ENTHUSIASM is useful in a crew of builders, but there can be too much of a good thing. An excess of enthusiasm becomes impatience, and impatience is dangerous in any endeavor that must be done right, for work like that seems to have its own idea of how much time it deserves to take, and it can turn on you if you rush it. Looking back, I see a kind of frantic carelessness in our work the next afternoon. Annoyed by the time we’d had to spend clearing bamboo and the full workday we’d put into the foundation, we threw ourselves into the work with an impatient determination to finish by nightfall, and we did. From the first day’s sturdy platform, four long uprights rose, tapering inward to support a smaller platform at the top. A railing ran around this platform, and in the center was a table, tall and gangling, that would hold the searchlight I’d made from the windup record player. The whole thing resembled my very first drawing, but it was even simpler and cruder, as if we had been working from a rough sketch I’d made before my first drawing. Neither Raskol nor Marvin seemed to notice or care how far short of the goal the realization had fallen, and I didn’t want to hurt their feelings, so I said nothing about it.
As dusk came on, we finished. Walking across the yard, we turned to take the builder’s look. Raskol, Marvin, and I stood there, congratulating ourselves, three pals who had accomplished something. We had built a watchtower. Considering it a little more disinterestedly, giving it a builder’s look from thirty-five years’ distance, I think that our impatience must have been responsible for the slight tilt I detected. I wondered what to do about it. Should I bring it up? Or should I let it go? Did I really see it? Or was it just the fading light playing tricks with my eyes? Was it, perhaps, the bamboo that was crooked? Maybe it had grown away from the prevailing wind, or toward the sun—something like that.
“Looks great,” said Marvin.
“Yeah, great,” said Raskol.
There was a silence. I tried tipping my head to one side. That made it look better.
“Does it seem to tilt a little?” I asked.
“Might just be the light,” said Marvin.
“Or the bamboo,” I said.
“The bamboo?” said Raskol.
“Leaning away from the wind?” I suggested.
“Or growing toward the sun?” suggested Marvin.
We stood in silence again. All of us tried tilting our heads a little. That really did make it look better. I seemed to need to tilt my head a little farther than before to improve it, though. Not only that, but I now seemed to see it begin to twist. The tower seemed to be turning itself so that it could show its top to us, as if it were bowing.
“Guess I better be getting home,” said Marvin.
“Yeah, me too,” said Raskol.
They seemed glum. “It looks great!” I claimed. I wanted to cheer them up. “Of course, it’s pretty dark now, so we can’t really see it too well. You know—dusk is a funny time of day. The light is weird—you know what I mean? It can play tricks on you. Sometimes things seem sort of—twisted.”
They mounted their bikes and rode off, vanishing into the gathering dusk. I turned back for another builder’s look. It was definitely tilting and twisting. I went inside for dinner.
AT THE TABLE, after we’d all filled our plates and begun to eat, I heard, from the direction of the watchtower, an eerie groan.
“What was that?” asked my mother.
“A dog howling,” said my father.
“Probably,” I said.
The groan subsided, rose again, subsided and rose again, and then twisted into a shriek like nails being drawn from wood.
“The poor thing,” said my mother. “Do you think you ought to take a look, Bert?”
“Maybe,” said my father.
“It’s going to stop in a minute,” I said.
The shrieking rose in pitch and volume.
“What makes you say that, Peter?” asked my mother.
“Just a hunch,” I said.
There was one last, anguished shriek, and then a sigh. That must have been the platform and supports settling into the bamboo. Then there was silence.
“See?” I said. “I knew it would stop.”
I kept my head down and ate.
[to be continued]
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