Stand Tall (20 page)

Dad got the last word.

But Mom got the last sound.

Curtis and Larry showed up the next day and bunked in sleeping bags at Mom’s.

Dad was at a motel.

Grandpa stayed at Mom’s, too, with Tree and Bradley, but this afternoon he was out with the Trash King getting building supplies.

“How bad is it?” Curtis asked Tree.

Part of Tree wanted to say, “It’s awful with Mom and Dad,” but he knew Curtis didn’t mean that.

Tree tried to find the words, but you’ve got to see for yourself what a flood can do.

Curtis and Larry walked around the muddy lawn, kicked debris away, looked in the broken basement windows.

They went inside the house, came out gagging.

Larry swore, hit the Dumpster, stormed off to get away from the sight.

Curtis went after him. Motioned Tree over. Put one arm
around Larry, one around Tree, and they stood there looking at the old house.

Tree felt so close to his brothers.

“We’ve got seventy-two hours,” Curtis said. “What do we do first?”

“Give up,” Larry suggested.

Curtis shook his head, held on tight.

“Scrub the basement walls and floor with Clorox,” Grandpa ordered. “No joke.”

Rubber gloves on, face masks tight, the Benton brothers formed a fighting unit to kill all bacteria left by the dirty floodwaters.

They lugged ruined boxes of photos and videos to the street.

Grandpa demonstrated how you pull down Sheetrock walls.

Slammed a sledgehammer into the wall, yanked as much out as he could with a crowbar.

Tree and his brothers stood by the wall, holding sledgehammers, too. No one wanted to go first.

Finally, Curtis said, “I keep thinking how it used to be, how Mom drove us crazy picking out the paint for the walls. It’s stupid. I don’t want to knock them down.”

Larry dropped his hammer. “I don’t, either.”

Tree wanted a magical wind to dry everything up and put it back in place.

“You’ve got to take a thing apart before you can fix it,” Grandpa explained.

Tree, Curtis, and Larry looked at one another.

“The best thing about a sledgehammer is how it lets you release your frustrations.” Grandpa pounded his into the wall. “You fellas should try it.”

Three sledges rammed the wall.

Grandpa shouted, “
And watch the plumbing in there!
”

Larry went at this with everything he had.

A clang and a crack.

Larry hit a pipe.

Grandpa limped over, marked the crack with tape. “You got many more frustrations left?”

Larry gulped. “Not too many.”

“Good. Watch how your brother does it.” Grandpa motioned to Tree. “He hits it just right. Swings easy, keeps up a steady rhythm.”

Tree liked hearing that, but he wasn’t sure Larry would. He hit the wall with the sledge to demonstrate, ripped off the wallboard. Hit it again.

Larry tried, but wasn’t getting it.

“Here.” Tree stood behind him, held his arm back, let it go. “Hit it like this.”

Larry tried it himself.

“That’s it,” Tree said.

By night, they’d knocked the wallboard down in the hall and the living room.

They pulled out the insulation.

Those rooms stood stark like a tree without leaves.

Dad came in, beat—he had to work at the store
and
help at the house.

Stared at the sight. “You guys did all this?”

“I did most of it,” Larry said.

Tree and Curtis pounced on him.

Two
A.M.

Tree was in his room at Mom’s house. It felt good to be clean, felt good to be someplace that didn’t smell like sewage.

He’d scrubbed Larry’s home run medal and Curtis’s athlete of the year trophy in hot, soapy water.

Dried them off.

Poured metal polish on a cloth and began to rub the medal. He went over and over it, let it dry. Did the same thing with Curtis’s brass cup.

He rubbed the dried polish off. Still a few scratches, but the metal looked gold again.

Took another cloth, polished both pieces till they shone.

He sprayed Windex on the marble base of Curtis’s trophy to make it gleam.

The trophy looked good, but Curtis’s name in raised black letters wasn’t clear. He filled in the C, the T, the BENTON with a laundry marker.

Turned to the medal. It was in an open leather box. The box had water stains all over. It looked awful. Tree had seen his dad restore a baseball glove left in the rain with saddle soap.

He poured saddle soap onto a damp cloth and cleaned the box.

That made it better, but not good enough.

He opened a can of mink oil—put some on a cloth, rubbed it deep into the grain.

You’ve got to be patient to fix a thing right.

He felt the leather get softer, rubbed more and more mink oil in. Gradually, the color deepened. The water stains disappeared.

Tree rubbed for an hour until he’d restored it to something you’d be proud to put on a shelf.

He fell into bed at 4:30.

“It’s going to be better here now.” Curtis surveyed the first floor of Dad’s house. They’d gotten all the wallboard off, down to the frame and joints.

A contractor friend of Grandpa’s was going to put up new walls next week.

Curtis and Larry were heading back to school.

“One game!” Larry ran outside, got the basketball that survived the flood.

Curtis ran outside as Larry dribbled the ball in the driveway. They’d hosed the driveway down. It was clean now.

“Come on,” Larry shouted. Passed the ball to Tree.

Tree bounced, passed to Curtis, who made an easy basket. Larry got the ball under the net. Passed it to Tree again.

“
Come on.
”

Larry got in front of Tree to guard him; all arms.

Tree tried to get around him.

Larry laughed.

Tree tried a basket from too far away.

Missed.

Curtis threw the ball back to him. Larry got out of the way.

“Nice and easy,” Curtis said. “Set up the shot, then shoot.”

Tree did that. Watched in triumph as the ball popped through the net.

“Awesome, Tree Man,” Curtis said.

Larry slapped him on the back.

It was one of those moments you want to cover with plastic to keep safe.

Dad pulled up in the car with Grandpa, honked the horn.

“We’ve got to go,” Curtis said.

“Wait. I have something for you guys.” Tree ran to the porch, grabbed the presents wrapped in tissue paper. Handed one to Larry, one to Curtis.

“Open them.”

Dad and Grandpa were heading up the walk.

Larry tore his open.

Couldn’t believe what he saw.

Curtis unwrapped his carefully, held it solemnly to the light.

“I washed them off and gave them a polish. That’s all it took,” Tree said.

Larry touched the leather box, ran his finger across his name. “I thought it was gone.” He looked up at Tree.

Tree shrugged.

Dad stepped forward to say something, but Grandpa motioned him back.

Larry slapped Tree on the shoulder. The slap turned into a hug.

Curtis put an arm around Tree, an arm around Larry.

“We’ll be back on Memorial Day,” Curtis promised.

“Try to get the house finished by then,” Larry added. “And don’t grow anymore, okay?”

Over the next weeks, Tree knew something had changed.

In school, he and Sophie walked down the hall and Amber and her friends moved aside fast when they saw them coming.

At Dad’s, Grandpa started rewiring the downstairs. The new walls went up, and what had seemed like a construction site began to feel like a home again.

At Mom’s, Tree looked at the picture of his parents laughing at the beach, and for the first time, he didn’t get too torn up about it.

Mom sat him down. “How are you doing with the divorce stuff? How are you feeling about it?”

Tree said honestly, “I wish you hadn’t done it. I wish you and Dad had tried harder to stay together. But I’m okay, Mom. I’m okay.”

Phantom pain does get better.

Rat a tat tat tat.

Rat a tat tat.

Luger hit the snare drum two-handed.

Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Drumsticks rolled.

“Move it out!” the Trash King shouted.

The Vietnam vets marched in formation as the Ripley Memorial Day Parade began.

The vets were right behind the League of Women Voters float honoring the women’s suffrage movement. Mayor Diner, as Susan B. Anthony, was chained to a post, screaming that women need the right to vote.

Rat a tat tat.

Grandpa was marching next to the Trash King, swinging his right leg out as sharp and smooth as he could manage.

People lined the streets four deep, applauding, whistling.

No town needed a parade as badly as Ripley.

And now, Scotty McInerny, decorated twice for courage in
battle, nodded to Luger, lifted his bagpipes to his mouth, and let the first mournful wail of “The Highlander’s March” rise from that instrument.

A bagpipe and a snare drum make everybody stand a little taller.

Tree held the American flag and marched alongside Grandpa.

He was there in case Grandpa pushed too hard. If he did, he’d be riding in the Army Jeep driven by Wild Man Finzolli, who was honking the horn and waving to the crowd like he was running for governor. Bradley was sitting in the passenger seat.

Tree raised the flag high. It caught the wind, billowed full.

He felt so proud.

Raising a flag is the best thing going.

Rat a tat tat.

Rat a tat tat tat.

Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

They marched.

Not for themselves.

They marched to remember the ones who didn’t make it back.

They marched because seeing so much loss can teach you about life.

They marched because we’re all fighting a war whether we know it or not—a war for our minds and souls and what we believe in.