“I fought that out alone,” said Willie. “I’m a boy, I told myself, I’ll have to live in a boy’s world, read boys’ books, play boys’ games, cut myself off from everything else. I can’t be both. I got to be only one thing—young. And so I played that way. Oh, it wasn’t easy. There were times—” He lapsed into silence.
“And the family you lived with, they never knew?”
“No. Telling them would have spoiled everything. I told them I was a runaway; I let them check through official channels, police. Then, when there was no record, let them put in to adopt me. That was best of all; as long as they never guessed. But then, after three years, or five years, they guessed, or a traveling man came through, or a carnival man saw me, and it was over. It always had to end.”
“And you’re very happy and it’s nice being a child for over forty years?”
“It’s a living, as they say. And when you make other people happy, then you’re almost happy too. I got my job to do and I do it. And anyway, in a few years now I’ll be in my second childhood. All the fevers will be out of me and all the unfulfilled things and most of the dreams. Then I can relax, maybe, and play the role all the way.”
He threw the baseball one last time and broke the reverie. Then he was running to seize his luggage. Tom, Bill, Jamie, Bob, Sam—their names moved on his lips. They were embarrassed at his shaking hands.
“After all, Willie, it ain’t as if you’re going to China or Timbuktu.”
“That’s right, isn’t it?” Willie did not move.
“So long, Willie. See you next week!”
“So long, so long!”
And he was walking off with his suitcase again looking at the trees, going away from the boys and the street where he had lived, and as he turned the corner a train whistle screamed, and he began to run.
The last thing he saw and heard was a white ball tossed at a high roof, back and forth, back and forth, and two voices crying out as the ball pitched now up, down, and back through the sky, “Annie, annie, over! Annie, annie, over!” like the crying of birds flying off to the far south.
In the early morning, with the smell of the mist and the cold metal, with the iron smell of the train around him and a full night of traveling shaking his bones and his body, and a smell of the sun beyond the horizon, he awoke and looked out upon a small town just arising from sleep. Lights were coming on, soft voices muttered, a red signal bobbed back and forth, back and forth in the cold air. There was that sleeping hush in which echoes are dignified by clarity, in which echoes stand nakedly alone and sharp. A porter moved by, a shadow in shadows.
“Sir,” said Willie.
The porter stopped.
“What town’s this?” whispered the boy in the dark.
“Valleyville.”
“How many people?”
“Ten thousand. Why? This your stop?”
“It looks green.” Willie gazed out at the cold morning town for a long time. “It looks nice and quiet,” said Willie.
“Son,” said the porter, “you know where you going?”
“Here,” said Willie, and got up quietly in the still, cool, iron-smelling morning, in the train dark, with a rustling and stir.
“I hope you know what you’re doing, boy,” said the porter.
“Yes, sir,” said Willie. “I know what I’m doing.” And he was down the dark aisle, luggage lifted after him by the porter, and out in the smoking, steaming-cold, beginning-to-lighten morning. He stood looking up at the porter and the black metal train against the few remaining stars. The train gave a great wailing blast of whistle, the porters cried out all along the line, the cars jolted, and his special porter waved and smiled down at the boy there, the small boy there with the big luggage who shouted up to him, even as the whistle screamed again.
“What?” shouted the porter, hand cupped to ear.
“Wish me luck!” cried Willie.
“Best of luck, son,” called the porter, waving, smiling. “Best of luck, boy!”
“Thanks!” said Willie, in the great sound of the train, in the steam and roar.
He watched the black train until it was completely gone away and out of sight. He did not move all the time it was going. He stood quietly, a small boy twelve years old, on the worn wooden platform, and only after three entire minutes did he turn at last to face the empty streets below.
Then, as the sun was rising, he began to walk very fast, so as to keep warm, down into the new town.