Count to Ten by Kristi Schirtzinger

Three boys - Mitch, his foolhardy big brother Danny, and Danny's friend Kyle - go fishing along an Ohio river on an ordinary day that will change everything.

Image generated with OpenAI

"Wait for me!" yelled Mitch at the two low-slung bikes growing smaller and smaller between the houses on Prospect Street. He drummed his fingers on the ledge of the Dairy Bar window, waiting. The scowling teenager on the other side thrust his ice cream cone through, and Mitch scrambled onto his Mongoose Legion Freestyle, setting in motion the precarious grace of boy, bike, and ice cream cone.

His brother and his brother's friend Kyle would beat him to the creek, but carrying all the gear was an important job, so he didn't mind. He parked his bike under a sycamore tree. He grabbed the crawdad bucket, wiggled each sneaker off by the heel, and walked barefoot down the sloping bank. Kyle took no notice of him except to hold out his hand for the bucket and continue his search for crawdads. Danny, too, stood in the bent posture of a seasoned hunter, and the three moved down the creek like silent monks in prayer.

Mitch squinted into the mirror image of trees and sky. The busy water kingdom below came into focus. He moved in carefully measured steps and soon spied a plated flipper sticking out from beneath a gray flint rock. In a singular movement, he flipped the rock with one hand and scooped with the other. The writhing and pinching in his closed hand made him smile.

"I've got one!" he said. He'd long since learned he couldn't peek, couldn't fear the tiny claws, if he wanted to hang on. He waited patiently for the bucket.

Danny took the bucket from Kyle and held it over Mitch's closed hand. "Ok, that's one," he said. "Did you bring the net?"

"Yeah, it's in the wagon," Mitch said. "I'll get it."

From halfway up the bank, Mitch heard Kyle: "What kind of tard rides around with a kid's Lego wagon tied to his bike?"

Mitch turned and looked down on the two. Danny was suddenly nose-to-nose with Kyle.

"What'd you say?"

Kyle was bigger than Danny in height, but smaller in brass. "Nothin' dude. No big deal."

"You call him that again, I'll kick your ass!"

"Calm down," said Kyle. "I just think it's weird."

"And I think you're weird."

That settled, the boys went back to hunting, dropping the captured crawfish one by one into the bucket. Danny had decided beforehand that when they collectively caught ten, they would head for the dam just outside of town. Making their way down the shallow creek among darting dragonflies, they worked in focused silence. Danny caught the final one, a huge grandaddy. He shook himself loose of the serrated claws, dropping the miniature lobster tail first into the bucket. "That's ten," he said, sucking the pain out unceremoniously.

The three clambered back up the bank and hopped on their bikes. Along the river road, they glided like lazy birds under the sun, hearing without understanding that the song of this river would always claim them, no matter where they lived. The three bikes followed every curve and bend of the Scioto, beckoned by the sound of its rushing descent over the dam, until they reached the gravel embankment that gave them a god's eye view. Unloading the cart with practiced synchrony, the older two headed down a well-worn path to the river.

From up above, Mitch found the roar of the dam soothing, and he lingered awhile to watch the water. It flowed over the concrete dam like a bolt of translucent silk, then crashed below to a frothing pool of gray. A bright orange bobber went under, resurfacing again and again - a ceaseless dance that may have begun last summer, or summers before he was born. The sunshine on the back of his neck felt good, and he stayed until Danny called. The dam swallowed his exact words, but the familiar timbre of his brother's voice was enough to rouse him. He gathered his pole and made his way down to the riverbank to join them.

The bait bucket was alive with crawdads swimming frantically in their prison. Mitch picked the smallest, reasoning that since he had caught the fewest, he should select the smallest. The grandaddy remained, clinging stoically to the bottom of the bucket, a defeated general on a hushed battlefield.

The small one in Mitch's hand arched its back, its little claws pinching frantically at the air while he baited his hook. "It'll be over soon," he told it. Stabbing a hook through a crawdad was different than a worm; he'd told Danny once that it felt like murder. But after Danny showed him the prize that could be had with crawdad bait - a mighty whiskered catfish - Mitch traded his unease for the promised adoration that comes with a hooked catfish. With a soft pop, the hook pierced the creature and its fierce thrashing stopped. He sent his line far into the middle of the river and sat with the others on the rocky bank amongst extinguished campfires and cast-away cigarettes.

The fact that neither of them had caught anything since last summer didn't dissuade them. The glory of the former summer still teased. Each spinning reel held the promise of a tug, and the rush to battle that made the wordless monotony worthwhile, but his day was not meant to be either. The river remained an unbroken mirror, and the task of casting and recasting became tiring in the viscous summer air. It was early enough, and the day still held possibilities, so when Danny packed up his pole, the others did too. The three remaining crawdads were released back to the Scioto except for the grandaddy, who was passed around and inspected before being set upon a sunny rock in the shallows. He remained only a second, then scrambled into the water and escaped to the hidden world he knew.

Back above the dam they went, to the waiting bikes and the unfolding afternoon. Together they stared down at the concrete dam, where the placid Scioto ambled on its serene way over the smooth concrete. The current seemed no stronger than the pull of ankle-deep snow - easily navigable for young, strong boys.

"I've heard it's impossible to cross to the other side on foot, and when you fall in, you drown instantly," said Kyle. "The turbines suck you under."

They'd all heard this, of course. They'd been warned since they were old enough to take to the outskirts of town that the low head dam was deadly, nothing to climb on or play around - ever. But like witches in fairy tales, it was never quite believable. The water ran so thinly over the dam that the brown concrete beneath showed through as solidly as the ground they stood on. The Scioto itself was shallow. Kids had tipped their boats and walked back to the bank dozens of times in the arm that ran through town.

From beneath his mop of curly red hair, Kyle's eyes moved from the dam, to Danny, and back to the dam. "The kid who supposedly drowned here is probably just a made-up story to scare us," he said. "I've never really believed it."

Danny's green eyes narrowed in the glare of sun and water toward the identical bank on the other side. "Me neither," he said.

"I'm hot," Mitch said. "I want to go home."

"Maybe it's time to find out," said Danny.

"What do you mean?" said Kyle.

Danny smiled at Kyle. Mitch had seen the same smile only once before - last summer, right before he lit a Roman candle in the backyard fire pit. It had not rained in weeks, and the grass spread the sparks like a contagious disease. With the help of neighbors, the fire had been thwarted, but not before it destroyed their mother's rose garden. Danny went to one knee and closed his left eye, taking in the distance. "About 70 yards," he surmised.

Danny stood and assessed the deep pool of water below him, where the tranquil ribbon of silk churned itself into white bubbles. He looked just beyond it, where the water was no deeper than his knee. Where the grandaddy had clambered so easily down from the rock and went on his peaceful way.

"I want to go," Mitch whined, using the voice he rarely used anymore, especially in the present company.

"Shut the hell up, Mitch. I'm thinkin'."

Danny stood like a pirate on the bow of his ship. Mitch's gaze traveled from Danny's heavily lashed eyes to his angular nose and then to his sockless ankle emerging from the white Converse.

"Oh, shit," said Kyle, when the Converse stepped out into the rush of swiftly flowing water.

"Danny, don't," Mitch said. "Let's just go."

Danny looked over his shoulder, half a grin curled to the sky. Mitch thought he might turn back around with an even wider grin - a prank to break up the dullness of a slow-moving day. Yet Danny took one step and then another. Mitch watched the red bobber pitch endlessly up and down in the water below, but forced his eyes back to Danny, who strode sure-footed through the current that swarmed his sneakers like an army of ants.

"Come back now," Mitch begged

"Dude!" said Kyle, holding up his cell phone. "I can't believe you're out there."

"Kyle, tell him to come back," Mitch said, his voice dwarfed by the breaking water. Kyle only held out his phone and gawked in a way that reminded Mitch of scary cartoons. Danny inched like a tight-rope walker along the slippery dam, high above the Scioto. He took one step, then another, as the pulsing sun slowed time.

Danny stopped, still as a crane, at the very epicenter of the dam. He pivoted, stretched his arms into a T, and defied the rushing Scioto for a beat of three. To Mitch's great relief, he pivoted again and faced them. He had tried to suppress his tears, but when Danny turned back instead of going the length of the dam, he found himself unhinged with relief.

The last time Mitch had bawled was earlier that summer, when he had gone over his handlebars on a home-made ramp in the backyard. His dad had sent him back outside, saying, "It's just the three of us now, so you're going to have to toughen up. If you can't hang with the big dogs, don't play with your brother and his friends."

Danny found him on the back stoop, hiding from them. "Lemme see it," Danny had said. He took Mitch's lip between his fingers and squeezed. Blood trickled onto Danny's grimy fingers. "Ten seconds," he said. This was a trick their mother had taught them, and instead of Danny's rough fingers, he felt his mother's soft ones gently touching him, the heavy scent of lilac wafting from the blooming tree. "It will be over in ten seconds." When he pulled his fingers away on ten, the pain had relented, just as it always did. "Damn, Bro, your lip's as big as a nightcrawler," he laughed. "Let's go show the guys what a badass you are."

And when Kyle said, "So he's got a fat lip, that doesn't make him a badass," and Danny said, "Maybe not, but when I kick your ass and tell everyone about it, that will make you a pussy," Mitch felt brave enough to try the jump again.

Danny took a step toward them on the dam. Mitch wanted to close his eyes, but he had to stay brave for Danny. As long as his eyes stayed on Danny, they could hold him like a force field.

"One," Mitch heard himself say out loud. Danny looked at him and smiled. "Two," Mitch said again, each number a step closer to grass and supper, and another tomorrow on the bikes. "Three," he said, exhaling a breath he had been holding. "Four," he found himself yelling. "Five!" At six, Danny was close enough to hear him, and they said it together.

It was after seven that Mitch allowed himself to believe this day would be another story to tell, like the catfish story and the death-defying bike jump stories. "Eight," they said in unison, and though Danny was smiling, Mitch was too busy holding Danny upright with his eyes to smile. The ninth step, timed so perfectly that ten would just about put Danny on solid ground, landed crooked, disrupting the unflappable stride. The smile became a sudden, panicked grimace as Danny's ankle followed the momentum and buckled underneath him, and by increments, his long legs. Mitch stood as close as he dared, crying No! No! into the river, as if it could be reasoned with.

And it seemed for a moment it could. With one hand firmly clamped to the top of the dam and one foot anchored to the downward slide, Danny countered the water's strength. But his other hand and foot couldn't find purchase - not on a sheer mountain, smooth with algae.

"Danny!" Mitch screamed. Danny looked at him with a helplessness he had never seen, not even when they sprinkled dirt on their mother's coffin. That familiar timbre floated up to Mitch as Danny screamed something, but the words disintegrated into fractured glass. Mitch's screaming became a separate, living thing as Danny's body fell into the churning water below.

Mitch scrambled among their poles and buckets for anything Danny could grab. He found his pole, tied the bucket to it, and cast it into the dam with all the strength he could muster. The bucket landed pathetically close to the bank, far from where Danny surfaced and resurfaced. Danny's cries became weaker and weaker, dwindled to desperate gasps, and lapsed-finally-into silent surrender. Mitch called down to him, but the floating body gave no indication of hearing. Somewhere behind Mitch, Kyle cursed and sprayed gravel with his retreating tires.

Mitch collapsed to the ground. He clawed at the gravel, hurling it by fistfuls into the blue air until his knuckles bled. Then a darkness not of shifting clouds or waning daylight swallowed him. It took him to a place with no river, no town, no sunshine, no language, no memory. In its belly, he sheltered until the sirens found him.

---

It is a school night, and Mitch should be in bed, but he's not tired. Out the kitchen window, he can see the outline of his father on their floating dock, the lit tip of his cigarette moving like a sparkler back and forth. In the darkening day, he cannot see the emptied beer cans littered about him, but he knows they are there. He puts a Hot Pocket in the microwave and thinks about calling to him, to see if he would like one too, but fears the angry thickness in his voice.

The cemetery across the river with two Sullivan graves - Danny's fresh one and their mother's two-year-old one - is hidden by summer foliage. In a couple of months, when the trees become skeletal, Mitch wonders if the view will make the beer drinking better or worse.

Mitch has overcome his fear of the dark, which enables him to escape the house after his father has passed out and ride across the bridge to the mound that covers Danny. When he's there, he tells his mother he's glad she can lie beside Danny and that he's sorry he did not do more. He tells her he wishes he were the one lying beside her on the ground.

On his way back to the house, he stops at the bridge. The tangy air of late summer nights fills his nostrils as he clamps both hands to the metal upright of the bridge. Inch by inch, he climbs until both feet reach the broad lip of the safety rail. Slowly, carefully, he removes one hand. When his feet find their balance, he lets go of the other. He spreads his arms wide, and for a count of ten, dares the black water to take him.

When he returns home through the squeaky screen door, his father is not roused. In the top bunk, where Danny used to sleep, the sound of the river roars in his ears.

The days have taken on the predictable rhythm of school. On the playground, his old friends are different, oddly polite and shy around him. When he asks them to ride bikes after school, they have things to do, so they have gravitated to new circles.

It is during another solitary recess that Mitch hears Kyle's incredulous voice, tinny and remote, coming from a growing circle of sixth-graders at the edge of the playground. "Shit dude! I can't believe this! Shit, Danny. Don't fall!"

As he approaches the circle, the thin voice coming from the cell phone makes his pulse race. The sixth graders don't notice him, bunched up as they are around a phone. He knows just who is holding it - Kyle's cousin, Eli. Eli is twice as wide as Mitch and half again as tall. And like his older cousin, his thick neck gives way to curly, red hair that tumbles from under a ball cap he's not supposed to be wearing during school. To Mitch, Eli looks like a wall in a red hoodie.

Mitch approaches the circle of listeners, silently riveted by the on-location coverage of the biggest news story to ever involve their small town. Mitch's blood drums in his ear as he makes a fist, just like Danny taught him, and sinks it into Eli's kidney. Eli whirls and curses in one, fluid movement. His expression changes from fury to surprise when he looks down and sees Mitch.

The phone continues to squawk in Eli's hand. Then Mitch hears his own voice come from it: "One... two."

"Give me that phone," Mitch says, his shaking palm outstretched to Eli as he's seen teachers do with students.

"Yeah, that's not happening," says Eli. "I'll turn it off. Calm down."

To Mitch's astonishment, he knocks the cell phone from Eli's hand, where it hits the pavement and spins near Mitch's foot. It takes five hard stomps, but the phone finally dies, smashed to shiny bits under his heel.

Spent by such gratifying rage, Mitch is caught off guard by Eli's two hands on his chest. They send him hurling to the blacktop, where shadows of legs and tether balls and basketball hoops float in his peripheral vision. The flag beats a rhythm into the air somewhere far off. Then Eli is on him, pounding knuckles into his cheek. Mitch covers his face as best he can, but the blows keep coming. The only limbs free are his legs, which he kicks blindly until he hits something that makes Eli grunt and fall away. The onslaught stops, leaving Mitch face-up in the sun.

Mitch opens his eyes tentatively. The faces above him whisper, then disperse. The dilapidated swing set with its chipping paint and iron underbelly converges and recedes above him.

"Mitch?" says Mrs. Behman, suddenly beside him.

He feels his face, which seems to be growing with a will of its own. When the spinning stops, he pushes himself upright. There by his hand are the shards of Eli's phone. Up ahead, Eli's legs retreat down the blacktop past the four-square court. The red hoodie is escorted on both sides by suits, one belonging to the principal, the other his assistant.

Mitch rises to his feet as Mrs. Behman speaks softly to him, but he doesn't hear. He waits - quiet, calm - as Eli plods away. With Mrs. Behman's "No, Mitch!" trailing after him, he runs at the red hoodie. In his fist is everything: Kyle's unspoken dare, his own weak whimpering, his father's eyebrows knitted in disappointment, the mound of dirt that will someday be a patch of grass. From atop Eli's back, where he's perched himself like a squirrel, he punches until he feels Eli's nose pop under everything. He drives and drives until his fingers stick together with blood.

In the principal's office, Mitch's father says, "That little bastard deserves everything Mitch did to him. Do you know what my family's been through?"

They agree that leniency is best, and Mitch walks home with his father to the river side of town. When Mitch's father grabs a beer for himself from the refrigerator, he grabs a cola for Mitch. "Your brother would be proud of you," he says.

---

It's been one week since Mitch broke Eli's nose. Mitch is outside of the IGA, tying a bag of Mountain Dew and bait to the handlebars of his bike, when Kyle appears in his peripheral vision. "Where do you think you're going?" he says. As if to answer his own question, he plants his feet on either side of Mitch's front tire and his hands on the handlebars.

Mitch wants to say, "Just leave me alone," but he knows that's an impossible request. Adults flow past them and into the store, while others stop to read the motley collage of hand-written notices in the window advertising items for sale, odd jobs for hire, and upcoming church potlucks. "None of your business," he says. "Now get out of my way before I break your nose."

Kyle lifts the front tire off the ground, nearly throwing Mitch backward. "Do you honestly think you could break my nose? The only reason you broke Eli's nose is because you cheap-shotted him."

"That's what he told you. But you weren't there - were you?"

"That's what everybody told me. Now get off this bike so I can kick your ass."

"But wouldn't it be embarrassing if I pounded you right here in front of everybody?" He sticks his face so close to Kyle's their noses almost touch. "Why don't you meet me in the cemetery tonight? That way, when I kill you, they won't have to move you far." He is mystified by such perilous bluster, but it flows so effortlessly out of him, he laughs out loud.

"What's your problem, Mitch!" Kyle says, half a decibel higher than his normal voice. "Why would I agree to that? You just won't show up."

"It sounds like you're scared. I go there every night."

"What the hell for?"

"What's it to you, asshole? I go because I want to."

"Calm down. I just think it's weird."

"And I think you're weird."

Kyle's face brightens: "You think you're Danny, don't you? That's why you're talking like that. You think you're Danny."

"I think you're scared. Show up at the cemetery, near the back, so we don't get caught. I'll be there at eleven."

"Oh, I'll be there," says Kyle, releasing his hands from the handlebars.

---

Under a full moon, Mitch pumps his way up the hill, past the store, and over the bridge. The river coils beneath him like a black snake, hissing her secrets. He leans into the right turn and coasts through the wrought iron gates that never close. The ambient light of the streetlamps illuminates the white headstones. He winds his way past Thatchers and Lawrences and Rosses to the mound near the back. He throws his bike down and walks along the tree line to gather himself and to talk to Danny. He's never talked to Danny here before, only his mother, but his mother would be alarmed and disappointed by the reasons he was here tonight. Danny would understand, though.

Yet when Mitch explains he's come to fight Kyle, no sense of comfort or guidance fills his chest like when he talks to his mother. Danny just lies there, hopelessly dead. The familiar feeling of being in a tiny space with no exit makes him want to cry, so he returns to the tree line until the feeling passes

Beyond them, a bank descends to the river. Perhaps he'll have better luck talking to Danny down there, where the water rocks the light of the moon like a ghostly mother. He parts the leaves and finds a level spot to sit and listen. Across the ribbon of water is his house, where his father sleeps and cries out throughout the long hours. As he chucks rocks, he hears his name

"Dude... Mitch? Where are you? I see your bike."

A circle of light sweeps the trees. He thinks of hiding from it, waiting it out until Kyle grows tired and goes home. People wouldn't blame him. Kyle is twice his size and two years older, but to not show at his own fight would be worse than a broken nose. "Right here," he says, stepping out of the tree line.

"Why you hiding?" Kyle says, shining the light of his phone past Mitch.

Mitch walks up to Kyle, who keeps stealing glances at the mound behind Mitch. "Do you think I brought other people with me? You're the one with the posse. Where's Eli?" Mitch says.

"If he gets caught fighting again, he'll have to change schools."

"Then we might as well get it over with."

Kyle looks at his phone, shifts his weight, and spits. "Look," he says. "My cousin's an asshole, but you broke his nose and it was a cheap shot."

"OK."

"OK, what?"

"OK, hit me," says Mitch.

"I thought you were going to kick my ass? I thought we were here so they wouldn't have to move me far when you kill me."

"We both know that's a lie."

"So, you're just going to stand there while I hit you?"

"Sure. Break my nose like I broke Eli's. You're here to fight for Eli, and I'm here to fight for myself... for Danny."

Kyle points his phone's flashlight at the mound behind Mitch and looks back at him, almost softly.

"Punch me in the nose. I'm ready," insists Mitch.

"It's not my fault," Kyle says.

"Hit me," says Mitch, slamming his open palms into Kyle's chest.

"It's not my fault, Mitch."

He tries again, running at Kyle this time. "Hit me, you pussy!"

"Why are you talking like that, Mitch?"

"Come on! Eli will be mad at you if you don't."

"I'm going to if you don't stop shoving me."

"Good. Do it."

Mitch is shadow boxing now, dancing and jabbing at the air. Two weeks ago, such a silly display would have invited ridicule, but Kyle makes no move toward or away from Mitch. He simply watches.

"Come on, asshole," says Mitch, tapping Kyle's cheek hard, so it will sting.

"Stop it, Mitch. I'm not going to fight you. I would kill you."

"Like you did Danny?" says Mitch.

At last, the pain he has been courting descends. Kyle shoves him to the ground and pins him there, heaving in heavy, wordless bursts. "I didn't kill Danny," Kyle says.

"You didn't try to stop him either."

Mitch braces himself for the blow that he wishes would just come, but the anvil sits on.

Kyle shifts his weight and hangs his head, as if it's become too heavy to hold up. Something wet drops on Mitch's forehead from above. He can't wipe it off because his arms are pinned, and it slides into his hairline.

Kyle's chest begins to quiver as another tear lands on Mitch's cheek and slides into his ear. "I'm sorry I didn't try to stop him," he says, "but I didn't kill him." Kyle's arms are shaking now, and Mitch never imagined this night finding him in this position. He's embarrassed for Kyle.

"OK, you didn't kill him," says Mitch, a little more gruffly than he truly feels. "Get off me."

Kyle rolls off and lies beside Mitch in the grass. The creatures of the night have begun their loud chorus, and the boys listen, recumbent and silent. Their bent knees suggest children looking for cloud animals.

"There's nothing you could have done," Kyle says. "You told him not to do it."

Mitch imagines himself standing on the gravel bank, weak and stupid, begging to leave. A torrent begins to form in his chest. It grows in insistence, climbing his throat, clamoring to be released. It threatens to undo all that the new boy has accomplished. It threatens to humiliate him in front of Danny. His throat constricts with the pain of holding it back, but he swallows. There behind his eyes, in the tiny room with no door, he whispers, "One..."