The Pallbearers

Chapter 7

Half an hour later, I found myself on the second floor of Sharon Cross Hall, looking into my old room at a scowling black kid who was about nine. He was sitting on a bunk holding a first-basemans glove and wearing his Little League uniform. Across his chest, it said "Astros."

"Looks like you had a game," I said.

"My team had a game. I didn't get there 'cause all the vans were at the funeral. They wouldn't let the young kids go to the church to see Pop off. Some county shrink thought it was bad for our emotional development."

I wandered into the room and he stood up immediately. He didn't want me in here. His posture was confrontational, even menacing.

"This is my crib, Chuck," he said. It wasn't quite a threat because I outweighed him by a buck fifty. Call it a statement of fact, fiercely delivered.

"This used to be my room a long time ago," I told him, trying to ease the tension with some common ground. "Lemme show you something." I walked over to the painted wood cabinet. I opened it and looked for some words I'd carved in the paint on the back of the door over a quarter of a century ago. Of course they weren't there anymore. I looked over at the Astros' first baseman. "Guess it got sanded off," I said stupidly. "It used to say, Tuck everybody. S. S.' S. S. is me, Shane Scully."

"Fact that you lived in this room ain't nothing to brag about," he said sourly. "Just tells me you're another fucked-up loser like the rest of us."

I let that go and turned to face him. "So how 'bout you?" I asked.

"How 'bout me, what?"

"You think Pop killed himself?"

"No way."

"You seem sure."

"Hey, Scully… That's what you called yourself?"

I nodded and he continued. "Only cowards take that ride. Pop was no coward. 'Sides, he's been helpin' me look for my real people. My mom and shit. Two years we been doin' it. He even spent some of his own money on a lawyer guy who wrote up some papers. We were gonna make the court tell us where I came from. He wouldn't check out, leaving me holding dirt."

I nodded. "Probably not."

I turned to go, then stopped in the door and looked back. "What's your name?"

"What's it to you?" he scowled. "'Cause I don't need no new-friend. Friends are just people who hang on ya and drag ya down."

I left the little cynic standing there. He was a living, breathing example of my own anger when I was his age. The Little League player in my old room had finally pushed me over the edge. I was now absolutely ready to get away from here.

I started looking for Vicki Lavicki to take me home and found out from Diamond that she'd received a call and had to leave.

"How do I get home then?" I wondered aloud. "She set up another ride for you before she left," Diamond informed me. "Who's that?"

"That'd be me, dude," a voice said.

I turned and found Jack Straw standing right behind me, grinning insolently.