cost him to get to Young’s front steps from wherever he had come from Young could scarcely bring himself to imagine.
He saw as they entered the rail yard that Petie was sort of pointing in the direction of one of the long buildings, and that there was a light on in what must have been the back room.
“All right, Steve,” Young said aloud, shifted their direction, and made his way towards it.
Saturday Noon: Reversal
Young stood in the fresh air on the small porch of the train caboose, watching the city melt away backwards. He had never in his life felt any better. Going somewhere. Had he still been a cigar-smoking man, he would have been smoking a cigar, despite the hour of the day. He wished for an ascot to wear around his throat, but felt that the bow tie was sufficiently dapper and nothing to be ashamed of.
They had met up with a man named Teddy (for the Real Roosevelt, he had said) with whom Petie seemed to be on excellent terms, and who, when he saw Petie, vowed terrible and profane vengeance on whoever had done those things to him, but Petie wouldn’t give up the name. At the sight of coffee and sweet rolls on the table Young had just about passed out, but Teddy was not at all behind-hand in offering both all around, and so he had eaten to the full, and there had also been milk, and Teddy didn’t seem to think that it was unmasculine or out of place in the slightest when Young asked if he could have a cupful. “Please, sir,” he had replied, in fact. A little bit later, while they were giving Petie something to eat by the spoonful that seemed to be doing him some good, there were fried eggs and bacon and toast, and Young ate until he just about did pass out.
He loved these people, he decided. Why had he not ever met them before? He loved Teddy, completely. He liked this train, the motion of it, the sense of the world going in reverse order behind you as you forged ahead into to the place where no one could walk backward anymore. He had no idea where they were going, or why, but he surely liked being here, and he was so happy.
He turned to check on Petie where he sat inside the caboose, propped up on a small chair and sitting on top of some cushions, looking still blankly out of the window. He hadn’t cried when they’d gotten him up and onto the train, but there were some tears on his face now. A coal fire burned next to him in a small cast-iron stove, and every moment or so he would suck on the corner of a saltine cracker and lean over to the little table and try to lift the small cup of fruit juice Teddy had left there for him. Otherwise, Young thought that, had he not had his arm around him for all that while, he would have thought he could pass his hand completely through Petie’s body and not have disturbed either one of them.
He turned back to the view. It was impressive, what you saw from the rail lines, he thought. Downtown they had passed first, and then there were houses, and more houses, a couple of trains in the opposite direction, and now they were headed into the countryside, where Young had never been. The sheer numbers of trees, mostly bare of anything but a few buds on a few of them, frightened him a little bit, and made him feel colder than he was. The morning light on them was beautiful, though, he thought, and he would like to draw how the light looked, or even to paint a picture of it with some real paints. He had some cans of house paints at home, but maybe he could make it to Woolworth’s and they might have some real painter ones. Maybe he could get some of those.
And then the train started to slow, Young lurched slightly where he stood and he turned around. Teddy passed through the little door, nodded to Young.
“This is where he wants off, just about.”
Petie raised his eyes then, and said, “I need to go down the beach. Not right there, though. Pretty close.”
“Well, we’ll get you as close as we can, boy. What you going to do? You want to come back today?”
Petie didn’t answer. Young had no idea what to say, but then Teddy asked him directly, “You want to keep going? You can ride all day if you want to.”
The temptation was intense, but Young had been asked by Petie to get him where he needed to be, and he wasn’t there yet, and so he would stay with him, and he said so. “I better.”
“All right, suit yourself,” Teddy said cheerfully, and the train came to a full stop. “Let’s get eem down, I don’t know how, tell you the truth. I bet you going up was going to be a lot easier,” and it proved to be. As soon as they were clear of the car and off the tracks, Teddy handed Young a thermos and paper bag full of something, and said, “Ima be back around eleven tonight, I’ll look for you. Otherwise you can hop one tomorrow.”
Young nodded, holding the bag in his teeth and the thermos in the crook of his bad arm, his good one once again around Petie’s waist. Petie seemed to be doing a little bit better than before, he thought, for as the train pulled slowly out, Teddy waving to them before disappearing back into the car, Petie lifted his head and said, “Thank you.”
Saturday Afternoon: Found and Lost
And as much as Young had enjoyed the train ride, he knew he had never been in so beautiful and wonderful a place as this small stretch of lake shore where Petie led him, though it again took them the better part of an hour to get down there. The water was muddy-colored under the overcast sky, but Young didn’t mind this at all. It was still water, lapping softly at the bank in a way that made him think of a baby’s cradle rocking, and that perhaps he and Petie were the baby, safe and cared for. The openness and quiet made him a bit nervous, but he was willing to take the feeling.
Petie he propped against the trunk of a thin tree, using his overcoat as a cushion, and in his shirt sleeves in the shade Young was quite chilly. He had sniffed in the thermos and smelled coffee, and tasted it, and it had milk and sugar, too. How could it be that he had never met anyone like Teddy before, so kind, and so thoughtful yet straightforward a person? How had he never met anyone before who didn’t seem to have some kind of terrible trouble that marked his days and distorted everything that he said and thought and did?
He would have to think about this later. There had been too many novelties in one day. After giving Petie a little of the coffee, which he kept down, and another couple of crackers, Young took off his shoes and socks, rolled up his slacks to the knee, and waded out into the cold water until he hit a patch of sun. He let it warm his body as he waited for his legs to do the same to the lake water. All Petie seemed to be able to do was sleep, though Young had gotten a good bit of the coffee into him, along with the end of a sweet roll from the paper bag. The rest was cold chicken and bread and butter, which, when Petie had shaken his head at it, Young had wolfed down until there was nothing left over. He was so used to spending the day doing very little that this much activity had worn him down, and now he was feeling something like irritation, and he wanted to sleep. He was cold, shivering, and Petie was shivering, too, every now and again. Young thought they would have to get out of there soon, but when he tried to say so to Petie, the boy’s eyes filled, and he said once again, “Please.”
So Young let it go, sat down at the water’s edge in a small patch of sun, crossed his legs and closed his eyes. Soon he was standing at his kitchen table, counting out a dollar in coins to give to Pauline. His mouth and nose were nuzzled under one of her breasts, one arm around her waist, the other under her bottom, his body between her legs. He was walking to shul, fingering a rosary in his pocket, walking up on his toes, nodding to a stack of News Americans bundled in packing string on a corner. He rubbed the outside of his arm where his mother struck it with the belt, he pushed his dad upstairs and sang, “She’s Like the Swallow,” with him at the tops of their lungs. He sat in The Bright Side tavern and had a fourth whiskey, he was immobilized before a stack of photographs in the newspaper archive room, he bowed with pleasure as the obit staff applauded his tribute to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He was pulling the cat off his undershirt, he was running a bath, listening to the water now running, now lapping like a lake, now hearing the sound of someone saying, “Hello.”
“Hello!” the someone said again, and it was now, the lake, his eyes were open, and just off the shore a boy and a girl in a row boat, the boy rowing straight for him, the girl fair and nearly see-through in the bow turned toward him, the boy pale and dark, both smiling.
“Go on, get out of here!” he thought