Free The Lives of Rocks by Rick Bass

umbrella over her as she adjusted her camera, very seriously, very professionally, taking light readings and motioning the other children into their places.
    Wejumpka, looking not so much thrilled or even happy, but more bored than anything, shrugged his shoulders and moved where she wanted him, into his position beneath the plank, sort of squatting, bent over, with his back pressed up against the plank, then, and all the other children whooping and shouting, pulling one another’s hair and kicking, climbing up onto the plank—all of them, and I counted seven, eight, nine—and I figured that if they weighed seventy pounds each, average, that was more than six hundred pounds, and it would truly be an amazing feat, if he could do it, and I wanted to call the newspaper, the television stations, and everyone I knew.
    I was flabbergasted.
    Ann had turned away from the window before the station wagon had pulled up, had gone back into the den and was
watching television, having taken the ice cream carton with her, and was still spooning the stuff into her mouth; she seemed to take no notice. I opened the window so that I could hear what was going on down in the yard. The cold rain beat against my face; it was starting to blow past in sheets. The other children in the street, the rubber duck children and their parents, had glanced over but then turned away, as if not realizing what was going on, either.
    The little school photographer had her flash attachment rigged up, and had it all ready, crouching down, and was telling Wejumpka to “Do it,” to “Do it!” I wondered why they had picked this of all days to shoot the picture; there must have been some sort of deadline. I wanted to call down to Vern to try to rouse him, but I did not want to miss a thing.
    The rain was whipping in then, harder than ever, sometimes obscuring the street, and the children out in Ann’s yard. The rubber duckers were screaming, gathering their toys and children and running for their houses, stung by the hard pellets as the rain turned to hail. I could see the flashbulb popping; the pictures were being taken, but I couldn’t see if Wejumpka was making the lift or not.
    I thought I could hear cheering and whistling, clapping, but I wasn’t sure. It could have been the wind.
    And then the wind had blown the curtains of hail past and I could see again, and Wejumpka
did
have the plank off the sawhorses: it was up on his back, his stout little legs braced wide apart and quivering, trembling, and his eyes squeezed shut, his face trembling and turning red, but he had them all up in the air, they were all resting on his back, and the little photographer was moving in closer, getting different angles, vertical and horizontal shots for the school paper, getting below him and shooting directly up into the hail. But no one
else was out, just the one teacher and all the children: only the children seemed to know what Wejumpka was doing, what was going on.
    Vern was asleep, drunk to the world, sleeping through the last part of his life, drooling; and I looked beyond Wejumpka’s heroic tremblings, looked down into the den, and could see that Ann had taken her blouse off and was lying by the fire, smearing the ice cream all over herself, and that she, too, had her eyes closed. I stared, horrified, trying to read the lips as she murmured something, and I picked up the field glasses and trained them on her.
    The ice cream was melting and running all over her.
    I could read her lips. “Me, me,” she was murmuring. “Me, me, me.”
    I saw how she would never let up, not until Vern was dead, and that even then she would hate him for his betrayal, and would be bitter; and that she did not care what her hatred of him was doing to her son, that it was just too strong for her alone to handle.
    Wejumpka continued to stand out in the hailstorm, trembling, shuddering, trying to impress his new friends, while slowly his