“Quit playing around, creep,” Pete said, and hung up.
Buck put down the phone. “He hung up on me.”
“Call again.”
Buck shook his head.
“You can’t back out of life, Buck. This happens. People don’t understand. Call back.” He repeated the number and Buck slowly punched it in again, fury in his chest.
This time the phone rang twice, and again Pete’s voice resounded at the other end:
“Ed’s Gulf Station.”
“What’s the…” The finger. “P…p…p…p…”
“Will you stay off the line, you moron? What do you want? Super gas for your bike? Quit calling! I mean it!”
Again he hung up, and again Buck dropped the phone.
“Call again,” said Jacob.
Buck sprang to his feet. “No! It’s n…not enough that I have t…to call somebody. I have to have a f…freakin’ f…f…fit while I’m doing it! Pete already said n…not to call back.”
“Call,” said Jacob.
Buck whirled around, almost stumbling over a magazine rack, and headed for the door.
“Buck,” Jacob said, “this is life we’re getting you ready for. This is eighth grade and more. It’s hard, I know. Stronger men than you…marines, even…have walked before. But I’m telling you now the same thing I told them—if you walk out that door, we’re through. You can’t come back. I’m not wasting my time on you.”
Buck stomped on across the rug and put his hand on the doorknob. He swung it open and pushed open the screen. And then he paused, his heart beating fiercely against the wall of his chest.
If he left…what did he have to look forward to in the fall? Being called out of class a half hour every two weeks, maybe, to meet with a speech therapist who may or may not help? Spending his lunch period with her? There were only five more weeks left of summer….
He leaned one forearm on the doorframe and rested his head against it, staring down at the toe of his shoe. He still had the Hole, but he couldn’t live his life down there. He turned back and closed the screen. Then walked over to Jacob.
“I’ll stay, but I won’t ccccccall that n…number. It’s…s…somebody I know, and I h…hate his guts.”
Jacob exchanged a long unblinking look with him. “All right,” he said finally. “Have a seat.” And then he added, “It’s okay to be mad at me, Buck, even when you’re really mad at yourself. And believe me, I know what it’s like to be mad at myself….”
Propped against the pillows on his bed, knees bent, his heavy notebook resting on his thighs, Buck bore down with his number two pencil, his jaw clenched as he worked. This would be a five-panel strip, and he’d worked it all out in his head on the way home.
First panel: Pukeman, with a huge backpack over his shoulders, wearing shorts and flip-flops, stands at the mouth of a cave: “Hey! Think I’ll go exploring today.”
Second panel: Pukeman, on hands and knees, one flip-flop missing, his shorts torn, says: “Man, sure is dark in here. These rocks hurt my knees.”
Third panel: Pukeman starts to climb up a pile of rocks. “Glad I got this penlight. Wonder what’s on the other side of these rocks.”
Fourth panel: A huge rock from the top of the pile tumbles down, smashing Pukeman flat. Bearing down hard with the pencil, Buck drew two Xs for Pukeman’s eyes and made a long tongue hang out one side of his mouth.
Fifth panel: Three men, dressed as park police, are rolling a huge rock in front of the entrance to the cave. One of them says, “Might as well close this cave up. Nobody’s come here in years.” And another one says, “Yeah. Besides, it smells too bad in there.”
“Well, I was robbed again.”
Gramps tucked his napkin under his chin and looked around as though he expected everyone to rush to the phone and call the police.
Buck saw Joel roll his eyes toward his dad, but Gramps saw it too. “And more than that,” he continued, “I can tell you when the last three four-by-eights were taken: each one on a Sunday night.”
Buck tried to imagine somebody sliding that big sheet of plywood through the space between the gate and the fence post, then climbing over the top and carrying it away. He could imagine it very well. But his dad paused with a forkful of cabbage halfway to his mouth and said, “Now, Dad, how would you know that?”
Gramps was only too glad to tell.
“I told you that when I began to suspect that stack of plywood was giving out faster than we were selling it, I numbered each sheet that was left. Every morning, first thing, I checked the pile. And each time that a sheet was missing, I wrote the number down and the date. The last three were all taken on a Sunday. Must have, ’cause Sunday the numbers were all there; Monday morning, each time, one was gone.”
Now the family was paying attention.
“Did you check the receipts? Sure we didn’t sell them?” Joel asked.
“Checked and checked again. Every single thing sold from Anderson’s Mill and Lumber has been listed on a receipt. Those plywood sheets were not. And one more thing: you know the tarp we keep on top? It was getting mighty ratty—couple holes in it, so last Saturday I put a new one over the old. It’s gone too.”
Dad shook his head. “I don’t know what to think, Dad. How much work do you want to do to stop it?”
“Well, you can’t just let it slide, Don,” Mom put in. Her cheeks were that faint pink they got when she was the least bit upset. “If they think they can get away with this, who knows? They could break in the shop next, if nobody seems to care.”
Mel reached across Buck’s plate for the bread and then in the other direction for the butter. His faded tan shirtsleeves were rolled up almost to the shoulder, and his ship tattoo appeared all the darker in contrast. “I’ll go on watch this next Sunday,” he said. “Haven’t got a run till Thursday, so might as well make myself useful.”
“I’ll go too,” said Buck.
“Okay. Deal. Buck and me will team up this time and see what happens.”
•••
After dinner, Buck and Katie went out to the net they’d strung up between the maple and the beech trees, and hit a volleyball back and forth, smacking it hard to make the other miss when they could.
“Let me show you how it’s done!” said Joel, who’d been watching from the steps. Grinning, he swaggered across the grass, swiping the ball from Katie’s hands. “Me against the two of you.”
“Wow! Listen to Mr. Big Mouth!” Katie jeered, ducking under the net. “C’mon, Buck. Let’s slaughter him!”
The air was soon filled with the hollow thumps of fists against ball—grunts and groans and occasional cheers as the ball sailed over an opponent’s head and made him chase it across the yard.
Fifteen minutes later, with no apparent winner, the three sprawled under the maple, tugging their shirts away from their bodies to cool themselves.
“Whew! Long time since I played that,” said Joel.
“We weren’t even playing a real game. You’re getting to be an old man,” Katie teased.
Buck went inside and returned with three cans of Mountain Dew. He held one can against his forehead before he opened the tab and took a drink.
Katie jostled Joel’s foot with her own, mischief in her eyes. “Hey, old man, Amy and I found a girlfriend for you.”
Joel gave her foot a shove. “Who said I was looking?”
“You don’t have to be. She’s Sarah’s cousin—about five inches shorter than you, with long brown hair and a really deep dimple in one cheek. She sings country. Amy heard her at that karaoke place and showed me her picture.”
“What’s that got to do with me?” Joel said, taking another long drink of his soda.
“She saw you at the bowling alley last week and asked who you were,” Katie said.
Buck was surprised to see color rising up his brother’s neck, into his face. He was thinking that he had never heard Joel either mention a girl at the dinner table or heard him call one that he could remember, though he’d s
een Joel leafing through a country singer magazine and lingering over photos of some of the female singers. And he realized for the first time that even people who didn’t stutter could be shy. Weird that he had never thought of this before now.
“Too bad,” Joel was saying. “I’ll be in the navy.”
“You serious about that?” Katie said.
“Why not?” said Joel. “Doesn’t mean I’ll make a career of it. Don’t you guys want to see more of the world than this?”
“I want at least to see New York,” said Katie.
It was hard for Buck to keep his own secret. So he changed the subject. “What do you b…bet nobody shows on Sunday n…n…night?” he said.
“At the mill?” said Joel. “If he gets wind that Gramps is on to him, he probably won’t. Can’t have a guard there all the time.”
“I wish somebody would show when Mel’s there. He’d take ’em apart!” said Katie.
“With a llllllittle help from me!” said Buck.
•••
Sunday night, Buck and Mel were ready to go. Joel was happy to drive them over, glad that he could spend the evening with his buddies, and let them out a quarter mile from the mill.
It was not quite dark—past that point at dusk where everything looked extraordinarily clear. This time of evening you had to stare hard at something to make it out.
They made their way quietly across the dirt parking area and Mel unlocked the gate. Once they were inside, he locked it after them and Buck followed his uncle up the cinder-block walkway to the door.
Just as Mel swung it open, however, Buck said, “Mel, look!” and pointed.
The big man turned, following Buck’s outstretched hand, just as a figure jumped down from the top of the fence at the far end of the lumberyard.
“Hey!” Mel yelled, dropping his pack.
He and Buck turned in tandem and raced back to the gate.
By the time they unlocked it, however, and ran along the fence, the hooded figure had disappeared into the woods beyond the sawmill.
Mel crashed through the underbrush to the place where the intruder had entered the trees. There the forest became black and there was no point in going on. He and Buck had left their flashlights in their packs inside the door.
Mel turned to Buck, still panting. “Was it just the one?”
“Far as I could see.”
“You get a good look at him? Any idea who it was?”
Buck shook his head. “Could have been anyone. Dddddark jacket…pants.”
“A man? A teenager?” All Buck could do was shrug.
Mel let out his breath. “Well, I’m not about to go searching these woods without a flashlight. And meanwhile we’ve left the gate and the shop wide open….”
They started back.
“What are we going to do?” asked Buck.
“Might as well stick it out in case he comes back later, though I doubt it. Not tonight. He didn’t seem to be carrying anything, did he?”
“Don’t think so. Hard to t…tell in the dark. Not a big sheet of plywood, anyway.”
“Did you hear anything at all?” Mel asked.
“Seemed like…when he was running toward the trees…maybe there were voices, I dddddddon’t know.”
“Yeah. I thought so too. Like there were more waiting for him. Or waiting to jump me if I was stupid enough to follow him in there.”
Back inside the low building, Mel made a quick inspection of the place to see if anyone had broken in. But no window was opened, the rear door still bolted, cash register untouched. Still, someone had been on the property, and it was another Sunday night, just like Gramps had predicted. The only day of the week the mill was closed, no one about at all.
On Monday, when Gramps checked his supply, two more four-by-eight plywood sheets were missing. Buck and his uncle had arrived shortly after the wood had been carried off. The last of the culprits must have heard or seen them coming and, instead of climbing over the fence by the gate, had headed for the back of the lot nearest the woods where he might escape unseen. It was anyone’s guess if this would happen again.
•••
As July drew to a close, the vegetable garden was giving all that it had. Dad took time away from the mill to tend to it. Buck was needed more at home, especially on Fridays, to crate things up for his dad to drive to the farm markets on Saturdays.
That made it more complicated to go to Jacob’s three times a week without the family getting suspicious, and Buck still wasn’t ready to tell anyone about their sessions. But the fact that he was sticking it out—doing something even marines had walked out on occasionally—gave him pride in doing something really difficult, and “difficult” wasn’t even the word for it. Going down in a hole where he might possibly be trapped was scary, but this was a different kind of dark.
Three times a week, after he’d practiced relaxing his tongue and jaw, Buck dialed the numbers Jacob read off to him and asked the pertinent question: How much does it cost? What time do you close? Are you open on Sundays?
Lately it wasn’t just a single question that Jacob insisted on—more a conversation: “How old do I have to be to work there?” and “What kind of work would I be expected to do?” and “Is experience necessary?” Whenever Jacob held up a finger, Buck started a stutter and kept it going until the finger went down.
Sometimes…a very few times…he got to the end and was able to say, “Thank you very much.” Half the time the other person hung up on him. And sometimes they said, “What’s the matter with you?” or “Don’t call back.” And when that happened, Jacob made him do just that.
On better days, however, Buck and Jacob made a game of it. When Buck called back, Jacob would pump his fist in the air to urge him on, and once in a while, when Buck was able to explain to the other person that he stuttered and was learning to speak over the phone, the person he’d called would suddenly turn human and wait patiently as Buck stuttered his way to the end of a sentence.
They couldn’t see him—he had to remind himself of that. He sat safely here in one of Jacob’s chairs, and would probably never meet them in his whole life or talk to them again on the phone. Just knowing that, and doing it over and over, made him bolder. Funnier, even.
“Who are you? Some kind of wise guy?” one man said, to which Buck replied, “N…no, I’m DDDDDDonald Duck,” and laughed along with Jacob when the man hung up.
The stuttering was coming out more gently, sometimes in a whisper, effortlessly, like a puff of air. Maybe it was like one of the therapists had told him—a free ride. Only with them, the goal was to stop stuttering. With Jacob, it was not. A huge difference. There were times Buck didn’t stutter at all, but Jacob never praised him for that. Only when he kept his face and jaw relaxed—didn’t struggle, didn’t fight it. Let it come and breezed right on.
One sticky afternoon, the first week of August, when Buck was giving himself over to stuttering, his mind more on the Hole and when he could go again, there were footsteps outside the door, and suddenly, without ringing the bell first or even knocking, Mel stepped boldly into Jacob’s living room.
Buck turned and stared at his uncle, and Jacob stopped midsentence. All three stayed frozen in place, like actors caught in a strobe light.
“Mel?” Jacob said.
“Buck, I just want to know what’s going on,” Mel said a bit uncertainly.
It was hard to explain, because Buck, at the time, was sitting in front of the long framed mirror propped against the wall, and Jacob was sitting beside it, a telephone directory in his lap. And when neither Buck nor Jacob answered right away, Mel got right to the point:
“Been noticing that you pretty regularly get on your bike and go somewhere once your folks are out of the house,” he said to Buck. “Today I just decided to follow you over here, and seeing as how you don’t appear to be doing any work at the moment, I want to know what the heck this is all about.”
Buck turned and looked at Jacob, and the older man s
aid, “I think it’s time you told them, Buck.”
Mel took a few steps farther into the room. “Told me what?”
“He’s helping me with my sssssstuttering,” Buck said. “He’s a speech ddddoctor.”
“Pathologist. I was a speech pathologist in the military, Mel, and I offered to help Buck over the summer. I really saw no reason to keep it secret, but Buck seems to feel otherwise.”
Mel sat down on the arm of the couch. “Well, for the lu’va’mike, why, Buck?”
“I just…” Buck shrugged. “Everybody wwwould always be asking, was I getting better and what did it c…cccost, and…”
Mel sat speechless for a few moments, then lifted his palms in the air. “I don’t get it. What do we owe you, Jacob?”
Jacob shook his head. “No charge, Mel. I’m just doing this as a friend.”
“Well…that’s really great, but…” Mel turned to his nephew. “How do you feel about it, Buck? Is it helping?”
“I guess I feel bbbbbetter about…about me.”
For a long moment Mel studied his nephew. “So…you still don’t want your folks to know…?”
“Not really,” Buck said. “Later.”
Mel nodded and thought some more. Then he slapped his leg and stood up. “Well, I’ve got no quarrel with that. Sorry I barged in like this, Jacob. Hope you understand.”
“Indeed I do,” Jacob said.
•••
Buck rode his bike occasionally out to the old Wilmer place just to make sure no one was surveying the land, that it wasn’t for sale. And it wasn’t. Stood there as abandoned and forgotten as many of the trees on the place. Buck worried it might not be until late fall, when the vegetables were all harvested and the farm markets closed, that he’d have a chance to sneak away to the Hole again, but that was too far off. There wasn’t a day he wasn’t thinking about it—the new passage he’d take the next time he was down there; the arrows he’d leave on the walls, what he might find….
He finally decided he would ask Joel to order the headlamp for him. If Joel wouldn’t order it, no one would. He approached his brother one evening when Joel was on the back porch clipping his nails over a wastebasket. Buck sat down on the glider beside him.