The Criminal (5 page)

He was walking so slow, like he hated every step he took, so I guess he must have known, too.

One of the policemen said something to Jack, and he glanced up and nodded. Then, they started down the walk toward Al.

I went down the side of the canyon, and walked up that little creek that runs right through the center of it until I came to the railroad trestle. Then, I reached up and got ahold of a brace and started to swing across. Well, it wasn't my fault because, heck, I reckon I must have done the same thing a hundred times, and I bet I could do it in my sleep if I had to. But some way or another-well, maybe the dew had made it slick-my hand slipped; and I threw myself back real fast, but one foot went into the water clear up to my ankle.

Well, I kind of cussed, and then I laughed about it, because the way I was feeling, it would take a lot more than that to make me sore. Dad had been so nice and everything, and I was going to buy him a nice little present. And if everything went all right, well, I'd kind of have a little talk with him like we'd used to have. I'd get all the load off my mind about laying out of school and everything else I'd been doing, and he'd say, well, son, it's never too late to turn over a new leaf and I know you're going to do better from now on, and… Well, that's the way it would be. I could get out from under that load, and, boy, it was a load!

I took my shoe off, and shook the water out of it. Then, I wrung my sock out and hung it up on a bush to dry. I had plenty of time. I could make it to the golf course in an hour, easy; get in twenty-seven or maybe thirty-six holes if I got the breaks.

I hoped this wouldn't be one of those crummy days when there were maybe eighty-four caddies for every bag, and I thought, by gosh, it better not be. Not today, by golly. But I was feeling too good to worry about it.

I lay back on my back with my eyes closed, kind of daydreaming about how I was going to do and how things were going to be from now on. And I thought I heard something behind me, a kind of rustling and a twig cracking now and then, but I didn't pay any attention to it. I didn't have any idea she was within a million miles of me until she started running her fingers through my hair.

I jumped and sat up. She laughed, her head kind of cocked on one side. She was right up against me, almost; stooped down on her knees. I had to move away before I could sit up good.

"What the heck are you doing here?" I said. "Why aren't you in school?"

"I've got a cold," she said. "Why aren't
you
in school?"

"I suppose you're going to tell," I said. "Well, go ahead and see if I care."

"Huh-uh." She shook her head. "I wouldn't tell on you, Bobbie, no matter what you did."

"Well, go ahead," I said. "It don't make any difference to me what you do."

I reached up and got my sock off the bush. It felt pretty dry, so I started to put it on. She took it out of my hand- not snatching, or anything, but just sort of gentle and natural like-and hung it back up again.

"You want to catch cold, mmm?" she said. "Now, you just leave that right there until I tell you to put it on."

"Aw, heck," I said. "What do you care? Who asked you to come down here tellin' me what to do?"

"Well, it's a very good thing for you, I did," she said. "You certainly need someone to look after you."

I said she was crazy, just about a hundred times crazier'n any two people in the whole world. "I'll bet your mother doesn't know where you are. I'll bet you slipped off without telling her anything."

"I'll bet she doesn't know I copped her cigarettes, either," she nodded. "You want a cigarette, Bobbie?"

She had on some kind of funny looking shorts, not real short, you know, but the kind girls wear to ride bicycles and stuff like that. She had on that-them-and one of those tight goofy-looking blouses like her mother's always wearing, and a little button-up sweater that was kind of like her mother's, too. She had the sweater hung around her shoulders, instead of wearing it like anyone with some sense would, and the sleeves kept getting in the way when she tried to get the cigarettes and matches out of her blouse pockets.

"Well, Bobbie!" she said, finally, kind of pouting like it was my fault. "Aren't you going to help me?" So I said she was crazy again, but I got the stuff out of her pockets and she sort of stuck herself out so I could get to 'em, and gosh. I mean, well, it was the craziest feeling, me fumbling around in that goofy-looking blouse and her all arched out at me and-and everything.

I took a cigarette and she took one, and I held a match for us. I threw the cigarettes and matches back in her lap.

"Well," I said, "I got to be moving on pretty quick. I've got plenty of things to do today."

"Mmm?" she said, settling back on one elbow.

"Going out to the golf links," I said. "Pick myself up a few fast bucks."

"Mmm?" she blew out smoke, lazy-like. "So that's where you go when you play hooky so much."

"I don't always," I said. "I get a few bucks ahead, I go into town. I saved up almost ten bucks once, and boy did I have myself a time! I ate lunch there in the station restaurant and then I went to the penny arcade and a shooting gallery and another restaurant and all to heck around."

"Mmm," she said, "you awful bad boy, you."

"Well, heck," I said. "It doesn't sound like much fun, but it was."

She squeezed her cigarette out and lay back, one arm folded under her head. She smiled at me and kind of patted the ground at her side, so I lay back, too. It was a lot more comfortable that way, and I guess I'd kind of been wanting to see her. I guess I'd kind of missed her. I don't mean I
liked
her or anything like that, but you get used to someone, they're always around and then suddenly they aren't, and you can't help missing them.

We just sort of lay there, and, well, somehow or another her hand was in mine, but it didn't mean anything. I mean, it really didn't. Why, gosh, she'd always been tagging around after me as far back as I could remember and I'd hold onto her hand to keep her from falling or to help her over something, and maybe we hadn't held hands in a long time, but it seemed natural enough, like it ought to be, you know. Just there by ourselves, lying there and talking, it was all right.

"Bobbie…" she said.

"Yeah?" I said.

"Do you remember how we used to play together all day and then when I had to go home or you had to go home, we'd… we'd kiss each other good-bye." –

"Heck," I said. "Yeah, I guess so."

"How long ago has it been, Bobbie? Since you kissed me."

"How do I know?" I said. "For gosh sake, Josie!"

"Well," she said. "If you're going to get mad every time I say anything, maybe I'd better go."

"Go ahead," I said. "You're the one that's mad. All I said was I didn't remember."

"You are too mad," she said. "I can always tell when you are."

"And I guess I don't know when I am," I said. "That's pretty rich, that is."

"You can't look me in the eye and say you're not mad," she said.

"I could if I wanted to," I said. "For gosh sake, Josie, why do you got to keep jabbering and fussing about-"

"You can't do it," she said. "I dare you to."

Well, I wasn't taking any dare from her, not any crazy old girl like that. So I rolled over, sort of, and looked at her and said I wasn't mad. I said it a couple of times, looking right at her, almost, but of course that wasn't good enough for her.

"You're mad all right," she said. "I can tell. If you weren't, well, you know what you'd do."

"For gosh sake, Josie," I said.

"Well, you would," she said. "Oh, B-Bobbie, what's the matter w-with-"

And, then, I hadn't done a darned thing, not a doggone thing, but she began to cry. She kind of cried, but not too much, and she sort of held her arms out, so, well, you know. I kissed her, and she kissed me, and she kept her arms around me when I started to move away.

I could feel her like I had when I'd got the cigarettes and matches, only I felt her more, and I thought about Dad and what he'd said, but I couldn't pull away. She held onto me, with our faces pressed together, and she kissed me on the ear a few times and I guess I did, too, I mean I kissed her on the ear, and now and then we kind of whispered things.

"Bobbie…"

"Yeah?"

"This is kind of like that day over at your house, isn't it? When Daddy raised all that big fuss over nothing."

"We weren't doing anything," I said. "We weren't doing a darned thing."

"He's crazy," she said. "Anyway, well even if we had been, what difference would it've made? He does it, he and Mama. if it's so bad, why-"

"Josie," I said. "For gosh sake, are you crazy? You know good and well that's-well, it's not the same."

She said, all right, if that was the way I felt, if I was going to get mad every time she opened her mouth. So I said what the heck was wrong with her, who was getting mad, and I kissed her again to prove that I wasn't.

"Bobbie… did you ever?" she said.

"Huh-uh," I said.

"If I… promise you'll never tell anyone if I tell you something?"

"Well, sure," I said.

She hesitated. Then, she put her mouth real close to my ear and whispered.

"Aw," I said. "You're kidding."

"All right," she said. "I don't care if you don't believe me."

I swallowed. My mouth seemed kind of all full of spit all of a sudden. "W-Who-when, Josie?"

"Last summer. When I was going into town one Saturday. I was almost to the station and this man, I don't know who he was, but anyway he had a big car, and he asked me if I didn't want a ride. So…"

"Gosh," I said, "you hadn't ought to've gone with him, Josie. He-why, he might have been crazy or somethin' and-"

"Pooh." She shrugged. "People just make those stories up to scare their kids."

"The heck they do," I said. "You read about guys like that in the newspapers all the time. They get a girl in their car, and then they- after they've done it they get scared-and they, well, you've read about 'em yourself, Josie."

"Well," she shrugged again. "Well, anyway, I did. He did it to me."

I didn't say anything. I couldn't right then because I had to keep swallowing.

"He was sort of playing around," she said, "and after a while he drove off the highway and pulled up behind a big sign board. H-He"- she shivered and pulled me closer-"it hurt awful, Bobbie."

"Gosh," I said. "For gosh sake, Josie."

"I… I thought I was going to bleed all over everything. Even the second time when, well, you know, I shouldn't have..

I swallowed again, hard, and she ran her hand through my hair. Then, she took her hand away and I could feel her fumbling for something down in her pants pocket. She, found it, finally, the thing she was looking for, and squeezed it into my hand.

"B-Bobbie… You know what that is?"

"Yeah, I guess so," I said.

"I copped it out of Mama and Daddy's bedroom. I. are they all alike, Bobbie? I mean, will they fit anyone?"

"I guess so," I said. "Gosh, how do I know? I guess they will."

"Would they, you? W-Would that one?"

"I-Josie!" I said. "Josie, what-d-do you-"

"Wait," she said. "Wait a minute, Bobbie. Someone might see us here."

She pushed me away and stood up, and then she looked down at me kind of drowsy-like, her eyes narrowed, and held her hand out to me. I stood up, and we went back toward the cliff a little ways, where some bushes grew out of the base of it and there was a kind of little cave.

I got down on my knees and spread her sweater on the ground, and it was like a dream, me with that thing still clenched in my hand, and her getting down on the sweater and lying back. It didn't seem real at all and my head was pounding like sixty, and I was so choked up I could hardly breathe.

I sort of turned my back so she couldn't see when I put the thing on, and my hands kept fumbling and jumping, but finally I did it. I turned back around and there she was, just taking her time like it wasn't anything, unzipping the side of those goofy-looking shorts, and pulling the blouse up out of them, unbuttoning it and turning it back. And-.

I was down on the ground with her, hugging and kissing and-.

"Bobbie!" she said, kind of mad-laughing. "Now, wait a minute, silly!"

"J-Josie," I said. "F-For g-g-gosh-"

"You hear me, Bobbie? I'm going to be mad, now! Y-You'll-Please, Bobbie! W-Wait. – We c-can't-you can't do it that…
Bobbie!
"

So we did it, and she didn't seem mad then, but afterwards she was. She said just to look at her and how could she go home with blood on her and it was all my fault and she had a good notion to tell her mother I'd made her.

"I'm sorry, Josie," I said. "For gosh sake, I didn't mean to. How many times I got to tell you that?"

"A lot of good that does," she said. "It's all your fault."

"Well, you'd better not blame it on me," I said. "You'd better not go blabbing to your folks about me."