Part 63 (1/2)
Then I went home and tried to laugh.
But laughing is a lonely thing when you've no one to share the joke. So I went back outside and drank whiskey until I couldn't think about the little man.
Next day Martin didn't show up for work. He called up and said he was sick.
He never came back.
But John Parker did. The big man with the crooked nose still comes up to browse through the books, every now and then. I chat with him: he even calls me Len now. But I don't like him. Not a bit.
Because he makes me think of Martin. Because he makes me wonder if I'd been so wrong, after all, if my imagination had run quite so wild.
Perhaps Martin did find what he had been looking for. And perhaps, once finding it, he had decided it was not worth having, or that he lacked the strength to keep it. And perhaps John S. Parker is something more than John S. Parker.
And perhaps not.I'm afraid I'll never know. But I'm also afraid that I'll never forget the little man with the bright eyes and the hurrying feet and the sad face.
I hope he's still taking his medicine, wherever he is.
THE CARNIVAL.
by Charles Beaumont
The cool October rain and the wind blowing the rain. The green and yellow fields melting into grey hills, into grey sky and black clouds. And everywhere, the smell of autumn drinking the coolness, the evening coolness gathering in leaves and wheat alfalfa, running down fat brown bark, whispering through rich gra.s.s to tiny living things.
The cool rain, glistening on earth and on smooth cement.
”_Come on, Lars, I'll beat you!_”
”_Like fun you will!_”
Two boys with fresh wet faces and cold wet hands.
”Last one there is a sissy!”
Wild shouts through the stillness and a scrambling onto bicycles. A furious pedaling through sharp pinpoints of rain, one boy pulling ahead of the other, straining up the s.h.i.+ning cement, laughing and calling.
”Just try and catch me now, just try!”
”I'll catch you all right, you wait!”
”Last one there is a sissy, last one there is a sissy!”
Faster now, flying past the crest of the hill, faster down the hill and into the blinding rain. Faster, small feet turning, wheels spinning, along the smooth level. Flying, past outdoor signs and sleeping cows, faster, past strawberry fields and haystacks, little excited blurs of barns and houses and siloes.
”Okay, I'm going to beat you, I'm going to beat you!”
A thin voice lost in the wind.
”I'll get to the trestle 'way before you, just watch!”
Lars Nielson pushed the pedals angrily and strained his young body forward, gripping the handlebars and singing for more speed. He felt the rain whipping through his hair and into his ears and he screamed happily.
He closed his eyes and listened to his voice, to the slas.h.i.+ng wind and to the wheels of his bicycle turning in the wetness. Whizzing baseb.a.l.l.s in his head, swooping chicken hawks and storm currents racing over beds of light leaves.
He did not hear the small voice crying to him, far in the distance.
”Who's the sissy, who'll be the sissy?” Lars Nielson sang to the whirling world beside him and his legs pushed harder and harder.
His eyes were closed, so he did not see the face of the frightened man. His ears were full, so he did not hear the screams and the brakes and all the other terrible sounds. The sudden, strange unfamiliarsounds that were soft and quiet as those in his mind were loud.
He pushed his young legs in the black darkness, harder, faster, faster . . - The room was mostly blue. In the places where it had not chipped and cracked, the linoleum floor was a deep quiet blue. The walls, specially handpattered, were soft greenish blue. And the rows of dishes on high display shelves, the paint on the cane rockers, the tablecloth, Mother's dress, Father's tie--all blue.
Even the smoke from Father's pipe, creeping and slithering up into the thick air like long blue ghosts of long blue snakes.
Lars sat quietly, watching the blue.
”Henrik.” Mrs. Nielson stopped her rocking.
”Yes, yes?”
”It is by now nine o'clock.”
Mr. Nielson took a large gold watch from his vest pocket.
”It is, you are right. Lars, it is nine o'clock.”
Lars nodded his head.
”So.” Mr. Nielson rose from his chair and stretched his arms. ”It is time. Say goodnight to your mama.”
”Goodnight, Mama.”
”Goodnight.”
”So.”
Mr. Nielson took the wooden bar in his big hands and pushed the chair gently past the doorway and down the hall. With his foot he pushed the door open and when they were inside the bedroom, he pulled the string which turned on the electric light.
He walked to the front of the chair.
”Lars, you feel all right now? Nothing hurts?”
”No, Papa. Nothing hurts.”
Mr. Nielson put his hands into his pockets and sat on the sideboard of the bed.