The Journey Prize Stories 27 Read Online Free PDF Page A

When it rains, discharge from a nearby flume runs down Main Street, creating a muddy stream that Pauley calls “The Gran’ Canal.” But behind the junkyard is a forest with sunny patches of billowing trees and bushes of ripe berries. The morning air is thick with mist and if I walk close to the flood-line below Sandy Mountain, chunks of shoreline break off and sink slowly into the water where it melts into a sugary cloud. A few weeks after I arrived, I took the rowboat out and looked down into the reservoir. I expected a graveyard of dead trees, with stuff bubbling at the top like on theChicago River below our old airtight apartment behind the meat-packing plant. But the water was clear and the submerged trees green, their branches waving with the lapping of the lake as if in a breeze. I cupped my hands for a drink: pine perfume! That night I stayed awake until I heard the morning chatter of palm-sized chipmunks.
    On windy nights, the breeze comes in off the lake, howls through the junkyard, and starts my father’s Jesus rocking against its chains like it’s trying to get bucked off. Pauley and I train, but it’s hard not to get distracted. Ghost-Mom’s hanging out in the corner, oblivious to the grunting aspects of Pauley’s internal massage exercises, swaying to the screeching effigy as if it’s music. Pauley’s got his mouth cinched tight, his puny fists are balled up, and he’s trying to force a big breath of air out of his abdomen while resisting at the same time. Around the time his face turns red and his eyeballs pop out, he starts rubbing and squeezing his stomach muscles with both hands.
    “This is the key to controlling the internal organs,” my father told us during our lesson last week. “The best way to train for a punch to the stomach.”
    I generally don’t look forward to one-on-one matches against Pauley. Even though we are about the same age and he’s smaller than me, he thrashes like an animal afraid of water, and he’s hard to pin down. Plus, last night I told him about Ghost-Mom. Now, every time I look at him he pretends he’s rubbing a lamp, then purses his lips, lets out a poof like a dry fart, and his eyes get all big and round like there’s a genie bobbing in the air somewhere in front of him. I guess what can you expectfrom someone whose own mother left him on the hood of a Model A? It’s the most common car in the yard; my father once told me it was possibly the biggest junker of all time.
    “Seen anything phantam
tastic
today?” Pauley grins, his face still flushed from the exercises.
    “You’re going to regret that.”
    Halfway through, Pauley’s almost got me into a Lesson 4: a Beell’s Waist Hold. I’m on my hands and knees and he’s behind me with both arms wrapped around my middle. I can feel his scrawny ribcage pressed against my lower back—he’s too far forward. Then my father lurches in and starts clapping from the sidelines. He stomps his feet on the floor and slurs, “Mercy! Get up and fight.”
    I back up and grasp Pauley’s foot, pulling it forward even more. My father’s leaning in expectantly, his stomach straining desperately against his twine suspenders. It’s difficult to believe that his signature Little Lew Double Leg Takedown once pinned the best heavyweights in the territories. He was once an undefeated champion! He had a Triple-A card!
    And then somewhere deep inside of me, I sense a cache of strength, wiggling and faint. I grab Pauley’s wrist and raise his foot at the same time; he pitches ahead and lands face down on the dirt floor. A classic roundabout! I throw my head into his armpit and secure him in a half nelson. With one hand wrapped under his arm and the other around his neck from behind, I can feel his shaky intake of breath. He’s started crying. Pauley’s snot-whistling into the ground, his back quivering. I ease up and he jumps free and runs out of the room.
    —
    It’s about a half-hour walk up to the powerhouse chamber that