“Let’s take him back to the Club,” the girl said. “I don’t want anyone to be hurt tonight. Not their feelings nor anything. Heh!” she called. “Wait for us. We’re coming.”
He stopped and looked back, the great heavy helmet looking ridiculous as he turned his head, like the huge horns on some harmless beast. He waited and we came up.
“Can I help you with any of that?” he asked.
“No. The car’s just there ahead.”
“We’re all going to the Club,” the girl said. She smiled at him. “Would you come and bring a bottle of something?”
“That would be so nice,” he said. “What should I bring?”
“Anything,” the girl said. “Bring anything you like. I have to do some work first. Make it seven thirtyish.”
“Will you ride home with me?” he asked her. “I’m afraid the other car is crowded with all that bit.”
“Yes,” she said. “I’d like to. Thank you.”
They got in one car and we loaded all the stuff into the other.
“What’s the matter, boy?” Johnny said. “Your girl go home with somebody else?”
“The attack upset her. She feels very badly.”
“A woman who doesn’t upset by an attack is no woman,” said Johnny.
“It was a very unsuccessful attack,” said the other. “Fortunately she did not see it from too close. We must never let her see one from close regardless of the danger. It is too strong a thing. From where she saw it is only a picture. Like old-fashioned battle scene.”
“She has a kind heart,” said Johnny. “Different than you, you old lice.”
“I have a kind heart,” I said. “And it’s louse. Not lice. Lice is the plural.”
“I like lice better,” said Johnny. “It sounds more determined.”
But he put up his hand and rubbed out the words written in lipstick on the window.
“We make a new joke tomorrow,” he said. “It’s all right now about the writing on the mirror.”
“Good,” I said. “I’m glad.”
“You old lice,” said Johnny and slapped me on the back.
“Louse is the word.”
“No. Lice. I like much better. Is many times more determined.”
“Go to hell.”
“Good,” said Johnny, smiling happily. “Now we are all good friends again. In a war we must all be careful not to hurt each other’s feelings.”
I Guess Everything Reminds You of Something
“IT’S A VERY GOOD STORY,” THE BOY’S father said. “Do you know how good it is?”
“I didn’t want her to send it to you, Papa.”
“What else have you written?”
“That’s the only story. Truly I didn’t want her to send it to you. But when it won the prize—”
“She wants me to help you. But if you can write that well you don’t need anyone to help you. All you need is to write. How long did it take you to write that story?”
“Not very long.”
“Where did you learn about that type of gull?”
“In the Bahamas I guess.”
“You never went to the Dog Rocks nor to Elbow Key. There weren’t any gulls nor terns nested at Cat Key nor Bimini. At Key West you would only have seen least terns nesting.”
“Killem Peters. Sure. They nest on the coral rocks.”
“Right on the flats,” his father said. “Where would you have known gulls like the one in the story?”
“Maybe you told me about them, Papa.”
“It’s a very fine story. It reminds me of a story I read a long time ago.”
“I guess everything reminds you of something,” the boy said.
That summer the boy read books that his father found for him in the library and when he would come over to the main house for lunch, if he had not been playing baseball or had not been down at the club shooting, he would often say he had been writing.
“Show it to me when you want to or ask me about any trouble,” his father said. “Write about something that you know.”
“I am,” the boy said.
“I don’t want to look over your shoulder or breathe down your neck,” his father said. “If you want, though, I can set you some simple problems about things we both know. It would be good training.”
“I think I’m going all right.”
“Don’t show it to me until you want to then. How did you like ‘Far Away and Long Ago’?”
“I liked it very much.”
“The sort of problems I meant were: we could go into the market together or to the cockfight and then each of us write down what we saw. What it really was that you saw that stayed with you. Things like the handler opening the rooster’s bill and blowing in his throat when the referee would let them pick up and handle them before pitting again. The small things. To see what we each saw.”
The boy nodded and then looked down at his plate.
“Or we can go into the cafe and shake a few rounds of poker dice and you write what it was in the conversation that you heard. Not try to write everything. Only what you heard that meant anything.”
“I’m afraid that I’m not ready for that yet, Papa. I think I’d better go on the way I did in the story.”
“Do that then. I don’t want to interfere or influence you. Those were just exercises. I’d have been glad to do them with you. They’re like five-finger exercises. Those weren’t especially good. We can make better ones.”
“Probably it’s better for me to go on the way it was in the story.”
“Sure,” his father said.
I could not write that well when I was his age, his father thought. I never knew anyone else that could either. But I never knew anyone else that could shoot better at ten than this boy could; not just show-off shooting, but shooting in competition with grown men and professionals. He shot the same way in the field when he was twelve. He shot as though he had built-in radar. He never took a shot out of range nor let a driven bird come too close and he shot with beautiful style and an absolute timing and precision on high pheasants and in pass shooting at ducks.
At live pigeons, in competition, when he walked out on the cement, spun the wheel and walked to the metal plaque that marked the black stripe of his yardage, the pros were silent and watching. He was the only shooter that the crowd became dead silent for. Some of the pros smiled as though at a secret when he put his gun to his shoulder and looked back to see where the heel of the stock rested against his shoulder. Then his cheek went down against the comb, his left hand was far forward, his weight was forward on his left foot. The muzzle of the gun rose and lowered, then swept to left, to right, and back to center. The heel of his right foot lifted gently as all of him leaned behind the two loads in the chambers.
“Ready,” he said in that low, hoarse voice that did not belong to a small boy.
“Ready,” answered the trapper.
“Pull,” said the hoarse voice and from whichever of the five traps the grey racing pigeon came out, and at whatever angle his wings drove him in full, low flight above the green grass toward the white, low fence, the load of the first barrel swung into him and the load from the second barrel drove through the first. As the bird collapsed in flight, his head falling forward, only the great shots saw the impact of the second load driving through onto the bird already dead in the air.
The boy would break his gun and walk back in off the cement toward the pavilion, no expression on his face,
