Statues are best, he thought. They're the only things you can keep on your lawn. Don't ever let them move. Once you do, you can't do a thing with them.
Suddenly his fist shot out like a piston from his side and it shook itself hard at the lawns and the street and the gathering dusk. His face was choked with blood, his eyes were blazing.
"John!" he cried. "You, John! John, you're my enemy, you hear? You're no friend of mine! Don't come back now, ever! Get away, you! Enemy, you hear? That's what you are! It's all off between us, you're dirt, that's all, dirt! John, you hear me, John!"
As if a wick had been turned a little lower in a great clear lamp beyond the town, the sky darkened still more. He stood on the porch, his mouth gasping and working. His fist still thrust straight out at that
house across the street and down the way. He looked at the fist and it dissolved, the world dissolved beyond it.
Going upstairs, in the dark, where he could only feel his face but see nothing of himself, not even his fists, he told himself over and over, I'm mad, I'm angry, I hate him, I'm mad, I'm angry, I hate him!
Ten minutes later, slowly he reached the top of the stairs, in the dark....
Tom," said Douglas, "just promise me one thing, okay?"
"It's a promise. What?"
"You may be my brother and maybe I hate you sometimes, but stick around, all right?"
"You mean you'll let me follow you and the older guys when you go on hikes?"
"Well ... sure ... even that. What I mean is, don't go away, huh? Don't let any cars run over you or fall off a cliff."
"I should say not! Whatta you think I am, anyway?"
"'Cause if worst comes to worst, and both of us are real old--say forty or forty-five some day--we can own a gold mine out West and sit there smoking corn silk and growing beards."
"Growing beards! Boy!"
"Like I say, you stick around and don't let nothing happen."
"You can depend on me," said Tom.
"It's not you I worry about," said Douglas, "It's the way God runs the world."
Tom thought about this for a moment.
"He's all right, Doug," said Tom. "He tries."
She came out of the bathroom putting iodine on her finger where she had almost lopped it off cutting herself a chunk of cocoanut cake. Just then the mailman came up the porch steps, opened the door, and walked in. The door slammed. Elmira Brown jumped a foot.
"Sam!" she cried. She waved her iodined finger on the air to cool it. "I'm still not used to my husband being a postman. Every time you just walk in, it scares the life out of me!"
Sam Brown stood there with the mail pouch half empty, scratching his head. He looked back out the door as if a fog had suddenly rolled in on a calm sweet summer morn.
"Sam, you're home early," she said.
"Can't stay," he said in a puzzled voice.
"Spit it out, what's wrong?" She came over and looked into his face.
"Maybe nothing, maybe lots. I just delivered some mail to Clara Goodwater up the street ...."
"Clara Goodwater!"
"Now don't get your dander up. Books it was, from the Johnson-Smith Company, Racine, Wisconsin. Title of one book ... let's see now." He screwed up his face, then unscrewed it. "Albertus Magnus--that's it. Being the approved, verified, sympathetic and natural EGYPTIAN SECRETS or ..." He peered at the ceiling to summon the lettering. "White and Black Art for Man and Beast, Revealing the Forbidden Knowledge and Mysteries of Ancient Philosophers!"
"Clara Goodwater's you say?"