Gold Dust (12 page)

“What good does it do
you
to go looking for them all the time?”

We sat, shut up, watched the game going on without us. We weren’t done, though.

“So you believe that is all it was, just a regular part of the game.”

“I believe that is what it is, a regular part of the game.”

“Tell me then. When you do it, and someone gets hit, do you enjoy that part of it?”

“’Course not.”

“Now. Did Butch enjoy hitting me?”

Why? Why did he have to do this?

“Napoleon,” I said, shaking my head at the ground. I heard a lot of whooping and taunting that meant somebody had just knocked the ball out of sight. I wasn’t interested. Shame, that.

“Napoleon, why do you want to go thinking about what’s in somebody else’s head? I think that’s dangerous, you know, and it doesn’t really get you anyplace. Not anyplace good, that’s for sure.”

He sighed, stood up again. I was hoping he wasn’t going to put on the pressure for me to answer that question. I really didn’t want to think about that question.

“You’re right,” he said, “we don’t need to answer that question.” And he walked away.

I don’t think we were actually saying the same thing.

Friday evening, though, it was me and Napoleon, as planned, busing it out to the Westbrook Theater. We had this scheduled for over a week, as soon as I saw the Westbrook was bringing in
Bang the Drum Slowly.
It was an old-style big theater, with velvet seats and roof leaks so a lot of the time big sections of seats were roped off due to inclement weather. Most people were heading a couple miles up the parkway to the Showcase since they had four films going at once, and always had the newest releases, but I always preferred the Westbrook even if they brought in movies like
Bang the Drum Slowly
only after they had been around the block—okay, the world—a couple dozen times already. The concession stand was not exactly separated from the auditorium so much as it was just around a bend from it. That was good, because you could smell the popcorn very well and could still listen to the dialogue when you went to get some.

And
Bang the Drum Slowly,
with Robert DeNiro, playing in the Westbrook and no place else, was a baseball movie. That was all I needed to know about it.

“That is a very funny theater,” Napoleon said as we exited the wide, well-lit lobby.

“Ya,” I said, offering him a sip of my Coke, “I knew you would love it.”

He took the Coke. Sipped silently, even though it was very near the bottom of the cup and the ice should have been making a big noise. “I did not say I loved it.”

I took the Coke back. “Ya, but I can tell. Want some Junior Mints?”

He took some Junior Mints. Offered me some Good & Plenty. I took one, to be sociable, but Good & Plenty are awful, and I thought everybody knew that. In fact I believed that the boxes in the display case were dummies, empty cartons left there for the old-timey look.

“How can you tell, Richard? What I love and what I do not love?”

As agreed, we were walking along the small piece of sidewalk that connected all the mini-mall stores, past Bea’s Dress Shop and Hallmark Cards, over to Friendly’s for an ice cream.

“I don’t know, I just can, that’s all. Some stuff I just figure a guy’s gotta love. Just makes sense.”

“Mmm,” he said. He pushed the door to Friendly’s open, and let me in first. “So, did I love the film?”

“Oh ya,” I said. “Of course.” I pointed toward the back, to a booth, and he shook his head. We sat at counter stools.

“Well, I did not,” he said. “It was all right, but I thought it was a bit boring at times.”

“Boring? Boring? Are you—” Suddenly it occurred to me that, of course he was. “Ah, you’re just trying to get me going.”

“Get you going where? I did not like the film very much.”

“What are you
talking
about? There was baseball all over the place.” I was raising my voice just a little bit, and waving my arms around, as if to show Napoleon Charlie Ellis the baseball all over the place.

The waitress came over. “Can you please stop shouting?” she said to Napoleon.

“Excuse me?” Napoleon snapped.

“He wasn’t shouting, it was me,” I said. “And I wasn’t shouting.”

“Yes, you were shouting,” Napoleon said, staring deep into his menu as if he was embarrassed to be seen with me. And, of course, angry. “And
I
naturally get the blame for it.”

“Banana Boat,” I whispered to the waitress. She nodded.

Napoleon curled his lip. “I will have a bowl of strawberry. With strawberry sauce, please.”

We sat for a couple of minutes then, as the waitress went about her work. We stared at her, then at the flavor roster high above the counter. Then we stared at her some more. Then finally stared at each other, in the yellowy mirror across from us.

“It was a great movie,” I said.

“It was not,” he said, “but there were some fine things in it.”

“Like the baseball,” I said.

I was trying Napoleon’s patience. Maybe not completely by accident. “The baseball in that film,” he said firmly, “did not look very good to me. I think you are a better baseball player than anyone we saw tonight.”

I had only been half-listening to what Napoleon was saying, because I was so stirred up at the fact that he was saying it at all. I pointed a finger at his reflection and opened my mouth to snap, when the words finally caught up with my brain.

“Oh,” I said. “Well. I guess... y’know, for such a disagreeable guy, you sure do know how to disagree in a good way.”

He laughed. Our ice creams arrived. We attempted to be quiet again for a minute while we ate. Napoleon was pretty fair at being quiet for spells. That made one of us.

“So what was good in there, do you think?” I asked through a mouthful of banana and marshmallow.

He held up a finger while he quickly swallowed a spoonful of strawberry. I don’t think he was expecting to have to speak again that soon. And if you get one of those big hard frozen berries in there...

“Oh... oh...” Napoleon said, raising his hands to his temples and squinting hard.

“Take a half-spoonful and hold it on the roof of your mouth for five seconds,” I said, giving him the rescue dose out of my dish.

He did, and I could see relief come to his face. Success.

“Good work,” he said. “Thank you.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t know that one, man. I’ve frozen my head a thousand times and it always works. Jeez, there is still so much you haven’t learned.”

He turned to the real me, not the mirror me. “I have a history of taking reasonable bites, and of swallowing my food completely before speaking.”

“Ah,” I said, mouth once more full, “I’ll help you get over that too.”

I guess that was funny, because Napoleon laughed. And he continued looking at me. It was a strange picture now, with me eating, Napoleon staring at the side of my head, while I looked at him looking at me in the mirror. It was a picture I had not had before, watching him watching me. I did not know Napoleon Charlie Ellis as an overly smiley guy, as an easygoing guy, or even, you could say, as a warm guy. But there he was, once removed, almost as if he couldn’t tell I was watching. And so he was different. I could see him, guard down, enjoying himself. Smiling at Richard Riley Moncreif. Being easy with him. Liking him.

I turned quickly to face the real Napoleon, not the mirror one. Just as quickly he turned back toward his dish. Easier that way. For us both.

“Friends,” he said.

I stopped eating, but looked again at him in the mirror.

“In that movie. The friends, that pitcher and catcher. They were great and unusual friends. That was something fine to watch for one and a half hours. That was indeed very fine.”

Somewhere in there, I liked this. Though it was just a movie, after all. And at the same time it made me a little bit squirmy. Though it was just a movie, after all.

“Um-hmm,” I said. “Too bad he had to die. And that he was a half-wit.”

“Yes. And there was one thing, one big thing, that I think they got quite wrong. When that catcher asks if everyone has begun being kind to him simply because they know he is dying.”

“Right,” I said, taking a wild swing. “Like it would really matter.”

“No,” Napoleon answered. “I believe it matters very much. But I don’t think the pitcher’s answer was an honest one. He said, ‘Everybody knows everybody’s dying, and that’s why people are as good as they are.’”

I dropped my spoon into my empty bowl. “Ya, I remember that now. I thought that was really great. I loved that part. What was wrong with that?”

Sometimes, I could get the quick shock of a feeling that what I said could make Napoleon Charlie Ellis very sad and disappointed, and I did not know why or how to stop doing it. This was one of those times.

“I have moved three times in my life already, Richard Riley Moncreif, and the more new people I meet the less anyone seems to know about anyone else. And when you meet someone who is different,
den dat
is a remarkable
ting.
”

It was the first time. The first time I had heard it all peeled away, and heard Napoleon sound anything like his father. And he was breathing heavily, directly into my ear, as if this was an effort for him, and at the same time some kind of challenge, a dare, to me.

One that I did not understand.

“I’m sorry. That you had to move so much,” I said. “Maybe if you stayed in the same place you’d get to know people better. And they would
be
better. Maybe this is your stop. Maybe it’ll happen here.”

“Boston?” he said, raising one eyebrow high. “That’s not what the papers say.”

“Well, first thing is, stop looking at the papers.”

“All right. So when are we getting together then, you and I and our fathers?”

Sigh. I was so pleased to see Napoleon sort of warming up. But at the same time...

It wouldn’t do either of us any good to be pretending.

“Okay, second thing is, maybe you should stop asking for that. It wouldn’t... be a good mix.”

He nodded, like he had an equation just now worked out. Only he didn’t look satisfied or relieved, like a regular guy would.

“Richard, are you saying that reading about Boston or meeting your people won’t be helpful in straightening me out? Is that what you’re saying?”

I was approaching overload.
No,
Napoleon, just
cut it out
... all the time with this stuff. Always, always, he had to make it harder when it didn’t have to be.

I started humming. To the movie tune.
So bang the drum slowly... and play the fife lowly...

“Richard?”

“No. What I’m saying is, can’t you just know a guy for the guy, and not think about where he comes from or who he lives with or whatever?”

He let the words float in the air. So we could both hear them. I think we both did.

“Good question,” he said.

He may have been waiting for me to give the answer. If I knew what it was I would have given it. But he wasn’t solving it either, so I was more than ready to move on to questions we could deal with.

“You gonna finish that?” I asked, pointing to his melting strawberry with puddled strawberry sauce.

He slid me the plate, shaking his head.

“SO WHERE’S YOUR SISTER?”
Butchie wanted to know.

I looked at Beverly, and she looked at me. We were sitting side by side in gray metal folding chairs in the school’s ancient auditorium, St. Gerald’s Hall. We were supposed to be listening to instructions on how we were going to wow the locals as a school-sized choir this upcoming Palm Sunday. Beverly and I were in the mime section of the choir. We didn’t need to listen all that closely. Butchie was the one member of the class so incredibly unaware of being unmusical he was
asked
not to sing, so he too had time on his hands.

“Who are you asking?” I asked.

“Both of you.”

“What sister would that be, Butch?” Beverly said wearily.

“Sister Mowgli,” he laughed.

“Would you just cut that stuff out, Butch?” she snapped. “Don’t be a goon
all
the time.”

“Ya, give the guy a break,” I said.

He ignored me. “So Bevvy, are you goin’ with that guy now or something?” Butch asked.

The room was suddenly filled with two hundred voices, singing in lots of different keys.

“What’s it to you?” she asked.

“Ya, turn around, and don’t sing, Butch,” I said.

“Too bad Mowgli’s not here. We’d sound a lot better. We could do all that calypso and stuff. Maybe they’ll let us do ‘Yellow Bird’ for Palm Sunday, you know, with palm trees and stuff.”

I picked both feet up off the floor and gave Butch’s chair a shove. This sent him just far enough forward to bang him into some eighth grade girl, who happened to be one of the real singers, not to mention a world-class moaner, the way eighth grade girls seem to be. The girl let out a good loud one, bringing the raggedy version of “I Just Had to Pray” to a painful halt. Which naturally brought Sister Jacqueline and her long waggy finger to Butchie.

The organ music rose, like the backing track to some old horror movie, and as he was hauled away and Beverly and I shook hands, Butch threw me a glare. “Thanks,
Riley,
” he mouthed, using the name he prefers I’d use. Fair enough, I might say under the circumstances, except it was a lot harder and more mean than what I’d seen out of him before. He’d done as much to me lots of times, and I figured to be able to get away with more than this with him.

“Hah,” Beverly said as the music whined once more. “Serves him right, the animal.”

“Ya,” I agreed. “I mean, it’s none of his business, and you’re not going with Napoleon anyway.”

There in the middle of all that sound of music, was a big fat silence.

“Right?” I added, awkwardly.

She was staring at me now. “What difference does it make?”

Fair enough question. There was something, a feeling, swirling around in my belly, though. Wasn’t good. Wasn’t familiar. Whatever it was, I probably had no business feeling it.

“Nothing,” I said. “No difference. Forget about it.”