William Krueger - Copper River

“Let her go, shithead.” Ren tried to get up, only to have Merkin pounce and pin him to the ground.

“Help her, Stash,” Ren hollered.

Stash stood frozen.

“Hey, hey, hey, break it up here.” Gary Johnson trotted up, waving his hands. He was an adult and built like a bulldozer. Johnson latched an enormous hand onto Goose’s shoulder. “Let her go, Goose.”

The kid complied, but unhappily.

“Get off him, Kenny,” Johnson said to Merkin.

Merkin lifted himself off Ren.

Johnson stared down at Greenway, who was still on the ground holding his ribs. “I’m more than a little disappointed, Dan. Big guys like you picking on kids, and a girl yet.”

“Bitch kicked me,” Greenway said.

Johnson shoved his ball cap back showing a high forehead. “Big deal. You get kicked all the time on the football field, and by guys with cleats, eh.” He turned to Ren. “That lip’s going to be puffy for a while. Better go on home and put some ice on it.”

“I’m okay.”

Johnson faced the three lettermen. “I’ve a good mind to talk to your fathers.”

“Screw off,” Greenway said.

“Or how about this, Dan? How ‘bout I talk to Coach Soames, tell him what a big man you are, how you and Goose and Kenny here like beating on girls? I could get you yanked from that starting position faster ’n you could say Brett Favre. I’ll do it.”

In addition to being the publisher and editor of the Marquette County Courier, Johnson covered all area high school sports. That carried a lot of weight in Bodine.

Greenway and the others exchanged surly glances but said nothing.

“Now go on.” Johnson gestured down the street. “I’m sure there are cats somewhere need torturing, eh.”

When the boys had gone, Ren said, “Thanks.”

Charlie said, “We were doing fine.”

Johnson laughed. “That’s exactly what Custer said, Charlie.” He turned his attention back to Ren. “Like I said, have your mom look at that lip. How is she, by the way? Haven’t seen her in a while.”

“Busy,” Ren said. “You know.”

“Sure. Tell her I said hello, eh.”

Ren nodded.

“Charlie, I swear I’m going to see you in the Olympics someday.” Johnson gave her a smile, then strolled away.

“Come on,” Stash said, stowing his skateboard under his arm. “Let’s get high.”

A hundred yards from where the Copper River spilled into Lake Superior, perched on a small rise among a stand of red maples on the west bank, stood an old stone picnic shelter. The shelter was part of the Big Cascade Wayside, a little park named for the stair step of rocks and churning water it overlooked. The shelter had been built during the Depression as a CCC project but wasn’t used much anymore. The locals and tourists preferred Dunning Park on the lakefront. More often than not, Ren and his friends had the place to themselves.

By the time they reached the river, the sun had set. The water as it dipped and swirled over the rocks was a reflection of a golden sky. Ren parked the ATV and the three kids stepped inside the shelter. The corners were littered with fallen leaves. A blackened fireplace dominated the back wall. The place smelled of old burn, dusty stone, rotting leaves, and faintly of piss. Stash stood on one of the two concrete picnic tables, reached up to a low rafter, and pulled down a cigar box bound with a thick rubber band. He sat down, slipped the band off, and lifted the lid to reveal a dime bag of weed, a package of Zig-Zag rolling papers, and a Bic lighter. His real name was Stuart, but Ren and Charlie had dubbed him Stash because he kept small caches of weed hidden in a number of places around Bodine. A hole in a tree in Dunning Park on the lake. Taped under the bleachers at the ballpark. In a disconnected downspout in the alley behind Linder’s Garage. He didn’t like to carry anything on him. He’d been stopped too many times and ripped off, he claimed, by the deputy constable.

As Stash sat on the table and rolled a joint, Ren eyed the inside of the box lid. Printed in bold magic marker: PROPERTY OF STUART GULLICKSON.

“You’re crazy, man,” he told Stash. “That’ll get you sent to juvie for sure.”

“So I get picked up. The old man springs me, gives me a lecture on disappointment and shame, yells about military school again. Only problem is there aren’t any I haven’t already been kicked out of.” He licked the seam to seal the joint. “Besides, it’s a rush whenever I think somebody might find it and turn me in. Walking the edge. You down with that?”

“Yeah, dude,” Charlie said. “You walk the edge real good. Showed us that back there in town with Greenway and his two turds.”

Ren laughed. “Yeah, man, you were a real Captain America the way you tore into those guys.”

“Hey, I was just about to kick their asses when Johnson showed up.”

Charlie said, “Dude, I’ve seen lawn ornaments move faster than you.”

She and Ren slapped hands.

“Fuck you guys.” Stash stood up and started to leave the shelter.

“We’re just funning with you,” Ren called to him. “Come on back, man, and fire up that doobie.”

Stash returned and sat on the picnic table. He lit the joint, took a hit, passed it to Ren, who took a hit and passed it to Charlie.

“I still think,” Ren said, after he’d held the smoke in his lungs awhile, “that putting your name in the box is a stupid idea.”

“ ‘Live fast, die young, leave a beautiful corpse.’ John Derek. Knock on Any Door.”

“Who?” Charlie asked.

Stints at private schools had taken Stash away from Bodine for long periods of time, and although Ren and Charlie often hung with him, they weren’t what Ren would have called tight. Stash’s family had money. His father was president of a paper company in Marquette. They lived in a restored Victorian home, huge and elegant, that overlooked the lake. Stash’s older brother was an athlete-football, basketball, baseball-but sports held no interest for Stash. In his bedroom, he had a television with a thirty-two-inch screen. He also had an extensive library of DVDs and videotapes. For some reason, he loved gangster movies, especially the old black and whites. When he wasn’t skateboarding, he spent hours in that shaded room, watching a dark world filled with characters Ren didn’t know played by actors he’d never heard of.

“Don’t you watch any good movies?” Stash asked.

“Dude, you don’t watch good movies. You watch, like, ancient history.” Charlie shook her head. “John Dork.”

“Derek.”

“Whatever.”

“It’s called noir, ass wipe. And it isn’t ancient history. When I get sprung from Bodine for good, I’m hitting Hollywood, man. I’m going to be-”

“The next Tarantino,” Ren and Charlie finished in unison.

“The hell with you guys.” Stash pushed off the table again and strode outside.

“Hey, don’t take the joint,” Ren called.

“My weed,” Stash threw back over his shoulder.

“No problem,” Charlie said, grabbing the cigar box. “We’ll roll our own.”

Stash said nothing, just stood on the riverbank getting high by himself.

Charlie rolled a tight number. “Toss me the lighter, dude,” she called to Stash.

“Light it between your legs.”

“Wait, I got a match.” From her pocket, she dug a match-book she’d picked up at Kitty’s Cafe. She lit up and for a few minutes they smoked in silence.

“Dude, know what I heard?”

“What?” Ren said. He was looking out the shelter toward the golden water and the far bank lined with birch trees whose autumn leaves were like drops of the river splashed over the branches. He didn’t know if it was the weed or the moment, but he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen anything as beautiful.