Hearts in Atlantis(10)

Bobby thought of Carol saying that maybe Ted was on the run from something, and remembered his mother saying Carol didn't miss much.

'What's in it that could get me in trouble?' He looked at Lord of the Flies with new fascination.

'Nothing to froth at the mouth about,' Ted said dryly. He crushed his cigarette out in a tin ashtray, went to his little refrigerator, and took out two bottles of pop. There was no beer or wine in there, just pop and a glass bottle of cream. 'Some talk of putting a spear up a wild pig's ass, I think that's the worst. Still, there is a certain kind of grownup who can only see the trees and never the forest. Read the first twenty pages, Bobby. You'll never look back. This I promise you.'

Ted set the pop down on the table and lifted the caps with his churchkey. Then he lifted his bottle and clinked it against Bobby's. 'To your new friends on the island.'

'What island?'

Ted Brautigan smiled and shot the last cigarette out of a crumpled pack. 'You'll find out,' he said.

Bobby did find out, and it didn't take him twenty pages to also find out that Lord of the Flies was a hell of a book, maybe the best he'd ever read. Ten pages into it he was captivated; twenty pages and he was lost. He lived on the island with Ralph and Jack and Piggy and the littluns; he trembled at the Beast that turned out to be a rotting airplane pilot caught in his parachute; he watched first in dismay and then in horror as a bunch of harmless schoolboys descended into savagery, finally setting out to hunt down the only one of their number who had managed to remain halfway human.

He finished the book one Saturday the week before school ended for the year. When noon came and Bobby was still in his room - no friends over to play, no Saturday-morning cartoons, not even Merrie Melodies from ten to eleven - his mom looked in on him and told him to get off his bed, get his nose out of that book, and go on down to the park or something.

'Where's Sully?' she asked.

'Dalhouse Square. There's a school band concert.' Bobby looked at his mother in the doorway and the ordinary stuff around her with dazed, perplexed eyes. The world of the story had become so vivid to him that this real one now seemed false and drab.

'What about your girlfriend? Take her down to the park with you.'

'Carol's not my girlfriend, Mom.'

'Well, whatever she is. Goodness sakes, Bobby, I wasn't suggesting the two of you were going to run off and elope.'

'She and some other girls slept over Angle's house last night. Carol says when they sleep over they stay up and hen-party practically all night long. I bet they're still in bed, or eating breakfast for lunch.'

'Then go to the park by yourself. You're making me nervous. With the TV off on Saturday morning I keep thinking you're dead.' She came into his room and plucked the book out of his hands. Bobby watched with a kind of numb fascination as she thumbed through the pages, reading random snatches here and there. Suppose she spotted the part where the boys talked about sticking their spears up the wild pig's ass (only they were English and said 'arse,' which sounded even dirtier to Bobby)? What would she make of it? He didn't know. All his life they had lived together, it had been just the two of them for most of it, and he still couldn't predict how she'd react to any given situation.

'Is this the one Brattigan gave you?'

'Yeah.'

'As a birthday present?'

'Yeah.'

'What's it about?'

'Boys marooned on an island. Their ship gets sunk. I think it's supposed to be after World War II or something. The guy who wrote it never says for sure.'

'So it's science fiction.'

'Yeah,' Bobby said. He felt a little giddy. He thought Lord of the Flies was about as far from Ring Around the Sun as you could get, but his mom hated science fiction, and if anything would stop her potentially dangerous thumbing, that would.

She handed the book back and walked over to his window. 'Bobby?' Not looking back at him, at least not at first. She was wearing an old shirt and her Saturday pants. The bright noonlight shone through the shirt; he could see her sides and noticed for the first time how thin she was, as if she was forgetting to eat or something. 'What, Mom?'

'Has Mr Brattigan given you any other presents?'

'It's Brautigan, Mom.'

She frowned at her reflection in the window . . . or more likely it was his reflection she was frowning at. 'Don't correct me, Bobby-O. Has he?'

Bobby considered. A few rootbeers, sometimes a tuna sandwich or a cruller from the bakery where Sully's mom worked, but no presents. Just the book, which was one of the best presents he had ever gotten. 'Jeepers, no, why would he?'

'I don't know. But then, I don't know why a man you just met would give you a birthday present in the first place.' She sighed, folded her arms under her small sharp br**sts, and went on looking out Bobby's window. 'He told me he used to work in a state job up in Hartford but now he's retired. Is that what he told you?'

'Something like that.' In fact, Ted had never told Bobby anything about his working life, and asking had never crossed Bobby's mind.

'What kind of state job? What department? Health and Welfare? Transportation? Office of the Comptroller?'

Bobby shook his head. What in heck was a comptroller?