Hearts In Atlantis (36 page)

Bobby started to drift down there in the afternoons. There was only morning baseball now that it was really hot and by three o'clock Fields A, B, and C were deserted. Sooner or later Harry would walk back from work and past those deserted fields without Richie or any of his other Merrie Men to keep him company. Meanwhile, Bobby spent the hour between three and four
P.M.
each day in the copse of trees where he had cried with his head in Carol's lap. Sometimes he read a book. The one about George and Lennie made him cry again.
Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world
. That was how George saw it.
Guys like us got nothing to look ahead to
. Lennie thought the two of them were going to get a farm and raise rabbits, but long before Bobby got to the end of the story he knew there would be no farms and no rabbits for George and Lennie. Why? Because people needed a beast to hunt. They found a Ralph or a Piggy or a big stupid hulk of a Lennie and then they turned into low men. They put on their yellow coats, they sharpened a stick at both ends, and then they went hunting.

But guys like us sometimes get a little of our own back
, Bobby thought as he waited for the day when Harry would show up alone.
Sometimes we do
.

August sixth turned out to be the day. Harry strolled through the park toward the corner of Broad and Commonwealth still wearing his red Total Grocery apron—what a fucking nimrod—and singing “Mack the Knife” in a voice that could have melted screws. Careful not to rustle the branches of the close-growing
trees, Bobby stepped out behind him and closed in, walking softly on the path and not cocking back his baseball bat until he was close enough to be sure. As he raised it he thought of Ted saying
Three boys against one little girl. They must have thought you were a lion
. But of course Carol wasn't a lion; neither was he. It was Sully who was the Lion and Sully hadn't been there, wasn't here now. The one creeping up behind Harry Doolin wasn't even a Wolf. He was just a hyena, but so what? Did Harry Doolin deserve any better?

Nope
, Bobby thought, and swung the bat. It connected with the same satisfying thud he'd felt at Lake Canton when he'd gotten his third and best hit, the one to deep left. Connecting with the small of Harry Doolin's back was even better.

Harry screamed with pain and surprise and went sprawling. When he rolled over, Bobby brought the bat down on his leg at once, the blow this time landing just below the left knee. “
Owwwuuuu!
” Harry screamed. It was most satisfying to hear Harry Doolin scream; close to bliss, in fact. “
Owwwuuu, that hurts! That hurrrts!
”

Can't let him get up
, Bobby thought, picking his next spot with a cold eye.
He's twice as big as me, if I miss once and let him get up, he'll tear me limb from limb. He'll fucking kill me
.

Harry was trying to retreat, digging at the gravel path with his sneakers, dragging a groove with his butt, paddling with his elbows. Bobby swung the bat and hit him in the stomach. Harry lost his air and his elbows and sprawled on his back. His eyes were dazed, filled with sunbright tears. His pimples stood out in big purple and red dots. His mouth—thin and mean on
the day Rionda Hewson had rescued them—was now a big loose quiver. “
Owwwuuu, stop, I give, I give, oh Jeezis!
”

He doesn't recognize me
, Bobby realized.
The sun's in his eyes and he doesn't even know who it is
.

That wasn't good enough. “Not satisfactory, boys!” was what the Camp Winnie counsellors said after a bad cabin inspection—Sully had told him that, not that Bobby cared; who gave a shit about cabin inspections and making bead wallets?

But he gave a shit about
this
, yes indeed, and he leaned close to Harry's agonized face. “Remember me, Robin Hood?” he asked. “You remember me, don't you? I'm the Maltex Baby.”

Harry stopped screaming. He stared up at Bobby, finally recognizing him. “Get . . . you  . . .” he managed.

“You won't get shit,” Bobby said, and when Harry tried to grab his ankle Bobby kicked him in the ribs.

“
Ouuuuuu!
” Harry Doolin cried, reverting to his former scripture. What a creep! Nimrod Infants on Parade!
That probably hurt me more than it hurt you
, Bobby thought.
Kicking people when you're wearing sneakers is for dumbbells
.

Harry rolled over. As he scrambled for his feet Bobby uncoiled a home-run swing and drove the bat squarely across Harry's buttocks. The sound was like a carpet-beater hitting a heavy rug—a
wonderful
sound! The only thing that could have improved this moment would have been Mr. Biderman also sprawled on the path. Bobby knew exactly where he'd like to hit
him
.

Half a loaf was better than none, though. Or so his mother always said.

“That was for the Gerber Baby,” Bobby said. Harry
was lying flat on the path again, sobbing. Snot was running from his nose in thick green streams. With one hand he was feebly trying to rub some feeling back into his numb ass.

Bobby's hands tightened on the taped handle of the bat again. He wanted to lift it and bring it down one final time, not on Harry's shin or Harry's backside but on Harry's head. He wanted to hear the crunch of Harry's skull, and really, wouldn't the world be a better place without him? Little Irish shit. Low little—

Steady on, Bobby
, Ted's voice spoke up.
Enough is enough, so just steady on. Control yourself
.

“Touch her again and I'll kill you,” Bobby said. “Touch
me
again and I'll burn your house down. Fucking nimrod.”

He had squatted by Harry to say this last. Now he got up, looked around, and walked away. By the time he met the Sigsby twins halfway up Broad Street Hill, he was whistling.

•   •   •

In the years which followed, Liz Garfield almost got used to seeing policemen at her door. The first to show up was Officer Raymer, the fat local cop who would sometimes buy the kids peanuts from the guy in the park. When he rang the doorbell of the ground-floor apartment at 149 Broad Street on the evening of August sixth, Officer Raymer didn't look happy. With him was Harry Doolin, who would not be able to sit in an uncushioned seat for a week or more, and his mother, Mary Doolin. Harry mounted the porch steps like an old man, with his hands planted in the small of his back.

When Liz opened the front door, Bobby was by her side. Mary Doolin pointed at him and cried: “That's him, that's the boy who beat up my Harry! Arrest him! Do your duty!”

“What's this about, George?” Liz asked.

For a moment Officer Raymer didn't reply. He looked from Bobby (five feet four inches tall, ninety-seven pounds) to Harry (six feet one inch tall, one hundred and seventy-five pounds), instead. His large moist eyes were doubtful.

Harry Doolin was stupid, but not so stupid he couldn't read that look. “He snuck up on me. Got me from behind.”

Raymer bent down to Bobby with his chapped, red-knuckled hands on the shiny knees of his uniform pants. “Harry Doolin here claims you beat im up in the park whilst he was on his way home from work.” Raymer pronounced
work
as
rurrk
. Bobby never forgot that. “Says you hid and then lumped im up widda ball-bat before he could even turn around. What do you say, laddie? Is he telling the truth?”

Bobby, not stupid at all, had already considered this scene. He wished he could have told Harry in the park that paid was paid and done was done, that if Harry tattled to anyone about Bobby beating him up, then Bobby would tattle right back—would tell about Harry and his friends hurting Carol, which would look much worse. The trouble with that was that Harry's friends would deny it; it would be Carol's word against Harry's, Richie's, and Willie's. So Bobby had walked away without saying anything, hoping that Harry's humiliation—beat up by a little kid half his size—would keep his mouth shut. It hadn't, and looking at
Mrs. Doolin's narrow face, pinched paintless lips, and furious eyes, Bobby knew why. She had gotten it out of him, that was all. Nagged it out of him, more than likely.

“I never touched him,” Bobby told Raymer, and met Raymer's gaze firmly with his own as he said it.

Mary Doolin gasped, shocked. Even Harry, to whom lying must have been a way of life by the age of sixteen, looked surprised.

“Oh, the straight-out bare-facedness of it!” Mrs. Doolin cried. “You let me talk to him, Officer! I'll get the truth out of him, see if I don't!”

She started forward. Raymer swept her back with one hand, not rising or even taking his eyes from Bobby.

“Now, lad—why would a galoot the size of Harry Doolin say such a thing about a shrimp the size of you if it wasn't true?”

“Don't you be calling my boy a galoot!” Mrs. Doolin shrilled. “Ain't it enough he's been beat within an inch of his life by this coward? Why—”

“Shut up,” Bobby's mom said. It was the first time she'd spoken since asking Officer Raymer what this was about, and her voice was deadly quiet. “Let him answer the question.”

“He's still mad at me from last winter, that's why,” Bobby told Raymer. “He and some other big kids from St. Gabe's chased me down the hill. Harry slipped on the ice and fell down and got all wet. He said he'd get me. I guess he thinks this is a good way to do it.”

“You liar!” Harry shouted. “That wasn't me who chased you, that was Billy Donahue! That—”

He stopped, looked around. He'd put his foot in it somehow; a dim appreciation of the fact was dawning on his face.

“It wasn't me,” Bobby said. He spoke quietly, holding Raymer's eyes. “If I tried to beat up a kid his size, he'd total me.”

“Liars go to hell!” Mary Doolin shouted.

“Where were you around three-thirty this afternoon, Bobby?” Raymer asked. “Can you answer me that?”

“Here,” Bobby said.

“Miz Garfield?”

“Oh yes,” she said calmly. “Right here with me all afternoon. I washed the kitchen floor and Bobby cleaned the baseboards. We're getting ready to move, and I want the place to look nice when we do. Bobby complained a little—as boys will do—but he did his chore. And afterward we had iced tea.”

“Liar!” Mrs. Doolin cried. Harry only looked stunned. “
Shocking
liar!” She lunged forward again, hands reaching in the general direction of Liz Garfield's neck. Once more Officer Raymer pushed her back without looking at her. A bit more roughly this time.

“You tell me on your oath that he was with you?” Officer Raymer asked Liz.

“On my oath.”

“Bobby, you never touched him? On your oath?”

“On my oath.”

“On your oath before God?”

“On my oath before God.”

“I'm gonna get you, Garfield,” Harry said. “I'm gonna fix your little red w—”

Raymer swung around so suddenly that if his
mother hadn't seized him by one elbow, Harry might have tumbled down the porch steps, reinjuring himself in old places and opening fresh wounds in new ones.

“Shut your ugly stupid pot,” Raymer said, and when Mrs. Doolin started to speak, Raymer pointed at her. “Shut yours as well, Mary Doolin. Maybe if you want to bring beatin charges against someone, you ought to start with yer own damned husband. There'd be more witnesses.”

She gawped at him, furious and ashamed.

Raymer dropped the hand he'd been pointing with, as if it had suddenly gained weight. He gazed from Harry and Mary (neither full of grace) on the porch to Bobby and Liz in the foyer. Then he stepped back from all four, took off his uniform cap, scratched his sweaty head, and put his cap back on. “Something's rotten in the state of Denmark,” he said at last. “Someone here's lyin faster'n a hoss can trot.”

“He—” “You—” Harry and Bobby spoke together, but Officer George Raymer was interested in hearing from neither.

“
Shut up!
” he roared, loud enough to make an old couple strolling past on the other side of the street turn and look. “I'm declarin the case closed. But if there's any more trouble between the two of you”—pointing at the boys—“or
you
”—pointing at the mothers—“there's going to be woe for someone. A word to the wise is sufficient, they say. Harry, will you shake young Robert's hand and say all's well? Do the manly thing? . . . Ah, I thought not. The world's a sad goddamned place. Come on, Doolins. I'll see you home.”

Bobby and his mother watched the three of them go down the steps, Harry's limp now exaggerated to the point of a sailor's stagger. At the foot of the walk Mrs. Doolin suddenly cuffed him on the back of the neck. “Don't make it worse'n it is, you little shite!” she said. Harry did better after that, but he still rolled from starboard to port. To Bobby the boy's residual limp looked like the goods. Probably
was
the goods. That last lick, the one across Harry's ass, had been a grand slam.

Back in the apartment, speaking in that same calm voice, Liz asked: “Was he one of the boys that hurt Carol?”

“Yes.”

“Can you stay out of his way until we move?”

“I think so.”

“Good,” she said, and then kissed him. She hardly ever kissed him, and it was wonderful when she did.

•   •   •

Less than a week before they moved—the apartment had by then begun to fill up with cardboard boxes and to take on a strange denuded look—Bobby caught up to Carol Gerber in the park. She was walking along by herself for a change. He had seen her out walking with her girlfriends plenty of times, but that wasn't good enough, wasn't what he wanted. Now she was finally alone, and it wasn't until she looked over her shoulder at him and he saw the fear in her eyes that he knew she had been avoiding him.