Roy's World

by Barry Gifford

  “Fred moves around a lot,” said Frieda. “Foster wouldn’t even know where to go to find him.”

  Foster Wildroot was in Roy’s class but since he did not talk much or participate in sports on the playground, which was Roy’s main interest, they did not really know each other. None of Roy’s friends knew much about Wildroot; like Roy, they saw him only in school, where he sat by choice in the last seat of the back row in the classroom. Foster had been absent from school for a week or more before Roy noticed he was not there. Even after he did, Roy figured the kid was sick or that his family had moved away. Many people left Chicago during the 1950s, most of them relocating to the West Coast, primarily to Los Angeles.

  “Wildroot lives on your block, doesn’t he?” Roy asked Billy Katz. “What do you think happened to him?”

  “My mother thinks he was kidnapped by a pervert,” said Katz. “She says Chicago’s full of perverts. Wildroot’s probably locked in a basement where the perv feeds him steaks and ice cream to keep him happy after he does shit to him.”

  “I just hope they don’t find his body dumped in the forest preserves with his head cut off, like those sisters,” Roy said. “They were our age, too.”

  “He stayed inside his house all the time,” said Billy. “I hardly seen him. He didn’t play with any of the other kids on the block, neither. My mother says his mother works part-time ironing sheets and stuff at the Disciples of Festus House for the Pitiful on Washtenaw, but I don’t know how she knows.”

  “What about his father?”

  “Never around. Maybe he don’t have one.”

  Foster Wildroot was never seen again, at least not in Roy’s neighborhood. Billy Katz said Mrs. Wildroot still lived in the same house, though, and one day, about six months after Foster went missing, Mr. Wildroot showed up.

  “My mother seen him,” said Billy. “Tall, skinny guy, walked with a cane.”

  “How’d your mother know it was Foster’s father?”

  “He went to every house on the block and handed a card to whoever answered the door, or else he put one in the mailbox if nobody was home, then he went away. My mother said he didn’t talk to anyone.”

  “What does it say on the cards?”

  “If anyone knows what happened to my son, Foster Wildroot, please write to Mr. Fred Wildroot at a post office box in Montana or Utah, someplace like that.”

  A year later, Roy and Billy Katz were playing catch with a football in the alley behind Billy’s house when Billy pointed to a woman dumping the contents of a large, cardboard box into a garbage can behind a garage a few houses away.

  “That’s Mrs. Wildroot,” he told Roy.

  After the woman went back into her house, Billy said, “Let’s go see what she put in there.”

  The garbage can was full of model airplanes, most of them missing wings or with broken propellers.

  “See any you want to take?” asked Billy.

  The Dolphins

  Roy’s Uncle Buck built a house on Utila, one of the Bay Islands of Honduras. It was an octagonal structure with eight doors on a spit of land accessible only by boat when the tide was in. Buck had transported a generator, refrigerator and other appliances on the ship Islander Trader from St. Petersburg, Florida, to Utila, and when he returned on the same boat two and a half months later, Roy met him at the dock.

  “I had to go to Teguci for a few days to renew my residency visa and take care of some other business,” Buck told him, “and I was walking down a street with my friend Goodnight Morgan, who used to live on Utila but now lives on Roatan, when a car came by, slowed down, and someone fired three shots at us, then sped away. Neither of us were hit. Drive-bys are common in Tegucigalpa, it’s the murder capital of Latin America, if not the world, but I didn’t know why anyone would want to kill us. Goodnight Morgan used to be High Sheriff of Utila, so I asked him if he thought he could have been targeted by a political rival or a criminal who held a grudge against him. Goodnight said either was possible, but he didn’t think so. ‘Gangsters in Teguci kill for no reason other than to intimidate the population,’ he said. ‘That’s why almost nobody is on the streets. To shop they go to malls where there are security guards with automatic weapons to protect them.’ ”

  Roy and his uncle were driving on the bridge over the bay on their way to Tampa when Buck said, “The Islander Trader started leaking fuel when we were a day from port, and the radio was on the fritz. We barely made it to Roatan. The leak had to be patched up before going on to Utila. Then came the shooting in Teguci. Keep in mind, nephew, when a person walks out the door you might never see him or her again.”

  It was a hot and humid day, which was not unusual, but the exceptionally heavy cloud cover, without wind, portended rain, at the very least.

  “This weather reminds me of the time I was in Callao, waiting for a ship to take me to Panama City, where I could get a plane to Miami,” said Buck. “Hundreds of dolphins invaded the harbor, making it impossible for boats to get in or out. They sensed that a giant storm was coming and they were trying to get out of its way. I’ll never forget the sight of those blue-green dolphins crowded together like cattle in the stockyards in Chicago. Dolphins are big, the adults average seven feet long, and they were jabbering to each other, loud, squealing and honking that drowned out everything else.”

  “Did a big storm hit?”

  “About four hours later, the rain started, then huge waves inundated the Peruvian coast, followed by a hailstorm, the kind you get in Kansas or Oklahoma. Nobody there had even seen hail before. All of the ships tied up or at anchor in and near the harbor were damaged, and a number of boats out at sea capsized.”

  “What about the dolphins?”

  “They dove deeper to avoid the hail. But when the bad weather passed, the dolphins were all gone, no sight or sound of them. They were already miles away in the Pacific.”

  “How long were you stuck in Callao?”

  “About a week. I went to Lima for a couple of days, then went back to get my ship.”

  Rain hit the windshield, so Roy slowed the car down. They were almost across the bridge.

  “Dolphins are smart, Roy, they know when and how to escape from the weather and other cetaceans. Human beings are the biggest threat to their existence. I told Goodnight Morgan about the dolphins in Callao, and you know what he said?”

  Roy shook his head.

  “That’s why you never see any dolphins walking down the street in Tegucigalpa.”

  Dragonland

  Roy’s mother was having trouble sleeping. When she mentioned this to her friend Kay, she recommended that Kitty make an appointment to see Dr. Flynn.

  “Is he a sleep expert?” Kitty asked.

  “He has a medical degree in orthopedics,” said Kay, “but he specializes in hypnotherapy now.”

  “I don’t want to be hypnotized. I just need a scrip for sleeping pills until I’m myself again.”

  “Better to see Flynn than take pills. You’ll get strung out on them and have a bigger problem. Dr. Flynn is kind of a genius. He uses hypnotism to correct bodily deformities based on his theory that malformations of the body are caused by psychological conditions.”

  “You mean he cures cripples by hypnosis?”

  “I know it sounds daffy, but apparently he’s had great success.”

  “Where did he go to medical school, in Tibet?”

  “Go see him, Kitty. Try it once, then tell me if you think he’s a quack. And even if he is, if what he does cures your insomnia what difference will it make?”

  The day after Roy’s mother saw Dr. Flynn she called Kay to give her the report.

  “He’s a nice man with good manners. Dyes his hair. We talked for a while, and he asked me if anything in particular had been bothering me lately. I told him I’ve had trouble sleeping periodically since I was a child. Now, since my divorce, I
’ve been having difficulty again, and that when I do fall asleep I often have bad dreams.”

  “Did he hypnotize you?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “What do you mean ‘suppose’? Did he or didn’t he?”

  “He said he did. He didn’t swing a watch or anything in front of my eyes. He just spoke to me and then I felt a little dizzy. I guess I passed out for a few minutes. Afterwards I felt relaxed. That’s all.”

  “Did you sleep better last night?”

  “Roy had to wake me up this morning to get his breakfast. I’m always up before he is.”

  “How did you feel?”

  “Like I didn’t get enough sleep. Not exhausted but vague. I think yesterday tired me out.”

  “What did Flynn say? Are you going to see him again?”

  “I don’t know, Kay. He left it up to me. I had a strange dream last night.”

  “Do you remember it?”

  “I was walking alone on a city street in the middle of the night. I had no destination, I was just walking. There were other women like me, walking, because they were crazy and couldn’t stop. I was afraid and some of them laughed at me. One of the women said, ‘Welcome to Dragonland.’ I wanted to go home but I was lost and only these crazy women were there.”

  “Did you ever have this dream before?”

  “It wasn’t only a dream, Kay. I did this for real lots of times. I never told anyone.”

  “Rudy didn’t know?”

  “It happened once when he and I were first together. I told him I was restless and needed to get some fresh air. We were in a hotel room, three o’clock in the morning. I told him not to worry, to go back to sleep, and I went out.”

  “What about Dr. Flynn? Did you tell him?”

  “Maybe, when I was hypnotized.”

  “What about Roy?”

  “What about him?”

  “Do you want him to stay with me and Marvin for a couple of days? Until you’re feeling better.”

  “I feel all right. Thanks for offering. Roy’s no trouble.”

  That night Kitty couldn’t sleep. She had an urge to leave the house, to walk, but she was afraid to leave Roy alone. She looked at herself in the bedroom mirror and thought about what Dr. Flynn had told her before she left his office.

  “There’s nothing terribly wrong with you,” he said, “Go back to work.”

  “I used to be a model,” she told him.

  Kitty went into the livingroom and turned on the TV. Ava Gardner was dancing barefoot in the rain. She didn’t look happy, either.

  Role Model

  On Roy’s fourteenth birthday he came home from school and found his mother sitting alone at the kitchen table drinking a cup of coffee and reading Holiday magazine.

  “Hi, Ma,” he said. “What are you reading?”

  “An article about Brazil. You know I was there once.”

  “You told me. Who were you there with?”

  “Oh, a boyfriend. It was before I met your father. We spent a week in Rio. The beaches were lovely, the sand was so white, but very crowded, as crowded as Times Square on New Year’s Eve. The Carioca girls were almost naked, brown and slithery and beautiful. I had a wonderful time.”

  “Why haven’t you ever gone back?”

  “Rio’s not the kind of place your father would have liked, and since he died I’ve not had the opportunity.”

  It was a dreary day, drizzly and gray and colder than usual for the time of year. Roy knew his mother preferred warm weather.

  “It’s my birthday today.”

  “I know, Roy. Are you going out with your friends?”

  “Later, maybe. Right now I’m going to work. I just came home to change my clothes.”

  “Your father always dressed well. People used to dress better in the old days.”

  “You mean in the 1940s?”

  “Yes. Before then, too.”

  “Well, I’m going to be boiling hot dogs and frying hamburgers. It wouldn’t be a good idea for me to wear a suit.”

  “No, Roy, of course not. That’s not what I mean. It’s just that people cared more for their appearance when I was young.”

  “This is 1961, Ma, and you’re only thirty-four. You’re still young.”

  Roy was standing next to the table. His mother looked up at him and smiled. She really is still beautiful, he thought. She had long auburn hair, dark brown eyes, perfect teeth and very red lips.

  “I know you miss your father, Roy. It’s a shame he died so young.”

  “He was a strong person,” Roy said. “People liked and respected him, didn’t they?”

  “Yes. He handled things his own way. People trusted him. You know your father never gave me more than twenty-five dollars a week spending money, but I could go into any department store or good restaurant and charge whatever I wanted. I’ll tell you something that happened not long after he and I were married. We were living in the Seneca Hotel, where you were born, and there was another couple in the hotel we were friends with, Ricky and Rosita Danillo. Rosita was a little older than I—she was from Puerto Rico—and Ricky was a few years younger than your dad, who was nineteen years older than me.”

  “What business was Ricky in?”

  “Oh, the rackets, like everybody in Chicago, but he wasn’t in your father’s league. He looked up to Rudy. Anyway, late one afternoon your father came home and I was wearing a new hat, blood red with a veil, and he said it looked good on me. I told him I was just trying it on. He asked me where I’d gotten it and I said it was a gift from Ricky Danillo, that I’d come back to the hotel after having lunch with Peggy Spain and the concierge handed me a hatbox with a note from Ricky.”

  “What did the note say?”

  “I don’t remember exactly, something about how he hoped I’d like it, that when he saw it in a shop window he thought it suited my style. Your dad didn’t say anything but the next day when I went down to the lobby I saw that one of the plate glass windows in the front was boarded up. I asked the concierge what happened and he told me that Rudy had punched Ricky Danillo and knocked him through the window, then told the hotel manager to put the cost of replacing it on his bill. That night I said to your dad, ‘You knocked Ricky through a plate glass window just because he bought me a hat?’ ”

  “What did he say?”

  “‘No, Kitty, I did it because he didn’t ask me first.’ That’s the kind of guy your father was. I didn’t say another word about it.”

  “What happened to the hat?”

  “I never wore it. I gave it away to someone.”

  Roy did not tell anyone at work that it was his birthday and afterwards he was too tired to go anywhere. When he got home there was a chocolate cake on the kitchen table with fifteen yellow candles stuck in it. His mother wasn’t home. He picked up a book of matches that was on the stove and lit the candles, then took off his wet jacket and draped it over the back of a chair. Roy thought about making a wish but he couldn’t think of one. He blew out the candles anyway.

  Mona

  “What’s goin’ on?”

  “Two guys held up the Black Hawk Savings and Loan. A teller set off the alarm and the cops showed up just as the robbers were comin’ out. They shot the first one out the door, he’s dead, but the other one ran across the street into the Uptown. He’s holed up in there.”

  “What’s playin’?”

  “Tell Him I’m Dangerous. You seen it?”

  “No. How long’s he been in the theater?”

  “Twenty minutes, half hour. The cops got the exits covered. They don’t want a shootout inside, innocent people get hurt.”

  Roy had been on his way home from Minnetonka Park when he saw a crowd on the sidewalk on Broadway. He spotted Bobby Dorp right away because Dorp was six foot six and towered over everybody. Bobby was a junio
r in high school, two years ahead of Roy, who knew him from pick-up basketball games.

  “I was goin’ into Lingenberg’s to get a cake for my mother when I heard the shots,” said Dorp. “I come over here and saw a body lyin’ in front of the bank with blood pourin’ out of it. He musta been drilled twenty times. The other robber was already in the theater. He might be wounded.”

  “It’s a matinee, so there probably aren’t too many people in there,” said Roy. “It’ll be dark in less than an hour. I think the cops’ll wait him out.”

  By now the street was clogged with police cars and patrolmen had the theater surrounded.

  Dorp said, “I gotta get my mother’s cake before Lingenberg’s closes. Don’t let the shootin’ start until I get back.”

  Marksmen with high-powered rifles were positioning themselves on the roofs of buildings around the Uptown. The only way the robber could escape, Roy figured, was to pretend he was a patron. To do that, the guy would have to ditch his weapon and the bank money, if he had any. Hiding a bullet wound might be tough, though, depending on where he’d been hit.

  As darkness fell, spotlights were set up on nearby rooftops. No traffic was moving in the immediate vicinity. Bobby Dorp came back carrying a cake box.

  “I got there just in time,” he said, “or they woulda sold this cake, too. Lingenberg’s is sellin’ out the place. Seein’ men die makes people hungry, I guess. I never seen it so crowded.”

  “I wonder if they’re sellin’ popcorn and candy in the Uptown,” said Roy.

  A middleaged woman in front of the boys fainted and fell off the curb. Two men helped her to her feet and led her away. The sun was gone.

  “I can’t stay no longer,” said Dorp. “Gotta get the cake home. Anyway, it’s gettin’ cold. Maybe I’ll come back after dinner.”

  After Bobby Dorp left, Roy moved closer to the front, so that he had an unobstructed view of the theater entrance. Sawhorses had been lined up along the curb. Every cop in sight had his gun drawn.

  Men and women began walking out of the theater with their hands held above their heads. Some of them were crying. Police took each person into custody as soon as they reached the sidewalk. Thirty or forty people came out and were loaded into paddy wagons. The cops kept their guns trained on the entrance.