The Boy With Penny Eyes

by Al Sarrantonio

  Oh, God, tell me what to do!

  She remembered the look on her mother's face when she left to marry Jacob, the cold certainty in her mother's grim eyes that said, "This is not what God wants. This voice in your heart is Satan's voice."

  There came a sound outside the bathroom door.

  Who could that be? She could hear the distant, muffled sound of voices singing a hymn, which meant that Jacob's service had not ended. Christine would be there assisting him, taking Mary's own place after she had told Jacob she did not feel well and wanted to stay in bed.

  Could it be the boy?

  "Who's out there?" she called.

  The footsteps stopped outside the bathroom door.

  Mary held her breath.

  The footsteps moved away from her, down the hallway. She heard a door close and then nothing.

  It must have been the boy.

  Oh, God. Mother.

  In all the years since she had left her mother, since she had married Jacob and become his wife, she had thought she had done the right thing. But listening to that other voice, the one in her heart, had been the wrong thing after all. As her mother had known, that voice had been Satan's, tempting her, leading her away from her reading and the true calling that God wanted her to take, the searching out of Satan.

  And now her mother was gone, and she had to beg Him to tell her what to do, alone. God, please help me!

  Because she had found what He had wanted her to.

  That morning, when she had discovered the boy sleeping in the back of the church, huddled there like a lost animal, her mind had unconsciously opened when she put her hand on him and she had read him, and there had been only a weak, dull light.

  Nearly black emptiness.

  12

  Someone called his name.

  He heard the lap of the shore, the gurgle of water in the fish tank, but now when he opened his eyes there was no ripple on the ceiling and only a small light in the room. The ceiling was pale orange. He saw, in the corners of his vision that weren't covered by the figure standing over him, the long grotesque shadows of the stuffed animals in the room, distorted pigs and bears, orange in the glow of the lamp on the desk.

  "Billy?" the figure over him called again. It was the man who had found him in the back of the church.

  Billy sat up and looked at him.

  The man blinked, and then a genuine smile spread across his face. "Thought you were going to sleep forever," he said. "You feel all right?" He reached out and touched the boy's forehead with the back of his hand. Billy didn't resist.

  "I'm all right," he said.

  "Do you know you've been in this bed since yesterday morning? It's Monday night now. I was about to make my wife call the doctor. Then I told her to wait until I saw if I could wake you myself." He smiled.

  Billy pulled his legs up out of the covers and started to put his clothes on.

  The man put his hand on Billy's arm. "Hold on there, partner," he said. His voice assumed an air of quiet authority. Again he put the back of his hand to Billy's forehead, then felt his neck under the chin and around the back. "Are you sure you're okay? You don't feel sick?"

  Billy reached down for his shoes next to the bed. "No."

  "How long has it been since you had a good night's sleep?"

  "A while," he answered simply.

  "I saw you in the organ loft yesterday. When I came back here and found you asleep, I thought for a moment there must be two of you. You must have really been tired to go back to bed."

  Billy said nothing.

  "Well . . ." The man was looking down as if weighing options. "Okay. We'll let it go at that. You hungry?"

  "Yes."

  "You're just in time for supper. The bathroom's down the hall; wash up and get dressed, and come downstairs to the dining room in five minutes."

  Billy nodded.

  Beck stood up, hesitated at the end of the bed, then almost stopped and turned at the doorway. Instead he walked down the hallway and descended the stairs to the floor below.

  Billy dressed and went down.

  There was the smell of cooking vegetables. There was the odor of peas and carrots, and potatoes, and the meaty smell of gravy along with the sharply pleasant burned odor of roasted chicken. He heard the clatter of silverware in the kitchen, the murmur of voices. Someone laughed in a young girlish voice, and he heard Reverend Beck laughing immediately and then the girlish voice turned to a protesting squeal. He walked into the bright light of the kitchen to see Beck sitting at the table with a girl of thirteen or so. For a moment the scene froze like a still photograph: the reverend with his hands entwined in the air in the shape of bird's wings, swooping at his daughter's head; the girl just beginning to duck away, her mouth open, trying to suppress a laugh and at the same time form the words, "Stop, Daddy!" even though she didn't want him to stop; Mrs. Beck nearby, just setting a plate down, frowning at the two of them. The photograph became a moving picture and the scene changed dramatically: Mary looked up with the dish in her hand, her frown turning to a look of sullen wariness; Jacob Beck turning his attention away from his daughter, saying, “Ah,”as his eyes met Billy's; and his daughter, her laughter instantly replaced by self-consciousness, staring down at the table in front of her.

  "I see you really are awake," Jacob Beck said. He smiled and stood, regarding the boy closely. "We've certainly got enough to eat." He took his daughter by the arm gently, still looking at Billy. "This is Christine. You've been staying in her room the last couple of nights."

  Christine and Billy studied each other silently.

  Beck turned to introduce his wife, but she had suddenly disappeared into the kitchen.

  They ate in near silence. What normally would have been a talkative dinner table became awkwardly quiet, with Jacob Beck's occasional attempts at conversation quickly failing. But the uneasiness of the table was eventually replaced by amazement as they watched Billy eat. It was as if the boy had not touched food in months. Though it was obvious that someone had trained him in table manners, he ate his food—three helpings of everything—with an almost frightening zeal. It was like watching a highly trained animal eat with a knife and fork. When he had finished .a second piece of apple pie and was holding his plate out for more, Jacob Beck could contain his amazement no longer.

  "Good Lord," he said with a laugh, "you're a bottomless pit!"

  "I'm hungry," Billy replied.

  From the other side of the table, Mary Beck stared silently at the boy.

  "When was the last time you had a sit-down meal like this?" Jacob asked.

  Billy paused before answering. "Four months."

  "Heavens!" He reached out for the boy, but the look on his wife's face made his hand fall to the table before it settled on Billy's. "And just what have you been eating for the past four months?"

  "Bread, mostly. Sometimes I found dead things."

  "Dead things?" Christine said, her voice filled with revulsion.

  "Raccoons. Once, a dead snake."

  It was the way he said it, the cool even voice, more than what he said, that sent a small chill through Jacob Beck.

  "Yech," Christine said, covering her mouth with her napkin.

  "I think we've had enough of this conversation," Mary said coolly. "Jacob, talk to the boy in your study." She got up and left the table, Christine still making faces and pushing away the remainder of her uneaten dessert.

  The boy sat still as a statue. To keep their talk from looking like an interrogation, Beck had moved the lamp away from the edge of the desk, where it didn't cut across the boy's face so sharply. He also turned on the lamp on the side table near the door, to soften up the room. He'd always thought of this room as a friendly place, with warm light and himself ready to listen to any problem with an open ear, but somehow, with this boy sitting perfectly straight in the chair in front of him, he couldn't dim the feeling that the room was in the cellar of some police station and he was the tough cop with the rubber hose in his bac
k pocket.

  "Did you have enough to eat?" he said to the boy, putting as much wry warmth into his voice as he could. Long ago he had mastered the art of voice, as many professionals who counsel for a living do, and no matter how he thought or felt, he could always automatically make his tone soothing or cajoling, whatever was needed.

  "No," Billy said simply.

  Jacob put surprise on his face. "You nearly ate us out of house and home!"

  "I'm hungry."

  "Before we go to bed later, I'll see if I can sneak a little snack out of the refrigerator." Billy gazed silently at him.

  Beck leaned back in his swivel chair, putting his hands behind his head. He looked down at Billy from under partly closed eyes. "You know," he said, letting his manner change from conspiratorial to serious, "you present quite a little problem for me."

  Billy sat motionless.

  Beck angled forward, folding his hands on the desk in front of him. "Would you like to stay here with us for a while?"

  "Yes," Billy said.

  "All right," Beck replied, smiling. "I think we can arrange that. My wife and I would be very pleased if you would stay until we can find out where you belong."

  "Here."

  "Excuse me?"

  "I belong here."

  Beck tried not to register the surprise he felt. He let a moment go by, then said, "What I'm really leading to, Billy, is that I have to find out where you came from, who your parents are, where you belong. You know what I mean, don't you?"

  "The woman I lived with died."

  "I see. Was she your mother?"

  "No."

  "Do you have a mother?"

  Billy was silent. Then he said, "I lived with a woman named Melinda, who ran a home, but she died. So I left."

  "You mean a foster home? Wasn't anyone there when she died?"

  "No"

  Jacob Beck picked up a pencil and began to tap the eraser end on the blotter of his desk. "Wasn't there anyone from a state agency to take care of you when Melinda died?"

  "I didn't wait."

  "So you left? How?"

  "Hitchhiked. Slept in places I found."

  "What kind of places?"

  "In the desert. Side roads."

  Despite his uneasiness with this solemn boy, Beck felt a rush of feeling. He had an image of the boy alone in the dark, rolled in a blanket by the side of a highway or out in the desert somewhere with night noises all around, noises that would scare anyone, the sound of prowling animals, and this young boy with just a backpack and a rolled-up blanket and a golf jacket, strange, metallic-brown eyes open, staring soberly at the dark night. For a brief moment tears welled behind his eyes, but he blinked them back.

  "Billy," he said slowly, "is there anything else you can tell me about Melinda? Where she lived, what town or state her home was in?"

  The boy said nothing.

  "I see," Beck said. "We'll talk about this again." Impulsively, he leaned forward. "I want you to know that I only want to help you. We all do. I'll fix up one of the guest rooms, and that will be yours while you're here. I should tell you that while you're here, you'll have to play by the rules, though." He leaned back. "You'll have to keep your room clean, help around the house, with the dishes, things like that; I might even need you to help me with some things around the church." He paused. "And I should tell you that I can't allow smoking. I committed a little sin by going through your things after you fell asleep. I took the cigarettes and matches. You're too young and I just can't allow it. Do you understand?"

  Billy said nothing, and then he nodded. Jacob Beck studied the boy. "Can I ask you a question?"

  Billy's, eyes were unblinking.

  "Billy," Beck went on, "you said that this is where you belong. When you left your last home, did you travel all that way, all those months, heading for this specific place?"

  The boy was silent.

  "Did you?"

  "Yes."

  "Why?"

  Billy stared at him, a serious little boy in old clothes, sitting on a chair in front of a man he probably thought foolish. For a moment Beck felt the same emptiness he had felt in the church on Saturday night. Here was an enigma of a boy, and he felt inadequate in front of him. I don't care. But then it dawned on him that that wasn't it at all. For the first time in a long while, Beck realized that he was genuinely interested in something. He did care. The boy intrigued him. Here was a soul shrouded in some sort of mystery, and he wanted to help him and discover the answer to what that mystery was. A tiny thrill went through him. He realized that he felt alive again, for the first time in a long while.

  Maybe this is how it happens.

  He thought of his friend Father Marchini. What Marchini had said would happen was happening. It was as if a light switch that had been inadvertently turned off had been turned on again. At least, there was a flicker of hope, of faith in both himself and in God, that hadn't been there for a long time.

  All because of this strange boy.

  It's not all bullshit after all, he thought. He looked at the boy. I do care.

  "Can I go?" Billy asked matter-of-factly.

  "Yes, of course," Beck answered. "I'll bring you that snack from the refrigerator, like I promised."

  He sat with his hands on the desk before him as the boy got up and walked out of the room. There was a warm feeling in him as the boy closed the door behind him. Perhaps this was what he had been waiting for. But as the door clicked shut, an irrational, tiny thought came into his mind, one that didn't quite dampen the new confidence he had attained but one that nevertheless sent a chilly tendril up his back.

  Maybe he suddenly had his faith back because he was going to need it.

  13

  In the cold of an orange dawn, Potty Johnson whistled "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen." He always started the day with that, or some other Christmas carol, "Joy to the World," or "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," or, sometimes, "Silver Bells." The fact that the holiday was nearly three months away didn't matter; it could be the Fourth of July and he'd still start the hot muggy morning with "White Christmas" or "The Christmas Song" or whatever else came into his head.

  It was the clink of milk bottles that made him think of Christmas. They sounded like sleigh bells. That and the fact that he started working when the sun was not yet up, at the time he always used to get up on Christmas morning with his brother and sister when he was a kid. Every morning when he loaded the cages of bottles into the truck and they began to jingle, in the hour before dawn, no matter what day it was, winter or summer, it was cold outside, and he could close his eyes at that magic moment and pretend that he was back there in his childhood skin, with his brother and sister, in his father and mother's house, and that the tree was waiting -in shadow downstairs, with dark outlines of presents all around, in neatly stacked piles, the smell of balsam hitting their nostrils—he in front, Bobby and Marian butting up against him from behind, whispering to him to hurry up. But he would take only one step down at a time, knowing that this was the only time during the whole year you could do this—that an hour from now it wouldn't be the same, all the presents would be opened, and Mother and Father would be yawning their way into the kitchen to make coffee (that alone, the coffee, would dull the balsam smell), the lights would be on, the sun coming up. (Was there snow this year? Yes!) In short, it would all be over. This was the moment to kiss, the moment when it was all still ahead, each step a step closer in anticipation, the rising excitement, the glowing single moment of each year just ahead, a step closer, step closer . . .

  "Come on, Potty!" Marian would finally say, moving past him followed by their brother. But still he would linger, not wanting this moment to end, wanting it to go on forever. He would leave all the rest—the presents and the hugs and the thank you's and Father opening a box with the same ties in it—he would give it all up—the presents, even, for this supreme moment to last always. Another step down, he heard Bobby and Marian around the corner in the hallway, themselves linge
ring, waiting for him to catch up, not wanting to go in just yet, maybe afraid to go in without him, afraid that somehow the spell would be broken since this was the way they always did it. Another step, hand on the railing near the bottom, brushing past the three long barber-pole-striped stockings that hung between the iron of the railing, something heavy at the bottom of the first one (it had to be an orange in the toe—there was always an orange in the toe), then a light brush of the other two stockings—which would wait till the end for exploration, since they were always of secondary importance to what waited in the living room.

  "Potty, come on!" Bobby whisper-shouted to him. And with a sigh he suddenly found that his unslippered foot was off the carpet of the stairs and on the cool-cold floor of the tiled hallway.

  "Coming," he whispered back.

  Still he lingered at the bottom of the stairs, his hand on the railing, looking up at the darkness above from which they had descended. He almost wanted to go back up, start all over again . . .

  Hearing the impatient groans of his brother and sister, he let go of the railing and followed them into the mouth of the kitchen.

  No coffee yet. There was only the smell of a kitchen cleaned the night before in anticipation of a holiday. There was the clean odor of Comet in the sink, and the faint smell of fruit. That was from Mr. Antonela's basket, the one he came over with every Christmas Eve from his own fruit market. There were things in there they never ate any other time: dates and figs, golden raisins as big as knuckles, damson plums from the Mideast, oranges so huge they wouldn't fit in the toe of any stocking, apples shined so red they hurt the eyes, two kinds of pears—skinny pale and fat green—figs on strings like necklaces, grapefruit ready to explode.

  They stuck their heads in a little farther, past the kitchen smells, past the fruit . . .

  There. From the family room just to the left, an odor that slapped at them, made them dizzy. Their fingers buzzed with anticipation at the smell of . . .