Boy's Life Part 53

I slow the car as we move past a house set back off the street next to a barn. "He lived right there," I tell Sandy.

"Wow!" Skye says. "It's creepy! It looks like a haunted house!"

"No," I tell her, "I think it's just a house now."

Like Bo knows football, my daughter knows haunted houses. She knows Vincent Price and Peter Cus.h.i.+ng, the films of Hammer, the works of Poe, the chronicles of Mars and the town called 'Salem's Lot. But she knows Alice through the looking gla.s.s, too, and the Faithful Tin Soldier, the Ugly Duckling, and the journeys of Stuart Little. She knows Oz and the jungles of Tarzan, and though she is too young to fully appreciate anything but the colors, she knows the hands of Van Gogh, Winslow Homer, and Miro. She will listen to Duke Ellington and Count Basie, as well as to the Beach Boys. Just last week she asked me if she could put a picture in a frame on her dresser. She said she thought this particular dude was cool.

His name is Freddy.

"Skye," I said, "I really think havin' that in here is gonna give you night-"

And then I stopped. Oh-oh, I thought. Oh-oh.

Freddy, meet Skye. Talk to her about the power of make-believe, will you?

I turn the car onto Hilltop Street, and we rise toward my house.

I'm doing all right with my writing. It's a hard job, but I enjoy it. Sandy and I aren't the kind of people who need to own half the world to be happy. I have to say, though, that once I did splurge. I bought an old red convertible that called to me from a used car lot when Sandy and I were taking a vacation in New England. I think they used to refer to such cars as roadsters. I've restored it back to how it must've looked when Zephyr was new. Sometimes, when I'm alone out in that car, speeding along with the wind in my hair and the sun on my face, I forget myself and speak to it. I call it by a certain name.

You know what I call it.

That bicycle went with me when we left Zephyr. We had more adventures, and that golden eye saw a lot of trouble coming and kept me from getting into it on more than several occasions. But eventually it creaked under my weight, and my hands didn't seem to fit on the grips anymore. It was consigned to the bas.e.m.e.nt, under a blue tarp. I imagined it went to sleep like a bird. One weekend I returned from college to find that Mom had had a garage sale, which included the contents of the bas.e.m.e.nt. And here's your money a fella paid for your old bike! she'd said as she handed me a twenty-dollar bill. He bought it for his own boy, isn't that grand, Cory? Cory? Isn't that grand?

It's grand, I'd told my mother. And that night I put my head on my dad's shoulder and cried as if I were twelve again instead of twenty.

My heart stutters.

There it is. Right there.

"My house," I tell Sandy and Skye.

It has aged, under sun and rain. It needs paint and care. It needs love, but it is empty now. I stop the car at the curb, and I stare at the porch and see my father suddenly emerge smiling from the front door. He looks strong and fit, like he always does when I remember him.

"Hey, Cory!" he says. "How ya gettin' along?"

Just fine, sir, I answer.

"I knew you would be. I did all right, didn't I?"

Yes sir, you did, I say.

"Sure do have a pretty wife and a good daughter, Cory. And those books of yours! I knew you were gonna do well, all the time I knew it."

Dad? Do you want me to come in and stay awhile?

"Come in here?" He leans against the porch column. "Why would you want to do that, Cory?"

Aren't you lonely? I mean... it's so quiet here.

"Quiet?" He laughs heartily. "Sometimes I wish it was quiet! It's not a bit of quiet here!"

But... it's empty. Isn't it?

"It's full to the brim," my father says. He looks up at the sun, over the hills of spring. "You don't have to come here to see them, Cory. Or to see me, either. You really don't. You don't have to leave what is, to visit what was. You've got a good life, Cory. Better than I dreamed. How's your mom doin'?"

She's happy. I mean, she misses you, but...

"But life is for the livin'," he tells me in his fatherly voice. "Now go on and get on with it instead of wantin' to come in an old house with a saggy floor."

Yes sir, I say, but I can't leave yet.

He starts to go in, but he pauses, too. "Cory?" he says.

Yes sir?

"I'll always love you. Always. And I'll always love your mother, and I am so very happy for the both of you. Do you understand?"

I nod.

"You'll always be my boy," Dad says, and then he returns to the house and the porch is empty.

"Cory? Cory?"

I turn my face and look at Sandy.

"What do you see?" she asks me.

"A shadow," I say.

I want to go one more place before I turn the car around and drive away. I head us up the winding path of Temple Street, toward the Thaxter mansion at its summit.

Here things have really changed.

Some of the big houses have actually been torn down. Where they were is rolling gra.s.s. And here is another surprise: the Thaxter mansion has grown, sprouting additions on either side. The property around it is huge. My G.o.d! I realize. Vernon must still live there! I drive through a gate and past a big swimming pool. A treehouse has been constructed in the arms of a ma.s.sive oak. The mansion itself is immaculate, the grounds beautiful, and smaller buildings have been constructed in its style.

I stop the car in front. "I can't believe this!" I tell Sandy. "I've gotta find out if Vernon's still here!"

I get out and start for the front door, my insides quaking with excitement.

But before I reach it, I hear a bell ring. Ding... ding... ding... ding.

I hear what sounds like a tidal wave, gaining speed and force.

And my breath is well and truly swept away.

Because here they come.

Swarming out of the front door, like wasps from the nest in the church's ceiling on Easter Sunday. Here they come, laughing and hollering and jostling each other. Here they come, in a wonderful riot of noise.

The boys. Dozens of them, dozens. Some white, some black. Their numbers surge around me, as if I am an island in the river. Some of them run for the treehouse, others scamper across the rolling green yard. I am at the center of a young universe, and then I see the bra.s.s plaque on the wall next to the door.

It says THE ZEPHYR HOME FOR BOYS.

Vernon's mansion has become an orphanage.

And still they stream out around me, furious in their freedom on this glorious Sat.u.r.day afternoon. A window opens on the second floor, and a wrinkled face peers out. "James Lucius!" her voice squawks. "Edward and Gregory! Get up here for your piano lessons right this very minute!"

She wears blue.

Two older women I don't know come out, chasing after the crowd of boys. Good luck to them, I think. And then a younger man emerges, and he stops before me. "Can I help you?"

"I... used to live here. In Zephyr, I mean." I am so stunned I can hardly talk. "When did this become an orphanage?"

"In 1985," the man tells me. "Mr. Vernon Thaxter left it to us."

"Is Mr. Thaxter still alive?"

"He left town. I'm sorry, but I don't know what became of him." This man has a gentle face. He has blond hair, and eyes of cornflower blue. "May I ask your name?"

"I'm-" I stop, because I realize who he must be. "Who are you?"

"I'm Bubba Willow." He smiles, and I can see Chile in him. "Reverend Bubba Willow."

"I'm very pleased to meet you." We shake hands. "I met your mother once."

"My mom? Really? What's your name?"

"Cory Mackenson."

The name doesn't register. I was a s.h.i.+p, pa.s.sing through Chile's night. "How's your mother doin'?"

"Oh, just great. She moved to St. Louis, and she's teachin' sixth grade now."

"I'll bet her students sure feel lucky."

"Parson?" A wizened voice says. "Par son Willa?"

An elderly black man in faded overalls has come out. Around his skinny waist he wears a tool belt holding hammers, screwdrivers, and arcane-looking wrenches. "Parson, I done fixed that slow leak upastairs. Oughta lookat that ol' freezer now." His eyes find me. "Oh," he says with a soft slow gasp. "I know you."

And a smile spreads across his face like day following night.

I hug him, and when he grasps me his tool belt jingle-jangles.

"Cory Mackenson! My Lord! Is that you?"

I peer up at the woman in blue. "Yes ma'am, it is."

"My Lord, my Lord! Excuse me, Reverend! My Lord, my Lord!" Then her attention goes where it ought to: toward the new generation of boys. "James Lucius! Don't you get up in that treehouse and break those fingers!"

"Would you and your family like to come in?" Reverend Willow asks.

"Please do," Mr. Lightfoot says, smiling. "Lots ta talk about."

"Got coffee and doughnuts inside," the reverend tempts me. "Mrs. Velvadine runs a grand kitchen."

"Cory, you get on in here!" Then: "James Luuuuucius!"

Sandy and Skye have gotten out of the car. Sandy knows me, and she knows I'd like to stay for just a little while. We will not tarry long here, because my hometown is not our home, but an hour would be time well spent.

As they go in, I pause outside the door before I join them.

I look up, into the bright blue air.

I think I see four figures with wings, and their winged dogs, swooping and playing in the rivers of light.

They will always be there, as long as magic lives.

And magic has a strong, strong heart.

The End