Blaze. Part 9

'Nono. Look at this!'

Blaze peered at what John was holding just below seat-level. It was a wallet.

'Hey! Where'd you -'

'Shh!' Somebody in front of them hissed.

'- get that that?' Blaze finished in a whisper.

'In the men's!' John whispered back. He was trembling with excitement. 'It musta fallen out of some guy's pants when he sat down to take a dump! There's money in it! Lots of money!'

Blaze took the wallet, holding it well out of sight. He opened the bill compartment. He felt his stomach drop. Then it seemed to bounce, and cram itself halfway up his throat. The bill compartment was full of dough. One, two, three fifty-dollar bills. Four twenties. Couple of fives. Some ones.

'I can't count it all up,' he whispered. 'How much?'

John's voice rose in slightly awed triumph, but it went unnoticed. The monster was after a girl in brown shorts and the audience was happily screaming. 'Two hundred and forty-eight bucks!'

'Jesus,' Blaze said. 'You still got that rip in the linin of your coat?'

'Sure.'

'Put it in there. They may frisk us goin out.'

But no one did. And John's runs were cured. Finding that much money seemed to have scared the s.h.i.+t out of him.

John bought a Portland Press Herald Press Herald from Stevie Ross, who had a paper route, on Monday morning. He and Blaze went out behind the toolshed and opened it to the cla.s.sified ads. John said that was the place to look. The lost and founds were on page 38. And there, between a LOST French Poodle and a FOUND pair of women's gloves, was the following item: from Stevie Ross, who had a paper route, on Monday morning. He and Blaze went out behind the toolshed and opened it to the cla.s.sified ads. John said that was the place to look. The lost and founds were on page 38. And there, between a LOST French Poodle and a FOUND pair of women's gloves, was the following item: LOST A man's black leather wallet with the initials RKF stamped beside the photo compartment. If found, call 555-0928 or write Box 595 care of this newspaper. REWARD OFFERED. A man's black leather wallet with the initials RKF stamped beside the photo compartment. If found, call 555-0928 or write Box 595 care of this newspaper. REWARD OFFERED.

'Reward!' Blaze exclaimed, and punched John on the shoulder.

'Yeah,' John said. He rubbed where Blaze had punched. 'So we call the guy and he gives us ten bucks plus a pat on the head. BFD.' This stood for big f.u.c.king deal.

'Oh.' The word REWARD had been standing in letters of gold two feet high in Blaze's mind. Now they collapsed to a pile of leaden rubble. 'Then what should we do with it?'

It was the first time he had really looked to Johnny for leaders.h.i.+p. The two hundred and forty-eight bucks was a mystifying problem. If you had two bits, you bought a c.o.ke. Two bucks got you into the movies. Going further now, struggling, Blaze supposed you could ride the bus all the way to Portland and go to the show there. But for a sum of this size, his imagination was no good. All he could think of was clothes. Blaze cared nothing for clothes.

'Let's run away,' John said. His narrow face was bright with excitement.

Blaze considered. 'You mean, likeforever?'

'Naw, just till the wad's gone. We'll go to Bostoneat in big restaurants instead of Mickey D'sget a hotel roomsee the Red Sox playandand'

But he could go no further. Joy overcame him. He leaped on Blaze, laughing and pounding his back. His body was lean under his clothes, light and hard. His face burned against Blaze's cheek like the side of a furnace.

'Okay,' Blaze said. 'That'd be fun.' He thought about it. 'Jesus, Johnny, Boston? Boston!'

'Ain't it a royal p.i.s.ser!'

They began to laugh. Blaze carried John all the way around the toolshed, both of them laughing and pounding each other on the back. John finally made him stop.

'Someone'll hear, Blaze. Or see. Put me down.'

Blaze recaptured the newspaper, which had begun to flutter all over the yard. He folded it up and rammed it down in his hip pocket. 'We goin now, Johnny?'

'Not for awhile. Maybe not for three days. We gotta make a plan and we gotta be careful. If we aren't, they'll catch us before we get twenty miles. Bring us back. Do you know what I'm saying?'

'Yeah, but I'm not very good at makin plans, Johnny.'

'That's okay, I got most of it figured out already. The important thing is that they'll think we just buzzed off, because that's what kids do when they make out from this s.h.i.+tfarm, right?'

'Right.'

'Only we got money, right?'

'Right!'

Blaze was overcome with the deliciousness of it again, and pounded Johnny on the back until he almost knocked him over.

They waited until the following Wednesday night. In the meantime, John called the Greyhound terminal in Portland and found out there was a bus for Boston every morning at seven AM. They left Hetton House at a little past midnight, John figuring it would be safest to walk the fifteen miles into the city rather than attract attention by hitchhiking. Two kids on the road after midnight were runaways. Period.

They went down the fire escape, hearts thumping at each rusty rattle, and jumped from the lowest platform. They ran across the playground where Blaze had taken his first beatings as a newcomer many years before. Blaze helped John climb over the chainlink fence on the far side. They crossed the road under a hot August moon and started to walk, diving into the ditch whenever an infrequent car showed headlights on the horizon ahead or behind them.

They were on Congress Street by six o'clock, Blaze still fresh and excited, John with circles under his eyes. Blaze was carrying the wad in his jeans. The wallet they had thrown into the woods.

When they reached the bus depot, John collapsed onto a bench and Blaze sat down beside him. John's cheeks were flushed again, but not with excitement. He seemed to be having trouble with his breath.

'Go over and get two round-trippers on the seven o'clock,' he told Blaze. 'Give her a fifty. I don't think it'll be more, but have a twenty ready, just in case. Have it in your hand. Don't let her see the roll.'

A policeman walked over, tapping his nightstick. Blaze felt his bowels turn to water. This was where it ended, before it had even gotten started. Their money would be taken away. The cop might turn it in, or he might keep it for himself. As for them, they would be driven back to HH, maybe in handcuffs. Black visions of North Windham Training Center rose before his eyes. And The Tin.

'Mornin, boys. Here kinda early, ain'tcha?' The clock on the depot wall read 6:22.

'Sure are,' John said. He nodded toward the ticket-cage. 'Is that where a fella goes to get his ticket?'

'You bet,' the cop said, smiling a little. 'Where you headed?'

'Boston,' John said.

'Oh? Where's you boys' folks?'

'Oh, him and me aren't related,' John said. 'This fella's r.e.t.a.r.ded. His name's Martin Griffin. Deaf n dumb, too.'

'Is that so?' The cop sat down and studied Blaze. He didn't look suspicious; he just looked like someone who had never seen a person before who'd scored the trifecta - deaf, dumb, and r.e.t.a.r.ded.

'His mumma died last week,' John said. 'He stays with us. My folks work, but since it's summer vacation, they said to me, would you take 'im, and I said I would.'

'Big job for a kid,' the cop said.

'I'm a little scared,' John said, and Blaze bet he was telling the truth there. He was scared, too. Scared plenty.

The cop nodded to Blaze and said, 'Does he understand?'

'What happened to her? Not too good.'

The cop looked sad.

'I'm takin him to his auntie's house. That's where he's gonna stay for a few days.' John brightened. 'Me, I might get to go to a Red Sox game. As sort of a reward foryou know'

'Well, I hope you do, son. It's an ill wind that don't blow somebody a little good.'

They were both silent, considering this. Blaze, newly mute, was silent, too.

Then the cop said, 'He's a big one. Think you can handle him?'

'He's big, but he minds. Want to see?'

'Well -'

'Here, I'll make 'im stand up. Watch.' John made a number of meaningless finger-gestures in front of Blaze's eyes. When he stopped, Blaze stood up.

'Say, that's pretty good!' the cop said. 'He always mind you? Because, a big boy like this on a bus full a people -'

'Naw, he always minds. No more harm in 'im than a paper sack.'

'Okay. I take your word for it.' The cop got to his feet. He hitched up his gunbelt and pushed on Blaze's shoulders. Blaze sat back down again on the bench. 'You take care, young fella. You know his auntie's phone number if you get in trouble?'

'Yes sir, I sure do,' John said.

'Okay, keep em flyin, sarge.' He flipped John a little salute and went strolling out of the bus station.

When he was gone, they looked at each other and almost broke into giggles. But the ticket agent was now watching and they looked down at the floor instead, Blaze biting the insides of his lips.

'You got a bathroom in here?' John called to the ticket agent.

'Over there.' She pointed.

'C'mon, Marty,' John said, and Blaze just about had to howl at that. When they got into the john, they finally collapsed into each other's arms.

'That was really good,' Blaze said when he could talk again without laughing. 'Where'd you get that name?'

'When I saw him, all I could think of was how The Law was going to get us again. And Griffin, that's the name of a mythical bird - you know, I helped you with that story in your English book -'

'Yeah,' Blaze said delightedly, not remembering the griffin at all. 'Yeah, sure, right.'

'But they'll know it was us when they find out we're gone from h.e.l.l House,' John said. He had turned serious. 'That cop'll remember for sure. He'll be mad, too. Christ, won't he!'

'We're gonna get caught, aren't we?'

'Naw.' John still looked tired, but the exchange with the cop had put the sparkle back in his eyes. 'Once we get to Boston, we'll drop right out of sight. They aren't gonna look too hard for a couple of kids.'

'Oh. Good.'

'But I better buy the tickets. You keep on bein a mutie until we get to Boston. It's safer that way.'

'Sure.'

So Johnny bought the tickets and they got on the bus, which seemed mostly filled with guys in uniform and young women traveling with little kids. The driver had a pot belly and a satchel a.s.s, but his gray uniform had creases in the pants and Blaze thought it was really sharp. He thought he would like to be a Greyhound Bus driver when he grew up.

The doors hissed shut. The heavy engine rumbled up to a roar. The bus backed out of its dock and turned onto Congress Street. They were moving. They were going somewhere. Blaze couldn't fill his eyes up enough.

They went over a bridge and got on Route 1. Then they began to roll faster. They went past oiltanks and billboards advertising motels and PROUTY'S, MAINE'S BEST LOBSTER RESTAURANT. They went past houses and Blaze saw a man out watering his lawn. The man was wearing Bermuda shorts and wasn't going nowhere. Blaze felt sorry for him. They went past tidal flats with seagulls flying over them. What John called h.e.l.l House was behind them. It was summer and the day was brightening.

Finally he turned to John. If he didn't tell someone how good he felt, he thought he would split wide open. But John had fallen asleep with his head on one shoulder. In his sleep he looked old and tired.

Blaze considered this for a moment - uneasily - then turned back to the Scenicruiser window. It pulled him like a magnet. He sightsaw and forgot about John for awhile as he watched the tawdry Seacoast Strip between Portland and Kittery slide by. In New Hamps.h.i.+re they got on the turnpike and then they were in Ma.s.sachusetts. Not long after that they were crossing a big bridge, and then he guessed they were in Boston.

There were miles of neon, thousands of cars and buses, and buildings in every direction. Yet still the bus kept going. They pa.s.sed an orange dinosaur guarding a car lot. They pa.s.sed a huge sailing s.h.i.+p. They pa.s.sed a herd of plastic cows in front of some restaurant. He saw people everywhere. They frightened him. He also loved them because they were strange to him. John slept on, snoring a little in the back of his throat.

Then they breasted a hill and there was an even bigger bigger bridge with even bigger buildings beyond it, skysc.r.a.pers shooting into the blue like silver and gold arrows. Blaze tore his eyes away, as if it had been an atomic bomb blast. bridge with even bigger buildings beyond it, skysc.r.a.pers shooting into the blue like silver and gold arrows. Blaze tore his eyes away, as if it had been an atomic bomb blast.

'Johnny,' he said, almost moaning it. 'Johnny, wake up. You gotta see this.'

'Huh? Wha?' John woke slowly, knuckling his eyes. Then he saw what Blaze had been seeing through the big Scenicruiser window, and his eyes popped wide. 'Mother of G.o.d.'

'Do you know where we should go?' Blaze whispered.

'Yeah, I think so. My G.o.d, are we goin over that bridge? We got to, don't we?'

It was the Mystic, and they went over it. It first took them up to the sky and then below the ground, like a giant version of the Wild Mouse at Topsham Fair. And when they finally came out into the sun again, it was s.h.i.+ning between buildings so tall you couldn't see the tops of them through the Big Dog's windows.

When Blaze and Johnny finally got off at the Tremont Street terminal, the first thing they did was look for cops. They need not have bothered. The terminal was huge. Announcements blared from overhead like the voice of G.o.d. Travelers schooled like fish. Blaze and Johnny huddled close together, shoulder to shoulder, as if afraid opposing currents of travelers might sweep them apart, never to see each other again.

'Over there,' Johnny said. 'Come on.'

They walked over to a bank of phones. They were all in use. They waited by the one on the end until the black man using it finished his call and walked away.

'What was that thing around his head?' Blaze asked, staring after the black man with fascination.

'Aw, that's to keep his hair straight. Like a turban. I think they call em doo-rags. Don't stare, you look like a hick. Squeeze up next to me.'

Blaze did.

'Now gimme a di - holy s.h.i.+t, this thing takes a quarter quarter.' John shook his head. 'I don't know how people live here. Gimme a quarter, Blaze.'

Blaze did.