Justin Cronin - The Summer Guest

“A lot of us think your father was a great man, you know. He helped a lot of people.”

I had to laugh. “Pissed a few off too.”

“True, he did. But what’s the saying? Real courage is doing the right thing when nobody’s looking. Doing the unpopular thing because it’s what you believe, and the heck with everybody. It’s a hard message to teach, especially these days, with that actor in the White House. All of a sudden it’s like Vietnam never happened, like we never learned a thing. It’s worse than disgraceful. It’s a crime. That’s what I’m trying to teach these kids, Joe. To think for themselves. That’s what you could tell them about.”

Somewhere in this Shellie had placed her hand on my sleeve-not quite holding it, but not just touching it, either. The gesture was unknowable, nothing I could break her gaze to consider, a sensation that would remain at the periphery as long as her hand remained in its mysterious contact with my sleeve. Somehow, it made me feel just as I did whenever I read one of her letters in the paper: like I was in the presence of an actual grown-up. The outhouse, the chickens and goats, the clacking loom in her smoky cabin: in the touch of her hand I felt the firm existence of these things, their patient purposefulness and calm utility, the way they expressed a solid life that was far more real, in its way, than the hodgepodge or random impulses that generally pass for adulthood. And here she was, this woman who might have been the second truly charismatic person I had ever met-my father being the first-suggesting I might have something to teach anyone. She had no idea how wrong she was about me, but for a second, just one, I knew what I would have told the class. Most of us spend our entire lives trying to learn what it means to be brave. What we hope is that simply trying will count for something.

“Well, I don’t want to take too much of your time, Joe. I’m sure you have places to be.” She released my sleeve, and just like that, the spell was broken. “Tell Lucy I said hi, won’t you? And thank her again for her help with the bake sale. Those cinnamon buns of hers are always the first to sell out.”

I couldn’t have said how long the two of us had been standing there. Kate was nowhere to be seen. Then the crowds parted and I found her by the bus line, talking to a boy I didn’t recognize, a sandy-haired kid in jeans and a flannel shirt holding a hockey stick he kept flicking on the pavement, the two of them standing together on the path in a nervous, happy way that could only mean one thing. Boys, I thought, and felt the word drop like a bomb to my stomach. Just a day ago she had crawled into my lap to hear a story of her babyhood. She might have actually put her thumb in her mouth. It wouldn’t be long now until her life was full of boys.

“Joe?”

“Right. Sorry.” I shook my head and returned my eyes to Shellie, suddenly embarrassed. “Took a bit of a trip there, I guess. Cinnamon rolls. Thanks to Lucy. Got it.”

“It’s okay, Joe.”

“No, no, I’ll tell her, first thing.”

Her face lifted in a reassuring smile. “I meant about Nicky Pryor. The boy talking to Kate? Forgive me, but I saw you look. You probably know his parents, Cash and Suzie.”

I looked again. “Jesus. That’s Cash’s kid, with the hockey stick? He looks so…”

She allowed herself a gentle laugh. “Mature is the word you’re looking for. But he’s a nice boy.”

“I was going to say menacing.”

“Maybe a little of that too.”

Her eyes found mine again. What a pity, I thought, that Shellie had no children of her own. Though of course that wasn’t right. She did have them; my Kate was one.

“I know it seems to happen fast, Joe. But believe me, they’re still just children. Just barely, but they are. Maybe trying to be a little more. Certainly they’d like to be a little more. But it’s still… oh, I don’t know. Just a game. Like dress-ups, when they were small.”

“What you’re saying is, I’ve got time yet.”

“Hell’s bells, Joe.” She laughed again, this time with pleasure. “I’d say it just to cheer you up.”

In rubber waders, boots, and fly vests, a two-mile walk over even pretty flat terrain can feel like ten, and by the time I got my lawyers to the dam, the bunch of them were a sorry sight, breathing hard as horses and drenched with yeasty-smelling sweat. On the way, Bill had stopped twice more to pee-the poor guy couldn’t go half an hour without muttering an apology and taking a trip to the weeds-and though the rest of them were decent about it, waiting by the side of the trail in what passed for respectful silence, I could tell this generosity was motivated less by friendship or goodwill than their own sympathetic pangs of worry. Prostate, I’d figured, though now I was also thinking type 2 diabetes, which my father had toward the end. Either way, I thought Bill would tell me which it was before the day was through. The sun was blasting through the trees when we reached the gate, and as I fumbled with the padlock, I gave them the lay of the land.

“The dam’s about a hundred yards down this incline. Maybe another two hundred yards across, and there’s a catwalk but no handrails, so be careful. The Army Corps of Engineers keeps a watch station, but nobody’s been in it for years. On the other side of the catwalk a trail loops down to the old turbine outlet at the base of the dam. The water’s rough and tricky to wade, but you can fish from the rocks if you like.”

Bill nodded. “Okay, I’ll bite. How rough is rough?”

We could all hear it plainly now, a sound you might mistake as wind in the trees as you hiked up the path, but not this close: the muscular pounding of a thousand gallons of ice-cold water pouring out the vacant turbine channel each and every second. Where we stood you could smell it, too, all that cold water mixing with the air of the valley, like icy breath falling out a freezer.

“It sounds worse than it is. If you’re careful and stay clear of the outlet, you should be fine.”

We made our way down the last of the path. Where it cleared the trees the ground and sky opened like jaws, giving us a broad view of the two lakes and the dam between them, a wall of white concrete you couldn’t look straight into when the sun hit it. The drop on the downstream side was eighty feet; below it, water roiled in a frigid roar of boiling whitecaps, then fanned out in a broadening spillway before emptying, another thousand yards below, into the Lower Zisko. You could fish any part of it, and on any given day it could all be good, but the upper end, where the water was trickiest, was generally best; all that moving cold water churned up the small feeding fish that the landlocks loved, drawing them closer to the surface. The control station stood on our side of the dam, empty as always. A second gate, also unlocked, guarded the entrance to the catwalk, with a large sign of warning: NO TRESPASSING. DANGEROUS WATERS. NO SWIMMING. DO NOT CROSS THE DAM.

Pete stopped at the gate. “I don’t know about this. Is it safe? This doesn’t look legal. The sign says no trespassing.”

They all paused, lawyers thinking about the law and maybe that eighty-foot drop to boot, but then Bill stepped forward and swung the gate wide. “Joe, anybody ever drown out here?”

It had happened, I knew, but not for years. I saw where he was going and thought I’d play along. “All the time,” I said.

“Good.” He winked at me, then smirked in Pete’s direction. “See? We’ll make a man of you yet, youngster.”

Pete folded his arms across his chest. “I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you go fuck yourself?”

Bill snorted and stepped through the gate. “What is this, fourth grade? Don’t be such a pussy, son.”