“It’s something Ma told me back beginning of the summer. It had to do with people who felt their life wasn’t worth anything. Like they had no value. Ma said when a human being feels trampled under, they’ll do anything to show they matter. If it’s lighting fires, they light fires. I figured Caleb was one of those people.”
Frankie watches me close. His train is coming into sight now. Getting louder. I make it quick now.
“But I think everybody matters. Whether they think so or not. Whether I like them or not. Heck, they matter even if they’ve hurt somebody else, even if they’ve hurt me. People . . . just matter. I believed Caleb Madliner mattered. And I didn’t want him to die.”
I’m done. It’s just as well. The train’s brakes squeal out in protest as it approaches our platform. With a last blast on its horn, that hulking metal creature groans up to the station.
Frankie keeps his eyes on me. At last, a slow smile spreads across his face.
“John Thomas Elliot,” he says at last, “you are the toughest, kindest, wisest boy I have ever known.” He laughs. “I’m glad we’re cousins. And friends.”
I grin. “Yeah, yeah. You’re not so bad yourself. But if you don’t get moving, you’ll miss that train.”
I give him a hug. Then he lifts his mud-brown suitcase and turns for the train.
“Come visit me in the city sometime.”
“I’d like that a lot, Frankie.”
He laughs again and steps onto the train. “No, you wouldn’t. But you’ll come anyway.”
When Frankie’s train disappears over the rim of the world and the field is empty once more, I make my way back down to the lot where the parked cars bake in late afternoon sun. Butch cocks his head and gives a puzzled look from the bed of the pickup. He’s wondering where Frankie went.
“He’s gone back to his city, Butch,” I tell him. “Won’t see him again for a while, I guess.”
I climb up next to Will in the cab, who sits fiddling with the radio. The music comes in scratchy here. The reception’s no good. I’m quiet for a bit as he twists the dial.
“Well, he’s off,” I tell him.
“Yeah,” Will says distractedly. “Going to miss him?”
I nod.
“Just give me a second here,” Will says. “Gotta find the right music for it.”
“For what?” I ask.
Just then Bob Dylan’s voice comes through the speakers. Will puts the truck in gear. Then he reaches down in the seat next to him, pulls out a piece of paper, and hands it to me.
It’s folded in squares and stained dark in several places. I open it up. It’s Dad’s map.
I look at him.
“What do you say we go find us that fighter jet?”
He twists the key in the ignition, and the truck engine roars to life again.
* * *
1 “The Week.” National Review. July 16, 1968.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank Annette Kirk and the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in Mecosta, Michigan: they hosted me for a summer and made available the center’s private library as a haven to complete Last Summer Boys. When it comes to writing, I am convinced there is no better or more hauntingly reflective environment in America.
The University of Pennsylvania provided a fellowship that made possible my stay in Michigan that summer.
My agent, Dean Krystek, is as warm as he is devoted to the authors and stories he serves. A Vietnam veteran, he understood the story in a way more deeply than I ever could. This book would not have been possible without his passion and expertise.
I am beyond grateful to editor Alicia Clancy and the peerless Lake Union Publishing team. They made my first encounter with the publishing industry little short of a dream. I felt part of the process at every step.
Lastly, I owe the deepest debt of gratitude to my family: my parents, for instilling a love of storytelling; my siblings, for being the most honest critics; and my wife, for her endless patience and encouragement. I love you all so very much.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bill Rivers grew up along the creeks of the Brandywine Valley in Delaware and Pennsylvania. A graduate of the University of Delaware, he earned an MPA from the University of Pennsylvania as a Truman Scholar, one of sixty national awards given annually for a career in public service. Bill worked in the US Senate before serving as speechwriter for US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, developing classified and unclassified messages on national security and traveling throughout Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas. He and his family live outside Washington, DC, where he still keeps a piece of a crashed fighter jet they found in the hills of southeastern Pennsylvania.