realize his laughter is something
I have missed.
The hall clock chimes seven.
“Dad—can I go over to Carolann’s? Just till nine.”
He shifts in his chair so he can see through the front
window, across the street to where
Mr. Mott is working in the yard (Dad must still be
a little worried about me).
