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diff --git a/31599.txt b/31599.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0979740 --- /dev/null +++ b/31599.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1082 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of To Remember Charlie By, by Roger Dee + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: To Remember Charlie By + +Author: Roger Dee + +Release Date: March 11, 2010 [EBook #31599] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TO REMEMBER CHARLIE BY *** + + + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + Transcriber's Note: + + This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe March 1954. Extensive + research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this + publication was renewed. + + +[The history of this materialistic world is highlighted with +strange events that scientists and historians, unable to explain +logically, have dismissed with such labels as "supernatural," +"miracle," etc. But there are those among us whose simple faith +can--and often does--alter the scheme of the universe. Even a little +child can do it....] + + + to remember charlie by + + + by ... Roger Dee + + + Just a one-eyed dog named Charlie and a crippled boy named + Joey--but between them they changed the face of the universe ... + perhaps. + + * * * * * + + + + +I nearly stumbled over the kid in the dark before I saw him. + +His wheelchair was parked as usual on the tired strip of carpet grass +that separated his mother's trailer from the one Doc Shull and I lived +in, but it wasn't exactly where I'd learned to expect it when I rolled +in at night from the fishing boats. Usually it was nearer the west end +of the strip where Joey could look across the crushed-shell square of +the Twin Palms trailer court and the palmetto flats to the Tampa +highway beyond. But this time it was pushed back into the shadows away +from the court lights. + +The boy wasn't watching the flats tonight, as he usually did. Instead +he was lying back in his chair with his face turned to the sky, +staring upward with such absorbed intensity that he didn't even know I +was there until I spoke. + +"Anything wrong, Joey?" I asked. + +He said, "No, Roy," without taking his eyes off the sky. + +For a minute I had the prickly feeling you get when you are watching a +movie and find that you know just what is going to happen next. +You're puzzled and a little spooked until you realize that the reason +you can predict the action so exactly is because you've seen the same +thing happen somewhere else a long time ago. I forgot the feeling when +I remembered why the kid wasn't watching the palmetto flats. But I +couldn't help wondering why he'd turned to watching the sky instead. + +"What're you looking for up there, Joey?" I asked. + +He didn't move and from the tone of his voice I got the impression +that he only half heard me. + +"I'm moving some stars," he said softly. + +I gave it up and went on to my own trailer without asking any more +fool questions. How can you talk to a kid like that? + +Doc Shull wasn't in, but for once I didn't worry about him. I was +trying to remember just what it was about my stumbling over Joey's +wheelchair that had given me that screwy double-exposure feeling of +familiarity. I got a can of beer out of the ice-box because I think +better with something cold in my hand, and by the time I had finished +the beer I had my answer. + +The business I'd gone through with Joey outside was familiar because +it _had_ happened before, about six weeks back when Doc and I first +parked our trailer at the Twin Palms court. I'd nearly stumbled over +Joey that time too, but he wasn't moving stars then. He was just +staring ahead of him, waiting. + +He'd been sitting in his wheelchair at the west end of the +carpet-grass strip, staring out over the palmetto flats toward the +highway. He was practically holding his breath, as if he was waiting +for somebody special to show up, so absorbed in his watching that he +didn't know I was there until I spoke. He reminded me a little of a +ventriloquist's dummy with his skinny, knob-kneed body, thin face and +round, still eyes. Only there wasn't anything comical about him the +way there is about a dummy. Maybe that's why I spoke, because he +looked so deadly serious. + +"Anything wrong, kid?" I asked. + +He didn't jump or look up. His voice placed him as a cracker, either +south Georgian or native Floridian. + +"I'm waiting for Charlie to come home," he said, keeping his eyes on +the highway. + +Probably I'd have asked who Charlie was but just then the trailer door +opened behind him and his mother took over. + +I couldn't see her too well because the lights were off inside the +trailer. But I could tell from the way she filled up the doorway that +she was big. I could make out the white blur of a cigarette in her +mouth, and when she struck a match to light it--on her thumb-nail, +like a man--I saw that she was fairly young and not bad-looking in a +tough, sullen sort of way. The wind was blowing in my direction and it +told me she'd had a drink recently, gin, by the smell of it. + +"This is none of your business, mister," she said. Her voice was +Southern like the boy's but with all the softness ground out of it +from living on the Florida coast where you hear a hundred different +accents every day. "Let the boy alone." + +She was right about it being none of my business. I went on into the +trailer I shared with Doc Shull and left the two of them waiting for +Charlie together. + +Our trailer was dark inside, which meant first that Doc had probably +gone out looking for a drink as soon as I left that morning to pick up +a job, and second that he'd probably got too tight to find his way +back. But I was wrong on at least one count, because when I switched +on the light and dumped the packages I'd brought on the sink cabinet I +saw Doc asleep in his bunk. + +He'd had a drink, though. I could smell it on him when I shook him +awake, and it smelled like gin. + +Doc sat up and blinked against the light, a thin, elderly little man +with bright blue eyes, a clipped brown mustache and scanty brown hair +tousled and wild from sleep. He was stripped to his shorts against the +heat, but at some time during the day he had bathed and shaved. He had +even washed and ironed a shirt; it hung on a nail over his bunk with a +crumpled pack of cigarettes in the pocket. + +"Crawl out and cook supper, Rip," I said, holding him to his end of +our working agreement. "I've made a day and I'm hungry." + +Doc got up and stepped into his pants. He padded barefoot across the +linoleum and poked at the packages on the sink cabinet. + +"Snapper steak again," he complained. "Roy, I'm sick of fish!" + +"You don't catch sirloins with a hand-line," I told him. And because +I'd never been able to stay sore at him for long I added, "But we got +beer. Where's the opener?" + +"I'm sick of beer, too," Doc said. "I need a real drink." + +I sniffed the air, making a business of it. "You've had one already. +Where?" + +He grinned at me then with the wise-to-himself-and-the-world grin that +lit up his face like turning on a light inside and made him different +from anybody else on earth. + +"The largess of Providence," he said, "is bestowed impartially upon +sot and Samaritan. I helped the little fellow next door to the +bathroom this afternoon while his mother was away at work, and my +selflessness had its just reward." + +Sometimes it's hard to tell when Doc is kidding. He's an educated +man--used to teach at some Northern college, he said once, and I never +doubted it--and talks like one when he wants to. But Doc's no bum, +though he's a semi-alcoholic and lets me support him like an invalid +uncle, and he's keen enough to read my mind like a racing form. + +"No, I didn't batter down the cupboard and help myself," he said. "The +lady--her name is Mrs. Ethel Pond--gave me the drink. Why else do you +suppose I'd launder a shirt?" + +That was like Doc. He hadn't touched her bottle though his insides +were probably snarled up like barbed wire for the want of it. He'd +shaved and pressed a shirt instead so he'd look decent enough to rate +a shot of gin she'd offer him as a reward. It wasn't such a doubtful +gamble at that, because Doc has a way with him when he bothers to use +it; maybe that's why he bums around with me after the commercial +fishing and migratory crop work, because he's used that charm too +often in the wrong places. + +"Good enough," I said and punctured a can of beer apiece for us while +Doc put the snapper steaks to cook. + +He told me more about our neighbors while we killed the beer. The +Ponds were permanent residents. The kid--his name was Joey and he was +ten--was a polio case who hadn't walked for over a year, and his +mother was a waitress at a roadside joint named the Sea Shell Diner. +There wasn't any Mr. Pond. I guessed there never had been, which would +explain why Ethel acted so tough and sullen. + +We were halfway through supper when I remembered something the kid had +said. + +"Who's Charlie?" I asked. + +Doc frowned at his plate. "The kid had a dog named Charlie, a big +shaggy mutt with only one eye and no love for anybody but the boy. The +dog isn't coming home. He was run down by a car on the highway while +Joey was hospitalized with polio." + +"Tough," I said, thinking of the kid sitting out there all day in his +wheelchair, straining his eyes across the palmetto flats. "You mean +he's been waiting a _year_?" + +Doc nodded, seemed to lose interest in the Ponds, so I let the subject +drop. We sat around after supper and polished off the rest of the +beer. When we turned in around midnight I figured we wouldn't be +staying long at the Twin Palms trailer court. It wasn't a very +comfortable place. + +I was wrong there. It wasn't comfortable, but we stayed. + +I couldn't have said at first why we stuck, and if Doc could he didn't +volunteer. Neither of us talked about it. We just went on living the +way we were used to living, a few weeks here and a few there, all +over the States. + +We'd hit the Florida west coast too late for the citrus season, so I +went in for the fishing instead. I worked the fishing boats all the +way from Tampa down to Fort Myers, not signing on with any of the +commercial companies because I like to move quick when I get restless. +I picked the independent deep-water snapper runs mostly, because the +percentage is good there if you've got a strong back and tough hands. + +Snapper fishing isn't the sport it seems to the one-day tourists who +flock along because the fee is cheap. You fish from a wide-beamed old +scow, usually, with hand-lines instead of regular tackle, and you use +multiple hooks that go down to the bottom where the big red ones are. +There's no real thrill to it, as the one-day anglers find out quickly. +A snapper puts up no more fight than a catfish and the biggest job is +to haul out his dead weight once you've got him surfaced. + +Usually a pro like me sells his catch to the boat's owner or to some +clumsy sport who wants his picture shot with a big one, and there's +nearly always a jackpot--from a pool made up at the beginning of every +run--for the man landing the biggest fish of the day. There's a knack +to hooking the big ones, and when the jackpots were running good I +only worked a day or so a week and spent the rest of the time lying +around the trailer playing cribbage and drinking beer with Doc Shull. + +Usually it was the life of Riley, but somehow it wasn't enough in this +place. We'd get about half-oiled and work up a promising argument +about what was wrong with the world. Then, just when we'd got life +looking its screwball funniest with our arguments one or the other of +us would look out the window and see Joey Pond in his wheelchair, +waiting for a one-eyed dog named Charlie to come trotting home across +the palmetto flats. He was always there, day or night, until his +mother came home from work and rolled him inside. + +It wasn't right or natural for a kid to wait like that for anything +and it worried me. I even offered once to buy the kid another mutt but +Ethel Pond told me quick to mind my own business. Doc explained that +the kid didn't want another mutt because he had what Doc called a +psychological block. + +"Charlie was more than just a dog to him," Doc said. "He was a sort of +symbol because he offered the kid two things that no one else in the +world could--security and independence. With Charlie keeping him +company he felt secure, and he was independent of the kids who could +run and play because he had Charlie to play with. If he took another +dog now he'd be giving up more than Charlie. He'd be giving up +everything that Charlie had meant to him, then there wouldn't be any +point in living." + +I could see it when Doc put it that way. The dog had spent more time +with Joey than Ethel had, and the kid felt as safe with him as he'd +have been with a platoon of Marines. And Charlie, being a one-man dog, +had depended on Joey for the affection he wouldn't take from anybody +else. The dog needed Joey and Joey needed him. Together, they'd been a +natural. + +At first I thought it was funny that Joey never complained or cried +when Charlie didn't come home, but Doc explained that it was all a +part of this psychological block business. If Joey cried he'd be +admitting that Charlie was lost. So he waited and watched, secure in +his belief that Charlie would return. + +The Ponds got used to Doc and me being around, but they never got what +you'd call intimate. Joey would laugh at some of the droll things Doc +said, but his eyes always went back to the palmetto flats and the +highway, looking for Charlie. And he never let anything interfere with +his routine. + +That routine started every morning when old man Cloehessey, the +postman, pedaled his bicycle out from Twin Palms to leave a handful of +mail for the trailer-court tenants. Cloehessey would always make it a +point to ride back by way of the Pond trailer and Joey would stop him +and ask if he's seen anything of a one-eyed dog on his route that day. + +Old Cloehessey would lean on his bike and take off his sun helmet and +mop his bald scalp, scowling while he pretended to think. + +Then he'd say, "Not today, Joey," or, "Thought so yesterday, but this +fellow had two eyes on him. 'Twasn't Charlie." + +Then he'd pedal away, shaking his head. Later on the handyman would +come around to swap sanitary tanks under the trailers and Joey would +ask him the same question. Once a month the power company sent out a +man to read the electric meters and he was part of Joey's routine too. + +It was hard on Ethel. Sometimes the kid would dream at night that +Charlie had come home and was scratching at the trailer ramp to be let +in, and he'd wake Ethel and beg her to go out and see. When that +happened Doc and I could hear Ethel talking to him, low and steady, +until all hours of the morning, and when he finally went back to sleep +we'd hear her open the cupboard and take out the gin bottle. + +But there came a night that was more than Ethel could take, a night +that changed Joey's routine and a lot more with it. It left a mark +you've seen yourself--everybody has that's got eyes to see--though +you never knew what made it. Nobody ever knew that but Joey and Ethel +Pond and Doc and me. + +Doc and I were turning in around midnight that night when the kid sang +out next door. We heard Ethel get up and go to him, and we got up too +and opened a beer because we knew neither of us would sleep any more +till she got Joey quiet again. But this night was different. Ethel +hadn't talked to the kid long when he yelled, "Charlie! _Charlie!_" +and after that we heard both of them bawling. + +A little later Ethel came out into the moonlight and shut the trailer +door behind her. She looked rumpled and beaten, her hair straggling +damply on her shoulders and her eyes puffed and red from crying. The +gin she'd had hadn't helped any either. + +She stood for a while without moving, then she looked up at the sky +and said something I'm not likely to forget. + +"Why couldn't You give the kid a break?" she said, not railing or +anything but loud enough for us to hear. "You, up there--what's +another lousy one-eyed mutt to You?" + +Doc and I looked at each other in the half-dark of our own trailer. +"She's done it, Roy," Doc said. + +I knew what he meant and wished I didn't. Ethel had finally told the +kid that Charlie wasn't coming back, not ever. + +That's why I was worried about Joey when I came home the next evening +and found him watching the sky instead of the palmetto flats. It meant +he'd given up waiting for Charlie. And the quiet way the kid spoke of +moving the stars around worried me more, because it sounded outright +crazy. + +Not that you could blame him for going off his head. It was tough +enough to be pinned to a wheelchair without being able to wiggle so +much as a toe. But to lose his dog in the bargain.... + +I was on my third beer when Doc Shull rolled in with a big package +under his arm. Doc was stone sober, which surprised me, and he was hot +and tired from a shopping trip to Tampa, which surprised me more. It +was when he ripped the paper off his package, though, that I thought +he'd lost his mind. + +"Books for Joey," Doc said. "Ethel and I agreed this morning that the +boy needs another interest to occupy his time now, and since he can't +go to school I'm going to teach him here." + +He went on to explain that Ethel hadn't had the heart the night +before, desperate as she was, to tell the kid the whole truth. She'd +told him instead, quoting an imaginary customer at the Sea Shell +Diner, that a tourist car with Michigan license plates had picked +Charlie up on the highway and taken him away. It was a good enough +story. Joey still didn't know that Charlie was dead, but his waiting +was over because no dog could be expected to find his way home from +Michigan. + +"We've got to give the boy another interest," Doc said, putting away +the books and puncturing another beer can. "Joey has a remarkable +talent for concentration--most handicapped children have--that could +be the end of him if it isn't diverted into safe channels." + +I thought the kid had cracked up already and said so. + +"Moving _stars_?" Doc said when I told him. "Good Lord, Roy--" + + * * * * * + +Ethel Pond knocked just then, interrupting him. She came in and had a +beer with us and talked to Doc about his plan for educating Joey at +home. But she couldn't tell us anything more about the kid's new +fixation than we already knew. When she asked him why he stared up at +the sky like that he'd say only that he wants something to remember +Charlie by. + +It was about nine o'clock, when Ethel went home to cook supper. Doc +and I knocked off our cribbage game and went outside with our folding +chairs to get some air. It was then that the first star moved. + +It moved all of a sudden, the way any shooting star does, and shot +across the sky in a curving, blue-white streak of fire. I didn't pay +much attention, but Doc nearly choked on his beer. + +"Roy," he said, "that was Sirius! _It moved!_" + +I didn't see anything serious about it and said so. You can see a +dozen or so stars zip across the sky on any clear night if you're in +the mood to look up. + +"Not serious, you fool," Doc said. "The _star_ Sirius--the Dog Star, +it's called--it moved a good sixty degrees, _then stopped dead_!" + +I sat up and took notice then, partly because the star really had +stopped instead of burning out the way a falling star seems to do, +partly because anything that excites Doc Shull that much is something +to think about. + +We watched the star like two cats at a mouse-hole, but it didn't move +again. After a while a smaller one did, though, and later in the night +a whole procession of them streaked across the sky and fell into place +around the first one, forming a pattern that didn't make any sense to +us. They stopped moving around midnight and we went to bed, but +neither of us got to sleep right away. + +"Maybe we ought to look for another interest in life ourselves instead +of drumming up one for Joey," Doc said. He meant it as a joke but it +had a shaky sound; "Something besides getting beered up every night, +for instance." + +"You think we've got the d.t.'s from drinking _beer_?" I asked. + +Doc laughed at that, sounding more like his old self. "No, Roy. No +two people ever had instantaneous and identical hallucinations." + +"Look," I said. "I know this sounds crazy but maybe Joey--" + +Doc wasn't amused any more. "Don't be a fool, Roy. If those stars +really moved you can be sure of two things--Joey had nothing to do +with it, and the papers will explain everything tomorrow." + +He was wrong on one count at least. + +The papers next day were packed with scareheads three inches high but +none of them explained anything. The radio commentators quoted every +authority they could reach, and astronomers were going crazy +everywhere. It just couldn't happen, they said. + +Doc and I went over the news column by column that night and I learned +more about the stars than I'd learned in a lifetime. Doc, as I've said +before, is an educated man, and what he couldn't recall offhand about +astronomy the newspapers quoted by chapter and verse. They ran +interviews with astronomers at Harvard Observatory and Mount Wilson +and Lick and Flagstaff and God knows where else, but nobody could +explain why all of those stars would change position then stop. + +It set me back on my heels to learn that Sirius was twice as big as +the Sun and more than twice as heavy, that it was three times as hot +and had a little dark companion that was more solid than lead but +didn't give off enough light to be seen with the naked eye. This +little companion--astronomers called it the "Pup" because Sirius was +the Dog Star--hadn't moved, which puzzled the astronomers no end. I +suggested to Doc, only half joking, that maybe the Pup had stayed put +because it wasn't bright enough to suit Joey's taste, but Doc called +me down sharp. + +"Don't joke about Joey," he said sternly. "Getting back to +Sirius--it's so far away that its light needs eight and a half years +to reach us. That means it started moving when Joey was only eighteen +months old. The speed of light is a universal constant, Roy, and +astronomers say it can't be changed." + +"They said the stars couldn't be tossed around like pool balls, too," +I pointed out. "I'm not saying that Joey really moved those damn +stars, Doc, but if he did he could have moved the light along with +them, couldn't he?" + +But Doc wouldn't argue the point. "I'm going out for air," he said. + +I trailed along, but we didn't get farther than Joey's wheelchair. + +There he sat, tense and absorbed, staring up at the night sky. Doc and +I followed his gaze, the way you do automatically when somebody on the +street ahead of you cranes his neck at something. We looked up just +in time to see the stars start moving again. + +The first one to go was a big white one that slanted across the sky +like a Roman candle fireball--_zip_, like that--and stopped dead +beside the group that had collected around Sirius. + +Doc said, "There went Altair," and his voice sounded like he had just +run a mile. + +That was only the beginning. During the next hour forty or fifty more +stars flashed across the sky and joined the group that had moved the +night before. The pattern they made still didn't look like anything in +particular. + +I left Doc shaking his head at the sky and went over to give Joey, who +had called it a night and was hand-rolling his wheelchair toward the +Pond trailer, a boost up the entrance ramp. I pushed him inside where +Doc couldn't hear, then I asked him how things were going. + +"Slow, Roy," he said. "I've got 'most a hundred to go, yet." + +"Then you're really moving those stars up there?" + +He looked surprised. "Sure, it's not so hard once you know how." + +The odds were even that he was pulling my leg, but I went ahead anyway +and asked another question. + +"I can't make head or tail of it, Joey," I said. "What're you making +up there?" + +He gave me a very small smile. + +"You'll know when I'm through," he said. + +I told Doc about that after we'd bunked in, but he said I should not +encourage the kid in his crazy thinking. "Joey's heard everybody +talking about those stars moving, the radio newscasters blared about +it, so he's excited too. But he's got a lot more imagination than most +people, because he's a cripple, and he could go off on a crazy tangent +because he's upset about Charlie. The thing to do is give him a +logical explanation instead of letting him think his fantasy is a +fact." + +Doc was taking all this so hard--because it was upsetting things he'd +taken for granted as being facts all his life, like those astronomers +who were going nuts in droves all over the world. I didn't realize how +upset Doc really was, though, till he woke me up at about 4:00 A.M. + +"I can't sleep for thinking about those stars," he said, sitting on +the edge of my bunk. "Roy, I'm _scared_." + +That from Doc was something I'd never expected to hear. It startled me +wide enough awake to sit up in the dark and listen while he unloaded +his worries. + +"I'm afraid," Doc said, "because what is happening up there isn't +right or natural. It just can't be, yet it is." + +It was so quiet when he paused that I could hear the blood swishing in +my ears. Finally Doc said, "Roy, the galaxy we live in is as +delicately balanced as a fine watch. If that balance is upset too far +our world will be affected drastically." + +Ordinarily I wouldn't have argued with Doc on his own ground, but I +could see he was painting a mental picture of the whole universe +crashing together like a Fourth of July fireworks display and I was +afraid to let him go on. + +"The trouble with you educated people," I said, "is that you think +your experts have got everything figured out, that there's nothing in +the world their slide-rules can't pin down. Well, I'm an illiterate +mugg, but I know that your astronomers can measure the stars till +they're blue in the face and they'll never learn who _put_ those stars +there. So how do they know that whoever put them there won't move them +again? I've always heard that if a man had faith enough he could move +mountains. Well, if a man has the faith in himself that Joey's got +maybe he could move stars, too." + +Doc sat quiet for a minute. + +"'_There are more things, Horatio...._'" he began, then laughed. "A +line worn threadbare by three hundred years of repetition but as apt +tonight as ever, Roy. Do you really believe Joey is moving those +stars?" + +"Why not?" I came back. "It's as good an answer as any the experts +have come up with." + +Doc got up and went back to his own bunk. "Maybe you're right. We'll +find out tomorrow." + +And we did. Doc did, rather, while I was hard at work hauling red +snappers up from the bottom of the Gulf. + + * * * * * + +I got home a little earlier than usual that night, just before it got +really dark. Joey was sitting as usual all alone in his wheelchair. In +the gloom I could see a stack of books on the grass beside him, books +Doc had given him to study. The thing that stopped me was that Joey +was staring at his feet as if they were the first ones he'd ever seen, +and he had the same look of intense concentration on his face that I'd +seen when he was watching the stars. + +I didn't know what to say to him, thinking maybe I'd better not +mention the stars. But Joey spoke first. + +"Roy," he said, without taking his eyes off his toes, "did you know +that Doc is an awfully wise man?" + +I said I'd always thought so, but why? + +"Doc said this morning that I ought not to move any more stars," the +kid said. "He says I ought to concentrate instead on learning how to +walk again so I can go to Michigan and find Charlie." + +For a minute I was mad enough to brain Doc Shull if he'd been handy. +Anybody that would pull a gag like that on a crippled, helpless +kid.... + +"Doc says that if I can do what I've been doing to the stars then it +ought to be easy to move my own feet," Joey said. "And he's right, +Roy. So I'm not going to move any more stars. I'm going to move my +feet." + +He looked up at me with his small, solemn smile. "It took me a whole +day to learn how to move that first star, Roy, but I could do this +after only a couple of hours. Look...." + +And he wiggled the toes on both feet. + +It's a pity things don't happen in life like they do in books, because +a first-class story could be made out of Joey Pond's knack for moving +things by looking at them. In a book Joey might have saved the world +or destroyed it, depending on which line would interest the most +readers and bring the writer the fattest check, but of course it +didn't really turn out either way. It ended in what Doc Shull called +an anticlimax, leaving everybody happy enough except a few astronomers +who like mysteries anyway or they wouldn't be astronomers in the first +place. + +The stars that had been moved stayed where they were, but the pattern +they had started was never finished. That unfinished pattern won't +ever go away, in case you've wondered about it--it's up there in the +sky where you can see it any clear night--but it will never be +finished because Joey Pond lost interest in it when he learned to walk +again. + +Walking was a slow business with Joey at first because his legs had +got thin and weak--partially atrophied muscles, Doc said--and it took +time to make them round and strong again. But in a couple of weeks he +was stumping around on crutches and after that he never went near his +wheelchair again. + +Ethel sent him to school at Sarasota by bus and before summer vacation +time came around he was playing softball and fishing in the Gulf with +a gang of other kids on Sundays. + +School opened up a whole new world to Joey and he fitted himself into +the routine as neat as if he'd been doing it all his life. He learned +a lot there and he forgot a lot that he'd learned for himself by being +alone. Before we realized what was happening he was just like any +other ten-year-old, full of curiosity and the devil, with no more +power to move things by staring at them than anybody else had. + +I think he actually forgot about those stars along with other things +that had meant so much to him when he was tied to his wheelchair and +couldn't do anything but wait and think. + +For instance, a scrubby little terrier followed him home from Twin +Palms one day and Ethel let him keep it. He fed the pup and washed it +and named it Dugan, and after that he never said anything more about +going to Michigan to find Charlie. It was only natural, of course, +because kids--normal kids--forget their pain quickly. It's a sort of +defense mechanism, Doc says, against the disappointments of this life. + +When school opened again in the fall Ethel sold her trailer and got a +job in Tampa where Joey could walk to school instead of going by bus. +When they were gone the Twin Palms trailer court was so lonesome and +dead that Doc and I pulled out and went down to the Lake Okechobee +country for the sugar cane season. We never heard from Ethel and Joey +again. + +We've moved several times since; we're out in the San Joaquin Valley +just now, with the celery croppers. But everywhere we go we're +reminded of them. Every time we look up at a clear night sky we see +what Doc calls the Joey Pond Stellar Monument, which is nothing but a +funny sort of pattern roughed in with a hundred or so stars of all +sizes and colors. + +The body of it is so sketchy that you'd never make out what it's +supposed to be unless you knew already what you were looking for. To +us the head of a dog is fairly plain. If you know enough to fill in +the gaps you can see it was meant to be a big shaggy dog with only one +eye. + +Doc says that footloose migratories like him and me forget old +associations as quick as kids do--and for the same good reason--so I'm +not especially interested now in where Ethel and Joey Pond are or how +they're doing. But there's one thing I'll always wonder about, now +that there's no way of ever knowing for sure. + +I wish I'd asked Joey or Ethel, before they moved away, how Charlie +lost that other eye. + + * * * * * + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of To Remember Charlie By, by Roger Dee + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TO REMEMBER CHARLIE BY *** + +***** This file should be named 31599.txt or 31599.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/5/9/31599/ + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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