Shongo, 1961

Continued from page 48 car and traded his rod for the ri e. Cosmo and Johnny were quick to join him. As the three Porettis set o across a winterbrowned corn eld toward a stand of hardwoods, Cosmo called back over his shoulder, “You coming, Richie?”

Afraid of missing out, I turned to yell for them to wait, but then my rod tip jerked and I was into a heavy sh. “Hey, I have something,” I yelled.

When I glanced behind me again, the three brothers were disappearing into the woods on the other side of a fence festooned with POSTED signs. I turned back to what I assumed was going to be my rst trout, and a big one. I played it slowly and carefully, imagining its massive size and the way the Porettis would envy it and me. I nally backed into the willows and beached the sh, a huge yellow sucker. As I knelt on the gravel over the ugly trash sh, two ri e shots rang out from the woods beyond the fence. I glanced over my shoulder and hurried to release the sucker before the Porettis returned and mocked it. And me. e sh had swallowed the bait, and when I stuck a nger in its circular mouth to disgorge the hook, its shy lips puckered around my nger obscenely and I jerked my hand back, shuddering. I quickly cut the thing loose and slid it back into the river with my boot. is was not something I was going to tell the Porettis. I had to walk back up to the car to rig a new line. I was still there, tying on a hook, when the three brothers stumbled up in a hurry.

“Come, on, we gotta go,” Johnny said, panting. He dove into the car and started the engine, slipping it into gear, one foot on the clutch, one on the brake. “Move, you guys!”

Jerry yanked my rod out of my hands, pulled it apart, and stu ed it into the trunk. Cosmo dragged me into the back seat. In the distance I heard yelling. I turned and saw a man in a widebrimmed hat waving his arms madly as he blundered toward us across the dried cornstalks.

Jerry jumped into the front seat with the ri e. “Hit it!” he said, and I was pinned against the seatback as Johnny popped the clutch. With the Chevy hurtling across the bridge over the Genesee River, Cosmo and I looked out the rear window. e man climbed up the embankment onto the road and stood watching us go, his hat in one hand as he wiped his forehead with the other.

A mile away Johnny let up on the gas. e howling of the engine dropped to a reasonable pitch. “You think that guy got close enough to get my license?” he asked.

“Nah,” Jerry said. “No way.”

“What happened?”

Neither of the older boys said anything. I turned to Cosmo, sitting next to me. He just shook his head and said, “ at was screwed up, Jerry.”

Jerry turned and glared at him. “You going to bust balls, Cosmo? I’m telling you, I thought it was a...” en he realized I was there. He gave me a look and turned back around. I could see that he was furious with Cosmo for questioning him in front of an outsider.

“Never mind, Cos,” I said, like I wasn’t interested. Or worried.

We drove a while longer in silence with no further mention of whatever happened out there in the woods. Jerry and Johnny smoked and ddled with the radio but couldn’t get anything. Jerry told a joke about a blind man with a seeing eye chihuahua. He said that the smelt would soon be running in the Lower Niagara. Johnny asked him something about a neighborhood girl named Angela. It was like nothing had happened. Cosmo just shook his head in silence.

We were somewhere maybe halfway home and I still wanted to know what happened back at Shongo. Not wanting to know so much as wanting to be told. at’s when Jerry spotted the rabbit. e rabbit was sitting so perfectly still Cosmo had to point and let me look down his arm to his nger to make out the animal’s shape against a pallet of old barn boards in a weedy gravel lot full of building materials.

I said, “Jerry, rabbits aren’t varm...” e gun went o again.

As good as Jerry was with the ri e, his target bolted a half-second before he squeezed o the shot. e wounded rabbit thrashed in a wild blur for an instant, then recovered enough to drag itself into a short piece of iron pipe lying nearby. Jerry was already out of the car. He stopped and poked his head back in, glaring at me. “You made me miss my shot.”

Johnny yelled, “Jerry, leave it! We’re going to have company!”

Cosmo and I leaned forward and looked out the windshield. A vehicle was cresting a hill, still a long way o but heading our way.

Jerry was already halfway to the gravel lot, jacking another round into the chamber. He opped on his belly, looked in the pipe, then stu ed the muzzle of the gun inside. At the sound of the ri e crack Johnny hopped out and opened the trunk, muttering under his breath. Jerry was back at the car, rabbit in hand, but didn’t have time to put it in before the approaching vehicle arrived, a pale green Studebaker. Johnny was still standing in front of the open trunk. Jerry held the ri e and the dead rabbit low against the passenger side tail n, out of sight. e driver of the Studebaker, a man wearing a pale blue suit and a tie, rolled down his window. His family’s pink, Sunday scrubbed faces stared out at us. “Don’t tell me that beautiful car’s having trouble,” he said pleasantly.

“Nah,” Johnny said, smiling. Johnny only smiled when he was lying. But when he did, it was a smile that could sell sand to Bedouins. He slammed the trunk closed. “Just had to change a tire. All set now.”

“Well then,” the man said, “drive safely, young fellas, and have a blessed day.”

“Nice folks,” Jerry observed, like they’d met over cookies and milk after Sunday school.

Johnny whirled on him. “Okay, dickhead, this time the ri e goes in too.” He popped the trunk. “It’s getting late and there’s more people on the road now. No more screwing around!” e state trooper was parked strategically on the blind side of a curve when we blew past, going 20 over the limit.

Jerry snarled but put the gun in with the rabbit.

We hit the road again. I told myself the worst was over. We were getting closer to home.

“Well, shit,” Johnny said. We all turned and saw the blue and red lights ash on.

“You can outrun him,” Jerry said.

“You’re mentally ill, Jerry.” Johnny slowed and pulled over. “Did you even unload that ri e?”

“What di erence does it make?” Jerry said. “Cop opens that trunk, sees that out-of-season bunny, we’re toast.”

“Yeah,” Cosmo said, “especially if that farmer did get your plates.”

Both the older Porettis turned and gave him a murderous look.

My stomach tied itself into a square knot.

Johnny got out of the car to meet the trooper, license and registration in hand, that phony smile on his face. He held up his hands, fake laughing. “Oh brother! I get out on these wide-open roads and go a little crazy. I confess it! I do!”

In a minute they were best pals. e trooper, not a lot older than Johnny, glanced into the car at the rest of us, but mostly wanted to look under the hood. He and Johnny talked about horsepower and carburetors and such while I squirmed. Cosmo kept shaking his head. In the front seat, Jerry just looked out the window next to him and yawned, like none of this had anything to do with him. When Johnny nally slammed the hood, the trooper smiled and said, “Look, John, you were really barreling there. I’m sorry, but I gotta write you up.”

“I know, I know,” Johnny sighed. He held his wrists out in front of him. “Slap the cu s on me, o cer!” e trooper laughed. Best pals. I swear.

When the trooper sat back against the lid of the trunk to write the ticket, I almost cried. Even if that farmer back near the river hadn’t caught Johnny’s license number, he surely called in a description of a blue and white Chevy full of kids who had shot whatever Jerry shot on the man’s property. If the trooper opened the trunk, it would only be a matter of time before the Shongo situation surfaced.

Being with the three Poretti brothers was like looking at one of those Darwinian evolutionary cartoons of my future: a sh that walks onto land using its pectoral ns before morphing into a crouching chimp-like caveman, and nally into the upright bipedal form of a 20th century homo sapien in a suit and fedora. I’d thought I wanted hair like Cosmo’s, a ri e like Jerry’s and the fast car—and even faster girlfriend—Johnny had. But now even Cosmo didn’t look like he wanted that anymore. I looked at him to see if he was as sick of his brothers as I was. Cosmo nodded.

I poked Jerry’s shoulder. He turned to look at me. “Tell me what happened at the river,” I whispered.

He sneered. “Who are you again? I keep forgetting.”

We could hear Johnny and his new best friend laughing behind the car.

“Tell me,” I hissed, “or I tell that trooper to open the trunk, right now.”

Jerry opened his mouth to say something, but his eyes met mine and he could see I was determined to be taken seriously. Face suddenly pale, he looked past me and through the rear window.

I turned and looked that way too. Behind the car, Johnny and the trooper were shaking hands, the trooper still chuckling at something the entertaining Johnny had said.

I turned back around. “Tell me Jerry,” I said. “Tell me about Shongo.”

Jerry looked at Cosmo, but Cosmo just smiled and said, “He’s serious, Jer.” Jerry groaned, then started.

“We were in the woods, and I saw something that looked like a...”

“Wait,” I said, cutting him o .

“What?” Jerry asked.

“I forget,” I said, giving him a puzzled look. “Who are you again?” S

Chiappone is not really sure what Jerry Poretti shot. Or was it one of the Gibaski brothers on an entirely di erent river and an entirely di erent day? ere were so many rivers, so many cars, so many ri es and rods in those days. And it was all so very long ago. Still, every time he sees a Pomeranian he has to marvel at how foxlike those darned things look.