Boy's Life

"In later years I would think that no woman's lips had ever been as red as that bike. No low-slung foreign sports car with wire wheels and purring engine would ever look as powerful or as capable as that bike. No chrome would ever gleam with such purity, like the silver moon on a summers night. I had a big round headlight and a horn with a rubber bulb, and its frame looked as strong and solid as the biceps of Hercules. But it looked fast, too; it's handlebars sloped forward like an invitation to taste the wind, it's black rubber pedals unscarred by any foot before mine. Dad ran his fingers along the headlight, and then picked the bike up with one hand.
"Boy, it hardly weighs anything!" he marvelled."Lightest metal I've ever felt!" He put it down again, and it settled on its kickstand like an obedient but barely tamed animal."
(Boys toys)

"I looked out, across my hometown. I looked at the green hills and the blue sky, and the distant roofs of Burton. Beside me, Rebel whimpered in a dogs dreams.
I never knew what hate really was until I thought of somebody wrapping up a bomb and putting it in a church on a Sunday morning to kill little girls."


"This was early summer in Zephyr: an awakening to hazy morning heat, the sun gradually burning the haze off and the air getting so humid your shirt stuck to your skin by the time you'd walked to the mailbox and back. At noon the world seemed to pause on its axis, and not a bird dared to wing through the steaming blue. As afternoon rambled on, a few clouds rimmed with rule might build up from the northwest. You could sit on the porch, a glass of lemonade at your side and the radio tuned to a baseball game, and watch the clouds slowly roll toward you. After a while you might hear a distant thunder, and a zigzag of lighting would make the radio crackle. It might shower for thirty minutes or so, but most times the clouds just marched past with a rumble and grunt and not a drop of rain. As evening cooled the earth, the cicadas droned in their hundreds from the woods and lighting bugs rose from the grass. They got up in the trees and blinked, and they lit up the branches like Christmas decorations here on the edge of July. The stars came out, and some phase of the moon. If I played my cards right, I could talk my folks into letting me stay up late, like until eleven or so, and I would sit in front yard watching the lights of Zephyr go out. When enough lights were extinguished, the stars became much brighter. You could look up into the heart of the universe, and see the swirls of glowing stars. A soft breeze blew, bringing with it the sweet perfume of earth, and the trees rustled quietly in its passage. It was very hard, at times like this, not to think that the world was as well-ordered and precise as the Cartwright ranch on "Bonanza," or that in every house lived a "My Three Sons" family. I wished it were so, but I had seen pictures of a spreading dark, a burning man, and a bomb-wrecked church, and I was beginning to know the truth."
(Wish i/you was here?)

"I had seen her naked. In all my life I had seen no female naked but my mother. I had been in the presence of Chile Willow only a short time, but what is time when a heart speaks? My heart was speaking to Chile Willow in that moment, as she bathed my cuts and gave me a smile. My heart was saying if you were my girlfriend I would give you a hundred lighting bugs in a green glass jar, so you could always see your way. I would give you a meadow full of wildflowers, where no two blooms would ever be alike. I would give you mu bicycle, with it's golden eye to protect you. I would write a story for you, and make you a princes who lived in a white marble castle. If you would only like me, I would give you magic. If you would only like me.
If you would only-"
(Love)
"This was to be my first experiment with it, and like any first experience, the feeling stays with you forever. What this was exactly I can't say, but it drove into my soul and made a home there. Everyone was watching me; everyone was listening to me. The words coming out of my mouth-the words I'd conceived and give birth to- were making time null and void; they were bringing together a roomful of people into a journey of common sights, sounds, and thoughts; they were leaving me and travelling into the minds and memories of people who had never been at Saxons Lake that chill, early morning in March. I could tell when I looked at them that those people were following me. And the greatest thing- the very greatest thing-is that they wanted to go where I led them."
(The joy of writing)

"I sat beside him as the chill wind moved around us. Rebel made little whining noises deep in his throat. He let me pat him, but he was somewhere else. I remembered him as a puppy, full of boundless energy, enthralled by a yellow ball with a little bell in it. I remember the times we had raced each other, and like a true Southern gentleman he had always let me win. I remembered when he flew, over the hills of summer. Even if that had only been in my imagination, it was truer than true. I cried some.
More than some."

"Let's go then! Summer's started." Ben began to run around the edges fo fthe clearing in a wide circle, with Thumper loping along behind. I followed him, Rebel weaving in and out of my track. Johnny and Davy Ray started running behind me, thei

"Let's go then! Summer's started." Ben began to run around the edges fo fthe clearing in a wide circle, with Thumper loping along behind. I followed him, Rebel weaving in and out of my track. Johnny and Davy Ray started running behind me, their dogs racing bacnd and forth across the clearing and tusseling with each other.

We ran faster and faster. The wind was first in our faces and then at our backs. We ran around the clearing on our sturdy young legs, the wind speaking through the pines and oaks that rimmed our playground. "Faster!" Johnny shouted, limping just a little on his clubfoot. "Gotta go faster."

We kept going, fighting the wind and then flying before it. The dogs ran beside us, barking with the sheer happiness of movement. The sun sparkled on the Tecumseh River, the sky was clear azure, and summer's heat bloomed in our lungs.