Hearts In Atlantis

Carol began to cry at the sound of the raised voices.

“Go in your room, Bobby,” Ted said quietly. “I have enjoyed meet-ing you and knowing you.”

“Knowing you,” Bobby’s mom said in an angry, insinuating voice, but Bobby didn’t understand her and Ted took no notice of her.

“Go in your room,” he repeated.

“Will you be all right? You know what I mean.”

“Yes.” Ted smiled, kissed his fingers, and blew the kiss toward Bobby. Bobby caught it and made a fist around it, holding it tight. “I’m going to be just fine.”

Bobby walked slowly toward his bedroom door, his head down and his eyes on the toes of his sneakers. He was almost there when he thought I can’t do this, I can’t let him go like this.

He ran to Ted, threw his arms around him, and covered his face with kisses—forehead, cheeks, chin, lips, the thin and silky lids of his eyes. “Ted, I love you!”

Ted gave up and hugged him tight. Bobby could smell a ghost of the lather he shaved with, and the stronger aroma of his Chesterfield cigarettes. They were smells he would carry with him a long time, as he would the memories of Ted’s big hands touching him, stroking his back, cupping the curve of his skull. “Bobby, I love you too,” he said.

“Oh for Christ’s sake!” Liz nearly screamed. Bobby turned toward her and what he saw was Don Biderman pushing her into a corner. Somewhere the Benny Goodman Orchestra was playing “One O’Clock Jump” on a hi-fi turned all the way up. Mr. Biderman had his hand out as if to slap. Mr. Biderman was asking her if she wanted a little more, was that the way she liked it, she could have a little more if that was the way she liked it. Bobby could almost taste her horrified understanding.

“You really didn’t know, did you?” he said. “At least not all of it, all they wanted. They thought you did, but you didn’t.”

“Go in your room right now or I’m calling the police and telling them to send a squad-car,” his mother said. “I’m not joking, Bobby-O.”

“I know you’re not,” Bobby said. He went into his bedroom and closed the door. He thought at first he was all right and then he thought that he was going to throw up, or faint, or do both. He walked across to his bed on tottery, unstable legs. He only meant to sit on it but he lay back on it crosswise instead, as if all the muscles had gone out of his stomach and back. He tried to lift his feet up but his legs only lay there, the muscles gone from them, too. He had a sudden image of Sully-John in his bathing suit, climbing the ladder of a swimming float, running to the end of the board, diving off. He wished he was with S-J now. Anywhere but here. Anywhere but here. Anywhere at all but here.

When Bobby woke up, the light in his room had grown dim and when he looked at the floor he could barely see the shadow of the tree outside his window. He had been out—asleep or unconscious—for three hours, maybe four. He was covered with sweat and his legs were numb; he had never pulled them up onto the bed.

Now he tried, and the burst of pins and needles which resulted almost made him scream. He slid onto the floor instead, and the pins and needles ran up his thighs to his crotch. He sat with his knees up around his ears, his back throbbing, his legs buzzing, his head cottony. Something terrible had happened, but at first he couldn’t remember what. As he sat there propped against the bed, looking across at Clayton Moore in his Lone Ranger mask, it began to come back. Carol’s arm dislocated, his mother beaten up and half-crazy as well, shaking that green keyfob in his face, furious with him. And Ted . . .

Ted would be gone by now, and that was probably for the best, but how it hurt to think of.

He got to his feet and walked twice around the room. The second time he stopped at the window and looked out, rubbing his hands together at the back of his neck, which was stiff and sweaty. A little way down the street the Sigsby twins, Dina and Dianne, were jump-ing rope, but the other kids had gone in, either for supper or for the night. A car slid by, showing its parking lights. It was even later than he had at first thought; heavenly shades of night were falling.

He made another circuit of his room, working the tingles out of his legs, feeling like a prisoner pacing his cell. The door had no lock on it—no more than his mom’s did—but he felt like a jailbird just the same. He was afraid to go out. She hadn’t called him for supper, and although he was hungry—a little, anyway—he was afraid to go out. He was afraid of how he might find her . . . or of not finding her at all. Suppose she had decided she’d finally had enough of Bobby-O, stupid lying little Bobby-O, his father’s son? Even if she was here, and seemingly back to normal . . . was there even such a thing as nor-mal? People had terrible things behind their faces sometimes. He knew that now.

When he reached the closed door of his room, he stopped. There was a scrap of paper lying there. He bent and picked it up. There was still plenty of light and he could read it easily.

Dear Bobby—

By the time you read this, I’ll be gone . . . but I’ll take you with me in my thoughts. Please love your mother and remem-ber that she loves you. She was afraid and hurt and ashamed this afternoon, and when we see people that way, we see them at their worst. I have left you something in my room. I will remember my promise.

All my love,

TED

The postcards, that’s what he promised. To send me postcards.

Feeling better, Bobby folded up the note Ted had slipped into his room before leaving and opened his bedroom door.

The living room was empty, but it had been set to rights. It looked almost okay if you didn’t know there was supposed to be a sunburst clock on the wall beside the TV; now there was just the little screw where it had hung, jutting out and holding nothing.

Bobby realized he could hear his mother snoring in her room. She always snored, but this was a heavy snore, like an old person or a drunk snoring in a movie. That’s because they hurt her, Bobby thought, and for a moment he thought of

(Howya doin Sport howza boy)

Mr. Biderman and the two nimrods elbowing each other in the back seat and grinning. Kill the pig,