The baseball whizzed from the blue sky, stung his hand like a great pale insect. Nursing it, he hears his memory say:
«I worked with what I had.
After my folks died, after I found I couldn’t get man’s work anywhere, I tried carnivals, but they only laughed. „Son,“ they said, „you’re not a midget, and even if you are, you look like a boy! We want midgets with midgets’ laces! Sorry, son, sorry. So I left home, started out, thinking: What was I? A boy. I looked like a boy, sounded like a boy, so I might as well goon being a boy. No use lighting it. No use screaming. So what could I do?
What job was handy? And then one day I saw this man in a restaurant looking at another man’s pictures of his children. „Sure wish I had kids,“ he said. „Sure wish I had kids.“ He kept shaking his head. And me sitting a few seats away from him, a hamburger in my hands.
I sat there, frozen. At that very instant I knew what my job would be for all the rest of my life. There was work for me, after all. Making lonely people happy. Keeping myself busy.
Playing forever. I knew I had to play forever. Deliver a few papers, run a few errands, mow a few lawns, maybe. But hard work? No. All I had to do was be a mother’s son and a father’s pride. I turned to the man down the counter from me. „I beg your pardon,“ I said. I smiled at him …
„But, Willie,“ said Mrs Emily long ago, „didn’t you ever get lonely? Didn’t you ever want —things — that grown-ups wanted?“
„I fought that out alone,“ said Willie. „I’m a boy, I told myself, I’ll have to live in a boys’ world, read boys’ books, play boys’ games, cut myself off from everything else. I can’t be both. I got to be only one thing — young. And so I played that way. Oh, it wasn’t easy. There were times —» He lapsed into silence.
«And the family you lived with, they never knew?»
«No. Telling them would have spoiled everything. I told them I was a runaway; I let them cheek through official channels, police. Then, when there was no record, let them put in to adopt me. That was best of all; as long as they never guessed. But then, after three years, or five years, they guessed, or a traveling man came through, or a carnival man saw me, and it was over. It always had to end.»
«And you’re very happy and it’s nice being a child for over forty years?»
«It’s a living, as they say; and when you make other people happy, then you’re almost happy too. I got my job to do and I do it.»
He threw the baseball one last time and broke the reverie. Then he was running to seize his luggage. Tom, Bill, Jamie, Bob, Sam — their names moved on his lips. They were embarrassed at his shaking hands.
«After all, Willie, it ain’t as if you’re going to China or Timbuktu.»
«That’s right, isn’t it?» Willie did not move.
«So long, Willie. See you next week!»
«So long, so long!»
And he was walking off with his suitcase again, looking at the trees, going away from the boys and the street where he had lived, and as he turned the corner a train whistle screamed, and he began to run.
In the early morning, with the smell of the mist and the cold metal, with the iron smell of the train around him and a ill night of traveling shaking his bones and his body, and a smell of the sun beyond the horizon, he awoke and looked out upon a small town just arising from sleep.
Lights were coming on, soft voices muttered, a red signal bobbed back and forth, back and forth in the cold air. A porter moved by, shadow in shadows.
«Sir,» said Willie.
The porter stopped.
«What town’s this?» whispered the boy in the dark.
«Valleyville.»
«How many people?»
«Ten thousand. Why? This your stop?»
«It looks green.» Willie gazed out at the cold morning town for a long time. «It looks nice and quiet,» said Willie.
«Son,» said the porter, «you know where you going? »
«Here,» said Willie, and got up quietly in the still, cool, iron-smelling morning, in the train dark, with a rustling arid stir.
«I hope you know what you’re doing, boy,» said the porter.
«Yes, sir,» said Willie. «I know what I’m doing.» And he was down the dark aisle, luggage lifted after him by the porter, and out in the smoking, steaming-cold, beginning-to-lighten morning.
He stood looking tip at the porter arid the black metal train against the few remaining stars. The train gave a great wailing blast of whistle, the porters cried out all along the line, the cars jolted, and his special porter waved and smiled down at the boy there, the small boy there with the big luggage who shouted up to him, even as the whistle screamed again.
«What?» shouted the porter, hand cupped to ear.
«Wish me luck!» cried Millie.
«Best of luck, son,» called the porter, waving, smiling. «Best of luck, boy!»
«Thanks,» said Willie, in the great sound of the train, in the steam and roar.
He watched the black train until it was completely gone away and out of sight. He did not move all the time it was going. He stood quietly, a small boy twelve years old, on the worn wooden platform, and only after three entire minutes did he turn at last to face the empty streets below.
Then, as the sun was rising, he began to walk very fast, so as to keep warm, down into the new town.
1953
The end
