8
Bobby Makes a Confession. The Gerber
Baby and the Maltex Baby. Rionda. Ted
Makes a Call. Cry of the Hunters.
In Commonwealth Park the little kids were playing ticky-ball. Field B was empty; on Field C
a few teenagers in orange St Gabriel’s tee-shirts were playing scrub. Carol Gerber was sitting on a bench with her jump-rope in her lap, watching them. She saw Bobby coming and began to smile. Then the smile went away.
‘Bobby, what’s wrong with you?’
Bobby hadn’t been precisely aware that anything was wrong with him until Carol said that, but the look of concern on her face brought everything home and undid him. It was the reality of the low men and the fright of the close call they’d had on their way back from Bridgeport; it was his concern over his mother; mostly it was Ted. He knew perfectly well why Ted had shooed him out of the house, and what Ted was doing right now: filling his litde suitcases and those carryhandle paper bags. His friend was going away.
Bobby began to cry. He didn’t want to go all ushy-gushy in front of a girl, particularly this girl, but he couldn’t help it.
Carol looked stunned for a moment — scared. Then she got off the bench, came to him, and put her arms around him. ‘That’s all right,’ she said. ‘That’s all right, Bobby, don’t cry, everything’s all right.’
Almost blinded by tears and crying harder than ever — it was as if there were a violent summer storm going on in his head — Bobby let her lead him into a copse of trees where they would be hidden from the baseball fields and the main paths. She sat down on the grass, still holding him, brushing one hand through the sweaty bristles of his crewcut. For a litde while she said nothing at all, and Bobby was incapable of speaking; he could only sob until his throat ached and his eyeballs throbbed in their sockets.
At last the intervals between sobs became longer. He sat up and wiped his face with his arm, horrified and ashamed of what he felt: not just tears but snot and spit as well. He must have covered her with mung.
Carol didn’t seem to care. She touched his wet face. Bobby pulled back from her fingers, uttering another sob, and looked down at the grass. His eyesight, freshly washed by his tears, seemed almost preternaturally keen; he could see every blade and dandelion.
‘It’s all right,’ she said, but Bobby was still too ashamed to look at her.
They sat quietly for a little while and then Carol said, ‘Bobby, I’ll be your girlfriend, if you want.’
‘You are my girlfriend,’ Bobby said.
‘Then tell me what’s wrong.’
And Bobby heard himself telling her everything, starting with the day Ted had moved in and how his mother had taken an instant dislike to him. He told her about the first of Ted’s blank-outs, about the low men, about the signs of the low men. When he got to that part, Carol touched him on the arm.
‘What?’ he asked. ‘You don’t believe me?’ His throat still had that achey too-full feeling it got after a crying fit, but he was getting better. If she didn’t believe him, he wouldn’t be mad
at her. Wouldn’t blame her a bit, in fact. It was just an enormous relief to get it off his chest.
‘That’s okay. I know how crazy it must — ‘
‘I’ve seen those funny hopscotches all over town,’ she said. ‘So has Yvonne and Angie. We talked about them. They have little stars and moons drawn next to them. Sometimes comets, too.’
He gaped at her. ‘Are you kidding?’
‘No. Girls always look at hopscotches, I don’t know why. Close your mouth before a bug flies in.’
He closed his mouth.
Carol nodded, satisfied, then took his hand in hers and laced her fingers through his. Bobby was amazed at what a perfect fit all those fingers made. ‘Now tell me the rest.’
He did, finishing with the amazing day he’d just put in: the movie, the trip to The Corner Pocket, how Alanna had recognized his father in him, the close call on the way home. He tried to explain how the purple DeSoto hadn’t seemed like a real car at all, that it only looked like a car. The closest he could come was to say it had felt alive somehow, like an evil version of the ostrich Dr Dolittle sometimes rode in that series of talking-animal books they’d all gone crazy for in the second grade. The only thing Bobby didn’t confess was where he’d hidden his thoughts when the cab passed the William Penn Grille and the backs of his eyes began to itch.
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