Boy's Life (49 page)

     Vernon wanted to know all about me. What I liked to do, who my friends were, what books I liked to read, what movies I enjoyed. He’d seen
Invaders from Mars
, too; it was a linchpin between us. He said he used to have a great big trunk full of superhero comic books, but his daddy had made him throw them away. He said he used to have shelves of Hardy Boys mysteries, until his daddy had gotten mad at him one day and burned them in the fireplace. He said he used to have all the Doc Savage magazines and the Tarzan and John Carter of Mars books and the Shadow and Weird Tales and boxes of
Argosy
and
Boy’s Life
magazines, but his daddy had said Vernon had gotten too old for those things and all of them, every one, had gone into the fire or the trash and burned to ashes or been covered in earth. He said he would give a million dollars if he could have them again and he said that if I had any of them I should hold on to them forever because they were magic.

     And once you burn the magic things or cast them out in the garbage, Vernon said, you become a beggar for magic again.

     “‘I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled,’” Vernon said.

     “What?” I asked him. I’d never even seen Vernon wearing shorts before.

     “I wrote a book once,” he told me.

     “I know. Mom’s read it.”

     “Would you like to be a writer someday?”

     “I guess,” I said. “I mean… if I could be.”

     “Your story was good. I used to write stories. My daddy said it was fine for me to have a hobby like that, but never to forget that someday all this would be my responsibility.”

     “All what?” I asked.

     “I don’t know. He never would tell me.”

     “Oh.” Somehow this made sense. “How come you didn’t write another book?”

     Vernon started to say something; his mouth opened, then closed again. He sat for a long moment staring at his hands, his fingers smeared with cake batter. His eyes had taken on a shiny glint. “I only had the one in me,” he said at last. “I looked and I looked for another one. But it’s not there. It wasn’t there yesterday, it’s not there today… and I don’t think it’ll be there tomorrow, either.”

     “How come?” I asked. “Can’t you think of a story?”

     “I’ll tell you a story,” he said.

     I waited.

     Vernon drew a long breath and let it go. His eyes were unfocused, as if he were struggling to stay awake but sleep was pulling him under. “There was a boy,” he began, “who wrote a book about a town. A little town, about the size of Zephyr. Yes, very much like Zephyr. This boy wrote a book, and it took him four years to get everything exactly right. And while this boy was writing his book, his daddy…” He trailed off.

     I waited.

     “His… daddy…” Vernon frowned, trying to find his thoughts again. “Yes,” he said. “His daddy told him he was nothing but a fool. His daddy said it night and day. You fool, you crazy fool. Spending your time writing a book, when you ought to know business. That’s what I raised you for. Business. I didn’t raise you to spend your time disappointing me and throwing your chances away, I raised you for business and your mother is looking at you from her grave because you disappointed her, too. Yes, you broke her heart when you failed college and that’s why she took the pills that reason and that reason alone. Because you failed and all that money was wasted I should’ve just thrown it out the window let the niggers and the white trash have it.” Vernon blinked; something about his face looked shattered. “‘Negroes,’ the boy said. We must be civilized. Do you see, Cory?”

     “I… don’t…”

     “Chapter two,” Vernon said. “Four years. The boy stood it for four years. And he wrote this book about the town, and the people in it who made it what it was. And maybe there wasn’t a real plot to it, maybe there wasn’t anything that grabbed you by the throat and tried to shake you until your bones rattled, but the book was about
life
. It was the flow and the voices, the little day-to-day things that make up the memory of living. It meandered like the river, and you never knew where you were going until you got there, but the journey was sweet and deep and left you wishing for more. It was alive in a way that the boy’s life was not.” He sat staring at nothing for a moment. I watched his chocolate-smeared fingers gripping at the table’s edge. “He found a publisher,” Vernon went on. “A real New York City publisher. You know, that’s where the heart of things is. That’s where they make the books by the hundreds of thousands, and each one is a child different and special and some walk tall and some are crippled, but they all go out into the world from there. And the boy got a call from New York City and they said they wanted to publish his book but would he consider some changes to make it even better than it was and the boy was so happy and proud he said yes he wanted it to be the very best it could be.” Vernon’s glassy eyes moved, finding pictures in the air.

     “So,” Vernon said in a quiet voice, “the boy packed his bags while his daddy told him he was a stupid fool that he’d come back to this house crawling and then we’d see who was right, wouldn’t we? And the boy was a very naughty boy that day, he told his daddy he’d see him in the bad place first. He went from Zephyr to Birmingham on a bus and Birmingham to New York City on a train, and he walked into an office in a tall building to find out what was going to happen to his child.”

     Vernon lapsed into silence again. He picked up his batter bowl, trying to find something else to lick. “What happened?” I prodded.

     “They told him.” He smiled; it was a gaunt smile. “They said this is a business, like any other. We have charts and graphs, and we have numbers on the wall. We know that this year people want murder mysteries, and your town would make a wonderful setting for one. Murder mysteries, they said. Thrill people. We’re having to compete with television now, they said. It’s not like it used to be, when people had time to read. People want murder mysteries, and we have charts and graphs to prove it. They said if the boy would fit a murder mystery into the book—and it wouldn’t be too difficult, they said, it wouldn’t be too hard at all to do—then they would publish it with the boy’s name right there on the cover. But they said they didn’t like the title
Moon Town
. No, that wouldn’t do. Can you write hard-boiled? they asked. They said they needed a hard-boiled writer this year.”

     “Did he do it?” I asked.

     “Oh, yes.” Vernon nodded. “Oh, he did it. Whatever they wanted. Because it was so close, so close he could taste it. And he knew his daddy was watching over his shoulder. He did it.” Vernon’s smile was like a fresh wound in scar tissue. “But they were wrong. It was very, very hard to do. The boy got a room in a hotel, and he worked on it. That hotel… it was all he could afford. And as he worked on that rented typewriter in that mean little rented room, some of that hotel and some of that city got into him and made its way through his fingers into that book. Then one day he didn’t know where he was anymore. He was lost, and there were no signs telling him which way to go. He heard people crying and saw people hurt, and something inside him closed up like a fist and all he wanted to do was get to that last page and get out of it. He heard his daddy laughing, late at night. Heard him say you fool, you little fool you should’ve stood your ground. Because his daddy was in him, and his daddy had come with him all that way from Zephyr to New York City.”

     Vernon’s eyes squeezed shut for a few agonized seconds. Then they opened again, and I saw they were rimmed with red. “That boy. That stupid little foolish boy took their money, and he ran. Back to Zephyr, back to the clean hills, back where he could think. And then that book came out, with the boy’s name on it, and he saw that cover and knew he had taken his child and he had dressed that beautiful child up like a prostitute and now only people who craved ugliness wanted her. They wanted to wallow in her, and use her up and throw her away because she was only one of a hundred thousand and she was crippled. And that boy… that boy had done it to her. That evil, greedy boy.”

     His voice cracked with a noise that startled me.

     Vernon pressed his hand to his mouth. When he lowered his hand, a silver thread of saliva hung from his lower lip. “That boy,” he whispered. “Found out very soon… that the book was a failure. Very soon. He called them. Anything, he said. I’ll do anything to save it And they said we have the charts and tables, and numbers on the wall. They said people were tired of murder mysteries. They said people wanted something different. Said they’d like to see his next book, though. He had promise, they said. Just come up with something different. You’re a young man, they said. You have lots of books in you.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand: a slow, labored movement. “His daddy was waiting. His daddy grinned and grinned and kept on grinning. His daddy’s face got as big as the sun and the boy was burned every time he looked at it. His daddy said you’re not fit to wear my shoes. And I paid for those shoes. Yes I did. I paid for that shirt and those pants. You’re not fit to wear what good money buys you. All you know is failure and failure and that’s all you’ll ever know for the rest of your life, and he said if I died in my sleep tonight it would be because you killed me with your failures. And that boy stood at the foot of the stairs, and he was crying and he said go on and die, then. I wish to God you would die, you… miserable… sonofabitch.”

     On that last terrible, hiss-breathed word I saw the tears jump in his eyes as if he’d been speared. He made a soft moaning sound, his face in torment like a Spanish painting I’d once seen of a naked saint in
National Geographic
. A tear streaked down to his jaw, followed by a second that got caught in a smear of chocolate batter in the corner of his mouth.

     “Oh…” he whispered. “Oh… oh… no.”

     “Young master Vernon?” The voice was as soft as his, but spoken with firmness. Mr. Pritchard had come into the room. Vernon didn’t even look at him. I started to stand up, but Mr. Pritchard said, “Master Cory? Please stay where you are for right now.” I stayed. Mr. Pritchard crossed the room and stood behind Vernon, and he reached out and put a gentle hand on Vernon’s thin shoulder. “Dinner’s over, young master Vernon,” he said.

     The naked man didn’t move or respond. His eyes were dull and dead, nothing alive about him but the slow crawl of tears.

     “It’s time for bed, sir,” Mr. Pritchard said.

     Vernon spoke in a hollow, faraway voice: “Will I wake up?”

     “I believe you will, sir.” The hand patted his shoulder; it was a fatherly touch. “You should say good night to your dinner guest.”

     Vernon looked at me. It was as if he’d never seen me before, as if I were a stranger in his house. But then his eyes came to life again and he sniffled and smiled in his boyish way. “Dust on the tracks,” he said. “If it builds up, a train can crash.” A frown passed over his features, but it was just a small storm and quickly gone. “Cory.” The smile returned. “Thank you for having dinner with me tonight.”

     “Yes si—”

     He held up a finger. “Vernon.”

     “Vernon,” I repeated.

     He stood up, and I did, too. Mr. Pritchard said to me, “Your father’s waiting for you at the front door. You turn right and walk along the hallway, you’ll come to it. I’ll be outside to drive you home in a few minutes, if you’ll just wait by the car.” Mr. Pritchard grasped one of Vernon’s elbows, and he guided Vernon to the door. Vernon walked like a very old man.

     “I enjoyed my dinner!” I told him.

     Vernon stopped and stared at me. His smile flickered off and on, like the sputtering of a broken neon sign. “I hope you keep writing, Cory. I hope everything good happens to you.”

     “Thank you, Vernon.”

     He nodded, satisfied that we had made a connection. He paused once more at the entrance to the dining room. “You know, Cory, sometimes I have the strangest dream. In it, I’m walking the streets in broad daylight and I don’t have on any clothes.” He laughed. “Not a stitch! Imagine that!”

     I can’t remember smiling.

     Vernon let Mr. Pritchard lead him out. I looked around at the carnage of plates, and I felt sick.

     The front door was easy to find. Dad was there; from the way he smiled, I could tell he had no inkling of what I’d witnessed. “You have a good talk?” I guess I mumbled something that satisfied him. “He treat you okay?” I just nodded. Dad was jovial and happy now that his belly was full of beef stew and Vernon hadn’t hurt me. “Nice house, isn’t it?” he asked as we walked to the long black car. “A house like this… there’s no tellin’ how much it cost.”

     I didn’t know either. But I did know that it was more than any one human being ought to pay.

     We waited to go home, and in a little while Mr. Pritchard walked out of the house to deliver us at our own front door.