—Maniac Magee—
by Jerry Spinelli

Chapter 44

 

One morning in early July, cruising down the appleskin hour, Maniac thought he heard footsteps other than his own. He stopped. Only the vast quietness responded.

It happened a few more times. Must be his own footfalls echoing down the row house canyons.

Two days later, passing an alley, he thought something moved at the other end. And once, turning onto a broad street, he had the feeling, more sense than sight, that something had just flashed around a corner two blocks away.

When these odd sensations continued for another morning or two, Maniac knew he was not alone.

So he was not totally surprised when, a few mornings later, he turned a corner and ran smack into another early-hour cruiser. No, it wasn't the what that surprised him, it was the who: Mars Bar Thompson.

They quickly bounced off each other and went their separate ways. Neither paused. Neither said a word.

This was the first in a series of apparently random mergings. Intersections, alleyways --- one never knew when he would come upon the other. Sometimes they found themselves running the same route, only a block apart. On one occasion, they trotted down the same street at the same time in the same direction, but on opposite sides of the street.

And then one day, as it happened, they each turned a particular corner at the same moment and headed off in the same direction, side by side. Still neither spoke. Not even their eyes met. They jogged silently for a block, then veered apart.

The next time they dovetailed, they stayed that way for two blocks, then three blocks, and so on. No words, no looks, just the rhythmic slapping of their sneaker soles upon the sidewalk and the pulsing duet of their breathings. Stride for stride, shoulder to shoulder, breath for breath, till they were matching on all points, a harnessed pair, two runners become one.

Morning after morning it happened this way --- the two of them dovetailing at an intersection, and, without the slightest hitch in stride, cruising off together. Though each face showed no awareness of the other, they were in fact minutely sensitive to each other. If Mars Bar cranked up the pace just a notch, Maniac would pick it up within a stride; if Maniac inched ahead, Mars Bar was there. If one veered to the left or right, the other followed like a shadow. One day one was the leader, the next day the other.

One day Mars Bar would lead Maniac down the river, down the tracks, past the railroad gondolas, each with its mountain of coal, to the rolling mill at the steel plant where his father worked. Another day, Maniac would head for the townships to the north and west, the farmlands of the county, where dew sparkled on spider webs, and nature was doing such fresh and wonderful things that you could almost hear the long, neat congregations of corn clapping "A-men" and "A-men!"

When the workingpeople began leaving their houses, the daybreak boys diverged, Mars Bar to the East End, Maniac to wherever.

A week passed. A second week. Morning after morning. Stride for stride, breath by breath. Never a word, never a glance. Each believing the other simply happened to be going where he was going.

 

They were cruising Main Street one morning, passing the Grand movie theater, when Piper McNab came screaming down the middle of the empty street. He was wild-eyed and crying and soaking wet. His feet were slathered in coal-black mud. He shrieked and babbled at them, but he made no sense, so they just followed as he raced frantically back up the street. As they ran, the belchlike toot of a whistle grew louder and louder.

He led them to the corner of Main and Swede, to where the platform of the P&W trolley terminal hung high above the sidewalk. He burst into the terminal building and up the steps. In a moment Maniac and Mars Bar were on the platform, gasping and following Piper's pointing finger down the tracks. What they saw pulled the fragments of Piper's babble together.

The boys had been playing Bombs Away. Piper's part was to sail the raft down the river. Russell's part was to wait on the trolley trestle that spanned the river, and when Piper passed underneath, bomb away from a bucketful of rocks.

Everything went as planned --- unless you count Russell's failing to sink the raft, and Piper's practically drowning trying to beach it --- until Piper returned to the terminal to find Russell still out on the trestle. Apparently, without the target below to focus on, Russell had suddenly discovered how high he was. One false step, and he could slip right between the ties to the river.

And that's where Russell was now, out on the middle of the trestle, high over the water, frozen in terror, not even a railing to cling to, responding neither to Piper's cries nor to the red-and-yellow P&W trolley, which also occupied the trestle, idling and tooting about twenty feet away.

Piper pulled at Maniac. "Save him! Save him!"

Mars Bar stared with growing astonishment at Maniac, whose wide, unblinking eyes were fixed on the trestle, yet somehow did not seem to register what was there. Nor did he seem to hear Piper pleading. With the drenched, mud-footed kid clawing at him, he turned without a word, without a gesture, and left the platform and went downstairs. Shortly he appeared on the sidewalk below. He crossed Main and continued walking slowly up Swede, Piper screaming after him from the end of the platform.