THE LAST BOY (39 page)

“There's a little something I want to show you,” he said as the boy dressed.

“Is it a long drive in this machine?” He turned his underpants inside out and put them on, one leg at a time.“I don’t like being in cars, you know.”

“Not very long. Just chill out and enjoy the view.”The radio in his car was clamoring about the pursuit of a suspect on foot, three cops boxing in a man who had just swiped some steaks from the supermarket. He turned it off, and the space in the car suddenly became more habitable. Daniel was certainly right about one thing, he thought, and that was silence.

“How much longer?” Danny kept asking as they cut onto Route 327. There were cows grazing out in fields, and when Danny saw them, he became less fidgety.

As they started to climb Tripoli's rock-strewn driveway, Danny suddenly spotted the animals and his face broke into a big smile.

“You got them!” Danny shouted and clapped his hands. He had the door open before Tripoli had come to a complete stop.

“Rescued them,”Tripoli chuckled.

“I was scared that those policemen had…”

The animals all eagerly turned their heads to watch as Danny raced toward the barn. He squirmed through a tiny gap in the enclosure, ran straight up to the old billy who stood as if waiting for him. Wrapping his arms around the goat's neck, Danny kissed him right on the nose. Then he ran around and greeted every one of the sheep and goats, calling them by strange names. They seemed to recognize him as well. His sudden happiness was such a relief, so infectious, that Tripoli had to laugh.

Next Tripoli gave Danny a quick tour of the grounds, then took him inside to make him a sandwich. All he had on hand was a
package of bologna, peanut butter, and a little moldy jelly left at the bottom of a jar. The choice was obvious. He made the boy a peanut butter sandwich and took the bologna for himself after slathering the bread with mayonnaise. Then he popped open a beer. When he couldn’t find any milk for the boy, he made up some juice from a can of concentrate.

Danny took his sandwich and explored the house, checking out all the rooms, upstairs and down.

“This is better here,” he said, coming back into the kitchen.

Tripoli took a swig of his beer. “Better than what?”

“My mother never lets me eat and walk around. I have to always sit at the table. She says I make crumbs.”

“Well,” said Tripoli surveying the balls of dust that had accumulated in the corners,“in this house we firmly believe in feeding the mice.”

Danny looked at him. He wasn’t sure if Tripoli was kidding or not. When Tripoli finally winked, he smiled.“I like mice, too.”

“Well, of course. We’re all God's creatures,” said Tripoli. At first he said it as a joke, but when he thought about it, it rang true. Why not let the mice partake? “And they want to live like everybody else.”

Danny looked at him askance.

There was a long moment of silence.

“Yeah, I know,”Tripoli said finally,“a promise is supposed to be a promise.”

Danny just continued to stare at him.

“Nobody meant to hurt him. Really. Least of all me.”

Danny stood there with the last bite of his sandwich in his hand.

“Go on, finish up your food and we’ll go out.”

In town, the heat was searing, the air was perfectly still, and the fumes from the cars and factories hung in a thick haze in the valley. In the magazine offices, the air conditioners in the windows were laboring full blast.

“What was that all about?” asked Larry as Molly sat under the vent of her air conditioner trying to dry out.

“Nothing. Just an old friend who had a problem.”

“Oh,” said Larry, who hardly look convinced. “You mean a
Danny
problem.”

“Larry, you’ve got to understand.”

“What I understand is that half the people in this town have lost their ever-loving minds. This mumbo jumbo with the Hermit and the boy creating storms, healing people and the—”

“I never said anything like that.”

“But everybody else is saying it. And you need to put a stop to it before it gets out of control. No, it's already out of control and it's fucking up our office.”

And with that he turned on his heels and left before she could try to explain.

“It's the heat,” said Ben, after Larry stormed off. “It's making everybody a little crazy. Larry’ll get over it. He’ll be back in five minutes saying he's sorry. You’ll see.”

He wasn’t back in five minutes, or even ten, but there was a pale man in a blue suit who was sitting in the reception area waiting to see her. He would not tell Tasha who he was, only that he was from a government agency in Washington.

“Sorry to take up your time,” he said, opening a briefcase and taking out a notebook. He wore a pencil-thin mustache, and his dark hair was buzzed in a military-like brush cut.

“What government agency?” she asked.

“Well, I work for a number of agencies. I’m on loan you might say,” he answered vaguely.“I just need to ask you a couple of questions.”

“Is this about my taxes?” she asked, and he laughed, not sure if Molly was joking.

“I’ve been asked to follow up on some reports we’ve been getting about your boy.”

Molly felt her stomach knot up.“Reports?”

“Nothing to worry about. The newspapers have been filled with all this stuff about your boy being able to sense the weather, predict—”

“Listen,” said Molly, cutting him short. “There's been a lot of nonsense floating around.”

“Well, we assumed that. But, you know, we have to follow this thing up. There are stranger things in life. We’ve got porpoises that can defuse mines and bees that carry messages. So you just never really know.”

Molly had no idea what he was talking about, and didn’t care. All she knew was that this man and whoever he represented was a threat to Danny. “Danny's just a regular, happy little boy. No extrasensory perception. He doesn’t heal by laying on of hands. He can’t read minds. He doesn’t—”

“Well, that's what we figured,” he said amiably, closing his pad. “Just had to follow it up. Anyway, it was a good excuse to fly out of Washington. The heat there's been a real killer. Between the pollution and the temperatures, people have been dropping in the streets like flies. During the day the streets are like a ghost town. You should be glad you’re living up in a nice, cool place like this.”

Out in Newfield it was frying, too, but there was a breeze wafting across the tops of the high hills creating a sun-drenched afternoon that was still tolerable. Danny helped Tripoli carry buckets of fresh water to the animals and watched as they greedily drank. Kept busy around the animals, Danny appeared to be distracted from his grief—and his anger at Tripoli.

Tripoli found an old wooden-handled scythe in the barn, honed the blade to a razor finish, and then, with Danny trailing behind, waded out into the high meadow to a point where the grass was still dense and lush.

As they left the animals, Tripoli could feel the boy's mood steadily sinking again. Silently, he watched as Danny sauntered off, finding a cool spot under a nearby tree and plopping down in the shade. Sitting with his back propped up against the trunk, he stared glumly out at the rolling hills.

Ignoring him, Tripoli set to work and, grasping the wooden handle of the scythe, he drew the blade in a long arc, slicing neatly through the succulent growth. It fell in a neat fan-like line. Then he took another pass. And yet another. As he worked, each stroke became more fluid and Tripoli quickly developed an easy, elegant rhythm. Soon the air was filled with the smell of freshly cut pasturage. This was the quiet way that people used to work, he thought as he left in his wake a long path of flattened stalks. This was how it was done before the advent of riding mowers and weed whackers. How quiet it must have been before we had cars and planes. He glanced over at Danny who was lying under the tree, his chin cradled morosely in his hands. What could he do to get the boy to forgive him?

Peeling off his shirt, Tripoli set back to work. The heat of the sun soaking into his pale skin seemed to infuse him with energy and warm his soul. He had actually forgotten how good it could feel to do simple but honest labor, to be outdoors instead of cruising in mindless circles through city streets. He had almost forgotten Danny, when he heard a shout from the boy. Tripoli turned to see him leaping to his feet and making a strange, chirping noise. Danny was staring into the line of woods and then flapping his arms as though he were a bird. Tripoli watched, startled, as Danny threw himself against the tree and hugged it.

He hurried over to where the boy stood.“What's up?” he asked.

Danny's face was glowing. Tripoli scanned the field, then the edge of the neighboring woods, but could see nothing unusual.

“What happened?”

“Oh, nothing special.” His eyes were now suddenly bright and untroubled, and there was a broad grin on his face.

“In that case, how's about your giving this old man a hand?”

“Sure,” said Danny, and happily bounced along at Tripoli's side back to the work site.

They spent the next hour gathering grass and carrying it back to the barn. Danny, his arms laden, didn’t walk, but seemed to prance, bounding across the meadow with the gait of an animal.

“Hey, Pal!”Tripoli called after him,“you’re not supposed to lose half of it on the way.”

The boy just laughed and kept dancing along. Tripoli had never seen him quite so happy and was at a loss to explain how his grief could have dissolved so abruptly.

The man stood in the doorway of Molly's office holding a straw hat in his hand. Tasha must have been in the ladies room. “I just gotta talk to the boy,” he said. He was dressed in a heavy flannel shirt and overalls.“I just need to know when I should make my next cutting of hay. And I gotta know soon if I should plant winter wheat or—”

“Danny's not here,” she said, ushering him towards the door, “and he doesn’t know about farming.”

“But I heard—”

“Well, you heard wrong.” said Molly, hoping to hustle him out the door before Larry saw him. The farmer stood with his feet rooted wide on the ground refusing to budge. “Look, if you don’t leave now I’m going to call the police.”

All afternoon people tried to get ahold of Molly—or actually Danny. They tied up the phones or just planted themselves in the outside office. They urgently needed to see the boy, to ask him questions about their future. The paralyzed wanted to walk, and the blind wanted to see. Stock and commodity traders wanted tips for the futures markets. A poultry farmer offered to hire Danny because
his hens had all but stopped laying eggs. Maybe if Danny talked to them real nice, they could step up production.

“I’d certainly be willing to share profits with you and the boy,” he offered, caught up in his excitement.

Molly was beside herself with distraction. Trying to control her anxiety, she summoned Tasha to her desk.“I want you to field every call. If it's not about magazine business, then get rid of them. And no unwanted visitors, please Tasha, please. And whatever you do, don’t give out my private number.”

“You can count on me,” said Tasha.

Nevertheless, somehow Wally Schuman got through on her direct line.

“I’d like to come over and see Danny.”

“Well, he's not here,” she answered “Maybe later then. I could drop by your place.”

“Please don’t,” she said, tersely.

“The boy. He knew about the storm.”

“All he said was that he heard a storm. I hear storms all the time. Does that make me—”

“Look, Mrs. Driscoll. Molly. I’m not a religious nut or anything. Given what I’ve seen in life, I’m not sure I even believe in God. I’m strictly a newsman. I only trust what I can hear and see for myself. If you read the news or even watch the—”

“I don’t have time to follow the news. I’m just trying to keep my job and—”

“…see what's going on around the world,” he kept on. “Look carefully and you begin to realize that something terrible is happening.”

Molly didn’t know what he was talking about.

“With the weather,” he added,“the climate.”

“What's Danny got to do with that?” she asked. Again she could feel that queasy feeling unfolding in her stomach.

“More than just predicting that tornado, I think he—”

“Look, please…” Molly fidgeted with the cord on her phone, snarling it around her fingers.

“I think that Danny may have something important to tell people. Not just here in Ithaca. But the country. The world.”

“Please,” she said.“I’ve got to get back to work.” And she hung up.

Later, when the pasturage was all in and the animals were contentedly munching away, they rested in the shade of the porch. Tripoli lay in a hammock nursing an icy beer while Danny gulped down a big glass of orange soda.

“I like the bubbles,” he said.“They tickle my nose. How do they get them into the water?”

“I think they put the carbon dioxide in under pressure.”

“Oh, I see,” said Danny.

“You know what carbon dioxide is?”

“I think it's the stuff that plants breathe in.”

Tripoli was mildly surprised. “The Old Man. He taught you that, too, huh?”

“I’m not sure,” said Danny. A neighbor's cat came by and jumped up on the deck. It was a big calico and Danny crept over to it and petted it.“Maybe he did.”

“You know, Daniel, I keep wondering.”

“Hmmm?”The cat was now in his lap, licking Danny's fingers. Danny giggled.

“How did you get to him?”

“I walked,” he said, matter-of-factly.“Oooh, feel her tongue. It's so rough.”

“Was he waiting for you?”

“Huh?” He turned the cat over on its back and stroked its belly.

“The Old Man?”

“Oh, not really.”The cat was purring like an engine.“But he did say I was waiting to find him.”

“How did you know where to go?”

He stroked the cat under its chin.“I dunno. I just did.”

“He taught you a lot, didn’t he?”

“Yup!”

“I mean besides reading.”

“Yup!” Danny was now on all fours, pretending to be an animal. The cat, tail high, was snaking in and out between his limbs, rubbing herself against the boy.“He told me a lot of stories. And had me tell him stories, too.”