Page:Jay Little - Maybe—Tomorrow.pdf/316

 "They're not new and I'm tired of them anyway." He wasn't going to confess he had neither one suggested. He sat down and tried to pull off the boots but couldn't. He laughed and followed instructions as Rogers came to his rescue.

"You've got a high instep," Rogers grinned. He took hold of the boot with both hands and grinned again. "Now push."

Gaylord pushed and stretched his free toes … "Boy what a fit, think I can get them back on?"

"Sure, you can get them back on."

Gaylord undressed leaving on his silk shorts. He wore no undershirt. The shorts kept Rogers' gaze. His mother had some of the same material. He had seen them on the clothes line. 'Course they were made different and were not white. Funny, he thought, I didn't know men wore silk underwear. He picked up a magazine and looked, uninterested at the pictures.

"Do you know …" spoke Gaylord, "this is the first time I've ever been fishing?" He didn't mind confessing this horrible secret to Glenn Rogers.

"It is?" said Rogers and laid down the magazine. "That's about all I used to do on Sundays."

Gaylord answered eagerly, that he just knew it was going to be fun but that he was dumb … that Rogers was going to have to be his teacher. As far as he was concerned, he didn't even know how to bait a hook.

The sun was rising between the tree branches which veiled it without hiding it. It shone through the celanese glass curtains and fell across the bed. There were a few sounds; a rooster crowed; a bird chirped in the window tree; a truck passed on the street which lay beyond the alley.

Yes, it was a perfect day for anything. All his perplexities, all his worries, were relegated to another sphere. He forgot that he had wondered why Blake hadn't called. He had even forgotten to deepen the waves in his hair, or care that one button was off the sport shirt he had just slipped on. Things like that were far away and so unimportant, here and now. As Rogers said: "It was unimportant how you looked or dressed when you went fishing."

He slipped on the boots again. It was fun to be wearing something 306