Boys Life

closed.
    The thought came to me, shocking in its decisiveness: To hell with him.
    I got the box of ice cream salt, and I started walking.
    The first two miles were all right. On the third, the heat began getting to me. Sweat was pouring down my face, and my scalp felt as if it were aflame. The road shimmered between its walls of pine forest, and only a couple of cars passed, but they were going in the wrong direction. The pavement started burning my feet through my shoes. I wanted to sit down in some shade and rest, but I did not because resting would be weakness; it would be saying to myself that I shouldn’t have tried to walk six miles in hundred-degree heat and blazing sun, that I should have stayed at that house and waited for my grandfather to come out when he was good and ready. No. I had to keep going, and worry about my blisters later.
    I started thinking about the story I was going to write about this. In that story, a boy would be crossing a burning desert, a boxful of priceless crystals entrusted to his care. I looked up to watch hawks soaring in the thermals, and when my attention roamed from what I was doing I stepped in a pothole, twisted my ankle, and fell down and the box of ice cream salt burst open beneath me.
    I almost cried.
    Almost.
    My ankle hurt, but I could still stand on it. What hurt me most was the ice cream salt glistening on the pavement. The bottom of the box had broken open. I scooped ice cream salt up in my hands, filled my pockets, and started limping on again.
    I was not going to stop. I was not going to sit in the shade and cry, my pockets leaking salt. I was not going to let my grandfather beat me.
    I was nearing the end of the third mile when a car’s horn honked behind me. I looked around, expecting the Jaybird’s Ford. It was, instead, a copper-colored Pontiac. The car slowed, and Dr. Curtis Parrish looked at me through the rolled-down passenger window. “Cory? You need a ride?”
    “Yes sir,” I said gratefully, and I climbed in. My feet were about burned to the nubs, my ankle swelling up. Dr. Parrish gave it the gas, and we rolled on. “I’m stayin’ at my grandfolks’,” I said. “About three miles up the road.”
    “I know where the Jaybird lives.” Dr. Parrish picked up his medical bag, which was sitting between us, and put it onto the back seat. “Awful hot day. Where were you walkin’ from?”
    “I… uh…” Here was a crossroads of conscience, thrust upon me. “I… had to run an errand for my grandmother,” I decided to say.
    “Oh.” He was quiet for a moment. Then: “What’s that spillin’ out of your pocket? Sand?”
    “Salt,” I said.
    “Oh,” he said, and he nodded as if this made sense to him. “How’s your daddy doin’ these days? Things ease up at work for him?”
    “Sir?”
    “You know. His work. When Tom came to see me a few weeks ago, he said his workload was so tough he was havin’ trouble sleepin’. I gave him some pills. You know, stress can be a mighty powerful thing. I told your dad he ought to take a vacation.”
    “Oh.” This time I was the one who nodded, as if this made sense. “I think he’s doin’ better,” I said. I gave him some pills. Dad hadn’t said anything about his work being tough, or that he’d gone to see Dr. Parrish. I gave him some pills. I stared straight ahead, at the unfolding road. My father was still trying to escape the realm of troubled spirits. It occurred to me that he was hiding part of himself from Mom and me, just as the Jaybird hid his poker fever from my grandmother.
    Dr. Parrish went with me to the front door of my grandparents’ house. When Grandmomma Sarah answered his knock, Dr. Parrish said he’d found me walking on the side of the road. “Where’s your granddaddy?” she asked me. I must’ve made a pained face, because after a few seconds of deliberation she answered her own question. “He’s gotten himself into some mischief. Uh-huh. That’s just what he’s done.”
    “The box of salt busted open,” I told her, and I showed a handful of it, my hair wet with sweat.
    “We’ll get us a new box. We’ll save what’s in your pockets for the Jaybird.” I wasn’t to know it for a while, but for the next week every meal the Jaybird sat down to eat would be so loaded with salt his mouth would pucker until it squawked. “Would you come in for a cold glass of lemonade, Dr. Parrish?”
    “No, thank you. I’ve got to get back to the office.” His face clouded