NANCY ZAFRIS

Something washes over Travis, the pressure of a hose being turned on inside his veins and arteries. It rocks his body. One day maybe he and Mr. Keim will come to blows.
    Mr. Keim surely does not remember his seventeenth summer, which should be, as Miss B calls it, an object lesson to all seventeen-year-olds—carpe diem when you’re seventeen or you might end up like this guy. Mr. Keim probably remembers nothing beyond the crops he yanked out of the soil or the timber he axed. His kind of nostalgia is recalling the luster of a nice piece of wood forever hidden from view in its service as a stud. But that assessment of Mr. Keim is not totally fair. As Miss B told him, considerately escorting him to an empty hallway so no one would overhear, you’re like a racist, Travis, except against adults. You mean I’m an adults, he said, and Miss B said, No, I don’t like the sound of that or the pictures it evokes for me—look, just because your parents trend toward asshole
    (he had to set her straight that the passed-out guy in the photo was not his dad.
    Who is his dad? No one knows, not even his mother),
you still have to give adults their due, Miss B said. Some adults, one out of three—start with that.
    So he will give Mr. Keim his due. One, Mr. Keim is modest. Two, he is honest. Three, he works insanely hard but he only gets half credit because he works inhumanly hard and human beings by definition are not inhuman and shouldn’t be insane or bark. Four, Mr. Keim is not egotistical. He does not think a movie should be made about the chores he did during his seventeenth summer
    (Travis does, even keeps renaming his biopic)
and if Mr. Keim ever for a moment thought he was special enough for a movie he would have to drop to his knees and flagellate himself for the sin of vanity except Travis is probably getting his religions mixed up. Travis doesn’t feel vain about imagining his own biopic but perhaps something is wrong with him that he doesn’t notice any sting of vanity. In the town library where he conducts his business, he has already searched the ten characteristics of a sociopath, then toxic narcissist. No, he is neither of these people.
    It’s called being a normal seventeen-year-old, Miss B assured him.
    Maybe he tells her too many things, Miss B, that is. Miss B is older than his mother who is too young to be a responsible mom but looks older than Miss B and is way more immature. Way more immature than even snare drummer Kyle Jenkins who is so immature but good for a laugh. Travis’s mother is not good for a laugh.
    So a voiceover will start out the biopic. The camera will fly down like a hawk and follow Travis’s gaze, which at this moment rests upon the three little boys delivering their canisters of splashing milk to the kitchen. Setting the scene. The lovely Mrs. Keim grabs the canisters one by one as savage roars erupt, a frightening man is tired of waiting! and she pushes her little boys back toward the barn. A push, a definite push, but a comforting push—get there quick and he won’t be mad. I promise, he won’t be mad, he won’t be mad, just run a little bit faster. Closeup: her face, torn with emotion, strands of hair pulled loose. Cut to Travis staring at the camera. Voiceover: The summer I turned seventeen, I saved a woman from a madman. I didn’t save her because she was beautiful. I saved her because it was the right thing to do.
    Travis puts on his sneakers and light sweats, grabs the stainless steel thermos belonging to the Yoders, plucks a couple of dollars from the plastic Easter egg hidden inside the cinderblock, and scrapes down the path.