Pride

by William Wharton

  PART 15

  I don’t think I ever ran so fast in my life. The rain is coming down hard and I’m getting soaking wet. It’s almost as if I’m trying to run out from under the rain. The boards of the boardwalk are slippery.

  When all the lights come on, I almost feel as if someone has shot me. I hunch down over Cannibal. I’m holding her box in my arms against my chest and waiting for the sound of a gun.

  Then I hear fast, heavy footsteps running behind me. I know it has to be Dad or that fat policeman who was holding on to me. I run harder without looking back.

  First I feel his hand on my shoulder, then his other hand on my other shoulder, pushing me down, holding me back. I’m about to twist, try getting away, when I see it’s Dad and I stop.

  “Hold it there, Dickie. What’s the matter? It’s not so bad as all that. They had to kill that lion. You saw all those people. They were afraid, they wanted him shot. And besides he’d killed a man. Some things just have to be; that’s the way it is.”

  He’s out of breath from running and I am, too. He gets down on his knees on the wet boardwalk in front of me. I’m crying so hard I can hardly talk. He takes Cannibal’s box out of my arms and puts it down on the boardwalk. I don’t think she’s getting wet in there, the roof slides in grooves so no rain should get in and no rain will blow in the holes.

  Dad takes me and holds me in his arms, hard. I put my arms around him, too. He’s so big. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a hug from my dad. I think the last time was when I was in second grade, at Christmastime, when I gave him the copper oil can with the long spout. It cost 69 cents and took almost all my Christmas money.

  All these thoughts are running like crazy fish through my head, thoughts about Cannibal, Christmas oil cans, but I keep seeing the lion falling over slowly with practically no blood at all, almost as if he was just giving up, giving up life. I know I have to tell Dad; if I don’t tell him, we can never really be friends again.

  “Dad, I did it. I let the lion out of his cage.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I let the lion out. I didn’t mean to.”

  Dad holds me tighter. He’s quiet.

  “That’s just your imagination, Dickie; you’re all mixed up. How could you have let the lion out anyway?”

  So I tell him. I tell him about taking Cannibal to visit that morning, about me climbing under the fence, about Cannibal going in the cage and the lion licking her, about how scared I was and how I took the lock out and how the lion knocked the lock deep into the cage where I couldn’t reach it.

  “But why didn’t you tell somebody, get somebody to help?”

  “I was running to tell you when I saw the man who owns the lion, the one who just shot him, going along the boardwalk toward the Wall of Death. I thought he’d get there before the lion got out. That lion had just been rubbing his face against my hand and wanting me to pet him. He was sitting there so quiet in the sun behind his bars. And besides I think something in me, it might be that devil, wanted him to get out and walk around without staring at bars all the time.”

  Dad pushes me away, holds on to my arms so hard they hurt. He looks over my shoulder; I turn and look, too. Mom and Laurel are putting newspapers over their heads and getting ready to come after us. Mom must think we’re crazy, standing and kneeling out in the rain, in the dark.

  I think Dad’s crying, too, but I can’t tell, there’s so much rain; but his voice is low and he takes deep breaths between sentences. “Listen, Dickie! Listen hard! Don’t you say a word to anybody about letting that lion out. It’s a secret just between us. You understand?”

  He looks over my shoulder again. I nod my head.

  “Not even to Mom or Laurel.”

  I nod my head again. Dad stops a few minutes, looks up at the sky. Then he looks me right in the eyes. He’s never really looked at me that way before. It’s even more peculiar than winking.

  “I want to tell you something, Dickie. You remember this. Nobody can let anybody else, not even a lion, out of a cage.

  “The important thing for all of us is never look at the bars, look through them. Because if you keep looking at bars, you’ll never get anything done, and you’ll never have fun in life, any joy. Do you understand?”

  I don’t think I did then; but I do now.

  Mom and Laurel come running to us; a wind has blown up and is blowing Mom’s dress against her legs. The newspapers are sopping wet, so they’re flopping all over their faces.

  “What in heaven’s name are you two doing out here in the rain? Are you all right, Dickie?”

  “I’m fine, Mom. Dad and I were talking. I was sad about that lion being shot, so I ran away and Dad just explained how they had to shoot him.”

  I’m not crying. Inside I feel warm and the rain seems to be only bouncing on the outside of my skin. Dad stands up and takes the wet newspapers from Mom and Laurel.

  “This rain isn’t going to hurt anybody. Let’s enjoy it; it’s probably the last of the warm rains before winter sets in.”

  He mashes the newspapers into a ball, runs over on the slippery boardwalk and pushes them into a trashcan. I remember the man coming along with the stick with the nail in it. If everybody was like my dad we wouldn’t need people doing that kind of work. Dad always said when we’d finish one of our porch jobs and were cleaning up the work site, “One of the ways you can tell a good workman is he covers up his tracks.”

  I reach down to pick up Cannibal. Dad’s come back and takes the box from my hands. He has a hard time sliding back the top because the rain has made the wood swell, but he gets it open. He lifts Cannibal out.

  “I think Cannibal’s big enough to enjoy a little rain; we can wipe her off when we get home. I don’t think there’ll be any dogs stomping around in a rain like this.”

  He pushes the top closed and hands the box back to me. Cannibal is already trying to catch rain drops as they hit the boardwalk. She’s dashing back and forth, but they’re hitting all around her. We watch and start laughing, even Mom. Cannibal hardly notices us; she’s trying to beat up every rain drop that even comes near her.

  Laurel has her head tipped up with her tongue out and is tasting the rain. I’ve done this with snow but never with rain. I try it, at the same time watching to see I don’t step on Cannibal. Dad has his head tipped back, drinking rain with us, and he puts his arm around Mom’s wet shoulders.

  “Come on, Laura, taste this rain. It might just be the best-tasting rain you’ll ever taste in your whole life.”

  We walk along drinking rain, and every once in a while Cannibal will get behind but then she’ll dash forward to catch up. We’re her family.

  About the Author

  William Wharton is the pseudonym for the author of eight novels: Birdy, Dad, A Midnight Clear, Scumbler, Pride, Tidings, Franky Furbo, and Last Lovers. He has also written two memoirs, Ever After: A Father’s True Story and Houseboat on the Seine. Birdy won the American Book Award for best first novel when it was published in 1978, became a national bestseller, and was made into an award-winning film starring Nicolas Cage and Matthew Modine. Dad was a National Book Award nominee and was made into a feature film with Jack Lemmon and Ted Danson; the movie version of A Midnight Clear starred Ethan Hawke, Kevin Dillon, and Gary Sinise. A native of Philadelphia, Wharton fought in World War II, where he was part of the Army Specialized Training Program. In 1960, he received a Ph.D. in psychology from UCLA and moved to France. There Wharton made his living as a painter while raising his two daughters and two sons; the tragic death of his daughter Kate, her husband, and two infant daughters was the subject of Ever After. He now lives with his wife, Rosemary, outside of Paris on a houseboat on the Seine. Wharton’s works have been acclaimed worldwide and have been translated into over fifteen languages.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

  PRAISE FOR WILLIAM WHARTON’S BOOKS

  PRIDE

  �
��Two stories and several meanings of the word ‘pride’ interweave in Wharton’s poetic novel about families, love and coming to terms with reality.... It’s pride in the sense of self-esteem that saves the little family; pride in the sense of arrogance that destroys others. And pride in the sense of the company of lions that brings the two stories to a moving and transcendent ending.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Mr. Wharton has a special gift for portraying filial relationships, and his portrait of Dickie and his father … possesses a sweetness and felt emotion that leaves a warm, pleasant afterglow in our minds.”

  —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

  “Pride works its magic by allowing the darkest and most threatening forces to invade a luminous and enchanted landscape. William Wharton knows precisely how to cast such spells and his magic words are extracted directly from the American grain.”

  —Chicago Sun-Times

  “Wharton remains the contemporary novelist perhaps closest to what could be called Frank Capra-style American story-telling: class-conscious, do-an-honest-job, optimistic, loving. Pride, like all his other books, is imbued with these merits.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Superbly plotted … a truly memorable novel.”

  —The Pittsburgh Press

  BIRDY

  (Winner of the American Book Award for First Fiction in 1978)

  “A writer’s triumph and a reader’s delight.”

  —Toni Morrison

  “It soars! … Part psychological thriller, part mystery … a portrait of a friendship as firm as it is unlikely, and an utterly plausible account of an unbelievable obsession.”

  —Time

  “One of the strangest and most memorable stories to come out of America in many years. William Wharton is quite exceptionally gifted.”

  —John Fowles

  DAD

  (A National Book Award nominee)

  “This is a great American novel. Wharton’s eye is sharp as an eagle’s; his pitch, perfect; his understanding of the emotions deeply moving. He reaches us, crucially, naturally, where we live.”

  —Rebecca Sinkler, Philadelphia Inquirer

  “Splendid … extraordinary … I don’t know of another novel that treats the relations among several generations in a family during times of crisis with such absolute and convincing authenticity, with such genuine feeling unsullied by the slightest hint of sentimentality.”

  —Allen Lacy, San Francisco Chronicle

  “A luminous book … with each little turn, we see a new facet of forbearance and ineffable love.”

  —Chicago Sun-Times

  EVER AFTER: A Father’s True Story (Memoir)

  “Wharton writes with the skills of a born storyteller … Ever After reads like a grippingly dramatic novel, and its blend of sorrow and a healing anger has a bracingly cathartic effect.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “A piercing cry from the heart, a resounding call for reform—and that rare thing: a unique book.”

  —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

  “A powerful story of devastating loss and spiritual healing … highly recommended.”

  —Library Journal

  A MIDNIGHT CLEAR

  “There are surprisingly few ‘classic’ novels of World War II … A Midnight Clear joins the best. Read it.”

  —Eliot Fremont-Smith, The Village Voice

  “It is a fine book, sad and witty, even profound … Wharton’s books could not be about sadder, crazier people and circumstances, and out of the insanity, out of the pain, he lifts … spirits, teaching … tenderness.”

  —San Francisco Chronicle

  SCUMBLER

  “A marvelously vital novel about the power of the imagination to create and recreate life.”

  —Valerie Miner, Los Angeles Times

  “Scumbler is about the pleasure of creation and the pangs of ordinary existence. Its prose is as exuberant as its subject matter.”

  —Doris Grumbach, Chicago Tribune

  Other Works

  By William Wharton

  BIRDY

  DAD*

  A MIDNIGHT CLEAR*

  SCUMBLER*

  PRIDE*

  TIDINGS

  FRANKY FURBO

  LAST LOVERS

  EVER AFTER*

  HOUSEBOAT ON THE SEINE*

  * Published by Newmarket Press

  Copyright

  Copyright © 1985 by William Wharton.

  Previously published in hardcover by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

  This book is published in the United States of America and Canada.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  First Newmarket Edition

  96 97 98 99 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Wharton, William.

  Pride / William Wharton.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 1-55704 -259-4

  EPub Edition © JANUARY 2013 ISBN: 9780062278364

  Version 03292013

  1. Depression—New Jersey—Fiction. 2. Family—New Jersey—Fiction.

  3. Boys—New Jersey—Fiction. I. Title.

  [PS3573.H32P7 1996]

  813’.54—dc20

  95-25698

  CIP

  Manufactured in the United States of America.

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