Free The Boy With Penny Eyes by Al Sarrantonio

anyone from a state agency to take care of you when Melinda died?"
    "I didn't wait."
    "So you left? How?"
    "Hitchhiked. Slept in places I found."
    "What kind of places?"
    "In the desert. Side roads."
    Despite his uneasiness with this solemn boy, Beck felt a rush of feeling. He had an image of the boy alone in the dark, rolled in a blanket by the side of a highway or out in the desert somewhere with night noises all around, noises that would scare anyone, the sound of prowling animals, and this young boy with just a backpack and a rolled-up blanket and a golf jacket, strange, metallic-brown eyes open, staring soberly at the dark night. For a brief moment tears welled behind his eyes, but he blinked them back.
    "Billy," he said slowly, "is there anything else you can tell me about Melinda? Where she lived, what town or state her home was in?"
    The boy said nothing.
    "I see," Beck said. "We'll talk about this again." Impulsively, he leaned forward. "I want you to know that I only want to help you. We all do. I'll fix up one of the guest rooms, and that will be yours while you're here. I should tell you that while you're here, you'll have to play by the rules, though." He leaned back. "You'll have to keep your room clean, help around the house, with the dishes, things like that; I might even need you to help me with some things around the church." He paused. "And I should tell you that I can't allow smoking. I committed a little sin by going through your things after you fell asleep. I took the cigarettes and matches. You're too young and I just can't allow it. Do you understand?"
    Billy said nothing, and then he nodded. Jacob Beck studied the boy. "Can I ask you a question?"
    Billy's, eyes were unblinking.
    "Billy," Beck went on, "you said that this is where you belong. When you left your last home, did you travel all that way, all those months, heading for this specific place?"
    The boy was silent.
    "Did you?"
    "Yes."
    "Why?"
    Billy stared at him, a serious little boy in old clothes, sitting on a chair in front of a man he probably thought foolish. For a moment Beck felt the same emptiness he had felt in the church on Saturday night. Here was an enigma of a boy, and he felt inadequate in front of him . I don't care. But then it dawned on him that that wasn't it at all. For the first time in a long while, Beck realized that he was genuinely interested in something. He did care. The boy intrigued him. Here was a soul shrouded in some sort of mystery, and he wanted to help him and discover the answer to what that mystery was. A tiny thrill went through him. He realized that he felt alive again, for the first time in a long while.
    Maybe this is how it happens.
    He thought of his friend Father Marchini. What Marchini had said would happen was happening. It was as if a light switch that had been inadvertently turned off had been turned on again. At least, there was a flicker of hope, of faith in both himself and in God, that hadn't been there for a long time.
    All because of this strange boy.
    It's not all bullshit after all, he thought. He looked at the boy. I do care.
    "Can I go?" Billy asked matter-of-factly.
    "Yes, of course," Beck answered. "I'll bring you that snack from the refrigerator, like I promised."
    He sat with his hands on the desk before him as the boy got up and walked out of the room. There was a warm feeling in him as the boy closed the door behind him. Perhaps this was what he had been waiting for. But as the door clicked shut, an irrational, tiny thought came into his mind, one that didn't quite dampen the new confidence he had attained but one that nevertheless sent a chilly tendril up his back.
    Maybe he suddenly had his faith back because he was going to need it.

13
     
    In the cold of an orange dawn, Potty Johnson whistled "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen." He always started the day with that, or some other Christmas carol, "Joy to the World," or "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," or, sometimes, "Silver Bells."