Crunching Gravel by Robert Louis Peters Page A

thick slabs of hot bread smeared with bacon grease and peanut butter or wild-cherry (“pincherry”) jam. There was never enough silverware. The family ate at a rectangular oak table in two shifts, the older girls feeding the younger children. In the center of the clothless table, near a platter of fried pike and perch, stood the blue roaster full of beans. Bread, homemade jelly, butter, lard, fresh milk, coffee. To help yourself to food you simply reached into the roaster and then wiped your fingers on some bread. No plates matched, and most were cracked. Only the parents used spoons and forks. Cinnamon rolls. Fresh gooseberry pie.
    At school Bill and George often took my part against Osmo Makinnen. Bill, blond, short, and muscular, was quieter than George, who had black hair like mine and was always mischievous. Both were good students. The three of us would start high school together. Bill later died at Monte Cassino in the early years of the war.
    From the Jollys I learned how to fish, and they taught me the little I knew about sex. They seemed wiser than I, perhaps because they had older brothers, perhaps because they were raised far more permissively; their mother hardly had time to linger over their nurturing.
    For our night swims in Perch Lake, Bill would bring matches, and after we swam, we’d rustle up wood for a fire. Bill had already reached manhood, but George and I lingered in late adolescence. One evening, George and I, naked, were horsing around, grabbing one another. Bill squatted near the fire watching. When George wrestled me to the sand, pinning my shoulders, Bill came over. His penis was hard. He started to play with it. George also began masturbating. I sat hunkered with my head on my knees, amazed, excited, yet vaguely embarrassed. Out in the lake, hundreds of toads swam toward our fire. As they hopped frantically ashore, we beat them with sticks and threw them into the flames. Then we doused the fire and left the beach.
Albert
    My aunt Kate’s eldest son, Albert, was illegitimate. His father, according to talk, was a handsome roustabout who had slept with Kate and then abandoned her before Albert was born. Dad always feared Kate. He blamed her for his brother Pete’s death at age fifty-three, ostensibly from eating stale bologna sandwiches. Kate, Dad surmised, had tired of Pete, as she had of her other men. Dad feared he would be her next victim.
    At twenty-one, Albert was a shy, lanky, sandy-haired youth with an engaging smile. He loved cars and had bought his own Model A from wages he earned at the local lumber mill. My uncle forced him to contribute most of his salary as room and board. To his mother and stepdad, he was a quasi-slave. He seemed to accept his persecutions; his mother never took his side, favoring the legitimate sons.
    He often took me riding in his car, and I helped him with his chores. One evening, as we were playing five hundred rummy, a storm came up. My aunt said I should stay over. Albert offered to share his bed. During the night, he embraced me.
    On the last Sunday of June, we went fishing for muskellunge. Albert’s girlfriend, Rose Howe, came with us. We rowed through connecting streams to a pair of lakes on the famous Chain of Lakes, lakes ideal for muskie. Landing muskellunge was difficult. Rich sportsmen carried revolvers for the purpose, shooting the exhausted fish while it was in the water.
    I trolled my line, and Albert trolled his. We used chub minnows for bait. At noon we ate lunch, had a swim, and then turned the boat against the current, toward town. I helped with the rowing. As we neared the channel, Albert got a strike, a big one! To play the fish until it was exhausted, we turned the boat around, facing the open lake. Fifteen minutes later, Albert managed to play the muskie close to the boat.
    The fish was almost four feet long, a prizewinner. Though subdued, he might suddenly flash forth, ripping the hook from his mouth or even damaging the