When confronted by his teachers, Duane would apologize, smile, and amble on with whatever private thoughts and projects were possessing him at the time. School was not a problem, not even a hindrance really since he liked the idea of school ... it was merely a distraction from his studies and his preparation for becoming a writer.

Or it would have been merely a distraction if there hadn't been something about Old Central that bothered him. Not the kids so much. Not even the principal and teachers, slow-witted and provincial as they seemed. There was something else.

Duane squinted in the dim light and flipped his notebook back a few pages to yesterday, the final day of school:

"Others don't seem to notice the smell here, or if they do, they don't talk about it: a smell of coldness, meat-locker taint, faint hint of corruption like the time the heifer died down behind the south pond and the Old Man and I didn't find it for a week.

"Light is odd in Old Central. Thick. The time the Old Man took me to the abandoned hotel in Davenport when he was going to salvage all that stuff and make a fortune. Thick light. Filtered through dust and thick drapes and memories of former glory. Same musty, hopeless smell too. Remember shafts of light from a high window to the parquet floor in that abandoned ballroom-like the stained-glass windows above the stairways in Old Central?

"No. More a sense of... foreboding? Evil? Too melodramatic. A sense of awareness to both places. That and the sound of rats scurrying in the walls. Wonder why no one else talks about the sound of the rats in Old Central. Wouldn't think the county health people would be too thrilled with an elementary school with rats, rat droppings everywhere, rats running on top of the pipes down in the basement where the restrooms are. I remember when I was in second grade in Old Central and I went down there. ..."

Duane skipped ahead to the notes he had made that afternoon in Bandstand Park.

"Dale, Lawrence (never Larry), Mike, Kevin, and Jim. How to describe peas in a pod?

"Dale, Lawrence, Mike, Kevin, and Jim. (How come everybody calls Jim 'Harlen'? You get the feeling even his mom does. Course she's not even a Harlen anymore. Took her old name back when she got divorced. Who else do I know in E.H. who got divorced? Nobody if you don't count Uncle Art's wife who I never met and who he probably doesn't even remember because she was Chinese and the marriage only lasted two days, twenty-two years before I was born.)

"Dale, Lawrence, Mike, Kevin, and Jim.

"How to compare peas in a pod? Haircuts:

"Dale's got the basic Elm Haven crew cut-old Friers does it in his spooky barbershop (barber pole = guild sign. Blood spiraling down. Maybe they were vampires in the Middle Ages). But Dale's crew cut is a little longer in front-hair almost long enough to make bangs. Dale doesn't pay attention to his hair. (Except that time his mom cut it when we were in third grade and left those chunks and gashes . . . little archipelago of bald spots . . . then Dale kept his Cub Scout cap on, even in class.)

"Lawrence's hair is shorter, stuck up in front with butch wax. Goes with his glasses and buck teeth. Make a skinny face skinnier. Wonder what haircuts'11 look like in the future? Say, 1975? One thing's for sure-won't look like the science fiction movies where the actors've got today's look with shiny clothes and skullcaps on. Maybe long hair? Like in T. Jefferson's day? Or greased down and parted in the middle like the way the Old Man looks in his old Harvard photos? One thing's for sure, we'll all look back at our photos from now and think we look like geeks."

Duane paused, took his glasses off, and thought about the origins of the word "geek." He knew it meant the guy in the circus sideshow who bit the heads off chickens . . . Uncle Art had told him that and Art was reliable with words . . . but what was the etymology?

Duane cut his own hair. When he remembered. It was long on top ... much longer than common for a boy in 1960 . . . but cut quite short over the ears. He did not comb it. Now it felt grimy-the dusty ride from Elm Haven. Duane opened the notebook again.

"Mike: same crewcut-type haircut, probably from his mom or one of his sisters since they don't have enough money for barber, but somehow it looks better on O'Rourke. Longer in front but not sticking up, not bangs either. Never noticed but Mike has eyelashes as long as a girl's. His eyes are strange-so gray-blue you notice them from far away. His sisters would probably kill to have eyes like that. But he's not sissified, effeminate (sp.?) . . . just handsome in a way. Sort of like Senator Kennedy only not like him at all, if that makes sense. (Don't like it when Mailer or somebody describes a character as looking like an actor or something. Lazy.)

"Kevin Grumbacher's hair sort of leaps straight up, like curry comb above a rabbit's face. Goes with his prominent Adam's apple and freckles and nervous grin and general air of anxious consternation. Always waiting for his mommy to call him home.

"Jim's hair-Harlen's hair-not really a crew cut, although it's short. Sort of a squarish face with a wisp of hair on top. Jim Harlen reminds me of that actor we saw in the Free Show last summer, in the movie Mr. Roberts, the fellow who played Ensign Pulver. Jack Lemmon. (Oops, here you go again. Just describe characters in your books as looking like movie stars; it'll help the casting when they sell to H'wood.) But Harlen does look like the Ensign Pulver guy. Same mouth. Same nervous, funny mannerisms. Same tense, sarcastic chatter. Same haircut? Who cares.

"O'Rourke's sort of calm, a leader, the way Henry Fonda was in that movie. Maybe Jim Harlen's just acting out his character from that film, too. Maybe we're all imitating characters we saw at the Free Show last summer and we don't know . . ."

Duane closed the notebook, took off his glasses, and rubbed his eyes. He was tired although he'd done no work that day. And hungry. He tried to remember what he'd fixed for breakfast, gave it up. When the others had scattered for lunch, Duane had stayed in the chickenhouse, making notes, thinking.

Duane was tired of thinking.

He jumped down from the pickup and walked to the edge of the woods. Fireflies winked against the blackness. Duane could hear the frogs and cicadas calling from around the creek in the ravine below him. The hillside behind Black Tree Tavern was littered with garbage and junk, black shapes against the blacker background, and Duane unzipped and urinated into the darkness, hearing the patter fall on something metallic below. Heavy laughter came through a lighted window and Duane could pick out the Old Man's voice, rising above the others, getting ready to hit them with the punch line to the story.

Duane loved the Old Man's stories, but not when he was drinking. The usually humorous tales turned mean and dark, edged with cynicism. Duane knew that the Old Man thought of himself as a failure. Failed Harvard man, failed engineer, failed farmer, failed inventor, failed get-rich-quick businessman, failed husband, failed father. Duane generally agreed with the Old Man's assessment although he thought that the jury might still be out on the last charge.

Duane went back to the pickup and climbed into the cab, keeping the door open to let the whiskey smell out. He knew that whatever bartender was working tonight would toss the Old Man out just before he got violent. And he knew that he'd get the Old Man into the back of the pickup so he wouldn't struggle or grab the wheel, and then he-Duane, eleven years old last March, a C student with an IQ of 160 + according to Uncle Art, who'd dragged him up to the U. of I. two winters ago to be tested for God knows what reason-then he would drive the Old Man home, put him to bed, make supper, and go out to the barn to see if the parts fit in the John Deere.