Дэймон Найт - Orbit 3

Peter said, “He can’t do it. Nobody can.” It was the first time any of the boys had spoken above a mumble.

I had been planning to pay for Paul’s gasoline anyway, so I said that if he did it I’d get his tank filled at the first station we came to on the way home.

The stone arced out and out until it seemed more like an arrow than a pebble, and at last dropped into the water with a splash. As nearly as I could judge it was still about thirty feet from the bank.

“There,” Paul said, “I told you I could do it.”

“I thought it dropped short,” I said.

“The sun must have been in your eyes.” Paul sounded positive. “It dropped four foot up the bank.” Picking up another rock, he tossed it confidently from one hand to the other. “If you want me to, I’ll do it over.”

For a second I couldn’t believe my ears. Paul hadn’t struck me as someone who would try to collect a bet he hadn’t won. I looked at the four boys. Usually there’s nothing that will fire up a boy like a bet or the offer of a prize, but these still resented our intrusion too much to talk. All of them were looking at Paul, however, with the deep contempt a normal kid feels for a welcher.

I said, “O.K., you won,” to Paul and got a boy to come with us in the skiff so he could row it back.

When we reached the car, Paul mentioned that there was a baseball game that afternoon, Class “A” ball, at the county seat; so we drove over and watched the game. That is, I sat and stared at the field, but when it was over I couldn’t have told you whether the final score was nothing to nothing or twenty to five. On the way home I bought Paul’s gas.

It was suppertime when we got back, and after supper Paul and Papa Palmieri and I sat out on the porch and drank cans of beer. We talked baseball for a little while, then Paul left. I told Papa a few stories about Paul hanging around with us older kids when he was small, then about me fighting with Peter over the frog, and waited for him to correct me.

He sat without speaking for a long time. Finally I said, “What’s the matter?”

He re-lit his cigar and said, “You know all about it.” It wasn’t a question.

I told him I didn’t really know anything about it, but that up to that minute I was beginning to think I was losing my mind.

He said, “You want to hear?” His voice was completely mechanical except for the trace of Italian accent. I said I did.

“Mama and me came here from Chicago when Maria was just a little baby, you know?”

I told him I had heard something about it.

“I have a good job, that’s why we come to this town. Foreman at the brick works.”

I said I knew that too. He had held that job while I was a kid in Cassonsville.

“We rented a little white house down on Front Street, and unpacked our stuff. Even bought some new. Everybody knew I had a good job; my credit was good. We’d been in the town couple months, I guess, when I came home from work one night and find Mama and the baby with this strange boy. Mama’s holding little Maria in her lap and saying, ‘Look there, Maria, that’s-a your big brother.’ I think maybe Mama’s gone crazy, or playing a joke on me, or something. That night the kids eat with us like there was nothing strange at all.”

“What did you do?” I asked him.

“I didn’t do nothing. Nine times outa ten that’s the best thing you can do. I wait and keep my eyes open. Night time comes and the boy goes to a little room upstairs we weren’t going to use and goes to sleep. He’s got an army cot there, clothes in the closet, school books, everything. Mama says we ought to get him a real bed soon when she sees me looking in there.”

“Was Mama the only one . . . ?”

Papa lit a fresh cigar and I realized that it was growing dark and that both of us had been pitching our voices lower than usual.

“Everybody,” Papa said. “The next day after work I go to the nuns at the school. I think I’ll tell them what he looks like; maybe they know who he is.”

“What did they say?” I asked him.

“They say, ‘Oh, you’re Peter Palmieri’s papa, he’s such a nice boy,’ soon’s I tell them who I am. Everybody’s like that.” He was silent for a long time, then he added, “When my Papa writes next from the old country he says, ‘How’s my little Peter?’ ”

“That was all there was to it?”

The old man nodded. “He stays with us, and he’s a good boy—better than Paul or Maria. But he never grows up. First he’s Maria’s big brother. Then he’s her twin brother. Then little brother. Now he’s Paul’s little brother. Pretty soon he’ll be too young to belong to Mama and me and then he’ll leave, I think. You’re the only one besides me who ever noticed. You played with them when you’re a kid, huh?”

I told him, “Yes.”

We sat on the porch for a half hour or so longer, but neither of us wanted to talk any more. When I got up to leave Papa said, “One thing. Three times I get holy water from the priest an’ pour it on him while he sleeps. Nothing happens, no blisters, no screaming, nothing.”

The next day was Sunday. I put on my best clothes, a clean sport shirt and good slacks, and hitched a ride to town with a truck driver who’d stopped for an early coffee at the café. I knew the nuns at Immaculate Conception would all go to the first couple of masses at the church, but since I had wanted to get away from the motel before the Palmieris grabbed me to go with them I had to leave early. I spent three hours loafing about the town—everything was closed—then went to the little convent and rang the bell.

A young nun I had never seen before answered and took me to see the Mother Superior, and it turned out to be Sister Leona, who had taught the third grade. She hadn’t changed much; nuns don’t, it’s the covered hair and never wearing makeup, I think. Anyway, as soon as I saw her I remembered her as though I had just left her class, but I don’t think she placed me, even though I told her who I was. When I was through explaining I asked her to let me see the records on Peter Palmieri, and she wouldn’t. I’d wanted to see if they could possibly have a whole file drawer of cards and reports going back twenty years or more on one boy, but though I pleaded and yelled and finally threatened she kept saying that each student’s records were confidential and could be shown only with the parent’s permission.

Then I changed my tactics. I remembered perfectly well that when we were in the fourth grade a class picture had been taken. I could even recall the day, how hot it was, and how the photographer had ducked in and out of his cloth, looking like a bent-over nun when he was aiming the camera. I asked Sister Leona if I could look at that. She hesitated a minute and then agreed and had the young sister bring a big album that she told me had all the class pictures since the school was founded. I asked for the fourth grade of nineteen forty-four and after some shuffling she found it.

We were ranged in alternate columns of boys and girls, just as I had remembered. Each boy had a girl on either side of him but another boy in front and in back. Peter, I was certain, had stood directly behind me one step higher on the school steps, and though I couldn’t think of their names I recalled the faces of the girls to my right and left perfectly.

The picture was a little dim and faded now, and having seen the school building on my way to the convent I was surprised at how much newer it had looked then. I found the spot where I had stood, second row from the back and about three spaces over from our teacher Sister Therese, but my face wasn’t there. Between the two girls, tiny in the photograph, was the sharp, dark face of Peter Palmieri. No one stood behind him, and the boy in front was Ernie Cotha. I ran my eyes over the list of names at the bottom of the picture and his name was there, but mine was not.