The bombers had smashed the city, and before the troops and tanks entered, the refugees left, fleeing west and south. He plodded along with the stream of fearful, starving people, pushing all his possessions on a rickety cart. He was made up to look like a poor man from the slums, but cleverly hidden in the cart was the powerful transmitter. He was vectoring the night fighters in onto the invader aircraft, which were strafing the homeless and helpless.
When he walked into the kitchen and his mother turned quickly from the sink, he knew at once she was trying to be so angry it would hide her relief.
“In exactly another five minutes, we were going to start calling the police and the hospital. Where were you, Davey?”
“Well, I left the note about taking my lunch.”
“You march right in there and talk to your father about this.”
He walked into the living room. He felt dull, shambling, guilty, incapable of dreams, his hands enormous, fleshy, awkwardly dangling.
His father gave him a quick, narrow look, one black eyebrow at a familiarly dangerous slant. He put his magazine aside, gestured toward the couch, and said, “Sit!”
Davey sat humbly on the couch and tried to find a suitable place to rest his hands. “I would have been okay, Dad. I mean, I would have been back before anybody got upset, but the chain came off the sprocket and jammed. I couldn’t get it out. I had to walk the bike, so — I’m an hour later than I figured on.”
“Who were you with? Where were you? What were you doing?”
“Well — nobody. I... I went to Brandt Park. I was just — fooling around.”
His father went over and stood looking down at him. “Coming from that direction, you must have passed a dozen pay phones. Do you have a dime on you?”
“Yes... but—”
“David, there is such a thing as simple, thoughtful consideration for others. Sympathetic imagination. Is that beyond your capacities?”
He looked down at his bulky, clumsy fists. He wished he could shrink to such smallness he could slide down between the cushions of the couch. “I thought of phoning.”
“Don’t mumble!”
“I thought of calling, but when I would think of it, I wasn’t near a phone, and I guess when I was near a phone, I wasn’t thinking of it.”
“And what was keeping your mind in such turmoil you couldn’t remember a simple courtesy?”
“Nothing much. Just thinking, I guess.”
“Son, you are living in a real world. You are stuck here, just as we all are. You have to cope with it. All this — drifting and dreaming can work hardship on your mother and me, as it did tonight. Wake up!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Your mother saved dinner. You can go out there and eat now.”
He was glad to get out of the range of such direct disapproval. He went to the kitchen. His dinner was on the table. As he sat down, his mother touched his shoulder lightly and then went into the living room. He could hear them talking in low tones. All his hunger was gone. He chewed mechanically. He felt lost, condemned, inadequate, unworthy of love.
His father came strolling into the kitchen and said, with mildness and a slight awkwardness, “Davey, we just want you to be a little more considerate.”
“I know.”
“When you scare us, I tend to come down on you pretty hard,” he said. “Daydreams aren’t silly, son. It would be a dreary world without them, and you would be a tiresome boy if there were no fantasies fermenting in your mind. On the whole, your mother and I approve of you, proudly, almost fatuously. But don’t let the dreams obscure reality. Do you understand?”
He looked at his father and said. “I guess so.” And the two smiled at each other, easily, simultaneously.
His father left the kitchen. Hunger returned, and he attacked the cooling food ravenously. He heard them talking again, heard his mother laugh.
The guards stood outside the death cell and whispered in an awed way about the unshakable composure and healthy appetite of this strange man who still proclaimed an innocence no one believed, no one except those two bold friends, who, throughout these last hours, were tirelessly seeking the mystery witness, hoping to find her, make her talk, and get word to the governor in time.
He finished his milk, put down his empty glass, turned his head slowly, and stared through the bars at them, with the brave and slightly contemptuous smile of a strong, innocent man.
