Return to Oakpin(28)

            “We’re not afraid of fire,” Jimmy said.

            Larry sat down on the bed beside Wendy. She had been looking at Jimmy again for a moment, and now he watched her lean forward and touch his knee, pat it with two fingers.

            “Are you afraid?” Wendy said. She and Larry sat still, their faces without irony. Such young faces; they were at the edge of their lives. It was okay to envy the young. You knew all about them and you knew all about what was to come, and it was all right to envy them anyway.

            “This is an unusual girl,” Jimmy said to Larry. “Isn’t she?”

            Larry’s face lifted at the setup. “She is an unusual girl. She’ll say anything. It’s all over this town about her unusual qualities.”

            “Yes, Wendy,” he said. “I am afraid.”

            He saw Larry take her hand, and by her reaction Jimmy knew it was one of the first times such a thing had occurred. The sunlight came through the one window like a bright joke, and it fell across their shoulders. “Well,” Larry said, standing. “Do you need anything else?”

            It was so wonderful to talk about things to do. Jimmy had known it all his life and seen it keep things afloat a thousand times. It didn’t move things forward, but it kept you from crashing. He could see Craig Ralston in Larry now, the tall young man standing there, his hands ready for the next thing.

            “There’s one thing.” He leaned back. “I think there’s something up there”—he pointed—“in the rafters that I’d like to get down.” They all looked up through the translucent plastic into the dark space. “I may be hallucinating—no, I have been hallucinating—but besides that, I think I see my old case, a guitar.”

            Wendy scooted farther onto the bed and lay back. “I see it,” she said, pointing. Larry lay back beside her. “Oh yeah.” Jimmy looked at the two reclined figures. These kids were just the ticket. If he could keep them here, he’d last all year.

            “Could we get it,” Jimmy said, “without tearing up all this work? If it’s too much trouble, let it go.”

            Larry retrieved the ladder from behind the garage and leaned it against one wall and began tenderly to pull the stapled plastic away.

            “What did you write about?” Wendy asked.

            “I wrote a book about being seventeen in Oakpine,” he said. “About my life in the city. About someone I loved.” They watched Larry lean onto a rafter and reach for the neck of the guitar case. “Be careful,” Jimmy said.

            The black case, printed with a grid of dirt, appeared through the plastic, and then Larry slowly slipped it down through the opening and handed it to Wendy. “Wow,” she said, “what is it?” Larry stepped down and took the dusty case outside and batted it with a rag and then laid it on the grass and wiped it off. He returned and placed the case across the arms of the chair and opened it. He lifted the red and white electric guitar from the blue velvet and laid it in Jimmy’s lap, and Jimmy felt the hard plastic shell on his bones. It hurt. He couldn’t even hold a guitar.

            Larry said, “It’s a Fender Stratocaster.”

            “Like its owner, this is an absolute antique.” He was wiping at the dust with his handkerchief. He would ignore this pain. The strings were sprung, only one still in place. Larry took the ladder out and returned, saying, “We’ll come back and restaple that plastic this afternoon.” He saw Jimmy with the guitar.

            “You guys actually had a band.”

            “For seven months some years ago, that is, for seven months several decades ago, we were the band in Oakpine.”