Happy? But how and why? Here, a few feet off, was the janitor, the library man, the stranger, his uniform gone, but his face still the face of a man happier at night alone in the deep marble vaults, whispering his broom in the draughty corridors.
Will watched, wondering why this woman was so happy and this man so sad.
His father stared deep in the fire, one hand relaxed. Half-cupped in that hand lay a crumpled paper ball.
Will blinked.
He remembered the wind blowing the pale handbill skittering in the trees. Now the same colour paper lay crushed, its rococo type hidden, in his father’s fingers.
“Hey!”
Will stepped into the parlour.
Immediately Mom opened a smile that was like lighting a second fire.
Dad stricken, looked dismayed, as if caught in a criminal act.
Will wanted to say, “Hey, what”d you think of the handbill…?
But Dad was crammmg the handbill deep in the chair upholstery.
And mother was leafing the library books.
“Oh, these are fine, Willy!”
So Will just stood with Cooger and Dark on his tongue and said:
“Boy, the wind really flew us home. Streets full of paper blowing.”
Dad did not flinch at this.
“Anything new, Dad?”
Dad’s hand still lay tucked in the side of the chair. He lifted a grey, slightly worried, very tired gaze to his son:
“Stone lion blew off the library steps. Prowling the town now looking for Christians. Won’t find any. Got the only one no in captivity here, and she’s a good cook.”
“Bosh,” said Mom.
Walking upstairs, Will heard what he half expected to hear.
A soft fluming sigh as something fresh was tossed on the fire. In his mind, he saw Dad standing at the hearth looking down as the paper crinkled to ash:
“…COOGER … DARK … CARNIVAL … WITCH … WONDERS…”
He wanted to go back down and stand with Dad hands out, to be warmed by the fire.
Instead he went slowly up to shut the door of his room.
Some nights, abed, Will put his ear to the wall to listen, and if his folks talked things that were right, he stayed, and if not right he turned away. If it was about time and passing years or himself or town or just the general inconclusive way God ran the world, he listened warmly, comfortably, secretly, for it was usually Dad talking. He could not often speak with Dad anywhere in the world, inside or out, but this was different. There was a thing in Dad’s voice, up, over, down, easy as a hand winging soft in the air like a white bird describing flight pattern, made the ear want to follow and the mind’s eye to see.
And the odd thing in Dad’s voice was the sound truth makes being said. The sound of truth, in a wild roving land of city or plain country lies, will spell any boy. Many nights Will drowsed this way, his senses like stopped clocks long before that half-singing voice was still. Dad’s voice was a midnight school, teaching deep fathom hours, and the subject was life.
So it was this night, Will’s eyes shut, head leaned to the cool plaster. At first Dad’s voice, a Congo drum, boomed softly, horizons away. Mother’s voice, she used her water-bright soprano in the Baptist choir, did not sing, yet sang back replies. Will imagined Dad sprawled talking to the empty ceiling:
“…Will…makes me feel so old…a man should play baseball with his son…”
“Not necessary,” said the woman’s voice, kindly. “You’re a good man.”
“ — in a bad season. Hell, I was forty when he was born! And you! Who’s your daughter? people say. God, when you lie down your thoughts turn to mush. Hell!”
Will heard the shift of weight as Dad sat up in the dark. A match was being struck, a pipe was being smoked. The wind rattled the windows.
“…man with poster under his arm…”
“…carnival… “ said his mother’s voice, “…this late in the year?”
Will wanted to turn away, but couldn’t.
“…most beautiful…woman…in the world,” Dad’s voice murmured.
Mother laughed softly. “You know I’m not.”
No! thought Will, that’s from the handbill! Why doesn’t Dad tell!!?