Boys Life

honey.” He shook his head. “Old legs… gone.”
    “What’re we gonna do?” Nila looked at my mother, and I saw the bright tears in her eyes.
    The river was shoving its way in. Thunder spoke outside and the lightning flared. If this had been a television show, it would’ve been time for a commercial.
    But real life takes no pauses. “Wheelbarrow,” my mother said. “Have you got one?”
    Nila said no, but that they’d borrowed a neighbor’s wheelbarrow before and she thought it might be up on their back porch. Mom said to me, “You stay here,” and she gave me the oil lamp. Now I was going to have to be courageous, whether I liked it or not. Mom and Nila left with the flashlight, and I stood in the flooding front room with the little boy and the old man.
    “I’m Gavin Castile,” the little boy said.
    “I’m Cory Mackenson,” I told him.
    Hard to be sociable when you’re hip-deep in brown water and the flickering light doesn’t fill up the room.
    “This here’s my grandpap, Mr. Booker Thornberry,” Gavin went on, his hand locked with the old man’s. “He ain’t feelin’ good.”
    “How come you didn’t get out when everybody else did?”
    “Because,” Mr. Thornberry said, rousing himself, “this is my home, boy. My home. I ain’t scared of no damned river.”
    “Everybody else is,” I said. Everybody with sense, is what I meant.
    “Then everybody else can go on and run.” Mr. Thornberry, whom I was beginning to realize shared a stubborn streak with Granddaddy Jaybird, winced as a fresh pain hit him. He blinked slowly, his dark eyes staring at me from a bony face. “My Rubynelle passed on in this house. Right here. I ain’t gonna die in no white man’s hospital.”
    “Do you want to die?” I asked him.
    He seemed to think about this. “Gonna die in my own home,” he answered.
    “Water’s gettin’ deep,” I said. “Everybody might get drowned.”
    The old man scowled. Then he turned his head and looked at the small black hand he was clutching.
    “My grandpap took me to the movies!” Gavin said, attached to the thin dark arm as the water rose toward his throat. “We seen a Looney Tune!”
    “Bugs Bunny,” the old man said. “We seen ol’ Bugs Bunny and that stutterin’ fella looks like a pig. Didn’t we, boy?”
    “Yes sir!” Gavin answered, and he grinned. “We gone go see another one real soon, ain’t we, Grandpap?”
    Mr. Thornberry didn’t answer. Gavin didn’t let go.
    I understood then what courage is all about. It is loving someone else more than you love yourself.
    My mother and Nila Castile returned, lugging a wheelbarrow. “Gonna put you in this, Daddy,” Nila told him. “We can push you to where Miz Rebecca says they’re pickin’ up people in trucks.”
    Mr. Thornberry took a long, deep breath, held it for a few seconds, and then let it go. “Damn,” he whispered. “Damn old heart in a damn old fool.” His voice cracked a little bit on that last word.
    “Let us help you up,” Mom offered.
    He nodded. “All right,” he said. “It’s time to go, ain’t it?”
    They got him in the wheelbarrow, but real soon Mom and Nila realized that even though Mr. Thornberry was a skinny thing, they were both going to have a struggle pushing him and keeping his head above water. I saw the predicament: out beyond the house on the underwater street, Gavin’s head would be submerged. A current might whisk him away like a cornhusk. Who was going to hold him up?
    “We’ll have to come back for the boys,” Mom decided. “Cory, you take the lamp and you and Gavin stand up on that table.” The tabletop was awash, but it would keep us above the flood. I did as Mom told me, and Gavin pulled himself up, too. We stood together, me holding the lamp, a small pinewood island beneath our feet. “All right,” Mom said. “Cory, don’t move from there. If you move, I’ll give you a whippin’ you’ll remember for the rest of your life. Understand?”
    “Yes ma’am.”
    “Gavin, we’ll be back directly,” Nila Castile said. “We’ve got to get Grandpap to where people can help him. Hear?”
    “Yes ma’am,” Gavin answered.
    “You boys mind your mothers.” Mr. Thornberry spoke up, his voice raspy with pain. “I’ll whip both your butts if you don’t.”
    “Yes sir,” we both said. I figured Mr. Thornberry had decided he wanted to live.
    Mom and Nila Castile began the labor of pushing Mr. Thornberry in the wheelbarrow against the brown