trees, but not cold.
“We’ll hang a right here,” I said, “and head along this road a ways. No need to push. Stop when you feel the need and we’ll walk a ways.” He nodded again. The road was larger now. It circled the lake, side roads spoking off to cabins every hundred yards. The names of the cabin owners were painted on hokey rustic signs and nailed to a tree at the head of each side road. We had gone maybe a mile when Paul stopped running. He bent over holding his side.
“Stitch?”
He nodded.
“Don’t bend forward,” I said. “Bend backward. As far back as you can. It’ll stretch it out”
He did what I told him. I hadn’t thought he would. An old logging road ran up to our left. We turned up it. Paul walking with his back arched.
“How far did we run?”
“About a mile,” I said. “Damn good for the first time out”
“How far can you run?”
“Ten, fifteen miles, I don’t know for sure.”
Walking on a felled log, we crossed a small ravine where the spring melt was still surging down toward the lake. In a month it would be dry and dusty in there.
“Let’s head back,” I said. “Maybe when we get back to the road you can run a little more.”
Paul didn’t say anything. A redheaded woodpecker rattled against a tree beside us. When we got back to the road I moved into a slow jog again. Paul walked a few more feet and then he cranked into a jerky slow run behind me. We went maybe half a mile to the side road leading to our cabin. I stopped the jog and began to walk, Paul stopped running the moment I did.
When we were back to the cabin, I said, “Put on a sweat shirt or a light jacket or something. Then we’ll set up some equipment.”
I put on a blue sweat shirt with the sleeves cut off. Paul put on a gray long-sleeved sweat shirt with a New England Patriots emblem on the front. The sleeves were too long.
We brought out the weight bench, the heavy bag, the speed bag and its strike board, and the tool chest. Paul carried one end of the tool chest and one end of the weight bench.
“We’ll hang the heavy bag off this tree branch,” I said. “And we’ll fasten the speed bag to the trunk.”
Paul nodded.
“And we’ll put the weight bench here under the tree out of the way of the heavy bag. If it rains we’ll toss a tarp over it.”
Paul nodded.
“And when we get it set up, I’ll show you how to use it”
Paul nodded again. I didn’t know if I was making progress or not I seemed to have broken his spirit.
“How’s that sound, kid?” I said.
He shrugged. Maybe I hadn’t broken his spirit
CHAPTER 17
It took about an hour to set up. Most of that time was spent getting the speed bag mounted. I finally nailed through the strike board into two thick branches that veered out at about the right height. For me. For Paul we’d have to get a box to stand on. It took three trips in and out for me to get the weights out Paul carried some of the small dumbbells. I carried the bar with as many plates as I could on either end, and then went back and carried out the rest of the plates in a couple of trips.
“Now, after lunch,” I said, “we’ll work out for a couple of hours and then knock off for the day. Normally we’d do this in the morning and build the house in the afternoon, but we got a late start today because we had to get you outfitted, so we’ll start the house tomorrow afternoon.”
For lunch we had feta cheese and Syrian bread with pickles, olives, cherry tomatoes, and cucumber wedges. Paul had milk. I had beer. Paul said the cheese smelled bad. There were a couple of camp chairs outside the cabin, and after lunch we went out and sat in them. It was one thirty. I turned on the portable radio. The Sox were playing the Tigers.
Paul said, “I don’t like baseball.”
“Don’t listen.”
“But I can’t help it if it’s on.”
“Okay, a bargain. I like the ball game. You like what?”
“I don’t care.”
“Okay. I’ll listen to the ball game when it’s on. You can listen to whatever you want to any other time. Fair?”
Paul shrugged. On the lake a loon made its funny sound.
“That’s a loon,” I said. Paul nodded.
“I don’t want to lift weights,” Paul said. “I don’t want to learn to hit the punching bags. I don’t like that stuff.”
