The Troop

Shelley quit abruptly, turned, and wandered toward the shore. Newton smoothed his untucked shirt over his pendulant belly, turned to Kent all stiff-spined, and said:

“Thanks, Kent… but I only did it the one time, and I was six years old and we were on that bus trip to Moncton that went on forever and okay, I drank too much McDonald’s orange drink but—”

“Shut up, tinkle-dink,” Kent said. “Don’t get too excited or you’ll piss your pants, remember?”

WHILE THE boys horsed around, Shelley waded into a shallow tidal pool. He found a crayfish. It fit perfectly in his palm. He studied it closely. It looked weird and funny. He tried to imagine the world as seen through the black poppy seeds of its eyes, sitting on spindly stalks. What a stupid creature. What were its days like—what was its life? Crawling around this dreary itsy-bitsy pool, choking on fish shit, eating garbage. It had no clue about the world outside its filthy puddle, did it? Dumb is as dumb does, as his mother would say—which had always struck Shelley as a dumb expression, something only a dumb person would say.

How would it feel to pull the crayfish apart? He didn’t mean how would the crayfish feel—he didn’t care about that, and anyway, with its piece-of-lint brain and elementary nerves, it may not feel anything. Distantly, Shelley considered that possibility: that this creature could watch itself be shredded like paper and feel nothing, caring not at all.

Oh, there goes my leg. Never mind. And there goes my other one. Ooops—now I can’t see. My eyes must be gone.

Shelley was something of a sensualist. He relished touch—pressure. How would it feel, physically, to take this creature apart? Would its pincers snap at his fingers as he pulled? Would its stupid crustacean anatomy fight its own dismemberment—that wonderful tension as he pulled each limb off, the sucking pip! as this or that part detached from the whole? The crayfish could fight, yes—and dimly, Shelley sort of hoped it would—but it wouldn’t matter: he wasn’t scared of being bitten or clawed, plus he was so much bigger. As usual with Shelley, if he wanted to do something—and if nobody was watching—he simply did as he liked.

He pinched one of the crayfish’s comical little eyes. It ruptured with a mildly satisfying pop. The texture was grainy—a tiny ball of honeycomb candy coming apart. The remnants were stuck on his finger like the shards of a very small and dark Christmas tree ornament. The crayfish spasmed in his palm, jackknifing open and closed. Shelley was transfixed. His eyes took on a hard sheen. Saliva collected in his mouth, a gossamer strand of spit rappelling over his quivering lower lip.

He burst the crayfish’s other eye. He carefully pulled off one of its pincers, relishing that thrilling tension. Pip! The pinky-translucent claw continued to open and close even when separated from the body. He dropped it and watched it sink, opening and closing.

“Hey, Shel,” Ephraim called over. “Newt’s going to light the one-match fire. We need you as a windbreak.”

NEWTON WAS in charge of the fire. The boys were content to let him take the lead. Besides, Newton was best at almost all the basic survival skills: firecraft and orienteering and berry identification.

Newton lit the pile of old man’s beard and nursed the fledgling flickers. Fingers of flame crawled up the bleached wood. They crouched around the fire to soak in its heat. Sunlight painted a honey-gold inlay on the slack water between the waves.

“My grandma died of cancer,” Ephraim said suddenly. “Liver cancer.”

Max said: “What?”

Ephraim gave him a look: Just listen to me. “Her skin went yellow. All she could get down were those meal replacement things that old people drink. Ensure. Her hair came out because of the radiation chamber they stuck her in to kill the cancer.” He exhaled heavily, blowing his dark locks off his forehead. “When I saw that guy this morning, the first thing I thought about was Grandma.”

The man hadn’t entered their thoughts directly, but he’d been hovering at the margins all day. His sick-looking face. His matchstick arms and legs. The sweet smell of the cabin.

Ephraim’s streamlined and unconventionally handsome face took on a rare pensive aspect. “What do you think’s the matter with him?”

Kent grabbed a stone and hurled it into the water with a vicious sweep of his arm.

“Who knows, Eef? If it’s cancer, then it’s cancer—right? People get cancer.” Kent stared at the others with savage solemnity. “Maybe he’s got what-do-you-call-it… alpiners or whatever.”

“Alzheimer’s,” Newton said.

“What-the-fuck ever, Newt. He’s got that.”

“He’s too young,” Newton said. “That’s an old people’s disease.”