Absent Friends

The next day after school they try again. They do the same things, in some of the same places and in other places, but nothing works, nothing makes Tiger come home.

You know, Jack says to Jimmy and Tom, when it's almost dinnertime and the three of them are together on the corner near St. Ann's. Maybe he went across Hylan, all the way over there.

That far? says Jimmy. Why?

Wanted to go someplace, Jack says. See what things are like somewhere else.

The cat?

Yeah, says Jack, the cat.

Tom gives Jack a long look, and maybe it's the way it's starting to get dark, but Jimmy never saw before how much Tom looks like his father, Mike the Bear.

Tom doesn't say anything, but he heads down the street, toward Hylan Boulevard. Jack follows him. After a moment Jimmy heads that way, too.

They go down to the end of the street, the three of them, and stand there watching the traffic whiz by. It's an eight-lane road, Hylan, though two lanes, one on each side, have cars parked in them. But that just makes it harder to see what's coming, headlights racing toward you in the purple light, buses stopping and cars swerving out around them. Jimmy's heart starts to beat faster.

No one asks anyone anything. They all know they're going to cross this street.

Red lights mean stop; green lights mean go. They learned that back when they were small. Because Tom says to, they wait until the light changes twice, so they can see how long it is. When it turns to green again, facing them, they run.

There's a place halfway across where you can stop, like a sidewalk stuck in the middle of the street. While they're watching the lights change, Tom says, Stop when we get to that sidewalk thing, and when they get there, he stops and Jimmy stops. But Jack, who runs slowest and gets there last, only stops for a second. Come on, you guys, he says, and laughs, and takes off again. He's looking back at Tom and Jimmy. He doesn't see that the light already changed.

A horn blasts at Jack from a car that slams to a stop in front of him. Jack looks up sharply and stumbles. He goes flying headfirst across the asphalt. Tom runs there, yanks on Jack's arm to try to pull him up. Cars are charging right at them. It's dark, and they're small. Jack's on the pavement, and Tom's bending over him, and Jimmy knows without thinking that the cars can't see them.

They're in the middle of the traffic now, Jack scrambling to his feet, the bright headlights on the cars racing forward. Jack's eyes are blank; Tom's yanking at him; and for Jimmy, something happens. Later he thinks and thinks about it, it should have been scary, but it wasn't, what it was, it was right, it was perfect. It's this: Time slows way down. Jimmy's standing there, and he has all the time he needs to take it all in, and he does, and then he knows, just knows exactly what to do. Jimmy moves. Steps toward the cars, not away, waves his arms like he saw a traffic cop do on this same street once when he was with his mom. The headlights stop, brakes screech, and horns squawk. Tom and Jack are standing like frozen staring statues, so Jimmy pushes them. That makes them start to move. They dash to the far sidewalk. The cars start pouring down the boulevard again, horns honking. The boys duck down and hide behind a parked car in case there's a real cop around.

But there's not. Jimmy's heart starts to beat more softly. Tom stands up, then the other two: they grin at each other. Jimmy's grin seems like something he can't help, something he couldn't stop if he wanted to, something that's coming from this tingling, sizzling place under his skin.

Tom says, Jack? What are you, nuts? What's the matter with you?

Jack says, I could've made it.

Tom keeps staring at Jack, but maybe he doesn't think of anything else he can say to him. He looks down, and then his face breaks into a grin again, like he can't help it, just like Jimmy can't. Tom says, Jimmy, you're crazy.

Jimmy says, Well, you two jerks, you were just standing in the middle of the street, like you had no place to go.

Tom and Jimmy grin at each other like Jack isn't there. Then Jack says, Hey, you guys. I mean, we're over here.

Oh yeah, says Tom. The cat.

Then they all laugh, like the cat's a joke they have now, though Jimmy knows that's not what they're laughing about, not the cat.

They look. They go around the neighborhood on the other side of the boulevard, calling Tiger, Tiger, going into people's front yards and crouching to peer under bushes and parked cars.

Tiger's not there, and they don't find him. When they cross the boulevard back, they wait on the sidewalk in the middle for the light to turn red and then green again for them, even though when they first get to that middle sidewalk, the light's still green and Jack says, Come on, you guys, we can make it. But Tom just shakes his head, so they wait.

Jimmy's mom is mad at him for coming home late. When she asks where he was, he says, I'm sorry, we were out looking for Sally's cat.

Her face stops looking mad, and she says, Oh, Jimmy, that's very nice of you. But please don't worry me by being so late again.

No, he says, I won't.

He waits for her to ask where they were looking and thinks how mad she's going to be when he tells. He hopes she doesn't ask who went with him, because he doesn't want to get Tom and Jack in trouble, too.

But she just hugs him and says, Go wash up for supper.

In the park the next afternoon, Tom tells the other kids about the big street-crossing expedition, Jack waving his hands around and throwing in words from time to time, Jimmy just quiet.