Flyers (9781481414449) (14 page)

“I think they will,” Ethan said. “I'd bet anything they will.” He was looking at me to see what my reaction would be. “And when I get older,” he continued, “I'm gonna do it too. I'm gonna sign up for the same course Mr. and Mrs. Michaelson took, and I'm gonna keep practicing every day till I fly.” He had his jaw set and he was studying me, probably to see if I'd smile or anything. It reminded me of the way Jeremy had watched me when he gave me his Nazi paper to read, and I felt a little bad.

“Learning to fly would be pretty cool,” I said after a while. “Maybe I'll sign up for that course with you.”

Ethan didn't say anything more. But he put his hand on my shoulder as we looked down over the beaver dam.

•   •   •

It was almost dark by the time we came into view of Mr. Lindstrom's place. We were moving right along, trying to make it home while we could still see the road, when Ethan all of a sudden stopped in front of me. I almost rear-ended him. I looked up and saw him staring out across the field. It took me a few seconds to figure out what he was staring at. I mean it wasn't hard to see that he was looking at Mr. Lindstrom's house, but what for? Then it dawned on me. It was such a common everyday sight I didn't even notice it at first, but when I did, I felt a little chill go up my spine. Upstairs, in one of the rooms that faced the road, a light was on.

I didn't make
it back to check on Mr. Lindstrom's house until late Friday night. Ethan and I didn't have a key with us the night we first saw the light, so we'd continued on home. And then after I'd had time to think about it, that light being on didn't seem so strange. We'd never gone upstairs on the day we cleaned the place. And even though I'd been up and down the road a bunch of times since then, it had always been daylight and I wouldn't have noticed it anyway. I figured Mr. Lindstrom had probably left the light on himself, before the stroke. Not only that, but I started thinking that having a light on might actually be a good thing, giving the impression that someone was staying there and cutting down on the chances of a break-in.

Even with the exams coming up the following week, I had a pretty strong feeling that for me the summer had started. I love summer. Except for a couple of too hot days each year, I love everything about it: the sunshine, the thunderstorms, the long evenings, you name it. But the best thing, as far as I'm concerned, is waking up in the morning and getting to decide what you
want
to do that day, not simply marching through the day doing all the things you have to do. I knew this might be my last real “kid” summer because, next time around, I'd be sixteen and I'd have to try to land at least some kind of regular job—something more steady than just helping out on the Wulfsons' farm when they
needed me or fiddling around at Rosa's with Sudie and Rosasharn. I've never minded working, but I wasn't crazy about the idea of tying up big chunks of time. Even without a regular job, I can never find enough time to do all the things I want to do.

On Thursday Bo and I took The Tank to Rensselaer and caught the train to New York. At least two or three times a year we'd make a point to go to the Museum of Television and Radio on Fifty-second Street, where we'd get to watch old TV shows we couldn't see anyplace else. After hanging out there for a while we wandered around checking out different stores and then taking in a movie we'd read about that wasn't showing upstate.

That evening we watched the sun go down over the city from the top of the World Trade Center, and it was after midnight before we got home. A few times during the day I caught myself thinking about how nice it would be to be in New York with Katie. Not that I wasn't having a good time with Bo, but being there with Katie would have been like something out of a dream.
Someday,
I thought, and couldn't help but smile. I smiled too when I thought about having all of July and August stretched out in front of me like a blank canvas just waiting for all kinds of good things to be put down on it.

Bo had the next day off too, and we decided to go to the old Rexleigh covered bridge outside Salem. I think a combination of things put that idea into my head. First, it had been a long winter and I was eager to revisit all my old favorite swimming spots. I may have thought of this particular one first because of Ethan putting beavers on my brain, and that was the place where the summer before a kid had actually been
attacked by a beaver while swimming and his mother had to beat the thing off his back. Also, I was starting to think it might be a good place to bring Katie. Maybe that seems strange—thinking about bringing a girl you practically worship and haven't even asked out yet to swim at the site of an unprovoked beaver attack, but when I got to thinking about the other kinds of swimming spots where I could bring her, the options seemed limited. There was a quarry outside of town, but that was the kind of place where kids went to drink and fight—not to mention that it was illegal to be there, and Katie didn't seem like the type who would appreciate being arrested on a first or second date. The cliffs in Schaghticoke were spectacular for daredevil diving, but they weren't as good for just hanging around and swimming and talking. The covered bridge just seemed right—it was a wholesome family kind of place, like something you'd see in a Grandma Moses painting, which wasn't surprising since Grandma Moses hadn't lived that far from there. I figured Katie would love it.

The covered bridge had a few boards missing—deliberately missing, most likely, so you could dive off the side. I've always found the quick plunge to be the best way to get wet, so I headed up to the bridge. Bo was right there with me. As far as I could tell, no one else was around.

“You think that beaver thing hurt the crowds here?” As I said this, I was leaning out through the gap in the boards, checking for any signs of beavers guarding the place.

“Maybe,” Bo said. “I read that when
Jaws
first came out in theaters, a lot of people were afraid to go into the ocean.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I still think about that whenever
I'm on Martha's Vineyard.” I looked around some more. “You know, we could do that whole
Jaws
thing here, but do it with a beaver instead of a shark. As kind of a spoof.”

Bo laughed. “Remember
Piranha?”

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “Wasn't it
Piranha
where that fish came sailing out of the water and clamped itself onto that guy's face? You really can't go too wrong with flying attack fish.” I took off my sneakers and tossed them out over the water and onto the shore where we'd stashed the rest of our stuff. Then I looked back inside the bridge at Bo. “For my money though, the Big Daddy of all goofy horror films is still
Killdozer.
That film
rules.
” Bo and I had always had this thing for bad films—we loved them almost as much as the great ones. When we were younger and staying over at each other's houses, we'd always go through the TV listings trying to see who could find the best worst late-night film. We both claimed credit for
Killdozer

Bo pulled off his sneakers and nodded. “Another sure thing—a bulldozer with an attitude.”

“And
Fess Parker,” I added.

“Wrong,”
Bo said. “Fess Parker was the guy who played Davy Crockett. Clint Walker was the guy in
Killdozer.”

I was about to argue the point but decided not to. Bo was almost always right when it came to that kind of thing. “Have it your way,” I said as if I was doing him some big favor. Then, stepping out through the gap in the side of the bridge, I did one last beaver check. “Well, here goes nothing.”

Two seconds later I realized it may not have been beavers that were keeping the crowds away. That water was
cold.
I'd forgotten just how cold the
Battenkill could be. All that water was runoff from the mountains of Vermont, and it went a long way toward explaining how they could have such a long ski season there.

Bo hit the water right after I did, and his reaction was the same as mine. We both hightailed it for land.

“This was your idea, I think,” Bo said after we climbed out of the water.

“It seemed good in theory,” I said, grabbing my towel and handing Bo his.

We dried off as fast as we could and put our shirts and sneakers back on and then lay out in the sun for a while trying to soak up some heat. Then we grabbed Bo's camera bag out of The Tank, figuring as long as we were there we should get some file footage of the bridge and the Battenkill and the surrounding area. We already had some footage from the previous fall, but in early June the place had a whole different look. Plus, it might not be that deserted again for the rest of the season. Over the years we'd stockpiled tons of footage from different places and never passed up a chance to get more. We never knew when we'd need some of it for establishing shots. These are the shots you use to show where your scene is supposedly taking place-like in
The Beverly Hillbillies
when they'll show you the front of the huge mansion and then cut to a scene in the kitchen. The thing
is,
the kitchen isn't even
in
the mansion, but everyone watching believes it is. A good filmmaker is a little like a magician; he knows that what you see is what you
think
you see, and not necessarily what's actually there. Pop always tells me it works pretty much the same way in real life.

•   •   •

On our way back from Rexleigh, Bo and I swung
by the hospital to see Mr. Lindstrom. I'd been over a number of times that week, but he was always sleeping. Pop told me they were keeping him pretty well drugged up, and I wondered if it might not be for their benefit as well as his.

It took us a few minutes to find the right room. First he'd been in intensive care, and then he'd gone into some kind of an open ward where if you wanted any privacy your only option was to pull a curtain around your bed. Knowing how Mr. Lindstrom felt about people in general, not to mention the fact that he couldn't sit up to pull the curtains if he wanted to, Pop had arranged for him to have a private room as soon as one opened up. I didn't know if Mr. Lindstrom had any insurance or if he could afford a private room, but I knew none of that would make any difference to Pop. He'd take care of it.

Mr. Lindstrom looked so pale and fragile lying there that, for a second, I thought we'd landed in the wrong room. I couldn't get used to seeing him when he wasn't in his overalls and an old cap. We walked over closer to the bed. I was pretty sure he recognized us. His eyes seemed to come to life somehow and he tried frantically to sit up. He got so agitated that at first I was afraid he'd have another stroke. I hurried over and sat in a chair near the head of the bed and put my hand on his shoulder.

“Don't try to get up,” I said. “Bo and I just came by to see how you're doing.” He relaxed somewhat back onto his pillow, but his eyes still had an urgent look to them. His hair was thinner than I remembered it being, and his face was somehow different. He was moving his mouth, and it took me a minute to realize the difference was that half his face was paralyzed; it just sat
there like a mask. If anything, this had the effect of making the other half of his face seem even more animated.

“Ayn-yee,” he said, struggling to get whatever it was he was trying to say out. “Ayn-yee.”

I studied him as he tried to form words. At first I thought I'd been mistaken, that maybe he didn't know who I was and he was just spouting gibberish. But there was something about the intensity of how he was trying to speak that made me think again. When he drew a blank with me, his eyes traveled over to Bo.

“Ayn-yee,” he kept saying, really pouring himself into the effort. “Ayn-yee.” His eyes swung back to me and he reached for my hand and squeezed it. He didn't seem to have much strength even with his good hand.

I glanced over at Bo and could tell by the look on his face that he didn't have a clue either.

“I've got an idea,” Bo said. He got off his chair and came up near me at the head of the bed. “Do you think you can write it?” he said to Mr. Lindstrom.

At this, Mr. Lindstrom squeezed harder on my hand. “Umm,” he said, nodding as much as he was able to. “Ummmm.”

Bo had already reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out the notepad he always carried to jot down ideas for filming or notes about things we'd discussed. A million times I'd told myself I should do the same thing, but the idea hadn't caught hold with me yet. It struck me as funny.
I
was the writer, and
Bo
carried the notepad around.

Bo crouched down by the bed. The first couple of times he placed his pen in Mr. Lindstrom's hand, it dropped onto the mattress, but on the third try he got a good grip on it. Then Bo held the notepad down in
front of his hand. The whole thing felt like it took forever and seemed to call for everything Mr. Lindstrom had. His breathing became harder, and beads of sweat were standing out on his forehead. I leaned over the mattress, but from that angle I couldn't make out what he'd written.

Finally, Mr. Lindstrom dropped the pen and slumped back on his pillow. Bo turned the notepad around in front of us and both our heads leaned in to study it, almost doing one of those Three Stooges deals where their heads clunk together. It wasn't the most legible writing in the world, but there was no mistaking what it said.

“Andy,” I said out loud, and when I did Mr. Lindstrom got excited again and found my hand and gave it another squeeze. “Ayn-yee,” he managed to say one more time.

Bo and I looked at each other. And I could tell right away that the name on the pad didn't ring a bell with him any more than it did with me.

•   •   •