The drive home was a bitter experience. Jimmy was sullen, and very quiet.
He refused to answer any question and he made no reply to any statement.
Paul Brennan kept up a running chatter of pleasantries, of promises and
plans for their future, and just enough grief to make it sound honest.
Had Paul Brennan actually been as honest as his honeyed tones said he
was, no one could have continued to accuse him. But no one is more
difficult to fool than a child--even a normal child. Paul Brennan's
protestations simply made Jimmy Holden bitter.
He sat silent and unhappy in the far corner of the front seat all the way
home. In his mind was a nameless threat, a dread of what would come once
they were inside--either inside of Paul Brennan's apartment or inside of
his own home--with the door locked against the outside world.
But when they arrived, Paul Brennan continued his sympathetic attitude.
To Jimmy it was sheer hypocrisy; he was not experienced enough to know
that a person can commit an act and then convince himself that he hadn't.
"Jimmy," said Brennan softly, "I have not the faintest notion of
punishment. None whatsoever. You ruined your father's great invention.
You did that because you thought it was right. Someday when you change
your mind and come to believe in me, I'll ask you to replace it because I
know you can. But understand me, young man, I shall not ask you until you
make the first suggestion yourself!"
Jimmy remained silent.
"One more thing," said Brennan firmly. "Don't try that stunt with the
letter to the station agent again. It won't work twice. Not in this town
nor any other for a long, long time. I've made a sort of family-news item
out of it which hit a lot of daily papers. It'll also be in the company
papers of all the railroads and buslines, how Mr. What's-his-name at the
Midland Railroad got suckered by a five-year-old running away from home.
Understand?"
Jimmy understood but made no sign.
"Then in September we'll start you in school," said Brennan.
This statement made no impression upon young James Holden whatsoever. He
had no intention of enduring this smothering by overkindness any longer
than it took him to figure out how to run away, and where to run to. It
was going to be a difficult thing. Cruel treatment, torture, physical
harm were one thing; this act of being a deeply-concerned guardian was
something else. A twisted arm he could complain about, a bruise he could
show, the scars of lashing would give credence to his tale. But who would
listen to any complaint about too much kindness?
Six months of this sort of treatment and Jimmy Holden himself would begin
to believe that his parents were monsters, coldly stuffing information in
the head of an infant instead of letting him grow through a normal
childhood. A year, and Jimmy Holden would be re-creating his father's
reverberation circuit out of sheer gratitude. He'd be cajoled into
signing his own death-warrant.
But where can a five-year-old hide? There was no appeal to the forces of
law and order. They would merely pop him into a squad car and deliver him
to his guardian.
Law and order were out. His only chance was to lose himself in some gray
hinterland where there were so many of his own age that no one could keep
track of them all. Whether he would succeed was questionable. But until
he tried, he wouldn't know, and Jimmy was desperate enough to try
anything.
He attended the funeral services with Paul Brennan. But while the pastor
was invoking Our Heavenly Father to accept the loving parents of orphaned
James, James the son left the side of his "Uncle" Paul Brennan, who knelt
in false piety with his eyes closed.
Jimmy Holden had with him only his clothing and what was left of the wad
of paper money from his father's cashbox still pinned to the inside of
his shirt.
This time Jimmy did not ride in style. Burlap sacks covered him when
night fell; they dirtied his clothing and the bottom of the freight car
scuffed his shoes. For eighteen hours he hid in the jolting darkness, not
knowing and caring less where he was going, so long as it was away!
He was hungry and thirsty by the time the train first began to slow down.
It was morning--somewhere. Jimmy looked furtively out of the slit at the
edge of the door to see that the train was passing through a region of
cottages dusted black by smoke, through areas of warehouse and factory,
through squalor and filth and slum; and vacant lots where the spread of
the blight area had been so fast that the outward improvement had not
time to build. Eventually the scene changed to solid areas of railroad
track, and the trains parked there thickened until he could no longer
see the city through them.
Ultimately the train stopped long enough for Jimmy to squeeze out through
the slit at the edge of the door.
The train went on and Jimmy was alone in the middle of some huge city.
He walked the noisome sidewalk trying to decide what he should do next.
Food was of high importance, but how could he get it without attracting
attention to himself? He did not know. But finally he reasoned that a
hot dog wagon would probably take cash from a youngster without asking
embarrassing questions, so long as the cash wasn't anything larger than
a five-dollar bill.
He entered the next one he came to. It was dirty; the windows held
several years' accumulation of cooking grease, but the aroma was terrific
to a young animal who'd been without food since yesterday afternoon.
The counterman did not like kids, but he put away his dislike at the
sight of Jimmy's money. He grunted when Jimmy requested a dog, tossed one
on the grill and went back to reading his newspaper until some inner
sense told him it was cooked. Jimmy finished it still hungry and asked
for another. He finished a third and washed down the whole mass with a
tall glass of highly watered orange juice. The counterman took his money
and was very careful about making the right change; if this dirty kid had
swiped the five-spot, it could be the counterman's problem of explaining
to someone why he had overcharged. Jimmy's intelligence told him that
countermen in a joint like this didn't expect tips, so he saved himself
that hurdle. He left the place with a stomach full of food that only the
indestructible stomach of a five-year-old could handle and now, fed and
reasonably content, Jimmy began to seek his next point of contact.
He had never been in a big city before. The sheer number of human beings
that crowded the streets surpassed his expectations. The traffic was not
personally terrifying, but it was so thick that Jimmy Holden wondered how
people drove without colliding. He knew about traffic lights and walked
with the green, staying out of trouble. He saw groups of small children
playing in the streets and in the empty lots. Those not much older than
himself were attending school.
He paused to watch a group of children his own age trying to play
baseball with a ragged tennis ball and the handle from a broom. It was a
helter-skelter game that made no pattern but provided a lot of fun and
screaming. He was quite bothered by a quarrel that came up; two of his
own age went at one another with tiny fists flying, using words that
Jimmy hadn't learned from his father's machine.
He wondered how he might join them in their game. But they paid him no
attention, so he didn't try.
At lunchtime Jimmy consumed another collection of hot dogs. He continued
to meander aimlessly through the city until schooltime ended, then he saw
the streets and vacant lots fill with older children playing games with
more pattern to them. It was a new world he watched, a world that had not
been a part of his education. The information he owned was that of the
school curriculum; it held nothing of the daily business of growing up.
He knew the general rules of big-league baseball, but the kid-business of
stickball did not register.
He was at a complete loss. It was sheer chance and his own tremendous
curiosity that led him to the edge of a small group that were busily
engaged in the odd process of trying to jack up the front of a car.
It wasn't a very good jack; it should have had the weight of a full adult
against the handle. The kids strained and put their weight on the jack,
but the handle wouldn't budge though their feet were off the ground.
Here was the place where academic information would be useful--and the
chance for an "in." Jimmy shoved himself into the small group and said,
"Get a longer handle."
They turned on him suspiciously.
"Whatcha know about it?" demanded one, shoving his chin out.
"Get a longer handle," repeated Jimmy. "Go ahead, get one."
"G'wan--"
"Wait, Moe. Maybe--"
"Who's he?"
"I'm Jimmy."
"Jimmy who?"
"Jimmy--James." Academic information came up again. "Jimmy. Like the
jimmy you use on a window."
"Jimmy James. Any relation to Jesse James?"
James Quincy Holden now told his first whopper. "I," he said, "am his
grandson."
The one called Moe turned to one of the younger ones. "Get a longer
handle," he said.
While the younger one went for something to use as a longer handle, Moe
invited Jimmy to sit on the curb. "Cigarette?" invited Moe.
"I don't smoke," said Jimmy.
"Sissy?"
Adolescent-age information looking out through five-year-old eyes assayed
Moe. Moe was about eight, maybe even nine; taller than Jimmy but no
heavier. He had a longer reach, which was an advantage that Jimmy did not
care to hazard. There was no sure way to establish physical superiority;
Jimmy was uncertain whether any show of intellect would be welcome.
"No," he said. "I'm no sissy. I don't like 'em."
Moe lit a cigarette and smoked with much gesturing and flickings of ashes
and spitting at a spot on the pavement. He was finished when the younger
one came back with a length of water pipe that would fit over the handle
of the jack.
The car went up with ease. Then came the business of removing the hubcap
and the struggle to loose the lugbolts. Jimmy again suggested the
application of the length of pipe. The wheel came off.
"C'mon, Jimmy," said Moe. "We'll cut you in."
"Sure," nodded Jimmy Holden, willing to see what came next so long as it
did not have anything to do with Paul Brennan. Moe trundled the car wheel
down the street, steering it with practiced hands. A block down and a
block around that corner, a man with a three-day growth of whiskers
stopped a truck with a very dirty license plate. Moe stopped and the
man jumped out of the truck long enough to heave the tire and wheel into
the back.
The man gave Moe a handful of change which Moe distributed among the
little gang. Then he got in the truck beside the driver and waved for
Jimmy to come along.
"What's that for?" demanded the driver.
"He's a smarty pants," said Moe. "A real good one."
"Who're you?"
"Jimmy--James."
"What'cha do, kid?"
"What?"
"Moe, what did this kid sell you?"
"You and your rusty jacks," grunted Moe. "Jimmy James here told us how to
put a long hunk of pipe on the handle."
"Jimmy James, who taught you about leverage?" demanded the driver
suspiciously.
Jimmy Holden believed that he was in the presence of an educated man.
"Archimedes," he said solemnly, giving it the proper pronunciation.