Free The Quiet Streets of Winslow by Judy Troy Page B

God who made nature,” said the girl.
    â€œGod is not in the poem,” Harmony said.
    â€œHe is there because He made the world and everything in it.”
    â€œYou’re being just like the neighbor,” Harmony said. “You want to see things the way you were taught to, instead of thinking for yourself.”
    â€œAt least that way I’ll go to heaven.”
    â€œWhat if there is no heaven?”
    â€œThere has to be.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œOkay,” Mr. Drake said. “What wall could be erected right now, in our classroom?”
    â€œA wall between people who think one way and people who think the opposite way,” said a boy in the second row.
    â€œDoes the wall need to be there?” Mr. Drake said.
    â€œIt’s already there,” said somebody else. “We’re all, like, fighting with each other. We’ll never get along.”
    â€œHow do you know that?”
    â€œBecause it’s always been that way.”
    â€œIs that what Frost is saying in the poem?” Mr. Drake said.
    â€œMaybe.”
    â€œBut what is possible for us now,” Mr. Drake said, “without a wall in here, that wouldn’t be possible if we built an actual wall?”
    â€œWell,” another person said, “we could cross the room and kill each other.”
    â€œWhat if we think about this differently? More peacefully?”
    â€œWe could walk through the wall,” somebody else said, “since it’s not there, I mean.”
    â€œYes. What else?” Mr. Drake said. “What happens in the poem?”
    â€œWe could walk next to each other,” Harmony said.
    O N THE BUS home that afternoon, people were screwing around in the aisle and cracking jokes, and the bus driver was half participating and half telling them to shut up and sit down. How was he supposed to pay attention to the road with all that bullshit going on?
    Billy was sitting next to me. After a while he told me that his mother was getting married again. He and his sister were being included in the ceremony, and his sister was into it, he said, because she liked the dress she was getting to wear and because she was an idiot. He, himself, was planning on waking up sick and staying home.
    â€œIt’s bad enough that I’m going to have to live with this asshole,” he said.
    His mother was marrying Cy Embrick, who owned Ron’s Market. Cy was famous for having once lived with a woman who became an actress in X-rated movies, and for setting up folding tables and chairs in the parking lot of his grocery store and serving a free Thanksgiving dinner. But Billy didn’t like the idea of his mother having somebodypermanent when his father didn’t. Plus, his father was sick. His father had cancer—I wasn’t sure what kind—and drove to Phoenix once a week for some form of treatment. Billy didn’t talk about it, and neither did his father. It was just this thing going on all the time in the background of Billy’s life, like rain always falling behind where he stood. I didn’t like thinking about it. I had to remind myself, Oh, right. Billy’s dad is sick. That’s what’s going on. Then I’d forget it again and start over.

chapter fifteen

    SAM RUSH
    â€œJ ODY CALLED M IKE Early four days before she was killed,” I told J Nate. “She asked him to come up there. She told him that somebody was harassing her.”
    It was shortly after seven, and I had woken Nate up. At the back of the Airstream the bed was unmade.
    â€œShe also told Early that her mother was seriously ill,” I said. “Jody asked him to come to Winslow, and he did. He had lunch with her the day she died. The waitress identified him.”
    Nate’s face was unexpressive. I had brought two take-out coffees from Byler’s and two sausage biscuits, and he started drinking the coffee.
    â€œThe afternoon Mike Early was there,” I said,