When Tommy Hastings and
Freddie Merrill saw the first glimmer of sunlight on water, they bolted off the
road, stumbled through another ditch, and made through the brambles and over
rough ground until they came to a flat, cow-pie marked meadow. By the time they
reached the shore after laughing hysterically, dodging the cow-pies, they’d started
to peel off their clothes.
The shore was rocky – but by
then, they dove together and the cold water just under the surface brought them
both up laughing, screaming, and clean after days hiking on the road and
swimming in muddy ditches.
It also brought a small group
of men watching them from across the road. Neither of the boys noticed right
away until, after an excited dunk, Tommy said, “I think it’s them.”
Freddie lunged to dunk him
back, but Tommy dodged, slow-swiping Freddie’s feet out from under him, then
pulling him up by his armpit. Freddie sputtered and said, “Why’d you do that?
Who’s ‘them’?”
Tommy spun his friend toward
shore and said, “‘Them’ them.”
Freddie’s eyes bugged out as
he shouted, “We’re naked!”
“They’re all men, who cares?”
“I...” Tommy dunked him and
turned around. When Freddie came up sputtering again, he said, “We dive down as
far as we can go, hold our breaths and swim as far as we can to the left.” Freddie
started to gasp. Tommy said, “Good idea. We gotta be able to hold our breath a
long time.
“I ain’t doin’ it to hold my
breath! I’m gonna die naked!”
Tommy said, “We was born
naked. If we die that way, who’s gonna care? One, two, three!” He dragged
Freddie under with him and arrowed left, swimming like a frog for all he was
worth, very, very slowly bubbling the air out of his mouth. It wouldn’t help
them at all if they swam on the surface, but him and Freddie’d done frog racing
a million times before. [MENTION FROG RACING AT MINNETONKA – instead of or in
addition to Chicken Fighting – AT THE BEGINNING!] He swam until he thought his
lungs were going to burst, then he swam some more. Finally he felt like he
couldn’t move his arms any longer and let himself glide to the surface, feeling
for the rocky bottom. He couldn’t hold it any more. He lifted his head and
pulled in a deep breath of sweet, clean air.
Freddie surfaced right beside
him. Tommy tried to wipe the water from his eyes, but Freddie was the first to
say, “We’re in the middle of the lake!”
Tommy waved his hands
alongside his body – Earl had called it sculling, what they taught every Navy
man to do when they fell into the – and turned to shore. They were like, a
million miles from shore!
That’s why he almost had a
heart attack when a boy’s voice said from behind them, “The hell are you guys
doing out here? Near as night gave me a heart attack when you jumped outta the
water! Thought you were Mille Lacs Millie!”
“Who’s that?” Freddie asked.
“The local lake monster, of
course.” He scowled at them from under his baseball cap and said, “You’se guys
ain’t from around here, are you?”
“We’re from the Cities!”
Freddie cried. “And there’s these men up on the shore who wanna kill us!”
His scowl got even deeper as
he looked up at the shoreline. “I don’t see nobody.” He looked down at them and
said, “You ain’t wearing swim suits, are you?”
“How can you tell that?”
Tommy cried.
“I can see your white butt
cheeks through the water. I’s gonna have ya come up in my boat and I can take
ya ‘cross the lake to my place, but I don’t think I can. Mom’d ask about me
bringin’ a couple of naked boys to the house.” He turned from them, sat down
and pulled up a pair of oars, dropping them into the oarlocks, and raising them
in the air.
Freddie yelled, “You’re just
going to leave us in the middle of the lake?”
“Well, I can’t take you to my
house naked, now, can I?”
Tommy thought frantically,
then called, “I’ll pay you!”
Freddie slugged him, “We don’t
got no money!”
The boy in the boat looked
down at them, then back in his boat and held up a light blue denim shirt that
was obviously too big for him and said, “Hey! I forgot I had my brother’s shirt
in here!” He looked down at them, adding, “He died during the Guadalcanal
Campaign.”
Tommy said, “My sister’s
boyfriend just came back.” Freddie tried to slug him but sank over his head.
The boy was reaching down to Tommy, and said, “My
brother and your sister’s boyfriend were family. I guess I can save your life.
You can wear his shirt so Ma don’t have to see nothing. My brother, Lars was
long in the waist. His shirt’ll hang down to your toes, pro’ly.”
“What about me?” Freddie
cried.
The boy shrugged, reached
down and pulled up a flannel shirt. “You can have this one.”
The boy helped Tommy and
Freddie into the boat and they pulled on the shirts. The boy started rowing,
though not back to where they’d come in. Finally Tommy said, “Why do you keep
his shirt in here?”
The boy rowed in silence for
a while, then said, “I dunno. I guess ‘cause Lars taught me to fish and when I’m
out here with the shirts, I feel like he’s sorta-like still alive.” He kept
rowing for a while, then added, “I know that sounds weird.”
Neither of the other boys
said a word as the other boy rowed in silence. Freddie finally said, “You got a
name, buddy?”
“Wangenstein; Nilson.”
They rode in silence for a
while longer, then Tommy said, “Thanks for saving our lives.”
Nilson shrugged then said, “Your
sister’s boyfriend probably saved someone’s life. Could have been my brother,
maybe.” He shrugged again. Tommy and Freddie looked at each other, nodded, and
kept quiet for the rest of the ride to shore as the sun slid down to sunset.
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