Suncatchers (18 page)

“Wait a minute, Darrell,” he called. “What are they—I mean, what kind?”

The boy turned back, his eyes hopeful. He quickly glanced at the paper taped on one of the boxes. “One's double pepperoni, sir, and the other's ham and mushroom.”

“Hang on,” Perry said. “I mean . . . I'll take them, I guess.” He held the door open and motioned the boy inside. “Wait here. I need to . . . well, my money's right over here. Just a minute.”

“Both of 'em?” the boy said.

“Well, sure, I guess so.” He got his wallet from his coat pocket and returned with a twenty-dollar bill. He saw Darrell staring at the television screen. The boy quickly glanced away as he handed Perry the boxes and reached into his belt pack for change.

As Perry closed the front door a minute later, he was sure he heard Darrell say, “All right!” The thought struck Perry that maybe Pop over at the Pizza Palace sent Darrell out to different neighborhoods around this time every afternoon with unordered pizzas, counting on the boy's winsome looks and good acting to sucker people into buying. As he watched Darrell back out of the driveway and take off in an old red Chevy, he could almost hear him boasting to Pop: “And then the guy gets this
real
sympathetic look on his face and stammers around and says ‘Hey, listen, uh, I'll take 'em both.' And then he gives me back two of the dollars I hand him in change, for a tip.” He could see Pop and Darrell hanging onto each other as they laughed. “And wait—here's the funniest part,” Darrell would gasp. “Guess what the guy is watching on television?
Mister Rogers!
A grown man watching Mister Rogers!”

Perry set the pizzas on the kitchen counter. He heard the Blanchards' kitchen door open and saw Joe Leonard carrying a large plastic bag toward the two garbage cans sitting next to the house. Without stopping to think, Perry opened his own door and called to Joe Leonard.

“Hey!”

Joe Leonard looked over and waved.

“Is your mother cooking supper?” Perry asked.

“She's in the kitchen,” Joe Leonard called back, “but I don't know if she's cooking yet. You need something?”

“Well, not really. I was just wondering . . . well, does your family like pizza?”

Joe Leonard set the bag of garbage down. “Yes, sir, we do,” he said.

“Well, ask your mother if you'd like to share some with me.”

Joe Leonard looked confused.

“I mean, I ordered two—well, I didn't really order them exactly,” said Perry, “but that doesn't matter. I have them anyway and thought maybe you all could help me eat them.”

“I'll ask,” Joe Leonard said. He quickly deposited the garbage inside one of the cans and bounded back up the steps. Seconds later Joe Leonard appeared again. “Mom says we can. She says to tell you she'll make a tossed salad.”

Thirty minutes later Perry watched as Jewel, Joe Leonard, and Eldeen walked single file across both driveways to Perry's front door. Joe Leonard was carrying the bowl of salad.

Eldeen spoke as soon as Perry opened the door. “I was just telling Jewel that this has got to be the
nicest
surprise anybody's ever treated us to! How you could ever know that my mouth was just watering for some pizza, I can't for the life of me figure out! It's true—I been hankering for some pizza for over a week now! I'm one grateful person, that's what I am. Yes, sir, I'm grateful with all my heart. We all are!” As she stepped across the threshold, Perry saw the lampshades sway. The snow inside the music globe stirred lightly and resettled.

12

Her Small White Face

Several nights later, on Friday night, Perry found himself seated beside Jewel and Eldeen in the Derby High School auditorium. The room was dim and cavernous with its dark wooden rows, the high ceiling, the heavy gold curtain across the stage. Perry could hear muted metallic thumps and could see the curtain rustle as people moved behind it. Then someone on stage hissed a loud “shh!” and the curtain grew still.

The school was old. Jewel had already told him she had attended high school here, and Perry had noticed the year 1946 engraved into the stone portal as they entered the building. A long black crack zigzagged diagonally across one wall of the auditorium, and the cement floors were pitted with wear. The small fold-down wooden seats creaked badly as the audience settled in. Had people been smaller back in 1946, Perry wondered, or were the postwar manufacturers of auditorium seats urged to conserve wood? Eldeen grunted as she lodged herself in one of the narrow seats, her knees touching the seat in front of her.

Perry saw pale wads of gum stuck to the bottoms of several upturned seats in the unoccupied row behind them, and it occurred to him that every single wad of gum represented the history of Derby High. The pinkish one had perhaps been chewed and snapped by a perky cheerleader wearing saddle oxfords, the smaller white one maybe by a popular boy voted Most Likely to Succeed, the light green one by a captain of the debate team. Maybe the cheerleader was a grandmother by now, warning her grandchildren that gum could cause cavities. The one predicted to succeed could have ended up a casualty in Korea or Vietnam. The debater might be struggling through a midlife crisis. They had probably never dreamed when they sat here in student assemblies, Perry thought, that life would turn out as flavorless and sticky as the used gum wads they left behind to harden.

“Don't you?” Eldeen asked, reaching over Jewel to touch Perry's arm.

“I'm sorry—don't I what?” Perry said.

“Love to see young people perform!” Eldeen said enthusiastically. “It's just so wonderful that there's so many things the young folks can do in school nowadays. I keep telling Joe Leonard he's
got
to take advantage of all these chances! I didn't have them, but if I had of, I'll guarantee you I'd of sure been busy taking them all on. Why, to learn how to play a instrument and be in a
band
—I can't think of what a thrill that must be!” Eldeen went on to recite all the extracurricular activities available to the Derby High students.

A young couple slouched two rows in front of them turned around to stare at Eldeen during this speech, then ducked their heads and laughed hysterically. Perry heard the boy's mimicking voice, low and throaty, and watched as the girl leaned her head back and emitted a long breathy giggle. He was surprised at how suddenly and violently they aroused his anger. They couldn't be older than junior high, and here they were jammed against each other like Siamese twins—two stringy-haired, gum-smacking pubescent punks. Sometime during the concert they would probably spit their gum right out on the floor for other people to step on, not even bothering to stick it to the underside of their chairs. And who could tell, Perry thought, what they planned to do after the concert.

He watched as the boy ran his index finger along the girl's lower lip. She licked his finger sensuously, after which he withdrew it, touched it to his mouth, and wet it with his own tongue. He whispered something, and the girl nodded coyly. Perry stared in disgust. Did their parents have any idea that these children—that's exactly what they were, children—were trading saliva?

The curtain began to open, first just a few inches, then a long pause, followed by several swift jerks—and there in full view was the Derby High School Concert Band. The audience grew quiet.

“Joe Leonard is so tickled you could come with us tonight,” Eldeen whispered loudly. The girl in front of them gave a tiny snort, and the boy slapped her knee, then slid his hand a little higher and kept it there.

Perry couldn't imagine Joe Leonard being tickled about much of anything. The boy had in fact looked uncomfortable when his grandmother had brought up the subject to Perry on Monday night while they were eating pizza together. When Perry had said he'd be glad to come, Joe Leonard had reddened and flashed him a quizzical look. The truth was that Perry would have welcomed any invitation to fill up a Friday night. Friday nights were as bad as a whole week of afternoons put together.

It was the band's winter concert, Jewel had explained, but it was later than usual this year because the conductor, Mr. Beatty, had taken suddenly ill back before Christmas and had been hospitalized for two weeks. “The chorus teacher tried to fill in,” Eldeen had added, “but she was mostly just treading water, Joe Leonard says, and not making a bit of headway.” So the December concert had been postponed till early March.

The band members sat motionless now, holding their instruments in their laps, staring intently at the man who stood before them. Mr. Beatty was tall and spindly. With his dark hair and loose-fitting black suitcoat, he could have been Abraham Lincoln standing up there. Perhaps he had filled out the coat more before his recent illness, Perry thought. Perry wondered what Mr. Beatty was doing right now with his back turned to the audience. Was he mouthing last-minute instructions to the students? Several of the flute players were trying to hide smiles and cutting their eyes over at one another.

Then Mr. Beatty stepped up on a small platform and raised a slender baton. The players immediately lifted their instruments in military unison, and Perry saw two large round tuba bells rise above the back row. Mr. Beatty gave a swift downward stroke of the baton, and the auditorium was filled with sound. Though the room was old, the designers back in the forties had obviously put some thought into acoustics. Or else somebody knew how to place microphones strategically. Maybe the big freestanding wooden panels behind the band helped direct the sound. Anyway, Perry was surprised at the volume. He counted sixty-two players, and this surprised him, too. He had been assuming it would be a much smaller group, more the size of the choir at the Church of the Open Door.

Mr. Beatty turned to face the audience when the opening number ended. Amid the applause, he bowed several times and swept a long arm backward to encompass the players in the audience's show of approval. He was an angular man with a thick, uncooperative bush of hair falling over his forehead. Probably around fifty, maybe even a little older, Perry guessed. He couldn't help wondering if Mr. Beatty had done this all his life—conducted a high school band. Perry couldn't imagine doing that for a living.

When the clapping ended, Mr. Beatty spoke. His voice was resonant, almost stentorian, but with a deep drawl. Perry could well imagine him debating Stephen Douglas and giving speeches from the backs of trains.

“That was ‘Spitfire Fugue,' composed by William Walton, a British composer born in 1902,” Mr. Beatty announced. He spoke slowly, his head thrust forward on his shoulders and nodding slowly as he scanned the audience from right to left. He reminded Perry of one of those small flocked dogs people used to set in the rear windows of their cars, whose heads would bob and swivel slowly. “You can tell Mr. Walton had a fine imagination and a sense of humor to match,” Mr. Beatty continued. “His music's always fun to play. The ‘Spitfire Fugue' is one of my personal favorites.”

Mr. Beatty paused and smiled a slow, private sort of smile. Then he resumed. “Mr. Walton was more or less a self-taught composer, whose early teachers saw his potential and let him develop his own style.” He paused again to indulge in a leisurely, silent chuckle before continuing. “I'm afraid neither Walton nor the composer of our next piece is a very good example for the young people behind me, who are all too eager to prove their teachers an unnecessary encumbrance.”

Perry couldn't shake the thought of Mr. Beatty's resemblance to Lincoln—the same deliberateness of speech, flavored with a dash of humor. He saw Mr. Beatty splitting logs and studying law by a kerosene lamp, swapping tales at the general store, and reciting the Gettysburg Address.

Mr. Beatty was announcing the next piece, composed by a Brazilian named Heitor Villa-Lobos, who, he said, “was a brilliant musician in spite of his lack of formal academic training.” Again, that slow smile and the momentary pause. “Of course, my students have suggested to me that it was probably
because of
his lack of education rather than in spite of it that his creativity flourished.”

A ripple of soft laughter swept across the audience, punctuated by Eldeen's throaty, sustained rumble. The junior high couple turned and stared at her, poker-faced, then turned around and collapsed on each other again in helpless giggles. The band members on stage grinned good-naturedly as if pleased that their director was eliciting chuckles at their expense.

The Villa-Lobos piece began, and Perry was instantly struck by its exciting rhythms. It reminded him of something, but the memory was slow in coming. When it did come, the Villa-Lobos number had almost ended. Relieved to have cornered the memory, Perry wondered how he could have forgotten it, even though it must have been close to twenty years ago now.

He had gone with a fellow he had met in one of his literature classes to a weekly event called “Underground Arts.” It was held in the basement of a dilapidated Victorian-style house near the University of Illinois campus. When they had walked in, a pony-tailed guitarist was sitting under the single light bulb suspended from a dangerous-looking frayed cord in the center of the room. The room was cold, and everyone wore coats and caps, except for the performer, who wore overalls over what looked like the top to a pair of red thermal underwear. Many of the listeners held candles. Perry had wondered if the city fire marshal knew about all this.

In the small circle of lighted faces nearest the guitar player, Perry saw a girl he had observed often. Finding her here was a happy surprise. He stood watching her, noting her expression of awe as she gazed at the guitarist's fingers. Before, he had always seen the girl sitting beside a small fountain near the quadrangle, her eyes always on a book in her lap. He had seen her there first during the early fall and then on into winter, her small white face framed by bulky layers of wool scarves and caps. Never on a regular schedule, though, so that he had to make numerous inconvenient trips past the fountain, hoping to find her there.