Boys Life

should I?”
    “What did you weigh the last time you had a physical?”
    “One hundred and sixty pounds.”
    “When?” Sheriff Marchette asked. “In the third grade? How much do you weigh right now, Dick?”
    Mr. Moultry scowled and muttered. Then he said, “A little bit over two hundred.”
    “Try again.”
    “Aw, shit! I weigh two hundred and ninety pounds! Does that satisfy you, you sadist you?”
    “Maybe got two broken legs. Broken ribs. Possible internal injuries. And he weighs two hundred and ninety pounds. Think we can get him up that ladder, Tom?”
    “No way,” my father said.
    “My thoughts right on the button. He’s stuck in here until somebody can bring a hoist.”
    “What do you mean?” Mr. Moultry squawked. “I gotta stay here?” He looked fearfully at the bomb again. “Well, for God’s sake get that damn thing away from me, then!”
    “I’d do that for you, Dick,” the sheriff said. “I really would, but I’d have to touch it. And what if the thing’s primed to go off and all it needs is a finger’s touch? You think I want to be responsible for blowin’ you up? Not to mention myself and Tom? No, sir!”
    “Mayor Swope told me he talked to somebody at Robbins,” Dad said to the sheriff. “Said the fella didn’t believe-”
    “Yeah, Luther came by here before he and his family hit the trail. He told me all about what that sumbitch said. Maybe the pilot was too scared to let anybody know how bad he messed up. Probably staggered out of a Christmas party and climbed right into the cockpit. All I know for sure is, nobody’s comin’ from Robbins to get this thing anytime soon.”
    “What am I supposed to do?” Mr. Moultry asked. “Just lie here and suffer?”
    “I can go upstairs and fetch you a pilla, if you like,” Sheriff Marchette offered.
    “Dick? Dick, you okay?” The voice, tentative and afraid, was coming from upstairs.
    “Oh, I’m just dandy!” Mr. Moultry hollered. “I’m just tickled pink”-pank, he pronounced it-“to be layin’ down here with two busted legs and a bomb next to my melon! God a’mighty! I don’t know who you are up there, but you’re a bigger idiot than the fool who dropped that damn bomb in the first… oh. It’s you.”
    “Hi there, Dick,” Mr. Gerald Hargison said sheepishly. “How’re you doin’?”
    “I could just dance!” Mr. Moultry’s face was getting splotched with crimson. “Shit!”
    Mr. Hargison stood at the edge of the hole and peered down. “That’s the bomb right there, is it?”
    “No, it’s a big goose turd!” Mr. Moultry raged. “’Course it’s the bomb!”
    While Mr. Moultry thrashed to get free again and only succeeded in raising a storm of plaster dust and causing himself considerable pain, Dad looked around the basement. Over in one corner was a desk, and above it a wall plaque that read A MAN’S HOME IS HIS CASTLE. Next to it was a poster of a bug-eyed black minstrel tap-dancing, and underneath it the hand-lettered sign THE WHITE MAN’S BURDEN. Dad wandered over to the desk, the top of which was six inches deep in untidy papers. He slid open the upper drawer and was hit in the face by the enormous mammary glands of a woman on a Juggs magazine cover. Underneath the magazine was a hodgepodge of Gem clips, pencils, rubber bands, and the like. An overexposed Kodak picture came to hand. It showed Dick Moultry wearing a white robe and cradling in one arm a rifle while the other embraced a peaked white cap and hood. Mr. Moultry was smiling broadly, proud of his accomplishments.
    “Hey, get outta there!” Mr. Moultry swiveled his head around. “It ain’t enough I’m layin’ here dyin’, you’ve gotta ransack my house, too?”
    Dad closed the drawer on the picture and walked back to Sheriff Marchette. Above them, Mr. Hargison nervously scuffed his soles on the warped floor. “Listen, Dick, I just wanted to come by and see about you. Make sure you weren’t… you know, dead and all.”
    “No, I’m not dead yet. Much as my wife wishes that bomb had clunked me right on the brainpan.”
    “We’re headin’ out of town,” Mr. Hargison explained. “Uh… we probably won’t be back until day after Christmas. Probably get back near ten o’clock in the mornin’. Hear me, Dick? Ten o’clock in the mornin’.”
    “Yeah, I hear you! I don’t care what time you get back!”
    “Well, we’ll get back near ten o’clock. In the mornin’, day after Christmas. Thought you might want to