The Water Is Wide by Pat Conroy Page B

class shouted.
    â€œYeah,” I shouted back. “But I am going to give him a chance. Now if I was Saul I would say, ‘Teacher, I said that stinking word and I made a mistake. If you give me another chance, I promise I won’t do it again.’ ”
    â€œTeacher,” Saul said rather quickly, “give me a chance and I won’t do nothin’ again.”
    â€œO.K. Fair enough. Now, Lincoln, is it true the stuff I hear about you?”
    â€œWhat, man?”
    â€œIs it true that you eat skunk?”
    â€œYeah, he eat skunk,” the rest of the class shouted.
    It was strange how I marveled about their lack of knowledge concerning history and geography. On the third day, though despairing, I wondered if they felt any pity for me for not having feasted on squirrel stew or enjoyed the simple pleasures of scrinching. The boys were hunters; the girls were expert in the preparation of the spoils of the hunt. Oscar, the tallest and the blackest kid in class, told me he had shot a deer the year before. Lincoln then told me that Frank had shot Oscar the year before. With this statement the class lapsed into a profound, but uncertain silence. Frank looked at Lincoln with eyes that danced with rage and fury. Oscar looked as if he was sucking on a lemon. Finally Saul spoke up.
    â€œFrank shot Oscar through the arm.”
    â€œWhere was this?” I asked.
    â€œDown on Bloody Point on other side of island. They hunt bird.”
    Lincoln said, “Frank no have any guard on his trigger. Walking along, Frank trip over root. Trigger catch in his sleeve and put hole in Oscar’s arm.”
    â€œOscar bleed like hog,” Sidney, one of the twins, said. It was obvious that Frank and Oscar still carried scars from that particular day in the woods—Oscar impulsively holding his left arm, Frank staring at his pencil, both of them thinking about the blood and pain.
    â€œThat boy nearly bleed to death, Mr. Conrack,” Ethel said.
    â€œThey walk to Mr. Stone’s house and a man take him to the doctor in Savannah. Say he almost die on the way.”
    â€œShut up, girl,” Oscar said.
    â€œYeah, man. Let’s everyone be quiet.” The bus was pulling up into the yard. “Tomorrow return and we will continue to derive great pleasure from the joy of learning.”
    â€œOh Gawd, Conrack.”
    When Friday afternoon came and the bus sucked the kids out the school door and they bade farewell to Mr. Conrack for the weekend, it was a matter of minutes before I was untying the boat at Stone’s dock and heading for Bluffton, where Bernie was meeting me. We drove to his apartment in Beaufort, where I took my first shower in a week. I luxuriated in the flow of hot water. All the crud of the island fell off me like a skin. Then I turned my attention to the mosquito bites, which were legion over the length and breadth of my body. Pouring alcohol into cotton balls, I dabbed the red swellings until they stung and glowed. One particular bite merited more detailed attention. Under careful scrutiny, I saw that it was a tick. It was just sitting there beneath my armpit, growing fat by sucking my lifeblood. He was in there deep; his snout drilled far into my flesh enjoying the refreshment of the plasma coursing through my veins. I grabbed him by his tiny behind and yanked. He split in half. His straw still remained in me, sucking away. Bernie got a match and after applying four first-degree burns to my arm, the tick shriveled and came out easily. A spot check revealed that I was covered with the ravenous fellows. They preferred the warmth and obscurity of the pubic region, where they could hide and suck without detection. They were forest creatures and to the forests they retreated, hiding like guerrillas in the dense foliage of arse and scrotum. Taking a pair of tweezers, I extracted nine ticks from my body.
    â€œAn occupational hazard, son,” Bernie sang.

CHAPTER 3
    THE SCHOOL