The Time Keepers

Chapter 57

CHAPTER 57

I NSIDE THE WALLS OF THE FORT, BEHIND THE PLASTIC TARP THE boys have used to mark the entrance, Clayton and Buddy are flat on their backs, their arms and legs stretched out on the dirt floor. Over the past three weeks, they have managed to build the structure using everything from the tiny saplings in the forest to discarded pieces of plywood and scavenged Coke cans. Intense satisfaction with themselves washes over them as only this morning they finished the final touches.

Clayton is immensely proud that he has successfully engineered a roof using an old boat tarp he found in his neighbor’s weekly garbage heap. Now, with the plastic sheeting above their head and the dark soil underneath their backs, they breathe in their accomplishment.

“It’s finally done,” Buddy exhales, his chest rising and falling beneath his yellow T-shirt.

Clayton lets out a grunt. “It needs a feature to make it even cooler than this … like a firepit in the center or something rad like that.”

He turns on his side, and his dungarees fall slightly around the nobs of his hips. Buddy notices a long, raised welt that snakes around past his waistband.

Clayton takes one of the remaining twigs and draws a circle between them. “We can build it right here. Dig out a hole in the center and mark the perimeter with small rocks.”

Buddy is tired and only half listening, but Clayton is already pulling him up from the ground. “Come on, jerkoff … let’s finish it. After we’re done, we can steal some beers from my dad’s fridge downstairs and celebrate we made a kick-ass castle for ourselves.” He ran his fingers though his pale, corn silk hair. His eyes are as steely as they are blue.

“I want this whole damn thing done before school starts.”

Buddy inches himself to the ground. “Can’t we wait until tomorrow? I’m exhausted.”

Clayton stands over Buddy with his arms folded. “I said, GET UP!” His voice is the edge of a knife. It slices through Buddy with cold precision. “What kind of viper are you, anyway?”

They collect every pebble they can find. Larger rocks, too, flinted with flecks of mica. Clayton thrusts his hands into the earth and digs out jagged pieces of quartz and smoother stones the color of the moon. They pull out the edge of their T-shirts and form a makeshift basket with the cloth to collect their bounty. Then, rock by rock, they make a perimeter around a pit that Clayton has shoveled several inches deep. What they have created now looks almost prehistoric. Like a small Stonehenge they’ve constructed with their two hands.

Crouched in one of the corners, Clayton grins with satisfaction. “If we ever make a fire, we’ll have to create something to pull back the tarp to let the smoke out. But still—” he laughs. “Hell, we’re pretty damn awesome.”

Buddy wishes he could show someone else what they’ve made. After all, it’s pretty astonishing they’ve managed to create something with four walls and a roof out of just salvaged materials they’d found.

“So do you think we can ever invite people to come out here?” Buddy is clearly the na?f between them. “I mean, it’s a shame to waste it just on ourselves.”

“Who else would you even want to bring here?”

Buddy shrugs. But secretly he knows exactly who he’d like to bring. Images of Katie Golden flash through his mind. With her perfect blonde ponytail, shapely physique, and her sharp tongue that somehow excites him. How many times has he fantasized about her in the solitude of his bedroom, that image of her high on her lifeguard tower, haughty as ever, looking down on him like a queen.

“Nobody … I just thought maybe one day we might …”

Clayton is already shutting him down. “Let’s go get those beers,” he smirks.

Buddy lets go of the idea of tasting Katie’s lips for the first time, and instead allows his mind to drift to the idea of the alcohol. He feels older in Clayton’s company and revels in their clandestine activities. With their fort finally actualized, he sees them no longer as boys. He believes that after all their hard work over the past few weeks, they can now call themselves men.