Page:Jay Little - Maybe—Tomorrow.pdf/142

 would be folly to attempt such a request; on the other hand his dad hadn't been too bad. He had worked hard. At least his mother would have it easier now that they lived in town.

He looked up from his book, stared at the wall of his little room, felt he had no reason to hate his father and felt slightly ashamed. Gaylord was just lucky to have a rich dad. And even with the new car Gaylord didn't seem too happy. He was almost sad at times.

I wonder if Gay likes me, he thought. I wonder if he does. I hope he does … I hope we become good friends. He sure is pretty, I've never seen a boy so pretty … he looks just like a girl.

He licked his lips and swallowed hard, and for a moment he was just a flustered sick little boy because his whole life had been changed.

Three hours of trying to study and listening to the radio did nothing to assuage his agitation.

He had never felt particularly interested in boys but he was now unable to forget the young curly haired boy who had taken him for a ride and whose appearance indicated that he was of the nervous and emotional type. He had never known a boy with such translucent skin through which deeper flesh tones showed, or seen eyes so mysterious and blue.

He smiled at his own fancies and long after he had undressed and gone to bed he tossed and turned, his mind full of millions of things. The world hereabouts seemed to be made of vast plane surfaces which met at angles almost imperceptible. Sometimes they seemed close at hand, other times fifty miles away. Once he saw a group of farm buildings and then his old school.

He pounded his pillow trying to free his brain; wrinkled his closed eyelids and pulled them hard, but sleep would not come. He tried to dismiss everything from his mind but couldn't … The old schoolhouse remained vivid.

He thought of the time he had caught a boy whipping his horse. He set his jaw remembering the long thin stick falling on its fat flanks. How infuriated he had been, and what a beating he had given the youth; the long run before he had caught him.

"Don't you ever come around my horse again or I'll kill you," he had yelled over a bloody nosed youth sprawling on the sandy ground.

"I won't, Glenn," the boy had cried. "I won't." 132