Cannonball by Joseph McElroy Read Free Book Online Page B

Marine?” said Umo so quick always though never what you would call quick (though I wished he would pick these guys up and throw them like endover-end grenades into the middle of the lake, a dumb thought of mine that brought with it Jesus out on the water for the day—prepared was what he was—marine Jesus had come to me). “Well, Jesus,” I said, “he’s our C.O.” “C.O.?” “C. E .O.,” I added.
    â€œC E O?” What did Umo miss? Not much in my voice. “He gives us a hundred and ten percent,” I said. The Marines stared. What made me unreal, these words? Why would any kid need to enlist? My foresight weighed me in, shutting me down. The sergeant, extremely low-body-fat, looked over his shoulder at three kids behind him. (“They high school?” he said.)
    â€œHe had something going for him,” I said. “Those fishermen just left their nets and followed him. Talk about miracles.” “Secret weapon,” I remember Umo said.
    It was my birthday sort of self-anointed, though I kept it to myself when I said I would take him to the East Lake club to a practice. Umo looked at his watch. He understood I now think as much as I, or anyway he was seriously touched, but was ready. “CEO?” I said. Chief Executive Officer, though the Jesus may have lost him. “I like to see what we talk about.” That meant, we talked. I got us onto the East Lake bus. I saw something out the bus window. The three (I was pretty sure) middle-schoolers were collecting literature from the recruiters and it looked like ballpoints to sign their names with to and to keep. I was taking Umo over to East Hill to have a look at a practice and get his feet wet. “About Jesus,” I began again—“It is not what we believe,” Umo said. “—some say he was proactive,” I said, “that was the thing about him, getting things done on all fronts.” “That is your business,” I recall Umo said. “You get it,” I said, “and if you don’t get it yourself you can’t tell someone else.”
    â€œSo what are you doing?” Umo laughed like he might not agree, and the bus driver had us in his mirror. I was sorry for Umo and it came out wrong. I said my sister would agree with Umo. It was my birthday, I said. “Hey, your birthday, what’s up?” “East Hill.” “What else?” Well, my sister was cooking dinner.
    I feared I had invited Umo but he said, East Hill, good. Or did he think we lived there? “Your sister,” he said, and nodded with enthusiasm or formality. I was sorry for him maybe.
    Did I have a look on my face? Jesus had meant business, I said, he had capitalized on what he had going for him, he had a job to do, I said. Umo gave me a look. Not did I believe all that, but. I let my face not say to him Yes or No, I think.
    â€œYou so…” Umo, pausing to not find the word, was momentarily older. He knew it was something to not quite find the word you wanted. He was learning. Even kids, I said wryly, should enlist with Jesus, that’s what he said, “come unto me,” as I recalled. It was almost new to me, what I found myself saying, as if my sister and I were up in her room kidding around and talking in our private little family way a job within a job and treating each other right.
    â€œI’m so…so what?” I said, wondering again what was the secret weapon.
    â€œSo plenty,” Umo said, and laughed, and the bus driver had us in his mirror. And listen, the old cowboy Umo’d given a dollar to (he hitched his thumb) that’s not begging. He was doing his job. “Two dollars,” I said. We sort of laughed. “You knew about East Lake and my father,” I said. “Yeh, I don’t say I know someone already when I meet them. They don’t like it.” That was right, I said, thinking my sister would have