Boys Life

wasn’t as grand as in the past, but I did like eggnog and we had plenty of that, courtesy of Big Paul’s Pantry. Then came the gift-opening time. As Mom found carols on a radio station, I unwrapped my presents beneath the Yule pine tree.
    From Dad I received a paperback book. It was titled The Golden Apples of the Sun, by a writer named Ray Bradbury. “You know, they sell books at Big Paul’s, too,” Dad told me. “Got a whole rack of ’em. This fella who works in the produce department says that Bradbury is a good writer. Says he’s got that book himself and there’re some fine stories in it.”
    I paged to the first story. “The Fog Horn,” it was called. Skimming it, I saw it was about a sea monster rising to a foghorn’s lament. This story had a boy’s touch. “Thanks, Dad!” I said. “This is neat!”
    As Dad and Mom opened their own presents, I unwrapped my second package. A photograph in a silver frame slid out. I held it up to the hearth’s light.
    It was a picture of a face I knew well. This was the face of one of my best friends, though he didn’t know it. Across the bottom of the photograph was written: To Cory Mackenson, With Best Wishes. Vincent Price. I was thrilled beyond words. He actually knew my name!
    “I knew you liked his movies,” Mom said. “I just wrote the movie studio and asked ’em for a picture, and they sent one right off.”
    Ah, Christmas Eve! Was there ever a finer night?
    When the presents had been opened and the wrappings swept away, the fire fed another log, and a third cup of eggnog warm in our bellies, Mom told Dad what had happened at the Hall of Civil Rights. He watched the fire crack and sparkle, but he was listening. When Mom was finished, Dad said, “I’ll be. I never thought such a thing could happen here.” He frowned, and I knew what he was thinking. He’d never thought a lot of things that had happened in Zephyr could ever happen here, starting with the incident at Saxon’s Lake. Maybe it was the age that was beginning to take shape around us. The news talked more frequently about a place called Vietnam. Civil strifes broke out in the cities like skirmishes in an undeclared war. A vague sense of foreboding was spreading across the land, as we neared the plastic, disposable, commercial age. The world was changing; Zephyr was changing, too, and there was no going back to the world that used to be.
    But: tonight was Christmas Eve and tomorrow was Christmas, and for now we had peace on earth.
    It lasted about ten minutes.
    We heard the shrieking of a jet plane over Zephyr. This in itself wasn’t unusual, since we often heard jets at night either taking off from or landing at Robbins. But we knew the sound of those planes as we knew the freight train’s whistle, and this plane…
    “Sounds awfully low, doesn’t it?” Mom asked.
    Dad said it sounded to him like it was skimming the rooftops. He got up to go to the porch, and suddenly we heard a noise like somebody whacking a barrel with a fifty-pound mallet. The sound echoed over Zephyr, and in another moment dogs started barking from Temple Street to Bruton and the roving bands of carolers were forced to give up the holy ghost. We stood out on the porch, listening to the commotion. I thought at first that the jet had crashed, but then I heard it again. It circled Zephyr a couple of times, its wingtip lights blinking, and then it veered toward Robbins Air Force Base and sped away.
    The dogs kept barking and howling. People were coming out of their houses to see what was going on. “Somethin’s up,” Dad said. “I think I’ll give Jack a call.”
    Sheriff Marchette had stepped ably into the job J. T. Amory had vacated. Of course, with the Blaylocks behind bars, Zephyr’s crime wave was over. The most serious task that lay before Sheriff Marchette was finding the beast from the lost world, which had attacked the Trailways bus one day and gave it such a hard knock with its sawed-off horns that the driver and all eight of the passengers were admitted to the Union Town hospital with whiplash.
    Dad reached Mrs. Marchette, but the sheriff had already grabbed his hat and run out, summoned away from Christmas Eve dinner by a phone call. Mrs. Marchette told Dad what her husband had told her, and with a stunned expression Dad relayed the news.
    “A bomb,” he said. “A bomb fell.”
    “What?” Mom was already fearing Russian invasion. “ Where?”
    “On Dick Moultry’s house,” Dad said.