Read Online Only Love Can Break Your Heart by Ed Tarkington - Free Book Online
Authors: Ed Tarkington
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over the potholes and around wide bends, little pebbles spinning off the tires and rattling up under the body of the car like machine-gun fire.
At the bottom of the valley, the road became flat and straight. The pace slowed. The rock-strewn path gave way to sand and dirt. An enormous rooster tail of fine grit formed behind us. Paul braked hard. The car slid for a moment and then stopped and was swallowed by the billowing dust.
Paul grabbed the brown paper bag and opened the door.
“Come on,” he said.
We walked through the sandy fog and up the bank and through the woods until we reached the base of a stretch of exposed limestone: a giant, bone-yellow slab climbing three hundred yards up to the tree line and a maybe a quarter mile down the ridge. It was essentially as if the trees and earth had been scraped away by a giant trowel, leaving a flat rock face set at what was probably a thirty-five- or forty-degree angle but felt much steeper, particularly when you looked up the length of it from the scree piled at its foot.
Without a word, Paul began edging his way up the face with his feet and right arm while holding the beer with his left. I followed but quickly fell behind. The grade was just gentle enough for us to climb it with relative ease, but steep enough that a slip and a tumble was sure to result in serious injury. I was determined, however, not to be left behind.
Every twenty feet or so, I stopped, panting and heaving, waiting for the burning in my legs to subside. Before long, Paul was just a speck above me, sitting just below the tree line above a rocky hump jutting out of the face, surveying the valley like a jaded emperor.
By the time I reached him, Paul had already finished one cigarette and was preparing to light another. I turned and sat with my head between my knees, catching my breath.
“Want to try one?” he asked.
He held out his pack of cigarettes and shook it gently so that the filter ends slid out toward me.
I’d been watching Paul do it for long enough. I practiced often, with pencils and straws and even Paul’s own cigarettes when he left a pack in his room and no one was around to see. I took one out and popped it into the corner of my mouth like a pro.
Paul cupped his hands around the end to light it for me. I took a small puff and blew out the smoke and rested my hand on my bent knee, the cigarette perched between the tips of my right middle and index fingers.
“It doesn’t do anything unless you inhale,” he said.
He told me to breathe out all the air in my chest and hold the cigarette to my lips and suck in a quick, short toke. I choked and coughed. Instead of laughing, Paul quietly encouraged me. It was almost sweet.
Paul handed me another beer. We sat there together, drinking and smoking as the sun turned the sky pale orange and indigo.
“They call this place John’s Gap because a kid named John got lost here back in the seventeen hundreds,” Paul said. “His folks were frontier people. One day he was out with his dad, sitting on a stump while his old man cut timber. John’s daddy was really into chopping those logs—he was going at it pretty hard. He stopped for a minute and turned around to say something to John, but when he looked at the stump where the boy had been sitting, John was gone.”
Paul paused and stared at me, his face blank, emotionless.
“They looked for little John for three days straight and didn’t find a stitch of clothing or a hair from his head.”
“What happened to him?” I asked.
“Want another cigarette?”
“OK,” I said.
Once again he shook one out of the pack for me and cupped his hands to help me light it in the wind. My throat was dry and itchy. I was starting to feel sick. But I lit up anyway and kept on smoking.
“Some folks thought Indians might have crept up behind his old man and snatched him right off the stump without making a sound, covering his mouth so his daddy couldn’t hear him scream.”
“You’re just
At the bottom of the valley, the road became flat and straight. The pace slowed. The rock-strewn path gave way to sand and dirt. An enormous rooster tail of fine grit formed behind us. Paul braked hard. The car slid for a moment and then stopped and was swallowed by the billowing dust.
Paul grabbed the brown paper bag and opened the door.
“Come on,” he said.
We walked through the sandy fog and up the bank and through the woods until we reached the base of a stretch of exposed limestone: a giant, bone-yellow slab climbing three hundred yards up to the tree line and a maybe a quarter mile down the ridge. It was essentially as if the trees and earth had been scraped away by a giant trowel, leaving a flat rock face set at what was probably a thirty-five- or forty-degree angle but felt much steeper, particularly when you looked up the length of it from the scree piled at its foot.
Without a word, Paul began edging his way up the face with his feet and right arm while holding the beer with his left. I followed but quickly fell behind. The grade was just gentle enough for us to climb it with relative ease, but steep enough that a slip and a tumble was sure to result in serious injury. I was determined, however, not to be left behind.
Every twenty feet or so, I stopped, panting and heaving, waiting for the burning in my legs to subside. Before long, Paul was just a speck above me, sitting just below the tree line above a rocky hump jutting out of the face, surveying the valley like a jaded emperor.
By the time I reached him, Paul had already finished one cigarette and was preparing to light another. I turned and sat with my head between my knees, catching my breath.
“Want to try one?” he asked.
He held out his pack of cigarettes and shook it gently so that the filter ends slid out toward me.
I’d been watching Paul do it for long enough. I practiced often, with pencils and straws and even Paul’s own cigarettes when he left a pack in his room and no one was around to see. I took one out and popped it into the corner of my mouth like a pro.
Paul cupped his hands around the end to light it for me. I took a small puff and blew out the smoke and rested my hand on my bent knee, the cigarette perched between the tips of my right middle and index fingers.
“It doesn’t do anything unless you inhale,” he said.
He told me to breathe out all the air in my chest and hold the cigarette to my lips and suck in a quick, short toke. I choked and coughed. Instead of laughing, Paul quietly encouraged me. It was almost sweet.
Paul handed me another beer. We sat there together, drinking and smoking as the sun turned the sky pale orange and indigo.
“They call this place John’s Gap because a kid named John got lost here back in the seventeen hundreds,” Paul said. “His folks were frontier people. One day he was out with his dad, sitting on a stump while his old man cut timber. John’s daddy was really into chopping those logs—he was going at it pretty hard. He stopped for a minute and turned around to say something to John, but when he looked at the stump where the boy had been sitting, John was gone.”
Paul paused and stared at me, his face blank, emotionless.
“They looked for little John for three days straight and didn’t find a stitch of clothing or a hair from his head.”
“What happened to him?” I asked.
“Want another cigarette?”
“OK,” I said.
Once again he shook one out of the pack for me and cupped his hands to help me light it in the wind. My throat was dry and itchy. I was starting to feel sick. But I lit up anyway and kept on smoking.
“Some folks thought Indians might have crept up behind his old man and snatched him right off the stump without making a sound, covering his mouth so his daddy couldn’t hear him scream.”
“You’re just
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