5

Tom Flanagan and Del Nightingale had picked up their freshman beanies like the rest of us from the carton just inside the library doors, and at the end of Registration Day they stood for a moment together at the entrance to the school, trying them on. 'I think they're one-size-fits-none,' Tom said. Both boys' beanies were a quarter-size too large and swam on their heads. 'Don't worry, we can swap them tomorrow,' Tom said. 'There were a lot left over in that box. Do you know how to wear these, by the way? This little bill is supposed to be two fingers above the bridge of your nose.' Using the first two fingers of his right hand to demonstrate, he adjusted the cap with his right. Nightingale imitated him, and brought the brim down to the level of his topmost finger.

'Well, it's only for the first semester,' Tom said. But then, at the beginning, they shared a secret pleasure in wearing the absurd caps: Tom because it meant that he was in the Upper School - the entrance to adulthood. If Tom thought of the Upper School as the realm of beings who were almost men - the seniors did look alarmingly like real adults - for Del it was something simpler and more comprehensive. He thought of it, without being quite aware of the thought, as a place which might become home. Tom at least was at home in it.

At that moment, he wanted Tom Flanagan to befriend him more than anything else in the world.

Of course I am ascribing to the fourteen-year-old Del Nightingale emotions which I cannot be sure he possessed. Yet he must have been very lonely in these first weeks at Carson; and I have Tom's later statement to me that 'Del Nightingale needed a friend more than anyone else I'd ever met. I didn't even know, this is how innocent I was, that anyone could need a friend as badly as that. And you know how schools are: if you want something, security or affection, very badly, it means that you're not going to get it. I didn't see why that should always be true.' The statement shows that Tom was more sensitive than his appearance ever indicated. With his gingery hair, his short wiry athletic body, his good clothes a little scuffed and rumpled, he looked chiefly as though he wished he held a baseball in his hand. But another thing you thought you saw when you looked at Tom Flanagan was an essential steadiness: you thought you saw that he was incapable of affectation, because he would never see the need for it.

I think Del Nightingale looked at him bringing the school beanie down to the level of two fingers balanced on his nose, and adopted him on the spot.

'That trick you were showing me isn't in my book,' Tom said. 'Sometime I'd like to see how it g-s.'

'I brought a lot of card books with me,' Del said. He dared not say anymore.

'Let's go have a look at them. I can call my mother from your place. She was going to pick me up after registration, but we didn't know when it would be over. How do we get to your house? Do you have a ride?'

'It's close enough to walk,' Del said. 'It's not really my house. My godparents are just renting it.'

Tom shrugged, and they went down the front steps, crossed Santa Rosa Boulevard, and began to walk up sunlit Peace Lane. Carson was in a suburb old enough to have imposing elms and oaks lining the sidewalks. The houses they passed were the sort of houses Tom had seen all his life, most of them long and of two stories, either of white stone or white board. One or two houses on every block were bordered by screened-in porches. Concrete slabs gray with age and' crossed by a jigsaw puzzle of cracks made up the slightly irregular sidewalk. Tough, coarse grass thrust up between the slabs of pavement. For Del, who had been raised in cities and in boarding schools thousands of miles away, all of this was so unreal as to be dreamlike. For a moment he was not certain where he was or where he was going.

'Don't worry about Ridpath,' Tom said beside him. 'He's always hollering. He's a pretty good coach. But I'll tell you who's in trouble already.'

'Who?' Del asked, beginning to quake already. He knew that Tom meant him.

'That Brick. He'll never last. I bet he d-sn't get through this year.'

'Why do you say that?'

'I don't know exactly. He looks kind of hopeless, d-sn't he? Kind of dumb. And Ridpath is already shitting hot nickels over his hair. If his father was on the board, or something like that - or if his family had always gone here… you know.' Flanagan was walking with what Del would later see as the characteristic Carson gait, which slightly rolled the shoulders from side to side and wagged neckties like metronomes. This was, as Del immediately recognized, finally 'preppy.' Amidst all the Western strangeness, the strolling, necktie-swinging gait was familiar enough to be comfortable.

'I guess I do know,' he said.

'Oh, sure. Wait till you see Harrison - he's a junior. Harrison has hair just like Brick's, but his father is a big shot. Last year his father donated fifteen thousand dollars to the school for new lab equipment. Where is this house, anyhow?'

Del had been dreaming along under the ninety-degree sun, self-consciousness about the beanie melting together with his sense of unreality and his pleasure in Tom's company to make him forget that they had a destination. 'Oh. Next street.'

They reached the corner and turned into the street. It seemed impossible to Del that he actually lived there. He would not have been wholly surprised to see Ricky and David Nelson playing catch on one of the lawns. 'Mr. Broome wanted to talk to you,' Tom said. 'Um-hum.'

'I suppose your father is an ambassador or something like that.'

'My father is dead. So is my mother.'

Tom quickly said, 'Geez, I'm sorry,' and changed the subject. His own father had recently begun a mysterious siege of X rays and over-night stays in St. Mary's Hospital. Hartley Flanagan was a corporation lawyer who could chin himself a dozen times and had been a varsity fullback at Stanford. He smoked three packs a day. 'Mr. Ridpath isn't too bad, he's just not very subtle' - both boys grinned - 'but you ought to watch out for his son. Steve Ridpath. I remember him from the Junior School.'

'He's worse than his father?'

'Well, he was a lot worse then. Maybe he's nicer now.' Tom's mouth twitched in a pained, adult manner, and Del saw that his new friend doubted his last remark. 'He beat the crap out of me once because he didn't like my face. He was in the eighth grade. I was in the fifth grade. A teacher saw him do it, and he still didn't get expelled. I just sort of made sure I never got near him after that.'

'This is the house,' Del said, still unable to refer to it as his. 'What d-s this guy look like?'

Tom took off his beanie and folded it into a hip pocket. 'Steve Ridpath? His nickname is Skeleton. But don't ever say it in front of him. In fact, if you can help it, don't ever say anything to him. Are we going to go in, or what?'

The door opened and a uniformed black man said, 'Saw you and your friend coming, Del.'