Boys Life

Cathcoate walking slowly up the sidewalk of Merchants Street, his hands in his pockets.
    “Well, what do you think about that?” Mr. Dollar asked. “What do you suppose set him off?”
    “He knows you don’t believe none of that story,” the Jazzman said as he began to put away the checkers pieces and the board.
    “Is it true, or not?” Dad stood up from the chair. His ears had been lowered considerably, the back of his neck ruddy where it had been shaved and scrubbed.
    “’Course it’s not true!” Mr. Dollar laughed with a snort. “Owen’s crazy! Been out of his head for years!”
    “It didn’t happen like he said it did?” I kept watching Mr. Cathcoate move away up the sidewalk.
    “No. He made the whole thing up.”
    “How do you know that for sure?” Dad asked.
    “Come on, Tom! What would a Wild West gunfighter be doin’ in Zephyr? And don’t you think it’d be in the history books if a kid saved Wyatt Earp’s life at the O.K. Corral? I went to the library and looked it up. Ain’t no mention of any kid savin’ Wyatt Earp’s life, and in this book I found about gunfighters there’s nobody called the Candy-stick Kid, either.” Mr. Dollar brushed hair out of the chair with furious strokes. “Your turn, Cory. Get on up here.”
    I started to move away from the window, but I saw Mr. Cathcoate wave to someone. Vernon Thaxter, naked as innocence, was walking on the other side of Merchants Street. Vernon was walking fast, as if he had somewhere important to go, but he lifted his hand in greeting to Mr. Cathcoate.
    The two crazy men passed each other, going their separate ways.
    I didn’t laugh. I wondered what it was that had made Mr. Cathcoate want to believe so badly that he’d been a gunfighter, just as Vernon Thaxter believed he really had somewhere to go.
    I got up in the chair. Mr. Dollar pinned the barber towel around my neck, and he combed through my hair a few times as Dad sat down to read a Sports Illustrated.
    “Little bit off the top and thin the sides out?” Mr. Dollar asked.
    “Yes sir,” I said. “That’d be fine.”
    The scissors sang, and little dead parts of me flew off.

X – A Boy and a Ball
    IT WAS ON THE FRONT PORCH WHEN WE GOT HOME FROM MR. Dollar’s.
    Right there, on its kickstand.
    A brand new bicycle.
    “Gosh,” I said as I got out of the pickup. That’s all I could say. I walked up the porch steps in a trance, and I touched it.
    It was not a dream. It was real, and it was beautiful.
    Dad whistled in appreciation. He knew a good-looking bike when he saw it. “That’s some piece of work, huh?”
    “Yes sir.” I still couldn’t believe it. Here was something I had desired in my heart for a long, long time. It belonged to me now, and I felt like the king of the world.
    In later years I would think that no woman’s lips had ever been as red as that bike. No low-slung foreign sports car with wire wheels and purring engine would ever look as powerful or as capable as that bike. No chrome would ever gleam with such purity, like the silver moon on a summer’s night. It had a big round headlight and a horn with a rubber bulb, and its frame looked as strong and solid as the biceps of Hercules. But it looked fast, too; its handlebars sloped forward like an invitation to taste the wind, its black rubber pedals unscuffed by any foot before mine. Dad ran his fingers along the headlight, and then he picked the bike up with one hand. “Boy, it hardly weighs anything!” he marveled. “Lightest metal I’ve ever felt!” He put it down again, and it settled on its kickstand like an obedient but barely tamed animal.
    I was on that seat in two seconds. I had a little trouble at first, because the way both the handlebars and the seat tilted forward I felt like my balance was off. My head was thrust over the front wheel, my back pressed down in a straight line in emulation of the bike’s spine. I had the feeling of being on a machine that could easily get out of my control if I wasn’t careful; there was something about it that both thrilled and scared me.
    Mom came out of the house. The bike had arrived about an hour before, she told us. Mr. Lightfoot had brought it in the back of his truck. “He said the Lady wants you to ride easy on it until it gets used to you,” she said. She looked at Dad, who was walking in a circle around the new bike. “He can keep it, can’t he?”
    “I don’t like us acceptin’ charity. You know that.”
    “It’s not charity.