“To watch Maple Street. The people down there. You know.”
“The parade,” said Mr. Blackwood. “Boy, you’ve got a fine half of your face, and the other half won’t ever scare anyone. There’s a place for you in the parade.”
Howie disagreed. “People stare.”
“Stare back at them, they’ll stop.”
“I don’t like what I see when I stare back.”
“What do you see?” When Howie didn’t reply, Mr. Blackwood said, “You see pity, and you don’t like being pitied. Don’t let pride keep you out of the parade, Howie. You don’t want a lonely life.”
“They call me names. Sometimes they push and shove and trip me. They laugh.”
“That would be other kids,” Mr. Blackwood said.
“Mostly, I guess.”
“Listen, a lot of cruel kids grow out of their cruelty. A few don’t. You can’t let the few decide what your life will be like.”
Only Howie’s mother had ever talked to him like this, and for some reason the same words didn’t mean as much coming from her as they did when they came from Mr. Blackwood.
“Why haven’t I ever seen you before?” Howie asked.
“I only came to town last night. Just sort of blew here on the breeze, you might say. Found the basement window that isn’t locked. Camped out downstairs on the ground floor near the back door. I’ll be leaving maybe tomorrow night.”
“What’re you here for?”
“For a place to be,” said Mr. Blackwood. “It’s a place between two other places, that’s all. I never stay long anywhere.”
“What do you do? For work. What’s your work?”
“I drift. It’s my job and my pleasure. Always moving on, seeing what I can of the world.”
Surprised, Howie said, “You get paid to drift?”
“It pays. I get everything I want.” Mr. Blackwood licked his lips, as if he’d just thought of something sweet. “What about you—have you lived here all your life?”
“Except when I went away for surgery at the burn center.”
“You live nearby?”
“Two blocks east on Wyatt Street. Are you a hobo?”
“Some people think so. But I’m something else. You have any sisters? Brothers or sisters?”
“Just Corrine.”
“Is she older than you?”
“A lot, yeah. She’s sixteen.”
“That’s a nice age for a girl,” Mr. Blackwood said.
“Is it? Why is it nicer than any other age?”
Mr. Blackwood closed his eyes and rocked his head from side to side. “Young enough to be still tender, but old enough to be ready for the world. What’s your mom’s name?”
“Nora. She’s really old. She’s thirty-five. What else are you, since you’re not a hobo?”
“I know all the hobo ways and tricks. But what I am most of all is a dreamer.” He opened his eyes. “What about your dad?”
After a silence, Howie said, “I don’t have a dad anymore.”
“I’m sorry, boy. If he died, that is.”
“He didn’t die,” Howie said.
Mr. Blackwood seemed genuinely interested. “But he doesn’t live with you. So was it divorce then?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s still your dad, though.”
“No.”
“You still see him, don’t you?”
“I can’t. I wouldn’t.”
Mr. Blackwood was silent. Then: “How long ago was this divorce?”
“When I was five.”
“The year you were burned.”
Wanting to get away from all that kind of talk, Howie said, “What’s a dreamer do?”
“Right now I’m dreaming of doing something special. But I don’t have all the details dreamed out just yet. When I do, I’ll tell you all about it. No dad all these years—that’s tough. Maybe your mom has a boyfriend lives with her, he could be a kind of dad.”
“No. She doesn’t. It’s just the three of us.”
As he stared down at the street, Howie was aware that Mr. Blackwood watched him with interest. “You’re the man of the house.”
“I guess so. How do you drift everywhere? You have a car?”
“Sometimes I get a car and drive. Or I hitch a ride in an empty railroad boxcar. I even take a bus from time to time.”
“Don’t people stare at you on a bus?”
“I sit right up front so they can get a good look.”
“I wouldn’t like them gawking at me.”
“If they gawk too much, I give them a spooky stare, and that cures them of it.”
“I wish I had a spooky stare,” Howie said.
“You see, it’s just like I told you—there’s nothing scary about you, Howie Dugley.”
“Do you always sleep in empty old buildings like this?”
“Not always. Sometimes in whatever vehicle I’m driving. Now and then under a bridge or in a field with my sleeping bag. Sometimes in homeless shelters, and sometimes in a house I like.”
“You have a house somewhere?”
“I have houses all over, any place I like,” said Mr. Blackwood.
“Then you’re not poor?”
“Not me. I’ve got everything I could ever want. I do what I want. I do anything I want.” From one of the many pockets in his khaki pants, he fished a thick roll of folding money. “Does this town have a respectable take-out joint that makes great sandwiches?”
“There’s a place or two.”
Peeling a twenty and a ten from the roll, holding them out toward Howie, Mr. Blackwood said, “Why don’t you go buy us lunch? Two sandwiches for me, one for you, some Cokes. Don’t bother with the cellar window. Go out by the back door. It won’t lock behind if you set the latch lever straight up.”
The hand was so big that it could have covered Howie’s entire face, heel under his chin and fingertips past his hairline, thumb hooked in one ear, the little finger in the other. Even the little finger was large and, like all the others, had a freakishly big pad at the end, bigger than a soup spoon, almost like the sucker pads on the toes of a toad.
That hand looked so strong, maybe it could tear off your face and wad it up like Kleenex. If Mr. Blackwood wanted to hurt Howie, however, he would have done it already. Another thing to think about was that if Mr. Blackwood changed his mind about drifting, if he decided to stay here because he made friends in town, he would be a great friend to have. Bigger kids, no matter how big they were, no matter how mean, wouldn’t lie in wait for Howie and knock him around anymore, wouldn’t pull down his pants and laugh at him, wouldn’t call him Scarface or the Eight-Fingered Freak or the Claw, if they knew that he was a friend of Mr. Blackwood’s.
“I don’t usually go in places like restaurants unless my mom makes me go with her, and I never go alone.”
Still offering the money, Mr. Blackwood said, “Then it’ll be good for you to do it. You’ll see how they’ll take your money as quick as anyone’s, they’ll give you what you want like they would any customer. And if someone stares at you—just smile back at them. You don’t have a Frankenstein smile like me, but a nice smile will work as well, maybe better. You’ll see.”
Howie approached Mr. Blackwood and took the thirty bucks.
Dark muddy-red stains marred the bills. “They’re spendable,” Mr. Blackwood assured him. “Let them think you’re buying sandwiches for your mom. If they know we’re up here, they’ll chase us off before we have our lunch.”
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s a lot of money—thirty bucks. But I trust you to do the right thing, Howie. There can’t be friendship without trust.”
Whether in the sunlight or in the occasional cloud shadow, Mr. Blackwood appeared so strange that he didn’t seem entirely real. But his eyes—so coal-black you couldn’t see any difference between the iris and the pupil—his eyes were as real as anything in the world, and they drilled right through you, seemed to look into your mind and read your thoughts.
Mr. Blackwood winked. “If they have any tasty-looking cookies, get a couple of those, too.”