Hearts in Atlantis(21)

One night while they were on the couch watching Wyatt Earp, his mom turned to Bobby almost fiercely and said, 'Does he ever touch you?'

Bobby understood what she was asking, but not why she was so wound up. 'Well, sure,' he said. 'He claps me on the back sometimes, and once when I was reading the paper to him and screwed up some really long word three times in a row he gave me a Dutch rub, but he doesn't roughhouse or anything. I don't think he's strong enough for stuff like that. Why?'

'Never mind,' she said. 'He's fine, I guess. Got his head in the clouds, no question about it, but he doesn't seem like a . . . ' She trailed off, watching the smoke from her Kool cigarette rise in the living-room air. It went up from the coal in a pale gray ribbon and then disappeared, making Bobby think of the way the characters in Mr Simak's Ring Around the Sun followed the spiraling top into other worlds.

At last she turned to him again and said, 'If he ever touches you in a way you don't like, you come and tell me. Right away. You hear?'

'Sure, Mom.' There was something in her look that made him remember once when he'd asked her how a woman knew she was going to have a baby. She bleeds every month, his mom had said. If there's no blood, she knows it's because the blood is going into a baby. Bobby had wanted to ask where this blood came out when there was no baby being made (he remembered a nosebleed his mom had had once, but no other instances of maternal bleeding). The look on her face, however, had made him drop the subject. She wore the same look now.

Actually there had been other touches: Ted might run one of his big hands across Bobby's crewcut, kind of patting the bristles; he would sometimes gently catch Bobby's nose between his knuckles and intone Sound it out! If Bobby mispronounced a word; if they spoke at the same moment he would hook one of his little fingers around one of Bobby's little fingers and say Good luck, good will, good fortune, not ill. Soon Bobby was saying it with him, their little fingers locked, their voices as matter-of-fact as people saying pass the peas or how you doing.

Only once did Bobby feel uncomfortable when Ted touched him. Bobby had just finished the last newspaper piece Ted wanted to hear - some columnist blabbing on about how there was nothing wrong with Cuba that good old American free enterprise couldn't fix. Dusk was beginning to streak the sky. Back on Colony Street, Mrs O'Hara's dog Bowser barked on and on, roop-roop-roop, the sound lost and somehow dreamy, seeming more like something remembered than something happening at that moment.

'Well,' Bobby said, folding the paper and getting up, 'I think I'll take a walk around the block and see what I see.' He didn't want to come right out and say it, but he wanted Ted to know he was still looking for the low men in the yellow coats.

Ted also got up and approached him. Bobby was saddened to see the fear on Ted's face. He didn't want Ted to believe in the low men too much, didn't want Ted to be too crazy. 'Be back before dark, Bobby. I'd never forgive myself if something happened to you.'

'I'll be careful. And I'll be back years before dark.'

Ted dropped to one knee (he was too old to just hunker, Bobby guessed) and took hold of Bobby's shoulders. He drew Bobby forward until their brows were almost bumping. Bobby could smell cigarettes on Ted's breath and ointment on his skin - he rubbed his joints with Musterole because they ached. These days they ached even in warm weather, he said.

Being this close to Ted wasn't scary, but it was sort of awful, just the same. You could see that even if Ted wasn't totally old now, he soon would be. He'd probably be sick, too. His eyes were watery. The corners of his mouth were trembling a little. It was too bad he had to be all alone up here on the third floor, Bobby thought. If he'd had a wife or something, he might never have gotten this bee in his bonnet about the low men. Of course, if he'd had a wife, Bobby might never have read Lord of the Flies. A selfish way to think, but he couldn't help it.

'No sign of them, Bobby?'

Bobby shook his head.

'And you feel nothing? Nothing here?' He took his right hand from Bobby's left shoulder and tapped his own temple, where two blue veins nested, pulsing slightly. Bobby shook his head. 'Or here?' Ted pulled down the corner of his right eye. Bobby shook his head again. 'Or here?' Ted touched his stomach. Bobby shook his head a third time.

'Okay,' Ted said, and smiled. He slipped his left hand up to the back of Bobby's neck. His right hand joined it. He looked solemnly into Bobby's eyes and Bobby looked solemnly back. 'You'd tell me if you did, wouldn't you? You wouldn't try to . . . oh, I don't know . . . to spare my feelings?'

'No,' Bobby said. He liked Ted's hands on the back of his neck and didn't like them at the same time. It was where a guy in a movie might put his hands just before he kissed the girl. 'No, I'd tell, that's my job.'

Ted nodded. He slowly unlaced his hands and let them drop. He got to his feet, using the table for support and grimacing when one knee popped loudly. 'Yes, you'd tell me, you're a good kid. Go on, take your walk. But stay on the sidewalk, Bobby, and be home before dark. You have to be careful these days.'

I'll be careful.' He started down the stairs.

'And if you see them - '

'I'll run.'

'Yeah.' In the fading light, Ted's face was grim. 'Like hell was after you.'