But the effort was too much. He could not last it out. Carl collapsed back onto the bed with a sigh, and the picture fell once more to the floor; with the dust and litter.
Dust and spiderwebs. Tiny webs crossing the deep black lines, the hair and face and shoulders he had drawn. Dimly, from a long way off, he could still see the picture, the form that had emerged from him, the part that had come forth from his womb.
But he was exhausted. He could not stir toward it. He could not cram it back into him again. It lay on the dirty floor, such a long way from him, resting silently with the trash and spiderwebs and debris. He closed his eyes.
Untidily, the boy dozed on the bed.
Carl stirred, blinking. How clear the scenes and sights of his boyhood were! He stood up a moment, gazing down the hillside at the buildings and towers below. He took a deep breath, yawning and stretching.
Presently he sat down again. He relaxed, letting his mind wander, back into his youth, into his childhood. Back farther and farther, into the depths of his memories. Around him the memories moved and swelled, drifting and murmuring.
The procession of old women were coming along the path. It was snow all over. They were carrying white, but it was not snow. The first old woman staggered with the heavy sheet of rock, thin, paper-stuck, powdery, and dropped it at the edge of the path.
The sheet of rock fell and broke apart, each section falling away, brittle, old. Carl looked down the path of broken paper and rock.
“Because you jumped.”
He had been angry. The old women lugged out the last pieces of rock. The great dark warm heap of chocolate flesh, the massive body that was Lulu the maid, was saying, and holding onto his arm: “But you had your tantrum in the mownin’. They is wrong. It was in the mownin’. Don’ you see?”
He did see. Yet the ceiling had fallen, just as in Henny-penny. Only it was not the ceiling. It was the sky. He went to the store with Lulu.
Along the road the ice and snow had turned to slush, yellow and crusted. He reached his hands into it. And the mittens became stiff with cold, and his hands had no feeling.
“Are you a little boy or a little girl?” he asked the heap of brightly colored rags, huddled on the steps. He was skating back and forth across the tracks made by people along the sidewalk, feeling the ice and pavement under his feet.
“I’m a girl,” the child said. It was evening. The sun went down. The air was dark. He could see the great white Merrit House in the distance, and in front of it the path of rocks and paper. He skated and hobbled across the ground, slushy and frozen, the water striking him. At the top of the hill he stopped, looking back.
The bundle of rags raised itself up. “I have to go!” it sang. “I have to go.” It turned and fled. Along the edge of the hill the child ran home, dancing, dashing, the rags flying.
Carl went inside. His mother was putting down the groceries on the table, getting out her key to see if there were any mail today.
He stood in the hall, gazing up at her.
The air was full of things. Carl had seen them come out of the trees. Each left a little body behind it when it emerged. The body was a tiny worn self, sitting on the branch of the tree. He pulled, and the little worn bit of shell case came away in his hand. He gathered them up all together, and presently he had a pile of them. They were not dead; they had no insides. It was strange.
Carl was at school. His mother had not found an apartment. It was dark, and the night air was full of the strange buzzy things that had come out of the trees. At the back door a woman was calling the children. Upstairs the two Donnic twins were being bathed. They slept in his room with him. They snored at night. Once under the bed he had run a piece of wood into his finger, under the nail. It was in the afternoon, and no one heard him. The room was always warm and stuffy, with the windows shut tight. He came out from under the bed crying.
Now, in the cold dark evening he looked up at the shadow of the building, and the figure of the woman by the back door. Far off in the distance there was a siren.
“Police!” little voices cried.
“Fire trucks! Fire trucks!”
Carl scampered over the grass. In the dimness the grass was black. He ran past the huge tent staked down at the corners. He ran along the hedge, across the plowed field, onto the bottom slope. He could not see the end of the slope. He ran and ran, down and down, until he came to the fence. The bushes had grown up against the wires of the fence and along the posts, and he had to push them aside, tugging at the thick stalks.
The slope dropped sharply on the other side of the fence. Below the slope, at the bottom, was a highway. He could see the lights of the highway going off into the distance. There were no houses as far as he could see. The highway went along and another highway cut across it. There was a sign of bright yellow where the two roads met, a strip of light in the vast darkness, the yawning immensity of night.
Two tiny cars were drawn up at the side of the highway. He heard the sirens again, moving along the highway toward the hills. The hills were very far off, a black edge near the violet skyline.
Kneeling, peering through the bushes, he listened to the sirens fading away into the hills.
When he got up to go back, the air was heavy with night, cold and damp. He walked slowly, feeling his way along. He passed the plowed ground and came onto the grass. He ducked under the ropes of the tent and went up onto the driveway, brittle and crackly under his feet.
When he got to the door of the building the woman seized him by the arm. “Where have you been?” Her voice was shrill and sharp in the night air.
Carl pushed by her, murmuring. He went up the hall to the stairs. His room was hot and unpleasant with steam and the smell of baths. The Donnic twins were asleep.
He sat down on the bed and untied his shoes.
When Carl was twelve years old he was allowed to go to summer camp. He was very excited about it. Jimmy Petio was going along with him. “I’ll drive you up,” his mother said. “I’ll drive both of you.” Carl twisted uncomfortably.
“What’s the matter?”
“I—”
Mrs. Fitter put down the magazine she was reading, the New Yorker. Carl twisted uncomfortably.
“What’s the matter?”
“I thought we might hitchhike.”
Mrs. Fitter raised her magazine. “Now I’ve heard everything.” She adjusted her glasses. “Twelve years old and they want to hitchhike.”
Carl gazed out the window of the car. Mrs. Fitter drove up beside some trees and stopped. “Well, here we are.” She pushed the door open. “Don’t leave your sleeping bags behind.”
Carl and Jimmy dragged their sleeping bags out of the back of the car. Carl kissed his mother goodbye. She slammed the car door and started up the motor.
“Gosh,” Jimmy said.
The camp was immense and cool. Vast trees, their tops lost in a green tangle of branches, surrounded them. A bird squawked, flying far above, its cries echoing away.
A counselor approached them. “Fitter and Petio?”
They nodded.
“Your tent is down here. Come along with me.” Jimmy and Carl laid out their sleeping bags on the two cots a few feet from their weathered canvas tent. Beyond the tent rose a wall of earth and roots and vines. Black and green mixed together, damp, silent, awesome. In front of the tent was a slender trail, and just on the other side of the trail was the creek.