Read Online The Roy Stories by Barry Gifford - Free Book Online Page A

Hayworth with her hair bleached blonde. Do you think I’d look as good as a blonde, Roy?”
    â€œI don’t know, Ma. I like you the way you are.”
    She kissed him on his forehead. Roy never drank coffee but he liked the odor of it.
    â€œI’m going to play in my room,” he said.
    â€œOkay, honey.”
    About half an hour later, Roy heard the telephone ring and his mother answer it.
    â€œYes, this is she,” she said into the receiver. “Uh huh, he is. He’s in his room right now. Oh, really. I see. Yes, well, that will be between you and Roy, won’t it? I’m sure he had a good reason. I understand. He’ll be there tomorrow, yes. Thank you for calling.”
    Roy heard his mother hang up, then go into the kitchen and run water in the sink. A few minutes later, she appeared in the doorway to his room.
    â€œSweetheart,” she said, “I have to go out for a little while. Is there anything you’d like me to pick up at the grocery store?”
    â€œNo, thanks, Ma.”
    â€œYou’ll be all right?”
    â€œSure, I’ll be fine. I’m just playing with my soldiers.”
    â€œWhich ones are those?” she asked.
    â€œFrench Zouaves.”
    â€œTheir uniforms are very beautiful. I’ve never seen soldiers with purple blouses before.”
    â€œThese Zouaves are from Algeria,” said Roy, “that’s why their faces and hands are brown. They fought for France.”
    â€œAnd white turbans, too,” his mother said. “Lana Turner wore one in The Postman Always Rings Twice . Do you remember that movie, Roy? Where she and John Garfield, who’s a short order cook, kill her husband, who’s much older than she is?”
    â€œNo, Ma, I don’t.”
    â€œThanks to a tricky lawyer, at first they get away with the murder, but then they slip up.”
    His mother stood there for a minute and watched Roy move the pretty Zouaves around the floor before saying, “I’m going now, honey. I’ll be back in an hour.”
    â€œOkay, Ma.”
    â€œI’ll make us grilled cheese sandwiches when I get back,” she said, “and maybe some tomato soup.”
    It wasn’t until after he heard the front door close that he took off his coat.
    The next day at school, when he entered the classroom, Mrs. Bluth said, “Good morning, Roy. How are you feeling today?”
    â€œFine, Mrs. Bluth,” he said, and took his seat.
    The other kids looked at Roy but didn’t say anything. Later, on the playground during morning recess, Eddie Gray asked Roy if he’d gotten into trouble for having left school without permission the day before.
    â€œNo,” Roy said.
    â€œYour mother didn’t yell at you?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWhy’d you leave?” Eddie asked.
    â€œI didn’t like the way Mrs. Bluth talked to me.”
    A few flurries began falling. Roy put up his hood.
    â€œWhat about your dad?” asked Eddie. “What did he do?”
    â€œMy father’s dead,” said Roy.
    â€œYou’re lucky,” said Eddie Gray, “my old man would have used his belt on me.”

 
    Mrs. Kashfi
    M y mother has always been a great believer in fortune-tellers, a predilection my dad considered as bizarre as her devotion to the Catholic Church. He refused even to discuss anything having to do with either entity, a policy that seemed only to reinforce my mother’s arcane quest. Even now she informs me whenever she’s stumbled upon a seer whose prognostications strike her as being particularly apt. I once heard my dad describe her as belonging to “the sisterhood of the Perpetual Pursuit of the Good Word.”
    My own experience with fortune-tellers is limited to what I observed as a small boy, when I had no choice but to accompany my mother on her frequent pilgrimages to Mrs. Kashfi. Mrs. Kashfi was a tea-leaf reader who lived with her bird in a two-room