Fort (2 page)

We took up our positions under the bushes, making sure we couldn't be seen from above, and started cawing our heads off. After several minutes I whispered to Augie, “Are you sure about this?”

“I've done it a million times,” he answered. “Sometimes it takes a while. There's crows everywhere. They'll hear us soon.”

We continued cawing. Suddenly we heard a loud, high-pitched
“Screee-eeeeeee!”

“There's one!” I whispered excitedly.

“That's not a crow,” said Augie. “And stay still!”

“Screeee-eee!”

“What is it?”

“I dunno. Maybe it's J.R. and Morrie making fun of us 'cause of our lame crow calls.”

I hoped not. J.R. and Morrie were thirteen, two years older than us, and they were major jerks. They seemed to think it was their mission in life to torture us. They'd swiped our bikes one day when we were swimming at the reservoir. We found the bikes later, ditched by the side of the road. Another time, they'd tripped me when Augie and I were leaving the ice cream stand, and my cone hit the sidewalk. They thought that was hilarious. We pretty much just tried to stay away from them.

“How 'bout if you keep quiet for a while and just let me call,” Augie suggested.

“Geez,” I said. “I didn't think I was that bad.”

Augie looked at me.

“Okay,” I said grudgingly. “I'll keep quiet.”

Augie was about to give another call when we heard it again, louder this time, and closer.

“SCREEEEEE-EEEEEEE!”

Then, from out of nowhere it seemed, a bird—bigger than a crow but not as big as the owl—dive-bombed from the air and attacked Herkimer! There was a
whack
and a flurry of feathers as Herkimer was knocked from his perch on the fence post to the ground.

The dive-bomber flew off with another piercing
“SCREEEEEEE-EEEEEEEE!”

Augie and I looked at each other in disbelief, then jumped up and ran over to Herkimer, whose severed head lay several feet away from his body.

“Holy moly,” I said. Augie had found Jesus that spring and had given up swearing, so I was trying hard not to. “What
was
that thing?”

Augie looked as if he was about to cry. “Red-tailed hawk,” he answered. After a minute he added, “I guess they don't like owls, either.”

 

2

We ended up hiding Herkimer's body and head in Bertha's trunk. Bertha was an ancient Buick that sat in rusty splendor up on cinder blocks in the driveway of the house where Augie lived with his grandmother. His grandmother, who he called Gram and who insisted I call her the same, was convinced that Buick was going to be worth big bucks someday.

Augie had tried plenty of times to tell her that just being old didn't make a car valuable. “Gram, if Bertha was in mint condition and had been stored in a temperature-controlled garage all these years, maybe she'd be worth something. But you might as well have Mr. Juliano haul that old rust bucket off to his junkyard.”

“Now, Augie, people go crazy for antiques these days! The older something is, the more they like it. Call something vintage and the price quadruples come tourist season, that's Alfred Soames's opinion, and he ought to know,” she would say. “You just wait. Bertha is going to put you through college.”

Augie had never said it to her because I think he was afraid it would break her heart, but he had told me, “The only way I'm ever going to college is if I grow three and a half feet and magically learn to play basketball, or if they start giving out brain transplants.”

I didn't know how to answer that, so I didn't. For me, going to college is kind of like a fact of life, or something. I mean, my parents—both of them actually agree on this—just seem to expect it. My friends at home are planning on it, too, in a way-off-in-the-future kind of way. We all say stuff like, “After college, I'm going to blah blah blah.” Nobody ever actually asked me if I
wanted
to go. I guess I do.

But it's different with Augie. I don't really know the whole story about his parents. I think they both just left, but not together. He's lived with his grandmother as long as I've known him. Augie's plenty smart, but I guess he doesn't do so hot in school. There's school smart, and there's Augie smart. Augie knows how to call crows and shoot rats, which we did one night last summer at the dump.

And he knows how to build forts. We'd been talking all summer about making a fort. Now there were only two weeks left before I had to go home, and we were finally going to start that afternoon.

“What are we going to make it from?” I asked as Augie and I rode our bikes down his gravel driveway.

“Not sure yet,” he answered. “That's why we're heading to Juliano's.”

“I thought that was for junked cars,” I said.

“It is, mostly. But Al's got all kinds of stuff there. Some stuff he lets me have for free.”

“Let's hope so,” I said. “'Cause I'm broke until Saturday.”

“What happens Saturday?”

“I get my weekly allowance.”

“How much?”

“Ten dollars if I don't have to be told to do my chores. Five dollars if Dad has to say something.”

“So what's it going to be?” Augie asked.

“Five,” I answered glumly.

“Tough luck,” said Augie. “But at least you've got some dough coming.”

“Mom gave me a little emergency money, too,” I added.

Up ahead I could see the faded and peeling sign that read
Juliano's Metal and Auto Parts—If we don't have it, you don't need it!
Augie and I turned in and I saw his Uncle Heindel and another old guy sitting on lawn chairs outside of a building that said
Office
. There was an upside-down orange crate between them, holding two beers and a checkerboard.

“I figured Unk would be here,” Augie said in a hushed voice. “Don't say anything about Herkimer.”

I shot him a look as if to say,
Do you think I'm stupid?
Then I whispered back, “But what are we going to do about the … you know … head?”

Augie shrugged. “We'll fix it later.”

I nodded. That sounded like a good plan. If anybody would know how to recapitate a stuffed owl, it was Augie.

“Hey, Al,” Augie called as we pulled up to the lawn chairs. “Hey, Unk.”

Al said, “Here comes trouble,” but you could tell he didn't really mean it.

Augie's uncle said, “Augie, help me out here. This shyster is trying to cheat me.”

“How do you cheat at checkers?” Augie asked.

“By making up rules,” Uncle Heindel said indignantly. “He claims if he brings a king back to my starting line, I have to king him
again
.”

“Huh? Like put a third checker on top of it?” Augie asked.

“Yes! Have you ever heard anything so crazy in your life?”

“So, then what?” Augie asked. “Does that king have, like, superpowers or something?”

“Exactly!” cried Al. “You see?” he said, turning triumphantly to Heindel. “That triple-decker sucker can go forward, backward,
and
sideways. And if you bring him back to get kinged
again
, he can go off the black if he wants to and onto the red!”

I had been standing back, just listening, but I couldn't help blurting out, “But why would he? There aren't any other players on red.”

Al turned to me, scowled, and said very slowly, “That's not the point. The point is, he can do it—
if he wants to
.” He raised his hands, palms up, and appealed to everyone. “That's the whole point of being a king, right? You can do whatever you want, no matter how stupid it is. Wise or foolish, you're the king!”

I shrugged, trying to stay out of it. I didn't want to get on the wrong side of Augie's uncle, but we were there to mooch stuff off Al, so it was important not to make him mad, either.

I figured that's what Augie was thinking, too, because he said, “You can't argue with that. I mean, the king is the king.”

“Told ya!” Al crowed.

Uncle Heindel shook his head. “I can't believe you'd do me this way, Augie,” he said mournfully. “My own flesh and blood…”

Al, happy now, said, “So what can I do for you boys?” Turning to me, he added, “And who are you, if I might ask?”

“Wyatt Jones.”

“Oh, right,” said Al, nodding. “You and your dad are renting a place from Gloria DeMuth.”

“Yeah.”

To Unk, Al said, “Gloria's kid's the one everybody says burned down my shed.” He pointed to an empty space at the far end of the gravel parking lot, where I could see on the ground the charred remains of what must have been a little storage building.

Unk nodded. “How ya doing, Wyatt? It's good to see you.”

“Good to see you, too, sir.”

“Did you hear that?” Al said with a big smile. “‘
Sir.'
I like this kid.”

Augie's uncle looked at me and rolled his eyes. “You can call
him
sir, if you want.” He pointed to himself. “Me, I'm Unk.”

“So I wonder: To what do we owe the honor of this visit?” Al asked.

“Wyatt and me are gonna build a fort,” said Augie. “Mind if we look around?”

Al waved his arms expansively. “Look all you want.” After a pause he pointed to his right and added with disgust, “Check over there. My sign says
Metal and Auto Parts
, right? But every Sunday when I'm closed, some jokers show up and dump off whatever they want to get rid of. Mattresses, armchairs, a sailboat … you wouldn't believe.”

Augie and I headed over to where Al had pointed. Tossed in the gravel outside the chain-link fence around the property were a bunch of metal sinks and counters and those big refrigerator things with spigots that serve soft ice cream, some overturned plastic tables and chairs, and some big, messy stacks of wooden siding.

I looked at the wood and then looked at Augie. “It's pink,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said glumly.

“We can't build a fort out of pink wood.” I might be a city kid, but even I knew that.

“Yeah,” said Augie. “It would be perfect if only it wasn't—”

“Pink,” I finished helpfully.

“Hey, Al,” Augie called. “This wood is pink.”

“Hey, Augie,” Al called back. “No kidding. It's from that custard place they tore down on old Route 9.” He laughed. “Like I wasn't going to be able to figure out who dumped it here.”

“But, Al,” said Augie, “we're building a fort.”

“So what?”

“The wood is pink,” Augie said.

“Again: So what?” Al replied. “It's
free
. And I hear real men aren't afraid of pink.” He guffawed at his little joke. “You can even take the old sign, make the place real classy.” This cracked him up even more.

I looked next to the stacks of wood, where there was a big metal frame with metal letters that used to hold light bulbs. The sign read
The Pink Palace.

I groaned.

But Augie was looking thoughtful. “Gram always says we've got to make do with what we've got,” he said. “I guess we could build the fort with the pink on the inside. Then nobody would see it.”

“But,” I objected, “
we'll
see it. We're the ones who are going to be in it. And a fort is supposed to be a place where you can, you know, hang out and feel great and
relax
, right? I don't know about you, but I don't think I could relax in a pink fort.”

Augie considered this. “I see what you mean. But— I know! How about we put up one board with the pink side out and the next one with the pink side in?”

“That's even worse!” I said.

“Yeah, I guess.”

We were quiet for a while.

“Why the long faces, boys?” Unk hollered.

“The pink,” Augie answered, with a shrug. “It's a problem.”

“Haven't you ever heard of paint?” Unk asked.

“Well, yeah,” said Augie. “But we don't have any.”

“What have I been doing for the past thirty-five years?” Unk demanded.

Augie frowned. “Uh … you were the custodian at the garment plant?”

“That's right,” said Al. “He was there for thirty-five years, wrestling with that old furnace, trying to keep the women warm.”

“That's what I did eight hours of the day,” Unk went on. “But what did I do every other waking moment?”

“Um, I don't know,” said Augie.

“I painted, that's what,” Unk said emphatically. “The minute I finished the bedroom, your Aunt Hilda would decide the living room needed ‘a little face-lift.' Then it was on to the kitchen. Then the basement, for cripes' sake. It never stopped. As soon as I finished one room, she'd decide it made another room look ‘shabby.'”

Augie and I just looked at him, not knowing what to say.

“My
point
here,” he said, patiently, “is that I have paint. Every crazy color you can imagine. I got Aubergine, Mushroom, Avocado … or how about Moonglow or Fig Leaf?”

“Do you have any normal colors?” I asked. “You know, like brown?”

“I bet if you mixed all that crap together, you'd get brown,” suggested Al.

“I bet you're right,” I said.

“Definitely worth a try,” Augie agreed.

“Go see your aunt,” said Unk. “Tell her I said you can have anything you want.”

“Really?” asked Augie.

“Believe me, I'd be very happy to never see another can of paint.”

Augie and I headed for our bikes.

“It's all in the basement,” Unk called after us. “Which you'll notice is a lovely shade of Spring Cactus with Lime Sorbet trim.”