“Okay.”
They walked in silence to Riverside Drive and then into the park and past the playground and over to the path bordering the Henry Hudson Parkway. An iron railing separated the path from the grassy slope that led to the road below. They climbed the railing and then waited for a break in the traffic and ran across the parkway to the grass on the river’s edge. Buddwing could see the cliffs of New Jersey on the opposite shore, and uptown the double-decked span of the Washington Bridge. A squadron of destroyers was moored mid-river. He could hear the loudspeaker on one of the destroyers calling the men to their work stations. There was no mist now. The destroyers bobbed lazily in sharp gray silhouette. The sky above the Jersey shore was clear and blue.
“What kind of boats are those?” Eric asked.
“Destroyers.”
“Wow,” Eric said, and then made a hissing sound. “I’ll bet I can hit one with a stone.”
“Go ahead. Try.”
Eric searched in the grass, found a stone, and then pulled back his arm and hurled with all his strength. The stone fell into the water some ten yards away. “A little short,” he said. He paused thoughtfully. “Do you ever wish you were really strong?” he asked. “I mean, really, really strong? The strongest man in the world?”
“Yes, I do sometimes,” Buddwing said.
“I’ll bet Superman could hit one of those boats with a stone.”
“I’ll bet he could.”
“If he threw a stone,” Eric said, “it would have so much force, it would probably put a hole in the boat, don’t you think?”
“I guess it would.”
“Well, sure, he can jump over buildings and everything.” Eric paused. “How does he do that, anyway? Jump over the buildings?”
“He gives a mighty leap.”
“I don’t know, it just seems funny to me that he can jump over buildings. And fly around in the air. I mean, even if he’s very strong, how does that make it he can fly in the air and go jumping over buildings? I don’t get that at all. Do you get that?”
“I guess he flexes his muscles or something.”
“Yeah, but he ain’t got wings, hasn’t. So I don’t see how he can fly.” Eric shook his head. “What would you do if you were the strongest man in the world?”
“I’d do what Superman does. I’d use my strength for good.”
“Yeah, me too,” Eric said dubiously. He hesitated. “Though, maybe sometimes, I’d also, well, do a couple of bad things.” He hesitated again. “Would you?”
“Maybe, but not very often.”
“Oh, no, not very often. Just once in a while. What did you say your name was?”
“Sam.”
“But no middle name.”
“No.”
“Do you think Superman is real?” Eric asked.
“I don’t know. What do you think?”
“Well, I guess I’d think he was real if he didn’t fly in the air and go jumping over buildings. I don’t know, that makes him seem not real to me. Doesn’t it make you feel that way?”
“I guess so. I don’t really see how he can fly or jump over buildings,” Buddwing said.
“Sure, that’s impossible.”
They walked in silence for a while. The day was warm, the air was balmy, the sky was blue. Upriver, he could hear the sudden sharp blast of a tugboat’s horn.
“Do you know what I want to be someday?” Eric asked.
“No, what?”
“A garbage man.”
“Oh? Why?”
“Because they get to collect all kinds of things. You know how much stuff people throw out? Boy, you’d be surprised! Also, I like the smell of garbage.”
“Do you really?”
“Yeah. I like the smell of gasoline best, but garbage I like next. It’s got a good smell. Not like gasoline, but different. Those garbage men wear uniforms like army guys, too, did you ever notice that?”
“Yes, that’s right. They do.”
“Sure. How much do garbage men make?”
“A pretty good salary,” Buddwing said.
“A hundred dollars?” Eric asked.
“A week, do you mean?”
“No, not a week,” Eric said. “A hundred a week? Oh, no. I meant, well, I don’t know, how much do you think they make?”
“I guess about a hundred a week, or maybe a little more.” Buddwing paused. “Plus all they can eat.”
“What do you mean? All they can...” and then Eric burst into delighted laughter. “Garbage, you mean?” He laughed again. “Who would want to eat garbage?” he said, and shoved out at Buddwing playfully, and laughed again.
Out on the river, the destroyers began piping the men to quarters for muster. The high shrill bosun’s whistle cut the air, traveled to the shore.
“I can whistle almost like that,” Buddwing said.
“So can I,” Eric answered.
“I mean, without a whistle.”
“So can I,” Eric said.
“I mean loud.”
“What do you mean?”
Buddwing drew his lips inward, folding them in over his teeth, placing his tongue behind them. He forced air into the cleft, and an ear-shattering, piercing whistle came from his mouth.
“Wow!” Eric said. “How do you do that?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Teach me how to do it,” Eric said.
He spent the next fifteen minutes trying to teach Eric the new whistle. At the end of that time, Eric had succeeded only in producing a gravelly mixture of forced breath and saliva. Exhausted, they lay back on the grass at the river’s edge and watched the water traffic. Occasionally, one or the other of them spoke, but for the most part they were silent. Eric fidgeted a lot, moving his hands or his feet, or working his mouth, but he seemed content to sit by the river watching the tugs and the smaller craft, and an excursion boat that moved smoothly past, and a tanker that appeared from nowhere, huge and black, with strange foreign markings on its hull. A dazzling parade of clouds marched solemnly over the brow of the Jersey shore, steadily and slowly pushed across the sky by gentle winds, clean and white, gleaming with captured sunlight. The breeze was balmy. It caressed Buddwing’s cheek, gently riffled his hair. He almost dozed.
He drew himself back to the edge of consciousness. Fear suddenly crowded into his mind, and with it the same premonition of shock he had felt when leaving Gloria’s apartment. He sat up abruptly. Eric was sitting beside him, his arms clasped about his knees, looking out over the water. He turned.
“I thought you were sleeping,” Eric said.
“Almost,” Buddwing answered. He wiped his hand over his face. The fear would not leave him. “Are you ever frightened?” he asked.
“Sure,” Eric said.
“What frightens you?”
“Dracula,” Eric said. “I saw him on television. Boy, he’s a real scary guy.”
“I mean, do real things frighten you?”
“Well, he’s real, isn’t he?”
“No, he’s made up,” Buddwing said.
Eric shook his head. “No, he’s real,” he insisted. “I saw him. He’s a real person. I mean it. It wasn’t a cartoon or anything, Sam. He was real.”
“But that was an actor,” Buddwing said. “Bela Lugosi.”
“No, it was Dracula. That was his name. Dracula. He was a vampire.”
“Yes, I know who you mean.”
“Then you saw him, too?”
“Yes.”
“Well?”
“Well, what?”
“Well, was he real or wasn’t he? You saw him, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I saw him.”
“Well?”
“He was real,” Buddwing admitted.
“Sure,” Eric said. He paused. “Are you scared now?” he asked.
“A little.”
“What of? Dracula?”