Newsgroup: it.fan.stephen-king
Titolo: [Lungo] Primo capitolo di Hearts in Atlantis (in inglese!!!)

I. A Boy and His Mother. Bobby's Birthday.
The New Roomer. Of Time and Strangers.
Bobby Garfield's father had been one of those fellows who start losing their
hair in their twenties and are completely bald by the age of forty-five or
so. Randall Garfield was spared this extremity by dying of a heart attack at
thirty-six. He was a real-estate agent, and breathed his last on the kitchen
floor of someone else's house. The potential buyer was in the living room,
trying to call an ambulance on a disconnected phone, when Bobby's dad passed
away. At this time Bobby was three. He had vague memories of a man tickling
him and then kissing his cheeks and his forehead. He was pretty sure that
man had been his dad. Sadly missed, it said on Randall Garfield's
gravestone, but his mom never seemed all that sad, and as for Bobby
himself...well, how could you miss a guy you could hardly remember?
Eight years after his father's death, Bobby fell violently in love with the
twenty-six-inch Schwinn in the window of the Harwich Western Auto. He hinted
to his mother about the Schwinn in every way he knew, and finally pointed it
out to her one night when they were walking home from the movies (the show
had been The Dark at the Top of the Stairs, which Bobby didn't understand
but liked anyway, especially the part where Dorothy McGuire flopped back in
a chair and showed off her long legs). As they passed the hardware store,
Bobby mentioned casually that the bike in the window would sure make a great
eleventh-birthday present for some lucky kid.
"Don't even think about it," she said. "I can't afford a bike for your
birthday. Your father didn't exactly leave us well off, you know."
Although Randall had been dead ever since Truman was President and now
Eisenhower was almost done with his eight-year cruise, Your father didn't
exactly leave us well off was still his mother's most common response to
anything Bobby suggested which might entail an expenditure of more than a
dollar. Usually the comment was accompanied by a reproachful look, as if the
man had run off rather than died.
No bike for his birthday. Bobby pondered this glumly on their walk home, his
pleasure at the strange, muddled movie they had seen mostly gone. He didn't
argue with his mother, or try to coax her -- that would bring on a
counterattack, and when Liz Garfield counterattacked she took no
prisoners -- but he brooded on the lost bike...and the lost father.
Sometimes he almost hated his father. Sometimes all that kept him from doing
so was the sense, unanchored but very strong, that his mother wanted him to.
As they reached Commonwealth Park and walked along the side of it -- two
blocks up they would turn left onto Broad Street, where they lived -- he
went against his usual misgivings and asked a question about Randall
Garfield.
"Didn't he leave anything, Mom? Anything at all?" A week or two before, he'd
read a Nancy Drew mystery where some poor kid's inheritance had been hidden
behind an old clock in an abandoned mansion. Bobby didn't really think his
father had left gold coins or rare stamps stashed someplace, but if there
was something, maybe they could sell it in Bridgeport. Possibly at one of
the hockshops. Bobby didn't know exactly how hocking things worked, but he
knew what the shops looked like -- they had three gold balls hanging out
front. And he was sure the hockshop guys would be happy to help them. Of
course it was just a kid's dream, but Carol Gerber up the street had a whole
set of dolls her father, who was in the Navy, had sent from overseas. If
fathers gave things -- which they did -- it stood to reason that fathers
sometimes left things.
When Bobby asked the question, they were passing one of the streetlamps
which ran along this side of Commonwealth Park, and Bobby saw his mother's
mouth change as it always did when he ventured a question about his late
father. The change made him think of a purse she had: when you pulled on the
drawstrings, the hole at the top got smaller.
"I'll tell you what he left," she said as they started up Broad Street Hill.
Bobby already wished he hadn't asked, but of course it was too late now.
Once you got her started, you couldn't get her stopped, that was the thing.
"He left a life insurance policy which lapsed the year before he died.
Little did I know that until he was gone and everyone -- including the
undertaker -- wanted their little piece of what I didn't have. He also left
a large stack of unpaid bills, which I have now pretty much taken care of --
people have been very understanding of my situation, Mr. Biderman in
particular, and I'll never say they haven't been."
All this was old stuff, as boring as it was bitter, but then she told Bobby
something new. "Your father," she said as they approached the apartment
house which stood halfway up Broad Street Hill, "never met an inside
straight he didn't like."
"What's an inside straight, Mom?"
"Never mind. But I'll tell you one thing, Bobby-O: you don't ever want to
let me catch you playing cards for money. I've had enough of that to last me
a lifetime."
Bobby wanted to enquire further, but knew better; more questions were apt to
set off a tirade. It occurred to him that perhaps the movie, which had been
about unhappy husbands and wives, had upset her in some way he could not, as
a mere kid, understand. He would ask his friend John Sullivan about inside
straights at school on Monday. Bobby thought it was poker, but wasn't
completely sure.
"There are places in Bridgeport that take men's money," she said as they
neared the apartment house where they lived. "Foolish men go to them.
Foolish men make messes, and it's usually the women of the world that have
to clean them up later on. Well..."
Bobby knew what was coming next; it was his mother's all-time favorite.
"Life isn't fair," said Liz Garfield as she took out her housekey and
prepared to unlock the door of 149 Broad Street in the town of Harwich,
Connecticut. It was April of 1960, the night breathed spring perfume, and
standing beside her was a skinny boy with his dead father's risky red hair.
She hardly ever touched his hair; on the infrequent occasions when she
caressed him, it was usually his arm or his cheek which she touched.
"Life isn't fair," she repeated. She opened the door and they went in.
It was true that his mother had not been treated like a princess, and it was
certainly too bad that her husband had expired on a linoleum floor in an
empty house at the age of thirty-six, but Bobby sometimes thought that
things could have been worse. There might have been two kids instead of just
one, for instance. Or three. Hell, even four.
Or suppose she had to work some really hard job to support the two of them?
Sully's mom worked at the Tip-Top Bakery downtown, and during the weeks when
she had to light the ovens, Sully-John and his two older brothers hardly
even saw her. Also Bobby had observed the women who came filing out of the
Peerless Shoe Company when the three o'clock whistle blew (he himself got
out of school at two-thirty), women who all seemed way too skinny or way too
fat, women with pale faces and fingers stained a dreadful old-blood color,
women with downcast eyes who carried their work shoes and pants in Total
Grocery shopping bags. Last fall he'd seen men and women picking apples
outside of town when he went to a church fair with Mrs. Gerber and Carol and
little Ian (who Carol always called Ian-the-Snot). When he asked about them
Mrs. Gerber said they were migrants, just like some kinds of birds -- always
on the move, picking whatever crops had just come ripe. Bobby's mother could
have been one of th
ose, but she wasn't.
What she was was Mr. Donald Biderman's secretary at Home Town Real Estate,
the company Bobby's dad had been working for when he had his heart attack.
Bobby guessed she might first have gotten the job because Donald Biderman
liked Randall and felt sorry for her -- widowed with a son barely out of
diapers -- but she was good at it and worked hard. Quite often she worked
late. Bobby had been with his mother and Mr. Biderman together on a couple
of occasions -- the company picnic was the one he remembered most clearly,
but there had also been the time Mr. Biderman had driven them to the
dentist's in Bridgeport when Bobby had gotten a tooth knocked out during a
recess game -- and the two grownups had a way of looking at each other.
Sometimes Mr. Biderman called her on the phone at night, and during those
conversations she called him Don. But "Don" was old and Bobby didn't think
about him much.
Bobby wasn't exactly sure what his mom did during her days (and her
evenings) at the office, but he bet it beat making shoes or picking apples
or lighting the Tip-Top Bakery ovens at four-thirty in the morning. Bobby
bet it beat those jobs all to heck and gone. Also, when it came to his mom,
if you asked about certain stuff you were asking for trouble. If you asked,
for instance, how come she could afford three new dresses from Sears, one of
them silk, but not three monthly payments of $11.50 on the Schwinn in the
Western Auto window (it was red and silver, and just looking at it made
Bobby's gut cramp with longing). Ask about stuff like that and you were
asking for real trouble.
Bobby didn't. He simply set out to earn the price of the bike himself. It
would take him until the fall, perhaps even until the winter, and that
particular model might be gone from the Western Auto's window by then, but
he would keep at it. You had to keep your nose to the grindstone and your
shoulder to the wheel. Life wasn't easy, and life wasn't fair.
When Bobby's eleventh birthday rolled around on the last Tuesday of April,
his mom gave him a small flat package wrapped in silver paper. Inside was an
orange library card. An adult library card. Goodbye Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys,
and Don Winslow of the Navy. Hello to all the rest of it, stories as full of
mysterious muddled passion as The Dark at the Top of the Stairs. Not to
mention bloody daggers in tower rooms. (There were mysteries and tower rooms
in the stories about Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, but precious little
blood and never any passion.)
"Just remember that Mrs. Kelton on the desk is a friend of mine," Mom said.
She spoke in her accustomed dry tone of warning, but she was pleased by his
pleasure -- she could see it. "If you try to borrow anything racy like
Peyton Place or Kings Row, I'll find out."
Bobby smiled. He knew she would.
"If it's that other one, Miss Busybody, and she asks what you're doing with
an orange card, you tell her to turn it over. I've put written permission
over my signature."
"Thanks, Mom. This is swell."
She smiled, bent, and put a quick dry swipe of the lips on his cheek, gone
almost before it was there. "I'm glad you're happy. If I get home early
enough, we'll go to the Colony for fried clams and ice cream. You'll have to
wait for the weekend for your cake; I don't have time to bake until then.
Now put on your coat and get moving, sonnyboy. You'll be late for school."
They went down the stairs and out onto the porch together. There was a Town
Taxi at the curb. A man in a poplin jacket was leaning in the passenger
window, paying the driver. Behind him was a little cluster of luggage and
paper bags, the kind with handles.
"That must be the man who just rented the room on the third floor," Liz
said. Her mouth had done its shrinking trick again. She stood on the top
step of the porch, appraising the man's narrow fanny, which poked toward
them as he finished his business with the taxi driver. "I don't trust people
who move their things in paper bags. To me a person's things in a paper sack
just looks slutty."
"He has suitcases, too," Bobby said, but he didn't need his mother to point
out that the new tenant's three little cases weren't such of a much. None
matched; all looked as if they had been kicked here from California by
someone in a bad mood.
Bobby and his mom walked down the cement path. The Town Taxi pulled away.
The man in the poplin jacket turned around. To Bobby, people fell into three
broad categories: kids, grownups, and old folks. Old folks were grownups
with white hair. The new tenant was of this third sort. His face was thin
and tired-looking, not wrinkled (except around his faded blue eyes) but
deeply lined. His white hair was baby-fine and receding from a liverspotted
brow. He was tall and stooped-over in a way that made Bobby think of Boris
Karloff in the Shock Theater movies they showed Friday nights at 11:30 on
WPIX. Beneath the poplin jacket were cheap workingman's clothes that looked
too big for him. On his feet were scuffed cordovan shoes.
"Hello, folks," he said, and smiled with what looked like an effort. "My
name's Theodore Brautigan. I guess I'm going to live here awhile."
He held out his hand to Bobby's mother, who touched it just briefly. "I'm
Elizabeth Garfield. This is my son, Robert. You'll have to pardon us, Mr.
Brattigan -- "
"It's Brautigan, ma'am, but I'd be happy if you and your boy would just call
me Ted."
"Yes, well, Robert's late for school and I'm late for work. Nice to meet
you, Mr. Brattigan. Hurry on, Bobby. Tempus fugit."
She began walking downhill toward town; Bobby began walking uphill (and at a
slower pace) toward Harwich Elementary, on Asher Avenue. Three or four steps
into this journey he stopped and looked back. He felt that his mom had been
rude to Mr. Brautigan, that she had acted stuck-up. Being stuck-up was the
worst of vices in his little circle of friends. Carol loathed a stuck-up
person; so did Sully-John. Mr. Brautigan would probably be halfway up the
walk by now, but if he wasn't, Bobby wanted to give him a smile so he'd know
at least one member of the Garfield family wasn't stuck-up.
His mother had also stopped and was also looking back. Not because she
wanted another look at Mr. Brautigan; that idea never crossed Bobby's mind.
No, it was her son she had looked back at. She'd known he was going to turn
around before Bobby knew it himself, and at this he felt a sudden darkening
in his normally bright nature. She sometimes said it would be a snowy day in
Sarasota before Bobby could put one over on her, and he supposed she was
right about that. How old did you have to be to put one over on your mother,
anyway? Twenty? Thirty? Or did you maybe have to wait until she got old and
a little chicken-soupy in the head?
Mr. Brautigan hadn't started up the walk. He stood at its sidewalk end with
a suitcase in each hand and the third one under his right arm (the three
paper bags he had moved onto the grass of 149 Broad), more bent than ever
under this weight. He was right between them, like a tollgate or something.
Liz Garfield's eyes flew past him to her son's. Go, they said. Don't say a
word. He's new, a man from anywhere or nowhere, and he's arrived here with
half his things in shopping bags. Don't say a word, Bobby, just go.
But he wouldn't. Perhaps because he had gotten a library card instead of a
bike for his birthday. "It was nice to meet you, Mr. Brautigan," Bobby said.
"Hope you like it here. Bye."
"Have a good day at school, son," Mr. Brautigan said. "Learn a lot. Your
mother's right -- tempus fugit."
Bobby looked at his mother to see if his small rebellion might be forgiven
in light of this equally small flattery, but Mom's mouth was ungiving. She
turned and started down the hill without another word. Bobby went on his own
way, glad he had spoken to the stranger even if his mother later made him
regret it.
As he approached Carol Gerber's house, he took out the orange library card
and looked at it. It wasn't a twenty-six-inch Schwinn, but it was still
pretty good. Great, actually. A whole world of books to explore, and so what
if it had only cost two or three rocks? Didn't they say it was the thought
that counted?
Well...it was what his mom said, anyway.
He turned the card over. Written on the back in her strong hand was this
message: "To whom it may concern: This is my son's library card. He has my
permission to take out three books a week from the adult section of the
Harwich Public Library." It was signed Elizabeth Penrose Garfield.
Beneath her name, like a P.S., she had added this: Robert will be
responsible for his own overdue fines.
"Birthday boy!" Carol Gerber cried, startling him, and rushed out from
behind a tree where she had been lying in wait. She threw her arms around
his neck and smacked him hard on the cheek. Bobby blushed, looking around to
see if anyone was watching -- God, it was hard enough to be friends with a
girl without surprise kisses -- but it was okay. The usual morning flood of
students was moving schoolward along Asher Avenue at the top of the hill,
but down here they were alone.
Bobby scrubbed at his cheek.
"Come on, you liked it," she said, laughing.
"Did not," said Bobby, although he had.
"What'd you get for your birthday?"
"A library card," Bobby said, and showed her. "An adult library card."
"Cool!" Was that sympathy he saw in her eyes? Probably not. And so what if
it was? "Here. For you." She gave him a Hallmark envelope with his name
printed on the front. She had also stuck on some hearts and teddy bears.
Bobby opened the envelope with mild trepidation, reminding himself that he
could tuck the card deep into the back pocket of his chinos if it was gushy.
It wasn't, though. Maybe a little bit on the baby side (a kid in a Stetson
on a horse, HAPPY BIRTHDAY BUCKAROO in letters that were supposed to look
like wood on the inside), but not gushy. Love, Carol was a little gushy, but
of course she was a girl, what could you do?
"Thanks."
"It's sort of a baby card, I know, but the others were even worse," Carol
said matter-of-factly. A little farther up the hill Sully-John was waiting
for them, working his Bo-lo Bouncer for all it was worth, going under his
right arm, going under his left arm, going behind his back. He didn't try
going between his legs anymore; he'd tried it once in the schoolyard and
rapped himself a good one in the nuts. Sully had screamed. Bobby and a
couple of other kids had laughed until they cried. Carol and three of her
girlfriends had rushed over to ask what was wrong, and the boys all said
nothing -- Sully-John said the same, although he'd been pale and almost
crying. Boys are boogers, Carol had said on that occasion, but Bobby didn't
believe she really thought so. She wouldn't have jumped out and given him
that kiss if she did, and it had been a good kiss, a smackeroo. Better than
the one his mother had given him, actually.
"It's not a baby card," he said.
"No, but it almost is," she said. "I thought about getting you a grownup
card, but man, they are gushy."
"I know," Bobby said.
"Are you going to be a gushy adult, Bobby?"
"I hope not," he said. "Are you?"
"No. I'm going to be like my mom's friend Rionda."
"Rionda's pretty fat," Bobby said doubtfully.
"Yeah, but she's cool. I'm going to go for the cool without the fat."
"There's a new guy moving into our building. The room on the third floor. My
mom says it's really hot up there."
"Yeah? What's he like?" She giggled. "Is he ushy-gushy?"
"He's old," Bobby said, then paused to think. "But he had an interesting
face. My mom didn't like him on sight because he had some of his stuff in
shopping bags."
Sully-John joined them. "Happy birthday, you bastard," he said, and clapped
Bobby on the back. Bastard was Sully-John's current favorite word; Carol's
was cool; Bobby was currently between favorite words, although he thought
ripshit had a certain ring to it.
"If you swear, I won't walk with you," Carol said.
"Okay," Sully-John said companionably. Carol was a fluffy blonde who looked
like a Bobbsey Twin after some growing up; John Sullivan was tall,
black-haired, and green-eyed. A Joe Hardy kind of boy. Bobby Garfield walked
between them, his momentary depression forgotten. It was his birthday and he
was with his friends and life was good. He tucked Carol's birthday card into
his back pocket and his new library card down deep in his front pocket,
where it could not fall out or be stolen. Carol started to skip. Sully-John
told her to stop.
"Why?" Carol asked. "I like to skip."
"I like to say bastard, but I don't if you ask me," Sully-John replied
reasonably.
Carol looked at Bobby.
"Skipping -- at least without a rope -- is a little on the baby side,
Carol," Bobby said apologetically, then shrugged. "But you can if you want.
We don't mind, do we, S-J?"
"Nope," Sully-John said, and got going with the Bo-lo Bouncer again. Back to
front, up to down, whap-whap-whap.
Carol didn't skip. She walked between them and pretended she was Bobby
Garfield's girlfriend, that Bobby had a driver's license and a Buick and
they were going to Bridgeport to see the WKBW Rock and Roll Extravaganza.
She thought Bobby was extremely cool. The coolest thing about him was that
he didn't know it.
Bobby got home from school at three o'clock. He could have been there
sooner, but picking up returnable bottles was part of his
Get-a-Bike-by-Thanksgiving campaign, and he detoured through the brushy area
just off Asher Avenue looking for them. He found three Rheingolds and a
Nehi. Not much, but hey, eight cents was eight cents. "It all mounts up" was
another of his mom's sayings.
Bobby washed his hands (a couple of those bottles had been pretty scurgy),
got a snack out of the icebox, read a couple of old Superman comics, got
another snack out of the icebox, then watched American Bandstand. He called
Carol to tell her Bobby Darin was going to be on -- she thought Bobby Darin
was deeply cool, especially the way he snapped his fingers when he sang
"Queen of the Hop" -- but she already knew. She was watching with three or
four of her numbskull girlfriends; they all giggled pretty much nonstop in
the background. The sound made Bobby think of birds in a petshop. On TV,
Dick Clark was currently showing how much pimple-grease just one Stri-Dex
Medicated Pad could sop up.
Mom called at four o'clock. Mr. Biderman needed her to work late, she said.
She was sorry, but birthday supper at the Colony was off. There was leftover
beef stew in the fridge; he could have that and she would be home by eight
to tuck him in. And for heaven's sake, Bobby, remember to turn off the
gas-ring when you're done with the stove.
Bobby returned to the television feeling disappointed but not really
surprised. On Bandstand, Dick was now announcing the Rate-a-Record panel.
Bobby thought the guy in the middle looked as if he could use a lifetime
supply of Stri-Dex pads.
He reached into his front pocket and drew out the new orange library card.
His mood began to brighten again. He didn't need to sit here in front of the
TV with a stack of old comic-books if he didn't want to. He could go down to
the library and break in his new card -- his new adult card. Miss Busybody
would be on the desk, only her real name was Miss Harrington and Bobby
thought she was beautiful. She wore perfume. He could always smell it on her
skin and in her hair, faint and sweet, like a good memory. And although
Sully-John would be at his trombone lesson right now, after the library
Bobby could go up his house, maybe play some pass.
Also, he thought, I can take those bottles to Spicer's -- I've got a bike to
earn this summer.
All at once, life seemed very full.
Sully's mom invited Bobby to stay for supper, but he told her no thanks, I
better get home. He would much have preferred Mrs. Sullivan's pot roast and
crispy oven potatoes to what was waiting for him back at the apartment, but
he knew that one of the first things his mother would do when she got back
from the office was check in the fridge and see if the Tupperware with the
leftover stew inside was gone. If it wasn't, she would ask Bobby what he'd
had for supper. She would be calm about this question, even offhand. If he
told her he'd eaten at Sully-John's she would nod, ask him what they'd had
and if there had been dessert, also if he'd thanked Mrs. Sullivan; she might
even sit on the couch with him and share a bowl of ice cream while they
watched Sugarfoot on TV. Everything would be fine...except it wouldn't be.
Eventually there would be a payback. It might not come for a day or two,
even a week, but it would come. Bobby knew that almost without knowing he
knew it. She undoubtedly
did have to work late, but eating leftover stew by himself on his birthday
was also punishment for talking to the new tenant when he wasn't supposed
to. If he tried to duck that punishment, it would mo
unt up just like money in a savings account.
When Bobby came back from Sully-John's it was quarter past six and getting
dark. He had two new books to read, a Perry Mason called The Case of the
Velvet Claws and a science-fiction novel by Clifford Simak called Ring
Around the Sun. Both looked totally ripshit, and Miss Harrington hadn't
given him a hard time at all. On the contrary: she told him he was reading
above his level and to keep it up.
Walking home from S-J's, Bobby made up a story where he and Miss Harrington
were on a cruise-boat that sank. They were the only two survivors, saved
from drowning by finding a life preserver marked S.S. LUSITANIC. They washed
up on a little island with palm trees and jungles and a volcano, and as they
lay on the beach Miss Harrington was shivering and saying she was cold, so
cold, couldn't he please hold her and warm her up, which he of course could
and did, my pleasure, Miss Harrington, and then the natives came out of the
jungle and at first they seemed friendly but it turned out they were
cannibals who lived on the slopes of the volcano and killed their victims in
a clearing ringed with skulls, so things looked bad but just as he and Miss
Harrington were pulled toward the cooking pot the volcano started to rumble
and --
"Hello, Robert."
Bobby looked up, even more startled than he'd been when Carol Gerber raced
out from behind the tree to put a birthday smackeroo on his cheek. It was
the new man in the house. He was sitting on the top porch step and smoking a
cigarette. He had exchanged his old scuffed shoes for a pair of old scuffed
slippers and had taken off his poplin jacket -- the evening was warm. He
looked at home, Bobby thought.
"Oh, Mr. Brautigan. Hi."
"I didn't mean to startle you."
"You didn't -- "
"I think I did. You were a thousand miles away. And it's Ted. Please."
"Okay." But Bobby didn't know if he could stick to Ted. Calling a grownup
(especially an old grownup) by his first name went against not only his
mother's teaching but his own inclination.
"Was school good? You learned new things?"
"Yeah, fine." Bobby shifted from foot to foot; swapped his new books from
hand to hand.
"Would you sit with me a minute?"
"Sure, but I can't for long. Stuff to do, you know." Supper to do, mostly --
the leftover stew had grown quite attractive in his mind by now.
"Absolutely. Things to do and tempus fugit."
As Bobby sat down next to Mr. Brautigan -- Ted -- on the wide porch step,
smelling the aroma of his Chesterfield, he thought he had never seen a man
who looked as tired as this one. It couldn't be the moving in, could it? How
worn out could you get when all you had to move in were three little
suitcases and three carryhandle shopping bags? Bobby supposed there might be
men coming later on with stuff in a truck, but he didn't really think so. It
was just a room -- a big one, but still just a single room with a kitchen on
one side and everything else on the other. He and Sully-John had gone up
there and looked around after old Miss Sidley had her stroke and went to
live with her daughter.
"Tempus fugit means time flies," Bobby said. "Mom says it a lot. She also
says time and tide wait for no man and time heals all wounds."
"Your mother is a woman of many sayings, is she?"
"Yeah," Bobby said, and suddenly the idea of all those sayings made him
tired. "Many sayings."
"Ben Jonson called time the old bald cheater," Ted Brautigan said, drawing
deeply on his cigarette and then exhaling twin streams through his nose.
"And Boris Pasternak said we are time's captives, the hostages of eternity."
Bobby looked at him in fascination, his empty belly temporarily forgotten.
He loved the idea of time as an old bald cheater -- it was absolutely and
completely right, although he couldn't have said why...and didn't that very
inability to say why somehow add to the coolness? It was like a thing inside
an egg, or a shadow behind pebbled glass.
"Who's Ben Jonson?"
"An Englishman, dead these many years," Mr. Brautigan said. "Self-centered
and foolish about money, by all accounts; prone to flatulence as well.
But -- "
"What's that? Flatulence?"
Ted stuck his tongue between his lips and made a brief but very realistic
farting sound. Bobby put his hands to his mouth and giggled into his cupped
fingers.
"Kids think farts are funny," Ted Brautigan said, nodding. "Yeah. To a man
my age, though, they're just part of life's increasingly strange business.
Ben Jonson said a good many wise things between farts, by the way. Not so
many as Dr. Johnson -- Samuel Johnson, that would be -- but still a good
many."
"And Boris..."
"Pasternak. A Russian," Mr. Brautigan said dismissively. "Of no account, I
think. May I see your books?"
Bobby handed them over. Mr. Brautigan (Ted, he reminded himself, you're
supposed to call him Ted) passed the Perry Mason back after a cursory glance
at the title. The Clifford Simak novel he held longer, at first squinting at
the cover through the curls of cigarette smoke that rose past his eyes, then
paging through it. He nodded as he did so.
"I have read this one," he said. "I had a lot of time to read previous to
coming here."
"Yeah?" Bobby kindled. "Is it good?"
"One of his best," Mr. Brautigan -- Ted -- replied. He looked sideways at
Bobby, one eye open, the other still squinted shut against the smoke. It
gave him a look that was at once wise and mysterious, like a
not-quite-trustworthy character in a detective movie. "But are you sure you
can read this? You can't be much more than twelve."
"I'm eleven," Bobby said. He was delighted that Ted thought he might be as
old as twelve. "Eleven today. I can read it. I won't be able to understand
it all, but if it's a good story, I'll like it."
"Your birthday!" Ted said, looking impressed. He took a final drag on his
cigarette, then flicked it away. It hit the cement walk and fountained
sparks. "Happy birthday dear Robert, happy birthday to you!"
"Thanks. Only I like Bobby a lot better."
"Bobby, then. Are you going out to celebrate?"
"Nah, my mom's got to work late."
"Would you like to come up to my little place? I don't have much, but I know
how to open a can. Also, I might have a pastry -- "
"Thanks, but Mom left me some stuff. I should eat that."
"I understand." And, wonder of wonders, he looked as if he actually did. Ted
returned Bobby's copy of Ring Around the Sun. "In this book," he said, "Mr.
Simak postulates the idea that there are a number of worlds like ours. Not
other planets but other Earths, parallel Earths, in a kind of ring around
the sun. A fascinating idea."
"Yeah," Bobby said. He knew about parallel worlds from other books. From the
comics, as well.
Ted Brautigan was now looking at him in a thoughtful, speculative way.
"What?" Bobby asked, feeling suddenly self-conscious. See something green?
his mother might have said.
For a moment he thought Ted wasn't going to answer -- he seemed to have
fallen into some deep and dazing train of thought. Then he gave himself a
little shake and sat up straighter. "Nothing," he said. "I have a little
idea. Perhaps you'd like to earn some extra money? Not that I have much,
but -- "
"Yeah! Cripes, yeah!" There's this bike, he almost went on, then stopped
himself. Best keep yourself to yourself was yet another of his mom's
sayings. "I'd do just about anything you wanted!"
Ted Brautigan looked simultaneously alarmed and amused. It seemed to open a
door to a different face, somehow, and Bobby could see that, yeah, the old
guy had once been a young guy. One with a little sass to him, maybe. "That's
a bad thing to tell a stranger," he said, "and although we've progressed to
Bobby and Ted -- a good start -- we're still really strangers to each
other."
"Did either of those Johnson guys say anything about strangers?"
"Not that I recall, but here's something on the subject from the Bible: 'For
I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner. Spare me, that I may recover
strength, before I go hence...'" Ted trailed off for a moment. The fun had
gone out of his face and he looked old again. Then his voice firmed and he
finished. "'...before I go hence, and be no more.' Book of Psalms. I can't
remember which one."
"Well," Bobby said, "I wouldn't kill or rob anyone, don't worry, but I'd
sure like to earn some money."
"Let me think," Ted said. "Let me think a little."
"Sure. But if you've got chores or something, I'm your guy. Tell you that
right now."
"Chores? Maybe. Although that's not the word I would have chosen." Ted
clasped his bony arms around his even bonier knees and gazed across the lawn
at Broad Street. It was growing dark now; Bobby's favorite part of the
evening had arrived. The cars that passed had their parking lights on, and
from somewhere on Asher Avenue Mrs. Sigsby was calling for her twins to come
in and get their supper. At this time of day -- and at dawn, as he stood in
the bathroom, urinating into the bowl with sunshine falling through the
little window and into his half-open eyes -- Bobby felt like a dream in
someone else's head.
"Where did you live before you came here, Mr....Ted?"
"A place that wasn't as nice," he said. "Nowhere near as nice. How long have
you lived here, Bobby?"
"Long as I can remember. Since my dad died, when I was three."
"And you know everyone on the street? On this block of the street, anyway?"
"Pretty much, yeah."
"You'd know strangers. Sojourners. Faces of those unknown."
Bobby smiled and nodded. "Uh-huh, I think so."
He waited to see where this would lead next -- it was interesting -- but
apparently this was as far as it went. Ted stood up, slowly and carefully.
Bobby could hear little bones creak in his back when he put his hands around
there and stretched, grimacing.
"Come on," he said. "It's getting chilly. I'll go in with you. Your key or
mine?"
Bobby smiled. "You better start breaking in your own, don't you think?"
Ted -- it was getting easier to think of him as Ted -- pulled a keyring from
his pocket. The only keys on it were the one which opened the big front door
and the one to his room. Both were shiny and new, the color of bandit gold.
Bobby's own two keys were scratched and dull. How old was Ted? he wondered
again. Sixty, at least. A sixty-year-old man with only two keys in his
pocket. That was weird.
Ted opened the front door and they went into the big dark foyer with its
umbrella stand and its old painting of Lewis and Clark looking out across
the American West. Bobby went to the door of the Garfield apartment and Ted
went to the stairs. He paused there for a moment with his hand on the
bannister. "The Simak book is a great story," he said. "Not such great
writing, though. Not bad, I don't mean to say that, but take it from me,
there is better."
Bobby waited.
"There are also books full of great writing that don't have very good
stories. Read sometimes for the story, Bobby. Don't be like the book-snobs
who won't do that. Read sometimes for the words -- the language. Don't be
like the play-it-safers that won't do that. But when you find a book that
has both a good story and good words, treasure that book."
"Are there many of those, do you think?" Bobby asked.
"More than the book-snobs and play-it-safers think. Many more. Perhaps I'll
give you one. A belated birthday present."
"You don't have to do that."
"No, but perhaps I will. And do have a happy birthday."
"Thanks. It's been a great one." Then Bobby went into the apartment, heated
up the stew (remembering to turn off the gas-ring after the stew started to
bubble, also remembering to put the pan in the sink to soak), and ate supper
by himself, reading Ring Around the Sun with the TV on for company. He
hardly heard Chet Huntley and David Brinkley gabbling the evening news. Ted
was right about the book; it was a corker. The words seemed okay to him,
too, although he supposed he didn't have a lot of experience just yet.
I'd like to write a story like this, he thought as he finally closed the
book and flopped down on the couch to watch Sugarfoot. I wonder if I ever
could.
Maybe. Maybe so. Someone had to write stories, after all, just like someone
had to fix the pipes when they froze or change the streetlights in
Commonwealth Park when they burned out.
An hour or so later, after Bobby had picked up Ring Around the Sun and begun
reading again, his mother came in. Her lipstick was a bit smeared at one
corner of her mouth and her slip was hanging a little. Bobby thought of
pointing this out to her, then remembered how much she disliked it when
someone told her it was "snowing down south." Besides, what did it matter?
Her working day was over and, as she sometimes said, there was no one here
but us chickens.
She checked the fridge to make sure the leftover stew was gone, checked the
stove to make sure the gas-ring was off, checked the sink to make sure the
pot and the Tupperware storage container were both soaking in soapy water.
Then she kissed him on the temple, just a brush in passing, and went into
her bedroom to change out of her office dress and hose. She seemed distant,
preoccupied. She didn't ask if he'd had a happy birthday.
Later on he showed her Carol's card. His mom glanced at it, not really
seeing it, pronounced it "cute," and handed it back. Then she told him to
wash up, brush up, and go to bed. Bobby did so, not mentioning his
interesting talk with Ted. In her current mood, that was apt to make her
angry. The best thing was to let her be distant, let her keep to herself as
long as she needed to, give her time to drift back to him. Yet he felt that
sad mood settling over him again as he finished brushing his teeth and
climbed into bed. Sometimes he felt almost hungry for her, and she didn't
know.
He reached out of bed and closed the door, blocking off the sound of some
old movie. He turned off the light. And then, just as he was starting to
drift off, she came in, sat on the side of his bed, and said she was sorry
she'd been so stand-offy tonight, but there had been a lot going on at the
office and she was tired. Sometimes it was a madhouse, she said. She stroked
a finger across his forehead and then kissed him there, making him shiver.
He sat up and hugged her. She stiffened momentarily at his touch, then gave
in to it. She even hugged him back briefly. He thought maybe it would now be
all right to tell her about Ted. A little, anyway.
"I talked with Mr. Brautigan when I came home from the library," he said.
"Who?"
"The new man on the third floor. He asked me to call him Ted."
"You won't -- I should say nitzy! You don't know him from Adam."
"He said giving a kid an adult library card was a great present." Ted had
said no such thing, but Bobby had lived with his mother long enough to know
what worked and what didn't.
She relaxed a little. "Did he say where he came from?"
"A place not as nice as here, I think he said."
"Well, that doesn't tell us much, does it?" Bobby was still hugging her. He
could have hugged her for another hour easily, smelling her White Rain
shampoo and Aqua Net hold-spray and the pleasant odor of tobacco on her
breath, but she disengaged from him and laid him back down. "I guess if he's
going to be your friend -- your adult friend -- I'll have to get to know him
a little."
"Well -- "
"Maybe I'll like him better when he doesn't have shopping bags scattered all
over the lawn." For Liz Garfield this was downright placatory, and Bobby was
satisfied. The day had come to a very acceptable ending after all.
"Goodnight, birthday boy."
"Goodnight, Mom."
She went out and closed the door. Later that night -- much later -- he
thought he heard her crying in her room, but perhaps that was only a dream.
Copyright 1999 by Stephen King

 Copyright 1999 by Stephen King
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Jonas wrote:
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Grazie, Jon. Ti voglio sempre piu' bene!
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Grazie Jonas anche da parte mia,anche se c'ho capito molto poco!!
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Meglio cosi'... e grazie! ;-)))
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Gia ed io e Mary ti odiamo sempre di piu`!!!!!
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