Page 112 - What They Did to the Kid

100 Jack Fritscher

“...on the life jackets.” Kenny kicked at the sand.
I sat down on the beach and took a mental picture.
“He’s been a screw-up all summer,” Rip said. He led Kenny back
up to the table and rolled up one of his cigarettes.
For a long time I watched the water lip-lap up on the sand. The
glare darting off the waves was bright as Rip’s squared-off opinions.
Sudden ly, way out from shore, Mike was sitting up in the boat the
way you do sometimes when you’ve been drifting for hours and have
forgotten about people and motors and then all of a sudden you smell
the exhaust of someone’s outboard.
I raced up the bank and beeped my car horn. Mike turned
toward the shore. He saw me honking and flashing the headlights of
my red Bug parked next to his car in the deep pine shade. He waved
and started rowing toward us. “Ryan!” Mike called. He handled the
old wooden boat perfectly, nosing it on to the narrow strip of sand.
“Ryan. Welcome.” He ran up the bank. We shook hands. “I didn’t
expect you till tomorrow.”
“Surprised?” I said. “I phoned your folks this morning and they
said come on today. I can’t stay the whole holiday anyway. My pastor
wants me back Sunday night for closing of Forty Hours Devotions.
He crapped when I left this morning. What a tan you have!”
“You know I was lifeguarding at the city beach.” He lit a ciga-
rette. “What you don’t know is my pastor said hanging around a
pool wasn’t a fit job for a seminarian.”
“It’s not,” I said.
“Saving people?” He blew smoke rings that floated up in the
still air.
“Never stretch a metaphor,” I said.
“Ry, Ry. You’ll never change.”
Mike brought me to Kenny and Rip. “Two old buddies,” he said.
“Like...I poured them into the car.”
“We all got peculiarities,” Mike said. “They think they’re
beatniks.”
“One of you Deacons got a church key?” Rip yelled.
Was he maybe slamming me with some inside joke?
“That’s a bottle opener, Ry,” Mike said.
“Oh.”

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