Boys Life

peel lost. The man stood over it, and he lifted the baseball bat and brought it down and then the dog had no more muzzle or eyes, just a smashed red ruin. The white legs kept kicking, as if trying to run.
    “Little piece a shit,” the man said, and he stomped the skinny ribs with his boot.
    Tears burned my eyes. I stumbled, but Princey’s hand held me up. “Move on,” he said. “Hurry.” I did, past the carnage. I was about to throw up, and I fell against a wall of rough stones. Behind me, Franklin rumbled, “Da kid’s too far from home, Princey. It ain’t right.”
    “You think I like this?” Princey snapped. “Numb nuts.”
    I came to the edge of the wall, and I stopped. I seemed to be looking into a small room. I could hear voices raised in argument, but only a boy sat in the room. He was about my age, I thought, but something in his face looked older by far. The boy was staring at the floor, his eyes glassy as the arguing voices got louder and louder. And then he picked up a sponge and a tube of glue, the kind my buddies and I put plastic models together with. He squeezed glue into the sponge, and then he pressed the sponge over his nose and closed his eyes as he inhaled. After a minute he fell backward, his body starting to convulse. His mouth was open, and his teeth began to clamp down again and again on his tongue.
    I shivered, sobbed, and looked away. Princey’s hand touched the back of my head, and drew my face into his side.
    “You see, Cory?” he whispered, and his voice was tight with strangled rage. “This world eats up boys. You’re not ready yet to shove a broomstick down its throat.”
    “I want to… I want to…”
    “Go home,” Princey said. “Home to Zephyr.”
    We were back at the railyard, amid the whistles and chugs. Princey said they’d go back some of the way with me, to make sure I caught the right train. Here came a Southern Railroad freight train, with one of its boxcars partway open. “This is the one!” Princey said, and he jumped up into the opening. Franklin went next, moving fast on those big old shoes when he had to. Then Ahmet, his cracked flesh puffing dust with every step.
    The train was picking up speed. I started running alongside the boxcar, trying to find a grip, but there was no ladder. “Hey!” I shouted. “Don’t leave me!”
    It began pulling away. I had to run hard to keep up. The boxcar’s opening was dark. I couldn’t see Princey, Franklin, or Ahmet in there. “Don’t leave me!” I shouted frantically as my legs began to weaken.
    “Jump, Cory!” Princey urged from the darkness. “Jump!”
    The tons of steel wheels were grinding beside me. “I’m scared!” I said, losing ground.
    “Jump!” Princey said. “We’ll catch you!”
    I couldn’t see them in there. I couldn’t see anything but dark. But the city was at my back, part of the world that ate up boys.
    I would have to have faith.
    I lunged forward, and I leaped upward toward the dark doorway.
    I was falling. Falling through cold night and stars.
    My eyes opened with a jolt.
    I could hear the freight train’s whistle, moving somewhere beyond Zephyr on its way to that other world.
    I sat up, next to Davy Ray’s grave.
    My sleep had lasted only ten minutes or so. But I had gone a long way, and come back shaken and sick inside but safe. I knew the world beyond Zephyr wasn’t all bad. After all, I read National Geographic. I knew about the beauty of the cities, the art museums, and the monuments to courage and humanity. But just like the moon, part of the world lay hidden. As the man who had been murdered on Zephyr earth lay hidden from the moonlight. The world, like Zephyr, was not all good and not all bad. Princey-or whatever Princey had been-was right; I had some growing up to do before I faced that monster. Right now, though, I was a boy who wanted to sleep in his own bed, and wake up with his mother and father in the house. The apology to Leatherlungs still stuck in my craw. I’d hack through that jungle when I got there.
    I stood up, under the blazing stars. I looked at the grave, sadly fresh. “Good-bye, Davy Ray,” I said, and I rode Rocket home.
    The next day, Mom commented on how tired I looked. She asked if I’d had a bad dream. I said it was nothing I couldn’t handle. Then she made me some pancakes.
    The apology remained unwritten. While I was in my room that evening, my monsters watching me from the walls, I heard the telephone ring four different times.