by Doreen Hamilton

Sounds of sirens….panic….intrusion
The invasion about to happen.

We protect ourselves and yet
There is danger all around.

Every moment can explode and
Change the next with violence.

The alarm warns but if it is too late
And the intrusion has happened,

How then do we pick up the thread
Of the moments of our lives linked together
Before as beautiful spun lace but
Now is shattered and tattered,
Torn and burned into oblivion

How do we find the thread
That was once everything
But this.

by Carl Eggers

Just over one hundred years ago, in 1899, a guy by the name of Corbet S. Sheldon, signed what is now a faded yellow “maker” sticker and stuck it inside of the instrument that became my violin. Eighty-one years later I found her in Southern Oregon. I say her because there was a distinctive feminine quality about her, a richness, a warmth. On the back I see the squiggly grain of a rich maple wood and on the front, two slim black lines are drawn along the edges, elegantly complimenting her perfect shape, a classic beauty. This violin was silently calling out to me from a cluttered one car garage in a small Oregon town of Medford. I found her dusty, stringless, and forlorn looking. My first impression was that she was experiencing a deep depression from what must have been years, perhaps even decades, of neglect. Curiously, I sensed a preciousness beneath the tarnished surface and I felt an unexplainable excitement. I expressed a cautious interest and her unappreciative owner offered her to me for practically nothing. I took her “as is” because I intuitively knew that she and I could come to love each other.

Well, it has been a love-hate relationship and I have needed lots of help to know how to relate to her. It was hard to even agree on the kind of music that we enjoyed. At first a woman who played fiddle tunes helped me and then a man who had been concert master in the New York Philharmonic. I tried soothing, pleading, placating, sometimes affording her my complete attention and other times simply ignoring her. Sometimes she brought me to tears and other times I became just plain angry. Yes, she taught me patience. I gave her much of my precious time and tried to listen carefully through the whining, complaining, and even screeching. Mostly I blamed her for our difficulties in harmonizing.

After a few years, my frustration grew to the point where I could think of no alternative but separation. Our differences were just too great. Perhaps some time apart would salvage at least our friendship. I loaned her to my friend Jennifer, whose brother Chris was interested in learning to play an instrument. I heard very little about her after that but had heard that Chris grew weary of trying to create an amicable relationship. He more or less gave her away to a friend of his. What little I learned did confirm in my mind that the difficulties in our relationship lay primarily at her doorstep.

When she was gone I had a lot of time to reflect, both on my life and on hers. I asked myself what it was that drew me to her-was it her physical appearance or was it something about the soul? How was it that our differences could not be blended like different notes to make beautiful music?

Perhaps to know the history of this violin would have helped me understand her, to understand us. It could be a story of glory or one of pain and woe, maybe a mixture of the two. I ask myself, “What must the maker have had in mind when he took a rib to create this woman. Was it for his own pleasure or for that of someone else? Was she a child genius-perhaps a difficult and misunderstood child who could not elicit the love that she so badly needed?” She might have been treated badly right from the beginning. maybe with meanness and hatred, even worse indifference. I learned that at some point, whether by accident or in anger, she either fell or had been thrown and as a result broke her neck. This would, of course, help to account for her disposition.

Still searching for answers about us, I try to imagine how far she might have already gone in life-Carnegie Hall; the Grand Ol Opry? She may have spent years in the hands of a master! The restlessness and impatience that I see in her could well be nothing more than a reflection of my own clumsiness and insecurity. Perhaps I am even an embarrassment to her. The separation did not have the immediate effect of healing our wounds or mending our differences. I hardly gave myself time to grieve the loss. I am the kind of person who can not be alone for very long. I drew some comfort from my piano. I think of it as the mother of all instruments, always good to have around. I am ashamed to confess that before I had even finished mourning the loss of my violin, I fell in love with a full figured, but younger, companion-a cello. The cello had a solid feeling. Even though it moaned quite a bit in my arms, it seemed less temperamental, easier to communicate with, easier to please. I do admit that I received the cello with much openness and with high expectations, having seen the contentment on Yo Yo Ma’s face when he was embracing his instrument. My bond with the cello solidified quickly. The deep sonorous sounds resonated with my own voice and I liked the fact that this instrument could pretty much stand on its own. The rich auburn finish pleased my eyes-such a beauty. Others admired my new companion and that made me feel proud as well.

Things went well for a couple of years but as I should have expected, discontentment began to creep in between us. I found myself thinking things like, “too heavy to lug around, can’t sing the high notes, and stands in front of me so I am not seen.” I even began to curse under my breath when things did not go my way. How could this beautiful instrument not sound as bubbly and happy as Yo Yo Ma’s cello friend and make me smile the way that his did.

It took me quite a while to realize how much I was missing my violin. At first I was in complete denial but later on I would be listening to a symphony play Beethoven or Mozart and the strings of the violin would tug on my heart. Sometimes I even imagined a violin playing along with my cello as I bowed the high notes in the Bach Cello suites. Years went by. On a beautiful spring day while I was having a conversation with my son, he brought up the subject of wanting to learn to play the violin. It came to me in a flash that I might be able to find an instrument for him. My son’s wanting to play provided the perfect pretext for me to seek contact with my long lost violin friend, and I began the search.

Feeling somewhat guilty and embarrassed I called my friend Jennifer to inquire about my violin, thinking to myself, “What right do I have to even look for my violin much less express a desire to have her back?” The call to Jennifer did not give me much hope because her brother, for whom she borrowed the violin in the first place, was now living in Seattle. According to her, after about a year he had given up learning to play the violin. I was very disappointed. As I was thinking about the violin and I began to imagine her pain from the experience. My heart sank. I began to think about the terrible dampness in the Northwest and to picture her completely warped out of shape in some closet. Worse yet he may have even discarded her. Jennifer said that she would call me back.

I waited nearly three weeks, .it seemed like months, and then called her again. She had not been able to contact her brother because he was traveling. Six weeks later Jennifer was on the phone to tell me that her brother had given my violin to a friend on the East Coast about two years ago. I hesitantly presented a flimsy argument that it was my violin, that I had agreed upon a trial separation and that I had merely loaned her to Jennifer for her brother’s use. The information both relieved and saddened me. I said as much to Jennifer. She agreed to ask her brother to contact his East Coast friend about my violin.

Another six months went by before Jennifer called me again. Her brother’s friend had indeed agreed to relinquish my violin, and he would be bringing her to the Bay Area in the summer. It was a momentous day that she was delivered back into my hands, as beautiful as ever despite her worn strings and tarnished finish. I was anxious but pleased at our reunion. I took her to my son’s house where he played her for a year before he decided to go back to playing his saxophone. It was no big surprise that with his lack of experience she proved too much for him.

I would see my violin from time to time at my son’s house where she and I began a process of reconciliation. I would approach her cautiously, gently, knowing about her temperament and sensitivity. I carefully sounded her out about the possibility of us living together once again. Soon after my son tired of her it was decided that she and I would give cohabitation another try.

We have been living together again for nearly three years. I love the delightfully sweet sound of her voice. When I hold and stroke her in a relaxed and confident manner she responds to me with sounds that would please the angels. We have many of the same old struggles. She still complains to me from time to time and sometimes her voice grates on me. I have developed more patience, and spend countless hours each day learning to understand her. It is my belief that to truly understand someone is to love her. It gives both of us great pleasure to hang out with friends who play music. We recently joined an orchestra to be more public about our relationship but keep a pretty low profile to hide my insecurity. We continue to have a love-hate relationship but this time I am certain that we are partners for life.

by Allene Hickox

“Come on, Allene. Let’s go for a walk and see the troop train go by,” invited my Dad. At age six, I still wanted to please my Dad by doing what he asked. And a real troop train sounded exciting to me. Living as a child through the years of World War II held all sorts of new ideas.

Since the railroad tracks were only a few blocks from our home, it just took a short walk to get there. Don’t ask me how my Daddy knew the exact time the troop train would go past our area in San Jose. But Dads seem to know these things. And since he worked as a photo-engraver in the graphic arts part of our local newspaper, The San Jose Mercury-News, he may have had “inside information.”

My Dad, not being tall, was comfortable for me to walk beside. He may have been kind of short, but to me he was big in other ways that really mattered to a little girl.

As we approached the empty track, no train was in sight. I realized my Dad wanted us to get there a little early so I could see the giant engine and its many, many passenger cars from far away and then coming closer and closer until this special train with its precious load of human cargo would pass right before our eyes. And then fade away from us getting smaller and smaller rolling along into the distance headed for I did not know where.

As the first few passenger cars came near us, I saw that each window held two or three American soldiers dressed in their khaki-colored uniforms, each wearing his khaki-colored cloth hat on his head, sort of like a soda jerk’s hat at our drugstore fountain.

There were so very many train windows with each window filled with soldiers’ faces turned toward me and my Dad. I began to wave at the soldiers. And guess what? They all, each one in turn, waved and smiled back at me. Thrilled, I began waving more and smiling more at each passing car.

Despite my excitement at seeing the passing troop train with all its soldiers, there came a quiet awareness from deep inside me that this event showed us more than an exciting and friendly occurrence. Yet I, being only six years old, could not begin to understand that I was watching history being made as the train steadily rolled on by.

Since no American families owned a TV set in the early 1940′s, we got news about the war by reading the local newspapers. And of course, everyone sat glued to their radios each night after dinner, hoping to learn more about our troops and how America was doing in defeating the enemy across the ocean.

I don’t recall if this was the only troop train I ever saw during the war years. My Dad never spoke about our early evening train time together and that not every soldier we saw would return home alive to America and his family. Oh, they’d return but in a military casket draped in a red, white, and blue star-spangled banner, our American flag.

Some soldiers came back with body parts missing, only to be replaced with an artificial arm, leg, or eye. Of course, the unseen wounds, not visible to the eye, held grievous pain and suffering just as real as flesh and blood wounds. I heard grown-ups saying these brave soldiers were “shell-shocked.” Now, years later, America calls it PTSD, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

My mother and grandmother often spoke of Bill, a cousin’s son, who returned from the war with recurring nightmares. He’d fought in the South Pacific against our enemy, the Japanese. His nightmare was always the same. I think he must have been captured by the Japanese and held as a POW. He told his family that his nightmares were of being surrounded by Japanese soldiers, and that if he moved he’d be shot, and that if he didn’t move he’d be shot.

That war story about Bill never made much sense to me at the time. How could a soldier be shot for moving and also be shot for not moving. All I know is I felt a sadness spreading inside me whenever Mom and grandmother talked about poor Bill.

Feeling rather helpless because I couldn’t do anything to stop cousin Bill from having these dreadful nightmares, I was very eager to do my part “for the war effort” in any small way I could. I got my chance at my school when I was in kindergarten. The U.S. government, to strengthen our national security, ordered every American child of school age to be fingerprinted. That meant one solemn school day each classroom, starting with the kindergarten, had to go to a large room and stand in a long line for a grown-up to help us have our right thumbprint made on a wallet-sized white card. Each small card had black, printed words on it that stated each card bearer was a U.S. citizen with a name and home address for each child.

Being so young, I could not really read all of these important words on this very special card I was about to be issued. A grown-up I’d never seen before told us children that’s what our cards were for so that grown-ups would know who each of us was and where we lived. I was never sure what exactly this meant to me in my small child’s world.

But I sure knew I was getting my right thumb pressed firmly onto the black ink pad and then rolled onto the little white card by a determined grown-up on the other side of a long table. How big and fat my thumbprint looked. As I took the offered small piece of tan paper towel, I quickly wiped off the black ink from my thumb as best I could. That was easy. And then came the really hard part. This same grown-up told me to write my name, my first and last names.

“Wait a minute,” I thought. “I only know how to print my name.” I didn’t know yet how to write like a grown-up. Since no one behind the table said it was fine if I just printed my name, and being a kid, I sure didn’t want to ask this adult looking down at me.

After all, I’d seen a real troop train go by, and I really wanted to be a part of “the war effort.” This was my big chance. “Little fingers don’t fail me now,” I silently told my small left hand. Picking up the fat kindergarten pencil, I squeezed my thumb and four fingers tightly around the pencil’s red painted wood. Bravely, I began to form round, plump letters attached to one another by curvy, rolling pencil lines. Many minutes seemed to pass as I finished my first name and then my last name. My aching left fingers seemed grateful that I had a short and a medium sized name, not a name with lots of letters to make.

Proudly, I held the finished card in my hands. I had done what my government told me to do. Now, I knew I was a real part of “the war effort.” I knew those soldiers in the passing troop train would be proud of me too. And so would cousin Bill.

by Lily Fong Endlich

In our Chinese household in North Beach in San Francisco during the mid-fifties, Christmas didn’t have much meaning until we children learned to sing Christmas carols at school and heard the stories of Baby Jesus born in a manger under the Star of Bethlehem, the three wise men visiting him and bringing gifts.

At the same time we heard of this fat dude dressed in red and white called Santa, who rode through the night skies in his sleigh pulled by flying reindeer, the lead reindeer with a red nose bright enough to light the way. Santa parked on the roof and entered the house by dropping down through the chimney.

Well, we didn’t have a chimney. I didn’t know what a chimney was. Dad would bring home a roll of corrugated cardboard with red bricks printed on it and we would create a make-believe fireplace. We would put up a string or two of those lights that had bubbles ascending inside the slender glass tubes. When the room lights were turned off, the Christmas lights cast a magical glow.

I remember one Christmas morning waking up to find wrapped presents by our make-believe fireplace. Wow! Santa Claus really exists! There were three wrapped gifts – one for each of us kids. There were no gift tags, so we unwrapped them and figured out which toy was intended for each child.There was a plastic machine gun, a toy truck, and I don’t remember the third toy, but it was also a boy toy. They were all boy toys. I was so disappointed. I wanted a doll or a girl toy. Even though I didn’t like any of the toys, I didn’t want to give up my claim to one of them. So I settled for the truck. I didn’t play with it much, and eventually my brother absorbed it into his collection of toys. Many Christmases passed with no presents, but we would put up our fake fireplace and Christmas bubble lights.

When I was nine years old, on Christmas Eve there was a knock on our door. When we asked who it was, we heard, “Ho, ho, ho, it’s Santa.” This must be a joke. We asked again. We heard, “Ho, ho, ho, it’s Santa.”

By this time, mom had joined us by the door. Generally, we didn’t open the door to strangers, especially at night, but if it was really Santa, I prayed that Mom would open the door.

I don’t know what prompted Mom to do it, but she opened the door. There was Santa, dressed in red and white, with a pillow under his jacket for a belly. I could hardly believe it! My silent longings had been heard. Santa had read the letter I had sent to the North Pole after all and had not forgotten me.

The husband of Mrs. Jackson, the school secretary, was dressed as Santa.

“Ho, ho, ho,” he said, smiling at us.

There really is a Santa Claus.

by Kara Jane Rollins
(This piece won 1st prize in the Jack London Short Story contest, sponsored by the Peninsula Branch of the California Writers Club!)

Miss Myler convinced me early in 5th grade that I was a slovenly girl. Before that year, I was confident in school, but when she called on me with her leaden voice I forgot facts I had carefully learned. I was labeled most lazy in class when we did our daily geography drills, the regurgitation of each state’s exported products. Miss Myler praised students like Clarisa Widlow for being excellent. The rest of us didn’t stand a chance, the struggling, unwashed, bumbling, or unsure.

Each morning she kept her small black eyes on us as we trudged up the stairs to the second floor. She required that each child say, “Good morning, Miss Myler,” looking into those reptile eyes. If a greeting appeared absent-minded or insincere, the entry had to be repeated. That meant returning to the sidewalk, entering the front door, and climbing the stairs with Miss Myler’s hooded lizard eyes measuring each step. I made that trip at least a half dozen times that year. She nicknamed me “the dawdling daydreamer” and told me I had a bad attitude about school.

She seemed to hate the ranch kids the most, the ones who came to school on the yellow school bus from working ranches on the Almy Bench. They milked cows and gathered eggs before school and had evening chores as well, feeding animals, getting horses to pasture, running hay stackers and cultivating machines. They wore dusty jeans, cowboy shirts, and muddy boots. I sat in the back row that year with the ranch kids. Miss Myler said sitting there might help me learn to speak up. During the second week of class, Miss Myler made Lamar Weston stand at his seat. He shambled to his feet awkwardly, his face white.

“Always remove your hat when you are indoors. Didn’t anybody ever teach you that?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Lamar took off his cowboy hat and stuffed it in his desk. His dark, greasy hair fell down on the nape of his neck.

“How often do you bathe, young man?” Her voice was an ice pick, chipping each word precisely for him. Lamar stared silently at the scarred desk in front of him, his eyes on the deep carvings and ink stains. I sat six feet away, wanting to answer for him. He turned a dusky pink that started at his dirty neck and moved to his broad forehead. The color rolled quickly into purple.

“Well. I’m waiting for an answer.” Her pinched eyes were raisin-bright on him.

Lamar shifted his weight in his muddy boots. “As often as we have well water,” he said. A few kids laughed and Miss Myler shushed them with a look.

“You may sit down,” she said. “I hope you learn something about hygiene this year.”

Lamar lowered himself into his seat. There was wetness in his eyes, but he didn’t cry. Those ranch kids were tough.

A few weeks before the end of the school year, Miss Myler leaned over her desk like a predatory bird and hissed, “Some students in this class will have a bad surprise the last day of school. They will not be moving on to 6th grade.” She looked right at me. Although my report card grades had been satisfactory that year, there were always comments about poor effort. I wore a coat of fear to and from school from that day on, sure I was being held back in 5th grade.

My last book report of the year was the final link in a chain of disgrace. I knew I had not spent enough time on it. When it came my turn, I got up slowly to face the class. My book was about a girl who had learned to love the sea living alone in a lighthouse. I went through the mandatory book report items: the author, the title, the number of words, and whether I would recommend it to others. I held up a required drawing of what the book meant to me. I had drawn a girl with brown hair, big gray eyes, and a tentative smile standing next to a lighthouse. They were the same height and her arm was around it. A few kids giggled.

“Even though I’ve never seen the ocean, I love it. I want to be a lighthouse to help ships to safety.” My voice was small and breathy.

Miss Myler’s heavy shoes thudded to the front and the rest of her followed, soundless and disembodied. I couldn’t remember being that physically close to her before and tried to make myself smaller. She snatched my drawing and turned a tight face to the class.

“Wasn’t that just about the worst book report you’ve ever heard?” They all looked down at their desks.

“Go sit down,” she said, disgust oozing from each word.

That last day of school, l951, the sun rose pale in a dreadful sky. I walked out the front entrance of our apartment building and Buddy Buford was raking up old winter leaves in the front yard, talking and singing to himself. Buddy lived with his two older sisters down the block and did handyman duties around town. In the summer and fall, he hired out as a ranch hand, working cattle and bringing in the harvest. Uncle Harold said Buddy was the best ranch hand around, even though he was a little slow in the head. Daddy said Buddy was a little kid in a grown-up body. I liked Buddy because he was a real cowboy from head to toe and our little Wyoming town didn’t have many of those.

Buddy could work, but he couldn’t do complicated thinking. Once, just to test him, I asked Buddy if he were a Republican or a Democrat. I could tell he didn’t understand because he said, “damn nuisance kid,” and walked away. Usually, though, I was nice to Buddy, because he was a kind and funny man.

That morning I said “Hi, Buddy,” and he waved a big gloved hand at me. Then I hustled on ahead of my sister because I needed to be alone to do a little praying. As I walked the blocks to school, I skirted the muddy leaves on the sidewalk and said silent prayers to God and to Jesus, just to cover all the bases.

“Please, please, please don’t let me be held back in 5th grade. I’ll be the kindest, most hard-working girl in the world.” I said it up into the pale yellow sky.

We were having a little graduation picnic that day. I was happy my mother was busy typing Daddy’s PhD thesis and couldn’t be there for the announcement of my failure. She’d find out soon enough. Wrapped sandwich halves in waxed paper were piled on two blankets in the shady schoolyard. Our instructions were to march silently in a single row, pick a sandwich half from each blanket, sit down at the picnic tables, and eat without making any trouble. We knew what “making trouble” meant to Miss Myler. It meant loud talking, touching each other, moving around too much, and use of dirty words, especially by the ranch kids. Miss Myler added, with emphasis, that any student who tried to pick a particular type of sandwich or complained about what he or she got would be sent home. After all, those nice room mothers had spent time making good sandwiches.

I crossed fingers on best hands in line, praying not to get the potted meat, which always made me gag. Sure enough, I got two potted meat halves, which I hid under some leaves in the yard when no one was looking. My stomach growled as I sat empty and waited for Miss Myler to make the announcement, a starving girl about to flunk 5th grade. And then, at the end of the picnic, instead of reading names of those who didn’t pass, Miss Myler said with a grim smile, “Good luck to all of you in 6th grade next year.” It was the first smile I could remember seeing on her face. I waited for her to say it was a joke. My friend Alice poked me, motioning it was time to leave. We were dismissed from Clark School that day like a noisy flock of swifts. I ran all the way home and Buddy was across the street, working in the Leeman yard. “Buddy, I passed 5th grade,” I bellowed, as I bounded up the apartment steps. He gave me a puzzled grin.

Later that week, when I was sitting on the front stairs and Buddy was mowing the lawn across the street, I saw Daddy walking up the hill from the train station, home for the weekend instead of staying at school in Salt Lake City. I ran down to meet him and as we reached the corner, Buddy ran over something in Mr. Leeman’s yard with the mower, making a big, old grinding racket.

“You stupid son-of-a-bitch.” Mr. Leeman was there quickly and jerked the mower away from Buddy. “I ought to get somebody to do this who’s got half a brain. Go on home, Buddy. You’re no good to me.” Buddy’s face was all caved in. His cowboy hat had fallen off and he picked it up slowly, as if he didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t the first time I had seen Mr. Leeman yell at Buddy.

“Get out of here, Buddy. I don’t want you around here anymore messing things up.” Buddy walked across the road to his sisters’ house, rubbing at his face the way he did when he was upset. He shuffled up to the front door and disappeared. It made my heart hurt. Mr. Leeman nodded hello to Daddy and went into his house.

I tugged on Daddy’s hand. “Why is he so mean to Buddy?”

Daddy spoke slowly. “It’s not fair, but sometimes people pick on a person who’s weaker than they are.”

“But why? He made Buddy sad.”

“People either can’t see how others feel, or, if they can, they just don’t care.” There was a pause. “You’re a good girl.” He patted my head.

I wanted to talk about how Miss Myler hated me and Lamar Weston, but Daddy had too much to worry about already.

The next day the Strand Theatre on Front Street opened and we started a summer of matinee attendance while Mama did her thesis typing. For fifteen cents we could sit all afternoon and watch Movietone News, two movies, and some cartoons. We each had an extra nickel to buy candy. The penny candy was in delicious rows in a crowded little space at the front of the theater: bright gumballs and red paraffin lips, Tootsie Pop suckers, hard little Boston Baked Beans, tiny Milk Dud boxes, and waxy six-packs filled with sweet liquid. I liked melting Junior Mints in my mouth or pouring tart Lik-a-Maid powder from a packet onto my tongue. I thought having my lips and tongue tinted with the Lik-a Maid was like wearing lipstick. Once, I bought a licorice paraffin mustache, wore it for a while, and then ate it.

Buddy was there that first afternoon and many afternoons after that, a big roundish man hunkered down in a row of kids with a large box of popcorn. Buddy was spell-bound by the words and actions on the screen. At a certain point in the Roy Roger’s movie the crooks were plotting their next move at the top of a bluff.

The toughest of them said to the rest, “When Rogers rides into the ravine, we’ll ambush him and his whole gang. We’ll wipe them all out at the same time.” He waved his arms in a circle and said, “Then we’ll be free to take over this whole territory.”

It was too much for Buddy, who had been scowling and fidgeting in his seat. He jumped up, blocking the view of the kids behind him, flailing both fists at the gigantic cowboys on the screen in front of him, and yelling in his squeaky voice.

“Oh no, you won’t, you sons-of bitches. You can’t trick Roy Rogers. He damn good fighter.”

The Strand might as well have been turned on its head. Kids were cheering, laughing, and stomping. Harley Hoosen stopped the movie and came running down the aisle like Porky Pig, his hands flapping around in the air and his shirttail out. His eyes were wild, with his glass eye looking one way and his real one the other. He motioned for Buddy to leave the theater and some of the kids started booing. I remembered Buddy’s face when Mr. Leeman was mean to him. I thought of Lamar Weston’s eyes. I started out slowly with a little chant in my seat.

“Bud-ee, Bud-ee, Bud-ee,”

The kids all along my row picked up on it. Then I made my voice louder. Soon the whole theater had picked up the chant.

“Bud-ee, Bud-ee, Bud-ee.” The noise filled up the theater and it seemed to me it would fill up our little town.

“Bud-ee, Bud-ee. Bud-ee.”

Kids were standing up and throwing bits of candy paper.

Harley yelled, “You kids stop that racket right now,” but we weren’t much afraid of him and his marshmallow ways. He gestured at Buddy to come with him, but Buddy didn’t move, confusion washing over his face. We started stamping our feet and clapping our hands to the rhythm of “Bud-ee, Bud-ee.” My sister whistled with two fingers in her mouth and other kids joined in. The theater felt like it would explode.

Finally, Harley pointed his fat finger at Buddy. “No more dirty words in this theater.” He hustled on back to the projection room, trying to smooth down his hair, which was fanned out around his head like a hazy halo. We cheered and clapped. Kids passed candy along the rows to Buddy. I folded my arms and pressed them into the warm spot inside my stomach. Buddy belonged there with us at the Strand Theatre, the place where he was happy.

On the way home, I saw Buddy walking alone, wobbling up the hill bow legged, his feet pointing outward like a duck in his cowboy boots. I thought about telling him never to work for Mr. Leeman again because the man was just too darn ornery for his own good. But I didn’t want to confuse Buddy, who needed all the work he could get. Instead, I closed my eyes and whispered a little prayer into the pale yellow sky.

I hurried to catch up with him yelling, “Good show, huh, Buddy?” He gave me one of his goofy smiles.