THE FIFTY-EIGHTH PAGE

In the arrogance of hindsight, I believe that I knew the boy was doomed. I felt a strange protective passion for him as swift as my initial sexual attraction for the wife.

The boy and I did not speak at the grocery store, but when I later saw him on a bench on the library lawn, I stopped the car, got out, and sat beside him. This time we spoke. He explained--and I thought I would never hear such an expression from a human being--that he had thrown off all worldly cares. All he possessed was the contents of his backpack, which soon I was to discover, was mostly books. He had given up on his medicine.

He had come up from the South. I didn’t ask how far south but it could have been as far as Mexico for his pallor could not disguise a possible Aztec countenance.

We chatted for about an hour.

The chance of finding overnight accommodations was nil, I told him. He said he would check around, but might call me if he could find nothing. Of course, he found nothing; of course, he called. His condition brooked no shyness or hesitation.

I picked him up at the village green. As we drove up the hill toward the house, he identified a large number of the wildflowers at roadside. My nature identification barely stretched beyond deer and wild turkeys.