frightened me.”

“Don’t blame yourself, son. You didn’t respond. The body has its own mechanism. You’ve learned a lesson—your body has its separate being and your mind, your will, must be in control, ceaselessly, until the time when it is right for body to have its way. Oh, how I wish your father were here to explain such things to you!”

“I understand already,” he said, his voice very low.

“Then you must forgive Donald Sharpe,” she said resolutely. “To forgive is understanding.”

“Mother, I can’t go back to school here.”

“No, I can see that. Let’s take a bit of time, though, to think. You could stay home a day or two. We mustn’t decide too fast just where is the right place.”

He sighed. “So long as you see I must go away—”

“We’ll agree on that,” she said. She leaned over him and kissed his forehead. “Now I can sleep, and you must sleep too.”

She closed the door softly, and he lay for a few minutes, relieved of his anger, his shame, his sense of guilt. Though he felt now he never wanted to see Donald Sharpe again, he felt also a loss. He would miss him in spite of all. There had been communion between them, and he had supposed it would last forever. Now he felt a loss, a desolation. Who was his friend? His mother, of course, but he needed more. He needed friends.

Lying alone in his bed, his hands clasped behind his head on his pillow, he remembered a warning his father had given him shortly before he died. With his gift of envisioning, he remembered. He was sitting beside his father, lying on the living-room couch. His father’s voice was weak, for he was near the end of his life and they both knew it. He knew, too, that his father was trying to tell him in that short time before death came that which he needed years to tell—the years that were not to be.

“You will be solitary, my son. The solitary creator is the source of all creation. He has produced all the most important ideas and works of art in human history. Lonely creators—you will be one of those. Never complain of being lonely. You are born to be lonely. But the world needs the solitary creator. Remember that. One-man creation—it shows that above all you are capable of greatness. What inspiration!”

LYING IN HIS BED, SLEEPLESS, he reviewed his life as he could remember it, a brief life in years, but somehow old. He had read so many books, he had thought so many thoughts, his mind constantly teeming with ideas—and here, with his ability to visualize, he suddenly remembered the goldfish in the pool under a willow tree in the garden, and how in the first warm days of spring when the sun shone, the water was moving and alive with flashing gold as the fish swarmed out of the mud where they had sheltered during the winter. That, so he thought, was a living picture of his mind, always flashing and moving with glittering thoughts, pushing for exploration. He was often exhausted by this mind of his from which he could find no rest except in sleep, and even his sleep was brief, though deep. Sometimes his mind waked him by its own activity. He envisioned his brain as a being separate from himself, a creature he must live with, an enchantment but also a burden. What was he born for? What was the meaning and the purpose? Why was he different from, say, Chris? He had not seen Chris since that brief visit shortly before his father had died. Some two years had passed since, years during which he had been pushing his way through college. Now, before he began again in some other place, if he began again, it occurred to him to go and find Chris, in curiosity and with a desire to return, however briefly, to the past. His mind thus resolved itself and allowed him at last to sleep.

“HI,” CHRIS SAID, COMING OUT of the garage. “What can I do for you?”

“Don’t you know me?” he asked.

Chris stared at him. “I don’t recollect you.”

“Have I changed so much? I’m Rannie—Rann, nowadays.”

Chris’s face, grown round with added weight of years and food, broke into a grin.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said slowly, “I’ll just be damned. But you’re twice as tall as you was. You sure have shot up.”

‘‘Like my father,” he said. “Remember how tall and thin he was?”

Chris looked concerned. “Say, I sure was sorry to hear about him. Come on in. I don’t get real busy until around noon when the trucks come in on their way to New York.”

He followed Chris into the garage. They sat down. “I’m the owner now,” Chris said, trying to be offhand.

“Congratulations,” he said.

“Yes,” Chris continued. “Happened last year when Ruthie and I got married. Remember Ruthie?”

Did he not? He had never forgotten the glimpse he had had of that rosebud organ, in childish ignorance that was scarcely old enough to be curiosity. He wondered if Ruthie remembered.

“Of course I remember,” he said. “She was so pretty.”

“Yeah,” Chris said proudly, but pretending carelessness. “I had to marry her to keep the crowd away. She’s pretty, all right. In fact”—he paused for a short laugh—“she was so damned pretty that our kid’s coming a little too soon. We had to hurry the wedding. Course, there was no question I wanted to marry her, but we had to hurry everything. This here garage—I might have waited another year or two—our folks had to help out. But—”

He slapped his knees. “It’s done. I’m on my way, I’m makin’ out. Business is good here on the truck route.” He glanced at the open door. “Here comes Ruthie now, bringin’ me a hot lunch. Have a bite with me? There’s always plenty. She don’t skimp on anything, Ruthie don’t. She’s a damned good kid.”

Ruthie reached the door and hesitated, basket in hand.

“I didn’t know you had company,” she said.

“Come in, hon,” Chris shouted. “Guess who this is!”

She came in, and set the basket on the table beside Chris, and stared.

“Did I see you before?” she asked.

Yes, she was pretty as ever, he thought, her face fuller but almost as childlike as he remembered. But her body was the body of a woman ready to give birth. The mystery of birth! He had scarcely thought of it yet. He had scarcely thought of women, his life so much the life of his mind.

“Yes, you have seen me before,” he said.

They waited while she continued to stare at him. Then she shook her head.

“I don’t remember you,” she said.

He felt a quick relief. She did not remember him. Probably there had been many episodes, none as childish as the one he remembered so vividly.

“He’s Rannie!” Chris shouted, laughing at her puzzlement. “’Member little ole Rannie in school? Always knowin’ all the answers? You sure were a damned know-it-all, Rann—makin’ fools out of the rest of us. We didn’t like you too well for it in them days either.”

“You wouldn’t like me any better now,” he said in a quiet bitterness.

“Aw, it don’t matter now,” Chris said with kindly warmth. “I got my garage. I got my girl—what else do I need? I make good money.”

Ruthie sat down, her eyes still gazing. “You’ve changed,” she announced. “I wouldn’t of known you anywhere. Didn’t you used to be sort of runty?”

“Naw, he wasn’t ever runty—he was just a kid besides us—too smart for us, I reckon. Well, it takes all kinds. What’d you bring? Pork and beans—enough for an army! Have some, Rannie.”

He rose. “No, thanks, Chris. I must be on my way, I’m leaving town—”

“Goin’ where?”

“New York first—Columbia, perhaps. I am to finish in another year. Then I may go on to my doctorate. I haven’t decided.”

Chris let his jaw drop. “Say, how old are you now?”

“Fifteen.”

“Fifteen!” Chris echoed. “Hear that, Ruthie? Still a kid and talkin’ about bein’ a doctor!”

He opened his mouth to explain, “not a medical doctor,” and then did not explain. What was the use? These were not his people.

“Good-bye,” he said. He put out his hand to Chris and then to Ruthie. “I’m glad I came by before I went.”

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