He had started running again, flying over the streets, up and down the hills, moving with easy, fluid grace, invigorated by the chilly morning air, eyes dazzled by the sun setting fire to eastern windows. A collie that belonged to someone on Spruce Street had taken to running beside him, and he felt a sense of kinship with the animal. Often he and the collie were the only living things on the streets at that hour.
His father was happy to see him running again. 'Good, Roland, good,' his father said, meeting him at the end of the run as he departed for work.
Drawing up beside his father, breathing deeply, the air sweet in his lungs, his moist body cooling in the morning breeze, the Goober felt great.
'You see, Roland? Time heals all things,' his father said, waving the lunch pail as he made off down the street.
His father was a very formal man. He didn't believe in nicknames; he never called his son the Goober or Goob as others did. The Goober watched him walking off to work, erect, head held high, and was overcome with an emotion he could not identify. Love? Affection? He wasn't quite certain. Maybe it's what a son felt for his father when the father had helped the son through a bad time of his life. Time heals all things. .
The Goober lived five miles from Trinity, too far to run, especially with books and other stuff to carry. He ran part of the way, though, passing up the bus stop nearest his home and boarding a bus downtown near the library. This bus didn't carry as many Trinity students as the other, which was fine with Goober. He still planned to transfer to Monument High next fall; his father had frowned at a midyear transfer and had asked him to stick it out until June. But although he felt much better about Trinity these days, the Goober still didn't mix much with the other guys. No problem: He was a freshman and hardly knew anybody. Trinity drew students not only from Monument but from the entire area, and only a few had enrolled from St. Jude's Parochial School, where Goober had gone. Anyway, he had decided to play it cool until June. The fourteen-year-old heart is a marvelous thing, his father had said. It can be ruptured but it does not really break, no matter what the poets say.
The Goober wasn't sure whether his heart had ruptured or broken completely during those terrible chocolate days last fall. All he knew was that a numbness had finally seeped through him, like a novocaine of the spirit. But time and the running had also helped him emerge from the bad days. He still felt like a traitor, however, and he avoided, whenever possible, Archie Costello and Obie and the other Vigils. He also avoided Room Nineteen, even though it sometimes meant a long detour through the halls and stairways. Room Nineteen and Brother Eugene. The chocolate days and Jerry Renault. Under control now, he passed his hours at school without undue panic or depression. He could do nothing about Brother Leon, of course, and had learned to live with his presence. Leon popped into the classrooms now and then, turning up when he was least expected, substituting for teachers on occasion or observing the class and teacher from the rear of the room. The Goober felt he had scored a personal triumph recently: He had met Leon in the corridor and was able to look into those milky moist eyes without feeling nausea gathering in his stomach.
And then the telephone call.
He was alone in the house when the phone rang: his father at work, his mother out shopping. He picked up the receiver.
'Roland?'
For a moment he thought his father was on the line. And panicked slightly. His father never called from work. An accident? No one else but his father called him Roland.
'Yes,' he said, warily, tentatively.
'This is Jerry Renault's father.'
The words echoed in the Goober's ears as if they'd been shouted, bellowed.
'Oh, yes,' Goober heard himself say. He had met Jerry's father only once. The night they had admitted Jerry to Monument Hospital. His memory of the man had been blurred by the incidents of that night, plus the tears that kept welling in his eyes. 'How's Jerry?' the Goober asked now. Forced himself to ask. Afraid of the answer. Am I being a traitor again? he wondered.
'Well, he's home,' Mr.' Renault said, voice quiet and subdued, as if he were speaking from a sickroom where the patient must not be disturbed.
'Oh,' the Goober said. Stupid, unable to say anything more. He felt the old November panic again, the novocaine wearing off, the pain coming back.
Jerry Renault had spent several weeks at Monument Hospital before being transferred to a hospital in Boston. A few weeks later Mr. Renault had called to report that the boy had gone to Canada to recuperate with relatives. 'I think the change of scene will do him good,' Mr. Renault had said. And then had added: 'I hope,' his voice filled with a tone of impending doom. The Goober had not seen Jerry since those first days at the hospital.
'I think it might do Jerry some good to see old friends,' Mr. Renault said now. 'He always spoke very warmly of you, Roland.' Pause, then: 'The Goober, isn't it?' Then hurried on: 'At any rate, I'm hoping that seeing some of his friends, people like yourself, will help him.'
'You mean he's not okay?' Goober asked. And thought: Don't answer that. He didn't want to hear the answer.
'I think he needs to get adjusted after being away so long. He has to pick up the pieces of his life.' Was he choosing his words carefully? 'That's why I think a friend like yourself can help.'
But what kind of friend am I?
'When would be a good time to visit?' Goober asked, hating the thing in him that hoped Mr. Renault would say, Forget it, this is a mistake, Jerry's not home, he's still in Canada, he'll be there forever.
'Anytime. We're just getting settled. How about tomorrow afternoon? After school?'
'Fine,' Goob said. But it was as if somebody else was using his voice.
He held the receiver at his ear a long time after Jerry's father had hung up, the dial tone like a warning signal of disaster.
The Stripper Deck is a trick deck, but its secret is simple: The cards are tapered at one end. Thus, if a particular card is turned around and slipped back into the deck, it can be detected by touch because it sticks out from the other cards. The object of the trick is to locate the projecting card with fingertips or thumb tip. This is called 'stripping the deck.'
When Ray first tried the trick he was instantly discouraged. He picked up the cards at odd moments, however, and as he fooled around with them, shuffling and reshuffling, his fingertips developed sensitivity. After a few weeks he was able to locate the reversed card without hesitation. The Stripper Deck was a good time-killer, blunting the edge of his loneliness.
As spring burst into vivid life without warning, Ray became aware for the first time of the beauty of an inland spring. Weeping willow trees that he had never noticed before wore halos of soft yellow as the buds came to life. He grudgingly admitted that Monument was not as gray and ugly as it had been at first sight. Sweet fragrances filled the air, and the hills surrounding Monument, while not exactly alive with the sound of music, were beautiful in their sweep and radiant in their colors.
Lounging in the shade of a maple tree in front of Trinity, inhaling the zesty spring air, Ray manipulated the deck as he waited for the school bus to take him home. He watched the other guys coming and going, ignoring him as usual. Screw them all, Ray thought.
He removed the ace of spades from the deck, reversed it, and riffled the cards. As he blew on his fingertips, he looked up to see a kid standing nearby, hands on his hips, watching him with small, squinting eyes.
Ray waved a greeting.
The kid ignored the greeting but advanced toward him, face neutral, neither friendly nor unfriendly.
'You a card sharp?' the kid asked, hovering over him now.
Feeling suddenly vulnerable, Ray scrambled to his feet 'No, I just like to fool around with cards,' he said.
'What do you mean, fool around?' the kid asked. Ray changed his mind: The kid's face wasn't neutral. The small eyes were watchful, challenging. His lips were thick, poised on the edge of a sneer. He wasn't particularly big or muscle-bound, but he gave an impression of strength. Brute strength, maybe.
'Tricks. I do tricks,' Ray said, putting the cards in his pocket, shuffling his feet, looking away, searching the distance for the bus.
'Do one,' the kid said quietly. His hands were still on his hips. He barely moved his lips when he talked. Like a ventriloquist.
