Part 39 (1/2)
They started past the racks of comics Tommy remembered that he had meant to pick up the Summer 1953 issue of Escapist Adventures, Escapist Adventures, but he was afraid that to do so oing, pulling on Joe's hand As they walked past it, Tolanced at the cover of but he was afraid that to do so oing, pulling on Joe's hand As they walked past it, Tolanced at the cover of Escapist Adventures Escapist Adventures 54, on which the Escapist, blindfolded and bound to a thick post with his hands behind his back, faced a griiven by, of all people Toh, his face diabolical and crazed ”HOW CAN THIS BE?” the Escapist was crying out in an agonized, jagged word balloon ”I'M ABOUT TO BE EXECUTED BY MY OWN ALTER EGO!!!” 54, on which the Escapist, blindfolded and bound to a thick post with his hands behind his back, faced a griiven by, of all people Toh, his face diabolical and crazed ”HOW CAN THIS BE?” the Escapist was crying out in an agonized, jagged word balloon ”I'M ABOUT TO BE EXECUTED BY MY OWN ALTER EGO!!!”
Tommy felt powerfully teased by this provocative illustration, even though he knew perfectly well that, in the end, when you read the story the situation on the cover would turn out to be a dreaht lie With his free hand, he stood fingering the diave his other hand a squeeze ”Escapist Adventures” ”Escapist Adventures” he said, his tone light and
”I was just looking at it,” said Tommy
”Get it,” Joe said He plucked the four current Escapist titles from the rack ”Get theesture wild, his eyes flashi+ng ”I'll buy you any ones you want”
It was hard to say why, but this extravagant offer frightened To leap into the unknown plans of his first cousin once reets me them free All except for the Ehed into his balled fist, and his cheeks turned red ”Well then Just the one”
”Ten cents,” said Mr Spiegel Joe carefully He took the dime Joe offered hielman,” he said ”Mister ”
”Kornblum,” said Cousin Joe
They walked out of the store and stood on the sidewalk in front of Spiegelman's This sidewalk, and the stores that fronted it, were the oldest built things in Bloomtown They had been here since the twenties, when Mr Irwin Bloo in his father's Queens ce around here but potato fields and this tiny village of Manticock, which Bloomtown had since overwhel fresh sidewalks of Mr Irwin Bloorayish, leopard-spotted by years of spat-out chewing gum, tri lot in front, as there was at Blooht past The storefronts were narrow, clad in clapboard, their cornices a ragged inia creeper To about all this to his cousin Joe He wished he could tell hi crows on the bare Virginia creeper, and the irritable buzzing of Mr Spiegeln made him feel a kind of premonitory sadness for adult life, as if Blooy sidewalks, were the various and uniform sea of childhood itself, froe of Manticock protruded like a ard dark island He felt as if there were a thousand things he wanted to tell Cousin Joe, the history of their lives since his disappearance, the painful tragedy of Eugene Begel To himself to adults because of their calamitous heedlessness, but there was a look of forbearance in Cousin Joe's eyes that s
”I wish you could co Mexican chili”
”That sounds good Your ood cook”
”Come over” Suddenly, he felt that he would never be able to keep Joe's return a secret from his parents The question of Joe's whereabouts had been a worry to them for Tommy's entire life It would be unfair to hide the news fro What washis cousin for the first ti to them ”You have to” to them ”You have to”
”But I can't” Every ti into its interior ”I'o”
”Why?”
'Because I-because I am out of practice Maybe next time I will come over to your house, but not now” He looked at his watch ”My train is in ten minutes”
He held out his hand to Tommy, and they shook, but then Tommy surprised himself and put his arms around Cousin Joe The smell of ashes in the scratchy fabric of his jacket swelled To?” Tommy asked
”I can't tell you It would not be fair I can't to ask you to keep o, you should tell your parents that you saw me, okay? I don't mind They won't be able to find o”
”I won't tell them,” said Tommy ”I swear to God, honest, I won't”
Joe put his hands on Tommy's shoulders and pushed him back a little so that they could look at each other
”You like ic, eh?”
Tommy nodded Joe reached into his pocket and took out a deck of playing cards They were a French brand of cards called Petit Fou Toht at Louis Tannen's The continental cards were smaller in size, and thus easier for s, woodcut air of medieval chicanery, as if they were out to rob you with their curving swords and pikes Joe slid the cards out of their gaudy box and handed them to Tommy
”What can you do?” he said ”Can you do a pass?”
Toroared to cut directly to the center of Toood at theh the deck ”Whenever it says in a trick that you need to make a pass, I just skip that one”
”Passes are hard,” Joe said ”Well, easy to do But not easy to do well”
This was far froinning of the summer to the spread, the half, the fan, and the Charlier pass, a others, but never had been able to finesse the various halves and quarters of the deck quickly enough to prevent the central deception of any pass-the invisible transposition of two orpatent even to the least discerning eye, in To his final atteust, had rolled her eyes and said, ”Well, sure, if you're going to switch the halves like that”
Joe lifted Toht hand, examined the knuckles, turned it over, and studied the pal it like a palan, ”but I-”
”They are a waste of your tio of the hand ”Don't bother until your hands are bigger”
”What?”
”Let me show you this” He took the deck of cards, opened them into a smooth, many-pleated fan, and offered Tolanced instantaneously at the three of clubs, then poked it resolutely back into the deck He was intent on the its, determined to spot the pass when it came Joe opened his hands, palm upward The deck seeht, in the proper order, and as Joe's fingers rippled with estion of a further tu whether he had i more than was there by the artful aneers and thu at all had happened to the cards beyond a siht Then To a card in his hands He turned it over It was the three of clubs
”Hey,” Tommy said ”Wow”
”Did you see it?”
Tommy shook his head
”You didn't see the pass?”
”No!” Tohtly irritated
”Ah,” Joe said, with a faint bass hint of theatricality in his voice, ”but there was no pass That is the False Pass”
” 'The False Pass' ”
”Easy to do, not so very hard to do well”
”But I didn't-”
”You atching ers are liars I have taught them to tell pretty lies”
Tommy liked this There was a sharp yank on the cord that kept his impatient heart tethered in his chest
Could you-?” Toan, then silenced himself, ”ere,” said Joe He walked behind To around, the way To him how to knot a necktie He notched the deck into Toers, then took hih the four simple motions, a series of flips and half-turns, that were all one needed to get the botto line between portions, naturally, being the chosen card, invisibly marked with the tip of the tip of the left pinky He stood behind To hi steadily and bitter with tobacco around Toled to produce the effect After the sixth try, though it was sloppy and slow, he could already sense that, in the end, he was going to get hold of it He felt a softening in his belly, a feeling of happiness that was hollowed, somehoith a small, vacant pocket, at its center, of loss He laid his head back against his cousin's flat stomach and looked up at his inverted face Joe's eyes looked bewildered, regretful, troubled; but Tommy had once read in a book on optical illusions that all faces looked sad when viewed upside down
”Thank you,” Tommy said
Cousin Joe took a step backward, away froht himself and turned to face his cousin