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Show FO , J FICTION THE JAGGED SCAR IP V ' ' By DONALD HUNTER ' A l' Cotnec f ..,, .1 , ,. , ggfllALM Tom and his dad had always been pals, so much so that when "the old man" suddenly became sullen and morose toward his son, Tom attributed attrib-uted it to his "growing up" and he began to find life almost unbearable. breath, his ycung chest swelling quickly with the sharp intake oi air. He held it, stiffened his lip. He would not cry. Crying wasn't grown up! The thought struck him then that maybe that was the whole thing that was wrong. He was growing up! He wanted to turn down that thought right away. If this was what it was like, if this was growing grow-ing up then he didn't want to be big! He didn't want to be. It hurt too much. Why couldn't it be like it used to be with the old man and him? But if that was it if it was just growing up then it never would be like that again. And Rosemary she would never treat him the same again, either. She knew, too! Just getting big, you had to be hard, cold, without love, understanding, under-standing, feeling or There was something wrong in just growing up! The boy started to rub his knuckle into his eye, but stopped. A bleak chill was settling in his heart, as he watched the old man him. He called him . the old man when he was with the other boys his age, not with any disrespect but he always called him dad around his mother. "Oh, leave your father alone, can't you?" she said. And he went away sensing an even greater wrong. Even little Rosemary, the girl he talked to shyly in the school yard sometimes, seemed to be treating him different lately. "What's wrong with you?" she'd ask right in the middle of his wondering won-dering what was wrong with the old man and his mom. "Oh, nothing nothing!" he'd say quickly. "Why?" "Well, you don't talk near so much anymore," she'd say, "and you seem so far awa., like!" He wondered if just not paying any attention to her while he was thinking about his dad and mom made her think there was some- fA It ". 'TpHE Tow-Headed Boy with the hair close cropped didn't know what it was. The old man spent hours just gazing off into space. He sat on the top front porch step, his cane between his knees, his feet planted on the second step and the cane end set on the bottom one. With his hands crossed over the cane head, the right hand carefully covered the jagged scar across the back of the left one. Other times, when the boy was around, he always seemed busy reading the newspaper. He kept it folded so he could hold it with one hand, the scarred hand concealed in his lap. Of course, he had never been very talkative. Stoic, ilike the hill people he came from, he never mentioned his troubles. When he'd chopped his hand with an ax out in the back yard, he'd sneaked through the kitchen hiding the mangled man-gled bloody member behind him sc the boy's mother wouldn't see. The boy had stood in the front room wide-eyed and anxious with fear when the old man saw him. "Don't tell your mother, boy!" he'd warned before he went into the bedroom to tear up an old sheet for wrapping his hand. But the boy's mother had noticed. She sensed the strange atmosphere, the unusual actions. She'd followed him into the bedroom, and the boy had heard the old man shushing her, while she bawled him out for hiding the thing. He kept saying it was nothing and afterwards he never talked about it, never complained. com-plained. He just never let anyone see the jagged scar across the back of his hand if he could help it. Now, the old man was withdrawn; with-drawn; he couldn't get near him ai.ymore, couldn't talk to him. Once, he'd been able to get a kind word out of the old man. He'd say, "That's good, Tom!" or, "That's not the way that ought to be done, Son!" And though there weren't very many words between them, they were the kind that made the boy feel good, and know that everything was all right. Now, it was different. The old man didn't seem to have time for him. He didn't want to take their long silent walks together anymore, like he used to. And he didn't move around much. He even seemed to resent the boy's presence, like when he'd stumbled that time in the front room and caught himself on hi cane. He growled at the boy, leaving him speechless and hurt. But he wasn't old, not like Grampa and and the old mare down on the farm. Still, the last time he'd brought his report card home from school, happily expecting the old man to say, as he sometimes did, "That's good. Son, good that you're getting your learning!" and smile at him quietly, he hadn't done it. He'd only glanced at the card on one side then turned it over and said something that sounded like "Humph!" and handed it back to him shortly. The boy had worked extra hard that last month to get the grades up hoping the old man might break through to him again. He couldn't understand that short "Humph!" There was something wrong, and the boy wondered if it could be him. His mother seemed to act the same way toward him. Cut him off short, when he'd tried awkwardly to ask her about how dad was treating "Oh, leave your father alone, can't you?" she said. And he went away sensing an even greater wrong. thing wrong with him. Or if maybe there was really something wrong with him. He hated the thought, but it kept cropping up in his mind. Maybe he was adopted! Maybe the old man and his mom were not really his father and mother, but had just adopted him and he was just now finding it out. The thought frightened fright-ened him, and he buried it deep in his mind. If it was true, he'd be like the old man; hide his hurt. He'd never let them know he knew! His father called him "boy" now, instead of "Tom" or "Son," like he had. And he was sharp, almost al-most harsh sometimes. IJ E WAS bouncing his ball off the side of the house when the old man came around from the backyard. back-yard. In an excess of boyish joy, he forgot for a moment what the situation situa-tion was between them. He threw the ball to the old man. Instead of catching it and firing it back so it would sting his hands the old man ignored it. He did nothing till the ball hit him, and bounced harmlessly off his shoulder. He tensed then, lifted his cane. "Stop that infernal nonsense, boy!" he yelled. The boy could feel his own lip tremble as he stared at the old man's angry face. He took a deep go in the front door. But he followed fol-lowed him, some strange knowing-ness knowing-ness urging him to get his answer confirmed. To make sure that was it. The old man was bent over fumbling fum-bling around on the floor for the worn leather change purse he'd dropped, when the boy walked in. His hand closed on the purse and he straightened quickly. "Here, boy," he said hurriedly, digging into the pouch. "Run down to the corner and get me a paperl" He often asked him to do that, and the boy felt a rise of that good feeling at anything he could do fo. the old man. He held out his hand and the old man laid three coins In his palm. "Now hurry, boy!" he urged harshly. The boy felt disappointment disappoint-ment at the sharp, urgent tone, until he glanced down at the coins. Suddenly, he stood very still. Two dimes and a penny lay in his hand to pay for the three-cent paper. Waves of coldness washed up his spine as the bitter acid of knowledge knowl-edge bit into his nerve ends and settled in his brain. He made no outcry; not even the sound of a murmur passed his tight lips. But hot liquid emotion scalded two lines of silent tears down his cheeks as he gazed, knowingly at last, up into his father's slowly blinding eyes. "Okay, dad!" he said, his voice stumbling over his heart, '"Okay, dad!" |