THE HEELS OF YOUTH

Night fled like boys from a broom when Jerry Dodd awoke to behold the last morning of his twelfth year.

"Jack." Jerry whispered. Across the room was a single bed identical to Jerry's own. There, a younger, wilder version of him stirred sleepily. "Jack!" The sibling of nine whole years sprung up like a catapult released.

"What?" Jack glanced about, looking for something to be wrong.

"Listen, Jack. Listen close." Jerry whispered.

"What?"

"Hold your breath and scold your heartbeat for being loud! Listen!" Far away, a dog barked and Mr. Green next door was playing tetherball with his daughter.

"I don't hear nuthin'," Jack said, looking nervously at his brother.

Jerry was shaking almost too much to speak. "Listen. Tomorrow I'm going to be thirteen. Lester says when he turns thirteen he'll be all grown up. He says you're a man at thirteen."

"So? Then you can drive a car and shave like Dad and you won't have to go to school anymore." Jack reasoned.

"But I don't want to be a man!"

"You wanna be a girl?" Jack sneered.

"No, dummy! Look, when you're a man you can't play spaceship or build tree forts or play tag. You have to live with a girl and read newspapers for fun, and go to bed early! And Jack, I'm scared, 'cause I can hear myself growin'! I can feel my bones gettin' ready to snap outwards and fold into someone with a briefcase and a tie!!"

"That's scary..." Jack whispered.

"Damn right it is. I gotta do something!"

"What can you do?" Jack asked. He threw back the covers and grabbed his green trousers.

"I don't know." Jerry admitted. He played with a piece of fuzz from the carpet. "Wait! I had this dream--a dream, yeah!!" He leaped from his bed and ran to the toy desk in the corner. "It's real!! It's really real!" He grabbed a piece of paper from the desk and held it up to see it in the early morning light from the window.

"What's that, Jer?"

"Jack, you're not going to believe this, but I swear it's true! I dreamed about drawing a map out in the woods, and damned if this ain't it!"

"I wish you wouldn't say 'damn' so much. Dad'll beat the fire out of you if he hears you."

"Jack, look here--" He pointed at the paper. "See, this is our house, and this is the old subdivision, and here's the new houses, and there's the woods. It's in the woods, Jack! Right there!!"

"What is it?"

"What is it? It's a way to escape thirteen! It's being a kid forever!!"

Jack was trying to wedge his feet into his sneakers without untying them. "No, I mean what's it a map to? What do you find at the 'x'?"

"The fountain of youth, Jack. It's really real, and I've got the only map in the world! I'm gonna go tonight. It'll have to be after supper." Jerry sighed deeply. "I ain't never gonna grow up, Jack. Ain't that grand?"

"How come none of the other kids have found it? It's right in the middle of the forest--everybody's been there.

"'Cause none of the other kids were looking for it. But we are..." Jerry did not blink, and his eyes shone like diamonds.

The day passed on snail tracks. Jerry counted seconds a million times, pausing only to answer an annoying question from Mr. Harvath, the principal. He was subbing today because Miss Schnell had cholera or something. A week went by within a couple of hours, and Jerry felt like a bead of sweat breaking free from hot flesh and running cool when the final bell sounded. He flew on red sneakers, barely bothering to touch ground. He passed the mini-market without hanging around to beg a piece of candy from bald Mr. Jacobs. He zoomed past the playground at MacMurphy's Park and didn't even pause to pet Sam, the blind fire-station dog. When he finally arrived home, Jack was already there.

Why're you home?" Jerry demanded.

"Missus Geary threw up."

"So you just left?"

"What else? Stare at it?"

Jerry shed his disapproving scowl and headed for their room. Jack followed on his heels.

"When ya' goin', Jer?" Jack sprung onto his bed and bounced once.

"After dinner, I told ya'"

"What if Dad says no? You know he doesn't like us to go out after dark."

"Then I'll sneak out."

Jack was suddenly serious. "Would you really?"

Jerry thought it over for a moment. "Uh-huh." He nodded a few times. "It's worth it."

"Whatcha' gonna do 'til dinner?"

"Gonna finish up my homework, so Dad'll have nothin' to make me stay in for."

"Good idea." Jack bounced up and ran for his notebook. "I'll do it too. Will you help?"

"You're a real pain sometimes, y'know." Jerry sat down at his desk and studied the map again. "I'm sure I know just where it is." He stuck the map to the wall with a thumbtack and cracked his books.

Plates steamed and smoked on a bed of table-snow. Jerry ran to his place and slid into his chair without moving it back. Jack was there already, waiting for nearly an hour. Jerry realized then that Jack was as excited as he was. Dad limped up to the table, carrying a telephone and nearly tripping on a tangle of wires around his feet. He sat down, placing the phone beside his plate. Every now and then he spoke or laughed into the receiver, but otherwise appeared to be only listening. Mrs. Dodd came spinning out of the kitchen, a hot bowl of yams between her mittened hands. She danced it to the table, and sat herself across from her husband. For a moment there was silence as Mrs. Dodd looked at Mr. Dodd. Mr. Dodd glanced up, recognized his wife, and waved, smiling. She gave him a quizzical stare and rose, walking over to him. Taking the receiver from his hand, she held it to her own ear. It was dead.

"Oh, Joseph." She said, sadly, shaking her head. She put the receiver in its cradle and unclenched his hands from around it. "There." She said, placing it on the mantel. Mr. Dodd stared down at his plate like a whipped puppy.

"Isn't this a wondrous meal?" She asked all, brightly.

"Yes, Mother." The three men replied in unison. She began serving each in turn, cutting up meat and making little bird nests with the peas and mashed potatoes. "What happened in school today?" Mrs. Dodd asked in the direction of her sons.

"Missus Geary threw up!" Jack announced.

"Please, Jack." Said Mr. Dodd, looking up. "There is no profit to be gained from vomit."

"Miss Schnell was sick, too." Said Jerry, shoveling potatoes. "Mr. Harvath teached us."

"Taught us, Jerry." His mother corrected. "What did you learn?"

Jerry was stumped. She always asked him that, and usually he could remember something to pacify her, but he just hadn't been able to pay attention today.

"Not to throw up at school!" Jack shouted.

"That's fine, Jack." Said Mrs. Dodd with a grin. "That's a valuable lesson."

"Dad. . ." Jerry started.

Mr. Dodd sat motionless, staring at his peas.

"Joseph, Jerry is speaking to you."

Silence, as Mr. Dodd stared hard.

Mrs. Dodd threw a fork at him. It slid across his plate, placing a large portion of his meat in his lap. "Yes?" He said, looking up, surprised.

"Dad, can I go to Garvey June's after dinner?"

"Don't think so, son. You can play around here till dark. There's supposed be a storm coming in."

Jerry went pale, panic stricken. His eyes met Jack's. Jack shrugged.

"Besides, Jerry," spoke Mrs. Dodd. "You don't look well."

"I feel fine!"

"And we want to be feeling good for your birthday, don't we?"

He could hear his pulse in his head and was sure everyone else could, too. "Sure." He said and excused himself from the table.

Jack flopped over for the eleventy-first time in his bed.

"Stop it!" Jerry whispered, "or they'll know we're awake!"

"When can we go?"

Jerry sat up to get a look at the green-glowing clock on the bookshelf and answered.

"Half an hour?" Jack whined. "That's forever!"

"Shut up!" Jerry breathed. His temples throbbed rhythmically, and for a while he counted the pulse beats. He tired of that quickly, however, and tried to get his mind off of the matter.

"Don't fall asleep, Jerry." Jack warned with his small voice. "You don't want to wake up old."

Outside, the wind picked up and began to bang some neighbor's shutter against its house like a giant clock ticking away the time.

"Jerry?"

Jerry flung himself out of bed as quietly as he could and took Jack's pajama lapels in his hands in the classic movie pose where someone was threatening someone else. "Knock it off, Jack, I mean it! You're going to ruin everything!"

Jack gulped and looked about to cry. "Jer, I just want to go--it's just like Christmas, 'cause I want you to be okay, and--"

"I know." Jerry let go of his brother's lapels and smoothed his covers out again. "I'm sorry. I just don't want anything to go wrong." Jack tried to smile, but Jerry couldn't see it in the dark. He climbed back into his own bed and pulled the covers up to his neck, listening to his brother breathe, trying to match his timing perfectly.

It's too dark. . ." Jack said, his breath afire with water-smoke.

"You just got to adjust." Jerry answered, stepping off of the sidewalk and into the island of trees. The sea of houses swelled and receded behind the cover of leaves, black and laughing.

"Why didn't you bring a flashlight?" Jack complained.

Jerry stopped and faced him. "What? You can be really stupid sometimes, Jack. The fountain is a magic thing. Flashlights are anti-magic. You'd better not have anything anti-magic with you! Do you?"

Jack was scared now. "Jerry, don't be mad. I-I don't know.

"Have any digital watches? Pocket games? Hologram pendants?"

"No, Jerry, nothin'."

The woods were dark and still. Trees stretched out with groping arms, grasses clung with tired fingers to the young legs and canvas sneakers. "All right, c'mon." Jerry forged ahead into the waiting mouth of trees. Jack stood where he was, not yet wanting to be swallowed. The stars, hidden by liquid clouds, cast no light into the forest. A full moon was smothered, and the shadows crept about at will. The aloneness swam and surged and came crashing down around the boy.

"Jack, come on!" Feet sprang and leaped into the mouth of darkness.

The map was torn, and small feet had trudged circles in the moss. No fountain flowed, no promise emerged.

"Damn." Jerry punched a tree.

"Damn." Jerry rubbed his swollen fist.

"Jer, can we go back now?"

"Are you kidding? Go on, sissy, you go home."

"I'm not a sissy; I'm staying." Jack pushed out his lower lip in defiance. "I don't want you to be like Dad, either. If you go away, I won't have anyone to throw ball with, or go sledding. And I'd be all alone in our room, and I'm--I'm afraid."

Jerry reached over and slapped his brother on the back. They sat wordlessly for a while, listening as the breeze made the leaves sound like a river.

"Look here, boys." A voice penetrated the roaring trees. "See that big oak?"

Jerry listened, tensed.

"It's a waterfall." The voice was right, it was.

"Jerry--" Jack whispered. He was scared, almost in tears.

"Shush."

"See that birch, there, the one shaped like an otter?"

Jerry nodded.

"It's about to splash."

A shadow dropped to the ground from the birch, which splashed its leaves and was still again.

Jerry backed away from the figure standing at the feet of the wooden otter.

"Hi." said Jerry.

"Hello," said the shadow.

"I'm Jerry."

"Hello, Jerry."

"This is my brother--"

"Hello, Jack."

Jerry swallowed, now suddenly becoming frightened. He stared hard to see the stranger, who was dressed in a black, button-down collared shirt and black cotton trousers. And black high-top sneakers. He had a pleasant looking face, clean shaven and honest.

"Who are you?" Managed Jerry.

"If I told you who I am, you wouldn't give me a chance. People have been telling you bad things about me all of your life, and you've already prejudged me. Let's just say that I am the Keeper of Dreams."

"My dream? About the fountain?" Jerry breathed.

"That and many others."

"Are you God?" Jack asked from somewhere behind Jerry.

"Some call me a god." The stranger grinned, "Of this world."

Thunder rippled and the earth shuddered. Trees turned their spindly arms outward and away. Even the forest was frightened, the leaves whispered as another stranger squeezed itself from out of the void.

"Jerry--" Jack screamed and buried his face in his brother's leg.

Hovering in the clearing was a translucent jellyfish, spitting lightning and groping towards the boys. Thunder shook the forest.

"Don't be afraid," shouted the man. "It cannot hurt you, not while you're living, anyway."

Tendrils spun crazily and much too close to the boys. "What is it?" Jerry screamed above the din.

"It's a demon of sorts," came the reply. "It waits at the gates of Hell and feeds on the souls of little boys. It must have followed me out."

"You're the Devil." Jerry breathed. Jack tore himself from Jerry's leg and flung himself into the blackness of the wood. The jellyfish screamed and hurtled after him. A tentacle lashed out at Jack's head but the creature dissolved before it could reach the boy.

"You're welcome," said the Devil coolly.

"You toad!" Jerry shouted. "You had no right to scare him! Damn you!!"

"It's been done." A match flared and lit a cigarette. The Devil puffed and blew out crosses and stars of David. "Did you find it?"

Jerry looked at his feet, not sure he should be standing here. "No." He looked up, daring the Devil to do better.

"Tough break."

"Do you know where it is?" Jerry asked.

"Yeah." The Devil flicked his cigarette into the brush. "Want me to show you?"

"Sure!" Jerry exclaimed. They watched each other for a second. "But what do I have to do?"

"What do you mean?"

"If you show me where the fountain is, what do I have to do for you? Burn down St. Anthony's Methodist? Sign for my soul? Hang a hamster on a cross?"

"No, no, no. You don't have to do anything." The Devil smiled. "I told you, I'm not that bad a guy."

"Then you'll show me?"

"I'll show you." The Devil grinned like a crescent moon on a cloudless night.

The door burst open--a dam released with Jack the storm and flood. "Dad!" Jack screamed, flying into the living room. Mr. Dodd sat in the brown lazy-boy, reading the paper. "Dad!" Jack pounded his father's knee. "Dad!" he wailed.

Mrs. Dodd came trotting out of the kitchen and removed the newspaper from her husband's grip.

"Oh, hello, Jackie." Mr. Dodd was grasping at empty air. "What're you doing out of bed, son?"

"Dad, Dad, listen!!"

"Is something wrong?" asked Mrs. Dodd.

"Why don't you leave us alone, dear," Mr Dodd said with a wink. "I have a feeling this is-- " he paused, "man talk."

Mrs. Dodd smiled knowingly and danced back into the kitchen gaily. "What's on your mind, Jackie?" Mr. Dodd lifted his son onto his knee.

"Jerry's with the Devil!"

Mr. Dodd's smile faded fast. "Tell me more, Jack."

"Jerry doesn't want to thirteen, 'cause then he's a man and he has to be like you, and he wants to be able to play baseball and spaceship and so he's looking for the fountain of youth and the Devil's with him! He might do something bad to Jerry, Dad, and I'm scared!"

Mr. Dodd took Jack's head between his hands. "Jack, you listen close--" His face was serious now, perhaps alert for the first time since he had shed his last pair of sneakers. Somewhere within Mr. Dodd a child had been smothered, and now the man had finally begun to mourn it's passing.

"You go tell Jerry that he doesn't ever have to grow up. You tell him that he has to grow older because that's the way God made people. But he doesn't ever have to be like me. I killed the little boy in me, and I'm sorry now. But Jerry doesn't ever have to let him die! Do you understand?"

Jack nodded furiously.

"Then spread Crisco on your sneakers, son, and shame the wind! Run, Jackie, run!"

Jack Dodd slid to the floor and streaked faster than sight through the door and out into the night. His heart was beating louder than the sea of trees, and love for his brother flowed in his veins making the sneakered pistons pound the pavement until the cemented stones themselves groaned under his steps.

Mr. Dodd rose wearily and walked to the door, too tangled in telephone cords to go any further. "For God's sake, run!" he whispered. He stood a silhouette in the yellow doorway watching the silent street through swimming eyes.

It was made of stones. Little ones held together in cement. Just like the drinking fountains at the playground. It looked huge, though; standing like a finger from beneath the waves of earth, a pointer to the calm clearing of flowing forest.

"There it is, Jerry." The Devil leaned against a broad oak that moaned with the weight of the world. Jerry stepped into the clearing. There was no high church organ played by Mrs. Nesbitt, the buck-toothed organist at St. Anthony's Methodist, no sounds of angel choirs. Just the tumbling one over another of untold leaves into a void and back again. "Go on, Jerry. This is what you've looked for. It's almost tomorrow. In a few short minutes, the gears will click and the universe will begin a new day with its own sun, moon, and thirteen-year old Jerry Dodd. One drink, and your mother will never weep for her boy growing up and leaving home, because in forty years or sixty-five years or eight years from now, you'll wake up looking for your glove and ball, running across freshly-mown grass in brand new sneakers, red and springy as feet-mattresses. One sip and you'll never have to be a lethargic lump swimming in newspaper and telephones. One taste, and you'll never have to wear a tie or kiss an ugly girl.

"Turn the handle. See the sparkling liquid crystals rushing up to meet you. Pure as rain, cool as diamonds. Swallow, and the magic flows through every vein, wine of sweet youth, essence of little boy."

"Is it really cold?" asked Jerry, breathlessly.

"Like you took it from the tupperware jug in the fridge."

"Does it taste good? Not like the yukky water at school?"

"Finest water on the planet. Take it from me."

Black wings flew overhead, casting dim shadows from a moon drowned in an ocean of darkest sky. All was gray and shifting as Jerry Dodd moved one sneaker in front of the other. His hands, scarred from boyish bliss, touched the pebbly surface. He reached for the handle, silver and shining, as if the sea of clouds had allowed a single moonbeam through just to make it shine. He turned it, and from the mouthpiece sprang a giggle of liquid presence. High and sparkling, the airborne stream arced and splashed in the drain, circling around and finally returning to the mouth of earth, the bowels of magic. When that water flowed, the oak-tree waterfall roared. The sea of houses swelled in their distance and the river of leaves flowed forth in a symphony of rushing rhythms.

"Drink," said the serpent, and as Jerry Dodd bent, stretching his lips towards the dancing fountain, a dissonant chord was struck. Suddenly the orchestra was not so beautiful, as though all the parts were suddenly discarded and chaos was the only score.

"Drink!" said the Devil again, insistent. But the air would not carry the Devil's angry words. It was too full with the cries of the world's rooted oceans. Loud and whirling, the darkness swept wave after wave over the clearing, the eye of the storm. Jerry could hear neither Devil nor windy outrage. His focus stayed fixed on the silver stream, high and cool, beckoning . . .

Jerry bent to the sound of furious forest.

"Jerry!"

He stopped.

Leaping into the clearing was Jack, sweat-streamed and wild-eyed. "Jerry, don't drink!" He ran to his brother and wrapped his hands around the spigot. "No, Jerry, don't. You didn't, did you?"

"No, but I-

"Jerry, it's wrong. Dad said so. Come home, just come home. He'll talk to you!! This isn't right, Jer, please!!"

DRINK!!" thundered the serpent, as the storm and time raged higher and waxed wilder than any had ever witnessed. Veined birds, black and rooted, tore against themselves and their shredded bodies rained down in a shower of rot confetti. The air was filled with screaming, whining, shrieking, thundering, laughing, storming, tearing--as the sky rent and the clouds fell away, an evil lining falling off the earth into the grey part of space, dragging with it another day done and the black clad man with his insistent cries.

Now there was only the moon in a sparkling bed of silver stars, high and round, smiling in relief, peaceful and serene. Jack checked the hands on his watch carefully. "It's midnight, Jer. You're thirteen, aren't you?"

"Uh-huh." Jerry stepped down from the pebbled step. He turned the handle again. No water sprang into empty air. Not a trickle to turn in the stainless steel drain.

"You feel any different?" Jack watched him breathlessly.

Jerry sighed and looked around. Suddenly he slapped Jack on the arm and sprang away. "Tag!" he shouted. "You're it!"

Jack leaped after him, but Jerry was far ahead of him, running fast on the heels of youth.