The Stories of Ray Bradbury (106 page)

‘If you don’t mind, Father.’

‘Mind! Mind!’ yelled the priest, and lapsed into a ten-second apoplexy.

He almost tore the door wide to run around and seize the culprit out into the light. But then:

‘It was not all for nothing, Father,’ said the voice from beyond the grille.

The priest grew quiet.

‘For you see, Father, God bless you, you have helped me.’

The priest grew very quiet.

‘Yes, Father, oh bless you indeed, you have helped me so very much, and I am beholden,’ whispered the voice. ‘You haven’t asked, but don’t you guess? I have lost weight. You wouldn’t believe the weight I have lost. Eighty, eighty-five, ninety pounds. Because of you, Father. I gave it up. I gave it up. Take a deep breath. Inhale.’

The priest, against his wish, did so.

‘What do you smell?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing, Father, nothing! It’s gone. The smell of chocolate and the chocolate with it. Gone. Gone. I’m free.’

The old priest sat, knowing not what to say, and a peculiar itching came about his eyelids.

‘You have done Christ’s work, Father, as you yourself must know. He walked through the world and helped. You walk through the world and help. When I was falling, you put out your hand, Father, and saved me.’

Then a most peculiar thing happened.

Father Malley felt tears burst from his eyes. They brimmed over. They streaked along his cheeks. They gathered at his tight lips and he untightened them and the tears fell from his chin. He could not stop them. They came, O Lord, they came like a shower of spring rain after the seven lean years and the drought over and himself alone, dancing about, thankful, in the pour.

He heard sounds from the other booth and could not be sure but somehow felt that the other one was crying, too.

So here they sat, while the sinful world rushed by on streets, here in
the sweet incense gloom, two men on opposite sides of some fragile board slattings, on a late afternoon at the end of summer, weeping.

And at last they grew very quiet indeed and the voice asked, anxiously, ‘Are you all right, Father?’

The priest replied at last, eyes shut, ‘Fine. Thanks.’

‘Anything I can do, Father?’

‘You have already done it, my son.’

‘About…my joining the Church. I meant it.’

‘No matter.’

‘But it does matter. I’ll join. Even though I’m Jewish.’

Father Malley snorted half a laugh. ‘Wha-what?’

‘Jewish, Father, but an Irish Jew, if that helps.’

‘Oh, yes!’ roared the old priest. ‘It helps, it helps!’

‘What’s so funny, Father?’

‘I don’t know, but it is, it is, funny, funny!’

And here he burst into such paroxysms of laughter as made him cry and such floodings of tears as made him laugh again until all mingled in a grand outrush and uproar. The church slammed back echoes of cleansing laughter. In the midst of it all he knew that, telling all this to Bishop Kelly, his confessor, tomorrow, he would be let off easy. A church is washed well and good and fine not only by the tears of sorrow but by the clean freshcut meadowbrooms of that self-forgiveness and other-forgiveness which God gave only to man and called it laughter.

It took a long while for their mutual shouts to subside, for now the young man had given up weeping and taken on hilarity, too, and the church rocked with the sounds of two men who one minute had done a sad thing and now did a happy one. The sniffle was gone, Joy banged the walls like wild birds flying to be free.

At last, the sounds weakened. The two men sat, wiping their faces, unseen to each other.

Then, as if the world knew there must be a shift of mood and scene, a wind blew in the church doors far away. Leaves drifted from trees and fell into the aisles. A smell of autumn filled the dusky air. Summer was truly over.

Father Malley looked beyond to that door and the wind and the leaves moving off and gone, and suddenly, as in spring, wanted to go with them. His blood demanded a way out, but there was no way.

‘I’m leaving, Father.’

The old priest sat up.

‘For the time being, you mean.’

‘No, I’m going away, Father. This is my last time with you.’

You can’t do that! thought the priest, and almost said it.

But instead he said, as calmly as he could:

‘Where are you off to, son?’

‘Oh, around the world, Father. Many places. I was always afraid, before. I never went anywhere. But now, with my weight gone, I’m heading out. A new job and so many places to be.’

‘How long will you be gone, lad?’

‘A year, five years, ten. Will you be here ten years from now, Father?’

‘God willing.’

‘Well, somewhere along the way I’ll be in Rome and buy something small but have it blessed by the Pope and when I come back I’ll bring it here and look you up.’

‘Will you do that?’

‘I will. Do you forgive me, Father?’

‘For what?’

‘For everything.’

‘We have forgiven each other, dear boy, which is the finest thing that men can do.’

There was the merest stir of feet from the other side.

‘I’m going now, Father. Is it true that “good-by” means God be with you?’

‘That’s what it means.’

‘Well then, oh truly, good-by, Father.’

‘And good-by in all its original meaning to you, lad.’

And the booth next to his elbow was suddenly empty.

And the young man gone.

Many years later, when Father Malley was a very old man indeed and full of sleep, a final thing happened to fill out his life. Late one afternoon, dozing in the confessional, listening to rain fall out beyond the church, he smelled a strange and familiar smell and opened his eyes.

Gently, from the other side of the grille, the faintest odor of chocolate seeped through.

The confessional creaked. On the other side, someone was trying to find words.

The old priest leaned forward, his heart beating quickly, wild with amazement and surprise. ‘Yes?’ he urged.

‘Thank you,’ said a whisper, at last.

‘Beg pardon…?’

‘A long time ago,’ said the whisper. ‘You helped. Been long away. In town only for today. Saw the church. Thanks. That’s all. Your gift is in the poor box. Thanks.’

Feet ran swiftly.

The priest, for the first time in his life, leaped from the confessional.

‘Wait!’

But the man, unseen, was gone. Short or tall, fat or thin, there was no telling. The church was empty.

At the poor-box, in the dusk, he hesitated, then reached in. There he found a large eighty-nine-cent economy-size bar of chocolate.

Someday, Father
, he heard a long-gone voice whisper,
I’ll bring you a gift blessed by the Pope
.

This?
This?
The old priest turned the bar in his trembling hands. But why not? What could be more perfect?

He saw it all. At Castel Gandolfo on a summer noon with five thousand tourists jammed in a sweating pack below in the dust and the Pope high up on his balcony there waving out the rare blessings, suddenly among all the tumult, in all the sea of arms and hands, one lone brave hand held high…

And in that hand a silver-wrapped and glorious candy bar.

The old priest nodded, not surprised.

He locked the chocolate bar in a special drawer in his study and sometimes, behind the altar, years later, when the weather smothered the windows and despair leaked in the door hinges, he would, fetch the chocolate out and take the smallest nibble.

It was not the Host, no, it was not the flesh of Christ. But it was a life. And the life was his. And on those occasions, not often but often enough, when he took a bite, it tasted (O thank you, God), it tasted incredibly sweet.

That was the week Ann Taylor came to teach summer school at Green Town Central. It was the summer of her twenty-fourth birthday, and it was the summer when Bob Spaulding was just fourteen.

Everyone remembered Ann Taylor, for she was that teacher for whom all the children wanted to bring huge oranges or pink flowers, and for whom they rolled up the rustling green and yellow maps of the world without being asked. She was that woman who always seemed to be passing by on days when the shade was green under the tunnels of oaks and elms in the old town, her face shifting with the bright shadows as she walked, until it was all things to all people. She was the fine peaches of summer in the snow of winter, and she was cool milk for cereal on a hot early-June morning. Whenever you needed an opposite, Ann Taylor was there. And those rare few days in the world when the climate was balanced as fine as a maple leaf between winds that blew just right, those were the days like Ann Taylor, and should have been so named on the calendar.

As for Bob Spaulding, he was the cousin who walked alone through town on any October evening with a pack of leaves after him like a horde of Hallowe’en mice, or you would see him, like a slow white fish in spring in the tart waters of the Fox Hill Creek, baking brown with the shine of a chestnut to his face by autumn. Or you might hear his voice in those treetops where the wind entertained; dropping down hand by hand, there would come Bob Spaulding to sit alone and look at the world, and later you might see him on the lawn with the ants crawling over his books as he read through the long afternoons alone, or played himself a game of chess on Grandmother’s porch, or picked out a solitary tune upon the black piano in the bay window. You never saw him with any other child.

That first morning, Miss Ann Taylor entered through the side door of the schoolroom and all of the children sat still in their seats as they saw her write her name on the board in a nice round lettering.

‘My name is Ann Taylor,’ she said, quietly. ‘And I’m your new teacher.’

The room seemed suddenly flooded with illumination, as if the roof had moved back; and the trees were full of singing birds. Bob Spaulding sat with a spitball he had just made, hidden in his hand. After a half hour of listening to Miss Taylor, he quietly let the spitball drop to the floor.

That day, after class, he brought in a bucket of water and a rag and began to wash the boards.

‘What’s this?’ She turned to him from her desk, where she had been correcting spelling papers.

‘The boards are kind of dirty,’ said Bob, at work.

‘Yes, I know. Are you sure you want to clean them?’

‘I suppose I should have asked permission,’ he said, halting uneasily.

‘I think we can pretend you did,’ she replied, smiling, and at this smile he finished the boards in an amazing burst of speed and pounded the erasers so furiously that the air was full of snow, it seemed, outside the open window.

‘Let’s see,’ said Miss Taylor. ‘You’re Bob Spaulding, aren’t you?’

‘Yes’m.’

‘Well, thank you, Bob.’

‘Could I do them every day?’ he asked.

‘Don’t you think you should let the others try?’

‘I’d like to do them,’ he said. ‘Every day.’

‘We’ll try it for a while and see,’ she said.

He lingered.

‘I think you’d better run on home,’ she said, finally.

‘Good night.’ He walked slowly and was gone.

The next morning he happened by the place where she took board and room just as she was coming out to walk to school.

‘Well, here I am,’ he said.

‘And do you know,’ she said. ‘I’m not surprised.’

They walked together.

‘May I carry your books?’ he asked.

‘Why, thank you, Bob.’

‘It’s nothing,’ he said, taking them.

They walked for a few minutes and he did not say a word. She glanced over and slightly down at him and saw how at ease he was and how happy he seemed, and she decided to let him break the silence, but he never did. When they reached the edge of the school ground he gave the books back to her. ‘I guess I better leave you here,’ he said. ‘The other kids wouldn’t understand.’

‘I’m not sure I do, either, Bob,’ said Miss Taylor.

‘Why we’re friends,’ said Bob earnestly and with a great natural honesty.

‘Bob—’ she started to say.

‘Yes’m?’

‘Never mind.’ She walked away.

‘I’ll be in class,’ he said.

And he was in class, and he was there after school every night for the next two weeks, never saying a word, quietly washing the boards and cleaning the erasers and rolling up the maps while she worked at her papers, and there was that clock silence of four o’clock, the silence of the sun going down in the slow sky, the silence with the catlike sound of erasers patted together, and the drip of water from a moving sponge, and the rustle and turn of papers and the scratch of a pen, and perhaps the buzz of a fly banging with a tiny high anger against the tallest clear pane of window in the room. Sometimes the silence would go on this way until almost five, when Miss Taylor would find Bob Spaulding in the last seat of the room, sitting and looking at her silently, waiting for further orders.

‘Well, it’s time to go home,’ Miss Taylor would say, getting up.

‘Yes’m.’

And he would run to fetch her hat and coat. He would also lock the schoolroom door for her unless the janitor was coming in later. Then they would walk out of the school and across the yard, which was empty, the janitor taking down the chain swings slowly on his stepladder, the sun behind the umbrella trees. They talked of all sorts of things.

‘And what are you going to be, Bob, when you grow up?’

‘A writer,’ he said.

‘Oh, that’s a big ambition; it takes a lot of work.’

‘I know, but I’m going to try,’ he said. ‘I’ve read a lot.’

‘Bob, haven’t you anything to do after school?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘I mean, I hate to see you kept in so much, washing the boards.’

‘I like it,’ he said. ‘I never do what I don’t like.’

‘But nevertheless.’

‘No, I’ve got to do that,’ he said. He thought for a while and said. ‘Do me a favor, Miss Taylor?’

‘It all depends.’

‘I walk every Saturday from out around Buetrick Street along the creek to Lake Michigan. There’re a lot of butterflies and crayfish and birds. Maybe you’d like to walk, too.’

‘Thank you,’ she said.

‘Then you’ll come?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘Don’t you think it’d be fun?’

‘Yes, I’m sure of that, but I’m going to be busy.’

He started to ask doing what, but stopped.

‘I take along sandwiches,’ he said. ‘Ham-and-pickle ones. And orange pop and just walk along, taking my time. I get down to the lake about noon and walk back and get home about three o’clock. It makes a real fine day, and I wish you’d come. Do you collect butterflies? I have a big collection. We could start one for you.’

‘Thanks. Bob, but no, perhaps some other time.’

He looked at her and said. ‘I shouldn’t have asked you, should I?’

‘You have every right to ask anything you want to,’ she said.

A few days later she found an old copy of
Great Expectations
, which she no longer wanted, and gave it to Bob. He was very grateful and took it home and stayed up that night and read it through and talked about it the next morning. Each day now he met her just beyond sight of her boarding house and many days she would start to say, ‘Bob—’ and tell him not to come to meet her any more, but she never finished saying it, and he talked with her about Dickens and Kipling and Poe and others, coming and going to school. She found a butterfly on her desk on Friday morning. She almost waved it away before she found it was dead and had been placed there while she was out of the room. She glanced at Bob over the heads of her other students, but he was looking at his book; not reading, just looking at it.

It was about this time that she found it impossible to call on Bob to recite in class. She would hover her pencil about his name and then call the next person up or down the list. Nor would she look at him while they were walking to or from school. But on several late afternoons as he moved his arm high on the blackboard, sponging away the arithmetic symbols, she found herself glancing over at him for seconds at a time before she returned to her papers.

And then on Saturday morning he was standing in the middle of the creek with his overalls rolled up to his knees, kneeling down to catch a crayfish under a rock, when he looked up and there on the edge of the running stream was Miss Ann Taylor.

‘Well, here I am,’ she said, laughing.

‘And do you know,’ he said, ‘I’m not surprised.’

‘Show me the crayfish and the butterflies,’ she said.

They walked down to the lake and sat on the sand with a warm wind blowing softly about them, fluttering her hair and the ruffle on her blouse, and he sat a few yards back from her and they ate the ham-and-pickle sandwiches and drank the orange pop solemnly.

‘Gee, this is swell,’ he said. ‘This is the swellest time ever in my life.’

‘I didn’t think I would ever come on a picnic like this,’ she said.

‘With some kid,’ he said.

‘I’m comfortable, however,’ she said.

‘That’s good news.’

They said little else during the afternoon.

‘This is all wrong,’ he said, later. ‘And I can’t figure why it should be. Just walking along and catching old butterflies and crayfish and eating sandwiches. But Mom and Dad’d rib the heck out of me if they knew, and the kids would, too. And the other teachers, I suppose, would laugh at you, wouldn’t they?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘I guess we better not do any more butterfly catching, then.’

‘I don’t exactly understand how I came here at all,’ she said.

And the day was over.

That was about all there was to the meeting of Ann Taylor and Bob Spaulding, two or three monarch butterflies, a copy of Dickens, a dozen crayfish, four sandwiches, and two bottles of Orange Crush. The next Monday, quite unexpectedly, though he waited a long time, Bob did not see Miss Taylor come out to walk to school, but discovered later that she had left earlier and was already at school. Also, Monday night, she left early, with a headache, and another teacher finished her last class. He walked by her boarding house but did not see her anywhere, and he was afraid to ring the bell and inquire.

On Tuesday night after school they were both in the silent room again, he sponging the board contentedly, as if this time might go on forever, and she seated, working on her papers as if she, too, would be in this room and this particular peace and happiness forever, when suddenly the courthouse clock struck. It was a block away and its great bronze boom shuddered one’s body and made the ash of time shake away off your bones and slide through your blood, making you seem older by the minute. Stunned by that clock, you could not but sense the crashing flow of time, and as the clock said five o’clock, Miss Taylor suddenly looked up at it for a long time, and then she put down her pen.

‘Bob,’ she said.

He turned, startled. Neither of them had spoken in the peaceful and good hour before.

‘Will you come here?’ she asked.

He put down the sponge slowly.

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Bob, I want you to sit down.’

‘Yes’m.’

She looked at him intently for a moment until he looked away. ‘Bob, I wonder if you know what I’m going to talk to you about. Do you know?’

‘Yes.’

‘Maybe it’d be a good idea if you told me, first.’

‘About us,’ he said, at last.

‘How old are you, Bob?’

‘Going on fourteen.’

‘You’re thirteen years old.’

He winced. ‘Yes’m.’

‘And do you know how old I am?’

‘Yes’m. I heard. Twenty-four.’

‘Twenty-four.’

‘I’ll be twenty-four in ten years, almost,’ he said.

‘But unfortunately you’re not twenty-four now.’

‘No, but sometimes I feel twenty-four.’

‘Yes, and sometimes you almost act it.’

‘Do I, really!’

‘Now sit still there; don’t bound around, we’ve a lot of discuss. It’s very important that we understand what is happening, don’t you agree?’

‘Yes, I guess so.’

‘First, let’s admit we are the greatest and best friends in the world. Let’s admit I have never had a student like you, nor have I had as much affection for any boy I’ve ever known.’ He flushed at this. She went on. ‘And let me speak for you—you’ve found me to be the nicest teacher of all the teachers you’ve ever known.’

‘Oh, more than that,’ he said.

‘Perhaps more than that, but there are facts to be faced and an entire way of life to be examined, and a town and its people, and you and me to be considered. I’ve thought this over for a good many days, Bob. Don’t think I’ve missed anything, or been unaware of my own feelings in the matter. Under some circumstances our friendship would be odd indeed. But then you are no ordinary boy. I know myself pretty well, I think, and I know I’m not sick, either mentally or physically, and that whatever has evolved here has been a true regard for your character and goodness, Bob; but those are not the things we consider in this world, Bob, unless they occur in a man of a certain age. I don’t know if I’m saying this right.’

‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘It’s just if I was ten years older and about fifteen inches taller it’d make all the difference, and that’s silly,’ he said, ‘to go by how tall a person is.’

‘The world hasn’t found it so.’

‘I’m not the world,’ he protested.

‘I know it seems foolish,’ she said. ‘When you feel very grown up and right and have nothing to be ashamed of. You have nothing at all to be ashamed of, Bob, remember that. You have been very honest and good, and I hope I have been, too.’

‘You have,’ he said.

‘In an ideal climate, Bob, maybe someday they will be able to judge the oldness of a person’s mind so accurately that they can say, “This is a man, though his body is only thirteen; by some miracle of circumstance and
fortune, this is a man, with a man’s recognition of responsibility and position and duty”; but until that day, Bob, I’m afraid we’re going to have to go by ages and heights in the ordinary way in an ordinary world.’