God Save the Child Read Online Free Page A

Zippo had a Marine Corps world and anchor emblem on it. I bet he hadn’t had the stomach thirty years ago at Parris Island.
    ”Is he, Marge?“ I asked.
    ”Is he what?“ she said.
    ”Is he the kind of kid that would go off without making any provisions for anything? His room doesn’t look like the room of that kind of person.“
    ”That’s right. He’s just like his damned father. So careful, so neat. Everything has to be the same. Not like me at all; I’m spontaneous. ’Spontaneous Me.“ Ever read that poem?
    By Whittier?”
    “Whitman,” I said.
    “Yes, excuse me, Whitman, of course. Anyway, I’m spontaneous, spur-of-the-moment, zip-zap, go anywhere, do anything. Most creative people are like that, I guess, but not Kevin; a stick-in-the-mud just like old Roger Stick-in-the-mud.
    Supper’s got to be at six, plain food, roast beef, baked beans. I’d cook if they’d eat something creative, Julia Child, that kind of thing, but it’s got to be the same old stew, steak, hamburg. The hell with them; let them cook it themselves. Now if they would eat veal steak in wine with cherries…”
    “My ass,” Bartlett said.“You’re not creative, you’re lazy. You haven’t cooked a goddamned meal around here in five years. Veal with my ass.”
    “Hey, Rog,” Trask said. “Now there’s no way to talk.
    Marge has put out a wonderful feed at parties and stuff.”
    “Yeah, catered from the goddamned deli for half my freaking profits for the month.”
    “Oh, you sonova bitch,” Marge said. “That’s all you think about is your money. If you think I can take acting lessons and modern dance and sculpting all day long and try to keep myself young and interesting for you and the children and then come home and prepare a party that you’ll be proud of…”
    “Balls,” Bartlett said, his face very red now. “You don’t give a rat’s ass about me or anybody else.”
    “Hold on now,” Trask said. “Goddamn it, just hold on.”
    I got off my barstool and took another can of beer out of the refrigerator. You don’t see red refrigerators much. I went to the back door and opened it and went out. The retriever still lay there on the back steps with his tongue out, and I sat down beside him and opened the beer. The door behind me was on a pneumatic closer, and as it shut I heard Marge Bartlett say “shit” in a very loud voice.
    I drank a small swallow of the beer and scratched the dog’s ear. His tail thumped on the porch. The sound of the lawn mower stopped, and a minute later a young girl came out of the barn and walked toward the house. She didn’t look at me sitting on the back steps but detoured toward the front of the house, and a minute later I heard the front door open and close.
    I drank some more beer. In the middle of the front lawn, past the hydrangea, was a huge flowering crab. It was too late for blossoms, but the leaves were still reddish fading into green, and there were small green crab apples beginning to form. Some robins and some sparrows and a Baltimore oriole swarmed in and out of the branches with considerable chatter. After the green fruit, I supposed. I hadn’t seen a Baltimore oriole since I was a kid.
    I heard the front door open and close again, and the girl came around the corner of the house wearing a bikini bathing suit and carrying a towel. She must have been thirteen or fourteen and was just beginning to get a figure. I was very careful not to lech at her. There has to be a line you won’t cross, and my lower limit is arbitrarily set at sixteen.
    As she walked by she looked at the ground and said nothing. I watched her as she went around the corner of the house toward the pool. The retriever got up as she passed and followed her. They were out of sight, and then I heard two splashes in the pool. And the sound of swimming. My beer was gone. I looked at my watch; nearly four thirty. I put the beer can on the railing of the porch, walked across the driveway, got in my car and