Farewell Summer

Up in the attic, Doug and Tom set up headquarters. A turned–over box became the general’s desk; his aide–de–camp stood by, awaiting orders.

‘Get out your pad, Tom.’

‘It’s out.’

‘Ticonderoga pencil?’

‘Ready.’

‘I got a list, Tom, for the Great Army of the Republic. Write this down. There’s Will and Sam and Charlie and Bo and Pete and Henry and Ralph. Oh, and you, Tom.’

‘How do we use the list, Doug?’

‘We gotta find things for them to do. Time’s running out. Right now we’ve gotta figure how many captains, how many lieutenants. One general. That’s me.’

‘Make it good, Doug. Keep ’em busy.’

‘First three names, captains. The next three, lieutenants. Everybody else, spies.’

‘Spies, Doug?’

‘I think that’s the greatest thing. Guys like to creep around, watch things, and then come back and tell.’

‘Heck, I want to be one of those.’

‘Hold on. We’ll make them all captains and lieutenants, make everyone happy, or we’ll lose the war before it gets started. Some will do double-duty as spies.’

‘Okay, Doug, here’s the list.’

Doug scanned it. ‘Now we gotta figure the first sock-dolager thing to do.’

‘Get the spies to tell you.’

‘Okay, Tom. But you’re the most important spy. After the ravine meeting tonight …’ Tom frowned, shook his head. ‘What?’

‘Heck, Doug, the ravine’s nice but I know a better place. The graveyard. The sun’ll be gone. It’ll remind ’em if they’re not careful, that’s where we’ll all wind up.’

‘Good thinking, Tom.’

‘Well, I’m gonna go spy and round up the guys. First the bridge, then the graveyard, yup?’

‘Tom, you’re really somethin’.’

‘Always was,’ said Tom. ‘Always was.’

He jammed his pencil in his shirt pocket, stashed his nickel tablet in the waistband of his dungarees, and saluted his commander.

‘Dismissed!’

And Tom ran.

CHAPTER TEN (#ub400fd8f-08b5-5bf1-a6d3-28eb256f00b1)

The green acreage of the old cemetery was filled with stones and names on stones. Not only the names of the people earthed over with sod and flowers, but the names of seasons. Spring rain had written soft, unseen messages here. Summer sun had bleached granite. Autumn wind had softened the lettering. And snow had laid its cold hand on winter marble. But now what the seasons had to say was only a cool whisper in the trembling shade, the message of names: ‘TYSON! BOWMAN! STEVENS!’

Douglas leap–frogged TYSON, danced on BOWMAN, and circled STEVENS.

The graveyard was cool with old deaths, old stones grown in far Italian mountains to be shipped here to this green tunnel, under skies too bright in summer, too sad in winter.

Douglas stared. The entire territory swarmed with ancient terrors and dooms. The Great Army stood around him and he looked to see if the invisible webbed wings in the rushing air ran lost in the high elms and maples. And did they feel all that? Did they hear the autumn chestnuts raining in cat–soft thumpings on the mellow earth? But now all was the fixed blue lost twilight which sparked each stone with light specules where fresh yellow butterflies had once rested to dry their wings and now were gone.

Douglas led his suddenly disquieted mob into a further land of stillness and made them tie a bandanna over his eyes; his mouth, isolated, smiled all to itself.

Groping, he laid hands on a tombstone and played it like a harp, whispering.

‘Jonathan Silks. 1920. Gunshot.’ Another: ‘Will Colby. 1921. Flu.’

He turned blindly to touch deep–cut green moss names and rainy years, and old games played on lost Memorial Days while his aunts watered the grass with tears, their voices like windswept trees.

He named a thousand names, fixed ten thousand flowers, flashed ten million spades. ‘Pneumonia, gout, dyspepsia, TB. All of ’em taught,’ said Doug. ‘Taught to learn how to die. Pretty dumb lying here, doing nothing, yup?’

‘Hey Doug,’ Charlie said, uneasily. ‘We met here to plan our army, not talk about dying. There’s a billion years between now and Christmas. With all that time to fill, I got no time to die. I woke this morning and said to myself, “Charlie, this is swell, living. Keep doing it!”’

‘Charlie, that’s how they want you to talk!’

‘Am I wrinkly, Doug, and dog–pee yellow? Am I fourteen, Doug, or fifteen or twenty? Am I?’

‘Charlie, you’ll spoil everything!’

‘I’m just not worried.’ Charlie beamed. ‘I figure everyone dies, but when it’s my turn, I’ll just say no thanks. Bo, you goin’ to die someday? Pete?’

‘Not me!’

‘Me either!’

‘See?’ Charlie turned to Doug. ‘Nobody’s dyin’ like flies. Right now we’ll just lie like hound–dogs in the shade. Cool off, Doug.’

Douglas’s hands fisted in his pockets, clutching dust, marbles, and a piece of white chalk. At any moment Charlie would run, the gang with him, yapping like dogs, to flop in deep grape–arbor twilight, not even swatting flies, eyes shut.

Douglas swiftly chalked their names, CHARLIE, TOM, PETE, BO, WILL, SAM, HENRY, AND RALPH, on the gravestones, then jumped back to let them spy themselves, so much chalk–dust on marble, flaking, as time blew by in the trees.

The boys stared for a long, long time, silent, their eyes moving over the strange shapes of chalk on the cold stone. Then, at last, there was the faintest exhalation of a whisper.

‘Ain’t going to die!’ cried Will. ‘I’ll fight!’

‘Skeletons don’t fight,’ said Douglas.

‘No, sir!’ Will lunged at the stone, erasing the chalk, tears springing to his eyes.