Эд Макбейн: Last Summer

The dance at the firehouse had about forty chaperones to supervise three-dozen kids. A table was set up just inside the door, with Mr. Gorham sitting behind it taking admissions, and with a little cash box near his right hand. We gave him fifty cents apiece (actually, David gave him a buck for both of us, knowing I’d square it with him later), and then we went in and stood close to the table; it’s always difficult coming into a dance, even if you know all the kids there. A tall pretty girl was standing across the room, near the ladders hanging on the cinder-block wall. She didn’t even look at us. She had red hair cut in bangs across her forehead and coming down to about the nape of her neck.

“Who’s that?” I said.

“Where?”

“There. Near the ladders.”

“The redhead?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know.”

We looked at her again, and she looked back at us this time and then let her gaze wander right past us. The expression on her face was very sophisticated and cool, as though she had only inadvertently stumbled into these teenage proceedings and was utterly bored to tears.

“Let’s find out who she is,” I said.

“Okay,” David said, and shrugged, and we started across the room toward her. She was still being very blasé, her eyes smokily and lazily taking in the surroundings, her beautiful red hair clipped sharp and clean like a copper helmet — oh my, she just couldn’t have cared less for all these grubby little children milling around. And then, when we were about three feet away from her, she suddenly turned toward us, her blue eyes snapping, her mouth twisting up into a triumphant little grin. She bent over almost double, the way a fast-draw gunslick does in a Western movie, slapped her thigh with one hand, drew an imaginary pistol, straight-armed it at us, and shouted, “Ha, got you!”

It was Sandy.

She looked great. In addition to the red wig, she was wearing a blue sweater and chinos, and she was barefoot, with a gold bracelet on her left ankle. We walked around her, appraising the wig. She did a little model’s turn for us, with her head and nose tilted up, and then said, “What do you think?”

“Where’d you get it?”

“It’s my mother’s.”

“It’s wild.”

“It cost three hundred and fifty dollars.”

“Where’s your own hair?” I asked.

“I’ve got it up with pins.”

“Under the wig?”

“Where do you think, under my arm?”

“It’s terrific,” I said.

“How old do I look?” Sandy said.

“Seventy-two,” David said.

“Come on.”

“She wants you to say nineteen.”

“Nineteen,” David said.

“Do I really?”

“You look like a fifteen-year-old girl wearing a red wig,” David said.

“Is that a wig?” a boy standing next to me asked.

“No, it’s a locomotive,” I answered.

“Ha-ha,” the boy said.

I didn’t know who he was, but it became immediately plain that he had an excellent sense of humor because the next thing he said was, “Are you bald or something?” which Sandy didn’t even bother to answer.

Something was beginning to happen.

I couldn’t quite understand it. But I felt it came over me all at once, and I sensed that David and Sandy were suddenly aware of it as well. It had something to do with the wig, I knew, the fact that the wig was a disguise. It had something to do with how beautiful the wig made Sandy look, older, and sophisticated, and experienced, somewhat like a college senior. But I suddenly felt that I myself, and David too, looked extremely handsome in the identical light-blue tee shirts we had bought at Mr. Porter’s, so that there was a unity to the trio we formed — Sandy in the center with her red wig and dark-blue sweater, David and I flanking her in light blue — a harmony. This sudden unity, this certain knowledge that each of us was aware of his own good looks as well as the effect we created together, led to an intense feeling of pride, again shared. For a moment I found it difficult to disassociate myself from Sandy and David, to look upon myself as a single entity.

The three of us together had performed a delicate piece of bird surgery two days ago, and now a sense of secret intimacy flashed between us like electricity, hot and bright and feeding on itself, generating new power from its own violent discharge. Every kid in that firehouse was looking at us, I felt, and being dazzled by us, and wishing he could be a part of us. I could actually see kids trying to get near us, as though wanting to be absorbed, longing to be touched by our special glow. We were three very bright and searing, no — one enormously powerful life-giving sun that had suddenly erupted into the universe, diminishing by its brilliance all previously existing stars.

I’m a very bad dancer, but I asked Sandy to dance anyway, and it didn’t bother me at all that I wasn’t as good as some of the other kids on the floor. We got into a conversation about the gull, and we were so very involved in it, so totally involved in the blinding glare that was only ourselves, that there just didn’t seem to be anyone else in the room. She started telling me about the leash and collar she had bought at Mr. Porter’s, both in a bright red which she thought would go nicely with the bird’s gray and white feathers. She hadn’t put the collar on him as yet, she explained, because the hole in his neck still hadn’t healed. She had to time this very carefully because she didn’t want to interfere with the healing, but neither did she want him roaming around loose or flying off when he got stronger.

“Do you think I should clip his wings?” she asked.

“Not unless you want to break that poor bird’s spirit,” I said.

“Peter, please be serious.”

“No, I don’t think you should clip his wings.”

“I don’t think so, either.”

“The leash and collar will take care of the situation fine.”

“Yes, I think so. I’ve still got him tied to the porch railing,” she said. “He won’t fly away, that’s for sure, but he’s beginning to get pretty active.”

“You’d better get that leash on him.”

“I will. Do you think I’ll be able to train him?”

“Yes, gulls are very intelligent.”

“Oh, good.”

“Or crows, I forget which one.”

“You’re a great help.”

“Are you patient?”

“I’m very patient.”

“Training takes a lot of patience.”

“I told you I’m very patient.”

“How do you like the way I dance?”

“You’re terrible.”

“Yes, thank you.”

“But I love you, anyway,” she said, and that was when the fellow who had asked her if she was bald cut in. He did it in a very gentlemanly manner, I thought. I immediately released Sandy, gave a short little bow, and began moving away. But, glancing back, I saw Sandy pull a face over his shoulder, so I walked over to David and told him to cut right back in.

I went outside while they were dancing, over to the Coke machine in front of Mr. Porter’s. I was standing there drinking when the fellow who’d made the “bald” joke walked over. He was wearing sawed-off dungarees, blue sneakers, and a Charlie Brown sweatshirt. He had black hair, which he wore in a very short crew cut, thick black brows, a beefy face. I couldn’t see the color of his eyes because he was standing with the light from the firehouse behind him. He was big, about seventeen years old, I guessed, though not as big as David.

“What are you, wise guys?” he said.

Usually, when somebody makes a brilliant remark like that one, I’ll walk away immediately because it doesn’t pay to get into arguments with morons. But that night I didn’t feel like walking away, I felt like answering him. Even though he was bigger than me.