Dreamcatcher(122)

'Don't be a dweeb, sing him the f**kin song!' Henry shouts. He can feel mucky water oozing up between his toes. 'The lullaby, the goddam lullaby!'

For a moment the Beav looks as though he still doesn't understand, but then his eyes clear a little and he says 'Oh!' He goes slogging toward the embankment where Duddits sits, clutching his bright yellow lunchbox and howling as he did on the day they met him. Henry sees something that he barely has time to notice: there is blood caked around Duddits's nostrils, and there's a bandage on his left shoulder. Something is poking out of it, something that looks like white plastic.

'Duddits,' the Beav says, climbing the embankment. 'Duddle, honey, don't. Don't cry no more, don't look at it no more, it's not for you to look at, it's so f**kin gross . . .'

At first Duddits takes no notice, just goes on howling. Henry thinks, He cried himself into a nosebleed and that's the blood part, but what's that white thing sticking out of his shoulder?  

Jonesy has actually raised his hands to cover his ears. Pete has got one of his on top of his head, as if to keep it from blowing off. Then Beaver takes Duddits in his arms, just as he did a few weeks earlier, and be ins to sing in that high clear voice that you'd never think could come out of a scrub like the Beav.  

'Baby's boat's a silver dream, sailing near and far . . .'  

And oh miracle of blessed miracles, Duddits begins to quiet.

Speaking from the comer of his mouth, Pete says: 'Where are we, Henry? Where the f**k are we?'

'In a dream,' Henry says, and all at once the four of them are back under the maple tree at Hole in the Wall, kneeling together in their underwear and shivering in the cold.

'What?' Jonesy says. He pulls free to wipe at his mouth, and when the contact among them breaks, reality comes all the way back. 'What did you say, Henry?'

Henry feels the withdrawal of their minds, actually feels it, and he thinks, We weren't meant to be like this, none of us. Sometimes being alone is better.  

Yes, alone. Alone with your thoughts.  

'I had a bad dream,' Beaver says. He seems to be explaining this to himself rather than to the rest of them. Slowly, as if he were still dreaming, he unzips one of his jacket pockets, rummages around inside, and comes out with a Tootsie Pop. Instead of unwrapping it, Beaver puts the stick end in his mouth and be ins to roll it back and forth, nipping and gnawing lightly. 'I dreamed that - '

'Never mind,' Henry says, and pushes his glasses up on his nose. 'We all know what you dreamed.' We ought to, we were there trembles on his lips, but he keeps it inside. He's only fourteen, but wise enough to know that what is said cannot be unsaid. When it's laid, it's played they say when they're playing rummy or Crazy Eights and someone makes a goofy-ass discard. If he says it, they'll have to deal with it. If he doesn't, then maybe . . . just maybe it'll go away.

'I don't think it was your dream, anyhow,' Pete says. 'I think it was Duddits's dream and we all - '

'I don't give a shit what you think,' Jonesy says, his voice so harsh that it startles them all. 'It was a dream, and I'm going to forget it. We're all going to forget it, aren't we, Henry?'

Henry nods at once.

'Let's go back in,' Pete says. He looks vastly relieved. 'My feet're fre -

'One thing, though,' Henry says, and they all look at him nervously. Because when they need a leader, Henry is it. And if you don't like the way I do it, he thinks resentfully, someone else can do it. Because this is no tit job, believe me.

'What?' Beaver asks, meaning What now?

'When we go into Gosselin's later on, someone's got to call Duds. In case he's upset.'

No one replies to this, all of them awed to silence by the idea of calling their new retardo friend on the phone. It occurs to Henry that Duddits has likely never received a phone call in his life; this will be his first.

'You know, that's probably right,' Pete agrees and then slaps his hand over his mouth like someone who has said something incriminating.

Beaver, naked except for his dopey boxers and his even dopier jacket, is now shivering violently. The Tootsie Pop jitters at the end of its gnawed stick.

'Someday you'll choke on one of those things,' Henry tells him.

'Yeah, that's what my Mom says. Can we go in? I'm freezing.' They start back toward Hole in the Wall, where their friendship will end twenty-three years from this very day.

'Is Richie Grenadeau really dead, do you think?' Beaver asks.

'I don't know and I don't care,' Jonesy says. He looks at Henry. 'We'll call Duddits, okay  -  I've got a phone and we can bill the charges to my number.'

'Your own phone,' Pete says. 'You lucky duck. Your folks spoil you f**kin rotten, Gary.'

Calling him Gary usually gets under his skin, but not this morning  -  Jonesy is too preoccupied. 'It was for my birthday and I have to pay the long-distance out of my allowance, so let's keep it short. And after that, this never happened  -  never happened, you got that?'

And they all nod. Never happened. Never f**king hap -

3

A gust of wind pushed Henry forward, almost into the electrified compound fence. He came back to himself, shaking off the memory like a heavy coat. It couldn't have come at a more inconvenient time (of course, the time for some memories was never convenient). He had been waiting for Underhill, freezing his katookis off and waiting for his only chance to get out of here, and Underhill could have walked right by him while he stood daydreaming, leaving him up shit creek without a paddle.