(1)
— Originally published in Pangolin Papers, Spring, 2005
After Riley and Joey had scrubbed the metal
plates from Riley’s old Army mess kit, a souvenir from Nam, they
settled by their campfire.
“I brought you a little something,”
Riley said. “Early birthday present. You can use it tonight.”
He fished in the knapsack until he found the olive green Army flashlight
with the head turned at a right angle to the body. He’d tied blue
plastic ribbon around it.
Joey took the flashlight, tried it, set it in
the dust beside him.
“You know that weeping cherry tree in
front of the house?” Riley said.“I planted it the day you
were born. So your birthday is, like, its birthday.”
Joey kicked at the fire.
“Don’t do that, son. You burn your
new sneakers, your mom’ll have a fit.” Riley handed Joey
a long branch from the kindling pile. “Here. Tell you what.
I’ll teach you a camp song I learned from an Aussie in Nam.
’Jolly Sixpence.’”
Joey poked the fire with the limb.
“You’re always supposed to sing by
the campfire,” Riley said. “When you’re old enough
to go camping with the Boy Scouts—”
Joey wiped his nose on his wrist.
“Use your handkerchief,” Riley
said. “Is something the matter?”
“Were you what they call a casualty in
Vietnam? Mom said you were hurt.”
“What’s eatin’ on you, son?
” Riley asked.
“It’s just, um, I can’t go
camping two weeks from now.”
Riley swallowed. “How come?”
“Mom wants you to switch weekends with
her. She wants to do something, you know, special for my birthday.”
Joey threw a twig into the fire. “She said you’d be mad.”
“I’m not mad.”
Riley kicked a smouldering log further into
the fire. Jesus. That Saturday was supposed to be his weekend with Joey.
They’d agreed that he’d get Joey every other weekend.
“It’s no big deal,” Riley said.
“We’ll celebrate late, that’s all. Like we did at
Christmas. I’ll get a cake and we’ll have candles and everything
around the campfire.”
Sunday morning, while they were packing, Riley
found the flashlight by the dead campfire, its ribbon intact. He dropped
it in the knapsack. Before driving Joey home, Riley canceled the reservation
for two weeks from then. He couldn’t get anything for the weekend
after Joey’s birthday.
TOM'S TALES