miles upstream and towards New Hampshire before you could see any fish in the
Castle. There were no fish, and along the edges of the river you could see dirty collars of foam around some of the rocks–the foam was the colour of old ivory. The river’s
smell was not particularly pleasant, either; it smelled like a laundry hamper full of
mildewy towels. Dragonflies stitched at the surface of the water and laid their eggs
with impunity. There were no trout to eat them. Hell, there weren’t even any shiners.
‘Man,’ Chris said softly.
‘Come on,’ Teddy said in that brisk, arrogant way. ‘Let’s go.’ He was already
edging his way out, walking on the six-by-fours between the shining rails.
‘Say,’ Vern said uneasily, ‘any of you guys know when the next train’s due?’
We all shrugged.
I said, ‘There’s the Route 136 bridge…’
‘Hey, come on, gimme a break!’ Teddy cried. ‘That means walkin’ five miles
down the river on this side and then five miles back up on the other side… it’ll take us until dark! If we use the trestle, we can get to the same place in ten minutes!’
‘But if a train comes, there’s nowheres to go,’ Vern said. He wasn’t looking at
Teddy. He was looking down at the fast, bland river.
‘Fuck there isn’t!’ Teddy said indignantly. He swung over the edge and held one of the wooden supports between the rails. He hadn’t gone out very far–his
sneakers were almost touching the ground–but the thought of doing that same thing
above the middle of the river with a fifty-foot drop beneath and a train bellowing by
just over my head, a train that would probably be dropping some nice hot sparks into
my hair and down the back of my neck… none of that actually made me feel like
Queen for a Day.
‘See how easy it is?’ Teddy said. He dropped to the embankment, dusted his
hands, and climbed back up beside us.
‘You tellin’ me you’re gonna hang on that way if it’s a two hundred car freight?’
Chris asked. ‘Just sorta hang there by your hands for five or ten minutes?’
‘You chicken?’ Teddy shouted.
‘No, just askin’ what you’d do,’ Chris said, grinning. ‘Peace, man.’
‘Go around if you want to!’ Teddy brayed. ‘Who gives a fuck? I’ll wait for you!
I’ll take a nap!’
‘One train already went by,’ I said reluctantly. ‘And there probably isn’t any
more than one, two trains a day that go through Harlow. Look at this.’ I kicked the
weeds growing up through the railroad ties with one sneaker. There were no weeds
growing between the tracks which ran between Castle Rock and Lewiston.
‘There. See?’ Teddy was triumphant.
‘But still, there’s a chance,’ I added.
‘Yeah,’ Chris said. He was looking only at me, his eyes sparkling. ‘Dare you,
Lachance.’
‘Dares go first.’
‘Okay,’ Chris said. He widened his gaze to take in Teddy and Vern. ‘Any
pussies here?’
‘NO!’ Teddy shouted.
Vern cleared his throat, croaked, cleared it again, and said ‘no’ in a very small
voice. He smiled a weak, sick smile.
‘Okay,’ Chris said… but we hesitated for a moment, even Teddy, looking
warily up and down the tracks. I knelt down and took one of the steel rails firmly in
my hand, never minding that it was almost hot enough to blister the skin. The rail was mute.
‘Okay,’ I said, and as I said it some guy pole-vaulted in my stomach. He dug
his pole all the way into my balls, it felt like, and ended up sitting astride my heart.
We went out onto the trestle single-file: Chris first, then Teddy, then Vern, and
me playing tail-end Charlie because I was the one who said dares go first. We walked
on the platform crossties between the rails, and you had to look at your feet whether
you were scared of heights or not. A misstep and you would go down to your crotch,
probably with a broken ankle to pay.
The embankment dropped away beneath me, and every step further out
seemed to seal our decision more firmly… and to make it feel more suicidally stupid. I stopped to look up when I saw the rocks giving way to water far beneath me. Chris