The Adventures of Flash Jackson (12 page)

“What do you mean?”

“You're a fighter, Haley,” said Mother. She was looking at me now. “You'd survive. You know something? You're a lot stronger than I am.”

For a moment I couldn't speak. Mother had never paid me an outright compliment before, not that I could remember. I hardly knew how to react.

“Well,” I said. “Thank you.”

“Don't be upset at her, Haley,” said my mother. “In the end, I survived.”

“It
does
make me upset,” I said. I was starting to feel hot in the cheeks and moist around the eyes, but I held it back. “Did they come?”

“Did who come?”

“The spirits of the forest,” I said.

Mother finished spooning the batter into the pan and began to smooth off the top with the spatula.

“That's a whole other story,” she said. “And it's not the right time to tell it yet. It wouldn't make sense, really. You'd have to have some experiences of your own before we could talk about that.”

“What kind of experiences?” I asked. “Forest experiences?”

“Nothing I care to push you into,” she told me.

“You mean you don't want to tie me up in the forest for two days? Well, I appreciate that.”

“It's not funny,” she said. “Don't make a joke out of it.”

“I wasn't. I just meant—well, what kind of experiences?”

“The kind you have when you're on your own in the woods for a long time,” she said. “It's hard, Haley. You get cold and scared, and you really do start dying. You can only go without water for so long. Not very long at all, really. And you start seeing things.”

“You mean hallucinating?” I asked. “This is starting to sound like Indian stuff.”

“What do you think the Indians knew that we didn't know?” she asked me. “Do you think you have to be an Indian to know about the way nature works?”

“I don't know. Seems like they know an awful lot about it, though.”

“Not just because they're Indians. Because of the way they lived.”

“Well, how did they live?”

“Close to nature,” she said. “Close to everything. Not like us. We live far apart.”

I knew what that meant—far apart from the real world, safe in our houses with our appliances and our televisions and our central heating. This wasn't the first time Mother had brought
that
up. She'd lived on both sides of the fence, as it were, and she was more aware of
the differences between the two worlds than most people. Living in the modern world made you soft—you relied on things outside of you to help you survive rather than things inside you. That meant you didn't know yourself as well. But living in the old-fashioned way was a lot harder, and a lot…well,
dirtier
, I guess. It isn't easy to stay clean when you don't have running water, plus you're bone-tired all the time from the sheer amount of work involved in keeping yourself going. That much I knew. If Mother had been that sold on living in the woods, then believe me the woods is where we would have lived. So obviously the modern world wasn't all that bad in her eyes. But she would never be completely at home in it, either. She'd always be like a tourist on an extended visa rather than a citizen.

“I don't want to do it,” I said. “If that's what it's like, I'm sorry I ever started.”

“That's okay with me, Haley,” said Mother. “I realized yesterday it's your decision, not mine. That's my gift to you. I won't push you into it. Not like she did to me.”

I was quiet for a while, just thinking.

“Mom?”

“Yes.”

“Are you ever mad at Grandma for pushing you into it?” I asked.

Mother finished smoothing out the batter and put the pan in the oven. Then she took off her apron, hung it up, and washed her hands in the sink.

“What good would that do?” she asked me over the sound of the running water.

I could see steam rising up around her shoulders, and I wondered just how hot that water was. But she kept her hands in it, even though it would have burned the skin right off a normal person. My mother could lift cake pans out of a hot oven without mitts on—I'd seen her do it. Her skin was part asbestos, seemed like. Or maybe she'd just trained herself not to feel it anymore.

“What good in the world would that do at all?” she asked.

 

It was getting on towards the Fourth of July by then. Really it was still only June, but out here in the Greater Mannville Metropolitan Area, we take our holidays very seriously, and the Fourth most seriously of all. Us Mannvillians are a very patriotic bunch. On most holidays, like Christmas and Thanksgiving, you have your cousins and uncles and aunts and whatnot coming in from all over the place to sit down to a big dinner—a real family affair. But around here the Fourth was the time when one family in particular had a huge picnic, and everyone else could just drop in whenever they liked, as long as they chipped in with whatever they had to make it a party.

Some years ago, the Shumachers had started throwing a bash that anyone and his dog could come to—didn't even matter if they were American, even though it's supposed to be the day we celebrate our independence from that nasty old King George we learned about in school. It was kind of funny that the Schumachers would be the ones to do it, considering that both the Mr. and Mrs. were from somewhere else, or at least
talked
like they were—but then, some folks that had been here for generations
still
had accents, so there you go. Anyway, Mr. Shumacher usually slaughtered a cow and a pig, and they barbecued it up over a pit big enough to park a truck in and let people eat until they busted. All you had to do was bring the potato salad, or the Jell-O mold with marshmallows floating in it, or whatever you made best. Last year there were almost a hundred people at their party, and this year there would probably be more than that—folks were gearing up in advance, planning what they were going to bring and maybe cooking it and freezing it up so that on the actual day of the party they wouldn't have to waste valuable time.

As far as holidays went, Christmas was the one where you could tell what kind of year it had been by how many presents were under people's trees—lots of presents in a good year, and just one or two in a bad. But the Fourth was a holiday you could rely on, when everyone
went all out no matter what kind of financial condition they were in, and when everyone was in a good mood, even if things weren't going all that well.

The Schumachers threw the best parties in the history of the world. If they'd been in charge of the Last Supper, there would have been a lot more than thirteen guests, let me tell you—and the course of history would be completely different. Jesus would have turned the water into Schlitz, and Judas would have passed out, drunk and stuffed full of barbecued ribs, by about nine-thirty. Most likely the Romans would have been invited too—and they would have come, since nobody turns down a chance to go to a Shumacher party. It was the kind of event I could see being carried on a thousand years from now. It could become the sort of tradition that everyone keeps up without even remembering why, like that crazy running of the bulls in Spain that you read about in
National Geographic
.

It was also the kind of deal where young folks, who were usually busy working on their parent's farms or at their town jobs, could get together and cut up a little, and check each other out—and maybe sneak off into the barn for a while, if you get my drift. It was a big old barn, and it could hold many a couple without them having to give up too much in the way of privacy. I knew that for a fact: Last year, during a moment of weakness, myself and Adam Shumacher sort of got lost among the hay bales for a brief time, even though I have never considered myself to have much interest in members of the opposite sex—the whole business just seems too messy, if you want to know the truth. I am not opposed to men in general, lest you get the wrong idea, but I had heard enough football players sniggering to each other in school about their various so-called “conquests,” which if you ask me were mostly made up anyway, to allow myself to fall victim to their raging hormones. The most dangerous thing in the world is a randy male. Adam himself wasn't a bad sort—he was nicer than most, always polite not only to me but also to Mother, even after our little tryst. To
give him credit, I don't think he ever told anybody about it. But I chalk the whole thing up to temporary insanity on my part. I had been sneaking sips of beer all afternoon, and the alcohol had worn away my defenses until, to my eternal mortification, I fell for his stupid ploy of going to look at the old dates carved on the rafters of the barn.

But before this year's party, I had to go back into the hospital and get that big old stabilizing rack taken off my leg, the pins inside me having settled well enough by now so that they could stay put on their own. This meant another operation, which meant they had to knock me out again, which meant that I was laid up in bed once more, getting addle-headed and clogged up from all that medication. But things went a little smoother all in all, since this time around I knew what to expect. Even so, I spent the next couple of weeks just taking it easy. The doctor told me I'd done too much moving around, and that I should just lay low for a while and let nature take its course. So I didn't see anything of either Frankie or Miz Elizabeth Powell until the Shumacher's party.

The Shumachers were the kind of typical farming family that used to be more common than it is now, by which I mean I don't think even the Shumachers themselves knew for sure how many kids they had. Most of them had grown up and started families of their own by now. Amos Junior was the oldest. He married and bought a small farm about ten miles away, where he'd begun reproducing himself as fast as possible, in true Shumacher tradition. He had a number of younger brothers and sisters, most of who were married, and one—Marky, I think—was in agricultural school somewhere. There were twin girls, one married and the other not, but I forget which was which. Adam was the youngest, and strictly speaking he wasn't a Shumacher—he was one of the temporaries, a foster kid from a troubled home. Some folks take in dogs, some take in cats—well, once upon a time the Shumachers used to take in every stray kid that came along, and keep them safe and warm until they'd plucked up the courage to head out into the world again. That farm used to look like Kidville, U.S.A., population ten thousand. They didn't do it anymore, I guess because it
wore them out. But Adam never left, so they must have adopted him somewhere along the line.

I remember when Adam first showed up—he was a year or two older than me, but I can still see him as a little kid. Back then he hardly talked at all, and when he did his voice was all ratchety and squeaky. I'd heard it was because his real father had done something to him to make him talk like that—something terrible. His voice had repaired itself now, but Adam was still the shy and quiet sort, which I guess was why I liked him. I never have cared much for your louder, more crude boys, which excuse me for saying so is what most boys are like anyway. Not Adam, though. He was a lot smaller when he was little—well, that sounds stupid, I mean
of course
he was smaller, but he'd been small even for a kid. But all these years of Shumacher cooking and farm work had turned him into a dead-on Shumacher look-alike, meaning he was tall and beefy and as strong as a mule. The only real difference between Adam and the rest of the whole clan was his hair, which was a kind of whitish blond; his eyes, which were deep blue; and his skin, which tanned like mine did. The others in the family were more on the pink side, with darker hair.

On July the second, I was just feeling like getting up and around again, hoping I might make it to this year's party and wondering if Adam would talk to me. Not that I
cared
, mind you—I just wondered, is all. That morning Frankie, who I hadn't seen in a couple of weeks, paid me a little visit. He was carrying something behind his back.

“Hi, Haley,” he said.

“What's up, Frankie?” I asked. “Close the door, would you?”

Frankie closed the door, which I asked him to do so Mother wouldn't overhear us.

“Does anyone know where you were?” I asked.

Frankie giggled. “Uh-uh,” he said. “It's still a secret.”

“Good for you,” I said. “What's that behind your back?”

Frankie showed me another margarine container.

“Another frog?” I said.

“Snake,” he said, opening it up.

“Jesus Baines Johnson!” I shouted, and before I knew what I was doing I whacked it out of his hand and sent it sailing across the room. I didn't mean to react like that—I just couldn't help it. The margarine container hit the wall with a big
thwap!
and the snake fell out of it and disappeared in an instant.

“Haley!” Frankie yelled. He got down on his hands and knees and began hunting around the floor. “Why did you do that?”

“Frankie Grunveldt, you know I hate snakes more than anything!” I said, breathing hard. My instinct in such situations is to draw my legs up under me, but I forgot that one of them was in a cast and wasn't ready for moving, and pain shot through me like a million volts of pure, unadulterated electricity. For a minute or two I could only lay there whimpering, it hurt so bad.

“He's gone,” said Frankie. “You probably killed him. Are you happy now?”

I still couldn't say anything.

“Jeez LOUISE!” he yelled. “How could you hit a little snake like that?”

“I'm sorry,” I whispered. “Can I have a pill, please?”

“A what?”

I pointed to the bottle of pills on the nightstand. I had hoped to sort of avoid them altogether, not wanting to end up a graduate of the Betty Ford Clinic, but I felt the occasion merited a little painkilling. Frankie handed them to me and I took one. It wouldn't kick in for a while, but just knowing it was working in me made me feel a little better.