This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolff Read Free Book Online Page A

strap in his hand. He was darkly tanned and wore tennis whites. He had a thin moustache and a crew cut. “Hey, Bub,” he said to me, “want to give these a try?” While he adjusted the strap around my neck and showed me how to focus the lenses, the other man came up and said something to my mother. She answered him, but continued gazing out toward the water with her hand shielding her eyes. I brought the Lions and the Odd Fellows into focus and watched them push each other overboard. They seemed so close I could see their pale bodies and the expressions of fatigue on their faces. Despite the hearty shouts they gave, they climbed the ropes with difficulty and fell back as soon as they met resistance. Each time they hit the water they stayed there a while longer, paddling just enough to keep themselves afloat, looking wearily up at the boats they were supposed to capture.
    My mother accepted a beer from the man beside her. The one who’d offered me the binoculars sensed my restlessness, maybe even my jealousy. He knelt down beside me and explained the battle as if I were a little kid, but I took the binoculars off and handed them back to him.
    “I don’t know,” my mother was saying. “We should probably get home pretty soon.”
    The man she’d been talking with turned to me. He was the older of the two, a tall angular man with ginger-colored hair and a disjointed way of moving, as if he were always off balance. He wore Bermudas and black socks. His long face was sunburned, making his teeth look strangely prominent. “Let’s ask the big fella,” he said.
    “What say, big fella? You want to watch the fun from my place?” He pointed at a large brick house on the edge of the park.
    I ignored him. “Mom,” I said. “I’m hungry.”
    “He hasn’t had lunch yet,” my mother said.
    “Lunch,” the man said. “That’s no problem. What do you like?” he asked me. “What’s your absolute favorite thing to have for lunch?”
    I looked at my mother. She was in high spirits and that made me even grimmer, because I knew they were not due to my influence. “He likes hamburgers,” she told him.
    “You got it,” he said. He took my mother’s elbow and led her across the park toward the house. I was left to follow along with the other man, who seemed to find me interesting. He wanted to know my name, where I went to school, where I lived, my mother’s name, the where-abouts of my father. I was a sucker for any grown-up who asked me questions. By the time we reached the house I had forgotten to be sullen and told him everything about us.
    The house was cavernous inside, hushed and cool. The windows had stained-glass medallions set within their mullioned panes. They were arched, and so were the heavy doors. The living room ceiling, ribbed with beams, curved to an arch high overhead. I sat down on the couch. The coffee table in front of me was crowded with empty beer bottles. My mother went to the open windows on the harbor side of the room. “Boy!” she said. “What a view!”
    The sunburned man said, “Judd, take care of our friend.”
    “Come on, Bub,” said the man I’d been talking to. “I’ll rustle you up something to eat.”
    I followed him to the kitchen and sat at a counter while Judd pulled things out of the refrigerator. He slapped together a baloney sandwich and set it in front of me. He seemed to have forgotten about the hamburger. I would have said something, but I had a pretty good idea that even if I did there still wasn’t going to be any hamburger.
    When we came back to the living room, my mother was looking out the window through the binoculars. The sunburned man stood beside her, his head bent close to hers, one hand resting on her shoulder as he gestured with his beer bottle at some point of interest. He turned as we came in and grinned at us. “There’s our guy,” he said. “How’s it going? You get some lunch? Judd, did you get this man some lunch?”
    “Yes sir.”
    “Great!