by Jeffrey Ford
“What happened?” asked Conrad.
Mr. Farley woke from his reverie and said, “The terrain was crazy, and we’d gotten to a point where we had to get word back to the main force. The road was blocked, and they needed a runner to go overland with a message. The colonel picked this skinny kid, he couldn’t have been more than seventeen. I still remember his name—Wellington. He was useless as a soldier, but he was fast as hell. They gave him the message and sent him on his way. He ran back across the battlefield we’d just fought through. The message got to where it was going, but Wellington never returned to the unit. Later we found him in a field hospital. Apparently he’d had to run over the dead. It was the only way. Had to step on them as he went, but he got the message through.”
“Was he wounded?” asked Mason.
Farley shook his head. “As soon as he delivered the message, he lost his sight. Struck stone blind from what he’d seen.”
In the silence that followed, I must have dozed off, because when I came to, Jim had gone inside and the subject had turned to the Yankees. I never cared about baseball, but I knew some of the names. Mr. Farley was talking about a new player, Thurman Munson. He said, “I think he’s going to be good. He’s got that real determination.”
“Yeah,” said my father, half asleep.
“I agree,” said Curdmeyer, puffing on his pipe.
Mason was silent, but Jake Conrad said, “He doesn’t look like him, but he reminds me of that old screwball pitcher the Yankees had.”
“From when?” asked Farley.
“Maybe early fifties,” said Conrad.
“Are you talking about the Riddler?” Farley said.
“Yeah,” said Conrad and laughed.
“Riddley was his name,” said Curdmeyer. “He jumped out a hotel window in Cleveland. He was determined, all right. They said he was hooked on pills.”
“Scott Riddley,” my father said, leaning over to tap my back. “You better go in to bed,” he said.
“In a minute,” I said, and he didn’t insist. The ground had gotten cold, but I was so sleepy that even the mention of Riddley couldn’t excite me. “Tell Jim,” I reminded myself.
I woke some time later to silence. In the house, the dining-room and kitchen lights had been turned off. Out in the yard, Mr. Farley’s chair was empty, and the rest of the men were asleep. Conrad clutched his Dixie cup. Mr. Mason sat straight and was almost snoring. I lay listening to the night, and I think I had a feeling about it like the one Mrs. Grimm told us that people have about church. It started me shivering. I got to my feet and turned toward the house, picturing my bed. Just past the cherry tree, I heard something—a clinking sound from a few backyards over. Maybe the Masons’ place?
Was it Ray or Mr. White? I stood there trying to decide whether or not to call my father. Before I could figure it out, Mr. Conrad’s big ears had scooped up the sound and he was standing. He went around the circle nudging each of the men and putting his finger to his lips. I returned to them and joined the tight circle they formed.
“Your backyard,” Conrad whispered, pointing to Mason. Mason looked toward his house, worried, and adjusted his glasses.
Curdmeyer said, “Two stay here, and two guys go down the block, get around behind him, and flush him this way.”
“I’ll go,” said my father. He turned to me, and I thought he was going to send me in, but instead he said, “Go sit on the front steps, and if you see anyone but us, scream. If he comes after you, run in the house and lock the door.”
It was decided that Jake Conrad would go with my father. I followed them as they left the backyard and then split off to take up my position on the front steps. If it was Ray, I knew I’d somehow have to warn him or help him get away. I wished Jim were with me. There was a little ball of energy lodged between my throat and stomach. I couldn’t just sit on the steps but instead stood out by the street, looking nervously up and down the block.
I saw my father and Conrad on our side of the street, at the very edge of the glow from the lamp in front of the Hayeses’ house. When they stepped off the asphalt and headed across the Masons’ front lawn, I lost them to the shadows. Then I waited, trying to quiet my breathing so I could hear better. My heart started going, and I couldn’t stand still. I walked across the driveway between the cars and stood at the edge of the Conrads’ yard. I thought I heard the sound of change jingle in my father’s pocket, but I wasn’t sure.
Five seconds later I heard Conrad yell, “Whoa!”
I felt the running in the ground before I saw him. Ray came out of the dark across the Conrads’ lawn. Behind him I heard my father say, “Over here!”
“Put your hand out,” Ray whispered from the dark.
Just as I did, he went by, leaping over the back of Pop’s car in one bound. A second later I realized that there was a folded piece of paper between my fingers. I slipped it into my pocket and watched as my father and Conrad ran past me up the street. I turned and looked up the block, and somehow Curdmeyer and Mason were there just past the Dundens’. Ray made a quick turn into the Dundens’ backyard, and Mason, who’d seen what was happening and started running, was right on his heels. I ran to catch up to the action, my father and Conrad already moving across the Dundens’ lawn toward their backyard.
Curdmeyer and I got there at the same time. Mason and Conrad and my father were standing in front of the Dundens’ shed. As we got closer, Mason put his finger to his lips and pointed. My father leaned over to Curdmeyer and whispered, “He’s in there.”
The men quietly formed a semicircle around the shed door. Conrad lifted his flashlight but didn’t turn it on. Mason motioned for me to open the door. I looked over to my father, and he nodded. My hand was trembling. I grabbed the latch and pulled on it. Conrad hit the flashlight, and I ducked away, not wanting to face what was about to happen.
When I looked again, Mason was standing in the shed with the flashlight, pointing it into one corner after another.
Conrad lit a cigarette. “Houdini,” he said.
“I could swear he came in here,” said Mason. “I heard the door open and close.”
“Okay,” said my father, “we lost him, but let’s look around the streets a little.”
“Did anyone get a look at him?” said Curdmeyer.
“Yeah,” said my father. “He’s just a kid.”
“Did you see his face?”
“No.”
“I saw his face,” said Mason. “But I’ve never seen him before.”
“You know who he looked like?” said Curdmeyer. “That kid who used to live up the block.” He pointed.
“You mean the people who moved before we came in?” said Mason.
“Halloways,” said my father. “They’ve been gone for a while.”
“But it can’t be him,” said Conrad.
My father flashed a worried glance in my direction.
“That’s right, I forgot,” said Curdmeyer.
When we got back out into the street, they decided to break up and walk the block for a little while. I went with my father, and we headed around the corner toward the school. Who knew how late it was? The ordeal at the Dundens’ shed had drained me. My father didn’t say anything. We got to the school, went through the gates and off onto the field toward Sewer Pipe Hill.
Suddenly he stopped in the middle of the field and cocked his head back. “Look at the stars,” he said.
I looked. There were more than I’d ever seen before.
He pointed toward the north. “Do you see the bright one there?” he asked.
I nodded, although I wasn’t sure which one he meant.
“The light from that star could have taken a thousand years to reach us. If we could dissect that light and study it, we could see a thousand years into the past. Time travel,” he said.
I thought of someone on a planet going around that star, sending me a message. “Likewise,” he said, “someone out there is seeing a thousand years ago from here.”
“Ten centuries,” I said.
“Right. Times tables. Good.” He clapped once and said, “Let’s go home.”
We met Conrad and Mason on Conrad’s lawn. My father told them we hadn’t seen anyone. They said Curdmeyer had already gone to bed. “Did you guys see anyone?” asked my father. Conrad shook his head, and Mason said, “Just some old guy walking over on Feems Road.”
“What’d he look like?” asked my father.
“He was too old. Besides, he was wearing an overcoat and hat. I’d be surprised if the guy could run.”
“It’s kind of late for a walk,” said my father.
“No shit,” said Conrad. “I’m going in.”
“I’ve had enough,” said Mason.
We headed home.
Before I turned off the light in my room, I checked the note in my pocket. Unfolding it, I read,
I was going to tell Jim, but I was too tired. I fell asleep, looking out at the stars.
Jonah and the Whale
We sat in the alley behind the deli on overturned crates, passing a carton of chocolate milk back and forth. Jim had predicted that my father wouldn’t return to church. I was so weary from having participated in the night watch, but Jim pumped me with questions, and eventually I told him everything that had happened. I’d already given him the note from Ray.
“Jumped out a window in Cleveland,” said Jim, and shook his head.
“When Curdmeyer said the prowler looked like Ray, I almost puked,” I said. “But you know what was weird?”
“What?”
“After they’d already said that the Halloways had moved away, Conrad said, ‘It can’t be him,’ like there was some other reason than that they’d moved. And then Curdmeyer said, ‘That’s right, I forgot.’”
“What d’ya mean?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Yeah, you do,” said Jim. “You just don’t realize it yet.”
“What’s he looking for?” I asked.
“I don’t know….” He unwrapped a chocolate-chip cookie and held it up like the host again. It broke, and he handed me the smaller part. “The question is, what’s he going to do when he finds it?”
When we got home, my mother quizzed us about the sermon. Before I could even blush, Jim, as cool as could be, said, “Jonah and the whale.” It was a story we’d learned from Mrs. Grimm.
“What did the priest say about it?” asked my mother.
“Be good or God will swallow you.”
Ask the Kid
The sun was shining, and I was sitting in Jim’s chair, overlooking Botch Town. Mary was standing next to me.
“Can you do that thing with telling me the numbers again?” I asked.
She shook her head.
“Why not?”
“Mickey’s leaving,” she said.
I wasn’t sure what she meant. I turned and looked at her, searching for Mickey. Finally I asked, “Where’s he going?”
“Away,” she said.
“So?”
“He’s got the numbers.”
“Can you still do Botch Town?” I asked.
“Sometimes,” she said.
“But not the numbers in my ear?”
“I could try,” she said, shaking her head, as if she weren’t sure. “Who do you want to see?”
I stood and reached behind the Halloways’ house for Ray. Sitting back down, I set the figure in front of me, at the edge of the table. In life Ray was always in motion, even sitting cross-legged by the lantern in his underground camp. In clay he was thin and stiff, standing straight with his arms at his sides. We hadn’t really known him, though, when Jim made the Botch Town version. The figures were only meant to hold the places of the living, but I wondered if in the world of the board, life on the painted Willow Avenue was something different.
Mary started with the numbers, pouring them into my ear like a batch of spaghetti dumped into a colander. The strings of digits swam around inside my head, and I stared hard at the clay Ray. I wanted to know what he was looking for, and I believed that the answer would suddenly evolve into a Technicolor scene before my eyes. For the briefest time, I felt like I wasn’t sitting in the chair but actually on the street in Botch Town—and then Mary moved, and I found myself returned to the chair. The second she stopped speaking the numbers, I realized I’d imagined the whole thing.
“No good,” said Mary, shaking her head again.
“Never mind,” I said.
She mumbled a few words and went over on her side of the curtain. I kept staring at Ray, hoping I’d get something. Before long, though, my glance drifted, looking for Mr. White. I found him lying on his side at the edge of the board up near Hammond, which meant he wasn’t close by. I scanned the street, studying the houses and our clay neighbors. Eventually I came to the end of the block at East Lake. When the school came into view, I remembered I had to make the moon for Krapp. It was due the next day. I knew I’d need Jim to help me. I stood up to go see if he was home yet, and just as I reached for the light string, I noticed someone back in the woods standing by the lake. It was Mrs. Edison, her hair fanning out behind her, her thin arms folded over her chest. She was at the very edge of the water, staring out across the sparkled blue.
“Mary,” I called.
She came through the curtain.
“How long ago did Mrs. Edison go into the woods?”
“Today,” she said.
“When will she be there, outside of Botch Town?”
“I don’t know,” she said, and turned, going back through the curtain.
I stood looking for another second and then ran upstairs and put on my coat. I got George on the leash, and we went out the door. Once we hit the street, we ran down around the turn toward East Lake. I was breathing heavily, and in my mind I saw Mrs. Edison sitting at her dining-room table staring into a bowl of water. Maybe Charlie found a way to tell her, I thought.
It took extra effort for me to venture into the woods. There was still plenty of afternoon left, and it was a nice day, but always lurking at the edge of my thoughts was the fact that Mr. White had been leaving his car at home and Mary seemed to be losing her powers. Halfway up the path, my neck was sore from turning my head so quickly so many times. The occasional sound of a snapping twig made my heart race. George stopped to piss every ten feet, and I let him so he’d be on my side in case Mr. White showed up.
We turned off the path and walked quietly through the low scrub amid the pines. As we neared the lake, we passed through a thicket of oak and I caught a glimpse of the water. Drawing closer to the shore, I saw her. She was no more than ten feet from me. Tall yellow grass sprouted right up to the water’s edge. She stood between two pines, her back to me. I could tell she had her arms folded across her chest. Her hair was as crazy as she was. The sight of her stillness overpowered my amazement that she was actually there. From the moment I’d seen her on the board in Botch Town, I’d thought she was going to drown herself.
I dropped the leash, and George took off back through the trees. I ran in the opposite direction to Mrs. Edison’s side and made a face my mother would describe as simpering. “My dog got away. Can you help me get him?” I said to her.
She turned her head and looked into my eyes.
“My dog got away, and I have to get him. Can you help me?” I said.
It took a while, like she was waking up, but she smiled and nodded. With her arms still folded, she followed me. I walked through the scrub, and she followed silently, like a ghost. I waited for her at the path and saw George standing a few feet ahead of me. When I took a step in his direction, he bolted.
She joined me, and we walked along together, shoulder to shoulder.
“You were in Charlie’s class,” said Mrs. Edison. Her voice was calm. She leaned her head toward me but kept her gaze trained on something far ahead.
“Yeah.”
“Do you miss him?” she asked.
I told her how Krapp had left Charlie’s de
sk empty so we would remember him all year.
“I think he’s in the lake,” she said.
I didn’t respond.
“He’s fallen into the lake,” she said. “I can feel it.”
My throat was suddenly dry, and when I spoke, it came out cracked. “I think they checked the lake.”
Abruptly, she stopped walking and opened her arms. I looked up, and it took me a second to realize that she was motioning to George, who stood a few feet away. I crouched down so he wouldn’t run. He looked at me and then at Mrs. Edison, whose arms were now open wide. She made a kissing sound, and the dog ran to her. She leaned over and grabbed his leash with one hand while petting him with the other.
“His name is George,” I said.
She handed me the leash. “He’s a nice dog,” she said.
I started walking again toward the school field and hoped she’d follow. She did. We were almost back to Sewer Pipe Hill when she said, “You’re going to the junior high school next year.”
“I hope so.”
When we reached the field, she stopped almost exactly at the same spot my father did to show me the star, and she suddenly put her arms around me. She pulled me to her. Fear and something else ran through me, but I didn’t move a muscle. I could feel her ribs and the beat of her heart. A big chunk of a minute passed before she let me go. Then she touched the top of my head and said, “Go home.”
I tightened my grip on the leash and ran. At the gate I called back to her and checked to see that she was moving toward the street instead of back to the woods. She was, very slowly. She waved, and I took off.
Even though Krapp’s moon needed making, when I got home from the woods, I sat in the corner of the couch and watched the afternoon movie. James Cagney was tap-dancing and singing “I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy.” I escaped into the television and then into myself, huddled in sleep. It was dark when my mother called me to dinner.
Not until the next morning, Thursday, did I remember the moon. I saw its big, creamy face laughing in a star-filled sky just before my father shut the door on his way out to work, waking me. I opened my eyes to the early-morning darkness and felt instant panic shoot through me, straight up from my feet like electricity. Krapp loomed in my thoughts, and he wasn’t standing for it.