Peter Straub - Lost Boy Lost Girl

Jimbo smiled and cast him a sideways look. ‘Only I was thinking we could go over to the park, see what’s happening over there, you know?’

On summer nights, high school students and hangers-on from all parts of town congregated around the fountain in Sherman Park. Depending on who was there, it could be fun or a little scary, but it was never boring. Ordinarily, the two boys would have walked to the park almost without discussion, understanding that they would see what was going on and take it from there.

‘Humor me, all right?’ Mark said, startled by the bright pain raised in his heart by the thought of not immediately going back down the alley. ‘Come on, look at something with me.’

‘This is such bullshit,’ Jimbo said. ‘But okay, do your thing.’

Mark was already moving down the alley. ‘You’ve seen it a thousand times before, but this time I want you to think about it, okay?’

‘Yo, I can remember when you used to be sort of fun to hang with,’ Jimbo said.

‘Yo, I can remember when you still had an open mind.’

‘ Fuck you.’

‘No, fuck you .’

Feeling obscurely improved by this exchange, they walked down the alley to the point between Mark’s backyard and the concrete wall.

‘Look at that thing. Just look at it.’

‘It’s a concrete wall, with barbed wire on top.’

‘What else?’

Jimbo shrugged. Mark gestured toward the tangle of vines and leaves erupting from the sides of the wall.

‘Plus all that crap,’ Jimbo said. ‘And lots of plants around the sides.’

‘Yeah, the sides. What’s on the sides?’

‘Like fences, or big hedges.’

‘What’s all this stuff for? Why was it put here?’

‘Why? To keep other people off his property.’

‘Take a look at the other houses on this block. What’s different about this one?’

‘You can’t get in there without a hell of a lot of grief.’

‘You can’t even see in,’ Mark said. ‘This is the only house in this whole neighborhood that you can’t see from the alley. Does that tell you anything?’

‘Not really.’

‘The guy who put this up, whoever he was, didn’t want anyone looking at his backyard. That’s what all this stuff is for, to keep people from seeing it.’

‘You’ve been thinking about this way too much,’ Jimbo said.

‘He was hiding something. Look at that humongous wall! Don’t you wonder what his secret was?’

Jimbo stepped backward, his eyes round with disbelief. ‘You’re like the world champion of bullshit. Unfortunately, to you everything you say makes sense. Can we go to the park now?’

In silence, the boys left the northern end of the alley and turned east on Auer Avenue, not an avenue at all but merely another residential street lined with houses and parked cars. Down Auer they proceeded for a single block that offered for their consideration two interracial couples sitting on their respective porches, a sight that so forcefully brought to the boys’ minds what their fathers would have to say about this spectacle that they themselves maintained their silence throughout their turn onto Sherman Boulevard and the one-block trek past the diner, the liquor stores, and the discount outlets to the corner of West Burleigh. Without waiting for the light, they ran across the busy street and continued on into the little park.

A substantial crowd of people milled aimlessly around the dry twenty-foot basin of the fountain. The competing sounds of Phish and Eminem drifted out of two facing boom boxes. Together, Mark and Jimbo noticed the uniformed officer leaning against the patrol car parked off to the side.

As soon as they saw the cop, their way of walking became more self-conscious and mannered. Indicating their indifference to official observation, they dipped their knees, dropped one shoulder, and tilted their heads.

‘Yo, little homeboys,’ the policeman called.

They pretended to take in his presence for the first time. Smiling, the cop waved them forward. ‘Come here, you guys. I want you to look at something.’

The boys lounged toward him. It was like a magic trick: one second the officer’s hands were empty, the next they held up an eight-by-ten black-and-white photograph of a stoner metalhead. ‘Do you know this guy?’

‘Who is he?’ Jimbo asked. ‘He’s in trouble, right?’

‘How about you?’ the cop asked Mark.

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