Buried Treasure. Jack B. Downs
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His mother never looked at him again, not directly, not after David left. He understood David had been taken. Then he was furious at David for getting lost when James was naughty. David’s leaving made his mother leave, and then his father. James wanted to go where they’d gone, but he couldn’t find the way. Nana wanted to make him hers, and that would’ve been all right. But his father wanted it too, and James simply couldn’t bear it. He’d refused to leave his father, even when his father left him.
Then there was another baby, and he was not alone. But he wanted his mother to come back, and his father to come back, so they would not be mad at him anymore. He waited, and he tended the anger and hurt that kept him from being ripped apart too.
5 / Tale of a Fateful Trip
Dylan picked his path up the sidewalk, avoiding the cracks. Lightning-bolt fissures caused by tree roots, shifting ground, freezing and thawing water. Dylan paced the same route daily. Patterns kept the world aright. He stopped and gazed up at the neat exterior of Nana’s home. The dormers looked like the hooded eyes of a friendly troll. The roofline of the porch was the troll’s crooked smile. All appeared normal, but there was a rumbling disquiet. He did not want to go in.
His father had arrived Monday. Today was Thursday, when Nana went shopping with Mr. Thompson down to the A&P. It was the day when Dylan and James and Billy, and sometimes Ryan and Tink, watched Gilligan’s Island at four o’clock. But that was before. What would happen today?
Before his father had arrived, Nana had told him “it” would take time. Dylan wanted to ask her what “it” was. What she had not said also made him uneasy. Nana didn’t say, “He’s coming to visit,” or “He’s coming to see you.” Dylan knew that Sam had lived here as a boy, and remembered Sam being here for a time after he and Maureen stopped being married. So this had been his home once. But was he coming home to stay?
When Sam left, Dylan wondered where he had gone, and why, and if he was coming back. No one had told him, maybe because nobody knew. James was the only one who asked questions. But he asked with a boy’s wounded snarl, as if he already knew the answers. After a while, James would say, “Good riddance the bastard,” by way of opening and closing the book on his dad, anytime Dylan mentioned him. For his part, Dylan was sad, but he noticed that kids at school didn’t bother James about it the way they did Dylan.
“Your mother and father just left you. What kind of parents just move away without you?” “With Dylan, his mom warn’t willin’. ”
When he cried to James about the teasing, his brother said, “Act like it doesn’t matter. Kids’ll get bored, and find someone else to pick on about something else.” He wasn’t as good at it as James was.
Dylan squared his shoulders and strode up to the front steps. His father nodded at him through the open window to the right of the door. Dylan gave a little wave and hopped the steps, two at a time.
“Hi. Um.”
“Hi. Your brother’s upstairs.”
Dylan slipped his book bag off his shoulder. He patted Buster, who stood in greeting, tail wagging, then plopped back down sighing on the cool porch deck.
His father cleared his throat. “Mother—Nana—is off to the store with Mr. Thompson. She was all morning in the back yard, still trying to call forth the dead. Rhododendrons, I mean.”
Dylan nodded, looked back at the street. “Billy and a couple others usually come over to watch the TV on Thursdays. With James and me.”
“Nana mentioned you boys get together. I’ll be out of your way.” Sam slid his chair back as Dylan entered the front room. Dylan raised a hand. “It won’t be till four o’clock.”
Sam nodded, settling back down. Dylan started to thank his father, but Sam’s expression closed. It was as if the effort to talk had taxed him.
Dylan moved down the hall and clunked up the stairs to his room. He greeted his brother with a nod, then laid his book bag atop his desk and opened it.
James and Dylan shared the upstairs. Nana would not tolerate anyone calling it the attic. The room was bisected by the stairwell, which was gated with a balustrade on three sides. Dylan pulled his books from his bag and glanced out the window. Both dormer windows looked out over Nash Street and Mr. Thompson’s house across the way, with a glimpse of the river beyond. He remembered fishing with his father and James at the foot of the Thompson property, before his father left to head west.
After Sam moved out, Nana reared them with just enough discipline—vinegar, she called it—that they understood that practice and application would yield results. She was not harsh in their upbringing. Lately though, she seemed at a loss in coping with James. It had gotten more pronounced since they knew Sam was coming home. He was increasingly withdrawn and often would disappear at all hours, returning with no explanation.
Billy clutched the throw pillow and rolled over, his knees drawn to his chest. “Tell me Ginger isn’t such a babe,” he moaned. Billy made babe a three-syllable word.
Ryan craned to peek out the front window. Satisfied that the porch was deserted, he hunched down, his expression serious. “Lisa Haggerty told me the Professor doesn’t like girls. That’s why he never fools around with Ginger.”
Dylan considered this. Lisa was in their class, but she knew more than he and his friends did about grownups. She knew that Jackie Gleason made all the girls who wanted to dance on his TV show strip for him in a private room. She whispered this fact to him one day on the jungle gym at recess.
“Well, I feel sorry for him then, the jerk.” James swung his feet down on the floor. “If I was on a deserted island with Ginger and Mary Ann, first thing I would say is “Our clothes are gonna fall apart sooner or later anyway, so let’s just wear coconuts!” He laughed, heading down the hall. Dylan heard the door to the stairs open and close.
“Maybe if you’re really smart like the professor, there’s no room left in your head for sex stuff.” Ryan was talking to the TV scrolling the Gilligan’s Island closing credits.
Dylan made a face at Ryan from his perch on the sofa. The subject of sex always made him feel stupid. He was starting to feel like he wanted to know much more than he did.
“Well that’s a bite.” Billy flicked his ball glove in the air end over end. It bounced from his outstretched fingers and tumbled to the oval carpet. Billy lunged to grab it. “So if you aren’t real smart, then you’ll think more about sex, and have more impure thoughts, and end up with even more penance. What’s fair about that?”
“Well, one thing’s for sure,” Ryan said, heading for the front door. “I bet the Professor always eats fish on Friday.”
6 / James
James stared at the picture he’d taken from his drawer. This was never going to work. Even if Anne continued to like him, her father would never let her date a boy like James. When he saw Two Little Savages under her arm, he should have kept his mouth shut. But it had been one of his favorite books—ironic, since his father left it behind when he headed west, perhaps to start a new family he could ruin. Turns out she was reading it for the second time.
“I think it’s dumb that girls can’t be boy scouts,” she’d said to him at the checkout desk. The librarian had smiled,