fuckin’ story!’
‘Yeah, what happened to the cat?’ Teddy persisted. ‘Come on, Gordie, tell us.’
‘I think his dad was at the Pie-Eat and when he came home he beat the living crap out
of Lard Ass.’
‘Yeah, right,’ Chris said. ‘I bet that’s just what happened.’
‘And,’ I said, ‘the kids went right on calling him Lard Ass. Except that maybe some of
them started calling him Puke-Yer-Guts, too.’
‘That ending sucks,’ Teddy said sadly.
That’s why I didn’t want to tell it.’
‘You could have made it so he shot his father and ran away and joined the Texas
Rangers,’ Teddy said. ‘How about that?’
Chris and I exchanged a glance. Chris raised one shoulder in a barely perceptible
shrug.
‘I guess so,’ I said.
‘Hey, you got any new Le Dio stories, Gordie?’
‘Not just now. Maybe I’ll think of some.’ I didn’t want to upset Teddy, but I wasn’t very
interested in checking out what was happening in Le Dio, either. ‘Sorry you didn’t go for this one better.’
‘Nah, it was good,’ Teddy said. ‘Right up to the end, it was good. All that pukin’ was
really cool.’
‘Yeah, that was cool, really gross,’ Vern agreed. ‘But Teddy’s right about the ending. It
was sort of a gyp.’
‘Yeah,’ I said, and sighed.
Chris stood up. ‘Let’s do some walking,’ he said. It was still bright daylight, the sky a
hot, steely blue, but our shadows had begun to trail out long. I remember that as a kid,
September days always seemed to end much too soon, catching me by surprise – it was as
if something inside my heart expected it to always be June, with daylight lingering in the
sky until almost nine-thirty. ‘What time is it, Gordie?’
I looked at my watch and was astonished to see it was after five.
‘Yeah, let’s go,’ Teddy said. ‘But let’s make camp before dark so we can see to get wood
and stuff. I’m gettin’ hungry, too.’
‘Six-thirty,’ Chris promised. ‘Okay with you guys?’
It was. We started to walk again, using the cinders beside the tracks now. Soon the
river was so far behind us we couldn’t even hear its sound. Mosquitoes hummed and I
slapped one off my neck. Vern and Teddy were walking up ahead, working out some sort
of complicated comic book trade. Chris was beside me, hands in his pockets, shirt
slapping against his knees and thighs like an apron.
‘I got some Winstons,’ he said. ‘Hawked ’em off my old man’s dresser. One apiece. For
after supper.’
‘Yeah? That’s boss.’
“That’s when a cigarette tastes best,’ Chris said. ‘After supper.’
‘Right.’
We walked in silence for a while.
‘That’s a really fine story,’ Chris said suddenly. “They’re just a little too dumb to
understand.’
‘No, it’s not that hot. It’s a mumbler.’
‘That’s what you always say. Don’t give me that bullshit you don’t believe. Are you
gonna write it down? The story?’
‘Probably. But not for a while. I can’t write ’em down right after I tell ’em. It’ll keep.’
‘What Vern said? About the ending being a gyp?’
‘Yeah?’
Chris laughed. ‘Life’s a gyp, you know it? I mean, look at us.’
‘Nah, we have a great time.’
‘Sure,’ Chris said. ‘All the fuckin’ time, you wet.’
I laughed. Chris did, too.
They come outta you just like bubbles out of soda-pop,’ he said after a while.
‘What does?’ But I thought I knew what he meant.
‘The stories. That really bugs me, man. It’s like you could tell a million stories and still
only get the ones on top. You’ll be a great writer someday, Gordie.’
‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘Yeah, you will. Maybe you’ll even write about us guys if you ever get hard up for material.’
‘Have to be pretty fuckin’ hard up.’ I gave him the elbow.
There was another period of silence and then he asked suddenly: ‘You ready for
school?’
I shrugged. Who ever was? You got a little excited thinking about going back, seeing
your friends; you were curious about your new teachers and what they would be like –
pretty young things just out of teachers’ college that you could rag or some old topkick
that had been there since the Alamo, In a funny way you could even get excited about the
long droning classes, because as the summer vacation neared its end you sometimes got
bored enough to believe you could learn something. But summer boredom was nothing
like the school boredom that always set in by the end of the second week, and by the
beginning of the third week you got down to the real business: Could you hit Stinky Fiske in the back of the head with your art-gum while the teacher was putting The Principal
Exports of South America on the board? How many good loud squeaks could you get off
on the varnished surface of your desk if your hands were real sweaty? Who could cut the
loudest farts in the locker room while changing up for phys ed? How many girls could
you get to play Who Goosed the Moose during lunch hour? Higher learning, baby.
‘Junior High,’ Chris said. ‘And you know what, Gordie? By next June, we’ll all be
quits.’
‘What are you talking about? Why would that happen?’
‘It’s not gonna be like grammar school, that’s why. You’ll be in the college course. Me
and Teddy and Vern, we’ll all be in the shop courses, playing pocket-pool with the rest of
the retards, making ashtrays and birdhouses. Vern might even have to go into Remedial.
You’ll meet a lot of new guys. Smart guys. That’s just the way it works, Gordie. That’s
how they got it set up.’
‘Meet a lot of pussies is what you mean,’ I said.
He gripped my arm. ‘No, man. Don’t say that. Don’t even think that. They’ll get your
stories. Not like Vern and Teddy.’
‘Fuck the stories. I’m not going in with a lot of pussies. No sir.’
‘If you don’t, then you’re an asshole.’
‘What’s asshole about wanting to be with your friends?’
He looked at me thoughtfully, as if deciding whether or not to tell me something. We
had slowed down; Vern and Teddy had pulled almost half a mile ahead. The sun, lower
now, came at us through the overlacing trees in broken, dusty shafts, turning everything
gold – but it was a tawdry gold, dimestore gold, if you can dig that. The tracks stretched
ahead of us in the gloom that was just starting to gather -they seemed almost to twinkle.
Star-pricks of light stood out on them here and there, as if some nutty rich guy
masquerading as a common labourer had decided to embed a diamond in the steel every
sixty yards or so. It was still hot. The sweat rolled off us, slicking our bodies.
‘It’s asshole if your friends can drag you down,’ Chris said finally. ‘I know about you
and your folks. They don’t give a shit about you. Your big brother was the one they cared
about. Like my dad, when Frank got thrown into the stockade in Portsmouth. That was
when he started always bein’ mad at us other kids and hitting us all the time. Your dad
doesn’t beat on you, but maybe that’s even worse. He’s got you asleep. You could tell him
you were enrolling in the fuckin’ shop division and you know what he’d do? He’d turn to
the next page in his paper and say, Well, that’s nice, Gordon, go ask your mother what’s
for dinner. And don’t try to tell me different I’ve met him.’
I didn’t try to tell him different. It’s scary to find out that someone else, even a friend,
knows just how things are with you.
‘You’re just a kid, Gordie -‘
‘Gee, thanks, Dad.’
‘I wish to fuck I was your father!’ he said angrily. ‘You wouldn’t go around talking
about taking those stupid shop courses if I was! It’s like God gave you something, all
those stories you can make up, and He said, This is what we got for you, kid. Try not to
lose it. But kids lose everything unless somebody looks out for them and if your folks are too fucked up to do it then maybe I ought to.’
His face looked like he was expecting me to take a swing at him; it was set and
unhappy in the green-gold late afternoon light. He had broken the cardinal rule for kids in
those days. You could say anything about another kid, you could rank him to the dogs and
back, but you didn’t say a bad word ever about his mom and dad. That was the Fabled
Automatic, the same way not inviting your Catholic friends home to dinner on Friday
unless you’d checked first to make sure you weren’t having meat was the Fabled
Automatic. If a kid ranked out your Mom and Dad, you had to feed him a knuckle