'I'm no a-hole,' George said, sitting on the edge of Bill's bed and putting the things he had gathered on the nighttable.

'Yes you are,' Bill said. 'Nothing but a great big brown a-hole, that's you.'

George tried to imagine a kid who was nothing but a great big a-hole on legs and began to giggle.

'Your a-hole is bigger than Augusta,' Bill said, beginning to giggle, too.

'Four a-hole is bigger than the whole state,' George replied. This broke both boys up for nearly two minutes.

There followed a whispered conversation of the sort which means very little to anyone save small boys: accusations of who was the biggest a-hole, who had the biggest a-hole, which a-hole was the brownest, and so on. Finally Bill said one of the forbidden words — he accused George of being a big brown shitty a-hole — and they both got laughing hard. Bill's laughter turned into a coughing fit. As it finally began to taper off (by then Bill's face had gone a plummy shade which George regarded with some alarm), the piano stopped again. They both looked in the direction of the parlor, listening for the piano-bench to scrape back, listening for their mother's impatient footsteps. Bill buried his mouth in the crook of his elbow, stifling the last of the coughs, pointing at the pitcher at the same time. George poured him a glass of water, which he drank off.

The piano began once more — Für Elise again. Stuttering Bill never forgot that piece, and even many years later it never failed to bring gooseflesh to his arms and back; his heart would drop and he would remember: My mother was playing that the day Georgie died.

'You gonna cough anymore, Bill?'

'No.'

Bill pulled a Kleenex from the box, made a rumbling sound in his chest, spat phlegm into the tissue, screwed it up, and tossed it into the wastebasket by his bed, which was filled with similar twists of tissue. Then he opened the box of paraffin and dropped a waxy cube of the stuff into his palm. George watched him closely, but without speaking or questioning. Bill didn't like George talking to him while he did stuff, but George had learned that if he just kept his mouth shut, Bill would usually explain what he was doing.

Bill used the knife to cut off a small piece of the paraffin cube. He put the piece in the bowl, then struck a match and put it on top of the paraffin. The two boys watched the small yellow flame as the dying wind drove rain against the window in occasional spatters.

'Got to waterproof the boat or it'll just get wet and sink,' Bill said. When he was with George, his stutter was light — sometimes he didn't stutter at all. In school, however, it could become so bad that talking became impossible for him. Communication would cease and Bill's schoolmates would look some where else while Bill clutched the sides of his desk, his face growing almost as red as his hair, his eyes squeezed into slits as he tried to winch some word out of his stubborn throat. Sometimes — most times — the word would come. Other times it simply refused. He had been hit by a car when he was three and knocked into the side of a building; he had remained unconscious for seven hours. Mom said it was that accident which had caused the stutter. George sometimes got the feeling that his dad — a n d B i l l himself — was not so sure.

The piece of paraffin in the bowl was almost entirely melted.

The match-flame guttered lower, growing blue as it hugged the cardboard stick, and then it went out. Bill dipped his finger into the liquid, je rked it out with a faint hiss. He smiled apologetically at George. 'Hot,' he said. After a few seconds he dipped his finger in again and began to smear the wax along the sides of the boat, where it quickly dried to a milky haze.

'Can I do some?' George asked.

'Okay. Just don't get any on the blankets or Mom'll kill you.'

George dipped his finger into the paraffin, which was now very warm but no longer hot, and began to spread it along the other side of the boat.

'Don't put on so much, you a-hole!' Bill said. 'You want to sink it on its m-maiden cruise?'

'I'm sorry.'

'That's all right. Just g-go easy.'

George finished the other side, then held the boat in his hands. It felt a little heavier, but not much. 'Too cool,' he said. 'I'm gonna go out and sail it.'

'Yeah, you do that,' Bill said. He suddenly looked tired — tired and still not very well.

'I wish you could come,' George said. He really did. Bill sometimes got bossy after awhile, but he always had the coolest ideas and he hardly ever hit. 'It's your boat, really.'

'She,' Bill said. 'You call boats sh-she.'

'She, then.'

'I wish I could come, too,' Bill said glumly.

'Well . . . ' George shifted from one foot to the other, the boat in his hands.

'You put on your rain –stuff,' Bill said, 'or you'll wind up with the fluh-hu like me. Probably catch it anyway, from my juh-germs.'

'Thanks, Bill. It's a neat boat.' And he did something he hadn't done for a long time, something Bill never forgot: he leaned over and kissed his brother's cheek.

'You'll catch it for sure now, you a-hole,' Bill said, but he seemed cheered up all the same. He smiled at George. 'Put all this stuff back, too. Or Mom'll have a b-bird.'

'Sure.' He gathered up the waterproofing equipment and crossed the room, the boat perched precariously on top of the paraffin box, which was sitting askew in the little bowl.

'Juh juh-Georgie?'

George turned back to look at his brother.

'Be c-careful.'

'Sure.' His brow creased a little. That was something your mom said, not your big brother. It was as strange as him giving Bill a kiss. 'Sure I will.'

He went out. Bill never saw him again.

3

Now here he was, chasing his boat down the left side of Witcham Street. He was running fast but the water was running faster and his boat was pulling ahead. He heard a deepening roar and saw that fifty yards farther down the hill the water in the gutter was cascading into a stormdrain that was still open. Ii was a long dark semicircle cut into the curbing, and as George watched, a stripped branch, its bark as dark and glistening as sealskin, shot into the stormdrain's maw. It hung up there for a moment and then slipped down inside. That was where his boat was headed.

'Oh shit and Shinola!' he yelled, dismayed.

He put on speed, and for a moment he thought he would catch the boat. Then one of his feet slipped and he went sprawling, skinning one knee and crying out in pain. From his new pavement-level perspective he watched his boat swing around twice, momentarily caught in another whirlpool, and then disappear.

'Shit and Shinola!' he yelled again, and slammed his fist down on the pavement. That hurt too, and he began to cry a little. What a stupid way to lose the boat!

He got up and walked over to the stormdrain. He dropped to his knees and peered in. The water made a dank hollow sound as it fell into the darkness. It was a spooky sound. It reminded him of —

'Huh!' The sound was jerked out of him as if on a string, and he recoiled.

There were yellow eyes in there: the sort of eyes he had always imagined but never actually seen down in the basement. It's an animal, he thought incoherently, that's all it is,some animal, maybe a housecat that got stuck down in there —

Still, he was ready to run — would run in a second or two, when his mental switchboard had dealt with the shock those two shiny yellow eyes had given him. He felt the rough surface of the macadam under his fingers, and the thin sheet of cold water flowing around

them. He saw himself getting up and backing away, and that was when a voice — a perfectly reasonable and rather pleasant voice — spoke to him from inside the stormdrain.