and I said, “Look, Danny, I can’t walk you home any more.”
“Yes you can,” he said, smiling his imperturbable smile. “You have to. We’re best friends.”
“But I don’t want to. I want to go home.”
I knew that there was always the threat of violence under the surface of what passed for our friendship. I expected him to hit me, or at least yell and rave and tell me that without him I’d be dead meat in the schoolyard, which was true. But all he did was sit there smiling that miserably beatific smile. Then he said, “Pawsy, I don’t like walking home alone. I like walking home with you. I like asking you about the Dixon Pencil Company and how they make pencils out of stuff. I like it when you do things you don’t like but you do them because I ask you and you’re my friend. I guess you’re not my friend no more.”
I didn’t know how to tell him that he was never my friend. He was my bodyguard, my – and as I thought the word I knew the boys would hate it – benefactor. So I just stood there with my briefcase in my hand and looked at him, slouched in his faded plaid shirt in the desk seat that was too small for him, and tried to tell him that I was grateful for his protection and for all the pain he had kicked away from my life, but that we had never been friends. I couldn’t. I didn’t say a thing. I stood there for a long time watching his eyes get softer and mistier. Then he said, “O. K. Pawsy. See you around.”
When he got up from the desk he looked like he weighed a thousand pounds and as he walked up the aisle and out the door, I felt so bad I wanted to go down to the railroad yard and hop on a train and ride myself out of there forever.
Mayanaam
vequinox
Manolis 