Boy's Life

by Robert R. McCammon

  The wrinkled man’s other hand rose like an adder’s head. I tensed.

  He was holding a package with a few Fig Newtons in it.

  “Well, well!” the foreign man said with obvious surprise. “Ahmet likes you! Take a Fig Newton, he doesn’t speak.”

  “I…don’t think I…”

  The match went out. I could smell Ahmet next to me, an odor so dry it threatened to crisp the hairs in my nostrils. He breathed like the rustle of dead leaves.

  A second match was struck. Ahmet had a black streak across his pointed chin. He still held the Fig Newtons, and now he nodded at me. When he did so, I thought I heard his flesh creak.

  He was grinning like warmed-over Death. Baked and crusted Death, to be more exact. I slid a trembling hand into the package and accepted a Fig Newton. This seemed to appease Ahmet. He shambled over toward the boxcar’s other side, and he knelt down and touched the match to three candle stubs stuck with wax to the bottom of an upturned bucket.

  The light grew. And as it grew, it showed me things I wished I didn’t have to look at.

  “There,” the foreign man said from where he sat with his shoulder against a pile of burlap sacks. “Now we see eye-to-eye.”

  I wished we’d been back to back with five miles between us.

  If this man had ever seen the sun, the Lady was my grandmother. His skin was so pallid, he made the moon appear as dark as Don Ho. He was a young man, younger at least than my father, and he had fine blond hair combed back from a high forehead. A touch of silver glinted at his temples. He was wearing a dark suit, a white shirt, and a necktie. Only I could tell right off that his suit had seen better days from the patches around the shoulders, the cuffs of his shirt were frayed, and brown blotches marred his tie. Still, there was an elegance about this man; even sitting down, he commanded your attention with a stare that had a trace of well-bred haughtiness in it. His wingtips were scuffed. At first I thought he was wearing white socks, but then I realized those were his ankles. His eyes bothered me, though; in the candlelight, the pupils gleamed scarlet.

  But this man, and Ahmet the dried-up one, looked like Troy Donahue and Yul Brynner compared to the third monstrosity in that boxcar.

  He was standing up in a corner. His head, which was strangely shovel-shaped, almost brushed the ceiling. The man must have been over seven feet tall. His shoulders looked as wide as some of the wings on the planes at Robbins Air Force Base. His body appeared bulky and lumpy and altogether not right. He was wearing a loose brown jacket and gray trousers with patches on the knees. The trousers looked as if they had gotten drenched and shrunken while he was still in them. The size of the man’s shoes astounded me; to call them clodhoppers is like calling an atomic bomb a pregnant grenade. They were more like earthmovers.

  “Hi dere,” he said as his shoes slammed on the timbers and he came toward me. “I’m Franklin.”

  He was grinning. I wished he hadn’t been. His grin made Mr. Sardonicus look unhappy. What was worse than his grin was a scar that sliced across his Neanderthal forehead and had been stitched together, it seemed, by a cross-eyed medical student with a severe case of hiccups. His huge face looked flattened, his shiny black hair all but painted on his skull. In the candlelight, he appeared as if something he’d recently eaten hadn’t agreed with him. The misfortunate oaf was a sickly, grayish hue. And lo and behold! There from each side of the man’s bull-thick neck protruded a small rusted screw.

  “You want some wadda?” he asked, and he held up a dented canteen. In his hand, it seemed the size of a clamshell.

  “Uh…no sir. No thank you. Sir.”

  “Wadda washes down da Fig Newton,” he said. “Udderwise get stuck in da troat.”

  “I’m okay. Really.” I cleared my throat. “See?”

  “Hokay. Dass fine, den.” He returned to his corner, where he stood like a grotesque statue.

  “Franklin’s a happy sort,” Princey explained. “Ahmet’s the quiet one.”

  “What are you?” I asked.

  “I’m the ambitious type,” he said. “What type are you?”

  “Scared.” I heard the rush of wind behind me. The freight train was speeding now, leaving Zephyr sleeping in peace.

  “Sit down if you like,” Princey offered. “It’s not too clean in here, but neither is it a dungeon.”

  I looked longingly out the door. We must’ve been going…

  “…sixty miles an hour,” Princey said. “Sixty-four, it feels to me. I’m a good judge of the wind.”

  I sat down, keeping my distance from all three of them.

  “So.” He slid his hands into the pockets of his coat. “Favor us with your destination, Cory.”

  “I guess I…wait a minute. Did I tell you my name?”

  “You must have, I’m sure.”

  “I don’t remember.”

  Franklin laughed. It sounded like a backed-up drain being Roto-Rootered. “Haw! Haw! Haw! Dere he goes again! Princey’s got da best sense’a yuma!”

  “I don’t think I told you my name,” I said.

  “Well, don’t be stubborn,” Princey answered. “Everybody has a name. What’s yours?”

  “Co—” I stopped. Were these three insane, or was I? “Cory Mackenson. I’m from Zephyr.”

  “Going to…?” he prompted.

  “Where does the train go?” I asked.

  “From here?” He smiled slightly. “To everywhere.”

  I glanced over at Ahmet. He was squatting on his haunches, watching me intently over the flickering candles. He wore sandals on his shriveled feet, his toenails two inches long. “Kinda cold to be wearin’ sandals, isn’t it?”

  “Ahmet doesn’t mind,” Princey said. “That’s his footwear of choice. He’s Egyptian.”

  “Egyptian? How’d he get all the way here?”

  “It was a long, dusty trail,” he assured me.

  “Who are you people? You look kinda—”

  “Familiar if you’re a devotee of the sweet science. Boxing, that is,” Princey said, shoveling words in my mouth. “Ever heard of Franklin Fitzgerald? Otherwise known as Big Philly Frank?”

  “No sir.”

  “Then why did you say you had?”

  “I…did I?”

  “Meet Franklin Fitzgerald.” He motioned to the monster in the corner.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Pleased ta meet ya,” Franklin replied.

  “I’m Princey Von Kulic. That’s Ahmet Too-Hard-to-Pronounce.”

  “Hee hee hee,” Franklin giggled behind a massive hand with scarred knuckles.

  “You’re not American, are you?” I asked Princey.

  “Citizen of the world, at your service.”

  “Where’re you from, then?”

  “I am from a nation that is neither here nor there. It is an unnation, if you will.” He smiled again. “Unnation. I like that. My country has been ransacked by foreign invaders so many times, we give green stamps for raping and pillaging. It’s easier to make a buck here, what can I say?”

  “So you’re a boxer, too?”

  “Me?” He grimaced as if he had a bad taste in his mouth. “Oh, no! I’m the brains behind Franklin’s brawn. I’m his manager. Ahmet’s his trainer. We all get along famously, except when we’re trying to kill each other.”

  “Haw haw!” Franklin rumbled.

  “We are currently between opponents,” Princey said with a slight shrug. “Bound from the last place we were to the next place we will be. And such, I fear, is our existence.”

  I had decided that no matter how fearsome this trio appeared, they really meant me no harm. “Does Mr. Fitzgerald do a lot of fightin’?” I asked.

  “Franklin will take on anyone, anywhere, at any time. Unfortunately, though his size is quite formidable, his speed is quite deplorable.”

  “Princey means I’m slow,” Franklin said.

  “Yes. And what else, Franklin?”

  The huge man’s overhanging brow threatened to collapse as he po
ndered this question. “I don’t have da killer instink,” he said at last.

  “But we’re working on that, aren’t we, Silent Sam?” Princey asked the Egyptian. Ahmet showed his hooked yellow teeth and nodded vigorously. I thought he’d better be careful, in case his head flew off.

  I began staring at Franklin’s neck. “Mr. Princey, why does he have those screws in there?”

  “Franklin is a man of many parts,” Princey said, and Franklin giggled again. “Most of them of the rusted variety. His meetings with other individuals in the squared circle have not always been pleasant. In short, he’s had so many broken bones that the doctor’s had to wire some of him together. The screws are connected to a metal rod that strengthens his spine. It’s painful, I’m sure, but necessary.”

  “Aw,” Franklin said, “it ain’t so bad.”

  “He has the heart of a lion,” Princey explained. “Unfortunately, he also has the mind of a mouse.”

  “Hee hee hee! Dat Princey’s a laff riot!”

  “I’m thirsty,” Princey said, and he stood up. He was tall, too, maybe six four, and slender though not nearly the beanpole Ahmet was.

  “Here ya go.” Franklin offered him the canteen.

  “No, I don’t want that!” Princey’s pale hand brushed it aside. “I want… I don’t know what I want.” He looked at me. “Has that ever happened to you? Have you ever wanted something but you can’t figure out what it is for the life of you?”

  “Yes sir,” I said. “Like sometimes when I think I want a Co’Cola but I really want root beer.”

  “Exactly. My throat’s as dusty as Ahmet’s pillow!” He walked past me and peered out at the passing forest. There were no lights out there, under the firmament. “So!” he said. “You know us now. What about you? I presume you’re running away from home?”

  “No sir. I mean… I’m just gettin’ away for a little while, I guess.”

  “Trouble with your parents? With school?”

  “Both of those,” I said.

  He nodded, leaning against the boxcar’s opening. “The universal tribulations of a boy. I, too, had such troubles. I, too, set out to get away for a little while. Do you really think this will help your problems?”

  “I don’t know. It was all I could think of.”

  “The world,” Princey said, “is not like Zephyr, Cory. The world has no affection for a boy. It can be a wonderful place, but it can also be savage and vile. We should know.”

  “Why is that?” I asked.

  “Because we have traveled all over. We’ve seen this world, and we know the people who live in it. Sometimes it scares me to death, thinking about what’s out there: cruelty, callousness, utter disregard and disrespect for fellow human beings. And it’s not getting better, Cory; it’s getting worse.” He gazed up at the moon, which kept our pace. “‘O world,’” he said. “‘But that thy strange mutations make us hate thee, life would not yield to age.’”

  “Ain’t dat preddy?” Franklin asked.

  “It’s Shakespeare,” Princey replied. “Talking about the universal tribulations of men.” He turned from the moon and stared at me, his pupils scarlet. “Would you like some advice from an older soul, Cory?”

  I didn’t really want it, but I said, “Yes sir” to be polite.

  He wore a bemused expression, as if he knew my thoughts. “I’ll give it to you anyway. Don’t be in a hurry to grow up. Hold on to being a boy as long as you can, because once you lose that magic, you’re always begging to find it again.”

  That sounded vaguely familiar to me, but I couldn’t remember where I’d heard it before.

  “Do you want to see something of the world, Cory?” he asked me.

  I nodded, transfixed by his bloodred pupils.

  “You’re in luck, then. I see a city’s lights.”

  I stood up and looked out. And there in the distance, over the dragon’s spine of twisted hills, the stars were washed out by earthly phosphorescence.

  Princey explained to me that we would come to a part of that city where the freight slowed as it entered the yards. It was then that we could abandon our boxcar without breaking our legs. Gradually the city grew around us, from wooden houses to brick houses to buildings of stone. Even at this late hour, the city was alive. Neon signs blinked and buzzed. Cars sped along the streets, and figures trudged the sidewalks. Then the freight train clattered over the crisscrossed railyard tracks where other trains lay sleeping and began to slow. When it was going the speed of a walking man, Franklin’s huge shoes touched the ground. Then Ahmet went out, dust whuffing from his body as he hit. “Go on, if you want to go,” Princey told me, standing at my back. I scrambled out and landed all right, and then Princey made his exit. We had arrived in the city, and I was a long way from home.

  We walked across the railyard, the sounds of whistles and chugging engines drifting around us. The air smelled burnt, though it was a cold fire. Princey said we’d better find some shelter for the night. We kept going, deeper along the gray streets that stood beneath the tall gray buildings, though several times we had to stop and wait for Franklin, who indeed was a slow mover.

  We came to a place where alleys cut the walls, and neon reflected off standing pools of water on the cracked concrete. As we were passing an alley, I heard a grunting noise followed by the smacking of flesh. I stopped to look. One man was holding another with his arms behind him, while a third methodically beat the second man in the face with his fist. The second man was bleeding from the nose and mouth, his eyes dazed and wet with fear. The man who was doing the beating did this as if it were a common labor, like the hacking down of a wayward tree. “Where’s the money, you motherfucker?” the first man said in a voice of quiet evil. “You’re gonna give us the money.” The beating continued, the third man’s knuckles red with blood. The victim made a groaning, whimpering noise, and as the fist kept rising and falling, his bruised face began to change shape.

  A pale hand gripped my shoulder. “Let’s move along, shall we?”

  Up ahead, a police car had pulled to the curb. Two policemen stood on either side of a man with long hair and dressed in dirty clothes. They were stocky and their guns gleamed in their black leather holsters. One of the policemen leaned forward and shouted in the long-haired man’s face. Then the other policeman grabbed a handful of that hair, spun him around, and slammed his head against the windshield’s glass. The glass didn’t break, but the man’s knees sagged. He didn’t try to fight back as he was shoved into the police car. As they drove past us, I caught a glimpse of the man’s face peering out, tendrils of blood creeping from his forehead.

  Music throbbed and thumped from a doorway. It sounded like all rhyme and no reason. A man sat against a wall, a puddle of urine between his legs. He grinned at the air, his eyes demented. Two young men came along, and one of them held a tin gasoline can. “Get up, get up!” the other one said, kicking at the man on the ground. The demented one kept grinning. “Get up! Get up!” he parroted. In the next second, gasoline sloshed over him. The other young man pulled a pack of matches from his pocket.

  Princey guided me around a corner. Franklin, slogging behind Ahmet, sighed like a bellows, his face daubed with shadow.

  A siren wailed, but it was going somewhere else. I felt sick to my stomach, my skull pressured. Princey kept his hand on my shoulder, and it was comforting.

  Four women were standing on a corner, under the stuttering neon. They were all younger than my mother but older than Chile Willow. They wore dresses that might have been applied with paint, and they appeared to be waiting for somebody important to come along. As we passed them, I smelled their sweet perfume. I looked into the face of one of them, and I saw a blond-haired angel. But something about that face was lifeless, like the face of a painted doll. “Motherfucker better do me right,” she said to a dark-haired girl. “Better fuckin’ score me, goddammit.”

  A red car pulled up. The blond-haired angel switched on a smile to the driver. The other girls crowded
around, their eyes bright with false hope.

  I didn’t like what I saw, and Princey guided me on.

  In a doorway, a man in a denim jacket was standing over a woman sprawled in a doorway. He was zipping up his pants. The woman’s face was a pulped mass of black bruises. “There you go,” the man said. “Showed you, didn’t I? Showed you who’s boss.” He reached down and grabbed her hair. “Say it, bitch.” He shook her head. “Say who’s boss!”

  Her swollen eyes were pleading. Her mouth opened, showing broken teeth. “You are,” she said, and she began to cry. “You’re the boss.”

  “Keep going, Cory,” Princey told me. “Don’t stop, don’t stop.”

  I staggered on. Everywhere I looked, there was only mean concrete. I saw not a hill nor a trace of green. I lifted my face, but the stars were blanked out and the night a gray wash. We turned a corner and I heard a clatter. A small white dog was searching desperately through garbage cans, its ribs showing. Suddenly a hulking man was there, and he said, “Now I’ve got you” as the dog stood staring at him with a banana peel in its mouth. The man lifted a baseball bat and slammed it down across the dog’s back. The dog howled with pain and thrashed, its spine broken, the banana peel lost. The man stood over it, and he lifted the baseball bat and brought it down and then the dog had no more muzzle or eyes, just a smashed red ruin. The white legs kept kicking, as if trying to run.

  “Little piece a shit,” the man said, and he stomped the skinny ribs with his boot.

  Tears burned my eyes. I stumbled, but Princey’s hand held me up. “Move on,” he said. “Hurry.” I did, past the carnage. I was about to throw up, and I fell against a wall of rough stones. Behind me, Franklin rumbled, “Da kid’s too far from home, Princey. It ain’t right.”

  “You think I like this?” Princey snapped. “Numb nuts.”

  I came to the edge of the wall, and I stopped. I seemed to be looking into a small room. I could hear voices raised in argument, but only a boy sat in the room. He was about my age, I thought, but something in his face looked older by far. The boy was staring at the floor, his eyes glassy as the arguing voices got louder and louder. And then he picked up a sponge and a tube of glue, the kind my buddies and I put plastic models together with. He squeezed glue into the sponge, and then he pressed the sponge over his nose and closed his eyes as he inhaled. After a minute he fell backward, his body starting to convulse. His mouth was open, and his teeth began to clamp down again and again on his tongue.