San Diego Lightfoot Sue
Tom Reamy

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Literally in the air—“The flight Is not a smooth one”— Tom Reamy approached a recent engagement as toast-master at a regional convention while scribbling to a friend, “God knows what I will say.”

His response to a request for biographical information (to precede his second Nebula winner in two years) is in the same vein. He says, “Everything remotely biographical that I can think of registers minus three on the Interest meter. Basically, I haven’t done anything. I’m John Lee Peacock, emotionally if not physically… I’ve gotten a lot of wordage out of my eighteen months in Hollywood. The difference between me and John Lee is tat a certain point in the story, I left instead of staying.” Reamy’s overall assessment is that Hollywood overloaded his sensory inputs.

After working on and among pornographic films and others (“I was assistant director on the third film I worked on though my duties didn’t differ greatly from Flesh Gordon when I was ‘property master’”) Reamy went back to his old career of -Technical illustrator [not “technical writer” as was indicated in Nebula Ten] for a time. “If I could have worked steadily I might have stayed in LA., but there were too many idle times. Since it was much cheaper to starve in Texas than in LA., I went back—and one day decided to write.”

‘Twilla“ (last year’s winner) was Tom Reamy’s third story in order of writing. ”“ was his second. Ever.


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This all began about ten years ago in a house at the top of a flight of rickety wooden stairs in Laurel Canyon. It might be said there were two beginnings, though the casual sorcery in Laurel Canyon may have been the cause and the other merely the effect—if you believe in that sort of thing.

The woman sat cross-legged on the floor reading the book. The windows were open to the warm California night, and the only sound that came through them was the distant, muffled, eternal roar of Los Angeles traffic. The brittle pages of the book crackled as she carefully turned them. She read slowly because her Latin wasn’t what is used to be. She lit a cigarette and left it to burn unnoticed in the ashtray on the floor beside her.

‘Here’s a good one,“ she said to the big orange torn curled in the chair she leaned against ”You don’t know where I can find a hazelnut bush with a nest of thirteen white adders under it, do you, Pun-kin?“ The cat didn’t answer; he only opened, one eye slightly and twitched the tip of his tail.

She turned a page, and several two-inch rectangles of white paper fell into her lap She picked them up and examined them, but they were blank. She stuck them back in the book and kept reading.

She found it a while later. It was a simple spell. All she had to do was write the word-square on a piece of white parchment with black ink and then burn it while thinking of the person she wished to summon.

‘I wonder if Paul Newman is doing anything tonight,“ she chuckled.

She stood up and went to the drafting table, opened a drawer, and removed a pen and a bottle of india ink. She put a masking tape dispenser on the edge of the book to hold it open and carefully lettered the word-square on one of the pieces of paper stuck between the pages. She supposed that’s why her mother, or whoever, had put them there—they looked like parchment, anyway.

The word-square was eight letters wide and eight letters high; eight eight-letter words stacked on top of one another. She imagined they were words, though they were in no language she knew. The peculiar thing about the square was that it read the same sideways or upside down—even in a mirror image, it was the same.

She put the cap back on the ink and went to the ashtray, kneeling beside it. She laid the parchment on the dead cigarette butts. “Well, here goes,” she said to the cat “I wonder if its all right to burn it with a cigarette lighter? Maybe I need a black taper made of the wax of dead bees or something.”

She composed herself, trying to take it seriously, and thought of a man, not a specific man, just the man. “I feel like Snow White singing ‘Someday My Prince Will Come,’” she muttered. She flicked the cigarette lighter and touched the flame to the corner of the piece of paper.

It flamed up so quickly and so brightly that she gasped and drew back. “God!” she grunted and hurried to a window to escape the billows of black smoke that smelled of rotten eggs. The cat was already out, sitting on the farthest point of the deck railing, looking at her with round startled eyes.

The woman glanced back at the black smoke spreading like a carpet on the ceiling and then at the wide-eyed cat. She suddenly collapsed against the window sill in a fit of uncontrollable laughter. “Come on back in, Punldn,” she gasped. “If s all over.” The cat gave her an incredulous look and hopped off the railing into the shrubbery.

 

This also began about ten years ago in Kansas, the summer he was fifteen, when the air smelled like hot metal and rang with the cries of cicadas. It ended a month later when he was still fifteen, when the house in Laurel Canyon burned with a strange green fire that made no heat.

His name was John Lee Peacock, a good, old, undistinguished name in southern Kansas. His mother and his aunts and his aunts’ husbands called him John Lee. The kids in school called him Johnny, which he preferred. His father never called him anything.

His father had been by-passed by the world, but he wouldn’t have cared, even if he had been aware of it Wash Peacock was a dirt farmer who refused to abandon the land. The land repaid his taciturn loyalty with annual betrayal. Wash had only four desires in life: to work the land, three hot meals each day, sleep, and copulation when the pressures built high enough. The children were strangers who appeared suddenly, disturbed his sleep for a while, then faded into the gray house or the County Line Cemetery.

John Lee’s mother had been a Willet The aunts were her sisters: Rose and Lilah. Wash had a younger brother somewhere in Pennsylvania—or, had had one the last time he heard. That was in 1927, the year Wash’s mother died. Grace Elizabeth Willet married Delbert Washburn Peacock in the fall of 1930. She did it because her father, old Judge Willet, thought it was a good idea. Grace Elizabeth was a plain, timid girl who, he felt, was destined to be the family’s maiden aunt He was right, but she would have been much happier if he hadn’t interfered.

The Peacocks had owned the land for nearly a hundred years and were moderately prosperous. They had survived the Civil War, Reconstruction, and statehood, but wouldn’t survive the Depression. Judge Willet felt that Wash was the best he could do for Grace Elizabeth. He was a nice-looking man, and what he lacked in imagination, he made up in hard work.

But the Peacocks had a thin, unfortunate blood line. Only a few of the many children lived. It was the same with Wash and Grace Elizabeth. She had given birth eight times, but there were only three of them left Wash, Jr., her first born, had married one of the trashy OTDell girls and had gone to Oklahoma to work in the oilfields. She hadn’t heard from him in thirteen years. Dwayne Edward, the third born, had stayed in Los Angeles after his separation from the army. He sent a card every Christmas and she had kept them all. She wished some of the girls had lived. She would have liked to have a girl, to make pretty things for her, to have someone to talk to. But she had lost the three girls and two of the boys. She had trouble remembering their names sometimes, but it was all written in the big Bible where she could remind herself when the names began to slip away.

John Lee was the youngest He had arrived late in her life, a comfort for her weary years. She wanted him to be different from the others. Wash, Jr., and Dwayne had both been disappointments; too much like their father: unimaginative plodding boys who had done badly in school and got into trouble with the law. She still loved them because they were her children, but she sometimes forgot why she was supposed to. She wanted John Lee to read books (God! How long since she’d read a book; she used to read all the time when she was a girl), to know about art and faraway places. She knew she hoped for too much, and so she was content when she got a part of it.

Wash didn’t pay any more attention to John Lee than he had the others. He neither asked nor seemed to want the boy’s help in the field. So Grace Elizabeth kept him around the house, helping with her chores, talking to him, having him share with her what he had learned in school. She gave him as much as she could. There wasn’t money for much, but she managed to hold back a few dollars now and then.

She loved John Lee very much; he was probably the only thing she did love. So, on that shimmering summer day about ten years ago, when he was fifteen, she died for him.

She was cleaning up the kitchen after supper. Wash had gone back to the fields where he would stay until dark. John Lee was at the kitchen table, reading, passing on bits of information he knew she would like to hear. She leaned against the sink with the cup towel clutched in her hand and felt her supper turn over in her stomach. She had known it was coming for months. Now it was here.

He’s too young, she thought If he could only have a couple more years. She watched him bent over the book, the evening sun glinting on his brown hair. He’s even better looking than his father, she thought So like his father. But only on the outside. Only on the outside.

She spread the cup towel on the rack to dry and walked through the big old house. She hadn’t really noticed the house in a long time. It had grown old and gray slowly, as she had, and so she had hardly noticed it happening. Then she looked at it again and it wasn’t the house she remembered moving into all those years ago. Wash’s father had built it in 1913 when the old one had been unroofed by a twister. He had built it like they did in those days: big, so generations could live in it It had been freshly painted when she moved in, a big white box eight miles from Hawley, a mile from Miller’s Corners. -

Then the hard times began. But Wash had clung to the land during the Depression and the dust He hadn’t panicked like most of the others. He hadn’t sold the land at give-away prices or lost it because he couldn’t pay the taxes. Things had gotten a little better when, the war began, but never as good as before the Depression. Now they were bad again. At the end of each weary year there was only enough money to do it all over again.

She supposed that being the oldest, Wash, Jr., would get it She was glad John Lee wouldn’t She went upstairs to his room and packed his things in a pasteboard box. She left it where he would find it and went to her own room. She opened a drawer in the old highboy that had belonged to her grandmother and removed an envelope from beneath her cotton slips. She took it to the kitchen and handed it to John Lee.

He took it and looked at her. “What is it Mama?

‘Open it in the morning, John Lee. You’d better go to bed now.“

‘But ifs not even dark yet“ There’s something wrong, there’s something wrong.

‘Soon, then. I want to sit on the porch awhile and rest“ She kissed him and patted his shoulder and left the room. He watched the empty doorway and felt the blood singing in his ears. After a while, he got a drink of water from the cooler and went to his room. He lay on the bed, looking at the water spots on the ceiling paper, and clutched the envelope in his hands. Tears formed in his eyes and he tried to blink them away.

Grace Elizabeth sat on the porch in her rocker, moving gently, mending Wash’s clothes until it got too dark to see. Then she folded them neatly in her lap, leaned back in the chair, and closed her eyes.

Wash found her the next morning only because he wondered why his breakfast wasn’t waiting for him. She was buried in the County Line Cemetery with five of her children after a brief service at the First Baptist Church in Hawley. Aunt Rose and Aunt Lilah had a fine time weeping into black lace handkerchiefs and clucking over Poor John Lee.

On the way back from the funeral John Lee rode in the front seat of (he ‘53 Chevrolet beside his father. Neither of them spoke until they had turned off the highway at Miller’s Corners.

‘Write a letter to Wash, Jr. Tell him to come home.“ John Lee didn’t answer. He could smell the dust rising up behind the car. Wash parked it in the old carriage house and hurried to change clothes, hurried to make up the half day he had lost. John Lee went to the closet in the front hall and took down a shoe box, in which his mother kept such things, and looked for an address. He found it after a bit, worked to the bottom, unused for thirteen years. He wrote the letter anyway.

He had left the envelope unopened under his pillow. Now he opened it, although he had guessed what it was. He counted the carefully hoarded bills: a hundred and twenty-seven dollars. He sat on the edge of the bed, on the crazy quilt his mother had made for him, in the quiet room, in the silent weary house. He wiped his eyes with his knuckles, picked up the pasteboard box, and walked the mile to Miller’s Corners.

His Sunday suit worn to the funeral that morning, once belonging to Dwayne, and before that, Wash, Jr., was white at the cuffs from the dusty road. His shoes, his alone, were even worse It was a scorcher. It’s gonna be another scorcher,“ she always used to say, looking out the kitchen window after putting away the breakfast dishes. He sat on the bench at the Gulf station, cleaning the dust off the best he could.

The cicadas screeched from the mesquite bushes, filling the hot still air with their insistent calls for a mate. John Lee rather liked the sound, but it had bothered his mother. “Enough to drive a body ravin‘ mad,” she used to say. She always called them lo-ousts, but he had learned in school their real name was cicada. And when they talked about a plague of locusts in the Bible, they really meant grasshoppers. “Well, I'll declare,” she had said. “Always wondered why locusts would be considered a plague. Fat’s I know, they don’t do anything but sit in the bushes and make noise. Now, grasshoppers I can understand.” And she would smile at him in her pleased and proud way that caused a pleasant hurting in the back of his throat.

‘Hello, John Lee.“

He looked up quickly. “Hello, Mr. Cuttsanger. How are you today? He liked Mr. Cuttsanger, a string-thin man the same age as his mother, who had seemingly permanent grease stains on his hands. He wiped at them now with a dull red rag, but it didn’t help.

‘I’m awfully sorry about your mother, boy. Wish I coulda gone to the funeral but I couldn’t get away. We were in the same grade together all through school, you know.“

‘Yes, I know. She told me.“

‘What“re you doin’ here still dressed up?” he asked, sticking the rag in his hip pocket and looking at the box.

‘I reckon I have to catch a bus, Mr. Cuttsanger.“ His heart did a little flip-flop. Not the old school bus either, but a real bus.

‘Where you off to, John Lee?

‘Where do your buses go, Mr. Cuttsanger?“

Mr. Cuttsanger sat on the bench beside John Lee. “The westbound will be through here in about an hour goin‘ to Los Angeles. The eastbound comes through in the mornin’ headed for St Louie. You already missed it.”

‘Los Angeles. My brother, Dwayne, lives in California.“ But he didn’t know where. He had seen the Christmas cards in the shoe box, but he hadn’t paid any attention to the return address.

Mr. Cuttsanger nodded. “Good idea, goin‘ to stay with Dwayne. Nothin‘ for you here on this played-out old farm. Heard Grace Elizabeth say the same thing. Your father ought to sell it and go with you. But I guess I know Wash better’n that“ He arose from the bench with a little sigh. He went into the station and returned with a small red flag. He stuck it in a pipe welded at an angle to the pole supporting the Gulf sign. ”There. He’ll stop when he sees that You buy your ticket from the driver.“

‘Thank you, Mr. Cuttsanger. I need to mail a letter also.“ He took the letter he had carefully addressed in block printing to Delbert Washburn Peacock, Jr., Gen. Del., Norman, Okla., from his pocket and handed it to Mr. Cuttsanger. ”I don’t have a stamp.“

Mr. Cuttsanger looked at the letter. “Is Wash, Jr., still in Norman?” He said it as if he doubted it.

‘I don’t know. That’s the only address I could find.“

Mr. Cuttsanger tapped the letter against the knuckle of his thumb. “You leave a nickel with me and I'll get a stamp from Clayton in the mornin‘. Sure was a lot simpler before they closed the post 03106.” He sat back on the bench in the shade of the car shed-John Lee followed his eyes as he looked at Miller’s Corners evaporating under the cloudless sky. An out-of-state car blasted through doing seventy. Mr. Cuttsanger sighed and accepted a nickel from John Lee. “They don’t even have to slow down any more. Used to be thirty-five-mile speed-limit signs at. each end of town. Guess they don’t need ’em now. Ain’t nothin‘ here but me and the cafe. Myrtle’s been saying for nearly a year she was gonna move to Hawley or maybe even Liberal. Closed the post office in fifty-five, I think it was. That foundation across the highway is where the grocery store used to be. Don’t reckon you remember the grocery store?”

‘No, sir, but I remember the feed store.“

Imagine that You musta been about four, five years old.“

‘I was born in forty-eight“

‘Closed the feed store in fifty-two. Imagine you rememberin’ that far back.“ He continued to ramble on in his pleasant friendly voice. John Lee asked questions and made comments to keep him going, to make the time pass faster. A whole hour before the bus would come.

But it finally did, cutting off the highway in a cloud of dust and a dragon hiss of air brakes. John Lee looked at the magic name in the little window over the windshield: LOS ANGELES. He swallowed and solemnly shook hands with Mr. Cuttsanger.

‘Good-by, Mr. Cuttsanger.“

‘Good-by, John Lee. You take care now.“

John Lee nodded and picked up the box and walked to the bus, his legs trembling. The door sighed open and the driver got out. He opened a big door on the side of the bus under Continental Trail-ways. He took the pasteboard box.

%here you goin‘?“

Td like a ticket to Los Angeles, please.“ He couldn’t keep from smiling when he said the name. The driver put a tag on the box, put it in with the suitcases, and closed the door. John Lee followed him into the bus. Inside it was cool like some of the stores in Liberal.

He bought his ticket and sat down in the front seat, scooting to the window as the bus lurched back onto the highway. He looked back at Miller’s Corners and waved to Mr. Cuttsanger, but he was taking down the red flag and didn’t see.

John Lee leaned back in the seat and hugged himself. Once more he couldn’t keep from smiling. After a bit, he looked around at the other people. There weren’t many and some weren’t wearing Sunday clothes; so he decided it would be all right to take off his jacket. He settled back in the seat, watching the baked Kansas countryside rush past the window. Strange, he thought, it looks the same way it does from the school bus. Even though he tried to prevent it, the smile returned unbidden every once in a while.

The bus went through Hawley without stopping, past the white rococo courthouse with its high clock tower; past the school, closed for the summer; over the hump in the highway by the old depot where the railroad tracks had been taken out; across the bridge over Crooked Creek.

It stopped in Liberal and the driver called out, “Rest stop!” John Lee didn’t know what a rest stop was, and so he stayed on the bus. He noticed that some of the other passengers didn’t get off either. He decided there was nothing to worry about.

He tried to see everything when the bus left Liberal, to look on both sides at once, because it was the farthest he had ever been. But Oklahoma looked just like Kansas, Texas looked just like Oklahoma, and New Mexico looked like Texas, only each seemed a little bleaker than the one before. The bus stopped in Tucumcari for supper. John Lee had forgotten to eat dinner, and his bladder felt like it would burst.

He was nervous but he managed all right. He’d eaten in a cafe before, and, by watching the others, he found out where the toilet was and how to pay for his meal. It was dark when the bus left Tucumcari. He tried to go to sleep, to make the time pass faster, the way he always did when the next day was bringing wondrous things. But, as usual, the harder he tried, the wider awake he was.

He awoke when the bus stopped for breakfast and quickly put his coat over his lap, hoping no one had noticed. He waited until everyone else had gotten off, then headed for the toilet keeping his coat in front of him. He didn’t know for sure where he was, but all the cars had Arizona license plates.

It was after dark when the bus pulled into the Los Angeles terminal, though it seemed to John Lee as if they had been driving through town for hours..

He had never dreamed it was so big. He watched the other passengers collect their luggage and got his pasteboard box.

Then he went out info: Los Angeles.

He walked around the street with the box clutched in his arms in total bedazzlement Buildings, lights, cars, people, so many different kinds of people. It was the first time he had ever seen a Chinese, except in the movies, although he wasn’t absolutely sure that it wasn’t a Japanese. There were dozens of picture shows, lined up in rows. He liked movies and used to go nearly every Saturday afternoon, a long time ago before the picture show in Hawley closed.

And buses, with more magic names in the little windows: SUNSET BLVD; HOLLYWOOD BLVD; PASADENA; and lots of names he didn’t recognize; but they were no less magic, he was sure, because of that.

He was standing on the curb, just looking, when a bus with HOLLYWOOD BLVD in the little window pulled over and opened its door right in front of him. The driver looked at him impatiently. It was amazing how the bus had stopped especially for him. He got on. There didn’t seem to be anything else he could do.

‘Vine!“ the driver bawled sometime later. John Lee got off and stood at the corner of Hollywood and Vine grinning at the night. He walked down Hollywood Boulevard, gawking at everything, reading the names in stars on the sidewalk. He never imagined there would be so many cars or so many people at night. There were more than you would see in liberal even on Saturday afternoon. And the strange clothes the people wore. And men with long hair like the Beatles. Mary Ellen Walker had a colored picture of them pasted on her notebook.

He didn’t know how far he had walked—the street never seemed to end—but the box was heavy. He was hungry and his Sunday shoes had rubbed a blister on his heel. He went into a cafe and sat in a booth, glad to get rid of the weight of the box. Most of the people looked at him as he came in. Several of them smiled. He smiled back. A couple of people had said hello on the street too. Hollywood was certainly a friendly place.

He told the waitress what he wanted. He looked around the cafe and met the eyes of a man at the counter who had smiled when he came in. The man smiled again. John Lee smiled back, feeling good. The man got off the stool and came to the booth carrying a cup of coffee.

‘May I join you?“ He seemed a little nervous.

‘Sure.“ The man sat down and took a quick sip of the coffee. ”My name is John Lee Peacock.“ He held out his hand. The man looked startled, then took it, giving it a quick shake and hurriedly breaking contact Td rather be called Johnny, though.”

The man’s skin was moist. John Lee guessed he was about forty and a little bit fat. He nodded, quickly, like a turkey. “Warren.”

‘Pleased to meet you, Mr. Warren. You live in Hollywood?“

‘Yes.“

The waitress brought the food and put it on the table. Warren was flustered. “Oh… ah… put that on my ticket”

The waitress looked at John Lee. Her mouth turned down a little at the corners. “Sure, honey,” she said to Mr. Warren.

John Lee discarded the straw from his ice tea and put sugar in it. “Aren’t you eating?”

‘Ah… no. No, I’ve already eaten.“ He took another nervous sip of the coffee, and John Lee heard a smothered snicker from the booth behind him. ”You didn’t have to pay for my supper. I’ve got money.“

‘My pleasure.“

‘Thank you, Mr. Warren.“

‘You’re welcome. Uh… how long you been in town?“

‘Just got here a little while ago. On a Continental Trailways bus, all the way from Miller’s Corners, Kansas.“ John Lee still couldn’t believe where he was. He had to say it out loud. ”I sure do like bein’ in Los Angeles, Mr. Warren.“

You have a place to stay yet?“

He hadn’t really thought about that. “No, sir. I guess I haven’t.”

Warren smiled and seemed to relax a little. It was working out okay, but the kid was putting on the hick routine a little thick “Don’t worry about it tonight You can stay at my place and look for something tomorrow.”

‘Thank you, Mr. Warren. Thats very nice of you.“

‘My pleasure. Uh . . what made you come to Los Angeles?“

John Lee swallowed a mouth full of food. “My mamma died the other day. Before she died, she gave me the money to get away.”

‘

‘I want to sit on the porch a while and rest,’ she had said.

‘It was either Los Angeles or St. Louis, and the Los Angeles bus came by first“ He pushed the gray memories back out of the way. ”And here I am!“

Warren looked at him, no longer smiling.‘’How old are you?

‘I was fifteen last January.“ He wondered if he was expected to ask Mr. Warren’s age.

‘God!“ Warren breathed. He slumped in the seat for a moment, then seemed, to come to a decision. ”Look, uh . . Johnny. I just remembered something. I won’t be able to put you up for the night after all. As a matter of fact, I have to dash. ’I’m sorry.“

‘That’s all right, Mr. Warren. It was kind of you to make the offer.“

‘My pleasure. So long.“ He hurried away. John Lee watched him stop at the cash register. When he left, the cashier looked at John Lee and nodded.

‘Nice goin’ there, John Lee Peacock, sugah.“ The voice whispered in his ear with a honeyed Southern accent He turned and looked nose to nose into a grinning black face. ”Got yoself a free dinnah and didn’t have to put out“

‘What,“ he said, completely befuddled.

A second face, a white one, appeared over the back of the seat It said, “May we join you?” doing a good imitation of Mr. Warren.

‘Yeah, I guess so.“ They came around and sat opposite him, both of them as skinny as Mr. Cuttsanger. He thought they walked a little funny.

The black one said, ‘Tm Pearl and this is Daisy Mae.“

‘How ja do,“ Daisy Mae said, chewing imaginary gum.

‘Really?“ John Lee asked, grinning.

‘Really, what, sugah?“ Pearl asked.

‘Are those really your names?“

‘Isn’t he cute?’ shrieked Daisy Mae.

Pearl patted his hand. “Just keep your eyes and ears open and your pants shut, sugah. You’ll get the hang of it.” He Ht a pale blue cigarette and offered one to John Lee. John Lee shook his head. Pearl saw John Lee’s bemused expression and wiggled the cigarette. “Neiman-Marcus,” he said matter-of-factly.

‘Well, if it isn’t the Queen of Spades and Cotton Tail.“ They all three looked up at a chubby young man, standing with his hand delicately on his hip. His fleshy lips coiled into a smirk at John Lee. He wore light eye make-up with a tiny diamond in one pierced ear. He was with a muscular young man who looked at John Lee coldly. ”You girls stage another commando raid on Romper Room?“

‘Why, lawdy, Miss Scawlett, how you do talk!“ Pearl did his best Butterfly McQueen imitation, and his hands were like escaping blackbirds.

‘This is a cub scout meeting and we’re den mothers,“ Daisy Mae said in a flat voice. The muscular young man grabbed Miss Scarlett’s arm and pulled him away.

‘It’s a den of something he shot back over his shoulder.

‘Did you see how Miss Scarlett looked at our John Lee?“ Daisy Mae rolled his eyes.

‘The bitch is in heat.“

‘Who was that gorgeous butch number she was with?“

‘Never laid eyes on him before.“

‘Your eyes aren’t what you’d like to lay on him,“ Daisy Mae said dryly.

Pearl quickly put his hands over John Lee’s ears. “Don’t talk like that afore this sweet child! You know I don’t like rough trade!”

John Lee laughed and they laughed with him. He didn’t know what they were talking about most of the time, but he decided he liked these two strange people. “Doesn’t… uh… Miss Scarlett like you?”

‘Sugah,“ Pearl said seriously, taking his hands away, ”Miss Scawlett doesn’t like anybody.“

‘Stay away from her, John Lee,“ Daisy Mae said, meaning it.

‘She has a problem,“ Pearl pronounced.

‘A big problem,“ Daisy Mae agreed.

‘What? John Lee asked, imagining all sorts of things.

‘She’s hung like a horse.“ Pearl nodded sagely.

‘A big horse.“ Daisy Mae nodded also.

John Lee could feel his ears getting red. Damnation, he thought. He laughed in embarrassment “What’s wrong with that?” He remembered Leo Whit-taker in his room at school who bragged that he had the biggest one in Kansas and would show it to you if you would go out under the bleachers.

‘Sugah,“ Pearl said, patting his hand again, ”Miss Scawlett is a lady.“

‘It’s a wonder it doesn’t turn green and fall off the way she keeps it tied down. Makes her walk bow-legged.“

‘Don’t be catty, Daisy Mae. Just count your bless-in’s.“ Daisy Mae put his chin on the heel of his hand and stared morosely at nothing, like Garbo in Anna Christie. ”John Lee, sugah,“ Pearl continued, ”was all that malarkey you gave that score the truth?“

‘Huh?“ John Lee asked, completely confused.

“It was,” Daisy Mae said in his incredible but true voice.

‘You really don’t have a place to stay tonight?“

‘Huh-uh.“ He wondered, why Pearl doubted him.

‘And he’s also really B£-teen,“ Daisy Mae said, cocking his eyes at Pearl.

‘Daisy Mae, sugah,“ Pearl said with utmost patience, ”I’m only bein’ a Sistuh of Mercy, tryin‘ to put a roof ovuh this sweet child’s head, tryin’ to keep him from bein‘ picked up by the po-leece f ah vay-gran-cee.“

Daisy Mae shrugged fatalistically.

‘Why does it matter that I’m fifteen?“ John Lee really wanted to know what they were talking about.

‘You are from the boonies,“ Daisy Mae said in wonder.

‘Sugah, you come stay with us. There’s a lot you’ve got to learn. If we leave you runnin’ around loose, you gonna get in seer-ee-us trouble. Sugah, this town is full of tighuhs and… you… are .,‘ a… juicy… lamb.“

‘Your fangs are showing,“ Daisy Mae said tonelessly.

Pearl turned to him, about to cut him dead, but instead threw up his arms and did Butterfly McQueen again. “Lawzy, Miss Daisy Mae, you done got a spot on yo‘ pretty shirt!” He turned back to John Lee with a martyred expression. “I wash and clean and iron and scrub and work my fanguhs to the bone, -and this slob can get covered in spaghetti sauce eatin’ jelly beans!”

John Lee dissolved in a fit of giggles. Pearl couldn’t hold his outraged expression any longer and began to grin. Daisy Mae chuckled and said, “Don’t pay any attention to her, John Lee. She’s got an Aunt Jemimah complex.”

Pearl got up. “Let’s get out of this meat market. There are too many eyes on our little rump roast.”

Daisy Mae put his hand on John Lee’s. “John Lee, if we run into a cop, try to look twenty-one.”

He wiped the laugh tears from his eyes. ‘'I'll do my best.“ He got the pasteboard box and followed them out of the cafe. They cut hurriedly around the corner past a large sidewalk newsstand, then jaywalked to a parking lot Pearl and Daisy Mae acted like a couple of cat burglars, and John Lee had to hurry to keep up.

They got into a ‘63 Corvair and drove west on Hollywood Boulevard until it became a residential street, then turned right on Laurel Canyon. They wound up into the Hollywood Hills, Pearl and Daisy Mae chattering constantly, making John Lee laugh a lot. He felt very good and very lucky.

Pearl pulled into a garage sitting on the edge of the pavement with no driveway. They went up a long flight of rickety wooden steps to a small two-bedroom house with a porch that went all the way around. Pearl flipped on the lights. “It ain’t Twelve Oaks, sugah, but we like it.”

John Lee stared goggle-eyed. He’d been in Aunt Rose’s and Aunt Lilah’s fancy houses lots of times, but they ran to beige, desert rose, and old gold. These colors were absolutely electric. The wild patterns made him dizzy, and there were pictures and statues and things hanging from the ceiling,

‘Golly,“ he said.

‘Take a load off,“ Daisy Mae said, pointing to a big reclining chair covered in what looked like purple fur. John Lee put the box on the floor and gingerly sat down. He leaned back and was surprised at how comfortable it was. Pearl put a record on the record player, but John Lee didn’t recognize the music. He yawned. Daisy Mae stood over the box. ”What’s in this carton you keep clutching to your bosom?“ ”Mythings.“

‘Pardon my nose,“ Daisy Mae said and opened it, He pulled out some of John Lee’s everyday clothes. ”You auditioning for the sixteenth road company of Tobacco Road"

‘Don’t pay any attention,“ Pearl said, sitting beside John Lee. ”She’s a costumer at Paramount. Thinks she knows everything about clothes.“

‘Don’t knock it. I had to dress thirty bitchy starlets to buy that chair you got your black ass on. I’ll hang these up for you, John Lee.“ John Lee yawned again. ”Thank you.“ Pearl threw up his hands. ”Land o’ Goshen, this child is exhausted!“

Daisy Mae carried the box into a bedroom. “Two days on a Continental Trailways bus would give Captain Marvel the drearies.”

Pearl took John Lee’s arm and pulled him out of the chair. “Come on, sugah. We gotta give you a nice bath and put you to bed, afore you co-lapse.” He led him to the bathroom, showed him where everything was, and turned on the shower for him. “Give a holler if you need anything.”

‘Thank you.“ Pearl left. John Lee had never taken a shower before, although he had seen them at Aunt Rose’s and Aunt Lilah’s. He took off his clothes and got in.

The door opened and Pearl came in, pushing back the shower curtain. “You all right, sugah? Oh, sugah, you are off right!” He leered at John Lee, but in such a way that made him laugh. His ears turned red anyway. Pearl winked and closed the curtain. “You don’t mind if I brush my teeth?”

‘No. Go ahead.“ He could hear Pearl sloshing and brushing. After a bit there was silence. He pulled back the shower curtain a little and peeped out. Pearl was leaning against the wash basin, a toothbrush in his hand, his head down, and his eyes closed. John Lee watched him, wondering if he should say anything.

‘John Lee,“ Pearl said without looking up, his voice serious and the accent totally absent.

‘Yes Pearl?“ He spoke quietly and cautiously.

“ John Lee, don’t pay any attention when we tease you about how cute you are, or when we ogle your body. If s just the way we are. It’s Just the way the lousy world is.”

‘I won’t, Pearl.“ He felt the hurting in the back of his throat, but he didn’t know why.

Pearl suddenly stood up, the big! grin back on his face. “Well. Look at me. Poor Pitiful Pearl. Now. What do you sleep in? Underwear? Pee-jays? Nightshirt? Your little bare skin?”

‘My pajamas are in the box, I think.“

‘Good enough.“ Pearl left the bathroom and returned when John Lee was drying on a big plush towel printed like the American flag. Pearl reached in and hung the pajamas on the doorknob without looking in. ”There you go, sugah.“

‘Thank you, Pearl.“

He left the bathroom in his pajamas with his Sunday suit over his arm. Daisy Mae took the suit ‘'I'll clean and press that for you.“

‘You don’t have to, Daisy Mae.“ The names were beginning to sound normal to him.

Daisy Mae grinned. “It won’t hurt me.”

Thank you.“

Pearl took his arm. “Time for you to go to bed.” He led John Lee into the bedroom. There was an old, polished brass bed. John Lee stared at it, then ran his hand over the turned-back sheets. Even Aunt Rose hadn’t thought about red silk sheets. He never imagined such luxury.

‘Golly,“ he said.

Pearl laughed and grabbed him in a big hug and kissed him on the forehead, “Sugah, you are just not to be believed!” John Lee grinned uncomfortably and turned red. Pearl pulled the sheet up around his neck and patted his cheek. “Sleep tight”

‘Good night, Pearl.“

Daisy Mae stuck his head in to say good night. Pearl turned at the door and smiled fondly at him, then went out, closing it John Lee wiggled around on the silk sheets. Golly, he thought, golly, golly, golly!

Pearl walked dreamily into the living room and collapsed becomingly onto the big purple fur chair. He sighed hugely. “Daisy Mae. Now I know what it must feel like to be a mother.”

The next morning John Lee woke slowly and stretched until his muscles popped. He looked at the ceiling, but there was no faded water-stained paper, only neat white tiles with an embossed flower in the center of each. He slid to the side of the bed and felt the silk sheets flow like water across his skin. He went to the bathroom and relieved himself, splashing cold water on his face and combing the tangles out of his hair. He sure needed a haircut. He wondered if he ought to let it grow long now that he was in Hollywood.

Hollywood.

He’d almost forgotten. He bet Miss Mahan was worried about him. He sure liked Miss Mahan and a pang of guilt struck him. He should have told her he wouldn’t be back in school this fall, especially after she was nice enough to come to mamma’s funeral and all. Well, there was nothing he could do now. Mr. Cuttsanger would tell her—and everybody else —where he was.

He went back to his room and put on his best pair of blue jeans, a white T-shirt and his gray sneakers. He wondered where everyone was. The house was very quiet He guessed they had both gone to work. He went out on the back porch—only Pearl called it a deck—and saw Daisy Mae lying there on a blanket stark naked. He started to go back in, but Daisy Mae looked up. “Good morning, slugabed, you sleep well?”

John Lee fidgeted, trying not to look at Daisy Mae. “Yeah. Real good. Where’s Pearl?”

‘She’s at work. Does windows for May Company.“

‘Didn’t you have to work today at Paramount?

Got a few days off. Just finished something called Wives and Lovers. Gonna be a dog. You want some breakfast, or you wanta join me?“

‘Uh… what're you doin’?’ He sure didn’t seem to care if anybody saw him naked.

‘Gettin’ some sun, tryin‘ to get rid of this fish-belly white.“

‘You always do it with… uh… no clothes on?“ You’re acting like a hick again, John Lee Peacock. Damnation, he thought.

Daisy Mae chuckled. “Sure. Otherwise, I’d look like a two-tone Ford. If it embarrasses you, I'll put some clothes on.”

‘No,“ he protested quickly. ”No, of course it doesn’t embarrass me. I think I will join you.“

‘Okay.“ He pointed back over his head without looking. There’s another blanket there on the chaise.”

John Lee spread the blanket on the porch and pulled his T-shirt over his head. He pulled off his shoes and socks. Daisy Mae wasn’t paying any attention to him. He looked around. The next house up the hill overlooked them, but that was the only one. He didn’t see anybody up there. He took a deep breath, slipped off his pants and his shorts, and quickly lay down on his stomach. He might as well get some sun on his back first.

Daisy Mae spoke without looking at him. “Don’t stay in one position more than five minutes, or you’ll blister.”

‘Okay.“ He estimated five minutes had passed, swallowed, and turned over on his back. He looked straight into the eyes of a woman leaning on the railing of the next house up, watching him. He froze. The bottom dropped out of his stomach. Then he jumped up and grabbed his pants. He knew he was acting like an idiot, but he couldn’t stop himself. He hopped on one foot, trying to get the pants on, but his toes kept getting in the way. They caught on the crotch and he fell flat on his butt. He managed to wiggle into them, sitting on the floor.

Daisy Mae looked up. “You sit on a bee or something?”

‘No.“ He motioned with his head at the woman, afraid to look at her because he knew he was beet red all over.

Daisy Mae looked up, grinned, and waved. “Hi, Sue.” He didn’t do anything to cover himself, didn’t seem to care that she saw him.

‘Hello, Daisy Mae.“ Her voice was husky and amused. ”Who’s your bashful friend?“

‘John Lee Peacock from Kansas. This is Sue. .“

Damnation, John Lee thought, ‘I’m acting like a fool, sitting here hunkered up against this shez, as Daisy Mae calls it. Doesn’t anyone in Hollywood have a normal name? He forced himself to look up. She was still leaning on the railing, looking at him. Only now she was smiling. She was wearing a paint-stained sweat shirt and blue jeans. Her hair was tied up in a scarf but auburn strands dangled out. She wasn’t wearing any make-up that he could see. She was kinda old, he thought, but really very stunning. Her smile was nice. He felt himself smiling back.

‘Nothing to be bashful about, John Lee Peacock. I’ve seen more male privates than you could load in a boxcar.“ Her voice was still amused but she wasn’t putting him down.

‘Maybe so,“ he answered, ”but I haven’t had any ladies see mine.“ His boldness made him start getting red again.

She laughed and he felt goose bumps pop out on his arms. “You could have a point there, John Lee. How would you like to make a little money?‘

‘Huh?“

‘It’s okay,“ Daisy Mae said, getting up and wrapping a towel around his waist ”Sue’s an artist. She wants you to pose for her.“

John Lee looked back up at her. “That’s right,” she said. “I’m as safe as mother’s milk.”

‘Well, okay, I guess. But you don’t need to pay me for something like that.“ He got up and kicked his underwear under the chaise.

‘Of course I'll pay you. It’s very hard work. Come on up.“

‘Uh… how do I get up there?“

‘Go down to the street and come up my steps. Front door’s open, come on in. You’ll find me.“ She smiled again and went out of sight.

He looked at Daisy Mae. “Will it be all right with Pearl?”

‘Sure. We’ve both posed for her. She’s good. Scoot.“ Daisy Mae went into the house. John Lee put on his T-shirt and shoes. He wondered if he should take off his pants and put on his underwear, but decided against it.

He opened her front door and went in as she had told him. She was right about him finding her. The whole house was one big room. A small kitchen was in one corner behind a folding screen. A day bed was against one wall between two bureaus that had been painted yellow. There was a door to a closet and another to a bathroom. There were a couple of tired but comfortable-looking easy chairs, a drafting table with a stool pushed under it, and an easel under a skylight. Pictures were everywhere; some in color, mostly black and white sketches; thumb-tacked all over the walls, leaning in stacks against the bureaus, chairs, walls. A big orange cat lay curled in a chair. It opened one eye, gave John Lee the once over, and went back to sleep.

Sue was standing at the easel, frowning at the painting he couldn’t see. She had a brush stuck behind one ear and was holding another like a club. ‘I’m glad you showed up, John Lee. This thing is going nowhere.“ She flipped, a cloth over it and leaned it against the wall.

John Lee stared at the pictures. Nearly all of them were of people, most of them naked, though there were a couple of the cat. Some of the people were women but most of them seemed to be men. He spotted a sketch of Pearl and Daisy Mae, leaning against each other naked, looking like a butterfly with one black and one white wing.

She watched him look for a while. “This is just the garbage. I sell the good stuff. That one of Pearl and Daisy Mae turned out rather well. It’s hanging in a gay bar in the Valley. Got eleven hundred for it”

“Golfy.”

‘You’re right It was a swindle.“

‘Do you… ah… want me to… do you want to paint my picture with my… clothes off?“ He waved his hand vaguely at some of the nude sketches. Damn his ears!

She didn’t seem to notice. If you don’t mind. Don’t worry about it. It’ll be a few days yet. Give you a chance to get used to the idea. I want to make some sketches and work on your face for a while.“ She came to him and put her hand on his cheek. ”You’ve got something in your face, John Lee. I don’t know… what it is. More than simple innocence. I just hope I can capture it. Hold still, I want to feel your bones.“ He grinned and it made her smile. ”Makes you feel like a horse up for sale, doesn’t it?“ She ran her cool fingers over his face, and he didn’t want her to ever stop. He closed his eyes.

Suddenly, she caught her fingers in his hair and shook him. She laughed and hugged him against her warm soft breasts. His stomach did a flip-flop. She released him quickly and crossed her arms with her hands under her armpits. She laughed a little nervously. “You’re just like Punkin. Scratch his ears and he’ll go to sleep on you.”

‘Punkin?“

She pointed at the cat. “Don’t you think he looks remarkably like a pumpkin when he’s curled up asleep like that?”

“Yeah.” He laughed.

‘Do you want to start now?“

‘I guess.“

‘Okay. Just sit in that chair and relax.“ She pulled the stool from beneath the drafting table and put it in front of the chair. She sat on the stool with her legs crossed, a sketch pad propped on one knee. She lit a cigarette and held, it in her left hand while she worked rapidly with a stick of charcoal. ”You can talk if you want to. Tell me about yourself.“

So he did. He told her about Miller’s Corners, Hawley, the farm, school, Miss Mahan who also painted but only flowers, Mr. Cuttsanger, his mother, a lot about his mother, not much about his father because he didn’t really know very much when you got right down to it. He made her chuckle about Aunt Rose and Aunt Iilah. She kept turning the pages of the sketch pad and starting over. He wanted to see what she was drawing, but he was afraid to move.

She seemed to read his mind. “You don’t have to sit so still, John Lee. Move when you want to.” He changed positions but he still couldn’t see. Punkin suddenly leaped in his lap, making him jump. The cat walked up his chest and looked into his eyes. Then he began to purr and curled up with his head under John Lee’s chin. ,

Sue chuckled. “You are a charmer, John Lee. He treats most people with majestic indifference.” John Lee grinned and stroked the cat. Punkin squirmed in delicious ecstasy. Then John Lee’s stomach rumbled.

Sue put the pad down and laughed. “You poor lamb. I’m starving you to death.” She looked at her watch. “Good grief, it’s two thirty. What do you want to eat?”

‘Anything.“

‘Anything it is.“

He stood with Punkin curled in his arms, watching her do wonderful things with eggs, ham, green peppers, onions, and buttered toast. He said he loved scrambled eggs; and she laughed and said scrambled eggs indeed, you taste my omelets and you’ll be my slave forever. She pulled down a table that folded against the wall, set out the two steaming plates with two glasses of cold milk. He was quite willing to be her slave forever, even without the omelet.

Punkin sat on the floor with his tail curled around his feet, watching them, making short, soft clarinet sounds. She laughed. “Isn’t that pitiful? The cat food’s under the sink if you’d like to feed him.”

‘Sure.“ He tried to pour the cat food into the bowl, but Punkin kept grabbing the box with his claws and sticking his head in it John Lee sat on the floor having a fit of giggles. God o’ mighty, he thought, everything is so wonderfully, marvelously, absolutely perfectly good.

She continued sketching after they did the dishes. He sat in the chair feeling luxuriously content He smiled.

‘May I share it?“ Sue asked, almost smiling herself.

‘Huh? Oh, nothin’. I was just… feeling good.“ Then he felt embarrassed. ”You… ah… been painting pictures very long?“

‘Oh, I’ve dabbled at it quite a while, but I’ve only been doing it seriously for a couple of years.“ She smiled in a funny, wry way. ’I’m just an aging roundheels who decided she’d better find another line of work while she could.”

He didn’t know what she was talking about “You’re not old.”

‘I stood on the shore and chunked rocks at the Mayflower.“ She sighed. ’I’m forty-five.”

‘Golly. I thought you were about thirty.“

She laughed her throaty laugh that made him tingle“Honey, at your age everyone between twenty-five and fifty looks alike.”

‘I think you’re beautiful,“ he said and wished he hadn’t, but she smiled and he was glad he had.

‘Thank you, little lamb. You should have seen me when I was your age.“ She stopped drawing and sat with her head to one side, remembering. ”You should have seen me when I was fifteen.“ Then she shifted her position on the stool and laughed. ”I was quite a dish—if I do say so myself. We were practically neighbors, you know that?“ she said, changing the subject ’I’m an old Okie from way back. Still can’t bear to watch The Grapes of Wrath. We came to California in ‘33 and settled in San Diego. Practically starved to death. My father died in ’35, and my mother went back to telling fortunes and having seances—among other things. My father wouldn’t let her do it while he was alive.”

‘Golly,“ he said, bug-eyed. ”A real fortune teller?“

‘Well,“ she said wryly, ”I never thought of it as being very real, but I don’t know any more.“ She looked at him speculatively for a moment, then shrugged. ”Whether she was real or not, I don’t know but I guess she was pretty good, ’cause there seemed to be plenty of money after that. Then the war started. And if you’re twenty-three, in San Diego, during a war, you can make lots of money if you keep your wits about you.“ She shifted again on the stool. ”Well, we won’t go into that“

‘Where’s your mother now?“

‘Oh, she’s dead… I imagine. It was in ’45,1 think. Yeah, right after V-J Day, I went over for a visit and she wasn’t there. Never heard from her again. You know, her house is still there in San Diego. I get a tax bill every year. I don’t know why I keep paying it. Guess I'd rather do that than go through all that junk she had accumulated. I was down there a few years ago and went by the place. Everything was still there just as it was; two feet deep in dust, of course. I’m surprised vandals haven’t stripped the place, considering what the neighborhood’s become. I took a few things as keepsakes, but I didn’t hang around long. It’s worse than it was when she was there.“

She worked a while in silence, then stopped drawing again and looked at him in a way that made his stomach feel funny. “If I were twenty and you were twenty… you’re gonna be a ring-tailed boomer when you’re twenty, John Lee.” She suddenly laughed and began drawing. “If I’m gonna make people older and younger, I might as well make myself fifteen—no point in wasting five years.”

He didn’t know what a ring-tailed boomer was, but the way she said it made his ears turn red. Her mentioning San Diego reminded him. “Why do they call you ?”

‘Daisy Mae has a big mouth,“ she said wryly. 'I'll tell you about it someday.”

‘I sure like Pearl and Daisy Mae,“ he said and smiled.

‘So do I.“

‘Pearl is awfully nice to me.“

‘Some people have a cat and some people have a dog.“

He sure wished he knew what people were talking about, at least some of the time.

It seemed to him hardly any time had passed when Pearl sashayed in with a May Co. carton under his arm. “It is I, Lady Bountiful, come to free the slaves,” he brayed and presented the box to John Lee with a flourish. ‘It’s a Welcome to California present.“

‘Golly.“ He took the box gingerly.

‘Well, open it.“ John Lee fumbled at the string while Pearl planted a kiss on Sue’s cheek. ”Sugah, you look more like Lauren Bacall every day!“

Sue grinned. “Hello, Pearl. How are you?”

He sighed an elaborate sigh. “I am worn to a frazzle. I’ve been slaving over a tacky May Company window all day. If they would only let me be cre-a-tive!”

‘Wilshire Boulevard would never survive it.“

John Lee stared at the contents of the box. “How did you know what size I wore?”

‘Daisy Mae has tape measures in her eyeballs.“ He made fluttering motions with his hands. ”Well, try them on.“

John Lee grinned and hurried to the bathroom with the box. He put it on the side of the tub and went through it. There were pants, a shirt, socks, shoes, and, he was glad to see, underwear. But he had never seen gold underwear and it looked kinda skimpy. He quickly shucked off his clothes and slipped on the gold shorts. Golly, he thought. They fit like his bide, and he kept wanting to pull them up, but thats all there was to them.

The shirt was yellow and soft. He rubbed it on his face, then slipped it over his head. It fit tight around his waist, and the neck was open halfway to his navel. He looked for buttons but there weren’t any. The sleeves were long and floppy and had little pearl snaps on the cuffs.

He slipped on the pants, which had alternating dark-brown and light-brown vertical stripes. He was surprised to find that they didn’t come any higher than the shorts. He gave them an experimental tug and decided they wouldn’t fall off. They were tight almost to the knees and got loose and floppy at the bottom.

He sat on the commode to put on the shoes but stood again to hitch the pants up in back. He slipped on the soft, fuzzy gold socks. The shoes were brown and incredibly shiny. And they didn’t even have shoestrings. He stood up, gave the pants a hitch, and looked at himself in the mirror. He couldn’t make himself stop grinning.

He opened the bathroom door and walked out, still grinning. Pearl made his eyes go big and round, and Sue leaned against one of the yellow bureaus with her mouth puckered up. John Lee walked nervously to them, the shoes making a thump at every step. “The pants are a little bit too tight,” he said and didn’t know what to do with his hands.

‘Oh, sugah, you are wrong about that!“

‘If he had his hair slicked down with pomade, he’d look like an adagio dancer… or something,“ Sue said in a flat voice.

Pearl lowered his eyebrows at her, then twirled his finger at John Lee. “Turn around.”

He turned nervously, worried because Sue didn’t seemed pleased.

‘John Lee, sugah,“ Pearl said in awe, ”you have got the Power.

‘Pearl. Don’t you think you went a little overboard?“ Sue put her hand on the back of John Lee’s neck. ”If he walked down Hollywood Boulevard in that, he’d have to carry a machine gun.“

‘Well!“ Pearl swelled lip in mock outrage. ”At least they’re not lavender!“

Sue laughed. John Lee laughed too, but he wasn’t exactly sure why. They were saying things he didn’t understand again. But he felt an overwhelming fondness for Pearl at that moment He reached out and shook Pearl’s hand. “Thank you, Pearl. I think the clothes are beautiful.” Then, because he felt Pearl would be pleased, he kissed him on the cheek.

The effect was startling. Pearl’s face seemed to turn to putty and went through seven distinct expression changes. His mouth worked like a goldfish and he kept blinking his eyes. Then he pulled himself together and said too loudly, “listen, you all.”

Dinner will be ready in exactly seventy-two minutes. We’re having my world-famous sowbelly and chittlin lasagna.“ He hurried out, walking too fast.

John Lee was up very early the next morning. Sue opened the door still in her bathrobe. “I didn’t know what time you wanted me to come over,” he said apologetically. “Did I wake you up?”

Sue smiled and motioned him in. “Ordinarily, I’m not coordinated enough to tie my shoes before noon, but I woke up about two hours ago ready to go to work. I didn’t even take time to dress.” She indicated one wall of the room. “Check out the gallery while I put the wreck together.”

All the old sketches had been cleared from the wall. John Lee saw himself thumbtacked in neat rows. “Golly,” he said, walking slowly down the rows. The sketches were all of his face: some sheets were covered with eyes, laughing, sleepy, dreamy, contemplative; others with mouths, smiling, grinning, pouting, pensive. There were noses and ears and combinations. He recognized some of the full-face sketches: this one was when he was talking about his mother; that one when he was petting Punkin; that one when he was telling of Aunt Rose and Aunt Iilah; another when he sat in rapt attention, listening to Sue.

She emerged from the bathroom dressed much as she had been the day before except that she wore a little make-up and her hair fell through the scarf, hanging long and fluffy down her back. John Lee thought she was absolutely gorgeous. “What do you think,” she asked tentatively, not quite smiling.

He couldn’t think of anything to say that wasn’t obvious to the eye, and so he just grinned in extreme pleasure.

She smiled happily. “I think I've caught you, John Lee. I really feel good about it You’re just what I’ve been needing.”

‘What're you gonna draw today?“

She indicated a large canvas in position on the easel. ‘I’m ready to start, if you are.“

Oh, Lord, he thought, just don’t turn red. “Yeah. I guess so.”

‘You can keep your pants on for a while, if it’ll make you more comfortable. I'll work on your head and torso.“ She was businesslike, not seeming to notice his nervousness. It made him feel a little better.

He took a deep breath. “No… I might as well get it over with.” She nodded and began puttering around with paints and turpentine, not looking at him, without seeming to be deliberately not looking at him. He pulled the T-shirt over his head and wondered what to do with it Quit stalling, he admonished, and slipped off his sneakers and socks. He looked at her but she was still ignoring him. He quickly pulled off his pants and shorts, He stood there feeling as if there were a cyclone in his stomach. Well,“ he said, ‘I'm ready.”

She turned and looked at him as if she had seen Mm naked every day of his life. “You have absolutely nothing to be embarrassed about, John Lee.”

‘Well,“ he said, Veil.,’”

‘What’s the matter?

I don’t know what to do with my hands!“ Then he couldn’t keep from laughing and she laughed with him. ”What do you want me to do?“

‘Let’s see…“ She moved one of the chairs under the light ”Lean against the chair. I want you relaxed…“

‘I'll try,“ he chuckled.

She smiled. “I want you relaxed and completely Innocent of your nudity. Sort of the September Morn effect”

‘You’re asking a lot“ He leaned against the chair trying to look innocent.

She gave a throaty laugh and shook her head. ‘’You look more like a chicken thief. Don’t try too hard. Just relax and be comfortable, like you were yesterday.“

‘I had my clothes on yesterday.“

‘I know. You’ll do okay as soon as you get used to it.“

‘I still don’t know what to do with my hands.“

‘Don’t do anything with them. Just forget ’em; let them find their own position. I know it’s not easy. Just forget I’m here. Pretend you’re in the woods completely alone. You’ve just been swimming in a little lake, and now you’re relaxing in the sun, lean-fog against a warm rock. Tty to picture it“

‘Okay, 'I'll try.“

‘You’re not thinking about anything, Just resting, feeling the sun on your body.“ She watched him. A pucker of concentration appeared over his nose. He shifted his hips slightly to get more comfortable, and his fidgety hands finally came to rest at his sides. His diaphragm moved slowly as his breathing became softer. The frown gradually disappeared from his face, and the quality she couldn’t put a name to took its place. God, she thought, it brought back memories she had thought were put away forever. She felt like a giddy young girl.

‘That’s it, John Lee,“ she said very softly, trying not to disturb him. She picked up a stick of charcoal and began, to work rapidly. A pleased smile flickered across his lips and then disappeared. ”Beautiful, John Lee, beautiful. Don’t close your eyes; watch the sun reflecting on the water.“

She got the basic form the way she wanted it in charcoal, then began squeezing paint from tubes onto a palette. She applied the base colors quickly, almost offhandedly. After about fifteen minutes she said, “When you get tired, let me know and we’ll take a break.”

‘No I'm fine.“

After another half hour she saw his thumb twitch.

‘If you’re not tired,“ she said, putting the palette down, ”I am. Would you like some coffee?“

‘Yeah,“ he said without moving. ”Are you sure I can get back in the same position again?“

‘I’m sure.“ She tossed him her bathrobe and he put it on. ”Do a few knee bends and get the kinks out.“ She poured two cups of coffee from the electric percolator. ”I told you it was hard work.“

He grinned and stretched his arms forward, rolling the muscles in his shoulders. “I’m not tired.”

She handed him a cup. “You’ve been warned” She opened the back door when she heard a plaintive cry from outside. Punkin strolled in and looked up at her, demanding attention. She picked him up and he started purring loudly.

John Lee found it easy to keep the same position the rest of the morning. Sue had made him as comfortable as she could because of his inexperience. She worked steadily with concentration. He missed the easy chatter of the day before, but he didn’t want to disturb her. They took periodic breaks, though she sometimes became so engrossed she forgot Then she would admonish him gently for not reminding her. When they broke for lunch, she made him do knee bends and push-ups and then massaged his back and shoulders with green rubbing alcohol.

Daisy Mae strolled in with a foil-covered Pyrex dish. “You didn’t do that when Pearl and I posed for you,” he said with feigned huffiness and slipped the dish into the oven.

‘Hello, Daisy Mae,“ John Lee grinned, putting on the robe. ”Look at the sketches.“

‘Hello, John Lee. I knew Sue would get so absorbed she’d forget to feed you. So I brought the leftover lasagna.“ He looked over the sketches, critically, with his fingers theatrically stroking his chin. ”I think the girl shows some promise, though I see years of study ahead“

Sue kissed him on the cheek and began setting the table for three. Daisy Mae sprawled in a chair like a wilting lily. “God!” he grunted. “I got a call from Paramount this morning. I start back to work Thursday. We’re doing a west-era. On lo-ca-tion. My God. In Arizona! Centipedes! Tarantulas! Scorpions! Rattlesnakes! Sweaty starlets! If I’m not back in five weeks, send the Ma-rines/”

Sue laughed. “You can console yourself with thoughts of all those butch cowboys.”

‘Darling,“ he said, arching his wrist at her, ”some of those cowboys are about as butch as Pamela Tiffin. I could tell you stories…“

‘Don’t bother. I’ve heard most of them.“

1 haven’t,“ John Lee piped in brightly.

Sue started to say something, but Daisy Mae beat her to it. “Someday, John Lee. You’re much too young to lose all your illusions.”

When they had eaten, Sue thanked him for bringing the lasagna and shooed him out. He started to peek under the doth covering the painting, but she slapped his hand. “You know better than that”

‘Can John Lee bunk over here tomorrow night? ’I’m giving myself a going-away party before I’m exiled to the burning deserts, and ifs liable to last all night“

She stood very still for a moment. Then she nodded with a jerk of her head. “Of course.” Daisy Mae waltzed out with his Pyrex dish. Sue looked after him for a moment, then at John Lee sitting bewildered on the day bed. She gave him a quick nervous smile. “You ready?‘

He took off the bathrobe, hardly feeling embarrassed at all, and took his place, bringing back the woods, the lake, and the warm rock, but needing them only for a moment to get started.

At four-thirty she covered the painting and began washing the brushes. She had said hardly anything at all since Daisy Mae left, giving him only an occasional soft-voiced direction. He put his clothes on and went to her. “Is it turning out the way you’d hoped?”

Her eyes met his. He saw sadness in them and something that had gotten lost. “Yes,” she said almost inaudibly. Then she smiled, “You’re a joy to paint, John Lee. Now, run along before Pearl comes traipsing in. I’d rather not have company this evening. Be over bright and early, and I think well finish it tomorrow.”

Punkin stopped him on the steps, wanting to be petted. He picked up the cat and glanced back to see Sue watching him through the window. She turned away quickly.

The painting was completed at three p.m. the next afternoon. Sue stood back from it and looked at John Lee, smiling He went to her hesitantly, almost fearfully, still naked, and looked at it. “Golly,” he breathed. When she painted a nude, she really painted everything. He felt the heat starting at his ears and flowing downward. He was almost used to being naked in front of her, but it was an astonishing shock to see himself being naked.

She laughed fondly. “John Lee, you’re a regular traffic light”

‘No, Fm not,“ he muttered and got even redder.

Suddenly, her arms were around him, hugging him tightly to her. He felt electricity bouncing in the bottom of his stomach. He threw his arms around her and wanted to be enveloped by her. “John Lee, my little lamb,” she whispered in his ear, bending her head because she was an inch taller, “do you like it?”

Yes!“ he breathed, with that peculiar pain in the back of his throat again. ”Oh, yes.“

He shifted his head slightly so he could see. The painting was done in pale sun-washed colors. He leaned against a suggestion of something white which might have been a large rock. It was everything she had said she wanted, and more. He seemed totally innocent of clothing, so completely comfortable was he in his nudity. His body was relaxed, but there was no lethargy in it. There was something slightly supernatural about the John Lee in the painting, as if perhaps he were a fawn or a wood sprite, definitely an impression of a forest creature. The various shades of pale green in the background implied a forest, and there was a dappling of leaf shadows on his shoulder and chest—but only a suggestion. However, these were unimportant. The figure dominated the painting, executed in fine detail, like a Raphael. The face was innocent, totally uncorrupted by worldly knowledge. But there was a quality in it even purer than simple innocence. The eyes were lost in a reverie.

‘Do I look like that?“ he asked, slightly overwhelmed.

‘Well…“ she said with a husky chuckle, Yes, you do. Although I will have to admit I idealized you somewhat.”

‘Is it okay if I bring Pearl and Daisy Mae over to see it?“ he asked with growing excitement. ”Pearl was supposed to come home at noon today to help with the party. Only she… I mean he, calls it a Druid ritual.“

She laughed and released him. “All right.”

He raced happily to the door, then skidded to a halt. He hurried back, grinning sheepishly, and picked up his pants. He put them on, hopping on one foot, then out the door, clattering down the steps. She looked at the empty doorway for a moment, then rubbed at her eyes but was unable to stop the tears.

‘Hell!“ she said out loud. ”Oh, hell?

John Lee came over from the party about ten o’clock dressed in his new clothes and carrying a Lufthansa flight bag Pearl had packed for him. He flopped into one of the chairs, grinning. Sue was in the other, reading. She looked at- him speculatively. Punkin leaped lightly from her lap and stretched mightily, his rear end high in the air, his chin against the floor, and his toes splayed. Then he hopped into John Lee’s lap. Stroking the cat and still grinning, he met her eyes. They both burst into a fit of giggles.

‘John Lee, you have no staying power,“ she choked out between gasps of laughter.

He got himself under control, gulping air. Td much rather be over here with you.“

‘I hope Pearl gave you a whip and a chair to go with those clothes.“

‘No, but he warned me to stay out of corners and, above all, bedrooms.“

There was a light tap on the door. I've been expecting this,“ she muttered. ”Come on in!“

The door opened and a pale, slim, good-looking young man wafted in like the queen of Rumania inspecting the hog pens. “Hello,” he sighed, not quite holding out his hand to be kissed. “Pearl was telling us about the painting you did of John Lee. May I see it?” He looked at John Lee and smiled anaemically.

‘Of course.“ Sue got up and turned the light on over the easel. A shriek of laughter drifted over from next door. The young man strolled to the painting and stood motionless for a full two minutes staring at it.

Then he sighed. “Pearl is so lucky. My last one ran off with my stereo, my Polaroid, and knocked out three fillings.”

‘That’s… ah… too bad,“ she said, valiantly not smiling.

‘Yes,“ he said and sighed again. Td like to buy it”

‘It’s not for sale.“

‘'I'll give you a thousand.“

She shook her head.

‘Two thousand.“

‘Sorry.“

He sighed again as if he expected nothing from life but an endless series of defeats. “Oh, well Thank you for letting me see it”

‘You’re extremely welcome.“

He drifted to the door like a wisp of fog, turned, gave John Lee a wan smile, and departed. They both stared at the closed door.

‘I feel as if I just played the last act of La Traoiata? Sue said in a stunned voice.

If I remember correctly,“ John Lee said, ”that was Cow-Cow.“

She lifted the painting from the easel. “There’s only one thing to do if we don’t want a parade through here all night. Be back shortly.‘ She left, taking the painting with her.

When she returned half an hour later, he was dozing. The showing was an unqualified success. I was offered seven thou-sand dollars for it You never saw so many erotic fantasies hanging out. It was like waving a haunch of beef at a bunch of half-starved tigers.“ She put the painting back on the easel and stood looking at it ”It is good, though, isn’t it, John Lee?“ She sounded only partially convinced. ‘It really is good.” She looked at him, sprawled in the chair, half asleep, smiling happily at her. “Well,” she laughed, “neither the artist nor the model are qualified judges. And that crowd at Pearl’s could only see a beautiful child with his privates exposed.” .

She sat on the arm of the chair, putting her hand on the side of his face. He closed his eyes and moved his face against her hand the way Punkin would do. “You’re such a child, John Lee,” she said softly, feeling her eyes getting damp. “Your body may fool people for a while, but up here,” she caught her fingers in his hair, “up here, you’re an innocent, trusting, guileless child. And I think you may break my heart.” She closed her eyes, trying to hold back the tears, afraid she was making a fool of herself.

He looked up at her, feeling things he had never felt before, wanting things he had never wanted before. Perhaps if he hadn’t been floating in the dreamlike area between wakefulness and sleep, his natural shyness might have prevented him. He slipped his arms slowly around her neck and pulled her gently to him. He felt her tense as if about to pull away, then her lips were like butterfly wings against his. She lay across him with her face buried in his neck. He stroked her hair and brushed his lips against her cheek.

Is this what you want, John Lee?“ she asked, her voice unsteady. ”Is this what you really want?‘

‘Yes,“ he answered. ”You’re all I want.“

‘You’re sure you’re not just feeling sorry for an old lady?“ she said shakily, trying to sound as if she were making a joke, but not succeeding completely.

He held her tighter. “I love you, San Diego light-foot Sue.”

She stood up, wiping at her eyes with trembling fingers. “Daisy Mae and his big mouth,” she said, half laughing and half crying. John Lee stood up also, giving the striped pants a hitch in the back. “Oh, John Lee,” she said, hugging him to her, “take off those awful clothes.”

He stood on tiptoe to kiss her because his mouth came only to her chin. He removed the clothes, feeling no embarrassment at all. She turned out the light and locked the door before undressing, feeling embarrassment herself for the first time in nearly thirty years. She turned back the cover on the day bed, and. they lay in the warm night, listening to the shrieks of strained laughter from Pearl’s, feeling,‘ exploring, each trying to touch every part of the other’s body with every part of his own. Then, she showed him what to do and kissed him when he was clumsy.

They lay together, drowsily. Flamenco music drifted over from the party next door. Sue had her arms around John Lee, her breasts pressed against his back, her face against his neck. “John Lee?”

‘Mmmm?“

‘John Lee, when you’re twenty… have you thought, 'I'll be fifty?“

‘I love you, Sue. It doesn’t matter to me.

She was silent for a moment. “Perhaps it doesn't now. You’re too young to know the difference, and I still have a few vestiges of my looks left. But in a few years you’ll want a girl your own age, and in a few years I'll be an old woman.” He started to protest, but she put her fingers on his lips, brushing them with feathery touches. “Your lips are like velvet, John Lee,” she whispered. He opened his mouth slightly and touched her fingers with his tongue. Then she clamped her arms around him and began weeping on his shoulder. “My God John Lee! I don’t want to be like your favorite aunt, or even your mother! I don’t want to see you married to some empty-headed girl, some pretty young girl, having your babies like a brood sow, living in a tract house in Orange County. I want to be the one to have your babies, but I’m too old…”

He twisted in her arms to face her and stopped her words with his mouth. The second time, she showed him how to make it last longer, how to make it better, and he was very adept. He fell asleep in her arms where she held him like a teddy bear, but she lay awake for many hours, making a decision.

The next morning, he moved his things from Peal's to Sue’s.

When he had gone, Pearl began to sob, large tears rolling down his face. His hands clutched at each other like graceful black spiders Daisy Mae put down the glass of tomato juice with the raw egg and Tabasco he had made for his hangover and took Pearl in his arms.

‘Oh, Pearl, you knew it would happen. Just like it always happens,“ he soothed.

‘But John Lee was different from the others,“ he forced out between heaving sobs.

‘Yes, he was. But he’s just next-door. He’s still our friend. We can see him anytime.“

‘But it’s not the same. Sue will be taking care of him, not me! Oh, Daisy Mae,“ he wailed, ”if this is what it’s like to lose a child, I don’t want to be a mother any more!“

Sue began a new painting that morning. “I want you like you were last night,” she told John Lee, “sitting all asprawl in the chair, half asleep, with Punkin in your lap, but not in those same clothes.” They went through his meager wardrobe. She selected a pair of khaki-colored jeans and gave him one of her short-sleeve sweat shirts. She showed him how to sit. “Leave your shoes off. I have a foot fetish.” She ran her fingernails quickly across the bottom of his foot His leg jerked and he grabbed her, giggling, and pulling her in his lap. She submitted happily to his kisses for a moment, then pulled away.

‘Okay,“ she laughed, ”calm yourself. We’ve got work to do.“

‘Yes, ma’am,“ he said primly, striking a pose and beaming at her.

Thank God, she thought, he doesn’t seem to have any regrets.

‘My Gawd!“ Pearl shrieked, seeing the new painting for the first time. He bulged his eyes and hugged himself. ”Sue! That?s the most erotic thing I’ve seen in my life! It’s practically pornographic/ If I look at it any longer, I'm gonna embarrass myself.“ He turned away dramatically and saw John Lee grinning and blushing.

‘I embarrass myself a little with that one,“ Sue admitted. ”Talk about erotic fantasies.“

The painting was in dark brooding colors, but a light from somewhere fell across John Lee, sitting deep in the chair, one bare foot tucked under him and the other dangling. One hand lay on his thigh and the other negligently stroked the orange cat in his lap. His face was sleepy and sensual. His eyes looked directly at you. They were the eyes of an innocent fawn, but they were also the eyes of a stag in rut.

‘You’re not… ah… gonna show it to a bunch of people, are you?“ John Lee asked tentatively.

When he woke the next morning, the bed beside him was empty. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and unfolded the note lying on her pillow. “John Lee, my love,” it read in her masculine scrawl, “I had to go to San Diego for the day and didn’t want to wake you. I’ll be back tonight late. Sue.” .

He was asleep when she came in. She sat on the edge of the bed and moved her hand lightly across his chest. “John Lee. Wake up, honey.”

He squirmed on the bed. “Sue? he mumbled without opening his eyes. He turned over on his stomach, burying his head, fighting wakefulness.

She pulled back the covers and slapped him lightly on his bare bottom. “Wake up. I want to do another painting. Get dressed.”

‘I’m too sleepy. Leave your number and 'I'll call you.“

‘Okay, smarty,“ she laughed, ”you’ve got thirty seconds before I get out the ice cubes.“

‘White slaver,“ he grinned, sitting up and kissing her.

‘Where did you hear that?“

‘I spent the day with Pearl and Daisy Mae.“

She kissed him and stood up. “Come on, get a move on.” She put a new canvas on the easel. “Why wasn’t Pearl at work? And I thought Daisy Mae had left for, my God, Arizona.”

‘Today is Saturday,“ he said and went into the bathroom.

‘So it is. I sorta lose track.“ She began squeezing black and white paint from tubes.

John Lee washed his face and ran a comb through his hair. He came out of the bathroom and put on the same clothes he had worn for the last painting. “These okay?” She nodded. “Shoes or foot fetish?” he grinned.

She wrinkled her nose at him. “Shoes.”

He put on his Sunday shoes rather than the sneak-ers. “Daisy Mae doesn’t leave for a couple of weeks yet. They’re having fittings and things. Wardrobe gave her… him an 1865 lady’s riding skirt with a zipper on the side. Any welder in Duluth would know better than that. What do you want me to do?”

‘Just stand there.“ Her voice was tense and hurried.

‘Stand?“ he groaned. ”Don’t you want to do another one of me sitting down?“ He snapped his fingers. ”Do one of me asleep in bed!“ She didn’t laugh at his joke, and so he stood where she indicated. She began, using only black and white. ”Don’t artists need the northern light, or something?“ he asked hopefully, pointing to the dark skylight.

She smiled. “That’s just an excuse artists have been using for the last few thousand years when they didn’t feel like working. Be patient with me, John Lee. You can sleep all day tomorrow. I have to go back to San Diego.”

‘Can’t I go with you?“

‘No, John Lee.“ Her voice was so serious that he didn’t say anything else.

She finished just before dawn. He was about to fall asleep standing, and so she undressed him and put him to bed. He put his arms around her and kissed her, wanting her to stay a little while. “No,” she said, running her fingers through his hair, “you’re too sleepy. I’ll be back in a few days and we can stay in bed for a week.”

He smiled and his eyelids began to droop. “That’ll be nice.”

‘Yes, my little lamb, very nice.“ She kissed him gently on the mouth. He was asleep before she got out the door.

He woke up late Sunday afternoon and immediately looked at the painting. It wasn’t as well done as the other two, he thought. It had a hurried look. It was also in black and white. The John Lee in the painting was just standing there, his arms hanging at his sides, looking at you from beneath lowered brows. John Lee looked at the floor where he had been standing when he posed, but nothing was there. Yet, in the painting, there were lines on the floor. He was standing within a pentagram. And he looked different; he looked older, at least five years older, at least twenty.

Tuesday night Pearl and Daisy Mae took him to Graumann’s Chinese where he thought the movie was great and had a wonderful time standing in the footprints, though he had never heard of most of the people who had made them. After the movie they went to a Chinese restaurant where he ate Chinese food for the first time. He didn’t really like it, but he told Pearl he did because it made him happy. It was nearly midnight when he got back to Laurel Canyon. Pearl wanted him to stay in his old room, but he said he’d better not because Sue might come home during the night and he wanted to be there.

He went up the wooden steps feeling incredibly content. If Sue were only there. Punkin came down the banister like a tightrope walker, making little soft sounds of greeting. John Lee picked him up and made crooning noises. The cat butted his head against John Lee’s chin, making him chuckle. He carried Punkin into the house and turned on the light.

His head exploded. His legs wouldn’t hold him up any longer, and he fell to his knees, dropping the cat. There was something white beside him, but he couldn’t make his eyes focus. He thought he heard a voice, but he wasn’t sure because of the wind screaming through his head. The white thing grabbed him and pulled him to his feet. It shouted more words at him, but he couldn’t understand what they were. Something crashed into his face. The fog cleared a little. There was a man dressed in white, holding the front of his shirt He could smell the sour whiskey on his breath. He slapped John Lee again and shoved him against the wall, but he managed to stay on his feet.

The wind was dying in his head. He heard the man’s angry words. “Jesus Christ!” he said, looking at the picture of John Lee sitting in the chair. He took a knife from his pocket and slashed through the canvas.

‘Stop it!“ John Lee croaked and took an unsteady step in the man’s direction.

He whirled, pointing the knife at John Lee. “Jesus Christ!” he said again, in amazement. “You’re just a little kid! She threw -me over for a little kid!” The man’s face seemed to collapse as he lunged at John Lee with the knife. John Lee grabbed his arm, but the man was far too strong. Then the man stepped on Punkin’s tail. The cat screeched and sank his claws into the man’s leg. The man bawled and fell against John Lee. They both went to the floor, the man on top, his face beside John Lee’s.

‘Jesus God,“ the man whispered in bewilderment. Then his breath crept out in an adenoidal whine and didn’t go back in again. John Lee squirmed from beneath him. The man rolled onto his back. The knife handle stuck straight up in his chest, blood already clinging to it. John Lee tried to get to his feet but could only make it to his knees. He saw Pearl and Daisy Mae run in, but there was something very wrong with them. They floated slowly through the air, running toward him but getting farther away. Their mouths moved but only honking sounds came out. Then the floor hit him in the face.

The first thing John Lee felt was someone clutching his hand. He opened his eyes and they felt sticky. Pearl’s tense and worried face leaned over him, smiling tentatively. “Pearl?” His face hurt and his mouth wouldn’t work properly. He sounded as if he were talking with a mouth full of cotton.

‘Don’t try to talk, John Lee, sugah,“ Pearl said anxiously. ”You’re in the hospital. They said you had a mild concussion. I was scared to death. You’ve been unconscious for ages. This is Thursday.“

John Lee put his hand to his face and felt bandages on his mouth and a compress under his lip. “What happened,” he had to swallow to get the words out, “happened to my mouth?” It hurt to talk.

‘You got a split lip. It’s all purple and swelled up. But don’t sweat it, sugah. It makes you look very sex-y.“

John Lee grinned but stopped when it hurt too much. ‘Is Sue back?“

‘She sat with you all night. I made her go home and sleep! They put you in a tacky ward, but Sue had you moved to this nice private room.“

The man…“ He tried hard to remember what happened. The man…”

‘He’s dead, sugah. You never saw so many police cars and ambulances and red lights. I don’t know what they’re gonna do, John Lee.“ Pearl was distraught.

Sue came in. “Don’t upset him, Pearl. Everything will be all right.” She smiled brightly, and John Lee felt everything would be. “How are you feeling, little lamb?”

‘Awful,“ he groaned and tried to laugh, but it hurt too much.

Pearl gave his arm a pat and said, “I’d better get back to work before May Company fires my little black fanny. Bye, sugah.”

‘Bye, Pearl.“ Pearl left with a big grin. Sue sat in the chair he had vacated. She took John Lee’s hand and held it to her face.

‘I’m sorry,“ she said as if in pain.

He wanted to bring back her bright smile. “You’re looking particularly beautiful today.” He had never seen her dressed up before. She wore a silk suit in soft green, her auburn hair loose and long.

She did smile. Thank you—and thank Playtex, Maidenform, and Miss Clairol. You look… pretty awful.“ But she said it as if she didn’t mean it.

‘Pearl said I looked ve-ry sex-y.“

She grinned and then her face was serious. “John Lee, are you lucid enough to listen and understand what I have to say?” He nodded. “All right. There’ll be a… hearing…or something in a few days, when you’re feeling better, with the juvenile authorities. You won’t be in any trouble, because they know Jocko attacked you. They know it was an accident…”

‘Who was he?“ he interrupted.

She looked at him for a moment “Someone I used to know,” she said softly.

‘Did you love him? Was he your lover?“ He didn’t know if he was saying it right. He wanted to know, but he also wanted her to know that he didn’t care.

They’re not exactly the same thing, but, yes, to both.“ She didn’t look at him.

‘You gave him up for me,“ he said in wonder, loving her so much it hurt.

She looked at him then and smiled, but there was a funny look in her eyes. “I’d give up most anything for you, John Lee.”

The next couple of weeks were a blur. A bunch of people talked to him: men in blue suits and tight-faced women in gray. He told them everything that happened, and they went away to be replaced by others, but none of them would let him see Sue again. There was one lady he liked, who said she was a judge. He told her that his grandfather was a judge but he died a long time ago. She asked him about everything and he told her. She had a kind voice and made the others behave the way Miss Mahan would.

‘But, Your Honor,“ one of the men said, ”this child has killed a drunken sailor in a knife fight over a prostitute!“

The judge laughed pleasantly. “Really, Mr. Maley, there’s no need for exaggeration. You’re not addressing a jury. John was merely protecting himself when attacked. The man’s death resulted when he fell on his own knife.“

‘You can’t deny he’s been living with a known prostitute. I wouldn’t be surprised if she hasn’t seduced him.“

‘Please, Mr. Maley,“ the judge frowned, displeased, ”don’t speak that way in front of the child.“

‘You saw those paintings! Disgusting!“

The judge stood up and began putting on her coat. “Artists have been painting nudes for several thousand years, Mr. Maley. You should see the collection in the Vatican. And these are very good paintings. I made the artist an offer for the nude myself. Come along, John. I’ll take you to dinner. Good evening, gentlemen.”

Dwayne came to see him one day, but John Lee would never have recognized him. He hadn’t seen him since he went away to the army seven years before. Dwayne was twenty-nine, big and good-looking like all the Peacock men. He shook hands with John Lee, saying little, and went away after talking to the judge.

Aunt Rose and her husband flew out from Hawley. She touched him a lot and clucked a lot. Of course, she’d like to take care of him, him being the youngest son of her late sister and all, but the way things were, the economy and the cost of living and all, she just didn’t see how she could.

It was a terrible thing, her sister marrying into the Peacock family, such an unfortunate family. Poor Grace Elizabeth’s husband had died the same day she was buried, the very day John Lee had left on the bus. He had fallen off the tractor and been run over by his own plow. He had crawled almost all the way to the house before he bled to death. Such a tragic family, the Peacocks. Her sister had lost six of her children, five of them in infancy and poor Wash, Jr.

They had tracked him down in Oklahoma because the farm was his now; or, she should say, they had tracked down his wife; or, she should say, his ex-wife. Wash, Jr. had been killed six years ago when a pipe fell off a rig and crushed his skull. His wife hadn’t even notified the family. Then she married a Mexican driller from Texas and was living in Tulsa, but what could you expect from one of them trashy O’Dell girls. It was a good thing she had had none of Wash, Jr.‘ s children, just three stillbirths, because she had no claim on the family at all now. Of course, she had two fat brown babies by her new husband, but you know how Mexicans are: like rabbits.

Dwayne hadn’t wanted the farm. He just told them to sell it and send him the money. Dwayne was the logical person to take John Lee, being his closest kin. Her sister, Lilah, was in no shape to take care of him. If Dwayne couldn’t, then she didn’t know what would happen to the poor thing, him living with a prostitute and all.

Aunt Rose and her husband flew back to Hawley.

The judge told him how sorry she was, but if one of his relatives didn’t assume custody, as a minor he would have to be declared a ward of the state. But it wouldn’t be too bad. He’d have a nice place to live, could finish school, and would have lots of other boys his own age. He asked her why he couldn’t live with Sue, but she said it was out of the question and wouldn’t discuss it further.

But Dwayne did assume custody, and John Lee moved into his brother’s small apartment on Beach-wood near Melrose. “Half the money from the sale of the farm is rightfully yours,” Dwayne said, dressing for work. “You’ll have to go to school this fall. The judge said so. Other than that, your time is your own. But you’re not supposed to see that woman again.” He showed John Lee how to turn the couch into a bed and then left for work. He was a bartender at a place on Highland and worked from six until it closed at two in the morning.

John Lee caught the bus at Melrose and Vine and rode to Hollywood and Highland. He took a taxi to the house in Laurel Canyon. Sue wasn’t at home and he couldn’t find Punkin. The three paintings had been framed and were hanging. She had repaired the damaged one. No other paintings were in sight. Everything had been pushed against the walls, leaving most of the floor bare. There were blue chalk marks on the bare boards that had been hastily and inadequately rubbed out. The room smelled oddly.

He found an envelope on the kitchen table with his name on it. He removed the folded piece of note-paper. “John Lee, my little lamb,” it read, “I knew’you would come, although, they told us we mustn’t see each other again. You must stay away for a while, John Lee. Only a little while, then it won’t matter what they say. There’ll be nothing they can do. I love you. Sue.”

Pearl wasn’t at home either and so he went back to Dwayne’s apartment, watched television for a while, took a bath, and went to bed on the convertible sofa. He didn’t know when Dwayne came in about two thirty.

Dwayne always slept until nearly noon. John Lee found little to talk to him about, and Dwayne seemed to prefer no conversation at all. John Lee watched television a lot, went to many movies, and waited for Sue.

He fell asleep in front of the television a few days later and was awakened by Dwayne and the man who was with him. Dwayne frowned at him and the man smiled nervously. The man said something to Dwayne, but he shook his head and led the man into the bedroom, closing the door. John Lee went to bed and didn’t know when the man left.

The next morning he looked into the bedroom. Dwayne was sprawled on the bed, naked, still asleep. A twenty dollar bill lay beside him, partially under his hip. John Lee closed the door and fixed breakfast.

Dwayne came in while he was washing the dishes. He didn’t say anything for a while, fixing a cup of instant coffee. He sat at the table in his underwear, sipping the coffee. John Lee continued with the dishes, not looking at him. Then he felt Dwayne’s eyes on him and he turned. “I don’t want you to think I’m queer,” Dwayne said flatly. “I don’t do anything, just lay there. If those guys want to pay me good money, it’s no skin off my nose.” He turned back to his coffee.

John Lee hung up the dishtowel to dry. “I understand,” he said, but he wasn’t sure that he did. “It’s all right with me.”

Dwayne didn’t answer but went on sipping coffee as if John Lee weren’t there. He made sure, from then on, he was asleep before Dwayne came home.

Sue called a few nights later. He had never heard her voice over the phone, but it sounded different: brighter, less throaty, younger. “Come over, John Lee, my little lamb,” she laughed gleefully. “I’m ready. Come over for the showing.”

The taxi had to stop a block away because of the police cars and fire trucks. John Lee ran terrified through the milling crowd, but when he reached Sue’s house there was nothing to see. The rickety wooden steps went up the hill for about twenty feet and ended in midair. There was nothing beyond them, only a rectangle of bare earth where the house had been. But nothing else, not even the concrete foundation.

He felt a touch on his arm. He whirled to stare wide-eyes at Pearl. He couldn’t speak, his throat was frozen. His heart was pounding too hard and he couldn’t breathe. Pearl took his arm and led him into the house where he had spent his first night in Hollywood.

Pearl gave him a sip of brandy which burned his throat and released the muscles. “What happened? Where’s Sue?” he asked, afraid to get an answer.

‘I don’t know,“ Pearl said without any trace of corn pone accent. He seemed on the verge of hysteria himself. ”There was a fire…“

‘A fire?“ he asked, uncomprehending.

‘I think it was a fire…“ Pearl nervously dropped the brandy bottle. He picked it up, ignoring the stain on the carpet.

‘Where’s Sue?“

‘She… she was in the house. I heard her scream,“ he said rapidly, not looking at John Lee.

John Lee didn’t feel anything. His body was frozen and numb. Then, he couldn’t help himself. He began to bawl like a baby. It was all slipping away. He could feel the good things escaping his fingers.

Pearl sat beside him on the purple fur chair and tried to comfort him. “She was over there all evening, singing to herself. I could hear her, she was very happy. I went over but she wouldn’t let me in. She said I knew better than to look at an artist’s work before it was finished. She said anyway it was a private showing for you. I didn’t hear her singing after that, and then, a little while ago, I heard a noise like thunder or an explosion. I looked over, and there was a bright green light in the house, like it was burning on the inside, but not like fire either. I heard her scream. It was an awful, terrible scream. There was another voice, a horrible gloating voice, I couldn’t understand. Then the whole house began to glow with that same green light. It got brighter and brighter, but there was no heat from it. Then it went away and the house wasn’t there any more.”

Pearl got up and handed John Lee an envelope. “I found this on the deck. She must have tossed it down earlier.” John Lee took the envelope with his name on it He recognized her handwriting, but it was more hurried and scrawled than usual. He opened it and read the short note.

He went back to school that fall and lived with Dwayne. He said his name was Johnny, because John Lee was home and Sue. He met a lot of girls who wanted him, but they were pallid and dull after Sue. He went with them and slept with them but was unable to feel anything for them. He never turned down any man who propositioned him either, and there were many. He didn’t care about the money, he only needed someone to relieve the pressures that built up in him. It didn’t make any difference, man or woman. He let lonely middle-aged woman keep him, but he never found what he was looking for.

By the time he was eighteen he had grown a couple of inches and had filled out He moved from the apartment on Beachwood and got a place of his own. He never saw Dwayne again.

The envelope with his name on it was soiled and frayed from much handling. He read it every night “John Lee, my little lamb,” it read. “I tried very hard, so very hard. I thought I had succeeded but something is going wrong. I can feel it I wish you could have seen me when I was fifteen, John Lee. I wish you could have seen me when I was fifteen. I’m afraid.” It was unsigned.