Platoon Leader Jones, Mr. Baron said.
Yes, sir?
Keep charge. I have a meeting in the mess hall.
Yes, sir.
Mr. Baron lifted off of his haunches. The forest swallowed him.
Harris, you said.
Yes, Abu said.
Tend the fire.
Okay. Abu knelt down beside the fire, stick in hand.
The logs burned slowly with hot, invisible flames. The fire burned for warmth — Abu added dead limbs when ordered — firelight on faces.
Ding dong dong dong dong, you sang.
A ding—
You hear that!
Yeah!
What was it?
Nothing.
It came from the woods.
Can you see anything?
No.
Make the fire brighter.
Yeah, make the fire brighter.
Abu made the fire brighter.
The troop draws out their knives. Whittle chips of wood, until the wood runs out. Whittle chips of song, until the song runs out. Chips of shadow, until the shadows run out. Chips of moon, until the moon runs out. And then, sliver by sliver, Stumpy’s dark body forms.
Look! Stumpy!
Help!
Night wafts in. And wind fans the fire. A red flame crawls out from under the white coals. Stumpy breaks through the comouflage of smoke.
Eyes closed, Hatch was better able to contemplate the entire course of his life. Abu had been there for most of it. Their years were one. Shadow of time. Shadow of blood. Morning and night, minute and month ran shapelessly together, the days rolling steadily beneath them, kith and kin.
MY NAME ABU. What’s your name?
Hatch.
Glad to meet you.
Hatch says nothing. He is not glad.
Where you live? The roly-poly boy with a soda-stained red clown mouth asks.
On Seventy-second Street between Constance and Bennett.
Hey, I live right round the corner from you.
Why he speaking to me? Why did he choose me? I don’t need nobody to play wit.
Yall live in a house?
No. A part ment. We got mice too.
Yall got mice?
Yeah. Do yall?
Yeah. You better watch out. Them mice grow into rats.
Damn you stupid. Don’t you know nothing? Mice ain’t no rats. They a different species.
Oh.
Hatch looks Abu over, needing bigger eyes to sight fully his fat. What’s that you wearin?
My uniform.
Uniform?
Uh huh.
You in ROTC or something?
Nawl. Kids can’t be in no ROTC. My dad was. I’m a Scout.
A what?
A Cub Scout?
That like a Boy Scout?
Yeah. And Weblos. Cept we little kids and they big.
Okay.
You want to become a Scout? Join my pack? Pack Five Hundred.
What’s a pack?
A group of bears.
Bears?
Baby bears.
Hatch thinks about it. Abu does look something like a baby bear. What I get if I join?
We go on trips, make fires, learn how to use a compass, recite our oath, go—
Is that all?
Abu watches Hatch for a moment. Well, my mother a den mother.
A what?
A den mother. And we have lots of fun. We—
Do I get to wear a uniform like that?
Yeah, but yo parents gotta buy it.
Sheila buys it. Stitches yellow square numbers (500) into the blue khaki shirt, her needle musical in the cloth, a baton calling forth rhythm from the yellow square keys. She starches and irons the shirt. Starches and irons the crisp blue pants. Buys and blocks the half-globe blue baseball cap. Buys the yellow kerchief and shows you how to roll two corners into tight pigtail braids so that the remaining corners form a neat triangle — a bear cub centered inside it — beneath your nape. Slides on the kerchief holder. Polishes your best black shoes.
Uncle John! Uncle John! I’m a Scout.
What?
A Cub Scout of America. How you like my uniform?
ABU BOWS HIS HEAD at the sound of thunder, clasps his hands at clapping lightning, shuts his eyes at the sight of televised floods, and fears a tornado in every wind. He forms a steeple with his fingers, then whispers a prayer over his hamburger and french fries. He performs a slow order of dutiful chores. Mrs. Harris (mother and den mother) gives him permission to play. Abu and Hatch spill out Hatch’s collection of Hot Wheels cars — I only play with the best; they like real cars, like my Uncle John’s — roll them over rugs, under tables, up walls and banisters, down noisy pipes. They make tow trucks of their hands—We can pull them anywhere—and motors of their mouths. Rrrrr rrrrrr. They puzzle over scale-detailed trains. They spend hours of bent concentration constructing model tanks, battleships, and airplanes, military and civilian. Battle monsters (Godzilla, King Kong, Dracula, the Werewolf) against Superheroes (the Hulk, the Iron Man, Spiderman). Then they pit skills. Abu beats Hatch at checkers. Hatch can sense no strategy in the game and blindly moves the plastic discs from one black square to another. But he beats Abu at chess, game after game, hour upon hour—Look, Hatch. We don’t stop playing until I win a game—and always under twenty moves.
Who taught you how to play?
My Uncle John.
They wear serious faces, masks, as they move the chess pieces. Hatch remains silent, focused on the magic of the unspeakable. He absorbs the plastic power of each piece. The pieces flow mobile with a self-determined plan and will. His hand moves knifelike, cutting patterns.
Abu, Uncle John says. His eyeglasses are like flying saucers, high and still, reflecting over the entire position of the board. Move your rook to—
Stop kibitzin, Uncle John! You jus mad that I beat you.
Uncle John, who taught you how to play?
Spokesman. He says it’s based on medieval warfare.
Spokesman knows everything.
Well, who taught you how to play the game?
You did.
Don’t forget it.
HATCH AND ABU walk far and fast — Hatch leads the way with a firm military step — until one or the other (usually Abu) says, I quit. They discover a place so far away that it has no name. Grass, trees — the place breathes green. The ground slopes down into a deeper green, an area entirely shaded from the sun where you can pick patches of sunlight from grass beneath an oak tree. Lie and read. White water flows down over clean black stones. Fill your empty canteen with the clean-tasting water. The river glows with the full benefit of the sun’s rays, down to the stones shining like jewels. Birds and fish move in a single stream. Sunlight skims the waves; the water flashes like a buckle. You imagine it the sea, crimson as fire, and the patch of land at its center, an island retreat. You touch the water, and it replies, Yes. No matter how much or how far you walk you will never find where it begins or ends. At one point, it spills white steam against the surrounding rock — you toss a stone and listen to it plunge roaring into a black watery pit — rising yet somehow still, breath set in steel.