CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

BENEATH A BLANKET OF BURNING STARS, James lay on his back and watched the faintest puff of steam rise from his exhale. Alone, but not lonely. Spybot’s chin rested loyally upon the floor of their fort, his eyes turned up toward the opening in the roof, brow and forehead wrinkled. In rest he didn’t look so worried. His body was warm under the soft pats of his new master. James made Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man with his arms and legs. A steady breeze blew a handful of leaves from a tree. Some dropped noiselessly into the forest. Others, James imagined, must be settling on his newly constructed roof. It was October. The smell of cut grass and chlorine had gone, replaced by woodsmoke from the scattered chimneys around the neighborhood. He was still wearing his shorts, but he had on Kevin’s jean jacket.

It was part boredom, part need to escape the heat in his living room, that had driven him out to the fort—with his father endlessly stoking the fireplace and stacking logs atop the flame like he was building a pyramid.

Sheltered from the October wind by the fort’s walls, James could hear the structure groaning in the swaying trees. He wasn’t afraid. His father had done a thorough inspection, pulling with all his weight on the support beams and driving in some fencing spikes to make sure it was stable. Instead of worry, James enjoyed the sensation of movement; it kept him from having to lie still and remember. He could stare up at the sky. Rub the silky underside of Spybot’s ear. Watch the blinking strobes of red lights from airplanes without feeling sad.

His only melancholy came when he’d hear the report of Felix’s bat hitting a baseball into the net Mr. Cassidy had tied into the canopy of trees above him. Moments before, the light in Felix’s backyard had turned on and James lay perfectly still to listen, as Felix began to gather his baseballs strewn about the yard. The first crack had startled James; the ball ricocheted off Felix’s fence, making it rattle. Spybot’s ears flickered like raised thumbs. They were only yards apart, but James was determined not to sit up in the window and try to talk to him.

His school psychologist, Mrs. S, had told him that Felix was trying to get better on his own. And when James said that Felix wasn’t cut when the fight happened, she told him he needed to heal in other ways.

James heard another crack of the bat and watched the shadow of a ball darken in and out of view, rolling along the net into the air and then back to earth.

Thinking of Mrs. S caused James to remember the itch he used to feel around his scar, and he reached up to touch it. He was well enough away from his mother to poke at it freely. At home, when he’d press on the purple tube of raw flesh that ran from his forehead down to his cheekbone, his mother would yank his hand away. Tell him it would never heal if he kept touching it.

But it was his wound. His head. His itching. Besides, his father had assured him it would heal. The day after they watched David Westwood get pulled across the courtroom to prison, his father had caught him pressing on it at the kitchen table. He’d asked him if it still hurt. James said no.

“It’s just ugly now.”

His father rubbed his shoulder and mussed his hair. “Don’t worry,” he said. “A thing doesn’t stay ugly forever.”

It would heal. Or it wouldn’t. Either way, James felt a sense of satisfaction when he pressed on it. Then it just became a habit after the itching stopped. In the mirror he’d watch the deep purple turn white under his fingers, and when he let go, the color would flood back urgently. He’d play a game of “way back” from time to time, pressing down and saying: “Last year.” Letting go and saying: “This year.” Last year. This year. When I was seven. When I was eight. When I didn’t grow nervous at the sound of curse words . . .

A dull thud resounded from Felix’s backyard, and James could tell that Felix hadn’t hit the ball squarely. He didn’t need to watch for the flight of it through the opening he’d left in the roof, but he did anyway.

It’s been said that openings—doors and windows—are opportunities to invite the spirits to enter. Beseech them to depart. Perhaps this was partly why James left the roof open. Having brought the piece of plywood up and dropped it into place—he had then looked at the sky and thought better of it. A hole in the roof would remain, and James would suffer the labor of sweeping out the snow that dropped inside.

He had done the hard things. He hadn’t used any shortcuts. A beastly sort of courage was full-grown inside him and he could sense that others noticed. Kevin. His father, who would recite Bible stories to him with a fearful kind of reluctance, continually interrupting his own narration to remind him that men should be careful of their own strength. James didn’t understand. Why his father suddenly believed these stories hadn’t escaped him. It was probably how the Bible got written in the first place. Terrible things happened and then guys got together to try to explain it and to make a rule so it wouldn’t happen again. A bunch of things written to fix things after the mistake was already made.

What James now possessed wasn’t exactly fearlessness, for much of his calculations when building the fort were born out of fear. It was more genuine than bravery, which is what Kevin had called it once, on the car ride to the courts. It frightened his mother too, for lately she’d been telling him it was okay to feel like things were unfair. That he didn’t deserve what happened to him. But fair’s got nothing to do with it. Deserve is nothing more than whoever flips the coin.

James heard his father’s sniffle well before he watched his head emerge through the hole in the floor. In the moonlight Ivan’s white hair at the temples appeared to be forced outward from the weight of his tweed cap. Spybot rose to his feet, crossed the fort, and licked Ivan’s hand.

“Why does he always have to lick everything?” Ivan asked as he hoisted himself into the fort and sat, Indian style, against the western wall. He pulled off his cap and James saw that he was staring up at the square hole in the roof. Ivan nodded. Told James he thought he could use some company. He slid down to his back and inched closer to his son. “I can see the draw of being able to stargaze,” Ivan said. In the dark, James could only hear his voice, and make out the blackened outline of his nose.

Spybot came back to James’s side and dropped down. James put his hand back on top of the dog’s head, but kept his eyes focused on the sky.

It would take a long time, perfecting the fort. He would be working, fixing. Building something larger than himself. He was lucky. He’d figured out that the world was made of builders and wreckers, and Turnbull was full of wreckers. David Westwood and his friends were wreckers. Felix’s brother wanted to be a wrecker. But builders made things possible.

He probably would never truly stop building the fort. He’d paint. He’d gather more wood, and start a second floor. This time with more windows, and places to hang bird feeders, a room for Spybot. Another floor for his parents and one for Kevin. The top floor would house the wire man that Dallas had twisted for him, and a bin for more collected friendship wire. A couch for Felix when he eventually came around.

Yes, he thought, reaching over to draw Spybot closer, he’d build and build and reach the top of Turnbull, where no one could touch him. He’d gaze out over the town and see over the rooftops, the smoke rising from the chimneys. The Long Island Sound stretched before him. The Atlantic Ocean, a blue carpet beyond.

His dream must have masked the sensation, for James suddenly realized his father had reached over and placed his hand on top of his sneaker. Then he felt the hand tighten its grip and soon his father was gently rocking the foot side to side. When he stopped, he left his hand there. James let it rest. The hand felt warm in the increasing chill.

Another thump, followed by the loud smack of the ball hitting the slats of Felix’s fence. James heard someone clapping shortly after, and then Mrs. Cassidy called out something in her singsong voice. James wanted to know what she was telling her son, but she was speaking too softly.

The wind was beginning to pick up. Spybot swung his head over and rested his chin back on James’s leg. The Big Dipper bowed to James from behind the opening curtain of clouds. He heard the bat again. The ball seemed to disappear into the swirling branches.

The wind was the only thing you could see, hear, smell, taste, and touch, James thought as he inhaled and took in the faint scent of cinnamon and pumpkin pie. He remembered Dallas’s father saying that this was why man never loses faith in basic things.

It was almost musical, the sound of the ball when Felix hit it on different sections of the bat. The latest report was a sharp high note, and the ball cut through the leaves on its upward streak into the darkness.

A D-flat followed and sailed atop the wind, which bent the branches backward. But the trees settled and straightened when the net caught the ball. No matter how many baseballs Felix drove, the trees danced back into place. James imagined Felix trying to flatten the world with his Louisville Slugger, ceaselessly enduring the leaves whistling back.

James stretched out his limbs to feel large again. He folded his hands together and listened for the next hit. The ball launched into the air and spat through the leaves, and the leaves made whirling circles before they settled back to touch hands again, like paper dolls.