Ted also got up and approached him. Bobby was saddened to see the fear on Ted’s face. He didn’t want Ted to believe in the low men too much, didn’t want Ted to be too crazy. ‘Be back before dark, Bobby. I’d never forgive myself if something happened to you.’
‘I’ll be careful. And I’ll be back years before dark.’
Ted dropped to one knee (he was too old to just hunker, Bobby guessed) and took hold of Bobby’s shoulders. He drew Bobby forward until their brows were almost bumping. Bobby could smell cigarettes on Ted’s breath and ointment on his skin — he rubbed his joints with Musterole because they ached. These days they ached even in warm weather, he said.
Being this close to Ted wasn’t scary, but it was sort of awful, just the same. You could see that even if Ted wasn’t totally old now, he soon would be. He’d probably be sick, too. His eyes were watery. The corners of his mouth were trembling a little. It was too bad he had to be all alone up here on the third floor, Bobby thought. If he’d had a wife or something, he might never have gotten this bee in his bonnet about the low men. Of course, if he’d had a wife, Bobby might never have read Lord of the Flies. A selfish way to think, but he couldn’t help it.
‘No sign of them, Bobby?’
Bobby shook his head.
‘And you feel nothing? Nothing here?’ He took his right hand from Bobby’s left shoulder and tapped his own temple, where two blue veins nested, pulsing slightly. Bobby shook his head. ‘Or here?’ Ted pulled down the corner of his right eye. Bobby shook his head again. ‘Or here?’ Ted touched his stomach. Bobby shook his head a third time.
‘Okay,’ Ted said, and smiled. He slipped his left hand up to the back of Bobby’s neck. His right hand joined it. He looked solemnly into Bobby’s eyes and Bobby looked solemnly back.
‘You’d tell me if you did, wouldn’t you? You wouldn’t try to . . . oh, I don’t know . . . to spare my feelings?’
‘No,’ Bobby said. He liked Ted’s hands on the back of his neck and didn’t like them at the same time. It was where a guy in a movie might put his hands just before he kissed the girl.
‘No, I’d tell, that’s my job.’
Ted nodded. He slowly unlaced his hands and let them drop. He got to his feet, using the table for support and grimacing when one knee popped loudly. ‘Yes, you’d tell me, you’re a good kid. Go on, take your walk. But stay on the sidewalk, Bobby, and be home before dark.
You have to be careful these days.’
I’ll be careful.’ He started down the stairs.
‘And if you see them — ‘
‘I’ll run.’
‘Yeah.’ In the fading light, Ted’s face was grim. ‘Like hell was after you.’
So there had been touching, and perhaps his mother’s fears had been justified in a way —
perhaps there had been too much touching and some of the wrong sort. Not wrong in whatever way she thought, maybe, but still wrong. Still dangerous.
On the Wednesday before school let out for the summer, Bobby saw a red strip of cloth hanging from somebody’s TV antenna over on Colony Street. He couldn’t tell for sure, but it looked remarkably like a kite tail. Bobby’s feet stopped dead. At the same time his heart accelerated until it was hammering the way it did when he raced Sully-John home from school.
It’s a coincidence even if it is a kite tail, he told himself. Just a lousy coincidence. You know that, don’t you?
Maybe. Maybe he knew. He had almost come to believe it, anyway, when school let out for the summer on Friday. Bobby walked home by himself that day; Sully-John had
volunteered to stay and help put books away in the storeroom and Carol was going over Tina Lebel’s for Tina’s birthday party. Just before crossing Asher Avenue and starting down Broad Street Hill, he saw a hopscotch grid drawn on the sidewalk in purple chalk. It looked like this: