Hearts in Atlantis(12)

Bobby was still on the bench fifteen minutes later when Sully came bopping into the park and saw him. 'Say there, you old bastard!' Sully exclaimed. 'I went by your house and your mom said you were down here, or maybe at Sterling House. Finally finish that book?'

'Yeah.'

'Was it good?'

'Yeah.'

S-J shook his head. 'I never met a book I really liked, but I'll take your word for it.'

'How was the concert?'

Sully shrugged. 'We blew til everyone went away, so I guess it was good for us, anyway. And guess who won the week at Camp Winiwinaia?' Camp Winnie was the YMCA's co-ed camp on Lake George, up in the woods north of Storrs. Each year HAC - the Harwich Activities Committee - had a drawing and gave away a week there.

Bobby felt a stab of jealousy. 'Don't tell me.'

Sully-John grinned. 'Yeah, man! Seventy names in the hat, seventy at least, and the one that bald old bastard Mr Coughlin pulled out was John L. Sullivan, Junior, 93 Broad Street. My mother just about weewee'd her pants.'

'When do you go?'

'Two weeks after school lets out. Mom's gonna try and get her week off from the bakery at the same time, so she can go see Gramma and Grampy in Wisconsin. She's gonna take the Big Gray Dog.' The Big Vac was summer vacation; the Big Shew was Ed Sullivan on Sunday night; the Big Gray Dog was, of course, a Greyhound bus. The local depot was just up the street from the Asher Empire and the Colony Diner.

'Don't you wish you could go to Wisconsin with her?' Bobby asked, feeling a perverse desire to spoil his friend's happiness at his good fortune just a little.

'Sorta, but I'd rather go to camp and shoot arrows.' He slung an arm around Bobby's shoulders. 'I only wish you could come with me, you book-reading bastard.'

That made Bobby feel mean-spirited. He looked down at Lord of the Flies again and knew he would be rereading it soon. Perhaps as early as August, if things got boring (by August they usually did, as hard as that was to believe in May). Then he looked up at Sully-John, smiled, and put his arm around S-J's shoulders. 'Well, you're a lucky duck,' he said.

'Just call me Donald,' Sully-John agreed.

They sat on the bench that way for a little while, arms around each other's shoulders in those intermittent showers of apple-blossoms, watching the little kids play. Then Sully said he was going to the Saturday matinee at the Empire, and he'd better get moving if he didn't want to miss the previews.

'Why don't you come, Bobborino? The Black Scorpion's playing. Monsters galore throughout the store.'

'Can't, I'm broke,' Bobby said. This was the truth (if you excluded the seven dollars in the Bike Fund jar, that was) and he didn't want to go to the movies today anyhow, even though he'd heard a kid at school say The Black Scorpion was really great, the scorpions poked their stingers right through people when they killed them and also mashed Mexico City flat.

What Bobby wanted to do was go back to the house and talk to Ted about Lord of the Flies.

'Broke,' Sully said sadly. 'That's a sad fact, Jack. I'd pay your way, but I've only got thirty-five cents myself.'

'Don't sweat it. Hey - where's your Bo-lo Bouncer?'

Sully looked sadder than ever. 'Rubber band snapped. Gone to Bolo Heaven, I guess.'

Bobby snickered. Bolo Heaven, that was a pretty funny idea. 'Gonna buy a new one?'

'I doubt it. There's a magic kit in Woolworth's that I want. Sixty different tricks, it says on the box. I wouldn't mind being a magician when I grow up, Bobby, you know it? Travel around with a carnival or a circus, wear a black suit and a top hat. I'd pull rabbits and shit out of the hat.'

'The rabbits would probably shit in your hat,' Bobby said.

Sully grinned. 'But I'd be a cool bastard! Wouldn't I love to be! At anything!' He got up. 'Sure you don't want to come along? You could probably sneak in past Godzilla.'

Hundreds of kids showed up for the Saturday shows at the Empire, which usually consisted of a creature feature, eight or nine cartoons, Prevues of Coming Attractions, and the MovieTone News. Mrs Godlow went nuts trying to get them to stand in line and shut up, not understanding that on Saturday afternoon you couldn't get even basically well-behaved kids to act like they were in school. She was also obsessed by the conviction that dozens of kids over twelve were trying to enter at the under-twelve rate; Mrs G. would have demanded a birth certificate for the Saturday matinees as well as the Brigitte Bardot double features, had she been allowed. Lacking the authority to do that, she settled for barking 'WHATYEARYABORN?' to any kid over five and a half feet tall. With all that going on you could sometimes sneak past her quite easily, and there was no ticket-ripper on Saturday afternoons. But Bobby didn't want giant scorpions today; he had spent the last week with more realistic monsters, many of whom had probably looked pretty much like him.

'Nah, I think I'll just hang around,' Bobby said.

'Okay.' Sully-John scrummed a few apple-blossoms out of his black hair, then looked solemnly at Bobby. 'Call me a cool bastard, Big Bob.'

'Sully, you're one cool bastard.'

'Yes!' Sully-John leaped skyward, punching at the air and laughing. 'Yes I am! A cool bastard today! A great big cool bastard of a magician tomorrow! Pow!'