3
The hangover felt
like a fever in James, but not so much a fever that he couldn’t
think about the girl last night. He was changed, and this morning
the change felt even more important than it had last night. He
wished he had a good male friend in Council Bluffs, somebody you
could really talk to-partly to impress, of course (not many boys
his age had ever actually slept with a girl), and partly just as a
confidant. Obviously he couldn’t tell his mother and he couldn’t
tell Marietta. And his uncle already knew about it and…
His uncle. James
looked across at the empty bed. Apparently Septemus had gotten
dressed and gone downstairs for breakfast. James thought about last
night. It was pretty sad, really, Septemus getting so drunk and
sort of shooting up the place and then starting to cry. James
thought about what his mother had said of Septemus ever since
Clarice had died. How his uncle wasn’t quite right somehow…
For the twenty
minutes James had been awake, shoes and boots and bare feet could
be heard passing by on the other side of the door. Every time he’d
think it was his uncle, the sound would move on down the hall. So,
lying there now, he held out no hope that the sounds of leather
squeaking would actually be his uncle. But the door opened abruptly
and in came Septemus.
“Good morning,
James!” Septemus said, striding in and shutting the door behind
him. “Are you ready for a big breakfast? I certainly am.”
James rolled off the
bed and started getting into his clothes. He kept looking at
Septemus. Despite the good cheer of his booming voice, there was
something wrong with Septemus. He couldn’t look James in the
face.
“Then we’ll go for a
ride,” Septemus said, rummaging for something in his
carpetbag.
James saw Septemus
take his Navy Colt from the bag, open his coat, and put the weapon
inside his belt. Then he closed the coat again.
“You ready,
son?”
“Mind if I wash
up?”
“Of course not,
James.”
Septemus slapped
James on the back. He would still not let his eyes meet
James’s.
“Uncle
Septemus?”
“Yes, James?”
“Is something
wrong?”
“Wrong? Why would you
say a thing like that? Look out the window. It’s a fine morning.
And listen to all the wagons in the street below. It’s not only a
fine morning, it’s a busy morning. The sounds of commerce, that’s
what you hear in the street below. The sound of commerce.” His
voice was good-naturedly booming again. But then why were his eyes
filled with tears?
Something was
terribly wrong. James wondered what it could be.
“I’ll be right back,”
James said, and went down the hall.
A man was coming out
of the bathroom just as James was ready to go in. The smell the man
had left behind was so sour James had to hold his breath while he
poured fresh water into the basin and got himself all scrubbed
up.
When he was all
through, he stared at himself in the mirror with his hair combed
and a clean collar on.
Yes, he definitely
looked older. Seventeen, maybe; or even eighteen. He had to thank
Uncle Septemus for taking him along last night.
But when he thought
of Uncle Septemus, he thought of his strange mood this morning.
Where had Septemus gone so early in the day? And why was he putting
on this blustery act of being so happy? Septemus hadn’t been a
happy man even before the murder of his daughter; afterward, he’d
been inconsolable.
When he got back to
the room he saw Septemus sitting on the edge of the bed staring at
the rotogravure of Clarice he carried everywhere with him.
“She was a fine
girl,” his uncle said.
“She sure was.”
Septemus looked up at
him. “You miss her a lot, don’t you, James?”
“Yes, I do.”
Septemus continued to
stare at him. “It changed all our lives, didn’t it, when she was
killed, I mean?”
James thought a
moment. He felt guilty that he could not answer honestly. Sure, he
was sad when Clarice had died, and he did indeed think about her
pretty often. But change his life? Not really; not in the way his
uncle meant. “Yes; yes it did.”
“You’re a good boy,
James.”
“Thank you.”
“Or excuse me. After
last night, you’re a boy no longer. You’re half a man.”
“Half?”
Septemus’s troubled
brown eyes remained on his. “There’s one more thing you need to
learn. You know firsthand about carnality, and the pleasures only a
woman can render a man, but now you need to learn about the
opposite of pleasure.”
“The opposite of
pleasure?”
“Responsibility. You
have to pay for the pleasures of being a man by taking on the
responsibilities of a man.”
James noticed how
Septemus had gone back to staring at the picture.
“What
responsibilities?”
Septemus put the
picture back in his carpetbag then stood up, putting on the good
mood again. “Come on now, young man, we’re going down to the
restaurant and have the finest breakfast they’ve ever
served.”
James couldn’t quell
his appetite, even while he was beginning to worry about what
Septemus must have in mind for them today.
“Bacon and eggs and
hash browns,” Septemus said as they strolled down the hall. “How
does that sound?”
“It sounds
great.”
“And with lots of
strawberry marmalade spread all over hot bread.”
James could barely
keep himself from salivating. In the onslaught of such food, he
gradually forgot about Septemus’s ominous talk of
responsibility.