Chapter 9: Poison Oak

By morning Blaine had a rash.

Perry woke to the sound of swearing, low and inventive, from the edge of the bedroll.

Blaine sat hunched on the canvas floor with his shirt off, twisting to reach his own back.

His forearms were crossed with angry red lines.

A blistering welt ran up the side of his neck, and the skin between his shoulder blades was already swollen.

"Don't look," Blaine said.

"That's poison oak."

"It's not."

"It's shiny, it's got three leaves, and you went through it on your stomach." Perry sat up. "Blaine, you went through it on purpose."

"I was thinking."

"You were hiding in it."

"I was thinking in it," Blaine said with dignity, and scratched his shoulder, and hissed.

The tent was bright and hot, and Dad's cot had already been folded.

A note sat on Perry's boot in Dad's tidy capitals.

TAKING THE CLASS TO THE FAR BLUFF. BACK AT THREE. BLAINE, PLEASE SEE TO YOUR ARMS. FIRST AID KIT UNDER MY COT.

Perry read it twice.

"He knows," Blaine said hollowly.

"He knows you're covered in leaves. It's not the same."

Perry found the kit under the cot.

A pink bottle of calamine lay on top of the bandages, and he turned the cap in his fingers.

"Lie down on your front," Perry said.

"I'm not putting that on."

"It's pink," Blaine said.

"It smells like a nursing home."

"You can smell like a nursing home with no rash, or like a man with a rash. Choose."

Blaine lay on his stomach on the bedroll and put his forehead on his folded arms.

He was a very big man spread out on a very small piece of canvas.

His back was broad and tanned and ruined with welts, and the tendons moved in it when he breathed.

Perry knelt over him with the cotton ball.

He started at the shoulder.

He dabbed, slowly, gently, from one red line to the next, and the pale pink liquid dried to a chalky film on Blaine's skin.

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