Read Online A Good and Happy Child by Justin Evans - Free Book Online Page B

sipping a cup of coffee at the table. His hands were all tendons and veins, with a dusting of thick brown hair. Most people drink coffee with some kind of entertainment: conversation, magazine, television. He sat in silence at an empty table, his long limbs folded into the chair like a wire hanger bent the wrong way. I stood in the doorway. He did not even look around.
    “Have a seat,” he said coolly.
    I sat down, as instructed. “You’re a weird babysitter,” I said.
    “I don’t need one anyway.”
    He sipped his coffee.“Your mother seems to think you do.”
    “She thinks I’m still a kid.”
    “You’re not very mature for twenty-three.”
    “I’m only eleven and a half, ” I corrected, scornfully.
    “See what I mean?”
    “I’m not a kid,” I said. “For instance, I know something about you.”
    “Oh, really?” His eyes danced, his head bobbed. He seemed ready for a little playful jousting—until he heard what I said next. a g o o d a n d h a p p y c h i l d
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    “I know you like my mother.”
    He straightened up. “Your mother is one of my oldest and dearest friends, George. Of course I like your mother.”
    “That’s why you’re here all the time,” I said sarcastically.
    “What are you getting at, George?”
    “You want to marry her.”
    A shower of clear laughter burst into the room and bounced around the walls. “If I want to marry your mother, what am I doing here with you?” he said.
    Now it was my turn to hesitate.
    “That wasn’t it,” I snarled. “I know something else about you.”
    The bubbling feeling from Tom Harris’s laughter faded, and in its place came the tingling thrill I had felt in the presence of my Friend. I felt a surge of adrenaline. This was my chance to find out the truth.
    “You know what happened to my father.”
    The laughter stopped. Tom Harris’s eyes opened in surprise. The feeling of exultation continued. Then something strange happened. I felt myself lean forward, grinning fiercely at Tom Harris. I could feel the muscles of my face tighten, grow hot from the intensity. I caught a glimpse of myself reflected in the panel of the kitchen window. The pane distorted my image. In the ripples of the glass, my lips seemed to have stretched themselves into a muscular furrow, baring my teeth from root to tip like a dog, and my eyebrows curled convulsively. Tom Harris leapt to his feet as if I’d tried to scratch him. His eyes were wide. He seemed genuinely frightened.
    “What’s gotten into you, son?” he said with alarm.
    “I’m not your son and I never will be!” I snapped. I touched my face. It seemed smooth again. “What do you know about my father?”
    “What?” he stammered.
    “You know something that you’re not telling me or Mom. Don’t you? About Daddy and why he went away. What is it?”
    Tom Harris backed away from the table. He seemed disoriented, a boxer retreating from an opponent.
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    “George, that’s a serious accusation.”
    “Is it true?” I shouted. “Is it?”
    “George, your father was my friend for twenty-five years.” He tried a stab at humor: “Fine, you can stay up for the late show. Just drop the angry act.”
    But he’d grown pale. If there were any need for proof of what my Friend had told me, it was written on Tom Harris’s face as clearly as black ink. “I do know things about your father that you don’t know,”
    he said softly. “I do know things about how he died.”
    “You admit it!” I was shrieking.
    Tom Harris stepped forward and continued in that soft, careful voice. “I asked your mother if I might come here tonight because I am worried about you, George. What you say gives me further cause for alarm. Not because you are wrong,” he said. “No, because you are right. These are things that no one on earth could know—except a few friends, whose trustworthiness is absolute.”
    “Tell me!” I could not believe what I was hearing. The more I looked at Tom