Bless the Beasts & Children by Glendon Swarthout Read Free Book Online

skivs and somehow, in darkness and nerves, turned it on. Music yammered.
    They were tackled and captured instantly. Dragged outdoors by the Apaches, the oldest and largest boys in camp, they were roped to a pine trunk while one of the victors brought the chamber pot from their cabin. Goodenow began to cry. So did everyone, even Cotton, everyone but Teft. The other tribes came out in skivs and pajamas to observe and laugh. It served the Bedwetters right. They were born losers. And while they cried and the camp laughed, placing the pot on the ground and taking triumphant turns, the Apaches urinated in it.
    They buzzed through Sedona, in the incredible Technicolor country where so many Westerns were filmed and stars like Henry Fonda and Glenn Ford and James Stewart and John Wayne did so many incredible deeds for the camera and a percentage of the gross. Cotton had Teft pull over so that they could switch places again. They put Lally 2 back in the cab with Goodenow, but when Shecker, who had toughed it out in the open both stints, volunteered to tough it out again, Cotton let him. The improvement in Shecker in one summer had been terrific.
    Now their cause was hopeless. They could neither steal status nor win respect. They would never have watermelon for dessert, never take in a midweek movie. For the rest of the summer they were doomed by the establishment to be the Bedwetters, the dandiest collection of dings ever to be inflicted upon Box Canyon Boys Camp. The morning after the final indignity at the hands of the Apaches they refused to rise and shine, refused to face the jeers of the other tribes. When Wheaties could not budge them, he went to breakfast. Except for Lally 2, who withdrew under his bed, they huddled in the warmth of their bags, eyes closed, or lay on their backs looking at the ceiling, radios pulsing. The air in the cabin was oppressive with tension and dirty socks and despair and petpee.
    Cotton lay thinking. Is this the time? What've I got to work with. A teeth-grinder. A head-banger. Two actual bedwetters. A nail-biter and overeater. And a thumb-sucker and bad-dreamer. And they all sleep with radios and talk in their sleep. I'm the only one normal out of six. I'm the only one who can do it. And if I don't now, it'll be too late. So get the lead out. Get the show on the road.
    Feet on the floor, whistling to attract attention, he rummaged in his footlocker. In it were a few items he'd been saving just in case. Round his neck he put a set of army dogtags he had bought in a surplus store in Cleveland. They jingled. Teft and Goodenow were watching. Next he got out an electric razor, plugged it in, and ran it over his cheeks and chin. He was only fifteen and had little need to shave, but he had a razor ready against the day when. Now Shecker and Lally 1 were watching and the head of Lally 2 turtled from beneath his bed. Next, putting the razor away and rummaging further, he brought out a small cigar and one of the four two-ounce bottles of whiskey he'd bagged from the cart while the stewardesses were selling drinks on the plane coming out and having hernias trying to handle Teft, who'd run amuck. He sat down on his bed, broke the seal on the bottle, had a snort, then lit the cigar and puffed sufficient smoke. Their eyes bugged. He had them. This was the time.
    Cotton laid it on the line. He told them the mess they'd made of last night's raid was the worst thing that had ever happened to him and he wanted no more of that and neither did they, he knew. Wheaties was off their backs and that was good, but if they wanted to get anywhere or be anybody this summer they had to have a leader who understood their problems but at the same time made them snap crap. He said he might as well be the one. If anyone wanted to fight him for it, he'd fight, but if not, he was taking over. Period.
    "Okay, here's my first orders," he said. He had another snort and coughed and tried to blow a smoke ring and coughed but nobody smiled.