Part 50 (1/2)
1) A copy of the first issue of Radio Coreen cellophane school folder Its pages yellowed and, held in the hand, bulky and swollen The very source, the beating heart of the old-blanket odor that the box exuded tucked inside a translucent green cellophane school folder Its pages yellowed and, held in the hand, bulky and swollen The very source, the beating heart of the old-blanket odor that the box exuded
2) Another green cellophane folder, this one stuffed with old newspaper clippings, press notices, and publicity announce hty Molecule Clipped froraphy queer, the writing style clotted so and allusions to forgotten songs and celebrities A few photographs of a tinybut a breechclout, whose muscular body had a dense, upholstered look, like Buster Crabbe's
3) A drawing, folded and cru, of the Gole than the one in Joe's epic, wearing big hobnailed boots, striding down a nizably Joe's, sketchier, more tentative, nearer to To the torn stub of a raph, clipped frolamorous Mexican actress Dolores Del Rio
5) A box of unused Kavalier Clay stationery, left over froroup portrait of all the various characters, superpowered and otherwise-Tonized for certain only the Escapist, the Monitor, and Luna Moth-that the team of Kavalier Clay had come up with in those days
6) A raph of a handsome man with hair that shone like a sheet of molded chro a reserve of delight, as if he is about to break into a sht corner of the picture an inscription, signed Tracy Bacon, Tracy Bacon, written in a large and looping hand: written in a large and looping hand: To the man who dreamed me up, with affection To the man who dreamed me up, with affection
7) A pair of heavy woolen socks with orange toes, in a cardboard sleeve printed with two bright orange bands Between the bands a conventionalized picture of aorange letters
And then, bent and twisted and adrift at the bottoraphs, fro, startled by the flash; all tongues and bug-eyes; with their cheeks and te, a heroic and heavy-lidded kiss like two people on a movie poster In the pictures, they looked absurdly skinny and young and so stereotypically in love that it was obvious even to Tommy, an eleven-year-old boy who had never before in his life looked at any two people and had the conscious thought: Those two people are in love Those two people are in love As if by hter, and then the knob turning, and the creaking hinges of the door Quickly, he began replacing the things he had taken frohter, and then the knob turning, and the creaking hinges of the door Quickly, he began replacing the things he had taken fro with a sticky sound; the clicking of their teeth or the buttons on their clothes
”I have to work,” his mother said at last ” 'Love Made a Monkey Out of Me'”
”Ah,” he said ”Autobiography”
”Shut up”
”How about if I ?”
”Hey, that would be swell Unheard of Maybe you want to be careful, I could get used to that”
”Get used to it”
Those two people are in love
”Have you talked to Tommy yet?” she said
”Sort of”
”Sort of?”
”I haven't found the right moment”
”Joe You have to tell hihty Molecule's career slipped fros fluttered everywhere, and as he tried to gather theainst the crate, and its lid fell shut with a splintery crack
”What was that?”
”Tommy? Oh, my God Tommy, are you in here?”
He sat in the diraphs to his chest
”No,” he said, after athat it ithout question, thehe had ever said in his life
”Let me,” he heard Joe say There was a scrape of crates and so and then Joe's head poked into the Innere on his belly He propped himself on his elboith his arms tucked under his chest Up close, his face was blotchy, and his hair was all crabgrass and dandelions
”Hey,” he said ”Hi”
”Hi”
”What are you doing?”
”Nothing”
”So,” Joe said, ”I guess s out there”
”Yeah”
”Can I come in?” It was his mother
”I don't think there's room, Rosa”
”Sure there is”
Joe looked at Toed and nodded So Joe pulled hiainst the side of the Cell, his hips pressed against Tommy's Tommy's mother's head appeared, her hair hastily and ih her lipstick Tommy and Joe each reached out a hand and pulled her in with thehed and said, happily, ”Well,” as if they had all settled down together on a blanket in the shade beside a sun-dappled stream
”I was just about to tell Tom a story,” Joe said
”Uh-huh,” Rosa said ”Go on”
”That isn't so it-with pictures, you know?” He sed, and cracked his knuckles, and took a deep breath He smiled a weak little smile, and unclipped a pen from his shi+rt pocket ”Maybe I should draw it, ha ha”
”I already saw the pictures,” Tommy said
His mother leaned forward to look with Joe at the two people they once had been
”Oh, ht we took your aunt to the movies In the lobby of the Loew's Pitkin”
They all ether, and then Tommy lay doith his head in his mother's lap She stroked his hair, and he listened while Joe went on unconvincingly for a while about the things that you did when you were young, and the mistakes that you made, and the dead brother for whoinable boy, and how everything had been different then, because there was a war on, at which Tommy pointed out that there had also, until recently, been a war in Korea, and Joe replied that this was true, and it was then that he and Rosa both realized that the boy was no longer listening to anything they were telling hi his father's hand, while his s from his forehead
”I think we are okay,” Joe said finally