Free Live Free

I’d Rather Be In Philadelphia

Little Ozzie cried until he could cry no more. He could not have said just why he cried, but he cried because he knew, in some deep part of him where the knowledge would remain till he was dead, that the world was a more horrible place than he could ever imagine. He might think of monsters or mad dogs, but the world would beat him. It would turn the people he loved and trusted to monsters; it would reveal those meant to help him as mad dogs. He wept for himself, and he wept because he knew there would never really be anyone else to weep for him.

It ended slowly. Perhaps half an hour passed between the first slacking of his tears and his last choking sob. That gave him time to look about without having to commit himself to consideration of what he saw. It was nothing anyway: a narrow room; a narrow window, high and old-fashioned looking, with bars on this side of the glass. The scuffed sofa where he lay smelled faintly of tears and dust, and creaked a little when he got off.

The door opened and a black woman in a white dress like the school nurse’s took him by the arm and said come along, boy. They went into a wide hallway with tiles on the floor, a place he faintly recalled. The plaster was dark brown until it got higher than his head. Up there it was vanilla. Chocolate for kids, he thought, vanilla for grown-ups. Serves them right.

They went through a door, and the nurse pushed him through another one.

A man in a white coat was sitting at a desk. He had a fluffy beard that was not quite red and not quite yellow, sort of like ketchup and mustard mixed up. “Hi,” he said.

Little Ozzie nodded, not speaking.

“Want to tell me your name? I’m Doctor Bob.”

“Osgood M. Barnes.”

“Is that what they call you at school?”

Little Ozzie nodded again.

“I bet they don’t. I bet they call you … Skippy.”

Little Ozzie shook his head.

“Skeeter?”

“No.”

“Duke?”

“No.”

“All right, Osgood. Now Doctor Bob wants to ask you a few simple little questions before we send you home to your mommy and daddy. You’d like to go back to your mommy and daddy again, wouldn’t you?”

Little Ozzie shrugged. “I guess so.”

“Where do you live?”

“I don’t know.”

“Come on, Osgood. Doctor Bob can’t send you home if you won’t tell him where your home is.”

“I don’t see how it’s any use to have a doctor send somebody home if he doesn’t know where you live unless you tell him.”

“You’re feeling defiant, aren’t you, Osgood?”

“No!”

“Can you explain to Doctor Bob why it is that you don’t want to tell him where you live?”

“I do want to tell you—I just don’t live anyplace right now.”

“Maybe we ought to talk about something else for a while, Osgood. Want to tell me where your mommy is?”

“I don’t know.”

“Uh huh.” Doctor Bob turned away for a moment and stared out the window, playing with his beard. “There’s a Coke machine and a candy machine I know about. Would you like a Coke and a candy bar?”

“No,” Little Ozzie said honestly, “I’d like a sandwich and a glass of milk.”

“What kind of sandwich, Osgood?”

“Jelly and cream cheese.”

“How about peanut butter?”

“I don’t like peanut butter much.”

“Dr. Bob doesn’t think they have any cream cheese down in the commissary, Osgood. I’ll tell you what I’ll do—if you’ll tell Dr. Bob where your daddy works, Dr. Bob will have somebody bring you a glass of milk and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”

“At the Consort Hotel.”

Dr. Bob smiled. “Now we’re getting someplace, Osgood. Do you know what he does there?”

“He’s a salesman.”

“I see.” Dr. Bob stroked his chin.

“Can I have my sandwich now?”

“Why not.” Dr. Bob pressed a button on the intercom on his desk. “Shirley, run down to the commissary and get us a cream cheese and jelly and a glass of milk. Peanut butter, if they don’t have cream cheese. Then call the Consort, downtown. Ask if they have an employee or a guest called Barnes.” He covered the mouthpiece with his hand. “What’s Daddy’s first name, Osgood?”

“Ozzie.”

“First name probably Osgood, but don’t count on it, Shirley. Any Barnes.”

The intercom squeaked at him.

“Grape, strawberry, whatever they have,” he said. “White bread.” With a snort of disgust he released the button and turned back to Little Ozzie. “Now I want you to tell me about the fat lady who brought you here. You know who I mean?”

Little Ozzie shook his head.

“Sure you do. She has curly blond hair and blue eyes. She came into the building with you, and then she assaulted the therapist at the front desk?”

“She’s not fat,” Little Ozzie said. “Fat means ugly.”

Dr. Bob stared at him for a moment, then nodded to himself and made a note. “Interesting. But you know who I mean. What’s her name?”

“Candy.”

“Do you mean that’s her name, or just that she gave you some candy?”

“Uh huh.”

“Did she give you candy?”

“Uh huh.”

“Do you know her name?”

Seeing that “Candy” was not a satisfactory response, Little Ozzie shrugged.

“Is she your sister or a cousin—something like that?”

Little Ozzie hesitated. “I don’t think so.”

“Have you ever been to Philadelphia, Osgood?”

“Yes.”

“You have? Fine. When was that?”

“Last year.”

“Why did you go?”

“Everybody did.”

“Your mommy and daddy?”

“No, they couldn’t come.”

“The lady who brought you here?”

“No,” Little Ozzie said again. “From school. Everybody from school. We saw where they signed the Decoration of Independence.”

“I see, it was a class trip.”

“Uh huh.”

Dr. Bob picked up his pencil and balanced it between the tips of his fingers. “The reason I asked you about Philadelphia, Osgood, is that the label in the dress the lady who brought you here wore indicates she bought it there. Do you know anything about that?”

“No,” Little Ozzie said for the third time. “Can I talk to her?”

The growl of angry voices came from the hallway. Dr. Bob said, “Don’t pay any attention to that, Osgood. Sometimes we have a little trouble with the sick people here. It will be all right; we’ll soon have them calmed down again.”

The angry voices grew louder. A woman who sounded like the one who had come for him screamed, “We’ll call the police!” and he heard glass breaking. The door flew open, and a man with a brown face and stringy black hair looked at Dr. Bob. “Nah,” the man said. “This ain’t him.” Before he shut the door again, Little Ozzie noticed he wore earrings. Little Ozzie had never seen a man with earrings before.

“What the hell!” Dr. Bob stood up. Little Ozzie got up too, beginning to feel better. Dr. Bob went out the door with Little Ozzie at his heels.

The crash had come from a glass of milk. Milk had made a star in the middle of the brown tile, full of glassy twinkles. By one point of the star there was a sandwich somebody had stepped on. Dr. Bob jumped over the star and ran out into the corridor.

People in white pajamas were milling around, mixed up with nurses and doctors and white-coat men. In the middle was the man who had looked in Dr. Bob’s office. With him was a littler, younger man in a soft felt hat and a woman with her hair in a red handkerchief. They were talking more than anybody else. They waved their arms a lot and the people in white pajamas saw them and waved too.

Ozzie ducked between legs, getting closer and closer to the man with the earrings until he got caught by the woman, who held him at the end of her arms, then squatted down in front of him.

“What are you doin’ here, little boy?”

Ozzie decided she smelled like cooking hamburgers outside. It was a nice smell, but he was getting pretty tired of people who asked questions. “What are you doing?”

“I’m lookin’ for a old man named Ben Free. You know him?”

Ozzie shook his head.

“He’s a real old man. His eyes look bad, and he’s got a white beard. Have you seen a old man like that?”

Ozzie shook his head again.

“If you see him, you tell him Rose’s lookin’ for him. Tell him Rose is the Queen, and a good friend of Mar—of Serpentina’s. He knows Serpentina.”

“All right,” Ozzie said. He found the conversation thrilling, though he could not have said why.

“Go look now,” the woman told him as a burly attendant seized her from behind. Little Ozzie darted away.