“The Boy Scout”
by
David Ohle
The boy scout guides his wooden pedal car up the dirt road and parks it, in the shade of my turkey oak, without ceremony. The little car has tin-can headlights and a false grille. He approaches the steps and begins to climb, a box of rice cookies under one of his frail arms. It is a mystery how he crossed the bottoms in this handmade vehicle, how he avoided sinking in the soft mud ruts and being stung by the wasps in the sumac along the ditch-bank. Twice the boy scout drops the box of cookies, backsteps to the ground, recovers it, and climbs up again. He knocks gently, the sound is as though his knuckles are made of hard rubber. I open the door and allow him in. He sits on the sofa with yellow eyes and looks at my feet and says nothing. I offer him a bowl of soy soup, which he declines, casting his glances on the floor. His face is ageless and simple, with precocious whiskers on the jaw.
I build an oak fire in the woodstove and he warms his hands against the evening chill setting in. In the firelight I first become aware of the suggestion of a seam running down the front of him, over the nose from the khaki tip of the hat, across the lips and chin, into the neckerchief. He seems in the odd light to have been stitched together out of two unmatched bolts of cloth. His eyes are like coat buttons, the fists like ripe tomatoes. He smells of sodden laundry. Crickets bump against the tower window screens. The stink of pinesap and legustrum. The clack of crows in the sky.
I take a cold chicken wing from the refrigerator and offer it to him. His head pivots, the lips emerge tubelike from the face. He says no. At least he has finally spoken. We don’t want to sit here too long on the brink of conversation, like wax figures behind plexiglas. Coffee? Does he want coffee? Cola? I move around the living room mechanically, under an odd influence from this boy scout, as though he were a planet and I his satellite, he earth and I moon. Threads of black yarn drape his forehead under the scout hat, a mockery of hair. He has a sewn-on eyebrow above one eye and nothing above the other one, and a faded disk of scar on the chin. I talk about the weather and he listens without comment.
I ask him about a point of scout lore, and although his mouth opens and the dry tongue quivers, he says nothing. When he moves, which he seldom does, there is a faintly audible rasp, as though his joints are dry of lubricant. I ask him if I might sample one of his cookies. He indicates no. I have to buy or not buy without tasting. I give him the required amount in National coupons. I eat one of the cookies, which have no taste and little consistency. I remember myself as a boy scout, driving my pedal car intricately through alleyways in the city, eating bruised fruit when I found it at the backs of government markets. In the rear compartment of the pedal car I kept a change of khakis and extra shoes. If night came on me I’d throw out my bag and sleep wherever I was. I’ve seen tumbleweed, or something similar, blowing past the house recently. A wild pig comes every night and snufiles around for any garbage I might throw down. I consider dropping something heavy on him from the roof, breaking the spine, dressing him out, cooking him over a fire pit. The boy scout has been here several days now. I’ve noticed a spider’s thread from his shoulder to the windowsill. Two days ago he began an extended smile which has not yet broken. When the wind occasionally blows outside, the shiplap siding of the house gets to wailing in a high-pitched tone. The wind sock is full to the south, the awnings flapping. The fire in the stove belly has died hours ago, the sun’s last yellow angle is narrowing on the tower walls. The old clock is ticking on the mantel. The evening wears on. I rebuild the fire as the night cools and wear my flannel robe and long johns. Before dawn I see an orange light in the pines, someone walking with a lamp, Morning again.
An icicle has formed where the bathroom faucet dripped. The sun has come up in a haze. The boy scout is sleeping on the sofa.
The wind sock is deflated and the day is warming up toward noon.
By mid-afternoon I am perspiring in the humidity, wiping myself with a handkerchief. The boy scout remains dry and still.
A slow drizzle now, hanging on three days. On the fourth day I see an egg of sun above the tree line. A katydid is dead at the bottom of my teacup. Overnight the weather turns cold again, and the drizzle becomes a wet snow. My mouth is sour, my toothbrush worn down to the plastic. It will be nice to chew salty pork meat, sometime, whenever I can kill the pig. I should raise the awnings before the snow collects and breaks through the rotted canvas.
The wind sock is frozen stiff, pointing south. I see the pig outside, standing in the white. He pisses and leaves a yellow circle on the snow crust. The pedal car is gone, tracks of the wooden wheels leading off down the road. The awnings are frozen and won’t go up.
