Desire Lines by Jack Gantos

Author:Jack Gantos
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
Published: 2012-07-12T00:00:00+00:00

By the time we returned, Mal and Stephanelli had wrapped the rope around the box as if it were a birthday present. At the top knot the rope continued up and looped over a higher branch and hung down to the ground.

After we had finished drinking the water, Mal was ready to get back to work. “Everyone, take off your shirts,” he ordered. “Use ’em for gloves so you don’t strip your hands. You three, work the rope. I’ll lever it off the ground and lift from below. We’ll see how that goes.”

We pulled the rope until it was taut. Impossible, I thought. Our combined body weight wasn’t enough to lift it off the ground.

“Pull!” Mal hollered. Then, “Breathe.” Then, “Pull!”

The box slowly lifted, first a few inches, then a foot. Mal kept racing around the box, shoving rocks under the corners, pieces of dead trees and limbs. “Rest.”

We relaxed our grip. The box remained steady on the small platform he built. We readjusted our shirts around the rope as high up as we could reach.

“Ready,” he commanded. We tightened our grip. “Pull.”

We did, with all our might, until our arms ached. Our bodies hung like sacks of sand, and the box rose, a few more inches, then another foot. “Rest.”

Mal ran about gathering up more rocks and limbs, anything that would help build the platform. When he had enough material he hollered, “Pull!”

We did, pulling down on the rope as though we were trying to ring the heaviest church bell ever cast. The only sound produced was the stretch of the rope, the groan of the limb overhead, and shushing leaves.

“Put some muscle into it! I want to get it up there today,” he barked. “Now pull.”

We gave it what extra we had. Mal shored it up and shouted, “Rest!”

My elbows ached from stretching out my arms. My hands burned.

“You have to give us a hand,” Mike said to him. “We’re wiped out. Besides, it feels more like we’re going to pull the branch down before we raise the box up.”

“Come on, you sweet boys,” Mal said as he wrapped his hands around the rope. “I’ll show you how a real man works.”

The four of us pulled down on the rope and slowly the box lifted off its pile of rocks and branches. We kept adjusting our grip as inch by inch it lifted higher into the air until finally it was about eight feet off the ground. Mal cinched the rope off around the trunk. “Now,” he said, “you three swing it back and forth until it fits into the crotch of the tree.”

We did, and as the box swung over the Y of the tree trunk, Mal loosened the rope and it dropped in.

“Yes!” he hissed and pumped his fist. “I knew it would work.”

It was wedged in crooked, but Mal figured we could level it out later.

“Before we leave there is one thing I want to settle right now. I’ve been thinking about what we should call ourselves,” Mal said while squatting on the ground.

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