Different Seasons(143)

“You have to use your imagination,” Chris said patiently.

“No, I ain’t!” Vern said angrily. “He’s supposed to use his imagination! He made up the f**kin story!”

“Yeah, what happened to the cat?” Teddy persisted. “Come on, Gordie, tell us.”

“I think his dad was at the Pie-Eat and when he came home he beat the living crap out of Lard Ass.”

“Yeah, right,” Chris said. “I bet that’s just what happened.”

“And,” I said, “the kids went right on calling him Lard Ass. Except that maybe some of them started calling him Puke-Yer-Guts, too.”

“That ending sucks,” Teddy said sadly.

“That’s why I didn’t want to tell it.”

“You could have made it so he shot his father and ran away and joined the Texas Rangers,” Teddy said. “How about that?”

Chris and I exchanged a glance. Chris raised one shoulder in a barely perceptible shrug.

“I guess so,” I said.

“Hey, you got any new Le Dio stories, Gordie?”

“Not just now. Maybe I’ll think of some.” I didn’t want to upset Teddy, but I wasn’t very interested in checking out what was happening in Le Dio, either. “Sorry you didn’t go for this one better.”

“Nah, it was good,” Teddy said. “Right up to the end, it was good. All that pukin was really cool.”

“Yeah, that was cool, really gross,” Vern agreed. “But Teddy’s right about the ending. It was sort of a gyp.”

“Yeah,” I said, and sighed.

Chris stood up. “Let’s do some walking,” he said. It was still bright daylight, the sky a hot, steely blue, but our shadows had begun to trail out long. I remember that as a kid, September days always seemed to end much too soon, catching me by surprise—it was as if something inside my heart expected it to always be June, with daylight lingering in the sky until almost nine-thirty. “What time is it, Gordie?”

I looked at my watch and was astonished to see it was after five.

“Yeah, let’s go,” Teddy said. “But let’s make camp before dark so we can see to get wood and stuff. I’m getting hungry, too.”

“Six-thirty,” Chris promised. “Okay with you guys?”

It was. We started to walk again, using the cinders beside the tracks now. Soon the river was so far behind us we couldn’t even hear its sound. Mosquitoes hummed and I slapped one off my neck. Vern and Teddy were walking up ahead, working out some sort of complicated comic-book trade. Chris was beside me, hands in his pockets, shirt slapping against his knees and thighs like an apron.

“I got some Winstons,” he said. “Hawked em off my old man’s dresser. One apiece. For after supper.”

“Yeah? That’s boss.”

“That’s when a cigarette tastes best,” Chris said. “After supper.”

“Right.”

We walked in silence for awhile.

“That’s a really fine story,” Chris said suddenly. “They’re just a little too dumb to understand.”

“No, it’s not that hot. It’s a mumbler.”

“That’s what you always say. Don’t give me that bullshit you don’t believe. Are you gonna write it down? The story?”

“Probably. But not for awhile. I can’t write em down right after I tell em. It’ll keep.”

“What Vern said? About the ending being a gyp?”

“Yeah?”

Chris laughed. “Life’s a gyp, you know it? I mean, look at us.”

“Nah, we have a great time.”

“Sure,” Chris said. “All the f**kin time, you wet.”

I laughed. Chris did, too.

“They come outta you just like bubbles out of soda-pop,” he said after awhile.

“What does?” But I thought I knew what he meant.

“The stories. That really bugs me, man. It’s like you could tell a million stories and still only get the ones on top. You’ll be a great writer someday, Gordie.”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Yeah, you will. Maybe you’ll even write about us guys if you ever get hard up for material.”

“Have to be pretty f**kin hard up.” I gave him the elbow.

There was another period of silence and then he asked suddenly: “You ready for school?”

I shrugged. Who ever was? You got a little excited thinking about going back, seeing your friends; you were curious about your new teachers and what they would be like—pretty young things just out of teachers’ college that you could rag or some old topkick that had been there since the Alamo. In a funny way you could even get excited about the long droning classes, because as the summer vacation neared its end you sometimes got bored enough to believe you could learn something. But summer boredom was nothing like the school boredom that always set in by the end of the second week, and by the beginning of the third week you got down to the real business: Could you hit Stinky Fiske in the back of the head with your Art-Gum while the teacher was putting The Principal Exports of South America on the board? How many good loud squeaks could you get off on the varnished surface of your desk if your hands were real sweaty? Who could cut the loudest farts in the locker room while changing up for phys ed? How many girls could you get to play Who Goosed the Moose during lunch hour? Higher learning, baby.