Robert Fry

Chapter One It was 1944, in the years of WWII. Things were hard, fathers were scarce, and nothing good was on the television. Welcome to Bakersfield. Robert walked off the train and paused. He looked to his right and then his left. He noticed me sitting at a table outside a diner playing cards. There I was, alone and frustrated. I looked over and saw him staring at me from the distance. He decided to walk in my direction and bother me. “Hello, I’m Robert Fry.” I did not answer. “I’m from London.” I ignored him again in the hopes that he would just leave me be. “What’s your name?” Turned out I was wrong. Robert dropped his rather large bag and sat right next to me. I could feel his breath running down the front of my shirt. My chest was getting warm and still I was ignoring him. It was hard to bare his annoyance, but I held back. “What are you doing?” He reached his hand towards my jack of hearts. He hovered over me, taking away all of my sunlight. I had to say something. “What do you think you are doing, boy? This is my table, my cards, and my alone time. Can’t you go bother somebody else?” “I’m Robert Fry.” “I know who you are, stupid. You already told me your name. What do you want?” Robert smiled at me. “A friend who will listen.” Now, I am not quite sure what that meant, but I felt bad for the poor kid so I let him hover a bit longer. “My name is Joshua Thomas Buckly. You can sit for a while, but when I say scram, you scram, got it?” “Got it.” A half hour passed and the sun began to die down. The trees got ready for bed and the coyotes made a lot of noise. The town cooled down and everything seemed peaceful. The diner was serving dinner and all the regulars began to show up. The drunks were going to overstay their welcome and the cops parked along the fields. Robert never left my side. He just sat there and watched me over and over again while I shuffled my deck of cards. Since he hadn’t gotten the hint to leave I decided to get up and leave him. He began to follow me. I turned around and looked him eye to eye. I was mad but you couldn’t tell because the diner lights shone in my eyes. “Go home, Robert.” He kept following me and smiling. I hated that he was smiling. He knew he was bugging me. I was about to turn around and punch him. I kept walking away while he dragged behind. Finally, I gave in and turned around again to say something. At that moment I had realized that when I did, I didn’t recognize him. He wasn’t one of the boys from town. I had never seen him before but he didn’t look lost. I made small talk to find out a few facts. I wasn’t sure how much I trusted myself being alone with a stranger. “Tell me something about yourself, Robert. How old are you?” “Thirteen. Today’s my birthday.” “No kidding? Why aren’t you at home with your folks? What on earth are you doing all the way over here? Isn’t London in another country? “So, you were listening to me, eh?” I grinned and rolled my eyes. “Just talk.” “Yes, it’s in England. Two years ago my mum got on a boat with my sister and I and left London. When my father went off to war, my mum wanted to protect us from the bombing in Britain. “What happened to you?” “Well, when we got to America, we got on a train. When the train reached its destination, we had to transfer onto another in a layover wait. When it came we started to walk towards the train headed for Portsmouth, Ohio, when a bustle of people went by and I accidentally lost sight to where my mum and sister were heading. Instead of looking for them, I decided to just meet them on the train that we were supposed to transfer to. Little did I know, it was the wrong train that I got on and I eventually wound up here, in Bakersfield. During the ride on the train, knowing that I took the wrong one, I had the slightest feeling of depression come over me.” “How do you know what depressing is? You can’t get that stupid smile off your face. Why are you so happy anyway?” This kid was smarter than I had imagined for being thirteen years old. As much as he bugged the crap out of me, his story was interesting and somehow I couldn’t stop asking questions. I was curious and he was only a bit younger than I was. Robert moved closer to me and put his hand on my shoulder. “My mum told me shortly before I got lost that she loved me and that we would always be together.” I kept talking and talking because we grew from small talk into his whole life story. I decided to go on. “So two years you’ve been travelling alone? Aren’t you scared to death, boy?” “Not really. America is quite fascinating.” “Really? I don’t see how that is. It’s pretty dull to me but the stars are beautiful out here and the ocean reminds us that we are safe from what’s on the other side.” “That’s beautiful. Do you write?” Robert asked. “No, I want to be a magician.” I had no idea what I was going to do with this kid and I couldn’t just leave him all by himself with nowhere to go. I was only about six months older than Robert and figured I would be some kind of role model for him. Dinner was soon, anyway, so I decided to take him home with me. “Want to come to dinner with me, Robert? My family is broken and my parents are divorced but I’m sure you’ll be welcome for tonight.” “I would love to, thank you. Why is your family broken?” I ignored him completely. “Alright, well, come on now. We don’t want to be late.” He didn’t pry after that. Just stood there then followed me home. It was silent most of the way. We took a lot of shortcuts and every time we heard a noise he laughed. Once again he found ways to bug me but I didn’t say a word. He would look at me every few minutes and I knew he wanted to say something, but didn’t. Finally, the smallest dosage of words rambled out of his mouth. “What was that you were doing back there with those cards?” “Magic, Robert, magic. Pretty neat, huh?” “Yes.” He grinned. “I’ve been trying to pull a penny out of my ears for days but it seems to not be working. Ticks me off, to be honest.” “So, why don’t you write?” “What’s your obsession with writing, boy? I don’t write. Look at me. Does it look like I write?” Robert shrugged and put his hands in his pants pockets. I examined him a bit closer as we walked down the tracks. He was short with dark brown hair, but had the bluest eyes. He wore his pants cuffed at the bottom and his shoes were two different kinds. I also noticed a small black and white picture sticking out of his back pocket of an older woman with long hair wearing a dress. He seemed to remember it was back there because he kept taking it out and staring at it and then putting it back. Five minutes later and he’d start all over again. “Say, what’s in that bag of yours, Robert? Looks impossible to carry around longer than a few miles. It’s not easy walking around these roads with that.” He paused for a moment to remember. “A couple of shirts, a Bible, some souvenirs I picked up along my journey, and a book about Ireland.” “Why a book of Ireland?” “To look at the pictures. I think it’s beautiful.” “You are a strange boy, Robert.” He looked confused, like no one has ever called him strange before. I find that hard to believe with the way he stalks people. He was stalking me at least. Too bad I had what appeared to be some feelings and decided to give him a break. He finally decided to respond. “Well what did you expect? I don’t understand.” I smiled at him and laughed really hard. “A friend who will listen.” He looked at me with the funniest face. “Hey, are you mocking me?” he frowned. I kept laughing and then he pushed me. I pushed him back, swung him beside me, and wrapped my arm around his neck. From that moment on I knew we were going to be best friends. I didn’t know why but I usually had a sense for those kinds of things. Not sure where he was going to stay, but I wanted him to stick around.