Spares - Michael Marshall Smith [51]
“I’m going to have a job,” I said, and he nodded. Maybe he knew what I meant, maybe not.
“What about ice cream then?”
“I’m going to have it all,” I said, firmly and seriously. “I’m going to have it every day, and more than one flavor, and I’m going to have big cones with nuts and fudge.” He began to laugh, and then, at the light in my eyes, stopped. “I am.”
“I hope you do,” he said. “I really hope you do. When I was your size I used to love toffee apples. You like toffee apples?” He raised his eyebrows at me, but I didn’t know. I’d seen toffee apples, but never had one. “They’re good. Maybe even better than ice cream, though I’d admit it’s a close-run thing. My mama would take me to the fair when it came around and I’d always have an apple. They were real hard and I’d have to turn my head on the side to use the big teeth there or they’d all break into little pieces.” I smiled at this, and he grinned, and in his face, behind the paper skin, I saw for a fleeting moment, someone my own age, someone to run and play with.
“Teeth don’t break,” I objected. “They’re harder than stone.”
“Maybe you’re right, but I didn’t know better then. And I’d always say when I grew up I was going to have a toffee apple every day, and I was going to stay up late every night and watch TV until my eyes went square and no one was going to get in my face. I thought that’s what being a grown-up was about. I thought that’s what it was for.”
For a while I didn’t say anything, sensing some dismal news was on the way, some revelation that I didn’t want to hasten. My mother was still down at the far end of the bay. A shadow from the late-afternoon sun crept across the rocks toward her.
“What happened?” I asked, eventually.
“I growed up,” he said, and seemed inclined to leave it there.
“And? What?”
The man’s eyes seemed far away. “I stayed up late, I watched TV, and I had a pretty good life,” he said. “But I don’t think I’ve had a toffee apple in more than forty years.”
“How come?”
“You forget,” he said, and shrugged.
“I won’t. I’m going to do everything. I’m going to do everything and do it all the time and no one’s going to stop me.”
“Good,” he said. “I hope you do. There’s worse ways to live your life than remembering what you want. You remember, son, and take what you want when you want it, and don’t let anyone get in your way. Try to bend the world around you while you still have the time.”
He sat there for a few minutes longer, looking somehow older and further away, and then he gingerly stood up and stretched.
“Are you going?” I asked.
“That I am. Now look. There’s five dollars on the rock beside you. You pick it up, Spend it how you want. But then go down to your mama, and take her by the hand. Okay?”
“Okay,” I said, grinning up at him, eyes squinting in the sunlight. Then he was off, stepping carefully over the rocks, and I watched him until he was gone, I glanced at the rock where he’d been and sure enough there was a five-dollar bill on the next boulder, weighed with a pebble. I looked at it a while and then I picked it up, but I didn’t buy a cone. I made my way down to the sand and found my mother, and when she wasn’t looking I slipped the bill in her purse. She was careful with money, and must have noticed it almost immediately, but she never mentioned it. Or maybe she did, because when we changed buses at Williamsburg on the way home she had both a soda and a coffee, and when I came back from the bathroom I found a small bowl of ice cream waiting for me at the table. That was Mom for you. She always knew how to say things without opening her mouth.
I’ve often thought about the old man, about how chance words can touch people’s lives in ways that are impossible to predict. Bend the world, he said, don’t accept having less than you want and blow a hole in anything that blocks your way. Armed with that notion, many people could have gone on to carve themselves a life that culminated in something approaching peace. It