The Boy With Penny Eyes (5 page)

7

He spent the next hour packing. He went to the attic and found his backpack, by itself now, neatly placed on a shelf that had, in its time, held hundreds of suitcases and bags. He brought it down to the kitchen. He put a few cans of food and a can opener in it, along with a half loaf of bread and a nearly empty jar of peanut butter. In a flour tin next to the sink were some one-dollar bills and a couple of fives, used mainly to pay the paper boy. He put the bills in his jacket pocket.

Outside, the day was bright and sunny. At the front gate he stopped to loosen the straps of his backpack, adjusting for his growth since the last time he had worn it.

Past the cobbled path, in one of the oaks lining the dirt road, a bird trilled once, twice, three times.

Billy passed beneath it, and kept walking. This time, he knew where he was going.

Careful.

In James Monk's vision, he was standing in a field of low-cut grass, green as the leaves of fresh oak. It was spring, and the sun was just before noon, and there were May clouds, fat and not too high, surrounded by the bluest sky there could be. He could taste spring, coming out of the ground, melting away what winter was left, pushing up through the grass and the wet soil and into the blue sky because there was new life everywhere. There were trees around the edge of the field, far away, but he could smell and feel them from where he was. They were brown and wet, and their leaves were wet and so full that their green would come off on his fingers. The sun was warm on him. There was music somewhere: Mozart. And across the field, from the brown, wet green trees, from out of the earth and the spring itself, came the child.

It walked as if it was one with the soil and the sky, pure and innocent, face new-born, eyes clear and wet as the leaves of the trees; there were no furrows in the brow, the lips were red and full, the eyes gold like the sun, the body naked like God's own body. And it came to James Monk, walked slowly to him, and put its arms up and held him. It held James Monk in its arms like a mother holds a baby, held his head against the softest of breasts, held his hair in pure hands, stroked his eyes and neck, ran thin warm fingers over his lips, his cheeks, the curve of his nose and chin . . .

Careful.

There came a noise, and James Monk quickly put his dream away. He filed it as succinctly as the paints and papers he sorted, the crayons, the pads of art paper, the smocks. He paused in his work, cocked his head away from the shelves in the supply closet and waited for a repeat of the mouse-sound that had taken his hands away from their work, his mind away from . . .

Careful.

There it came again: the sound of small feet walking, shoes on floorboards.
Shoes on floorboards.
He heard the light click of a door closing against its lock, and a sudden trail of fear crawled up his back. He looked to the door of the supply closet, a mere three feet away. Memory came to him of that other time, in that other school, when the same kind of door had swung closed on him, when the light had gone out and he had heard harsh muffled laughter outside, laughter that only increased with his panic and his cries for help, his poundings on the door, the frightful tearing of his fingernails against ungiving wood, the unmoving lock, the darkness, the shelves moving in around him, the darkness . . .

The footstep sound again, and then the lights went out.

They went on again. As abruptly as his breath abandoned him it returned, leaving a charge of electric fear running through him. Somewhere far off, he thought he heard a generator whining back to life. And then the memory of those footsteps outside came back to him, those steps, the click of a door.

"Who's there?"

The weakness of his voice disappointed him, so he repeated the question with more strength. There was no answer. He edged to the open door of the supply room, his hands out before him, fearing at any moment that it would swing shut toward him, the lights blink out for good, the clawing and the screaming start again . . .

Careful.

That foot sound again.

He reached the door and pushed with both hands against it.

He looked out.

There was no one there.

He stepped out of the supply closet, his heart pounding in his chest, his hands still tightly pressed against the door. The classroom was empty. There were ten rows of chairs, each seat turned up against its back, the blackboard clean and washed, the easels flat against the far wall, the windows along the other wall showing late Saturday sunlight beginning to darken into March night.

He looked toward the front of the room and saw that the door to the classroom was closed.

Fear took hold of him again. He knew he had left it open. Working Saturdays was by far easier than during the week, with all the distractions of unruly students, but it made him uneasy to be alone in such a large building. He knew the custodian was downstairs, probably drunk by now in front of Wide World of Sports. Maybe he had been responsible for the lights going out. But James Monk knew he had left that door open.

He marched quickly across the room and reopened it, peering out into the hallway to see that it was empty, a long tunnel of tomblike marble floors and flat green student lockers.

There came a sound behind him.

Again his heart moved. He turned to see the desks empty, the blackboard clean, the easels still as toy soldiers, the supply closet door.. .

Closed.

"Who's in that closet? Come out immediately!"

His words were shrill, hysterical. He immediately regretted using them, but they had come up from his stomach and chest in a spasm of fear.

"Don't fool with me! Come out here now!"

He wanted to run but knew he could not do that. He knew that if he ran that would be the end of him. It must be a student in there and the fact that he was soft, could be had, would spread like wildfire. James Monk wouldn't last another week in this school. Perhaps if he had stood up for himself that other time, in that other school, had stood before them all and denounced them instead of shrieking like a madwoman when they locked him in the closet—then, well, maybe he wouldn't have had to go through what he did, the stretch of almost a year before another job came, months of torture and self-doubt, his vision his only comfort.

He could not afford to let it happen again.

"Come out here!"

His voice had gained stability. Moving to his desk, his eyes all the while on the door of the supply closet, he felt for and then found the right-hand drawer where he kept his rulers. He withdrew one, feeling the cool line of steel edging along one side. Somehow, it made him feel strong.

"I'm going to open that door, and I promise you we'll be in Mr. Carstair's office eight o'clock Monday morning. You'll get a month's detention!" He lowered his voice, still hiding his panic. "Come out on your own and we'll talk about it."

He heard movement in the closet and then something was knocked over. But the door stayed closed.

"That's it, my friend. You're in big trouble."

His hand tightened on the ruler and he moved forward, overcoming his legs, which wanted to turn him around and run him away. This was where he had to fight back. He put his hand on the knob, his eyes not seeing how the hand trembled, and yanked the door open.

The supply closet looked empty.

It wasn't.

In the corner, a box filled with rolls of poster paper rocked toward him, then back. There was, Monk knew, a space behind it.

"Stand up this minute," James Monk hissed.

One hand moved to the box, the other rose above his head with the ruler in it, and at that moment someone stood up.

James Monk made a strange sound, something between a gasp of astonishment and fulfillment. What came out of his mouth was "Oh." The ruler lowered in his hand. He backed away as the figure stood all the way up.

"It's me," it said.

"Yes . . ." James Monk said, confused.

 
"Did I frighten you? I didn't mean to."

"No, I . . . You didn't frighten me." He found it difficult to concentrate.

"I'm here for you now."

James looked into the copper eyes. "You . . ." he said.

He had been transported to somewhere else. The sky was brightening, he felt the warmth of a high sun on the back of his neck, the green of the far trees was startling. He shook his head, trying to clear it. He still knew, somewhere way in the distance of his mind, what day it was, that when he had come to school this morning it had been a Saturday in March and that there had been gray clouds laid against the sky, high and flat as a blackboard, that a few flurries had dusted the sidewalk ahead of him before he entered the building. He knew that it was that same day outside, that it was getting dark and would soon be night. But a marvelous change had taken place. Spring was here. Spring had arrived, pushing the gray sky and flurries away with it. It was spring, his spring. He looked down and saw, felt, the brush of soft new grass against his feet; he felt the greenness of it, tasted the air itself. All the pores in his body were open mouths, drinking in the exact moment, obsessed, filled with it. And there before him, radiant, full, living, was . . .

His vision.

"I'm here for you," the child said.

"Yes."

"I belong to you!'

"Yes."

The creature came and put its hand on his arm.

Careful.

"Wait," he said suddenly, sharply, looking into the brightness of those sunlit eyes.

"Is something wrong?" the child asked.

His mind was on fire.

"I have to be careful," James Monk said.

"It's all right," the child said.

"I can't ..."

"You can. It's all right." The child brushed his cheek with its fingers, smoothed the thin hair softly back from his forehead.

"But—"

Suddenly, he knew what was wrong. He was never meant to be fulfilled. There was no possibility of his vision ever being consummated. In his mind, for a moment, one burning thought connected with another.

It's a trick.

"It's not a trick," the child said.

The thoughts separated, burned away to white ashes.

"But—"

"Do you hear music?"

He heard it. It rose like a feather across his cheek, then wrapped around him like the soft wind in May. Mozart. A beautiful ache, delicate as spun silver around white clouds, liquid notes rolling like blood. Life itself. He saw his mother as he had as a baby, saw the soft longing look in her eyes, felt the touch of beauty on him. His mind once more was free to float above the earth, out of his own body, exalted. He was music. And then the two moments merged, became tearful, exact, beauty itself, and he looked up to see the child, its eyes burning warm like the sun, its hand, white as milk, touching his head, the smile, the smile of an angel, the fingers, milk-white, caressing him, holding him as a mother holds its baby, brushing his brow, his hair, his neck . . .

"Do you hear the music, James?" it said to him, this mother and child, and in his moment of attainment he cried.

"Yes! Yes!"

He saw something held above its angel's body, in its pure-white hand. It was silver, like the clouds and moon, a painful, gleaming, radiant thing. The creature brought it down toward him, and then beautifully across his throat like the bow of a violin across its singing strings.