“Okay,” Bob said.
“He’d have gone if he was younger. He wanted to go.”
Bob ate a forkful of potatoes.
Rory said, “I guess your dad went over there, huh?”
“No. I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“What do you mean you don’t know? Did he or didn’t he?”
“I don’t know,” said Bob.
Rory’s mother had reappeared, glass of milk in her hand. She set this down on Bob’s tray and said, in a calm voice, “Rory, would you come away with me for a minute, please?”
“We’re listening to the radio, Ma.”
“Just a minute, Rory.”
Rory went away with his mother and came back alone. Now he was behaving differently toward Bob; not friendlier, but curiouser, stealing sneaking glances at him whenever he looked away. Bob understood that Rory’s mother had explained about Bob’s not having a father. It wasn’t Rory’s knowing that bothered Bob, it was Rory’s gruesome awe, and that he didn’t have the tact to know he should hide his awe away. Rory knew, at least, that he shouldn’t verbalize the thoughts occurring in his mind; from this point on he said hardly a word to Bob.
After Fibber McGee and Molly they listened to Bob Hope’s strained entertainment of the troops, and then to the news: German forces in Denmark have surrendered to the Allies. Rory’s mother came in holding Bob’s knapsack and said chirpily, “Time for you boys to get ready for bed, all right?” As Bob passed her by she again set her hand on his head and he inwardly winced at the contact, which he now knew was inspired by pity. The boys made for Rory’s room, taking turns in the bathroom, brushing their teeth and putting on their pajamas. Bob lay in a sleeping bag on the floor in the dark; he wasn’t tired, and in a little while, when he heard Rory’s even breathing, he pulled his street clothes on over his pajamas, took up his knapsack, and left the room. He came down the stairs, stepping quietly along the hall toward the front door; in passing the kitchen he turned to find Rory’s father bent at the waist, squinting into the fridge. He wore a white undershirt tucked into a pair of high-worn pajama bottoms, and he was lumpy and pale. When he noticed Bob, he stood up straight and said, “You must be the sleeping-over kid I’ve been hearing about.” Bob said that he was and Rory’s father asked, “Well, what are you up to?”
“I’m going to go home now.”
The man looked at his watch and back at Bob.
Bob said, “It’s okay. I’m okay. Goodbye. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me,” said Rory’s father, returning to bow and squint before the refrigerator. “I didn’t do anything.”
It was a miles-long walk through a balmy, windless night, and Bob was relieved to be free of the feelings the sleepover had provoked in him. He walked slowly through various suburban and urban areas. He’d never been out so late before and found the nighttime not at all frightening, but easy and safe in its emptiness. He was neither lost nor not-lost; he understood the general direction home and he used the bridges as guides. Crossing the river at Morrison, he made his way up the long hill and toward the mint-colored house.
It was after midnight when Bob entered his neighborhood. His house was the only one on the block with the lights on, and there was a black Packard in the driveway, gleaming and new beneath the reach of the streetlamp. Bob could hear the stereo playing; he crept up the front lawn to the kitchen window, standing on his toes to look in. Down the hall from the kitchen he could see a piece of the living room, and in the living room was the broad back of a man, coat off, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up, and Bob’s mother’s disembodied hands hung over the man’s shoulders, her red nails clinging to him as they slowly danced. When the music ceased, their bodies compressed in a clench of passion, and Bob turned and walked away from his home and to the park down the street. The park was empty and Bob sat, then lay down on a bench, to look at the sky, because he didn’t know what else to do. What he felt was something deeper and richer than nausea: nausea of the heart. But the clouds were a mysterious show of patient, moonlit shapes and moods; they lulled and distracted Bob, they tricked him into falling asleep. When he woke up it was after seven o’clock, and he stood and stretched and walked back to the house. There was a puddle of oil on the driveway but the Packard was gone. Bob let himself in and found his mother standing in the kitchen and staring at the sink, overfilled with dirty dishes and greasy pots. The house smelt of burned oil and cigarette butts and Bob’s mother was ill-looking and she was clutching her kimono shut at her neck. When she heard his approach she turned, like a mannequin on a dais, to look at him. Her eyes betrayed nothing; in a croaking voice, she said, “Here’s Mr. Popularity.” She didn’t think it odd he was back so early, or that he’d seen himself home. She explained she wasn’t well and that she needed rest and silence and she went away and up the stairs in search of those things. Bob sat awhile in the kitchen nook, looking out the window he’d been looking into the night before. He decided he would run away, and truly, that same day, that same moment, and he left the house and walked back down the hill and across the river to Union Station, his pajamas peeking out past the folded cuffs of his blue jeans.
BOB WAS SURPRISED AT HOW EASY RUNNING AWAY WAS. HE SAT IN a moderately populated third-class compartment, and fifteen minutes later the train came unstuck from its track and they were off. Five minutes after the train left the station and already Bob didn’t recognize the landscape: drab, flat, rocky fields with power lines overhead and forested hills rising up in the distance. The train was traveling toward those hills, traveling west to Astoria, where the Columbia River meets the Pacific Ocean. When Bob saw a conductor taking tickets at the bottom of the car he stood and walked in the opposite direction, up through the second-class cars, the dining and observation cars, and into the first-class car. He came to a compartment with a RESERVED sign hanging on the doorknob; but he could see through a slit in the curtain the compartment was empty, and so he entered, closed the curtain, sat, and waited. When he heard the conductor pass, calling out for “Tickets, tickets, please,” then he relaxed a little, glad to be alone in his ritzy, superior quarters. He studied the passing landscape, which grew ever prettier: soft-rolling green hills, whitewashed churches set away in meadows, dairy farms, silos, and sentry box bus shelters standing at the intersections of country roads. When the train pulled into the station at the town of Vernonia, Bob peered down see what he could see of the platform. As it happened there was a story taking place, and just beneath his window.