Favorite Sons Read Free Page A

badges thananyone in the history of the Crystalton Boy Scouts and was well on his way to Eagle Scout, and served as president of the youth group at the Crystalton United Methodist Church. He was a tall, gangly kid, with an angular face and a sharp nose and chin. On both cheeks were patches of acne that stretched like quarter-moon-shaped mountain ranges, purple and red and blue eruptions with pustular snowcaps. The acne also ran across his forehead and on his neck and shoulders. He was so self-conscious that he was never without a T-shirt, even at the swimming pool. Once, just before the opening tip of a freshman basketball game, a kid from Martins Ferry lined up against Deak, pointed at the rash of acne popping out on his neck and shoulders, and asked, “That shit’s not contagious, is it?” The question so rattled Deak that he only had two points all night.
    It was a half-mile hike up a twisting trail from the playground to Chestnut Ridge. Beneath the canopy of conifers, it was still midnight. The fog saturated the leaves and the condensation dripped to the ground, pelting the carpet of desiccated vegetation with a rhythmic cadence. Soaked limbs hung low over the trail and slapped at our faces. The acrid stench of decay and mold was heavy in our nostrils. A little more than halfway up the trail we walked single file out of the mist and found the sun bright over the West Virginia hills to our east. As always, Adrian led our small troop, quiet as usual, with Pepper following close behind, a dervish of nervous energy, chattering away, throwing stones at trees, tickling the back of Adrian’s neck with a length of foxtail. Adrian, Deak, and I had been good friends since we began attending Sunday school together when we were barely out of diapers. In fact, there isn’t a moment in my memory when they weren’t my pals. Pepper was fourteen and a year younger than the rest of us, but he fit right in. He was as fun-loving as his older brother was somber. Adrian and Deak were both quiet types, so I enjoyed Pepper’s constant banter.
    We hiked beyond Chestnut Ridge to the Postalakis farm, which stretched more than three hundred rolling acres from the crest of the ridge west to the fertile bottomland on the shores of Little Seneca Creek. Marty Postalakis let us search his fields for Indian relics as long as we didn’t trample the crops. When we weren’t playing ball, arrowhead hunting was one of our favorite pastimes. There hadbeen a big thunderstorm the previous afternoon and we arranged the hunt while the lightning was still streaking over the hills west of town. Arrowheads were easiest to find after a big storm had washed away a layer of dirt, exposing the shiny pieces of flint.
    We had been going on the hunts for years. Deak’s collection was neatly arranged in framed, wool-lined cases that he dutifully cataloged, labeled, and displayed on the walls of his bedroom. Mine were kept in several coffee cans, canning jars, cigar boxes, and other miscellaneous containers scattered about my room. I had no idea how many arrowheads I had and getting the collection organized was something I had been promising myself for years, similar to my mother’s continual vow to organize the family snapshots in albums. For me, the thrill was in the hunt, not the display.
    Adrian and Pepper’s artifacts never made it home. They were in it strictly for the money and each hunt ended with a stop at Fats Pennington’s cluttered antique shop at the south end of town. The brothers Nash had a pact that called for each hunt’s findings to be combined, sold, and the proceeds split. Adrian spent his money as fast as he earned it on records, eight-track tapes, magazines, and condoms; he wanted to project the image that he was having sex with Darcy McGonagle, which he most certainly was not. Pepper banked every dime he made and had a bank account worth more than sixteen hundred dollars, a fortune for a