Bang! by Sharon Flake Page B

thinking, If you drown in that lake, it would be all right with me.

Chapter 25
    THERE’S MEN IN boats way out in the middle of the lake. And there’s little boys standing in the water between their fathers’ legs, holding fishing rods twice their size. Me and my dad fished like that once when I was little. He dressed me while I was still asleep, drove me to a lake outside of town, and him and me fished till the sun came up.
    “Catch something,” my dad tells me. He walks into the water till it’s up to his thighs. He’s got on boots and plastic pants. He tells me to come. I don’t want to. I’m wearing Timberlands and I don’t want my feet getting wet. He walks deeper into the lake. “You scared of guns. Don’t like water. What are you, a girl?”
    I step into the cold water, thinking about the fishing we did in the bathtub. Thinking about the fishing we did when I was little. Wondering why my father got me out here now, when he knows ain’t no fish jumping this time of day.
    Sand slides into my boots and floats between my toes. Mosquitoes stick to my neck and crawl up my arm. After a while, I’m picking gnats out my ear like wax. “The water’s too cold.”
    My dad pulls me by the arm. “Get over here!”
    I shove him. He shoves me back. Hard. I fall into the water. I stay down longer than I gotta because I don’t wanna come up and be with him. But when I do, my dad’s got the fishing pole high up in the air like a switch. “Boy, don’t make me . . .”
    Before Jason died, my father never hit me. He carried me on his shoulders and bought me paints from the old garage where his friend worked sometimes. He never hollered. He was as quiet as one of Jason’s plastic soldiers.
    I walk into the water up to my waist. Things slide in between my legs and bite me under my ribs. Red bumps pop up like measles, but I don’t say nothing.
    I keep the pole in the water three hours straight, not talking to my dad, not complaining, not having fun neither.
    I’m shaking when I get out. Pulling green slime off my skin and scared to look too long at the red welts on my arms.
    “I seen you in the water,” Kee-lee says. “So I took off the other way.” He’s got red candy stuck to the front of his teeth. “Candy apple,” he says, picking it off. “Sara makes them.” He pats his stomach. “That white lady can cook!” He digs in his pocket. “She made me pancakes and sausage. Gave me lunch too.”
    I ain’t ignoring Kee-lee, I’m just watching my father. He’s walking in front of us, carrying both the poles. No fish though. Three hours and no fish. When we get back to camp, Ralph says he coulda told my father wasn’t nothing biting this time of day. “Gotta get there well before the sun shows itself,” he says, inviting us to a fish supper with them.
    “We got plenty of food.”
    Sara pushes my dad out the way. “Oh, Lord. Ralph, get some iodine.” She’s touching my legs. Pulling my shirt up.
    “It hurt?” Kee-lee asks.
    “Ralph!” Sara yells. “Go next door and borrow more iodine. Cotton balls too.” She grabs my hand and pulls me. “He’s warm, you know.” She stares back at my father. “Got a fever from the heat or the bugs.”
    My father is taking off his boots. Sitting down and looking tired. “He’ll be all right.”
    “He’s not all right! He’s hurt. And you should be ashamed of yourself.”
    My father’s eyes roll. “Lady . . .”
    “Sara!” she says, opening the door. “My name is Sara.”
    “Well, Sara ,” he says, pulling off a boot and throwing it in the dirt. “Boys round our way don’t die from bug bites. They die because . . .”
    Sara keeps her back to him. “Boys are not supposed to die.” She takes my hand. “They’re supposed to grow into fine young men.”
    My father throws his other boot and knocks over the grill. Coals and ashes fly. “Get over here. Now.”
    Ralph speaks up. “Now, William . . .”
    My father’s toes and feet turn gray when he walks