Hearts In Atlantis

Can’t let him get up, Bobby thought, picking his next spot with a cold eye. He’s twice as big as me, if I miss once and let him get up, he’ll tear me limb from limb. He’ll fucking kill me.

Harry was trying to retreat, digging at the gravel path with his sneakers, dragging a groove with his butt, paddling with his elbows.

Bobby swung the bat and hit him in the stomach. Harry lost his air and his elbows and sprawled on his back. His eyes were dazed, filled with sunbright tears. His pimples stood out in big purple and red dots. His mouth—thin and mean on the day Rionda Hewson had res-cued them—was now a big loose quiver. “Owwwuuu, stop, I give, I give, oh Jeezis!”

He doesn’t recognize me, Bobby realized. The sun’s in his eyes and he doesn’t even know who it is.

That wasn’t good enough. “Not satisfactory, boys!” was what the Camp Winnie counsellors said after a bad cabin inspection—Sully had told him that, not that Bobby cared; who gave a shit about cabin inspections and making bead wallets?

But he gave a shit about this, yes indeed, and he leaned close to Harry’s agonized face. “Remember me, Robin Hood?” he asked. “You remember me, don’t you? I’m the Maltex Baby.”

Harry stopped screaming. He stared up at Bobby, finally recogniz-ing him. “Get . . . you . . .” he managed.

“You won’t get shit,” Bobby said, and when Harry tried to grab his ankle Bobby kicked him in the ribs.

“Ouuuuuu!” Harry Doolin cried, reverting to his former scrip-ture. What a creep! Nimrod Infants on Parade! That probably hurt me more than it hurt you, Bobby thought. Kicking people when you’re wearing sneakers is for dumbbells.

Harry rolled over. As he scrambled for his feet Bobby uncoiled a home-run swing and drove the bat squarely across Harry’s buttocks. The sound was like a carpet-beater hitting a heavy rug—a wonder- ful sound! The only thing that could have improved this moment would have been Mr. Biderman also sprawled on the path. Bobby knew exactly where he’d like to hit him.

Half a loaf was better than none, though. Or so his mother always said.

“That was for the Gerber Baby,” Bobby said. Harry was lying flat on the path again, sobbing. Snot was running from his nose in thick green streams. With one hand he was feebly trying to rub some feel-ing back into his numb ass.

Bobby’s hands tightened on the taped handle of the bat again. He wanted to lift it and bring it down one final time, not on Harry’s shin or Harry’s backside but on Harry’s head. He wanted to hear the crunch of Harry’s skull, and really, wouldn’t the world be a better place without him? Little Irish shit. Low little—

Steady on, Bobby, Ted’s voice spoke up. Enough is enough, so just steady on. Control yourself.

“Touch her again and I’ll kill you,” Bobby said. “Touch me again and I’ll burn your house down. Fucking nimrod.”

He had squatted by Harry to say this last. Now he got up, looked around, and walked away. By the time he met the Sigsby twins halfway up Broad Street Hill, he was whistling.

In the years which followed, Liz Garfield almost got used to seeing policemen at her door. The first to show up was Officer Raymer, the fat local cop who would sometimes buy the kids peanuts from the guy in the park. When he rang the doorbell of the ground-floor apartment at 149 Broad Street on the evening of August sixth, Offi-cer Raymer didn’t look happy. With him was Harry Doolin, who would not be able to sit in an uncushioned seat for a week or more, and his mother, Mary Doolin. Harry mounted the porch steps like an old man, with his hands planted in the small of his back.

When Liz opened the front door, Bobby was by her side. Mary Doolin pointed at him and cried: “That’s him, that’s the boy who beat up my Harry! Arrest him! Do your duty!”

“What’s this about, George?” Liz asked.

For a moment Officer Raymer didn’t reply. He looked from Bobby (five feet four inches tall, ninety-seven pounds) to Harry (six feet one inch tall, one hundred and seventy-five pounds), instead. His large moist eyes were doubtful.

Harry Doolin was stupid, but not so stupid he couldn’t read that look. “He snuck up on me. Got me from behind.”

Raymer bent down to Bobby with his chapped, red-knuckled hands on the shiny knees of his uniform pants. “Harry Doolin here claims you beat im up in the park whilst he was on his way home from work.” Raymer pronounced work as rurrk. Bobby never forgot that. “Says you hid and then lumped im up widda ball-bat before he could even turn around. What do you say, laddie? Is he telling the truth?”

Bobby, not stupid at all, had already considered this scene. He wished he could have told Harry in the park that paid was paid and done was done, that if Harry tattled to anyone about Bobby beating him up, then Bobby would tattle right back—would tell about Harry and his friends hurting Carol, which would look much worse. The trouble with that was that Harry’s friends would deny it; it would be Carol’s word against Harry’s, Richie’s, and Willie’s. So Bobby had walked away without saying anything, hoping that Harry’s humilia-tion—beat up by a little kid half his size—would keep his mouth shut. It hadn’t, and looking at Mrs. Doolin’s narrow face, pinched paintless lips, and furious eyes, Bobby knew why. She had gotten it out of him, that was all. Nagged it out of him, more than likely.

“I never touched him,” Bobby told Raymer, and met Raymer’s gaze firmly with his own as he said it.

Mary Doolin gasped, shocked. Even Harry, to whom lying must have been a way of life by the age of sixteen, looked surprised.

“Oh, the straight-out bare-facedness of it!” Mrs. Doolin cried. “You let me talk to him, Officer! I’ll get the truth out of him, see if I don’t!”

She started forward. Raymer swept her back with one hand, not rising or even taking his eyes from Bobby.

“Now, lad—why would a galoot the size of Harry Doolin say such a thing about a shrimp the size of you if it