All American Boy Read Online Free PDF Page A

there’s compassion in his voice. Regina is sure of it.
    â€œIt’s difficult for me to get around,” she protests. It’s true. She’d never learned to drive. Rocky died in a car crash. Regina can’t imagine ever being behind the wheel of a car.
    Walter sighs. “Make an appointment and I’ll take you tomorrow.”
    She blinks.
    â€œWill you do it?”
    â€œAll right, Walter.”
    He turns to leave.
    â€œBut the soil, Walter—”
    He looks back at her.
    â€œWill you get the soil?”
    â€œWhy am I doing any of this?” he suddenly shouts. “Why the fuck did I come back here?”
    Regina takes a step backward, startled by his outburst. Yes, like Robert. So much like Robert.
    â€œBecause I needed your help, Walter,” she says in a tiny voice. “You came because I needed your help.”
    â€œNo, Mother. That’s not why I came. Do you know why I finally agreed to come back to Brown’s Mill? Any clue?”
    She says nothing.
    â€œBecause I want to find Zandy.”
    Regina makes that sound in her throat again.
    â€œYou know who I mean, Mother.” He says the name deliberately. “ Alexander Reefy .”
    She looks away.
    â€œ He’s the reason I came back here, Mother. Not you. I want to find Zandy and apologize to him for sending him to jail.”
    Once, she’d been a girl who thought maybe, just maybe, she might become a famous singer. She and Rocky both. What did the Andrews Sisters have on the Gunderson Sisters? Regina and Rocky were both pretty enough and talented enough. “Voices as sweet as birdsong,” the Brown’s Mill Reminder had declared after their gig at the VFW hall. So they ran off to the city to become famous. Eventually, Aunt Selma sent Uncle Axel to reclaim them in his old Ford pickup truck, but for a while, there had been the stage, and the microphone, and all those servicemen applauding, hooting, whistling with their pinkies between their teeth.
    She looks up at her son.
    â€œThe soil, Walter. Please will you get the soil?”

3
    BEYOND THE RAINBOW
    On the soundtrack: Judy Garland is singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” On the screen: a door slowly opens, wiping away blacks and whites to reveal bright primary Technicolors. Fade in on a rock garden, green leaves and orange marigolds, and a little boy in a bright red shirt playing with shiny Matchbox cars in the dirt.
    â€œI’ll get you, my pretty,” Wally cackles, doing an awfully good Margaret Hamilton for a seven-year-old boy. He drives a miniature Corvette straight into a dump truck and cackles again.
    The Wizard of Oz was on TV three nights before, and Wally’s become completely obsessed. He draws pictures of melted witches and asks his teacher questions like, “What did the winged monkeys do with the melted witch-goop?” He imagines that they used it to mold the witch back to life. After all, once the witch was gone, the movie had become far less exciting, so Wally has mapped out an elaborate sequel in his head. The Witch returns from the dead to capture the Scarecrow and the Tin Man. Glinda gets tossed in the dungeon, and Dorothy has to return to save the day. In his mother’s rock garden, Wally plays all the characters, using his Matchbox cars to enact the story because his father won’t let him play with dolls.
    Sitting in the dirt, Wally decides he wants to be Dorothy. He wants all those things that happened to her to happen to him. He wants a cyclone to pick him up and drop him down in the middle of flowers and thatched cottages and round-faced Munchkins. He wants to meet a pink lady in a flying bubble who wears sparkling dresses. He wants to melt the Witch. And he wants to see the Emerald City, most of all.
    Lighting cue: sunny sky begins to darken. Heavy, black-rimmed clouds roll in as if on fast-motion. Wally looks up, suddenly fearful, wide-eyed. He starts to run, then stops,