Blaze

Thus persuaded, despite the dire rumblings in his vitals, John went with Blaze and got on the bus. They sat up front, behind the driver. They were almost the big ‘uns now, after all.

John was okay during the previews, but just as the Warner Bros logo was coming on, he stood up, slid past Blaze, and started up the aisle in a crabwise walk. Blaze was sympathetic, but that was life. He turned his attention back to the screen where a dust storm was blowing around in what looked like the Desert of Maine, only with pyramids. Soon he was deeply involved in the story, frowning with concentration.

When John sat back down beside him, he was hardly aware of him until John started yanking his sleeve and whispering, “Blaze! Blaze! F’God sakes, Blaze!”

Blaze came out of the movie like a sound sleeper waking from a nap. “Whats’sa matter? You sick? You shit yourself?”

“No—no. Look at this!”

Blaze peered at what John was holding just below seat-level. It was a wallet.

“Hey! Where’d you—”

“Shh!” Somebody in front of them hissed.

“- get that?” Blaze finished in a whisper.

“In the men’s!” John whispered back. He was trembling with excitement. “It musta fallen out of some guy’s pants when he sat down to take a dump! There’s money in it! Lots of money!”

Blaze took the wallet, holding it well out of sight. He opened the bill compartment. He felt his stomach drop. Then it seemed to bounce, and cram itself halfway up his throat. The bill compartment was full of dough. One, two, three fifty-dollar bills. Four twenties. Couple of fives. Some ones.

“I can’t count it all up,” he whispered. “How much?”

John’s voice rose in slightly awed triumph, but it went unnoticed. The monster was after a girl in brown shorts and the audience was happily screaming. “Two hundred and forty-eight bucks!”

“Jesus,” Blaze said. “You still got that rip in the linin of your coat?”

“Sure.”

“Put it in there. They may frisk us goin out.”

But no one did. And John’s runs were cured. Finding that much money seemed to have scared the shit out of him.

John bought a Portland Press Herald from Stevie Ross, who had a paper route, on Monday morning. He and Blaze went out behind the toolshed and opened it to the classified ads. John said that was the place to look. The lost and founds were on page 38. And there, between a LOST French Poodle and a FOUND pair of women’s gloves, was the following item:

LOST

A man’s black leather wallet with the initials RKF stamped beside the photo compartment. If found, call 555 -0928 or write Box 595 care of this newspaper. REWARD OFFERED.

“Reward!” Blaze exclaimed, and punched John on the shoulder.

“Yeah,” John said. He rubbed where Blaze had punched. “So we call the guy and he gives us ten bucks plus a pat on the head. BFD.” This stood for big fucking deal.

“Oh.” The word REWARD had been standing in letters of gold two feet high in Blaze’s mind. Now they collapsed to a pile of leaden rubble. “Then what should we do with it?”

It was the first time he had really looked to Johnny for leadership. The two hundred and forty-eight bucks was a mystifying problem. If you had two bits, you bought a Coke. Two bucks got you into the movies. Going further now, struggling, Blaze supposed you could ride the bus all the way to Portland and go to the show there. But for a sum of this size, his imagination was no good. All he could think of was clothes. Blaze cared nothing for clothes.

“Let’s run away,” John said. His narrow face was bright with excitement.

Blaze considered. “You mean, like — forever?”

“Naw, just till the wad’s gone. We’ll go to Boston — eat in big restaurants instead of Mickey D’s — get a hotel room — see the Red Sox play — and — and—”

But he could go no further. Joy overcame him. He leaped on Blaze, laughing and pounding his back. His body was lean under his clothes, light and hard. His face burned against Blaze’s cheek like the side of a furnace.

“Okay,” Blaze said. “That’d be fun.” He thought about it. “Jesus, Johnny, Boston? Boston!”

“Ain’t it a royal pisser!”

They began to laugh. Blaze carried John all the way around the toolshed, both of them laughing and pounding each other on the back. John finally made him stop.

“Someone’ll hear, Blaze. Or see. Put me down.”

Blaze recaptured the newspaper, which had begun to flutter all over the yard. He folded it up and rammed it down in his hip pocket. “We goin now, Johnny?”

“Not for awhile. Maybe not for three days. We gotta make a plan and we gotta be careful. If we aren’t, they’ll catch us before we get twenty miles. Bring us back. Do you know what I’m saying?”

“Yeah, but I’m not very good at makin plans, Johnny.”

“That’s okay, I got most of it figured out already. The important thing is that they’ll think we just buzzed off, because that’s what kids do when they make out from this shitfarm, right?”

“Right.”

“Only we got money, right?”

“Right!”

Blaze was overcome with the deliciousness of it again, and pounded Johnny on the back until he almost knocked him over.

They waited until the following Wednesday night. In the meantime, John called the Greyhound terminal in Portland and found out there was a bus for Boston every morning at seven AM. They left Hetton House at a little past midnight, John figuring it would be safest to walk the fifteen miles into the city rather than attract attention by hitchhiking. Two kids on the road after midnight were runaways. Period.

They went down the fire escape, hearts thumping at each rusty rattle, and jumped from the lowest platform. They ran across the playground where Blaze had taken his first beatings as a newcomer many years before. Blaze helped John climb over the chainlink fence on the far side. They crossed the road under a hot August moon and started to walk, diving into the ditch whenever an infrequent car showed headlights on the horizon ahead or behind them.

They were on Congress Street by six o’clock, Blaze still fresh and excited, John with circles under his eyes. Blaze was carrying the wad in his jeans. The wallet they had thrown into the woods.

When they reached the bus depot, John collapsed onto a bench and Blaze sat down beside him. John’s cheeks were flushed again, but not with excitement. He seemed to be having trouble with his breath.

“Go over and get two round-trippers on the seven o’clock,” he told Blaze. “Give her a fifty. I don’t think it’ll be more, but have a twenty ready, just in case. Have it in your hand. Don’t let her see the roll.”

A policeman walked over, tapping his nightstick. Blaze felt his bowels turn to water. This was where it ended, before it had even gotten started. Their money would be taken away. The cop might turn it in, or he might keep it for himself. As for them, they would be driven back to HH, maybe in handcuffs. Black visions of North Windham Training Center rose before his eyes. And The Tin.

“Mornin, boys. Here kinda early, ain’tcha?” The clock on the depot wall read 6:22.

“Sure are,” John said. He nodded toward the ticket-cage. “Is that where a fella goes to get his ticket?”

“You bet,” the cop said, smiling a little. “Where you headed?”

“Boston,” John said.

“Oh? Where’s you boys’ folks?”

“Oh, him and me aren’t related,” John said. “This fella’s retarded. His name’s Martin Griffin. Deaf n dumb, too.”

“Is that so?” The cop sat down and studied Blaze. He didn’t look suspicious; he just looked like someone who