All American Boy Read Online Free PDF Page B

she pulls in the drenched Fruit of the Looms from the line.
    â€œBut Mommy said I could be a witch.”
    â€œNo, no, Walter, I didn’t say yes.” His mother’s hands are fluttering. “I just said, ‘We’ll see.’”
    Their lives have changed overnight. Wally’s father, Captain Robert Eugene Day, has come home. Whether Wally’s mother was expecting him, Wally doesn’t know—but Wally certainly wasn’t.
    â€œNo son of mine is going to be a witch for Halloween,” Captain Day says.
    â€œBut that’s what I want to be!”
    â€œWhat you want isn’t always what you get, son.” His father considers the subject closed. “You’ll need to learn that sooner or later.”
    The boy stands in the middle of the living room looking at his father, who sits in the big La-Z-Boy that no one ever uses while he’s gone. But Captain Day doesn’t return his son’s gaze. He opens the Brown’s Mill Reminder and begins to read.
    Ever since he can remember, Wally has thought his father was very handsome. Wally likes how square his father’s face is, how dark and shiny is his hair. And his uniform: it’s shiny, too, with all those gold buttons and medals. Wally especially loves his father’s hat. Inside there’s a shiny satin lining that Wally loves to touch and place against his face. They have lots of photos of him wearing his father’s hat.
    â€œThere he is,” his father will say when he sees the photos. “My son, the future admiral!”
    But it’s not a navy hat that he wants to wear for Halloween. It’s a tall black pointed witch’s hat he desires, and Wally heads down the hallway to sulk in his room.
    â€œYou can go as the Scarecrow if you want,” his father calls after him. “Or the Lion. We can get you a Lion’s costume.”
    â€œI don’t want to be the Lion.”
    â€œWell, those are your choices. Pick one of those or don’t go trick-or-treating.”
    Wally stops walking. “Okay, I won’t go.”
    To him, his answer is not sass. His father gave him a choice, and Wally merely chose the least objectionable option offered.
    Captain Day, however, hears it differently. He looks up suddenly, throws down his newspaper, and leaps out of his chair in a terrible, violent flash. In seconds Wally’s small arm is twisted behind his back and his father is spanking him hard, ten times on his baby butt.
    Wally cries for his mother, but she is nowhere to be seen.
    Iris-in on hands, kneading soil, sifting out stones through the fingers. Open to reveal Wally’s mother, in her rock garden, planting chrysanthemums. She’s wearing a kerchief as she kneels in the dirt. It’s a bright, sunny day, and she’s humming. Camera pulls back to reveal Wally not far away, playing with his Matchbox cars at the perimeter of the garden.
    â€œBe careful when you play in here that you don’t dig up the mums, Wally,” his mother says. He makes a sound in his throat in acknowledgment.
    Panorama of the yard: young, tender trees held up by wooden posts and white ribbon. A few blue lawn chairs are scattered near the patio, and a picnic table is topped by a slightly crooked red umbrella with white fringe. The back of the house hasn’t been completely painted yet; much of it is still bare wood. The half that’s finished is painted green: primary green, like kindergarten crayons. It’s a ranch-style house, one floor and an attached garage that’s still under construction. A blue rubber hose is coiled like a long, beneficent snake beneath the kitchen windows. Similar houses line the cul-de-sac, their half-acre lots evenly drawn, connecting to each other, dotted here and there by newly planted shrubs. Nobody has much grass, but lots of grass seed.
    Wally’s getting bored with the Matchboxes. He trots over to watch his mother plant flowers. He loves her rock