Page 122 - What They Did to the Kid

110 Jack Fritscher

“Are they?”
“Follow me.” Mike backed down the drive. I swung after him,
three blocks, driving under huge elm trees. Through the dappled
shade of the afternoon, kids were already running with blazing
bright sparklers. He pulled into the drive of a foursquare two-story
house painted white.
“Nine rooms and a bath,” he said. Next door, the neighbors
waved and lit off a string of exploding fire crackers.
Mike’s parents had more money than my parents. That was
probably why they hadn’t come to the Dells to meet my parents.
We weren’t rich enough. Annie Laurie warned me as I drove off,
“Always act like you come from money, like you have money, like
you appreciate what money can buy.”
I pulled a Madras shirt over my trunks.
“You look like you’re not wearing pants,” Mike said.
“I’ll tuck the shirt in.” I was very insecure.
“I was kidding. Come on. We’re late.”
In the dining room, flooded with light, Julia and Doc Hager sat
eating salad in silence. Her faded gentility perched on the edge of her
chair. A lovely bygone sparrow, Julia was, in organza green-yellow as
an August lawn. Doc wore white: short-sleeved shirt, trousers, and
shoes. All white but for a red strawberry stain clotted above his fold
of paunch. He looked as if he were wounded.
“Michael, we’ve begun,” Julia apologized.
“You’re late, kid,” Doc said.
“Ryan. I was so worried you wouldn’t find Michael.” Julia
motioned us around the table. “Ryan, this is Doc, Michael’s father.”
“That was settled out of court,” Doc joked. “Hello, kiddo.”
He finished his salad on his perfect china plate. Julia picked at
a lettuce leaf, revealing a chip and a dark flaw running to the center
of her dish.
“You’ve lovely china.” I had been prepared to say it. My parents
told me to say it. I said it for practice so I could feel what compli-
ments felt like gurgling up from my throat, inflating in my mouth,
frothing through my teeth and lips, floating bubbles of praise toward
a host and hostess. Priests who have no money spend many a night
singing for their supper wherever they are invited.

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