Reunion at Red Paint Bay - By George Harrar Page 0,18
bear with a red strip sewn on as a smile. He picks up the spindly little stuffed animal, apparently lost or thrown away. Either way, gone from whoever once loved it. He shakes the bear of dirt and its head bounces up and back, an involuntary yes. There’s no one nearby to ask about it, just youngsters kicking a soccer ball under the lamplight in the grass below. How many of these boys secretly clutch a stuffed animal to their chests at night?
He takes the teddy bear with him down the other side of the bandstand, holding the railing as he goes. He used to tear across here and leap the half-dozen steps—the single daring act of his boyhood. He remembers the terror of it, closing his eyes at takeoff, eternity in the air, his arms windmilling to keep himself aloft, then the wonderful solidness landing on earth.
The boys on the Common scramble after the soccer ball, crash into one another, then roll on the ground in exaggerated injury, clutching their calves, little fakers in training. They don’t take any notice of a man strolling along with no apparent purpose. He can’t remember noticing adults passing by either when he sat against the lamppost as a boy, watching the nightly Wiffle ball game his classmates organized. They coaxed him into playing once when they needed an extra kid and let him throw the ball up for himself when he batted, since he couldn’t hit a regular pitch. Still, the best he could hope for was a little dribbler that he could beat out to first base, a pizza box. At least he could run fast.
He walks zigzag now across the worn-down playing field. It was always dusty here in summer, more brown than green, more dirt than grass. It hurt hitting the hard dry ground of summer.
“Hey, mister!” He looks around, sees boys behind him, boys on the side, boys in front of him. “Get out of the way, will ya?”
He waves his apology and hurries through the Common, comes to Mechanic Street and crosses without bothering to check each way. There’s little traffic this time of night in Red Paint, and people would always stop for a man shuffling across the road. The Register Building is lit up on the inside as always. He presses his face to the window and can see the old fireman’s bell hanging from the ceiling, rung when the paper went to press. There’s the typesetter’s table in the corner, full of the cast metal letters used to make up pages by hand. And on the far wall, the old map of the Province of Maine with “Red Paint Territory” marking the land between the ocean and bay. Nothing, it appears, has changed at the Register.
He moves to the front door and reads the staff list posted under glass. At the top, Simon Howe: Editor in Chief. There are a dozen names below him, ending with Pressroom: David Rigero, written in a different typeface, an obvious addition. He looks both ways on the sidewalk, then takes out a Magic Marker from his pocket. He uncaps it and holds it under his nose for a moment, inhaling the pungent scent. He considers how to fit the word on the door. Angled seems best, top left to bottom right, for maximum size and dramatic effect. The marker squeaks across the surface, leaving thick black letters on the light wood color. He can’t decide on the punctuation. An exclamation point? Too frantic. A period? Too formal.
He hears a car coming up the street, and it scares him that he might be seen. He can’t remember ever being caught doing anything wrong, not even being reprimanded at school. He has spent so much of his life avoiding being rebuked, yet here he is defacing a building in the center of his hometown. How would he explain himself? Momentary insanity? Continuous insanity?
He sets the teddy bear against the door and slips sideways a few steps into the alley, leaving the single word to stand by itself, no punctuation needed.
RAPIST
Simon stood outside the front door to the Register staring at the word. Beside him, the paper’s photographer raised his camera to his eye. Simon turned quickly, knocking his arm. “No pictures, Ron.”
The young man regained his balance and readjusted the Nikon dangling from his neck. “Why don’t you want a snap, boss? This would grab the eye on page one.”
“Did anyone else see this?”
Ron turned half around as an old