Читать книгу City Kid - Mary MacCracken, Mary MacCracken - Страница 15

I was parked outside the Dunkin’ Donuts by 9:45.

March had turned lamblike and April continued soft and warm, with white woolly clouds tumbling across the blue sky. I rolled the car window down and waited.

I had surprised myself the night before. We had finished dinner before I mentioned the fire or Luke to Cal. I had even thought, for a little while, that I might not tell him at all. Cal, of course, knew nothing of what had occurred and attributed my silence to weariness or exams or the flu.

I didn’t understand yet what had happened myself. I wanted to talk to Luke before I tried to explain it to someone else. In the end, I told Cal, briefly, almost abruptly. He listened, asking only for facts, not interpretations. He didn’t even remind me of what I knew, that it had been foolish to wander alone in the back of a factory after dark.

Unexpectedly, I slept soundly, deep in a dream that I could not remember. When I woke, the last residue of the flu was gone and I was ravenous and wide awake.

Now every inch of my body was alert. Where was Luke? Ten o’clock. He should be here.

A small dark head appeared in the open window.

“Luke say gimme the two dollars.”

“Who are you?”

“Wendell Higgins.”

“You’re the one who said Luke lit the fire, is that right?”

“No. I never said nuthin’.”

“Listen, Wendell. If you know where Luke is, you go tell him to get himself down here right away. No money till Luke shows up.”

“I dunno if I kin find Luke,” Wendell Higgins whined.

“Well, you just try, Wendell. I’ll wait till twelve.”

Wendell was instantly gone. He moved so fast I hadn’t seen him arrive or disappear; with Wendell he was either there or not there.

At eleven-thirty he was back. Alone.

“Luke’s skeered to come here.”

“No two dollars then. Sorry.”

“You know the park? Luke’ll come there.”

“Okay. Get in. You can show me the park.”

We drove for about a mile with Wendell Higgins crouched, wary and intent beside me. “Cops don’t come near here in the A.M. Stop here. I’ll get him.”

Within five minutes Wendell was back. Luke walked behind him, his face expressionless.

He was so small. Seven and a half. My own son at almost that age was tying knots for a cub scout badge, and Luke was dodging the police.

“Hello, Luke,” I said, trying to keep my face as expressionless as his. I took out my wallet. “Here’s the two dollars I said you could give to Wendell.”

Luke passed the bills to Wendell and once again Wendell Higgins was instantly out of sight. Luke looked nervously around him.

“Will you get in, Luke?” I asked.

Luke quickly stepped into the car and closed the door behind him, obviously glad to be out of view.

I started the car and drove without any particular thought as to direction. Because it was the route I took most often, I headed back toward college. Luke huddled close to the door on his side of the car, but at least he had come to meet me. That was a beginning.

I had no plan of what I would do or what I would say to Luke. I concentrated my entire energy on trying to feel what he was feeling, trying to listen with the “third ear.” I let the car drive itself.

Suddenly Luke sat up straight, leaning forward, peering intently out the front window.

I, too, strained forward trying to see what he saw, but there was nothing. Only the road cutting through the hills on the way to State. Even the trees were bare, except for the pines.

I could feel Luke looking at me. I kept driving, looking straight ahead. Give him time. He’s almost ready. Don’t look at him now; that will make it harder.

“How’d you know about the mountain?” Luke whispered the question.

What did he mean? What mountain? The hills? These hills must seem very big when you’re as small as Luke. And then I knew. This is where he had been. This was his hiding place. Was this also where he had set that large fire last fall?

I drove until I found a flat place where I could pull off the road. After I’d parked I turned toward Luke.

“Are you okay?” I asked. “I’m sorry about this week. I was sick and couldn’t drive down. I called school and explained, but somehow the secretary got mixed up –”

Luke nodded, barely listening, intent on something beyond the car.

“Let’s walk awhile,” I said. There were evidently no answers to be found inside my old convertible.

Luke was instantly out of the car, running down the way we had just come. I followed as fast as I could.

About a quarter mile back he jogged off the road onto a small path, turning once to look back at me.

The ground began to rise almost immediately. Within ten minutes we were on steep rocky ground. Another ten and I was panting. I pulled off my sweater and tied it around my waist. Luke obviously had a destination in mind. This was no casual stroll.

We were almost to the top when the water tower came in sight. I remembered now seeing it from a distance, a large blue-gray metal tank ballooning against the sky, supported by thin splayed legs. Strange that it had been out of sight as we walked toward it.

Luke climbed in underneath the water tower and sat down. I hesitated and then sat next to him, feeling the chill dampness of the earth seep into my jeans almost immediately. There was no board or blanket. Luke would have been very cold if he had stayed here any length of time; there must be some other type of shelter. I looked upward. The metal legs that supported the water tank had small cross bars, not visible from a distance, but up close you could see they formed a ladderlike structure.

Luke had brought me only partway. I stood and began to climb up the water tank. Three quarters of the way up the four legs were joined by a kind of platform; someone had put a piece of plywood over the metal grids. I crawled out on the board and caught my breath at the sight of Falls City spreading out beneath me.

The great falls that had once provided power for the silk mills tumbled and spat foam high against the sky; old, intricate, elegant church spires pierced the smoke puffs of the factories. From here the decay and squalor were not visible, and the city glowed with a luminous dreamy beauty. It was also possible to see beyond Falls City; the highways leading in and out were clearly visible. How had Luke found this place?

It was obvious that Luke was not going to climb up and join me, so I climbed back down and sat beside him on the cold ground beneath the water tower.

“It’s nice,” I said. “And a good lookout. You can see when anyone’s coming.”

Luke sat expressionless beside me. How had he learned to keep his face so still? There was nothing in his eyes at all. Was that because he felt nothing, or because he’d learned to cover it so well? I rubbed my thumb across the moss that grew under the water tower and tried to feel what Luke was feeling. What would it be like to be seven years old and have only a water tower for comfort?

Luke spoke suddenly, interrupting my thoughts. “My father brought me here. My real father,” he added quickly.

“I don’t know about your father.”

Luke shrugged. “I don’t see him much anymore. Mom and him are divorced and he’s got a new wife now. She’s got three kids.”

We sat without talking again. What was there to say? I watched Luke’s small, handsome face for some opening, but it remained closed and immutable. His round brown eyes stared straight ahead, never flickering; his arms were wrapped tight around his knees.

After a long time he turned to me and said, as if he couldn’t bear to keep it inside any longer. “This is where he used to shoot up.”

“Shoot up?” Why couldn’t I do better than echo his words?

But Luke barely noticed. Now that he’d begun, the rest tumbled out in a torrent. “He’d stay here, underneath, see, and I’d go up there to the seat and watch out. I’d call back and tell him if there were copper cars or anything and when it was okay I’d call down and he’d get out his stuff and make a little fire and get it all ready – and then he’d do it.”

For the first time, Luke’s face changed, crumpled more than changed, and his teeth began to chatter. “I stayed up there on top watching out – and anyway, I didn’t like to watch the needle.”

I nodded. My own body was trembling. What a way to live. How old would Luke have been then? Five? Six?

“We’d stay till it was almost morning, till it got light; then he’d take me back to the project so I’d be there before Mom and Alice and Frank woke up.”

Well, at least I understood one thing. My face had no expression now, either. It’s a lot easier not to cry that way.

“Your mom didn’t know you stayed out here?” I asked. Somehow we could talk under the water tank. There was a feeling of safety and it took less effort to find the words. I didn’t feel as if I was intruding when I asked the question.

“Mom’s sick a lot,” Luke said. “She doesn’t shoot up.” He sat up straight and looked me in the eye. “Honest,” he said. “She never does. She drinks some and smokes stuff and she gets sick. She throws up a lot, but she doesn’t ever shoot up.”

“Who cooks? Who takes care of your little brother and sister?” Wrong. Luke turned away, defenses back in place.

“She does,” he said. “Most of the time.”

I stood up, or partway up, and crawled out from under the water tower. I stretched, my body cramped from sitting and emotion. I looked at my watch. Four o’clock.

Inadequacy and urgency churned inside my stomach. There were less than two hours of daylight left and I had just begun to understand a little of Luke’s problems; I wasn’t even close to any solutions, but he couldn’t stay out here alone much longer, and his home, what there was of it, was far away.

I walked around the water tower trying to think. How was I going to help Luke? I climbed up to the platform, searching for clues, but the enormity of the problem was even greater there. Down in Falls City, in its schools, there were hundreds, maybe thousands of children like Luke and behind them was a society of poverty, ignorance, and neglect spawning new Lukes nightly.

I climbed back down and was glad to see that Luke had come out from under the tower and was sitting on a ledge of rock to one side of it. I sat beside him, feeling the warmth the rock had accumulated from the sun, remembering the fire at the factory. This is what we had come to talk about. I couldn’t think of a subtle way to begin, but I knew I had to ask.

“Did you start the fire at the factory, Luke?”

He shook his head. I waited, but that was all.

“Were you there?” I was insisting. I knew it. I also knew it was a risk, but I had to do it.

This time Luke nodded.

“Why? What were you doing in a shed behind the lipstick factory?”

“I wasn’t in it. I was just by it.”

“All right. Beside it. Why, Luke? What happened?”

“I don’t know.” Luke scratched at the flat rock where we were sitting with a smaller stone. He hunched his shoulders. “I didn’t feel like goin’ back to school. You didn’t even come like you said and anyway, ’member I told you I had a secret place?”

“Yes,” I nodded. “You told me that when you gave me the lipstick tube. I was sick, Luke. I’m sorry.” I took the tube out of my pocket and held it in my hand. Maybe it would bring us luck.

“That was the place. I had a little dugout place beside that shed and I kept things there. Some of the tubes I found, a ring my dad gave me … special things.”

I nodded. There was probably no place in the project apartment that was safe from the explorations of his small brother and sister. I remembered a little cedar chest complete with brass hinges, a lock, and key that my grandmother had given me, a place for secret things.

“Now they’re all gone,” Luke said. “I sent Wendell back to look, but he says they musta gotten burned up.”

“What’s Wendell got to do with this?”

“He came there while I was looking at my things. Wendell’s always following everybody. Then he –”

Luke stopped abruptly.

“Luke,” I said. “It’s important that you tell me what really happened. Wendell told the police you set the fire.”

Luke looked at me, his face still without expression.

“I never did. Wendell done it his own self. I just went there ’cause I wanted to look at my things. The men all started work again at one o’clock, so no one was out by the shed. But then Wendell came and said he had something to show me, something that would make me feel real good. And he got out matches and a spoon and then he made a fire …” Luke’s voice cracked, but he kept on, “and then he got out a needle, sorta like the one my dad used to have, and I yelled at him.

“I couldn’t help it and then I ran and I guess I made too much noise ’cause Wendell ran, too. And then the fire kept burning – and it got bigger and it got up into that ole wood and next thing I knew, the whole shed was burning.”

I nodded silently, seeing it clearly – the small fire feeding on the grass, licking the dry wood of the shed.

Luke chattered on. “We got out of there fast. Me and Wendell. I just kept runnin’ till I got here. Nobody ever caught my dad here and I knew they wouldn’t catch me. I lost ole Wendell on the way, but it doesn’t matter. Wendell’s not scared of nuthin’!”

“Luke,” I said, “there are papers in your file at school that say you’ve set a lot of fires. Is that true?”

Luke scratched with the stone. “Maybe some little ones. Leaves in the street.”

“Why?” I asked, still pushing, still risking, needing to know.

Luke tossed the stone over toward the water tower and it clanked against one of the metal legs. “Don’t know. I just like to watch ’em. They’re pretty, all red and blue and orange, dancin’ around.”

“How about the big fire on the mountain last fall? Did you set that?”

Luke smiled – and I hated the smile.

“That one was real pretty. Red, yellow, orange, lickin’ away, eating up the ole grass, runnin’ all by its own self.”

Luke paused. There was no guilt or repentance in his voice, only admiration for the fire. “It kept on gettin’ bigger and bigger and then began going down into town and the pines all started too – and it was taller than me.”

Luke stopped and laughed out loud.

He had forgotten about me in his excitement of remembering the fire and was just talking out loud, not to anyone in particular.

“Then the cops began to come, blowin’ their sirens and then the fire truck, but they couldn’t put it out – they couldn’t catch that ole fire, it just kept goin’.”

His voice sounded hard and cruel, not like Luke’s at all.

“Were you alone?” I asked.

“Why?” Instantly alert. “Why do you want to know?” Luke was aware of me again. The outsider.

“Nothing,” I said. “Never mind.” Why had I thought that I could reach through seven years of fires and drugs and neglect and touch a child? But Luke wasn’t done.

“I got away,” he said with pride. “The cops were all stretched out and lined up searching for us – me,” he corrected himself. “But I just started running and took an ole belly whopper right through the middle and came out on the other side. My shirt was burning like anything and I knew I couldn’t get those little buttons undone. So know what I did? I just lay down in the dirt and rolled and rolled and it went out.”

I put Luke’s lipstick tube back in my pocket. Now it was my turn to sit staring out at the sky without talking. I could see why there were waiting lists at schools, why clinics couldn’t get through, why teachers gave up. It was too much. These delinquents, or whatever label you used, weren’t born out of an acute crisis, but out of a chronic, unending sickness in cities.

Urgency departed, replaced by sorrow. I decided to attribute the churning in my stomach to hunger. Neither Luke nor I had eaten for a long while.

“Listen, Luke,” I said. “I’m going to go get us something to eat. Want to come?”

He shook his head as I had known he would. He had already made the trip off the mountain once today.

“Okay. I won’t be long,” I promised.

Down the hill, back to my car, but not back to Falls City. If Luke was watching from his water tower, as I was sure he was, I didn’t want him worrying about what I was doing in Falls City. Instead, I drove on toward the college and stopped at a roadside stand and bought sandwiches and soda.

On the drive back, textbook phrases echoed in my head. “Socially maladjusted … character disorder … sociopathic behavior; destructive, immature, impulsive, manipulative – with a disregard for the needs and feelings of others. A deficit of conscience and judgment; inability to feel guilt and shame.” I knew the words; I’d read all the descriptive phrases at night school years before.

Luke would be considered a classic case, who, as he grew older, would continue to steal, destroy and even perhaps sometime to kill. He was a product of his society, and even I knew I couldn’t change a society.

I forced my thoughts away from Luke, back to the road.

Where was the place I’d parked? Everything looked different from this direction. There was the water tower. I strained to see if I could see a figure beneath the tank, but none was visible.

Panic never arrives slowly for me. Now it hit – wham! Suppose I couldn’t find the place, the path. Suppose Luke waited and then decided that I wasn’t coming back, that I had let him down again?

I’d gone too far. I was sure of it. I was getting much too close to Falls City now. Damn, damn! Turn the car around. You’ll recognize the spot from this side.

I drove back up the hill slowly, slowly searching the side of the road for the same place I’d pulled off with Luke. If I could find that spot, I thought I could cut back to the path. Things are easier to remember on foot.

Luke! I’d almost missed him. I slammed on the brakes and backed up. Luke stood up and came out from behind a small bush. I jammed the car into some low evergreens and took the paper bag of sandwiches and soda back to where Luke waited. Luke cared! He’d even come to help. Remember the days in school, the doughnuts, the lipstick tube. Don’t sell him short.

“That path’s hard to see when you don’t know it,” Luke said, forgiving me.

“Yes,” I said. “Thank you.”

Four-thirty now. Time was running out. The sun turned molten red and began to descend into the city. The sky above the sunset changed from blue to gray.

Luke ate two sandwiches without speaking, washing down mouthfuls with gulps of soda. Then unexpectedly, he said, “Sometimes, after my dad was finished … underneath, he’d put out the fire and then come up on the platform and sit with me. And sometimes he would stay awake awhile and when the stars came out, he’d tell me their names.” Luke had his arms wrapped around his knees so he had to turn his whole body to look at me. “He knew all the names. Big Dipper. Little Dipper. Orion. Cassy Pee’s Chair.” There was pride in Luke’s small voice.

I concentrated on the sky, trying to remain objective, to remember the textbook, to realize what a small percentage of success socially maladjusted kids had, but my heart was thump-thumping for some undefined reason. I watched a small cloud form above the sun, an odd shape, reminiscent of something.

“Luke, look,” I said. “See that cloud? It looks like an amoeba.”