“You seen the Weeper around lately?” Roy asked Jimmy Boyle.
“I ain’t,” said Jimmy, “not for a couple months, maybe. You think somethin’s happened to him?”
The two boys, both of whom were ten years old, kicked their way through the slush on Ojibway Boulevard. They were headed for the Pharaoh Theater to see a double feature of Phantom from Chinatown and Nothing Left for the Dead. It was a freezing cold Saturday morning in late January, and the boys walked quickly, looking forward to being inside the warm theater just as it opened.
The Weeper was a red-bearded bum who supposedly slept in a garage behind an abandoned building in the short alley between Bulgaria and Pasztory streets. Goat Murphy lived near there and said he’d seen him coming out of the garage a few times when Goat was on his way to school.
“We should ask Goat Murphy,” said Jimmy.
“I did,” said Roy, “and he hasn’t seen him since before Christmas.”
“Maybe he’s at a hobo convention in Florida.”
“Let’s go by after the show,” Roy said, “and see if we can find his garage.”
Roy thought Phantom from Chinatown was dumb, with a fake-looking ghost going around strangling guys who resembled the man who’d murdered his wife; but Nothing Left for the Dead was pretty good, especially the part where the beautiful brunette in a tight white sweater who’s the leader of a graverobbing gang begs her boyfriend to make love to her on top of an unearthed coffin in a cemetery. “Kiss me fast, Steve,” she says to him, “remind me that I’m still alive.”
It was still light out when Roy and Jimmy found the alley. The wind was blowing hard and an intermittent sleet bit at the backs of their necks.
“God, I hate this weather,” said Jimmy Boyle. “When I get older I’m ditchin’ Chicago and movin’ to San Francisco.”
“Why there?” asked Roy. “I think it gets cold and foggy in San Francisco.”
“Yeah, a little,” Jimmy said, “but not too bad. My Uncle Johnny lives there and he says it don’t ever snow.”
“What does he do there?”
“He’s a bartender. Uncle Johnny’s from County Cork, he says there’s lots of Irish in San Francisco, like here. He used to be in the Merchant Marines.”
The boys looked for doors that had broken or boarded-up windows in them. Roy found one that was more dilapidated than most and had cardboard wedged in several cracked or missing panes.
“Hey, Jimmy,” he said, “let’s try this one.”
Jimmy came over and together they pulled on the door. The top hinge was gone so they had to pull hard to pry the door open against the snow packed in front of it. The garage was empty except for a pile of torn, dirty blankets and scattered trash.
“Look here,” said Roy.
Hanging from a long nail in a board under a side window was a piece of paper on which were hand-printed the words: Gone for the Kilyazum if you make it away from the Dogs Sorcerers Hormongers Murderers Idolytors and Liars we shall meet again and Know the Reasons Why.
“Think the Weeper wrote this?” Jimmy said.
“He must have,” said Roy. “He was always talkin’ about how he wept every day for all the people who suffer in this life. That’s why he’s called the Weeper. But what’s Kilyazum?”
“Father Jerry talked about it in Sunday school,” said Jimmy. “I think it’s when Christ returns and reigns in heaven with all the good people, even ones who already died, for a thousand years.”
“What happens to the bad people?”
“The devil forces ’em to keep doin’ bad things on earth.”
“But if everyone who’s good goes to heaven,” said Roy, “that means they must be dead.”
“I guess so,” said Jimmy Boyle. “You think it’s better to be dead than alive?”
Roy thought about the woman in the movie pulling her boyfriend down on her in the cemetery.
“No,” he said, “I don’t.”