Hearts in Atlantis(57)

'What's wrong?' Bobby took a sip of his rootbeer. He still didn't like it much but it was the only soft drink in the fridge. Besides, it was cold.

'What am I thinking?' Ted passed a hand over his brow, as if he'd suddenly developed a headache. 'That one hasn't been written yet.'

'What do you mean?'

'Nothing. I'm rambling. Why don't you go out for awhile? Stretch your legs? I might lie down for a bit. I didn't sleep very well last night.'

'Okay.' Bobby guessed a little fresh air - even if it was hot fresh air - might do him good. And while it was interesting to listen to Ted talk, he had started to feel as if the apartment walls were closing in on him. It was knowing Ted was going, Bobby supposed. Now there was a sad little rhyme for you: knowing he was going.

For a moment, as he went back into his room to get his baseball glove, the keyring from The Corner Pocket crossed his mind - he was going to give it to Carol so she'd know they were going steady. Then he remembered Harry Doolin, Richie O'Meara, and Willie Shearman. They were out there someplace, sure they were, and if they caught him by himself they'd probably beat the crap out of him. For the first time in two or three days, Bobby found himself wishing for Sully. Sully was a little kid like him, but he was tough. Doolin and his friends might beat him up, but Sully-John would make them pay for the privilege. S-J was at camp, though, and that was that.

Bobby never considered staying in - he couldn't hide all summer from the likes of Willie Shearman, that would be buggy - but as he went outside he reminded himself that he had to be careful, had to be on the lookout for them. As long as he saw them coming, there would be no problem.

With the St Gabe's boys on his mind, Bobby left 149 with no further thought of the keyfob, his special souvenir of down there. It lay on the bathroom shelf next to the toothglass, right where he had left it the night before.

He tramped all over Harwich, it seemed - from Broad Street to Commonwealth Park (no St Gabe's boys on Field C today; the American Legion team was there, taking batting practice and shagging flies in the hot sun), from the park to the town square, from the town square to the railway station. As he stood in the little newsstand kiosk beneath the railway overpass, looking at paperbacks (Mr Burton, who ran the place, would let you look for awhile as long as you didn't handle what he called 'the moichandise'), the town whistle went off, startling them both.

'Mothera God, what's up widdat?' Mr Burton asked indignantly. He had spilled packs of gum all over the floor and now stooped to pick them up, his gray change-apron hanging down. 'It ain't but quarter past eleven!'

'It's early, all right,' Bobby agreed, and left the newsstand soon after. Browsing had lost its charms for him. He walked out to River Avenue, stopping at the Tip-Top Bakery to buy half a loaf of day-old bread (two cents) and to ask Georgie Sullivan how S-J was.

'He's fine,' S-J's oldest brother said. 'We got a postcard on Tuesday says he misses the fambly and wantsa come home. We get one Wednesday says he's learning how to dive. The one this morning says he's having the time of his life, he wantsa stay forever.' He laughed, a big Irish boy of twenty with big Irish arms and shoulders. 'He may wanta stay forever, but Ma'd miss im like hell if he stayed up there. You gonna feed the ducks with some of that?'

'Yeah, like always.'

'Don't let em nibble your fingers. Those damned river ducks carry diseases. They - '

In the town square the Municipal Building clock began to chime noon, although it was still only quarter of.

'What's going on today?' Georgie asked. 'First the whistle blows early, now the damned town clock's off-course.'

'Maybe it's the heat,' Bobby said.

Georgie looked at him doubtfully. 'Well . . . it's as good an explanation as any.'

Yeah, Bobby thought, going out. And quite a bit safer than some.

Bobby went down to River Avenue, munching his bread as he walked. By the time he found a bench near the Housatonic River, most of the half-loaf had disappeared down his own throat. Ducks came waddling eagerly out of the reeds and Bobby began to scatter the remaining bread for them, amused as always by the greedy way they ran for the chunks and the way they threw their heads back to eat them.

After awhile he began to grow drowsy. He looked out over the river, at the nets of reflected light shimmering on its surface, and grew drowsier still. He had slept the previous night but his sleep hadn't been restful. Now he dozed off with his hands full of breadcrumbs. The ducks finished with what was on the grass and then drew closer to him, quacking in low, ruminative tones. The clock in the town square bonged the hour of two at twelve-twenty, causing people downtown to shake their heads and ask each other what the world was coming to. Bobby's doze deepened by degrees, and when a shadow fell over him, he didn't see or sense it.

'Hey. Kid.'

The voice was quiet and intense. Bobby sat up with a gasp and a jerk, his hands opening and spilling out the remaining bread. Those snakes began to crawl around in his belly again. It wasn't Willie Shearman or Richie O'Meara or Harry Doolin even coming out of a doze he knew that - but Bobby almost wished it had been one of them. Even all three. A beating wasn't the worst thing that could happen to you. No, not the worst. Gripes, why did he have to go and fall asleep'?

'Kid.'

The ducks were stepping on Bobby's feet, squabbling over the unexpected windfall. Their wings were fluttering against his ankles and his shins, but the feeling was far away, far away. He could see the shadow of a man's head on the grass ahead of him. The man was standing behind him.