Let's Go Play at the Adams'

faded as he drew nearer. The rest, if there was to be a rest, would have to be done by John

Randall, aged sixteen, in person. Even if not done, he was proud of himself so far. Who else

would come up here alone at night and do the spying he was doing? He thought about

what a good story it would make tomorrow, and pulled on.

As it rose to its nebulous source-a spring-fed marsh half a county away-Oak Creek grew

narrower and more choked and snagged with weeds and obstructions. At one point John

had to lie flat in the boat and pull himself under a huge fallen tree-appropriately an oak-

that spanned the banks. It was a spidery, scary feat.

He eased himself down, feet aft under the stem seat, back fiat against the midship's seat.

Hands up, he grasped the wet, black, rotting bark and slowly tugged himself and the boat

forward. His fingers, expecting grubs or snakes or worse, moved gingerly. Wetness fell in

his face. Once, the boat dragged between mud underneath and tree overhead, and he was

stuck. Instead of giving way to panic, he rested-alive and well or at least as well as he had

been an hour before at home and thought. Reversing himself, he backed downstream,

started again, and slowly wiggled the boat beneath the tree trunk until he saw light again.

Com-

170

pared to the blackness he had been through, the clouded night sky was luminous-surprising.

Then the boat was free and upstream in the pool above the tree. He rested. There was slow

thunder, lightning, and then thunder again. He stood up.

By daylight John knew the place. You could catch small sunnies here, dig in the mud, and find

crayfish living halfway between salt and fresh water: you could build stick bridges out into the

water if you were younger and there was nothing else to do with the afternoon. At night you

could spook yourself a little bit for the fun of it, and look around.

Holding the bow upstream with his oar, John reoriented. There was a sharp bend ahead with

the sand across the middle, the dumping place where the county trucks came down, and the

path that went up to the road that ran back to his property. His house was behind his left

shoulder; ahead of his right shoulder were "the pines," the clay bank on the Adams side, and -

there was the Picker.

John's eyes must have passed back and forth over the same darkened area twice before his

glance and a yellow flicker of cloud lightning showed him the figure of a naked man standing

about knee-deep in muddy water not thirty yards away on the nearest-it would be the Adams'-

shore. The man was bathing-how could John know that?-or he had been bathing. He was, at

any rate, looking at John.

The tactical situation was immediately clear and to John's disfavor, not to say humiliation. He

had been making noises as he wrestled under the tree. There was no retreat. The Picker was

warned; he was five small jumps away; he was on bottom, and John was in a shaky boat with-

he could not help but look down-a small pile of rocks he had intended to pitch into the woods

and frighten his adversary. How silly. He and the Picker surveyed one another. It was light, and

then it was dark; it was noisy, and then it was quiet.

As the silence grew longer and the situation grew more obvious, another fact made itself clear

to John.

171

He accepted it with surprising equanimity: it was almost a given of the problem.

They were enemies. Any two people coming together in such circumstances must fear and

hate one another. John considered it normal.

In books and comic strips silences are taken to be intolerable. People blurt out words. This

silence, however, turned out to be not only tolerable, but quickly preferable.

Wordlessly the Picker bent down and scooped up a double handful of water and dumped it

over his head. Wordlessly John moved his boat out toward midstream, pulling himself along

the uncertain branches of the tree and then pushing away. When he was clear, he broke

out the oars, and slipping them into the rowlocks, pulled away into the middle of the pool.

There, insulated, safe for the moment, he rested and panted with simple emotion.

"Fish?" The Picker spoke softly, no louder than would be required to carry his voice across a

room, and yet in the sound of "fish," the sh sound seemed to extend itself indefinitely. He

had the Pickers' accent.

"Yeah."

The Picker turned and, wading slowly, moved up the bank, and gathered his dark,

shapeless clothes around him. Instead of dressing and slinking off into the woods, however,

he turned back and squatted comfortably on his heels, hands locked in front of his knees.

After a bit there was the flare of a match and afterward the glow of a cigarette. John dipped

his oars in the water and held position against the weak current.

John felt disgusted with himself, relieved and frightened all at once. For all his horsing

around coming up here, he was now the one at disadvantage. A dozen better alternative

plans-fruit of hindsight came to mind, but then who would have expected the bastard to be