“I got an idea,” Ted said. “Just leave it to me.”
“Wait a minute,” David said.
“Oh let’s try,” Diane said. She touched his hand and he nodded.
“All right, but I can’t promise anything.”
“Just try, that’s all,” she said smiling. “What else can anyone ask for?”
They watched as Ted went to the other end of the counter to talk to Charlie Burger. Apparently, what he said amused and interested him, because he followed Ted back.
“All right, here’s the story: Charlie’s got ten dollars on him and I’ve got ten. Charlie’s going out of the store. He’s going to hide the ten he’s got somewhere on him. David’s gonna have one guess as to where it is. If he guesses it, he and I share the ten. If he doesn’t, I give Charlie my ten.”
“Wait a minute,” David said.
“It’s all right. I know you can do it, kid,” Ted said.
“But I don’t feel right risking your ten dollars.”
“If Ted’s willing to do it,” Diane said. Her face flushed with excitement. He looked at her a moment and wondered what it would be like to kiss the little freckles under her eyes gently. She took his forearm and squeezed it. “Do it for me,” she whispered.
“All right,” he said. “But I’ve got to touch the ten first.”
“Huh?” Charlie looked at Ted and Westlake.
“That’s not an unreasonable request, Charlie,” Ted said. “Getting scared?”
“Scared? Of what? Shit,” he said and held his ten dollar bill out. David took it into his hand slowly and held it there a moment, closing his eyes. “I don’t believe this shit,” Charlie said.
“Shh,” Ted said. “He’s concentrating.”
“He’s pulling your dick. That’s what he’s doin’. Gimme my ten back,” Charlie said. David opened his eyes and handed it to him. Charlie checked the bill and then looked at Ted Davis. “I go out, hide it, and then come back in, right?”
“You got it.”
“And he gets only one guess?”
“Right again.”
“Get your ten ready, sucker,” Charlie said and walked out of the store.
David took a deep breath and turned back to the counter. None of them noticed his nervousness.
“If I know that idiot, he’ll hide it in his shoe,” Westlake said.
“It won’t matter where he hides it,” Ted said.
“You really think he can do this?”
“He can do it,” Diane said. She touched his shoulder. “You can do it, can’t you, David?”
“All I said was, I would try.”
“Damn,” Westlake said. “Kiss your ten good-bye, Davis.”
“Looks like Charlie brought a cheering section along,” Ted said. They all looked at the front door as Charlie returned. Shirley Dorfman was right beside him. Shirley was only a junior in high school, but she sometimes went out with men nearly twice her age. She wasn’t very attractive, but she was big breasted and loose. Everyone knew for sure about one abortion, but there was talk of at least two more. She had a chubby face, dark-brown hair, and dull-brown eyes. Lately, she had been hanging around Skip’s garage.
Shirley wore a thin, white cotton cardigan sweater. The bra beneath it was so stiff it produced two sharp tips that pressed out emphatically. She wore a rust-brown shirt, which looked a size too tight, and brown loafers. Next to Charlie, she looked as if she were less than five feet tall. Actually, she was only five foot two. David had noticed the wideness in her hips before. Rube told him that came from being pregnant and getting laid so much. He wondered if that were so. Afterward, perhaps, he would ask Ted. He didn’t think Ted would laugh at the question and make him feel foolish for asking.
“Okay,” Charlie said. “One guess.” He stood before David, and Shirley came up beside him. She smiled widely and looked from Westlake to Ted to Diane.
David said nothing. He stared at Charlie Burger a moment and then looked at Ted and Diane. They were gaping at him in expectation. Westlake was shaking his head.
David closed his eyes and thought about the ten dollar bill. He ran his left forefinger along the inside of his right palm where he had held the money, and then he looked at Charlie again.
“Well?” Charlie said. “Come on. I got plans for Davis’s ten.” He laughed and put his arm around Shirley Dorfman.
“What do you say, David?” Diane asked softly.
“He doesn’t have it on him,” David said.
“What?” Charlie Burger’s smile faded slowly.
“What are you saying, David?” Ted asked. He stepped up to him and put his hand on his shoulder. David looked at Charlie and Shirley.
“He didn’t hide it on him.”
“Where did he hide it?” Ted asked. “Go on, tell him if you know.”
“He gave it to Shirley and she put it…put it in her bra,” David said.
“Holy shit,” Shirley said. “He saw. He was lookin’ at us.”
“He never left this spot,” Ted said. “Burger, you bastard. You were supposed to hide it on you.”
“Christ. How’d he do that?”
“It’s in her bra?” Diane said. “It’s there?”
“He saw,” Shirley repeated.
“How the hell did he see?” Charlie snapped. He took his arm off her and stepped away as if she were contaminated. “You went into the alley to do it, didn’t ya?”
“I’ll take the ten,” Ted said, holding out his hand. “I mean, David and I will take it,” he added. Shirley looked at Charlie.
“Give it to him, for Christsakes,” he said. He shook his head and went back to the other end of the counter. Shirley turned her back, reached into her sweater, and came out with the ten dollar bill. She placed it in Ted’s hand gingerly.
“Feels kind of hot,” he said. Westlake laughed.
“I saw it, but I still don’t believe it,” Westlake said.
“Why not? You saw what he did in Liberty, didn’t you?” Ted said. “I’ll get two fives, David,” he said and went to the counter to have it changed.
David said nothing. He was looking down at the floor because he was struggling with conflicting feelings. In one sense he was proud of his success; he hadn’t been confident of succeeding at all. But in another sense, he felt guilty again. If, indeed, he had a power, why couldn’t he apply it to things that really mattered, like helping his grandmother? Her last words echoed in his mind: “You mustn’t think you can do too much.”
It was all so confusing, but he didn’t have a chance to wallow in confusion long. Diane touched his hand and brought his eyes up to confront her. Her eyes were filled with admiration. He could see the excitement had built within her.
“That was wonderful, David,” she said, and she leaned forward to kiss him on the cheek.
He couldn’t wait to do something else to please and excite her, and his desire to do so was so strong that he could no longer hear the rest of his grandmother’s dying admonition: “You must be afraid of what you can do.”
7
The senior boys spread the news of David’s accomplishments quickly, and the result was more attention and more flattery than he ever dreamed he would experience. The adulation came at a good time because it distracted him from missing his grandmother.
Ted Davis began to behave like a manager, booking performances. Usually Diane would accompany them, always smiling at David, holding his hand, hugging him, urging him to do even more.
Sometimes Ted used a deck of cards and David, after bets had been made, proved he could guess what a card, kept facedown, was four out of five times. A few times, he was unable to do it. Something broke his concentration or he was bored. Almost always his failures occurred when Diane wasn’t around.
Having someone hide money on his body and then having David guess where it was remained the favorite trick. In one week he and Ted made fifty dollars, which they shared. After a while it became difficult, if not impossible, to get anyone to bet. They
had to go outside the school community, traveling about to find former graduates and other people Ted knew who worked in the area.
David didn’t tell his mother anything about this, even though he’d started to feel better about his mother. She had quickly assumed most of the responsibilities and functions his grandmother had performed. She got up early enough in the morning to prepare him breakfast and a bag lunch, if he wanted that. She looked after his clothes regularly and maintained the house with far more attention to cleanliness and order than David thought her capable.
He sensed that his mother filled her own emptiness and eased her own sorrow by doing things the way his grandmother had done them. Just as it had been with his grandmother, nothing was ever clean enough. A rug could never be vacuumed sufficiently; furniture never polished too much. After work in the drugstore and on her days off, she was scrubbing fixtures in the bathroom, washing the kitchen floor, or straightening out closets and drawers.
Because of the intensity with which she attacked the house and took on the responsibilities, she was oblivious to the subtle but definite changes taking place in David. She didn’t notice his new sophisticated look, the attention he gave to his appearance. His clothing, his hair, even his fingernails became critical. He wouldn’t leave the house for school in the morning if he wasn’t coordinated and if the cowlick in the back of his head wasn’t plastered down neatly. He was late for school a few times because of all this.
His school work began to suffer as academics took a back seat to his friends, especially since he was friendly with new and older students. He spoke to his old buddies, but he no longer had the time or interest to do the things they did. Playing against the wall or King of the Hill was juvenile, unless the competition included a monetary bet. That was what the older boys taught him and that was what he came to believe.
His old friends resented him, partly because they were jealous of his relationships with the older boys, and partly because of his new arrogance. Almost every day after school he went off in a car with Ted Davis or Westlake. In the school corridors between classes, he gravitated to the juniors and seniors, either to listen to their conversations or do some trick to amuse them, like reading minds.
He couldn’t do it with anywhere near the accuracy he pretended he could, but because he was able to seize on some common thought and guess the correct numbers or colors someone thought about, they began to accept anything he said as gospel. If he didn’t like someone, he found he could strike at him or her by pretending to reveal an embarrassing thought. Consequently, more and more of the upperclassmen began to cater to him and ingratiate themselves with him so he wouldn’t make them look foolish in front of everyone.
No one could threaten him as long as he moved about the school under the unwritten, but nevertheless clear protection of seniors like Ted Davis and Westlake. Although he was still very much infatuated with Diane Jones, the attention of older girls like Shirley Dorfman, Pamela Sue Brody, and Marsha Goodman interested and excited him. None of them were as beautiful as Diane, but they were all sexually sophisticated, appealing to his imagination and his ego.
One result of his developing relationships with older kids was that he was invited to their open-house parties on weekends. None of his previous friends had been invited before, and none attended these parties now, not even Rube. At first he was invited to provide some entertainment. He did simple things like find something that had been hidden in the house or the pea under the shell game.
After a while the novelty began to wear off and although he was still brought along, he was asked less and less to perform. However, the aura of magic and mystery remained around him, and that was enough to attract and maintain female interest. At first all they would do was toy with him: talk to him, flirt harmlessly with him, and dance with him. They were always brushing his hair or folding the collars on his shirts.
But at Marsha Goodman’s open house one Friday night, Pamela Sue Brody went further. He could see that she and some other girls had been discussing him before he arrived. After he entered the house, he saw them smile and giggle and whisper, and he sensed that something was going to happen.
Ted and Diane hadn’t arrived yet; David had come with Westlake. From the way Westlake was behaving, David suspected that he was in on it, too.
Marsha’s parents would be away until the following afternoon. She and her friends had brought out her father’s alcohol supply, and the six packs of beer some of the boys had brought along were set aside for the harder stuff. He was given half a glass of straight rye. He hated the taste and the way it burned as it flowed down his throat, but the girls were around him, and it was difficult to put it aside.
In fact Marsha said, “It probably takes a great deal more booze to get a guy with your mental powers drunk.” He thought that might be so, although he couldn’t say for sure, having hardly drunk any whiskey.
Marsha had a nice house. It was a long, brick ranch with four bedrooms and a finished basement playroom. The party began in the playroom, but as the evening wore on and the lights became dimmer, couples began to wander off to claim their places upstairs.
Unbeknownst to David, one bedroom had been reserved: Marsha’s parents’ bedroom. He was still nursing the last third of his drink when Ted and Diane arrived. They said hello, then went off to dance in the shadows to the slow music. He watched them enviously for awhile, the warmth of the whiskey no longer distasteful or unpleasant. Instead, he felt a comfortable glow.
It was at that point that Pamela made her move. She asked him to dance; she made him hold her closer and began to kiss him on the neck, pressing her breasts firmly against him.
Pamela was only an inch or two taller than he was. She was supposed to be a senior, but she had failed three subjects last year and was still classified as a junior. She had a narrow face, the most interesting aspect of which was her hazel-brown, deep-set eyes, but her nose was too long and her mouth too wide, ruining the symmetry. She had a slim torso, but her hips were somewhat wide, exaggerating the uplift of her rear. This was emphasized whenever she wore jeans.
This evening she wore a light-blue, V-neck sweater blouse and a tight, dark-blue skirt. Her necklace plunged deeply into her cleavage. The strands of her dark-brown hair lay neatly over her shoulders.
As David danced with her, she began to take more and more of a lead, pressing him this way and that, cupping him behind the head and pulling him forward, even awkwardly at times. The girls behind them were hysterical, but he didn’t see that. He was having trouble keeping himself steady. His head began to spin.
“It’s so hot in here,” she said, “and so crowded. Let’s go upstairs.”
“Huh?”
“Let’s go upstairs. I want you to tell my fortune.”
“I don’t tell fortunes,” he said. What did she mean by go upstairs? he wondered.
“That’s all right. I’ll tell yours.”
“Huh?”
“Stop saying huh. You sound like Clarence Stanley.” She turned, looked at her friends, and then took him by the hand and led him up the stairs to Marsha’s parents’ bedroom. The alcohol had rushed to his brain, but instead of making him giddy and high, it left him somewhat lethargic and confused. Before he realized what was happening, Pamela had him in the bedroom and on the bed.
He stared at her stupidly, his eyes blinking.
“When you kiss someone,” she said, “do you feel something special?”
“I don’t know.”
“What about that person? Does she?”
“Huh?”
“Oh shit,” she said and brought her lips to his so quickly she nearly pushed him over on his back. “Don’t you like me?”
“Like you? Sure.”
“Good. Now tell me what you feel when I kiss you.” She did it again. “Well?”
“Um…” It was so hard to think. Here he was, in a bedroom with a girl three years older than he, a girl Diane’s age. “It’s like…falling.”
�
�Falling? Falling from what?”
“From an airplane,” he said, even though he had never been in one.
“My God. Just falling?” She thought for a moment. “Yes, I’ve felt that way sometimes.” She studied him a moment and then kissed him again. He had his eyes opened and saw that she had shut hers tightly. She held the kiss so long, he nearly lost his breath. “I felt it,” she said. “Come on. You can do more.”
“Do more?”
“See more, feel more, know more,” she responded quickly, punching out her words angrily. He didn’t know what to say; he wasn’t sure what she wanted.
Impatient, she took his left hand and placed it on her breast. She held her hand over his as if she thought he would pull away. His eyes widened in surprise and she laughed.
“The girls think you can tell who’s done it and who hasn’t,” she said.
“Done it?”
“Fucked,” she said, pressing her upper teeth over the outside of her lower lip at the start of her pronunciation of the word.
“Oh.”
“You don’t know who’s done it and who hasn’t, do you? Not really. You can’t tell that.”
“I didn’t say I could.” He looked at his hand on her breast as if it were no longer a part of him, and he wanted to see what it would do. Then he looked up at her. “I didn’t say I couldn’t either,” he added.
“What do you think about me?”
“I don’t know enough,” he said. From where did the words come? He was amazed at his own forwardness. She smiled and nodded. Then she backed away. He thought that was going to be it, but she stood up and in one quick motion, drew her sweater blouse up and over her head. She dropped it on the bed and reached back to unfasten her bra. As she slid the garment down her arms, her breasts relaxed. He was surprised at how quickly they lost shape. Her bosom was not nearly as firm as Diane’s.
“Now you know more,” she said and sat beside him again. When she kissed him this time, he put his hand on her bare breast himself and caught her nipple between his forefinger and index finger. She moaned, and the sound of it increased his excitement so quickly he thought he would lose all control.
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