Ray Bradbury Stories Volume 2

She could see the dark figure in the front seat of the car, not moving, staring straight ahead.

‘You—’ she started to say, and opened the back screen door. She found a smile on her mouth. She stopped it. Her heart was slowing now. She made herself frown.

He shut off the motor. She waited. He climbed out of the car and threw the pumpkins in the garbage can and slammed the lid.

‘What happened?’ she asked. ‘Why are you home so early—?’

‘Nothing.’ He brushed by her with the two gallons of cider intact. He set them on the kitchen sink.

‘But it’s not ten yet—’

‘That’s right.’ He went into the bedroom and sat down in the dark.

She waited five minutes. She always waited five minutes. He wanted her to come ask, he’d be mad if she didn’t, so finally she went and looked into the dark bedroom.

‘Tell me,’ she said.

‘Oh, they all stood around,’ he said. ‘They just stood around like a bunch of fools and didn’t do anything.’

‘What a shame.’

‘They just stood around like dumb fools.’

‘Oh, that’s a shame.’

‘I tried to get them to do something, but they just stood around. Only eight of them showed up, eight out of twenty, eight, and me the only one in costume. I tell you. The only one. What a bunch of fools.’

‘After all your trouble, too.’

‘They had their girls and they just stood around with them and wouldn’t do anything, no games, nothing. Some of them went off with the girls,’ he said, in the dark, seated, not looking at her. ‘They went off up the beach and didn’t come back. Honest to gosh.’ He stood now, huge, and leaned against the wall, looking all disproportioned in the short trousers. He had forgotten the child’s hat was on his head. He suddenly remembered it and took it off and threw it on the floor. ‘I tried to kid them. I played with a toy dog and did some other stuff but nobody did anything. I felt like a fool the only one there dressed like this, and them all different, and only eight out of twenty there, and most of them gone in half an hour. Vi was there. She tried to get me to walk up the beach, too. I was mad by then. I was really mad. I said no thanks. And here I am. You can have the lollipop. Where did I put it? Pour the cider down the sink, drink it, I don’t care.’

She had not moved so much as an inch in all the time he talked. She opened her mouth.

The telephone rang.

‘If that’s them, I’m not home.’

‘You’d better answer it,’ she said.

He grabbed the phone and whipped off the receiver.

‘Sammy?’ said a loud high clear voice. He was holding the receiver out on the air, glaring at it in the dark. ‘That you?’ He grunted. ‘This is Bob.’ The eighteen-year-old voice rushed on. ‘Glad you’re home. In a big rush, but – what about that game tomorrow?’

‘What game?’

‘What game? For cri-yi, you’re kidding. Notre Dame and S.C.!’

‘Oh, football.’

‘Don’t say oh football like that, you talked it, you played it up, you said—’

‘That’s no game,’ he said, not looking at the telephone, the receiver, the woman, the wall, nothing.

‘You mean you’re not going? Heavy-Set, it won’t be a game without you!’

‘I got to water the lawn, polish the car—’

‘You can do that Sunday!’

‘Besides, I think my uncle’s coming over to see me. So long.’

He hung up and walked out past his mother into the yard. She heard the sounds of him out there as she got ready for bed.

He must have drubbed the punching bag until three in the morning. Three, she thought, wide awake, listening to the concussions. He’s always stopped at twelve, before.

At three thirty he came into the house.

She heard him just standing outside her door.

He did nothing else except stand there in the dark, breathing.

She had a feeling he still had the little boy suit on. But she didn’t want to know if this were true.

After a long while the door swung slowly open.

He came into her dark room and lay down on the bed, next to her, not touching her. She pretended to be asleep.

He lay face up and rigid.

She could not see him. But she felt the bed shake as if he were laughing. She could hear no sound coming from him, so she could not be sure.

And then she heard the squeaking sounds of the little steel springs being crushed and uncrushed, crushed and uncrushed in his fists.

She wanted to sit up and scream for him to throw those awful noisy things away. She wanted to slap them out of his fingers.

But then, she thought, what would he do with his hands? What could he put in them? What would he, yes, what would he do with his hands?

So she did the only thing she could do, she held her breath, shut her eyes, listened, and prayed, O God, let it go on, let him keep squeezing those things, let him keep squeezing those things, let him, let him, oh let, let him, let him keep squeezing … let … let …

It was like lying in bed with a great dark cricket.

And a long time before dawn.

The First Night of Lent (#ulink_2bfeccdb-2af6-519c-85a5-6085acffdb50)

So you want to know all the whys and wherefores of the Irish? What shapes them to their Dooms and runs them on their way? you ask. Well, listen, then. For though I’ve known but a single Irishman in all my life, I knew him, without pause, for one hundred and forty-four consecutive nights. Stand close; perhaps in him you’ll see that entire race which marches out of the rains but to vanish through the mists; hold on, here they come! Look out, there they go!

This Irishman, his name was Nick.