Window Boy (12 page)

Sam is worried for Charlie. Did he forget his books on the court? If they’re still there in the morning, Sam will tell Miss Perkins.

Another older team wanders out and begins practicing. Sadly, Sam realizes that watching nameless kids is no longer satisfying. But what can he do? He doesn’t want to listen to the radio or watch television. After the excitement of the last few weeks, his old routine is beginning to bore him.

For homework, Sam repeats a list of prepositions. Mrs. Martin wants the class to memorize them in an exact order. ‘To From Under Down.’
Is ‘Under’ supposed to be before or after ‘Down’?
he had wanted to ask
. Why does the order matter? For that matter, why is grammar important?
Mrs. Martin must have explained these mysteries to the class in September before Sam started school.

Oh, no, school is often pointless,
Winnie pipes up. Now that Sam goes to school, Winnie usually waits until nighttime to speak.
I remember my first disastrous Latin lesson too well. My teacher wanted me to memorize the Latin word for ‘O, table.’

Although Sam isn’t in the mood for this story, he lets Winnie drone on.

‘What does ‘O table’ mean?’
^11
†
I asked.

‘O table,’ my teacher explained. You would use that in addressing a table. And then seeing that he was not carrying me with him, he added: you would use that in speaking to a table. But I never do, I blurted out in honest amazement.

If you are impertinent, you will be punished severely, my teacher said.

I don’t care about your awful teachers, Winnie,
Sam interrupts.
I like my school.
In order to drown Winnie out, he repeats to himself the list of prepositions:
to, from, down, under…”

You are a better student than I was,
Winnie says.
Where my reason, imagination or interest were not engaged, I would not or I could not learn.
^12
†

Despite himself, Sam is touched. He is a better student than one of the greatest men who’s ever lived.
Thanks, Winnie.

It’s true, Sam. In all the twelve years I was at school no one succeeded in making me write a Latin verse or learn any Greek except the alphabet.

Sam doesn’t want to admit his lack of enthusiasm to Winnie. But the truth is that he is tiring of his grammar lessons. To keep his mind occupied, he plays Tic-Tac-Toe in his head. Then, he plays another game with himself. He thinks of an important moment in Winnie’s life and recites a speech or a remark that goes with it. When he was thirty-two and couldn’t find a wife, Winnie was trying to impress a lady, and he said,
We’re all worms, but I do believe I am a glowworm
.
¹³
When the war was still going badly for England, Winnie said:
This is the lesson: never give in. Never, never, never, never…
¹⁴
Sam thinks about how much he hates Adolf Hitler. About the millions of people who the dictator trapped and killed. And how glad he is that the Allies won. He thinks about anything that takes his attention away from Mr. Crowe’s envelope.

The last rays of twilight have disappeared, and the crooked lamp lights an empty circle around the basketball hoop. When the smell of meatloaf fills the apartment, he hears a key in the lock.

His mother walks straight to Sam and kisses him on the top of his head. “Good to see you, son. I bet you had another good day at school.” When she starts towards her bedroom, Miss Perkins says, “Mr. Crowe wrote you a letter.”

“Please, no problems,” his mother mumbles. “I’ve had a rough week.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Miss Perkins says.

Yet, her high heels hesitate for only an instant before they tap their way directly to the kitchen counter.

The paper rips as she tears the envelope. Sam tries to decipher the letter’s contents from the rhythm of his mother’s walk, but her sharp steps to the bedroom aren’t fast or slow, soft or loud. They’re ordinary. Later, when his mother sinks onto the couch, he uses his keenest hearing, but his mother doesn’t ask Miss Perkins about their day. Miss Perkins doesn’t tell his mother about Mrs. Martin’s class. His mother doesn’t say, “I’m tired.”

It’s as if none of the three of them can talk.

“I have dinner ready,” Miss Perkins says, breaking the silence.

“I’m not hungry,” his mother answers.

“Oh, Mrs. Davis,” Miss Perkins pleads. “Things can’t be so bad that you can’t eat.”

What things are you talking about?
Sam wants to ask them.
Do the things have to do with Mr. Crowe?
Miss Perkins and Mrs. Martin don’t feel the need to share their adult lives with him. It’s frustrating to catch only bits and pieces of meaning from overheard conversations. To stare out of a window at an empty basketball court.

Miss Perkins sets his mother’s plate on the table. “Let me know when you’ve tried the meatloaf, Mrs. Davis,” she calls to her. “I cooked my mother’s recipe.”

Eventually, his mother wanders over to the table. Her chair scrapes the floor as she pushes it back. “It looks delicious,” she says.

Sam waits but he doesn’t hear the ice tinkling in her glass or the silverware clanking against her plate. Against this background of unnatural quiet, Miss Perkins arrives with dinner. As she feeds Sam ground-up meatloaf, mashed carrots and milk-soaked bread, he counts the stars.

“Good,” Sam says. He means the meatloaf is good. Miss Perkins is good. Everything would be good, if Mr. Crowe’s threat weren’t playing over and over in his head like a broken record.
A legal matter.

Sam’s counted 147 stars when Miss Perkins asks: “Are you ready to go to your room?”

Sam starts to look up to say ‘yes,’ but he notices a moving shadow on the court. At first, he thinks it’s a big dog, but when the figure steps nearer the light, he sees that the hopping, weaving and jumping shape is Mickey. “OOpen wwindow?” he asks.

“It may be a little cool,” Miss Perkins comments. But she cranks the window open and lets Sam keep watching.

Mickey Kotov is alone. He balances the ball on his right hand and steadies it with his left. Unlike in the classroom, Mickey looks at home on the court.

When Mickey shoots, Sam listens to the sweet sound of the ball slicing cleanly through the hoop and thumping on the concrete. One. Two. Three hoops.

Unexpectedly, another shadow bobs and weaves onto the court. The next moment, Sam makes out the tall captain of Stirling’s basketball team. He’s standing underneath the crooked light post. Charlie Simmons is never on the court this late at night. Then, Sam remembers Charlie’s forgotten books. He must have come back for them.

Although Sam has never seen Charlie try to trip Mickey or heard Charlie call Mickey a ‘foreigner,’ he’s not surprised when Mickey ignores Charlie and keeps playing basketball alone.

Sam scoots to the edge of the wheelchair. Now, Charlie will see for himself that Mickey is a great basketball player. For a few minutes, Mickey hits baskets as if he were a scoring machine. Five. Six. Seven. Eight.
Yeah, Mickey
, Sam cheers him on.

Charlie approaches, and soon Charlie and Mickey are standing together underneath the basket. One figure is tall; the other short and slight. Sam can see their mouths moving, but until they begin raising their voices, he can’t make out their words.

“I didn’t mean it that way,” Charlie calls out.

Mickey backs away. “Oh, yeah, well, you have a terrivle team!” he shouts.

“Well, we wouldn’t let you play anyway,” Charlie answers. He picks up his books.

“Vecause I’m Russian, right? Vecause I have an accent. And vecause on the first day of skool, I didn’t know to put me hand over me heart for your stupid pledge.”

“You said those things. I didn’t,” Charlie shouts before turning his back on Mickey.

No. Don’t go, Charlie
, Sam wants to cry out.
Mickey’s just the player you need.
But Sam’s dreams can’t stop Charlie from fading away into the darkness.

Mickey tries for a few more baskets. Unusual for him, every single one pings the bent rim. He bangs the ball down hard on the court before he runs away.

___
†
Reprinted with permission of Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group, from MY EARLY LIFE: A ROVING COMMISSION by Winston Churchill. Copyright © 1930 by Charles Scribner’s Sons; copyright renewed© 1958 by Winston Churchill. All rights reserved.

Chapter Seventeen

After Miss Perkins has tucked Sam into bed, through the thin walls, he hears voices.

His mother moans. “Crowe has evicted us from the apartment.”

What? Mr. Crowe can’t kick them out. Apartment 207 is Sam’s home. But deep down Sam understands that Mr. Crowe can. It’s just that the threat has hung over his head for so long that it has stopped seeming real.

“Mrs. Davis, I told you that you needed to start paying your rent on time,” Miss Perkins scolds her. “Still, Mr. Crowe has no business kicking a boy like Sam out of his home. Tomorrow, I’ll give that fellow a piece of my mind.”

“It’s no use. He’s never sent me an official letter before,” his mother’s voice sounds hopeless. “We’re going to end up living on the street just like Ronald predicted.”

Sam’s heart fills with dread as though he’s in a hole in the ground and earth is tumbling in on top of him. How can he live without a home? Without his spot by the window?

“Now, now, Mrs. Davis. Don’t worry.”

If Sam weren’t feeling so low, he would smile. Miss Perkins is trying to soothe his mother just like she calms Sam.

“Mr. Crowe’s letter says that if we move out by the end of next week, he won’t sue me for all the back rent that I owe,” his mother says.

“We’ll figure something out. We always do,” Miss Perkins says.

“Just when I was beginning to hope that I might be able to start a new life,” his mother cries.

“There. There,” Miss Perkins says.

“It’s not you who’ll have to live on the street with a handicapped child!” his mother snaps.

Their voices are softer now and not even Sam’s great ears can make out the words.

A few minutes later, the front door closes. He can hear his mother’s footsteps heading towards her bedroom. He longs to feel his mother’s soft touch, but remembering how upset she sounded, he has little hope that she will tell him goodnight.

Sam’s fear grows to fill the silence. Because of his endless hours spent lying on his back, he has identified a world on his bedroom ceiling: three continents, fourteen rivers and twenty-two islands. He has memorized every detail of the view from his window: the number of doors leading to Stirling Junior High, the shapes of the oak trees on the lot, the exact bend in the crooked light post. The Tomcats, his special team—he knows every player’s name—practice on the court below.

Apartment 207 is the only home that he has ever known.

Sam thinks of someone else who was afraid that she was going to lose her home. Miss Perkins. He wishes that she were with him now.

In her lecture, if Mrs. Martin hadn’t skipped over the Battle of Britain, she would have told the class that during the winter of 1940, Hitler had relentlessly bombed London and other parts of England. About forty-five thousand civilians died, including some people who Miss Perkins knew. Although Miss Perkins refuses to name these people or even talk about them, Sam feels their presence with him tonight. He’s imagining the loneliness and terror of Winnie and Miss Perkins, the survivors. Night after night, they lay in their beds wondering when the next bomb was going to explode. Would their house be a target? Would they be alive in the morning?

The Battle of Britain is the occasion for one of Sam’s favorite speeches. He has asked Miss Perkins to read it to him again and again. Just hearing Winnie’s words makes him feel brave.

In his head, Sam starts reciting the speech,
We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.
¹⁵

When the old ladies at church call Sam a ‘brave boy,’ their flattery makes him angry. He has never respected the sitting-in-thewheelchair type of bravery. He admires the World War II type of bravery: firing guns, dodging bombs, making great speeches, standing up to an evil man like Hitler. Yet, tonight, he decides that even though he’s just lying in bed, bravery is what he needs most.

What will the world feel like without his home? A trap that is cold, dark, and lonely. Like that winter in London.

I won’t leave. I don’t want to go
, Sam thinks. The shadow from his bureau falls onto his bed, and Sam pretends that it’s Mr. Crowe.
Take that.
He punches Mr. Crowe with loose fists. The bed sheets are twisted, and his blue blanket has fallen onto the floor. Lying there without covers, his hands and feet are freezing but he reminds himself: during the Battle of Britain, Winnie and Miss Perkins slept despite the bombs exploding and the shells whistling in the night.

Sam wraps their bravery around him like a blanket so that he, too, can sleep now.